Solar Orbiter ready to depart Europe

ESA's Solar Orbiter mission has completed its test campaign in Europe and is now being packed ready for its journey to Cape Canaveral at the end of this month, ahead of launch in February 2020. The spacecraft was on display today for the final time in Europe, at the IABG test centre near Munich, Germany. It was built at Airbus Stevenage, UK, and has spent the last year at IABG undergoing essential testing such as checking deployment mechanisms, and that it can withstand the vibrations of launch, and the thermal extremes and vacuum of space. It has now been declared ready for shipment to the launch site and will travel an Antonov cargo plane on 31 October. Once launched it will follow an elliptical path around the Sun, at its closest bringing it within the orbit of Mercury, just 42 million kilometres from the Sun. As such, Sun-facing parts of the spacecraft have to withstand temperatures of more than 500 degrees C - due to solar radiation thirteen times more intense than for Earth-orbiting satellites - while other parts remain in shadow at -180 degrees C. The mission is essential to learn more about the Sun-Earth connection. We live inside a giant bubble of plasma generated by the Sun that surrounds the entire solar system, within which we are prey to space weather. Solar Orbiter will provide a deeper understanding as to how activity on the Sun is linked to these solar storms, which can disrupt electrical systems, satellite communications, GPS, and create higher doses of radiation for polar flights and astronauts.

"Solar Orbiter is set for answering some of the biggest scientific questions about our star, and its data will help us to better protect our planet from the global challenges of space weather," says Gunther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science.

"Thanks to the hard work of our teams building and testing this inspiring space mission, we've reached an important milestone today in Europe, and the spacecraft will now be readied for its final phase of pre-launch preparations at Cape Canaveral."

Solar Orbiter will launch on a NASA-provided Atlas V 411. The launch is currently scheduled in the early hours of 6 February (UTC). Once in space, and over the course of several years, it will use the gravity of Venus and Earth to raise its orbit above the poles of the Sun, providing new perspectives on our star, including the first images of the Sun's polar regions.

Its complementary suite of instruments means it will be able to study the plasma environment locally around the spacecraft, and collect data from the Sun from afar, connecting the dots between the Sun's activity, and the space environment in the inner solar system.

Solar Orbiter is an ESA mission with strong NASA participation. The prime contractor is Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK. It follows in the legacy of missions such as Ulysses (1990-2009) and SOHO (1995-present) and will also provide complementary datasets to NASA's Parker Solar Probe that will allow more science to be distilled from the two missions than either could achieve on their own.

MRO HiRISE camera views InSight and Curiosity on Mars

The HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recently sent home eye-catching views of the agency's InSight lander and its Curiosity rover. HiRISE has been monitoring InSight's landing site in the Elysium Planitia region of the Red Planet for changes to the surface, such as dust-devil tracks. Taken on Sept. 23, 2019, at an altitude of 169 miles (272 kilometers) above the surface, the new image is NASA's best view yet of InSight from space. It clearly shows the two circular solar panels on either side of the lander body, spanning 20 feet (6 meters) from end to end. The bright spot on the lower side of the spacecraft is the dome-shaped protective cover over InSight's seismometer. The dark halo surrounding the spacecraft resulted from retrorocket thrusters scouring the surface during landing, while dust devils created the dark streaks that run diagonally across the surface. Several factors make this image crisper than a set of images released after InSight's November 2018 landing. For one thing, there's less dust in the air this time. Shadows are offset from the lander because this is an oblique view looking west. The lighting was also optimal for avoiding the bright reflections from the lander or its solar panels that have obscured surrounding pixels in other images. However, bright reflections are unavoidable with the seismometer cover just south of the lander because of its dome shape.

Driven by Curiosity

HiRISE has also been keeping tabs on NASA's Curiosity, which is roughly 373 miles (600 kilometers) from InSight, exploring a region called "the clay-bearing unit."

A GIF released this week shows Curiosity as a gray speck as it traveled 1,106 feet (337 meters) from a location within the clay-bearing unit called "Woodland Bay" (top center) to "Sandside Harbour" (bottom center, near the dark sand patch) between May 31 and July 20, 2019.

Look carefully and you can even see the rover's tracks arcing to the right side of the second image.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the InSight, MRO and Curiosity missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of Caltech. The University of Arizona in Tucson operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. MRO was built by Lockheed Martin Space.

Soil on moon and Mars likely to support crops

Researchers at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands have produced crops in Mars and Moon soil simulant developed by NASA. The research supports the idea that it would not only be possible to grow food on Mars and the Moon to feed future settlers, but also to obtain viable seed from crops grown there. Wieger Wamelink and his colleagues at Wageningen University and Research, cultivated ten different crops: garden cress, rocket, tomato, radish, rye, quinoa, spinach, chives, peas and leek. The researchers simulated the properties of Lunar and Martian regolith and "normal" soil (potting soil from Earth) as a control. Nine of the ten crops sown grew well and edible parts were harvested from them. Spinach was the exception. Total biomass production per tray was the highest for the Earth control and Mars soil simulant that differed significantly from Moon soil simulant. The seeds produced by three species (radish, rye and garden cress) were tested successfully for germination. The article, "Crop growth and viability of seeds on Mars and Moon soil simulants", by Wieger Wamelink and colleagues has been published in De Gruyter's open access journal, Open Agriculture. "We were thrilled when we saw the first tomatoes ever grown on Mars soil simulant turning red. It meant that the next step towards a sustainable closed agricultural ecosystem had been taken," said Wieger Wamelink.

Aerojet Rocketdyne teams with NASA to develop novel rocket engine technology

Aerojet Rocketdyne has entered into a Space Act Agreement with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to design and manufacture a lightweight rocket engine thrust chamber assembly using innovative additive manufacturing processes and materials. The goal of the project is to reduce manufacturing costs and make a thrust chamber that is easily scalable to support a variety of missions, including America's return to the Moon and subsequent missions to explore Mars. Aerojet Rocketdyne will use a unique combination of 3D printing technologies - including solid state deposition and laser deposition - to enable rapid fabrication of complex components. The vertical integration of these robotic additive manufacturing techniques is expected to yield a scalable design that could be applied to propulsion systems ranging from small systems that would support a lunar lander, all the way up to large boosters that enable launch vehicles to escape Earth's gravity. "As we look to the future of space exploration, efficiency and scalability will be key, which is why we are excited to work with NASA on this innovative thrust chamber for rocket engines," said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. "The technology we develop will leverage the most advanced additive manufacturing techniques and materials to help provide efficient and safe transportation to and through space."

The effort is being facilitated by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate through its Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity (ACO) initiative, which aims to reduce the development cost of technologies and accelerate the infusion of emerging commercial capabilities into space missions.

NASA and SpaceX hope for manned mission to ISS in early 2020

SpaceX could launch US astronauts to the International Space Station as early as next year if tests on the company's long-delayed Crew Dragon capsule prove conclusive, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Thursday. Bridenstine made the announcement as he toured the California headquarters of billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX, a major contractor for NASA. The visit came as Bridenstine and Musk have been engaged in a public spat over the much-delayed building of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The capsule would provide the transportation for astronauts to the space station for the first time since America's space shuttle program ended in 2011. Musk, who appeared at a news conference alongside Bridenstine and the two astronauts who are set to fly on board the spacecraft, said he hoped to have the capsule delivered to NASA by the end of the year. He stressed, however, that safety was paramount and the launch would be delayed without hesitation if any problems arise. "If everything goes according to plan, it would be in the first quarter of next year," Bridenstine said of the launch. "But remember -- and this is the important thing that we have to get right on messaging -- there are still things that we can learn or could learn that could be challenging that we have to resolve. "I'm not saying that's going to happen, I don't know. That's why we test."

Some of the technical challenges SpaceX is working on include concerns about the parachutes and the propulsion system.

"It's a pretty arduous engineering job to get the parachutes right," Musk said.

"Parachutes, they look easy but they are definitely not easy," he added. "We want to get at least something on the order of 10 successful tests in a row before launching astronauts."

Since retiring its space shuttle program, NASA has had to rely on Russia to ferry astronauts to and from the space station at a cost of $85 million a seat. It is now counting on SpaceX and Boeing to carry out that task.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Musk to help reduce space transportation costs -- and with an ultimate goal of helping colonize Mars.

The first manned flight to the space station was due to take place last year but SpaceX suffered a major setback in April when its Crew Dragon spacecraft exploded during testing, prompting delays and renewed tests.

"You know, honestly, if there's a test program and nothing happens in that test program, I would say that test program is insufficiently rigorous," Musk said Thursday.

"Space is hard," he added.