Apollo11

If you are an Apollo 11 nerd like me, you will want to check out a new website created by Ben Feist, a Canadian “software developer and spaceflight data visualization researcher working with NASA.”[1] The site called, “The First Landing on the Moon, Apollo 11, Real-Time Mission Experience,” is a treasure chest of audio clips, photos, and live data of the Apollo 11 Mission. This was the mission which resulted in the successful moon landing and return to earth of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Michael Collins flew the command module in orbit around the moon while other two men made the historic landing, set up experiments on the moon, and brought back rock samples.

By now, most of us will have seen a reminder of the July 20, 1969 landing in some form of media, and CBC has done a great job of retelling the story on their news site. If you want to go deeper and relive the excitement, anxiety, mystery, and joy of humanity doing so much with so little and making it possible for two men to leave footprints on the moon, spend some time on Ben Feist's remarkable website. Only the biggest Apollo geeks (I may be in that category) will enjoy hearing the exact pitch, trim, and roll of the linked Command Module (CM) and Lunar Module (LM) as they came out of radio silence on the far side of the moon, but others will appreciate the radio signals between the astronauts and Ground Control in Houston as they established a secure voice link by switching from one antenna to another. The care and detail of each team is evident as everyone works to get everything just right for the separation of CM and LM and the eventual landing of the LM.

There are also humorous moments in which the NASA crew on the ground joke with each other and challenge each other to rise to the immense discipline and hard work required to make everything function just right. The attention of thousands of people made it possible to do what three men accomplished in orbit around and on the surface of the moon. One of the most striking elements of the audio tapes is the calmness with which every command is given and received. At one point, we hear Houston say that they want to make a correction to data they had previously given. “We made an error on those coordinates. We'd like you to load for latitude in a NOUN 89 plus 01 243, longitude over 2 plus 11 844, altitude minus 001 46 as shown in the Flight Plan. Over.” Collins replies in a calm voice “Okay, Thank-you.” There are many more examples of real-time problem solving that occurred at every stage of the process. One gets the impression that the entire operation was highly disciplined and polished to perfection.

There are amazing full-colour and black-and-white photos associated with the audio transcripts that allow one to have a sense of what the astronauts were seeing as they worked on the details of the landing. There is video of the Houston Control Room where we can see Flight Director Gene Kranz smoking a cigar as he awaits the undocking of CM and LM. The actual landing is shown in detail and we see Armstrong testing his ability to step onto the surface and making sure he can still get back onto the LM steps before he makes his momentous official first words from the surface.

As I write these words, I have the Mission Control audio running in the background. It is almost like experiencing the landing first-hand fifty years ago today. Thank you, Ben Feist, for once again inspiring my imagination. Thank you, NASA for inspiring all of humanity with this remarkable feat of engineering on July 20, 1969.

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[1]BenFeist.com blog site, 2019-07-20

Good-bye Opportunity

About three weeks ago I wrote about the Curiosity Rover that has been functioning on Mars for six and a half years. Today we say farewell to the Opportunity Rover (2004 – 2018) which was formally pronounced dead at a news conference yesterday. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, said, "I'm standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude to declare the Opportunity mission as complete, and with it, the Mars Exploration Rover mission as complete."[1]

What a run this little rover had. NASA has a webpage[2]dedicated to the travels and images of this rover from more than fourteen years of roving. It was last heard from on June 10, 2018 when a dust storm caused it to begin to lose the ability to harvest electricity from the sun. Yesterday’s announcement emphasised the technological triumph of this rover staying active far beyond the days of its original 90-Martian-day (90 sols) mission.[3]Of course NASA’s Curiosity Rover is still expected to continue sending back data for the foreseeable future and NASA has plans for a Red Planet: Mars 2020 mission that includes another rover.

So, this Valentine’s Day, we send our love to Oppy, the little Rover who gave us so much more than we asked. We look forward to the next series of explorations of the Martian landscape.

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[1]https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mars-opportunity-rover-dead-1.5018038

[2]https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/tm-opportunity-all.html

[3]https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mars-opportunity-rover-dead-1.5018038

TESS

If I were to go back to school to take more courses, I think I might take a few courses in orbital mathematics. The number of interesting orbits around masses in space has captured my imagination. Take for example the orbit of the latest NASA orbital space telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The following graphic shows the path as TESS orbits between the earth and moon, checking in with NASA at regular intervals in its 13.7-day revolutions.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/launch-tess-nasa-boost-search-exoplanets

TESS will be launched April 16, 2018 and will be NASA’s latest space-telescope. It will spend much of its time looking for planets outside of our solar system. Kepler, a similar space-telescope identified more than 5,000 potential exo-planets and TESS is expected to find even more and will focus on finding potentially habitable planets. Once enough potentially habitable planets have been found, scientists can begin to focus on the most promising planets for potential colonization. Of course, none of this will be easy since even the closest of these planets will be several hundred light years away. Someone needs to begin to work on that Warp-Drive to make it possible to quickly visit some of these distant planets.

Jovian Skies

Juno is a spacecraft that was launched by NASA on August 5, 2011. After a journey of approximately 3 billion kilometers, Juno was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016 where it has been orbiting and carrying out its mission ever since. Its primary mission will last until July of 2018 and the spacecraft will eventually be intentionally crushed and burned up in the atmosphere of Jupiter. With its on-board instruments and cameras, Juno has been mapping the structure of the planet surface as well as making observations of the Jovian atmosphere,[1] at some points passing as close as about 4,000 kilometers above the atmosphere.

Juno’s cameras have given us the best resolution ever seen of Jupiter’s polar clouds. It has long been known that the atmosphere of Jupiter is constantly churned by massive cyclones. One fascinating observation made by Juno is that the polar storms order themselves in geometric shapes. The south pole of Jupiter has a storm that is encircled by 5 other cyclones creating a pentagon-like structure, while Juno has shown that the north polar region has eight cyclones situated in an octagon-like structure, surrounding a central polar storm.[2]

Many who have analyzed the data from Juno have been surprised to find geometrically regular shapes, but such shapes are not without precedence. The Cassini spacecraft confirmed the presence of a hexagon-shaped storm on Saturn’s north pole, which was first observed by the Voyager Mission flyby in 1981. We are more familiar with curves on earth, but the extreme nature of storms on other worlds can result in structures containing 5, 6, and 8 points. This will be of great interest to fluid dynamic engineers, and I am quite certain that such findings on Jupiter and Saturn will lead to scientific experiments that investigate the mechanisms involved in these regular geometric structures and the implications for planetary landings and other equally interesting consequences of atmospheric fluid motion.

Beyond our scientific fascination with such storms, the raw power and distinctive structures of these other-wordly storms may also inspire the poets, writers, and theologians to see and dream about what has been created.

Some went off to sea in ships,
    plying the trade routes of the world.
They, too, observed the Lord’s power in action,
    his impressive works on the deepest seas.
He spoke, and the winds rose,
    stirring up the waves.
Their ships were tossed to the heavens
    and plunged again to the depths;
    the sailors cringed in terror.
They reeled and staggered like drunkards
    and were at their wits’ end.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress.
He calmed the storm to a whisper
    and stilled the waves.[3]

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[1] Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. "Juno (Spacecraft)," (accessed 2018-03-13), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)

[2] Nature volume555, pages216–219 (08 March 2018); doi:10.1038/nature25491

[3] Psalm 107:23-29 New Living Translation

International Space Station

(Click on this thumbnail picture for a larger image)

The International Space Station (ISS) flew over my home a few minutes ago. When you know where to look it is easy to pick out of a clear sky one or two hours before sunrise or one or two hours after sunset. The ISS circumnavigates our planet in approximately 90 minutes and appears from earth as a fast-moving light traveling from a westerly direction to an easterly direction. Today, at 5:39 am, it was very close to the centre of the sky, halfway between north and south. An app such as Sky Guide helps me keep track of ISS flyovers and the location of planets in the night sky. You can also go to the ISS Astroviewer to get an image of the present location of the ISS.

It is fascinating to think of the six astronauts racing overhead at 7.66 km/sec. Presently, the crew consists of three Russians (Roscosmos), two Americans (NASA), and one French (ESA); under the command of Robert Shane Kimbrough (NASA). This crew represents Expedition 50 and has been assigned to study several human biomedical research questions. NASA states that the purpose of this mission is to “investigate how lighting can change the overall health and well-being of crew members, how microgravity can affect the genetic properties of space-grown plants, and how microgravity impacts tissue regeneration in humans.”. The crew are the test-subjects in their research work. As the present mission nears completion, the crew have been in space for 120 to 150 days and a crew change is scheduled to occur in early May, 2017.

Saturn's Polar Vortex

Cassini has begun grazing the rings of Saturn. This represents the next phase in the journey of NASA’s preeminent spacecraft. Around November 30, 2016, Cassini began orbits that swing close to the outer rings and give a great view of the north pole of the gas giant. The resulting images are spectacular and are a testament to the concerted effort of many engineers, astrophysicists, technicians, and experiment designers. NASA has a new gallery of photos to spark imagination and create additional questions about what is happening on this planet. One of the most interesting phenomena is the hexagonal shaped polar vortex on the north pole. What forces create this uncommon geometric shape when the more common shape would be a circle?

Cassini will continue to send back pictures as it systematically surveys the atmosphere, rings, and moons of Saturn over the next 9 months. On September 15, 2017, Cassini will dive toward the surface of Saturn where, long before it reaches the planet’s crust, it will be crushed and vaporized by the forces of Saturn’s atmosphere. A fitting pyrotechnical finale for a noble spacecraft.

Cassini

Recently I wrote a sad lament for the Schiaparelli Lander, even as I praised those who had successfully inserted the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) into a near-perfect orbit around Mars. This orbiting communications relay and atmospheric laboratory will serve NASA scientists for the next several years and will eventually support a European Space Agency (ESA) rover on the planetary surface. TGO and the Schiaparelli lander had traveled to the Red Planet together but the lander’s fate was sealed when its landing rockets fired improperly.

On the other hand, NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft was launched in 1997 and arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2004 where both portions of the craft performed flawlessy. As planned, the Huygens lander made a successful touchdown on one of Saturn’s moons (Titan) and transmitted data throughout the landing and approximately 90 minutes of its initial time on the surface. This made Huygens the first Earth vehicle to land on the surface of any planet or moon beyond the asteroid belt of our solar system. Cassini went on to explore Titan and other moons before settling into an orbit around Saturn.

Since leaving Earth in 1997, Cassini has been an amazing spacecraft. Launched in a time when 1-mega-pixel cameras were state-of-the-art, that was the best high-resolution camera with which it could be equipped. Now, most cell-phones carry an 8 to 12 mega-pixel camera. Such are the changes that come with a 20-year mission. Cassini was the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, and it has been able to map Saturn’s magnetosphere, has found new Saturnine moons, and studied Saturn’s atmosphere and rings with greater precision than ever before. But, the space-vehicle is getting old. In terms of how much space debris, radiation, and other hazards it has seen, relatively speaking, it is older than the last incarnation of Spock. Automobiles that are 20 years old and older are often considered antique and show up in enthusiast’s collections; this 20-year-old vehicle is still out there serving well.

Numerous remote repairs, software updates, and “farmer-fixes” have had to be performed on this machine to keep it on track; and, by the marvels of contemporary engineering, the technicians at NASA have indeed kept it on its mission. Cassini has two main engines and is still using its primary engine, but those who work on this machine had to switch it over to the back-up attitude-control-thrusters when the first set began to fail several months ago.

There is still an end of the road for even a highly successful mission like Cassini-Huygens. At the end of this month, Cassini’s thrusters will maneuver it into a position that will allow for 22 orbits close to the rings, through gaps between rings, and finally between the Saturnine atmosphere and the inner-most ring. As a Grand Finale (a term actually being used for the final days of this spacecraft), Cassini will plunge into the atmosphere in September of 2017 where it will be vaporized by the heat of friction and crushed by the pressure of the atmosphere. It will indeed be a magnificent curtain-call for one of the most successful space missions of all time.

Links used in researching this article:

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/the-journey/timeline/#the-grand-finale

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/the-journey/timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens_(spacecraft)#Landing_site

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/2947/care-and-feeding-of-an-aging-spacecraft/

An interesting hexagonal polar vortex at the north pole of Saturn:

A Robotic Spacecraft Dies

This week was supposed to be a week of good news for the Schiaparelli lander. It was expected that by this time, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) would be relaying information from Schiaparelli to Earth and science experiments would be about to begin on the surface of Mars. The European Space Agency (ESA) did have success in inserting the TGO into orbit around Mars but Schiaparelli did not fare so well. Evidence points to a crash landing on Mars. ESA lost contact with the Schiaparelli craft shortly after its entry into the Martian atmosphere on October 19. ESA believes that two of three phases of the landing succeeded but that something went wrong with the third and final stage of the complex landing procedure.

Phase one of the landing was a controlled air-braking procedure in which a heat-shield allowed Schiaparelli to use the atmosphere to slow the craft and achieve a height of 10 km above the surface of the planet. Next, a 12-meter diameter parachute slowed the craft further, taking Schiaparelli to 1 km above Mars. The final phase of landing was to be a controlled burn of 9 hydrazine rockets which would fire for approximately 30 seconds and bring the craft to 2 meters above the surface, then shut-off and allow Schiaparelli to drop the last 2 meters to the surface with a relatively gentle impact.

What seems clear from the evidence gathered so far is that the hydrazine rockets fired early and did not fire long enough to allow Schiaparelli to slow to zero velocity at 2 meters above the surface. Instead, it is believed that the space-craft fell more than 2 km and landed with a velocity greater than 300 km/hr, crushing the delicate craft and perhaps causing it to explode upon impact. Images of the landing site, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (a NASA orbiter), show both the parachute and Schiaparelli on the surface with a larger than anticipated impact site for the spacecraft.

Meanwhile, the TGO is in its expected orbit around Mars and will go through a series of maneuvers in early 2017 to bring it into a low Mars orbit where it will begin its science missions. TGO will analyse the atmosphere of the planet looking for methane that may have been generated by life on the planet in some stage of its history. Methane could be an indicator of methane-producing bacteria that may have once thrived in water on the Martian surface thousands of years ago.

Despite the set-back of a crash landing, ESA will continue to work towards putting a rover on Mars in the year 2020. We look forward to much more Martian exploration in the years to come.

Last Man on the Moon

“If you begin to think you're something you're not, you're looking in the wrong mirror.” - Eugene Cernan

I have been watching the Mark Craig directed documentary, Last Man on the Moon (2014). It is great educational entertainment for an Apollo junkie like me. It describes the career path of Eugene (Gene) Cernan as he was transformed from a Navy aircraft carrier, jet pilot to an astronaut during the heyday of lunar exploration from the time of the Gemini missions and right up to the last Apollo mission. The title of the movie comes from the fact that Cernan is the last person to have stood on the surface of the moon which was on December 14, 1972, more than 42 years ago.

Cernan is fascinating. He is both ordinary and extraordinary. He is an ordinary citizen with a Texas Longhorn cattle ranch who enjoys watching a good Texas rodeo. He is an outspoken proponent of space exploration who believes that America has lost something important by not returning to the moon since he last set foot there.

“After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.”

He believes that humanity as a whole needs a greater degree of curiosity and pioneering ambition. He suggests that we need to ask questions about who we are and our place in the universe.

“Curiosity is the essence of human existence. 'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'... I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions. I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out.”

I may be a bit of a product of my own generation (I was 9 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon) but I tend to agree with Cernan. We do need more pioneering spirit; we do need more curiosity; we should be looking toward the next horizon. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things when the horizon is just one goal before reaching toward the next goal. Horizon after horizon after horizon will allow anyone to encircle the earth. Gene Cernan is also very practical and does not see himself as special. He says that, “People try to typecast astronauts as heroic and superhuman. We're only human beings.” May we and all of humanity be as ordinary as Gene Cernan.

Jupiter Through the Eyes of Juno

 

In August of 2011 a NASA rocket launch occurred. The rocket carried the Juno spacecraft on top of it and hurtled it out into space. Ever since then, Juno has been traveling toward Jupiter. In July of this year (July 4^th to be precise), Juno will arrive and settle into an orbit around the largest planet in our solar system where it will begin analyzing Jupiter and sending information back to NASA scientists on earth. It is expected that the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter for approximately 20 months and then be purposefully burned up in the upper atmosphere of the planet. NASA scientists expect the craft to render information about the amount of water in the atmosphere, measure cloud motions, map Jupiter's magnetic and gravity fields, and explore the northern and southern lights of the planet.

Once again, NASA is on the verge of amazing discoveries. We truly are in the golden days of planetary exploration. In 100 years people will look back on this time and see that it was very significant to our understanding of our place in the solar system. Humans have a healthy curiosity about our world and our universe. This is as it should be. When we look down at a blade of grass or look up into a starry sky, it is natural to wonder about how these things are made and the material out of which they are made. It is natural to ask questions about what is out there beyond what we can see with our naked eyes. Let’s celebrate this latest NASA achievement.

Timeline of the Juno Mission

• Launch - August 5, 2011
• Earth flyby gravity assist - October 2013
• Jupiter arrival - July 2016
• Spacecraft will orbit Jupiter for 20 months (37 orbits)
• End of mission (de-orbit into Jupiter) - February 2018

Europa and the Promise of Life

Just how thick is the ice on Europa? Europa is a water-ice encased moon orbiting around Jupiter and scientists are beginning to ask questions about how they might determine the thickness of this ice. We know that there is water below the ice because geysers that spew water into the tenuous atmosphere above have been detected. It is speculated that microbial or even higher eukaryotic life could exist in the water below and so there is great interest in cracking through the frigid crust to see what lies beneath.

NASA has a mission scheduled for the 2020s that would include a flyby and possibly seismic measurements.[1] Lately, it has been suggested that an empty propellant tank could be sent hurtling onto the ice while the flyby-craft could measure the ripples created by such an impact. Slower propagating waves would indicate thicker ice; faster waves would indicate thinner ice.

The international community must weigh in on the ethics of littering another moon surface with our cosmic space junk, even if the purposes could be considered noble. One must also consider that any propellant tank that originates from a DNA rich and biologically fertile world like earth, could inadvertently introduce life (or at least DNA) to a potentially fragile ecosystem. Might Earth-life compete with primitive life of another form and disrupt the natural progression on that pristine world? Might our cosmic litter disrupt the fragile ecology of other-worldly biology?

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[1] Science News, “Seismic experiment might reveal thickness of Europa’s ice,” 2015-05-25; https://www.sciencenews.org/article/seismic-experiment-might-reveal-thickness-europa’s-ice

Hubble Bubble

7,100 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, a star is blowing bubbles. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a picture of this giant gas discharge. When I consider the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars that He has set in their appropriate places, I must ask, "Why does God consider humans to be His crowning creation?" "How is it that we are the creatures that are made in His image?" "Why would He sacrifice so much for so tiny a portion of His creation?" "Why has He exalted earth and its tiny human population to such a height that we are considered just a little lower than the Godhead?"

A picture such as this generates a sense of awe and mystery. As people consider the immensity of the universe, they typically have one of two reactions: they are either drawn to admire and praise a Creator who could fashion such beauty, or they consider that the universe is so big and we are so small that humans could not possibly be important. Pause for a moment and ask yourself, “How do I feel when I see this Hubble bubble picture?” “How do I feel toward God?”

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Psalm 8 (NLT)

¹ O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
    Your glory is higher than the heavens.
² You have taught children and infants
    to tell of your strength,
silencing your enemies
    and all who oppose you.

³ When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
    the moon and the stars you set in place—
⁴ what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
    human beings that you should care for them?
⁵ Yet you made them only a little lower than God
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You gave them charge of everything you made,
    putting all things under their authority—
⁷ the flocks and the herds
    and all the wild animals,
⁸ the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
    and everything that swims the ocean currents.

⁹ O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

1. Image source: Science News; "Hubble telescope snaps stunning picture for its 26th birthday"; 2016-04-22;  https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/hubble-telescope-snaps-stunning-pic-its-26th-birthday?tgt=nr