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NASA Ames Astrogram – June 2019

The headshot image of Astrid Albaugh

Astrid Albaugh

Jun 26, 2019
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Contents

June 2019 issue of. Ames' newsletter, the Astrogram

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“Flying” a Lunar Lander, Right Here on Earth – Administrator Jim Bridenstine Visits Ames’ VMS

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wearing a headset stands at the controls in a cockpit mocked up like the Apollo Lunar Module.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine visited the Vertical Motion Simulator, where he experienced landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface, in a highly realistic simulation. This included a cockpit configured like the Apollo Lunar Module, motion simulating the way the vehicle would really move, realistic feeling in the controls and visual cues out the windows provided by computer-generated images.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

by Abigail Tabor

Before the next people set foot on the Moon, with a planned arrival in 2024, those astronauts will need to learn how to fly the spacecraft they’ll land on the surface. But how do you design controls for a vehicle, then train for a flight that literally can’t happen on Earth?

For cases where pilots should “fly” a vehicle before it can really be flown, you need NASA’s Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS). The VMS is the world’s largest motion flight simulator, moving within a ten-story tower at NASA Ames. On Friday, May 31, 2019, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine visited the VMS, where he experienced landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface, in a highly realistic simulation.

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Left to right: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo D-CA and Ames Center Director Eugene Tu at the Ames Vertical Motion Simulator where they each took turns flying the lunar lander simulation on May 31, 2019.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

For full story, see: LunarLanderVMS

What is the Vertical Motion Simulator?

by Abigail Tabor

When the next people to set foot on the Moon are selected, with a planned arrival in 2024, those astronauts will need to learn how to fly the spacecraft they’ll land on the surface. But how do you design controls for a vehicle, then train for a flight that literally can’t happen on Earth? With hardly any atmosphere and only one-sixth the gravity of Earth, the Moon will feel very different to a pilot behind the controls. For this, and many other cases where pilots should “fly” a vehicle before it can really be flown, you need NASA’s Vertical Motion Simulator.

The world’s largest motion flight simulator, the VMS moves within a ten-story tower at NASA Ames. For a given simulation, the VMS motion platform uses one of five interchangeable cabs, which can be configured to recreate the cockpit of any aerospace vehicle – whether it exists today or is being designed for the future.

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The Vertical Motion Simulator is the world’s largest motion flight simulator, moving within a ten-story tower at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The cab can move as much as 60 feet vertically and 40 feet horizontally as it simulates all phases of flight, including takeoff, cruise and landing. Flexibility in both hardware and software allows the VMS to simulate the flight of any aerospace vehicle.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

For full story, see: VMS

There and Back Again: How NASA’s Journey to the Moon Paved a Path Home

by Frank Tavares

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” When President John F. Kennedy declared this to Congress in May 1961, humans had barely brushed past the outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere.

Only a month earlier, the Soviet Union sent the first human to space, while America’s furthest foray at that time was Alan Shephard’s 15-minute flight that fell short of entering Earth’s orbit. Between that history-making speech and Neil Armstrong’s first step on the lunar surface in 1969 is the story of how NASA ensured our voyage to the Moon had a way to get back home.

An Apollo heatshield being tested, the tip heated up.
An Apollo capsule free flight ablation test for blunt body re-entry studies in August 1963.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dino Ponseggi

For full story, see: JourneytoMoon

Look, No Hands! NASA’s First Astrobee Robot “Bumble” Starts Flying in Space

On June 14, 2019, a robot named Bumble became the first Astrobee robot to fly under its own power in space. Astrobee is a free-flying robot system that will help researchers test new technologies in zero gravity and perform routine work alongside astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Robots that can operate on their own in space, such as Astrobee, can be caretakers for NASA’s lunar gateway and will play a significant part in NASA’s future missions to explore the Moon and Mars.

Astrobee flight test
NASA’s Astrobee robot, named Bumble, demonstrates a baby step of free flight by rotating in space. Astronaut David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency watches over while flight controllers at NASA Ames Research Center command Bumble. NASA astronaut Nick Hague photographs the occasion.
Credit: NASA

For full story, see: AstrobeeFirstFlight

Small Satellites Just Got Even Smaller with KickSat-2

by Frank Tavares

Revolutionary technology often comes in small packages. CubeSats – shoebox-size satellites – transformed what kind of science and computing we could accomplish in orbit around Earth and other planetary bodies. Now, one particular CubeSat project will usher in the next evolution of satellites. KickSat-2 is a project to demonstrate the viability of truly tiny satellites, called ChipSats or Sprites.

On March 18, 2019, more than 100 of these centimeter-scale spacecraft successfully deployed from the KickSat-2 satellite, with the first signals received the following day. The successful deployment of these Sprites demonstrates that this technology will soon be ready to carry future missions into Earth’s orbit and beyond at a much lower cost than ever before.

An artist's illustration of KickSat-2 deploying its Sprites in orbit around Earth.
An artist’s illustration of KickSat-2 deploying Sprites in orbit around Earth. Credits: Ben Bishop

For full story, see: KickSat-2

Tunguska Revisited: 111-Year-Old Mystery Impact Inspires New, More Optimistic Asteroid Predictions

by Kimberly Ennico Smith

Every single day, many tons of tiny rocks – smaller than pebbles – hit the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate. Between frequent shooting stars we wish on in the night sky and the massive extinction-level asteroids that we hope we never see, there is a middle ground of rocks sized to make it through the atmosphere and do serious damage to a limited area. Now, new research from NASA indicates that the impacts of these mid-size rocks may be less frequent than previously thought.

The research revealed that such relatively small but regionally devastating impacts happen on the order of millennia – not centuries, as previously thought. In addition, the new research has pushed forward our knowledge about the complex processes that determine how large rocks from space break up when entering Earth’s atmosphere.

This new research was inspired by a workshop held at NASA Ames and sponsored by the NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office. Their results are published in series of papers in a special issue of the journal Icarus. The theme of the workshop: reexamining the astronomical cold case of the 1908 Tunguska impact event.

Trees flattened by the intense shock wave created in the atmosphere as the space rock exploded above Tunguska on June 30, 1908.
Trees flattened by the intense shock wave created in the atmosphere as the space rock exploded above Tunguska on June 30, 1908. The photograph was taken by the Soviet Academy of Science 1929 expedition led by Leonid Kulik. 500,000 acres, the size of a large metropolitan city, were flattened. Flattening trees requires an immense shock wave. #WorldAsteroidDay is held every June 30 as a global awareness campaign where people around the world come together to share knowledge about asteroids and learn how to protect our planet.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

For full story, see: Tunguska

Solar Activity Forecast for Next Decade Favorable for Exploration

by Abigail Tabor

The last astronauts of the Apollo program were lucky. Not just because they were chosen to fly to the Moon, but because they missed some really bad weather en route. This wasn’t a hurricane or heat wave, but space weather – the term for radiation in the solar system, much of which is released by the Sun. In August 1972, right in between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions, a solar storm occurred sending out dangerous bursts of radiation. On Earth, we’re protected by our magnetic field, but out in space, this would have been hazardous for the astronauts.

The ability to forecast these kinds of events is increasingly important as NASA prepares to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon under the Artemis program. Research now underway may have found a reliable new method to predict this solar activity. The Sun’s activity rises and falls in an 11-year cycle. The forecast for the next solar cycle says it will be the weakest of the last 200 years. The maximum of this next cycle – measured in terms of sunspot number, a standard measure of solar activity level – could be 30 to 50 percent lower than the most recent one. The results show that the next cycle will start in 2020 and reach its maximum in 2025.

Marshall's 2016 Software of the Year, MAG4, forecasts large-scale solar weather phenomena, such as coronal mass ejections.
On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space. This coronal mass ejection — an immense cloud of magnetized particles — traveled at over 900 miles per second. The ability to forecast these kinds of events on the Sun is increasingly important as NASA prepares to send humans to the Moon under the Artemis program.
Credit: NASA

For full story, see: SolarActivityForecast

Magnetic Field May Be Keeping Milky Way’s Black Hole Quiet

by Kassandra Bell

Supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, and our Milky Way is no exception. But many other galaxies have highly active black holes, meaning a lot of material is falling into them, emitting high-energy radiation in this “feeding” process. The Milky Way’s central black hole, on the other hand, is relatively quiet. New observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, are helping scientists understand the differences between active and quiet black holes.

These results give unprecedented information about the strong magnetic field at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Scientists used SOFIA’s newest instrument, the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-Plus, HAWC+, to make these measurements

Streamlines showing magnetic fields layered over a color image of the dusty ring around the Milky Ways massive black hole.
Streamlines showing magnetic fields layered over a color image of the dusty ring around the Milky Way’s massive black hole. The Y-shaped structure is warm material falling toward the black hole, which is located near where the two arms of the Y-shape intersect. The streamlines reveal that the magnetic field closely follows the shape of the dusty structure. Each of the blue arms has its own field that is totally distinct from the rest of the ring, shown in pink.
Credit: Dust and magnetic fields: NASA/SOFIA; Star field image: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

For full story, see: MilkyWaysBlackHole

NASA’s Chief Scientist, James Green, Discusses the Artemis Program

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James Green, the Agency’s chief scientist, spoke at Ames on June 11, 2019, about, “The Future of Lunar Exploration: The Artemis Program.” This talk is one of the Office of the Chief Scientist’s 2019 NASA Ames Summer Series. NASA’s future plan is to go to the Moon to stay and then onto Mars. Scientifically there has been a number of stunning advances in lunar science over the last decade and a realization that going back to the Moon will provide scientists with the opportunity to accomplish transformational science in understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system. From a human exploration perspective, going to the Moon provides an opportunity to live and work on a planetary surface and using the Gateway space system will be the next important test-bed for a Mars transportation architecture. The talk discussed how the Moon provides a natural, yet challenging, environment for our next generation robotic and human explorers.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

Buffington Discusses Telling NASA’s Story During Brownbag Lunch Meeting

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The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 established three core functions for NASA. Plan, direct and conduct aeronautical space activities. Arrange for participation by the scientific community… Provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and results thereof. Matthew Buffington is directly involved with the Administrator’s most recent efforts to tell NASA’s story to the world. On June 20, 2019, discussed his experience as a diplomat and how those skills translated to telling Ames’ story and his current work on Artemis. Buffington is serving a detail assignment as the Strategic Communications Adviser for the Office of the Administrator at NASA Headquarters. He previously served as the Communications Director at NASA Ames.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

Simulations Give NASA Code Green Light for Space Launch System Testing

by Katharine Pitta

A team from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has for the first time successfully completed a series of proof-of-concept tests to accurately model and predict the complex environment around the mobile launcher during ignition. The mobile launcher, the ground structure used for Space Shuttle Program, will be used to assemble, process and launch the agency’s next-generation Space Launch System (SLS) for missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Using NASA Marshall’s workhorse computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow solver, Loci/CHEM and the agency’s powerful Pleiades supercomputer at NASA Ames, CFD experts were able to validate the solver’s accuracy using high-speed video and pressure data gathered from previous launches during the space shuttle era.

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This image is from simulations of the Ignition Overpressure and Sound Suppression (IOP/SS) water suppression system during the ignition of a solid rocket booster (SRB) atop NASA’s mobile launcher. Simulations using a NASA Marshall code run on Ames’ Pleiades supercomputer show the velocity magnitude along the center of the SRB (water shown in cyan). As the exhaust plume exits the SRB’s nozzle, water within the IOP/SS system dampens the pressure and vibration, reducing the impact and stress on the mobile launcher and vehicle.
Credit: Jared Gudenkauf, NASA Marshall

For full story, see: SimulationTesting

Astrobee Facility’s Current Status Discussed During Early Career Network Seminar

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On June 12, 2019, Aric Katterhagen (left) and Robert Carlino (right), engineers at Ames, presented, “Astrobee Free-Flying Robots: Integrated, Tested and Launched!” Two Astrobee free-flyers named Honey and Bumble, launched on April 17, 2019, to the International Space Station (ISS). Bumble has been initially checked out, and is undergoing further testing over the next months for autonomous operations inside the ISS; Honey will be checked out next. The third Astrobee unit, Queen, is scheduled to launch to the ISS on SpaceX-18 in July 2019. The primary purpose of the Astrobee system is to provide an autonomous research platform on free-flying robotics in the ISS microgravity environment. Once commissioned, the Astrobees will accommodate guest researchers interested in utilizing this unique platform by advancing state of the art guest science software and research payloads.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

SSERVI/SF Consulate Host Planetary Science Symposium

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On June 4, 2019, the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) held a planetary science symposium in conjunction with the San Francisco Consulate General of Italy. This was a celebration of the City of the Matera Italian Hub for Space Science and Technology and European Capital of Culture 2019. On the occasion of the ‘Italian Republic Day’ in San Francisco and in the framework of the consolidated Italian partnership with NASA-SSERVI, the Italian Consulate and NASA Ames gathered respective cultural and space communities to celebrate the unique city of Matera, fostered joint cultural and research activities and, ultimately, this will promote tighter Italian-American cooperation. Keynote speeches were given by distinguished Matera lecturers as well as local Ames Italian researchers. From left to right, top photo, Simone Dell’Agnello, SF Italian Consulate; Lorenzo Ortona, SF Italian Consul General; David Korsmeyer, NASA Ames; Greg Schmidt, SSERVI; and Kristina Gibbs, SSERVI, during the planetary science symposium. Lower photo, Lorenzo Ortona, SF Italian Consul General, presenting at the symposium.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart