For most of its time at Mars, the MAVEN spacecraft provided a relay for scientific data uplinked from NASA’s rovers and landers on the Martian surface. The relay allowed NASA to return significantly more data and imagery from rovers like Perseverance and Curiosity than would be possible through a direct-to-Earth radio connection.
With MAVEN out of the picture, NASA has four other orbiters it can use to provide this critical radio link. But officials aren’t sure how much longer they will last. Three of the four remaining relay orbiters are older than MAVEN, which played an outsized role in the relay network thanks to its higher orbit.
“Over the life of the mission, MAVEN supported more than 8 percent of all of our relay sessions planned by our rovers and landers, but it accounted for nearly 18 percent of all of the data returned, illustrating its usefulness when returning large data volumes,” said Tiffany Morgan, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
The network still has plenty of capacity to support the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, with some minor caveats.
“We do have remaining assets, and those assets have adjusted the amount of data that they return, and the rovers have also adjusted their planning for how they connect to those assets,” Morgan said. “There is a slight delay on occasion, because we don’t have as many assets in view, to getting our science data back, and MAVEN was critical in returning science data versus operational data. But the Mars Relay Network is resilient enough at this point in time to accommodate, for the most part, the loss of MAVEN with the added delay.” //
jimlux Ars Tribunus Militum
12y
1,671
jlredford said:
It's interesting that they're able to use so many different orbiters to do this relay function. Interesting and resilient! It's great that it can handle dropouts like MAVEN. As the system gets upgraded, I hope they keep all this inter-operability to handle the next failure. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the main link these days, and it's now 20 years old, almost twice the age of MAVEN.
That’s because most of them (at least those launched after 2005) fly the JPL developed Electra software defined radio (they’re manufactured by L3, but the hardware design and the software is JPL). The landers also use Electra radios (or Electra Lite). MER was the first Mars lander to use relay ops with an orbiter to return data, and after a week or two, it had returned more data through the relay link than all previous Mars missions combined. It’s that effective (compared to basic X-band Direct to Earth at 8 kbps)
And as far as interoperability goes, that’s part of the Prox-1 standard from the Consultative Committee on Space Data Standards (ccsds.org) - most people flying a relay payload use it (as will the new Mars Telecom Network, and similar spacecraft planned for the Moon). 400 MHz UHF at Mars for now, but S-band is coming, as is Ka-band.
Is it a hidden gem, a cult classic, or hopelessly dumb? We vote “all of the above.” //
Even operating at its most frantic peak in 1985 just before Challenger’s loss, the shuttle hardware managed a maximum of nine flights in one calendar year; for most of the 1990s, it performed at five or six flights per year. Civilians in space—to say nothing of Big Bird—would have to wait.
And into that post-Challenger disillusioned summer of 1986, Hollywood brought us SpaceCamp. It had all the right ingredients: A stacked cast with a solid leading duo (Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt), tons of real NASA location footage, and a big, brassy score by none other than John Williams. The film was completed before the Challenger disaster, leaving 20th Century Fox with something of a nightmarish choice on their hands—to shelve the film and lose millions, or send it to theaters and risk a PR disaster.
For better or for worse, Fox chose to release the film, which ultimately made about $9.6 million on a reported $25 million budget. Ouch.
Point Nemo is officially known as “the oceanic pole of inaccessibility,” or the point in the ocean farthest from land. Located at 48°52.6’S 123°23.6’W, the spot is quite literally the middle of nowhere, surrounded by more than 1,000 miles of ocean in every direction.
The closest landmasses to the pole are one of the Pitcairn Islands to the north, one of the Easter Islands to the northeast, and one island off the coast of Antarctica to the south.
There are no human inhabitants anywhere near Point Nemo. And scientists chose to call the location “Nemo” because it is Latin for “no one” and as a reference to Jules Verne’s submarine captain from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.
The location is so isolated that the closest people to Nemo are not even on Earth. According to the BBC, astronauts aboard the International Space Station are around 258 miles from the Earth’s surface at any given time. Since the inhabited area closest to Point Nemo is more than 1,000 miles away, the humans in space are far closer to the pole of inaccessibility than those on land. //
As for non-human inhabitants, there aren’t very many of those around Point Nemo either. Point Nemo’s coordinates fall within the South Pacific Gyre, an enormous rotating current that prevents nutrient-rich water from flowing into the area. Without any food sources, sustaining most life in this part of the ocean is impossible.
View and download this historic assembly code for your own space program //
The historic computer software code that took Apollo 11 to the moon has been open-sourced and is available for anyone to read, download, and tinker with. NASA’s Chris Garry made the code available on GitHub as public domain. The published resource is basically in two large codebases, one set of code for the Command Module (Comanche055) and another for the Lunar Module (Luminary099). These modules both had their own Apollo 11 guidance computers (AGC) upon which to run the code, and were instrumental to the success of the remarkable mission – the first human Moon landing in history. //
It is fascinating to see this Apollo 11 code from nearly 60 years ago shared in the context of the ongoing Artemis II lunar mission. Today, we aren’t marveling at the lean and mean machine code that NASA is using to get humans to and from the Moon. Rather, Microsoft Outlook email bugs and a malfunctioning toilet on the Orion spacecraft may have taken the shine off the momentous achievement this latest mission represents.
These captivating reads offer some needed and expert perspectives on our quest to understand the universe and our place within it.
Welcome to the Artemis II multimedia resource collection. Here, you can view and download mission photographs, behind‑the‑scenes videos, podcasts, and more. The Artemis II mission—NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby in over 50 years—is a key step toward a long‑term return to the Moon and future crewed missions to Mars.
Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, 90, an Apollo 17 astronaut who spent three days on the moon in 1972, told The Post this week that there is a superfuel locked within the lunar dust that could provide Earth with an abundance of clean and safe energy for generations.
“I’ve been working on this for many decades — harvesting the light isotope of helium-3 from the moon,” said Schmitt, who is from New Mexico and lives in Albuquerque.
Schmitt is one of just 12 humans to ever walk on the moon, and four who are still alive. Buzz Aldrin, Charlie Duke and David Scott are also all in their 90s.
Since his Apollo 17 commander, Gene Cernan, died in 2017, Schmidt has been the last man alive to step off the lunar surface.
He also stands out for another reason: Unlike the other Apollo astronauts, who came from the military, Schmitt was a geologist and the only trained scientist to make the historic trip. //
“The question is, will that momentum keep going forward?”
Schmitt says he believes it will through a viable business model for interlunar travel — fueled by an industry involving the reaping of helium-3.
Helium-3 is a key ingredient needed to run nuclear fusion reactors, which operate with extreme efficiency and without the dangerous radioactive waste today’s fission-based power plants create.
But helium-3 is extremely rare on Earth — so rare that it’s rationed by the federal government — meaning fusion reactors have never been viable on a large scale.
But the moon is believed to be ripe with it, since the sun has been bombarding its atmosphere-free surface with the isotope for billions of years and building it up in the grey lunar dust.
bpatb Ars Centurion
14y
241
Subscriptor
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
These four are very good at making us yearn for space.
Perhaps because I wasn’t alive during Apollo, part of me has often gravitated to robotic space missions. I identified with spacecraft like Voyager, Cassini, New Horizons, and the rovers traversing Mars as examples of real exploration. It was still possible to connect crewed platforms in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, with the idea of exploring through the attainment of knowledge. With more than 25 years of uninterrupted crewed operations, the ISS has taught NASA and its international partners how to live and work in space and paved the way for the establishment of a permanent base on the Moon.
But it was easy to connect the innate drive to explore with the excitement of seeing new landscapes on Mars, the ghostly plumes of Enceladus, and the heart of Pluto. These were new worlds revealed for the first time, and each discovery sparked a bevy of new questions.
Artemis II struck the same vein, revealing things unseen by human eyes before. Like those missions far out in the Solar System, this was exploration in action. But seeing and hearing what the Artemis II astronauts saw added another dimension. It scratched an itch that a robot can’t reach. Here were human beings, people I’ve met and people you might someday meet, going through an entirely new experience. //
Sure, Artemis II didn’t land on the Moon. That will come on a future Artemis flight. But these four astronauts ventured to greater distances than Apollo and saw parts of the far side of the Moon hidden from view during those missions more than 50 years ago. Modern technology provided new opportunities for the astronauts to share their views with the world—from their view, just a fragile blue marble suspended in a cosmic void.
Speaking from the Orion spacecraft on April 4, Glover, the mission’s pilot, remarked on the view in a long-distance virtual interview with CBS News.
“One of the really important personal perspectives that I have up here is I can really see Earth as one thing,” Glover said on the eve of Easter. “You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the Universe, in the cosmos.
“Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special, but we’re the same distance from you, and I’m trying to tell you—just trust me—you are special. In all of this emptiness—this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the Universe—you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.
“As we go into Easter Sunday, thinking about all the cultures all around the world, whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we’ve got to get through this together.” //
“When we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had, and honestly, what struck me wasn’t necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the Universe,” she said. “I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there is one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth, you are a crew.”
Commander Wiseman, Reid, you said in an interview back in February that you hoped this mission would be forgotten, overshadowed by all that was to come after. But I'm very sorry to disappoint you all. Artemis II will always be remembered. It was the moment we all saw the Moon again. Where childhoold dreams became missions. You helped the world to start believing again, and this is something that no one's ever going to forget. So, on behalf of NASA and the space-loving community from around the world: Thank you, for showing us your courage, your professionalism, your unity, and your humanity. Thank you, for showing us the Moon again. Thank you, for showing us Planet Earth again. And Thank you, for contributing to the greatest adventure in human history. Welcome home, Artemis II. //
So, when we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging, undisturbingly in the universe.
Every 10 years, the National Academies convene a panel of planetary scientists to set priorities for Solar System exploration. These decadal surveys help NASA decide where to send missions and what scientific questions they should seek to answer. None of the results from Artemis II are likely to answer these big questions.
“Is there going to be decadal-level science out of Artemis II? Probably not,” Neal told Ars in an interview this week. “This is a technology demonstration mission… This is primarily to have a crew there to check out the engineering and make sure that things are working.”
From a scientific perspective, what’s most intriguing about Artemis II is figuring out how to incorporate humans into planetary exploration. For more than 50 years, generations of scientists have learned to explore other worlds only through the electronic eyes of robots. With NASA’s return to the Moon, they must learn to take advantage of human observations.
This requires a shift in how ground teams design instruments, plan science campaigns, and select targets for their observations. It also necessitates a change in culture. Astronauts on the lunar surface or in lunar orbit will provide a real-time feedback loop for the army of scientists looking over their shoulders from Earth. During the Apollo program, it took multiple landings to fine-tune how this works.
Should we take a closer look at this rock? Should we go see that outcrop? Humans can make these key decisions in seconds or minutes rather than days, weeks, months, or in some cases, years.
The experience of the Artemis II flyby also informed spacecraft engineers about the utility of the Orion spacecraft as an observation platform and the optical quality of the capsule’s windows. The astronauts reported some issues with glare from the Sun and the Earth. They MacGyvered a makeshift window shroud using a T-shirt to help overcome the glare so they could better see the lunar surface.
“We confirmed that we can achieve science through orbital observations and through integrating science into flight operations,” said Kelsey Young, NASA’s science lead for the Artemis II mission.
Human eyes are remarkably good at sensing color gradients and brightness changes. “Right away, they started describing the green around Aristarchus plateau and different brown hues, and these colors really help tell us nuances about the chemistry of lunar material,” Young said after the flyby.
Glover, Artemis II’s pilot, noted his perception of the Moon’s three-dimensionality during the flyby: “You really get a sense that we’re flying over something with elevation and terrain.” The astronauts were able to glimpse craters, mountains, and ridges at different angles as the Orion capsule arced behind the Moon. “Every vantage point is different,” Young said. //
“You might think that, after looking at hundreds of images taken of the lunar surface, I would get sick of it,” Young said. “I have not, nor do I anticipate getting sick of it.”
“It was quite infectious,” Neal said. “The Earthrise image that they took is one for the ages.”
One of my favorite Apollo astronauts is the late Jim Lovell. He flew in two missions yet never walked on the moon. His unflappable leadership during the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission helped make it what some called a “successful failure.”
Lovell also flew on Apollo 8, the mission that first flew around the moon. It was Christmas Eve 1968, and Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman delivered a Christmas message to the world from their orbit around the moon, which included a reading from Genesis 1: //
Lovell passed away at the age of 97 in August of last year, but a couple of months before he died, he recorded a message for Artemis II. NASA kept Lovell’s message a secret, but mission control played it to wake the crew up on Monday.
Hello Artemis II! This is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell. Welcome to my old neighborhood. When Frank Borman and Bill Anders and I orbited the moon on Apollo 8, we got humanity's first up close look at the moon and got a view of the home planet that inspired and united people around the world. I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon and lay the groundwork for missions to Mars, for the benefit of all. It's a historic day, and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget to enjoy the view. So, Reid and Victor and Christina and Jeremy, and all the great teams supporting you, good luck and Godspeed from all of us here on the good earth.
As the Artemis II crew came close to passing behind the Moon and experiencing a planned loss of signal, they captured this image of a crescent Earth setting on the Moon’s limb.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and California Institute of Technology
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Excors Ars Centurion
12y
365
Subscriptor++
Resistance said:
I thought the current trajectory has the spacecraft and everything near it returning to Earth?
Yes - NASA says the translunar injection burn was also the deorbit burn. It's a very long deorbit trajectory, and there's six opportunities for correction burns to ensure a safe reentry angle and splashdown location, but they're already on their way to Earth. And they've skipped the first two correction burns because the trajectory is close enough to optimal.
If I'm interpreting this paper right, the requirement is to reach the entry interface with a max downrange error of 25.6km (figure 4), with up to 20 m/s delta-v of corrections, so this is just about fine-tuning. I presume that means anything that's still floating near the spacecraft, and not flying off at many m/s, is close enough to the optimal trajectory that it's still going to impact the Earth.
One can get away with “roughing it” when using the bathroom during trips to the Moon. Going to Mars, requiring months in space, is a different matter. If the toilet breaks on the way to Mars, there is a non-zero chance the crew is dying. So it’s great to try out these systems now, on Orion. This really is the purpose of this test flight, to make sure life support systems work for the crew, to identify problems, and to implement fixes in the future.
In the big picture, the Artemis II mission continues to go splendidly. The deputy manager of the Orion program for NASA, Debbie Korth, said Saturday that the spacecraft is performing “remarkably well,” and that the vehicle’s overall performance has “pleasantly surprised” the engineers working on the program.
Everything is going so well, in fact, that much of the focus has been on frozen urine. And considering all of the things that could go wrong with a dangerous deep space journey like this, a wee problem like this seems like a big win. //
Zapfenzieher Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
15y
137
Go, Artemis, go!
Oh, wait ... 😋
As NASA prepares to send four astronauts around the moon for the 10-day Artemis II mission, a veteran space flier's unexplained illness in orbit is spotlighting one of the biggest risks of deep-space travel: the need for medical systems in case of emergencies.
NASA astronaut Michael Fincke said a sudden episode aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in January left him unable to speak and forced NASA's first-ever medical evacuation from the orbiting laboratory. Doctors have ruled out a heart attack, Fincke told the Associated Press, but they still don't know what caused the medical issue.
NASA was able to get Fincke (along with the three other members of the crew) back to Earth relatively quickly from the ISS. But that may not be the case for the longer lunar missions the agency envisions under the Artemis program.
Robert Goddard, a Massachusetts-born physicist, launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket on this date 100 years ago.
It was not an overly impressive flight. The rocket, fueled by gasoline and liquid oxygen, rose just 41 feet into the air, and the flight lasted 2.5 seconds before it struck ice and snow.
Nevertheless, this rocket, named “Nell,” represented a historic achievement that would help launch the modern age of spaceflight. Three decades later, the first objects would begin to ride liquid-fueled rockets into space, followed shortly by humans. A little more than 40 years would pass before humans walked on the Moon.
To mark this historic moment, a few Ars staffers are sharing some of their most memorable launches. Please add yours in the comments below.
Recorded during 2017, timelapse sequences from the International Space Station are compiled in this serene video of planet Earth at Night. Fans of low Earth orbit can start by enjoying the view as green and red aurora borealis slather up the sky. The night scene tracks from northwest to southeast across North America, toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida coast. A second sequence follows European city lights, crosses the Mediterranean Sea, and passes over a bright Nile river in northern Africa.
This page lists various fan-made tools that can help calculations related to the gameplay of Kerbal Space Program. Unlike addons, they do not directly influence the game, as they are run separately.