Category Archives: Space Exploration

RJ Pierce, Tech Times 28 October 2021, 02:10 am

NASA conducts missions with rovers and space probes millions--and even billions--of miles away from Earth. And somehow, despite the monumental distances, these probes and rovers can still send data back to scientists on Earth.

(Photo : Getty Images )

Have you ever wondered how NASA does it? In this article, you'll learn about the basics of how space exploration manages to keep itself tethered to Earth.

According to NASA themselves, they're using an international network of antennas which are part of what they call the Deep Space Network (DSN).

The antennas are strategically placed all over the world, and they're part of three major hubs under DSN which are located exactly 120 degrees apart. The locations are as follows: Goldstone, in the Mojave Desert in California; and undisclosed locations near Canberra, Australia, and Madrid, Spain.

(Photo : Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)Photograph of the Deep Space Network (DSN) Beam Waveguide antennas at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, Mojave Desert, California, 1990. Image courtesy National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

With the placement of the DSN hubs, NASA ensures that they can still track all their active space probes throughout the cosmos even as if the Earth rotates.

That iconic line from the film "ET: The Extraterrestrial" fits this situation perfectly, even if the modern Mars rovers don't exactly use a phone.

According to WIRED, the rovers use two different types of antennas: a high-gain microwave antenna for sending big chunks of data directly to Earth, and a low-gain one intended for sending data to other orbiters around our world or Mars.

Those probes will then relay the data they received from the Mars rovers back to scientists on the ground.

(Photo : Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)PASADENA, CA - FEBRUARY 18: In this handout image provided by NASA, members of NASA's Perseverance rover team react as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, February 18, 2021 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The rovers are able to send data by "anticipating" when the orbiters are right above them. Once the orbiter is in the optimal position, the Mars rover will transmit data to it at a speed of 250 Kbps.

Read also: NASA Perseverance Rover's New Mission-Critical Images as Latest Evidence of Water's Existence on Mars

Technically, NASA is able to transmit and receive data fast enough despite the distance between Earth and Mars--over 242 million miles. However, it's still not real-time data transfer.

In fact, even at light speed, a signal containing data will still take over 10 minutes to reach scientists on Earth for Mars, as per the original WIRED report.

NASA technically has built two of the farthest-located, man-made space probes ever: the Voyagers. As of late, Voyager 1 is located 141 astronomical units (AUs) from Earth, writes Space.com. That's a total of 13.2 billion miles away.

And yet, Voyager space probes (there are two of them) are still able to transmit data to scientists, even if the tech on them is technically outdated.

(Photo : Katherine Young/Getty Images)Illustration (by Pounds) shows one of the two Voyager spacecrafts as it examines the rings of Saturn during its 'Grand Tour' of the Solar System, late 1977. The two crafts were launched in late 1977 and reached Saturn in 1980 and 1980.

These space probes are using 23-watt radios connected to big satellites 14 feet in diameter, which are pointed directly at a corresponding antenna on our planet's surface. That antenna is a gargantuan 100 feet in diameter, according to HowStuffWorks.

Furthermore, the satellite can transmit data at 8 GHz, and in space, there's barely any interference. This might be an oversimplification, but it's basically how things work.

Space exploration technology still has a lot of advancements to go through. This includes better, faster communication systems that might allow scientists to communicate with space probes or rovers on different planets in real time.

But until then, this is the reality of current tech.

Related: NASA: Galileo Space Probe Captures Image of Moon's Colorful Shades

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Written by RJ Pierce

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How Do NASA Rovers And Probes Communicate With Earth From So Far Away? - Tech Times

On a farm in Chesapeake, Virginia, an 8-year-old Michael Bolt sat in his familys garage prying open his dads old laptop, determined to build something new.

That desire to learn and build new things established a mindset that hasnt left him. Instead, it led him to Auburn University and then on to SpaceX, Elon Musks space exploration corporation.

I remember being a kid and getting my dads old laptop, and I was convinced like any 8-year-old that I was going to take this thing apart and make a robot, Bolt said. I remember being amazed by how the things that are easy to use as a human are really little pieces of plastic with electricity running through them.

When it came time to choose which college he was going to attend, Bolt was accepted into all three of his top schools: Auburn, Vanderbilt University and the University of Alabama. Bolts father had attended Auburn for electrical engineering, so deciding on a college came down to his Auburn roots.

I think the choice was pretty clear, Bolt said.

Time on the Plains

Bolt arrived on the Plains and began his coursework in electrical engineering, which led him to become even more passionate about the field and the possibilities it presented.

I started going to the classes, and the more I learned about it, the more I became really interested in it, Bolt said. I was just really amazed that people could make new things and invent all of this cool stuff using electricity. I wanted to stick around and learn as much as I could.

During his sophomore year, Bolt entered into SpaceXs Hyperloop pod design competition. The competition required college students to design Hyperloop pods, a concept for high-speed mass transportation championed by Musk.

Bolt served as the sensor team captain and helped design and build a functioning scale model of the teams lateral stability control system to showcase at the national competition held at Texas A&M University. Bolts team went on to win awards for both Design Concept Innovation and Best Overall Subsystem Design.

It was pretty cool and got me very interested in that scene and following [SpaceX] around, Bolt said. I think it was around the same time that they landed their first rocket, too, which was pretty cool.

After finishing his undergraduate degree a year early, Bolt stayed at Auburn to earn his masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering. His goal was to learn as much as possible about both the software and hardware side of the industry.

Bolt researched with the Sensor, Transducers, Optics, RF and MEMS, or STORM, lab at Auburn building weather sensors, which he likened to the sensors in the movie Twister.

We were working on really tiny light-weight weather sensors that you could throw out of an airplane, drone or balloon, and then they would fall really slowly and transmit a bunch of data, Bolt said. I spent a couple of years doing all the software that went on the little sensors themselves, and we ended up getting to go out to New Mexico and drop a couple hundred of them from a big weather balloon, which was really cool.

Bolts work in the lab was forced to go remote due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, which is when he applied to SpaceX. He got a job offer in 2020 the same week that SpaceX sent two astronauts to the International Space Station, or ISS, marking the first time a private company had ever accomplished such a feat.

I remember packing boxes in my apartment and watching that on TV, and then we flew out to Los Angeles a week or two later.

Working for SpaceX

As an avionics test engineer, Bolt helps develop and write software for production test systems.

Anything from a computer to a radio to a fan, anything that is electronic and goes on the vehicle we are responsible for making test systems for them, because you have to be sure, Bolt said. My job is to build big test systems, hook those up to run all the software tests and try to make them as easy to use as possible.

Bolt takes pride in working to build rockets that are safe and built for space flight.

If something does fail, I look at the failure reports and throughout the data and decide if its OK, Bolt said. We have to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on whether we would trust a rocket that might have a human on it with this. Its really cool to know that the things I am working on are going directly onto rockets.

Bolt believes his time in graduate school at Auburn helped prepare him for this role by allowing him to broaden his engineering knowledge by working on various projects.

My job is interesting, in that I have to understand a lot of high-level programming languages to run these big test systems, but I also have to have a really deep technical understanding of the things we are testing, the designs we are doing and why they work, Bolt said. I dont think Id have that broad skill set without having the advisor I had and being able to work on all the different projects I got to work on.

My advisor, Dr. Mark Adams, was great about letting me work on a lot of different things. A lot of people go to graduate school and just kind of get shoehorned into one specific project that lasts a long time and end up having a really deep, but narrow understanding of their field, but I got to work on all sorts of stuff.

For Bolt, one of the coolest things about working for SpaceX is the company-wide mindset that anything can be built and anything is possible.

Its crazy to hear a lot of the ideas that are thrown around, even though SpaceX does a whole lot of things never done before, Bolt said. Its always funny to hear some crazy idea that somebody throws out and not really knowing if it might happen and end up being one of the things we do, so that is really cool.

The moon, Mars and moving forward

As a child, Bolt dreamed of being an astronaut, and now he looks forward to working every day to help put more people in space. For the Auburn engineer-turned-SpaceX employee, the possibility of being part of the mission to expand mankinds domain to include cities on the moon and Mars is exciting.

I love the thought of going to Mars and establishing a city, but right now I think weve got a much closer target of the moon, Bolt said. Anything I can do to make that happen is a good thing.

Most recently,SpaceXsentfour civilians into orbit for three days inSeptember,markingthe worlds first all-civilian orbital mission. Thetravelers returned safely, splashingdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The missions websitestated,This milestone represents a new era for human spaceflight and exploration.

Bolt looks forward to the future of space exploration and hopes he can help bring that future closer.

If in 30 years I can say I was a part of putting more people on the moon or launching that thing to Mars, it would be a really fun thing, Bolt said. I have all sorts of space memorabilia on my wall, so itd be cooler to know Id been directly a part of them instead of just having old newspapers from the 60s.

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Auburn graduate looks to stars, builds vessels to reach them at SpaceX - Office of Communications and Marketing

Artist and engineer Xin Liu put herself out there for her Living Distance project literally. The New York- and Beijing-based artist packed up her wisdom tooth and sent it into outer space in a custom machine built from robotics materials. The tooth launched from Van Horn, Texas, in May 2019 aboard an early iteration of Blue Origins New Shepard rocket. In zero gravity, the machine and the tooth floated around, freely, inside the rocket.

Wait, what?

Its all in the name of art. The tooth is part of the sculptural installation Synthetic Wilderness, on view at Culver Citys Honor Fraser Gallery through Dec. 18. The three-artist show, which includes L.A.-based Nancy Baker Cahill and New York-based LaJun McMillian, blends digital media with more traditional art forms. It toggles between augmented reality, performance, immersive drawings, and video and digital photography, among other areas. The exhibit occupies a hybrid space, both analog and digital, meant to reflect the new terrain, as exhibition curator Jesse Damiani puts it, that is the 2020s a tumultuous and uncertain period marked by trauma, pronounced bewilderment and rapid change.

Liu who is arts curator of the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative and an advisor to the Art + Technology Lab at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art used the launch of her tooth as a springboard for other works in Synthetic Wilderness. Theres also a two-channel video documenting the making of her tooth sculpture; a digital photograph of the sculptures disassembled parts, forming what looks like a scientific cross-section; and a more than 1,000-page, accordion-style book, made of rice paper, featuring Lius sequenced X chromosome from her DNA data.

Xin Lius A Book of Mine.

(Xin Liu / Honor Fraser Gallery)

The work explores geographic and phenomenological boundaries between the self and the other, between Earth and outer space and it asks what it means to have part of me leaving, so far away, and how to give birth to another being? as Liu explains in this edited conversation.

Why launch your tooth into space and whats the larger Living Distance project about?

Living Distance is both a personal fantasy and a serious space mission. A wisdom tooth is sent to outer space and back down to Earth again. Carried by the crystalline robotic sculpture, the tooth becomes a newborn entity in outer space.

The material and the texture of the tooth seem to be a perfect fit to me. It is essentially a bone (quite hard, like ceramic) but also visually so fragile. It is part of my body but also a separate piece itself.

Did you remove your tooth for the piece or you already had it? And how did you arrange for its journey into space?

I had it already at the time. I had an impacted tooth and had to have it pulled out.

I was and am still working with MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative. The initiative has various mission opportunities that students and researchers can apply for. I applied for this suborbital launch opportunity to test my spider-mimicking locomotion technique something I incorporate into performance in actual outer space. The opportunity I got was for technical innovation, not for my artistic vision. I had just graduated from MIT then, and there was no way a young artist like me would have had such support for an art project.

How is the piece a continuation of your previous performance work related to space exploration?

In 2017 I did a performance work, Orbit Weaver, in a zero-gravity flight in Florida with a company called zero-G. I was performing like a spider woman moving around and trying to connect with the surroundings using threads. In that performance, I feel that I was in a simulated outer space, and in this one, it was reversed: I created a simulated me, an avatar of myself, and performed in the real outer space.

How does the work, conceptually, explore the idea of boundaries, passage and ceremony?

In many ways, the distance created geographically or physically is a metaphor and is reflected in the emotional and spiritual experience. I think that the desire to leave and the destiny to return echoes with my personal journey. I was born in Xinjiang, China, and moved to Beijing when I was 18 and I moved to the U.S. in 2013. Hopefully it speaks to the shared history and experience of many people.

The action of sending a tooth to outer space is very much a ceremony and a performance for me. It is not a fiction, its an act that I am conducting as Im thinking about the questions mentioned above.

Xin Lius Living Distance Exploded, a digital photograph of the sculptures parts.

(Xin Liu / Make Room L.A.)

Can you tell us about other works in the show?

The photography of the sculpture is to show how its parts are designed, the details inside. It is a very elaborate electromechanical system. The book is the X chromosome of my DNA. I printed out the whole X chromosome sequence on Japanese rice paper. Then I handmade (folding, cutting, gluing) this accordion book of mine. These two works are very much connected as they both ask the question about what were made of and what we will become.

DNA is the source code of all creatures on Earth. But as we set sights on outer space, this organic body isnt the most suitable of forms anymore. Our body isnt made for the extreme environments out there. So, as we are longing for the departure, leaving Earth, arent we also abandoning ourselves, our body? Perhaps the humanity that finally leaves Earth isnt human anymore. How do we feel about that? Is there a point where we shall return?

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Why artist and engineer Xin Liu sent her wisdom tooth into outer space - Los Angeles Times

On July 20, not long after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos returned to earth after an 11-minute space flight aboard one of the rockets his Blue Origin space exploration company had manufactured, he faced the cameras, still wearing his blue spacesuit but now sporting a cowboy hat, to make a surprise announcement. He was inaugurating a Courage and Civility awardWe need unifiers and not vilifiers, he saidand the first winners were celebrity chef Jos Andrs and TV news analyst Van Jones, each of whom would get $100 million.

Andrs and Jones were understandably ecstatic, but among philanthropy analysts, the gifts reception was mixed. Sure, $200 million is a lot of money (though perhaps not to a centi-billionaire), but some commentators (myself included) noted that the post-flight charity announcement had a slapdash quality to it. It appeared to be a hastily contrived PR move to address the grumbling that the worlds richest man wasnt focusing his philanthropic attention on problems confronting the planet he currently inhabits. Still others interpreted Bezoss celebration of civility as pushback against mounting critiques of Amazons corporate practices.

General Photographic Agency

Then there was the unconditional nature of the donations. No bureaucracy. No committees. They just do what they want, Bezos said. On the one hand, this no-strings-attached approach to large scale giving is now widely applauded by nonprofit advocates. Yet its most prominent recent champion has been MacKenzie Scott, Bezoss ex-wife, who has given away some $8.6 billion over the last year, to widespread acclaim. Much of the coverage of Scotts torrent of giving has hinted that it compares favorably with her ex-husbands. MacKenzie Scotts generosity puts to shame Jeff Bezoss billions, the New York Daily News trumpeted last December. So Bezoss own no-strings gifts raised the question: Was this the sincerest form of flattery, or flex to an ex-turned-philanthropic rival?

In a sense, the same tangle of competitive impulses and high-minded ideals characterized the billionaire space race more broadly, which pitted Bezos against Virgin Atlantics Richard Branson and SpaceXs Elon Musk. Bezos, Branson, and Musk often described in grand, stratospheric terms what was ultimately an effort to catalyze the high-end space tourism business. Talking to reporters after he had become the first of the three billionaires to take a space trip himself, Branson celebrated Virgin Galactic as an instrument of egalitarianism. Imagine a world where people of all ages, all backgrounds, from anywhere, of any gender, of any ethnicity have equal access to space. And they will, in turn, I think, inspire us back here on Earth. Back in February, Musk had announced that his Inspiration4, which launched in September, would carry with it a humanitarian message of possibility.

Bettmann

Yet all this high rhetoric was drawn back down to earth by the unmistakable sense that the three moguls were driven as much by the compulsion to go first and farthest as by any humanitarian ideal. Competitive machismo can be powerful rocket fuel. Branson had moved up the launch of his SpaceShipTwo by several months, seemingly to beat Bezoss planned departure. And the run-up to the launch of Bransons ship brought with it a kind of aeronautical trash-talking on social media, with Blue Origin mocking Bransons airplane-size windows via Twitter and pointing out that, unlike Bezoss craft, Bransons would not actually fly to outer space, per one conventional marker. None of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name, the company sniffed.

So it turns out you can ask questions about the motives that drove Bezos into space similar to the ones you could ask about what fueled his philanthropy once he returned: How important is competition as a goad to good acts? And how should the fact that a philanthropic mission or gesture might have been spurred by competition with a rival shape our assessment of the deed itself?

"How important is competition as a goad to good acts?"

The history of large scale philanthropy provides some answers. Its full of selfless givers and donors who disdained attention and cared little for the recognition their gifts received. But that history is also marked by the spirit of competition, by donors whose need for distinction and honor fueled their generosity. Indeed, for millennia, elites have turned to philanthropy as a means of securing and affirming social status and distinguishing themselves from their peers. In ancient Greece that competition led to the funding of lavish public banquets, grand civic works, and spectacular gladiatorial contests. During the Middle Ages it led to the construction of cathedrals and religious houses.

In the United States, the Gilded Age was the first major high-water mark of philanthropic competition. This was the case for two interrelated reasons. First, those decades saw the creation of gigantic industrial and financial fortunes, which generated a wave of philanthropy that established or endowed a bumper crop of colleges, universities, museums, and hospitals.

Second, the public began to pay attention to these giftstracking them, scrutinizing them, praising them, and sometimes criticizing them. Some of the most notable philanthropists, such as Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, sought to resist this philanthropic publicity, preferring that his giving be conducted in a realm of privacy and discretion. But the publics demand for information about the nations leading benefactors was too powerful, and even Rockefeller ultimately succumbed, releasing data on his giving to inquiring reporters.

The major philanthropic rivalry of the first Gilded Age was between Rockefeller and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. The two were polar opposites in temperament and mien: Rockefeller tall, angular, and taciturn; Carnegie, short, cherubic, and garrulous. Plus, they didnt like each other much; in private Carnegie referred to Rockefeller as Wreckafellow, while Rockefeller considered Carnegie a publicity-mad blowhard, so their competition carried an extra edge. As the two emerged as the wealthiest individuals of the age, and as the leading philanthropists, newspapers began to offer running tallies of their gifts, like the baseball box scores featured in local papers, noting who had given more. Cartoonists depicted the two industrialists as racers in a millionaire marathon, with coins spilling from their pocketsand with a crowd presumably watching.

"And how should competition shape our assessment of the deed itself?"

The implication of such depictions was clear: Philanthropy had become a spectator sport. And this highlighted an important dimension of philanthropic competition. Yes, giving provided a way for the wealthy to burnish their egos and boost their status. But it also provided some framework for public accountability.

This has certainly been the case at the turn of the 21st century, during which our Second Gilded Age has generated its own colossal private fortunes and its own surge of large scale philanthropy. Even more than in the last century, megagiving is now a spectator sport, conducted before a scrutinizing public. And so the field is once again set for philanthropic competition.

Two developments have made the terrain especially fertile. The first is the more sophisticated means of tracking, analyzing, and ranking philanthropic gifts that journalists who focus on philanthropy have adopted. One of these is giving lists, those annual tallies of the largest donations and the most generous benefactors. A small handful of such lists appeared during the first Gilded Age, but they were rudimentary and irregularly tabulated. Giving lists became a fixture of the analytic landscape only in the past few decades. Their rise can be traced to an interview New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd conducted with CNN co-founder Ted Turner in August 1996. The media mogul admitted that when he had recently made several $100 million donations, what worried him most was not that the money would be spent ineffectively but that the gifts would take such a chunk out of his total net worth that he would plummet down the Forbes 400 roster of the nations wealthiest men and women. Extrapolating from his own experience, Turner suggested that similar concerns among the nations billionaires might be preventing them from giving big.

His remedy wasnt to repudiate status consciousness but to channel it in a more constructive direction by calling for the creation of an alternative ranking system, one that would spotlight the biggest givers. This list would harness the self-regard and competitive nature of the wealthy in service to the greater good. Turner even suggested that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, at the time the two richest men in the U.S., had let him know that if there were a list of who did the giving rather than the having, they might be inclined to give more.

Bobby Bank

Soon after the publication of the interview, Fortune took up Turners call and released what it declared the most rigorous and comprehensive philanthropy list yet created, ranking the top 25 gift-givers of 1996. Over the next several years, other publications developed giving lists of their own. The top donors often cooperate only grudgingly with the researchers who compile these lists, but many of them are deeply invested in their positions in the rankings. At the very least, these lists help legitimize and draw attention to philanthropic competition.

The second development encouraging philanthropic competition has been the spread of peer pressure to promote large scale giving among high-net-worth individuals. The most famous example of this is the Giving Pledge, the campaign begun in 2010, led by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, to convince the worlds billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity. (As of the beginning of 2021, the pledge has 216 signatories from 27 countries.) One of the most significant elements of the pledge is its evangelical aspect: Signatories are asked to make a public statement of their reasons for signing, and this is meant to encourage their wealthy peers to join them. As at least one of the signers acknowledged in his pledge letter, by fostering this sort of public spectacle, the pledge also sets the stage for competition. Directing the same competitive instincts that these driven people employed to achieve the pinnacle of financial and social success, noted real estate tycoon Sylvan Adams, the Giving Pledge is encouraging us to outdo one another in giving our wealth away. Brilliant!!!

Adam Berry

Of course, very few donors would ever publicly acknowledge the extent to which they are driven by the spirit of competition. But sometimes they cant help themselves. In a recently published book on Facebooks battle for domination, for instance, the authors include a telling scene in which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg complains to his advisers that the philanthropy he established with his wife Priscilla Chan, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and to which he pledged 99 percent of his Facebook wealth, hasnt received enough positive attention. Why dont people think of me the same way as Bill Gates? he huffs to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks COO.

The outburst wasnt one of Zuckerbergs finest moments, but when it comes to assessing his giving, should it matter? Should the public care whether a donor is driven by a desire for social status and recognition, alongside whatever purer humanitarian motives are compelling him or her?

The competitive philanthropic drive can certainly lead to showy, meretricious donations. But the history of philanthropy demonstrates that it can lead to worthy ones, as well. That history is a good reminder that the philanthropic endeavors of the rich and powerful has long been a tangle of the highest elements of human nature and the meanest, the principled and the petty, the stuff of the heavens and of more earthy materials.

This story appears in the November 2021 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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History of Competitive Philanthropy From Carnegie to Mackenzie Bezos, Bill Gates, & Warren Buffett - TownandCountrymag.com

While OGS-2 was developed specifically for the LCRD mission, OGS-1 is based at JPLs Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory, which prior to LCRD was used for previous laser communications demonstrations. To get OGS-1 ready for LCRD support, engineers had to upgrade the ground station, modifying the system to bring it up to a higher standard. One such upgrade involved replacing the mirrors to have better reflectivity and higher laser thresholds so that the telescope can receive and send laser signals to and from LCRD.

Prior to mission support, LCRD will spend about two years conducting tests and experiments. During this time, OGS-1 and OGS-2 will act as simulated users, sending data from one station to LCRD then down to the next. These tests will allow the aerospace community to learn from LCRD and further refine the technology for future implementation of laser communications systems.

After the experimental phase, LCRD will support in-space missions. Missions, like a terminal on the International Space Station, will send data to LCRD, which will then beam it to OGS-1 or OGS-2.

LCRD is a hosted payload on the Department of Defenses Space Test Program Satellite-6 (STPSat-6). While LCRD is a laser communications payload, the spacecraft will still have a radio frequency connection to the ground. The Payload to Ground Link Terminal (PGLT) located at the White Sands Complex near Las Cruces, New Mexico, will communicate tracking, telemetry, and command data to the spacecraft over radio waves.

NASA manages LCRDs ground elements OGS-1, OGS-2, and PGLT out of LCRDs mission operations center at White Sands.

The mission operations center is the central brains of the LCRD system, said Miriam Wennersten, LCRDs ground segment manager of NASA Goddard. It coordinates the configuration of the payload and all three ground stations at the same time, scheduling the various optical services and links.

Without ground infrastructure, extraordinary science and exploration data would not make it to researchers on Earth. LCRDs ground segment will be critical to the success of the mission, providing engineers with the opportunity to test and refine laser communications. In turn, LCRD will usher in a new era of laser communications, where missions will have unprecedented access to insights gleaned from satellites and probes in space.

More About the Mission

STPSat-6, part of the Space Test Program 3 (STP-3) mission, will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida no earlier than November 22, 2021. STP is managed by the United States Space Forces Space Systems Command.

LCRD is led by NASA Goddard and in partnership with JPL and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. LCRD is funded through NASAs Technology Demonstration Missions program, part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters. NASA Goddard manages OGS-2, while JPL manages OGS-1.

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Getting NASA Data to the Ground With Lasers - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Blue Origin Media.

Artist's conception of Orbital Reef.

A global group of companies and universities has announced plans to develop an "office park in space" to open by the end of the decade.

Arizona State University will play a leadership role in the enterprise, which includes Blue Origin, Sierra Space and Boeing along with Redwire Space and Genesis Engineering Solutions.

Orbital Reef is a commercial space station to be built in low Earth orbit for research, governmental, industrial and travel uses.

ASU will lead the advisory council of 14 universities that will provide public outreach and research guidance: Colorado School of Mines, International Space University, Oxford University, Purdue University, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, University of Central Florida, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Texas at El Paso and University of Texas Medical.

"The inspirational aspects of space exploration are huge for society, and we want everyone in the world who wants to participate to be able to participate," saidLindy Elkins-Tanton, vice president of ASU's Interplanetary Initiative.

The consortium plans to apply innovations from commercial space and the International Space Station to lower barriers for small businesses, modest research projects and nations without their own space programs.

"The growth in interest and the growth in the space economy and the growth in the private sector has been so profound that we're at this tipping point now where we can go into space as a society instead of just as a government agency," said Elkins-Tanton, who also leads theNASA Psyche mission to study a nickel-iron asteroid that might be the core of a failed planet.

Blue Origin will provide large modules and transportation via its reusable heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. Sierra Space will supply its inflatable Large Integrated Flexible Environment modules and transport crew and cargo via its Dream Chaser spaceplane, which can land on standard runways.Boeing will deliver a science module and its Starliner crew spacecraft, and will oversee station operations and maintenance engineering.

Redwire Space will provide research, development and manufacturing in space, including payload operations and deployable structures.

Genesis Engineering Solutions is developing a small, person-sized craft that will allow routine operations and tourist excursions without a spacesuit.

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ASU will help build an 'office park' space station | KJZZ - KJZZ

Elba Serrano, Regents Professor of biology at NMSU, has been appointed to serve on the Steering Committee for the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space 2023-2032 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

The committee is tasked to review the state of knowledge in the current and emerging areas of space-related biological and physical sciences research and to generateconsensus recommendations for a comprehensive vision and strategy for a decade of science at the frontiers of biological and physical sciences research in space.

Dr. Serrano is a visionary who has led many cutting-edge programs at NMSU, and she is an outstanding role model for our faculty and graduate students, said Enrico Pontelli, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. With decades of leadership in research and mentorship, her expertise will be an important asset to this committee.

The committees website describes the study report as helping NASA define and align biological and physical sciences research to uniquely advance scientific knowledge, meet human and robotic exploration mission needs and provide terrestrial benefit.

Elbas work with the committee will contribute toward a comprehensive vision and strategy for the next 10 years and will push the frontiers of space research, said Paulo Oemig, director of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium and NASAs Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research at NMSU. Elbas experience and tremendous capacity to work with a broad coalition of researchers, staff and administrators places her at the forefront for charting the course that will assist NASA with meeting the needs of human missions in space.

Oemig and Patricia Hynes, NMSU professor emerita and director of the Federal Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation in New Mexico, supported Serranos appointment.

Dr. Serrano is one of the finest colleagues I had the privilege of working with, Hynes said. She is an excellent mentor to the students in her research labs and a tireless member of the faculty, in and out of the classroom. Her appointment is another opportunity for people to meet a selfless collaborator with a voice for detail, integrity and accuracy. She always adds excellence to any program.

Serrano thanked Oemig and Hynes for supporting her NASA-relevant research, calling them inspirational leaders and tireless champions for faculty and students and excellence in research.My work on the steering committee will be informed by my experiences as a research scientist and educator at a Hispanic-serving, land-grant institution in a southwestern state where space exploration is a burgeoning economic driver, Serrano said.

Author: Minerva Baumann

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NMSU professor appointed to national committee to guide future space research - El Paso Herald Post - El Paso Herald-Post

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use. (Image: Nanoracks>With the rise in commercial space exploration comes a new intergalactic destination: a private space station called Starlab. Its being developed via a partnership between Voyager Space, Nanoracks, and Lockheed Martin, and they announced late last week that theyre planning on having Starlab operational by 2027. Starlab will be the first free-flying commercial space station.

The purpose behind Starlab is twofold. To start, it would serve as a low earth orbit (LEO) tourist destination, which is the next step in the development of a rapidly-expanding industry that seeks to commercialize space. This facet of Starlabs endgame depends on an inflatable 340-cubic meter habitat developed by Lockheed Martin. As Starlabs ideation has only just begun, its currently unclear what it will look like for space tourists to pay a visit to the station (or how much it will cost).

Starlabs second purpose is to eventually replace the International Space Station, given that the ISS is set to retire by 2030 due to its $4 billion annual operation cost The core of the outpost, called the George Washington Carver Science Park, will feature four operational departments: a biology lab, plant habitation lab, physical science and materials research lab, and an open workbench area, where up to four astronauts will be able to conduct research at a time. Though Starlab wont be nearly as roomy as the ISS, NASAs director of commercial spaceflight, Phil McAlister, says researchers will not need anything near as big and as capable as the ISS moving forward. Nanoracks website claims Starlab will incur significantly lower construction and operational costs than its predecessor, offering benefits to both taxpayers and commercial partners.

Other elements of Starlabs construction will include a metallic docking node, a 60kW power and propulsion element, and a robotic arm intended to service cargo and payloads. It will also have a payload capacity of 22 cubic meters, equivalent to that of the ISS.

Were excited to be part of such an innovative and capable teamone that allows each company to leverage their core strengths, said Lisa Callahan, Vice President and General Manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin in the press release. Lockheed Martins extensive experience in building complex spacecraft and systems, coupled with Nanoracks commercial business innovation and Voyagers financial expertise allows our team to create a customer-focused space station that will fuel our future vision. We have invested significantly in habitat technology which enables us to propose a cost-effective, mission-driven spacecraft design for Starlab.

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Meet Starlab, a Private Space Station That Could Fly by 2027 - ExtremeTech

Representational Image

According to experts at NASA, investing more in nuclear-powered spacecraft can help the US stay ahead of the competition with nations like China.

At a recent government hearing, experts from US space agency NASA and the aerospace industry deliberated where the country stood when stacked against other nations developing new nuclear propulsion technology. They suggested the US needs to move quickly if it wants to keep up, Space.com reported.

"Strategic competitors including China are aggressively investing in a wide range of space technologies, including nuclear power and propulsion," said Bhavya Lal, NASA's senior advisor for budget and finance, at the congressional committee hearing, called "Accelerating deep space travel with space nuclear propulsion".

"The United States needs to move at a fast pace to stay competitive and to remain a leader in the global space community," she added.

NASA has previously discussed how nuclear propulsion technology could allow the agency to send humans to Mars more quickly than traditional chemical rockets.

As per the experts at the hearing, time is of the essence if NASA wants to get to Mars soon.

"If the United States is serious about leading a human mission to Mars, we have no time to lose," US Rep Don Beyer (D-Va.), who chairs the committee, said.

Beyer added that over the past several years, Congress has continued to fund nuclear space technology development at NASA "with the goal of conducting a future in-space flight test".

While nuclear electric propulsion has many benefits, there are also risks involved with developing and using the technology.

"The risks associated with (nuclear propulsion) are a fundamental materials challenge that we think is quite likely solvable," Roger M. Myers, the co-chair of the Committee on Space Nuclear Propulsion Technologies, said during the hearing.

Myers added that the materials challenge includes developing or finding materials that can handle exposure to heat and other extreme elements associated with space, the report said.

This hearing took place following a report and claims alleging that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon in August. China has, however, denied these claims, the report said.

**

The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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NASA Needs to Invest in Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft to Stay Ahead in Future Space Exploration: Experts | The Weather Channel - Articles from The...

Last week an important milestone was achieved for the lunar landing system which the German space technology group OHB is preparing together with its partner Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI):

Representatives of the Israeli company Helios and representatives of OHB signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Helios hardware to fly on the first three LSAS (Lunar Surface Access Service) missions to the lunar surface.

Helios is an Israeli company founded in 2018, and backed by the Israeli Space Agency, Israeli Ministry of Energy and Israeli Innovation Authority. The companys vision is to enable sustainable human life on Earth and beyond. Among its core developments are reactors to produce oxygen on the lunar surface and reactors to produce iron and silicon on Earth with zero carbon emissions. project-helios.space

Looking forward to joint missions to the Moon (L to R) Dr Timo Stuffler Christiane Bergemann Sverine Jacquet (all OHB) and CEO Jonathan Geifman and CTO Dr Linoam Eliad from Helios

A key to dramatically reducing the cost of space explorationOxygen

Editors note: Important forms of space travel and exploration require burning rocket fuel with oxygen to escape gravity and fly payloads. However, there is no air and no oxygen in space. Therefor space rockets have to launch heavy oxygen canisters into space for space travel. The moon does not have air, nor free oxygen. However, the moon does have oxygen compounds in its rocks and soil. Helios has developed Israeli technology to produce oxygen from the moons rocks and soils.

Israeli Jonathan Geifman, CEO of Helios explains: Production of oxygen on the lunar surface is key to enable the expansion of humanity beyond Earth and to dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration. Oxygen is going to be the most sought after consumable in space as it makes up over 60% of the mass of any fully loaded space vehicle designated for lunar missions and beyond Helios lunar mission with OHB serves to mature its oxygen production technology under real lunar environment, and is a significant step to realize the upcoming cislunar industry.

Israeli Uri Oron (Brigadier General reserve duty) is Director General of the Israel Space Agency. He says: Returning and establishing a permanent base on the Moon requires international cooperation and the creation of partnerships between space agencies and privately-held companies. Helios, an Israeli startup supported by the Israel Space Agency, is an example of a company that will become a key player in the efforts to return to the moon. The Israeli Space Agency welcomes the cooperation between OHB SE, Helios and Israel Aerospace Industries. This cooperation demonstrates the strong, long-lasting relationship between Germany and Israel, and the contribution this partnership can yield to the space industry.

Helios technology for extracting oxygen from lunar soil and rocks

Utilizing resources on the moon

OHB will provide European and international customers from the scientific and business communities timely access to the Moon. In the development of the lunar economic market, we intend to fill a gap with LSAS as the first European lunar shuttle service, since according to current plans, an institutional European moon lander will be available in 2029 at the earliest, says Dr. Lutz Bertling, member of the OHB SE Management Board. When payloads for lunar missions are tendered in the near future, we want to be ready with our LSAS lunar landing service.

With this memorandum of understanding, Helios is taking an important step towards being able to test hardware for in-situ resource utilization on the Moon at an early stage, says Dr. Timo Stuffler, Head of Business Development at OHB.

Take me to the moon to be launched in 2025

OHB and partner IAI (Israeli Aerospace Industries) are making every effort to bring scientific and commercial payloads to the lunar surface with the LSAS lunar transfer as of 2025. In all, customers payloads may have a total mass of between 80 110 kilograms [175 lbs -240 lbs], depending on the mission type. We are pleased that more than 100 interested parties from science and industry have already contacted us, says Sverine Jacquet, who is the first point of contact for potential customers on OHB side.

Partnership with ambitious goals

OHB SE is managing and coordinating the LSAS project and the individual missions to the Moon. This is from the selection of the payloads, to their integration on the moon lander, all the way up to the launch and mission operations. OHB is also responsible for marketing the opportunities to fly to the Earth satellite. The Israeli partner IAI (Israeli Aerospace Industries), with which OHB has been working for more than three years, is contributing the experience gained from its own earlier moon mission.

[Based on OHB press release.]

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Revolutionary Space Tech from Israel to the Moon - Israel Today