The "high-risk, high-reward" Ingenuity helicopter is now pouring on the rewards for NASA. It completed its fourth and most ambitious test flight across Mars on Friday.
NASA JPL tweeted "Success," saying Ingenuity went father and faster than ever before. NASA also shared a nifty image from one of the Perseverance rover's cameras showing the helicopter in flight in the distance.
The plan for the latest test was to fly the helicopter to an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters), collect images of the landscape below, hover and then head back to its takeoff spot. The flight path was set to take it 436 feet (133 meters) downrange and last 117 seconds.
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It takes time to send the data back from Mars, but NASA is expecting to receive a bounty of photos snapped by the helicopter during the flight. This will help prove the rotorcraft's potential for use as a scout that can assist surface vehicles like rovers as they explore from the ground.
NASA said the plucky chopper already "has met or surpassed all of its technical objectives." That gave the helicopter team license to try the more daring fourth flight to push its capabilities in the thin atmosphere of Mars.
Ingenuity will soon move into a new demonstration phase if its planned fifth flight is also successful. The next phase will prioritize Perseverance and look at how Ingenuity can assist the rover's mission to study Mars and look for signs of ancient microbial life.
Perseverance is on the move and looking for interesting rocks to check out. Ingenuity may try to tag along. "The helicopter can use these opportunities to perform aerial observations of rover science targets, potential rover routes, and inaccessible features while also capturing stereo images for digital elevation maps," said NASA in a statement on Friday.
The rotorcraft no longer has to prove that powered, controlled flight is possible on another planet. It's done that and more. Every flight from here on out will just add to its aerial legacy.
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The return of a quartet of astronauts from the International Space Station was going to be dramatic enough — a fiery flight through the thickening atmosphere, the deployment of parachutes and then the gentle touchdown in the ocean.
But now NASA has set the splashdown of the Crew-1 astronauts to take place under the cover of darkness in the middle of the night.
NASA on Friday said the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is now slated to undock from the space station at 8:35 p.m. Eastern time Saturday and splash down Sunday at 2:57 a.m.
NASA’s space shuttle had landings in the dark, including its final mission in 2011, which landed on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center at 5:57 a.m. But no capsule has splashed down at night since Apollo 8’s return in 1968 with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, NASA said.
In a statement, NASA said that the spacecraft “is in great health on the space station, and teams now forecast ideal conditions for both splashdown and recovery during the weekend.”
In response to questions from The Washington Post, NASA said that the winds are expected to be about 4 knots with wave heights below one foot at the scheduled arrival time.
“Other return opportunities continued to show high winds well above the return criteria for the foreseeable future, making this an ideal time for crew recovery,” the space agency said. “The recovery team also has rehearsed for crew recovery at night, and has experience with nighttime landing operations.” That includes a recent cargo resupply mission that splashed down at night, NASA said.
The Crew-1 astronauts — Americans Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Victor Glover, as well as Japan’s Soichi Noguchi — have already made history. It was the first full-duration mission under NASA’s “commercial crew” program in which NASA is partnering with two companies, SpaceX and Boeing, to transport astronauts to and from the station.
The astronauts also set the record for the most days in space by a crew launched on a United States spacecraft, surpassing the milestone of 84 days that was set by the Skylab 4 crew in 1974.
Since then, they doubled the duration after staying onboard the International Space Station for six months.
Once the astronauts land in the water — either in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida or in the Gulf of Mexico — the spacecraft will be hoisted onto a recovery ship that would transport the crew to shore.
Last August, SpaceX flew home a pair of NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, in a test flight that paved the way for the Crew-1 mission, which launched to the space station in November.
Crew-1 was originally scheduled to return Wednesday at 11:36 a.m., but the landing was postponed because of expected high winds in the landing zone.
NASA has not said where the specific landing sites are. But during the test mission last year they were along the middle of the eastern coast of Florida, as well as along the panhandle on the gulf side. Last year, recreational boats descended on the capsule once it landed, creating a safety hazard.
This time NASA and SpaceX said they are “working with the U.S. Coast Guard to establish a 10-nautical-mile safety zone around the expected splashdown location to ensure safety for the public and for those involved in the recovery operations, as well as the crew aboard the returning spacecraft.”
Article From & Read More ( NASA and SpaceX now plan to bring Crew-1 astronauts home in the predawn darkness Sunday - The Washington Post )
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Look out world—the ice sheet is coming. New research says that the total collapse of a crucial ice sheet in Antarctica could mean that sea levels would rise an additional 30% more than scientists currently predict.
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The study, published Friday in Science Advances, deals with how the melting ice on the West Antarctic ice sheet will impact the Earth’s crust below. Current predictions say that the ice sheet will increase sea level rise by 10.8 feet (3.3 meters) if it melts fully over the next 1,000 years, but taking the bedrock into effect, this study found, could add a full 3.3 feet (1 meter) to current predictions. What’s more, the models the researchers used show that sea level rise predictions from the ice sheet by the end of this century could actually be 20% higher because of this bedrock effect.
“Every published projection of sea level rise due to melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet that has been based on climate modeling, whether the projection extends to the end of this century or longer into the future, is going to have to be revised upward because of their work,” Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysicist at Harvard University and author on the paper, said in a press release. “Every single one.”
The rock that underlies much of the West Antarctic ice sheet’s sits below sea level, meaning it is especially sensitive to warm ocean currents. How that water could burrow under the ice is one of the biggest question marks as we consider what could happen to sea levels as the planet continues to warm.
“Future change in the West Antarctic ice sheet is the biggest uncertainty in predictions of sea-level rise,” Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey who was not involved with the study, wrote in an email. “Other contributions to sea level change (ocean thermal expansion, melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps, and ice loss from Greenland) can all be estimated with less uncertainty. The difficulty in predicting future change in the WAIS is that most of its bed lies below sea level, and under a large part of the bed gets deeper as you go further into the ice sheet.”
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Scientists think that warm ocean currents are making the ice sheet’s underwater bed increasingly unstable. This instability could create a feedback loop as the top part of the sheet starts to melt, creating what Larter called a “point of no return” for the ice sheet. “However, as in the history of modern science we have never been able to observe a marine ice sheet retreat, we don’t have good observational data to determine how strong the feedbacks are and how fast the retreat might proceed,” he continued.
One big factor in how this collapse could impact us is, surprisingly, the Earth’s crust beneath the ice sheets themselves. As the ice sheet melts and the weight of the ice decreases, the bedrock will spring up like a mattress after you get up out of bed. In the case of the West Antarctic ice sheet, because its base is below sea level, the crust rising up will take up more space in the ocean.
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“This will reduce the amount of accommodation space for water, driving up further sea level rise on time scales of thousands of years,” Bethan Davies, a glacier researcher at the Royal Holloway University of London who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email.
It’s this relationship that the specific research narrows in on: just how much this bedrock—not the melting ice itself—could make sea levels rise. The bedrock beneath the ice sheet, the study says, is a type of low-viscosity mantle that will “rebound rapidly” as the ice melts. The study authors wrote that previous work had estimated this bedrock effect “is small and occurs slowly.” Their models, however, show that it can have a substantial contribution to how sea level is affected by this particular ice sheet melting down.In addressing how the Earth’s crust will react to melting ice, Davies said this particular study tackles a crucial piece of figuring out the overall impact from the ice sheet.
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“One uncertainty in predicting the future is how the Earth’s lithosphere will react to glacier recession,” she wrote. “We continuously try to refine this aspect of glacier dynamics. By using a new model and applying it over a long time, [the study authors] are studying a hitherto understudied aspect of long-term glacier evolution.”
Larter speculated that the big increase the study found compared to previous sea-level rise estimates could simply mean that scientists from across disciplines are finally talking to each other.
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“This result arises from integrated modeling of the ice sheets and the solid Earth, study areas that have traditionally been the separate domains of glaciologists and geologists,” he said. “Over the past couple of decades, scientists have increasingly realized that to solve many important environmental science questions, we need to work across disciplines, and a particular example of this is the realization that the characteristics and response of the solid Earth beneath ice sheets are very important to predicting how they will change.”
While scientists have built increasingly reliable models to study what could happen to glaciers and ice, this study shows how much more there is to learn about what we’re in for as the planet continues to warm and we enter uncharted territory. And that’s not really a great place to be.
Update for 1:45 pm ET: SpaceX is apparently not attempting a Starship SN15 test flight today and road closures were lifted near their Starbase facility. The video above is provided byNASASpaceflight.
SpaceX may launch its latest Starship prototype from the company's Starbase test site in South Texas soon, but exactly when is unclear.
Starship SN15 ("Serial No. 15"), SpaceX's newest vehicle, could fly on a high-altitude test soon from the company's facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas. Officials with Cameron County, which includes the test site, lifted a road closure alert today (April 30) for a potential test flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued flight restriction notices for pilots in the area that from Friday through Sunday (April 30-May 2) in case SpaceX opts to try for a weekend flight.
On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it has authorized SpaceX's plans to launch SN15, as well as two more vehicles — SN16 and SN17 — in the weeks ahead.
"The FAA has authorized the next three launches of the SpaceX Starship prototype," FAA officials wrote in a statement. "The agency approved multiple launches because SpaceX is making few changes to the launch vehicle and relied on the FAA's approved methodology to calculate the risk to the public. "
SN15 is SpaceX's fifth version of Starship to fly in less than five months. SpaceX conducted engine tests of the rocket earlier this week to set the stage for the upcoming launch.
The first Starship to fly, SN8, launched Dec. 9 and flew well, but crashed during landing. Each of the three other Starship flights (of SN9, SN10 and SN11), had similar fates. The SN10 launch did manage to land but exploded a few minutes after touchdown. None of those flights aimed for space, instead targeting an altitude of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers).
SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle as part of a fully reusable heavy-lift launch system that will also include a massive booster called Super Heavy. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said Starship will be the core of the company's deep-space rocket fleet for trips to the moon and Mars.
NASA has tapped the Starship vehicle to land its Artemis astronauts on the moon. SpaceX has also sold a private flight around the moon using Starship to Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who is searching for eight crewmembers to fly with him.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
An ancient tomb thought to date back more than 3,000 years has been discovered in southwest Ireland by workmen carrying out land improvements on a farm.
Archaeologists say the tomb on the Dingle Peninsula of County Kerry is "untouched" and that some of its unusual features, including a mysterious oval-shaped stone inside, indicate that it could be an early example of an ancient burial.
The tomb appears to be a "cist" or chamber tomb, consisting of an underground stone-lined structure built to contain one or several burials and capped with a large stone, Ronan Casey, a spokesperson for Ireland's National Monuments Service, told Live Science.
"Such burials would typically date to the Bronze Age, commencing around 2500 B.C.," Casey said in an email.
Ireland's national broadcaster RTE reported that the tomb was discovered last week when a mechanical digger overturned the large stone slab above it, revealing the chamber beneath. A closer inspection revealed an adjoining sub-chamber at what appears to be the front of the tomb.
"The discovery was reported to the National Monuments Service and National Museum of Ireland very promptly, for which we are very grateful," Casey said. But the exact location of the find is not being publicized to protect the tomb from the possibility of disturbance or looting.
Archaeologists estimate the tomb dates to between about 2,500 and 4,500 years ago, during the Bronze Age in Ireland. But further investigations will be needed before they can narrow down its age, Casey said..
"While we suspect that the cist burial may date to the Bronze Age, we do not yet have conclusive evidence of its date," he said. "At this stage, so early into the discovery and site works, we don't have the full picture yet."
Experts from the National Monuments Service and Ireland's National Museum have inspected the site and recovered "ancient skeletal remains" from the tomb.
They sent a sample of the remains to a laboratory for radiocarbon analysis, which could potentially give a more accurate range of dates for the burial, Casey said, although that process will take several weeks.
One of the most unusual finds in the ancient tomb is a polished stone with a roughly oval shape. Its purpose is unknown, but it was interred beside the human remains; the archaeologists removed it for safekeeping.
Ancient Irish tombs
The region has numerous megalithic tombs known to date from the Bronze Age. "Such graves from this period are not uncommon, and there are numerous sites and monuments from this period on the Dingle Peninsula," Casey said.
But this new discovery stands out. Only the central part of it has been unearthed so far, so the exact layout of the structure remains uncertain. But what's been seen so far seems different from other ancient tombs in the same area.
"Given its location, orientation and the existence of the large slab your initial thought is this is a Bronze Age tomb," local archaeologist MĂcheĂĄl Ă CoileĂĄin told RTE. "But the design of this particular tomb is not like any of the other Bronze Age burial sites we have here."
One feature that could help determine its age is how it is oriented, archaeologist BreandĂĄn Ă CĂobhĂĄin told RTE.
"In the south-west of Ireland we have a significant number of wedge tombs, in Cork and Kerry in particular," he said. "The majority are generally orientated to the west and south-west. It is not clear why, but it may represent celestial or lunar alignments … but as much of this particular tomb remains hidden underground it is difficult to fully assess the layout."
Ireland has thousands of ancient monuments and tombs. The most famous is the passage tomb at Newgrange, beside the River Boyne about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Dublin, which is aligned so that the rising midwinter sun shines down its internal passage and illuminates a chamber deep within.
Newgrange is just one of many tombs in the area known as the BrĂș na BĂłinne Neolithic cemetery, which is listed as a World Heritage site by UNESCO, and the entire country is dotted with ancient megalithic structures.
Some of them date from more than 5,000 years ago, making them older than both Stonehenge in England and the oldest pyramids in Egypt.
Article From & Read More ( 'Untouched' Bronze Age tomb containing human remains and a mysterious stone found in Ireland - Livescience.com )
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Right in the nick of time for a high-altitude flight test scheduled as early as Friday, April 30th, SpaceX has secured an FAA license to launch Starship prototype SN15 and simultaneously received an FCC permit to operate a Starlink dish installed on the rocket.
The two-month FCC permit is primarily a luxury that will allow SpaceX to experiment with the utility of adding Starlink satellite internet connectivity to an active launch vehicle. The FAA license, however, is an essential requirement for the company to legally attempt its fifth high-altitude Starship launch and landing. While FAA approval is the latest of several promising signs that SpaceX may able to be squeeze in a Starship launch attempt before the weekend, some ambiguity still remains.
The FAA says it’s authorized the launches of Starships SN15 (next on the pad), SN16 and SN17. FAA “approved multiple launches because SpaceX is making few changes to the launch vehicle” and is using FAA risk calculations. pic.twitter.com/XR4x5w2brU
As of April 29th, Starship SN15’s launch debut now has an active FAA license, a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) to clear airspace, a marine hazard notice to warn maritime operators, and a highway closure all set for Friday, April 30th. The upgraded Starship prototype has also completed two back-to-back Raptor static fires without any apparent issues and without a need to replace one or more of those engines – a first for a multi-engine Starship prototype.
On the other hand, SpaceX has yet to officially confirm plans for a Friday launch attempt on social media or SpaceX.com and the company has yet to distribute evacuation notices to the few residents that still live in Boca Chica Village. Additionally, weather conditions are likely to be poor on Friday and Starship SN15 still hasn’t been outfitted with explosive Flight Termination System (FTS) charges – a step that’s generally been performed 24+ hours before prior Starship launch attempts.
Update:SpaceX began installing Starship SN15’s FTS charges around 11pm CDT on April 29th.
Status check for a Starship SN15 test flight on Friday:
– FAA approval ✅
– Temporary Flight Restriction ✅
– Village Evacuation Notice đĄ
– Marine hazard zone posted ✅
– Road closure scheduled ✅
– Official confirmation from SpaceX đĄ
Knowing SpaceX, it’s more likely than not that the company is capable of installing FTS less than 24 hours before a launch attempt, but it’s still a departure from the norm and thus noteworthy. Oddly, SpaceX has once again filed TFRs for apparent launch windows on Saturday and Sunday, though the company hasn’t so much as attempted a basic Starship tanking test on a weekend since well before high-altitude flight tests began five months ago.
As such, if SpaceX is unable to launch Starship SN15 tomorrow, it’s far likelier that the next window will open on Monday, May 3rd. Weather forecasts currently show a ~50% chance of thunderstorms and low visibility on Friday and Saturday, with conditions clearing up for a mostly sunny outlook from Sunday through Tuesday. Stay tuned for updates as SpaceX continues to prepare for what could be the first fully successful high-altitude Starship launch and landing.
SpaceX secures Starship SN15 launch license, permit to use Starlink dish in flight
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A small asteroid crashed into Earth three years ago — and now scientists know where it came from. Researchers have traced the origins of the resulting rare meteorite fragments, which began the journey to Earth some 23 million years ago.
The asteroid, called 2018 LA, shot across the sky like a fireball before landing in Botswana on June 2, 2018. Researchers subsequently recovered 23 meteorites from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a huge area known for its diverse wildlife.
"The meteorite is named 'Motopi Pan' after a local watering hole," Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe, the senior curator of the Botswana Geoscience Institute, said in a statement, referring to the first sample they found. "This meteorite is a national treasure of Botswana."
Scientists first spotted the asteroid using the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, which tracks asteroids as part of NASA's Planetary Defense program. It marked just the second time scientists have been able to study an asteroid in space before it reaches Earth — typically, they don't know about them until after it's happened.
Fragment of asteroid 2018 LA recovered in Central Kalahari Game Reserve in central Botswana.SETI Institute
At the time, the asteroid was estimated to be about 6 feet across — small enough to safely break apart in Earth's atmosphere. It arrived at the fast speed of 38,000 miles per hour, according to NASA.
"This is only the second time we have spotted an asteroid in space before it hit Earth over land," said Jenniskens. "The first was asteroid 2008 TC3 in Sudan ten years earlier."
Through precisely mapping the boulder-sized asteroid's orbit and path to Earth, as well as analyzing the samples at the University of Helsinki, researchers determined that they belong to the group of Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite (HED) meteorites, named for their composition. They published their findings in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
This group of meteorites is likely to have come from Vesta, the second-largest asteroid in our solar system, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
"Combining the observations of the small asteroid in space with information gleaned from the meteorites shows it likely came from Vesta, second-largest asteroid in our Solar System and target of NASA's DAWN mission," said lead author Peter Jenniskens. "Billions of years ago, two giant impacts on Vesta created a family of larger, more dangerous asteroids. The newly recovered meteorites gave us a clue on when those impacts might have happened."
Researchers now believe the Veneneia impact basin formed about 4.2 billion years ago.
These are the discovery observations of asteroid 2018 LA from the Catalina Sky Survey, taken June 2, 2018. About eight hours after these images were taken, the asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated in the upper atmosphere near Botswana, Africa.NASA / JPL
Researchers observed more diversity in the appearance of the meteorites than expected. They classified the asteroid as a breccia, a mixture of rock pieces from various parts on Vesta.
"We studied the petrography and mineral chemistry of five of these meteorites and confirmed that they belong to the HED group," said co-author Roger Gibson. "Overall, we classified the material that asteroid 2018 LA contained as being Howardite, but some individual fragments had more affinity to Diogenites and Eucrites."
One-third of all HED meteorites that arrive on Earth were ejected from the asteroid approximately 22 million years ago.
Further research "showed that this meteorite too had been in space as a small object for about 23 million years," said Kees Welten of UC Berkeley, "but give or take 4 million years."
Researchers say they are excited to uncover more secrets surrounding the mysterious Vesta asteroid. A more recent expedition, in November 2020, led to researchers locating another Motopi Pan meteorite — at 2.3 ounces, it's the largest found to date.
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NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. This is one still frame from a sequence captured by the camera while taking video on April 29. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Data received from the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on Thursday morning shows the helicopter did not execute its planned fourth flight as scheduled. The helicopter is safe and in good health. Data returned during a downlink at 1:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 a.m. PDT) indicates the helicopter did not transition to flight mode, which is required for the flight to take place.
The team plans to try its fourth flight again today, April 30, 2021. The flight is scheduled for 10:46 a.m. EDT (7:46 a.m. PDT, 12:30 p.m. local Mars time), with the first data expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 1:39 p.m. EDT (10:39 a.m. PDT).
An issue identified earlier this month showed a 15% chance for each time the helicopter attempts to fly that it would encounter a watchdog timer expiration and not transition to flight mode. Today’s delay is in line with that expectation and does not prevent future flights. A briefing scheduled for Friday, April 30, to discuss next steps for the helicopter will continue as planned but will move to a new time, 11:30 a.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. PDT).
In an unusual move, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has given Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX tentative approval for three more tests of its Starship spacecraft.
The upcoming SN15 test could happen as soon as this week, as the FAA says an inspector has already been sent to the SpaceX Boca Chica launch site. The future approvals of SN16 and SN17 tests hinge on a successful SN15 flight, and the regulator warns that “mishaps” might require corrective safety actions from SpaceX.
The approval is atypical because the FAA had previously approved SpaceX tests one at a time, as regulators have been critical of SpaceX’s testing practices. The FAA had previously called out Musk for launching the Starship SN8 test in December 2020 without a proper license. That test exploded, though it was uncrewed and no property damage was found.
But this time, the FAA says that it has approved the tests in bulk because SpaceX played by the rules, and followed the FAA risk calculations needed to obtain approval. SpaceX is also only making slight changes to the designs over the next few tests.
“The FAA has authorized the next three launches of the SpaceX Starship prototype,” the government organization said in an official statement. “The agency approved multiple launches because SpaceX is making few changes to the launch vehicle and relied on the FAA’s approved methodology to calculate the risk to the public. The FAA authorized the launches on Wednesday, April 28.
Starship’s NASA connection
An official concept rendering of Starship on the moon.SpaceX
There’s also another factor that might have come into play: SpaceX just won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA to use the Starship as a Moon lander. This means that NASA’s entire Artemis mission of landing the next generation of Americans on the Moon now rests in the success of SpaceX’s Starship.
While SpaceX has won the contract, none of its Starship prototypes have survived their tests so far. The closest attempt, the SN10 test, exploded minutes after landing. NASA likely prefers that the Starship stay intact during the entirety of the Artemis mission.
This new pressure to complete the Starship might pressure Musk to play by NASA and the FAA’s rules. Scrutiny is especially high, since the two other aerospace companies competing for the Moon lander contract, Blue Origin and Dynetics, are protesting the contract award.
“In NASA’s own words, it has made a ‘high risk’ selection,” Blue Origin told SpaceNews.
How SpaceX is changing Starship
But for now, the contract has been awarded and tests continue. The upgraded SN15 has been outfitted with upgraded Raptor engines, which have been test fired twice in 24 hours. The SN15 also features other upgrades, like an external methane manifold and hundreds more heat shield tiles, as noticed by space education YouTube channel Scientia Plus. And with the FAA inspector on site and Musk tweeting that the launch is set for this week, its likely all barriers have been removed for the test.
For the tests after this week, SpaceX hasn’t announced what changes are being made on the SN16 and SN17 rockets, but the SN16 is already being assembled at the facility in Boca Chica.
NASA astronaut Michael Collins has passed away at the age of 90. Collins is most well known for a photo he took of the lunar module containing both Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong in front of the Earth, which captures all of humanity, alive and dead, in a single photo. That is, other than himself.
Collins had been fighting a valient battle with Cancer, and his death was shared by his family on Collins’ Facebook page.
“We regret to share that our beloved father and grandfather passed away today, after a valiant battle with cancer,” the statement reads. “Please join us in fondly and joyfully remembering his sharp wit, his quiet sense of purpose, and his wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across the calm water from the dek of his fishing boat.”
“Today the nation lost a true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration in astronaut Michael Collins. As pilot of the Apollo 11 command module – some called him ‘the loneliest man in history’ – while his colleagues walked on the Moon for the first time, he helped our nation achieve a defining milestone. He also distinguished himself in the Gemini Program and as an Air Force pilot,” he writes.
Astronaut Michael Collins, Apollo 11 command module pilot
Collins was the command module pilot on NASA’s Apollo 11 mission and circled the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldring touched down at Tranquility Base on July 20, 1969. Because of his position, when the duo returned from the surface he was able to capture a photo of all of humanity in a single photo, excluding himself of course. He is the only person in the history of humanity to not appear in some form in the photo.
As Rare Historical Photos explains, “That means that every human that lived up to the point of this photo being taken still exists, at least in some form, and every human that has been born since then was also is in this photo, at least in some form. So even if you were born after this picture was taken, the materials you’re made from are still on the frame of this picture.”
Photo by Michael Collins, NASA
Buzz Aldrin posted a brief note on his Facebook page saying goodbye to Collins.
“Wherever you have been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future. We will miss you. May you Rest In Peace.”
As noted by The Guardian, Collins wrote several books, including Carrying the Fire in 1974 which was dedicated to his wife. Patricia died in 2014, and their son Michael passed in 1993. Collins is survived by two daughters, Kate and Ann, seven grandchildren, and a sister.
A study has found wells dug by horses and donkeys increased water availability for many native desert species, and decreased the distances between important water sources during dry periods
For thousands of years, horses and donkeys have been some of our species' most important partners.
A new study published Thursday shows they're also friends to desert animals and plants, by digging deep wells that provide a vital source of water, especially at the height of summer.
Biologist Erick Lundgren, lead author of the paper in Science, told AFP he first began noticing the phenomenon while working in western Arizona as a field technician studying river systems.
"People just didn't think it was worthy of scientific attention," said the scientist, who is now at the University of Technology Sydney.
Lundgren had read about African elephants digging wells that were the only source of water for other animals during the dry season, and wanted to know if horses and donkeys might play a similar role in America.
The idea was intriguing, "especially since donkeys and horses are considered agents of biodiversity harm" as they are not native species in the region, he said.
Over the course of three summers, he and his team surveyed sites in the Sonoran Desert that stretches across Arizona and California.
Video sequence of well digging behavior by wild donkeys, and their utilization by other species. Credit: E. Lundgren
They documented the relative contribution of wells dug by horses and donkeys compared to the surface water that was available to animals from desert streams, some of which are intermittent while others are permanent.
The team also set up camera traps to learn how other animals were utilizing the wells.
'Invasion biology'?
They found that wells dug by the "equids" to depths of up to six feet (two meters) increased water availability for many native desert species, and decreased the distances between important water sources during dry periods.
The wells were especially important during the hottest and driest parts of summer, when they provided the only available water source at some sites.
Species that flocked to the equid-engineered wells and were caught on camera included mule deers, bobcats, Woodhouse's scrub jay and javelinas
Lundgren said the horses and donkeys acted as "buffers" against the extreme variability of desert streams from year to year.
"The donkey wells kept water in the system. And these features were used by pretty much every species you could picture, including some surprising ones like black bears, that we didn't expect to see in the desert," he said.
Other species that flocked to the wells and were caught on camera included mule deer, bobcats, Woodhouse's scrub jay and javelinas.
The team even spotted some river tree species sprouting from abandoned wells, indicating they also serve a role as plant nurseries.
Horses and donkeys were introduced to the Americas by Europeans to assist with the colonization of the continent, but their use declined with the advent of the internal combustion engine.
This undated image courtesy of Biologist Erick Lundgren shows a bobcat entering an equid well
Since then, they have been studied as "invasion biology," said Lundgren, which does not consider them to be a part of the local wildlife.
But this thinking is too tunnel-visioned and has prevented scientists from having a more nuanced understanding of their effects on their ecosystems, he argued.
Lundgren and his colleagues said in their paper that the wells will be increasingly important as human activity and climate change reduces the number of perennial streams in these regions.
Another element to the story is that the behavior of modern horses and donkeys might have an "ancient precedent," said Lundgren.
Horses, elephants and other large animals that roamed North America until a mysterious extinction event around 12,000 years ago could have once fulfilled a similar role.
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SpaceX is continuing its Starship spacecraft testing and development program apace, and as of this afternoon it has authorization from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct its next three test flights from its launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. Approvals for prior launch tests have been one-offs, but the FAA said in a statement that it’s approving these in a batch because “SpaceX is making few changes to the launch vehicle and relied on the FAA’s approved methodology to calculate the risk to the public.”
SpaceX is set to launch its SN15 test Starship as early as this week, with the condition that an FAA inspector be present at the time of the launch at the facility in Boca Chica. The regulator says that it has sent an inspector, who is expected to arrive today, which could pave the way for a potential launch attempt in the next couple of days.
The last test flight SpaceX attempted from Boca Chica was the launch of SN11, which occurred at the end of March. That ended badly, after a mostly successful initial climb to an altitude of around 30,000 feet and flip maneuver, with an explosion triggered by an error in one of the Raptor engines used to control the powered landing of the vehicle.
In its statement about the authorization of the next three attempts, the FAA noted that the investigation into what happened with SN11 and its unfortunate ending is still in progress, but added that even so, the agency has determined any public safety concerns related to what went wrong have been alleviated.
The three-launch approval license includes flights of SN16 and SN17 as well as SN15, but the FAA noted that after the first flight, the next two might require additional “corrective action” prior to actually taking off, pending any new “mishap” occurring with the SN15 launch.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has at time criticized the FAA for not being flexible or responsive enough to the rapid pace of iteration and testing that SpaceX is pursuing in Starship’s development. On the other side, members of Congress have suggested that the FAA has perhaps not been as thorough as necessary in independently investigating earlier Starship testing mishaps. The administration contends that the lack of any ultimate resulting impact to public safety is indicative of the success of its program thus far, however.
NASA's helicopter on Mars, the four-pound "Ingenuity," failed to get off the ground for its fourth flight Thursday, but NASA said it is safe and will try again Friday.
Previous test flights for the helicopter went well, with Ingenuity rising up 16 feet in the air during the third flight last Sunday then flashing downrange about 50 yards at a speed of 6.6 feet per second.
The second test flight on April 22 and the first flight on April 19 also went as planned.
The cause of Thursday's hiccup was a "watchdog" timer issue that prevented Ingenuity from transitioning to "flight mode."
Flying on Mars is no easy task, as the atmosphere is incredibly thin, about 1% that of Earth's. Nighttime temperatures on the Red Planet can also drop as low as minus 130 degrees, potentially freezing any unprotected electrical systems.
"Mars is hard," MiMi Aung, project manager for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, said before the test flights. "Our plan is to work whatever the Red Planet throws at us the very same way we handled every challenge we’ve faced over the past six years – together, with tenacity and a lot of hard work, and a little Ingenuity."
Ingenuity originally touched down at an ancient river delta on Mars in mid-February aboard Perseverance before coming out of the rover's belly on April 3.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Once Ingenuity's test flights are completed, the Perseverance rover will set off in search of past microscopic life.
Ingenuity was built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and is carrying some wing fabric from the Wright Flyer that made the first ever flight on earth at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903.
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The agency's Southern California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) wrote in a description of the image that the helicopter had been flying at an altitude of 16 feet and was around 279 feet away from the rover at the time it was taken.
"I spy with my little eye…a rover. See if you can spot @NASAPersevere in this image taken by the #MarsHelicopter during its third flight on April 25, 2021," they wrote in an accompanying tweet. "Ingenuity was flying at an altitude of 16 ft (5 m) and ~279 ft (~85 m) from the rover at the time."
"Oh hey, there I am!" NASA's Perseverance Twitter account replied. "Never thought I’d be the subject of another photographer on Mars. Great capture by the #MarsHelicopter team."
It's an unprecedented view of a Mars rover. Space.com reported Wednesday that while other NASA Mars rovers had taken photos in previous years, the rovers were tethered to the planet's surface.
After landing with Perseverance on Mars in February, Ingenuity has successfully and autonomously attempted three experimental flights, all with various degrees of difficulty.
On Thursday at 10:12 a.m. ET, the rotorcraft was set to conduct its fourth flight.
It would depart from Wright Brothers Field -- the name of the Martian airfield -- climbing to an altitude of 16 feet and head southward for 276 feet.
"As it flies, the rotorcraft will use its downward-looking navigation camera to collect images of the surface every 4 feet (1.2 meters) from that point until it travels a total of 436 feet (133 meters) downrange," NASA wrote in a Wednesday news release. "Then, Ingenuity will go into a hover and take images with its color camera before heading back to Wright Brothers Field."
As Ingenuity has met or surpassed all of its "tech demo goals," NASA wrote in a tweet that they would "push performance" and up the duration airborne to 117 seconds, increase the max airspeed to 3.5 meters per second and more than double the total range.
The first data from the flight is scheduled to return to JPL at 1:21 p.m. ET.
After reviewing the data, the Ingenuity team will consider a plan for its fifth and final flight.
"When Ingenuity’s landing legs touched down after that third flight, we knew we had accumulated more than enough data to help engineers design future generations of Mars helicopters," J. "Bob" Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at JPL, said in the release. "Now we plan to extend our range, speed, and duration to gain further performance insight."
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But its role as the sole venue for a continuous human presence in space, scientific research and a testing ground for future space exploration is coming to a close, potentially signaling an end to an unparalleled era of international cooperation in space.
China, whose astronauts have long been excluded from the ISS, successfully launched the first module of its planned space station on Thursday morning from the Wenchang launch site in the southern island of Hainan, according to the China National Space Administration.
The core module, currently the largest spacecraft developed by China, was launched into low earth orbit by a Long March-5B rocket, marking the first step of China's efforts to build its own station in two years.
Russia has also said that it will leave the ISS project in 2025 and plans to build its own space station that could launch in 2030 -- if Russian President Vladimir Putin gives the go-ahead.
China's space station won't launch all at once; it will be assembled from several modules launching at different times. Chinese state media reports that the country's space station will be fully operational by the end of 2022.
The core module has a total length of 16.6 meters (55 feet), a maximum diameter of 4.2 meters and a living space of 50 cubic meters, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
It's expected to operate for 10 years -- which could be extended to 15. Eleven launches including four crewed missions and four cargo missions are scheduled in the next two years. The first crewed mission is expected to be launched in June of this year -- sending three astronauts to orbit for about three months, during which the life support system and maintenance will be tested.
It won't be as large as the ISS -- about one fifth of its size and similar to the Russian Mir space station, which operated from 1986 to 2001, but the intent is that it can be permanently occupied by astronauts on long-term stays.
"We did not intend to compete with the ISS in terms of scale," Gu Yidong, chief scientist of the China Manned Space program, was quoted by Scientific American as saying.
China launched its first manned space flight in 2003 -- more than 40 years after NASA. But as the nation has grown richer and more powerful in recent decades, its space program has accelerated.
China's space station -- the core module is known as Tianhe, which means harmony of the heavens -- will allocate space and resources to a number of international microgravity experiments. Six projects have been fully accepted so far including one on the impact of spaceflight on cancer tumors conducted by researchers from Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
"China is interested in demonstrating to the world, and to its own people, that it is a world class player in human spaceflight and cutting edge science," said David Burbach, a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College. Burbach spoke in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the US Navy.
"International cooperation also helps China's scientific community to learn from peers in other nations. Diplomatically, science cooperation helps portray China as a normal, cooperative world power, and in the case of cooperation with US allies in Europe and elsewhere, likely Beijing appreciates driving a bit of a wedge between those allies and the US."
There's been very little cooperation between the US and China in space. In 2011, US Congress passed an act to bar NASA from having any bilateral contact with individuals of the Chinese space program because of national security fears.
What's next for ISS?
What lies ahead for the aging ISS is unclear.
It was initially envisaged that the ISS would have a 30-year lifespan. NASA has said that the space station is viable beyond 2028 and it could continue to play a key role in preparing for deeper space flight such as missions to Mars. However, it wants to share the $1.1 billion annual cost of operating it more widely with other potential users.
"The hope has been to commercialize the station, but it's not clear much progress has been made or even what commercialization would mean in practice. ISS is probably not ideally fitted out as a hotel for space tourists, and it's not clear there's much business interest in using ISS for zero gravity R&D," said Burbach.
"In theory lack of a buyer, so to speak, might mean abandoning ISS and de-orbiting it, letting up burn up like the Mir station twenty years ago. I think it will be very difficult politically for the US to abandon a permanent presence in Earth orbit when the Chinese *do* have a station of their own," he said via email.
Burbach said that the ISS had been much more international that any other space project, with the close involvement of Russia, Japan, Canada and European countries. However, it was unlikely that US-Russian cooperation would be a cornerstone of future projects, he said. Nor did he expect any softening of the US stance toward working with China in space.
"The US is making its return to the Moon program -- Artemis -- very international, with ESA, Canada, and Japan all contributing major components, and involving new partners too like the UAE," he said, referring to the European Space Agency.
"The overall theme is one of the US strengthening relations with its friends, not using space to try to build a bridge to rivals," he said.
