NASA's Perseverance rover bound for Mars to seek ancient life

NASA's latest Mars rover Perseverance launched Thursday on an astrobiology mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet -- and to fly a helicopter-drone on another world for the first time. Previous trips to Mars have discovered it was far warmer and wetter three billion years ago than it is today, creating the conditions necessary for carbon-based life. Perseverance's goal is to go a step further, and discover whether "habitable" translated to "habited." "There would be no bigger discovery in the history of humanity than finding life that is not on our own world," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said. "If we were to make a discovery that it in fact was, everything from that point forward is going to be 'Okay, what other life is out there? How do we get to it? How do we study it?'" An Atlas V rocket carrying Perseverance's spaceship took off on schedule at 7:50 am (1150 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and its stages separated according to plan. But as the spacecraft passed through the Earth's shadow, the temperature of a heating system dropped, triggering a "safe mode" that switched off all but essential systems. NASA said it hadn't encountered this problem before because previous spaceships followed a different flight path, but added the issue was not serious and the vessel would soon be back in normal mode. "The philosophy is that it is far better to trigger a safe mode event when not required, than miss one that is," the agency said. If all goes to plan, Perseverance will reach Mars on February 18, 2021, becoming the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997.

So far, all have been American. China launched its first Mars rover last week, which should arrive by May 2021.

By next year, the planet could have three active rovers, including NASA's Curiosity, which landed in 2012.

- Faster and smarter -

Perseverance is an improved version of Curiosity -- faster, smarter, and capable of autonomously navigating 200 meters (650 feet) per day.

About the size of a small SUV, it weighs a metric ton, has 19 cameras and two microphones -- which scientists hope will be the first to record sound on Mars.

It has a two-meter-long robotic arm, and is powered by a small nuclear battery.

Once on the surface, NASA will deploy the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter -- a small 1.8 kilogram (four pound) aircraft that will attempt to fly in an atmosphere that is only one percent the density of Earth's.

The idea is to lay down a proof of concept that could one day revolutionize planetary exploration, since rovers can only cover a few dozen kilometers in their whole lifespans and are vulnerable to sand dunes and other obstacles.

- A little MOXIE -

Another goal is to help pave the way for future human missions -- and a major obstacle is the planet's atmosphere of 96 percent carbon dioxide.

Liquid oxygen can be brought from Earth, or oxygen can be mined from ice underneath the Martian surface.

A simpler approach is converting it from the atmosphere, which is what the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE can do, using a process called electrolysis.

The plan is to perform at least 10 oxygen-producing runs using the car battery-sized device under as many different seasonal and environmental conditions as possible.

But Perseverance's primary mission is to scour the planet for evidence of ancient life forms.

The rover's drill will collect around 30 intact rock cores and place them in test tubes, to be collected by a future joint US-European mission.

Indisputable proof of past life on Mars will most likely not be confirmed, if it exists, until these samples are analyzed, which is unlikely to happen before the 2030s.

- Ancient delta -

NASA has chosen the Jezero crater as its landing site, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator.

Between three and four billion years ago, a river flowed there into a large body of water.

"At Jezero we have river valleys that flow into and out of the crater and we know that the lake filled up with water and that overflowed," geologist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said Thursday.

"We think that Jezero has all the building blocks to support past life."

The mission is set to last at least two years, but probably much longer given the endurance previous rovers have shown.

Ground System for NASA's Roman Space Telescope Completes Major Review

When it launches in the mid-2020s, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will create enormous panoramic pictures of space in unprecedented detail. The mission's wide field of view will enable scientists to conduct sweeping cosmic surveys, yielding a wealth of new information about the universe. The Roman mission's ground system, which will make data from the spacecraft available to scientists and the public, has just successfully completed its preliminary design review. The plan for science operations has met all of the design, schedule, and budget requirements, and will now proceed to the next phase: building the newly designed data system. "This is an exciting milestone for the mission," said Ken Carpenter, the Roman ground system project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "We are on track to complete the data system in time for launch, and we look forward to the ground-breaking science it will enable." Roman will have the same resolution as the Hubble Space Telescope but capture a field of view nearly 100 times larger. Scientists expect the spacecraft to collect more data than any of NASA's other astrophysics missions. Using Hubble's observations, astronomers have revolutionized our view of the universe and unleashed a flood of discoveries. Hubble has gathered 172 terabytes of data since its launch in 1990. If all of this data were printed as text and the pages were placed on top of each other, the stack would reach about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) high. That's far enough to reach about 15 times higher than Hubble's orbit, or about 2% of the distance to the Moon.

Roman will gather data about 500 times faster than Hubble, adding up to 20,000 terabytes (20 petabytes) over the course of its five-year primary mission. If this data were printed, the stack of papers would tower 330 miles (530 kilometers) high after a single day. By the end of Roman's primary mission, the stack would extend well beyond the Moon. Untold cosmic treasures will be brought to light by Roman's rich observations.

Such a vast volume of information will require NASA to rely on new processing and archival techniques. Scientists will access and analyze Roman's data using cloud-based remote services and more sophisticated tools than those used by previous missions.

All of Roman's data will be publicly available within days of the observations - a first for a NASA astrophysics flagship mission. This is significant because Roman's colossal images will often contain far more than the primary target of observation.

Since scientists everywhere will have rapid access to the data, they will be able to quickly discover short-lived phenomena, such as supernova explosions. Detecting these phenomena quickly will allow other telescopes to perform follow-up observations.

Pinpointing planets
One of the science areas that will benefit from the mission's vast data is the microlensing survey. Gravitational lensing is an observational effect that occurs because the presence of mass warps the fabric of space-time. The effect is extreme around very massive objects, like black holes and entire galaxies. But even relatively small objects like stars and planets cause a detectable degree of warping, called microlensing.

Any time two stars align closely from our vantage point, light from the more distant star curves as it travels through the warped space-time around the nearer star. The nearer star acts like a natural cosmic lens, focusing and intensifying light from the background star.

Scientists see this as a spike in brightness. Planets orbiting the foreground star may also modify the lensed light, acting as their own tiny lenses. These small signatures drive the design of Roman's microlensing survey.

"With such a large number of stars and frequent observations, Roman's microlensing survey will see thousands of planetary events," said Rachel Akeson, task lead for the Roman Science Support Center at IPAC/Caltech in Pasadena, California. "Each one will have a unique signature which we can use to determine the planet's mass and distance from its star."

Roman's microlensing survey will also detect hundreds of other bizarre and interesting cosmic objects. Roman will discover starless planets that roam the galaxy as rogue worlds; brown dwarfs, which are too massive to be characterized as planets but not massive enough to ignite as stars; and stellar corpses, including neutron stars and black holes, which are left behind when stars exhaust their fuel.

Microlensing events are extremely rare and require extensive observations. Roman will monitor hundreds of millions of stars every 15 minutes for months at a time - something no other space telescope can do, generating an unprecedented stream of new information.

Gazing beyond our galaxy
While the microlensing survey will look toward the heart of our galaxy, where stars are most densely concentrated, Roman's cosmological surveys will peer far beyond our stars to study hundreds of millions of other galaxies. These observations will help illuminate two of the biggest cosmic puzzles: dark matter and dark energy.

Visible matter accounts for only about five percent of the contents of the universe. Nearly 27 percent of the universe comes in the form of dark matter, which doesn't emit or absorb light. Dark matter is only detectable through its gravitational effects on visible matter.

Roman will help us figure out what dark matter is made of by exploring the structure and distribution of regular matter and dark matter across space and time. This investigation can only be done effectively using precise measurements from many galaxies.

The remaining approximately 68 percent of the universe is made up of dark energy. This mysterious cosmic pressure is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, but so far we don't know much more about it.

Roman will study dark energy through multiple observational strategies, including surveys of galaxy clusters and supernovae. Scientists will create a 3D map of the universe to help us understand how the universe grew over time under the influence of dark energy.

Since Roman will have such a large field of view, it will dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to gather data. The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Survey (CANDELS) is one of the largest projects ever done with Hubble, designed to study the development of galaxies over time. While it took Hubble nearly 21 days, Roman would complete a similar survey in less than half an hour - 1,000 times faster than Hubble. Using Roman, scientists will be able to extend these observations in ways that would be impractical with other telescopes.

"With its incredibly fast survey speeds, Roman will observe planets by the thousands, galaxies by the millions, and stars by the billions," said Karoline Gilbert, mission scientist for the Roman Science Operations Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "These vast datasets will allow us to address cosmic mysteries that hint at new fundamental physics."

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at Goddard, with participation by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from research institutions across the United States.

China Mars mission faces many obstacles

A Mars landing mission must overcome a wide variety of difficulties and obstacles before it can fly through the Martian atmosphere and land on the planet's surface, experts said. The mission must have a heavy-lift carrier rocket such as China's Long March 5 or the United States' Atlas V that is powerful enough to transport a large, heavy probe to the Earth-Mars transfer trajectory, according to Pang Zhihao, a space activity researcher and author. In addition, mission planners need to design a reliable itinerary for the spacecraft to travel toward the planet. They need to take many complicated factors into account, such as interference from other planets, solar wind and space radiation, he said, noting that even a tiny instance of thoughtlessness could lead to failure. During the flight, the probe will need several midcourse correction operations to ensure it continues to head in the right direction toward Mars, a procedure that requires precise calculations. Once the probe reaches Mars, the major challenges will just begin to appear. Due to the delay in signal transmission caused by the great distance between Earth and Mars, the probe must, to a certain extent, depend on itself in navigation, equipment control, malfunction detection and handling. Besides, it must have good orbital maneuverability to ensure it will be captured by Mars' gravitational field, Pang said. A high-performance deep-space communications network is also necessary to deal with the demanding tasks of sending and receiving signals between the control center and the probe, he added.

Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said that the entry, descent and landing processes of the spacecraft are the hardest and riskiest parts of the entire mission.

"These operations involve a succession of sophisticated maneuvers and require each and every step to be carefully and elaborately planned and accurately carried out," he said."The heatproof cover, parachute and retrorockets on the probe designed to decelerate the lander within a short time all must fulfill their tasks to guarantee the landing of the probe."

A successful landing is not the end of the mission. To accomplish the mission's assignments, the lander and the rover must sustain undisturbed power generation and remain in contact with ground control even amid unpredictable scenarios on the Martian surface such as the planet's frequent dust storms, he said.

Aerojet Rocketdyne achieves another milestone on DARPA Opfires Program

Aerojet Rocketdyne has successfully completed a second series of propulsion system tests in support of the Operational Fires (OpFires) program, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) effort to develop a ground-launched hypersonic missile for tactical use."We're pleased to be a part of developing this vital defense technology, applying our decades of experience in hypersonic and missile defense technologies," said Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president. During the propulsion tests, called cold gas testing, the test articles operated successfully with all components providing critical data to the operation of the OpFires propulsion system. The test series followed last year's successful subscale propulsion test firings. DARPA's OpFires program aims to develop a two-stage missile capable of engaging high-value, time-sensitive targets from standoff range in contested environments. The effort to date has advanced the technology for an upper stage featuring a tunable propulsion system, according to DARPA. Aerojet Rocketdyne has been supporting the program through a Phase 1 contract to design propulsion concepts and technologies for OpFires. The contract continued with an $8.8 million option for Phase 2 of the program, which is expected to culminate in late 2020 following multiple test firings.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has long been a leader in hypersonic propulsion technology, with a breadth of capabilities to include scramjets, solid rocket motor boosters, warheads and missile defense technologies.

Airbus signs contract with UK Ministry of Defence for Skynet 6A satellite

Airbus Defence and Space has signed a contract with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to extend and enhance the Skynet fleet. This will involve the development, manufacture, cyber protection, assembly, integration, test and launch, of a military communications satellite, Skynet 6A, planned for launch in 2025. The contract also covers technology development programmes, new secure telemetry, tracking and command systems, launch, in-orbit testing and ground segment updates to the current Skynet 5 system. The value of the contract is more than 500 million pounds. Richard Franklin, Airbus Defence and Space UK Managing Director said: "Airbus is extremely proud to be awarded this critical UK defence contract continuing our long tradition as the UK national milsatcom end-to-end services provider. Satellite manufacturing, linked to support services, is a critical component of the Government-industry UK space strategy and this contract underpins the UK MOD's and industry's lead position in this sector. Building this military satellite will, like Skynet 5, lead to significant export opportunities in the years ahead, growing high value manufacturing jobs and supporting a diverse supply chain in this increasingly important sector. "This contract for 6A demonstrates the strong working partnership we have with UK MOD, built on the success we have jointly achieved on the Skynet 5 system since 2003. Airbus is fully committed to delivering world-class military communications services to our Armed Forces across the globe, and look forward to delivering this step change in capability to the MOD," he continued.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: "A new, more advanced satellite capability will provide continued communications support to the UK deployed forces for many years. British defence must continue to innovate and transform, particularly in cyber and space. Investment in first-class equipment like this new Skynet satellite will keep us safe from the threats we face both now and in the future."

The Skynet 5 programme, managed by Airbus, has provided the UK MOD with a suite of highly robust, reliable and secure military communications services, supporting global operations since 2003. Airbus has been involved in all Skynet phases since 1974 and this phase builds on a strong UK commitment to space manufacturing in the UK. The recent programme commenced by using the legacy Skynet 4 satellites and then augmenting them with a fully refurbished ground network before launching the Skynet 5A, 5B, 5C and 5D satellites between 2007 and 2012.

The Skynet 5 programme has reduced or removed many of the technical and service risks for the MOD, whilst ensuring unrivalled secure satcoms and innovation to UK forces. Through the many years of delivering an exceptionally reliable Skynet service the Airbus teams have managed to significantly extend the lifespan of the Skynet satellites many years beyond their design life, offering significant additional value for money and capability to the UK.

The Skynet 6A satellite will be based on Airbus' Eurostar Neo telecommunications satellite platform. It will utilise more of the radio frequency spectrum available for satellite communications and the latest digital processing to provide both more capacity and greater versatility than Skynet 5 satellites.

The satellite will feature electric orbit raising propulsion as well as electric station keeping systems for maximum cost effectiveness. Complete satellite integration will take place at Airbus facilities in the UK followed by testing using RAL Space testing facilities at Harwell in Oxfordshire supporting the UK Space Agency initiative for sovereign UK end-to-end satellite production and support.

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: "Space technology plays an important role in supporting our military and keeping us safe, while also boosting the UK's economy and enabling world-leading science and research. "With this major investment in Skynet 6A, the development of the National Satellite Test Facility and the launch of a dedicated innovation programme, we are setting a bold new ambition for the UK in space."

The satellite is due for launch in 2025, and will have a minimum design lifetime of 15 years. Its orbital position will be announced closer to the launch date.

Millennium Space Systems completes DRAG RACER satellite qualification ahead of orbital debris mission

TriSept Corporation, a leading provider of launch integration and mission management services, and Millennium Space Systems has announced preparations are underway for the experimental DRAG RACER orbital debris mission payload to be delivered to New Zealand and integrated aboard a Rocket Lab Electron ahead of the planned launch this fall. Millennium has completed space qualification of its two DRAG RACER small satellites that will embark on a first-of-its-kind Low Earth Orbit (LEO) mission to help solve the orbital debris challenge in space. The DRAG RACER mission will use scientific methods to compare the deorbit performance of two identical satellites - one that will reenter naturally and a second satellite featuring a tether developed by Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) that is expected to significantly accelerate the deorbit process. Millennium plans to observe, evaluate and characterize the satellite hosting the 70-meter-long (230 feet) Terminator Tape tether aboard the control satellite, while calibrating predictive models through the use of radar tracking data. An onboard timer will trigger the tether deployment on the experimental satellite a few days into the mission, with reentry estimates averaging about a month-and-a-half, while the untethered spacecraft could take up to nine years to reenter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. "We are motivated to study and quantify space tether applications as they will offer the LEO space community worldwide both improved deorbit capabilities and unique propulsive solutions," said Stan Dubyn, Millennium Space Systems Founder and CEO.

"This orbital debris mitigation experiment exemplifies our commitment to fielding innovative concepts using low-cost solutions."

Once launched, the DRAG RACER mission payload will separate into two identical 6U satellites with identical stowed mass properties and drag coefficients.

"The DRAG RACER mission is built on an innovative collaboration between Millennium Space Systems, TriSept, Tether's Unlimited and Rocket Lab that is dedicated to exploring and enabling creative and affordable solutions to the orbital debris challenge," said Rob Spicer, TriSept President and CEO.

"We look forward to leading the integration effort for this historic payload that could ultimately play an integral role in clearing orbital debris from Low Earth Orbit for years and generations to come."

"The space community understands tether systems can expedite reentry, but this is our first opportunity to truly quantify performance directly and more effectively calibrate models developed over the last 50 years," said Dr.

Robert Hoyt, President of Tether's Unlimited. "Predictions suggest the tethered spacecraft will deorbit in approximately 45 days, while the untethered spacecraft remains in orbit for approximately seven to nine years."

Emirati 'Hope' probe heads for Mars

The first Arab space mission to Mars blasted off from Japan on Monday on a mission to unravel the secrets of weather on the Red Planet. The unmanned probe named Al-Amal -- Arabic for Hope -- took off after several weather delays, marking the next step in the United Arab Emirates' ambitious space programme. Here are some facts and figures about the oil-rich nation's project, which draws inspiration from the Middle East's golden age of cultural and scientific achievements. The UAE, made up of seven emirates including the capital Abu Dhabi and freewheeling Dubai, has nine functioning satellites in orbit with plans to launch another eight in coming years. In September, it sent the first Emirati into space -- Hazza al-Mansouri, who was part of a three-member crew. They blasted off on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan, returning home after an eight-day mission in which he became the first Arab to visit the International Space Station. But the UAE's ambitions go well beyond that, with a goal of building a human settlement on Mars by 2117. In the meantime, it plans to create a white-domed "Science City" in the deserts outside Dubai, to simulate Martian conditions and develop the technology needed to colonise the planet. Under a national space strategy launched last year, the UAE is also eyeing future mining projects beyond Earth and space tourism, and has signed a memorandum of understanding with Richard Branson's space tourism company Virgin Galactic.

- Hope's journey -

The next milestone was the launch of the "Hope" probe, which officials say is designed to inspire the region's youth and pave the way for scientific breakthroughs.

The 1,350-kilogramme (2,970-pound) probe -- about the size of an SUV -- lifted off from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center on Monday at 6:58 am local time (2158 GMT Sunday) after poor weather delayed initial plans.

The probe successfully detached from the Japanese launch rocket about an hour after blast-off, with a UAE space official hailing the launch as an "important milestone for the UAE and the region."

Unlike the other two Mars ventures scheduled for this year, including Tianwen-1 from China and Mars 2020 from the United States, the UAE's probe will not land on the Red Planet but orbit it for a whole Martian year -- 687 days.

Hope will take seven months to travel the 493 million kilometres (307 million miles) to Mars, in time to mark the 50th anniversary of the emirates' union in 2021.

Once in orbit, one loop will take 55 hours at an average speed of 121,000 kph, while contact with the UAE command and control centre will be limited to six to eight hours twice a week.

- Study and inspire -

Three instruments mounted on the probe will provide a picture of the Mars atmosphere throughout the Martian year.

The first is an infrared spectrometer to measure the lower atmosphere and analyse the temperature structure.

The second is a high-resolution imager that will provide information about ozone levels. And the third, an ultraviolet spectrometer, is set to measure oxygen and hydrogen levels from a distance of up to 43,000 kilometres from the surface.

Understanding the atmospheres of other planets will allow for a better understanding of the Earth's climate, officials say.

But the project is also designed to inspire a region too often beset by turmoil, and recall its heyday of scientific advances during the Middle Ages.

"The UAE wanted to send a strong message to the Arab youth and to remind them of the past, that we used to be generators of knowledge," Omran Sharaf, the mission's project manager, told AFP.

Southern Launch prepares for lift off In South Australia

The development of small satellite technologies (SmallSats) has ushered in an era of dynamic and responsive space systems. Hundreds, and soon thousands, of these small platforms will be launched into Low Earth Orbits (LEO) every year. LEO are ideal for Earth Observation missions and other near-earth activities, including internet with global coverage. Approximately half of these SmallSats are projected to be launched into Polar Orbits with the other half orbiting around the equator. According to recent estimates by an SSTL study, close to 1000 SmallSats will be launched annually from 2025 onwards. These satellites will be inserted into new and existing LEO constellations, offering innovative new services to the world while actively limiting the proliferation of space debris in orbits. SmallSats in LEO remain there for less than 3 years before burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. Historically, launch sites have been constructed closer to the equator to support large satellites launches into equatorial orbit. However, direct launch to polar orbit is achieved most efficiently from launch sites nearer the poles, which have minimal interference from aviation and maritime traffic. Southern Launch, founded in 2017, is developing a multi-user launch complex at the tip of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, offering a turn-key launch service solution to polar and sun-synchronous orbit. In addition to providing the complete launch infrastructure, Southern Launch has the ability to undertake flight and range safety, vehicle design, avionics componentry and assist with launch permitting and other support services. The year-round temperate weather coupled with the highly skilled local workforce and a robust logistics supply network enables a launch site that offers high cadence launch operations at cost competitive prices.

The growing global demand for launch services and a world class launch location has attracted several early investors, with Southern Launch running an oversubscribed seed funding round at the end of 2019 with a larger Series A round to be finalised in coming months.

With a highly skilled team drawing on previous experience with the Australian Department of Defence, commercial launch providers, and global infrastructure companies, the Southern Launch team offers unique capabilities to enable safe, secure, and efficient launch operations.

Southern Launch have signed a number of agreements with launch service providers and launch vehicle manufacturers from around the world, including companies based in South Korea, Singapore, Germany, USA, Canada, Poland and the Netherlands.

While some launch service providers are looking for a launch site for their maiden (test) flights, looking further ahead, all customers have recognized the incredible potential of the Whalers Way location for regular commercial launches, and the cost effective and efficient services offered them by Southern Launch's complete launch service solution.

CEO, Southern Launch, Lloyd Damp, says: 'The space industry is in the midst of a rapid transition seeing increasing impact of the private sector providing services to Government agencies such as NASA. Small satellites, in the class of 1 to 500 kg, are a major part of this transition and need suitable locations to be launched from. Our Whalers Way site in South Australia meets this market demand and with the ongoing support from the Australian Space Agency and South Australian Government, we are on track to realise this very real opportunity for Australia.'

Construction of the Whaler's Way Orbital Launch Complex is scheduled to be completed ahead of the first launch in 2021, with Southern Launch already contracted for flights.

Spaceflight unveils next-gen orbital transfer vehicle to fly aboard SpaceX mission

Spaceflight Inc has announced that it will be flying its next generation orbital transfer vehicle, Sherpa-FX, on a fully dedicated rideshare mission with SpaceX. The mission, called SXRS-3 by Spaceflight, is scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 no earlier than December 2020. Spaceflight has contracted 16 spacecraft for this mission from organizations including iQPS, Loft Orbital, HawkEye 360, NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology program, Astrocast, and the University of South Florida Institute of Applied Engineering. In addition to the customer spacecraft, Sherpa-FX will transport multiple hosted payloads including one for Celestis Inc., as well as several that will demonstrate technologies designed to identify and track spacecraft once deployed. By demonstrating these tracking systems on orbit, Spaceflight customers will have access to flight-proven technologies that can mitigate space congestion and provide the foundation of effective and responsible space traffic management. Technologies onboard Sherpa-FX include payloads by NearSpace Launch, Keplerian Technologies and their hardware partner Tiger Innovations, and Space Domain Awareness Inc. These innovative payloads will provide spacecraft developers an independent capability to identify and track their spacecraft without drawing on the host spacecraft resources. "Spaceflight is committed to providing unmatched launch flexibility for customers - whether that's re-manifesting on a different vehicle due to delays, deployments to exotic or special orbits, or the ability to fly and operate hosted payloads," said Grant Bonin, senior vice president of business development for Spaceflight Inc.

"In-space transportation is essential to meeting our customer's specific needs to get their spacecraft delivered to orbit exactly when and where they want it. If you think of typical rideshare as sharing a seat on a train headed to a popular destination, our next-generation Sherpa program enables us to provide a more complete 'door-to-door transportation service'."

Spaceflight's Sherpa-FX is the first innovative orbital transfer vehicle to debut in the company's Sherpa-NG (next generation) program. The vehicle is capable of executing multiple deployments, providing independent and detailed deployment telemetry, and flexible interfaces, all at a low cost. The company's Sherpa-NG program is a family of space vehicles, continuing the tradition of the company's first orbital free flyer on the historic SSO-A mission, which successfully delivered 64 unique spacecraft on orbit aboard a Falcon 9.

In June 2020, Spaceflight announced it signed a Multi-Launch Agreement with SpaceX, securing capacity on several upcoming flights. The companies are currently working toward the launch of an upcoming Starlink mission in which Spaceflight procured a portion of the launch for its customer BlackSky, designed and built the adapter and harnessing, integrated the spacecraft, and provided mission management services for its customer.

"We aim to make getting to space easier, faster and with more reliability than ever before," added Curt Blake, president and CEO of Spaceflight.

"To do that, we have to build flexibility into everything we offer - from our contracting practices, to integration processes that enable spacecraft to move seamlessly between launch vehicles, to providing customers with a wide range of mission services.

"Now we're solving some of the industry's most pressing challenges by providing greater spacecraft management awareness and customized orbital delivery. We couldn't be more excited to expand our comprehensive suite of launch services to support our customers' mission needs."

Supercomputer reveals atmospheric impact of gigantic planetary collisions

The giant impacts that dominate late stages of planet formation have a wide range of consequences for young planets and their atmospheres, according to new research. Research led by Durham University and involving the University of Glasgow, both UK, has developed a way of revealing the scale of atmosphere loss during planetary collisions based on 3D supercomputer simulations. The simulations show how Earth-like planets with thin atmospheres might have evolved in an early solar system depending on how they are impacted by other objects. Using the COSMA supercomputer, part of the DiRAC High-Performance Computing facility in Durham, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the researchers ran more than 100 detailed simulations of different giant impacts on Earth-like planets, altering the speed and angle of the impact on each occasion. They found that grazing impacts - like the one thought to have formed our Moon - led to much less atmospheric loss than a direct hit. Head on collisions and higher speeds led to much greater erosion, sometimes obliterating the atmosphere completely along with some of the mantle, the layer that sits under a planet's crust. The findings provide greater insight into what happens during these giant impacts, which scientists know are common and important events in the evolution of planets both in our solar system and beyond. Our Moon is believed to have formed about 4.5 billion years ago following a collision between the early Earth and a giant impactor possibly the size of Mars.

It was not known how much of the Earth's early atmosphere could have survived in this violent impact event, or how this would change for different collision scenarios.

In the Earth's case, the planet got relatively lucky with this collision - only losing between ten and 50 per cent of its atmosphere depending on the precise scenario.

Lead author Dr Jacob Kegerreis, whose research was part-funded by a doctoral scholarship from the STFC, in the Institute for Computational Cosmology, at Durham University, said: "We know that planetary collisions can have a dramatic effect on a planet's atmosphere, but this is the first time we've been able to study the wide varieties of these violent events in detail.

"In spite of the remarkably diverse consequences that can come from different impact angles and speeds, we've found a simple way to predict how much atmosphere would be lost.

"This lays the groundwork to be able to predict the atmospheric erosion from any giant impact, which would feed in to models of planet formation as a whole. This in turn will help us to understand both the Earth's history as a habitable planet and the evolution of exoplanets around other stars."

The researchers are now carrying out hundreds more simulations to test the effects that the different masses and compositions of colliding objects might have.

Co-author Dr Vincent Eke, in the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, said: "At the moment it appears that the amount of atmosphere a planet loses due to these collisions depends upon how lucky or unlucky they are in terms the type of the impact they suffer."

Fellow co-author Dr Luis Teodoro, of the University of Glasgow, said: "Our research shows how different impacts can eject anywhere from very little to all of an atmosphere through a variety of mechanisms."

UAE plans to launch Mars probe Friday after weather delay

The United Arab Emirates said it plans to launch its "Hope" Mars probe on Friday local time from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center after a two-day delay due to poor weather there. A rocket is due to blast off at 5:43 am local time (2043 GMT Thursday) carrying the unmanned spacecraft that is bound to orbit the Red Planet in the Arab world's first interplanetary mission. The launch was postponed from 2051 GMT Tuesday because of inclement weather at the remote Japanese launch site, but remains well within the launch window which runs until August 13. The Emirati project is one of three racing to Mars, including Tianwen-1 from China and Mars 2020 from the United States, taking advantage of the period when the Earth and Mars are nearest: some 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) apart. "Hope" -- or Al-Amal in Arabic -- is expected to reach Mars's orbit by February 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of the unification of the UAE, an alliance of seven emirates. Once there, it will loop the planet for a whole Martian year, or 687 days. The probe is expected to detach from the launch rocket about an hour after blast-off, which is when the UAE Mars mission's deputy project manager Sarah al-Amiri said the real excitement will begin. "In my heart of hearts, I'm looking forward to the initial 24 hours after separation, and that's where we see the results of our work," said Amiri, who is also Minister of State for Advanced Sciences.

"It is when we first get the signal, when we know that every part of the spacecraft is functioning, when the solar panels are deployed, when we hit our trajectory and are headed towards Mars," she told AFP earlier this month.

Keiji Suzuki from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is carrying the Hope probe into space, had already warned on Monday that thunderstorms forecast could delay the launch.

- Big ambitions -

The UAE -- which is better known for its skyscrapers, palm-shaped islands and mega attractions -- has in recent years been pushing to expand its space sector.

While the objective of the Mars mission is to provide a comprehensive image of the weather dynamics in the Red Planet's atmosphere, the probe is a foundation for a much bigger goal -- building a human settlement on Mars within the next 100 years.

The UAE also wants the project to serve as a source of inspiration for Arab youth, in a region too often wracked by sectarian conflicts and economic crises.

Dubai has hired architects to imagine what a Martian city might look like and build it in its desert as "Science City", at a cost of around 500 million dirhams (135 million dollars).

And last September, Hazza al-Mansouri became the first Emirati in space, part of a three-member crew that blasted off on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan, returning home after an eight-day mission in which he became the first Arab to visit the International Space Station.

Several dozen probes -- most of them American -- have set off for the Red Planet since the 1960s. Many never made it that far, or failed to land.

The drive to explore Mars flagged until the confirmation less than 10 years ago that water once flowed on its surface.

"What is unique about this mission is that for the first time the scientific community around the world will have an holistic view of the Martian atmosphere at different times of the day at different seasons," the mission's project manager Omran Sharaf told Monday's briefing.

"We have a strategy to contribute to the global effort in developing technologies and science work that will help one day if humanity decides to put a human on Mars."

The quest to find signs of ancient life on Mars

Mars may now be considered a barren, icy desert but did Earth's nearest neighbour once harbour life?It is a question that has preoccupied scientists for centuries and fired up sci-fi imaginings. Now three space exploration projects are gearing up to launch some of the most ambitious bids yet to find an answer. Scientists believe that four billion years ago the two planets both had the potential to nurture life -- but much of Mars' intervening history is an enigma. The new Mars probes from the United States, United Arab Emirates and China will launch this summer. Their goal is not to find Martian life -- scientists believe nothing would survive there now -- but to search for possible traces of past lifeforms. These vast and costly programmes could prove futile. But astrobiologists say the red planet is still our best hope for finding a record of life on other planets. Mars is "the only planet with concrete chances of finding traces of extraterrestrial life because we know that billions of years ago it was inhabitable," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of French space agency CNES in a conference call with journalists this week. Le Gall is one of the architects of NASA's Mars 2020 exploratory probe, which is scheduled for launch at the end of July when Earth and Mars will be the closest for more than two years. The more than $2.5 billion project is the latest -- and most technologically advanced -- attempt to uncover Mars' deep buried secrets. But it is not alone, as enthusiasm for space exploration has reignited.

- 'News from Mars' -

Scientific enquiry of the red planet began in earnest in the 17th Century.

In 1609 Italian Galileo Galilei observed Mars with a primitive telescope and in doing so became the first person to use the new technology for astronomical purposes.

Fifty years later Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens used a more advanced telescope of his own design to make the first ever topographical drawing of the planet.

Mars -- compared to the "desolate, empty" moon -- has long seemed promising for potential inhabitability by microorganisms, wrote astrophysicist Francis Rocard in his recent essay "Latest News from Mars".

But the 20th century presented setbacks.

In the 1960s, as the race to put a man on the moon was accelerating towards its dazzling "Giant Leap", Dian Hitchcock and James Lovelock were putting a dampener on hopes of finding life on Mars.

Their research analysed the planet's atmosphere looking for a chemical imbalance, gases reacting with each other, which would hint at life.

"If there is no reaction, then there is probably no life there," Lovelock told AFP.

"And that was the case -- Mars has an atmosphere that is completely inactive as far as chemistry is concerned."

Their conclusion was confirmed a decade later, when the Viking landers took atmospheric and soil samples that showed the planet was no longer inhabitable.

This discovery was a "real tanker" for Mars research, Rocard told AFP.

Mars programmes essentially paused for 20 years.

Then in 2000 scientists made a game-changing discovery: they found that water had once flowed over its surface.

- Follow the water -

This tantalising finding helped rekindle the latent interest in Mars exploration.

Scientists pored over images of gullies, ravines, scouring the Martian surface for evidence of liquid water.

More than 10 years later, in 2011, they definitively found it.

The "follow the water, follow the carbon, follow the light" strategy has paid off, Rocard said.

Every mission since the discovery of water has brought "more and more evidence to light that Mars is not quite as dead as we thought," Michel Viso, an astrobiologist at CNES, told AFP.

The latest US rover to make the journey -- aptly named Perseverance -- is scheduled to touch down in February of next year after a six-month journey from launch time.

The probe is perhaps the most highly-awaited yet. Its landing spot, the Jezero Crater, may have once been a wide, 45-kilometre river delta.

Rich in sedimentary rocks, such as clay and carbonates -- the same types of rocks that hold fossil traces on Earth -- Jezero could be a treasure trove.

Or perhaps not.

"We know that water once flowed, but the question remains: for how long?" asked Rocard. "We don't even know how long it took for life to appear on Earth."

If the mission can bring these rocks back to Earth they might yield answers to the questions that have long confounded scientists.

But they will have to wait at least 10 years for the analysis to be available.

Viso said the results will likely be "a bundle of clues" rather than a clear answer.

- In the beginning -

Scientists are also considering perhaps an even more profound question.

If life never existed on Mars, then why not?

The answer to this could enrich our understanding of how life developed on our own planet, Jorge Vago, the spokesperson of the European Space Agency said.

Due to shifting plate tectonics below the Earth's core, it is exceedingly difficult to find any traces of life here before 3.5 billion years ago.

Mars has no tectonic plates and so there is a chance that four-billion-year-old signs of life that "one could never find on Earth" may be preserved there, Vago said.

And if the latest Mars programmes fail to find signs of ancient Martian life, there are always further frontiers to explore.

Encelade and Europe, two of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons, respectively are considered promising contenders.

Although reaching them remains more science fiction than reality.

Johnson-Built Device to Help Mars Perseverance Rover Search for Signs of Life

Later this summer, NASA is launching the Mars Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet with the Mars 2020 Mission. The rover is loaded with equipment to search for signs that there once was life on Mars. One device, called the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument, will be used to detect chemicals on the Martian surface that are linked to the existence of life. To keep the instrument working well, a team from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) division at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) recently built a new calibration device for the rover to check SHERLOC's function and properly tune it during the upcoming mission. "SHERLOC is pretty complicated, and we came up with a list of 11 things that all have to be calibrated on this instrument," said Marc Fries, ARES planetary scientist and Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover instrument co-investigator. "This sophisticated calibration device is also going to be used for a lot of other scientific and engineering investigations, and we're really excited that it's JSC's contribution to the Mars 2020 rover." SHERLOC is mounted on the end of the rover's seven-foot robotic arm and includes a laser, camera and chemical analyzers, called spectrometers. The sensitive components will be used together to search for substances that have been altered by water and possibly reveal evidence of past microscopic life on Mars.

"The rover's scientific instruments go through all sorts of harsh conditions from the time they leave the lab until they arrive on the surface of Mars. SHERLOC needed a way to make sure it still operates as expected once it's on the surface and throughout the duration of the mission," said Trevor Graff, a scientist from Jacobs who works for ARES.

The solution was to create the calibration target, or "cal target" for short. The device is approximately the size of a large cell phone and mounted on the front of the rover. On its face are 10 "targets," which consist of samples of different materials. The idea is that researchers will occasionally check SHERLOC's function by directing it to scan the different materials on the cal target. The researchers will already know what the readings on those materials should be when SHERLOC is working correctly. If the actual readings are off, they'll make adjustments to SHERLOC to get it set properly, or know to compensate for the errors when they analyze the data later.

Graff led the JSC cal target team, which included Jacobs engineers Ryan Weiner and Vinh Tran.

"I don't always get to see the hardware that I work on in person," Weiner said, "So I really enjoyed being so hands-on helping to assemble the calibration target."

"It was a great experience overall, and I'm confident the design will arrive on Mars in one solid piece," Tran added.


Science on the Side

In addition to tuning SHERLOC, the targets on the calibration device are serving double duty in other tests and experiments. For example, a number of the targets hold spacesuit materials that could one day be used to protect astronauts exploring Mars. SHERLOC's scans of those materials will not only help tune the instrument, but measure how the advanced fabrics and other suit materials will hold up in the Martian environment, too.

"We also plan to build a small Mars exposure instrument here at JSC, and match the conditions inside it with weather data from the rover," Fries said. "We'll then place an identical set of spacesuit samples inside the chamber and periodically remove them to, for example, test the strength of fabrics or the clarity of helmet visor plastics. The result is we'll be able to test spacesuit materials in Mars-like conditions long before astronauts ever go there."

Another target contains an actual sample of a meteorite ejected from Mars long ago and discovered on Earth in 1999. Researchers plan to closely watch the rock sample to see how the Martian environment alters it over time, which will help them understand the chemical interactions between the planet's surface and its atmosphere.

New electric propulsion chamber explores the future of space travel

Deep inside a laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation's El Segundo campus, scientists are recreating the vacuum of space here on Earth. Aerospace's electric propulsion lab specializes in testing electric thrusters in space-like conditions, and they recently installed a new vacuum chamber that will enable them to test the newer, high-powered thrusters needed for future space exploration. "This chamber adds not just to Aerospace's testing capability, but adds to the world's testing capability," said Rostislav Spektor, Laboratory Manager in Electric Propulsion and Plasma Science. "When it becomes operational, it will be the best electric propulsion testing facility in the world." Why Electric Propulsion? Everyone is familiar with the sight of fire and smoke pouring out of the bottom of a rocket using chemical propulsion. Electric propulsion takes a different approach, harnessing electric energy to ionize gas into a plasma, which is accelerated out of the thruster through a combination of electric and magnetic forces. Electric propulsion produces significantly less thrust than chemical propulsion but is much more efficient in terms of the amount of fuel used. It's too weak to launch rockets through the atmosphere, but once in space, the lack of gravity allows electric propulsion thrusters' true potential to shine. "It's the Tortoise and the Hare. Electric propulsion is slow but steady and chemical propulsion starts very fast, but runs out of steam quickly," Spektor said.

Historically, electric propulsion has mostly been used for station-keeping of satellites. But its highly efficient nature opens up possibilities for long-distance space exploration missions with the small but constant thrust building up over time, accelerating the spacecraft to a very high velocity.

A Testing Powerhouse
In order to make those long journeys, however, scientists need to be able to trust that the thrusters will perform consistently and reliably over the duration of the mission.

That's where electric propulsion vacuum chambers come into play. These school bus-sized devices are outfitted with a series of cryopumps that make the chamber very cold. When the pumps run, the air in the chamber sticks to the chamber sides, similar to condensation on a cold glass of water on a hot day. With the air gone, the chamber simulates the vacuum of space, and the team can place electric thrusters inside for testing.

"Electric propulsion devices perform differently in space than they do on Earth. The relationship isn't linear, which can make predicting exactly how it will perform difficult," said Spektor. "The closer you are to test-as-you-fly conditions, the closer you are to measuring performance you would expect in orbit."

The new chamber, 14 ft in diameter and 30 ft long, is considerably larger than the lab's older 8-foot diameter chamber, which means it has more room for cryopumps. The Aerospace team considered buying commercial pumps, but in the end decided to design their own pumping system to ensure optimal performance.

The chamber body was delivered in four segments over the course of a week and then bolted together. The custom-designed cryopump system will be installed over the next six months, followed by the diagnostic system.

End-to-End Electric Propulsion Testing
As a federally-funded research and development center (FFRDC), Aerospace is not allowed to produce flight hardware that could compete with commercial companies.

Instead, Aerospace provides end-to-end testing of electric propulsion thrusters, from measuring thrust, exhaust velocity and specific impulse to more advanced work like plume characterization, which helps quantify the risk of damage to other parts of the spacecraft. The lab also offers non-invasive testing using laser and optical diagnostics.

"We've carved ourselves a niche in electric propulsion as the testing warehouse. All the commercial companies come to us for unbiased testing and measurement," Spektor said. "We have probably the most comprehensive set of electric propulsion diagnostics that you could find anywhere in the world."

The recently installed vacuum chamber, with its increased pumping speed, is just the latest addition to this laboratory's arsenal of testing equipment.

"As electric propulsion devices get larger and more powerful, higher pumping speeds are needed to maintain the proper pressure ratio and allow for accurate testing," said Spektor. "If there are any potential issues with the thruster, you might not see them at lower pumping speeds because you're not at the conditions you are in space."

Aerospace is equipped to test the latest large electric propulsion devices or smaller micro-thrusters that go on CubeSats, with tests spanning from just a few hours up to more than a year.

The Future of Electric Propulsion
When operational, the expanded testing facility will allow the lab to double its workload, providing testing services to military and civil customers, as well as a growing field of commercial manufacturers.

One of the first customers will be NASA, testing its 12.5-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) thruster, which is part of the Gateway mission to orbit the moon.

Other customers are also lining up to access the world-class chamber and benefit from Aerospace's expertise.

"There are new potential applications developing with our national security space customers for high power electric propulsion," said Tom Curtiss, director of the Propulsion Science Department. "Watching those come to fruition will be a great thing, and we'll be able to help reduce the costs of qualifying and developing technology for the next 10 or 20 years."

NASA hits Boeing with 80 recommendations before next space test

NASA has drawn up a list of 80 recommendations that US aerospace giant Boeing will have to address before attempting to refly its Starliner space capsule, following the failure of an uncrewed test last year. The recommendations primarily concern the on-board software, which was the main problem with the flight test last December. The capsule could not be placed in the correct orbit, due to a clock error, and a had to return to Earth after two days instead of docking with the International Space Station as planned. Boeing subsequently learned that other software problems could have caused the capsule and the rocket to collide at the time of separation, a potentially very dangerous event if the flight had been crewed. Most of the problems identified run deep and are organizational, for example NASA's verification procedures. The space agency has been a client of Boeing's for decades, but seems to have placed too much faith in its historic partner. "Perhaps we were a little more focused on SpaceX," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, in a call with reporters. SpaceX, a relative newcomer to the space industry, is the other company chosen by NASA to develop a crewed vessel -- but unlike Boeing, its Crew Dragon successfully completed its uncrewed test flight in 2019, then its first crewed flight in May, with two astronauts on board.

Starliner's next attempt could take place in "the latter part of this year," added Stich, without making a guarantee. Boeing won't therefore be able to carry astronauts until at least 2021, while SpaceX's second crewed flight is set to take place this summer.

Return to Venus on Indian Space Mission

For the second time the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) will explore Venus. On board the Indian Venus mission Shukrayaan-1, IRF's satellite instrument Venusian Neutrals Analyzer (VNA) will study how the charged particles from the Sun interact with the atmosphere and exosphere of the planet. Between 2006-2014 IRF's instrument ASPERA-4 (Analyzes of Space Plasma and EneRgetic Atoms) studied Venus on board the European spacecraft Venus Express. The satellite instrument measured the plasma properties around Venus in detail, as well as neutral atoms that escape into space from the atmosphere. ASPERA-4 consisted of four different sensors to analyze energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) and plasma particles. By analyzing ENAs, the instrument contributes to our knowledge of the interaction between the charged particles from the sun (solar wind) and the atmosphere of Venus. Associate Professor Yoshifumi Futaana, IRF, is the Principal Investigator responsible for both ASPERA-4 and now the VNA instrument that will explore the brightest planet in the sky. "Venus is the twin of our Earth, but these planets are very different. The atmosphere is dense and hot, but it is waterless. Water existed 4 billion years ago when Venus was formed, but it has been lost, probably to space. ASPERA-4 proved that water on Venus is escaping to space with energy obtained from the solar wind. Our results also provide essential information to help us understand exoplanets around other stars, planets which we cannot explore with instruments in place around them," says Yoshifumi Futaana.

IRF's satellite instrument on Shukrayaan-1 will be part of a larger Indian instrument package and will be the ninth generation of IRF's series of miniatured ion and ENA instruments. The first generation was named SARA (Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer) and was launched on board the successful Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 that explored the Moon in 2008-2009.

SARA consisted of two sensors. One was a detector for energetic neutral atoms and the other was an instrument to measure the flow of ions in the solar wind. The instrument studied how the plasma around the Moon interacts with the moon where the surface is not protected by an atmosphere or a magnetic field.

For the first time ever, SARA could investigate energetic atoms that are knocked from the lunar surface when they are hit by the solar wind.

The SARA experiment was the first collaborative project between IRF and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The new Venus mission means that the collaboration between IRF and ISRO continues.

IRF's director Professor Stas Barabash was the Swedish Principal Investigator of the SARA experiment, and is the lead Co-Investigator of the VNA instrument.

"The SARA experiment was truly an exciting mission which revealed a number of unknown secrets about how the Moon interacts with space. Collaboration with the Indian team was the key of this successful experiment. The next target of our joint investigation is Venus in order to understand why the Earth Earth and Venus, which began as twins, evolved so differently," says Stas Barabash.

Summer road trip for Curiosity rover has begun

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has started a road trip that will continue through the summer across roughly a mile (1.6 kilometers) of terrain. By trip's end, the rover will be able to ascend to the next section of the 3-mile-tall Martian (5-kilometer-tall) mountain it's been exploring since 2014, searching for conditions that may have supported ancient microbial life. Located on the floor of Gale Crater, Mount Sharp is composed of sedimentary layers that built up over time. Each layer helps tell the story about how Mars changed from being more Earth-like - with lakes, streams and a thicker atmosphere - to the nearly-airless, freezing desert it is today. The rover's next stop is a part of the mountain called the "sulfate-bearing unit." Sulfates, like gypsum and Epsom salts, usually form around water as it evaporates, and they are yet another clue to how the climate and prospects for life changed nearly 3 billion years ago. But between the rover and those sulfates lies a vast patch of sand that Curiosity must drive around to avoid getting stuck. Hence the mile-long road trip: Rover planners, who are commanding Curiosity from home rather than their offices at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, expect to reach the area in early fall, although the science team could decide to stop along the way to drill a sample or study any surprises they come across. Depending on the landscape, Curiosity's top speeds range between 82 and 328 feet (25 and100 meters) per hour. Some of this summer road trip will be completed using the rover's automated driving abilities, which enable Curiosity to find the safest paths forward on its own. Rover planners allow for this when they lack terrain imagery. (Planners hope for more autonomy in the future; in fact, you can help train an algorithm that identifies Martian drive paths.)

"Curiosity can't drive entirely without humans in the loop," said Matt Gildner, lead rover driver at JPL. "But it does have the ability to make simple decisions along the way to avoid large rocks or risky terrain. It stops if it doesn't have enough information to complete a drive on its own."

In journeying to the "sulfate-bearing unit," Curiosity leaves behind Mount Sharp's "clay-bearing unit," which the robotic scientist had been investigating on the lower side of the mountain since early 2019. Scientists are interested in the watery environment that formed this clay and whether it could have supported ancient microbes.

Extending across both the clay unit and the sulfate unit is a separate feature: the "Greenheugh Pediment," a slope with a sandstone cap. It likely represents a major transition in the climate of Gale Crater. At some point, the lakes that filled the 96-mile-wide (154-kilometer-wide) crater disappeared, leaving behind sediments that eroded into the mountain we see today. The pediment formed later (though whether from wind or water erosion remains unknown); then windblown sand blanketed its surface, building into the sandstone cap.

The northern end of the pediment spans the clay region, and though the slope is steep, the rover's team decided to ascend Greenheugh back in March for a preview of terrain they'll see later in the mission. As Curiosity peeked over the top, scientists were surprised to find small bumps along the sandstone surface.

"Nodules like these require water in order to form," said Alexander Bryk, a doctoral student at University of California, Berkeley who led the pediment detour. "We found some in the windblown sandstone on top of the pediment and some just below the pediment. At some point after the pediment formed, water seems to have returned, altering the rock as it flowed through it."

These bumps may look familiar to Mars rover fans: One of Curiosity's predecessors, the Opportunity rover, found similar geologic textures dubbed "blueberries" back in 2004. Nodules have become a familiar sight throughout Mount Sharp, though these newly discovered ones are different in composition from what Opportunity found. They suggest water was present in Gale long after the lakes disappeared and the mountain took its present shape. The discovery extends the period when the crater hosted conditions capable of supporting life, if it ever was present.

"Curiosity was designed to go beyond Opportunity's search for the history of water," said Abigail Fraeman of JPL, who has served as deputy project scientist for both missions. "We're uncovering an ancient world that offered life a foothold for longer than we realized."

A binary star as a cosmic particle accelerator

With a specialised telescope in Namibia a DESY-led team of researchers has proven a certain type of binary star as a new kind of source for very high-energy cosmic gamma-radiation. Eta Carinae is located 7500 lightyears away in the constellation Carina (the ship's keel) in the Southern Sky and, based on the data collected, emits gamma rays with energies all the way up to 400 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), some 100 billion times more than the energy of visible light. The team headed by DESY's Stefan Ohm, Eva Leser and Matthias Fubling is presenting its findings, made at the gamma-ray observatory High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. An accompanying multimedia animation explains the phenomenon. "With such visualisations we want to make the fascination of research tangible," emphasises DESY's Director of Astroparticle Physics, Christian Stegmann. Eta Carinae is a binary system of superlatives, consisting of two blue giants, one about 100 times, the other about 30 times the mass of our sun. The two stars orbit each other every 5.5 years in very eccentric elliptical orbits, their separation varying approximately between the distance from our Sun to Mars and from the Sun to Uranus. Both these gigantic stars fling dense, supersonic stellar winds of charged particles out into space. In the process, the larger of the two loses a mass equivalent to our entire Sun in just 5000 years or so. The smaller one produces a fast stellar wind travelling at speeds around eleven million kilometres per hour (about one percent of the speed of light).

A huge shock front is formed in the region where these two stellar winds collide, heating up the material in the wind to extremely high temperatures. At around 50 million degrees Celsius, this matter radiates brightly in the X-ray range. The particles in the stellar wind are not hot enough to emit gamma radiation, though.

"However, shock regions like this are typically sites where subatomic particles are accelerated by strong prevailing electromagnetic fields," explains Ohm, who is the head of the H.E.S.S. group at DESY. When particles are accelerated this rapidly, they can also emit gamma radiation. In fact, the satellites "Fermi", operated by the US space agency NASA, and AGILE, belonging to the Italian space agency ASI, already detected energetic gamma rays of up to about 10 GeV coming from Eta Carinae in 2009.

"Different models have been proposed to explain how this gamma radiation is produced," Fubling reports. "It could be generated by accelerated electrons or by high-energy atomic nuclei."

Determining which of these two scenarios is correct is crucial: very energetic atomic nuclei account for the bulk of the so-called Cosmic Rays, a subatomic cosmic hailstorm striking Earth constantly from all directions. Despite intense research for more than 100 years, the sources of the Cosmic Rays are still not exhaustively known.

Since the electrically charged atomic nuclei are deflected by cosmic magnetic fields as they travel through the universe, the direction from which they arrive at Earth no longer points back to their origin. Cosmic gamma rays, on the other hand, are not deflected. So, if the gamma rays emitted by a specific source can be shown to originate from high-energy atomic nuclei, one of the long-sought accelerators of cosmic particle radiation will have been identified.

"In the case of Eta Carinae, electrons have a particularly hard time getting accelerated to high energyies, because they are constantly being deflected by magnetic fields during their acceleration, which makes them lose energy again," says Leser. "Very high-energy gamma radiation begins above the 100 GeV range, which is rather difficult to explain in Eta Carinae to stem from electron acceleration."

The satellite data already indicated that Eta Carinae also emits gamma radiation beyond 100 GeV, and H.E.S.S. has now succeeded in detecting such radiation up to energies of 400 GeV around the time of the close encounter of the two blue giants in 2014 and 2015. This makes the binary star the first known example of a source in which very high-energy gamma radiation is generated by colliding stellar winds.

"The analysis of the gamma radiation measurements taken by H.E.S.S. and the satellites shows that the radiation can best be interpreted as the product of rapidly accelerated atomic nuclei," says DESY's PhD student Ruslan Konno, who has published a companion study, together with scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg.

"This would make the shock regions of colliding stellar winds a new type of natural particle accelerator for cosmic rays." With H.E.S.S., which is named after the discoverer of Cosmic Rays, Victor Franz Hess, and the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next-generation gamma-ray observatory currently being built in the Chilean highlands, the scientists hope to investigate this phenomenon in greater detail and discover more sources of this kind.

Thanks to detailed observations of Eta Carinae at all wavelengths, the properties of the stars, their orbits and stellar winds have been determined relatively accurately. This has given astrophysicists a better picture of the binary star system and its history.

To illustrate the new observations of Eta Carinae, the DESY astrophysicists have produced a video animation together with the animation specialists of the award-winning Science Communication Lab. The computer-generated images are close to reality because the measured orbital, stellar and wind parameters were used for this purpose. The internationally acclaimed multimedia artist Carsten Nicolai, who uses the pseudonym Alva Noto for his musical works, created the sound for the animation.

"I find science and scientific research extremely important," says Nicolai, who sees close parallels in the creative work of artists and scientists. For him, the appeal of this work also lay in the artistic mediation of scientific research results: "particularly the fact that it is not a film soundtrack, but has a genuine reference to reality," emphasizes the musician and artist.

Together with the exclusively composed sound, this unique collaboration of scientists, animation artists and musician has resulted in a multimedia work that takes viewers on an extraordinary journey to a superlative double star some 7500 light years away.

DESY is one of the world's leading particle accelerator centres and investigates the structure and function of matter - from the interaction of tiny elementary particles and the behaviour of novel nanomaterials and vital biomolecules to the great mysteries of the universe. The particle accelerators and detectors that DESY develops and builds at its locations in Hamburg and Zeuthen are unique research tools.

They generate the most intense X-ray radiation in the world, accelerate particles to record energies and open up new windows onto the universe. DESY is a member of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific association, and receives its funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (90 per cent) and the German federal states of Hamburg and Brandenburg (10 per cent).

UK Govt to acquire OneWeb satellite constellation

The Government has today (3 July) led a successful bid to acquire OneWeb, which develops cutting-edge satellite technology in the UK and in the US. The move signals the Government's ambition for the UK to be a pioneer in the research, development, manufacturing, and exploitation of novel satellite technologies through the ownership of a fleet of Low Earth orbit satellites. Business Secretary Alok Sharma confirmed that the Government will invest $500million and take a significant equity share in OneWeb. This is alongside Bharti Global Ltd, which is part of a group that controls the third largest mobile operator in the world. Bharti will provide the company commercial and operational leadership, and bring OneWeb a revenue base to contribute towards its future success. The deal will enable the company to complete construction of a global satellite constellation that will provide enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world. The deal also offers the UK strategic opportunities across a wide range of other applications, working with our international allies. With a sovereign global satellite system, the UK will further develop its advanced manufacturing base, making the most of its highly skilled workforce as the hardware is further developed and equipment and services are deployed to make the most of this unique capability. OneWeb will also contribute to the Government's plan to join the first rank of space nations, along with our commitment to making the UK a world leader in science, research and development. The deal is subject to US court approval and regulatory clearances and is expected to close before the end of the year.

It follows the formation of the UK's first-ever National Space Council, chaired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to consider how space policy can enhance the country's prosperity and place in the world, as well as our wider national security interests.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: "This deal underlines the scale of Britain's ambitions on the global stage.

"Our access to a global fleet of satellites has the potential to connect millions of people worldwide to broadband, many for the first time, and the deal presents the opportunity to further develop our strong advanced manufacturing base right here in the UK."

The UK space sector is an economic success story, growing by over 60 per cent since 2010. The sector, which already supports 300 billion pounds of UK economic activity through the use of satellite services, is expected to grow further as new commercial opportunities are unlocked by this agreement.

OneWeb was formed in 2012, and has been developing cutting-edge satellite technology from its bases both here in the UK and in the United States.

The UK Government will have a final say over any future sale of the company, and over future access to OneWeb technology by other countries on national security grounds.

Airbus signs contract with Optus for OneSat

Airbus Defence and Space has won a contract for a fully reconfigurable telecomunications satellite from Australia's second largest telecommunications company and leading satellite operator Optus. The satellite will be based on Airbus' new standard OneSat product line and is Airbus' first contract from the Australian operator. Airbus will deliver an end-to-end solution, including design and manufacture of the Optus 11 spacecraft, as well as an advanced digital suite to manage the digital payload and operate the end-to-end satellite resources, providing Optus with a turnkey system and the ability to add hosted payloads such as SBAS. What sets Optus 11 apart is its ability to adjust its coverage, capacity and frequency, through on board processing and active antennas with beam forming capability. It will deliver power and bandwidth dynamically to strengthen capacity and resilience of Optus fleet and enable Optus to configure and adapt the payload mission to end-user needs, taking advantage of the latest innovations in payload and resource management. Optus 11 will deliver a combination of broadcast and broadband VHTS missions in Ku band over Australia and New Zealand, to improve Direct to Home broadcasting over the Australasia region, increase reach in the Antarctic and Pacific zones and support growth into mobile markets, helping eliminate connectivity black spots through the Australian Government's Mobile Black Spot programme.

Airbus' Head of Space Systems, Jean-Marc Nasr said: "We are grateful to Optus for their trust in Airbus in a region where we have ambitions to work with local industry to support space technology development in both the civil and defence sectors."

"OneSat is a truly disruptive product, both from a manufacturing, and operational point of view, and gives customers the flexibility they need to serve their markets. This contract from Australia's leading satellite operator, Optus, is a ringing endorsement that our R and D strategy in developing innovative products is the right one. OneSat's high flexibility, very compact design and accelerated production should see the satellite in orbit for Optus in 2023."

Airbus' 'ready-made' OneSat satellite builds on the company's heritage from its highly reliable Eurostar telecommunications satellites, which have clocked up more than 800 years of successful operation in orbit.

This order further strenghtens Airbus' leadership in new generation reconfigurable telecommunications satellites and enables Optus with the option to add additional spacecraft in the near future.

The investments made by Airbus and its partners in very innovative OneSat developments are supported by the European Space Agency and national agencies, in particular the UK and French space agencies.

Vega Flight VV16 postponed until August

Due to the persistence of exceptionally unfavorable winds at altitude over the Guiana Space Center, Vega Flight VV16 - originally scheduled for June 18, 2020 - was repeatedly postponed, despite full availability the launcher and the 53 satellites on this Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) mission. With no improvement in the weather situation expected during the short term, Arianespace has decided to postpone Flight VV16 until August 17, 2020, when the forecast is expected to be more favorable based on modeling of the winds. The interim period will be used to recharge batteries of the launcher and the satellites, under all the required safety conditions. Despite this delay, Arianespace is maintaining the target of performing three Vega launches during 2020. Arianespace's next confirmed launch is Flight VA253, planned for July 28. This Ariane 5 mission to geostationary transfer orbit will be performed on behalf of the following customers: Intelsat (with the Galaxy 30 and MEV-2 payloads), and B-SAT (with BSAT-4b). In the exceptional context of the COVID-19 crisis, Arianespace was prepared to launch the Flight VV16 mission as soon as possible after the interruption of launch campaigns at the Guiana Space Center, which was caused by the epidemic. The mobilization of Arianespace and its partners, in particular Avio (industrial prime contractor for the Vega launcher), the French CNES space agency and the European Space Agency, made it possible to envisage this launch as of June 18, 2020. Unfortunately, due to exceptionally unfavorable winds at altitude for this time of year, the launch was rescheduled several times through Sunday, June 28.

Without a foreseeable improvement in the meteorological situation to allow an authorization of the northward launch toward polar orbit in accordance with range safety rules, Arianespace decided to reschedule the next SSMS mission launch attempt for August 17. At this date, the wind forecasts - based on models observed during several years - are more favorable.

The time that is now available will be used to restore the readiness of the launcher and the SSMS mission's 53 satellites in the context of operations carried out with batteries on the launcher in the Vega Launch Zone; and with batteries on the satellites, conducted in the launch site's payload preparation facilities.

The launch planning for Ariane 5's Flight VA253 - to be performed for operators Intelsat and B-SAT - was confirmed on July 28. The two Intelsat satellites arrived at the Spaceport in French Guiana on Saturday, June 27. Arrival of the BSAT-4b satellite is expected on July 1st.

The availability of this launch - with its eastward trajectory towards geostationary orbit - is not affected by the high-altitude winds currently observed above the Guiana Space Center in relation to the range safety rules. Therefore, a sustained level of activity continues at the Spaceport despite the health crisis that is particularly affecting French Guiana and the American continent.

"In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, which was as exceptional as it was difficult, Arianespace and its partners - especially Avio, ESA and CNES - mobilized in an absolutely remarkable way in seizing every opportunity to launch the Flight VV16 mission," confirmed Stephane Israel, Arianespace's Chief Executive Officer.

"This mobilization made it possible to carry out the Vega campaign from end to end, and to ensure the availability of both the launcher and the SSMS mission's 53 satellites.

Unfortunately, the persistence of exceptionally unfavorable winds at altitude in relation to the safety rules forces us to reposition this mission to August 17. We understand the impatience of our 21 customers, and we share it; we will now devote all our energy to ensuring the success of the 16th Vega flight for this emblematic mission as quickly as possible."

Flight VV16 is the first European rideshare mission in the framework of the Small Spacecraft Mission Service. Proposed as part of Arianespace's launch catalog offerings, SSMS is a European project.

With funding from ESA, the SSMS dispenser structure (on which the satellite payloads are integrated) was developed by Colleferro, Italy-based Avio - which also is the Vega launcher's industrial prime contractor. The structure was manufactured by the Czech company, SAB Aerospace. The European Union also contributed to the funding of the Flight VV16 demonstration mission.

The Vega launcher remains available for launch at any time when the required safety conditions are met.

Despite the delay in Vega Flight VV16, Arianespace continues to maintain its target of three Vega launches in 2020.