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Space News Update — September 15, 2015 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1: Halfway There

Story 2: Curiosity Investigates Petrified Martian Sand Dunes, Contemplates Next Drill

Campaign

Story 3: Fire in the Hole: Studying How Flames Grow in Space

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. Halfway There

On Sept. 15, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will clock in for their 171st day aboard the International Space Stationsince arriving on March 27. The pair, set to come home March 3, 2016, are spending 342 days in space to help researchers better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long duration spaceflight.

“I think the legacy of this mission will be based on the science of having us in space for a year,” remarked Kelly in a recent interview. “The great data we collected, what we learned about being in space for this long and how that will help our journey to Mars someday.”

In their almost six months in orbit, Kelly and Kornienko have participated in a range of scientific experiments focusing on seven key areas of human research.

One of the most ambitious studies undertaken so far is Fluid Shifts, which studies what happens when fluids shift into the upper body during weightlessness. This shift may cause changes in vision through increased intracranial pressure and is a major issue that scientists are looking to resolve before humans begin exploring beyond Earth’s orbit. The study uses the Russian Chibis device to draw fluids back into the legs while measurements of the subject’s eyes are taken to track any changes. NASA and Roscosmos are already looking at continuing the Fluid Shifts investigation with future space station crews beyond the one-year mission.

All research gathered from both the American and Russian crew members is shared between the countries, an important step in reducing cost and improving efficiency for future space station research. This has already led

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to additional agreements between NASA and Roscosmos to expand this collaboration to research outside of the yearlong mission.

Samples for the comparative genetics studies involving Kelly and his identical twin brother, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, continue to be collected with some already returned to Earth. Analysis for the Twins Study will begin at the conclusion of the mission once all samples have been collected.

NASA and Roscosmos are already investigating ideas for future space station missions to prove technologies and techniques necessary for trips deeper into the solar system. The space agencies are evaluating whether to do additional one-year missions and other proposals, like having crew members perform surface simulations on Earth immediately after returning from space.

The station also continues to serve as a test bed for important technologies that will help pave the way for a human journey to Mars. Vital systems including life support, communications, power generation and more are being put through the paces in a spaceflight environment, with newer system generations on the horizon.

The one-year crew mission is the latest step in the International Space Station’s role as a platform for preparing humanity for exploration into deeper space. With the collaborative efforts of the international crew and research teams, the world can watch and benefit from findings that push the boundaries of exploration and contribute to human health.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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2. Curiosity Investigates Petrified Martian Sand Dunes, Contemplates Next Drill Campaign

NASA’s SUV-sized Curiosity rover has arrived at a beautiful Martian vistadisplaying a huge deposit of magnificently petrified sand dunes that look remarkably like some commonly found on Earth and native to the deserts of the U.S. Southwest.

The dunes are keenly fascinating to Red Planet researchers as the NASA robot celebrates 1100 fabulous Sols of exploration and discovery on Marsand contemplates plans for the next drill campaign later this month. See dune mosaic above and our Sol 1100 mosaic below.

The petrified sand dunes were discovered amongst an area of dark sandstone along a ridge at the lower slope of Mars’ Mount Sharp. They are now being explored in detail by the six wheeled rover in a geologic feature dubbed the Stimson unit.

“The team is considering where to drill next within the Stimson sandstone and we are looking for the best light toned areas to check for mineralogical signs of water-rock reaction,” says John Bridges, rover team member from the University of Leicester, England, in the latest mission update from today, September 12, 2015.

Curiosity also discovered large-scale crossbedding in the sandstone that were formed by the action of Martian winds.

“This sandstone outcrop — part of a geological layer that Curiosity’s science team calls the Stimson unit — has a structure called crossbedding on a large scale that the team has interpreted as deposits of sand dunes formed by wind,” according to the rover team.

So Curiosity was commanded by her handlers back on Earth to capture an array of high resolution imagery as part of detailed investigation of the area for up close and contact science.

Dozens of images were taken with the pair of high resolution Mastcam color cameras on the robots mast and combined into the panoramic scene show above and another shown below with a scalebar the length of a tall human, 6.6 feet or 200 centimeters.

The images were taken on Aug. 27, 2015, corresponding to Sol 1087 of the rover’s work on Mars, using both the 34 millimeter-focal-length lens and the 100 mm millimeter-focal-length telephoto Mastcam camera lenses that function as Curiosity’s left and right eyes.

The panorama spans the Martian terrain looking from the east, at left, to the south-southwest at right.

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“Some of the dark sandstone in the area …. shows texture and inclined bedding structures characteristic of deposits that formed as sand dunes, then were cemented into rock” say officials.

“Sets of bedding laminations lie at angles to each other.”

Since taking the panorama in late August, the team has driven Curiosity around the area to collect more measurements with her state of the art science instruments.

Later this month, Curiosity will drill into an outcrop at the Stimson unit sandstone for collection and feed it for analysis into the pair of on board chemistry labs – SAM and CheMin- located inside the rover’s belly.

Curiosity already carried out initial contact science in the area by extending the robotic arm to rock targets for investigation with the arm mounted instruments, including the MAHLI camera and APXS spectrometer.

Curiosity “investigated an outcrop of the Stimson unit … and conducted successful contact science,” says Lauren Edgar, Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and an MSL science team member, in a mission update.

Scientists will select the Stimson drill target soon.

Why explore outcrops at Stimson?

“The Stimson unit overlies a layer of mudstone that was deposited in a lake environment. Curiosity has been examining successively higher and younger layers of Mount Sharp, starting with the mudstone at the mountain’s base, for evidence about changes in the area’s ancient environment.”

Curiosity’s prior drill campaign was recently conducted at the “Buckskin” outcrop target in early August 2015. Buckskin was very notable for being the first high silica rock drilling target of the mission.

Stimson and Buckskin sit at the base of Mount Sharp, a huge layered mountain that dominates the center of the 96 mile-wide (154 kilometers-wide) Gale Crater landing site.

Curiosity recently celebrated 1000 Sols of exploration on Mars on May 31, 2015 – detailed here with our Sol 1000 mosaic by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer also featured at Astronomy Picture of the Day on June 13, 2015.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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3. Fire in the Hole: Studying How Flames Grow in Space

Understanding how fire spreads in a microgravity environment is critical to the safety of astronauts who live and work in space. And while NASA has conducted studies aboard the space shuttle and International Space Station, risks to the crew have forced these experiments to be limited in size and scope.

Now a new experiment, designed, built and managed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, will ignite an understanding of microgravity fire on a much larger scale. The Spacecraft Fire Experiment, known as Saffire, is a series of experiments to be launched on three different flights beginning next spring.

“A spacecraft fire is one of the greatest crew safety concerns for NASA and the international space exploration community,” says Gary Ruff, Saffire project manager.

Saffire will involve far larger flames than previous experiments and will investigate the way fire spreads on a variety of combustible materials. Because the experiments will be conducted away from the space station, there is no risk to the astronauts aboard.

Each Saffire experiment will be remotely operated inside a 3 x 5 foot module, split into two compartments. One side of the module is an avionics bay that contains sensors, high definition video cameras and signal

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processing equipment. The other side contains the hardware required to ignite a large flame and burn the fabrics and materials inside.

When the experiments begin, Saffire I and III will burn one large 16 by 37 inch piece of SIBAL cloth, a blend of fiberglass and cotton. This material has been studied in previous microgravity combustion experiments, although at a much smaller size. The SIBAL cloth will be burned from the bottom to see how the flame spreads. If the flame extinguishes itself, scientists will light it at the top and see what happens as the flame moves opposite to the airflow.

Saffire II will ignite a mix of nine different samples of materials used routinely on the space station including flame retardant fabrics used for astronaut clothing, station Plexiglas window samples with edge variations and structures used for storage containers and silicone composites. Each sample is two by 11 inches, the size sample NASA uses to screen materials on Earth before they are used on a spacecraft.

Concepts for additional Saffire missions- IV, V, VI are in development focusing more on flame spread, smoke propagation, detection and suppression of fire.

“Saffire seeks to answer two questions,” says David Urban, principle investigator. “Will an upward spreading flame continue to grow or will microgravity limit the size? Secondly, what fabrics and materials will catch fire and how will they burn?”

The payloads will hitch a ride on a resupply mission to the space station in an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vehicle and will be launched beginning next spring. When each Cygnus vehicle arrives, astronauts will unload their supplies, but Saffire will remain on board Cygnus.

“Within the first day after Cygnus pulls away from the space station, we will begin the experiment, which will run autonomously once the RUN command is sent," says Steven Sinacore, deputy project manager. “It will only take a few hours to run the experiments, but Cygnus will remain in space for seven days to ensure complete data transmission back to the Saffire operations team on the ground.” Eventually, Saffire, along with Cygnus, will burn up during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

As NASA continues to send astronauts to the space station and continues the path toward a human mission to Mars, improving understanding of the structure of spacecraft fires is critical. “Saffire is all about gaining a better understanding of how fire behaves in space so NASA can develop better materials, technologies and procedures to reduce crew risk and increase space flight safety,” says Ruff.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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The Night Sky Tuesday, September 15

As dusk turns to night, Arcturus twinkles due west. It's getting lower every week. Off to its right in the northwest, the Big Dipper is turning more and more level.

Wednesday, September 16

Got light pollution? Cygnus overhead offers many sights for small telescopes regardless — if you can star-hop to them with a good finderscope. See Ken Hewitt-White's "Cygnus in the City" in the September Sky & Telescope, page 58, with chart and photos.

Thursday, September 17

As twilight fades, look low in the southwest for the thin waxing crescent Moon off to the right of Saturn and Antares.

The waxing Moon passes over Saturn and Scorpius this weekend. The blue 10° scale is about the size of your fist held out at arm's length.

Friday, September 18

As twilight fades, look low in the southwest for Saturn close to the waxing crescent Moon, as shown here. To their left are Antares and other stars of upper Scorpius.

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears

Tue Sep 15, 4:20 AM < 1 min 19° 19 above NNE 13 above NE

Tue Sep 15, 5:54 AM 3 min 12° 10 above NW 10 above NNE

Wed Sep 16, 5:03 AM 2 min 16° 16 above NNW 10 above NNE

Thu Sep 17, 4:13 AM < 1 min 12° 12 above NNE 10 above NNE

Thu Sep 17, 5:47 AM 1 min 10° 10 above NNW 10 above N

Fri Sep 18, 4:55 AM 1 min 12° 11 above NNW 10 above N

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

2 p.m., Tuesday, September 15 - Replay of Earth Right Now Roundtable: NASA Science from the Greenland Ice Sheet (all channels)

3:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 15 - In-Flight Q and A with Cast Members from “The Martian” (all channels)

8:30 a.m., Wednesday, September 16 - ISS Expedition 45 In-Flight Interview with WBFF-TV, Baltimore and NASA Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren (Starts at 8:45 a.m.) (all channels)

8:30 a.m., Thursday, September 17 - ISS Expedition 45 In-Flight Interviews with ABC’s “Good Morning, America” and TIME Magazine with NASA ISS Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Starts at 8:40 a.m.) (all channels)

3 p.m., Thursday, September 17 - The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and NASA Presents -- “What’s New in Aerospace?” with NASA Astronaut Terry Virts and ESA Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (all channels)

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

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Space Calendar • Sep 15 - Comet 151/Helin At Opposition (1.477 AU) • Sep 15 - Comet C/2013 P3 (Palomar) Closest Approach To Earth (7.845 AU) • Sep 15 - Asteroid 7672 Hawking Closest Approach To Earth (1.160 AU) • Sep 15 - Asteroid 9941 Iguanodo Closest Approach To Earth (1.472 AU) • Sep 15 - Apollo Asteroid 5143 Heracles Closest Approach To Earth (2.245 AU) • Sep 15 - 50th Anniversary (1965), "Lost in Space" Debuts on TV • Sep 15 - Michiel Overbeek's 95th Birthday (1920) • Sep 15 - 105th Anniversary (1910), Theodor Wulf Proposes Cosmic Radiation Comes From Outer Space • Sep 16 - International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer • Sep 16 - Comet 33P/Daniel At Opposition (2.358 AU) • Sep 16 - Comet 80P/Peters-Hartley At Opposition (2.390 AU) • Sep 16 - Comet P/2014 MG4 (Spacewatch-PANSTARRS) At Opposition (3.953 AU) • Sep 16 - Aten Asteroid 2013 RO5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.065 AU) • Sep 16 - Asteroid 2362 Mark Twain Closest Approach To Earth (0.768 AU) • Sep 16 - Asteroid 35334 Yarkovsky Closest Approach To Earth (2.001 AU) • Sep 16 - Lecture: Icy Volcanism in the Outer Solar System, Washington DC • Sep 17 - Comet 151/Helin Closest Approach To Earth (1.476 AU) • Sep 17 - Comet C/2014 Q6 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (3.876 AU) • Sep 17 - Asteroid 325 Heidelberga Closest Approach To Earth (1.913 AU) • Sep 17 - Asteroid 15000 CCD Closest Approach To Earth (1.951 AU) • Sep 17 - Asteroid 426 Hippo Closest Approach To Earth (2.226 AU) • Sep 17 - Asteroid 4151 Alanhale Closest Approach To Earth (2.507 AU) • Sep 17 - Ed Mitchell's 85th Birthday (1930) • Sep 17 - Tom Stafford's 85th Birthday (1930) • Sep 18 - Comet P/1999 XN120 (Catalina) Closest Approach To Earth (3.112 AU) • Sep 18 - Comet 282P/2003 BM80 At Opposition (3.638 AU) • Sep 18 - Comet C/2015 B1 (PANSTARRS) Perihelion (5.976 AU) • Sep 18 - Asteroid 742 Edisona Closest Approach To Earth (1.678 AU) • Sep 18 - 50th Anniversary (1965), Kaoru Ikeya & Tsutomu Seki's Discovery of Comet Ikeya-Seki • Sep 18 - 50th Anniversary (1965), 1st Episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" Airs on TV

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Supervising Two Rovers from Space

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen is proving to be an expert space driver after commanding two rovers from space this week. As part of ESA’s Meteron project, Andreas drove a second, car-sized rover from the International Space Station to repair a mockup lunar base in the Netherlands.

Andreas directly controlled the Eurobot rover in a simulated troubleshooting Moon scenario. A second rover was controlled by ESA’s centre in Germany, allowing Andreas to focus on Eurobot and intervene if necessary.

The new user interface for operating rovers from space ran perfectly as they worked in harmony at close quarters without any problems. The experiment went so well that it

was completed in one continuous session rather than over the planned three sessions on two days.

“This experiment demonstrated that we have the means to operate lunar robots from a spacecraft orbiting the Moon, a topic ESA is studying at the moment,” says Meteron system engineer Jessica Grenouilleau.

Landing humans on a distant object is one thing, but they will also need the fuel and equipment to work and return to Earth when done. Sending robots to scout landing sites and prepare habitats for humans is more efficient and safer, especially if the robots are controlled by astronauts who can react and adapt to situations better than computer minds.

Meteron is developing the communication networks, interfaces and hardware to operate robots from a distance in space. The Space Station is being used as testbed, with astronauts controlling rovers on Earth.

The demonstration showed that robots can perform valuable tasks and two can collaborate efficiently, even if they are controlled from kilometres apart.

The experiment proved the user interface works well and that ESA’s ‘space internet’ can stream five video signals to the Station – orbiting at 28 800 km/h some 400 km high – without significant delays and in good quality.

If the link is lost for a moment, which often happens in space operations, the network adapts without a problem.

The user interface was developed for ESA by a young team from Thales Alenia Space in Italy, working against tight deadlines to be ready in time for Andreas’s mission.

This experiment is the third and most complex step so far for Meteron project. On Monday, Andreas directed a rover to insert a peg into a hole.

“With two very successful rover operations on Earth controlled from space on two consecutive days, we are looking forward to continuing Europe’s leadership in human–robot cooperation with many more projects,” concludes Meteron project coordinator Philippe Schoonejans. Source: ESA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

NASA's SDO Catches a Double Photobomb

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of Earth and the moon transiting the sun together on Sept. 13, 2015. The edge of Earth, visible near the top of the frame, appears fuzzy because Earth’s atmosphere blocks different amounts of light at different altitudes. On the left, the moon’s edge is perfectly crisp, because it has no atmosphere. This image was taken in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of 171 angstroms. Though this light is invisible to our eyes, it is typically colorized in gold. Credits: NASA/SDO

Source: NASA Return to Contents