UK Space Industry Survey 2012: Health and Effectiveness

The UK Space Agency has embarked on its biennial survey of the space industry and has contracted Oxford Economics to undertake the task.

The survey will cover the traditional providers of space technology (upstream) and those who exploit the technology (downstream).

However there are many companies whose business is partially or wholly dependent on space but who do not deal directly with space organisations or see themselves as part of the space industry. If you fit in this category, we are particularly keen to hear from you.

Download a letter (PDF, 36 Kb)  from David Williams, Chief Executive, UK Space Agency explaining the background and importance of the survey. To participate in the survey, please visit the Oxford Economics website.

You are invited to answer the survey online, but if you would prefer a hard copy version to complete and return by email or post, please inform Pete Collings, tel: 0207 803 1411.

If you wish to discuss your involvement with the UK Space Agency, please contact George Pritchard, on 01793 418 060.

NPL to make reflected light measurements

A researcher from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the national measurement institute of the USA, recently visited the UK to utilise NPL's world-leading facilities for measuring the optical properties of materials, and specifically for measuring reflectance of samples in the infrared.

Out of all the measurement institutes around the world, NPL is capable of making these measurements over the widest range of infrared wavelengths.

In the USA, NIST is developing a fibre-coupled cryogenic radiometer that links optical fibre power measurements directly to fundamental electrical units at the 10 nW power level.

Such a device could have a role in telecommunications, medical devices and other industries that require ultra low power calibrations.

Cryogenic radiometry was first developed at NPL. It works by absorbing optical power which causes a temperature rise in the absorber.

The amount of electrical power needed to induce the same temperature rise is then measured. To make the most accurate measurements, the device needs to employ a surface that absorbs the largest amount of optical energy possible, and reflects the least.

A coating of carbon nanotubes, arranged so that they stand vertically on the surface like a forest of trees, provide this surface.

The arrangement forms the lowest reflective, or darkest, surface known to man and only NPL's facilities are capable of making the required measurements of reflected infrared light to test it.

Two facilities were used at NPL: the first, based on a grating spectrometer and integrating sphere, covers the range of the electromagnetic spectrum from visible light to a wavelength of 2.5 µm; and the second facility uses a Fourier transform spectrometer and reflecting hemisphere to cover the range from 2.5 µm to 50 µm.

The measurements made during this project represent the first ever reflectance measurements of materials with reflectance less than 1% in the 15–50 µm region and confirm that the NIST carbon nanotube coatings have the lowest known reflectance in the infrared region.

NPL and NIST have collaborated since 2003 to assess the benefits to the performance of thermal detectors obtained by using carbon nanotube coatings, and half a dozen papers have been jointly authored reporting those findings.

The current work has expanded NPL's collaboration with NIST and is described in a paper submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

More on NPL's work on Optical Radiation and Photonics

More on NPL's work on Reflected Light

For further information, please contact Christopher Chunnilall or Theo Theocharous

Fly Around International Space Station - YouTube

This fly around of the International Space Station (ISS) is displayed in the "Moving Beyond Earth" exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Displayed as a 30ft x 18ft projection, the HD animation highlights the major components of the ISS.

Video courtesy of NASA's VR Lab.

Mars Environment Radiation Detection: Preparing for future human exploration

The Radiation Assessment Detector, one of 10 instruments on board the Curiosity rover mission to Mars, is now collecting data during the long journey to the Red Planet. RAD.

The RAD is the only instrument scheduled to collect science data en route. It will measure fluxes of solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays from inside the spacecraft in preparation for future human missions to Mars.

Southwest Research Institute leads the RAD investigation on the Mars Science Laboratory, which launched Nov. 26.

The MSL rover will arrive at Mars in August 2012 to assess the planet’s past and present habitability.

The instrument is measuring the energetic particles inside the spacecraft to characterise the radiation environment an astronaut would experience on a future human mission to the Red Planet.

“The first data packets from RAD look great,” said RAD principal investigator Don Hassler, science program director in the Space Studies Department at Southwest Research Institute.

“We are seeing a strong flux in space, even inside the spacecraft, about four times higher doses of radiation than the baseline we measured on the launch pad from the RTG, or radioisotope thermoelectric generator, used to power the rover. It’s very exciting to begin the science mission.”

The Mars Science Laboratory, launched Nov. 26, will land a sophisticated car-sized rover called Curiosity on the surface of the planet in August 2012.

Loaded with 10 instruments including RAD, Curiosity will traverse the landing site looking for the building blocks of life and characterising factors that may influence life, such as the harsh radiation environment expected on Mars.

“RAD was designed for the science mission to characterize radiation levels on the surface of Mars, but an important secondary objective is measuring the radiation on the almost nine-month journey through interplanetary space, to prepare for future human exploration,” said Hassler.

“RAD is an important bridge between the science and exploration sides of NASA.”

RAD will measure the relevant energetic particle species originating from galactic cosmic rays, the Sun and other sources.

Of particular interest are the particles accelerated by coronal mass ejections on the surface of the Sun, which spew fast-moving clouds of radiation across the solar system.

“Not only will this give us insight into the physics of these giant clouds, but as particles from these clouds hit the spacecraft, an inward cascade of secondary particles is released inside the capsule, which could pose a potentially greater biological hazard,” said Hassler.

“Like an astronaut, RAD is tucked inside the spacecraft for the journey and will characterize these secondary particle showers. RAD also measures the higher energy galactic cosmic rays and the secondary particles that they produce inside the spacecraft.”

NASA Mars Science Lab Mission: SAM

The SAM instrument is the largest of the 10 science instruments for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. 

It will examine samples of Martian rocks, soil and atmosphere for information about chemicals that are important to life and other chemical indicators about past and present environments. Credit: NASA

The Mars Science Laboratory is on its way to the red planet, and its rover Curiosity should touch down next summer. If the mission hits paydirt and comes across organic material, then one instrument in particular has the chemical tools for studying these building blocks of life.

The instrument is called Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM (or "Samantha" to those who built her). As the name makes clear, SAM is there to analyze samples taken from the surface and from the atmosphere. It uses sophisticated chemical lab equipment packed into the size of a microwave oven.

SAM sits in the belly of the rover and will be fed solid samples by the robotic arm. It is one of 10 science instruments on Curiosity that all work together to study the past and present habitability of Mars.

"Life on Earth means water, energy and the complexity of carbon chemistry," says Paul Mahaffy from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the PI of the SAM instrument. "We'll be looking for all of the above, but with a special emphasis on the complexity."

Curiosity's predecessors, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, had a mantra of "follow the water." Now, the paradigm is shifting towards "follow the carbon," Mahaffy says.

SAM will have the sensitivity for measuring organic molecules at a level of a few parts per billion, but there's no guarantee that any organics will be found.

A more sure-fire bet is that the mission will better characterize whether Mars was ever friendly to organic compounds and the life that depends on them.

NASA Mars Science Lab and Curiosity Rover Launches

The Atlantic Ocean provides a backdrop as the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket clears the tower at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Sealed inside the rocket's protective payload fairing is NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft, beginning a 9-month interplanetary cruise to Mars.

Liftoff was at 10:02 a.m. EST Nov. 26. MSL's components include a car-sized rover, Curiosity, which has 10 science instruments designed to search for signs of life, including methane, and help determine if the gas is from a biological or geological source.

Image Credit: NASA/Darrell L. McCall

What are Scientists Shooting Lasers At?

Baffled and frustrated by the amount of magical thinking, quackery, and pseudoscience he saw around him, a brave soul sought out to crush these manifestations of ignorance and misinformation the only way he knew how… by drawing goofy pictures of them.
 
Thus began a web comic endeavor unparalleled in scope and fury. 

At first, creator Maki Naro set about this quest alone in the darkness.

Then he turned the lights on and realized his drawings were crap. 

The subconscious could NOT be trusted. So Maki called on his friend, confidante, former Resident Assistant, and ‘Bro’ Nadir Balan to assist him in bearing the slings and arrows of modern day WOO-WOO.

Magnetic tongue to produce tastier tinned tomatoes

Factories could use a tongue-like detector to test flavour during production (Image: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features)
 
Talk about a metal mouth. A "magnetic tongue" can predict the taste of tinned tomatoes.

The sensor could help food manufacturers tweak their production methods to maximise flavour.

Experienced taste tasters rate flavours, texture and consistency on a numerical scale. Anders Malmendal, at the University of Copenhagen, and his colleagues wanted to replicate this human-like flavour detection with an artificial sensor.


They analysed the chemical composition of 18 different types of tinned tomatoes by examining hydrogen atoms with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The proton in the nucleus of a hydrogen atom acts like a tiny magnet.

A pulse of energy flips the proton's magnetic field, and the proton releases energy as it relaxes back to its original orientation.

A hydrogen atom's location in a complex molecule like a sugar influences how quickly it relaxes, giving each hydrogen atom a unique signal based on its relaxation speed.

Using these signals, the scientists identified several common sugars and protein building blocks called amino acids in each tomato sample.

Statistical analysis correlated collections of these compounds with flavours like saltiness, sweetness, and bitterness, as ranked by trained tasters. The "magnetic tongue" tastes tomato liquid practically straight from the can.

Manufacturers could sample tomatoes during production with this sensor and quickly adjust their methods to create better tasting products, Malmendal says.

Other artificial taste and smell sensors recognize patterns of compounds connected with certain flavors as well. Electronic tongues sample wine and electronic noses sniff out insects, cancer and human skin .

Journal reference: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, DOI: 10.1021/jf203803q

ESA gain ISO quality stamp care of NPL

Cosmic radiation is a threat to a spacecraft's electronics, so irradiation by gamma rays is one of the most crucial tests carried out on candidate spacecraft components to confirm their suitability for space flight.

Gamma radiation from a cobalt-60 source is a standard method for simulating exposure to the cosmic particles encountered in orbit. The facility replicates the lifetime effects of cumulative radiation doses, with accelerated testing to simulate years of exposure within just a few days.

Spacecraft such as satellites need to be tested with exposure to gamma rays to confirm they are ready for space flight

The European Space Agency (ESA) has its own cobalt-60 source at its ESTEC technical and engineering centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where it tests spacecraft components, with the high level of measurement confidence required by its customers.

NPL's Radiation Dosimetry group worked closely with the ESA team to help them develop the measurements and procedures necessary to achieve an independent accreditation to the ISO 17025 standard - General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

The process was a lengthy one, with initial discussions back in 2007, and NPL played the crucial role of external adviser, coming up with ways of improving not just methods of testing, but also their accompanying technical documentation.

In practical terms, this now means all ESA projects and external customers using the facility can be sure its results have well-defined uncertainty margins, following testing and quality procedures that adhere strictly and transparently to international standards.

With space an ever-more international endeavour, different partner countries can apply these results with full confidence, knowing they are completely reproducible and repeatable.

Find out more about NPL's Dosimetry research.

Find out more about NPL's Radiation Dosimetry facilities.

Find out more about ESA's cobalt-60 irradiation facility.

European Strategy for Nanometrology: National Physical Laboratory

The current global measurement infrastructure is rapidly extending into the nanoscale and beyond, to bring nanotechnology based products or manufacturing processes successfully and safely into the marketplace.

It must provide the ability to measure in three dimensions with atomic resolution over large areas.

For industrial application this must also be achieved at a suitable speed/throughput.

European Nanometrology 2020 – provides a common strategy for European nanometrology so that future development can be built on current strengths.

The document contains the vision for European nanometrology; future goals and research needs, based on the status of science and technology in 2010.

It incorporates concepts for the acceleration of European nanometrology, in support of the effective commercial exploitation of emerging nanotechnologies.

European Nanometrology 2020 produced by Co-Nanomet which co-ordinates a programme of activities addressing the need within Europe to develop the required measurement frame to successfully support the development and economic exploitation of nanotechnology.

Find out more about NPL's Nanoscience - Contact: Richard Leach

CAesium Fountain atomic clock with the world's best long-term accuracy

A caesium fountain clock that keeps the United Kingdom's atomic time is now the most accurate long-term timekeeper in the world. 

This has been ascertained by a new evaluation of the clock that will be published in the October 2011 issue of the international scientific journal Metrologia by a team of physicists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom and Penn State University in the United States. 

This image shows the clock, NPL-CsF2, which is located at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, U.K. The whole device is approximately 8.2 feet (2.5 m) high.

Atoms are tossed up 3.2 feet (1 m), approximately 12 inches (30 cm) above the cavity that is contained inside a vacuum vessel. 

The large external cylinder screens the atoms inside the clock from the relatively large and unstable external magnetic field. Credit: National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom.

The atomic clock housed in Britain's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the world's most accurate, according to new research.

The clock is a caesium fountain clock, meaning that the "tick" is provided by the measurement of the energy required to change the caesium atoms' spin.

Caesium atoms are placed into a cavity, and exposed to electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths. Once the spin "flips", the waves are at the right frequency to define what a second is.

In the case of caesium, that quantity is defined as 9.2GHz (or, to be appropriately exact, 9,192,631,770Hz). When the spin flips, the clock operators can set the frequency at that point, and work backward to determine the exact length of a second.

The international Bureau of Weights and Measures takes readings from a selection of "primary frequency standards", in France, the US, Germany, Japan -- and, the most accurate of them all, in the UK.

A team led by NPL's Krzysztof Szymaniec and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University found that Britain's atomic clock was accurate to one part in 4,300,000,000,000,000, nearly doubling the accuracy found when the clocks were last measured in 2010. That level of precision means that NPL's clock wouldn't stray by more than a second in 138 million years.

While that might seem like overegging the pudding in terms of making sure your alarm clock goes off in time for you to get to work, the definition of most electrical units are based on these measurements, and given the vast amounts of energy and data pouring through the world's computer systems, even a tiny change can have measurable economic impact.

"The frequency we measure is not necessarily the one prescribed by the definition of a second, which requires that all the external fields and 'perturbations' would be removed," Szymaniec stated. "In many cases we can't remove these perturbations; but we can measure them precisely, we can assess them, and introduce corrections for them."

"It's vital for the UK as an economy to maintain a set of standards, a set of procedures, that underpin technical development," he added.

NASA Mars Science Lab: Biggest-Ever Heat Shield Prepared for Mars Spacecraft

The heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is the largest ever built for a planetary mission.

This image shows the heat shield being prepared at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, in April 2011. The heat shield was delivered to NASA Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on May 12, 2011, together with the mission's back shell and cruise stage.

The heat shield and back shell, which together form the spacecraft's areoshell, have a diameter of 4.5 meters (nearly 15 feet).

Mars Science Laboratory will launch in late 2011. The mission's rover, Curiosity, will land on Mars in August 2012. It will study whether an intriguing area of Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and for preserving evidence of whether life existed there.

The aeroshell will encapsulate and protect Curiosity from intense heat and friction generated during descent through the Martian atmosphere.

Technicians in the photo are installing electronics of an instrument for collecting data about temperature and pressure during descent through the atmosphere.

This instrument is the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent and Landing Instrument (MEDLI).

It was developed by NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., in partnership with NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

The white area near the centre of the heat shield will serve for calibration of the mission's Mars Descent Imager as the heat shield drops away from the rover during descent. The camera will then record a high-definition colour video of the ground until moments after touch down.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

NASA: Mars Science Lab Mission needs cash

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission needs an $82 million cash infusion to maintain its late November launch date after development of the $2.47 billion rover exhausted program funding reserves last year, according to agency officials.

Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division in the U.S. space agency’s Science Mission Directorate here, attributed the 3 percent cost increase to problems developing the truck-sized rover’s mobility systems, avionics, radar and drill, as well as delays in completing the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite, which is designed to sniff the surrounding air for carbon-containing compounds. 

“Our problem right now is MSL,” Green told members of the NASA Advisory Council’s planetary sciences subcommittee during a public meeting here Jan. 26. “It has virtually no unencumbered reserves left.” 

With MSL slated for delivery to Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in June, Green said it is imperative that the program’s funding reserves be restored in order to gird against any further development or test problems that could cause the rover to miss an unforgiving three-week launch window that opens Nov. 25.

NASA - ChemCam Generating Sparks

This image from testing of ChemCam shows a ball of luminous plasma erupting from the surface of an iron pyrite crystal in the sample chamber approximately 10 feet from the instrument. The laser beam itself is invisible.

The ChemCam instrument, built for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, uses a pulsed laser beam to vaporize a pinhead-size target, producing a flash of light from the ionized material -- plasma -- that can be analyzed to identify chemical elements in the target.

ChemCam was designed and built by a U.S.-French team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N. M.; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (the French government space agency); and the Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements at the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL