Really Rocket Science

Back in March of 2002, twin satellites launched called GRACE (short for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) were launched by NASA to make detailed measurements of Earth’s gravity field and to the Earth’s natural systems.

Today, MSNBC reports that new data from the satellites reveal that global warming is causing ice loss in Antartica: 

 Joining the growing list of places on this planet that are melting, Antarctica is losing about 36 cubic miles (150 cubic kilometers) of ice every year, scientists reported Thursday.

For comparison, Los Angeles consumes roughly 1 cubic mile of fresh water a year.

The south polar region holds 90 percent of Earth’s ice and 70 percent of the total fresh water on the planet, so any significant pace of melting there is important and could contribute to an already rising sea….

"This is the first study to indicate the total mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet is in significant decline," said Isabella Velicogna of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

More information on GRACE can be found here. 

For fans of the X Prize, the Red Bull (ne Reno) Air Races, and rocketry and aviation in general, the future is bright (with a 20 foot flame behind it) and approaching fast.

X Prize founder Peter Diamandis and race car capitalist Granger Whitelaw launched the Rocket Racing League last October, and the first Rocket Racing Team was announced last month.

The Rocket Racing League [will] organize competitions around the United States, with the finals taking place at the X Prize Cup in New Mexico.

"It’s bringing 21st-century racing into people’s personal living rooms. … It’s really the mix of NASCAR excitement and spaceflight," Diamandis told journalists Monday….

"For me, it’s sort of a remembrance of ‘Star Wars’ pod racing," Diamandis said….

"Courses are expected to be approximately two miles long, one mile wide, and about 5,000 feet high, running perpendicularly to spectators," the league said. "The rocket planes, called X-Racers, will take off from a runway both in a staggered fashion and side-by side and fly a course based on the design of a Grand Prix competition, with long straightaways, vertical ascents, and deep banks. Each pilot will follow his or her own virtual ‘tunnel’ or ‘track’ of space through which to fly, safely separated from their competitors by a few hundred feet."

The League also announced a contest allowing fans to name the first X-Racer Rocket Plane. Meanwhile, Sebadoh is accepting donations to pay for travel to the debut of the first X-Racer, this October in Las Cruces. Pony up, Rocco.

After two delays, the EchoStar X satellite was launched yesterday when "a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket lifted off from the Odyssey Launch Platform at 3:35pm PST:"

ll phases of the flight profile performed as expected. The mission ended with spacecraft separation from the Block DM upper stage, placing the EchoStar X communications satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. A ground station in Uralla, Australia acquired the spacecraft signal. All systems are operating nominally.

You can watch an archived webcast of the launch here. Space.com also has a report on the launch.

If you’ve spent much time on rivers in the Southwest, you know that tamarisk (also known as saltcedar) is a much-hated invasive species– and a threat to the region’s water supply.

Introduced from Eurasia in the early 1900s as an ornamental and erosion-control shrub, it has since spread through most of the Southwest’s riverways (and as far east as Minnesota), choking out native species and crowding out the good cottonwood-shaded beaches that river rafters favor. As well:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently identified saltcedar as one of the most harmful invasive species in the United States, because the plant’s long roots tap into underground aquifers. Its groundwater absorbing qualities may be adding to the severity of the drought in the western United States. Saltcedar also increases the salt concentration of the soil and degrades habitats for native species along river systems.

But even low-tech ecological conundrums can be aided by satellite technology. NASA reports:

Products based on NASA Earth observations and a new Internet-based decision tool are providing information to help land and water managers combat tamarisk (saltcedar)… This decision tool, called the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), is being used at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Institute of Invasive Species Science in Fort Collins, Colo. It is the result of combining USGS science and NASA Earth observations, software engineering and high-performance computing expertise….. The ISFS uses observations and science data products from NASA’s Terra, Aqua and Earth Observing-1 satellites and the USGS-operated Landsat satellites, together with field data from government and non-government contributors. The satellites observe and measure sunlight reflected by plants and their environments. The satellites lock in on unique aspects of the reflected light to determine saltcedar’s locations and habitats vulnerable to invasion. During the plant’s blooming season, ISFS-generated maps predicting locations match observations of it in the field. These predictive maps are an important new tool for land managers involved with saltcedar-related control and restoration efforts. "Satellite data coupled with computer modeling helps us understand where saltcedar is likely to be growing, even in remote locations that field researchers cannot easily reach," said John Schnase, principal investigator of the ISFS project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

The Sea Launch of the EchoStar satellite (reported below) was scrubbed again on Sunday. "The Sea Launch team is currently working an issue at the launch site," according to the Sea Launch website. We’ll update our readers when the launch has been rescheduled. Who said Rocket Science was easy?

The Tartan Online, Carnegie-Mellon’s student newspaper, chooses Gravity Probe B as its "Experiment of the Week":

Gravity Probe B, a well-endowed NASA/Stanford satellite, is at this moment orbiting the Earth. The satellite’s main feature is its four perfectly spherical, shiny balls. These balls serve as the world’s most perfect gyroscopes, used in an extraordinarily complex and expensive experiment to observe the effects of general relativity…. Einstein’s theory predicts that a rotating massive body should slowly “frame-drag” space and time around with it. Over time, this dragging effect should push the gyroscope’s axis of rotation about 40 milliarc-seconds out of alignment. That’s the width of a human hair as seen from 10 miles. The probe intends to measure this to an accuracy of one percent.

Stanford University, which is working with NASA on the mission, has a mission status webpage that is worth checking out. Also be sure to check out the vehicle tour and the image gallery, featuring schematics of the satellite and pictures of the launch. What other satellite mission websites have you found? Post a link in the comment, or post your own blog entry, and we may promote your link to the homepage.

Here’s an update on the EchoStar launch, which was scrubbed on Wednesday:

After halting the countdown for launch on February 8, Sea Launch is now preparing for the launch of the EchoStar X satellite on Sunday, February 12, at the opening of a 49-minute launch window, at 3:35pm PST (23:35 GMT).

You can check out the live webcam here.

File this one under "cool stuff." From the AP:

Adventurer Steve Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history Saturday after journeying around the globe — and then some — in about 80 hours, but had to land early because of mechanical problems. Ground control said Fossett, 61, broke the airplane distance record of 24,987 miles while his lightweight experimental plane was flying over Shannon, Ireland. He then was force to land at Bournemouth International Airport, in southern England, instead of at a military air strip in nearby Kent because of generator problems. The millionaire adventurer broke the record during 3 1/2 days of flying despite losing about 750 pounds of fuel during takeoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida because of a leak. Weak winds over the Atlantic and severe turbulence over India — which, at one point, forced Fossett to strap on a parachute — prompted fears Fossett would have to ditch his record-breaking attempt in Newfoundland.

Fosset flew the Global Flyer, modelled after the Rutan-designed Voyager. More details of the flight can be found on Mission Control homepage.

Sea Launch is lifting the 9,553 lb EchoStar X satellite into a high perigee geosynchronous transfer orbit today– and you can watch the launch live online.

3:35 pm PST marks the opening of the 49-minute launch window. Check out Sea Launch’s live webcam at any time.

Yesterday we wrote about SuitSat, the old Russian space suit stuffed with radio and electronics gear that was slated to be kicked out of the International Space Station. For a few days, SuitSat would serve as a satellite for amateur radio enthusiasts, before its batteries ran out and the pull of gravity brought it back into the mesophere, for prompt incineration as it fell back to earth.

The “launch” of SuitSat yesterday made big news; MSNBC has a video of astronauts giving the suit the boot here.

But is that suit still in fashion? Australian ABC reports that SuitSat has gone off air:

Plans to use an old Russian spacesuit launched from the International Space Station as a make-shift radio satellite have been short-lived.

American astronaut William MacArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev released the make-shift satellite, dubbed SuitSat, at the start of a six-hour spacewalk.

But before they were back inside, SuitSat’s mission was over.

NASA’s Mission Control Centre in Houston, Texas, says the transmitter ceased operating very quickly after its deployment.

An international team of ham radio enthusiasts who organised the educational project and built the hardware had expected SuitSat to last at least a few days.

The SuitSat website currently has a more optimistic– if guarded– report:

Current thinking is SuitSat is transmitting, but far weaker than expected. Several reliable reports of short snatches of the voice and SSTV signals have been reported. It is recommended that you continue to listen during passes over your area. Please report any positive contact only.

To find a map of SuitSat’s orbit, click here.