RANT #2...

So my oldest sibling told me that Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa may return to the field following his third NFL concussion (since 2022; this would be his fourth concussion since 2019, during his days on Alabama's Crimson Tide team) playing against the Buffalo Bills on September 12; ignoring the calls by lots of folks who want him to retire instead.

My sibling has Tua on his fantasy football team, and wants the Dolphins quarterback to return so Tagovailoa can "increase his team's points."

...

This is the latest thing that my sibling, who's 53, has said over the past 30 years to really piss me off. He's been unemployed since 2020 (and just resumed job-hunting earlier this year—having about four interviews since last February that obviously went nowhere due to his long gap in employment), and has nothing better to do than to work on his fantasy football team. And play golf in Palm Springs and other places...while my Dad, 77, wakes up around 5am in the morning three times a week to get ready for work.

A RANT...

So what's the reason why the company I work for hired five new people (myself included) in Los Angeles last year when the majority of assignments have been outside of California...and most of the L.A. staff aren't invited to work these out-of-town events? Hell, my department (except for the managers and full-time employees) wasn't even invited to the company Christmas party last December!

Absolutely frustrating. Especially considering the fact that I tried for eight years (from 2015 to 2023) to get a job at this company before I finally landed an interview (actually two interviews) with it.

Out of the five people who were hired in late spring of 2023, I'm the only one who regularly works here. Two quit the company earlier this year, while the other two are still on the payroll but rarely make themselves available to work this job.

(I haven't worked with one of those latter two co-workers since last October.)

The person who books assignments for my department really needs to find a job somewhere else.

They obviously aren't very good at booking in-town clients for us.

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Is Now Gassed Up for Its October Launch...

NASA / Kim Shiflett

Fueling Complete on NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft (News Release)

Technicians completed loading propellants in the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on Sunday, September 22, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Housed in the largest spacecraft that NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, Europa Clipper’s propulsion module is an aluminum cylinder 10 feet (3 meters) long and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide, and it holds the spacecraft’s array of 24 engines and 6,067.6 pounds (2,752.2 kilograms) of propellant in two propulsion tanks, as well as the spacecraft’s helium pressurant tanks. The fuel and oxidizer held by the tanks will flow to the 24 engines, creating a controlled chemical reaction to produce thrust in space during its journey to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life.

After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.

NASA is targeting launch on Thursday, October 10, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA Kennedy’s historic Launch Complex 39A.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA

Marking One Decade Since a Spacecraft That My Name Is On Entered Orbit Around the Red Planet...

NASA / LASP / CU Boulder

Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA’s MAVEN Mission (News Release)

A decade ago, on September 21, 2014, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, beginning its ongoing exploration of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere. The mission has produced a wealth of data about how Mars’ atmosphere responds to the Sun and solar wind, and how these interactions can explain the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space.

Today, MAVEN continues to make exciting new discoveries about the Red Planet that increase our understanding of how atmospheric evolution affected Mars’ climate and the previous presence of liquid water on its surface, potentially determining its prior habitability.

“It is an incredibly exciting time for the MAVEN team as we celebrate 10 years of Martian science and see the tremendous impact this mission has had on the field,” said Shannon Curry, the principal investigator of MAVEN and a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We also look forward to the future discoveries MAVEN will bring.”

In celebration of this mission milestone, we recap some of the most significant scientific results of this unique and long-lasting Mars aeronomy mission.

1.) Extreme atmospheric erosion

One of MAVEN’s first big results was discovering that the erosion of Mars’ atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. The team studied how the solar wind — a stream of charged particles continually streaming from the Sun — and solar storms continually strip away Mars’ atmosphere, and how this process played a key role in altering the Martian climate from a potentially habitable planet to today’s cold, arid world.

2.) Sputtering to space

To better understand how Mars lost much of its atmosphere, MAVEN measured isotopes of argon gas in the upper Martian atmosphere. Argon is a noble gas, meaning it rarely reacts with other constituents in the Martian atmosphere. The only way it can be removed is by atmospheric sputtering — a process where ions crash into the Martian atmosphere at high-enough speeds that they knock gas molecules out of the atmosphere.

When the MAVEN team analyzed argon isotopes in the upper atmosphere, they were able to estimate that roughly 65% of the argon originally present had been lost through sputtering over the planet’s history.

3.) A new type of aurora

MAVEN has discovered several types of auroras that flare up when energetic particles plunge into the atmosphere, bombarding gases and making them glow. The MAVEN team showed that protons, rather than electrons, create auroras at Mars. On Earth, proton auroras only occur in very small regions near the poles, whereas at Mars they can happen everywhere.

4.) Martian dust storm

In 2018, a runaway series of dust storms created a dust cloud so large that it enveloped the planet. The MAVEN team studied how this “global” dust storm affected Mars’ upper atmosphere to understand how these events affect the escape of water to space. It confirmed that heating from dust storms can loft water molecules far higher into the atmosphere than usual, leading to a sudden surge in water lost to space.

5.) Map of Martian winds

MAVEN researchers created the first map of wind circulation in the upper atmosphere of Mars. The new map is helping scientists better understand the Martian climate, including how terrain on the planet’s surface is disturbing high-altitude wind currents. The results provide insight into how the dynamics of the upper Martian atmosphere have influenced the Red Planet’s climate evolution in the past and present.

6.) Twisted tail

Mars has an invisible magnetic “tail” that is twisted by its interaction with the solar wind. Although models predicted that magnetic reconnection causes Mars’ magnetotail to twist, it wasn’t until MAVEN arrived that scientists could confirm that the predictions were correct. The process that creates the twisted tail could also allow some of Mars’ already thin atmosphere to escape to space.

7.) Mapping electric currents

Researchers used MAVEN data to create a map of electric current systems in the Martian atmosphere. These form when solar wind ions and electrons smash into the planet’s induced magnetic field, causing the particles to flow apart. The resulting electric currents, which drape around the planet, play a fundamental role in the atmospheric loss that transformed Mars from a world that could have supported life to an inhospitable desert.

8.) Disappearing solar wind

MAVEN recently observed the unexpected “disappearance” of the solar wind. This was caused by a type of solar event so powerful that it created a void in its wake as it traveled across the Solar System. MAVEN’s measurements showed that when it reached Mars, the solar wind density dropped significantly.

This disappearance of the solar wind allowed the Martian atmosphere and magnetosphere to balloon out by thousands of kilometers.

9.) Ultraviolet views of the Red Planet

MAVEN captured stunning views of Mars in two ultraviolet images taken at different points along the Red Planet’s orbit around the Sun. By viewing the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists gain insight into the Martian atmosphere and view surface features in remarkable ways.

10.) Mars’ response to solar storms

In May 2024, a series of solar events triggered a torrent of energetic particles that quickly traveled to Mars. Many of NASA’s Mars missions, including MAVEN, observed this celestial event and captured images of glowing auroras over the planet.

MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. LASP is also responsible for managing science operations and public outreach and communications. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN mission.

Lockheed Martin Space built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provides navigation and Deep Space Network support.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Lockheed Martin


NASA

Vulcan Is Ready to Fly Again Months After Sending Astrobotic's Failed Peregrine Moon Lander into Space...

United Launch Alliance

Cert-2: Vulcan Rocket Readied for Second Flight Test (News Release)

The second United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket stands fully assembled for launch no earlier than October 4 to fulfill flight test obligations and complete its certification process with the U.S. Space Force to carry national security payloads starting later this year.

Liftoff will occur from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida during a launch window of 6 to 9 a.m. EDT.

This second Certification (Cert-2) launch will demonstrate Vulcan's high-energy rocket architecture by achieving an Earth-escape trajectory and placing the Centaur V with an inert, non-deployable payload into deep space where it will orbit the Sun for the rest of time. Cert-2 follows Vulcan's successful inaugural launch on January 8, 2024.

The mission will further demonstrate the operational capabilities of Vulcan, perform unique experiments and run complex demonstrations for potential incorporation into future missions.

"After the key objectives necessary for certification are completed, the mission will evaluate additional changes to design of the upper stage and how it is operated over long coast periods to further increase its endurance," said Mark Peller, ULA's senior vice president, Vulcan Development and Advanced Programs.

This Vulcan rocket, designated V-002, was built in ULA's unique rocket factory in Decatur, Alabama, then shipped to the Florida launch site aboard the R/S RocketShip.

The launch campaign at Vertical Integration Facility-G (VIF-G) began on August 10 when the Vulcan booster stage was hoisted aboard the mobile Vulcan Launch Platform (VLP). The stage measures 109 feet (33 meters) in length and 17.7 feet (5.4 meters) in diameter. Made of internal orthogrid aluminum construction to create a structurally-stable stage, it is equipped with two BE-4 main engines, each producing approximately 550,000 pounds (2.45 mega-Newtons) of thrust to lift Vulcan out of the atmosphere on the way to orbit.

A pair of Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM) 63XL solid rocket boosters (SRBs) were added to the sides of the first stage on August 13 and August 14. Measuring 63 inches (1.6 meters) in diameter and 72 feet (21 meters) in length, each motor is filled with over 100,000 pounds (45,360 kg) of aluminized solid propellant to deliver 463,249 pounds (2.1 mega-Newtons) of thrust at its peak.

Together, the methane-fueled main engines and SRBs will provide the 2 million pounds (8.9 kilo-Newtons) of thrust generated at liftoff to power Vulcan off the launch pad.

The high-performance Centaur V upper stage -- 38.5 feet (11.7 meters) long and 17.7 feet (5.4 meters) in diameter -- was installed atop the rocket on August 17. With its pressure-stabilized stainless-steel tanks, the cryogenic stage features two RL10C-1-1A engines, each producing 23,825 pounds (106 kilo-Newtons) of thrust to shape the mission's final orbital destination.

The Cert-2 payload, already encapsulated in the composite fairing measuring 17.7 feet (5.4 meters) in diameter and 51 feet (15.5 meters) in length, was moved from the off-site preparation facility to VIF-G adjacent to SLC-41 on September 21.

ULA technicians attached the lifting sling to the payload and hoisted it into the VIF for connection to the Centaur V upper stage of the Vulcan rocket, which now stands fully assembled at 202 feet (61.6 meters) tall.

Integrated testing and a complete electrical checkout of the combined rocket and payload will be completed in the coming days while final readiness reviews and closeout activities are performed in preparation for rollout of the rocket on its VLP to SLC-41 for a Wet Dress Rehearsal, followed by the countdown and liftoff.

This is the second of two flight tests required for ULA's certification process with the U.S. Space Force. ULA has worked in close partnership with the Space Force throughout the design, development, testing and production of the next-generation rocket for assured access to space. The Space Force selected Vulcan as the No. 1 offeror and "best value" choice in the Phase 2 National Security Space Launch (NSSL) competition.

Vulcan incorporates the best attributes of the venerable Atlas and Delta heritage rocket families and introduces innovative technologies and streamlined processes, creating one launch solution that meets the demanding requirements for launching critical national security missions to the full spectrum of orbits.

Source: United Launch Alliance

History Is Made at Today's Dodgers Game in Florida...

Congrats to Shohei Ohtani for being the first-ever player in Major League Baseball history to achieve 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season!

Ohtani ended today's game—in which the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Miami Marlins, 20-4, at loanDepot park in Florida—with his 51st home run and 51st stolen base.

This feat takes place almost 36 years after the Oakland A's Jose Canseco started the 40/40 club by stealing his 40th base and finishing the game with his 42nd home run against the Milwaukee Brewers on September 23, 1988, respectively.

Now all Ohtani needs to truly cement his greatness (that was denied to him during his 6-year stint with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) is to finally win his first World Series title! You're on the clock, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

The Dodgers have officially clinched a spot in the MLB playoffs with today's victory.

"F*** that. Too much respect for this guy for that s*** to happen."

Marlins manager Skip Schumaker is a LEGEND for not walking Shohei Ohtani 😤pic.twitter.com/wXJag1ZdZ3

— FanDuel Sportsbook (@FDSportsbook) September 19, 2024

A Couple of Facts About the Europa Clipper...

NASA

8 Things to Know About NASA’s Mission to an Ocean Moon of Jupiter (News Release - September 17)

The first NASA spacecraft dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth, Europa Clipper aims to find out if the ice-encased moon Europa could be habitable.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest that the agency has ever built for a planetary mission, will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Europa, an intriguing icy moon of Jupiter. The spacecraft’s launch period opens on Thursday, October 10.

Data from previous NASA missions has provided scientists with strong evidence that an enormous salty ocean lies underneath the frozen surface of the moon. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of the moon to gather data needed to determine whether there are places below its thick frozen crust that could support life.

Here are eight things to know about the mission:

1. Europa is one of the most promising places to look for currently habitable conditions beyond Earth.

There’s scientific evidence that the ingredients for life — water, the right chemistry and energy — may exist at Europa right now. This mission will gather the information that scientists need to find out for sure. The moon may hold an internal ocean with twice the water of Earth’s oceans combined, and may also host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.

If the mission determines that Europa is habitable, it would mean there may be more habitable worlds in our Solar System and beyond than we have imagined.

2. The spacecraft will fly through one of the most punishing radiation environments in our Solar System — second only to the Sun’s.

Jupiter is surrounded by a gigantic magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. As the field spins, it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating radiation that can damage spacecraft. Mission engineers designed a spacecraft vault to shield sensitive electronics from radiation, and they plotted orbits that will limit the time Europa Clipper spends in most radiation-heavy areas around Jupiter.

3. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter, studying Europa while flying by the moon dozens of times.

The spacecraft will make looping orbits around Jupiter that bring it close to Europa for 49 science-dedicated flybys. On each orbit, the spacecraft will spend less than a day in Jupiter’s dangerous radiation zone near Europa before zipping back out. Two to three weeks later, it will repeat the process, making another flyby.

4. Europa Clipper features NASA’s most sophisticated suite of science instruments yet.

To determine if Europa is habitable, Europa Clipper must assess the moon’s interior, composition and geology. The spacecraft carries nine science instruments and a gravity experiment that uses the telecommunications system. In order to obtain the best science during each flyby, all of the science instruments will operate simultaneously on every pass.

Scientists will then layer the data together to paint a full picture of the moon.

5. With antennas and solar arrays fully deployed, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft that NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission.

The spacecraft extends 100 feet (30.5 meters) from one end to the other and about 58 feet (17.6 meters) across. That’s bigger than a basketball court, thanks in large part to the solar arrays, which need to be huge so they can collect enough sunlight while near Jupiter to power the instruments, electronics and other subsystems.

6. It’s a long journey to Jupiter.

Jupiter is on average some 480 million miles (about 770 million kilometers) from Earth; both planets are in motion, and a spacecraft can carry only a limited amount of fuel. Mission planners are sending Europa Clipper past Mars and then Earth, using the planets’ gravity as a slingshot to add speed to the spacecraft’s trek. After journeying about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) over 5½ years, the spacecraft will fire its engines to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.

7. Institutions across the U.S. and Europe have contributed to Europa Clipper.

Currently, about a thousand people work on the mission, including more than 220 scientists from both the U.S. and Europe. Since the mission was officially approved in 2015, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper, including teams who work for contractors and subcontractors.

8. More than 2.6 million of us are riding along with the spacecraft, bringing greetings from one water world to another.

As part of a mission campaign called “Message in a Bottle,” the spacecraft is carrying a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, cosigned by millions of people from nearly every country in the world. Their names have been stenciled onto a microchip attached to a tantalum metal plate that seals the spacecraft’s electronics vault. The plate also features waveforms of people saying the word “water” in over 100 spoken languages.

More About Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will lift off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Is Ready to be Fueled Up for Its October Launch...

NASA / Kim Shiflett

Technicians Work to Prepare Europa Clipper for Propellant Loading (News Release)

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission moves closer to launch as technicians worked on Wednesday, September 11, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to prepare the spacecraft for upcoming propellant loading at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The spacecraft will explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which is considered one of the most promising habitable environments in the Solar System. The mission will research whether Europa’s subsurface ocean could hold the conditions necessary for life. Europa could have all the “ingredients” for life as we know it: water, organics and chemical energy.

Europa Clipper’s launch period opens on Thursday, October 10. It will lift off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A. The spacecraft will then embark on a journey of nearly six years and 1.8 billion miles before reaching Jupiter’s orbit in 2030.

The spacecraft is designed to study Europa’s icy shell, underlying ocean and potential plumes of water vapor using a gravity science experiment alongside a suite of nine instruments including cameras, spectrometers, a magnetometer and ice-penetrating radar. The data that Europa Clipper collects could improve our understanding of the potential for life elsewhere in the Solar System.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA

Video of the Day: Trump Learns About Taylor Swift's Endorsement...

Check out this hilarious video clip, borrowing this memorable scene from the 2004 war drama Downfall, showing Adolf Hitler—err, Donald Trump—reacting to news that his performance at the presidential debate three days ago was considered a disaster, and that the world's most popular popstar today is supporting Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States.

This clip also makes references to other wacky (and racist) things involving Trump that transpired during this election season...such as him saying that Haitian immigrants are eating cats (they are not), commenting that Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is the "weird" one and not him, Trump refusing to allow J.D. Vance to become president instead, and Trump wanting President Biden to be the one that he ran against as originally intended.

Click here to register to vote (blue) on November 5th, my fellow Yanks...and Happy Friday the 13th!


Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images


Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images

The Latest Update on Humanity's Most-Distant Interstellar Probe...

Caltech / NASA - JPL

Voyager 1 Team Accomplishes Tricky Thruster Swap (News Release)

Engineers working on NASA’s Voyager 1 probe have successfully mitigated an issue with the spacecraft’s thrusters, which keep the distant explorer pointed at Earth so that it can receive commands, send engineering data, and provide the unique science data it is gathering.

After 47 years, a fuel tube inside the thrusters has become clogged with silicon dioxide, a byproduct that appears with age from a rubber diaphragm in the spacecraft’s fuel tank. The clogging reduces how efficiently the thrusters can generate force. After weeks of careful planning, the team switched the spacecraft to a different set of thrusters.

The thrusters are fueled by liquid hydrazine, which is turned into gases and released in tens-of-milliseconds-long puffs to gently tilt the spacecraft’s antenna towards Earth. If the clogged thruster were healthy it would need to conduct about 40 of these short pulses per day.

Both Voyager probes feature three sets, or branches, of thrusters: two sets of attitude propulsion thrusters and one set of trajectory correction maneuver thrusters. During the mission’s planetary flybys, both types of thrusters were used for different purposes. But as Voyager 1 travels on an unchanging path out of the Solar System, its thruster needs are simpler, and either thruster branch can be used to point the spacecraft at Earth.

In 2002 the mission’s engineering team, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, noticed some fuel tubes in the attitude propulsion thruster branch being used for pointing were clogging, so the team switched to the second branch. When that branch showed signs of clogging in 2018, the team switched to the trajectory correction maneuver thrusters and have been using that branch since then.

Now those trajectory correction thruster tubes are even more clogged than the original branches were when the team swapped them in 2018. The clogged tubes are located inside the thrusters and direct fuel to the catalyst beds, where it is turned into gases. (These are different than the fuel tubes that send hydrazine to the thrusters.)

Where the tube opening was originally only 0.01 inches (0.25 millimeters) in diameter, the clogging has reduced it to 0.0015 inches (0.035 mm), or about half the width of a human hair. As a result, the team needed to switch back to one of the attitude propulsion thruster branches.

Warming Up the Thrusters

Switching to different thrusters would have been a relatively simple operation for the mission in 1980 or even 2002. But the spacecraft’s age has introduced new challenges, primarily related to power supply and temperature. The mission has turned off all non-essential onboard systems, including some heaters, on both spacecraft to conserve their gradually shrinking electrical power supply, which is generated by decaying plutonium.

While those steps have worked to reduce power, they have also led to the spacecraft growing colder, an effect compounded by the loss of other non-essential systems that produced heat. Consequently, the attitude propulsion thruster branches have grown cold, and turning them on in that state could damage them, making the thrusters unusable.

The team determined that the best option would be to warm the thrusters before the switch by turning on what had been deemed non-essential heaters. However, as with so many challenges the Voyager team has faced, this presented a puzzle: The spacecraft’s power supply is so low that turning on non-essential heaters would require the mission to turn off something else to provide the heaters adequate electricity, and everything that’s currently operating is considered essential.

Studying the issue, they ruled out turning off one of the still-operating science instruments for a limited time because there’s a risk that the instrument would not come back online. After additional study and planning, the engineering team determined they could safely turn off one of the spacecraft’s main heaters for up to an hour, freeing up enough power to turn on the thruster heaters.

It worked. On August 27, they confirmed that the needed thruster branch was back in action, helping point Voyager 1 toward Earth.

“All the decisions we will have to make going forward are going to require a lot more analysis and caution than they once did,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which manages Voyager for NASA.

The spacecraft are exploring interstellar space, the region outside the bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun, where no other spacecraft are likely to visit for a long time. The mission science team is working to keep the Voyagers going for as long as possible, so that they can continue to reveal what the interstellar environment is like.

Source: NASA.Gov

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Is Given a 'Go' to Proceed Towards Flight Next Month...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Europa Clipper Continues Path to Launch (News Release)

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission passed a mission-planning milestone, known as Key Decision Point E, on Monday.

It is now approved to continue to proceed towards launch, with a launch period that opens on Thursday, October 10.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Ben Smegelsky

Rocket Lab's First Interplanetary Spacecraft Will Now Head to the Red Planet Next Year...

James Rattray / Rocket Lab USA

NASA Stands Down from October Launch for ESCAPADE to Mars (News Release)

NASA announced Friday that it will not fuel the two ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft at this time, foregoing the mission’s upcoming October launch window. While future launch opportunities are under review, the next possible earliest launch date is spring 2025.

The agency’s decision to stand down was based on a review of launch preparations and discussions with Blue Origin, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Space Launch Delta 45 Range Safety Organization, as well as NASA’s Launch Services Program and Science Mission Directorate. The decision was made to avoid significant cost, schedule and technical challenges associated with potentially removing fuel from the spacecraft in the event of a launch delay, which could be caused by a number of factors.

“This mission can help us study the atmosphere at Mars — key information as we explore farther and farther into our Solar System and need to protect astronauts and spacecraft from space weather,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re committed to seeing ESCAPADE safely into space, and I look forward to seeing it off the ground and on its trip to Mars.”

The alignment of Earth and Mars constrains ESCAPADE’s windows of launch opportunities to the Red Planet. This means that small schedule changes can result in months-long delays in launch. The mission team is analyzing larger planetary window opportunities.

NASA and Blue Origin are discussing an additional opportunity to launch the spacecraft to Mars no earlier than spring 2025.

“This is an important mission for NASA, and it’s critical we have sufficient margin in our prelaunch work to ensure we are ready to fly a tight planetary window,” said Bradley Smith, NASA’s Launch Services Office director at NASA Headquarters.

The ESCAPADE mission will use two identical spacecraft to study how the solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment, driving the planet’s atmospheric escape. The mission falls under NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of NASA's Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. The mission is led by the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, with key partners Rocket Lab; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Embry Riddle Aeronautical University; and Advanced Space LLC.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, secured the launch service with Blue Origin under the VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract.

Source: NASA.Gov

Europe and Japan's Joint Spacecraft Flies Past the First Rock from the Sun Once More...

BepiColombo's Best Images Yet Highlight Fourth Mercury Flyby (News Release)

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its fourth of six gravity assist flybys at Mercury, capturing images of two special impact craters as it uses the little planet’s gravity to steer itself on course to enter orbit around Mercury in November 2026.

The closest approach took place at 23:48 CEST (21:48 UTC) on 4 September 2024, with BepiColombo coming down to around 165 km above the planet’s surface. For the first time, the spacecraft had a clear view of Mercury’s south pole.

“The main aim of the flyby was to reduce BepiColombo’s speed relative to the Sun, so that the spacecraft has an orbital period around the Sun of 88 days, very close to the orbital period of Mercury,” says Frank Budnik, BepiColombo Flight Dynamics Manager.

“In this regard it was a huge success, and we are right where we wanted to be at this moment. But it also gave us the chance to take photos and carry out science measurements, from locations and perspectives that we will never reach once we are in orbit.”

Images from BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras have arrived back on Earth, providing a unique view of Mercury’s surface from three different angles. BepiColombo approached Mercury from the ‘nightside’ of the planet, with Mercury’s cratered surface becoming increasingly lit up by the Sun as the spacecraft flew by.

M-CAM 2 provided the best views of the planet during this flyby, capturing more and more of the planet as BepiColombo came around to the side of Mercury lit by the Sun. M-CAM 3 also chipped in a stunning image of a newly-named impact crater.

M-CAMs 2 and 3 are now switched off, but M-CAM 1 will continue imaging Mercury until about midnight tonight (24 hours after closest approach), getting a beautiful view of the planet receding into the distance.

Mercury lays bare its Four Seasons

Four minutes after closest approach, a large ‘peak-ring basin’ came into BepiColombo’s view. These mysterious craters – created by powerful asteroid or comet impacts and measuring about 130–330 km across – are called peak-ring basins after the inner ring of peaks on an otherwise flattish floor.

This large crater is Vivaldi, after the famous Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). It measures 210 km across, and because BepiColombo saw it so close to the sunrise line, its landscape is beautifully emphasised by shadow. There is a visible gap in the ring of peaks, where more recent lava flows have entered and flooded the crater.



First sight of crater newly named after New Zealand artist

Just a couple of minutes later, another special peak-ring basin came into view. This one measures 155 km across.

“When we were planning for this flyby, we saw that this crater would be visible and decided it would be worth naming due to its potential interest for BepiColombo scientists in the future,” explains David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the UK’s Open University and a member of the BepiColombo M-CAM imaging team.

Following a request from the M-CAM team, the ancient crater was recently assigned the name Stoddart by the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature after Margaret Olrog Stoddart (1865–1934), an artist from New Zealand known for her flower paintings.



“Mercury’s peak-ring basins are fascinating because many aspects of how they formed are currently still a mystery. The rings of peaks are presumed to have resulted from some kind of rebound process during the impact, but the depths from which they were uplifted are still unclear,” continues David.

Many of Mercury’s peak-ring basins have been flooded by volcanic lava flows long after the original impact. This has happened inside both Vivaldi and Stoddart. Inside Stoddart, the trace of a 16-km-wide crater that must have formed on the original floor is clearly visible through a covering of more recent lava flows.

Peak-ring basins are among the high-priority targets for study by BepiColombo once it gets into orbit around Mercury and is able to deploy its full suite of scientific instruments.

A taste of Mercury science

The snapshots seen during this flyby are among BepiColombo’s best so far – taken from the closest distance yet, with Mercury’s surface well-lit by the Sun. They reveal a surface with clear signs of 4.6 billion years of bombardment by asteroids and comets, hinting at the planet’s place in the wider Solar System evolution.



It’s worth remembering that these images are a bonus: the M-CAMs were not designed to photograph Mercury but the spacecraft itself, especially during the challenging period just after launch. They provide black-and-white 1024x1024 pixel snapshots. BepiColombo’s main science camera is shielded during the journey to Mercury, but it is expected to take much higher-resolution images after arrival in orbit.

In 2027, the main science phase of the mission will begin. The spacecraft’s suite of science instruments will reveal the invisible about the Solar System’s most mysterious planet, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its host star.

But the work has already begun, with most of the instruments switched on during this flyby, measuring the magnetic, plasma and particle environment around the spacecraft, from locations that will not be accessible when BepiColombo is actually in orbit around Mercury.

BepiColombo comprises of two science orbiters that will circle Mercury – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. The two are carried together to the mysterious planet by the Mercury Transfer Module. Even though the three parts are currently in ‘stacked’ cruise configuration, meaning many instruments cannot be fully operated, they can still get glimpses of science and enable instrument teams to check that their instruments are working well ahead of the main mission.

"BepiColombo is only the third space mission to visit Mercury, making it the least-explored planet in the inner Solar System, partly because it is so difficult to get to," says Jack Wright, ESA Research Fellow, Planetary Scientist, and M-CAM imaging team coordinator.

"It is a world of extremes and contradictions, so I dubbed it the ‘Problem Child of the Solar System’ in the past. The images and science data collected during the flybys offer a tantalising prelude to BepiColombo's orbital phase, where it will help to solve Mercury's outstanding mysteries."

Source: European Space Agency

ABOVE: All images by ESA/BepiColombo/MTM

The Latest News About the Region Beyond Pluto...

Dan Durda, FIAAA

New Horizons Team Detects Evidence of Unexpected Population of Kuiper Belt Objects (News Release)

Discovery suggests that the Solar System may have formed from a much larger protostellar disk, and portends new objects for NASA’s New Horizons to study

A new, peer-reviewed study authored by NASA’s New Horizons Kuiper Belt search team reports the detection of an unexpected population of very distant bodies in the Kuiper Belt, an outer region of our Solar System populated by ancient remnants of planetary building blocks lying beyond the orbit of Neptune. The study used data collected with the 8.2-meter diameter Japanese Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. New Horizons is the NASA spacecraft sent to explore the Pluto system and Kuiper Belt.

The newly-detected Kuiper Belt objects reported in the study, published this month in the Planetary Science Journal of the American Astronomical Society, stretch out to almost 90 times as far from the Sun as Earth. A preprint can be found at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.21142

The new result has multiple implications. One is that the Kuiper Belt may extend farther than formerly believed, or that there is a second Kuiper Belt beyond the one observationally discovered in the 1990s. A second implication is that the New Horizons spacecraft, now about 60 times as far from the Sun as Earth, is not past the Kuiper Belt as earlier expected.

“Our Solar System’s Kuiper Belt long appeared to be very small in comparison with many other planetary systems, but our results suggest that idea might just have arisen due to an observational bias,” said Wes Fraser, of the National Research Council of Canada, a co-investigator on the New Horizons mission science team and the study’s lead author. “Our Subaru observations searched down to fainter detection limits and found a significant Kuiper Belt mass at 70 to 90 times as far from the Sun as Earth. So maybe, if this result is confirmed, our Kuiper Belt isn’t all that small and unusual after all compared to those around other stars.”

One possibility is that this new population of Kuiper Belt objects could be a dynamically resonant population with Neptune, gravitationally affecting these Kuiper Belt objects in just the right way to cause their orbital period to be a precise multiple of Neptune’s orbital period. Alternatively, this new population of Kuiper Belt objects may challenge some aspects of current models of the Solar System's formation, suggesting that the disk of planetary material from which the Solar System formed was much larger than previously thought.

“We still have much to learn about what this distant population actually looks like, but what’s fascinating is that there is a new Kuiper Belt population out there at all,” Fraser continued.

Co-author and New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, Texas, added, “This is a groundbreaking discovery revealing something unexpected, new and exciting in the distant reaches of the Solar System; this discovery probably would not have been possible without the world-class capabilities of Subaru Telescope. We look forward to finding objects in this new population for New Horizons to observe, either at close or at far range.”

This work was supported by NASA’s New Horizons mission and NASA Keck PI Data Awards, administered by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute. Data were obtained at the Subaru Telescope from telescope time allocated to NASA through the agency's scientific partnership with the California Institute of Technology and the University of California. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate and the mission’s Principal Investigator.

The Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), based in San Antonio, Texas, directs the mission via SwRI’s Principal Investigator Alan Stern, who leads the mission for NASA. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Planetary Management Office in Huntsville, Alabama provides NASA oversight for New Horizons.

Source: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

A Post About Dreams...

So who else tends to have an awesome dream at night that you immediately want to tweet about (or post about...if you're on Threads but not on Twitter) if you abruptly wake up from it, but don't do so because you want to fall back to sleep and hope that this dream will return?

Which dream from last night was cooler: Me taking part in a Tour de France-style biking tournament here in the U.S., or me being at a Dave & Buster's restaurant where a couple of childhood friends—including that girl I had a crush on in 7th grade—surprised me on my birthday (which is next month)?

Hint: It's the dream where Romina made an appearance.

Last one: How many of you have had a dream that was so unique and action-packed that you think it'd make for a great movie you immediately wanted to write a screenplay for? But you forgot the exact details of this dream and how it played out once you woke up... Darn it.

Anyways, Happy Monday and Happy Labor Day to all of my fellow Yanks!