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Space News Update — September 1, 2015 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1: Distant ice ball to become farthest object ever visited

Story 2: NASA Tests Orion’s Fate During Parachute Failure Scenario

Story 3: How to get rid of a satellite after its retirement

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. Distant ice ball to become farthest object ever visited

A frozen fragment left over from the formation of the solar system is set to become the most distant object ever explored by a human-built space probe, scientists working on the New Horizons mission said Friday.

The selection is pending final approval by NASA managers, which must consider a proposal submitted by New Horizons mission scientists against other priorities competing for limited federal funding.

The New Horizons spacecraft has plenty of fuel left after its July 14 flyby of Pluto. Data playback from the Pluto encounter is set to continue into late 2016, then the spacecraft could be repurposed to go to another tiny world silently circling the sun in the Kuiper Belt, a halo of small proto-planets beyond Neptune.

Managers announced Friday that a newly-discovered object 28 miles (45 kilometers) across — nearly the size of Rhode Island — is the target New Horizons will steer toward later this year. It is less than 1 percent the size of Pluto, but 10 times larger than most comets, such as Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko being studied by Europe’s Rosetta mission.

The object is named 2014 MU69, and it circles about 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion kilometers) from the sun in a slightly oval-shaped orbit. That is about a billion miles farther out than Pluto.

“Even as the New Horizon’s spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and chief of NASA’s science division. “While discussions whether to approve this extended mission will take place in the larger context of the

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planetary science portfolio, we expect it to be much less expensive than the prime mission while still providing new and exciting science.”

Scientists needed to select new target for New Horizons this month to plan for a series of rocket burns in October and November to guide the spacecraft toward its next destination. The maneuvers will set up for a close-up flyby of 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019.

The diminutive world was one of two finalists to become New Horizons’ next aim point. Another, slightly larger Kuiper Belt Object required the spacecraft to burn more of its propellant to reach.

The winning world was dubbed “Potential Target 1″ before last week’s decision.

Engineers project New Horizons will need less than half of its remaining fuel to fly to 2014 MU69, leaving a significant propellant reserve to correct potential navigation errors on the way to the uncharted object. It also keeps open a possibility for New Horizons to continue on a second extended mission after the flyby, potentially making astronomical observations and probing the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space.

Experts are not sure of the tiny world’s shape, but it is not expected to be rounded into a sphere like larger solar system bodies.

New Horizons was designed to continue on to a second flyby after its encounter with Pluto, but NASA preferred to split the mission into two phases. The next part of the mission after the Pluto data downlink requires a peer review by senior scientists before the space agency gives the go-ahead to keep funding the mission’s operations for the final stages of the trip to 2014 MU69..

“2014 MU69 is a great choice because it is just the kind of ancient KBO, formed where it orbits now, that the decadal survey desired us to fly by,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Moreover, this KBO costs less fuel to reach [than other candidate targets], leaving more fuel for the flyby, for ancillary science, and greater fuel reserves to protect against the unforeseen.”

Stern said New Horizons can also turn to point its instruments toward other Kuiper Belt Objects on the way to 2014 MU69. While the images will not reveal the same detail expected from the Jan. 1, 2019, flyby, the observations will be better than possible with the Hubble Space Telescope, he said.

Hubble discovered 2014 MU69 in 2014 after a last-ditch survey using ground observatories turned up no viable candidates for New Horizons’ follow-up destination after Pluto.

“There’s so much that we can learn from close-up spacecraft observations that we’ll never learn from Earth, as the Pluto flyby demonstrated so spectacularly,” said John Spencer, New Horizons science team member from the Southwest Research Institute. “The detailed images and other data that New Horizons could obtain from a KBO flyby will revolutionize our understanding of the Kuiper Belt and KBOs.”

Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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2. NASA Tests Orion’s Fate During Parachute Failure Scenario

What would happen to the astronaut crews aboard NASA’s Orion deep space capsule in the event of parachute failures in the final moments before splashdown upon returning from weeks to years long forays to the Moon,Asteroids or Mars?

NASA teams are evaluating Orion’s fate under multiple scenarios in case certain of the ships various parachute systems suffer partial deployment failures after the blistering high speed reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Orion is nominally outfitted with multiple different parachute systems including two drogue chutes and three main chutes that are essential for stabilizing and slowing the crewed spacecraft for safely landing in the Pacific Ocean upon concluding a NASA ‘Journey to Mars’ mission.”

This week engineers from NASA and prime contractor Lockheed Martin ran a dramatic and successful six mile high altitude drop test in the skies over the Arizona desert, in the instance where one of the parachutes in each of Orion’s drogue and main systems was intentionally set to fail.

“We test Orion’s parachutes to the extremes to ensure we have a safe system for bringing crews back to Earth on future flights, even if something goes wrong,” says CJ Johnson, project manager for Orion’s parachute system, in a statement.

“Orion’s parachute performance is difficult to model with computers, so putting them to the test in the air helps us better evaluate and predict how the system works.”

Although Orion hits the atmosphere at over 24,000 mph after returning from deep space, it slows significantly after atmospheric reentry.

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By the time the first parachutes normally deploy, the crew module has decelerated to some 300 mph. Their job is to slow the craft down to about 20 mph by the time of ocean splashdown mere minutes later.

On Aug. 26, NASA conducted a 35,000 foot high drop test out of the cargo bay of a C-17 aircraft using an engineering test version of the Orion capsule over the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona.

“The engineering model has a mass similar to that of the Orion capsule being developed for deep space missions, and similar interfaces with its parachute system,” say officials.

“Engineers purposefully simulated a failure scenario in which one of the two drogue parachutes, used to slow and stabilize Orion at high altitude, and one of its three main parachutes, used to slow the crew module to landing speed, did not deploy.”

Here’s a video detailing the entire drop test sequence of events from preflight preparations to the parachute landing.

The high-risk Aug. 26 experiment was NASA’s penultimate drop test in this engineering evaluations series. A new series of tests in 2016 will serve to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights.

Orion’s next launch is set for the uncrewed test flight called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). It will blast off on the inaugural flight of NASA’s SLS heavy lift monster rocket concurrently under development – from Launch Complex 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center.

The maiden SLS test flight is targeted for no later than November 2018 and will be configured in its initial 70-metric-ton (77-ton) version with a liftoff thrust of 8.4 million pounds. It will boost an unmanned Orion on an approximately three week long test flight beyond the Moon and back.

Toward that goal, NASA is also currently testing the RS-25 first stage engines that will power SLS – as outlined in my recent story here.

NASA plans to gradually upgrade the SLS to achieve an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons), enabling the more distant missions even farther into our solar system.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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3. How to get rid of a satellite after its retirement

Researchers at University of La Rioja (Spain) have developed a new method to eliminate artificial satellites in Highly Elliptical Orbits when they finish their mission. The methodology, which allows for a reduction of both cost and risk, has been tested with the European Space Agency INTEGRAL mission, which will re-enter into the Earth's atmosphere in order to disintegrate in 2029.

The problem of space debris is one of the main challenges that aerospace engineers have to face, due to the danger it poses to satellites. In this context, members of the Scientific Computing Group (GRUCACI) at University of La Rioja have developed a method to eliminate satellites in Highly Elliptical Orbits (HEO) when they finish their mission.

HEO orbits are very eccentric (the farthest position can be ten times farther from the Earth than the nearest) and inclined (60 degrees or more with respect to the equator); their evolution is strongly influenced by the gravitational effects of the Earth's equatorial bulge and the pull from the Moon and the Sun.

Both effects can cause satellites placed in this type of orbits to cross two 'protected' regions (Low Earth Orbits, LEO, and Geostationary Orbits, GEO) during long periods of time, thus increasing the risk of collisions with the numerous satellites operating in them. In addition, the probability of an uncontrolled re-entry into the lower layers of the Earth's atmosphere also increases.

"Our research has focused on taking advantage of the same gravitational effects that affect HEO orbits so as to reduce the cost of eliminating the satellites which operate in them once they have reached retirement", Roberto Armellin, co-author of the work, explains to Sinc.

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"Some propellant needs to be reserved in order to perform the satellite disposal manoeuvres, so it cannot be used to extend the mission duration, which makes it more expensive", the researcher adds, "so we have developed a methodology aimed at reducing the amount of propellant needed, and hence the associated cost".

The researchers have undertaken their study, which they have published in the journalAdvances in Space Research, as a mathematical optimization problem in which several objectives have to be simultaneously fulfilled, and they have solved it by means of an evolutionary algorithm -based on biological evolution-.

They have also used their own orbit propagator software, which is designed to propagate the evolution of an orbiter during 100 years in just a few seconds. This program allows finding the best conditions and instants for satellites to re-enter into the Earth's atmosphere, where they can safely disintegrate with minimum risk for other satellites.

Validity of the method tested on INTEGRAL

In order to prove the effectiveness of their methodology, the researchers have applied it to the European Space Agency (ESA) INTEGRAL mission, an advanced gamma-ray space observatory launched in 2002.

"The simulation results suggest designing manoeuvres so that the INTEGRAL satellite re-enters into the Earth's atmosphere, and subsequently disintegrates, during the period of time from September 2028 to July 2029, in a controlled way and with a cost which is reduced by the amplification of natural gravitational effects", Armellin points out.

This solution coincides with the real strategy adopted by ESA to eliminate INTEGRAL, which has fired its engines four times this year so as to re-enter safely and with a reduced cost on February 2029.

The latest regulations of ESA about space debris require that, once the end of life has been reached, if a satellite continues to cross the LEO protected region it must re-enter into the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate before 25 years. INTEGRAL is going to comply with these regulations, even though it was not obliged to, due to its launch date.

The study of the GRUCACI team also proves that it is possible to select some latitude regions such that the satellite re-entry takes place with minimum risk to cause damage to populated areas of the Earth.

Source: Eureka Alert Return to Contents

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The Night Sky Tuesday, September 1

Vega stands nearly overhead at nightfall; Arcturus is down in the west. Look a third of the way from Vega to Arcturus for the dim Keystone of Hercules. Two thirds of the way is the semicircle of Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, with its one modestly bright gem, Alphecca.

Wednesday, September 2

Vega passes your zenith if you live in the world's mid-northern latitudes. Vega goes right through your zenith at nightfall if you're at latitude 39° north: near Baltimore, Kansas City, Lake Tahoe, Sendai, Beijing, Athens, Lisbon.

Thursday, September 3

Have you ever heard of Riddle's Trapezium? Archenal 1? They're together in the same telescopic field of view in Serpens Cauda, as Sue French tells in her Deep-Sky Wonders column in the September Sky & Telescope, page 55.

Friday, September 4

The last-quarter Moon rises around 11 or midnight tonight very close to Aldebaran, depending on your location. The Moon occults Aldebaran soon after rising for parts of eastern North America, and in Saturday's dawn or daylight for Europe and western Asia. See the article with map in the September Sky & Telescope, page 51.

The Moon is exactly last quarter at 5:54 a.m. Saturday morning Eastern Daylight Time.

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

No sightings for Denver through Sept. 5th. Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

11:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 1 - ISS Expedition 45/Visiting Crew Soyuz TMA-18M Launch Coverage (Launch scheduled at 12:37 a.m. ET Sept. 2; includes video B-roll of the crew’s pre-launch activities at 11:55 p.m. ET) (starts at 11:45 p.m.) (all channels)

2:30 a.m., Wednesday, September 2 - Video File Feed of the Expedition 45/Visiting Crew Pre-Launch Activities and Launch (all channels)

3 a.m., Friday, September 4 - ISS Expedition 45/Visiting Crew Soyuz TMA-18M Docking Coverage (Docking scheduled at 3:42 a.m. ET) (all channels)

5:30 a.m., Friday, September 4 - ISS Expedition 45/Visiting Crew Soyuz TMA-18M Hatch Opening and Other Activities (Hatch Opening scheduled at appx. 6:15 a.m. ET) (starts at 5:45 a.m.) (all channels)

8 a.m., Friday, September 4 - Video File of ISS Expedition 45/Visiting Crew Soyuz TMA-18M Docking, Hatch Opening and Other Activities (all channels)

Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

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Space Calendar • Sep 01 - Moon Occults Uranus • Sep 01 - Neptune At Opposition • Sep 01 - Comet 207P/Hill At Opposition (2.486 AU) • Sep 01 - Comet 144P/Kushida At Opposition (2.567 AU) • Sep 01 - Comet 128P-A/Shoemaker-Holt At Opposition (2.966 AU) • Sep 01 - Comet 128P-B/Shoemaker-Holt At Opposition (2.966 AU) • Sep 01 - Comet P/2014 O3 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (4.246 AU) • Sep 01 - Aten Asteroid 281375 (2008 JV19) Near-Earth Flyby (0.045 AU) • Sep 01 - Aten Asteroid 2004 TD10 Near-Earth Flyby (0.072 AU) • Sep 01 - Amor Asteroid 4055 Magellan Closest Approach To Earth (0.240 AU) • Sep 01 - Asteroid 7818 Muirhead Closest Approach To Earth (1.081 AU) • Sep 01 - Asteroid 1832 Mrkos Closest Approach To Earth (1.976 AU) • Sep 01 - Asteroid 3264 Bounty Closest Approach To Earth (2.551 AU) • Sep 01 - Asteroid 1489 Attila Closest Approach To Earth (2.610 AU) • Sep 01 - Engelbert Zaschka's 120th Birthday (1895) • Sep 01 - Edgar Rice Burroughs' 140th Birthday (1875)

• Sep 02 - [Aug 28] Soyuz TMA-18M Soyuz-FG Launch (International Space Station 45S) • Sep 02 - [Aug 29] MUOS 4 Atlas 5 Launch • Sep 02 - Comet 42P/Neujmin Closest Approach To Earth (1.461 AU) • Sep 02 - Comet 318P/McNaught-Hartley Closest Approach To Earth (1.552 AU) • Sep 02 - Comet P/2005 S3 (Read) Closest Approach To Earth (2.860 AU) • Sep 02 - Asteroid 166614 Zsazsa Closest Approach To Earth (1.644 AU) • Sep 02 - Asteroid 4763 Ride Closest Approach To Earth (1.886 AU) • Sep 02 - Asteroid 9340 Williamholden Closest Approach To Earth (2.135 AU) • Sep 03 - Comet 141P-D/Machholz Perihelion (0.761 AU) • Sep 03 - Comet C/2014 L5 (Lemmon) At Opposition (5.934 AU) • Sep 03 - Asteroid 112 Iphigenia Occults HIP 32246 (3.0 Magnitude Star) • Sep 03 - Asteroid 1495 Helsinki Closest Approach To Earth (1.403 AU) • Sep 03 - Asteroid 6779 Perrine Closest Approach To Earth (1.489 AU) • Sep 03 - Asteroid 1221 Amor Closest Approach To Earth (1.514 AU) • Sep 03 - Kuiper Belt Object 145452 (2005 RN43) At Opposition (39.636 AU) • Sep 03 - Lecture: New Horizons & Dawn Mission Updates, Houston, Texas • Sep 03 - Carl Anderson's 110th Birthday (1905) • Sep 04 - Kanopus ST Soyuz 2-1v Launch • Sep 04 - Mercury At Its Greatest Eastern Elongation (27 Degrees) • Sep 04 - Comet 322P/SOHO Perihelion (0.054 AU) • Sep 04 - Comet C/2014 E1 (Larson) At Opposition (2.717 AU) • Sep 04 - Apollo Asteroid 2015 QX8 Near-Earth Flyby (0.052 AU) • Sep 04 - Asteroid 716 Berkeley Closest Approach To Earth (1.985 AU) • Sep 04 - Fermi Open Day, Torino, Italy • Sep 04 - 25th Anniversary (1990), Burnwell Meteorite Fall (Hit Porch in Kentucky) • Sep 05 - Moon Occults Aldebaran • Sep 05 - Comet 320P/McNaught Closest Approach To Earth (0.183 AU) • Sep 05 - Comet P/2002 Q1 (Van Ness) Closest Approach To Earth (1.271 AU) • Sep 05 - [Aug 26] Comet C/2015 Q1 (Scotti) Perihelion (1.919 AU)

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• Sep 05 - Comet 87P/Bus At Opposition (3.028 AU) • Sep 05 - Comet C/2014 A4 (SONEAR) Perihelion (4.180 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 9 Metis At Opposition (8.8 Magnitude) • Sep 05 - Apollo Asteroid 2015 PK57 Near-Earth Flyby (0.045 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 17059 Elvis Closest Approach To Earth (1.253 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 15318 Innsbrook Closest Approach To Earth (1.267 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 371 Bohemia Closest Approach To Earth (1.684 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 25399 Vonnegut Closest Approach To Earth (1.815 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 70713 Sethmacfarlane Closest Approach To Earth (1.870 AU) • Sep 05 - Asteroid 6984 Lewiscarroll Closest Approach To Earth (3.231 AU)

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise: How Much? How Soon?

Seas around the world have risen an average of nearly 3 inches since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches due to natural variation, according to the latest satellite measurements from NASA and its partners. An intensive research effort now underway, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to an unavoidable rise of several feet in the future.

The question scientists are grappling with is how quickly will seas rise?

“Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it’s pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more,” said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead of the Sea Level Change Team. “But we don't know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer.”

Team scientists will discuss a new visualization based on 23 years of sea level data – the entire record of available satellite data -- which reveals changes are anything but uniform around the globe. The record is based on data from three consecutive satellite missions, the first a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, Centre National d'Études Spatiales, launched in 1992. The next in the series is Jason-3, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with participation by NASA, CNES and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

In 2013, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued an assessment based on a consensus of international researchers that stated global sea levels would likely rise from 1 to 3 feet by the end of the century. According to Nerem, new research available since this report suggests the higher end of that range is more likely, and the question remains how that range might shift upward.

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The data reveal the height of the sea surface is not rising uniformly everywhere. Regional differences in sea level rise are dominated by the effects of ocean currents and natural cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). But, as these natural cycles wax and wane, they can have major impacts on local coastlines.

“Sea level along the west coast of the United States has actually fallen over the past 20 years because long-term natural cycles there are hiding the impact of global warming,” said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “However, there are signs this pattern is changing. We can expect accelerated rates of sea level rise along this coast over the next decade as the region recovers from its temporary sea level ‘deficit.’”

Scientists estimate that about one-third of sea level rise is caused by expansion of warmer ocean water, one-third is due to ice loss fromthe massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the remaining third results from melting mountain glaciers. But, the fate of the polar ice sheets could change that ratio and produce more rapid increases in the coming decades.

The Greenland ice sheet, covering 660,000 square miles -- nearly the area of Alaska -- shed an average of 303 gigatons of ice a year over the past decade, according to satellite measurements. The Antarctic ice sheet, covering 5.4 million square miles --larger than the United States and India combined -- has lost an average of 118 gigatons a year.

“We’ve seen from the paleoclimate record that sea level rise of as much as 10 feet in a century or two is possible, if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly,” said Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re seeing evidence that the ice sheets are waking up, but we need to understand them better before we can say we’re in a new era of rapid ice loss.”

Although Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise currently is much smaller than that of Greenland, recent research indicates this could change in the upcoming century. In 2014, two West Antarctica studies focused on the acceleration of the glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector showed its collapse is underway.

East Antarctica’s massive ice sheet remains the primary unknown in sea level rise projections. Though it appears to be stable, a recent study found under a major glacier two deep troughs that could draw warm ocean water to the base of the glacier, causing it to melt.

“The prevailing view among specialists has been that East Antarctica is stable, but we don’t really know,” said glaciologist Eric Rignot of the University of California Irvine and JPL. “Some of the signs we see in the satellite data right now are red flags that these glaciers might not be as stable as we once thought. There’s always a lot of attention on the changes we see now, but as scientists our priority needs to be on what the changes could be tomorrow.”

One of the keys to understanding future rates of ice loss is determining the role ocean currents and ocean temperatures play in melting the ice sheets from below its edges. A new six-year NASA field campaign took to the waters around Greenland this summer to probe how warming ocean waters are triggering Greenland glacier degradation. The Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project is taking coastal ocean temperature measurements, observing glacial thinning at the ice’s edge, and producing the first high-resolution maps of the seafloor, fjords and canyons in the continental shelf surrounding Greenland.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Western Wildfire Smoke Has Drifted Over the Atlantic

Smoke from the treacherous western wildfires of both the U.S. and Canada has wafted across country and out to sea. In this natural-color satellite image collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on August 29, 2015, remnants of the smoke are swirling out above the Atlantic Ocean. Prince Edward Island can be seen in this image as well as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner

Source: NASA Return to Contents