August is the perfect month to dust off the telescope and point it to the cosmos as one of the biggest planets in the solar system shines brighter than any other time of the year.
Saturn has been visible for late-night stargazers for most of the year, but in August, the planet will be visible all night long, as long as it isn't cloudy.
On Monday, Aug. 2, Saturn will officially reach opposition, meaning that it will appear opposite of the sun from the perspective of the Earth. Saturn is at opposition once every year.
Around the same time of opposition, Saturn will make its closest approach to the Earth, although ‘close' is a relative term as more than 800 million miles will still separate the two planets. At this distance, it takes light more than one hour to travel from one planet to the other.
Saturn will be easy to pick out in the sky as it rises in the southeast around sunset, tracks across the southern sky throughout the night, and then eventually sets in the southwest around sunrise.
Despite opposition taking place on Aug. 2, skywatchers will have great views of Saturn all month long.
This means that people can make plans to look for the planet at a time that is easiest for them and when AccuWeather meteorologists are predicting cloud-free conditions.
Since the opposition is around the time when the planet is closest to the Earth, it presents a golden opportunity to observe Saturn through the eyepiece of a telescope.
Saturn is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, making it an easy target to find with a telescope, especially for those who are using a telescope for the first time.
Saturn will not be the only planet that will glow in the August sky.
Jupiter will rise shortly after Saturn every evening, following it as glides across the sky throughout the night.
Jupiter is the brighter of the two planets, so finding it may be easier. People that are having difficulties spotting Saturn can look for the brighter Jupiter first and then look off to the right to spot Saturn.
This is reminiscent of how the duo appeared in the summer sky in 2020, although last year Saturn was visible to the left of Jupiter.
Later in the month, Jupiter will reach opposition, making it another planet to zoom in on with the magnifying power of a telescope.
Saturn and Jupiter will remain prominent features in the night sky through much of the rest of 2021, although the pair will gradually become dimmer and dimmer throughout autumn and heading into winter.
NASA just celebrated another major moment in the history of Moon exploration. The New York Timesnoted that July 31st, 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the Lunar Roving Vehicle's first outing — and the first time people drove on the Moon. Apollo 15 astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin took the car on a stint to collect samples and explore the lunar surface more effectively than they could on foot.
Scott and Irwin would eventually drive the rover two more times (for a total of three hours) before returning to Earth. The Apollo 16 and 17 missions each had an LRV of their own. There was also a fourth rover, but it was used for spare parts after the cancellation of Apollo 18 and further missions. All three serving models remained on the Moon.
Early development was problematic, in no small part due to the lack of real-world testing conditions. They couldn't exactly conduct a real-world test drive, after all. The team eventually settled on a collapsible design with steel mesh wheels that could safely handle the Moon's low gravity, lack of atmosphere, extreme temperatures and soft soil.
The LRV was modest, with a 57-mile range, four 0.19kW motors and an official top speed of 8MPH. It was also expensive, with cost overruns bringing the price of four rovers to $38 million (about $249 million in 2021 dollars). It was key to improved scientific exploration during the later stages of the Apollo program, though, and it was also an early example of a practical electric vehicle — humans were using a battery-powered ride on the Moon decades before the technology became mainstream on Earth.
We wouldn't count on humans driving on the Moon any time soon, although that reflects the progress made in the 50 years since. NASA and other space agencies are now focused on robotic rovers that can explore the Moon without worries about crew safety. Those humans that do go on rides will likely use autonomous vehicles. Think of this anniversary as celebrating a first step toward the technology you see today.
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Hey, let's not dwell on the past and point fingers.
Shrug It Off
On Thursday, Russia docked its new Nauka module to the International Space Station — and, just three hours later, sent the entire orbital facility careening off course when it suddenly and unexpectedly fired up its thrusters.
Now, the Russian space agency Roscosmos says that a software glitch is to blame, Reutersreports. Apparently the module received the command to “withdraw,” sending the station rotating away from its typical orientation. But more than anything else, Roscosmos doesn’t seem interested in dwelling on the past. The main message right now seems to be reassurance that all is well and that everything worked out — an odd framing from an organization that almost caused a horrific tragedy.
“Dear friends, I’m reading your numerous comments,” cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy tweeted early Friday morning. “Don’t worry! Our work at the International Space Station to integrate the newly arrived Nauka module continues! Tonight we are going to open the hatches. Will keep you posted!”
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
To be fair, NASA confirmed that the space station crew was safe shortly after they managed to reorient the entire facility. But during the harrowing experience, experts remained unconvinced that things were as under control as the space agencies claim.
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“‘The crew were never in any danger’… I’m not convinced they understand the issue well enough to be able to say that right now,” Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell tweeted on Thursday.
Onward and Upward
Regardless, Roscosmos says that the Russian crew is moving right along with restoring business as usual on the ISS and integrating the new Nauka module.
“The crew is now busy balancing the pressure in the Nauka module,” designer general Vladimir Solovyov from the Russian space company Energia said in a statement to Reuters. “In the afternoon, the crew will open the hatches, enter the module, turn on the necessary means of purifying the atmosphere and begin normal regular work.”
An Ariane 5 rocket lifts off Friday from a launch pad in French Guiana. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – P. Piron
A European Ariane 5 rocket launched from French Guiana Friday, succeeding on its first flight in nearly a year to deploy a pair of geostationary communications satellites for commercial operators in Brazil and France.
The launch was a key test of the Ariane 5 rocket ahead of a flight later this year to send the James Webb Space Telescope toward its observation post nearly a million miles from Earth. The European Space Agency is providing the launch for JWST, a joint program between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency with a cost of more than $10 billion.
Engineers introduced modifications to the Ariane 5’s payload fairing, or nose cone, to reduce vibrations imparted on the satellites during separation of the shroud, which protects payloads during the first few minutes of flight through the atmosphere.
Ground teams will analyze data from the rocket to make sure the changes reduced the vibrations. Another Ariane 5 launch is scheduled for late September, then JWST will be next in line for a liftoff in November or December.
The Ariane 5 is one of the most powerful rockets in the world. Friday’s mission marked the 110th flight of an Ariane 5 rocket since 1996, but it was the first Ariane 5 launch since last August, an unusually long gap between missions to allow engineers to resolve the fairing vibration concern before the launch of JWST.
Technicians at a Northrop Grumman facility in Southern California are readying the observatory — the largest space telescope ever flown — for shipment by boat to the Guiana Space Center.
But first, the Ariane 5 team had to successfully launch two commercial communications satellites Friday.
Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science mission directorate, attended the launch Friday in French Guiana. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an interview Thursday that the agency sent Zurbuchen to the Guiana Space Center to check on preparations for the JWST launch.
“We sent Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen down to French Guiana because it seems the only hold up that we would see with James Webb would be whether or not these two Arianes that fly before JWST, if they get off safely and on time,” Nelson said. “And we wanted Dr. Z t to go down there and check all of that out, so he’ll report to us on what he sees.”
The Ariane 5 rocket, standing nearly 180 feet (55 meters) tall, took off from the European-run spaceport in South America at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT; 6 p.m. French Guiana time) with Embratel’s Star One D2 spacecraft and the Eutelsat Quantum satellite.
A hydrogen-fueled Vulcain 2 main engine and two solid rocket boosters propelled the launcher off the pad. The Ariane 5’s guidance computer put the rocket on a path east from French Guiana, and the rocket shed its spent booster casings nearly two-and-a-half minutes into the mission.
About a minute later, ground controllers confirmed separation of the Ariane 5’s payload fairing.
The Star One D2 communications satellite undergoes testing at Maxar’s spacecraft manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, California. Credit: Maxar
The core stage engine burned for almost nine minutes, then jettisoned to fall into the Atlantic Ocean near Africa. A cryogenic upper stage ignited to finish the job of placing the Star One D2 and Eutelsat Quantum satellites into orbit.
Arianespace, the French launch services company, confirmed a good orbital injection and separation of both satellites less than 40 minutes after liftoff.
Star One D2 is a multipurpose communications satellite covering Latin America for Embratel of Brazil. Built by Maxar in Palo Alto, California, the spacecraft rode in the upper position of the dual-satellite stack inside the Ariane 5’s payload fairing.
Fully fueled, the satellite weighed 13,646 pounds (6,190 kilograms) at launch, according to Arianespace. The spacecraft carries transponders operating in Ku-, Ka-, C-, and X-band frequencies, allowing it to serve multiple missions from its perch in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.
Embratel says the new satellite, designed for a 15-year lifetime, will allow it to expand broadband coverage to new regions in Central and South America, support television broadcast programming, and provide cell phone backhaul capacity. The satellite’s X-band payload will be used by the Brazilian military.
Maxar said in statement after the launch Friday that the Star One D2 satellite was performing as expected after separation from the Ariane 5 rocket. The spacecraft deployed its solar arrays and began communicating with mission control through ground stations.
Star One D2 will execute several thruster firings over the next few weeks to maneuver out of the elongated transfer orbit the Ariane 5 rocket placed it in. The satellite will target a circular geostationary orbit, where its speed will match the rate of Earth’s rotation, and enter service at 70 degrees west latitude.
“Maxar is proud of our partnership on geostationary satellites with Embratel over the years,” said Chris Johnson, Maxar’s senior vice president of space programs delivery. ‘Our team members completed building Star One D2 during the global pandemic, which added in new and unusual working conditions to keep everyone safe. They persevered and delivered the satellite, and we’re now focused on its on-orbit commissioning activities.”
The Eutelsat Quantum spacecraft, built by Airbus in France, rode to orbit in the lower position inside the Ariane 5’s payload shroud.
Developed in a public-private partnership between ESA, Airbus, and Eutelsat, the spacecraft will debut a new software-based design that will allow the satellite to be completely reprogrammed in orbit.
The innovation is a first for a European satellite, and will give Eutelsat the flexibility to repurpose the Quantum spacecraft to respond to changing market demands over its 15-year design life.
The Eutelsat Quantum spacecraft is mounted on top of its Ariane 5 launcher. Credit: ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut
Like Star One D2, he 7,630-pound (3,461-kilogram) Eutelsat Quantum spacecraft will head into geostationary orbit after separation from the Ariane 5 rocket’s upper stage. Its service location will be at 48 degrees east longitude.
The satellite will operate in Ku-band with eight independent reconfigurable beams, allowing Eutelsat to adjust the spacecraft’s throughput and coverage zones to meet ever-changing business requirements.
“Its beams can be redirected to move in almost real time to provide information to passengers on board moving ships or planes,” ESA said in a press release. “The beams also can be easily adjusted to deliver more data when demand surges. The satellite can detect and characterize any rogue emissions, enabling it to respond dynamically to accidental interference or intentional jamming.”
Pascal Homsy, Eutelsat’s chief technical officer, said ground teams established contact with Eutelsat Quantum after launch Friday night.
“Eutelsat Quantum is, indeed, a game changer,” Homsy said after launch. “It’s a satellite of a new time, a flexible satellite which will be able to be controlled in orbit from the ground through software. That is a great advantage for our clients, so coverage and power, spectrum and capacity are going to be reconfigurable any time.’
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With climate change causing temperatures to rise across the globe, extreme heat is becoming more and more of a health threat. The human body is resilient, but it can only handle so much. So what is the highest temperature people can endure?
The answer is straightforward: a wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), according to a 2020 study in the journal Science Advances. Wet-bulb temperature is not the same as the air temperature you might see reported by your local forecaster or favorite weather app. Rather, a wet-bulb temperature is measured by a thermometer covered in a water-soaked cloth, and it takes into account both heat and humidity. The latter is important because with more water in the air, it's harder for sweat to evaporate off the body and cool a person down.
If the humidity is low but the temperature is high, or vice versa, the wet-bulb temperature probably won't near the human body's tipping point, said Colin Raymond, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who studies extreme heat. But when both the humidity and the temperature are very high, the wet-bulb temperature can creep toward dangerous levels. For example, when the air temperature is 115 F (46.1 C) and the relative humidity is 30%, the wet-bulb temperature is only about 87 F (30.5 C). But when the air temperature is 102 F (38.9 C) and the relative humidity is 77%, the wet-bulb temperature is about 95 F (35 C).
The reason people can't survive at high heat and humidity is that they can no longer regulate their internal temperature. "If the wet-bulb temperature rises above the human body temperature, you can still sweat, but you're not going to be able to cool your body to the temperature that it needs to operate at physiologically," Raymond told Live Science.
At this point, the body becomes hyperthermic — above 104 F (40 C). This can lead to symptoms such as a rapid pulse, a change in mental status, a lack of sweating, faintness and coma, according to the National Institutes of Health.
A wet-bulb temperature of 95 F won't cause immediate death, however; it probably takes about 3 hours for that heat to be unsurvivable, Raymond said. There's no way to know for sure the exact amount of time, he said, but studies have tried to estimate it by immersing human participants in hot water tanks and removing them when their body temperatures began to rise uncontrollably. There also isn't a way to confirm that 95 F is the exact wet-bulb temperature that's unsurvivable; Raymond estimated that the true number is in the range of 93.2 F to 97.7 F (34 C to 36.5 C).
Although no one can live at a wet-bulb temperature higher than about 95 F, lower temperatures can also be deadly. Exercise and exposure to direct sunlight make it easier to overheat. Older people; people with certain health conditions, such as obesity; and people who take antipsychotics can't regulate their temperature as well, so it's easier for heat to kill them. This is why people sometimes die in heat that does not reach a wet-bulb temperature of 95 F.
Luckily, air conditioning can save people from unlivable heat. But, of course, not all people have access to it, and even in places where many people have air conditioning, the electrical grid may be unreliable, Raymond said.
Few locations have hit a wet-bulb temperature of 95 F in recorded history, according to the Science Advances study. Since the late 1980s and 1990s, hotspots have been the Indus River Valley of central and northern Pakistan and the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. "There are places that are already starting to experience these conditions for an hour or two," Raymond said. "And with global warming, that's only going to become more frequent." Locations that are at risk of these temperatures in the next 30 to 50 years include northwest Mexico, northern India, Southeast Asia and West Africa, he added.
"Unfortunately, with the climate change that's already locked in, we'll continue to warm up a fair bit, even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today," Raymond said. "I think it's inevitable that those places I mentioned will be grappling with this issue for the foreseeable future, and I hope more places don't get added to that list."
ORLANDO — An Ariane 5 successfully launched two commercial communications satellites July 30 in the first flight of the rocket in nearly a year, and the first of two missions before it launches a NASA space telescope.
The Ariane 5 lifted off at 5 p.m. Eastern time from the spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The rocket’s upper stage deployed the Star One D2 satellite 30 minutes after liftoff and the Eutelsat Quantum satellite six minutes later, both into geostationary transfer orbits.
Star One D2 is a Maxar-built satellite for Brazilian operator Embratel Star One. The 6,190-kilogram satellite carries a payload of C-, Ka-, Ku- and X-band transponders that will serve a variety of applications, from broadband service in Central and South American to government communications over the Atlantic. The spacecraft will operate from 70 degrees west in GEO.
Eutelsat Quantum was built by Airbus Defence and Space for Eutelsat through a public-private partnership with the European Space Agency. The 3,461-kilogram satellite, based on a platform developed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., is the first commercial satellite with a “fully flexible” software-defined payload, allowing its spot beams to be reconfigured to meet changing markets. Eutelsat will initially operate the satellite at 48 degrees east in GEO to provide Ku-band service in the Middle East and North Africa.
“I am happy for my customers,” Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, said on the webcast after the company confirmed the mission’s success. “It’s very important for Arianespace since it was the first Ariane 5 of the year. It had to be a success and, tonight, it’s a great success.”
The launch was the first for the Ariane 5 since Aug. 16, 2020, when the vehicle launched two communications satellites and Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle 2. This was only the fourth Ariane 5 launch since the beginning of 2020, an unusually slow pace for a vehicle that had been a mainstay of the commercial launch market.
At the time Arianespace said that the efforts of Ruag and the Ariane 5 prime manufacturer, ArianeGroup, “remains positive,” but the companies did not comment further on the problem.
The issue raised concerns because of the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on the Ariane 5. ESA is providing the launch of the $8.8 billion spacecraft as part of its contribution to the mission, in exchange for a share of observing time.
The launch is the first of two of the Ariane 5 before the high-profile launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, attended the launch in French Guiana and met with ESA and Arianespace officials to discuss preparations for the JWST launch.
Neither NASA nor ESA have announced a launch date for JWST, beyond a launch readiness date of Oct. 31. NASA officials have previously said that they estimated JWST would launch about four months after this Ariane 5, based on a cadence of one Ariane 5 launch every two months, which would mean a launch no earlier than late November.
The Nauka (Science) Multipurpose Laboratory Module is seen during its docking to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 29, 2021 in this still image taken from video. Image taken July 29, 2021. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS
MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) - The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency said on Saturday that pressure in a Russian service module on the International Space Station had dropped as a result of an air leak.
Pressure had fallen over a two-week period before a Russian research module, the Nauka, threw the station out of control when its engines fired shortly after docking on Thursday, but Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said the two events were not linked.
The fall in pressure was a result of a known minor air leak in an isolated transfer chamber of the Zvezda service module and pressure will be raised in the next 24 hours, Roscosmos said in a statement.
"It was an expected and not a 'sharp' drop in the still problematic Zvezda and it is not linked to the research module," Rogozin tweeted in response to media reports.
Pressure in the service module dropped on July 29, the day the Nauka research module docked, to about one third of its level on July 14 but would be increased, Rogozin tweeted.
The air leak in the Zvezda module, which provides living quarters for crew members and life support systems, was detected last year. It poses no danger to the crew but persists despite attempts to fix it by sealing cracks.
Russia said on Friday that a software glitch, and possible lapse in human attention, were to blame for an emergency caused by inadvertently reignited jet thrusters of the Nauka research module. read more
On Saturday, Russian crew entered the research module after the air was tested and cleaned, Rogozin tweeted.
Russia held a scientific council meeting on Saturday to discuss the future use of the Russian segment of the space station, which was sent into orbit in 1998 and is supposed to work until 2028.
"The chief constructors council noted after considering the current condition of the Russian ISS segment that the use of the Russian ISS segment after 2024 creates additional risks due to the ageing of equipment," Roscosmos said.
Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Giles Elgood
Astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin's tweet soon went viral on social media. (File)
On July 20, 1969, the world watched with bated breath as man set foot on the Moon. And one would think that the men who created such history would have received a thumping welcome back on Earth. This they did, but only after having cleared a customs form once they landed home. And Internet users heard this straight from the horse's mouth when astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin shared an image of the customs form that he and the crew had to fill when they landed. Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the Moon and was accompanied by Neil Armstrong -- the first man to walk on the Moon -- on the Apollo 11 lunar module, Eagle.
Sharing this important bit of trivia with Internet users, Mr Aldrin wrote along with the photo, “Imagine spending eight days in space, including nearly 22 hours on the Moon and returning home to Earth only to have to go through customs. Apollo11.”
The photo shows a form titled “general declaration” and is dated July 24, 1969. The owner or operator is listed as National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) and the document contains details about Mr Armstrong, Mr Aldrin as well as Michael Collins who was aboard the Apollo 11 spaceship, along with their signatures. Under the category of cargo, the form lists “moon rock and moon dust samples” that the team carried with them back to Earth.
Imagine spending 8 days in space, including nearly 22 hours on the Moon and returning home to Earth only to have to go through customs! ???? #Apollo11pic.twitter.com/FvtSVwSD1f
Mr Aldrin's tweet soon went viral on social media with users expressing awe and happiness at being given a chance to have a glimpse of the interesting document.
Responding to the tweet, one user noted that a question titled, “Any other conditions on board that may lead to the spread of disease?” was answered as, “To be determined.” About this, the user commented cheekily, “The moon men might have given the crew a moon cold along with moon cheese.”
"Any other conditions on board that may lead to the spread of disease? TO BE DETERMINED"!!!
The moon men might have given the crew a moon cold along with moon cheese
To this, another follower replied that the trio had, in fact, been quarantined upon return and shared an image of the same. “Fun fact: There was an actual concern that they may have brought viruses with them….” it read.
Fun fact:there was an actual concern that they may have brought viruses with them so they had to go in quarantine,luckily we now know that life is almost impossible on the moon pic.twitter.com/wJIzF0uce8
According to a report by Space.com, the form was posted to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website in 2009. It was released to mark the Apollo 11 mission's 40th anniversary. Verifying the authenticity of the document to the website, NASA spokesperson John Yembrick said, “Yes, it's authentic. It was a little joke at the time.”
Tell us what you think of Mr Aldrin's post in the comments below.
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Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Ariane 5 rocket with Star One D2 and Eutelsat Quantum communications satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Arianespace’s live video webcast will begin approximately 15 minutes before launch and will be available on this page.
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The Hubble Space Telescope took a fresh look at Saturn during its northern hemisphere summer.
NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team
Saturn, with its glorious rings, is a gem in the night sky, and a prime Saturn viewing opportunity is coming up. The night of Sunday, Aug. 1 and morning of Monday, Aug. 2 will mark the planet's opposition -- when it's lined up with the sun and Earth is in the middle, like a celestial sandwich.
In its daily skywatching guide, NASA called out early Monday morning as a prime viewing time. "Saturn is directly opposite the sun from Earth on this date. Around the time of opposition it's visible all night, reaching its highest point around midnight," the space agency said.
Gas giant Jupiter will be getting in on the opposition action this month, too, with its big date set for Aug. 19. As with Saturn, it will be visible all night and reach its highest point around midnight.
The annual opposition typically means a planet is brighter than usual, but the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics notes "the difference will hardly be noticeable, given how far out Jupiter, and especially Saturn, orbit."
See Saturn's secrets through NASA Cassini's finest views
A stargazing app can help you dial in the location of Saturn, which will rise in the east as night falls. This is a great time to break out your binoculars for a closer look. Even better, a small telescope can help bring the planet's storied rings into focus. With the right gear, you might even spot its biggest moon Titan looking like a nearby dot of light.
You don't have to hit opposition on the nose to enjoy the spectacle. The ringed planet should be easy to spot in the night sky for days on either side of the main event. The same goes for Jupiter. August is a perfect month for planet-spotting.
Follow CNET's 2021 Space Calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar.
A telecommunications satellite has gone into orbit that UK industry hopes will help maintain its global leadership in the sector.
A quarter of the world's big telecoms spacecraft are manufactured in Britain, and the new Quantum platform is billed as a next-generation product.
It's fully software-defined, meaning it can be reconfigured in space to meet changing market conditions.
Quantum was launched on an Ariane-5 rocket from French Guiana.
It will be manoeuvred to a position 36,000km above the equator, just east of Somalia, from where it will serve principally North African and Middle Eastern customers.
Although the manufacturing of Quantum has been led from the UK, it is the French, Paris-based operator Eutelsat that owns the spacecraft.
Telecommunications satellites are the giants of the sky. These multi-tonne beasts sit high above the equator, bouncing TV, phone calls, broadband and other data services around the planet.
Traditionally, they've been configured in the factory before launch to do very specific tasks in particular markets.
This might mean, for example, transmitting only on certain radio frequencies with shaped antennas to carve out the necessary ground "footprint". But telecoms markets don't stand still, and being able to totally reconfigure an in-orbit platform would allow an operator to adapt to any shifts in the business landscape - without the need to build and launch another bespoke platform.
The operator would simply reprogram the existing satellite. Those antennas could electronically "change their shape", to tailor the bandwidth, power and frequency needs of the new territory to be served.
And this can include very changeable circumstances, such as the evolving communications requirements of aeroplanes during the day as they travel in groups across an oceanic corridor.
Electronic antennas are also more resistant to jamming, making it harder for authoritarian regimes to block the signals, including TV broadcasts, they don't like.
Quantum has the technology to do all this. It's been produced through the European Space Agency's (Esa) Artes programme, an R&D initiative aimed at keeping the European satellite telecommunications industry globally competitive.
ESA
The major partners on Quantum, in addition to Esa and the operator Eutelsat, are the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the British-based manufacturers Airbus UK and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL).
Airbus UK built the telecoms side of Quantum; SSTL produced its bus, or chassis. The special antennas were made at Airbus in Spain.
Airbus has already taken the lessons learned into its "brochure" of new products. The OneSat model it now sells to operators features much of the same technology as Quantum.
"Once you have the technology that allows you to have a fully flexible mission, it changes the way you manufacture satellites," said Dave Phillips from Airbus.
"If you're not having to fully customise a bespoke satellite at the outset, you can move to a more mass-production model for satellite manufacturing, and that brings advantages in terms of lead time and cost," he told BBC News.
ESA
Eutelsat intends to make good use of the adaptability of the 3.5-tonne Quantum spacecraft when it enters service after a period of testing.
Communications on the move will be a primary use-case, providing connections, not just to planes but to ships at sea and vehicles on land.
Another application will be in the response to natural disasters.
For example, this type of satellite, had it been operational earlier this month, could have reacted quickly to provide emergency communications to recovery teams during the catastrophic floods in Germany.
Eutelsat is positioning Quantum in an orbital slot at 48 degrees East, but the company knows the spacecraft could be moved anywhere around the globe and still fulfil its mission.
"This ability to adapt to changes, or to establish new markets, will result in a significantly more efficient use of the satellite's resources," said Frédéric Piro, Eutelsat's Quantum programme manager.
Elodie Viau is the UK-based director of Esa's telecoms directorate. She said the products that came out of her R&D department were a good example of how spending in space benefited the wider economy.
"The Euroconsult financial, social and economic health study of 2019 predicted this Eutelsat quantum project would have €20 of general return for each euro invested," she noted.
Friday's Ariane-5 rocket also lofted the Star One D2 satellite. This 6.1-tonne spacecraft is owned by Brazilian operator Embratel and will provide internet connections to Central and South America.
Yesterday's unexpected tilting of the International Space Station was caused by a software glitch, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos.
A new Russian module dubbed Nauka arrived at the space station Thursday morning (July 29). In development for more than a decade, Nauka is designed to host science experiments, anchor visiting vehicles and serve as a gateway for spacewalks. However, while the module's arrival appeared to go smoothly, about three hours after docking, the module unexpectedly began firing its thrusters in an incident that caused the space station to tilt from its typical position for about 45 minutes in what engineers call a "loss of attitude control."
"Due to a short-term software failure, a direct command was mistakenly implemented to turn on the module's engines for withdrawal, which led to some modification of the orientation of the complex as a whole," Roscosmos officials wrote in a statement published on Friday (July 30).
"At the moment, the station is in its normal orientation, all the ISS [International Space Station] and the multipurpose laboratory module [Nauka] systems are operating normally," Roscomsos officials noted. "The crew is now busy balancing the pressure in the Nauka module. This is a rather lengthy procedure, because the total volume of the module is about 70 cubic meters. In the afternoon, the crew will open the hatches, enter the module, turn on the necessary means of purifying the atmosphere and begin normal regular work."
Currently, cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov represent Russia on the orbiting laboratory. The pair was in the process of preparing to open the paired hatches between Nauka and the rest of the station yesterday when the module's thrusters began to fire, pushing and tilting the space station until thrusters on the Russian Zvedza service module and the Russian cargo ship Progress 78 were able to counteract the misfire.
Cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitsky monitor the arrival of the Nauka module from inside the International Space Station on July 29, 2021.(Image credit: ESA/NASA–T. Pesquet)
Novitsky and Dubrov resumed preparations for opening the hatch today. In the long term, the module will also require a series of as many as 11 spacewalks to fully prepare for its duties, according to NASA spokesperson Rob Navias during a live broadcast of Nauka's docking. The two cosmonauts will begin those procedures in early September.
In response to the loss of attitude control, NASA canceled remaining scheduled astronaut activities and postponed the launch of Boeing's uncrewed Starliner test flight, OFT-2, that had been scheduled to blast off toward the space station today. The launch will now occur no earlier than Tuesday (Aug. 3).
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Russia said a "software failure" caused its Nauka module to suddenly and unexpectedly fire its thrusters after docking with the International Space Station this week.
The engine burn caused the orbiting lab to tilt 45 degrees at a rate of about half a degree a second. The station automatically fired thrusters on its Russian Zvezda module and an attached Progress cargo craft to compensate, creating a brief tug of war between the module and the station.
After about an hour, officials were able to regain attitude control. Commands were sent to Nauka to not only shut off the thrusters but ensure they cannot inadvertently fire again. NASA insisted the seven astronauts onboard the ISS were not harmed nor in any real peril during the undesirable thruster burn, which started at 1634 UTC on Thursday.
Russia's Roscosmos today shed some more light on what went wrong. We're told Nauka, also known as the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, had about three hours earlier docked with the station after a problematic rendezvous. The module, which was built on and off over the past 25 years, suffered significant issues with its propulsion and other systems as it approached the ISS yesterday. It had lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 21.
"On July 29, the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module was docked with the International Space Station," said Roscosmos bigwig Vladimir Solovyov, who oversees the Russian part of the ISS.
"At all stages of the module's flight, its rendezvous system worked reliably and stably," the cosmonaut continued, putting the best positive spin possible on the situation. "During the final rendezvous, slight fluctuations were noticed, which were eliminated by the docking system. This resulted in smooth docking and touchdown at rated speeds, which in turn resulted in mechanical coupling."
After Nauka was attached to the space station, the module's software incorrectly made its thrusters fire for separation, we're told.
Due to a short-term software failure, a direct command was mistakenly implemented to turn on the module's engines for withdrawal
"The docking mechanics worked reliably, without any comments and led to the closure of both docking mechanisms of the station and the module," Solovyov said.
"Due to a short-term software failure, a direct command was mistakenly implemented to turn on the module's engines for withdrawal, which led to some modification of the orientation of the complex as a whole.
"This situation was quickly countered by the propulsion system of the Zvezda module. At the moment, the station is in its normal orientation, all the ISS and the multipurpose laboratory module systems are operating normally. A reliable internal power and command interface was created, as well as a power supply interface that connected the module to the station."
The next steps involve ensuring the station is A-OK and functioning properly after this mishap, or as Roscomos put it, "completing a set of procedures with the Nauka module propulsion system to ensure unconditional safety of the International Space Station and the entire crew."
The Nauka module will also be prepared for use by the station's inhabitants. It is set up to host science experiments, and sports an airlock for space walks and a docking port for visiting craft. Russia ditched its Pirs module from the space station to allow Nauka to slot in.
"The crew is now busy balancing the pressure in the Nauka module," said Solovyov. "This is a rather lengthy procedure, because the total volume of the module is about 70 cubic meters. In the afternoon, the crew will open the hatches, enter the module, turn on the necessary means of purifying the atmosphere and begin normal regular work."
As a result of this drama, Boeing's launch of its unmanned Starliner spacecraft to the ISS has been put off until August 3 at the earliest. ®
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As part of the Flight Readiness Review for Boeing's uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), NASA astronauts for Boeing's Crew Flight Test (CFT), Commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, Pilot Nicole Mann, and Joint Ops Commander E. Michael "Mike" Fincke address NASA and Boeing managers in Operations Support Building 2 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on July 22, 2021.
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A photograph of the the new fossil of Ichthyornis (top) and a transparent 3D model (bottom) of the skull and brain (bottom, in pink). Credit: Christopher Torres / The University of Texas at Austin
Today, being "birdbrained" means forgetting where you left your keys or wallet. But 66 million years ago, it may have meant the difference between life and death—and may help explain why birds are the only dinosaurs left on Earth.
Research on a newly discovered bird fossil led by The University of Texas at Austin found that a unique brain shape may be why the ancestors of living birds survived the mass extinction that claimed all other known dinosaurs.
"Living birds have brains more complex than any known animals except mammals," said lead investigator Christopher Torres, who conducted the research while earning a Ph.D. from the UT College of Natural Sciences and is now a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Ohio University and research associate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. "This new fossil finally lets us test the idea that those brains played a major role in their survival."
The fossil is about 70 million years old and has a nearly complete skull, a rare occurrence in the fossil record that allowed the scientists to compare the ancient bird to birds living today.
The findings were published July 30 in the journal Science Advances.
The fossil is a new specimen of a bird named Ichthyornis, which went extinct at the same time as other nonavian dinosaurs and lived in what is now Kansas during the late Cretaceous Period. Ichthyornis has a blend of avian and nonavian dinosaur-like characteristics—including jaws full of teeth but tipped with a beak. The intact skull let Torres and his collaborators get a closer look at the brain.
The ancestors of living birds had a brain shape much different from other dinosaurs (including other early birds). This suggests that brain differences may have affected survival during the mass extinction that wiped out all nonavian dinosaurs. Credit: Christopher Torres / The University of Texas at Austin
Bird skulls wrap tightly around their brains. With CT-imaging data, the researchers used the skull of Ichthyornis like a mold to create a 3D replica of its brain called an endocast. They compared that endocast with ones created for living birds and more distant dinosaurian relatives.
The researchers found that the brain of Ichthyornis had more in common with nonavian dinosaurs than living birds. In particular, the cerebral hemispheres—where higher cognitive functions such as speech, thought and emotion occur in humans—are much bigger in living birds than in Ichthyornis. That pattern suggests that these functions could be connected to surviving the mass extinction.
"If a feature of the brain affected survivorship, we would expect it to be present in the survivors but absent in the casualties, like Ichthyornis," said Torres. "That's exactly what we see here."
The search for skulls from early birds and closely related dinosaurs has been challenging paleontologists for centuries. Bird skeletons are notoriously brittle and rarely survive in the fossil record intact in three dimensions. Well-preserved skulls are particularly rare—but that's exactly what scientists need in order to understand what their brains were like in life.
"Ichthyornis is key to unraveling that mystery," said Julia Clarke, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences and co-author of the study. "This fossil helps bring us much closer to answering some persistent questions concerning living birds and their survivorship among dinosaurs."
More information: Christopher R. Torres et al, Bird neurocranial and body mass evolution across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction: The avian brain shape left other dinosaurs behind, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg7099
Citation: Bird brains left other dinosaurs behind (2021, July 30) retrieved 30 July 2021 from https://ift.tt/3lb2nBm
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Russian officials on Friday blamed a “software failure” for the unexpected chain of events that on Thursday sent the International Space Station into a spin and forced the postponement of Boeing’s long-awaited relaunch of its uncrewed Starliner space capsule.
The earliest time now for the relaunch, a repeat of a failed December 2019 test mission, is 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, but officials said they were still studying the impact of Thursday’s events before setting a time.
The soccer-field-sized space station had completed about one-eighth of a turn on its axis when ground controllers regained control. NASA officials said they believed the unexpected movement had not physically damaged the station.
A Russian statement quoting Vladimir Solovyov, the flight director of the space station’s Russian segment, called what took place “some modification of the orientation of the complex as a whole.” Joel Montalbano, leader of NASA’s International Space Station program, said the mishap didn’t put anyone’s life in danger.
Still, one expert not involved in the mission said what happened “wasn’t a benign event.”
“On some level, they’re in danger all the time they’re in space,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He said that a 45-degree reorientation shouldn’t be a safety issue since the space station is designed to rotate 180 degrees. But other factors could be concerning.
“It’s not the rolling around that’s the problem, it’s the speed at which you do it,” McDowell said. “And when you’re trying to compensate for thrusters on one end by applying forces at a different end, you’re putting bending forces on the joints. It wasn’t a benign event.”
NASA officials at the space station’s control center in Houston said the disruption occurred shortly after a Russian lab module, Nauka, had docked with the station early Thursday. The module unexpectedly fired its thrusters, which shifted the multi-ton station 45 degrees outside its typical orientation.
Personnel aboard the space station launched other thrusters as a counterbalance. This led to a “tug of war” between the ISS, a soccer-field-sized operation, and Nauka, a 42-foot research facility. The incident caused ground controllers to lose communication with astronauts onboard twice, once for four minutes and again for seven minutes. And the turmoil continued until Nauka used up its fuel supplies. The space station was out of position for 47 minutes, NASA said.
The Russian statement gave this account: “Due to a short-term software failure, a direct command was mistakenly implemented to turn on the module’s engines for withdrawal, which led to some modification of the orientation of the complex as a whole.”
“At the moment, the station is in its normal orientation, all the ISS and the multipurpose laboratory module systems are operating normally,” the Russian statement said Friday. “The crew is now busy balancing the pressure in the Nauka module. This is a rather lengthy procedure.”
The fallout from the thruster debacle threw Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner launch off schedule.
The uncrewed demonstration flight would mark a redo attempt by Boeing to kick-start a commercial astronaut business.
Delaying the mission gives the space station team time to “ensure the station will be ready for Starliner’s arrival,” NASA said in a statement Friday.
Starliner’s road to the ISS has been a $5 billion, multiyear journey plagued more recently by software issues, a management shuffling, a failed first launch attempt and a NASA probe. Nauka’s journey to the space station was riddled with 10 years of setbacks, including funding issues and technical problems.
If the coast is clear on Tuesday, Starliner will travel more than 200 miles and arrive at the space station within 24 hours. It will come back to Earth after a few days carrying cargo for NASA. If successful, the feat will prove to the space agency that Boeing’s spacecraft is fit to ferry astronauts back and forth.
Boeing and NASA say the capsule and its corresponding rocket “are in a safe, flight-ready configuration and do not require any near-term servicing.”
Boeing hopes to proceed with crewed missions by the end of the year.
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