Between the Poles

Falcon 9 launches satellite into geosynchronous orbit and successfully returns first stage to barge

A Falcon 9 rocket delivered a Japanese satellite into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and successfully returned its first stage to SpaceX's "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.  JCSAT-14 is a communications satellite owned by SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation.

Screen shot of the Falcon 9 first stage landing on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

This is the third successful return of a Falcon 9 first stage.  One was returned to hard ground, and two have returned successfully to an ocean barge.  This launch inserted its payload into a geosynchronous orbit which requires higher velocities than lower Earth orbits.

Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.  Falcon 9’s first stage has nine Merlin (named after the Rolls Royce engines used most famously in Spitfires ?) engines and can sustain the shutdown of up to two of these engines and still complete its mission.  The Falcon 9 first stage generates more than 7.6 million N (1.7 million pounds) of thrust at sea level.  It can deliver a payload of 22.8 tonnes to low Earth orbit (LEO), 8.3 tonnes to GTO, and an estimated 4 tonnes to Mars.  A key feature of the first stage is that it is designed to be able to fly itself back to Earth to a safe landing, so it is reusable.

Another distinguishing feature of the Falcon 9 is that it uses a pneumatic stage separation system  unlike the pyrotechnic systems used on most launch vehicles.  A major advantage of pneumatics is that it can be tested non-destructively.

Flowing water identified on Mars' surface

It is known that Mars has frozen water at its poles and water vapour in its atmosphere.  Today researchers associated with NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have identified flowing water on Mars' surface.

Imagery of Mars' surface shows dark streaks that reappear periodically on slopes.  These streaks, which appear and grow in the downslope direction during warm seasons when temperatures reach about 250–300 K, are called recurring slope lineae (RSL).  By analyzing spectral data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter researchers have found evidence for hydrated salts at four separate locations on Mars' surface.  They have found that the hydrated salts occur during warm seasons when RSLs are most extensive.  This supports the hypothesis that the RSLs represent flowing briny water.  The salts in the water prevent it from freezing at temperatures of 250–300 degrees K.

Source: Spectral evidence for hydrated salts in recurring slope lineae on Mars, Lujendra Ojha, Mary Beth Wilhelm,    Scott L. Murchie, Alfred S. McEwen, James J. Wray, Jennifer Hanley, Marion Massé & Matt Chojnacki, Nature Geoscience(2015) doi:10.1038/ngeo2546, Published online 28 September 2015.

 

Successful launch of NASA's new spacecraft Orion

Orion is now more than 3,000 miles above Earth after its launch on a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Florida this AM. Orion is not carrying people, but NASA wants to find out about how the spacecraft behaves in flight and what conditions it encounters in orbit and during re-entry.  Onboard sensors will gauge the heat shield, radiation levels and exact conditions as Orion flies two orbits around Earth that will take it through high radiation zones of the Van Allen belts and the high temperatures of re-entry through the atmosphere.  Orion is expected to splashdown in the Pacific at around 11:29 a.m. EST.

Rosetta probe landed on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

Today 12 November, a lander called Philae from ESA's Rosetta spacecraft made the first-ever landing on a comet, Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

This image of the comet 3 km away was taken by Philae before it landed.

Earth observation satellites monitoring Earth's ocean and remote locations every hour

Nanosatellites for Earth observation are very small, low cost satellites typically weighing kilograms and with volumes of a few liters.  NASA has a program called the CubeSat Launch initiative (CSLI) which provides opportunities for nanosatellites to fly inexpensively as auxiliary payloads on rockets supporting major missions.  NASA's CubeSats are cube-shaped satellites 10cm x 10cm x 10cm with a volume of about a liter and weighing about 1.3 kilograms.

Three startup satellite companies have already started putting nanosatellite constellations in space, that promise to provide much more frequent revisits per day than existing satellites can provide and at a much lower cost.

In April 2013 Planet Labs launched two demonstration satellites, “Dove 1” and “Dove 2”.  Planet Labs has already launched 72 cubesats and plans to launch a total 100 of the Earth observing satellites at an altitude of 400 km.  The satellites will provide frequent snapshots of the planet at a resolution of about 5 m, allowing users to track changes such as traffic jams, deforestation, construction progress in close to real time.

Skybox Imaging, acquired by Google, has launched the SkySat-1 and SkySat-2 satellites (each larger than nanosatellites at about 100 kg) which are intended to capture sub-meter imagery and HD-video of any spot on earth, multiple times per day to provide timely high-resolution imagery, HD video, and analytics.

Spire Global

In November 2013 two nanosatellites, NanoSatisfi's ArduSat 1 and ArduSat X, supported by Kickstarter crowdfunding were placed in orbit from the International Space Station .  NanoSatisfi has since been renamed.  Spire Global Inc, has launched 4 out of more than 50 planned remote sensing cubesats into orbit at altitudes of 500–600 km. Spire's remote sensing satellites range from cubesat 1U to 3U and are built with Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components wherever possible to lower costs. The spacecraft carry multiple sensors including RF sensors that are not restricted by clouds, haze and night.

Spire's business niche is 80 km from any coastline,  the three-quarters of the Earth that is either covered by water or considered remote and is not regularly monitored by today's remote-sensing satellites.  Spire plans to be able to collect data from any point on Earth every hour. 

Spire’s multi-sensor satellites provide a variety of data types such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) service for tracking ships, and weather payloads that measure temperature, pressure and precipitation. Spire plans for a 2 year refresh cycle on each satellite enabling a continual improvement in on-board technology .

Some of the applications Spire is targeting include;

• Illegal fishing - Monitoring illegal, under-reported and unregulated fishing.
• Trade monitoring - Virtually all global trade transits through areas of the planet otherwise ignored by traditional remote sensing. Spire can deliver reliable data on every ship in every ocean every hour.
• Marine domain awareness - Criminal activities such as illegal shipments and clandestine cargo exchange are some of the issues.

Other applications envisioned for the future include;

• Insurance - when ships collide determining what actually happened
• Environmental impact - in case of oil spills helping to determine who's liable
• Asset tracking - finding ships in distress faster
• Piracy - vessel tracking that cannot be disabled by pirates

Antares rocket failure slows Planet Labs' Earth observation cubesat deployment

28 Dove Cubesat satellites each weighing about 5 kilograms of Planet Labs' Flock 1 constellation began deploying in early February of this year from the ISS.  Planet Labs, San Francisco, California provides medium-resolution (3- to 5-meter) “whole Earth” imaging with high frequency revisits.  The constellation is designed to provide low spatial resolution and high temporal resolution.  According to Planet Labs the total constellation will be comprised of 100 Cubesat satellites. Up to 10 % of the satellites can fail without affecting the capability of the whole constellation.  To date Planet Labs has launched 71 Doves in 18 months on 6 launch vehicles. 

Last week the Antares rocket on a mission to the ISS failed. The rocket was carrying 26 Flock 1d satellites.  Because the individual Cubesat satellites are very inexpensive compared to a Worldview-3, for example, a launch failure is not catastrophic. Planet Labs' approach to further mitigate the risk of this type of failure is to deploy their fleets of satellites on multiple launch vehicles, from multiple vendors. Planet Labs also place more satellites in orbit than are required so that if satellites fail in orbit they can ensure constellation continuity.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission probe ready for Mars orbit insertion

Late breaking: The engine burn was successful and ISRO reports that the Mars Orbiter spacecraft is now in orbit about Mars.

Wednesday Sep 24 India's Mangalyaan or Mars Orbiter Mission probe is scheduled to fire its main engine and small thrusters to slow itself down to insert the probe into an elliptical orbit about Mars. The probe was launched aboard a PSLV-C25 rocket from SDSC SHAR Sriharikota November 5, 2013.  There is a simulation video of the Mars Orbit Insertion maneuver.  A live webcast of the real event will be broadcast starting Wed 06:45 am IST, Tue 9:15 pm EDT.

The scientific objective of the mission is the remote sensing exploration of Mars surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere using Indian-manufactured instruments.  One key goal is to try to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could be an indicator of biological activity.

Relaxing resolution restrictions on satellite imagery and leadership in the geospatial sector

Worldview-3 which will support 31 cm resolution is scheduled for launch in 2014.  November 6 the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee voted in favor of relaxing commercial satellite imagery resolution restrictions.

In a very interesting perspective on leadership in the geospatial sector Kevin Pomfret reports that the German government has abandoned hard resolution limits on satellite imagery and the French and Russian governments are being urged by local companies to reduce their restrictions on commercial satellite resolution limits to 25 centimeters.  Kevin notes that apparently some parts of the U.S. government are unwilling to agree to this reduction [to 25 cm] due to national security concerns even though there are manned aircraft and UAVs that can collect imagery at much better than 25 centimeters in many parts of the world.

Another issue is that commercial UAVs are still illegal in the U.S.

Kevin sees these issues as part of a much broader problem.   The vision and leadership that led to commercial remote sensing and Google Earth, the satellite navigation industry based on the U.S.’s Global Positioning System and development of a national spatial data infrastructure for sharing geoinformation between government agencies is now missing.  It is also a much more competiive world with many countries launching earth-observation satellites and developing UAVs and other earth-observation technologies. 

Kevin recommends that the U.S. government take some immediate steps to regain the momentum,

• Reduce resolution restrictions for commercial satellite imagery and update both the U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Policy and NOAA’s regulations on the licensing of commercial remote sensing
• Strengthen the technology, policy and legal framework and capacity required to support a robust and world-class national spatial data infrastructure that allows government, industry and citizens to seamlessly exchange geoinformation
• Take immediate measures to address the weather satellite gap, including actively engaging the private sector in a more meaningful way
• Hasten the FAA’s integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the civilian air space before an inconsistent patchwork of state laws hinder the clear and uniform approaches needed to safely drive this quickly emerging sector.

I would add that 4D satellite imagery (time + 2D/3D), near real-time satellite imagery and the sensor web are other areas that have the potential to be game-changers.

MAVEN Mars mission launched

NASA's MAVEN Mars mission has been successfully launched aboard an Atlas V by United Launch Alliance.  The Atlas V first stage uses a Russian-built RD-180 engine burning kerosene and liquid oxygen (the world's most powerful liquid fuel engine, based on the RD-170 designed and built by the Soviet Union) for its first stage and an American-built RL10 engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for its Centaur second stage. (The RL10 was the first liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be built in the United States with the first successful mission occurring in 1963.)

MAVEN has a 10 month trip to Mars.  The spacecraft has three sets of instruments. The Particles and Fields Package is six individual instruments that measure different aspects of  the solar wind and ionosphere of the planet. The Remote Sensing Package will measure properties of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer will measure the composition and isotopes of thermal neutrals (uncharged molecules) and ions in the Martian atmosphere.

It is thought that Mars had a thick atmosphere 4 billion years ago that was similar in composition to Earth’s atmosphere as well as liquid surface water. The current theory of what happened to these is that the molten metal at the core of Mars solidified.  Mars' magnetic field weakened dramatically so that the planet was no longer protected from solar winds.  Subsequently Mars lost its atmosphere and its liquid water leaving Mars a desert.  MAVEN's instruments are designed to measure the solar wind hitting Mars and the remnants of Mars' atmosphere to attempt to confirm or refute this theory.

Major commercial Earth observation merger announced

One of the things that has transformed and is transforming many industries is the availability of high resolution digital satellite photography.  This used to be a government preserve, primarily defence.   Commercial Earth observation started around 1996.  In the last decade the two companies that have played a leading role in the commercial application of satellite and other types of high resolution photography are Digital Globe and GeoEye, who have just announced that the boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved a merger agreement.

GeoEye

GeoEye is best known for GeoEye-1, claimed to be the world's highest resolution commercial earth-imaging satellite, launched September, 2008. GeoEye-1 is able to simultaneously acquire 0.41-meter panchromatic and 1.65-meter multispectral imagery.  GeoEye-2 is scheduled to be launched in early 2013.

Digital Globe

DigitalGlobe owns and operates a constellation of high-resolution commercial earth imaging satellites, QuickBird (November, 2000), WorldView-1 (September, 2007) and WorldView-2 (October, 2009).    WorldView-3 is expected to be launched in 2014.  Digital Globe also provides aerial wall-to-wall coverage at 30 cm resolution (Clear30) of the continental United States and Western Europe.