With thrilling cosmic clockwork, the moon will pass in front of the sun Monday, casting a 70-mile-wide shadow that will sweep across the United States from coast to coast, giving millions along the path of totality a chance to marvel at one of natures grandest spectacles, a total eclipse of the sun.

It is the first solar eclipse visible from the United States since 1979 and the first to cross the entire continent in 99 years. Some 12 million people live in the path of totality, and many experts expect that number to at least double when veteran eclipse chasers, armchair astronomers and the merely curious rush in, possibly at the last minute.

So instead of being 12 million, were expecting 20 plus, said Rick Fienberg, a spokesman for the American Astronomical Society. I would be surprised if that was an inaccurate estimate.

Weather permitting and with eye safety in mind everyone in the continental United States, Canada, Central America and the northern quarter of South America will enjoy a partial solar eclipse, with the moon blocking some or even most of the sun as the three-hour event unfolds.

But for the millions of residents who live in the 14 states along the path of totality, along with millions more who braved predicted heavy traffic to join them, the sky will darken as the sun is completely obscured, the temperature will drop, bright stars and planets will come out and a 360-degree sunset will be visible around the horizon.

In the seconds before the sun is totally obscured, brilliant shafts of light passing through lunar valleys and chasms around the moons limb will flicker and flare, a phenomenon known as Bailys Beads, before a brief, final burst of concentrated sunshine giving the sun the appearance of a diamond ring.

And suddenly, that final flare will vanish, the sun will disappear and its outer atmosphere, the normally unseen, super-heated corona, will shine and shimmer with the brightness of a full moon, a crown-like halo stretching away in all directions.

If youre in the path of totality, it will get dark, it will get cool, you will experience a total eclipse, Fienberg said in a telephone interview from Oregon.

Of course, the part thats most exciting is actually seeing the corona and seeing the beautiful sunset colors and seeing the stars and planets come out. Hopefully, as many people as possible will see that. Whatever the weather, I suspect this will still go down as the most observed eclipse in history.

Michael Bakich, a senior editor with Astronomy magazine, put it like this:

Do you know the difference between a partial and a total eclipse? Its the difference between a lightning bug and lightning, he wrote. Between testing negative and positive with a pregnancy test. Between a paper cut and stepping on a land mind. In other words, theres no comparison.

I think of it as awesome in the truest sense of the word: able to inspire or generate awe. I guarantee that if you stand in the moons shadow under a clear sky, youll never forget it. Furthermore, it will stand out as one of the greatest if not the greatest sights you ever have or ever will behold.

The spectacle begins near Lincoln Beach, Oregon, when the moons outer shadow, or penumbra crosses the coast at 9:05 a.m. PDT (12:05 p.m. EDT), marking the start of a partial solar eclipse.

One hour and 11 minutes later, at 10:16 a.m. local time (1:16 p.m. EDT), the dark inner heart of the moons shadow the umbra will cross the coast. For the next one minute and 58 seconds for those along the coast, the moon will totally block out the sun as the umbra, moving at some 2,400 mph, begins its race across the heartland of American.

Because of the swiftly-changing geometry and the motions of the Earth and moon as they wheel about in space, the duration of totality increases as the shadow races eastward, lasting an additional four seconds by the time it reached Madras, Oregon, three-and-a-half minutes after landfall.

A town of 6,200 with historically clear skies, Madras braced for a veritable flood of visitors.

Theyre expecting about a million people to enter the state, a million out-of-towners are supposed to come to the state of Oregon, said CBS News Correspondent Jamie Yuccas. Where were located in Madras, theyre expecting between 100,000 and 200,000 people.

She said the local residents have been really, really nice and accommodating.

What the mayor said to me was kind of funny, Yuccas said. He said you know, I think its going to be one of those situations that you might not get your newspaper, you might not have your daily Starbucks and if that happens, I guess its a first-world problem, and youre going to have to figure out your own survival skills.'

She laughed, saying there are going to be some minor inconveniences, but I actually think they had a pretty good plan together.

Fienberg also was in Madras, leading a tour group for his 13th solar eclipse.

Its like children, you know, you love them all, you cant have a favorite, he said. Im excited for this one. This is he first opportunity I have to actually shoot pictures with a tracking telescope mount and computer controlled camera. Im usually traveling to far, distant lands where I cant bring all that stuff.

The computer is programmed to track the sun and take 300 pictures between the start of the eclipse and its conclusion. And Im not going to have to touch it! Im going to get to look this time instead of spending half my time trying to take pictures manually, Fienberg said.

From Madras, the moons shadow will sweep across Oregon and into Idaho, passing just north of Boise before moving on across Idaho Falls at 11:33 a.m. local time (1:33 p.m. EDT), and Casper, Wyoming, at 11:42 a.m. (1:42 p.m. EDT).

Steven Young, publisher of Astronomy Now magazine in Great Britain, picked Casper because of its generally clear August weather and grand western vistas. He was not alone.

Theres a map here that people are putting pins into, Young said by telephone. There are people from Australia, the Philippines, all across Europe, Russia, India, South Africa who have put pins in. Everywhere you go, people are here for the eclipse.

City managers closed off the historic section of downtown and most businesses, the library, offices, are all going to be closed, like a national holiday, Young said. I think the population here is 50,000, but the locals have been told to expect that to double. Theres definitely a lot of excitement. Everywhere you go people are talking about the eclipse.

From Casper, the shadow will race along to Grand Island, Nebraska, at 12:58 p.m. (1:58 p.m. EDT), St. Joseph, Missouri, at 1:06 p.m. (2:06 p.m. EDT) and nearby Columbia six minutes later. By this point, the shadow will have slowed to about 1,500 mph.

Residents of the northeast corner of Kansas City, just inside the path of totality, will enjoy about a minute of darkness around 1:08 p.m. (2:08 p.m. EDT) as will residents in southwestern St. Louis a few minutes after that.

Crossing the Mississippi River, the center of the umbra will pass just south of Carbondale, Illinois, at 1:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. EDT) before moving over Paducah and Hopkinsville, Kentucky, at 1:24 p.m. (2:24 p.m. EDT). A few miles south of Carbondale, eclipse watchers will enjoy the maximum duration of darkness, about two minutes and 43 seconds of totality.

Illinois Southern University in Carbondale is hosting eclipse watchers at its football stadium, where 20,000 spectators are expected, along with amateur astronomers spread out across an adjacent field, scores of vendors, area residents, students, journalists and veteran eclipse chasers. The small town took on a carnival atmosphere in the days leading up to the eclipse as city managers and residents implemented a detailed, smooth-running plan years in the making.

NASA Edge, a popular space-centric science and technology show carried on NASAs satellite television system and streamed on the internet, was set up at the ISU stadium as part of the space agencys megacast of eclipse events.

Were essentially covering the entirety of the eclipse from the west coast to the east coast, focusing on totality here in Carbondale, said executive producer and co-host Blair Allen. Its the crossroads of the eclipse. In seven years, in some bizarre twist of natural fate, Carbondale happens to be where (the next U.S.) eclipse comes in 2024. Since its coming again, this is sort of a sneak preview for 2024.

A suite of sophisticated cameras and telescopes, one with a nine-inch lens, were set up to stream live images of the sun throughout the day in multiple wavelengths.

You dont have the opportunity to see this kind of astronomical event with any kind of regularity, Allen said. So for us, its right up there, because even though we know in seven years there will be another one, you never know if youre going to make it, you never know whats gong to be happening or, more important, whether therell be good weather. Were keeping our fingers crossed.

From Illinois and Kentucky, the shadow will move across Clarksville and then Nashville, Tennessee, the largest city in the path of totality, at 1:27 p.m. (2:27 p.m. EDT). A few moments later, it will pass over Interstate 40 near Silverpoint, TN, where home builder Tommy Thomas prepared for a mega-eclipse party of his own on the family farm, a stones throw from the center of totality. He expected about 200 guests.

He said his twin daughters called me one day and said Dad, the eclipse is crossing your driveway. We want to have a party. I said Im up for it. We brought in a tent, we brought in restrooms, weve got electricity, weve made a bar out of the barn, weve got areas for different social groups, weve got fire pits, were going to have games.

Life is meant to be celebrated, and if you dont do it, its your fault, Thomas said. Were going to sit out here, drink a drink, make a toast and enjoy life.

Crossing central Tennessee, the moons shadow will pass over the Smokey Mountains, the southwest corner of North Carolina and then race over the heart of South Carolina where viewers in Greenville, Columbia and Charleston will enjoy totality between 2:38 p.m. and 2:47 p.m. EDT.

The moons shadow then will move off shore and out over the Atlantic Ocean, one hour and 33 minutes after the umbra crossed the coast of Oregon some 2,500 miles away.

Many, many people are going to be losing their eclipse virginity on Monday, Fienberg said. Its going to be a pretty exciting day.

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Eclipse chasers keep fingers crossed for clear skies - Spaceflight Now

A Swindon-based human spaceflight expert will be part of a new BBC2 show which launched last night, putting 12 contestants to the test to see whether they have what it takes to become an astronaut.

Libby Jackson, the Human Spaceflight and Microgravity Programme Manager at the UK Space Agency, based in Swindons Polaris House, has contributed her expertise to ensure that Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? provides a realistic challenge for the aspiring spacemen and women.

Libby, 36, who will be making an appearance herself later in the series, manages the UKs human spaceflight programme, as well as looking after the community of British researchers who are involved with the International Space Station.

She said of the programme: I think it is superb, I think it is wonderful to see the British space industrygetting such a prime-time slot.

I was pleased to see that everyone seems to be so excited about it, and it is going to be fascinating, to see how the candidates progress over the next five weeks.

The first episode saw the participants challenged to hold a helicopter in a steady position, repeat long lists of numbers backwards while exercising, and draw their own blood.

And Libby believes they make for a genuine representation of the selection process: It is very realistic, the team of experts they have got is fantastic. They have worked with the producers of the programme to put together a very realistic set of tests.

They are based on real tests, so they are good representations of the kind of things that people go through in astronaut selection.

Libby first became interested in human space flight herself at 17, after undertaking a placement which included shadowing a flight director at NASAs Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.

After completing her undergraduate degree at Imperial College, London, she studied for a Masters in Astronautics and Space Engineering at Cranfield University.

She started her career in satellite operations, then moved to Munich as a flight controller and instructor of astronauts, before joining Europes Mission Control for seven years.

Libby has been based at the UK Space Agency for the last four years, where she managed the education outreach programme for astronaut Tim Peakes mission, reaching over 1.6m children and one third of the UKs schools in the process.

She said still feels the same enthusiasm for her career: I love it. I have always gone to work and can never quite believe that I get to do something I enjoy so much it is my passion.

I was fascinated by space my whole life, motivated by the Apollo missions. While I was at university I realised that this was something I could do for a living.

When I was at university, the UK didnt support human space flight programmes - now I manage the human space flight programme for the UK.

I still cant believe Im doing this.

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Swindon spaceflight expert bound for TV on BBC2's Astronauts - Swindon Advertiser

Japans H-2A rocket lifts off Saturday from the Tanegashima Space Center. Credit: MHI

A Japanese H-2A rocket soared away from a launch pad on a rocky overlook on the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, hauling into orbit the countrys third Michibiki satellite to join a constellation of navigation aids to improve positioning services across the country.

The third satellite to join Japans Quasi-Zenith Satellite System took off at 0529 GMT (1:29 a.m. EDT; 2:29 p.m. Japan Standard Time) Saturday, eight days later than originally scheduled.

Weather pushed back the missions initial Aug. 11 launch date, and a leaky helium pressurization system scrubbed a launch attempt Aug. 12, forcing ground crews to roll the rocket back to its hangar for repairs.

The 174-foot-tall (53-meter) H-2A launcher, powered by a hydrogen-fueled main engine and four strap-on solid rocket boosters, headed east from the Tanegashima Space Center, a spaceport built on an island at the southwestern edge of the country.

Climbing through a clear afternoon sky on 2.5 million pounds of thrust, the H-2A rocket quickly exceeded the speed of sound and left a twirling column of exhaust in its wake.

The four solid rocket boosters let go from the launcher around two minutes after liftoff, and the shroud covering the Michibiki 3 spacecraft jettisoned a couple of minutes later.

The H-2As cryogenic upper stage engine performed back-to-back burns to guide the Michibiki 3 satellite into an oval-shaped geostationary transfer orbit that will take the payload more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth at its highest point.

The Japanese launch team reported no issues during the flight, and they announced an on-target separation of the Michibiki 3 satellite around 29 minutes into the mission, prompting applause from engineers in the H-2A control center.

The satellite was expected to radio its status to a ground station soon after launch, and Michibiki 3s on-board engine will conduct multiple firings over the next few days to circularize its orbit at geostationary altitude around 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator.

Built by Mitsubishi Electric, the navigation craft joins two similar satellites launched on H-2A rockets in September 2010 and in June of this year. Those previous spacecraft circle Earth in orbits tilted at an angle to the equator, causing them to oscillate north and south, but remain always fixed over the Asia-Pacific region.

A fourth Japanese navigation satellite will launch later this year on another H-2A flight.

Michibiki means guiding or showing the way in Japanese.

The network will help ensure drivers, hikers and other users can constantly locate themselves. Skyscrapers in cities, such as Tokyo, and mountainous terrain can block signals from GPS satellites, which are located in orbits closer to Earth than the Michibiki satellites.

The GPS constellation, operated by the U.S. Air Force, flies 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above Earth. Although there are at least 30 operational GPS spacecraft, only a small fraction of the fleet is visible from a single point on Earth at one time.

It takes four GPS satellites to calculate a precise position on Earth, but a Michibiki satellite broadcasting the same four L-band signals will give a receiver an estimate if there are not enough GPS satellites visible, or it can help produce a more accurate position calculation even with full GPS service.

The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System is the first in the world to transmit sub-meter and centimeter level augmentation signals, said Hiromichi Moriyama, executive director of the National Space Policy Secretariat in Japans Cabinet Office. It will be in charge of communications linking evacuation shelters and emergency response headquarters in times of disaster.

Officials say urban planning, agriculture, disaster response and national security will be supported by the four-satellite navigation fleet.

Japan is not the country developing a regional navigation fleet to improve GPS signals over its territory.

India has launched seven navigation satellites with an eighth due for liftoff later this month to work in concert with the GPS satellites across the subcontinent.

Meanwhile, European nations and China are developing and deploying separate navigation networks to provide global services independent of the GPS constellation. Russia already has its own satellite navigation system with near-global coverage.

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Japan launches navigation satellite after week-long delay - Spaceflight Now

Artists concept of a Red Dragon spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Credit: SpaceX

Confirming rumors and suspicions that SpaceX is adjusting its plans to begin dispatching robotic landers to Mars, NASA officials said the commercial space company has informed the agency that it has put its Red Dragon program on the back burner.

Under the terms of a Space Act Agreement between NASA and SpaceX, the government agreed to provide navigation and communications services for the Red Dragon mission, which originally aimed to deliver an unpiloted lander to Mars in 2018. SpaceX confirmed earlier this year the launch of the experimental lander on a Falcon Heavy rocket had slipped to 2020.

But Elon Musk, SpaceXs founder and chief executive, said last month that the company is redesigning its next-generation Dragon capsule, a craft designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, to do away with the capability for propulsive, precision helicopter-like landings as originally envisioned. Returning space crews will instead splash down in the ocean under parachutes.

The Red Dragon is a robotic, unoccupied version of the Crew Dragon capsule. The concept publicized by SpaceX called for it to use side-mounted jet packs to slow down in the Martian atmosphere, then brake for a rocket-assisted touchdown.

But with that capability removed from the Crew Dragon, outsiders raised questions about the Red Dragon initiative. Musk has not specifically addressed the future of Red Dragon, and a SpaceX spokesperson did not respond to questions on the matter.

Jim Green, head of NASAs planetary science division, told Spaceflight Now in an interview that SpaceX has told the agency that it has put Red Dragon back on the back burner.

Were available to talk to Elon when hes ready to talk to us and were not pushing him in any way, Green said. Its really up to him. Through the Space Act Agreement, wed agreed to navigate to Mars, get him to the top of the atmosphere, and then it was up to him to land. Thats a pretty good deal, I think.

NASA officials said last year that the agency expected to spend about $32 million to support the Red Dragon program over a four-year period. That was expected to be around 10 percent of the total cost of the first Red Dragon mission, one NASA official familiar with the agreement said last year.

The Red Dragons would have delivered cargo and experiments to the Martian surface and tested supersonic retro-propulsion in the planets rarefied atmosphere for the first time. NASA engineers say a rocket-braking mechanism like the Dragons SuperDraco thrusters is needed to safely land heavy supply ships and crew vehicles on Mars.

The space agency signed up to support the privately-developed Red Dragon project to gather data on supersonic retro-propulsion officials said NASA would be unable to obtain until at least the late 2020s with a government-managed mission.

Musk wrote in a tweet that SpaceX has not abandoned supersonic retro-propulsion at Mars.

Plan is to do powered landings on Mars for sure, but with a vastly bigger ship, he tweeted last month after the announcement that SpaceX is omitting the propulsive landing capability on the Crew Dragon.

Musk said his team at SpaceX is refining how the company could send people to Mars, eventually to settle there. He revealed a Mars transportation architecture in a speech at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, last year, but the outline has since changed.

A vision for gigantic interplanetary transporters Musk presented last year has been downsized, he said.

Musk said he will unveil the changes during a presentation in September at this years International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

Launch opportunities from Earth to Mars come every 26 months or so, when the planets are aligned in their orbits around the sun to allow for a direct interplanetary trip.

What Ive said is, Im ready, Green said. When they contact us and say, Green, start a solution for going from here to Mars in 20-whatever, then Ill do that.

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SpaceX informed NASA of slowdown in its commercial Mars program - Spaceflight Now

Credit: SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into space Monday from NASAs Kennedy Space Center atop a column of gleaming exhaust, shooting a commercial resupply vessel toward the International Space Station with research projects looking into cosmic rays, the origin of Parkinsons disease, the utility of small satellites and an experimental radiation-tolerant supercomputer.

Crammed with more than 6,400 pounds (2,900 kilograms) of supplies, the Dragon capsule bolted on top of the Falcon 9 rocket also carried computer and camera gear, components to maintain the stations life support system and medical equipment, and provisions for the stations six-person crew, including clothing, fresh food and ice cream.

The 213-foot-tall (65-meter) rocket took off from pad 39A at the Florida spaceport at 12:31:37 p.m. EDT (1631:37 GMT), pitched toward the northeast to align with the space stations orbit, and roared through scattered clouds before disappearing into a blue summertime sky.

Nine Merlin 1D main engines at the base of the booster generated 1.7 million pounds of thrust, pushing the rocket into the stratosphere before the first stage switched off and fell away at an altitude of 40 miles (65 kilometers).

A single Merlin engine fired on the Falcon 9s upper stage to power the Dragon capsule into orbit. Glowing red-hot, the second stage engine throttled up to more than 200,000 pounds of thrust for its six-and-a-half minute firing.

Meanwhile, in a maneuver now common during SpaceX launches, the first stage flipped around with guided pulses of cold nitrogen gas to point tail first, then reignited three of its Merlin engines to boost itself back forward Cape Canaveral.

Two more braking maneuvers were needed to slow down the descending rocket, steering it back to the coast with the help of aerodynamic fins before extending four landing legs and settling on a concrete target at Landing Zone 1 less than eight minutes after liftoff, around 9 miles (15 kilometers) south of the Falcon 9s departure point at pad 39A.

From what Ive heard, its right on the bullseye and (had a) very soft touchdown, so its a great pre-flown booster ready to go for the next time, said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceXs vice president of flight reliability.

SpaceX has reused two of its recovered first stage boosters to date, and engineers are prepping another previously-flown rocket for a mission with an SES communications satellite this fall.

The rocket launched Monday was a fresh vehicle, but its landing legs were scavenged from a vehicle flown on a previous mission, Koenigsmann said.

The upper stage continued rocketing into orbit, turning off its engine just after the nine-minute point in the flight, then deploying the Dragon capsule into an on-target slightly egg-shaped orbit averaging around 175 miles (280 kilometers) above the planet.

The second stage went into a near-perfect orbit (and) deployed Dragon, Koenigsmann said in a media briefing around two hours after the launch.

Dragon primed propellant and has performed the first co-elliptic burn at this point in time, he said, referring to the first in a series of thruster firings on tap to guide the capsule toward the space station.

The supply ships power-generating solar arrays extended shortly after it arrived in space, while the Falcon 9s second stage reignited for a de-orbit maneuver to avoid the creation of space junk.

With Mondays launch, SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket family has accomplished 39 missions since debuting in 2010, and 38 of them have succeeded in their primary objectives. Those statistics do not include a Falcon 9 rocket that exploded before takeoff during testing on the launch pad, destroying an Israeli communications satellite.

SpaceX has landed the Falcon 9s first stage intact 14 times in 19 tries since the company attempted its first rocket landing on a barge at sea in 2015. Six of those touchdowns have occurred at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral.

The automated cargo freighter will reach its destination Wednesday, when astronaut Jack Fischer will take command of the space stations Canadian-built robotic arm to capture the commercial spaceship around 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT).

The robotic arm will install Dragon on the space stations Harmony module for a planned 32-day stay.

While astronauts inside the station will unpack cargo inside Dragons internal cabin, the Canadian and Japanese robotic arms will transfer a NASA-funded cosmic ray sensor to a mounting post outside the Kibo laboratory.

Derived from an instrument carried aloft on high-altitude balloons, the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass, or CREAM, payload will spend at least three years sampling particles sent speeding through the universe by cataclysmic supernova explosions, and perhaps other exotic phenomena like dark matter.

Scientists think the subatomic particles could hold the key to unlocking mysteries about the universe.

One experiment stowed inside the capsules pressurized section will investigate the origins of Parkinsons disease in a bid to find a therapy that could slow or halt its development, and another will study the affects of spaceflight on the development of bioengineered lung tissue, potentially helping scientists lessen the chance of organ rejection in transplant patients.

A supercomputer developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise will spend at least a year on the space station, helping engineers gauge the ruggedness of commercial computer components in the harsh conditions of space.

Most computers sent into space are physically hardened to withstand radiation, cosmic rays, and other rigors of spaceflight. Hewlett Packard said its spaceborne computer experiment was hardened with software, reducing the time, money and weight of the supercomputer.

The experimental computer passed at least 146 safety tests and certifications to win NASA approval for the trip to the space station. If it works, Hewlett Packard officials said it could help future space missions, including a human expedition to Mars, have the latest computer technology.

Four small satellites inside the Dragon capsule will be moved inside the space station for deployment later this year.

The biggest of the bunch, named Kestrel Eye 2M, is a pathfinder for a potential constellation of Earth-imaging spacecraft for the U.S. military. About the size of a dorm room refrigerator, the Kestrel Eye 2M satellite was developed by the Armys Space and Missile Defense Command over the last five years.

Three CubeSats sponsored by NASA will test technologies for compact telescopes that could help astronomers observe stars and search for exoplanets, demonstrate a more reliable small satellite design, and study space weather.

Mondays Falcon 9 flight was the first of three launches scheduled from Cape Canaveral in the next 11 days.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is scheduled to roll out Wednesday to pad 41 at the Cape ahead of liftoff Friday at 8:03 a.m. EDT (1203 GMT) with a NASA satellite designed to track rockets climbing into space and relay communications between scientific spacecraft in orbit around Earth.

An Orbital ATK Minotaur 4 rocket is being readied for launch at 11:15 p.m. EDT Aug. 25 (0315 GMT Aug. 26) from Cape Canaverals pad 46 with a military space surveillance mission.

The next mission on SpaceXs manifest is scheduled for Aug. 24 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A Falcon 9 rocket will haul the Taiwanese Formosat 5 Earth observation satellite into a polar orbit, and its first stage will attempt a return to a barge downrange in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceXs team at the Kennedy Space Center will prepare a Falcon 9 to deploy the U.S. Air Forces reusable X-37B spaceplane no earlier than Sept. 7.

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SpaceX launches cargo capsule full of science experiments ... - Spaceflight Now

A view of pad 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where crews have stacked a Minotaur 4 rocket for launch Aug. 25. Credit: Orbital ATK

Using industrial cranes at a no-frills launch pad on the eastern tip of Cape Canaveral, a team of Orbital ATK and U.S. Air Force technicians have fully stacked a modified Cold War-era missile set for launch next week with a $49 million satellite built to track other objects in orbit.

The Minotaur 4 rocket, made up of five solid-fueled stages, is scheduled to fire into space from pad 46 at Cape Canaveral next Friday night, Aug. 25, at 11:15 p.m. EDT (0315 GMT on Aug. 26).

The mission has a four-hour window to lift off, or else wait until another day.

The spacecraft closed up inside the Minotaur 4s nose cone is named SensorSat. Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Lincoln Laboratory, the Air Force-funded mission will spend three years scanning orbital traffic lanes, detecting and tracking satellites and space debris in a belt nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator.

Objects at that altitude remain over fixed geographic positions on Earth, making geostationary orbit an ideal location for military and commercial communications satellites, weather observatories, and intelligence-gathering spy craft.

SensorSat is managed by the Air Forces Operationally Responsive Space division, an office established in 2007 to investigate lower-cost satellites and launchers. The Air Force calls the mission ORS-5, the latest in a line of projects aimed at testing out new satellite and launch innovations.

The delivery and upcoming launch of ORS-5 marks a significant milestone in fulfilling our commitment to the space situational awareness mission and U.S. Strategic Command, said Lt. Gen. John F. Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center and Air Force program executive officer for space. Its an important asset for the warfighter and will be employed for at least three years.

Next weeks nighttime blastoff will mark the first Minotaur launch from Cape Canaveral. Five Minotaur 4 rockets have launched on suborbital and orbital missions since 2010 from sites in California and Alaska.

The three main rocket motors that will power the Minotaur 4 into space came from stockpiles left over from the Air Forces retired nuclear-tipped Peacekeeper missiles. The rocket motors were filled with pre-packed solid fuel in the 1980s, then placed on alert in missile silos until the military decommissioned the Peacekeeper.

Two commercially-produced Orion 38 rocket motors built by Orbital ATK, the company charged with operating the Minotaur, will do the extra lifting to place SensorSat into orbit.

The Minotaur 4 usually flies with a single Orion 38 motor as a fourth stage, but SensorSats unusual orbit requires another boost.

The fifth stage motor will give the relatively small 249-pound (113-kilogram) SensorSat satellite a kick into an equator-hugging orbit at an altitude of approximately 372 miles (600 kilometers) at zero degrees inclination.

The Air Force paid $27.2 million for the launch, opting for a commercial-like launch service to keep costs to a minimum. Orbital ATK considered basing the launch from a Minotaur pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, but the site is too far north to reach the equatorial orbit needed on the ORS-5 mission.

Another option Orbital ATK briefly considered was setting up a temporary Minotaur launch pad at the European-run spaceport in French Guiana, just north of the equator, but Cape Canaveral eventually became the best choice once engineers devised a way to add another rocket motor on top of the Minotaur 4.

Ground crews at pad 46 topped off the Minotaur rocket Tuesday with the addition of the SensorSat satellite and the Orion 38 fifth stage motor already closed up inside the launchers nose shroud.

The first four stages of the Minotaur 4 will fire in quick succession in the first 15 minutes of the flight to climb into a preliminary parking orbit between around 248 miles and 372 miles (400 to 600 kilometers) above Earth. That temporary orbit will have a tilt of approximately 24.5 degrees to the equator.

During the 10-minute coast until ignition of the fifth stage motor, the Minotaur will release two CubeSats for an undisclosed U.S. government agency, and a three-unit shoebox-sized CubeSat for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Seattle-based Spaceflight made arrangements for the CubeSats launching on the Minotaur 4.

The Minotaurs last firing will last a little over a minute.

The way to think of that fifth stage is its an insertion stage, said Phil Joyce, vice president of small launch programs at Orbital ATK. We used the standard Minotaur 4 to put us in a parking orbit And then that fifth stage Orion 38 is there to circularize and to do the plane change down to equatorial.

With stacking of the Minotaur 4 now complete, attention turns to testing the rocket.

Now were in the process of our post-stack verification tests, said Terry Luchi, Orbital ATKs Minotaur program manager. This is where well go through a series of avionics tests and verify that everything is still playing as expected.

A full mission dress rehearsal with the pad team and launch controllers is scheduled for Monday. The rest of the week leading up to launch day will be spent installing ordnance and preparing to arm the vehicle.

Luchi said the Minotaur team had to work around a busy launch manifest at Cape Canaveral. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off last Monday, Aug. 14, and a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 booster launched Friday.

This is the first time that well take Minotaur out of the Cape. We have some experience in the past on other vehicles, but bringing Minotaur to the Cape obviously presents some challenges, Luchi said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.

Orbital ATK is preparing the Minotaur 4 for launch at pad 46, a rarely-used facility operated by Space Florida, the state government agency chartered to lure commercial aerospace business to the area. The last launch from pad 46 occurred in 1999.

The Minotaur launch team raised three inert Peacekeeper stages at pad 46 earlier this year in a pathfinder test to familiarize themselves with the ground facilities and verify their compatibility.

The Air Force-run Eastern Range is also getting acquainted with the Minotaur for the first time.

While there are no more Minotaur missions from Cape Canaveral on Orbital ATKs manifest, Luchi said the experience gained on the ORS-5 campaign could set the stage for future Florida-based flights.

I think were done with this one time (at Cape Canaveral), its going to be all that much easier in the future, Luchi said.

Orbital ATK has one more Minotaur 1 launch in its backlog from Wallops Island, Virginia, in late 2018. That flight, using a smaller version of the Minotaur based on retired Minuteman missile stages, will loft a classified spacecraft for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Joyce said Orbital ATK anticipates future Minotaur launch contracts from the U.S. government for small-class satellites. Because they use government-furnished rocket motors, the Minotaur 1 and 4 families are restricted from competing for commercial launch awards, a U.S. government policy that has drawn the ire of Orbital ATK, which sees privately-owned satellites in the Minotaurs lift envelope, including many U.S. payloads, going up on Indian, Russian and European launchers.

Proponents of the policy say that selling already-built missile motors into the commercial launch market would dampen innovation and keep new companies from introducing commercial rockets.

Several companies are working on commercial small satellite launch vehicles. Some have major strides, including a full-up test flight in the case of the U.S.-New Zealand company Rocket Lab, but none have successfully placed a payload into orbit.

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Assembly complete for Minotaur launcher at Cape Canaveral - Spaceflight Now

Due to launch together in 2020, the two satellites making up Proba-3 will fly in precise formation to form an external coronagraph in space, one satellite eclipsing the sun to allow the second to study the otherwise invisible solar corona. Credit: ESA

As skywatchers and scientists converge on a transcontinental band of totality for Mondays solar eclipse in the United States, engineers in Europe are building a unique pair of satellites to create artificial eclipses lasting for hours a feat that that could be a boon for solar physicists but will escape the view of Earth-bound spectators.

The European Space Agencys Proba-3 mission, scheduled for launch in late 2020, is made possible by two satellites, one about the size of a refrigerator, and another slightly smaller spacecraft with the rough dimensions of a coffee table.

The basic idea is to fly the smaller satellite directly between the sun and the field-of-view of cameras and instruments mounted on the bigger spacecraft, blocking the sunlight and revealing the glow of the suns corona, or super-hot atmosphere, and filament-like eruptions called solar flares.

The light coming from the surface of the sun is a million times brighter than the corona, requiring special measures to see the solar atmosphere.

The concept of obstructing the brightest light emanating from the sun to study activity around it is not new. Scientists have made observations of the corona for centuries during solar eclipses, and there are other space missions that carry coronagraphs, light-blocking discs buried inside telescopes used to make the relatively dim solar atmosphere visible.

But coronagraphs mounted inside telescopes are prone to stray light, a common problem in optics. Light escaping around the coronagraph disc can distort or mask views of the corona.

One simple way to think of the stray light problem is to compare an image of a total solar eclipse, a spectacular phenomenon where the faint corona suddenly springs into view. Holding your thumb over the sun at arms length does not produce the same result because sunlight has already been scattered by particles in Earths atmosphere.

One of the science goals of Proba-3 is to reproduce the conditions of a total solar eclipse as much as possible, said Andrei Zhukov, principal investigator for Proba-3s coronagraph at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, in response to questions from Spaceflight Now.

In general, the longer the distance between an observer or a camera and the object obscuring the sun, the better the result. Scientists also do not have to worry about atmospheric distortions in space.

This problem can be minimized by extending the coronagraph length, the distance between the camera and the disc, as far as possible but there are practical limits to coronagraph size, Zhukov said in an ESA press release.

Instead, Proba-3s coronagraph uses two craft: a camera satellite and a disc satellite, Zhukov said. They fly together so precisely that they operate like a single coronagraph, 150 meters (492 feet) long.

The duo will launch together into an highly elliptical, oval-shaped orbit around Earth taking the satellites as high as 37,611 miles (60,530 kilometers) and as low as 372 miles (600 kilometers).

In that orbit, the satellites will complete one lap around the planet every 19.6 hours. For six of those hours, cameras on Proba-3s larger satellite will have an artificial eclipse.

Proba-3 will see the features down to 34,500 miles (55,600 kilometers) from the sun about 8 percent of the solar radius resolving activity closer to the solar limb than any current space mission. Zhukov said ground-based observers looking at a total solar eclipse can still see more of the corona than Proba-3, but the advantage of a space mission is the eclipses longevity.

During two years of its nominal mission, Proba-3 will provide around 1,000 hours of coronal observations, Zhukov wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now. This has to be compared with several minutes of duration of natural eclipses during the same time.

Proba-3 will also be free from disturbances produced by the Earths atmosphere in all astronomical observations, Zhukov wrote.

ESA is developing the Proba-3 mission as an experimental demonstration, with scientific observations of the sun a secondary goal.

Engineers want to test out technologies for autonomous formation flying on Proba-3, which will use ranging measurements with the help of GPS navigation signals and optical sensors.

The two spacecraft will be connected with an inter-satellite radio link, and the so-called occulter satellite the smaller of the pair will carry low-power micro-thrusters for fine maneuvers, keeping the two vehicles positioned with millimeter precision.

Proba-3 will create an eclipse when the satellites are farthest from Earth. The satellites will passively drift apart during the rest of each orbit, a fuel-saving measure to minimize consumption of the missions limited supply of propellant.

The capabilities to be proved out on Proba-3 could be used on future missions to repair satellites in orbit or return samples from Mars, according to ESA.

Already approved for development as a tech demo mission, Proba-3 won the backing of ESAs science program committee earlier this year. The agencys scientific division will pay for Proba-3s science operations center to ensure astronomers get the most out of the project.

Proba-3 was scheduled for launch in 2019, but officials recently pushed back the missions liftoff to the fourth quarter of 2020.

The complexity in the development of the formation flying technology does not allow the launch in late 2019 as was planned earlier, Zhukov said. The project schedule is now consolidated, and the launch in the fourth quarter of 2020 is the new baseline. That does look feasible.

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Pioneering ESA mission aims to create artificial solar eclipses - Spaceflight Now

Press Release

August 20th, 2017

The HOPE spacesuit was the first suit created by the Spacesuit Art Project. A third spacesuit, UNITY will be unveiled by the crew of the International Space Station. Photo Credit: MD Anderson Cancer Center / Spacesuit Art Project

Patients from around the world will have the opportunity to see a spacesuit art project they helped create. Astronauts currently living and working on the International Space Station will unveil the project at10:25 a.m. EDT(14:25 GMT) Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017. The 20-minute Earth-to-space call will air live on NASA Television and the agencyswebsite.

Expedition 52 crew members will answer questions from international partner astronauts and several patients turned artists in Mission Control Houston. In the fall of 2016, spacesuit UNITY was created at cancer hospitals in Houston, Canada, Germany, Russia and Japan with collaboration from astronauts from NASA and its international partners ESA (European Space Agency), Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Three spacesuits, HOPE, COURAGE and UNITY, were created during the project. The UNITY spacesuit arrived to the station on SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft Wednesday, Aug. 16 along with more than 6,400 pounds (2,900 kilograms) of supplies and experiments.

The participating hospitals that helped create the UNITY spacesuit were:

Follow the Space Suit Art Project on Twitter athttps://twitter.com/Spacesuitart.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/station.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/station.

Video courtesy of MD Anderson Cancer Center

Tagged: Expedition 52 International Space Station MD Anderson Cancer Center Press Release Spacesuit Art Project The Range

The preceding is a press or news release either issued by one of the space agencies or by an aerospace firm or organization. The views expressed in the above post do not necessarily reflect those of SpaceFlight Insider.

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Astronauts showcase space art created with childhood cancer patients - SpaceFlight Insider

CAPE CANAVERAL Bulking up NASAs constellation of tracking stations in the sky that provides critical links between orbiting spacecraft and ground control, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket successfully deployed a new communications hub in space today.

NASAs Tracking and Data Relay Satellite series, a program that revolutionized mission operations for U.S. human spaceflight and robotic craft, is now in its fourth decade and this morning orbited its 12th satellite.

TDRS is a critical national asset have because of its importance to the space station and all of our science missions, primarily the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth science missions that use TDRS, said Tim Dunn, NASAs TDRS-M launch director.

With its main engine running at full throttle, the Atlas 5 booster lifted off at 8:29 a.m. EDT (1229 GMT) from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.

The 191-foot-tall rocket, generating 860,000 pounds of thrust, aimed eastward and accelerated out of the atmosphere with NASAs TDRS-M spacecraft.

Within just five minutes, the rocket had shed 92 percent of its liftoff weight and transitioned to the high-energy Centaur upper stage.

An elliptical parking orbit was achieved within 18 minutes of takeoff, beginning a 90-minute quiescent coast higher through space to reach the optimum conditions for the second burn by Centaur.

That minute-long boost over the Indian Ocean propelled the 7,610-pound payload into a customized high-perigee geosynchronous transfer orbit.

The spacecraft was deployed by the launcher at T+plus 1 hour, 53 minutes to cheers and handshakes all around.

Obviously, there is a lot of relief on the team right now, a lot of celebration, a lot of excitement. I love spacecraft separation. It is the best part of a launch campaign, said Dunn.

So many hours are spent getting to this exact point when you know you have a healthy satellite that just separated from the launch vehicle about to go do its mission that it was intended for.

Trajectory specialists had worked pre-flight to optimize the TDRS-M orbital injection, using up all of the available Atlas 5 performance to extend the satellites useful life by two additional years.

The rocket put the satellite into an orbit that allows the craft to save some of its onboard fuel supply from the upcoming orbit-raising maneuvers and apply that to orbital life.

This marked the 143rd consecutive successful Atlas program launch spanning more than two decades, the 72nd for an Atlas 5 and the 120th for United Launch Alliance.

Whats more, it was the 15th NASA use of the Atlas 5 and 28th mission conducted by ULA for NASA, all done successfully.

The Centaur, with its job completed, was expected to fire its engine later to reach a safe disposal orbit with a perigee above the usable low-earth orbit regime and apogee beneath the geosynchronous belt to guard against orbital debris.

Contact was established with TDRS-M, allowing controllers to determine that the satellite was healthy following arrival in space. The craft was the 76th and final to be built on Boeings 601 satellite design, and its successful launch was the 68th for the program dating back 25 years.

The first order of business for TDRS-M will be severing the straps that held the crafts two 15-foot-diameter graphite composite mesh antennas partially curled like taco shells to fit within the rockets nose cone for launch.

We need them unfurled and full shape to provide the RF performance for the communications services that our mission is founded upon. So one of the first things that happen after we release from the Centaur is we cut the furling straps and unfurl our reflectors It will take a period of a month or so to what we call relax and return to their original shape to give us the full performance, said Dave Littmann, NASAs TDRS project manager.

While giving the antennas time to relax, orbit-raising maneuvers using the satellites onboard main engine will be conducted over the next two weeks to achieve a circular geosynchronous orbit over the equator.

We need about five burns that will take us from the drop-off spot to the geosynchronous location where we will be operating the spacecraft for its lifetime, Littmann said.

From there, we go through the deployments. We unfold the solar arrays and deploy our antennas those unfurled big reflectors and the Space-to-Ground Link antenna, its smaller but still critical to the mission. The SGL is the lifeline to the ground. That process takes 3-5 days.

If all goes well, control of the satellite will be handed from Boeings facilities in California to NASAs White Sands Complex in New Mexico about three weeks after launch to begin on-orbit checkout.

The government hasnt accepted the spacecraft yet. All of the on-orbit testing (is done) from the White Sands Complex with a Boeing team to check the spacecraft out the bus and the payload to make sure all of our RF communications services are ready. About four months after launch, in January or so, we will look to schedule an On-Orbit Acceptance Review to review all of the data accumulated from the test program and determine, hopefully, that the government is in position to accept the spacecraft from Boeing. For the whole period to that point the spacecraft is Boeings responsibility, Littmann said.

All of that testing will occur with the satellite parked over 150 degrees West longitude. Once NASA takes acceptance of the craft, the agencys Space Network assumes ownership, performs its own one-month checkout and then repositions the asset, likely over the Atlantic Ocean Region, Littmann said.

The $408 million TDRS-M was built and launched with the sole purpose to extend the useful life of NASAs constant communications infrastructure, supporting the astronauts around-the-clock aboard the International Space Station, supplying contact with the Hubble Space Telescope and transmitting the data from almost 40 science spacecraft studying Earths environment and space.

The (TDRS-M) spacecraft continues our ability to provide a data path for communications and tracking services from all of the different users out there in orbit today from human spaceflight component of NASA to robotic missions, Littmann said.

Looking down from the vantage point of geosynchronous orbit, the TDRS network receives signals from vehicles like the space station flying at a mere 250 miles above Earth and routes the telemetry, voice, video and science information to a dedicated ground terminal for delivery to Houston.

No matter where the space station is located at any given moment, TDRS has the outpost in sight for the two-way communications.

It works really wellWe are almost spoiled now with how much communication we have. It really makes the science output and the ability to operate space station as miraculous as it is, said astronaut Stephen Bowen.

The TDRS system was born in 1973 to keep astronauts and satellites in constant contact with mission controllers, closing the substantial gaps every orbit as spacecraft passed into and out of range of ground stations scattered around the globe.

When TDRS first became operational in late 1983, the initial space shuttle mission to use the system relayed more information to the ground during its 10 days in orbit than in all 39 previous American manned spaceflights.

Relying on dispersed ground stations was a costly requirement and subjected the sites operators to dangerous conditions in far-off countries, yet the system provided only 15 percent communications capability per orbit.

NASA currently has 7 operational TDRS satellites two launched by the space shuttle in 1993 and 1995 and five Atlas-launched birds from 2000 to 2014, plus two aged shuttle-era craft from 1988 and 1991 now held in reserve with diminished capabilities.

We need at least 6 active spacecraft and one active spare, so we need at least 7 spacecraft to be ready to meet all of our mission requirements. The first generation has some residual capability, (but) TDRS-M is so critical, said Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation at NASA Headquarters.

A successful TDRS-M extends the projected life of the constellation to the mid-2020s.

While TDRS got its start by supporting space shuttle missions, todays network is even busier with the space station thats been continuously staffed for nearly 17 years.

The thing we saw during the shuttle era was that when a shuttle would go up on a mission, the load on the TDRS system was extremely high. But once it landed that spike in the load would dissipate. We would see the spikes mission by mission, Littmann said.

What we see today is a little different because those spikes are no longer there, but with the space station being in continuous coverage where we have astronauts 24/7 in orbit. TDRS serves the human spaceflight community in that manner, the comm to the space station is more continuous.

The spikes have changed to a continuous level to support the International Space Station activities, as well as TDRS developed additional capabilities over the years that it now tracks and provides telemetry for various launch vehicles. Thats been added to the mix. The overall usage has remained.

The Atlas 5 rocket that launched TDRS-M, for example, used the constellations K and L satellites to relay data back to the Cape this morning. Delta 2 and Delta 4 rockets and Orbital ATKs Minotaur 4 rely on TDRS too.

TDRS-M completes the third generation of spacecraft constructed for the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System as we know it today. What comes next is being debated, including possibilities of a technology refresh by adding laser communications to the follow-on program.

However, there is no rush to field the next era of relay satellites. The current TDRS fleet is expected to operate well into the next decade.

Only two of the six shuttle-launched TDRS satellites have been retired, the rest are functional more than 25 years since their deployment and outliving their design lives by exceptional margins.

Just because the 15 years comes to end doesnt mean we stop operating the spacecraft. Like your electronics or laptop at home, you use it until it doesnt work anymore, said Paul Buchanan, TDRS deputy project manager.

For NASAs Launch Services Program, the team has seven high-profile launches scheduled over the next year, including missions to Mars and the Sun, two weather satellites and a planet-hunter.

-Delta 2/JPSS-1 is NET Nov. 10 at 2:48 a.m. local from Vandenberg -Pegasus/ICON is Nov. 14 at 10:28 a.m. Eastern from Kwajalein -Atlas 5/GOES-S is March 1 at 5:01 a.m. at Cape -Falcon/TESS is NET March 20 at Cape -Atlas 5/InSight is May 5 at 4:10 a.m. local from Vandenberg -Delta 4-Heavy/Parker Solar Probe is July 31 at 10:07 a.m. at Cape -Delta 2/IceSat-2 is Sept. 12 at 5:45 a.m. local from Vandenberg

The next two United Launch Launch Alliance Atlas 5 flights will deploy critical-but-classified security payloads for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

NROL-42 will fly from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California using a powerful 541-configured rocket with four side-mounted solid-fuel boosters and NROL-52 occurs from Cape Canaveral on a 421 with two solids.

See earlier TDRS-M launch coverage.

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Atlas 5 rocket delivers NASA data router into space for astronauts and satellites - Spaceflight Now

Laurel Kornfeld

August 19th, 2017

Clouds on Saturn take on the appearance of strokes from a cosmic brush thanks to the wavy way that fluids interact in Saturns atmosphere. Photo & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

NASAs Cassini spacecraft, now conducting its final orbits between Saturn and its rings, is plunging further than ever into the giant planets atmosphere. Over the last 13 years studying the Saturn system, the spacecraft has discovered a wealth of information about the planets rings.

Data sent back by the probe has revealed the rings formed through numerous processes rather than via a single mechanism.Observations have even provided scientists with insight into both the formation of planets around young stars and the formation of galaxies.

A key finding is that there are numerous ways of forming rings around planets.Saturns many moons play major roles in the rings formation and structure. The planets G-ring as well as two new rings discovered by Cassini in 2006, named the Janus-Epimethius ring and the Pallene ring, are made up of materials expelled from moons that were hit by meteorites.

The E-ring, which is spread out over a large area and not highly concentrated, is composed of water ice particles from Enceladus delivered via jets.

One of two potentially habitable moons orbiting Saturn, Enceladus has a global subsurface ocean from which geysers have been seen erupting through its cracked, icy surface.Images taken by Cassini show long, narrow structures that clearly originate from the moons geysers.

Some rings, such as the F-ring, fall under the gravitational interaction of nearby moons. Satellite Prometheus regularly perturbs this ring, as it does the thin ringlets that traverse the 202-mile (325-kilometer) wide Encke gap in the A-ring.

Both Prometheus and the F-ring have eccentric orbits around their parent planet.Another small moon, Pan, keeps the Encke gap it orbits in open by gravitationally influencing nearby ring particles.

The thin sliver of Saturns moon Prometheus lurks near ghostly structures in Saturns narrow F ring in this view from NASAs Cassini spacecraft. Many of the narrow rings faint and wispy features result from its gravitational interactions with Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across). Photo & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

When NASAs twin Voyager spacecraft flew by Saturn in 1980 and 1981, its images revealed strange features among the rings that scientists labeled spokes because they flare out much like spokes on the wheels of bicycles.

Data sent back by Cassini showed the spokes to be ice particles that interact with Saturns magnetic field. Electrostatic charges related to the angle of sunlight the rings are exposed to lift these particles above the rings.A seasonal phenomena, the spokes show up around Saturns two equinoxes but vanish at the time of its two solstices.

In 2010, Cassini spotted a new class of small moons that create propeller-shaped features within individual rings. Scientists now believe the processes that formed these tiny moons are similar to the processes by which planets form around young stars.

Observing the motions of these disk-embedded objects provides a rare opportunity to gauge how the planets grew from, and interacted with, the disk of material surrounding the early Sun, said Cassini imaging team lead Carolyn Porco.

While Saturns rings were once thought to be flat, Cassini revealed they are actually bumpy, in some cases hosting fluffy vertical structures as tall as the Rocky Mountains.Located at the outer edges of Saturns A and B rings, these structures were detected by the spacecraft through analysis of light and shadow patterns caused by the varying angle of the Sun over over time.

Wave patterns or oscillations that distort the B-rings outer edges are similar to those found in spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way as well as in protoplanetary disks around newborn stars.

These oscillations are caused by energy released during small movements of the ring particles, which create and feed waves that can grow to hundreds of kilometers in diameter.Cassinis instruments were able to discern patterns in these waves by studying the interplay of light and shadow in the rings vertical structures.

After an Aug. 10 gravitational assist from Titan, Cassini embarked on the 18th of its 22 Grand Finale orbits. On Monday, Aug. 14. Its Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) conducted the first ever direct sampling of Saturns upper atmosphere.

This collage, consisting of two Cassini images of long, sinuous, tendril-like features from Saturns moon Enceladus and two corresponding computer simulations of the same, illustrates how well the structures, and the sizes of the particles composing them, can be modeled by tracing the trajectories of tiny, icy grains ejected from Enceladus south polar geysers. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

Tagged: Cassini Grand Finale Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Saturn The Range

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

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Cassini has uncovered a wealth of data on Saturn's rings - SpaceFlight Insider

Press Release

August 19th, 2017

On Aug. 21, 2017, the entire continental U.S. will see a solar eclipse. Only a 70-mile wide swath across the central part of the country will experience totality. Kennedy Space Center will experience a maximum coverage of 86 percent. Image Credit: NASA

WHAT:For the first time in almost 100 years, a total solar eclipse will be visible through the United States. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, located in the partial eclipse zone, is commemorating this historic event by hosting a viewing opportunity right at Americas spaceport.OnAug. 21, visitors will be able to sit in the Rocket Garden and watch the moon begin to cover the sun.

Complimentary certified eclipse viewing glasses will be provided on a first come, first served basis. Space experts will be on site to engage with viewers, answer questions and offer commentary throughout the event; and NASA TV will be streaming live content from across the U.S. onto the visitor complexs Jumbotron.

Leading up to the event, our education team will use the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex mobile planetarium to showcase the science behind a solar eclipse, and there will be two new eclipse-themed shows inScience on a SphereandEyes on the Universe.

For more information, clickhere.

**Photo opportunities and interviews available for media**

WHEN:Monday, August 21, 2017

11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

1:15 p.m.Eclipse visibility at Kennedy Space Center

2:45 p.m.Maximum coverage (86 percent)

WHERE:Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

Rocket Garden

SR 405

Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899

WHO:INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

To attend this event, please RSVP to Lauren Walbert atlwalbert@hillmanpr.com,(443) 683-0294or Rebecca Shireman atrshireman@delawarenorth.com,(321) 449-4273.

Video courtesy of NASA Goddard

Tagged: Kennedy Space Center NASA solar eclipse Solar Eclipse Day 2017 The Range

The preceding is a press or news release either issued by one of the space agencies or by an aerospace firm or organization. The views expressed in the above post do not necessarily reflect those of SpaceFlight Insider.

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Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to host Solar Eclipse Day 2017 - SpaceFlight Insider

STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

Two Russian cosmonauts floated outside the International Space Station Thursday, tossed five small science and technology satellites overboard and spent the rest of the excursion servicing external experiments and carrying out routine but time-consuming inspections and maintenance.

The work took longer than expected and Russian flight controllers extended the spacewalk beyond the planned six-hour mark to give the cosmonauts time to finish as many of their tasks as possible before calling it a day.

Finally, at 6:10 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), Expedition 52 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy closed the Pirs airlock hatch to officially end a seven-hour 34-minute spacewalk, the first in more than a year by Russian cosmonauts.

Mission managers said the spacewalkers accomplished all of their planned tasks except for one the installation of one handrail and that no specific problem put them behind schedule. Rather, the spacewalkers took their time and rested periodically at the insistence of Russian flight controllers.

Everything is good, so were insisting on your rest, a controller called up from Moscow in translated remarks. You should rest, guys. A few moments later: Is it enough for you to have a rest? How is the atmosphere inside your suits?

Well, if we could have some music, maybe, and girls to make massages it would of course be even better, but everything is fine, Ryazanskiy replied.

Its the request of the medical team. They are worrying about your health.

When we are back on the ground well discuss it, Ryazanskiy said.

Of course, Sergey, we will be looking forward to your landing and this conversation, the flight controller replied. So I would (not) like to bother you any more, please have a good rest.

The spacewalk got underway at 10:36 a.m. It was the ninth EVA overall for Yurchikhin and the fourth for Ryazanskiy.

Yurchikhin wore an upgraded Orlan MKS spacesuit with an improved temperature control system, a larger feed water bag, a new carbon dioxide measuring unit, improved biomedical sensors and an upgraded LCD display panel. The MKS suits will enable cosmonauts to carry out longer spacewalks than are possible with the standard MK-series like the one Ryazanskiy used.

After exiting the Pirs module, the cosmonauts retrieved a materials science sample pallet just outside the hatch before manually launching the five satellites one at a time, careful to aim then down and behind the station to prevent any future close encounters.

The first to be launched, known at Tomsk, is an 11-pound satellite built with a 3D printer to help engineers how such materials respond to the space environment. It also carries amateur radio gear.

Another satellite will test systems needed by small nanosats, two others will test networking and small-scale navigation technology and a fifth will serve as a passive target to help calibrate ground tracking systems. It also will help researchers study the density of the upper atmosphere as they monitor its eventual fall back to Earth in several months

After releasing the satellites, Yurchikhin and Ryazanskiy took photos of another experiment panel and an antenna boom before installing handrails and struts to help future spacewalkers move about the Russian segment of the space station.

They also installed 10 temperature sensors on the Poisk module and serviced another external experiment before returning to Pirs and ending the spacewalk.

But it was slow going throughout the day.

That is just a really interesting day because whenever we need something it is in a completely different location than we think, and if were moving somewhere, were moving in the wrong direction, one spacewalker complained. Just jinxed.

They insisted they could install the final handrail, but flight controllers told them to head back to Pirs.

This was the 202nd spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the seventh so far this year and the first of 2017 by Russian cosmonauts. Total station spacewalk time now stands at 1,258 hours and 15 minutes, or 52.4 days.

Yurchikhin has now logged 59 hours and 28 minutes of spacewalk time during nine EVAs, moving him up to fourth on the list of most experienced spacewalkers, just behind crewmate Peggy Whitson. She has 60 hours and 21 minutes of spacewalk time during 10 excursions.

Ryazanskiys mark stands at 27 hours and 39 minutes outside the station during his four excursions.

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Russian cosmonauts complete long spacewalk - Spaceflight Now

Hall Thrusters

Hall thrusters (HTs) are used in earth-orbiting satellites, and also show promise to propel robotic spacecraft long distances, such as from Earth to Mars. The propellant in a HT, usually xenon, is accelerated by an electric field which strips electrons from neutral xenon atoms, creating a plasma. Plasma ejected from the exhaust end of the thruster can deliver great speeds, typically around 70,000 mph.

Cylindrical shaped Hall thrusters (CHTs) lend themselves to miniaturization and have a smaller surface-to-volume ratio that prevents erosion of thethrusterchannel. Investigators at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China have developed a new inlet design for CHTs that significantly increases thrust. Simulations and experimental tests of the new design are reported this week in the journalPhysics of Plasmas.

CHTs are designed for low-power operations. However, low propellant flow density can cause inadequate ionization, a key step in the creation of the plasma and the generation of thrust. In general, increasing thegas densityin thedischargechannel while lowering its axial velocity, i.e., the speed perpendicular to the thrust direction, will improve the thrusters performance.

The most practical way to alter the neutral flow dynamics in the discharge channel is by changing the gas injection method or the geometric morphology of the discharge channel, said Liqiu Wei, one of the lead authors of the paper.

The investigators tested a simple design change. The propellant is injected into the cylindrical chamber of the thruster by a number of nozzles that usually point straight in, toward the center of the cylinder. When the angle of the inlet nozzles is changed slightly, the propellant is sent into a rapid circular motion, creating a vortex in the channel.

Wei and his coworkers simulated the motion of the plasma in the channel for both nozzle angles using modeling and analysis software (COMSOL) that uses a finite element approach to modeling molecular flow. The results showed that the gas density near the periphery of the channel is higher when the nozzles are tilted and the thruster is run in vortex mode. In this mode, gas density is significantly higher and more uniform, which also helps improve thruster performance.

The investigators verified their simulations predictions experimentally, and the vortex inlet mode successfully produced higher thrust values, especially when a low discharge voltage was used. In particular, the specific impulse of the thruster increased by 1.1 to 53.5 percent when the discharge voltage was in the range of 100 to 200 Volts.

The work we report here only verified the practicability of this gas inlet design. We still need to study the effect of nozzle angle, diameter, the ratio of depth to diameter and the length of the dischargechannel, Wei said. He went on to predict that the vortex design will be tested in flight-type HTs soon and may eventually be used in spaceflight.

This article was provided byAmerican Institute of Physics. Materials may have been edited for clarity and brevity.

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New Thruster Design Increases Efficiency for Future Spaceflight - Futurism

SpaceXs Dragon cargo craft on final approach to the space station Monday. Credit: Sergey Ryazanskiy/Roscosmos

Two days after departing from a launch pad on Floridas Space Coast, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday with more than 6,400 pounds of experiments and supplies after concluding an automated laser-guided approach.

Astronaut Jack Fischer aboard the space station used the labs Canadian-built robotic arm to snare the robotic cargo craft at 6:52 a.m. EDT (1052 GMT) Wednesday as they sailed about 250 miles (400 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean north of New Zealand.

Around two hours later, ground controllers finished the installation of Dragon on the stations Harmony module, commanding 16 bolts to close and create a firm seal between the two vehicles.

The station crew opened hatches between the Harmony module and Dragons pressurized compartment later Wednesday, a day earlier than planned.

Flying under contract to NASA, the SpaceX supply ship ferried mostly research hardware, but also carried computer equipment, clothing, fresh food, ice cream and other treats for the crew.

Weve loaded Dragon with 6,400 pounds of cargo, and Im happy to say 75 percent of that total mass is headed toward our research community, and our continued expansion of the research envelope on-board the International Space Station, said Dan Hartman, NASAs deputy space station program manager, before the mission launched. So with the internal and external payloads going up, it sets a new bar for the amount of research that we were able to get on this flight.

The cargo mission marked SpaceXs 11th successful operational supply delivery in 12 tries.

NASA inked a $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX in 2008 for 12 logistics flights to the station. This mission wraps up work under the original resupply contract, but NASA extended the agreement for eight additional cargo launches through 2019. SpaceX also has a separate, follow-on contract with NASA for at least flights of upgraded Dragon cargo capsules to the station from 2019 through 2024.

Orbital ATK is NASAs other cargo transportation provider, using Cygnus supply ships launched on Antares or Atlas 5 rockets. Sierra Nevada Corp. is developing its own cargo vehicle, called the Dream Chaser, which will return landings on a runway like the space shuttle when it begins flying as soon as 2020.

The gumdrop-shaped Dragon cargo freighter, powered by two extendable solar array panels, lifted off Monday on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The stations six-person crew will unload the payloads inside, overseeing a multitude of biological experiments before the ships departure and return to Earth next month.

Twenty mice riding inside Dragon will be examined after their return to the ground to aid researchers studying how spaceflight affects vision and movement.

Were looking at two different biomedical issues, said Michael Delp, principal investigator for the rodent research experiment from Florida State University. The first is visual impairment that occurs in some of the astronauts. To date, it only occurs in male astronauts, so were looking at a couple of different aspects of how visual impairment may occur.

The mice will come back to Earth inside the Dragon capsule alive, and SpaceX will hand over their transporters to scientists upon return to port in Southern California.

Researchers will examine the blood vessels inside animals eyes and the blood-brain barrier that regulates fluid movement inside the skull.

The second thing that well be doing is really looking at the brain circulation, and how that affects blood pressure within the skull, Delp said.

Part of the rodent research team will look at how an extended stay in the space stations weightless environment affects movement.

In microgravity, you have a fairly severe physical inactivity, and that can affect a number of the organ systems, such as muscle and bone loss, Delp said.

One focus of the study will be on how much cartilage in joints degrade after spending time in microgravity. Mice have an accelerated metabolism and undergo changes faster than humans, so a month on the space station is roughly equivalent to a three-year expedition by an astronaut, according to Delp.

The space station cargo mission will also help biologists investigating Parkinsons disease, a chronic neurological disorder that affects a million people in the United States, and about five million worldwide.

Although there are medications that ammeliorate the symptoms, we dont have any therapies that reverse or slow down the progression of the disease, said Marco Baptista, director of research and grants at the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which funded the station-bound experiment.

Scientists are sending a protein that causes Parkinsons to the station to measure how it grows without the influence of gravity. The protein, named LRRK2, could be targeted with drugs and therapies in Parkinsons patients if doctors understand it better.

The next breakthrough we need is the solving of the crystal structure of LRRK2, Baptista said. This is important for two reasons. First, it will allow us a better understanding of the biology of LRRK2 and secondly may help industry optimizing LRRK2 kinase inhibitors or develop novel ways to target LRRK2.

Growing the protein in microgravity will lead to bigger crystals, more regular crystallization and crystals with higher intrinsic order, said Sebastian Mathea, the lead scientist on the LRRK2 experiment from the University of Oxford.

With those crystals, we hopefully will be able to collect data that allow us to solve the three-dimensional structure of LRRK2, which hopefully will push forward the understanding of the onset of Parkinsons, Mathea said.

Another science team awaits results from an experiment probing how microgravity affects the growth of new lung tissue, specifically bio-engineered material tailored to repair damaged organs or reduce the chance of organ rejection in transplant patients.

Scientists have trouble managing the expansion of bio-engineered lung tissue on Earth. The tissue has trouble moving through structures designed to help shape it, and stem cells used to produce the tissue are slow to replicate, according to Joan Nichols, professor of internal medicine and infectious diseases and associate director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Nichols said microgravity offers a more benign environment, aiding in cell dispersal to help form more uniform tissues.

Were getting two things out of this, she said. Were getting a better plan and a better strategy for how to manage production of tissues using microgravity environment, and were getting a model thats going to tell us what would happen in terms of lung repair on long-term spaceflight.

A supercomputer developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise will spend at least a year on the space station, helping engineers gauge the ruggedness of commercial computer components in the harsh conditions of space.

Most computers sent into space are physically hardened to withstand radiation, cosmic rays, and other rigors of spaceflight. Hewlett Packard said its spaceborne computer experiment was hardened with software, reducing the time, money and weight of the supercomputer.

The experimental computer passed at least 146 safety tests and certifications to win NASA approval for the trip to the space station. If it works, Hewlett Packard officials said it could help future space missions, including a human expedition to Mars, have the latest computer technology.

While astronauts get to work in experiments inside the stations lab facilities, the Canadian and Japanese robotic arms will remove a cosmic ray detector carried inside the Dragons external payload bay for mounting on a facility outside the stations Japanese Kibo module.

Derived from an instrument carried aloft on high-altitude balloons, the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass, or CREAM, payload will spend at least three years sampling particles sent speeding through the universe by cataclysmic supernova explosions, and perhaps other exotic phenomena like dark matter.

Scientists think the subatomic particles could hold the key to unlocking mysteries about the universe.

Four small satellites inside the Dragon capsule will be transferred inside the space station for deployment later this year.

The biggest of the bunch, named Kestrel Eye 2M, is a pathfinder for a potential constellation of Earth-imaging spacecraft for the U.S. military. About the size of a dorm room refrigerator, the Kestrel Eye 2M satellite was developed by the Armys Space and Missile Defense Command over the last five years.

While satellites the size of Kestrel Eye lack the fine imaging capability of large commercial and military spy satellites, they cost significantly less and could be spread around the planet in fleets of dozens or more.

Battlefield troops could connect with one of the satellites as it soars a few hundred miles overhead, ask it to take a picture of a nearby target, then receive the image, all within a few minutes.

The concept is to have warfighters to task and receie data directly from the satellite during the same overhead pass, said Wheeler Chip Hardy, the Armys Kestrel Eye program manager. The objective Kestrel Eye imagery data can be downlinked directly to provide rapid situational awareness to our Army brigade combat teams in theater without the need for continental United States relays.

From the space stations altitude around 250 miles (400 kilometers) up, Kestrel Eye 2Ms optical camera will be able to spot objects on Earths surface about the size of a car.

The Army has not approved development of further Kestrel Eye satellites. The demo craft set to launch Monday will be employed in military exercises with Pacific Command over the next few years, and Pentagon officials will evaluate its usefulness before deciding whether to press on with the program.

Three CubeSats were also ferried to the space station for release from a ground-commanded deployer in the coming months.

The ASTERIA mission, developed by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, seeks to test miniature telescope components that could be used in future small satellites to observe stars and search for exoplanets. ASTERIA is about the size of a big shoebox and weighs around 26 pounds (12 kilograms).

Astronomers and engineers want to know if a CubeSat like ASTERIA can hold pointing to the precision necessary for stellar observations, and designers will also measure the performance of the focal plane inside an on-board telescope.

The Dellingr project spearheaded by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland aims to prove out a new type of microsatellite design that is more reliable than conventional CubeSats.

Around the same size as ASTERIA, the Dellingr CubeSat, named for the mythological Norse god for the dawn, took around three years to design, build and test. Officials said the effort was not always easy, and managers had to define a balance between affordability and reliability.

Engineers tried using commercially-available components and software, but testing revealed many of the parts were inadequate for the level of reliability sought for Dellingr, which carries a sensor suite to study the suns influence on Earths atmosphere.

Its a new way of doing things, said Chuck Clagett, Dellingr project manager at Goddard. We were applying old ways to doing things to an emerging capability and it didnt work very well.

But officials said the extra testing paid off, and Dellingr is now ready to fly after helping reduce the risk of unforeseen problems on future missions NASA has approved work on a follow-up CubeSat incorporating Dellingrs design and lessons to make measurements of Earths ionosphere.

Another CubeSat named OSIRIS-3U from Penn State University launched inside Dragon will study space weather.

Working in coordination with the Arecibo Observatory, a giant radar antenna in Puerto Rico, OSIRIS-3U will fly into a region ionosphere heated to simulate the conditions caused by solar storms.

OSIRIS-3U will collect data on the electron density, temperature, and content in the region of space stimulated by radar emissions, according to a fact sheet released by NASA.

The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to depart the space station Sept. 17, bringing home more than a ton of research specimens and other gear for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles.

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Updated after spacecraft separation.

A high-power Russian satellite designed to deliver broadband Internet connections and relay television and videoconferencing signals fired into orbit Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Destined to serve the Russian military and civilian customers, the first Blagovest communications satellite rode a Proton rocket into space at 2207 GMT (6:07 p.m. EDT) Wednesday, according to a statement released by ISS Reshetnev, the spacecrafts manufacturer.

Liftoff occurred at 4:07 a.m. local time Thursday at Baikonur, a sprawling spaceport leased by the Russian government from Kazakhstan.

The three-stage Proton booster deployed a Breeze M upper stage shortly after liftoff to conduct multiple engine firings aimed at guiding the Blagovest No. 11L spacecraft into a high-altitude geostationary transfer orbit. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, confirmed the Breeze M upper stage released the Blagovest satellite into an on-target orbit.

After separation from the Breeze M stage several hours into the mission, the satellites own engine will circularize its orbit over the equator at an altitude of nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers).

At that altitude, the Blagovest satellite will remain fixed over the equator at 45 degrees east longitude, staying in view of the same part of Earth and orbiting the planet at the same rate it rotates.

Designed for a 15-year mission, the Blagovest No. 11L satellite was built for the Russian military by ISS Reshetnev, a Russian aerospace contractor based in Zheleznogorsk, Russia. It is based on ISS Reshetnevs Express 2000 satellite bus.

Blagovest is the first satellite that has a payload fully designed and manufactured by ISS Reshetnev, ISS Reshetnev said in a statement. It is intended to provide high speed Internet access, communications services, television and radio broadcasting, telephony and videoconferencing.

The relay spacecraft will serve Russian military and civilian users with a suite of C-band and Ka-band transponders.

While ISS Reshetnev claimed the Blagovest communications payload was fully manufactured internally, information released by Thales Alenia Space indicates the French company supplied filters, power dividers and multiplexers for Blagovests telecom instrumentation.

Three more Blagovest communications satellites are planned for launch in the next couple of years.

Russias Proton rocket program, managed by the Russian company Khrunichev, has two more launches on the books next month. The quicker launch pace comes after a year-long standdown from June 2016 through June 2017 to resolve engine quality concerns.

Wednesdays launch was the 414th flight of a Russian Proton rocket since 1965, and the 100th launch of the Proton M configuration since 2001.

While the mission with the Blagovest No. 11L satellite was part of Russias federal space program, the two Proton flights next month will be commercially managed by International Launch Services, a Virginia-based company responsible for selling Proton launches on the global market.

The Amazonas 5 communications satellite, owned by Madrid-based Hispasat, is already at the Baikonur Cosmodrome being readied for liftoff as soon as Sept. 9 on a Proton/Breeze M.

The AsiaSat 9 telecom craft is scheduled to blast Sept. 28 on a Proton/Breeze M.

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A photo of the H-2A rocket on the launch pad during a launch attempt Aug. 12. Credit: MHI

A heavy-duty version of Japans H-2A rocket is now scheduled to lift off Saturday with a geostationary navigation satellite after a week-long delay to diagnose and resolve a leak in the rockets propulsion system, the Japanese space agency announced Wednesday.

Launch of the 174-foot-tall (53-meter) rocket, flying with in its most powerful configuration with four strap-on solid-fueled boosters, is scheduled during an unusually-long nine-hour window opening at 0500 GMT (1:00 a.m. EDT; 2 p.m. Japan Standard Time) Saturday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.

The H-2A rocket is expected to roll out of its assembly hanger to a launch mount at the Tanegashima Space Center just after midnight Saturday, local time, for final launch preps and fueling.

Ground crews transferred the rocket back to the assembly building last weekend after a launch attempt Aug. 12 was scrubbed in the final hours of the countdown. Japanese space officials told reporters in a press conference that the launch team detected a leak in the rockets helium pressurization system, which is used to pressurize the H-2As propellant tanks for flight.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the H-2As prime contractor and launch operator, fixed the problem. Officials set Saturday as the new target launch date after careful investigations and completion of repair actions of the rocket propulsion system, the space agency said in a statement.

The H-2A flight was originally slated to take off Aug. 11, but officials opted to forego a launch attempt that day due to a poor weather forecast.

Saturdays launch will be the 35th flight of an H-2A rocket since it debuted in August 2001, and the fourth H-2A launch this year.

The satellite enclosed inside the launchers 16.7-foot (5.1-meter) payload shroud is Michibiki 3, the third member in a planned quartet of navigation stations in Japans Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.

Japans navigation satellites supplement positioning signals broadcast by the U.S. militarys Global Positioning System, providing more accurate location estimates for civilian and security users in the Asia-Pacific. The regional navigation network will result in improved reception in urban areas and rugged terrain, where high-rise buildings and mountains can block signals from GPS satellites near the horizon.

The GPS satellites circle Earth in orbits 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above Earth. Although there are at least 30 operational GPS spacecraft, only a small fraction of the fleet is visible from a single point on Earth at one time.

It takes four GPS satellites to calculate a precise position on Earth, but a Michibiki satellite broadcasting the same four L-band signals will give a receiver an estimate if there are not enough GPS satellites visible, or it can help produce a more accurate position calculation even with full GPS service.

The two Michibiki satellites launched to date fly in inclined orbits, tracing figure-eight patterns as they oscillate north and south of the equator, while their longitudinal, or east-west, position remains over the Asia-Pacific at an average altitude of around 22,300 miles (nearly 35,800 kilometers) above Earth.

Michibiki 3 will head into an orbit at the same altitude, but will eventually settle into a parking slot over the equator, where it will remain in a fixed geostationary position in the sky.

The fourth in the current series of Japanese navigation satellites will go up later this year on another H-2A rocket, taking up a post in an inclined high-altitude orbit like the first two.

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A photo of the Antares rockets twin RD-181 engines installed on the rocket slated to launch Orbital ATKs next Cygnus supply ship to the International Space Station. Credit: Orbital ATK

NASA and Orbital ATK have agreed to schedule the launch of the next Cygnus supply ship for Nov. 10 from Wallops Island on Virginias Eastern Shore, a delay of a month from the missions earlier target launch date to allow the flight to carry more cargo to the International Space Station, officials said.

The new launch date also will allow time for station astronauts to complete three spacewalks in late October and early November to swap out a latching end effector on the stations Canadian-built robotic arm and complete other maintenance tasks, according to Dan Hartman, NASAs deputy space station program manager.

If the Nov. 10 date holds, liftoff of the automated cargo mission on top of an Antares rocket will occur around 8:02 a.m. EST (1302 GMT), roughly the moment Earths rotation brings the Wallops launch base in the flight path of the space station, according to an Orbital ATK spokesperson.

With the slip of one month, were able to get new cargo that we need up to the station, on the order of about 400 kilograms (880 pounds), Hartman said Sunday. So a significant increase in the amount of mass we can take up.

Some specific items NASA wants delivered to the space station would not have been ready in time for the previous Oct. 11 launch date.

The next mission by NASAs other cargo delivery provider, SpaceX, will slip from early November to early December in the schedule shuffle. SpaceXs latest cargo flight arrived at the space station Wednesday, two days after launching from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Orbital ATK said in a statement that the delay of the next Cygnus cargo mission, named OA-8, was decided by NASA and was solely based on NASAs revised ISS traffic planning and cargo needs.

The flight will ferry experiments, supplies and spare parts to the space station.

Integration and test of the Antares launch vehicle and Cygnus spacecraft are complete and both were processed to support a mission as early as September of this year, Orbital ATK said. Final preparations for the mission will begin in early October to support the new November 10 target launch date.

The mission will be the Orbital ATKs eighth operational logistics flight to the space station, and the fifth to lift off from Wallops on the companys own Antares booster. Three others flew on United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral.

Hartman said the space station has plenty of supplies, and the delays of the next two U.S. cargo flights will have no impact to the research labs operations.

Our consumables are in very, very good shape on-board the International Space Station, Hartman said. So the slip there will have absolutely no impact to a crew of four, he said, referring to the four astronauts from NASA and the European Space Agency who are part of the outposts overall six-person crew.

NASA managers recently approved a plan to conduct three spacewalks in late October and early November, Hartman said.

Astronauts will replace a latching end effector on the space stations 58-foot-long Canadian-built robotic arm during the excursions. Engineers have noticed some fraying on wires inside the end of the arm, components used to grasp cargo ships as they arrive at the space station and transfer experiments and payloads around the outside of the complex, Hartman said.

The spacewalkers will also change out lights and cameras outside the space station.

Meanwhile, Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazanskiy planned to head outside the station Thursday to release five small satellites and work on experiments on the outside of the Russian segment of the complex.

Yurchikhin will be joined by NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer for return to Earth on Sept. 2. Three fresh crew members will launch on a new Soyuz spaceship Sept. 12 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A Russian Progress cargo and refueling freighter will launch Oct. 12 from Baikonur, followed by the next Orbital ATK and SpaceX resupply runs in November and December.

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Elliot Heywood (Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab)

Elliot Heywood had dreamed of landing an internship at the science lab in the hills not far from his school in Lafayette, California, but he never could have imagined this dream would take wing as a summerlong stint researching an ultrafast interplanetary propulsion system.

In May, after a friend and fellow high school senior at the Bentley School put him in touch with his father, a computer scientist at Berkeley Lab the U.S. Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Heywood received an unexpected email.

His friends father had reached out to Carl Pennypacker, an astrophysicist at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, and Pennypacker had invited Heywood to the Lab.

Another way to get to Mars

Carl emailed me, saying, I want you to work on this Mars project, said Heywood, who is 18. Pennypacker is also a science educator who founded the Hands-On Universe program in the 1990s that connects students with astronomical observatories around the world.

Heywoods school requires seniors to participate in an internship before graduating, so the timing was perfect. His introduction to Berkeley Lab was a TED Talk by Mina Bissell, a cell biologist at the Lab whose work has benefited cancer research; ever since, hed wanted to experience for himself what it was like to work there.

I remember just being mesmerized and thinking, Theres no other place like this in the Bay Area so many people doing so many amazing things, he said. To be invited here, this was really an honor for me. He added, I knew that coming here was going to be invaluable in terms of the connections I was going to make with people and the work I would be doing.

During the month of May, Heywood traveled to the Lab five days a week to work on calculations for this project. After graduating from high school he stayed aboard at the Lab for a summer internship, ending his work there in early August.

Heywood was tasked with exploring what it would take to send one crew member and supplies in a spacecraft weighing just over 1 ton in total, or about 2,300 pounds, to Mars using finely focused laser light.

The laser-based system would greatly reduce the time it would take to make this journey, which would reduce the astronauts exposure to space radiation and also reduce the required payload and overall size of the spacecraft. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but there is solid scientific ground for this type of propulsion system.

Phil Lubin of UC Santa Barbara a former student of Berkeley Lab physicist and Nobel laureate George Smoot, and a colleague of Pennypackers is part of a team that is studying how to develop a light-based propulsion system to send tiny, unpiloted spacecraft dubbed nanocraft to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, on beams of light. Alpha Centauri is about 4.4 light-years away.

Artists rendering of a solar sail. (Credit: Adrian Mann, UC Santa Barbara)

This work builds upon successes such as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys 2010 launch of a solar sail spacecraft, IKAROS, using sunlight for propulsion much like a sailboat uses wind. And the Planetary Society in May 2015 tested a CubeSat, or tiny satellite, dubbed LightSail, also propelled by a solar sail. Planning is underway for a successor LightSail mission.

Big challenges for big spacecraft

Light-based propulsion systems could conceivably cut the Earth-to-Mars travel time from 5-10 months down to weeks or days, though larger payloads would require much larger laser systems.

During his internship, Heywood attended a presentation by Jessica Lu, a UC Berkeley astronomer, and he also studied up on research by Lubin, who has been working on light-based propulsion systems for spaceflight and asteroid defense.

Heywood corresponded with Lubin, met with Nobel laureate Saul Perlmutter a Lab physicist who studies supernovae and dark energy and he also communicated with other Lab scientists during his internship. Just interacting with these scientists was a really gratifying and rewarding experience, Heywood said. I learned not to be afraid to ask questions, and to do independent research.

His work culminated in a 13-page paper that he hopes will be followed up with more research. The spacecraft envisioned in the paper would have a light sail measuring about 935 feet (285 meters) in diameter, and the spacecraft and sail would together weigh about 1,760 pounds.

The spacecraft could be launched with conventional propulsion into Earths orbit, where the sail would be deployed. Laser light would then be focused on the spacecraft with noise from Earths atmosphere corrected by an adaptive optics system via a ground-based telescope or telescopes.

Illustration of a light-driven solar sail (left), with Earth pictured at right. (Credit: Breakthrough Starshot)

Heywoods paper noted other challenges, including that the laser-propulsion source would require a huge power supply equivalent to the output of about 10-100 nuclear power plants, and that the light beam would need to be extremely focused over the length of the trip.

While it may sound like a wild idea, Heywood said that its still within the realm of possibility using current technology.

Maybe this is a seed that, decades from now, somebody will sow, he said. Maybe it sounds so naive and so optimistic but I think having maybe a little bit of naive optimism is so important to moving this off the drawing board and into space.

Looking back, and ahead

Heywood said he hopes to rejoin the Lab for future internships. Carl said Im welcome to come back pretty much every summer.

Later this month, Heywood will begin attending George Washington University, where he plans to study chemistry, with a possible minor in physics.

Im really interested in pharmaceuticals, and specifically drug design, he said. His parents both work in the medical field, and Heywood said he would like to help find ways to use synthetic organic chemistry to develop cancer-fighting drugs that are easier for the body to tolerate than current chemotherapy drugs.

The side effects (of these drugs) are often worse than what the cancer gives you, he said, adding that it would be great to find a way to improve quality of life for patients undergoing these treatments.

Heywoods advice for other students pursuing science internships: Dont stop contacting professors and researchers. Never stop. Always keep persevering, because eventually youre going to get lucky. He added, I never thought I would get an internship at Berkeley Lab, but it happened.

Also, when you do find an opportunity, always treat it with the professionalism that it deserves. These opportunities dont come along that often.

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A Falcon 9 sends the CRS-12 mission toward the International Space Station. This was the last new first-generation Dragon capsule. Photo Credit: Michael Deep / SpaceFlight Insider

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. On Aug. 14, 2017, SpaceX sent its last new first-generation Dragon capsule into space atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The CRS-12 mission carried more than 6,400 pounds (2,900 kilograms) of equipment and supplies to the International Space Station.

Liftoff took place at 12:31 p.m. EDT (16:31 GMT) from Launch Complex 39A. Some 2.5 minutes later, the Falcon 9s nine first-stage Merlin 1D engines cut off as planned. The first stage then separated from the second stage.

While the second stage continued on toward orbit, the first stage performed a series of maneuvers that put it on a course back to Florida.

Just over seven minutes after launch, the first stage heralded its return to the Cape Canaveral area with a triple-sonic boom. Its successful landing marked the sixth time the company has done so on land, the 14th overall.

Meanwhile, the second stage successfully placed the Dragon capsule in an initial orbit. Some 36 hours later, the vehicle would rendezvous with the space station.

The following photos were taken by the SpaceFlight Insider visual team.

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August 15, 2017 The vortex exhaust mode on low-power cylindrical Hall thruster. Credit: Wei Liqiu, Harbin Institute of Technology, China

Hall thrusters (HTs) are used in earth-orbiting satellites, and also show promise to propel robotic spacecraft long distances, such as from Earth to Mars. The propellant in a HT, usually xenon, is accelerated by an electric field which strips electrons from neutral xenon atoms, creating a plasma. Plasma ejected from the exhaust end of the thruster can deliver great speeds, typically around 70,000 mph.

Cylindrical shaped Hall thrusters (CHTs) lend themselves to miniaturization and have a smaller surface-to-volume ratio that prevents erosion of the thruster channel. Investigators at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China have developed a new inlet design for CHTs that significantly increases thrust. Simulations and experimental tests of the new design are reported this week in the journal Physics of Plasmas.

CHTs are designed for low-power operations. However, low propellant flow density can cause inadequate ionization, a key step in the creation of the plasma and the generation of thrust. In general, increasing the gas density in the discharge channel while lowering its axial velocity, i.e., the speed perpendicular to the thrust direction, will improve the thruster's performance.

"The most practical way to alter the neutral flow dynamics in the discharge channel is by changing the gas injection method or the geometric morphology of the discharge channel," said Liqiu Wei, one of the lead authors of the paper.

The investigators tested a simple design change. The propellant is injected into the cylindrical chamber of the thruster by a number of nozzles that usually point straight in, toward the center of the cylinder. When the angle of the inlet nozzles is changed slightly, the propellant is sent into a rapid circular motion, creating a vortex in the channel.

Wei and his coworkers simulated the motion of the plasma in the channel for both nozzle angles using modeling and analysis software (COMSOL) that uses a finite element approach to modeling molecular flow. The results showed that the gas density near the periphery of the channel is higher when the nozzles are tilted and the thruster is run in vortex mode. In this mode, gas density is significantly higher and more uniform, which also helps improve thruster performance.

The investigators verified their simulation's predictions experimentally, and the vortex inlet mode successfully produced higher thrust values, especially when a low discharge voltage was used. In particular, the specific impulse of the thruster increased by 1.1 to 53.5 percent when the discharge voltage was in the range of 100 to 200 Volts.

"The work we report here only verified the practicability of this gas inlet design. We still need to study the effect of nozzle angle, diameter, the ratio of depth to diameter and the length of the discharge channel," Wei said. He went on to predict that the vortex design will be tested in flight-type HTs soon and may eventually be used in spaceflight.

Explore further: Magnetic shielding of ion beam thruster walls

More information: "Effect of vortex inlet mode on low-power cylindrical Hall thruster," Physics of Plasmas (2017). DOI: 10.1063/1.4986007

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New thruster design increases efficiency for future spaceflight - Phys.Org