Young Star HD 95086: Two dust belts surrounded by a large dust halo

An artist's impression of a young star surrounded by debris rings and a vast dust halo. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Scientists at the University of Arizona have discovered what might be the closest thing to "baby photos" of our solar system.

A young star called HD 95086 is found to have two dust belts, analogous to the asteroid and Kuiper belts in the Solar System, surrounded by a large dust halo that only young planetary systems have.

Similar dust structures are also found around another, slightly older star called HR 8799, where four massive planets occupy the large gap between the two belts.

HR 8799, the first star found to host four directly imaged planets, is often referred to as a younger and scaled-up version of our Solar System.

Finding another star similar to HR 8799 suggests a common model for how stars form planets and how their planetary systems evolve.

The ages of these systems span an interesting period, about 10 to 90 million years, when terrestrial planets form and giant planets settle down to their final configuration in our own Solar System, the team reports.

"We think HD 95086 is a snapshot of what our solar system might have looked like when it was only 10 to 20 million years old," said Kate Y.L.Su, an associate astronomer in the UA's Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory and lead author of the paper.

Using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ESA's Herschel Space Observatory combined with detailed simulations, the researchers found HD 95086 and HR 8799 each have a vast disk halo of fine dust, suggesting enhanced collisional activities in their Kuiper-belt-like belts.

This is an expected behavior for systems that are experiencing dynamical settling of gas giants and possibly late formation of giant ice planets.

A schematic view of the HD 95086 system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The large gap between the warm and cold belts in HD 95086, HR 8799 and some other nearby older systems like debris disk twins Vega and Fomalhaut is an excellent signpost for multiple, yet-to-be-discovered planets, according to the research team.

HD 95086 and HR 8799 are located 295 and 129 light years from Earth in the constellations of Carina and Pegasus, respectively.

"The HD 95086 system with its a young star hosting at least one planet of about five Jupiter masses along with massive asteroid and Kuiper-like debris belts is a promising target for planet hunting,"

Su said. "Both systems are very similar, except the HD 95086 has more dust, which is in line with theories of planet formation and leads us to believe it is the younger of the two. By looking at other systems like these we can piece out how our solar system came to be."

"There have to be more planets than have been discovered to make a gap that is this big," said Sarah Morrison, a co-author of the paper and a PhD student in the UA's Department of Planetary Sciences who ran computer models to constrain the possibilities of how many planets are likely to inhabit the system, what their masses could be like and where their orbits could be.

"We think that the system is a prime candidate for direct imaging campaigns to find those planets."

ESA Fifty Years of European Cooperation in Space

A new book by eminent historian John Krige details fifty years of European collaboration in space, from the origins of the space programmes of the early 1960s, to the many activities and rich complexity of ESA today.

The book, Fifty years of European cooperation in space: Building on its past, ESA shapes the future, charts the early moves by pioneering European scientific statesmen and governments to establish not one, but two organisations, European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) for science and later applications, and European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) for launchers.

The tight financial constraints on ESRO, the tribulations of ELDO's launcher, and a major tilt towards close technological cooperation with NASA in the early 1970s led to the formation of a single organisation in 1975, the European Space Agency, ESA.

EADS Ariane-5

As ESA embarked on developing a new European launcher under French leadership (EADS Ariane), and a human-rated laboratory for scientific experiments to fit in the US Space Shuttle's cargo bay under German leadership (Spacelab), its science programme was put on a secure institutional footing and it launched a number of applications programmes.

Early sketch of ESA Spacelab

The 1980s were marked by the spectacular success of Ariane, the consolidation of a human presence in space through Spacelab and collaboration in the International Space Station (ISS), the development of a new framework for rationalising space science and bruising disputes over engaging users to operate application satellites.

The global upheavals of the 1990s, the interest of the private sector in space, and an awareness of the value of space-based systems to civil society and military action on the ground obliged ESA to refashion itself again.

Russian Soyuz TMA-9M

New partnerships were forged. ESA's launcher fleet was expanded to include the Russian Soyuz and the Italian-led Vega.

A single European Astronaut Corps was created, and major new programmes for Earth observation; Copernicus - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and the European GPS satellite navigation (Galileo) were created in cooperation with the European Union.

The history of Europe's presence in space is above all a history of political will, of industrial development, and of the consolidation of extensive scientific, technological and managerial competencies to construct a global space power; one that could compete and collaborate from a position of strength with the US and the USSR/Russia, while adapting to the changing demands of a new geopolitical world order in the 21st century.

Fifty years of European cooperation in space: Building on its past, ESA shapes the future (EAN/ISBN: 97820701020297) is published by Les Editions Beauchesne (June 2014).

ESA IXV spaceplane set for test flight

ESA IXV Spaceplane weighs almost two tonnes, close to Vega's lifting capacity, and will be a tight fit inside the vehicle's fairing.

Credit: ESA

All eyes are on ESA's IXV spaceplane to showcase reentry technologies after its unconventional launch on a Vega rocket this November.

Instead of heading north into a polar orbit, as on previous flights, Vega will head eastwards to release the spaceplane into a suborbital path reaching all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

ESA's IXV spaceplane being unboxed.

Credit: ESA

Engineers are forging ahead with the final tests on ESA's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, IXV, to check that it can withstand the demanding conditions from liftoff to separation from Vega.

Launched in early November, IXV will flight test the technologies and critical systems for Europe's future automated reentry vehicles returning from low orbit.

This is a first for Europe and those working in the field are keeping a close watch.

ESA's IXV spaceplane undergoing re-entry recovery test.

Credit: ESA

The research and industrial community have the chance to use this information for progress in atmospheric reentry, oriented towards transportation systems with applications in exploration, science, Earth observation, microgravity and clean space.

Jose Longo, ESA's head of aerothermodynamics, said, "The technical advancements that have been made since the first experiments with our Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator in 1996 are huge."


"This is the first flight demonstration of features such as highly advanced thermal structures: thrusters and flaps that are part of the control system, and the 300 sensors and infrared camera to map the heating all along the spacecraft from the nose to the flaps. These things just cannot be tested in the same way in laboratories."

"The fact that ESA's IXV will be launched on Vega makes this a fully European mission," noted Stefano Bianchi, ESA's head of launchers development.

IXV weighs almost two tonnes, close to Vega's lifting capacity, and will be a tight fit inside the vehicle's fairing.

"In this mission we are not only monitoring the spacecraft all along its autonomous flight, but also tracking its progress back to Earth to a particular spot, this is different to what we are used to," said Giorgio Tumino, ESA's IXV project manager.

When IXV splashes down in the Pacific at the end of its mission it will be recovered by ship and returned to Europe for detailed analysis to assess the performance and condition of the internal and external structures.

The actual performance will be compared with predictions to improve computer modelling of the materials used and the spaceplane's design.

Such is the enthusiasm and interest of industry in the opportunities associated with reentry technologies that the third IXV workshop in ESA's Technical Centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands was packed out last week.

"It is very encouraging to see such interest in this programme," added Giorgio. "Follow-up activities to this mission will build on the current industrial organisation and associated technologies will provide opportunities to newcomers."

ESA Vega VV03 Launch: DZZ-HR satellite Payload

Vega liftoff on flight VV03. 

Credit: Arianespace

The third launch by Europe's new small launcher, Vega, has delivered Kazakhstan's first satellite for high-resolution Earth observation into its planned orbit.

Liftoff of flight VV03 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana came at 01:35 GMT on 30 April (03:35 CEST; 22:35 local time on 29 April).

The DZZ-HR satellite was released into the target Sun-synchronous circular orbit at 750 km altitude and an inclination of 98.54º precisely 55 minutes and 29 seconds after launch.

This satellite feeds a complete range of civilian applications for the Republic of Kazakhstan. The high-resolution images will be used for mapping, monitoring natural and agricultural resources, and search and rescue during natural disasters.

KazEOSat-2, as it will be named once in its operational orbit, was built by EADS Airbus Defence and Space and is expected to operate for more than 7 years.

Vega's payload mass for this launch was 918 kg, of which 830 kg was the satellite.

Vega is a 30 m-high, four-stage vehicle designed to accommodate between 300 kg and 2.5 tonnes of payload depending on the orbit and altitude.

A flawless maiden flight in February 2012 was followed in May 2013 by the first of the 'Verta' flights to prove the system's flexibility.


Vega flight VV03 liftoff replay. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace


On its second mission, Vega delivered three satellites into two different orbits and then, to help keep space clean, safely disposed of the upper stage to burn up high in the atmosphere over the ocean, a complex mission sequence made possible by the flexibility of the upper stage and the Vespa multisatellite adapter.

Through this launch, Vega has entered into commercial exploitation and is being operated in conjunction with the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and medium-lift Soyuz rockets at Europe's Spaceport to provide a full range of services meeting the varied demands of the launchers market.

Americanised Ariane 5: Game-changing Scenarios Rocket Execs

Commercial launch service providers on March 11 raised the possibility of Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket becoming American, the international Sea Launch becoming Russian and the high-cost Japanese H-2A rocket becoming cost competitive.

All three scenarios would mean radical changes for the current systems and address problems that each of them has in maintaining or establishing a position in a market characterized by no more than 20-25 geostationary-orbiting commercial telecommunications satellites being competed for launch in a given year.

The most surprising of the declarations came from Arianespace Chief Executive Stephane Israel, whose Evry, France-based company sees an opening to the now out-of-reach U.S. government market in the U.S. Air Force deliberation over whether U.S. government space system managers should seek a diversity of launch options.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket is bidding to launch military satellites and is on a path toward U.S. Air Force certification.

Israel, whose high-cost Ariane 5 industrial supply chain is already preparing for a Big Bang-type reorganization as it prepares for the next-generation Ariane 6 vehicle, would be obliged to share its work with U.S. contractors if Ariane 5 were to be eligible to launch U.S. government payloads.

“As far as the employment aspect, we are ready to see how we could Americanize our rocket in return for U.S. government business,” Israel said, adding that U.S. rockets occasionally launch European government satellites.

Members of the 20-nation European Space Agency (ESA) are encouraged to use the heavy-lift EADS Astrium Ariane 5, the medium-lift Europeanized Russian Soyuz and the light Ariane Vega rockets for all their government missions. With few exceptions, most do this.

The most recent example of an exception is the German government’s second-generation radar reconnaissance satellite system, SARah-2.

The two SARah-2 and -3, satellites are scheduled for launch on two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.

But the launch contract is not with the German government, but with OHB AG of Bremen, Germany, which is the SARah prime contractor and was given leeway in determining who would conduct the launches.

The first-generation constellation, the five-satellite SAR-Lupe system, was launched aboard Cosmos-3M Russian vehicles.

Read more on this article here

EADS Arianespace Vega: Lite Launcher is readied for its second mission

The four-stage Vega was conceived as a capable lightweight launcher, joining Arianespace's medium-lift Soyuz and heavyweight Ariane 5 to provide a complete family of vehicles that meet the company's motto of delivering "any payload, to any orbit.anytime."

The Spaceport's ZLV launch site in French Guiana is busy with activity as the second Vega undergoes its assembly for a mission scheduled in April.

Build-up of the smallest member in Arianespace's launcher family marked a new milestone this week when its solid propellant second-stage was integrated atop the first stage, which also uses solid propellant.

The vertical assembly process for Vega no. 2 is being performed on the ZLV launch pad, protected by a mobile gantry that will be withdrawn prior to the vehicle's liftoff.

This complex uses the same site previously employed for missions from French Guiana with the cornerstone Ariane 1 and 3 vehicles - having been updated and adapted where needed to meet operational requirements of the new lightweight launcher.

Proba-V Satellite

Vega's upcoming second flight will orbit the Proba-V and VNREDSat-1A satellites, and follows the light-lift vehicle's on-target maiden launch in February 2012 with a payload of nine spacecraft - which served as its qualification mission.

The Proba-V passenger for Vega's no. 2 launch was produced by prime contractor Qinetiq Space Belgium for the European Space Agency, and will monitor global vegetation growth.

With an estimated mass of 160 kg., it is to operate in a Sun-synchronous polar orbit, carrying a newly-designed version of the Vegetation instrument already flown on the CNES Spot series of Earth observation satellites - which also were orbited by Arianespace.

Vega's VNREDSat-1A co-passenger is an optical observation spacecraft built by Astrium on behalf of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

Vegetation Instrument

With a mass of approximately 120 kg., it will support the Vietnamese government's initiative to create an infrastructure that enables better monitoring and studies of climate change effects, improves predictions and actions to prevent natural disasters, while also optimizing the management of its natural resources.

The four-stage Vega was conceived as a capable lightweight launcher, joining Arianespace's medium-lift Soyuz and heavyweight Ariane 5 to provide a complete family of vehicles that meet the company's motto of delivering "any payload, to any orbit.anytime."

Developed in a European program led by Italy's ASI space agency and industrial prime contractor ELV SpA., Vega is tailored to orbit small- to medium-sized satellites, including institutional and scientific spacecraft.