Pic of the Week: The Helicopter’s Shadow

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Shadow of the Ingenuity Helicopter on Mar’s surface. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This week’s image, and the related animated gif, are from the navigation camera aboard NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 25th flight on April 18, 2022 over the surface of Mars. Here is a little more information from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL):

The first frame of the clip shows the view about one second into the flight. After reaching an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters), the helicopter heads southwest, accelerating to its maximum speed in less than three seconds. Ingenuity first flies over a group of sand ripples then, about halfway through the video, several rock fields. Finally, relatively flat and featureless terrain appears below, making a good landing spot. The video of the 161.3-second flight was speeded up approximately five times, reducing it to less than 35 seconds.

Ingenuity’s navigation camera has been programmed to deactivate whenever the rotorcraft is within 3 feet (1 meter) of the surface. This helps ensure any dust kicked up during takeoff and landing won’t interfere with the navigation system as it tracks features on the ground.

Space Quote: NASA and ESA Cooperation

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Image (Credit): European Space Agency (ESA) headquarters in Paris. (ESA)

“From understanding our changing planet to exploring Mars, I hugely value the cooperation we have with NASA…By contributing key European hardware and services to exciting programmes such as Artemis and Mars Sample Return, we are building Europe’s autonomy while also being a reliable partner.”

-Statement by ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher as part of the June 14-15 ESA Council meeting. See the press release, “N° 30–2022: From the Earth to the Moon and on to Mars – ESA and NASA take decisions and plan for the future.” for more on the meeting. The document also discusses plans to place a European astronaut on the Moon.

Chinese Map of the Moon

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Image (Credit): Map of the Moon’s surface. (NSSDC Space Science Article Data Repository)

Earlier this month, China released a geological map of the Moon’s surface. It is to a scale of 1:2,500,000. Here is the accompanying description of the map:

Geologic maps of the Moon provide comprehensive information about the geologic strata, structural features, lithologies, and chronology of the lunar crustal surface, which reflect the evolution of the lunar crust under igneous processes, catastrophic impacts, and volcanic activities. The map in this repository is the first 1:2,500,000-scale lunar global geologic map, which incorporates the most comprehensive knowledge about the Moon by taking advantage of the latest exploration results and scientific findings. An updated lunar time scale is employed in this map to better reflect the dynamic evolution of the Moon. The map provides a state-of-the-art illustration of impact basins and craters of different periods, the distributions of 17 types of rocks and 14 types of structures.

With numerous countries considering lunar bases, greater details about the Moon’s surface could be very useful. I would have liked an overlay showing the various lunar mission remains already sitting on the Moon’s surface.

By the way, while the press is calling this the first comprehensive lunar map, there have been others, including the map below released two years ago by the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. I say the more maps the better for everyone.

Image (Credit): This new work represents a seamless, globally consistent, 1:5,000,000-scale geologic map derived from the six digitally renovated geologic maps. (USGS)

Astra Rocket Failure Impacts TROPICS Mission

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Image (Credit): Astra rocket for the TROPICS satellites. (Astra)

This weekend we witnessed another example that space operations are risky. On Sunday, Astra’s Rocket LV0010 launched from Cape Canaveral but was unable to place two satellites into orbit. The satellites were part of NASA’s TROPICS-1 mission. The main issue was the engine on the upper portion of the rocket.

As described by Astra on its website, the launch of the Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission was awarded to Astra in February of this year and “consists of a constellation of six small satellites that will observe tropical cyclones, aiming to improve the scientific community’s understanding of these dangerous weather events.” This was the first of three such launches, leaving four satellites untouched and ready to go once Astra, NASA, and the Federal Aviation Administration figure out what happened this weekend.

This is not the first NASA mishap. Back in February, Rocket LV0008 (also launched from Cape Canaveral) suffered an in-flight anomaly during stage separation. As a result, NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa 41) mission to place CubeSats into orbit failed. CubeSats are miniature satellites designed to provide a low-cost plat­form for NASA missions.

Astra is a relatively new entrant to in the commercial space industry having been founded in 2016. Let’s hope the lessons learned from this mishap and persistence will allow the company to thrive in this competitive and risky industry.

Russians Hijack A German Space Telescope

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Image (Credit): Artist’s impression of the spacecraft carrying the eROSITA (highlighted) and ART-XC space telescopes. (Max Planck Institute)

Remember all those sanctions and cancelled projects following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how we hoped scientists would rise above it? Well, the Russians will have none of it. They have decided to switch on Germany’s eROSITA space telescope.

Built by the Max Planck Institute and launched in 2019 together with the Russian ART-XC space telescope, the eROSITA was placed in sleep mode back in February shortly after the Russian invasion. Both the German and Russian telescopes are designed to work in tandem to study Dark Energy.

The main scientific goals of eROSITA are

  • to detect the hot intergalactic medium of 50-100 thousand galaxy clusters and groups and hot gas in filaments between clusters to map out the large scale structure in the Universe for the study of cosmic structure evolution,
  • to detect systematically all obscured accreting Black Holes in nearby galaxies and many (up to 3 Million) new, distant active galactic nuclei, and
  • to study in detail the physics of galactic X-ray source populations, like pre-main sequence stars, supernova remnants and X-ray binaries.

In a recent Gizmodo article, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin stated:

They—the people that made the decision to shut down the telescope—don’t have a moral right to halt this research for humankind just because their pro-fascist views are close to our enemies.

Neither German nor Russian scientists are happy with this political decision. It is likely to have implications for future joint Russian missions.

Whether it is politics or micrometeroids, astronomers have plenty of outside factors messing up well-planned missions.