Category Archives: Space Station

STOCKHOLM, Dec. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 5, 2020 at 11:37 AM ET, new critical research projects fly on the 21st SpaceX Cargo Mission heading for the International Space Station (ISS). HemoCue is proud to announce its participation in this adventure and for being selected in the critical research and technology demonstration run by NASA Human Research Program. A small drop of blood can be an ocean of knowledge - perhaps even in outer space.

With close to 40 years of experience providing quality and trusted technology to customers worldwide, HemoCue is proud to support the NASA Human Research project and provide the crew members on board the International Space Station with this unique benefit of running a total white blood cell (WBC) count including a 5-part differential within minutes*. Verification of an autonomous capability for blood analysis on the space station is an important step toward meeting the health care needs of crew members on future explorative missions, including projects like e.g. NASA's Artemis program to the Moon.

The research project will test the ability of the HemoCue device to provide quick and accurate counts of total and differentiated white blood cells in microgravity. A successful demonstration means that the device could be considered for use on future exploration missions to indicate the presence of certain medical conditions, diagnose illnesses, monitor conditions such as bacterial/viral infections or radiation exposure, track the response to treatment, and assess the severity of an illness during interplanetary spaceflight.

"HemoCue has been at the forefront of point-of-care testing technology for close to 40 years and we intend to continue to innovate and advance the healthcare industry long into the future. I am excited to see how our dedication and innovation can touch people's lives in the years to come - and now soon also being used by astronauts on board the ISS. We are eager to see how the ease of use, lab-accuracy and well-known HemoCue quality will provide the astronauts on board the ISS with assistance in diagnosing and treating medical conditions even in this demanding environment", says Christophe Duret, CEO at HemoCue.

"HemoCue products have been tested in evaluation projects in demanding environments over the years. From 0 gravity tests preparing for space flights, extreme conditions in Antarctica, tough expeditions in Himalaya and travelling with drones in Malawi - our products and technologies have been exposed to the most challenging situations in the past and have now also shown that the ease of use and robustness makes them qualified even for space research missions", Christophe Duret concludes.

December 2, 2020Christophe Duret, CEOHemoCue AB

*HemoCue WBC DIFF System is not available in the US.

For additional information about HemoCue AB and our products and services, visit http://www.hemocue.com.

HemoCue Corporate Head OfficeHemoCue AB | Kuvettgatan 1 | SE-262 71 ngelholm, Sweden.Email: [emailprotected]| Phone: +46 77570 02 10 | Fax: +46431 48 12 25 | Web: http://www.hemocue.com

About HemoCue

HemoCue is a global leader in a field of diagnostics known as near-patient, or point-of-care, testing. In 1982, HemoCue AB, based in ngelholm, Sweden, introduced the first system making accurate hemoglobin testing possible in near-patient settings. Since then, more than 400,000 HemoCue systems have been sold worldwide. The company offers point-of-care tests for hemoglobin, glucose, urine albumin, HbA1c, total and differential white blood cell count. HemoCue subsidiaries, franchises, and third-party distributors supply HemoCue products in more than 130 countries worldwide. HemoCue has been part of the Danaher Corporation's diagnostic platform since April 2013. Additional company information is available at http://www.hemocue.com

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HemoCue Lab-Accuracy: Soon Counting White Blood Cells in Outer Space. Innovative Technology Onboard SpaceX Falcon 9 Mission CRS-21 - Bound for...

On Thursday, Russia's Energia Corporation, tasked with managing Russian modules aboard the International Space Station, proposed the creation of a new, national orbital space station, to be deployed sometime after the year 2024.

Russia's next orbital space station may be deployed at an orbit that will allow it to keep an eye on the entire surface of the Earth, and the Arctic region in particular. That's according to an Energia Rocket and Space Corporation document submitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Council seen by Sputnik.

According to the company, two orbital inclinations - 72 and 98 degrees, have been proposed for the new station, with the latter suggested for the first time ever.

A 72 degree inclination would allow the station to observe the Earth's surface at latitudes up to 80 degrees, giving a clear view of most of the planet's surface, including the outer ring of the Arctic Circle and the prospective Northern Sea Route transport artery. An orbital inclination of 98 degrees would enable for the entirety of the Earth to be monitored by the station.

Dr. Andrei Ionin, a member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, and senior expert on Russia's GPS equivalent, GLONASS, says an inclination of 98 degrees could assist in the monitoring of northern territories, although less expensive Russian satellites weighing 15 kg apiece are also capable of doing the same job.

"No one has ever set up space stations at such inclinations. Such orbits are necessary for observing the Earth. They are convenient because the Sun is consistently situated at a certain angle, this is called the sun-synchronous orbit, and the equipment for filming needs to be calibrated only once," Ionin explained.

Russia has contributed vast economic and military resources in recent years to shoring up its presence in the Arctic in an effort to turn its northern territories into a major driver for economic growth, both through the exploration of the region's vast untapped natural resources, and the creation of a new major transport route to ease trade between Europe and Asia.

New Russian Space StationEnergia Corporation has been lobbying for the creation of a new, autonomous Russian space station for years. On Thursday, at a meeting chaired by Russian Academy of Sciences President Alexander Sergeev, Vladimir Soloviev, Energia's deputy director-general, indicated that Russia needs to consider creating a new national space station because the International Space Station's systems are beginning to show their age. Soloviev later also clarified that Russia has no plans to give up on the ISS or end its existing partnerships with other space-faring nations.

The new proposed Russian space station is expected to have between three and seven modules, and to host crews of between two to four people. It is expected to be deployed at some point after 2024, although no exact time frames have been set thus far.

In October, Soloviev indicated that the new Russian station would be similar in design to the Mir, a Soviet space station design which operated between 1986 and 2001, and which in many ways served as a precursor to the ISS.

According to the senior Russian space industry official, the station could include a commercial module for accommodating four space tourists, with the module including two large portholes and Wi-Fi access. Additionally, engineers plan to make it possible to regularly dock the station to a free-flying lab module.

At present, it's planned to launch the station's modules using the new Angara-A5 heavy lift launch vehicle, which is capable of launching at least 24.5 tonnes of useful cargo into orbit. Earlier this year, Energia proposed using the Angara-A5 as an inexpensive means to send Russian cosmonauts to the Moon and back without the need to develop a new super-heavy lift rocket.

Source: RIA Novosti

Related LinksEnergia CorporationSpace Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

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Proposed New Russian Space Station Will Be Able to Monitor the Entire World - Space Daily

Thanksgiving 2020 was as much of a mess for most people as the majority of the year has been. Many were unable to visit family due to social distancing. Astronauts aboard the ISS were about as socially distanced from their families as you can get, but they still celebrated Thanksgiving. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins talked about what the astronauts did aboard the ISS as it orbited the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour.

She noted that her and the three other NASA astronauts were excited to celebrate the holiday in space with their international crewmembers. To the astronauts aboard the station are from Russia, and another is from Japan. American astronauts currently aboard the station include Rubins, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker. Rubins noted they would enjoy each others company and that the astronauts would speak to family members on the phone.

Glover noted that the astronauts plan to have cornbread dressing, with the caveat that their stuffing came and paste form. The astronauts also got to have turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Walker was most excited about the astronauts getting to stream a football game aboard the ISS.

The astronauts from other countries where Thanksgiving isnt typically celebrated also shared some special foods. Japanese astronaut Noguchi intended to share curry rice, red beans and rice, and seafood prepared by high school students from Japan. Theres no word if the Russian astronauts added anything to the Thanksgiving celebration.

The crew aboard the ISS currently numbers seven, and most will be on the space station for six months as the crew works on maintenance and research. Six months seems like a long time to eat most of your food as a paste. We cant help but wonder how good turkey paste would taste.

Continue reading here:
ISS astronauts celebrated Thanksgiving aboard the space station - SlashGear

SpaceNews photo illustration

China this week is conducting a robotic lunar sample return mission, something the United States has never done.

The grab-and-go sample return is proceeding while a Chinese lunar rover is wrapping up its second year of service on the moon on its far side,something also never done by the United States.

Another Chinese rover mission, Tianwen-1, is on its way to Mars and scheduled to land there in February around the same time NASAs Mars 2020 rover and the United Arab Emirates Hope orbiter are due to reach the red planet.

And China is scheduled to launch the first element of its space station early next year as well.

Beyond? They have described a mission to be launched in 2024 to reach 100 astronomical units (roughly 100 times the distance between the Earth and the sun) in 2049 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of founding of the Peoples Republic of China.

It is not a space race; they havent challenged the U.S. and we are largely ignoring these developments. They may have a human landing goal, but not until the 2030s. They are proceeding methodically with human spaceflight, focusing on a space station not on the critical path to the moon.

In the meantime, they are also undertaking robotic solar system goals. Why? Surely not for any militaristic or economic goals. It is equally doubtful that understanding lunar and Martian geology or the physics of the interstellar medium is a high strategic priority.

And, as we already know, there is no national security advantage to human spaceflight in Earth orbit, so their space station is not for that. National security comes from automated spacecraft with communications, remote sensing and other robotic capabilities. It seems to me that China is heading to the moon, Mars and beyond because they want to be a great country leading the world not just in one or two areas but in all areas of science and technology part of their long-term effort for economic growth.

The change of U.S. presidential administrations in January, U.S. and Chinese robotic Mars landings in February, and the dawning recognition that the U.S. Artemis lunar landing goal is unrealistic creates an opportunity for rethinking Americas human space goals perhaps redirecting them to serve American national goals instead of merely those of the space industry.

We have only done that twice in all of the space age once with Apollo to demonstrate American Cold War technological superiority, and then with bringing the Russians into the International Space Station to forestall them selling post-Soviet arms to rogue states. With the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden wanting to bring American foreign policy back from isolation and confrontation, the space program could play a role by engaging China on the creation of an international lunar station, boosting our space program and giving us a benign foreign policy initiative.

Engage China!? That is totally anathema to current American policy and broader attitudes. Probably the only thing the Biden and Trump administrations agree on is being tough on China. And the space community would rather have another space race for its own advantage.

But another space race is not likely, not with all the other competing domestic priorities and it would serve no U.S. strategic goal. The growing Chinese economy is seen as a threat, not as an opportunity. But so far, the U.S. reaction has been defensiveness to weakly hide behind walls and other barriers, and a lot of hand-wringing. If we want to act strong (but not dangerously), we might try co-option through cooperation. Invite them to play on our field of 350 million people, instead of allowing ourselves to play on their field of 1.4 billion.

Engaging China, given the current policy climate, would be difficult. It would involve dealing with hawks and hard-liners amid a backdrop of contentious issues: notably trade, security and human rights.

The best bet would be to start with something symbolic, as the U.S. and Russia did with the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975 and the Shuttle-Mir program in the mid-1990s.

Inviting a taikonaut to the International Space Station would be a harmless gesture that would raise public interest in the ISS. China also might value gaining some ISS experience prior to operating its own space station.

Each nations current lunar and Mars programs would continue on their current course, but could be gradually enhanced with international cooperation while serving the bigger context of human activity on the moon and Mars.

Those expecting commercial development and other private ventures on the moon will find Earths nearest neighbor large enough to accommodate lots of interests. Chinas presence is not uncertain they are doing that anyway. The scale and the reality of lunar development can only be enhanced by coordination and cooperation.

The political risks of lunar engagement are small but the potential payoff is large: cooperation on a great venture off this world, increasing mutual understanding on it.

Louis Friedman is the co-founder and executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society.

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Op-ed | China, the moon, Mars, and beyond an opportunity for human cooperation - SpaceNews

One of the biggest threats to the International Space Station (ISS) comes from micrometeoroid impacts. A small hole in the wrong place can throw the resident astronauts into a life threatening situation. Currently, there is no active program to monitor these types of impacts, though scientists think they must be common given the ubiquity of small objects in the ISSs orbit. An interdisciplinary team from MIT hopes to provide some data to support that theory by using an extremely unusual impact sensor made almost entirely out of fabric.

Exterior paneling on the ISS is already covered in a fabric material called Beta cloth, which gives the space station its distinctive white color. The teflon-laced fiberglass material is designed to protect the space station from small scale impacts. However, it does not actively monitor whether or where an impact has occurred, making it difficult for astronauts to determine if a piece of the fabric needs to be repaired or replaced.

Enter the material designed by the team at MIT. It uses thermally drawn acoustic fibers which are hypersensitive to mechanical vibrations. The fabric also converts those mechanical vibrations directly into electric energy using the piezoelectric effect. Hooking wires up to individual patches of material would provide a grid-like structure and allow engineers to count the number and size of impacts affecting the fabric.

Samples of these highly sensitive fabrics, as well as others that have electronics embedded directly in them, were sent to the ISS earlier in November. While the samples remain unpowered for now, a 10cm x 10cm swatch is currently attached to the exterior of the ISS. The team plans to expose the sample to the rigors of space for one year, after which it will be returned to Earth and analyzed for any changes.

In addition to analyzing the return sample, the team plans to launch powered versions of the fabrics in late 2021 or early 2022. Powered fabrics are not only useful to detect debris impacts though. The team also plans to brainstorm other use cases for the material. Numerous applications have already been developed on the ground, but space is a new frontier for this novel technology.

Ideas include everything from the detection of cosmic dust to haptic feedback and communication networks embedded in the fabrics of space suits. Since the idea of using these fabrics in space is still so new, the inventors at MIT are exploring many potential options to truly understand the potential of this ground-breaking technology. If they prove up to the challenge, the ISS, and many other permanently space-faring vehicles, might get a whole new high-tech set of clothes.

Learn More:MIT News 3 Questions: Using fabric to listen to space dustTevo News MIT Team send high-tech fabrics into spaceHackster.io Future Astronauts Could Gain a Sense of Touch Thanks to MIT Smart Fabrics Aboard the ISS

Lead Image Credit: JAXA / Space edited by MIT News

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Theres Fabric on the Space Station That Scientists Are Using to Listen for Space Dust Impacts - Universe Today

NASA commercial cargo provider SpaceX is targeting 11:39 a.m. EST Saturday, Dec. 5, for the launch of its 21st commercial resupply services (CRS-21) mission to the International Space Station from Launch Complex 39A at the agencys Kennedy Space Center in Florida. CRS-21 will deliver science investigations, supplies, and equipment for NASA and is the first mission under the companys second Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.

Live coverage will air on NASA Television and the agencys website, with prelaunch events Friday, Dec. 4, and Saturday, Dec. 5.

The upgraded Dragon spacecraft will be filled with supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur during Expeditions 64 and 65. In addition to bringing research to the station, the Dragons unpressurized trunk will transport the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock.

The first commercially funded space station airlock, the Bishop Airlock is an airtight segment used for the transfer of payloads between the inside and outside of the station. It provides payload hosting, robotics testing, and satellite deployment while also serving as an outside toolbox for astronauts conducting spacewalks.

About 12 minutes after launch, Dragon will separate from the Falcon 9 rockets second stageand begin a carefully choreographed series of thruster firings to reach the space station. Arrival at the space station is planned for Sunday, Dec. 6. Dragon will autonomously dock to the stations Harmony module with Expedition 64 Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover of NASA monitoring operations.

The Dragon spacecraft will spend about one month attached to the space station before it returns to Earth with research and return cargo, with splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

Saturday, Dec. 5

Sunday, Dec. 6

Members of the public can attend the launch virtually, receiving mission updates and opportunities normally reserved for on-site guests. NASAs virtual launch experience for CRS-21 includes curated launch resources, a behind-the-scenes look at the mission, notifications about NASA social interactions, and the opportunity for a virtual launch passport stamp following a successful launch.

To participate, members of the public can register for email updates or RSVP to the Facebook event for social media updatesto stay up-to-date on mission information, mission highlights, and interaction opportunities. To find out more, visit:

https://go.nasa.gov/3kaJKJz

Engage kids and students in science, technology, engineering, and math aboard the space station through NASAs STEM on Station.

Members of the public also can share in the journey through a variety of activities, including:

Virtual Launch Passport

Print, fold, and get ready to fill yourvirtual launch passport. Stamps will be emailed following launches to all registrants (who are registered via email through Eventbrite). Passports available now:

https://go.nasa.gov/364lPIt

Watch and Engage on Social Media

Stay connected with the mission on social media, and let people know youre following it on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtags #Dragon, #NASASocial, #BishopAirlock. Follow and tag these accounts:

Twitter: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASASocial, @Space_Station, @ISS_Research, ISS National Lab, @SpaceX

Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, ISS, ISS National Lab

Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @ISS, @ISSNationalLab, @SpaceX

Learn more about the SpaceX resupply mission at:

https://www.nasa.gov/spacex

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NASA TV Coverage Set for Next Space Station Resupply Mission with SpaceX - The Southern Maryland Chronicle

The idea of people going to live and work in space, outside of the extremely unique case of the International Space Station, has long been the strict domain of science fiction. Thats changing fast, however, with public space agencies, private companies and the scientific community all looking at ways of making it safe for people to live and work in space for longer periods and broadening accessibility of space to people who dont necessarily have the training and discipline of dedicated astronauts.

At TC Sessions: Space on December 16 & 17, well be talking to some of the people who want to make living and working in space a reality, and who are paving the way for the future of both commercial and scientific human space activity. Those efforts range from designing the systems people will need for staying safe and comfortable on long spaceflights, to ideating and developing the technologies needed for long-term stays on the surface of worlds that are far less hospitable to life than Earth, like the moon and Mars.

Were thrilled to have Janet Kavandi from Sierra Nevada Corporation, Melodie Yashar from SEArch+, Nujoud Mercy from NASA and Axioms Amir Blachman joining us at TC Sessions: Space on December 16 &17 to chat about the future of human space exploration and commercial activity.

Janet Kavandi is executive vice president of Space Systems at the Sierra Nevada Corporation. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1994 as a member of the fifteenth class of U.S. astronauts. She completed three space flights in which she supported space station payload integration, capsule communications and robotics. She went on to serve as director of flight crew operations at NASAs Johnson Space Center and then as director of NASAs Glenn Research Center, where she directed cutting-edge research on aerospace and aeronautical propulsion, power and communication technologies. She retired from NASA in 2019 after 25 years of service.

Melodie Yashar is a design architect, technologist and researcher. She is co-founder of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+), a group developing human-supporting concepts for space exploration. SEArch+ won top prize in both of NASAs design solicitations for a Mars habitat within the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. The success of the teams work in NASAs Centennial Challenge led to consultancy roles and collaborations with UTAS/Collins Aerospace, NASA Langley, ICON, NASA Marshall and others.

Nujoud Merancy is a systems engineer with extensive background in human spaceflight and spacecraft at NASA Johnson Space Center. She is currently the chief of the Exploration Mission Planning Office responsible for the team of engineers and analysts designing, developing and integrating NASAs human spaceflight portfolio beyond low earth orbit. These missions include planning for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Space Launch System, Exploration Ground Systems, Gateway and Human Landing System.

Amir Blachman is chief business officer at Axiom, a pioneering company in the realm of commercializing space and building the first generation of private commercial space stations. He spent most of his career investing in and leading early-stage companies. Before joining Axiom as the companys first employee, he managed a syndicate of 120 space investors in 11 countries. Through this syndicate, he funded lunar landers, communication networks, Earth-imaging satellites, antennae and exploration technologies.

In order to hear from these experts, youll need to pick up your ticket to TC Sessions: Space, which will also include video on demand for all sessions, which means you wont have to miss a minute of expert insight, tips and trend spotting from the top founders, investors, technologists, government officials and military minds across public, private and defense sectors. There are even discounts for groups, students and military/government officials.

Youll find panel discussions, interviews, fireside chats and interactive Q&As on a range of topics: mineral exploration, global mapping of the Earth from space, deep tech software, defense capabilities, 3D-printed rockets and the future of agriculture and food technology. Dont miss the breakout sessions dedicated to accessing grant money. Explorethe event agendanow and get a jump on organizing your schedule.

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Find out how were working toward living and working in space at TC Sessions: Space 2020 - TechCrunch

A Chinese space probe has left the surface of the moon to return to Earth, bringing with it the first samples of lunar rock to be collected in four decades.

China has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.

The Change-5 spacecraft, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, left the surface at 11.10pm Beijing time (1510 GMT), said the state broadcaster CCTV, as mission engineers watching control screens applauded at length.

A module carrying lunar rocks and soil was in orbit after activating a powerful thrust engine, the China National Space Administration said of the mission, which was launched from Chinas southern Hainan province.

Scientists hope the samples will help them learn about the moons origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface.

If the return journey is successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the moon, following the US and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s. This is the first such attempt since the Soviet Unions Luna 24 mission in 1976.

The spacecraft was due to collect 2kg (4.5lbs) of material in a previously unexplored area known as Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), a vast lava plain, according to the science journal Nature.

The samples will be returned to Earth in a capsule programmed to land in northern Chinas Inner Mongolia region, according to Nasa.

Under President Xi Jinping, plans for Chinas space dream, as he calls it, have been put into overdrive. Beijing is looking to finally catch up with the US and Russia after years of belatedly matching their space milestones.

China launched its first satellite in 1970. Human spaceflight took decades longer, with Yang Liwei becoming the first taikonaut in 2003.

A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the moon in January 2019 in a global first that boosted Beijings aspirations to become a space superpower.

The latest mission was among a slew of ambitious targets, which include creating a powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those Nasa and the private firm SpaceX can handle, a lunar base, and a permanently crewed space station.

Chinas taikonauts and scientists have also talked up crewed missions to Mars.

Read the original here:
Chinese probe heads back to Earth after leaving moon's surface - The Guardian

This article was originally published atThe Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Space.com'sExpert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Amanda Jane Hughes, Lecturer, Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering, University of Liverpool

Stefania Soldini, Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering, University of Liverpool

It sounds like science fiction: giant solar power stations floating in space that beam down enormous amounts of energy to Earth. And for a long time, the concept first developed by the Russian scientist,Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in the 1920s was mainly an inspiration for writers.

A century later, however, scientists are making huge strides in turning the concept into reality. The European Space Agency has realised the potential of these efforts and is now looking tofund such projects, predicting that the first industrial resource we will get from space is beamed power.

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, so theres a lot at stake. From rising global temperatures to shifting weather patterns, the impacts of climate change arealready being feltaround the globe. Overcoming this challenge will require radical changes to how we generate and consume energy.

Renewable energy technologies have developed drastically in recent years, withimproved efficiencyand lower cost. But one major barrier to their uptake is the fact that they dont provide a constant supply of energy. Wind and solar farms only produce energy when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining but we need electricity around the clock, every day. Ultimately, we need a way to store energy on a large scale before we can make the switch to renewable sources.

A possible way around this would be to generate solar energy in space. There are many advantages to this. A space-based solar power station could orbit to face the Sun 24 hours a day. The Earths atmosphere also absorbs and reflects some of the Suns light, so solar cells above the atmosphere will receive more sunlight and produce more energy.

But one of the key challenges to overcome is how to assemble, launch and deploy such large structures. A single solar power station may have to be as much as 10 kilometres squared in area equivalent to 1,400 football pitches. Using lightweight materials will also be critical, as the biggest expense will be the cost of launching the station into space on a rocket.

One proposed solution is to develop a swarm of thousands of smaller satellites that will come together and configure to form a single, large solar generator. In 2017, researchers at the California Institute of Technology outlined designs for amodular power station, consisting of thousands of ultralight solar cell tiles. They also demonstrated a prototype tile weighing just 280 grams per square metre, similar to the weight of card.

Recently, developments in manufacturing, such as 3D printing, are also being looked at for this application. At the University of Liverpool, we are exploring new manufacturing techniques forprinting ultralight solar cells on to solar sails. A solar sail is a foldable, lightweight and highly reflective membrane capable of harnessing the effect of the Suns radiation pressure topropel a spacecraft forward without fuel. We are exploring how to embed solar cells on solar sail structures to create large, fuel-free solar power stations.

These methods would enable us to construct the power stations in space. Indeed, it could one day be possible to manufacture and deploy units in space from the International Space Station or the futurelunar gateway stationthat will orbit the Moon. Such devices could in fact help provide power on the Moon.

The possibilities dont end there. While we are currently reliant on materials from Earth to build power stations, scientists are also considering using resources from space for manufacturing, such as materials found on the Moon.

Another major challenge will be getting the power transmitted back to Earth. The plan is to convert electricity from the solar cells into energy waves and use electromagnetic fields to transfer them down to an antenna on the Earths surface. The antenna would then convert the waves back into electricity. Researchers led by theJapan Aerospace Exploration Agencyhave already developed designs and demonstrated an orbiter system whichshould be able to do this.

There is still a lot of work to be done in this field, but the aim is that solar power stations in space will become a reality in the coming decades. Researchers in China havedesigned a system called Omega, which they aim to have operational by 2050. This system should be capable of supplying 2GW of power into Earths grid at peak performance, which is a huge amount. To produce that much power with solar panels on Earth, you would needmore than six million of them.

Smaller solar power satellites, like those designed to powerlunar rovers, could be operational even sooner.

Across the globe, the scientific community is committing time and effort to the development of solar power stations in space. Our hope is that they could one day be a vital tool in our fight against climate change.

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion onFacebook andTwitter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published onLive Science.

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Solar power stations in space could be the answer to our energy needs - Space.com

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience hurls sideways above the Earth as it approaches to the International Space Station earlier in 2020.

Space is closer than you might think -- about 62 miles up, only a little farther away from you than San Jose is from San Francisco. Heck, you can get halfway to space in a balloon.

The hardest part about space, it turns out, isn't so much getting there as staying there. That's where the idea of orbiting comes into play. Once you accomplish the hard work of getting a spacecraft into orbit, you can get years of use out of it as it loops more or less effortlessly around the planet on its own invisible track.

Orbits are "roadways in space," said Ajmal Yousuff, a Drexel University professor who studies aerospace vehicles. "You place a vehicle in space, and it stays there."

From the lab to your inbox. Get the latest science stories from CNET every week.

Scientists figured out how orbits work centuries before humans could launch spacecraft, but there's lots for the rest of us to learn about these looping tracks above the Earth -- and good reason to learn it. With new government and private sector projects, space stands to become even more important than it was during the 1960s at the start of the Space Age.

Among other efforts, several companies are filling the heavens with internet-beaming satellites, new SpaceX rockets have begun sending astronauts to the International Space Station, the US military has founded its new Space Force, and NASA is planning missions to the moon and Mars.

"It's the new Space Age -- and the new space race," said Ben Lamm, chief executive of software company Hypergiant. His company is working with the US Air Force on its Chameleon spacecraft, designed to be more adaptable, more independent and smarter than traditional spacecraft.

If you want to understand orbits, a great place to start is Isaac Newton, whose research paved the way to modern science with explanations of motion, light and gravity. Newton's Treatise of the System of the World from 1685 elegantly encapsulates how orbits work with a thought experiment that requires no calculus whatsoever.

The idea, sometimes called Newton's cannonball, goes like this. Imagine shooting a stone horizontally from a tall mountain, gradually increasing the speed at which it's shot.

"The greater the velocity is with which it is projected, the farther it goes before it falls to Earth," Newton said. With increasing horizontal velocity, "it would describe an arc of 1, 2, 5, 10, 100, 1,000 miles before it arrived at the Earth, till at last exceeding the limits of the Earth, it should pass quite by without touching it."

In other words, the stone would fall at exactly the same rate that the Earth's surface receded because of the Earth's curvature. In Newton's experiment, a stone shot with the right speed would circle the Earth and smack right back into the mountain.

In 1685, Isaac Newton published a thought experiment showing how a projectile, shot with gradually higher speed from atop a mountain, would eventually orbit the Earth. Atmospheric drag makes this impossible on the real Earth, a point Newton acknowledged.

In the real world, friction with the Earth's atmosphere would slow the projectile long before it could circle the Earth and return to the mountain. But a few miles up into space, where air is scarce, that projectile would keep on orbiting with almost nothing to stop it.

That brings us to the main difficulty of putting a satellite into orbit: getting enough horizontal velocity.

Whether you're watching enormous Saturn V rockets carrying humans to the moon or slender candlesticks launching smaller spacecraft, the rockets you see produce immense amounts of thrust. The vast majority of rocket fuel, though, propels the spacecraft laterally, not up. When you watch a rocket launch, the tilt toward the horizontal begins almost immediately after the craft leaves the launchpad.

How fast are those spacecraft going? The first artificial satellite, the Sputnik-1 that Russia launched in 1957, orbited at about 18,000 miles per hour over the surface of the Earth, or about 8 kilometers per second. The International Space Station whizzes by at a speed of 7.7 kmps, or about 17,000 mph.

In comparison, the supersonic Concorde passenger jet dawdled along only at about 1,500 mph.

It takes a lot more power for SpaceX to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS than it does for Blue Origin, the rocketry startup funded by Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, to pop its New Shepard rockets up and down without entering orbit.

The lower a spacecraft orbits, the faster it goes. That's why the Hubble Space Telescope, about 340 miles up (547km), circles the Earth every 95 minutes, but Global Positioning System satellites for navigation services, at 12,550 miles (20,200 km) up, take 12 hours for each orbit.

The Earth's rotation gives rockets a healthy eastward fling, and the closer to the equator a launch is, the bigger the fling.

That's in part why US launch sites are located toward the southern parts of the country and why European spacecraft sometimes are launched from the Guiana Space Center in South America, just 5 degrees of latitude away from the equator. NASA considered launching moon missions from an equatorial site -- though the fling factor was secondary to fuel considerations matching the moon's orbit.

When SpaceX launches a rocket, it reserves some fuel to return the first stage of the rocket to Earth after its job getting a spacecraft into orbit is done. For launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the rocket stage lands on a drone ship floating on the Atlantic hundreds of miles to the east.

Space starts about 62 miles (100km) above us, though the boundary is somewhat arbitrary. A bit higher than that, reaching up to about 1,243 miles (2,000 km) above the Earth's surface, is the most popular part of space, called low Earth orbit, or LEO.

This is where you'll find the International Space Station along with satellites for weather forecasting, spying, television, imaging and, increasingly, satellite-based broadband. Every human who's been in space, aside from a few who made it to the moon's vicinity during NASA's Apollo missions, have hugged the earth in LEO.

The SpaceX Starlink service, now in beta testing, is nearing 1,000 satellites in its constellation, on its way to more than 2,200. Amazon's Project Kuiper plans 3,200 satellites. OneWeb envisions a whopping 48,000 satellites, though its near-term plans ran into a bankruptcy problem this year. Companies based in Canada, Russia and China plan more.

It's easier than ever to get to LEO, and that's triggered "a golden age of LEO innovation," said HawkEye 360 Chief Executive John Serafini, whose company helps government and military customers track radio signals to spot subjects like smugglers or lost boats.

NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour orbits near the International Space Station in 2008. The ISS orbits somewhat higher than 200 miles above the Earth's surface, roughly the distance from New York to Boston.

"It would have been almost impossible for HawkEye 360 to build out a constellation of satellites 10 years ago," but SpaceX's reusable rockets and other improvements have lowered launch costs. "There are more opportunities to catch rides to orbit than ever before," he said.

Because LEO is relatively accessible, though, it's also where most of the Earth's space junk orbits. Friction with the upper fringes of the atmosphere drags a fraction of the detritus out of the way. Satellites must reckon with atmospheric friction, too, often nudging themselves to maintain proper orbit with gentle but conveniently solar-powered ion thrusters.

Medium Earth orbit, which reaches up to about 22,233 miles (35,780 km) above Earth, is a desert compared with LEO. But there are some notable denizens of this zone, in particular navigation satellite constellations.

The big sat-nav constellations, each with roughly 24 satellites, are the United States' GPS, Europe's Galileo, Russia's Glonass and China's BeiDou. GPS is handy for smartphone navigation, but military use is also a top justification for the expense of launching and maintaining these satellites.

Just above the upper boundary of MEO is geosynchronous orbit, a sweet spot where the orbital period matches the Earth's rotation. A satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the equator, called geostationary orbit, appears in the exact same spot in the sky as viewed from Earth.

That's particularly useful for communications because you can point a fixed ground station antenna directly at the satellite. However, radio transmission delays and signal strength are worse than with spacecraft in lower orbits.

Not all parking places in geosynchronous are created equal. Variations in the Earth's density nudge some satellites out of their spot, requiring occasional propulsion to keep them in line, Drexel's Yousuff said.

A2009 launch of NASA's Space Shuttle Discoveryshows the arcing path of a spacecraft headed to orbit. It's harder to get the lateral speed needed to stay in orbit than it is to get up to space, so rocket engines propel the spacecraft over the horizon.

Although many orbits are circular, some are elongated into more elliptical shapes that can slow a satellite's speed when it's farther away from the Earth.

Ellipses also are handy for changing orbits. NASA's Apollo missions began by launching the spacecraft into Earth's orbit, then a new rocket burn launched them into an elliptical orbit that stretched toward the moon, letting the astronauts coast most of the way. Another rocket burn inserted the spacecraft into lunar orbit.

One of Yousuff's favorite orbit types is elliptical. Most of Russia is well north of the equator, which limits geostationary satellites' usefulness. So the Russians came up with an alternative called the Molniya orbit.

With the Molniya orbit, a satellite whips over Australia at its closest point in orbit, called perigee, then naturally slows as it reaches its highest point above Moscow, called apogee. That way it spends much of its orbiting time usefully accessible.

The original Sirius satellite radio system used Molniya orbits, too, although after its acquisition of XM Satellite Radio to become Sirius XM Radio, it adopted XM's geostationary orbit approach.

There are plenty of other orbit types, too, like polar orbits that cross over both of the Earth's poles. And spacecraft that reach Earth's escape velocity can orbit the sun instead. The orbit of SpaceX's Starman just carried Elon Musk's publicity stunt close to Mars, for example. If today's commercial activity in low Earth orbit keeps lowering rocket launch costs, perhaps actual humans will follow him.

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