Space Stories: Russia to Re-purpose ISS Section, Second Mars Probe Approaching Lifespan, and Titan’s “Oceans” More Likely Ice

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Image (Credit): A portion of the International Space Station’s Russian segment is pictured with docked spacecraft including Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the Soyuz TMA-20 crew vehicle. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—ARSTecnica: “Russia is About to do the Most Russia Thing Ever with its Next Space Station“

For several years now, in discussing plans for its human spaceflight program beyond the International Space Station, Russian officials would proudly bring up the Russian Orbital Station, or ROS…Oleg Orlov, director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said ROS will no longer be composed of entirely new modules. Rather, its core will be the Russian segment of the International Space Station. “The Scientific and Technical Council of Roscosmos supported this proposal and approved the deployment of a Russian orbital station as part of the Russian segment of the ISS,” Orlov reportedly said.

—Daily Galaxy: “NASA Faces Major Setback: One Mars Orbiter Lost and Another Is Expected to Shut Down Soon!“

NASA is losing critical communication links with its Mars missions. After recently losing contact with the MAVEN spacecraft, the agency faces the impending loss of the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has been circling the Red Planet for over two decades. As both orbiters approach the end of their operational lifespans, NASA will soon have to find ways to maintain data relay capabilities for its rovers and other missions on the fourth planet.

—NASA/JPL: “NASA Study Suggests Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have Global Ocean“

A key discovery from NASA’s Cassini mission in 2008 was that Saturn’s largest moon Titan may have a vast water ocean below its hydrocarbon-rich surface. But reanalysis of mission data suggests a more complicated picture: Titan’s interior is more likely composed of ice, with layers of slush and small pockets of warm water that form near its rocky core. Led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, the new study could have implications for scientists’ understanding of Titan and other icy moons throughout our solar system.

Space Stories: JPL Rover Operations Center Opens, Chinese Protect Space Station, and Roman Telescope Will Scan for Voids

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Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—NASA JPL: “NASA JPL Unveils Rover Operations Center for Moon, Mars Missions“

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Wednesday inaugurated its Rover Operations Center (ROC), a center of excellence for current and future surface missions to the Moon and Mars. During the launch event, leaders from the commercial space and AI industries toured the facilities, participated in working sessions with JPL mission teams, and learned more about the first-ever use of generative AI by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team to create future routes for the robotic explorer.

—Futurism: “China Installs Defensive Countermeasures on Space Station“

About a month after a tiny piece of space debris stranded three astronauts for nine days aboard China’s Tiangong space station, the taikonauts aboard the orbital outpost have begun making some modifications. According to state media network CGTN, the country’s space travelers Zhang Lu and Wu Fei endured an eight-hour spacewalk earlier this week in order to install a debris protection panels on the space station’s outer hull. While there, they also performed an inspection of Tiangong’s exterior, along with other minor repairs.

—Space Telescope Science Institute: “NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Observe Thousands of Newfound Cosmic Voids“

What do fizzing champagne glasses and our universe have in common? They’re both full of bubbles! The cosmic bubbles are vast structures hundreds of millions of light-years across. Their walls are outlined by collections of galaxies. The details of these bubbles – their size, shape, and distribution – can tell us more about the mysterious force known as dark energy that is causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate. The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will detect and measure tens of thousands of cosmic voids, some as small as just 20 million light-years across.

Space Stories: Damaged Space Antenna, Dark Matter as Weighty Matter, and a Stable Ocean on Enceladus

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—SpaceNews.com: “Key Antenna in NASA’s Deep Space Network Damaged“

One of the largest antennas in NASA’s Deep Space Network was damaged in September and may be out of service for an extended period, further straining the system. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Nov. 10 that the 70-meter antenna at the Deep Space Network (DSN) site in Goldstone, California, has been offline since Sept. 16, with no timetable for its return to service.

—University of Geneva: “Dark Matter Does Not Defy Gravity, Study Suggests“

Does dark matter follow the same laws as ordinary matter? The mystery of this invisible and hypothetical component of our universe—which neither emits nor reflects light—remains unsolved. A team involving members from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) set out to determine whether, on a cosmological scale, this matter behaves like ordinary matter or whether other forces come into play. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest a similar behavior, while leaving open the possibility of an as-yet-unknown interaction. This breakthrough sheds a little more light on the properties of this elusive matter, which is five times more abundant than ordinary matter.

—University of Oxford: “Saturn’s Icy Moon May Host a Stable Ocean Fit for Life, New Study Finds“

A new study led by researchers from Oxford University and Southwest Research Institute and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona has provided the first evidence of significant heat flow at Enceladus’ north pole, overturning previous assumptions that heat loss was confined to its active south pole. This finding confirms that the icy moon is emitting far more heat than would be expected if it were simply a passive body, strengthening the case that it could support life.

Pic of the Week: Dead Comet From Halloween Past

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Image (Credit): Asteroid 2015 TB145 as captured by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico on October 30, 2015. (NAIC-Arecibo/NSF)

This spooky image of a dead comet was captured 10 years ago, but it still serves this purpose this time of year. It passed the Earth on Halloween evening that year at a distance of about 302,000 miles.

Here is more from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Scientists observing asteroid 2015 TB145 with NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, have determined that the celestial object is more than likely a dead comet that has shed its volatiles after numerous passes around the sun.

The belated comet has also been observed by optical and radar observatories around the world, providing even more data, including our first close-up views of its surface…

The first radar images of the dead comet were generated by the National Science Foundation’s 305-meter (1,000-foot) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The radar images from Arecibo indicate the object is spherical in shape and approximately 2,000 feet (600 meters) in diameter and completes a rotation about once every five hours.

“The IRTF data may indicate that the object might be a dead comet, but in the Arecibo images it appears to have donned a skull costume for its Halloween flyby,” said Kelly Fast, IRTF program scientist at NASA Headquarters and acting program manager for NASA’s NEO Observations Program.

NASA Cuts Endanger Mars Rover Missions

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Image (Credit): Selfie by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover taken on September 10, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

First the White House dropped the idea of retrieving soil samples from Mars. Now it is going after the rover collecting those samples.

This week NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages the rovers on Mars, announced the layoff of 550 workers, stating:

In order to best position JPL going forward, we are taking steps to restructure and establish an appropriate size to ensure future success. As part of this effort, JPL is undergoing a realignment of its workforce, including a reduction in staff. This reduction — part of a reorganization that began in July and not related to the current government shutdown — will affect approximately 550 of our colleagues across technical, business, and support areas.

One of the employees at JPL who formerly operated rovers noted that the White House cuts is reducing the funding for the Perseverance Mars rover, which collected the soil samples, by two-thirds. He was quoted as saying that they cuts are “…just enough to technically keep it going and not get the full PR backlash of canceling a working rover.”

We only have two rovers left on Mars, the Perseverance rover and the Curiosity rover. Are we going to see these rovers go dark in the near future as they continue to look for life on the planet? And what does it say that we are hoping to put humans on Mars when we cannot even find a way to properly fund the robots that are already there? Would you be your life on this government?

None of this give the US public any confidence, nor does it give bright students much hope for a NASA career when the roles they want to fill are being eliminated.

We are treading water nowadays rather than reaching for the stars. It will have repercussions that may be long-lasting.