Nasa and Amazon will stream a live conversation in 4K from the ISS on 26 April

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For the first time ever, Earth-bound humans will partake of the glory of outer space via a 4K Ultra HD livestream, courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and Amazon.

The stream is primarily intended for broadcasters at the NAB Show convention to be held in Las Vegas on 26 April, but regular folks can also tune into the stream here. Nasa will also make the stream available as a recording after the event.

Variety reports that the stream will begin at 10:30 AM PT on 26 April, which would translate to 11:00 PM on 26 April in India.

The stream is actually a demo of Amazon’s Elemental encoding technology as well as the power of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its Content Delivery Network (CDN). Elemental is a next-gen encoding format for compressing high-resolution video content in real-time, and NAB is a broadcaster’s convention, after all.

Nasa is also understandably excited for the technology. The ability to stream in 4K means that Nasa administrators on the ground will be able to better monitor whatever it is they need to in deep space or the ISS.

The stream itself will involve a conversation between astronaut Dr Peggy Whitson on the ISS and AWS Elemental CEO and co-founder Sam Blackman, reports Variety. There will also be a panel discussion with various engineers from Nasa and Amazon as well as people working in the field of AR, VR and broadcasting.

The stream will be available in 4K and HD.

Publish date: April 12, 2017 12:39 pm| Modified date: April 12, 2017 12:41 pm

Nasa is using lasers to build an internet in space for near Earth as well as deep space missions

The LCRD. Image: Nasa.

In a step towards verifying the efficacy of laser communications for speedier data rates for connections between spacecraft and the Earth, Nasa said it is developing a trailblazing, long-term technology demonstration mission. The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) mission, scheduled for launch in 2019, will help Nasa understand the best ways to operate laser communications systems, the US space agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

They could enable much higher data rates for connections between spacecraft and the Earth, such as scientific data downlink and astronaut communications. “LCRD is the next step in implementing Nasa’s vision of using optical communications for both near-Earth and deep space missions,” said Steve Jurczyk, Associate Administrator of Nasa’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which leads the LCRD project.

Image: Nasa.

“This technology has the potential to revolutionize space communications, and we are excited to partner with the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate’s Space Communications and Navigation program office, MIT Lincoln Labs and the U.S. Air Force on this effort,” Jurczyk said. Laser communications, also known as optical communications, encodes data onto a beam of light, which is then transmitted between spacecraft and eventually to Earth terminals.

This technology offers data rates that are 10 to 100 times better than current radio-frequency (RF) communications systems. Just as important, laser communication systems can be much smaller than radio systems, allowing the spacecraft communication systems to have lower size, weight and power requirements. Such capability will become critically important as humans embark on long journeys to the moon, Mars and beyond.

A Nasa scientists works on assembling the optical module of the LCRD. Image: Nasa.

“LCRD is designed to operate for many years and will allow Nasa to learn how to optimally use this disruptive new technology,” Don Cornwell of the Space Communications and Navigation programme office at Nasa Headquarters said. “We are also designing a laser terminal for the International Space Station that will use LCRD to relay data from the station to the ground at gigabit-per-second data rates,” Cornwell said.

“We plan to fly this new terminal in 2021, and once tested, we hope that many other Earth-orbiting NASA missions will also fly copies of it to relay their data through LCRD to the ground,” Cornwell added. The LCRD team is led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners include NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory.

Publish date: March 23, 2017 2:49 pm| Modified date: March 23, 2017 2:51 pm

Solar storms can vaporise soil in regions on the moon never reached by sunlight: Nasa study

Image: Nasa

By tech2 News Staff /  09 Jan 2017 , 14:53

Intense solar activity, such as solar storms, solar flares or coronal mass ejections send out streams of ions and electrons into space. The atmosphere of the Earth shields the planet from the radiation. However, the Moon does not have an atmosphere and the particles slam into the surface and accumulate there.

The positively charged ions do not penetrate much into the surface, and get collected in a layer close to the surface. The smaller, negatively charged electrons penetrate through the layer, and form a layer deeper into the surface. The two layers have opposite charges, so they tend to attract and balance out each other. There are regions on the moon where the sun light never reaches. These regions are called Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) and are located near the poles of the Moon.

PSRs on the Moon. Image: Nasa Goddard/LRO mission

The PSRs are band conductors of electricity because of how frigid they are. The accumulated charges do not dissipate quickly in these regions, especially after periods of intense solar activity. The accumulated charges results sudden electric discharges, similar to lightning flashes, and are called dielectric breakdown. The phenomenon is not new to science, and is one of the major reasons for anomalies in spacecraft.

The dielectric breakdowns can pulverise the regolith, vaporising or melting the rock and sand, and even causing the material to blow up. The process is believed to change the landscape as much as meteoroid impacts, which is about ten percent of the surface. PSRs are important to understand the history of the Moon, because of their mostly pristine conditions. Scientists however, need to understand what kind of processes can affect PSRs, including meteoroid impact events and solar flares.

The explosions are tiny. Image: Nasa/Andrew Jordan

The possibility of dielectric breakdowns affecting the PSRs was discovered using simulations. There might be “sparked” material in the samples obtained by the Apollo mission, but it is difficult to ascertain if the material has been affected by dielectric breakdowns or meteoroid impacts. Studies are being conducted to understand how dielectric breakdowns affect the material, and if there are any tell-tale signatures of such activity. The paper has been published in Icarus, and is titled Dielectric breakdown weathering of Lunar regolith.

Andrew Jordan of the University of New Hampshire, and lead author of the paper says “Lab experiments show that dielectric breakdown is an explosive process on a tiny scale. During breakdown, channels could be melted and vaporized through the grains of soil. Some of the grains may even be blown apart by the tiny explosion. The PSRs are important locations on the moon, because they contain clues to the moon’s history, such as the role that easily vaporized material like water has played. But to decipher that history, we need to know in what ways PSRs are not pristine; that is, how they have been weathered by the space environment, including solar storms and meteoroid impacts.”

The next step is to gather the evidence. Data gathered from Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) indicates that the soil in the PSRs are more fluffy than the soil elsewhere on the Moon. The findings are in line with what the simulations suggest. However, further experiments are needed to verify if in fact dielectric breakdowns are responsible for the fluffiness in the material. The experiments are under way. According to the team, the two week long Lunar night means that areas on the Moon, that are not PSRs may also get cold enough for dielectric breakdowns.

NASA to launch CYGNSS hurricane tracking constellation from the belly of Orbital ATK’s Pegasus aeroplane

By tech2 News Staff /  12 Dec 2016 , 14:56

NASA is launching a constellation of eight satellites to better monitor hurricanes. The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) is a flock of eight micro-satellites, which which will improve weather forecasts for the intensity of cyclones. Although forecasts of hurricanes have improved by 50 percent since the 1990s, there has been little progress when it comes to correctly predicting their intensities.

A CYGNSS craft being prepared in a lab. Image: NASA

The CYGNSS constellation will scrutinise the regions beneath the eyewall, as well as the inner rainbands of hurricanes. Both measurements are possible for the first time from space because of the CYGNSS flock. Frank Peri, director of the Earth Systems Science Program Office (ESSPO), based at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, says “This mission will help us get a better idea of the intensity of tropical cyclones.”

The launch for the CYGNSS constellation is not a regular rocket launch. Instead of being a passenger on board a rocket that lifts off a launchpad, the rocket with the payload will be launched in mid air from the belly of Orbital ATK’s Pegasus aircraft, at an altitude of 39,000 feet. The rocket will free fall for five seconds, before firing in the air, and re-orienting itself upwards towards space. Three stages of the rocket will fire and fall away, before the CYGNSS constellation is released into orbit. The Pegasus is the world’s first privately developed launch vehicle.

There is a 40 percent chance that the launch could be delayed because of bad weather. If that happens, the launch will be postponed by one day, with a 20 percent chance of disruption by bad weather. The launch coverage will begin Live on NASA TV and can be seen here from 5:30 PM, IST, today.

Two NASA astronauts cast their votes for the 2016 presidential election from Space

The American Flag in the cupola or viewing deck of the ISS. Image: NASA.

  08 Nov 2016 , 14:16

As US gets ready for a nail-biting election on Tuesday, two American astronauts orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour have already cast their votes from space. According to NASA, astronaut Shane Kimbrough has officially filed his electronic absentee ballot from the International Space Station (ISS). Another astronaut Kate Rubins cast her ballot before returning to Earth last week.

Thanks to a bill passed by Texas legislatures in 1997 that put in place technical voting procedure for astronauts, the two astronauts – residents of Houston where the Johnson Space Centre is located a. voted while in orbit. For astronauts, the voting process starts a year before launch when they are able to select which elections (local/state/federal) that they want to participate in while in space.

Then, six months before the election, astronauts are provided with a standard form: the “Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request – Federal Post Card Application”, the US space agency said in a statement. “Space voting” was first used the same year it was implemented in 1997. NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote in space while on the Russian Mir Space Station.

Current space station resident astronaut Shane Kimbrough is the most recent astronaut to take advantage of the opportunity. While astronauts do not have to wait in line for his ballot like the rest of us, there is one disadvantage to voting in space: they miss out on the highly coveted “I Voted” sticker!

IANS

The MMS mission by NASA just set the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude GPS signal fix

Image: NASA.

By tech2 News Staff /  07 Nov 2016 , 14:05

The Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) by NASA now holds the Guinness world record for the highest altitude fix of a GPS signal. The fix was taken from a height of 43,500 miles (70006 kilometres) above the surface of the Earth.

Next year, the MMS will enter phase two of its mission, when it is expected to set a new world record, from at least twice the altitude of the current record.

The MMS spacecraft fly in a tetrahedral formation. Image: NASA.

The MMS is a flock of four satellites in a tight formation that are in an extremely elliptical orbit around the Earth. The mission holds another record for being the closest flying spacecraft in a formation, with a distance of only four and a half miles (roughly seven kilometres) between two satellites.  At their closest approach to Earth, the four satellites move at a blistering 22,000 miles per hour, which is also the fastest known use of a GPS receiver.

The four satellites are flying in a pyramid shaped formation to study a phenomenon in the magnetosphere of the Earth, known as magnetic reconnection. The phenomenon occurs due to the interaction between the magnetic fields of the Earth and the Sun.

The satellites use GPS tracking to stay in formation and obtain high resolution, three dimensional observations. The precise GPS coordinates are required for the sensitive, position and orbital calculations.

NASA releases enthralling 4K fly-through of the International Space Station

By tech2 News Staff /  01 Nov 2016 , 16:28

NASA has uploaded an Ultra High Definition (4K) video of the International Space Station (ISS) shot with a fisheye lens on YouTube. The video was produced by Harmonic, a video infrastructure provider, for NASA TV. The video explores the various modules that make up the ISS, but is not a single take continuous shot. Equipment and containers are attached to the surfaces in all directions, which shows how claustrophobic the interiors of a space station can get.

The Cupola, photographed by one of the Expidition 40 crew members. Image: NASA.

The video starts and ends at the Cupola, an observation deck with seven windows which offers a spellbinding view of the Earth. The tour then takes viewers through the Unity module, a passive connecting block to which the other modules are attached. It functions as a passageway on the ISS, and was the first US built segment of the ISS to be launched. Up next is the Zarya Functional Cargo Block, a Russian built module that was the first component of the ISS to be launched. The Zarya module is used mainly for storage.

Inside the Russian Zarya Storage module. Image: NASA.

The Pirs docking module has ports to interface with Russian Spacecraft Soyuz and Progress. The Pirs is a Russian made airlock, one of the two on the ISS. The video does not show the other Russian docking module, Poisk. The Destiny module is a centrally located US laboratory for space experiments, and is full of scientific equipment. Harmony is a connecting node module. Two ports are permanently attached to the Columbus module and the Kibo Laboratory module. The other two ports are used for docking by visiting spacecraft.

An exterior view of the Kibo Laboratory attached to the ISS. Image: NASA.

The European made Columbus module and the Japanese Kibo Laboratory module are both laboratories for conducting scientific experiments. The Kibo laboratory is the single largest module in the ISS. The Kibo laboratory has an airlock, through which scientific experiments are taken in and out of the ISS. Tranquility is another node module, that connects to both Unity and the Cupola. There are waste management systems on this module, and the oxygen for the crew is generated here. The video ends with another visit to the Cupola.

NASA also casts a livestream from the ISS. These show the crew operations on the interiors or at times, just the Earth passing below the station.

Chinese manned spacecraft Shenzhou 11 successfully docks with Chinese space station

Tiangong

  19 Oct 2016 , 09:23

China’s Shenzhou 11 manned spacecraft has successfully docked with China’s Tiangong 2 space lab, and two astronauts have entered the lab, China’s official news agency Xinhua said Wednesday. China is the third country after the United States and Russia to complete space rendezvous and docking procedures, Xinhua said.

According to the mission schedule, the astronauts will remain in the space station for 30 days and spend a total of 33 days in space, making the mission the longest in space so far for China. In a manned space mission in 2013, three Chinese astronauts spent 15 days in orbit and docked with a space laboratory, the Tiangong 1.

Advancing China’s space program is a priority for Beijing, with President Xi Jinping calling for the country to establish itself as a space power. China insists its space program is for peaceful purposes. Shenzhou 11, whose name translates as “Divine Vessel”, will also carry three experiments designed by Hong Kong middle school students and selected in a science competition, including one that will take silk worms into space.

The U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China’s increasing space capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed at preventing other nations using space-based assets in a crisis. China has been working to develop its space program for military, commercial and scientific purposes, but is still playing catch-up to established space powers the United States and Russia.

Reuters

Schiaparelli lander to attempt a dangerous landing on Mars

Image: ISRO

  19 Oct 2016 , 09:35

The search for life on Mars may take a giant leap on Wednesday when a space lander is due to touch down on the red planet in Europe’s first attempt to land a craft there since the Beagle 2’s “heroic failure” more than a decade ago. The disc-shaped 577-kg (1,272 lb) Schiaparelli lander, which will test technologies for a rover due to follow in 2020, is expected to enter Mars’s atmosphere at a speed of nearly 21,000 km (13,049 miles) per hour at 1442 GMT.

It will use a parachute and thrusters to slow down before touching down on the planet’s surface only six minutes later. The lander is named for Giovanni Schiaparelli, the Italian astronomer who in 1877 began mapping the topography of Mars, extending study of what are now known as the planet’s canals, a mistranslation of the Italian word canali, or channels.

Schiaparelli is part of the European-Russian ExoMars program, which will search for signs of past and present life on Mars and represents only the second European attempt to land a craft on the red planet, after Britain’s Beagle 2 was ejected from the Mars Express spacecraft in 2003 but never made contact after failing to deploy its solar panels upon landing.

At the time it was dubbed “a heroic failure”. Landing on Mars, Earth’s neighbor some 35 million miles (56 million km) away, is

Maven mission by NASA beams back amazing ultraviolet images of Mars

  18 Oct 2016 , 14:20

NASA’s MAVEN mission has returned images showing the ultraviolet glow from the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail, revealing dynamic, previously invisible behaviour. They include the first images of “nightglow” that can be used to show how winds circulate at high altitudes, NASA said in a statement on Tuesday. Nightglow is a common planetary phenomenon in which the sky faintly glows even in the complete absence of external light.

Scientists predicted nitric oxide (NO) nightglow at Mars, and prior missions detected its presence, but MAVEN has returned the first images of this phenomenon in the Martian atmosphere, the statement added. Additionally, dayside ultraviolet imagery from the spacecraft shows how ozone amounts change over the seasons and

iPad app to help astronauts track food intake

Image Credits: REUTERS

  13 Oct 2016 , 19:03

An iPad app, designed specifically for use in space, simplifies the way astronauts track their dietary intake and offers greater insight for physicians and researchers on the Earth looking to keep crews healthy and fit, NASA said.

The International Space Station Food Intake Tracker (ISS FIT) iPad app, recently delivered to the space station, gives astronauts real-time feedback about their dietary habits.

“Understanding the relationship of diet with crew health is critical for future exploration missions, where nutrition will be a key countermeasure in mitigating the negative effects of spaceflight on the body,” Scott M. Smith, nutritionist at NASA, said in a statement.

“We’ve recently documented that astronauts can protect their bones with good nutrition and exercise,” Smith said.

“This app puts the tools in their hands to track this information in real time,” Smith explained.

The app does not require internet access to sync with the food database – that includes foods available on the space station, including those from international partner agencies – as many of the apps available on Earth require, NASA said.

The app reports nutrients specifically of concern for astronauts (and often terrestrial beings), ensuring adequate calorie consumption, minimising sodium intake and maintaining hydration to reduce kidney stone risk.

The app, developed through NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, used crowdsourcing techniques hosted by TopCoder.

Designed for use on the space station, the solution had to meet strict criteria, offer multiple user options and work without internet connectivity.

The app allows crew members to record foods available on the space station. It gives astronauts options to record foods from a checklist, search tool, using audio recording, taking photos or scanning barcodes, if available.

The app provides real-time information on key nutrients including calories, sodium and fluid, allowing crew members to see at lunch that they need to consume more water later in the day, for example.

The app replaces a weekly computer questionnaire, which provided an estimate of dietary intake over the week.

The detailed data not only helps crews in real time each day, but also will allow for more detailed assessments of dietary intake during flight and relating these to other crew health concerns like bone loss and vision changes, NASA said.

NASA is using students to identify plants to be used by astronauts

By tech2 News Staff /  10 Oct 2016 , 12:16

Students of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida, United States have received plant growing stations similar to the ones used by NASA scientists for research. The institute is collaborating with Veggie, a NASA funded program for researching the growth of edible plants in orbit. NASA is using the students to study the best species of plants that can be used in orbit, in space and on the surface of other planets, with a focus on Mars. The innovative approach uses student citizen scientists for actual research that will benefit long duration space missions, including space stations in orbit and interplanetary travel.

Trent Smith, project manager for Veggie said “Once you tell the students that the plants are candidates for space and for astronauts to eat on their journey to Mars they start paying a lot of attention. These answers are not in the back of the book. Whatever they find when they grow their plants, they are finding it out for the first time for anyone.” Amy Padolf, director of education at Fairchild said “It’s very powerful to put the science in the hands of the students. It is putting what they have learned to use in