A New Radio Dish for Space Exploration Is Emerging in the California Desert...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s New Deep Space Network Antenna Has Its Crowning Moment (News Release - December 20)

Deep Space Station 23’s 133-ton reflector dish was recently installed, marking a key step in strengthening NASA’s Deep Space Network.

NASA’s Deep Space Network, an array of giant radio antennas, allows agency missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from spacecraft venturing to the Moon and beyond. NASA is adding a new antenna, bringing the total to 15, to support increased demand for the world’s largest and most sensitive radio frequency telecommunication system.

Installation of the latest antenna took place on December 18, when teams at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, installed the metal reflector framework for Deep Space Station 23, a multifrequency beam-waveguide antenna. When operational in 2026, Deep Space Station 23 will receive transmissions from missions such as Perseverance, Psyche, Europa Clipper, Voyager 1 and a growing fleet of future human and robotic spacecraft in deep space.

“This addition to the Deep Space Network represents a crucial communication upgrade for the agency,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program. “The communications infrastructure has been in continuous operation since its creation in 1963, and with this upgrade we are ensuring NASA is ready to support the growing number of missions exploring the Moon, Mars and beyond.”

Construction of the new antenna has been under way for more than four years, and during the installation, teams used a crawler crane to lower the 133-ton metal skeleton of the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) parabolic reflector before it was bolted to a 65-foot-high (20-meter-high) alidade, a platform above the antenna’s pedestal that will steer the reflector during operations.

“One of the biggest challenges facing us during the lift was to ensure that 40 bolt-holes were perfectly aligned between the structure and alidade,” said Germaine Aziz, systems engineer, Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This required a meticulous emphasis on alignment prior to the lift to guarantee everything went smoothly on the day.”

Following the main lift, engineers carried out a lighter lift to place a quadripod, a four-legged support structure weighing 16 1/2 tons, onto the center of the upward-facing reflector. The quadripod features a curved subreflector that will direct radio frequency signals from deep space that bounce off the main reflector into the antenna’s pedestal, where the antenna’s receivers are housed.

Engineers will now work to fit panels onto the steel skeleton to create a curved surface to reflect radio frequency signals. Once complete, Deep Space Station 23 will be the fifth of six new beam-waveguide antennas to join the network, following Deep Space Station 53, which was added at the Deep Space Network’s Madrid complex in 2022.

“With the Deep Space Network, we are able to explore the Martian landscape with our rovers, see the James Webb Space Telescope’s stunning cosmic observations, and so much more,” said Laurie Leshin, director of JPL. “The network enables over 40 deep space missions, including the farthest human-made objects in the Universe, Voyager 1 and 2. With upgrades like these, the network will continue to support humanity’s exploration of our Solar System and beyond, enabling groundbreaking science and discovery far into the future.”

NASA’s Deep Space Network is managed by JPL, with the oversight of NASA’s SCaN Program. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on the Deep Space Network and Near Space Network, including supporting astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, monitoring Earth’s weather and the effects of climate change, supporting lunar exploration, and uncovering the Solar System and beyond.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Happy Winter Solstice! SOLAR PROBE PLUS Is Ready for its Christmas Eve Encounter with our Host Star...

JHU / APL

Parker Solar Probe Begins Record-Setting Closest Approach to the Sun (News Release - December 20)

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is in good health and operating normally as it speeds toward its closest-ever flight around the Sun on Christmas Eve.

Mission operators at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, received a beacon transmission from Parker, through NASA’s Deep Space Network complex in Canberra, Australia, at 7:20 p.m. EST today indicating that all spacecraft systems were operating normally.

“This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer longstanding questions about our Universe,” said Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.”

Parker is now on course to fly just 3.8 million miles (around 6.1 million kilometers) from the surface of the Sun on Tuesday, December 24, at 6:53 a.m. EST. During closest approach, or perihelion, mission operations will be out of contact with the spacecraft, and Parker will transmit another beacon tone on Friday, December 27, to confirm its health following the close flyby.

“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory” said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at APL. “We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”

Parker Solar Probe was developed as a part of NASA’s Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The Living With a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL manages Parker Solar Probe for NASA and designed, built and operates the mission.

Source: NASA.Gov

America's Newest X-Plane Comes to Life in the California Desert...

Lockheed Martin Corporation / Garr

NASA Runs X-59 Engine with Maximum Afterburner for First Time (News Release)

NASA completed the first maximum afterburner engine run test on its X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft on December 12. The ground test, conducted at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, marks a significant milestone as the X-59 team progresses toward flight.

An afterburner is a component of some jet engines that generates additional thrust. Running the engine, an F414-GE-100, with afterburner will allow the X-59 to meet its supersonic speed requirements. The test demonstrated the engine’s ability to operate within temperature limits and with adequate airflow for flight.

The test also showed the engine’s ability to operate in sync with the aircraft’s other subsystems.

The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s QueSST mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land by making sonic booms quieter. The X-59’s first flight is expected to occur in 2025.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Lockheed Martin Corporation / Garr

The First Blue Ghost Lander Arrives in Florida for Launch, while Firefly Looks Ahead to a Third Lunar Mission...

Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Awarded $179 Million NASA Contract for Moon Delivery to Gruithuisen Domes (Press Release)

Cedar Park, Texas – Firefly Aerospace, Inc., the leader in end-to-end responsive space services, was awarded an approximately $179.6 million NASA contract to deliver and operate six NASA instruments in the Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon’s near side in 2028. As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload (CLPS) initiative, the mission will utilize Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, Elytra Dark orbital vehicle, and a rover from an industry provider to investigate the unique composition of the Gruithuisen Domes – a part of the Moon that has never been explored.

“Firefly is proud to land our fourth NASA CLPS award for another complex mission, which is what our team does best,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “This incredible team gained a hard-earned reputation for smooth payload integrations, well-rehearsed operations, and robust testing and transparency throughout Blue Ghost Mission 1 preparations. As Firefly works towards becoming the go-to commercial company to provide autonomous systems on the Moon and beyond, our robust line of vehicles stand ready to deliver a historic mission to the Gruithuisen Domes.”

During mission operations, Firefly’s Elytra Dark transfer vehicle will first deploy the Blue Ghost lander into lunar orbit and then remain on orbit to provide long-haul communications. Blue Ghost will then land in the Gruithuisen Domes, deploy the rover, and support payload operations for more than 14 days on the lunar surface. The NASA payloads onboard Blue Ghost include the Radio-wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES) telescope, the Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering, and Probing of Lunar Regolith (SAMPLR) robotic arm, the Neutron Measurements at the Lunar Surface (NMLS) instrument, the Photovoltaic Investigation on the Lunar Surface (PILS) instrument, and the Heimdall camera system.

The mission will also carry NASA’s Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) payload with multiple instruments attached to both the lander and rover to determine the composition of the Gruithuisen Gamma Dome. Considered a geologic mystery, the Gruithuisen Domes appear to be composed of silica-rich volcanic minerals, which could indicate the presence of lunar water and hydrogen. The NASA payloads onboard Blue Ghost Mission 3 will investigate the formation and physical properties of the domes, including the potential detection of water and hydrogen molecules, in addition to other science investigations.

“Firefly is dedicated to flying annual missions to the Moon for both government and commercial customers as we continue to pave the way for a lasting lunar presence,” said Brett Alexander, Chief Revenue Officer at Firefly Aerospace. “We’re seeing growing interest from organizations looking to unlock the Moon’s resources and build a robust lunar ecosystem, and we welcome additional partners to join us.”

Along with the NASA payloads, Firefly’s mission has capacity for additional customers, offering orbital transfer and long-haul communications in cislunar space on Elytra as well as lunar surface delivery and operations on Blue Ghost. Customers interested in joining Blue Ghost Mission 3 can find more information at https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-3/.

Firefly’s first mission to the Moon, Ghost Riders in the Sky, is on track for launch in mid-January 2025 with 10 NASA payloads onboard Blue Ghost. Firefly’s second lunar mission is scheduled to launch in 2026, utilizing a similar two-stage spacecraft configuration as Blue Ghost Mission 3, with the Blue Ghost lander stacked on Elytra Dark to support payload operations on the far side of the Moon and in lunar orbit.

Source: Firefly Aerospace

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Blue Ghost reached her final pit stop in Cape Canaveral before our #GhostRiders embark on the main leg of our journey to the Moon! As we prepare for launch in mid-January, join us for a live teleconference with @NASA to learn more about the tech and science flying on board the… pic.twitter.com/DtlbcYr7FQ

— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) December 17, 2024

A Nuclear-powered Robot Rolls to New Heights on the Red Planet...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Reaches Top of Jezero Crater Rim (News Release)

The road ahead will be even more scientifically intriguing, and probably somewhat easier-going, now that the six-wheeler has completed its long climb to the top.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has crested the top of Jezero Crater’s rim at a location that the science team calls “Lookout Hill” and rolling towards its first science stop after the monthslong climb. The rover made the ascent in order to explore a region of Mars unlike anywhere it has investigated before.

Taking about 3½ months and ascending 1,640 vertical feet (500 vertical meters), the rover climbed 20% grades, making stops along the way for science observations. Perseverance’s science team shared some of their work and future plans at a media briefing held on Thursday, December 12, in Washington at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, the country’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists.

“During the Jezero Crater rim climb, our rover drivers have done an amazing job negotiating some of the toughest terrain we’ve encountered since landing,” said Steven Lee, deputy project manager for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “They developed innovative approaches to overcome these challenges — even tried driving backward to see if it would help — and the rover has come through it all like a champ. Perseverance is ‘go’ for everything the science team wants to throw at it during this next science campaign.”

Since landing at Jezero in February 2021, Perseverance has completed four science campaigns: the “Crater Floor,” “Fan Front,” “Upper Fan” and “Margin Unit.” The science team is calling Perseverance’s fifth campaign the “Northern Rim” because its route covers the northern part of the southwestern section of Jezero’s rim. Over the first year of the Northern Rim campaign, the rover is expected to visit as many as four sites of geologic interest, take several samples, and drive about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers).

“The Northern Rim campaign brings us completely new scientific riches as Perseverance roves into fundamentally new geology,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena. “It marks our transition from rocks that partially filled Jezero Crater when it was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago to rocks from deep down inside Mars that were thrown upward to form the crater rim after impact.”

“These rocks represent pieces of early Martian crust and are among the oldest rocks found anywhere in the Solar System. Investigating them could help us understand what Mars — and our own planet — may have looked like in the beginning,” Farley added.

First Stop: ‘Witch Hazel Hill’

With Lookout Hill in its rearview mirror, Perseverance is headed to a scientifically-significant rocky outcrop about 1,500 feet (450 meters) down the other side of the rim that the science team calls “Witch Hazel Hill.”

“The campaign starts off with a bang because Witch Hazel Hill represents over 330 feet of layered outcrop, where each layer is like a page in the book of Martian history. As we drive down the hill, we will be going back in time, investigating the ancient environments of Mars recorded in the crater rim,” said Candice Bedford, a Perseverance scientist from Purdue University in West Layfette, Indiana. “Then, after a steep descent, we take our first turns of the wheel away from the crater rim toward ‘Lac de Charmes,’ about 2 miles south.”

Lac de Charmes intrigues the science team because, being located on the plains beyond the rim, it is less likely to have been significantly affected by the formation of Jezero Crater.

After leaving Lac de Charmes, the rover will traverse about a mile (1.6 kilometers) back to the rim to investigate a stunning outcrop of large blocks known as megabreccia. These blocks may represent ancient bedrock broken up during the Isidis impact, a planet-altering event that likely excavated deep into the Martian crust as it created an impact basin some 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) wide, 3.9 billion years in the past.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Remembering the Mars Helicopter's Final Flight...

NASA / JPL - Caltech / LANL / CNES / CNRS

NASA Performs First Aircraft Accident Investigation on Another World (News Release)

The review takes a close look at the final flight of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which was the first aircraft to fly on another world.

Engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and AeroVironment are completing a detailed assessment of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s final flight on January 18, 2024, which will be published in the next few weeks as a NASA technical report. Designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity was the first aircraft on another world. It operated for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 30 times farther than planned while accumulating over two hours of flight time.

The investigation concludes that the inability of Ingenuity’s navigation system to provide accurate data during the flight likely caused a chain of events that ended the mission. The report’s findings are expected to benefit future Mars helicopters, as well as other aircraft destined to operate on other worlds.

Final Ascent

Flight 72 was planned as a brief vertical hop to assess Ingenuity’s flight systems and photograph the area. Data from the flight shows Ingenuity climbing to 40 feet (12 meters), hovering and capturing images. It initiated its descent at 19 seconds, and by 32 seconds the helicopter was back on the surface and had halted communications.

The following day, the mission reestablished communications, and images that came down six days after the flight revealed Ingenuity had sustained severe damage to its rotor blades.

What Happened

“When running an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don’t have any black boxes or eyewitnesses,” said Ingenuity’s first pilot, Håvard Grip of JPL. “While multiple scenarios are viable with the available data, we have one we believe is most likely: Lack of surface texture gave the navigation system too little information to work with.”

The helicopter’s vision navigation system was designed to track visual features on the surface using a downward-looking camera over well-textured (pebbly) but flat terrain. This limited tracking capability was more than sufficient for carrying out Ingenuity’s first five flights, but by Flight 72 the helicopter was in a region of Jezero Crater filled with steep, relatively featureless sand ripples.

One of the navigation system’s main requirements was to provide velocity estimates that would enable the helicopter to land within a small envelope of vertical and horizontal velocities. Data sent down during Flight 72 shows that, around 20 seconds after takeoff, the navigation system couldn’t find enough surface features to track.

Photographs taken after the flight indicate that the navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown. In the most likely scenario, the hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll. The rapid attitude change resulted in loads on the fast-rotating rotor blades beyond their design limits, snapping all four of them off at their weakest point — about a third of the way from the tip.

The damaged blades caused excessive vibration in the rotor system, ripping the remainder of one blade from its root and generating an excessive power demand that resulted in loss of communications.

Down but Not Out

Although Flight 72 permanently grounded Ingenuity, the helicopter still beams weather and avionics test data to the Perseverance rover about once a week. The weather information could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet. The avionics data is already proving useful to engineers working on future designs of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet.

“Because Ingenuity was designed to be affordable while demanding huge amounts of computer power, we became the first mission to fly commercial off-the-shelf cellphone processors in deep space,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager. “We’re now approaching four years of continuous operations, suggesting that not everything needs to be bigger, heavier and radiation-hardened to work in the harsh Martian environment.”

Inspired by Ingenuity’s longevity, NASA engineers have been testing smaller, lighter avionics that could be used in vehicle designs for the Mars Sample Return campaign. The data is also helping engineers as they research what a future Mars helicopter could look like — and do.

During a Wednesday, December 11, briefing at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in Washington, Tzanetos shared details on the Mars Chopper rotorcraft, a concept that he and other Ingenuity alumni are researching. As designed, Chopper is approximately 20 times heavier than Ingenuity, could fly several pounds of science equipment, and autonomously explore remote Martian locations while traveling up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) in a day. (Ingenuity’s longest flight was 2,310 feet, or 704 meters.)

“Ingenuity has given us the confidence and data to envision the future of flight at Mars,” said Tzanetos.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

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Finding Weird Celestial Objects Around Our Solar System...

European Southern Observatory / M. Kornmesser

NASA Researchers Discover More Dark Comets (News Release)

These celestial objects that look like asteroids but act like comets now come in two flavors.

The first dark comet — a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet — was reported less than two years ago. Soon after, another six were found. In a new paper, researchers announce the discovery of seven more, doubling the number of known dark comets, and find that they fall into two distinct populations: larger ones that reside in the outer Solar System and smaller ones in the inner Solar System, with various other traits that set them apart.

The findings were published on Monday, December 9, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists got their first inkling that dark comets exist when they noted in a March 2016 study that the trajectory of “asteroid” 2003 RM had moved ever so slightly from its expected orbit. That deviation couldn’t be explained by the typical accelerations of asteroids, like the small acceleration known as the Yarkovsky effect.

“When you see that kind of perturbation on a celestial object, it usually means it’s a comet, with volatile material outgassing from its surface giving it a little thrust,” said study coauthor Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But try as we might, we couldn’t find any signs of a comet’s tail. It looked like any other asteroid — just a pinpoint of light. So, for a short while, we had this one weird celestial object that we couldn’t fully figure out.”

Weird Celestial Objects

Farnocchia and the astronomical community didn’t have to wait long for another piece of the puzzle. The next year, in 2017, a NASA-sponsored telescope discovered history’s first documented celestial object that originated outside our Solar System. Not only did 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) appear as a single point of light, like an asteroid, its trajectory changed as if it were outgassing volatile material from its surface, like a comet.

“‘Oumuamua was surprising in several ways,” said Farnocchia. “The fact that the first object we discovered from interstellar space exhibited similar behaviors to 2003 RM made 2003 RM even more intriguing.”

By 2023, researchers had identified seven Solar System objects that looked like asteroids but acted like comets. That was enough for the astronomical community to bestow upon them their own celestial object category: “dark comets.” Now, with the finding of seven more of these objects, researchers could start on a new set of questions.

“We had a big enough number of dark comets that we could begin asking if there was anything that would differentiate them,” said Darryl Seligman, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Physics at Michigan State University, East Lansing, and lead author of the new paper. “By analyzing the reflectivity,” or albedo, “and the orbits, we found that our Solar System contains two different types of dark comets.”

Two Kinds of Dark Comets

The study’s authors found that one kind, which they call outer dark comets, have similar characteristics to Jupiter-family comets: They have highly-eccentric (or elliptical) orbits and are on the larger side (hundreds of meters or more across).

The second group, inner dark comets, reside in the inner Solar System (which includes Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), travel in nearly circular orbits, and are on the smaller side (tens of meters or less).

Like so many astronomical discoveries, Seligman and Farnocchia’s research not only expands on our knowledge of dark comets, but it also raises several additional questions: Where did dark comets originate? What causes their anomalous acceleration? Could they contain ice?

“Dark comets are a new potential source for having delivered the materials to Earth that were necessary for the development of life,” said Seligman. “The more we can learn about them, the better we can understand their role in our planet’s origin.”

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Interstellar Probe: The Dream Is Lost (Again)...

Earlier today, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released the long-awaited Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey...a report that recommended to NASA what type of heliophysics-centric mission the agency should undertake over the next 10 years.

The decadal survey proposed that NASA conduct two flagship-class missions: Links, a satellite constellation that consisted of over two dozen spacecraft flying in different orbits to study Earth's magnetosphere, and the Solar Polar Orbiter—a mission that would see a robotic probe orbiting the Sun's polar regions to observe them from above.

What the decadal survey didn't recommend was an ambitious mission that I've been enthusiastically posting about since early 2021: the Interstellar Probe (IP).

Just like what happened when the Trident Neptune-Triton flyby mission was rejected by NASA in early 2021 in favor of two Venus-bound spacecraft, I'm absolutely disappointed that the Interstellar Probe will not see the light of day. At least within the next decade or so, and in the type of mission profile that the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory—who NASA paid $4 million to study the feasibility of this project and would've built the IP spacecraft itself—proposed in its Mission Concept Report three years ago.

If you've been reading this Blog since at least September of 2005 (stop smirking), you'll know just how eager I am to see NASA develop another Pioneer/Voyager/New Horizons-type mission that will fly to the outer Solar System and beyond. Obviously, I was very excited to see what kind of scientific discoveries IP would make during a 15-year journey to interstellar space (on a mission that was designed to last up to 50 years), but it was the dream of putting my name on the spacecraft in a potential public outreach campaign (like what was done with New Horizons back in 2005—when over 430,000 people submitted their names online to be flown on a compact disc aboard the Pluto-bound explorer) that enthralled me about this endeavor.

I got to send a message via radio signal to the exoplanet Gliese 581d courtesy of the Hello From Earth campaign in 2009, but to have my name on an actual spacecraft and not in an energy wave traveling through the Milky Way galaxy some day was obviously a more wondrous scenario.

What makes me especially annoyed about this new decadal survey is that the Solar Polar Orbiter is basically a rehash of the NASA and European Space Agency's Ulysses mission which launched in 1990 and studied the Sun till 2008. Unlike Ulysses, however, the Solar Polar Orbiter would be equipped with cameras to photograph the northern and southern regions of our host star.

Big whoop. What's that compared to potentially capturing an image of our entire Solar System from beyond the heliosphere courtesy of the Interstellar Probe?

Seeing as how NASEM wanted NASA to focus on the near-Earth space environment and how solar activity affected it, it's clearly obvious that the decadal survey was influenced by this year's geomagnetic storms that caused auroras to be visible around much of the globe. This is similar to how the 2020 discovery of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere ultimately caused Trident to be rejected in favor of the VERITAS and DAVINCI missions...which NASA doesn't even care to launch to the Evening Star till sometime next decade.

(Trident would've lifted off for Neptune either next year or 2026 had NASA approved it as its next Discovery-class mission.)

Well... It's clearly obvious that the Universe doesn't really want me to put my moniker on a New Horizons-type spacecraft anytime soon. I guess I'll just have to stick with submitting my name to fly on missions within our Solar System instead.

But one thing is certain: I can have a virtual presence on over a hundred spacecraft venturing to destinations as close as Venus (courtesy of Akatsuki) and worlds as distant as Saturn (through Cassini) in our Solar System, and these missions will never make up for me missing out on New Horizons...or having the dream opportunity that is the Interstellar Probe taken from me and everyone else who are enamored by the idea of having their name attached to a manmade object drifting through the cosmos.

Happy Thursday.


Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory


Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

So @theNASEM's Heliophysics Decadal Survey is out... The survey recommends near-Earth solar-monitoring missions but apparently not the Interstellar Probe...which is a shame considering that Voyager 1 may be in its final years of operation.https://t.co/k4Q1LioCX2 pic.twitter.com/HEe77m3Y7i

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) December 5, 2024

I guess all the talk about SLS being cancelled (when this was the launch vehicle mentioned in @JHUAPL's report on Interstellar Probe) made @TheNASEM hesitant about recommending this project.

Like what happened with JHUAPL's Neptune Odyssey in the 2022 Decadal Survey. pic.twitter.com/acBDrHlsjH

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) December 5, 2024

The Latest Photo from Hubble's Successor on Thanksgiving Day...

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Hats Off to NASA’s Webb: Sombrero Galaxy Dazzles in New Image (News Release - November 25)

In a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a galaxy named for its resemblance to a broad-brimmed Mexican hat appears more like an archery target.

In Webb’s mid-infrared view of the Sombrero galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104), the signature, glowing core seen in visible-light images does not shine, and instead a smooth inner disk is revealed. The sharp resolution of Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) also brings into focus details of the galaxy’s outer ring, providing insights into how the dust, an essential building block for astronomical objects in the Universe, is distributed. The galaxy’s outer ring, which appeared smooth like a blanket in imaging from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, shows intricate clumps in the infrared for the first time.

Researchers say the clumpy nature of the dust, where MIRI detects carbon-containing molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, can indicate the presence of young star-forming regions. However, unlike some galaxies studied with Webb, including Messier 82, where 10 times as many stars are born than the Milky Way galaxy, the Sombrero galaxy is not a particular hotbed for star formation. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year.

Even the supermassive black hole, also known as an active galactic nucleus, at the center of the Sombrero galaxy is rather docile, even at a hefty 9-billion-solar masses. It’s classified as a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus, slowly snacking on infalling material from the galaxy, while sending off a bright, relatively small, jet.

Also within the Sombrero galaxy dwell some 2,000 globular clusters, collections of hundreds of thousands of old stars held together by gravity. This type of system serves as a pseudo laboratory for astronomers to study stars — thousands of stars within one system with the same age, but varying masses and other properties is an intriguing opportunity for comparison studies.

In the MIRI image, galaxies of varying shapes and colors litter the background of space. The different colors of these background galaxies can tell astronomers about their properties, including how far away they are.

The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

A Bright Future Ahead

Stunning images like this, and an array of discoveries in the study of exoplanets, galaxies through time, star formation and our own Solar System, are still just the beginning. Recently, scientists from all over the world applied for observation time with Webb during its fourth year of science operations, which begins in July 2025.

General Observer time with Webb is more competitive than ever. A record-breaking 2,377 proposals were submitted by the October 15, 2024, deadline, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. This is an oversubscription rate, the ratio defining the observation hours requested versus the actual time available in one year of Webb’s operations, of around 9 to 1.

The proposals cover a wide array of science topics, with distant galaxies being among the most requested observation time, followed by exoplanet atmospheres, stars and stellar populations, then exoplanet systems.

The Space Telescope Science Institute manages the proposal and program selection process for NASA. The submissions will now be evaluated by a Telescope Allocation Committee, a group of hundreds of members of the worldwide astronomical community, on a dual-anonymous basis, with selections announced in March 2025.

While time on Webb is limited, data from all of Webb’s programs is publicly archived, immediately after it’s taken, or after a time of exclusive access, in the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) so that it can be used by anyone in the world.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Hats off to you, @NASAWebb! 🎩

Now, both Hubble and Webb have observed M104 – nicknamed the Sombrero Galaxy.

Webb's new mid-infrared view shows the smooth inner disk of the galaxy, and highlights how the clumpy gas in the outer ring is distributed: https://t.co/T9hWEVPokn pic.twitter.com/GOTmpfAzfi

— Hubble (@NASAHubble) November 25, 2024

SpaceX Will Launch America's Next Saturn-bound Robotic Explorer in July 2028...

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Dragonfly Mission (News Release - November 25)

NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Dragonfly mission, a rotorcraft lander mission under NASA’s New Frontiers Program, designed to explore Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission will sample materials and determine surface composition in different geologic settings, advancing our search for the building blocks of life.

The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $256.6 million, which includes launch services and other mission-related costs. The Dragonfly mission currently has a targeted launch period from July 5, 2028, to July 25, 2028, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Dragonfly centers on a novel approach to planetary exploration, employing a rotorcraft-lander to travel between and sample diverse sites on Saturn’s largest moon. With contributions from partners around the globe, Dragonfly’s scientific payload will characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment, investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry on Titan, where carbon-rich material and liquid water may have mixed for an extended period, and search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Saturn’s moon.

NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center is responsible for managing the launch service. Managed for NASA at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, the Dragonfly team comprises of scientists, engineers, technologists, managers and more who have deep experience on missions that have explored the Solar System from the Sun to Pluto and beyond, as well as experts in rotorcraft, autonomous flight and space systems from around the globe. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Dragonfly will be the first nuclear-powered @NASA mission to not be launched by @ulalaunch. The SRB anomaly on #Cert2 didn't help Vulcan's case in being selected.

Interesting to see how the MMRTG will be installed on Dragonfly at LC-39A right before launch.#DragonflyMission pic.twitter.com/qFFT0BeoYH

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) November 25, 2024

NASA will certify SpaceX's Falcon Heavy to launch nuclear materials into space.https://t.co/pPsqZOfusp

— Stephen Clark (@StephenClark1) November 27, 2024