Really Rocket Science

Nice work by the Kepler Mission scientists, announced last week:

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star.

The transit signatures of two distinct planets were seen in the data for the sun-like star designated Kepler-9. The planets were named Kepler-9b and 9c. The discovery incorporates seven months of observations of more than 156,000 stars as part of an ongoing search for Earth-sized planets outside our solar system. The findings will be published in Thursday's issue of the journal Science.

Kepler's ultra-precise camera measures tiny decreases in the stars' brightness that occur when a planet transits them. The size of the planet can be derived from these temporary dips.

The distance of the planet from the star can be calculated by measuring the time between successive dips as the planet orbits the star. Small variations in the regularity of these dips can be used to determine the masses of planets and detect other non-transiting planets in the system.

In June, mission scientists submitted findings for peer review that identified more than 700 planet candidates in the first 43 days of Kepler data. The data included five additional candidate systems that appear to exhibit more than one transiting planet. The Kepler team recently identified a sixth target exhibiting multiple transits and accumulated enough follow-up data to confirm this multi-planet system.

"Kepler's high quality data and round-the-clock coverage of transiting objects enable a whole host of unique measurements to be made of the parent stars and their planetary systems," said Doug Hudgins, the Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists refined the estimates of the masses of the planets using observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The observations show Kepler-9b is the larger of the two planets, and both have masses similar to but less than Saturn. Kepler-9b lies closest to the star with an orbit of about 19 days, while Kepler-9c has an orbit of about 38 days. By observing several transits by each planet over the seven months of data, the time between successive transits could be analyzed.

"This discovery is the first clear detection of significant changes in the intervals from one planetary transit to the next, what we call transit timing variations," said Matthew Holman, a Kepler mission scientist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "This is evidence of the gravitational interaction between the two planets as seen by the Kepler spacecraft."

In addition to the two confirmed giant planets, Kepler scientists also have identified what appears to be a third, much smaller transit signature in the observations of Kepler-9. That signature is consistent with the transits of a super-Earth-sized planet about 1.5 times the radius of Earth in a scorching, near-sun 1.6 day-orbit. Additional observations are required to determine whether this signal is indeed a planet or an astronomical phenomenon that mimics the appearance of a transit.

 More about the mission in this video...

According to Professor Fitts of Marquette University, astronauts need to stay fit while they travel to Mars. Tom Held's piece in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is worth reading...

Over five years, the MU professor and his team analyzed muscle biopsies taken from nine astronauts and cosmonauts before and after their six-month missions on the International Space Station. Their muscles atrophied and lost power significantly, despite regular workouts on a treadmill and resistance machine.

The lack of gravitational force to stress the muscles continues to be a problem.

“The muscle is being activated, but there is no load,” said Fitts, chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences at Marquette.

“The exercises are not adequate at the moment,” he said. “We showed that treadmill running was more effective than biking in protecting against muscle loss, but it’s still not good enough.”

Fitts has been studying the physical effects of prolonged space flight for nearly two decades, starting with analysis of muscle loss during the shorter space shuttle flights. The results of those studies guided the nutritional and exercise plans implemented by astronauts on longer missions, and the new findings will be vital if the U.S. pursues manned missions to Mars.

The paper published in the Journal of Physiology provides an in-depth analysis of 2,000 muscle fibers sampled from the calves of astronauts and cosmonauts who spent six months on the space station. Their missions were spread from 2000 to 2005.

Fitts found the muscles suffered a 35% loss of force and a 20% loss of size in the slow-twitch fibers. The loss of power – the key to movement – was roughly 45%.

“The biggest problem is the wasting of the muscle and the reduction of the motion, and as a result the power loss is much greater than the atrophy,” Fitts said.

“The danger would be in an emergency,” he said. “If there was an emergency on landing, they wouldn’t be able to egress out of the vehicle rapidly.”

Equally problematic is the loss of stamina. Astronauts attempting space walks or other operations after months in a low-gravity environment would fatigue quickly, limiting their capacity to work.

Composite Perseids view on the night of Aug. 11, 2010, combined from 39 single station events over Chickamauga, Ga. (NASA/MSFC/D. Moser, NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office) 

Thanks, Bill.

The Perseids have been observed for at least 2,000 years and are associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 years. Each year in August, the Earth passes through a cloud of the comet's debris. These bits of ice and dust -- most over 1,000 years old -- burn up in the Earth's atmosphere to create one of the best meteor showers of the year. The Perseids can be seen all over the sky, but the best viewing opportunities will be across the northern hemisphere. Those with sharp eyes will see that the meteors radiate from the direction of the constellation Perseus.

 

We were about to write about GCI's loss of Internet access for 35,000 users in Alaska, as their service on Galaxy-18 was about to be interfered with by G15, the world's favorite zombie satellite.

As many as 35,000 people in rural Alaska may lose Internet access, long-distance phone service or both for hours at a time this week because of a "zombie" satellite that has wandered off course and is expected to scramble the signals of the Bush's main telecommunications provider.

"Almost every single person out in rural Alaska uses one of those services somehow," said David Morris, spokesman for General Communication Inc.

GCI is airing radio ads, posting fliers and plans to send text messages to cell phone customers warning residents in roughly 100 communities -- mainly in Western and Northern Alaska -- of the potential outages.

The disruptions to GCI service are expected to begin Wednesday morning and continue until Saturday morning in blocks of time that will last 90 minutes to 5 1/2 hours, mostly in the morning and at night.

Picture the YouTube droughts. The silent cell phones and unanswered e-mails. Virtual "FarmVille" gardens withering and neglected on Facebook.

For Gordon Brower Jr., the 19-year-old son of a whaling captain, the outages mean exile from the online battlefields of what he calls Barrow's favorite Xbox game -- "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."

"It makes me a couch potato anyways," Brower said.

Instead, we hear news of a deadly plane crash near Dillingham, AK. On board the aircraft, owned by GCI, was former Senator Ted Stevens and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. Five of the nine people were killed, and KTUU is reporting that one of them was indeed Ted Stevens...

Dave Dittman, a former aide and longtime family friend of former Sen. Ted Stevens, says Stevens was killed in a plane crash near Dillingham Monday night. Dittman says he received a call overnight Monday that said the former senator was dead, but no official confirmation has been made.

Nine people were on board, including former NASA Chief Sean O'Keefe. Five people were killed in the crash, but other identities were not known, nor are the conditions of the survivors.

GCI released a statement Tuesday morning that confirmed it owned the plane that went down, but did not confirm or deny any fatalities.

Late through the night rescue crews were battling bad weather conditions to reach the scene, where Good Samaritans had already arrived and were providing medical assistance, said Air National Guard spokesperson Maj. Guy Hayes.

A military C-130 and a Pave Hawk helicopter were waiting in Dillingham for the weather to break and reached the site just after 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The Air Guard received the call about the crash 17 miles north of Dillingham at about 7 p.m. Monday night.

Many will remember Mr. Stevens for what he did for Alaska while he served in the U.S. Senate. I'll always remember him from the time I worked for the Smithsonian. Sen. Stevens, a harsh critic of the Enola Gay exhibit, lashed out at Smithsonian Secretary Adams in 1992: "I'm going to get people to help me make sense of what you're saying."

Stevens received the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying behind enemy lines, the Air Medal, and the Yuan Hai Medal awarded by the Chinese Nationalist government. Peace.
 

Beautiful video footage, courtesy of NASA, of Hayabusa's re-entry after a 7-year mission and 6 billion kilometers.

Officially...

　日本時間6月13日19時51分に「はやぶさ」は無事カプセルを分離し、日本時間6月13日22時51分頃には大気圏に突入しました。
　2003年5月9日にM-Vロケットで打ち上げられてから約7年間、イトカワに着陸し、サンプル採取作業を行い、再び地球に帰還するという難事業を、幾多の困難を乗り越え成し遂げることができました。
　これまで応援していただいた皆様に感謝いたします。

　引き続き、豪州において地球に帰還したカプセルの回収作業を進めてまいります

In other words, via JAXA...

Hayabusa separated the capsule at 7:51 p.m. and reentered the atmosphere at 10:51 p.m. on June 13th, 2010 (JST).
Hayabusa was launched on May 9th, 2003 by M-V rocket and operated for approximately seven years. During its operation, JAXA was able to achieve the difficult mission including Hayabusa's sample capture attempt after its touchdown on the asteroid named Itokawa, and Hayabusa’s return to the earth overcoming many hardships. JAXA would like to appreciate every support to JAXA leading this mission to a great success.

The Hayabusa capsule has just returned to Woomera, Australia. As the next step, JAXA will move forward to the capsule recovery.

So what did it look like on the ground? Somebody from Wakayama University Institute for Education on Space was pretty excited to capture it on video, on the ground in Australia...

Very cool technology being developed by Ad Astra Rocket Company: using plasma engines to reach Mars in 39 days. Hammer-down: space truckin at 110,000 MPH.

Excellent piece in SpaceflightNow.com on the VASIMR engine...

The company's main project is the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR, a highly-efficient space engine running on electricity and argon gas instead of conventional solid or liquid propellants.

Franklin Chang-Diaz, the project's chief architect, says the VASIMR engine is the most flight-ready high-power electric propulsion system anywhere in the world.

"It is transformational technology that we are developing," Chang-Diaz said. "It always has been my view that chemical approach to space transportation really was not going to get us very far."
 
Chemical rocket engines require spacecraft to carry all of its propellant during its mission. The VASIMR engine burns small amounts of argon gas, one of the most stable elements on the periodic table. But one of the most revolutionary features of the VASIMR design is its reliance on electricity, a renewable resource in space.

"It's very robust, but in order to get beyond the moon, and move on to Mars and beyond, we really need completely new transportation technology," Chang-Diaz said. "We view the VASIMR as the workhorse for that transportation infrastructure."

Electrically-powered plasma rockets could cut travel times for missions across the solar system. One concept championed by Chang-Diaz involves a 39-day mission to Mars, but it assumes leaps in nuclear energy production in space. 

Yeah, it works alright. Watch this engine test...

Here's a video clip about the company...

And a simulation of the trip to Mars...

Think the world of top-flight museums is a calm, respectable place to work? Like most workplaces, there's some behind-the-scenes posturing and socially-awkward behavior going on. Comes with the territory, especially where people tend to stay at their jobs longer.

As we climb out of The Great Recession, museums and other cultural institutions are fighting for more revenue and scarce development dollars and it's getting rough out there. Case-in-point: getting the old space shuttles from NASA after retirement. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Dayton, Ohio, has the Wilmington News Journal on its side...

 Throughout the shuttle program, the Air Force has played an essential role in its success. Besides infrastructure and operational support, the Air Force provided NASA with many highly skilled astronauts. The cooperation between NASA and the Department of Defense on the shuttle program dates back to 1969. The Air Force’s satellite launch requirements largely determined the shuttle’s design, and the Air Force saved the shuttle program in lean budget years during development. Recognizing that long partnership, the Secretary of the Air Force has requested a shuttle orbiter be added to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

The museum already receives more than one million visitors each year. The addition of a shuttle is a rare opportunity for the museum which would significantly increase that attendance and be a substantial boost to the economy of Dayton and the region. Museum officials are planning for what we hope will be a favorable decision by NASA. The Air Force Museum Foundation is supporting a major construction program that would expand the museum’s current one million square feet of exhibit space by another 200,000 square feet. That building would also house other impressive related exhibits.

Many who have visited the National Museum of the Air Force regard it as an unforgettable experience. There are aircraft from the early years of flight — such as the Wright 1909 Military Flyer and the Curtiss 1911 Model D — and aircraft used in the modern era. There also is an Air Force One display, including the Boeing VC-137C that served as Air Force One on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. The public can also enter presidential aircraft of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. These are only a few of the many aircraft and educational exhibits on display. The addition of a shuttle orbiter would enhance the significant investment that has already been made in the National Museum of the Air Force.

The reality of manned fight was born from the minds of Wilbur and Orville Wright, two Ohioans who worked in Dayton and developed and tested their aircraft at Huffman Prairie, near what today is Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the National Museum of the Air Force. Fast forward to today and the shuttle Atlantis is orbiting the Earth on a mission to support the international space station. It is the last scheduled flight of Atlantis. The orbiter is closing in on flying 120 million miles throughout its career. It is appropriate that Atlantis or Endeavour spend their retirement in Dayton for current and future generations of local residents and visitors to see at the place where aviation was born.

 Any others out there? You bet! Vik Saini put together a great list. Sorry, the Space Farms Museum & Zoo in Beemerville, NJ, is not on the list -- nothing to do with space; it's the dude's name.

The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, the world's most popular, always get the best space stuff. You can't beat the actual back-up lunar module...

Likely the last mission for Atlantis. Beautiful launch this afternoon; working it already...

After a successful launch Friday at 2:20 p.m. EDT, the STS-132 crew of space shuttle Atlantis began on-orbit operations. Saturday, the six astronauts will survey the shuttle's heat shield, checkout the spacesuits for the upcoming spacewalks and prepare for docking to the International Space Station on Sunday.

After reaching orbit the crew also was told that a preliminary debris assessment looks good. The assessment looks at debris that can shake loose and hit the shuttle’s heat shield during its ascent to space.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis is a "go" for launch on Friday, 14 May 2010 (STS-132). The mission will be the last for Atlantis and include two spacewalks...

Atlantis’ 12-day mission will deliver the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1 that will provide additional storage space and a new docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. MRM-1, also known as Rassvet, which means dawn in Russian, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the station’s Zarya module. MRM-1 will carry important hardware on its exterior including a radiator, airlock and a European robotic arm. Atlantis also will deliver additional station hardware stored inside a cargo carrier. Three spacewalks are planned to stage spare components outside the station, including six spare batteries, a Ku-band antenna and spare parts for the Canadian Dextre robotic arm.

One aspect of the mission not featured is the Micro-2 experiment, led by Asst. Professor Cynthia Collins of RPI. Get a sense of what this is about from Laboratory Equipment:

A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will send an army of microorganisms into space this week, to investigate new ways of preventing the formation and spread of biofilms, or clusters of bacteria, that could pose a threat to the health of astronauts.

The Micro-2 experiment, led by Cynthia Collins, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer, is scheduled to launch into orbit on May 14 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. The microorganisms will spend a week in space before returning to Earth aboard the shuttle. Within just a few hours after the shuttle’s return, Collins will be able to examine the bacteria and resulting biofilms to see how their growth and development were impacted by microgravity. The samples also will be returned to Rensselaer, to be examined using the core facilities of the Institute’s Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies.
“We know that gravity plays a key role in the development of biological systems, but we don’t know exactly how a lack of gravity affects the development of bacteria and biofilms,” Collins says. “This means while certain bacteria may be harmless on Earth, they could pose a health threat to astronauts on the International Space Station or, one day, long space flights. Our goal is to better understand how microgravity affects the relationship between humans and bacteria, so we can develop new ways of reduce the threat of biofilms to spacecraft and their crew.”

Partnering with Collins on the Micro-2 project are nanobiotechnology expert Jonathan Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer and director of the Univ.’s Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, and thin films expert Joel Plawsky, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. NASA is funding the experiment.

Biofilms are complex, three-dimensional microbial communities. Bacteria commonly found in nature are often in the form of biofilms. Most biofilms, including those found in the human body, are harmless. Some biofilms, however, have shown to be associated with disease. Additionally, biofilms in locations such as hospitals — or confined locations like space shuttles — have exhibited resistance to antibiotics. This could pose a problem for astronauts, who have been shown to have an increased susceptibility to infection while in microgravity.

Collins and her team will send up eight devices, called group activation packs (GAPs) and each containing 128 vials of bacteria, aboard the shuttle. While in orbit, astronauts will begin the experiment by manipulating the sealed vials and introducing the bacteria to different membranes. At the same time, Collins will perform the same actions with identical GAPs still on Earth at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After the shuttle returns, her team will compare the resulting biofilms to see how the behavior of bacteria and development of biofilms in microgravity differed from the control group. The experiment uses BioServe Space Technologies flight-certified hardware.

The Micro-2 research team will also test if newly developed, nanotechnology-based antimicrobial surfaces – developed by Dordick at Rensselaer – can help slow the growth of biofilms on Earth and in microgravity. If successful, these new antimicrobial surfaces could one day be used in hospitals and spacecraft to help reduce the impact of biofilms on human health.

Collins’ experiment is the third Rensselaer research project to be launched into space over the past year. In August 2009, an experimental heat transfer system designed by Plawsky and Rensselaer Professor Peter Wayner was installed in the International Space Station (ISS), where it will remain for three years. In November 2009, wear-resistant, low-friction nanomaterials created by Professor Linda Schadler were blasted into orbit aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, attached to the outer hull of the ISS, and exposed to rigors of space.

 Cool experiment, but it reminds me of the 1971 film "Andromeda Strain," which I found fascinating and fearsome.

Yeah, I know: that's the guy who played the Mad Hatter on the Batman TV show in the 1960s.

JAXA's AKATSUKI launches in a couple of weeks.

"AKATSUKI" means "dawn" when Venus shines most brightly as the first graying of dawn appears in the east sky just prior to sunrise. The AKATSUKI is scheduled to arrive at Venus, which beautifully shines as the "morning bright star" at dawn, in the winter of 2010. The name also reflects the purpose of the PLANET-C project to newly create planetary meteorology by exploring Venus. The word "AKATSUKI", which indicates the start of a day, implies not only a beautiful scenic image, but also the power of achieving a goal, thus the name carries the thoughts and determination toward the success of the mission.

I found the video interesting...