ESA Venus Express: ESOC have lost contact with Spacecraft

Artist's impression of Venus Express 

Credit: ESA (Image by AOES Medialab)

On 28 November 2014, the flight control team at ESOC reported loss of contact with Venus Express (VEX).

It is possible that the remaining fuel on board VEX was exhausted during the recent periapsis-raising manoeuvres and that the spacecraft is no longer in a stable attitude (the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna must be kept pointed toward Earth to ensure reliable radio contact).

Repeated attempts to re-establish contact using ESA and NASA deep-space tracking stations have been made since then, and there has been some limited success in the period since 3 December.

Although a stable telemetry link is not available, some telemetry packets were successfully downlinked.

These confirm that the spacecraft is oriented with its solar arrays pointing toward the Sun, and is rotating slowly.

The operations team is currently attempting to downlink the table of critical events that is stored in protected memory on board, which may give details of the sequence of events which occurred over the past few days.

The root cause of the anomaly (fuel situation or otherwise) remains to be established.

ESA will provide an update as soon as something more concrete is known.

ESA ATV-5, Georges Lemaître, Fully Loaded and Hatch Closed

ESA’s fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Georges Lemaître, is now scheduled for launch to the International Space Station at 23:44 GMT on 29 July (01:44 CEST 30 July) on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

ATV-5 will deliver more than six tonnes of cargo to the Station, again breaking the record for the heaviest spacecraft launched on Ariane.

Everything has been loaded and the ferry is now sealed until it reaches the orbital outpost.

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, currently on board the ISS, will be the first to open the hatch of ATV-5, Georges Lemaître, in space when he takes responsibility for the cargo as ‘loadmaster’.

Alexander will manage the unloading of 6.6 tonnes of experiments, spare parts, clothing, food, fuel, air, oxygen and water for the six astronauts living in the 'weightless' (Zero Gravity) laboratory.

ATV-5, Georges Lemaître showing the closed hatch after completion of cargo loading.

Attempt to Move NASA Probe ISEE-3 spacecraft Hits Snag

This artist's rendition shows the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) spacecraft, the which later became Interplanetary Cometary Explorer. 

A private team, called the SEE-3 Reboot Project, is hoping to restart the 36-year-old spacecraft's engines for a new science mission.

Credit: NASA

The quest to rescue a 36-year-old NASA spacecraft will go on for at least another day, as a private group controlling the probe achieved only partial success with an engine firing Tuesday (July 8).

The private team operating NASA's International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 spacecraft (ISEE-3) aimed to fire its engine numerous times to change the probe's trajectory and put it in a more stable position for communicating with Earth but things did not go exactly as planned.

"The first segment was full duration but only partially successful," Keith Cowing, co-leader of the SEE-3 Reboot Project, wrote in a blog post Wednesday (July 9).

"The second and third attempts failed. Possible causes (under investigation) include valve malfunction and fuel supply issues."

Controllers in California, who are beaming commands to ISEE-3 via the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, tried the burns several times.

After resetting the spacecraft and sending more commands, they stopped work for the day when their "window" of communication closed.

They noted that ISEE-3's thruster valve was opening and closing as expected, but the spacecraft wasn't accelerating.

"Either we are low on fuel in System A, or latch valve A is not working," the group said via Twitter, adding that the sun guidance sensor and accelerometers were not showing thrust.

"The ISEE-3 team is working [on] a strategy for tomorrow's pass. More to follow," the team concluded late Tuesday night.



The private group took control of the spacecraft several weeks ago after raising more than $150,000 via crowdfunding and obtaining permission from NASA, which retired the spacecraft in 1997.

ISEE-3 launched in 1978 and worked as a comet chaser and sun probe, among other roles.

The team has not yet determined what to do next with ISEE-3, focusing first on making sure the spacecraft can consistently communicate with Earth.

The clock is ticking for the SEE-3 Reboot Project to change ISEE-3's trajectory; Cowing has said that fuel consumption will become an issue by late July.

Fireworks Galaxy: Rivers of Hydrogen Gas Fuel Spiral Galaxies

Three distinct features are visible in this composite image of NGC 6946. 

The bright heart of the galaxy in optical light (blue), the dense hydrogen in the spirals (orange), and the extended halo surrounding the galaxy (red). 

New research also shows a faint filament that could be hydrogen flowing from the intergalactic medium into the galaxy to fuel star formation.

Credit: D.J. Pisano (WVU); B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); Palomar Observatory – Space Telescope Science Institute 2nd Digital Sky Survey (Caltech); Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope

Inpouring rivers of hydrogen gas could explain how spiral galaxies maintain the constant star formation that dominates their hearts, a new study reports.

Using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, scientists observed a tenuous filament of gas streaming into the galaxy NGC 6946, known as the "Fireworks Galaxy" because of the large number of supernovae observed within it.

The find may provide insight into the source of fuel that powers the ongoing birth of young stars, researchers said.

D.J. Pisano

"We knew that the fuel for star formation had to come from somewhere," study lead author D.J. Pisano, of West Virginia University (WVU), said in a statement.

"So far, however, we've detected only about 10 percent of what would be necessary to explain what we observe in many galaxies."

Located 22 million light-years from Earth on the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus, NGC 6946 is a medium-sized spiral galaxy pointed face-on toward the Milky Way.

Previous studies revealed a halo of hydrogen gas around NGC 6946 common to spiral galaxies.

Such halos are formed by hydrogen ejected from the galaxies by star formation and violent supernova explosions.

These interactions heat the gas in the halo to extreme temperatures.

When Pisano turned the GBT toward the spiral galaxy for further examination, however, he discovered a ribbon of gas too cool to have suffered the heating processes undergone by the halo gas.

On average, the Milky Way churns out between 1 to 5 new stars per year. Rich in gas, NGC 6946 is far more active. For example, it has hosted at least 9 explosive supernovae in the past century.

"A leading theory is that rivers of hydrogen — known as cold flows — may be ferrying hydrogen through intergalactic space, clandestinely fueling star formation," Pisano said. "But this tenuous hydrogen has simply been too diffuse to detect, until now."

The immense, unblocked dish of the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), combined with its location in the US National Radio Quiet Zone, where radio transmissions are limited, allow the large disk to detect the faint hydrogen signal that would be present in a cold flow.

Another possibility is that the hydrogen detected originated from a close encounter with another galaxy in the past.

The gravitational interaction between the two could have stretched out a ribbon of neutral atomic hydrogen, researchers said.

Such a ribbon would contain stars that astronomers should be able to easily observe, though none have yet been spotted. Further studies of the streamer hydrogen gas will help clarify its role.

The research was published in the Astronomical Journal.

NASA Pays for Plutonium Production to Fuel Deep-Space Probes

Voyager-1

NASA will now foot the entire bill for the United States' production of plutonium-238 spacecraft fuel, which recently started up again for the first time in a quarter-century.

The space agency had been splitting costs for the reboot with the U.S. Department of Energy, which actually produces plutonium-238.

But NASA is the only projected user of the stuff, so the arrangement changed in the White House's federal budget request for 2014, which was unveiled earlier this month.

"Since the [Obama] Administration has a 'user pays' philosophy, we are now in a position to pay for basically the entire enterprise, including the base infrastructure at DOE," NASA chief financial officer Beth Robinson said in an April 10 press conference.

"We'll be partnering with DOE in the next couple of months to figure out how to best do this, and how to streamline the program to produce plutonium-238."

Plutonium-238 is not a bomb making material, but it is radioactive, emitting heat that can be converted to electricity using a device called a radioisotope thermo-electric generator.

For decades, RTGs have powered NASA probes to destinations in deep space, where sunlight is too weak and dispersed to be of much use to a robot.



The DOE stopped producing Pu-238 in 1988, after which NASA began sourcing the fuel from Russia. But the agency received its last Russian shipment in 2010, and supplies have been dwindling ever since, worrying many scientists and space-exploration advocates.

So NASA and the DOE have been working together on a Pu-238 restart, which officials from both agencies have estimated will cost between $75 million and $90 million over five years.

This effort has made significant progress. NASA officials announced last month that researchers at the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee had irradiated targets of neptunium-237 with neutrons, successfully generating small amounts of plutonium-238 — the nation's first in 25 years.

Scaling up from these early test activities shouldn't be too much of a chore, officials said.

"By optimizing the production process, it is estimated that 1.5 to 2 kilograms [3.3 to 4.4 pounds] per year will be produced by 2018. This amount will be enough to meet NASA's projected needs for future planetary missions. The Science budget request fully funds this requirement," NASA officials wrote in the agency's 650-page explanation of its 2014 budget request.

"For the first time, NASA’s request also includes $50 million to support the radioisotope power system development infrastructure through full-cost recovery mechanisms at the Department of Energy," they added.

NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project sets new record

While the Dawn spacecraft is visiting the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, NASA Glenn has been developing the next generation of ion thrusters for future missions.

NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project has developed a 7-kilowatt ion thruster that can provide the capabilities needed in the future.

Schematic of a Hall effect thruster electric propulsion device

An ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, but does so at higher specific impulse (or higher exhaust velocities), which means that an ion thruster has a fuel efficiency of 10-12 times greater than a chemical thruster.

The higher the rocket's specific impulse (fuel efficiency), the farther the spacecraft can go with a given amount of fuel.

Given that an ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, it needs to operate in excess of 10,000 hours to slowly accelerate the spacecraft to speeds necessary to reach the asteroid belt or beyond.

Diagram of how a gridded electrostatic ion engine (Kaufman type)

The NEXT ion thruster has been operated for over 43,000 hours, which for rocket scientists means that the thruster has processed over 770 kilograms of xenon propellant and can provide 30 million-newton-seconds of total impulse to the spacecraft.

This demonstrated performance permits future science spacecraft to travel to varied destinations, such as extended tours of multi-asteroids, comets, and outer planets and their moons.

Image Credit: NASA

ESA Thales: MSG-3 fuelled

In the cleanroom at Europe’s spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre, in Kourou, French Guiana, the third Meteosat Second Generation satellite undergoes further preparations for launch. MSG-3 is planned for launch in July 2012. MSG-3 is the third in a planned series of four satellites operated by Eumetsat, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. 

The satellites return highly detailed imagery of Europe, the North Atlantic and Africa every 15 minutes for use by meteorologists and national weather forecasters. 

Along with keeping track of cloud development and temperature to improve weather forecasting accuracy, MSG-3 has two secondary objectives in the areas of radiation and rescue. 

Shortly after liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana, MSG-3 will be injected into geostationary orbit at an altitude of 36 000 km over the equator. 

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG - S. Martin 

Gérald and Eric from the Thales fuelling team getting ready ( ESA/C. Soulez-Lariviere)

Credit: ESA/Thales

Yesterday, the team finished loading 365 kg of liquid fuel (Monomethyl Hydrazine, MMH). This follows the earlier fuelling with liquid oxidizer (Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen, MON).

In total, the fuel has increased the mass of MSG-3 by about a ton.

MSG-3 will now be installed on the launcher adapter. On Monday, it will be moved to the Final Assembly Building, BAF, for integration on the launcher later next week.
The launcher and EchoStar 17 (co-passenger) activities are also proceeding as planned.

SUGAR Volt: Boeing's Hybrid Electric Aircraft - YouTube

NASA asked a Boeing-led team to explore the possibilities of a hybrid electric aircraft. Marty Bradley, Boeing Research and Technology, explains how the SUGAR Volt concept is defining the future of flight.

Planetary Resources to Create 'Gas Stations' in Space

Planetary Resources says it has developed the first line in a family of deep-space prospecting spacecraft, the Arkyd-100 Series.

The craft is essentially a space telescope that will help scientists identify and prioritize near-Earth asteroid targets.

A company based in the northwestern United States called Planetary Resources says it plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for raw materials, ranging from water to precious metals.

Planetary Resources' co-founder Peter Diamandis is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, medical doctor and CEO of the X Prize Foundation.

Speaking at a news conference at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, Diamandis said he has wanted to be an asteroid miner since he was a teenager.

"The vision of Planetary Resources is to make the resources of space available to humanity, both in space and here on Earth, whether it's propellent from water on asteroids or strategic metals and minerals that are important to promoting and creating a world of abundance here on Earth," said Diamandis.

Company officials say resource extraction from asteroids will grow to be valued at tens of billions of dollars annually, but they stress that that kind of payday is decades away. They add that asteroid mining will provide a sustainable supply of precious metals to Earth's growing population.

Along with Diamandis, Eric Anderson is the co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources.

While precious metal such as platinum would be welcome, Anderson says they also want to mine for elements found in abundance here on Earth - namely hydrogen and oxygen, which are the basis for water...and rocket fuel.

"If we're able to successfully, successfully deploy and mine for water, we're going to create a network of propellant depots, of gas stations, that literally open up the roadways to the rest of the solar system," said Anderson. "So it's going to drastically reduce the cost of deep space exploration."

Planetary Resources says it has developed the first line in a family of deep-space prospecting spacecraft, the Arkyd-100 Series. The craft is essentially a space telescope that will help scientists identify and prioritize near-Earth asteroid targets.

The company says this spacecraft will be launched in about two years. Beyond that, officials said the plan is to mass produce follow-on Arkyd-300 series spacecraft and send them off in swarms on expeditions. Planetary Resources says its mining would be done robotically.

Officials say they hope to identify asteroids to prospect within the decade.

The company's financial backers include billionaires such as Google's CEO Larry Page and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Planetary Resources counts famed film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron as a project advisor, but some news reports have identified him as a financial backer. Cameron told VOA that his involvement in this project has been overstated in media reports.

ESA ATV production terminated: Executive Decision on follow-on under review

The cargo carrier pictured will fly on the ATV 4 mission, dubbed Albert Einstein. It has been delivered to an integration site in Bremen, Germany, for final assembly and testing before shipping to the launch site in French Guiana for liftoff in early 2013. Credit: ESA

Five ATV flights pay off ESA's operating cost burden until 2017. With the space station program extended until the end of the decade, ESA now owes approximately 450 million euros, or about $600 million, to meet its commitments between 2017 and 2020.

Confronted by parts obsolescence and waning political support, the European Space Agency has shut down subsystem production lines for the Automated Transfer Vehicle as member states debate how they will contribute to future international space exploration efforts, according to industry officials.

The huge cargo freighters, weighing more than 20 tons fully loaded, will stop flying in 2014 when the fifth resupply craft delivers equipment to the International Space Station.

ESA member states decided to discontinue the program after briefly considering redesigning the throwaway cargo craft to return hardware in a hardened re-entry capsule.

Three ATVs have launched since 2008, including a spacecraft now docked to the orbiting outpost. Two more spacecraft are due to launch in 2013 and 2014, and assembly of those vehicles has progressed enough to allow officials to shut down vendor production of the ATV's subsystems, according to UK's Bob Chesson, Program Manager of ESA's human spaceflight directorate.

The parts for the two remaining ATVs are mostly delivered to assembly plants in Italy and Germany, where the spacecraft's two main components are integrated.

"If we wanted to reopen production lines, there is a significant obsolescence problem at the equipment [and] component level," Chesson told reporters.

ESA launched the $2 billion development of the Automated Transfer Vehicle to pay the agency's share of the space station's common operating costs.

Instead of exchanging money, the space station's partners prefer to arrange barter agreements to pay debts for operating costs and launch services. Each ATV mission costs about $600 million.

ESA managers are consulting the agency's member states on the alternatives to pay their share of the station's operating costs. Officials expect representatives of the member states to decide on an option, or barter element, at a ministerial council meeting in November.

One option, tentatively favoured by Germany but dismissed by Italian and French space officials, is to sign an agreement with NASA to supply a service module to the Orion crew capsule, or multipurpose crew vehicle. The service module would be based on the ATV's propulsion section.

Germany is Europe's largest contributor to the space station program, followed by France and Italy.
Engineers in the United States and Europe are studying the scenario. Lockheed Martin Corp., the Orion spacecraft's manufacturer, is currently on contract to build the vehicle's service module.

The ATV service vehicle is built by EADS' Astrium Space Transportation.

Chesson said any derivative of the ATV will require major upgrades and a redesign of the avionics system to ensure modern components are commercially available. Such changes could put upward pressure on the cost of a follow-on to the ATV.

Instrumentation, cables and avionics being built up for the ATV 4 mission. Credit: ESA

The ATV consists of the service module and a pressurized cargo carrier, built in Italy by Thales Alenia Space, to uplift supplies, propellant, water and breathing air to the space station.

The automated spacecraft is now the largest resupply vehicle flying to the space station, following the retirement of the NASA Space Shuttle.

It is capable of transferring tons of rocket fuel into the outpost's Russian segment, reboosting the lab's orbit, and delivering hundreds of bags of food, clothing, experiments and other gear.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said the space station's demand for propellant will decrease in the next few years, curtailing the program's need for a large fuel-carrying freighter like the ATV.

"That's allowed us to essentially fill up the propellant tanks aboard the space station, so at this point, the unique capability of the Automated Transfer Vehicle to carry propellant is not needed," Gerstenmaier said in the March 28 testimony to the House Science Committee.

Commercial flights by U.S. spacecraft are expected to make up the rest of the lost capacity when the ATV program ends.

Acting as the space station program's chief integrator, NASA plans to request the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to order more H-2 Transfer Vehicles to cover that country's slice of the lab's operating costs.

JAXA is developing a returnable version of the HTV to fly as soon as late 2017, assuming funding to develop the modified spacecraft clears Japanese government budget-writers.

If approved, the re-entry upgrade, called HTV-R, could enter service before the end of the decade, bringing back to Earth up to 3,500 pounds of cargo on each flight.

"HTV provides a unique capability," Gerstenmaier said. "It can carry external cargo, which is important to us. It also has a large hatch where you can carry full research racks across to the space station."

Gerstenmaier told lawmakers NASA would like to have four HTVs fly after 2015. The last of seven HTVs currently on contract would launch in 2016, so two or three additional missions may be required through 2020.

ESA ATV-s, Edoardo Amaldi: Unloading the Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV3

Unloading the Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV3. in near Zero Gravity.

ESA's Third ATV Edoardo Amaldi: Set for launch to ISS

ATV Edoardo Amaldi being moved to a different building at the Guiana Space Centre. 

ESA's third automated space freighter, Edoardo Amaldi, will carry about two tonnes of dry cargo, 285 kg of water and more than three tonnes of propellants to the International Space Station. 

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG-J.M. Guillon.

ESA Europe: ATV-3 Space Cargo Vehicle set for launch to ISS

Loading the propellants for ATV Edoardo Amaldi. Since the propellants are hazardous, the operations are performed in ‘Scape’ suits. In case of a propellant leak, the operators are protected by the suit.

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG–S. Martin

Technicians in Europe’s spaceport in Kourou have the delicate task of loading dry cargo into ATV-3 for its journey to the International Space Station in March 2012.

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG–S. Martin 2011

US KC-135 Stratotanker: Royal Danish Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft

A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 100th Air Refueling Wing prepares to fuel a flight of Royal Danish Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft in the US European Command area of responsibility.

NASA Considering Fuel Depots in the Space - latest

ROSAT - latest news

Last update: 23 October 2011, 02:45 UTC (04:45 CEST)

On Sunday, 23 October 2011, between 1:45 UTC (3:45 CEST) and 2:15 UTC (4:15 CEST) the german ROentgen SATellite ROSAT has re-entered Earth's atmosphere. There is currently no confirmation if pieces of debris have reached Earth's surface.

By considering a proposal to put filling stations in the sky, NASA is looking to accelerate plans to send astronauts to distant destinations.

The filling stations, NASA calls them propellant depots, would refuel a spacecraft in orbit before it headed out to the moon, an asteroid or eventually Mars.

Currently, all of the fuel needed for a mission is carried up with the rocket, and the weight of the fuel limits the size of the spacecraft.

Next month, engineers will meet at NASA headquarters in Washington to discuss how propellant depots could be used to reach farther into space and make possible more ambitious missions using the heavy-lift rocket that NASA is planning to build.

The discussions grow out of a six-month NASA study of propellant depots, completed in July.

However, the space agency has rejected the study’s most radical conclusion: that NASA could forgo the heavy-lift and use existing smaller rockets, combined with fuel depots, to reach its targets more quickly and less expensively.

Those targets, for the next two decades at least, include a return to the moon or a visit to an asteroid. (A trip to Mars is unlikely until at least the 2030s.)

“This study highlights some interesting benefits of depots, but it is too singularly focused,” William H. Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for NASA’s human exploration and operations directorate, said in a statement.

“NASA is actively studying depots and how they can be used with other proposed elements to provide the lowest cost, sustainable exploration plan.”

Under the plan outlined in the document, the propellant depot would be launched first, and then other rockets would carry fuel to the depot before a spacecraft arrived to fill up.

That would increase the complexity for an asteroid mission, 11 to 17 launchings instead of four, but could get NASA astronauts to an asteroid by 2024, the study said.

The total budget needed for the project from 2012 through 2030 would be $60 billion to $86 billion, the study said.

ISS: Keeping Rocket Engine Fuel Lines Bubble Free in Space

Astronaut Scott Kelley installing the Capillary Channel Flow, or CCF, in the Microgravity Science Glovebox, or MSG, on board the International Space Station. 

Photo Credit NASA.

Without gravity in the space environment, how do you keep the fuel contained so it can be transported to where it is needed? How do you keep gas bubbles out of the fuel lines?

Being able to use all of the fuel in a spacecraft tank has been an ongoing challenge in spacecraft design for the past 50 years, but great advances on the problem are being made using the International Space Station as a laboratory. In the microgravity of space, the "bottom" of the tank is NOT apparent.

When a spacecraft tank is nearly full, the fuel tends to "cling" to all sides of the tank leaving a small gas bubble, or ullage, near the center of the tank. Once the tank has emptied to the point where there is not enough liquid to cover the walls of the tank, it is not clear where the remaining fluid is "positioned."

Here on Earth this is not an issue. For example, in the gasoline tank in your car, gravity always positions the remaining fluid at the bottom of the tank, allowing the car's fuel pump to draw the last bit of fuel from the tank.

"Presently, the low risk solution to this problem is to size the fuel tank larger than what is needed for the mission, but this adds extra launch mass and volume to the spacecraft," states Robert Green at NASA's Glenn Research Center.

Another method is to add special channel-like structures, called vanes, inside the tank to purposely "wick" the remaining fuel to the exit. A key area of study is how different shapes of channels work and whether they remove any gas bubbles that can get captured in the flow.

ESA scientists from Germany and the U.S. have been studying these processes as part of an investigation called Capillary Channel Flow, or CCF. The CCF study looks at several capillary channel geometries that mimic the shape and physical characteristics of vanes in fuel tanks.

One set of capillary channel geometries was developed by Michael E. Dreyer at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity, or ZARM, at the University of Bremen in Bremen, Germany, and sponsored by the German Aerospace Center, or DLR.

The geometries included parallel plates and square-grooves. This part of the investigation was completed in March 2011, after 78 days of nearly continuous ground-controlled operation.

The second set of channel geometries was designed by Mark M. Weislogel at Portland State University in Portland, Ore. Sponsored by NASA, it will begin operation this month. The geometry is a wedge-shaped channel with only one side exposed to the interior of the tank. Weislogel is studying the fluid behaviour in the interior corner where the two plates meet.

Robotic Refueling Module, To Be Relocated to Permanent Space Station Position

The Robotic Refueling Mission module, installed on its temporary platform on the International Space Station's Dextre robot. 

RRM will demonstrate robotic servicing technology and lay the foundation for future missions. Credit: NASA.

groundbreaking Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) will reach a key milestone in September when the International Space Station (ISS) robots transfer the module to its permanent home on space station's ExPRESS Logistics Carrier-4. Robotic operations for the technology demonstration are currently slated to begin soon afterwards.

A joint effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, RRM is designed to demonstrate the technologies, tools, and techniques needed to robotically service satellites, especially those not built with servicing in mind.

The results of this two-year technology test bed are expected to the reduce risks associated with satellite servicing as well as lay the foundation and encourage future robotic servicing missions. Such future missions could include the repair and repositioning of orbiting satellites.

President Obama called the RRM demonstration "innovative" during a July 15 phone call to STS-135 astronauts onboard the ISS noting its potential future benefits to the commercial satellite industry.

"It's a good reminder of how NASA technology and research often times has huge spillover effects into the commercial sector, and makes it all that much more important in terms of peoples' day to day lives."

NASA Shuttle Discovery: External Tanks in VAB

NASA's space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tanks are worked on and examined in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Picture: AP

Iran's newly disclosed nuclear fuel facility near Qom

Iran's newly disclosed nuclear fuel facility near Qom, Iran, is pictured in this GeoEye satellite photograph

Picture: REUTERS

Surprise! Water (hydroxyl) found on the Moon

Never mind Evian or Perrier the next new thing for the discerning diner may be Moon or Lunar Water.

There appears to be, to the surprise of most planetary scientists, water everywhere on the Moon. Although, how many refreshing drops future astronauts might be able to drink, is not clear.

Data from three spacecraft indicate the widespread presence of water or hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom as opposed to the two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms that make up a water molecule. The discoveries are being published Thursday on the Web site of the journal Science.

“It’s so startling because it’s so pervasive,” said Lawrence A. Taylor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a co-author of one of the papers that analyzed data from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration instrument aboard India’s Chandrayyan-1 satellite. “It’s like somebody painted the globe.”

For decades, the Moon has been regarded as a completely dry place. The dark side is more than ice cold, but when it passes into sunlight, any ice should have long ago been baked away. The possible exceptions are permanently shadowed craters near the Moon’s poles, and data announced this month by NASA verified the presence of hydrogen in those areas, which would most likely be in the form of water.

If water is somehow more widespread, that could make future settlement of the Moon easier, especially if significant water could be extracted just by heating the soil. Oxygen would also be a key component for breathable air for astronauts, and hydrogen and oxygen can also be used for rocket fuel or power generation.