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Over the last few months, Universe Today has explored a plethora of scientific fields, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, and organic chemistry, and how these various disciplines help scientists and the public better understand our place in the cosmos.

Here, we will discuss the fascinating and mysterious field of black holes with Dr. Gaurav Khanna, who is a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Rhode Island, regarding the importance of studying black holes, the benefits and challenges, exciting aspects of studying black holes, and how upcoming students with to pursue studying black holes. So, what is the importance of studying black holes?

“Gravity is the oldest known, but the least understood force in nature,” Dr. Khanna tells Universe Today. “For students of gravity, black holes are amongst the most interesting objects to study because gravity is the dominant force there — in fact, it is infinitely strong! Then there are astrophysical reasons of interest in black holes. They play important roles in galaxies, perhaps even in the large-scale behavior of the universe and more. The other thing to note about black holes is that they are very ‘simple’ especially when compared to stars and other astrophysical objects. This is a consequence of the so-called ‘no hair’ theorem that states that black holes can be fully characterized by only 3 attributes — their mass, charge and spin. That simplicity makes them particularly appealing to study and research.”

Black holes are known for exhibiting gravity so strong that light can’t even escape, and while Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity in 1915 is often credited with first proposing the concept of black holes, the concept of an object whose size and gravity would not allow light to escape was first proposed in a November 1784 letter by English philosopher and clergyman, John Mitchell. In this letter, Mitchell referred to these objects as “dark stars” since he postulated that stars whose diameters exceeded 500 times that of our Sun’s diameter would trigger the formation of these objects. Additionally, he suggested that gravitational waves influencing nearby celestial bodies would enable these objects to be detected.

Fast forward to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which also predicted both the existence of black holes and gravitational waves, both of which continued to be scrutinized throughout the 20th century, which includes what’s called the “golden age of general relativity” during the 1960s and 1970s. This includes the first object accepted by the scientific community as a black hole, called Cygnus X-1, which was discovered in 1964. However, it took another 52 years for the existence of gravitational waves to be confirmed through a black hole merger, which was accomplished by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. Therefore, given the extensive history combined with key discoveries only occurring within the last few years, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying black holes?

Dr. Khanna tells Universe Today, “As I stated above, studying black holes, which are a consequence of Einstein’s relativity theory, offers insight on the nature of gravity, space and time at the most fundamental levels. As physicists, we are yet to develop a complete understanding of the quantum nature of gravity, and black holes are the key to unlocking that mystery. On the challenges, I’d say that the clearest one perhaps is that black holes can only be observed indirectly. Unlike stars, since they don’t emit radiation themselves, it is difficult for astronomers to collect data on them. At best, we can observe their influence on their environment (like gas, stars, etc.) and infer their properties and behavior. On the theoretical side, while it is indeed true that black holes are very “simple” compared to stars, there are still challenges. The mathematics and physics that describe them is fairly advanced and even computer simulations involving them are challenging requiring massive processing power and memory.”

While it took over 100 years between Einstein introducing his theory of general relativity in 1915 and the confirmation of gravitational waves in 2016, it only took another three years for astronomers to publish the first direct image of a black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy. The results were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and based on observations taken in 2017 by the powerful Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). While Messier 87 is located approximately 53 million light-years from Earth, the closest hypothesized black hole, Gaia BH1, is located approximately 1,560 light-years from Earth. In 2022, astronomers published a direct image of Sagittarius A*, which is the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Additionally, scientists hypothesize the number of black holes in our Milky Way Galaxy is in the hundreds of millions, despite only a few dozen known black holes having been confirmed, thus far. But what are the most exciting aspects about black holes that Dr. Khanna has studied during his career?

Dr. Khanna tells Universe Today, “I suppose I’d probably refer to my recent work on how very rapidly rotating black holes attempt to ‘grow hair’ but ultimately fail. The project is interesting because it appears to suggest a violation of the ‘no hair’ theorem that I mentioned earlier, but it ultimately doesn’t. So, it is provocative, but then relieving! More importantly, we are now using the main context of that research to develop a new observational ‘signature’ or test for rapidly rotating black holes, a.k.a. near-extremal black holes. Such black holes have several peculiar properties and aspects and are an area of active research.”

Black holes are studied by astronomers, physicists, and astrophysicists, who use a combination of theory and observations to construct what black holes might look like, and in rare cases, as discussed, obtain direct images of them. Regarding theory, researchers use mathematical calculations and computer models to simulate what black holes might look like, and then have used powerful ground-based telescopes like EHT to obtain the few direct images of black holes. It is important to note that these direct images don’t capture the black hole itself, but the gases that are encircling the black hole’s event horizon, or the unofficial boundary where light can’t escape the black hole. But what advice can Dr. Khanna offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying black holes?

Dr. Khanna tells Universe Today, “I would offer them a lot of encouragement! There is a lot to do in this space and many mysteries to solve. New observations are going to open many new doors and brand-new avenues for research. This is amongst the best times to be a black hole astrophysicist!”

Dr. Khanna continues, “The one thing that I could say perhaps that isn’t as much emphasized elsewhere is about computing as a tool to study black holes. Mostly there is heavy emphasis on learning advanced mathematics as the background for serious research in black holes — and for good reason — that continues to be critical for every student of Einstein’s relativity theory which is the foundation for black hole physics.  In recent years, computer simulations have advanced rapidly, and one can now make major discoveries about deep questions using computational tools. In the long run, computer programming would be a very promising tool for advancing research in this field and many others as well.”

How will black holes help us better understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Black Holes: Why study them? What makes them so fascinating? appeared first on Universe Today.

Dyson Spheres have been a tantalising digression in the hunt for alien intelligence. Just recently seven stars have been identified as potential candidates with most of their radiation given off in the infrared wavelengths. Potentially this is the signature of heat from a matrix of spacecraft around the star but alas, a new paper has another slightly less exciting explanation; dust obscured galaxies. 

There are a number of ways to hunt for aliens and one of them is to look for signs of large scale projects in space. Enter the Dyson Sphere. The idea was first proposed by Freeman Dyson in 1960 to describe that an advanced civilisations would position power collectors and even habitats around a star to harness its power. Eventually such infrastructure would likely surround the entire star and Dyson reasoned that a signature would be detectable such as an excess of infrared radiation. 

A Type II civilization is one that can directly harvest the energy of its star using a Dyson Sphere or something similar. Credit: Fraser Cain (with Midjourney)

The findings of Project Hephaistos revealed the seven M type stars from a sample of 5 million stars detected by Gaia. The astrometric satellite has been used to map stars in the Milky Way and has been of profound benefit to many pieces of research. Data from 2MASS (the Two Micron All Sky Survey) and WISE (the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer) were also used to identify the stars that seemed to display the expected Infrared excess. 

Artist’s impression of the Gaia spacecraft detecting artificial signals from a distant star system. In this synchronization scheme, the star system’s inhabitants send the signal shortly after witnessing a supernova, which is also seen by telescopes on Earth. (Credit: Danielle Futselaar / Breakthrough Listen)

In the recent paper by lead author Tongtian Ren and team, they explore the findings of the project and delve into the possible nature of the candidate spheres. The team cross-matched the information from data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) and several other radio surveys of the sky. They searched for radio sources within a radius of 10 arc seconds of the Gaia positions of the candidates. Note that the full Moon is 1,860 arc seconds across. 

Radio sources were found for three of the candidates, those named A, B and G. The accuracy of the sources was within 4.9, 0.4 and 5 arc seconds respectively and candidate G was found in multiple radio surveys. The conclusion from the team is that the seven stars are less likely to be Dyson Spheres but instead some sort of extra galactic phenomenon. The most likely explanation is a distant galaxy obscured by dust! The presence of the dust would contaminate the Infrared energy distribution in the spectra of the two objects. The other candidate, candidate B is also thought to be a distant galaxy but one that was within very close line of sight of an M type dwarf star. 

Very similar to candidates A and B, candidate G has a spectrum that reveals a radio loud active galactic nuclei with superluminal jets extending out. It is likely that galaxies are distant quasars which emit enormous amounts of radiation, but the obscuring hot dust clouds obscure most radiation, except infrared. 

What of the other four candidates? To date, no matching radio source has been found. That does not mean the hot, dust obscured galaxy model is not an adequate explanation but just that possible higher resolution radio surveys are required. Of course it may also be that they really are spheres of technology around distant stars. As much as I would love that to be true, there is no evidence for this yet. 

Source : Background Contamination of the Project Hephaistos Dyson Spheres Candidates

The post There’s Another, More Boring Explanation for those Dyson Sphere Candidate Stars appeared first on Universe Today.

Primordial black holes born from density fluctuations dating back to the Big Bang have been frustratingly elusive, but a new quantum clue has been discovered.

The lifecycle of a star is regularly articulated as formation taking place inside vast clouds of gas and dust and then ending either as a planetary nebula or supernova explosion. In the last 70 years however, there seems to be a number of massive stars that are just disappearing! According to stellar evolution models, they should be exploding as supernova but instead, they just seem to vanish. A team of researchers have studied the behaviour of star VFTS 243 – a main sequence star with a black hole companion – and now believe it, like the others, have just collapsed, imploding into a black hole!

During the life of a star, the inward pulling force of gravity is balanced by the outward pushing thermonuclear force (the result of fusion in the core.) Once the core is rich in iron, as happens with massive stars about 8 times more massive than the Sun, the fusion process ceases as does the thermonuclear force. With the cessation of the force, the core collapses, the outer layers collapse in on the core and bounce back out as a massive explosion known as a supernova. The actual mechanism of the explosion and the formation of the compact object that is left behind from the core is still the subject of a lot of debate. 

The supernova process is one of the most powerful explosions in the universe. As the star collapses, a shockwave is produced that can create fusion in the outer shell of the progenitor star. The reactions can create new elements heavier than iron. In a paper recently published by an international team of astronomers led by Alejandro Vigna-Gómez from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany the team shed new light on the process. They showed that it is possible for a star to be so massive that its gargantuan force of gravity can be strong enough that even the supernova explosion is not able to take place.

The Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory’s 48-inch telescope captured this visible-light image of the Pinwheel galaxy (Messier 101) in June 2023. The location of supernova 2023ixf is circled. The observatory, located on Mount Hopkins in Arizona, is operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Hiramatsu et al. 2023/Sebastian Gomez (STScI)

The team’s discovery seems to be linked to the concept of disappearing stars. Over the last few years, it has become evident that some stars seem to just vanish from view, neither passing through the planetary nebula phase nor going supernova. The discovery of supermassive stars undergoing complete collapse without supernova now provides a good explanation for the phenomenon. 

The team reached their conclusion when they explored an object known as VFTS 243; a binary system which includes a star thought to be 25 times more massive than the Sun and a blackhole 10 times more massive than the Sun. Both objects orbit a common centre of gravity over a period of 10.4 days and lie in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud – 160,000 light years away. The binary system is not the first of its kind to be discovered, such systems have been known about for decades. 

30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, is a region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Streamlines show the magnetic field morphology from SOFIA HAWC+ polarization maps. These are superimposed on a composite image captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy. Credit: Background: ESO, M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit. Streamlines: NASA/SOFIA

Studying the system revealed the orbit was almost circular. Given that one of the stars had collapsed into a black hole, the nearly circular orbit and the lack of any evidence of an explosion all point to a star that collapsed completely. The complete collapse meant that all matter from the star collapsed into the blackhole and no material escaped out as a supernova. Could it be then that the team have finally revealed the mechanism by which massive stars have been vanishing? It certainly looks like it but further observations of binary systems with stars and black holes is required to confirm. 

Source : Constraints on Neutrino Natal Kicks from Black-Hole Binary VFTS 243

The post Hundreds of Massive Stars Have Simply Disappeared appeared first on Universe Today.

Human visitors to Mars need somewhere to shelter from the radiation, temperature swings, and dust storms that plague the planet. If the planet is anything like Earth or the Moon, it may have large underground lava tubes that could house shelters. Collapsed sections of lava tubes, called skylights, could provide access to these subterranean refuges.

Does this hole on Mars lead to a larger underground cavern?

This image was captured by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The pit is only a few meters across and is in the Arsia Mons region of Mars. Arsia Mons is one of the three dormant volcanos in the Tharsis Montes group of three volcanos.

This colourized image of the surface of Mars was created with data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The line of three volcanoes is Tharsis Montes, with Olympus Mons to the northwest and Valles Marineris to the east. Arsia Mons is the southernmost volcano of the three that comprise Tharsis Montes. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Arizona State University

The Tharsis Region of Tharsis Bulge is a vast volcanic plain that’s thousands of kilometres across. It’s elevated compared to the rest of Mars and averages about 10km (33,000 ft) above the planet’s mean elevation. The region was volcanically active in the past, obviously, and features like the pit are a direct result of ancient volcanic activity.

Several pits in the Arsia Mons region may be collapsed skylights or openings into subterranean lava tubes. However, there is much uncertainty. An image of one of them shows an illuminated sidewall, which could indicate that it’s just a cylindrical pit.

These images of a pit near Arsia Mons were captured several years ago. The image on the left was captured first, and scientists wondered if it could lead to a lava tube or cave. Then, the image on the right, showing a side wall, was captured. The side wall could indicate that there’s no tube or cave. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The hole in the featured image could be only a pit or shaft and not an entrance to a cave or lava tube. They’re found on Hawaiian volcanos, where they’re called pit craters. They don’t connect to long caves or lava tubes. They’re the result of a collapse that happened much deeper underground.

These four sequential images show how pit craters form. As volcanos erupt and settle, cracks form. They slowly migrate upwards, and rocks above them start to fall into them. Eventually, the upward migrating crack reaches the surface, and the roof caves in. On Earth, plants will eventually colonize the crater. On Mars, they stay much the same as when they collapsed. Image Credit: US National Park Service.

In Hawaii, the pit craters range from 6 to 186 m (20 to 610 feet) deep and from 8 to 1140 m (26 to 3,740 feet) wide. The Arsia Mons pit in the leading image is only about 178 m (584 feet) deep.

We have a much better understanding of lava pits and tubes on the Moon than we do on Mars. We know some of them are thermally stable at about 17 C (63 F.) We also have better images of them, with intriguing glimpses of boulder-covered floors.

Spectacular high Sun view of the Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater revealing boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. The 100-meter pit may provide access to a lunar lava tube. Image Credit: By NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13518, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54853313

Lots of thinking is going into how to explore these lunar caves and lava tubes, including conceptual designs for robots that could explore them. Maybe on the Moon, astronauts could take shelter in inflatable habitats inside these tubes, where they’re protected from temperature swings, radiation, and micrometeorites.

But Mars is another question. There’s no reason that lava tubes shouldn’t exist on Mars. In fact, Mars’ gravity is much weaker than Earth’s, and that should allow for much larger tubes. Images of Mars show rilles, which are collapsed tubes. It seems likely that not all of these tubes have collapsed to form rilles.

One pit on the Martian volcano, Pavis Mons, is particularly intriguing. There’s some kind of void under the pit, but the nature of the pit is difficult to ascertain. Is it a lava tube? If it is, it dwarfs most tubes on Earth.

Martian lava tubes are still a mystery. Scientists have found plenty of morphological evidence suggesting that they’re plentiful. But in science, you can’t assume they’re there, even though it seems likely that they are. There’s no clear reason why they wouldn’t be. Could they one day provide shelter for astronauts? Maybe.

We need a robotic mission to explore them first.

The post What’s Under This Hole on the Surface of Mars? appeared first on Universe Today.

How does spaceflight affect tumor-bearing fruit fly hosts and their parasites? Pigmentation: A side-by-side comparison of wasps shows a clear difference in the melanization of wing veins for wild-type and each mutant.
Blade Shape: The kona mutant has an angular wing shape in contrast to wild-type’s rounded wing blade (vertical arrows in D–F).S. Govind.

Background: Like humans, fruit flies (a model organism for spaceflight research) also exhibit immune system dysfunction in space. Despite decades of studies on fruit flies and wasps, little was known about how their immune systems interact with natural parasites in space. Drosophila parasitoid wasps modify blood cell function to suppress host immunity. In this spaceflight study (the Fruit Fly-03 Lab flown to the ISS on SpaceX-14), naive and parasitized ground and space flies from a tumor-free control and a blood tumor-bearing mutant strain were examined.

Main Findings: Surprisingly, the flies without tumors were more sensitive to space than the flies with tumors. Spaceflight increased immune gene activity and made tumors grow more in the flies. The wasps remained harmful in space, but some developed inheritable physical changes. These changes included “aurum” (altered wing color and veins) and “kona” (altered wing shape). Female wasps with two copies of the “kona” mutation could not lay eggs because of defective egg-laying organs.

Ovipositors from wild-type and mutant wasps.
Homozygous kona females with defective ovipositors (used for egg laying) how areas of compromised integrity or have branched ends (arrows) compared to the continuous ovipositors with sharp ends from wild-type control wasps.S. Govind

Impact: This study will Improve our knowledge of how parasites and hosts interact. The results show that we need to study more types of organisms, including plants and their natural parasites, in space. This will help us learn more about how hosts defend themselves and how dangerous parasites can be in space, which is important for astronaut health. Gene expression data from fruit flies (OSD-588) and two types of wasps (OSD-609 & OSD-610) are publicly available on NASA’s Open Science Data Repository. This data is available for anyone to use and compare with other spaceflight studies.

Reference: Chou, J., Ramroop, J.,  Saravia-Butler, A., Wey, B., Lera, M., Torres, M., Heavner, M., Iyer, J., Mhatre, S,. Bhattacharya, S., Govind, S. Drosophila parasitoids go to space: Unexpected effects of spaceflight on hosts and their parasitoids. iScience, Volume 27, Issue 1, 2024, 108759, ISSN 2589-0042, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.108759

The first-ever astronaut launch of Boeing's Starliner capsule, known as Crew Flight Test, is "go" for its planned June 1 launch, NASA announced today (May 29).

SpaceX fueled up its Starship rocket again on Tuesday (May 28), continuing preparations for the giant vehicle's upcoming test flight.

Russia launched the robotic Progress 88 freighter toward the International Space Station early on Thursday (May 30).

25 Min Read The Marshall Star for May 29, 2024 More to Marshall: Center Leadership Provides Updates During Spring All-Hands Meeting

By Wayne Smith

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will celebrate its 65th birthday next summer, and while there are plans to honor the center’s rich history, there is also More to Marshall ahead.

Team members at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center listen to Center Director Joseph Pelfrey, background center, share updates on culture and strategy during the spring all-hands meeting May 20 in Activities Building 4316. NASA/Danielle Burleson

That was part of the message Center Director Joseph Pelfrey delivered during the spring all-hands meeting May 20 in Activities Building 4316. He highlighted Marshall’s transformative shift to more strategic partnerships across NASA and with industry, with the center continuing to serve as a technical solutions provider.

“More to Marshall is a systematic approach that will reinforce our center’s strategy and our role in space exploration,” Pelfrey said. “We align this vision with the core values of our Marshall fabric. We are not replacing our roots; we are fostering them to grow stronger and reach farther.”

Pelfrey also discussed the center’s evolving culture, highlighting April outreach activities, including the Total Solar Eclipse event in Russellville, Arkansas, First Robotics, Student Launch, and the Human Exploration Rover Challenge.

Marshall Deputy Director Rae Ann Meyer, second from right, responds to an audience question during a question-and-answer panel the May 20 all-hands meeting. At left, Lance D. Davis, Marshall’s public affairs and news chief, moderates the panel, while Pelfrey, center left, and Larry Leopard, Marshall’s associate director, technical, far right, listen in.NASA/Danielle Burleson

“These events emulate the Marshall culture,” Pelfrey said. “I am proud of the impact you have on the community, the Artemis Generation, and across the globe.”

New Deputy Director Rae Ann Meyer followed Pelfrey’s opening remarks, focusing on the center’s newest culture initiatives. Meyer also invited Trace Turner, management assistant in the Office of the Director, to highlight the efforts of three Center Action Teams leading the charge on Marshall’s culture initiatives. Team leaders Rocio Garcia, Benjamin Ferrell, and Mason Quick each shared more about their respective team’s projects, including the development of a user-friendly app that will share information on Marshall, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, Redstone Arsenal, and the community.

Larry Leopard, Marshall’s associate director, technical, provided an update on the center’s efforts to address knowledge management concerns, starting with events like Meals with Mentors, Center Strategy Brown Bags and Tech Talk presentations, and after-action reviews.

Center Action Team leader Rocio Garcia shares plans to develop a user-friendly app for Marshall team members and the public, which will serve as a one-stop shop for information on Marshall, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, Redstone Arsenal, and the community.NASA/Danielle Burleson

Finally, before Marshall leadership participated in a question-and-answer panel, Pelfrey shared updates on center strategy, infrastructure, NASA’s budget, and NASA 2040.

“We will build on the success of our center strategy,” Pelfrey said. “We will continue to implement and mature our pursuits culture, always seeking challenging and exciting opportunities, using our skills, expertise, capabilities, and infrastructure while continuing to build partnerships with industry and academia. Marshall has a tremendous role in returning humans to the Moon, reaching Mars, and exploring the cosmos.”

Team members can watch a recording of the all-hands meeting on Inside Marshall.

Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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Les Johnson Named Center Chief Technologist at Marshall

Les Johnson has been named center chief technologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, effective June 2.

Johnson will provide expert advice on technology initiatives to center leadership and to Marshall team members. He will lead the Marshall team on matters involving center-wide technology development. Johnson also will represent Marshall on NASA’s Center Technology Council and serves as the center’s focal point for Center Innovation Fund activities.

Les Johnson has been named center chief technologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA

He has been a principal technologist for several of NASA’s advanced in-propulsion and power technology developments during his 33-year career at Marshall. Johnson served as the principal investigator of the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System (ProSEDS) tether propulsion project and Near-Earth Asteroid Scout solar sail mission. He was a co-investigator (Co-I) of the JAXA T-Rex tether propulsion demonstration, the European Union’s InflateSail, and NASA’s Lightweight Integrated Solar Array and anTenna (LISA-T) missions, as well as a Co-I on multiple NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) studies.

Johnson began his NASA career in 1990 working in the Program Development Directorate formulating new space science mission concepts. Shortly thereafter, he became the manager for NASA’s Interstellar Propulsion Technology Project that transitioned into the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program, which he managed on behalf of the Office of Space Science. He then served as the formulation manager for the Nuclear Systems Initiative, which became Project JIMO. Johnson served as deputy manager and technical assistant for the Advanced Concepts Office, before being selected to lead the development of the Solar Cruiser solar sail propulsion system in the Science and Technology Office.

Prior to NASA, he worked three years for General Research Corp. on directed energy systems in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Johnson holds three patents. His awards include NASA’s Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal, NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal (twice), Marshall’s Technology Transfer and Innovation Awards, and he has been a Rotary Stellar Award finalist two times. As an outside activity, he is also an award-winning author.

A native of Ashland, Kentucky, Johnson earned his bachelor’s degree from Transylvania University and his master’s degree from Vanderbilt University.

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Take 5 with Jose Matienzo

By Wayne Smith

Growing up in the small village of Luquillo, Puerto Rico, Jose Matienzo would fly paper airplanes and launch model rockets from atop the building he lived in with his family.

“I knew then that I wanted to be some sort of engineer, I just didn’t know what it was called,” Matienzo said. “I never imagined that I actually would work for NASA, but I thought I could design cars or planes. I liked drawing them.”

Jose Matienzo began his NASA career in 1983 at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center.Photo courtesy of Jose Matienzo

Flash forward more than five decades later. Matienzo is in his 42nd year working with NASA and the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center as he nears retirement in December. Center team members will remember him as manager of the Marshall Exchange for the past 12 years, enjoying his witty daily email from the Exchange.

“Literally every day was fun trying to make life better for our team members,” Matienzo said of his team with the Exchange. “That includes bringing the food truck court, being able to have employee clothing of all styles and types, creating new clubs, and expanding facilities.”

He is currently assigned to a position with NASA’s Source Evaluation Board.

As he approaches retirement, Matienzo still finds it difficult to fathom his many milestones working with NASA and Marshall, where he began his career in 1983 as a co-op student in the structural dynamics division and worked on the Space Shuttle Program for 12 years. Matienzo followed that with a year at NASA Headquarters before returning to Marshall as lead engineer on several projects related to the International Space Station, such as the space station element transportation system.

His other assignments have included managing the NASA office at the Naval Research Center; the Marshall lead for supporting the Launch Services Program, including the office at the United Launch Alliance rocket plant in Decatur; technical assistant for former Marshall Director Robert Lightfoot; and more. 

“There have been so many memories over the years,” Matienzo said. “Six months after becoming a full-time employee, the Challenger accident happened. At the time I had no idea what the possible impact of that accident would be. We all had a little part on returning to flight, so watching the first launch afterwards was a fantastic moment.

“We delivered space station hardware in partnership with the Italians and the European Space Agency, helped train the astronauts who performed the Hubble Telescope repair, and most recently, we made improvements to the Exchange services to make life at work better for our employees.”

Question: What excites you most about the future of human space exploration, or your NASA work, and your team’s role it?

Matienzo: I’ve been here for a long time and our future missions and goals have changed over the years. But no matter what, there’s always been excitement about meeting the agency’s goals and Marshall’s role in providing space transportation, lunar landers, and even Mars sample return vehicles. That and all of the support and testing work that comes with it is fun! 

Question: Who or what drives/motivates you?

Matienzo: I’ve been lucky that my job assignments have always been fun and self-motivating, but certainly dealing and coordinating with colleagues in accomplishing a mutual goal, test, or assignment is very rewarding.

Question: What advice do you have for employees early in their NASA career or those in new leadership roles?

Matienzo: Network! As you get to know others and learn what they do, you will find out how everything comes together at NASA and where other opportunities may be out there for you. For our leaders: keep encouraging, mentoring, and creating opportunities for the employees to experience, learn, and grow.

Question: What do you enjoy doing with your time while away from work?

Matienzo: My kids are older now so keeping in touch is fun. But I do have grandkids to play with. Otherwise, I play congas with my bandmates, love to do social dancing, play lots of pickleball, and enjoy mountain and road bike riding.

Question: What plans do you have for retirement?

Matienzo: I want to move closer to the beach. I love Huntsville, so I want to keep a presence here. I also plan to bike all over the USA!

Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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Marshall Team Supports Safe Travels for Space Station Science

By Jessica Barnett 

During the International Space Station’s more than 25 years of operation, there have been more than 3,000 experiments conducted aboard the microgravity laboratory, and making sure scientific samples are kept safe through launch, spaceflight, experimentation, and the return trip to Earth takes a great deal of planning, testing, and preparation across NASA.

In February, team members at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center handled the de-integration of zinc selenide-based crystals grown on the space station as part of an experiment to study how a lack of gravity might affect the crystals’ growth and structure. The experiment was conducted using six sample cartridge assemblies heated up to 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,192 degrees Fahrenheit) inside the Materials Science Laboratory of the Materials Science Research Rack on the space station.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s payload technician Chris Honea, left, and quality assurance specialist Keith Brandon, right, on Feb. 29 carefully inspect the temperature sensors that help gather data and monitor progress during a crystals experiment. The zinc selenide-based crystals were grown on the International Space Station as part of an experiment to see how gravity affects their structure or growth, then de-integrated and inspected in Marshall’s Space Systems Integration & Test Facility.NASA

John Luke Bili, lead systems test engineer for the sample cartridge assemblies within Marshall’s Instrument Development, Integration, and Test Branch, begins the process by working with engineers, scientists, project personnel, and the experiment’s principal investigator to create an ampoule, or sealed glass vial, to use as a sample container.

“We’ll take the ampoule and do some ground testing, like a normal flight integration,” Bili said. “We’ll assemble it with the hardware we have, then we are responsible for completing different mitigation efforts to prepare for sealing the ampoule up and processing it at the required high temperatures.”

The team exposes the test article to extreme heat and pressure using a duplicate of the furnace on the space station, allowing them to also test the experiment’s software.

The zinc selenide-based crystal experiment required six sample cartridge assemblies. After a month of preparation from Marshall’s team, the assemblies traveled to NASA’s Johnson Space Center for a final round of packing before arriving at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center for launch.

The assemblies launched on NASA’s SpaceX 24th commercial resupply services mission in December 2021 and NASA’s Northrop Grumman 19th commercial resupply services mission in August 2023. Each sample took about a week to process through the space station’s lab furnace. The samples were then brought back to Earth, with three of the six arriving at Marshall on Feb. 9.

An ampoule containing zinc selenide-based crystals rests on a table in Marshall Space Flight Center’s Space Systems Integration & Test Facility. The ampoule was part of the sixth sample cartridge assembly retrieved from the International Space Station as part of an experiment to see how gravity affects the crystals’ structure or growth.NASA

While unpacking the crystal samples, team members took photos and notes of the tubes throughout the de-integration process in Marshall’s Space Systems Integration & Test Facility. The team includes technicians with 20 to 30 years of experience, ensuring samples safely travel to and from the station and helping expand access for researchers to explore microgravity, space exposure, and future missions in low Earth orbit.

“It’s really nice having that kind of experience when we’re working on the hardware that’s going in space,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of people that are very skilled machinists that are able to help us in a moment’s notice, we have people with a really good understanding of technical tolerances and stuff like that, and we have people with a lot of varying experience doing flight hardware integration and tests.”

For more than two decades, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit.

Learn more about the space station.

Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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Spotted: ‘Death Star’ Black Holes in Action

A team of astronomers have studied 16 supermassive black holes that are firing powerful beams into space, to track where these beams, or jets, are pointing now and where they were aimed in the past, as reported in a press release. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Radio Astronomical Observatory’s (NRAO) Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA), they found that some of the beams have changed directions by large amounts.

These two Chandra images show hot gas in the middle of the galaxy cluster Abell 478, left, and the galaxy group NGC 5044, right.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bologna/F. Ubertosi; Insets Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLBA; Wide field Image: Optical/IR: Univ. of Hawaii/Pan-STARRS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

These two Chandra images show hot gas in the middle of the galaxy cluster Abell 478 (left) and the galaxy group NGC 5044 (right). The center of each image contains one of the sixteen black holes firing beams outwards. Each black hole is in the center of a galaxy embedded in the hot gas.

In the images below, labels and the radio images appear. Ellipses show a pair of cavities in the hot gas for Abell 478, left, and ellipses show two pairs of cavities for NGC 5044, right. These cavities were carved out by the beams millions of years ago, giving the directions of the beams in the past. An X shows the location of each supermassive black hole.

The VLBA images are shown as insets, which reveal where the beams are currently pointing, as seen from Earth. The radio images are both much smaller than the X-ray images. For Abell 478 the radio image is about 3% of the width of the Chandra image and for NGC 5044 the radio image is about 4% of the Chandra image’s width.

A labeled version of the image.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bologna/F. Ubertosi; Insets Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLBA; Wide field Image: Optical/IR: Univ. of Hawaii/Pan-STARRS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

A comparison between the Chandra and VLBA images shows that the beams for Abell 478 changed direction by about 35 degrees and the beams for NGC 5044 changed direction by about 70 degrees.

Across the entire sample the researchers found that about a third of the 16 galaxies have beams that are pointing in completely different directions than they were before. Some have changed directions by nearly 90 degrees in some cases, and over timescales between one million years and a few tens of millions of years. Given that the black holes are of the order of 10 billion years old, this represents a relatively rapid change for these galaxies.

Black holes generate beams when material falls onto them via a spinning disk of matter and some of it then gets redirected outward. The direction of the beams from each of these giant black holes, which are likely spinning, is thought to align with the rotation axis of the black hole, meaning that the beams point along a line connecting the poles.

These beams are thought to be perpendicular to the disk. If material falls towards the black holes at a different angle that is not parallel to the disk, it could affect the direction of the black hole’s rotation axes, changing the direction of the beams.

Wide field views of Abell 478, left, and NGC 5044, right.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bologna/F. Ubertosi et al.; Optical/IR: Univ. of Hawaii/Pan-STARRS; IR: NASA/ESA/JPL/CalTech/Herschel Space Telescope

Scientists think that beams from black holes and the cavities they carve out play an important role in how many stars form in their galaxies. The beams pump energy into the hot gas in and around the galaxy, preventing it from cooling down enough to form huge numbers of new stars. If the beams change directions by large amounts, they can tamp down star formation across much larger areas of the galaxy.

The paper describing these results was published in the January 20th, 2024 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, and is available here. The authors are Francesco Ubertosi (University of Bologna in Italy), Gerritt Schellenberger (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Ewan O’Sullivan (CfA), Jan Vrtilek (CfA), Simona Giacintucci (Naval Research Laboratory), Laurence David (CfA), William Forman (CfA), Myriam Gitti (University of Bologna), Tiziana Venturi (National Institute of Astrophysics—Institute of Radio Astronomy in Italy), Christine Jones (CfA), and Fabrizio Brighenti (University of Bologna).

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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NASA, IBM Research to Release New AI Model for Weather, Climate

By Jessica Barnett

Working together, NASA and IBM Research have developed a new artificial intelligence model to support a variety of weather and climate applications. The new model – known as the Prithvi-weather-climate foundational model – uses artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that could vastly improve the resolution we’ll be able to get, opening the door to better regional and local weather and climate models.  

Foundational models are large-scale, base models which are trained on large, unlabeled datasets and can be fine-tuned for a variety of applications. The Prithvi-weather-climate model is trained on a broad set of data – in this case NASA data from NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2)– and then makes use of AI learning abilities to apply patterns gleaned from the initial data across a broad range of additional scenarios.  

With the Prithvi-weather-climate foundational model, researchers will be able to support many climate applications that can be used throughout the science community. These applications include detecting and improving models for severe weather patterns or natural disasters such as hurricanes. NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image of Idalia in August 2023. NASA Earth Observatory

“Advancing NASA’s Earth science for the benefit of humanity means delivering actionable science in ways that are useful to people, organizations, and communities. The rapid changes we’re witnessing on our home planet demand this strategy to meet the urgency of the moment,” said Karen St. Germain, director of the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “The NASA foundation model will help us produce a tool that people can use: weather, seasonal and climate projections to help inform decisions on how to prepare, respond and mitigate.”  

With the Prithvi-weather-climate model, researchers will be able to support many different climate applications that can be used throughout the science community. These applications include detecting and predicting severe weather patterns or natural disasters, creating targeted forecasts based on localized observations, improving spatial resolution on global climate simulations down to regional levels, and improving the representation of how physical processes are included in weather and climate models.

“These transformative AI models are reshaping data accessibility by significantly lowering the barrier of entry to using NASA’s scientific data,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “Our open approach to sharing these models invites the global community to explore and harness the capabilities we’ve cultivated, ensuring that NASA’s investment enriches and benefits all.” 

Prithvi-weather-climate was developed through an open collaboration with IBM Research, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and NASA, including the agency’s Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Prithvi-weather-climate can capture the complex dynamics of atmospheric physics even when there is missing information thanks to the flexibility of the model’s architecture. This foundational model for weather and climate can scale to both global and regional areas without compromising resolution. 

“This model is part of our overall strategy to develop a family of AI foundation models to support NASA’s science mission goals,” said Rahul Ramachandran, who leads IMPACT at Marshall. “These models will augment our capabilities to draw insights from our vast archives of Earth observations.”  

Prithvi-weather-climate is part of a larger model family– the Prithvi family – which includes models trained on NASA’s Harmonized LandSat and Sentinel-2 data. The latest model serves as an open collaboration in line with NASA’s open science principles to make all data accessible and usable by communities everywhere. It will be released later this year on Hugging Face, a machine learning and data science platform that helps users build, deploy, and train machine learning models. 

“The development of the NASA foundation model for weather and climate is an important step towards the democratization of NASA’s science and observation mission,” said Tsendgar Lee, program manager for NASA’s Research and Analysis Weather Focus Area, High-End Computing Program, and Data for Operation and Assessment. “We will continue developing new technology for climate scenario analysis and decision making.” 

Along with IMPACT and IBM Research, development of Prithvi-weather-climate featured significant contributions from NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer, NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at Goddard Space Flight Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Colorado State University, and Stanford University. 

Learn more about Earth data and previous Prithvi models.

Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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Psyche Fires Up Its Sci-Fi-Worthy Thrusters

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and there’s no holding back now. Navigators are firing its futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, nearly nonstop as the orbiter zips farther into deep space.

The spacecraft launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on Oct. 13, 2023. After leaving Earth’s atmosphere, Psyche made the most of its rocket boost and coasted beyond the orbit of Mars.

For the next year, the spacecraft will be in what mission planners call “full cruise” mode, when its electric thrusters take over and propel the orbiter toward the asteroid belt. The thrusters work by expelling charged atoms, or ions, of xenon, emitting a brilliant blue glow that trails behind the spacecraft.

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft headed to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft launched in October 2023 and will arrive at its destination in 2029.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

They are part of Psyche’s incredibly efficient solar electric propulsion system, which is powered by sunlight. The thrust created by the ionized xenon is gentle, but it does the job. Even in full cruise mode, the pressure exerted by the thrusters is about what you’d feel holding three quarters in your hand.

The orbiter is now more than 190 million miles away and moving at a clip of 23 miles per second, relative to Earth. That’s about 84,000 mph. Over time, with no atmospheric drag to slow it down, Psyche will accelerate to speeds of up to 124,000 mph.

The spacecraft will arrive at the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029 and will make observations from orbit for about two years. The data it collects will help scientists better understand the formation of rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth. Scientists have evidence that the asteroid, which is about 173 miles across at its widest point, may be the partial core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.  

The flight team used Psyche’s first 100 days in space to conduct a full checkout of all spacecraft systems. All of the engineering systems are working just as expected, and the three science instruments have been operating without a hitch. The magnetometer is working so well that it was able to detect an eruption of charged particles from the Sun, as did the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. And this past December, the twin cameras on the imaging instrument captured their first images.

This photo captures an operating electric thruster identical to those being used to propel NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from the charged atoms, or ions, of xenon.NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Until this point, we have been powering on and checking out the various pieces of equipment needed to complete the mission, and we can report they are working beautifully,” said Henry Stone, Psyche project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission. “Now we are on our way and looking forward to an upcoming close flyby of Mars.”

That’s because the spacecraft’s trajectory will bring it back toward the Red Planet in the spring of 2026. The spacecraft will power down the thrusters as it coasts toward Mars, using the planet’s gravity to slingshot itself out. From there, the thrusters return to full cruise mode. Next stop: the asteroid Psyche.

In the meantime, the Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration aboard the spacecraft will keep on testing its mettle. The experiment already surpassed expectations when, in April, it transmitted test data from over 140 million miles away at a rate of 267 megabits per second to a downlink station on Earth – a bit rate comparable to broadband internet download speeds.

Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.

JPL manages DSOC for the Technology Demonstration Missions program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Space Communications and Navigation program within the Space Operations Mission Directorate.

Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, managed the launch service.

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NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX Unscathed After Searing Pass of Sun

Mission engineers were confident NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification – Apophis Explorer) spacecraft could weather its closest ever pass of the Sun on Jan. 2. Their models had predicted that, despite traveling 25 million miles closer to the heat of the Sun than it was originally designed to, OSIRIS-APEX and its components would remain safe.

The mission team confirmed that the spacecraft indeed had come out of the experience unscathed after downloading stored telemetry data in mid-March. The team also tested OSIRIS-APEX’s instruments in early April, once the spacecraft was far enough from the Sun to return to normal operations. Between December 2023 and March, OSIRIS-APEX was inactive, with only limited telemetry data available to the team on Earth.

Both these images from a camera called StowCam aboard OSIRIS-APEX show the same view taken six months apart, before, left, and after, right, the Jan. 2, 2024, perihelion. Notably, there is no observable difference on spacecraft surfaces, a good indication that the higher temperatures faced during perihelion didn’t alter the spacecraft. Another insight gleaned from the identical view in the two images is that the camera’s performance was also not affected by perihelion. NASA/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin

The spacecraft’s clean bill of health was due to creative engineering. Engineers placed OSIRIS-APEX in a fixed orientation with respect to the Sun and repositioned one of its two solar arrays to shade the spacecraft’s most sensitive components during the pass.

The spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit around the Sun that brings it to a point closest to the Sun, called a perihelion, about every nine months. To get on a path that will allow it to meet up with its new target Apophis in 2029, the spacecraft’s trajectory includes several perihelions that are closer to the Sun than the spacecraft’s components were originally designed to withstand.

“It’s phenomenal how well our spacecraft configuration protected OSIRIS-APEX, so I’m really encouraged by this first close perihelion pass,” said Ron Mink, mission systems engineer for OSIRIS-APEX, based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Besides confirming that the January perihelion worked out according to predictions, engineers found surprises while testing spacecraft components. A couple of instruments came out better than expected after exposure to higher temperatures.

A camera that helped map asteroid Bennu and will do the same at Apophis, saw a 70% reduction in “hot pixels” since April 13, 2023, the last time it was tested. Hot pixels, which are common in well-used cameras in space, show up as white spots in images when detectors accumulate exposure to high-energy radiation, mostly from our Sun.

“We think the heat from the Sun reset the pixels through annealing,” said Amy Simon, OSIRIS-APEX project scientist, based at NASA Goddard. Annealing is a heat process that can restore function of instruments and is often done intentionally through built-in heaters on some spacecraft.

Another welcome surprise, said Simon, came from the spacecraft’s visible and near-infrared spectrometer. Before perihelion, the spectrometer, which mapped the surface composition of Bennu, and will do the same at Apophis, seemed to have a rock from Bennu stuck inside its calibration port. Scientist suspected that some sunlight was blocked from filtering through the instrument after the spacecraft, then called OSIRIS-REx, grabbed a sample from asteroid Bennu on Oct. 20, 2020. By picking up the sample and then firing its engines to back away from Bennu, the spacecraft stirred up dust and pebbles that clung to it.

“But, with enough spacecraft maneuvers and engine burns after sample collection,” Simon said, the rock in the calibration port appears to have been dislodged. Scientists will check the spectrometer again when OSIRIS-APEX swings by Earth on Sept. 25, 2025, for a gravitational boost.

OSIRIS-APEX is now operating normally as it continues its journey toward asteroid Apophis for a 2029 rendezvous. Its better-than-expected performance during the first close perihelion is welcome news. But engineers caution that it doesn’t mean it’s time to relax. OSIRIS-APEX needs to execute five more exceptionally close passes of the Sun – along with three Earth gravity assists – to get to its destination. It’s unclear how the cumulative effect of six perihelions at a closer distance than designed will impact the spacecraft and its components.

The second OSIRIS-APEX perihelion is scheduled for Sept. 1. The spacecraft will be 46.5 million miles away from the Sun, which is roughly half the distance between Earth and the Sun, and well inside the orbit of Venus.

OSIRIS-APEX (previously named OSIRIS-REx) is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

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In 2018, astronomers detected an exoplanet around the star 40 Eridani. It’s about 16 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. The discovery generated a wave of interest for a couple of reasons. Not only is it the closest Super-Earth around a star similar to our Sun, but the star system is the fictional home of Star Trek’s Vulcan science officer, Mr. Spock.

It’s always fun when a real science discovery lines up with science fiction.

Eridani’s other name is HD 26965, and it’s actually a triple-star system. Astronomers discovered the system’s lone planet, Eridani b, using the radial velocity method. Orbiting planets tug on their stars, and the star’s movement creates a change in its spectrum. Astronomical telescopes with spectrometers can detect the changes.

Jian Ge, an astronomy professor at the University of Florida, led the study that presented the discovery in 2018. At the time, Ge said in a press release, “The new planet is a ‘super-Earth’ orbiting the star HD 26965, which is only 16 light years from Earth, making it the closest super-Earth orbiting another Sun-like star. The planet is roughly twice the size of Earth and orbits its star with a 42-day period just inside the star’s optimal habitable zone.”

A super-Earth in the habitable zone around a Sun-similar star ‘only’ 16 light-years away is an intriguing discovery. Its link with a beloved Star Trek character gave the discovery wings, and word spread.

However, in the intervening years, follow-up observations have not confirmed Eridani b’s existence. A 2021 study suggested that the change in the star’s spectrum was a false positive. Now, a new study says that the exoplanet fondly named Vulcan does not exist.

The study is “The Death of Vulcan: NEID Reveals That the Planet Candidate Orbiting HD 26965 Is Stellar Activity.” It’s published in The Astronomical Journal, and the lead author is Abigail Burrows, an astronomer at Dartmouth College.

“We revisit the long-studied radial velocity (RV) target HD 26965 using recent observations from the NASA-NSF “NEID” precision Doppler facility,” Burrows and her co-authors write. After a deeper, line-by-line analysis of the radial velocity data, “… we demonstrate that the claimed 45-day signal previously identified as a planet candidate is most likely an activity-induced signal.”

Activity-induced signal means that the signal comes from the star’s activity, not from the external tug of an exoplanet.

Vulcan’s initial detection was based on data from the Dharma Planet Survey (DPS.) DPS monitored about 150 nearby Sun-like stars for changes in their spectra. Data from the Keck Telescope and the HARPS planet-finding spectrograph also contributed to the discovery.

When the planet was detected in 2018, the discoverers recommended caution. They presented the data as they collected it, along with their best interpretation. That’s standard in science, and they were careful in calling it a candidate planet. In their paper, they also discussed “the possibility that the RV signal is actually produced by stellar rotation modulated activity.” That activity could be sunspots, convection irregularities, or other things.

But in the end, they concluded that what they were seeing was likely a planet.

“By carefully examining the RV data in the active and quiet phases of the star, and after carefully considering all possible stellar activity sources, we concluded that the coherent signal seen from HD 26965 is most likely from a planet, with some RV noise contributed by stellar activity,” the authors wrote in the 2018 paper.

The rest of us were happy to agree because finding a super-Earth around a nearby Sun-like star is the kind of thing we hope to find.

“Men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.”

-Spock of Vulcan

Sadly for Vulcan, the newest research shows that the stellar activity isn’t noise. It accounts for the entire signal.

The new results are based on NEID, the NN-explore Exoplanet Investigations with Doppler spectroscopy. It’s a high-resolution spectrometer attached to the WIYN (Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOIRLab) telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory. The researchers used NEID to capture 63 spectra from Eridani over a six-month period.

NEID revealed a lot of information about the star, including things like contrast and radial velocity. Together, NEID data paints a more complete picture of the star and its activity. In this new work, Burrows and her co-researchers showed that all of this activity lines up with the star’s 42-day rotation period.

“All measurements show a strong signal at or near the 42-day stellar rotation period,” they write.

This figure from the study shows NEID data on the left. “All data show clear rotational modulation at or near the 42-day period,” the authors write. The right shows periodograms for the data, which show “clear power at the stellar rotation period of ?42 days.” Image Credit: Burrows et al. 2024

The authors write that their work “points toward a decaying starspot or plage” as the source of the signal. A plage is a bright spot on a star’s chromosphere. They used a variety of methods to reach this conclusion. “While each of these methods taken individually may not rule out a potential planetary signal at the same phase and period as the activity signal, collectively, our analyses show that an activity hypothesis is favoured over the specific planet claimed in Ma et al. (2018),” they conclude.

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Spock of Vulcan

The authors of the new paper didn’t set out to debunk Vulcan. Their paper is part of an effort to better understand the periodic and quasi-periodic spectral changes from Sun-like stars. Without a better understanding, annoying false positives will cloud our understanding of exoplanets, especially Earth-like ones around Sun-like stars. “To reach the precision necessary to detect temperate, Earth-mass extrasolar planets (exoplanets) around Sun-like stars using the radial velocity (RV) technique, the community must improve Doppler measurement precision significantly from the current state of the art,” they write.

“Detecting and characterizing these exo-Earths is vital for future spaceborne direct imaging missions, which will set the scientific priorities for the coming decade,” the authors explain.

The post Sorry Spock, But “Vulcan” Isn’t a Planet After All appeared first on Universe Today.

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

To foster growth in Maryland’s aerospace industry, the state’s Department of Commerce signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NASA at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Wednesday, May 28, 2024.

Center Director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Commerce Kevin Anderson signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Maryland’s Department of Commerce at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Wednesday, May 28, 2024. NASA/Brian Gabourel

The agreement commits the two organizations to develop the state’s aerospace economy, particularly in the area surrounding Goddard’s main Greenbelt campus, as well as on Maryland’s Eastern Shore near NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

“Our cutting-edge research, and the critical benefits it provides to society, is only possible with the support of strong partnerships outside NASA,” said Goddard Center Director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, who signed the memo on NASA’s behalf. “I’m grateful to clasp hands with our home state and work together to build up the coalition that will help us all make those next giant leaps.”

Goddard, NASA’s premiere spaceflight complex, hosts the nation’s largest cohort of scientists, engineers, and technologists studying Earth, our solar system, and the universe. Wallops, managed by Goddard for NASA, is the agency’s only owned-and-operated launch range.

“Maintaining and growing Maryland’s strategic advantage in the aerospace industry requires collaboration with our formidable partners at facilities like the Goddard Space Flight Center,” said Maryland Commerce Secretary Kevin Anderson, signing as the state’s representative. “We’re thrilled to sign this agreement, which will support NASA’s innovative work and help make our state more competitive.”

The three-year agreement details how NASA Goddard and the Maryland Department of Commerce will collaborate to promote technology transfer from NASA Goddard to the private sector, STEM education, aerospace industry development, and community outreach. This includes raising awareness of resources such as Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding, supporting the creation and growth of new space-related businesses, leading economic development efforts around the two NASA facilities, and collaborating on a report analyzing NASA Goddard’s economic impact in Maryland.

Center Director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Commerce Kevin Anderson signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Maryland’s Department of Commerce at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Wednesday, May 28, 2024. NASA/Brian Gabourel

Pursuant to the agreement, the Maryland Economic Development Corporation  will work with the commerce department and NASA Goddard to host business outreach events in Prince George’s County and on the Lower Eastern Shore.

By Rob Garner
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Details Last Updated May 29, 2024 Related Terms

• Goddard Space Flight Center
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The asteroid Dinkinesh surprised NASA’s Lucy mission when it turned out to have a moon. Now, scientists are taking a closer look at the pair’s formation.

The post NASA's Lucy Mission Reveals Asteroid's Strange Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Chinese company Galactic Energy sent four satellites into orbit on Wednesday (May 29) with the second sea launch of the Ceres-1 solid rocket.

Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 looks to be unraveling like a ball of cosmic

On May 27, 1999, the second space station assembly and logistics mission began. The main goals of STS-96, designated as the 2A.1 mission in the overall assembly sequence, included resupplying and repairing the fledgling orbital facility, consisting of the Zarya and Node 1 modules assembled during STS-88 in December 1998. The multinational seven-member crew transferred nearly two tons of supplies from the shuttle’s Spacehab double module and water to the crew-tended space station. Two of the astronauts conducted a spacewalk to install equipment on the outside of the facility. The astronauts also conducted repairs inside the station. After six days of docked operations in low Earth orbit, the crew departed the repaired and resupplied space station, making a rare night landing.

Left: The STS-96 crew of Daniel T. Barry, left, Kent V. Rominger, Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency, Ellen Ochoa, Valeri I. Tokarev of Roscosmos, Rick D. Husband, and Tammy E. Jernigan. Right: The STS-96 crew patch.

Left: Launch of Discovery on Shuttle mission STS-96. Middle: View of the International Space Station from Discovery during the rendezvous maneuver. Right: The Node 1’s Pressurized Mating Adapter appears in on Discover’s overhead windows just before docking. 

The second space shuttle assembly and resupply mission to the space station lifted off just after sunrise on May 27, 1999, from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Its multinational seven-person crew included Commander Kent V. Rominger, Pilot Rick D. Husband, and Mission Specialists Tamara “Tammy” E. Jernigan, Ellen Ochoa, Daniel T. Barry, Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency, and Valeri I. Tokarev representing Roscosmos. The flight marked the first time a space crew included three women since STS-40 in 1991. Less than two days after launch, Rominger guided Discovery to the first docking with the two-module space station at the Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 (PMA-2), attached to Node 1. In preparation for the next day’s spacewalk, the astronauts reduced the pressure in the shuttle’s cabin from the usual 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi) to 10.2 psi to reduce the time needed for spacewalkers Jernigan and Barry to breathe pure oxygen to purge their bodies of nitrogen to prevent decompression sickness, also called the bends.

Left: The Orbital Replacement Unit Transfer Device installed on the Pressurized Mating Adapter during the STS-96 spacewalk. Middle: Tamara E. Jernigan carries the Strela boom to the Zarya module. Right: Daniel T. Barry mounts a stowage bag on Node 1. 

The day after docking, Jernigan and Barry exited the Shuttle’s airlock to begin one of the flight’s major objectives. From inside the Shuttle, Payette coordinated the spacewalk activities and Ochoa operated the robotic arm to position Jernigan. Jernigan and Barry first installed the American crane, also known as the Orbital Replacement Unit (ORU) Transfer Device onto its socket on PMA-1, the tunnel joining Node 1 and Zarya. Then they moved the Russian Strela boom and installed it on PMA-2. Next, they installed a pair of foot restraints onto PMA-1 and then installed three large tool bags onto Node 1. Jernigan and Barry completed the spacewalk in 7 hours and 55 minutes.

Left: Ellen Ochoa inside the double Spacehab module. Right: Stowage bags transferred into Zarya. 

The day after the spacewalk, having repressurized the shuttle cabin to 14.7 psi, the astronauts opened the hatches between the shuttle and the station, first into the PMA-2, then into Node 1, and finally into Zarya. Jernigan and Tokarev entered the station first, and the rest of the crew followed shortly after. Over the course of flight days 5 and 6, Payette and Tokarev replaced all 18 charge/discharge units of Zarya’s six batteries, located under the floor of the module, to improve the batteries’ performance. Husband and Barry repaired the Node 1 S-band radio, part of the station’s early communications system. The entire crew spent the next few days transferring 3,567 pounds of supplies, clothing, sleeping bags, spare parts, medical equipment, and other hardware from the Spacehab double module into the station. They also transferred 84 gallons of water produced by the shuttle’s fuel cells for later use by the station’s first resident crew, then planned for arrival in early 2000. They returned about 200 pounds of items from the station to Discovery. They spent nearly 80 hours inside the station before closing the hatches on June 2, the eighth flight day of the mission. Rominger and Husband pulsed Discovery’s Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters 17 times to raise the station’s orbit by six miles to 246 by 241 miles.

Left: Battery charge-discharge units in Zarya after replacement. Middle: Inflight photo of the STS-96 crew in Node 1. Right: A resupplied and refurbished space station as seen from Discovery during its departure. 

On June 3, with Husband at the controls, Discovery undocked from the space station and completed a 2.5-revolution fly around of the refurbished facility, with the crew taking photographs to document its condition. After departing from the station, Rominger and Husband practiced shuttle landings using a laptop-based simulator in preparation for the actual landing two days later. In addition, the astronauts added to their trove of Earth observation photos.  

On flight day 10, the astronauts’ last full day in space, they deployed the Student-Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite for Heuristic International Networking Equipment (STARSHINE) satellite from Discovery’s payload bay. STARSHINE consisted of an 87-pound hollow aluminum sphere 19 inches in diameter covered with 878 mirrors. Thousands of students in 18 countries polished the mirrors. The Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. built the sphere and attached the mirrors. The students monitored sightings of the satellite as it orbited the Earth, the Sun reflecting off its multiple mirrors. The astronauts tested Discovery’s RCS thrusters, Auxiliary Power Units, and Flight Control Surfaces in preparation for the next day’s re-entry and landing. 

Earth observation photographs from STS-96. Left: The Manicougan impact feature in Québec, Canada. Middle: The Straits of Gibraltar. Right: Sunlit clouds over the Indian Ocean.

Left: Deployment of the STARSHINE student satellite. Right: Discovery makes a smooth night landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

On June 6, the astronauts closed Discovery’s payload bay doors, put on their launch and entry suits, strapped into their seats, and fired the Shuttle’s engines for the trip back to Earth. Rominger guided Discovery to a smooth night landing on the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC, ending a highly successful mission to prepare the space station for future occupants. The flight lasted 9 days 19 hours 13 minutes. 

Enjoy the crew narrate a video about the STS-96 mission. 

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Sometimes, it seems like habitable worlds can pop up almost anywhere in the universe. A recent paper from a team of citizen scientists led by researchers at the Flatiron Institute might have found an excellent candidate to look for one – on a moon orbiting a mini-Neptune orbiting a star that is also orbited by another star.

That’s a lot of things orbiting each other, so let’s dive into some details of the star system known as TOI 4633. It has two potential planets. One has a relatively short 34-day orbit but whose existence was only found by radial velocity measurements, as it doesn’t cross between the Earth and its host star. It also has yet to be confirmed by exoplanet hunters.

Another planet, known for now at TOI 4633c, is much more intriguing. It falls into the size category of a “mini-Neptune,” meaning it is slightly smaller than the 8th planet in our solar system but is likely still a gas giant with a thick atmosphere. It orbits its host star once every 272 days – making it one of the 40 longest-orbiting planets out of the thousands discovered so far.

Binaries are just one of a class of multiple-star systems, as Fraser explains.

That long orbit also puts it in the habitable zone of its host star – about .85 AU away from the G-type star it is orbiting. Being in the habitable zone would imply that liquid water could exist on its surface. However, the size of the planet and the likely density of its atmosphere would rule out the possibility of surface water on the planet itself.

However, there is a relatively good chance that TOI 4633c could have a moon. Planets with longer orbits tend to accrue them (hence why Venus and Mercury don’t have any in our own solar system). Such a small world wouldn’t have the same restrictive constraints as its gas-giant host planet, meaning it could potentially be habitable, such as the moons Pandora in the Avatar franchise or Endor in Star Wars.

But what makes this system even more unique is that the star TOI 4633c is orbiting is itself being orbited by another star. It wasn’t long ago that we weren’t even sure if planets could exist in these “binary” systems, and how strange life might be on one has become prominent recently with the popularity of The Three-Body Problem. But in theory, binary systems have habitable zones, and planets can survive in a stable orbit around at least one of the stars.

TESS’ primary mission is compete, but its data is still a treasure trove of new discoveries, as Fraser covers.

The smaller star orbits around its larger binary companion only once every 230 years and gets close enough to the other star to be considered relatively close by interstellar standards. As of now, it’s unclear what, if any, effect this proximity to another star would have on TOI 4633c, but it’s doubtful that it would be a world like Tatooine. 

However, the system lacks similarities to famous fictional examples, and it makes up for its potential to solve some long-standing problems in planetary formation theory. In addition to searching for a potential exomoon around TOI 4633c, scientists will continue to monitor the system closely to see if it remains stable. They can also see how the current known (and theorized) planets fit into existing models of planetary system formation.

This is another feather in the cap of the Planet Hunters TESS citizen science collaboration. There are undoubtedly more strange star systems out there for them to find. If you’re interested in helping them, you can sign up here.

Learn More:
NASA – Discovery Alert: Mini-Neptune in Double Star System is a Planetary Puzzle
Eisner et al. – Planet Hunters TESS. V. A Planetary System Around a Binary Star, Including a Mini-Neptune in the Habitable Zone
UT – Marvel at the Variety of Planets Found by TESS Already
UT – A New Venus-Sized World Found in the Habitable Zone of its Star

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of the binary system TOI 4633 and its potentially habitable planet.
Credit – Ed Bell for Simons Foundation

The post A Mini-Neptune in the Habitable Zone in a Binary Star System appeared first on Universe Today.

A large bronze historical marker plaque is unveiled Tuesday, May 28, 2024, at the location of NASA Kennedy Space Center’s original headquarters building. Approved in April 2023 as part of the State of Florida’s Historical Markers program in celebration of National Historic Preservation Month, the marker commemorates the early days of space exploration and is displayed permanently just west of the seven-story, 200,000 square foot Central Campus Headquarters Building, which replaced the old building in 2019.Photo credit: NASA/Mike Chambers

A grass field and tile display of NASA’s iconic “meatball” is all that remains of the structure that stood for over 50 years during America’s most monumental launches to space. Now, a large bronze plaque at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida marks the location of this original headquarters building, commemorating the early days of space exploration. 

Approved in April 2023 as part of the State of Florida’s Historical Markers program, the marker was unveiled Tuesday, May 28, 2024, by center leaders during a ceremony attended by former and current NASA employees as part of National Historic Preservation Month. 

“As we surge into the future, it’s appropriate to take a moment and remember the past,” said Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro. “We wouldn’t be at the forefront of space exploration without those whose footsteps we followed and it’s important that their service be properly honored. But we also focus on the future of the spaceport so that it will always maintain our path to space.” 

The new marker will be displayed permanently just west of the seven-story, 200,000 square foot Central Campus Headquarters Building on NASA Parkway, which replaced the old building in 2019. The more modern headquarters was built with the center’s master plan in mind, prioritizing efficiencies in cost, energy, and land usage to ensure NASA puts as much resources as possible toward its mission. 

Various artifacts from the old building were removed before its demolition and are now displayed in the new headquarters, including its original sign and a bust of President John F. Kennedy, after whom the center is named. 

Wall tiles from Kennedy Space Center’s former headquarters building are presented to Kennedy Director Janet Petro inside the Florida spaceport’s Central Campus Headquarters Building on May 3, 2022. The two 15-pound sections from the building were preserved by Maverick Constructors LLC, the construction company that completed demolition of the structure. The company’s presentation of the tiles is in honor of the many civil servants and contractors who dedicated their lives to working for and supporting NASA in this building.Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Constructed in 1965, Kennedy’s original four-story headquarters building became the scientific, engineering, and administrative hub for three of NASA’s most iconic space programs: Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle. Designed in the International Style, the 440,000 square foot structure had an intimate view of some of NASA’s grandest moments, including the launch of the Apollo 11 mission that successfully landed the first humans on the moon in 1969, fulfilling the goal famously set by President Kennedy seven years earlier. 

Other major NASA milestones accomplished during the building’s lifetime include the 1973 launch of Skylab, the first-ever space meeting of American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts in 1975, the 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the construction of the International Space Station in 1998. 

Prior to its demolition, the old headquarters was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. It is the first original NASA center headquarters building to be demolished. 

The original headquarters ground becomes the seventh location within the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore to have a marker approved by the Florida Historic Marker Council. It joins three others within Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and three more located on Kennedy Parkway. It is the only one of the seven inside Kennedy’s secure area.  

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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The four CubeSate spacecraft that make up the Starling swarm have demonstrated success in autonomous operations, completing all key mission objectives.

After ten months in orbit, the Starling spacecraft swarm successfully demonstrated its primary mission’s key objectives, representing significant achievements in the capability of swarm configurations. 

Swarms of satellites may one day be used in deep space exploration. An autonomous network of spacecraft could self-navigate, manage scientific experiments, and execute maneuvers to respond to environmental changes without the burden of significant communications delays between the swarm and Earth. 

“The success of Starling’s initial mission represents a landmark achievement in the development of autonomous networks of small spacecraft,” said Roger Hunter, program manager for NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “The team has been very successful in achieving our objectives and adapting in the face of challenges.”  

Sharing the Work

The Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA) experiment, flown onboard Starling, demonstrated the spacecraft swarm’s ability to optimize data collection across the swarm. The CubeSats analyzed Earth’s ionosphere by identifying interesting phenomena and reaching a consensus between each satellite on an approach for analysis.  

By sharing observational work across a swarm, each spacecraft can “share the load” and observe different data or work together to provide deeper analysis, reducing human workload, and keeping the spacecraft working without the need for new commands sent from the ground. 

The experiment’s success means Starling is the first swarm to autonomously distribute information and operations data between spacecraft to generate plans to work more efficiently, and the first demonstration of a fully distributed onboard reasoning system capable of reacting quickly to changes in scientific observations. 

Communicating Across the Swarm

A swarm of spacecraft needs a network to communicate between each other. The Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) experiment automatically established a network in space, allowing the swarm to relay commands and transfer data between one another and the ground, as well as share information about other experiments cooperatively.  

The team successfully completed all the MANET experiment objectives, including demonstrating routing commands and data to one of the spacecraft having trouble with space to ground communications, a valuable benefit of a cooperative spacecraft swarm. 

“The success of MANET demonstrates the robustness of a swarm,” said Howard Cannon, Starling project manager at NASA Ames. “For example, when the radio went down on one swarm spacecraft, we ‘side-loaded’ the spacecraft from another direction, sending commands, software updates, and other vital information to the spacecraft from another swarm member.” 

Autonomous Swarm Navigation 

Navigating and operating in relation to one another and the planet is an important part of forming a swarm of spacecraft. Starling Formation-Flying Optical Experiment, or StarFOX, uses star trackers to recognize a fellow swarm member, other satellite, or space debris from the background field of stars, then estimate each spacecraft’s position and velocity. 

The experiment is the first-ever published demonstration of this type of swarm navigation, including the ability to track multiple members of a swarm simultaneously and the ability to share observations between the spacecraft, improving accuracy when determining each swarm member’s orbit. 

Near the end of mission operations, the swarm was maneuvered into a passive safety ellipse, and in this formation, the StarFOX team was able to achieve a groundbreaking milestone, demonstrating the ability to autonomously estimate the swarm’s orbits using only inter-satellite measurements from the spacecraft star trackers. 

Managing Swarm Maneuvers 

The ability to plan and execute maneuvers with minimal human intervention is an important part of developing larger satellite swarms. Managing the trajectories and maneuvers of hundreds or thousands of spacecraft autonomously saves time and reduces complexity. 

The Reconfiguration and Orbit Maintenance Experiments Onboard (ROMEO) system tests onboard maneuver planning and execution by estimating the spacecraft’s orbit and planning a maneuver to a new desired orbit. 

The experiment team has successfully demonstrated the system’s ability to determine and plan a change in orbit and is working to refine the system to reduce propellant use and demonstrate executing the maneuvers. The team will continue to adapt and develop the system throughout Starling’s mission extension. 

Swarming Together

Now that Starling’s primary mission objectives are complete, the team will embark on a mission extension known as Starling 1.5, testing space traffic coordination in partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which also has autonomous maneuvering capabilities. The project will explore how constellations operated by different users can share information through a ground hub to avoid potential collisions.  

“Starling’s partnership with SpaceX is the next step in operating large networks of spacecraft and understanding how two autonomously maneuvering systems can safely operate in proximity to each other. As the number of operational spacecraft increases each year, we must learn how to manage orbital traffic,” said Hunter. 

NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program, based at Ames and within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), funds and manages the Starling mission. Blue Canyon Technologies designed and manufactured the spacecraft buses and is providing mission operations support. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. provided launch and integration services. Partners supporting Starling’s payload experiments have included Stanford University’s Space Rendezvous Lab in Stanford, California, York Space Systems (formerly Emergent Space Technologies) of Denver, Colorado, CesiumAstro of Austin, Texas, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., of Melbourne, Florida. Funding support for the DSA experiment was provided by NASA’s Game Changing Development program within STMD. Partners supporting Starling’s mission extension include SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, NASA’s Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) program, and the Department of Commerce. SpaceX manages the Starlink satellite constellation and the Collision Avoidance ground system.

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Details Last Updated May 29, 2024 Related Terms

• Space Technology Mission Directorate
• Ames Research Center
• CubeSats
• Game Changing Development Program
• General
• Small Satellite Missions
• Small Spacecraft Technology Program
• Tech Demo Missions

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Ames Research Center

Space Technology Mission Directorate

Starling

Game Changing Development

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