Dead End: No Life Found in Martian Rock

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Meteorite from The Guardian.

A 4-billion-year-old meteorite from Mars did not show any signs of life, according to The Guardian newspaper. That said, the 4-pound rock found in Antarctica in 1984 that presumably broke off of Mars’ surface billions of years ago does have compounds that could lead to life.

More samples should be on their way if NASA’s Perseverance Rover mission on Mars can assist with the return of Martian samples back here to Earth for additional study. So there is still hope that we will find more interesting results down the road.

Extra: The origin (now debunked) story on this rock from a NASA research team of scientists at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, and at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, was titled “Meteorite Yields Evidence of Primitive Life on Early Mars.”

Source: Mars from NASA

Is the U.S. Running Low on Astronauts?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: NASA OIG.

Does NASA need more astronauts than it has for upcoming missions? The Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) office believes NASA may have a problem. In a January 11, 2022 OIG report, NASA’s Management of its Astronaut Corps, the auditors found:

The processes NASA uses to size, train, and assign astronauts to specific missions are primarily calibrated toward meeting the current needs of the [International Space Station]. For example, NASA’s process for sizing the astronaut corps is designed to ensure that a sufficient number of astronauts are available to meet the Agency’s flight manifest needs, which includes maintaining a planned crew of between three and four astronauts on the Station over the next 5 years. However, the astronaut corps is projected to fall below its targeted size or minimum manifest requirement in fiscal year (FY) 2022 and FY 2023 due to attrition and additional space flight manifest needs. More concerning, the Astronaut Office calculated that the corps size would exactly equal the number of flight manifest seats NASA will need in FY 2022. As a result, the Agency may not have a sufficient number of additional astronauts available for unanticipated attrition and crew reassignments or ground roles such as engaging in program development, staffing Astronaut Office leadership and liaison positions, and serving as spokespeople for the Agency. In light of the expanding space flight opportunities anticipated for the Artemis missions, the corps might be at risk of being misaligned in the future, resulting in disruptive crew reorganizations or mission delays.

The real point it that bad human resource management may lead to mission delays, including the Artemis lunar landing mission. So what does the OIG recommend? The report states:

To ensure the training process for future Artemis missions is developed with sufficient time for implementation and revision, the Director of the Flight Operations Directorate and the Chief of the Astronaut Office should coordinate with Artemis program offices to complete the development and chartering of the framework of Artemis boards and panels to ensure alignment with future mission training needs for new vehicles and missions, including Orion, next-generation spacesuits, [human landing system], and Gateway.

NASA management agreed with all four recommendations in the OIG report aimed at resolving this shortage issue. I know these back office management issues can be dry, but without a solid pipeline of talent into the space program we will simply have a diminished program. Luckily, the auditors are doing their job and alerting management. Now is it NASA’s job to turn all of this around.

Pic of the Week: Perseverance and Ingenuity

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Perseverance and Ingenuity from The Planetary Society.

This week’s photo is from the Planetary Society’s Year in Pictures collection. The photo shows NASA’s latest Mars rover, Perseverance, as well as the helicopter Ingenuity in the background (hard to see at first). A better image of the helicopter is provided below. The rover landed on Mars in February 2021 at the Jezero Crater and has been conducting science ever since that time. NASA plans to send some of the Perseverance’s soil samples back to Earth for more study. You can learn more about this Mars mission here.

Source: Ingenuity Helicopter from NASA.

Videos: The Golden Record on the Voyager Spacecraft

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: NASA.

Years ago, two spacecraft exited our solar system at about 35,000 miles per hour with a message to anyone who finds them detailing our location in the galaxy, the beauty of the Earth, and our culture in terms of warm wishes, music, and natural sounds. Crafted by Carl Sagan and others, the golden discs or records placed on Voyager I and II also contains instructions on how to read the material. And thanks to the site Open Culture, we can learn more about how one would unravel these instructions. It reminds me of Jodie Foster’s character in the movie Contact as she tried to interpret signals being received from afar. I recommend you check out the two videos that are part of the “How to Decode NASA’s Message to Aliens” page.

Source: Jodie Foster in Contact from Warner Bros. Pictures.

What Else Can be Found at Lagrange 2?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Lagrange Points from Wikipedia.

Now that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWSP) has deployed its 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, it is in good shape as it heads for the Sun-Earth’s second Lagrange point, known as L2, which is nearly 1 million miles from Earth. However, it will not be the first spacecraft to park in this spot to conduct a scientific mission.

I looked around to get a good inventory of what was operating, and will be operating, at L2 when JWST arrives and found the best listing on Wikipedia. Here is the inventory:

Past missions at L2:

  • From 2001 to 2010: NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observed the cosmic microwave background.
  • From 2003 to 2004: NASA’s WIND studied radio waves and plasma that occur in the solar wind and in the Earth’s magnetosphere (now in L1).
  • From 2009 to 2013: The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory sifted through star-forming clouds to trace the path by which potentially life-forming molecules, such as water, form.
  • From 2009 to 2013: The ESA’s Planck spacecraft observatory mapped the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background at microwave and infrared frequencies, with high sensitivity and small angular resolution. 
  • From 2011 to 2012: Chinese National Space Programs’s Chang’e 2 tested the Chinese tracking and control network (after first serving as a lunar probe).

Current missions at L2:

  • Since 2014: The ESA Gaia probe has been measuring the positions, distances and motions of stars, with a mission to construct a 3D space catalog containing approximately 1 billion astronomical objects (stars, planets, comets, asteroids, quasars, and more).
  • Since 2019: The joint Russian-German high-energy astrophysics observatory Spektr-RG has been conducting a seven-year X-ray survey, the first in the medium X-ray band less than 10 keV energies, and the first to map an estimated 100,000 galaxy clusters.

Of course, there are future missions planned for L2, and plenty of craft operating in L1, L4, and L5. That will be a story or two for another time.