Tag: NASA mission

NASA’s first deep space ‘live’ video features Taters the tabby cat

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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An orange tabby named Taters is making headlines after NASA sent a 15-second video of him chasing a laser beam back to Earth from deep space. The space agency confirmed on Monday that the video was successfully beamed with the help of a flight laser transceiver from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“We just streamed the first ultra-HD video brought to you via laser from deep space. And it’s a video of Taters, a tabby cat,” the space station wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“This test will pave the way for high-data-rate communications in support of the next giant leap: sending humans to Mars,” the agency added.

We just streamed the first ultra-HD video brought to you via laser from deep space. And it’s a video of Taters, a tabby cat.

This test will pave the way for high-data-rate communications in support of the next giant leap: sending humans to Mars. https://t.co/tf2hWxaHWO pic.twitter.com/c1FwybYsxA

— NASA (@NASA) December 19, 2023

The video featuring Taters was loaded into Psyche’s laser communication experiment before the spacecraft embarked on its mission to a rare metal asteroid in October. The mission team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, chose to showcase the three-year-old cat which belonged to one of their employees.

The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, travelling at its maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second. Using a near-infrared laser, the signal was beamed to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California and then sent ‘live’ to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the video was played in real-time.

Despite the immense distance, the video was streamed to Earth on December 11, surpassing the speed of most broadband internet connections. This 15-second clip covered an astounding 18.6 million miles, marking the farthest distance recorded for such transmissions.

NASA officials revealed that this experiment aimed to test communication capabilities over extended distances, particularly as astronauts prepare for future missions to the moon and eventually Mars. The laser demonstration aims to transmit data at rates up to 100 times faster than the radio systems currently employed by spacecraft in distant locations from Earth.

“This accomplishment underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.

“Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions,” Melroy added.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Life on other planets: A look at space missions to explore alien life

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Meet Kelly Haston – The Canadian biologist who will ‘spend a year on Mars’

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Canadian biologist, Kelly Haston will be one of the four volunteers who will spend a year in a simulated Mars-like habitat in Houston, Texas, starting from the end of next month. NASA has carefully chosen, interviewed and tested participants for the CHAPEA, or Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, ground-based mission.

Set to begin in June at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the long-duration experiments will be conducted to evaluate a crew’s behaviour in an isolated environment before a real mission takes off.

Kelly Haston will be serving as the mission commander for NASA.

“I’m very excited about this, but I’m also realistic about what the challenge is,” Haston, a 52-year-old biologist, told AFP.

“We are just going to pretend that we’re there,” she added in the report summing up her participation.

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The participants of the experiment will face challenges like equipment failures and water limitations and a communication delay.

As per the information from NASA, the communications of the volunteers with the outside world will suffer from similar delays that exist between Earth and Mars.

Their messages will take up to 20 minutes to reach the outside world, depending on the planets’ positions and it would take about a total of 40 minutes for them to get a reply.

Joining Haston in the experiment will be Ross Brockwell, an American structural engineer who will perform the role of a flight engineer, American emergency physician Nathan Jones who will be the medical officer and Alyssa Shannon, an advanced practice nurse in California who will serve as the science officer.

The simulated habitat called the Mars Dune Alpha, is a 700 square-foot, 3D printed facility, which simulated the environment of the red planet. It will have facilities like bedrooms, a gym, and a vertical farm to grow food.

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The crew participating in the experiment will perform various tasks including wearing space suits to perform ‘spacewalks’ in an airlocked area filled with red sand.

Who is Kelly Haston?

Kelly Haston is a Canadian biologist who is a registered member of the Mohawk Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Canada.

The research scientist has experience with building models of human disease.

Haston spearheaded innovative stem cell-based projects.

She derived multiple cell types to help in working with infertility, liver disease, and neurodegeneration.

She is a permanent US citizen which made her eligible for the mission.

She has a Bachelor of Arts in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Arts in endocrinology from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

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At Stanford, Haston worked on combining animal and cell-based approaches to discover biological defects associated with infertility.

She also holds a doctorate in biomedical sciences from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Haston has postdoctoral work focused on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at both Harvard University and Stanford University.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA to launch resupply mission to International Space Station on November 6

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will be undertaking its next resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on November 6. The cargo resupply mission will take off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island and undertaken by multinational aerospace and defence company Northrop Grumman. Expedition 68, as the mission is called, will be operated by NASA flight engineers Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada.

The cargo shuttle will arrive at the ISS on November 8 carrying research equipment, crew supplies, and hardware. The payload will be carried by Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft that is going to be carried to space atop its Antares rocket. This mission will be the 18th resupply mission undertaken by Northrop Grumman. The Cygnus spacecraft has been named SS Sally Ride, after Sally Kristen Ride, an American astronaut and physicist who was the first woman astronaut and the third woman in space.

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Some of the hardware and research equipment aboard the resupply mission include a scientific mission to study 3D biological printing of human tissue in space, a study to understand catastrophic mudflows that can occur after wildfires, the first satellites from Uganda and Zimbabwe, a study over how microgravity influences ovary function, a study over whether space-grown plants can transmit their adapted changes through seeds to the next generation, and hardware for the installation of Roll-Out Solar Arrays.

Those interested in watching the launch can see the live broadcast on the agency’s website – www.nasa.gov/live – or on their YouTube and Twitter handles. The NASA app will also have live coverage of the event along with regular updates about the journey until the resupply mission docks with the ISS.

ALSO READ: 15 of NASA’s coolest inventions that make our lives easier

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA to launch pathfinder CAPSTONE on June 27: Here’s where you can watch it live

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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US space agency NASA will live stream the launch of its crucial mission to the moon – the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE). The CAPSTONE, a tiny CubeSat about the size of a microwave oven, will become the first spacecraft to fly a specific unique lunar orbit and serve as a pathfinder for other future missions to the moon with the crew.

After several delays, the CAPSTONE will be launched on Monday, June 27, from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.

Where to watch

The instantaneous launch opportunity opens at 6 am EDT (3.30 pm IST) on June 27. Through July 27, backup opportunities will be available to NASA to accommodate potential weather or technical delays to the launch. The live coverage of the launch event will begin at 5 am (2.30 pm IST) on June 27 on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app.

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What will the CAPSTONE do?

The CAPSTONE is designed and built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a Terran Orbital Corporation. It is owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA. The destination of the CubeSat is the near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). This is the first spacecraft to test the stability of the new orbit NRHO around the moon.

According to researchers, the pull of gravity from the earth and the moon interact in this spot in space to allow for a nearly-stable orbit. NASA plans to use this unique type of orbit for parking its lunar-orbiting space station Gateway, which will be a multipurpose outpost for long-term lunar missions as part of its Artemis program.

The NRHO orbit will also provide an unobstructed view of the earth and good coverage of the lunar South Pole. The Artemis III is scheduled to take two astronauts to the lunar South Pole in 2024-25 and construct a lunar base.

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Learn about CAPSTONE

NASA has invited the public to join the virtual NASA Social to learn more about the CAPSTONE mission.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA to launch test mission of asteroid-deflecting spacecraft

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A SpaceX rocket was set to blast off from California late Tuesday as NASA seeks to demonstrate a first-of-its-kind planetary defense system, designed to deflect an asteroid from a potential doomsday collision with Earth.

The DART mission will test NASA’s ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with kinetic force — crashing a robot spacecraft into it at high speed and nudging the space boulder just enough to keep our planet out of harm’s way.

DART’s target is a tiny fraction of the size of the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid that slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, killing most of the planet’s animal species. It is not on a path that will cause it to hit Earth in the foreseeable future.

But scientists say smaller asteroids are far more common and pose a far greater theoretical threat to Earth in the near term.

NASA has hired Elon Musk’s company SpaceX to launch DART aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:20 p.m. PT Tuesday (1:20 a.m. ET Wednesday) from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast, about 240 kilometres northwest of Los Angeles.

If liftoff is postponed NASA has an 84-day launch window in which to try again.

Once released into space, DART will journey 10 months to its destination, some 11 million kilometres from Earth.

Its target is an asteroid “moonlet” the size of a football stadium that orbits a much larger chunk of rock — about five times bigger — in a binary asteroid system named Didymos, the Greek word for twin.

The moonlet, called Dimorphos, is one of the smallest astronomical objects to receive a permanent name. But at 160 metres in diameter, its size is typical among the known asteroids — rubble-like remnants left over from formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Simpler than ‘Armageddon’
Scientists chose the Didymos system because its relative proximity to Earth and dual-asteroid configuration make it ideal to observe the results of the impact.

The key to avoiding a killer asteroid is to detect it well in advance and be ready with the means of changing its course, NASA planetary defence officer Lindley Johnson told a media briefing this month.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability,” he said.

The team behind DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, has determined that slamming a car-sized projectile into a Dimorphos-sized asteroid at 24,000 km/h should do the trick.

The DART spacecraft, a cube-shaped box with two rectangular solar arrays, is due to rendezvous with the Didymos-Dimorphos pair in late September 2022.

Cameras mounted on the impactor and on a briefcase-sized mini-spacecraft released from DART about 10 days beforehand will record the collision.

Observations from ground-based telescopes and radar will then measure how much the moonlet’s orbit around Didymos changes.

The DART team is expecting to shorten the orbital track by about 10 minutes but would consider at least 73 seconds a success.

The entire cost of the DART project will run about $330 million US, according to Lindley, well below that of many of NASA’s most ambitious science missions.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Astronaut’ Snoopy to fly to moon aboard NASA’s Artemis mission

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The iconic beagle from creator Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts, Snoopy will be flying aboard National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s  Artemis mission early next year.

“AstronautSnoopy is no stranger to space. The Peanuts character skimmed the lunar surface as the name of the Apollo 10 lunar module & even caught a ride on the space shuttle. Now Snoopy is going to the Moon as a zero-gravity indicator aboard Artemis,” NASA tweeted.

NASA’s first lunar mission in several decades will have Snoopy’s iconic form flying aboard the shuttle as a micro-gravity indicator.

#AstronautSnoopy is no stranger to space. The Peanuts character skimmed the lunar surface as the name of the Apollo 10 lunar module & even caught a ride on the space shuttle.

Now Snoopy is going to the Moon as a zero gravity indicator aboard #Artemis I: https://t.co/wUHfUgYWYm pic.twitter.com/t8DFQq6gHi

— NASA (@NASA) November 12, 2021

Aboard Artemis 1 Orion, the Snoopy plush dressed in NASA’s Orion Crew Survival System pressure suit will begin to float when the spacecraft leaves Earth’s gravitational field and enters the microgravity of space. Along with Snoopy, there will be a manikin and two “phantom” human torsos that will collect data for the flight to the moon for future manned missions.

“Zero gravity indicators are small items carried aboard spacecraft that provide a visual indicator when a spacecraft has reached the weightlessness of microgravity. Without astronauts aboard Orion, Snoopy will help share the journey with the world as he rides along in the cabin with a manikin and two other “passengers,” the space organisation stated.

This, however, is not the first time that Snoopy has been associated with NASA or spacecraft. Following the Apollo 1 test flight that resulted in a fire that killed all crew members, Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee, Snoopy became the official mascot of aerospace safety, testing and the rebuilding of the Apollo Program.

On the Apollo 10 mission, which was the fourth crewed space mission and second to orbit the moon, the call signs for the mission were Charlie Brown and Snoopy. The two were also the unofficial mascots of the mission, with astronaut Gene Cernan holding a Snoopy puppet during a news conference.

Snoopy is returning to the moon aboard @NASA_Orion spacecraft and @NASA_SLS rocket that will take future astronauts to deep space and usher in a new era of space exploration. pic.twitter.com/K4W68T1t50

— PEANUTS (@Snoopy) April 25, 2019

Craig Schulz, son of Snoopy’s creator and producer of The Peanuts Movie said, “I will never forget watching the Apollo 10 mission with my dad, who was so incredibly proud to have his characters participate in making space exploration history.”

He added, “I know he would be ecstatic to see Snoopy and NASA join together again to push the boundaries of human experience.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow