Space Friday

Orion Rising

High winds, a cruise ship downrange along the trajectory, and faulty fuel valves caused a one-day postponement of Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1), NASA’s planned launch of Orion, its brand-new, human-rated Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

Space agency officials held their breaths as it finally thundered into the predawn sky over Florida on December 5, finally releasing a heavy sigh of relief when it splashed down in the Pacific four and a half hours later. Designed to carry a crew farther than any spacecraft in history, Orion is NASA’s first step toward an eventual human return to deep-space, the region beyond low Earth orbit that astronauts haven’t visited since the last Apollo Moon mission in 1972.

Superficially similar to the 1960s-era Apollo capsule, Orion’s conical shape is necessitated by the aerodynamics of a high-speed atmospheric reentry following a trip to, say, the Moon or Mars. The Orion capsule is also larger than its three-man Apollo predecessor, with a crew capacity of up to six. The service module, to be built by the European Space Agency, is based on the design of the five automated transfer vehicles (ATVs) that were used to ferry supplies to the International Space Station between 2008 and 2012. It will provide propulsion and life-support, powered by solar panels in an “X-wing” configuration. Still under construction, the first Orion service module will make its inaugural flight in EFT-2, Orion’s second launch.

This first test-launch used a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, the largest and most powerful in world, making its eighth launch. Eventually, Orion will be lofted into space by the mammoth Space Launch System now being developed—a rocket almost as big as the long-retired Saturn V that sent the Apollo missions to the Moon. The first manned Orion mission is currently scheduled for 2021. -Bing Quock

SpaceX’s Next Step: Landing a Falcon

On December 16, SpaceX will launch its fifth commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station, something it has accomplished so successfully that it seems routine.

During the last few missions, the company has taken small steps toward its goal of first stage recovery, twice guiding the spent first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean by using retrorockets rather than parachutes. This enabled the falling booster stage to make a somewhat-gentle dunking. In both cases, seas were too rough to permit a timely recovery before the boosters became waterlogged, but they did provide proof of concept.

Now satisfied that the boosters can be guided back to Earth, a major step forward will be taken with the coming flight as controllers attempt to soft-land the Falcon first stage onto a specially-built barge. The size of a football field, the barge will provide a stable floating platform with (hopefully) enough “elbow room” in case guidance is less-than-pinpoint. Recovery and reuse of the first stage booster is a critical key of SpaceX’s cost-cutting operations, recycling rockets rather than building new ones for each launch.

NASA similarly reused Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters, but even NASA had to rely on parachutes dropping the boosters into the ocean. If SpaceX is successful, it eventually plans to fly used first stage rockets under their own power to recovery sites on dry land. But developing this unprecedented capability will take time and undoubtedly many attempts—no one has ever done it before, and SpaceX gives this first try a 50-50 chance for success. Stay tuned! -Bing Quock

Venus’ Green Glow

Here on Earth, above our north and south poles, we can occasionally see auroras dancing across the night sky—beautiful colored sheets of green, red, or even blue and violet light created when the Earth’s magnetic field captures charged particles ejected from the Sun and funnels them towards the poles. The color indicates different kinds of particles, with the brightest, green being excited oxygen.

Similar green glows have also been seen, very intermittently, on Venus. And not just at the poles, but at multiple latitudes. However, Venus does not generate its own magnetic field. So what are we observing?

These green glows show up after strong solar storms, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Observations from the Venus Express in 2012 suggest that strong solar winds directly striking the planet’s atmosphere may cause a slight magnetic “tail” behind the planet. Candace Gray of New Mexico State University and her team suggest that these storms interact with this tail.

The November 12 announcement that self-generated magnetic fields may not be necessary for planets to produce auroras was based on observations of Venus from December 2010-July 2012 at the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico.

“These are interesting results, suggesting that it is possible to have aurora on non-magnetic planets,” says Gray. She suggests this phenomenon may be unique to Venus, given its close proximity to the Sun. However, she follows, “It would be interesting to see if Mars, another non-magnetic planet with a CO₂ atmosphere that is further from the Sun, shows similar results.” -Elise Ricard

Speaking of colors…

67P is looking even stranger these days, our “rubber ducky” comet has a deep reddish hue!

As the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission first approached the comet, it was first perceived to be dark and a bit drier than expected, meaning that it was venting fewer water perticles than expected. As the mission closed the final few thousand kilometers of separation, a strange picture began to take shape. The comet body itself was described as “bi-lobate,” “irregular” and even as a “plastic rubber duck.”After the (ahem) challenging landing of the Philae lander on the surface of the comet, and the discovery of organics on 67P we haven’t heard much. That is, until earlier this week when a Reddit user “ford_beeblebox” posted “1^st colour images of comet 67P” and leaked an image due for publication later this month at the American Geophysical Union conference here in San Francisco.

The image shows 67P as a dusty, brick red color, which is reported to be based off separate color filter images taken by the OSIRIS camera onboard Rosetta. While the images are interesting and add even more mystery to 67P’s strange qualities, we are still waiting to see the OSIRIS team’s explanation and science behind this awesome photo, which should be announced at the meeting in two weeks. -Josh Roberts

Eight Billion Asteroids

At the edge of our solar system resides the enormous Oort Cloud, full of potentially trillions of icy bodies. Most of these are likely comets, but a recent study, using computer simulations, have determined that about roughly 4% of these formed close enough to the Sun to be ice free, and solid rocks, or asteroids.

The study’s authors put the number at eight billion asteroids, many of which may be spotted with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, currently under construction in Chile. If confirmed, these asteroids may shed some light into the formation of our solar system.

In addition, the authors say though the chance is slight (one in a billion!), “Oort cloud asteroids could be of particular concern as impact hazards as their high mass density, high impact velocity, and low visibility make them both hard to detect and hard to divert or destroy.” -Molly Michelson

Image: NASA