Showing posts with label spacecraft. Show all posts
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April 16, 2018
Earth's magnetic field is pretty adept at flipping polarity. The poles have swapped, reversing north and south, many times over the planet's history.

Within the last 20 million years, Earth has fallen into the pattern of pole reversal every 200,000 to 300,000 years, and between successful swaps, the poles sometimes even attempt to reverse and then snap back into place.
About 40,000 years ago, the poles made one such unsuccessful attempt, and the last full swap was about 780,000 years ago, so we're a bit overdue for a pole reversal based on the established pattern.
The planet's magnetic field is already shifting, which could signify the poles are preparing to flip, and while we can't yet confirm that a reversal is on the near horizon, it is well within the realm of possibility.
While a pole reversal isn't entirely uncommon when you consider Earth's history, this time it could have serious implications for humanity.
To try to determine whether or not a flip is imminent, scientists have begun using satellite imagery and complex calculations to study the shifting of the magnetic field.
They've found that molten iron and nickel are draining energy from the dipole at the edge of the Earth's core, which is where the planet's magnetic field is generated.
They also found that the north magnetic pole is especially turbulent and unpredictable. If the magnetic blocks become strong enough to sufficiently weaken the dipole, the poles will officially switch.
Again, while it is not a certainty that the switch will happen soon, this activity at the Earth's core suggests that it is possible in the near future. So, how might a pole switch impact our lives?
The Earth's magnetic field protects the planet from solar and cosmic rays. When the poles switch, this protective shield could diminish to as little as one-tenth of its typical ability.
The switching process could take centuries, and the entire time, radiation would be able to get closer to the planet than usual.
Eventually, this radiation could reach the surface of the Earth, rendering some regions uninhabitable and causing entire species to go extinct.
Before that happened, though, a weakened magnetic field would likely impact orbiting satellites, which have suffered from memory failure and other damagewhen exposed to such radiation in the past.
Damage to satellites caused by decreased protection from the magnetic field could affect the satellite timing systems that control electric grids.
These grids could fail, leading to worldwide blackouts that experts predict could last for decades.
Without functioning electric grids, we couldn't use cell phones, household appliances, and so much more. The sudden blackouts would have hospitals scrambling for backup power sources, putting countless lives at risk.
GPS technology would also be compromised, affecting everything from military operations to our ability navigate our cars.
Additionally, we are becoming more reliant on technology by the day, with autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI), and other innovations all advancing rapidly.
By the time a pole switch did take place, these innovations could be a regular part of our daily lives, furthering the potential for disruption.
It's true that we live in an age where data rules all. From how we communicate to how we get around to how our governments and critical facilities run, it all comes down to how we send and store data, so if the world's satellites are damaged or rendered nonfunctional, life as we know it could forever change.
But this isn't a doomsday prediction. While the poles will inevitably flip again at some point, our ability to recognise this possibility in advance allows us to prepare for it.
For starters, satellite companies can begin to collaborate, sharing ideas with one another on how to equip satellites to deal with a pole reversal.
Government and university researchers can focus their efforts on developing new satellites specifically designed to withstand extreme radiation and space weather.
Governments, businesses, and communities can come together to form action plans.
They can find ways to store energy and ensure the public is educated on the subject of pole reversal, so that when it happens, the situation won't cause widespread panic.
Earth's poles have been switching for millions of years, and they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The best thing we can do is prepare now so we're ready the next time it happens.
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January 20, 2017

Over the past 15 years, robotics and automation specialist TRACLabs has used its 3T robot intelligence software to perform inspection tasks for the International Space Station (ISS). Robots programmed with the latest software are able to search for, find and recognise people, hunt for underwater mines and carry out repair and replacement tasks on earth or in space. Impressive so far, but wait, there's more.
Layered intelligence can now be utilised by any computer-controlled machine, even stationary ones. TRACLabs has also been busy developing intelligent control for advanced life support systems such as biological water processors, oxygen generation and CO2 recovery systems. The results of several of these efforts were used in human-related tests, including one with four people living and working in a NASA biosphere for three months. With a little more work, industrial automation might have the power to keep us alive in the most unfriendly environments imaginable.
In terms of the types of technology industrial automation is contributing to keeping the ISS up and running, we've not even scratched the surface. Supplier of industrial networking technology, Hirschmann is also in on the action, providing the ISS with industry-proven managed OCTOPUS switches, used in data communication.
On the ISS, the OCTOPUS switches are subjected to electromagnetic radiation that is around 100 times higher than on Earth, mostly caused by high energy protons. To ensure they were up to the job, the switches underwent extensive testing prior to being implemented. Luckily, the radiation-sensitive integrated switch circuits proved their suitability for their trip into space.
After proving their worth in the communication system of the Russian segment of the ISS, the OCTOPUS switches have also been in use since 2011 in the American segment. This part of the ISS is the home of the Cupola, the observatory module used to conduct experiments, dockings and observations of Earth. In addition, the OCTOPUS switches transport data from the space station's joint Local Area Network (LAN). In the future, videos in HD quality are to be transmitted from the Cupola to ground control.
Across the pond, leader in power and automation technologies ABB is in the midst of developing a new industrial sensor that will be used to study planetary rocks from a Mars or Moon Rover. The new design is around half the size of its predecessor with better performance and lower service requirements. It includes a solid-state laser designed to operate in space, without any servicing for more than 20 years. To compare, its predecessor needed servicing every three years.
With the help of the new sensor, ABB hopes to advance understanding of issues such as global warming, ozone depletion and the impact of pollution on air quality, as well as weather prediction and climatology.
Apart from the latest generations of robots and industrial automation technologies, the ISS also relies on more traditional industrial automation components like motors and drives. The critical process of cooling, for example, is heavily dependent on liquid ammonia pumps.

It’s fair to say that industrial automation plays a key part in humankind’s exploration of outer space. And it’s helping us go further and further every day. So there you have it, you can officially say that your industry is making its mark in space.

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October 01, 2016
IMPOSSIBLE_QUANTUM_SPACE_ENGINE

A couple of years ago, researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre discovered a thruster system which actually generates thrust, despite requiring absolutely no propellant. The implications of this discovery are far-reaching; applications for space flight and other technologies which require propulsion could one day become far cheaper, allowing space exploration to expand exponentially. The existence of this technology also further validates the fact that energy can be derived from tapping into the quantum vacuum, also known as “zero-point.”
Bottom line is that space is not empty, and the energy which lies within it can be used. This was experimentally confirmed when  the Casimir Effectillustrated zero point or vacuum state energy, which predicts that two metal plates close together attract each other due to an imbalance in the quantum fluctuations(source)(source).
The propellant-less thruster is called the Cannae Drive, invented by Guido Fetta, and was tested by NASA over an eight day testing campaign that took place in August of 2013. It’s also known as the EM drive.  It showed that a small amount of thrust was achieved inside a container, again, without the use of any fuel. The results were then presented at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio in July the next year.
You can access the paper (titled “Numerical and Experimental Results for a Novel Propulsion Technology Requiring no On-Board Propellant”) that was presented at the conference here and inventor Guido Fetta’s paper here.
Now, it’s about to be launched into spacee, and, according to many, like ScienceAlert.com,  the EM “is as controversial as it gets, because while certain experiments have suggested that such an engine could work, it also goes against one of the most fundamental laws of physics we have.
It’s a law that Issac Newton derived, called the law of conservation of momentum, which states that an equal and opposite reaction must stem from an action.  In order for something to gain momentum it must expel some kind of propellent in the opposite direction, but not the EM drive, this invention taps into the ‘zero-point’ field of energy/electromagnetic waves, creating thrust by microwave photons bouncing around inside a cone shaped metal cavity. The cone shaped mental cavity is what accelerates it into the opposite direction.
This is exciting, because it basically proves that we have a limitless resource of energy to tap into and utilize for space travel.  This is currently the biggest barrier for modern day space travel and exploration.

It’s Time For The Laws Of Physics To Be Changed

We knew the Earth was flat, we knew that we were the centre of the universe, we knew that a man made heavier than air peace of machinery could not take flight. Through out human history, intellectual authorities have pronounced their supremacy by ridiculing or surpressing elements of reality that simply didn’t fit within the framework of accepted knowledge  – Terje Toftenes (taken from the film, The Day Before Disclosure)
Science needs to be careful and stray for from getting  caught up in the grip of scientific dogma. History has constantly shown us, especially within the realms of science, that what we accept as real always changes at another point in time. Our understanding and knowledge regarding the nature of our reality is constantly changing.
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” This statement (worldview statement) was made by Lord Kelvin in 1900, which was shattered five years later when Einstein published his paper on special relativity. This one great, out of many.
Today, engineers are inventing power generators that utilize these concepts, like Paramahamsa Tewari .
These laws need to be refined to account for the fact that space is not empty,
What we currently accept as fact is going to have to change, and developments like the EM drive, or electrical generators that used these concepts, are going to have to be acknowledged soon. Throughout history, new developments in fields such as energy have always taken their time to find it into the market place. In today’s world, there’s always a lot of Red Tape you’re going to have to go through, unfortunately.
Below is a short clip of former NASA astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor Dr. Brian O’leary speaking about these energy concepts:

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July 07, 2016

To infinity... and beyond!


After a five-year, 2.8 billion kilometre (1.7 billion mile) trip across the Solar System, the spacecraft Juno has just achieved "the hardest thing NASA’s ever done" - putting the probe into orbit above Jupiter.
The US $1.1 billion trip at 265,000 kilometre per hour (164,663 mph) to the biggest planet in our Solar System set off from Florida in August 2011. It reached the most critical phase on 4 July, with a 35-minute engine burn, 869 million kilometers (540 million miles) from Earth, to place it in a 53.5-day orbit around the planet.
While the 3.6-tonne (7,054-pound) solar-powered probe is unmanned, it does contain three 4-centimetre (1.5-inch) high Lego figures as part of an educational outreach program to inspire kids around the world about science and technology.
The trio are the 17th-century Italian astronomer and 'father of science' Galileo Galilei, the Roman god of sky and thunder, and king of gods, Jupiter, and his wife Juno (hence the spacecraft’s name).
In 1610, Galileo - his Lego version holds a telescope - made the first detailed observations of Jupiter, discovering its four largest moons.
The planet, 300 times larger than Earth, also has 64 other moons, plus 'temporary' moons - comets captured by Jupiter’s massive gravity.
Jupiter, holding lightning, was a rather naughty deity, who used clouds to hide what he was up to, but his wife Juno was always able to see through them - hence the magnifying glass of discovery in her Lego hand.
Lego made the figures especially for NASA out of space-grade aluminium to survive the trip and the highly radioactive, gaseous planet.
They’ve also done a whole space tie-in with NASA on their website.
Scientists are hoping that by studying Jupiter they’ll better understand how Earth was formed.
The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 33 times on its mission, skimming to within 5,000 km above the planet’s cloud tops every 11 days, for approximately one year. When it’s all over, they’ll crash Juno into the planet in 2018. Perhaps, one day, human space explorers will find the three Lego people there.
Here’s how things went for NASA today:

This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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July 02, 2016
spacecraft- burn- up- when it-re-enters -the -planet -earth-atmosphere
Sometimes you just want to watch a spacecraft burn. Last week researchers jumped on board a chartered aeroplane to watch the re-entry of an uncrewed Cygnus capsule as it returned from the International Space Station (ISS).
Studying its destruction should teach us more about the way spacecraft break up as they enter the atmosphere, which could prove useful when the ISS is eventually brought down to Earth.


Cygnus is a cargo delivery craft designed to resupply the ISS and then be filled with rubbish for disposal as it burns up on re-entry. This particular spacecraft, Cygnus OA-6, was launched to the ISS in March and left the station on June 14, eventually re-entering on June 22.
Researchers working on a project called the Cygnus Shallow Re-Entry Observation Campaign flew a plane from Sydney, Australia to track the craft during its descent, recording how it brightened and broke up.
They also took spectroscopy measurements to determine the chemistry of the burn, seeing signs of magnesium, sodium and lithium atoms. An instrument on board the Cygnus was also meant to transmit data from inside the burning spacecraft, but unfortunately failed.
The observations weren’t the only fiery experience for this Cygnus. NASA had also placed an experiment called Saffire-I on board to test what happens when the insides of a spacecraft accidentally catch fire.
The fuse was lit on June 16 during the craft’s descent, and provided valuable data on how fire spreads in microgravity – watch below to see it burn.

Studying spacecraft destruction could prove useful in the next decade, when the ISS is expected to reach the end of its life. The station can’t sustain itself in orbit without regular boosts from docked spacecraft, so once abandoned it will gradually fall back to Earth.

Given that it is larger than a football field, NASA and the other ISS partners will want to bring it down safely, without risking harm to anyone on the ground, so watching disposable spacecraft like Cygnus re-enter is a way to get in some much-needed practice.
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August 18, 2015
Canadian space firm granted US and UK patents for elevator designed to take astronauts 20km (12 miles) above Earth so they can then be propelled into space
Space -elevator - astronauts- in- Earth's- stratosphere
A Canadian space firm is one step closer to revolutionizing space travel with a simple idea – instead of taking a rocket ship, why not take a giant elevator into space?
Thoth Technology Inc has been granted both US and UK patents for a space elevator designed to take astronauts up into the stratosphere, so they can then be propelled into space.
The company said the tower, named the ThothX Tower, will be an inflatable, freestanding structure complete with an electrical elevator and will reach 20km (12.5 miles) above the Earth.
“Astronauts would ascend to 20km by electrical elevator. From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refueling and reflight,” Brendan Quine, the tower’s inventor, said in a statement.
Traditionally, regions above 50km (31 miles) in altitude can only be reached by rocket ships, where mass is expelled at a high velocity to achieve thrust in the opposite direction. Quine said in the patent that rocketry is “extremely inefficient” and that a space elevator would take less energy.
In the patent, Quine explained that rocket ships expend more energy because they “must counter the gravitational force during the flight by carrying mass in the form of propellant and must overcome atmospheric drag”.
In contrast, by using an elevator system, “the work done is significantly less as no expulsion mass must be carried to do work against gravity, and lower ascent speeds in the lower atmosphere can virtually eliminate atmospheric drag”.
“Part of the limitation on space travel is the cost of getting to space,” Quine told the Guardian. “The tower could change space travel because professional rockets are very energy intensive and not very environmentally friendly.”
The elevator cars can also be powered electrically or inductively, eliminating the need to carry fuel, Quine wrote. The technology offers a way to access space through reusable hardware, and will save more than 30% of the fuel of a conventional rocket, Thoth Technology said in a July statement.
Quine said when a traditional rocket ship launches from Earth, it flies vertically about 15-25km (9-15 miles) before hitting drop-off stages, when sections of the rocket drop back to Earth, usually falling into the ocean. During the final stage when it enters space it is flying horizontally.
The ThothX Tower will eliminate the need for the vertical flight and drop-off stages, which are very energy intensive.
“In our concept, you ascend electrically and remove the whole vertical launch phase,” Quine said. “Then you get into a space plane, which is like a passenger jet, and take off horizontally.”
An elevator to space has been a longstanding idea as an alternative to rocket ships, but has always been believed as unfeasible because no known material can support itself at such a height. Thoth’s design sidesteps this problem by building the elevator to 20km so it sits within the stratosphere rather than all the way in the geostationary orbit, where satellites fly.
The tower, pneumatically pressurized and actively guided over its base, could also be used for wind-energy generation and communications, according to Thoth Technology.
Quine said the tower will also be open to tourists, providing a way for people to experience space-like conditions without losing gravity.
Citing science-fiction author Arthur C Clarke’s proposal of a space elevator in his 1978 novel The Fountains of Paradise, Quine explains in the patent that a space elevator could be constructed with a cable and counterbalanced mass system.
Thoth’s president and CEO, Caroline Roberts, said space travel, coupled with self-landing rocket technologies being developed by other companies, will bring a new era of space transportation.
“Landing on a barge at sea level is a great demonstration, but landing at 12 miles above sea level will make space flight more like taking a passenger jet,” she said in the statement.
via - theguardian
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April 05, 2015
space-net-catch-debries
To tackle the very modern problem of space junk, scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) are turning to one of humanity’s oldest known tools - the fishing net.   
The ESA, which has been developing a mission to capture and remove defunct satellites from low-Earth orbit, recently tested the performance of several weighted fishing nets in microgravity.
space-debries-junk
During brief periods of weightlessness aboard the Canadian Space Agency’s Falcon 20 jet, the ESA researchers fired 20 nets of varying designs out of a compressed air ejector at a model satellite.
The nets were packed inside paper cartons and were “weighted at each corner, helping them to entangle the model satellite,” explained ESA engineer Kjetil Wormnes in a press release.


The above video shows the nets in action, fired from close proximity, and effectively enveloping the stationary satellite model.
“The good news is they worked extremely well – so much so that the nets usually had to be cut away with a knife before we could shoot again,” said Wormnes.
Nets made from thinner fibres were more effective than those woven from thicker fibres, the team reported.
Decades of launches have left Earth surrounded by a halo of some 17,000 items of debris, larger than tennis balls - and hundreds of thousands more, which are much smaller.
These objects threaten existing space assets and future launches, and the problem is getting so bad, the US Air Force is developing a new Space Fence to bolster monitoring capabilities.  
The ESA has plans to begin removing large pieces of debris from low-Earth orbit by 2021, as part of its e.DeOrbit mission.
The nets might be a good option in a simulation, but it’s hard to predict how they’d hold against objects spinning wildly out of control.
As Evan Ackerman explains from IEEE Spectrum, tumbling satellites “might run the risk of ripping the net to shreds, breaking the tether, or even dragging the capturing satellite in and causing a new collision.”
But Wormnes from the ESA says the nets “can handle a wide range of target shapes and rotation rates.”
The challenge is still a formidable one: even if researchers manage to get close enough to rendezvous with defective satellites, and capture them, they still need to figure out how to steer the junk and the salvage craft, in tandem, toward a controlled burn-up during re-entry.  
The ESA is studying several capture technologies in tandem, such as robotic arms and harpoons, and has yet to decide on which one will be deployed on the e.DeOrbit mission.
But the agency says “throw-nets have the advantage of scalability – a large enough net can capture anything, no matter its size and attitude.”
Source: IEEE Spectrum
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April 05, 2015

In 2014, the International Space Station (ISS) took on some unusual passengers: eight groups of ants, which were observed trying to perform searches under microgravity conditions. The goal? To learn more about how these tiny creatures search an area collectively and how they adapt to changing conditions —without any centralized control over the effort.

ant-space-search

The hope, according to researchers behind the study, is that one day such knowledge could be applied in areas such as robotics, where autonomous search-and-rescue robots might be able to search more thoroughly using better algorithms.
The results of the ISS observations, led by Stanford University biologist Deborah M. Gordon, have just been published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
The study used as its test subject the familiar pavement ant (Tetramorium caespitum). As the video below — created to show students how to recreate the experiment — demonstrates, a special habitat housed the ants.
A small chamber served as the nest area. When researchers wanted to test the ants' search behavior, they released a gate that allowed them into a small search enclosure. In smaller spaces, according to Gordon, the ants can "afford" to search more thoroughly. They know they are in a small space because "ant density" is high and they keep bumping into each other.
When the researchers wanted to observe the ants searching a less crowded, bigger space, they opened another gate to make the search area that much wider. In wider spaces, ants tend to understand they have to stretch out and use straighter search paths to maximize coverage.
The results? The team learned that even in microgravity, where they kept losing hold of the walls as well as their sense of how much space needed to be searched, the ants were still able to search collectively — albeit differently than they would on Earth. And they showed "remarkable" skill at regaining contact with the container's surface.
Next Gordon hopes to learn how different species of ant perform in the same experiment. To that end, she has set up a lesson plan that shows students how to do just that.
As the paper's author's wrote: "By repeating this experiment on Earth with different species of ants, we are likely to discover many new distributed algorithms for collective search, and to learn about how evolution has shaped collective behavior in response to local conditions."
via-space

source- discovery

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March 28, 2015 1
satellite - india-pslv--irnss-1d

The Indian Space Research Organisation(Isro) on Saturday launched its fourth navigational satellite IRNSS-1D from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, taking it closer to having its own Global Positional System (GPS) like that of the US.
The satellite is the one among the seven IRNSS constellation of satellites slated to be launched to provide navigational services to the region. It has been placed in the geosynchronous orbit to provide navigation, tracking and mapping services.
Exactly at 5:19pm, the rocket - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle- (PSLV-C-27) standing about 44 metres tall and weighing around 320 tonne, blasted off from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
IRNSS-1D is the fourth of the seven satellites in the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) series after IRNSS-1A, IRNSS-1B and IRNSS-IC.
The fifth of the IRNSS series is slated to be launched in August this year. Once five of them are in the constellation, India can have its own GPS like that of the US.
The system would provide two types of services — Standard Positioning Service, which is provided to all users and Restricted Service, which is an encrypted service provided only to authorised users.
source
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