The spacecraft OSIRIS-REx has arrived at it’s target , asteroid Bennu. Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group with a possible Earth-crossing trajectory, making it highly suitable for physical study. Because asteroids are the last remnants of primitive material in the solar system, they are the last remaining clues of what the area around the solar system was made out of before the planets formed. OSIRIS-REx will take one 60 gram sample and return it to the surface of Earth for careful study in a lab.

The asteroid Bennu.

No instrument flown into space is as powerful as an advanced laboratory on the surface of Earth. OSIRIS-REx will spend a while studying the asteroid from its current distance before going into mapping and surveying orbits. After a landing site is determined, OSIRIS-REx will collect its sample, preparing for a return in 2023.

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

Artist rendering from NASA of the InSight lander just after touchdown on the surface in Elysium Planitia.

Yesterday, at around noon pacific time, the martian InSight probe touched down on the surface of the red planet. InSight, which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport. After launching on May 5th and cruising through space for over six months, the spacecraft made a successful touchdown on the 26th of November. It will spend the next few weeks deploying its science instruments, chiefly the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), and Temperature and Winds for InSight (TWINS). SEIS is a seismometer that will be placed on the surface by the robotic arm present on the lander. Insulated against the wind by shielding, it will provide accurate data on “marsquakes” that will help scientists understand any tremors on Mars. Mars doesn’t have active tectonics, so it’s assumed that any shaking would be the result of a cooling and shrinking interior. HP3 is a burrowing heat probe that will also be placed on the surface. It’s different in that it will burrow down 6 meters into the soil so that it can take accurate heat measurements, leading to better understanding of the interior of Mars. RISE will use the X-band antenna on-board to build accurate models of InSight’s exact location. By studying the wobble of Mars’s spin, we can estimate the size of the core to a much greater accuracy. TWINS is simply an atmospheric and weather probe designed to make measurements from the surface.

“First light” image from one of InSight’s cameras. This image is the second one beamed back from the plains of Mars.

After landing on the surface, InSight took some pictures to confirm touchdown and began health checks to verify full spacecraft operational capacity and integrity. Pictured here is the first light image from one of it’s cameras. Over the next few months, instrument deployment will begin, allowing the science to finally start. From it’s spot on Elysium Planitia, a flat plain that allows for easy landing, InSight will perform its duties faithfully for the next two years.

Sources:

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22575

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/snt

Japan’s HTV resupply spacecraft recently showed off a new feature – the HTV Small Re-Entry Capsule. The resupply vehicle is built to deliver cargo the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, whether pressurized or in a vacuum, but this new vehicle allows small amounts of cargo to be returned from the orbiting science lab to the Earth without hitching a ride on the US-built Dragon or the Russian Soyuz vehicles. This gives them incredible capabilities for science return. The flight that demonstrated this new addition, Kounotori 7, was supplied with a cargo of protein crystals grown inside the zero-gravity laboratory. The transfer vehicle as a whole arrived at the station after a launch from Japan on the 22nd of September. After staying berthed for 41 days, the vehicle was released and commanded to execute a deorbit burn, firing its engines retrograde to initiate a perigee drop. Once the vehicle had dropped to 300 kilometers, it was commanded to release the small reentry capsule, which used nitrogen-gas thrusters to maintain control until splashdown and recovery on the 10th of November. The capsule was successfully recovered and the protein crystals were flown back to an Earthly laboratory, proving a success for the engineers at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) approaching the International Space Station.

Sources:

https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-20/hires/iss020e041380.jpg

https://www.space.com/42422-japanese-space-capsule-prototype-survives-reentry.html

     It’s been a bad month for Hubble, the primary visible light space telescope in operation today. In operation since the 1990’s, the telescope has relied on occasional visits by astronauts to fix broken components. In 2009, the last visitation occurred, where astronauts fixed all six gyroscopes necessary to point the telescope into the night sky. The telescope only needs three to operate at full capacity, but gyroscopes are a major point of failure, so some are kept as extra capacity. In the recent years, three of the six have broken, leaving the telescope with just the right amount to maintain full control. However, one more failed in the first week of October. NASA’s telescope can operate at a highly reduced capacity on just one, so the plan was to switch to one and preserve the other to extend the operational life as long as possible.

In a surprise turn of events, NASA was able to restore one of the gyroscopes that had previously been “dead” through a complicated series of events that involved rotating the telescope and switching the gyroscopes off and on again to clear any blockage. This may not work for long, however, as the gyroscopes are liable to failure. In the end, Hubble will fail, and have to be shut down permanently. In the meantime, however, we can revel in a return to full science operations soon.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/24/no-nasa-didnt-fix-hubble-telescope-by-just-turning-it-off-again/?utm_term=.2d904c0a06fc

The world of aerospace had a bit of a shock yesterday at the failure of the Soyuz launch vehicle during the ascent to orbit. Very little is currently known about the failure. What we do know is that two astronauts, Nick Hague from NASA and Aleksey Ovchinin, were riding aboard the Soyuz FG launch vehicle during liftoff when the booster began to fall apart beneath them. During the separation of the four side-mounted rocket boosters, the rocket began to break up and the abort system was activated. This fired small rockets mounted to the top of the booster, quickly carrying away the astronauts from the doomed rocket, all while putting them through intensive forces. The capsule then began to fall towards the ground on ballistic trajectory, a type of emergency atmospheric entry trajectory designed to bleed off speed as fast as possible without killing them, once again putting them through intense force. The capsule made a successful emergency landing under three parachutes, and the astronauts were recovered by search and rescue forces. Shown here is a picture of the rocket breaking apart during the staging event. 

The implications could be quite serious for the future of manned spaceflight. The three astronauts on board the space station currently do have to come down at some point, but the vehicle to put more astronauts aboard is now grounded until the problem is found. There is a distinct possibility that the space station could sit empty for a while, a frightening thing to happen for one of the most expensive space projects in all history. Information will come out slowly, and more posts will be made with updates.

Sources:

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/10/soyuz-rocket-failure

https://www.space.com/42110-soyuz-rocket-launch-failure-seen-from-space.html