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China Will Launch its Mars Sample Return Mission in 2028
While NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission has experienced a setback, China is still moving forward with their plans to bring home a piece of the Red Planet. This week, officials from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced their sample return mission, called Tianwen-3, will blast off for Mars in 2028. It will land on the surface, retrieve a sample, and then take off again, docking with a return vehicle in orbit. They also announced another mission, Tianwen-4 will head off to Jupiter in 2030 as well as unveiling a conceptual plan for China’s first mission to test defenses against a near-Earth asteroid.
The announcements were made this week at the second International Deep Space Exploration Conference, also known as the Tiandu Forum, held in China. China says the conference promotes international cooperation for future large-scale missions.
As reported by CGTN, the English-language news channel of state-run China Global Television Network, the chief designer of the Mars sample return mission, Liu Jizhong said the Tianwen-3 mission will include international payloads, and China plans to share samples and data from the mission with scientists around the world. Liu also said the primary scientific goal of the Mars sample return mission will be searching for signs of life.
A wireless camera took this ‘group photo’ of China’s Tianwen-1 lander and rover on Mars’ surface. Credit: Chinese Space AgencyChina’s first Mars exploration mission, Tianwen-1 arrived at Mars in February 2021 and included an orbiter, a lander, and a rover named Zhurong. The orbiter imaged the entire surface of Mars and the rover found hydrated minerals which are likely associated with groundwater. Its success made China the third nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the surface of Mars.
While the reporting on Liu’s speech didn’t disclose many details of the proposed mission to Mars, a paper published in the fall of 2023 by the China Academy of Space Technology proposed a quadcopter similar to NASA’s Ingenuity that would be capable of collecting a sample weighing up to 100 grams and return it to a lander. Since the Zhurong rover mission has concluded and it was not capable of collecting samples for Earth return, the new Tianwen-3 mission would need to include the entire collection of spacecraft that would land, collect, and store the samples; then launch to orbit to return and dock to an orbiting spacecraft which would then head back to Earth and somehow drop off or land the samples.
A Chinese flag flies next to the Chang’e-6 sample return capsule after its landing in Inner Mongolia. (Credit: CCTV / CNSA via Weibo)But China recently achieved this feat at the Moon with their Chang’e-6 mission, which launched in early May, becoming the first robotic mission to land and lift off again from the Moon’s far side, and also the first mission to bring dirt and rocks from the far side back to Earth. They also placed a lander on the near side of the Moon and brought back samples with Chang’e 5.
Meanwhile, NASA’s proposal for a Mars sample return mission have been shelved for now, as costs were increasing and timescales were slipping creating a budget challenge. NASA is now reworking their plan for a simpler, less expensive and less risky alternative. The Perseverance rover has already collected and cached several samples for return.
This graphic outlines China’s Lunar Exploration Program. Image Credit: CASCChina has been actively sharing their plans for upcoming space missions, including the asteroid mission, the Mars sample return and the mission to Jupiter. Along with their ambitious robotic missions, the CNSA announced in 2021 that they plan to send its first crewed mission to Mars in 2033 with goal to send regular missions to Mars and eventually build a base there. China also has their Tiangong space station which currently houses three astronauts on six-months stays.
Liu did say the efforts to include international payloads, and sample and data sharing — as well as joint planning for future missions — are “expected to enhance global synergy in the realm of deep space exploration.”
China has approved four missions for planetary exploration, set to be completed within 10 to 15 years. The Tianwen-2 mission to a currently unnamed asteroid is scheduled for launch around 2025, and Tianwen-4 for Jupiter exploration is set for launch around 2030.
The post China Will Launch its Mars Sample Return Mission in 2028 appeared first on Universe Today.
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Artemis III Landing Sites Identified Using Mapping and Algorithm Techniques
Where would be the most ideal landing site for the Artemis III crew in SpaceX’s Human Landing System (HLS)? This is what a recent study submitted to Acta Astronautica hopes to address as an international team of scientists investigated plausible landing sites within the lunar south pole region, which comes after NASA selected 13 candidate landing regions in August 2022 and holds the potential to enable new methods in determining landing sites for future missions, as well.
Here, Universe Today discusses this research with Dr. Juan Miguel Sánchez-Lozano from the Technical University of Cartagena and Dr. Eloy Peña-Asensio from the Politecnico di Milano regarding the motivation behind the study, significant findings, the reasons for determining the final landing site, location to Shackleton Crater, and if a lander smaller than HLS would have changed the outcome? Therefore, what was the motivation behind the study?
Dr. Sánchez-Lozano tells Universe Today, “Our motivation was to contribute to the selection process for the Artemis III landing site by introducing methods that are well-established in other fields of study to the context of space exploration for the first time. Specifically, we identified that Geographic Information Systems combined with Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (GIS-MCDM) methodologies could provide significant value in evaluating and prioritizing the candidate landing sites. Therefore, we aimed to demonstrate the utility of these methods to NASA and apply them in practice by identifying and recommending the most suitable landing locations.”
For the study, the researchers used these methods to analyze 1,247 locations within the 13 candidate landing regions near the lunar south pole previously identified by NASA to ascertain the most precise landing sites for HLS. They accomplished this by combining their GIS-MCDM methodologies with a Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) algorithm to analyze specific criteria: lunar surface visibility, line of sight for HLS astronauts, Permanently Shadows Regions (PSRs), sunlight exposure, direct communication with Earth, geological units, and abundance of mafic (volcanic rock high in iron or magnesium) materials. Therefore, what were the most significant findings from this study?
Dr. Peña-Asensio tells Universe Today, “In addition to demonstrating the applicability of MCDM to these challenges, our analysis identified Site DM2 (Nobile Rim 2) as the optimal landing site based on criteria such as visibility, solar illumination, direct communication with Earth, geological diversity, and the presence of mafic materials. The best nine locations identified in our study are all situated within this region. Surprisingly, this site is not among the most favored regions within the scientific community.”
Site DM2 is one of the furthest landing regions within the 13 candidate landing regions, located approximately 250 kilometers (150 miles) from Shackleton Crater, the latter of which has a portion located directly on the lunar south pole. The researchers identified the exact location of the optimal landing site being 84°12’5.61” S and 60°41’59.61” E, which is located near a PSR crater. The reason PSR craters are of exploration importance is due to the craters being so deep that no sunlight has reached their depths in possibly billions of years, potentially resulting in their potential housing of water ice deposits. Therefore, what were the specific reasons for selecting Site DM2 and what are some potential backup landing sites?
Dr. Sánchez-Lozano tells Universe Today, “Site DM2 offers exceptional performance across several key criteria, including the highest percentage of solar illumination, optimal proportions of explorable ice-hosting areas, and extended communication windows with Earth. The strength of the decision-making methodology we employed, particularly the TOPSIS technique, lies in its compensatory nature. This approach allows criteria with merely acceptable values to be offset by others with excellent values, resulting in a comprehensive ranking of alternatives. Consequently, adjacent landing sites to the optimal location may also present highly viable options with a high degree of acceptability.”
Regarding back sites, Dr. Peña-Asensio tells Universe Today, “As potential backup sites, we consider DM1 (Amundsen Rim) particularly compelling, as it offers locations with consistently high averages across all evaluated parameters. We also highlight Site 004, centered at the edge of the Shackleton Crater, which our analysis identifies as one of the best landing sites.”
As noted, one of the primary criteria for determining the most optimal landing site is HLS, which will attempt to land the first humans on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. However, the height of HLS is almost ten times greater than the Apollo lander at 50 meters (160 feet) and 5.5 meters (17.9 feet), respectively, which means landing a larger spacecraft carries its own benefits and challenges.
For context, the original spacecraft design for Apollo called for landing a large spacecraft on the lunar surface known as direct ascent, which Wernher von Braun was initially in favor of using. However, the direct ascent technique was scrapped in favor of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) technique, which argued to be less risky due to a smaller spacecraft needing to land on the lunar surface. Therefore, if a smaller lander than HLS (i.e., Apollo-sized) was being used, how would this influence the landing site selection?
Dr. Peña-Asensio tells Universe Today, “This would directly impact our results, as we considered criteria such as the lander’s solar illumination received for energy recharging, visibility from the lander windows to help astronaut extravehicular activities and to allow intravehicular science, and direct communication with Earth. A lower lander could intensify the challenges posed by local topography, obstructing sight lines and the sunlight. However, it might also offer increased stability for the lander (by reducing its center of mass height), potentially decreasing the terrain slope safety restrictions and thereby opening up new landing site options for exploration.”
As landing sites for the Artemis III mission continue to be debated, NASA is currently scheduled to launch Artemis II late next year with a four-person crew whose mission will be to orbit the Moon and return to the Earth like Apollo 8 in December 1968. Additionally, the commercial space industry is taking their own shots at landing near the lunar south pole with the upcoming IM-2 mission courtesy of Intuitive Machines, which earlier this year successfully landed the first American spacecraft on the Moon for the first time since 1972.
This study demonstrates that a plethora of methods can be used to determine optimal landing sites for the Artemis missions and potentially other missions to other planetary bodies throughout the solar system, specifically the use of mapping and machine learning algorithms. Therefore, as we approach the Artemis III mission and the first human landing since Apollo 17, these methods will continue to evolve and improve to develop enhanced landing methods as humanity continues its journey into the cosmos.
Dr. Sánchez-Lozano tells Universe Today, “This research demonstrates how methodologies from the field of engineering projects and the business world, such as multi-criteria decision-making techniques, can be applied to solve decision problems of interest to the international astronomical community, such as the proposed case study: the selection of the optimal landing site for the Artemis III mission.”
Where will Artemis III ultimately land near the lunar south pole and how will landing site selection methods improve 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 Artemis III Landing Sites Identified Using Mapping and Algorithm Techniques appeared first on Universe Today.
NASA, Boeing Welcome Starliner Spacecraft to Earth, Close Mission
NASA and Boeing safely returned the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft following its landing at 10:01 p.m. MDT Sept. 6 at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, concluding a three-month flight test to the International Space Station.
“I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner’s safe return,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Even though it was necessary to return the spacecraft uncrewed, NASA and Boeing learned an incredible amount about Starliner in the most extreme environment possible. NASA looks forward to our continued work with the Boeing team to proceed toward certification of Starliner for crew rotation missions to the space station.”
The flight on June 5 was the first time astronauts launched aboard the Starliner. It was the third orbital flight of the spacecraft, and its second return from the orbiting laboratory. Starliner now will ship to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for inspection and processing.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program requires a spacecraft to fly a crewed test flight to prove the system is ready for regular flights to and from the orbiting laboratory. Following Starliner’s return, the agency will review all mission-related data.
“We are excited to have Starliner home safely. This was an important test flight for NASA in setting us up for future missions on the Starliner system,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “There was a lot of valuable learning that will enable our long-term success. I want to commend the entire team for their hard work and dedication over the past three months.”
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on June 5 aboard Starliner for the agency’s Boeing Crewed Flight Test from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. On June 6, as Starliner approached the space station, NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft’s reaction control thrusters. Following weeks of in-space and ground testing, technical interchange meetings, and agency reviews, NASA made the decision to prioritize safety and return Starliner without its crew. Wilmore and Williams will continue their work aboard station as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew, returning in February 2025 with the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.
The crew flight test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The goal of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit. This already is providing additional research time and has increased the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity’s microgravity testbed, including helping NASA prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Learn more about NASA’s Commercial Crew program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Leah Cheshier
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov
Steve Siceloff / Danielle Sempsrott / Stephanie Plucinsky
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov / danielle.c.sempsrott@nasa.gov / stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov
Boeing Starliner capsule lands back on Earth, without astronauts, to end troubled test flight (video)
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James Webb Space Telescope zooms in on giant question mark in space (image)
One Step Closer to Solving the Mystery of Mars’ Lost Water
Few scientists doubt that Mars was once warm and wet. The evidence for a warm, watery past keeps accumulating, and even healthy skepticism can’t dismiss it. All this evidence begs the next question: what happened to it?
Mars bears the marks of a past when water flowed freely across its surface. There are clear river channels, lakes, and even shorelines. NASA’s Perseverance rover is working its way around Jezero Crater, an ancient paleolake, and finding minerals that can only form in water’s presence. MSL Curiosity has found the same in Gale Crater.
The water that created these landscape features is gone now. Some of it has retreated to the polar caps, where it remains frozen. But aside from that, there are only two places where the remainder of Mars’ ancient water could’ve gone: underground or into space.
Scientists think that there’s water under Mars’ surface. In 2018, researchers found evidence of a large subglacial lake about 1.5 km beneath the southern polar region, though these results have been met with some skepticism. Even if the lake is real, there’s nowhere near enough water there to account for all of Mars’ lost water.
In new research in Science Advances, a team of scientists using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter explain how Mars lost much of its water to space. The research is “Martian atmospheric hydrogen and deuterium: Seasonal changes and paradigm for escape to space.” The lead author is John Clarke, a Professor of Astronomy and the Director of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University.
“Overall, the results presented here offer strong supporting evidence for a warm and wet period with an abundance of water on early Mars and a large amount of water loss into space over the lifetime of the planet.”
John Clarke, Director, Center for Space Physics at Boston University.“There are only two places water can go. It can freeze into the ground, or the water molecule can break into atoms, and the atoms can escape from the top of the atmosphere into space,” explained Clarke in a press release. “To understand how much water there was and what happened to it, we need to understand how the atoms escape into space.”
The research focuses on two types of hydrogen: what we can call ‘regular’ hydrogen (H) and deuterium (D). Deuterium is hydrogen with a neutron in its nucleus. Water is H2O—two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom—and water molecules can contain either hydrogen or deuterium. The neutron contributes additional mass and makes deuterium twice as heavy as hydrogen.
Ultraviolet light from the Sun can split water molecules apart into their constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms. In an escape-to-space scenario, more of the heavier deuterium is likely to be left behind than hydrogen.
As time passed on Mars and hydrogen kept escaping into space, more of the heavier deuterium was left behind. Over time, this preferential retention shifted the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in the atmosphere. In this research, Clarke and his co-researchers used MAVEN to see how both atoms escape from Mars currently.
NASA launched MAVEN in 2013, and it reached Martian orbit in 2014. Since then, the capable spacecraft has been observing the Martian atmosphere, making it the first spacecraft dedicated to the task. Its overarching goal is to determine how Mars lost its atmosphere. One of its specific goals is to measure the rate of gas loss from the planet’s upper atmosphere to space and what factors and mechanisms govern the loss.
NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is depicted in orbit around an artistic rendition of planet Mars, which is shown in transition from its ancient, water-covered past to the cold, dry, dusty world that it has become today. Credit: NASAMAVEN’s instrument suite contains eight powerful instruments. However, every mission has its tradeoffs, and where MAVEN is concerned, it’s unable to monitor deuterium emissions throughout the entire Martian year. Mars’s orbit is more elliptical than Earth’s. During Martian winter, it travels further from the Sun compared to a circular orbit. During that period, the deuterium emissions are very faint.
This is where the Hubble Space Telescope comes in. It contributed observations from its two high spectral resolution UV instruments, the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). By combining the Hubble observations and the MAVEN data, Clarke and his team monitored deuterium escape for three complete Martian years.
Hubble also contributed data that predates the MAVEN mission. Hubble’s data is critical because the Sun drives the atmospheric escape, and its effect changes throughout the Martian year. The closer Mars is to the Sun, the more rapidly water molecules rise through the atmosphere, where they split apart at high altitudes.
These Hubble images of Mars at aphelion (top) and perihelion (bottom) show how its atmosphere is brighter and more extended when Mars is closer to the Sun. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, John T. Clarke (Boston University); Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)The Sun’s effect on the Martian atmosphere is striking.
“In recent years scientists have found that Mars has an annual cycle that is much more dynamic than people expected 10 or 15 years ago,” explained Clarke. “The whole atmosphere is very turbulent, heating up and cooling down on short timescales, even down to hours. The atmosphere expands and contracts as the brightness of the Sun at Mars varies by 40 percent over the course of a Martian year.”
Prior to this research, Mars scientists thought that hydrogen and deuterium atoms slowly diffused upward through the thin atmosphere until they were high enough to escape. But these results change that perspective.
These results show that when Mars is close to the Sun, water molecules rise very rapidly and release their atoms at high altitudes.
“H atoms in the upper atmosphere are lost rapidly by thermal escape in all seasons, and the escape flux is limited by the amount diffusing upward from the lower atmosphere so that the escape flux effectively equals the upward flux,” the authors explain in their research.
It’s different for deuterium atoms, though. “The D escape flux from thermal escape is negligible, in which case an upward flux with the water-based D/H ratio would result in a large surplus of D in the upper atmosphere,” the authors write.
For the D/H ratio to be restored to the measured equilibrium with H near aphelion and to be consistent with observed faster changes in D density near perihelion, something has to boost the escape of D atoms. “In this scenario, the fractionation factor becomes much larger, consistent with a large primordial reservoir of water on Mars,” the authors write. “We consider this to be the likely scenario, while more work is needed to understand the physical processes responsible for superthermal atoms and their escape.”
“Overall, the results presented here offer strong supporting evidence for a warm and wet period with an abundance of water on early Mars and a large amount of water loss into space over the lifetime of the planet,” Clarke and his colleagues write.
The research also reached another conclusion. The upper Martian atmosphere is cold, so most of the atoms need a boost of energy to become superthermal and escape Mars’ gravity. This research shows that solar wind protons can enter the atmosphere and collide with atoms to provide the kick. Sunlight can also provide an energy boost through chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere.
This research doesn’t answer all of our questions about Mars’s lost water, but it makes significant progress, and that’s always welcome.
“The trends reported here represent substantial progress toward understanding the physical processes that govern the escape of hydrogen into space at Mars and our ability to relate these to the isotopic fractionation of D/H and the depth of primordial water on Mars,” the authors write.
How Mars lost its water is one of the big questions in space science right now. It’s about more than just Mars; it can help us understand Earth, Venus, and the rocky exoplanets we find in other habitable zones and how they evolve.
To put it bluntly, Mars lost its water, and Earth didn’t. Why?
We’re inching toward the answer.
The post One Step Closer to Solving the Mystery of Mars’ Lost Water appeared first on Universe Today.
Academic Semester Legal Externships (HQ)
NASA’s Office of the General Counsel (OGC) periodically has externships for highly qualified law students. OGC offers unpaid, part-time and full-time externships during the law school academic year (for law school credit). These externships are intended to expose law students to the rewards of Federal service and to facilitate their professional growth. Externships may be performed either in person or remotely (depending on NASA COVID-19 safety protocols).
OGC is divided into four practice groups: Commercial and Intellectual Property; General Law; Contracts and Acquisition Integrity; and International and Space Law. Detailed, descriptive information about each practice group is located on OGC’s main page. NASA OGC will be soliciting applications for Summer 2025 shortly.
QualificationsYou must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident and enrolled (full-time or part-time) in a U.S. law school that is ABA-accredited, in either a J.D. or LL.M program. In addition, you must have at least a 3.0 GPA.
Application ProcessTo apply for an academic semester internship (part-time or full-time) for law school credit:
Please apply by email to: hq-ogcintern@mail.nasa.gov. With your email, please include solely the following materials in a single PDF:
- A one-page cover letter explaining: (1) to which of the OGC practice groups you are applying; (2) your interest in the position; and (3) your qualifications for the position; and
- A resume of no more than two pages.
Due to the volume of applications received, applicants will receive a general acknowledgement that their resume has been received and will be contacted personally only if selected for an interview.
We are not accepting applications for the Externship Program at this time. NASA OGC will be soliciting applications for Summer 2025 shortly.
NASA Selects Companies for Commercial SmallSat Services Award
NASA has selected eight companies for a new award to help acquire Earth observation data and provide related services for the agency.
The Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program On-Ramp1 Multiple Award contract is a firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple-award contract with a maximum value of $476 million, cumulatively amongst all the selected contractors, and a performance period through Nov. 15, 2028.
The selectees are:
- BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc. in Herndon, Virginia
- ICEYE US Inc. in Irvine, California
- MDA Geospatial Service Inc. in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
- Pixxel Space Technologies, Inc in El Segundo, California
- Planet Labs Federal, Inc. in Arlington, Virginia
- Satellogic Federal, LLC in Davidson, North Carolina
- Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc. in Huntsville, Alabama
- The Tomorrow Companies Inc. in Boston
Under the contract, the recipients will be responsible for acquiring observation data from commercial sources that support NASA’s Earth science research and application activities that help improve life on the planet. The goal of the awards is to give NASA a cost-effective way to augment or complement the Earth observations acquired by the agency and other U.S. government and international agencies for the benefit of all.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
