In less than a week, on April 16, a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket will launch NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ), and I will be watching. I am not going to be able to break away from my daily grind to go to Florida for the launch, but I will still have a […]
A Falcon 9 rocket stands ready for liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.
In less than a week, on April 16, a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket will launch NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ), and I will be watching. I am not going to be able to break away from my daily grind to go to Florida for the launch, but I will still have a really good view of the launch. My plan it use an App that I recently loaded onto my Iphone. “Launch 321” is an Augmented Reality (AR ) app created by USA TODAY that will give me a front row seat for the launch. As explained by US TODAY, this app “fuses traditional Space Coast Rocket Launch coverage with augmented reality.”
April 16 will be my first live launch with “Launch 321”, but I am planning on a pretty spectacular experience.
Don’t wait until launch day to load the app because there lots of features in the App that allow you to learn about pre-launch procedures so that you will be ready to take full advantage of the app on the launch day, and future launch days.
Check back on this blog after April 16 and I will share what the experience was like.
And, if you want to learn more about Space, Satellite & Aerospace topics, consider taking one of the many courses offered by ATI. A complete list of offerings can be found here.
Did you read the recent story about JPL “dressmaker” Lien Pham who makes thermal blankets for spacecraft? The materials, methods, and techniques are an amazing combination of traditional and very techy. “What kind of materials go into a thermal blanket? We use multiple layers of Mylar films with Dacron netting to separate them. For the outermost surface, we use […]
Did you read the recent story about JPL “dressmaker” Lien Pham who makes thermal blankets for spacecraft? The materials, methods, and techniques are an amazing combination of traditional and very techy.
“What kind of materials go into a thermal blanket?
We use multiple layers of Mylar films with Dacron netting to separate them. For the outermost surface, we use Kapton film or Beta cloth, which resist temperature change.
We also use gold Kapton, which is good for conducting electricity. There’s a black material called carbon field Kapton. That’s for a charged environment, with a lot of electricity. It dissipates the charge.
What Kind of tools do you use?
We use commercial sewing machines designed for thick material such as denim. It has a walking feed that pulls in the material and cuts our sewing thread automatically. We also use a variety of hand tools like a measuring scale, scissors, surgical scalpels, hole punches, a heat gun, leather punch and weight scale.”
A BBC.com article on Lian Pham and the JPL seamstresses explains
“Nasa hires women with sewing experience for a reason. When engineers couldn’t figure out how to work with Teflon – the non-stick material that coats many saucepans – they were at a loss.
Lien suggested folding the edge of the material and sewing it like a hem, as she would with a shirt at home.
It worked.”
Applied Technology Institute (ATICourses) is offering a brand new Exoplanets course. The news below could be of interest to our readers. This is the kind of discovery that reminds you just how little weactually know about space. Scientists have found a mysterious exoplanet 10 times the size of Jupiter—and no one can quite explain it. […]
Applied Technology Institute (ATICourses) is offering a brand new Exoplanets course. The news below could be of interest to our readers.
This is the kind of discovery that reminds you just how little weactually know about space. Scientists have found a mysterious exoplanet 10 times the size of Jupiter—and no one can quite explain it.
Wrapped in carbon monoxide and water-free, scientists located inhospitable exoplanet WASP-18b with the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes about 330 light years from Earth.
The exoplanet might be far away, but it’s a giant in its neck of the woods—it has the mass of approximately 10 Jupiters.
NASA researchers note it has a stratosphere, as does Earth, but unlike our stratosphere, where the abundance of ozone absorbs UV radiation and helps protect our planet, WASP-18b’s is loaded with carbon monoxide—a rare discovery.
“We find evidence for a strong thermal inversion in the dayside atmosphere of the highly irradiated hot Jupiter WASP-18b…based on emission spectroscopy from Hubble Space Telescope secondary eclipse observations and Spitzer eclipse photometry,” researcher Kyle Sheppard said.
“The derived composition and profile suggest that WASP-18b is the first example of both a planet with a non-oxide driven thermal inversion and a planet with an atmospheric metallicity inconsistent with that predicted for Jupiter-mass planets.”
WASP-18b is a “hot Jupiter,” which unlike the gas giants of our solar system that are positioned with distance from the Sun, are especially close. Our Jupiter takes 12 years to orbit the sun once, WASP-18b circles its star every 23 hours.
There’s a small, icy object floating at the outer edge of our Solar System, in the messy Kuiper belt. Or it could be two objects, astronomers are not sure. But NASA is on track to find out more, as that object has been chosen as the next flyby target for the New Horizons spacecraft – the […]
There’s a small, icy object floating at the outer edge of our Solar System, in the messy Kuiper belt. Or it could be two objects, astronomers are not sure.
But NASA is on track to find out more, as that object has been chosen as the next flyby target for the New Horizons spacecraft – the same probe that gave us incredible photos of Pluto in 2015. And now they want your help to give that target a catchy name.
Currently, the enigmatic Kuiper belt object is designated 2014 MU69, but that’s just the provisional string of letters and numbers any newly discovered object gets.
“Yes, we’re going to give 2014 MU69 a real name, rather than just the “license plate” designator it has now,” New Horizons’ principal investigator Alan Stern wrote in a blog post earlier this year.
“The details of how we’ll name it are still being worked out, but NASA announced a few weeks back that it will involve a public naming contest.”
And now, folks, our time to shine has arrived.
NASA has finally extended an invitation for people to submit their ideas for a name, although they note this is not going to be the officially-official name just yet, but rather a nickname to be used until the flyby happens.
The team at New Horizons already have a bunch of ideas prepared, which now form the basis of the naming campaign, and anyone can already vote for those.
Amongst current choices put forward by the team are Z’ha’dum – a fictional planet from the TV series Babylon 5; Camalor – a fictional city actually located in the Kuiper belt according to Robert L. Forward’s novel Camelot 30K; and Mjölnir – the name of Norse thunder god Thor’s epic hammer.
One of the most interesting aspects of MU69 is that we’re not even sure whether the object is one body or two – telescope observations have hinted it could actually be two similarly-sized bodies either in close mutual orbit, or even stuck together.
Read more.
Following up on our last blog and from a Press Release posted Thursday, October 26, 2017, by the JetPropulsion Laboratory: When it comes to space exploration, many believe America must make a choice between having human “Astros” exploring the solar system or using robotic probes as planet or asteroid “Dodgers.” NASA sees both approaches as essential […]
Following up on our last blog and from a Press Release posted Thursday, October 26, 2017, by the JetPropulsion Laboratory:
When it comes to space exploration, many believe America must make a choice between having human “Astros” exploring the solar system or using robotic probes as planet or asteroid “Dodgers.”
NASA sees both approaches as essential to expanding the human presence in the universe. But that doesn’t mean that two of NASA’s centers can’t engage in a little friendly rivalry when it comes to their hometown baseball teams competing in the 2017 World Series.
Houston is home to both the American League’s Houston Astros and NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), the hub of human spaceflight, while the Los Angeles area is home to both the National League’s L.A. Dodgers and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, one of the pillars of robotic space and planetary missions.
On behalf of their respective centers, JSC Director Ellen Ochoa, who actually is a native Californian, and JPL Director Michael Watkins, who actually is a University of Texas at Austin alumnus, have decided the World Series deserves to be the subject of a little bragging rights wager.
So, here’s the contest: If the Houston Astros win the best-of-seven series, Watkins will have to wear an Astros jersey for a day. If the series goes the L.A. Dodgers’ way, Ochoa will wear a Dodgers jersey.
“JSC is proud to be a citizen of Houston, and, as such, we are proud of all the city’s accomplishments and its great spirit,” Ochoa said. “And our team is actually named after our space center, so I’m happy to be able to show support for that, and glad to have a little fun in challenging a center that, except for this week, is our close partner in exploration. I am looking forward to seeing a little bit of Houston at JPL soon.”
“JPLers are proud to work and live in the Los Angeles area here in beautiful Southern California,” Watkins said. “We love the chance to show our support for this great city, and for the great baseball tradition of the Dodgers. This is a nice way to have a little fun with our good friends at JSC and we hope to see some Dodger blue there shortly.”
When it comes to the reality of spaceflight, the two centers have collaborated and compared notes on a variety of space projects for nearly half a century. NASA understands that robotic exploration has always been a precursor to human space exploration and that more and more, we see robots and humans flying together, helping each other explore. Rather than rivals, JSC and JPL are close teammates in expanding our knowledge of the universe and increasing the limits humanity explores.
But in the meantime, JSC invites all Astros fans to “Orange Out” and JPL invites all Dodgers fans to “Bleed Blue.” May the best team win!
In 1905 Albert Einstein employed one of the most powerful brains on planet Earth to puzzle out an elusive concept called “The Special Theory of Relativity”. Ten years later he used those same brain cells to develop his even more powerful “General Theory of Relativity”. Figure 1 highlights his most dramatic proposal for proving – […]
In 1905 Albert Einstein employed one of the most powerful brains on planet Earth to puzzle out an elusive concept called “The Special Theory of Relativity”. Ten years later he used those same brain cells to develop his even more powerful “General Theory of Relativity”.
Figure 1 highlights his most dramatic proposal for proving – or disproving! – his General Theory of Relativity. The test he proposed had to take place during a total eclipse of the sun. For, according to The General Theory of Relativity, light from a more distant star would be bent by about one two-thousandths of a degree when it swept by the edge of the sun.
Four years later (in 1919) the talented British astronomer Arthur Eddington in pursuit of a total eclipse of the sun, ventured to the Crimean Peninsula to perform the test Einstein had proposed based on the idea that “starlight would swerve measurably as it passed through the heavy gravity of the sun, a dimple in the fabric of the universe.”*
A black hole comes into existence when a star converts all of its hydrogen into helium and collapses into a much smaller ball that is so dense nothing can escape from its gravitational pull, not even light.
Figure 1: In 1915, when he finally worked out his General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein proposed three clever techniques for testing its validity. Four years later, in 1919 the British astronomer, Arthur Eddington, took advantage of one of those tests during a total eclipse of the sun to demonstrate that, when a light beam passes near a massive celestial body, it is bent by the local gravitational field as predicted by Einstein’s theory. This distinctive bending is similar to the manner a baseball headed toward home plate is bent downward by the gravitational pull of the earth.
The existence of black holes was inadvertently predicted by a mathematical relationship Sir Isaac Newton understood and employed in 1687 in developing many of his most powerful scientific predictions, including the rather weird concept of escape velocity. As Figure 2 indicates, it is called the Vis Viva equation.
Start by solving the Vis Viva equation for the radius Re, then plug in the speed of light, C, as a value for the escape velocity, Ve. The resulting radius Re is the so-called “event horizon”, which equals the radius at which light cannot escape from an extremely dense sphere of mass, M. As the calculation on the right-hand side of Figure 2 indicates, if we could somehow compressed the earth down to a radius of 0.35 inches – while preserving its total mass light waves inside the sphere would be unable to escape and, therefore, could not be seen by an observer. The radius of the event horizon associated with a spherical body of mass, M, is directly proportional to the total mass involved.
Figure 2: The Vis Viva equation was developed and applied repeatedly by Isaac Newton when he was evaluating various gravity-induced phenomena. Properly applied, the Vis Viva equation predicts that sufficiently dense celestial bodies generate such strong gravitational fields that nothing – not even a beam of light – can escape their clutches. Today’s astronomers are discovering numerous examples of this counterintuitive effect. Black holes are one result.
As Figure 3 indicates, an enormous black hole 50 million light years from Earth has been discovered to have a mass equal to 2 billion times the mass of our sun. It is located in the M87 Galaxy in the constellation Virgo.
Figure 3: In 1994 the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a huge black hole approximately 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles from planet Earth nestled among the stars of the M87 galaxy in the Virgo constellation. Astronomers estimate that it is 2,000,000,ooo times heavier than our son. That black hole’s event horizon has a radius of 3,700,000,000 miles or about 40 astronomical units. One astronomical unit being the distance from the earth to our sun.The graph presented in Figure 4 links the masses of various celestial bodies with their corresponding event horizons. Notice that both the horizontal and the vertical axes range over 20 orders of magnitude! In 1942 the Indian-born American astrophysicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, demonstrated from theoretical considerations that the smallest black hole that can result from the collapse of a main-sequence star, must have a mass that is equal to approximately 3 suns with a corresponding event horizon of 5.5 miles. The event horizon of a black hole is the maximum radius from which no light can escape.
The graph presented in Figure 4 links the masses of various celestial bodies with their corresponding event horizons. Notice that both the horizontal and the vertical axes range over 20 orders of magnitude! In 1942 the Indian-born American astrophysicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, demonstrated from theoretical considerations that the smallest black hole that can result from the collapse of a main-sequence star, must have a mass that is equal to approximately 3 suns with a corresponding event horizon of 5.5 miles. The event horizon of a black hole is the maximum radius from which no light can escape.
See all the ATI courses on 1 page.
What courses would you like to see scheduled as an open-enrollment or on-site course near your facility?
ATI is planning its schedule of technical training courses and would like your recommendations of courses
that will help your project and/or company.
These courses can also be held on-site at your facility.
The researchers at NORAD*, which is located under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are currently tracking 20,000 objects in space as big as a softball or bigger. Most of these orbiting objects are space debris fragments that can pose a collision hazard to other orbiting satellites such as the International Space Station. Tracking these […]
The researchers at NORAD*, which is located under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are currently tracking 20,000 objects in space as big as a softball or bigger. Most of these orbiting objects are space debris fragments that can pose a collision hazard to other orbiting satellites such as the International Space Station.
Tracking these fragments of debris is complicated and expensive. Preventing collisions is expensive, too. So, too, is designing and building space vehicles that can withstand high-speed impacts. A cheaper alternative may be to sweep some of the debris out of space to minimize its hazard to other orbit-crossing satellites.
When two orbiting objects collide with one another, the energy exchange can be large and destructive. Two one-pound fragments impacting each other in a solid collision in low-altitude orbits intersecting at a 15-degree incidence angle can create the energy caused by exploding two pounds of TNT!!
One scientific study showed that returning substantial numbers of debris fragments to Earth with a hydrogen-fueled spaceborne tug would cost approximately $3 billion for each percent reduction in the fragment population – which has been increasing by about 12 percent per year, on average.
Fortunately, a powerful, but relatively inexpensive laser on the ground pointing vertically upward can be used to deorbit fragments of space debris traveling around the earth in low-altitude orbits. The radial velocity increment provided by such a ground-based laser causes the object to reenter the earth’s atmosphere as shown in the sketch in the upper left-hand corner of Figure 1.
The total required velocity increment can be added in much smaller increments a little at a time over days or weeks. Drag with the atmosphere was neglected in the case considered in Figure 1, but, in the real world, atmospheric drag would help the object return to Earth.
Radiation pressure created by the assumed 50,000 watt laser beam is equivalent to 40 suns spread over the one square foot cross section of the object. The total photon pressure equals 1/13th of a pound per square foot.
* NORAD = North American Aerospace Defense (Command)
The researchers at NORAD*, which is located under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are currently tracking 20,000 objects in space as big as a softball or bigger. Most of these orbiting objects are space debris fragments that can pose a collision hazard to other orbiting satellites such as the International Space Station.
Tracking these fragments of debris is complicated and expensive. Preventing collisions is expensive, too. So, too, is designing and building space vehicles that can withstand high-speed impacts. A cheaper alternative may be to sweep some of the debris out of space to minimize its hazard to other orbit-crossing satellites.
When two orbiting objects collide with one another, the energy exchange can be large and destructive. Two one-pound fragments impacting each other in a solid collision in low-altitude orbits intersecting at a 15-degree incidence angle can create the energy caused by exploding two pounds of TNT!!
One scientific study showed that returning substantial numbers of debris fragments to Earth with a hydrogen-fueled spaceborne tug would cost approximately $3 billion for each percent reduction in the fragment population – which has been increasing by about 12 percent per year, on average.
Fortunately, a powerful, but relatively inexpensive laser on the ground pointing vertically upward can be used to deorbit fragments of space debris traveling around the earth in low-altitude orbits. The radial velocity increment provided by such a ground-based laser causes the object to reenter the earth’s atmosphere as shown in the sketch in the upper left-hand corner of Figure 1.
The total required velocity increment can be added in much smaller increments a little at a time over days or weeks. Drag with the atmosphere was neglected in the case considered in Figure 1, but, in the real world, atmospheric drag would help the object return to Earth.
Radiation pressure created by the assumed 50,000 watt laser beam is equivalent to 40 suns spread over the one square foot cross section of the object. The total photon pressure equals 1/13th of a pound per square foot.
* NORAD = North American Aerospace Defense (Command)
Figure 2: These engineering calculations show that the 20,000 space debris fragments now circling the earth in low-altitude orbits could, on average, each be deorbited with ground-based lasers for approximately $40,000 worth of electrical power. Those same ground-based lasers could be used in a different mode to reboost valuable or dangerous payloads in low-altitude orbits or to send those payloads bound for geosynchoronous orbits onto their transfer ellipses. (SOURCE: Short course “Fundamentals of Space Exploration”. Instructor: Tom Logsdon. (Seal Beach, CA)
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What courses would you like to see scheduled as an open-enrollment or on-site course near your facility?
ATI is planning its schedule of technical training courses and would like your recommendations of courses
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Tom Logsdon teaches a number of courses for Applied Technology Institute including: Orbital & Launch Mechanics – Fundamentals GPS Technology Strapdown and Integrated Navigation Systems Breakthrough Thinking: Creative Solutions for Professional Success The article below was written by him could be of interest to our readers. AMERICA’S INFRARED SPITZER TELESCOPE “As in the soft and […]
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which launched Aug. 25, 2003, will begin the “Beyond” phase of its mission on Oct. 1, 2016. Spitzer has been operating beyond the limits that were set for it at the beginning of its mission, and making discoveries in unexpected areas of science, such as exoplanets.
Tom Logsdon teaches a number of courses for Applied Technology Institute including:
The article below was written by him could be of interest to our readers.
AMERICA’S INFRARED SPITZER TELESCOPE“As in the soft and sweet eclipse, when soul meets soul on lover’s lips.”
British Lyric Poet
Percy Shelly
Prometheus Unbound, 1820
America’s famous inventor, Thomas Edison, The Wizard of Menlo Park, had long admired the somber, romantic words penned by England’s master poet Percy Shelly. And, like Shelly, he, too, was enchanted with the sensual experiences conjured up by the periodic eclipses that blotted out the sun and the moon.
In 1878 Edison clambered aboard the newly constructed transcontinental railroad headed from New Jersey to Wyoming where he hoped to utilize his newly constructed infrared sensor to study the total solar eclipse he knew would soon sweep across America’s western landscape. When he arrived in Wyoming, the only building he could rent was an old chicken coop at the edge of the prairie. And, as soon as the moon slipped in front of the sun causing the sky to darken, the chickens decided to come to roost.
Soon The Wizard of Menlo Park was so busy trying to quiet his squawking companions, he caught only a fleeting glimpse of the rare and colorful spectacle lighting up the darkened daytime sky. His infrared sensor, unfortunately, remained untested that day.
Even if those agitated Wyoming chickens had behaved themselves with proper decorum during that unusual event, Thomas Edison’s sensor would have been entirely ineffective because most of the infrared frequencies emanating from the sun and the stars are absorbed by the atmosphere surrounding the earth. However, sensors of similar design can, and do, handle important astronomical tasks when they are installed in cryogenically cooled telescopes launched into space by powerful and well-designed rockets.
The infrared rays streaming down to earth from distant stars and galaxies lie just beyond the bright red colors at the edge of in the electromagnetic spectrum our eyes can see. As such, they penetrate the clouds of dust found, in such abundance, in interstellar space. The dust that has accumulated under your bed is not particularly valuable or interesting. But the dust found in outer space is far more beneficial – and exciting, too!
The Spitzer Space Telescope – a giant thermos bottle in space – now following along behind planet earth as it circles the sun, was an effective infrared telescope until it used up its entire supply of liquid helium coolant. In the meantime, it has become a “warm” space-age telescope seeking out previously undiscovered exoplanets orbiting around suns trillions of miles away. This is accomplished by observing their shadows periodically dimming the star’s visible light as the various planets coast in between the Spitzer and the celestial body being observed.
See all the ATI courses on 1 page.
What courses would you like to see scheduled as an open-enrollment or on-site course near your facility?
ATI is planning its schedule of technical training courses and would like your recommendations of courses
that will help your project and/or company.
These courses can also be held on-site at your facility.
Applied Technology Institute offers a variety of courses on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering. SpaceX launched a commercial communications satellite using a Falcon 9 rocket, its third flight in just 12 days. The rocket blasted off on Wednesday evening at 7.38 p.m. (local time) from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, delivering the satellite called […]
Applied Technology Institute offers a variety of courses on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering. SpaceX launched a commercial communications satellite using a Falcon 9 rocket, its third flight in just 12 days.
The rocket blasted off on Wednesday evening at 7.38 p.m. (local time) from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, delivering the satellite called the Intelsat 35e to a geostationary transfer orbit, reports Xinhua news agency.
The satellite was deployed about 32 minutes after launch.
The California-based company tried to launch the satellite on Sunday and Monday, but stopped twice in the final seconds of countdown.
With a launch mass of over 6.7 tonnes, the Intelsat 35e is the heaviest satellite Falcon 9 has ever sent to orbit.
As a result, SpaceX did not attempt to recover the rocket’s first stage after launch this time, the company said.
It was lofted to provide high-performance services in both the C- and Ku-bands. Wednesday’s mission came just 10 days after SpaceX’s first-ever “doubleheader” weekend, when it launched two missions within about 50 hours.
One saw the launch of BulgariaSat-1, the first geostationary communications satellite in Bulgaria’s history, from the Kennedy Space Centre on June 23.
Another had 10 satellites launched to low-Earth orbit for the U.S. satellite phone company Iridium from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California two days later.
The Intelsat 35e also marked the tenth of SpaceX’s more than 20 launches planned this year. Last year, the company completed eight successful launches before an explosion during routine ground testing temporarily halted Falcon 9 launches.
Meanwhile, while the Intelsat 35e mission involved an expendable Falcon 9 first stage, SpaceX has recovered 11 first stages on previous missions, re-flying and re-landing two of them. The company has also started tackling the challenge of recovering and reusing the launch vehicle’s payload fairings.
Old MacDonald had a space farm. Applied Technology Institute (ATI Courses) offers a variety of courses on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering. Also, our president, Jim Jenkins, is an avid gardener who grows a garden full of tomatoes, peppers, squash, peas. If you give an astronaut a packet of food, she’ll eat for a day. If […]
Old MacDonald had a space farm.
Applied Technology Institute (ATI Courses) offers a variety of courses on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering.
Also, our president, Jim Jenkins, is an avid gardener who grows a garden full of tomatoes, peppers, squash, peas.
If you give an astronaut a packet of food, she’ll eat for a day. If you teach an astronaut how to farm in space, she’ll eat for a lifetime—or at least for a 6-month-long expedition on the International Space Station.
Since its earliest missions, NASA has been focused on food, something astronauts need whether they’re at home on Earth or orbiting 250-odd miles above it. Over the years, the administration has tried a series of solutions: John Glenn had pureed beef and veggie paste, other flight crews used new-age freeze drying technology. More recently, NASA’s been trying to enable its astronauts to grow their own food in orbit.
Bryan Onate, an engineer stationed at the Kennedy Space Center, is on the forefront of this technology. He helped lead the team that built Veggie, NASA’s first plant growth system, and next month he’s sending up Veggie’s new and improved brother, the Advanced Plant Habitat.
The habitat is the size of a mini-fridge. But instead of storing soda, it will carefully record every step in the growth of plants aboard the space station. This will allow researchers on the ground unprecedented insight into how plants are shaped by microgravity and other forces at work in outer space. And, Onate says, “astronauts may get to enjoy the fruit of our labor.”
Read more here.
The number of planetary systems discovered seems to grow on a daily basis, but most of them are wildly different to our own solar system. Now a team of University of Arizona researchers led by Kate Su have used NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) flying observatory to take a closer look at […]
The number of planetary systems discovered seems to grow on a daily basis, but most of them are wildly different to our own solar system. Now a team of University of Arizona researchers led by Kate Su have used NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) flying observatory to take a closer look at a system 10.5 light years away and discovered it has a familiar general structure.
The star in question is Epsilon Eridani (ε Eri) in the southern hemisphere of the constellation of Eridanus. Its previous claims to fame were as the setting for the sci fi television series Babylon 5 and the disputed location of Star Trek‘s planet Vulcan. It’s also been the subject of several early studies seeking extrasolar planets and was even monitored in the 1960s by Project Ozma as a possible source of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Much of the previous work on Epsilon Eridani involved the Spitzer Space Telescope, but SOFIA is over twice the size of Spitzer, has three times the resolution, and can operate in the infrared at wavelengths between 25 and 40 microns. What this meant was that SOFIA could discern much smaller details, especially from warm materials, than before, which suggested an alternative model to the one provided by Spitzer’s data.
Forget motion sickness and adjusting to microgravity. Astronaut Jack Fischer is most worried about facing the space station’s intimidating bathroom facilities. On Thursday, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer is scheduled to embark on his first voyage to the International Space Station. He’s excited to be working on a variety of experiments, including ones dealing with plant […]
Forget motion sickness and adjusting to microgravity. Astronaut Jack Fischer is most worried about facing the space station’s intimidating bathroom facilities.
On Thursday, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer is scheduled to embark on his first voyage to the International Space Station. He’s excited to be working on a variety of experiments, including ones dealing with plant growth and bone growth, but he’s less than thrilled about the prospect of using the loo in microgravity.
In a NASA Q&A, Fischer reveals what he expects his greatest challenge will be. He says it’s the toilet. “It’s all about suction, it’s really difficult, and I’m a bit terrified,” Fischer says.
In case you think Fischer is exaggerating his toilet trepidation, here’s NASA description of how the commode functions: “The toilet basically works like a vacuum cleaner with fans that suck air and waste into the commode.” It also requires the use of leg restraints.
“Unlike most things, you just can’t train for that on the ground,” Fischer says, “so I approach my space-toilet activities with respect, preparation and a healthy dose of sheer terror.”
NASA has released an amazing photo show by Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency, who photographed bright auroras from the International Space Station on March 27, 2017. “The view at night recently has been simply magnificent: few clouds, intense auroras. I can’t look away from the windows,” Pesquet wrote in […]
Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed brightly glowing auroras from his vantage point aboard the International Space Station on March 27, 2017. (ESA/NASA)
NASA has released an amazing photo show by Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency, who photographed bright auroras from the International Space Station on March 27, 2017.
“The view at night recently has been simply magnificent: few clouds, intense auroras. I can’t look away from the windows,” Pesquet wrote in a tweet that included the image.
Here’s what NASA wrote about the image:
“The dancing lights of the aurora provide stunning views, but also capture the imagination of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the sun. Aurora are one effect of such energetic particles, which can speed out from the sun both in a steady stream called the solar wind and due to giant eruptions known as coronal mass ejections or CMEs.’
Check out more images from NASA’s Aurora Image Gallery
One of the super-moon photos is a humorous hoax. Can you spot it? We knew that ATI’s instructors are world-class experts. They are the best in the business, averaging 25 to 35 years of experience, and are carefully selected for their ability to explain advanced technology in a readily understandable manner. We did not know […]
One of the super-moon photos is a humorous hoax. Can you spot it? We knew that ATI’s instructors are world-class experts. They are the best in the business, averaging 25 to 35 years of experience, and are carefully selected for their ability to explain advanced technology in a readily understandable manner. We did not know that many are talented photographers. We challenged them to take some photographs of the November 13-14 super-moon. See our previous post and then the resulting photographs.
https://aticourses.com/blog/index.php/2016/11/13/get-your-camera-ready-super-moon-november-13-14/
Tom Logsdon, who teaches Orbital & Launch Mechanics – Fundamentals provided us some of the orbits key parameters.
Here are the best, most appropriate, average orbital parameters for Earth’s.
perigee radius: 363,300 Km (for the super-moon it was 356,508 Km (or 221,524 miles)
apogee radius: 405,400 Km
Inclination to the ecliptic plane: 5.145 deg
(the plane containing the Earth and the moon)
orbital eccentricity: 0. 0549 (sometimes quoted as 5.49 percent)
recession rate from the Earth: 3.8 cm/yr
Siderial month: 27.3 days
Synodic month: 29.5 days
( the sidereal month is the time it takes for the moon to make one 360 deg trip around the earth;
the synodic month is the month we observe from the spinning earth…it involves a few extra degrees of travel beyond the sidereal month)
Elon Musk in SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, seems to become enamored by a new grandiose idea every week or so. And this week was no exception. This time he and his well-heeled colleagues are trying to find a way to serve the 3 billion earthlings hunkering down at scattered locations around the globe lacking service […]
Elon Musk in SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, seems to become enamored by a new grandiose idea every week or so. And this week was no exception. This time he and his well-heeled colleagues are trying to find a way to serve the 3 billion earthlings hunkering down at scattered locations around the globe lacking service by modern cellphones or conventional telephones.
The solution? Launch a giant swarm of broadband communication satellites into low-altitude circular orbits flying in a tight formation with one another as they circle around the globe. It is called OneWeb.
300-pound satellites are to be launched into 18 orbit planes with 40 satellites following one another in single file around each plane. Ku-band transmitters will provide satellite-based cellphone services to remote and underserved users everywhere in the world. Mass production techniques and the economies of scale should help keep the cost of each individual satellite in the $500,000 range. Recently the OneWeb satellites passed their preliminary design review at the famous satellite design center in Toulouse, France. OneWeb’s total network cost, including a widely dispersed network of gateway Earth stations, is expected to come in at about $3.5 billion, provided the cost-conscious satellite-makers in Exploration Park, Florida, can come in within their target budget. Company spokesmen ha ve indicated that, so far, their team members are on schedule and within 5% of their estimated costs.
About 15-percent of the $3.5 billion has been raised and has been funding about 300 full-time experts. Present schedules call for initial money-raising services to being in 2019. Some industry experts have been calling the concept the O3b “other three billion”, for the three billion widely distributed individuals unserved by mobile or hard-wired telephones.
Elon Musk is famous for turning wild ideas into practical reality and squeezed out impressive profits along the way. Many of his ideas have been floating around for some time when he decides to take a shot at turning them into reality. An earlier version of OneWeb was touted by Edward Tucks in the 1970’s. It was called Teledesic.
The Teledesic concept sprang to life because Tucks read that “40 million people (were) on the waiting list for telephone services around the world.” He quietly sketched up the plans for an 840-satellite constellation of communication satellites flitting through space in 435-mile orbits.
Launch costs were a big barrier then. But Elon Musk can now put a big dent in that problem with his surprisingly inexpensive Falcon boosters.
Tom Logsdon, the author of this blog teaches short courses for the Applied Technology Institute in Riva, Maryland. He will be discussing, in detail, the rapidly evolving OneWeb plans as they are springing from the drawing boards in the following short courses:
The author of this article, Tom Logsdon, teaches short courses, on a regular basis, for the Applied Technology Institute in Riva, Maryland. Here is his upcoming schedule of courses:
How to Promote Your ATI Course in Social Media LinkedIn for ATI Rocket Scientists Did you know that for 52% of professionals and executives, their LinkedIn profile is the #1 or #2 search result when someone searches on their name? For ATI instructors, that number is substantially lower – just 17%. One reason is […]
How to Promote Your ATI Course in Social MediaLinkedIn for ATI Rocket Scientists
Did you know that for 52% of professionals and executives, their LinkedIn profile is the #1 or #2 search result when someone searches on their name?
For ATI instructors, that number is substantially lower – just 17%. One reason is that about 25% of ATI instructors do not have a LinkedIn profile. Others have done so little with their profile that it isn’t included in the first page of search results.
If you are not using your LinkedIn profile, you are missing a huge opportunity. When people google you, your LinkedIn profile is likely the first place they go to learn about you. You have little control over what other information might be available on the web about you. But you have complete control over your LinkedIn profile. You can use your profile to tell your story – to give people the exact information you want them to have about your expertise and accomplishments.
Why not take advantage of that to promote your company, your services, and your course?
Here are some simple ways to promote your course using LinkedIn…
On Your LinkedIn Profile
Let’s start by talking about how to include your course on your LinkedIn profile so it is visible anytime someone googles you or visits your profile.
1. Add your role as an instructor.
Let people know that this course is one of the ways you share your knowledge. You can include your role as an instructor in several places on your profile:
Experience – This is the equivalent of listing your role as a current job. (You can have more than one current job.) Use Applied Technology Institute as the employer. Make sure you drag and drop this role below your full-time position.
Summary – Your summary is like a cover letter for your profile – use it to give people an overview of who you are and what you do. You can mention the type of training you do, along with the name of your course.
Projects – The Projects section gives you an excellent way to share the course without giving it the same status as a full-time job.
Headline – Your Headline comes directly below your name, at the top of your profile. You could add “ATI Instructor” at the end of your current Headline.
Start with an introduction, such as “I teach an intensive course through the Applied Technology Institute on [course title]” and copy/paste the description from your course materials or the ATI website. You can add a link to the course description on the ATI website.
This example from Tom Logsdon’s profile, shows how you might phrase it:
Here are some other examples of instructors who include information about their courses on their LinkedIn profile:
Buddy Wellborn – His Headline says “Instructor at ATI” and Buddy includes details about the course in his Experience section.
D. Lee Fugal – Mentions the course in his Summary and Experience.
Jim Jenkins – Courses are included throughout Jim’s profile, including his Headline, Summary, Experience, Projects, and Courses.
2. Link to your course page.
In the Contact Info section of your LinkedIn profile, you can link out to three websites. To add your course, go to Edit Profile, then click on Contact Info (just below your number of connections, next to a Rolodex card icon). Click on the pencil icon to the right of Websites to add a new site.
Choose the type of website you are adding. The best option is “Other:” as that allows you to insert your own name for the link. You have 35 characters – you can use a shortened version of your course title or simply “ATI Course.” Then copy/paste the link to the page about your course.
This example from Jim Jenkins’ profile shows how a customized link looks:
3. Upload course materials.
You can upload course materials to help people better understand the content you cover. You could include PowerPoint presentations (from this course or other training), course handouts (PDFs), videos or graphics. They can be added to your Summary, Experience or Project. You can see an example of an upload above, in Tom Logsdon’s profile.
4. Add skills related to your course.
LinkedIn allows you to include up to 50 skills on your profile. If your current list of skills doesn’t include the topics you cover in your course, you might want to add them.
Go to the Skills & Endorsements section on your Edit Profile page, then click on Add skill. Start typing and let LinkedIn auto-complete your topic. If your exact topic isn’t included in the suggestions, you can add it.
5. Ask students for recommendations.
Are you still in touch with former students who were particularly appreciative of the training you provided in your course? You might want to ask them for a recommendation that you can include on your profile. Here are some tips on asking for recommendations from LinkedIn expert Viveka Von Rosen.
6. Use an exciting background graphic.
You can add an image at the top of your profile – perhaps a photo of you teaching the course, a photo of your course materials, a graphic from your presentation, or simply some images related to your topic. You can see an example on Val Traver’s profile.
Go to Edit Profile, then run your mouse over the top of the page (just above your name). You will see the option to Edit Background. Click there and upload your image. The ideal size is 1400 pixels by 425. LinkedIn prefers a JPG, PNG or GIF. Of course, only upload an image that you have permission to use.
Share News about Your Course
You can also use LinkedIn to attract more attendees to your course every time you teach.
7. When a course date is scheduled, share the news as a status update.
This lets your connections know that you are teaching a course – it’s a great way to reach the people who are most likely to be interested and able to make referrals.
Go to your LinkedIn home page, and click on the box under your photo that says “Share an update.” Copy and paste the URL of the page on the ATI website that has the course description. Once the section below populates with the ATI Courses logo and the course description, delete the URL. Replace it with a comment such as:
“Looking forward to teaching my next course on [title] for @Applied Technology Institute on [date] at [location].”
Note that when you finish typing “@Applied Technology Institute” it will give you the option to click on the company name. When you do that ATI will know you are promoting the course, and will be deeply grateful!
When people comment on your update, it’s nice to like their comment or reply with a “Thank you!” message. Their comment shares the update with their network, so they are giving your course publicity.
If you want to start doing more with status updates, here are some good tips about what to share (and what not to share) from LinkedIn expert Kim Garst.
8. Share the news in LinkedIn Groups.
If you have joined any LinkedIn Groups in your areas of expertise, share the news there too.
Of course, in a Group you want to phrase the message a little differently. Instead of “Looking forward to teaching…” you might say “Registration is now open for…” or “For everyone interested in [topic], I’m teaching…”
You could also ask a thought-provoking question on one of the topics you cover. Here are some tips about how to start an interesting discussion in a LinkedIn Group.
9. Post again if you still have seats available.
If the course date is getting close and you are looking for more people to register, you should post again. The text below will work as a status update and in most LinkedIn Groups.
“We still have several seats open for my course on [title] on [date] at [location]. If you know of anyone who might be interested, could you please forward this? Thanks. ”
“We have had a few last-minute cancellations for my course on [title] on [date] at [location]. Know anyone who might be interested in attending?”
10. Blog about the topic of the course.
When you publish blog posts on LinkedIn using their publishing platform, you get even more exposure than with a status update:
The blog posts are pushed out to all your connections.
They stay visible on your LinkedIn profile, and
They are made available to Google and other search engines.
A blog post published on LinkedIn will rank higher than one posted elsewhere, because LinkedIn is such an authority site. So this can give your course considerable exposure.
You probably have written articles or have other content relevant to the course. Pick something that is 750-1500 words.
To publish it, go to your LinkedIn home page, and click on the link that says “Publish a post.” The interface is very simple – easier than using Microsoft Word. Include an image if you can. You probably have something in your training materials that will be perfect.
At the end of the post, add a sentence that says:
“To learn more, attend my course on [title].”
Link the title to the course description on the ATI website.
For more tips about blogging, you are welcome to join ProResource’s online training website. The How to Write Blog Posts for LinkedIn course is free.
Take the first step
The most important version of your bio in the digital world is your LinkedIn summary. If you only make one change as a result of reading this blog post, it should be to add a strong summary to your LinkedIn profile. Write the summary promoting yourself as an expert in your field, not as a job seeker. Here are some resources that can help:
Write the first draft of your profile in a word processing program to spell-check and ensure you are within the required character counts. Then copy/paste it into the appropriate sections of your LinkedIn profile. You will have a stronger profile that tells your story effectively with just an hour or two of work!
Contributed by guest blogger Judy Schramm. Schramm is the CEO of ProResource, a marketing agency that works with thought leaders to help them create a powerful and effective presence in social media. ProResource offers done-for-you services as well as social media executive coaching. Contact Judy Schramm at jschramm@proresource.com or 703-824-8482.
Applied Technology Institute offers a variety of course on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering. When Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon cargo ship lifts off from Cape Canaveral on April 8, there’ll be a little treat for the astronauts on the International Space Station nestled among all the supplies and consumables: a whole new room for the […]
Applied Technology Institute offers a variety of course on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering.
When Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon cargo ship lifts off from Cape Canaveral on April 8, there’ll be a little treat for the astronauts on the International Space Station nestled among all the supplies and consumables: a whole new room for the ISS! How’d NASA fit an entire room onto a space craft with only as much cargo room as a small U-Haul? The same way you squeeze a camping mattress into the trunk of your car: make it inflatable.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is about 8 feet in diameter in its compacted state. Once it reaches the ISS and is attached to the wing known as the Tranquility Node, it’ll be filled with air until the aluminum-and-fabric structure swells to 565 cubic feet. It will then spend the next two years attached to the ISS, before being jettisoned and left to burn up in the atmosphere. As NASA says it has no plans to store equipment inside the module, astronauts will presumably use it as a tiny, zero-g bounce house.
BEAM, which was developed in conjunction with Bigelow Aerospace, isn’t going into orbit simply so the astronauts can have a place to let loose their inner child. The module’s main purpose is to serve as a test bed for inflatable space habitats. Astronauts will measure how much radiation is entering the chamber, how much heat is leaking out, and how well it holds air, among other factors.
If the BEAM proves successful at holding its shape and deflecting nasty radiation and micrometeoroids, the basic concept could be a huge breakthrough for future deep-space missions. As anyone who’s read “The Martian” knows, inflatable habitats would be ideal for the lunar or Martian surface; they could be transported and air-dropped in compact form, then blown up to create living space.
NASA has released a quick video showing the basics of how the BEAM will be installed. Don’t worry about pausing that playlist for it, though; there’s no sound. In space, no one can hear you inflate your bounce house.
Applied Technology Institute (ATI) is proud to have several course authors, instructors and subject-matter experts that led portions of the New Horizons Mission and/or were directly involved in the project, which began in 2003. It has been several months since the New Horizons space probe made its historic flyby of Pluto and now new images […]
Applied Technology Institute (ATI) is proud to have several course authors, instructors and subject-matter experts that led portions of the New Horizons Mission and/or were directly involved in the project, which began in 2003.
It has been several months since the New Horizons space probe made its historic flyby of Pluto and now new images are coming in which have shocked the science community. One of the latest transmitted photos suggest the presence of frozen liquid nitrogen on the dwarf planet’s surface.
The possible presence of liquid on Pluto’s surface have baffled scientists. First, average temperature on the planet’s surface could easily exceed -400 Fahrenheit. According to National Geographic, the team working on the New Horizons project is slowly learning that Pluto is not a dead planet after all, contrary to original suggestions.
Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) believe that changes in Pluto’s atmospheric pressure may have resulted in the presence of the frozen mass of liquid slowly thawing on the surface.
In a statement, New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said, “Liquids may have existed on the surface of Pluto in the past. We see what for all the world looks to a lot of our team like a former lake.”
Pluto takes 248 years to orbit around the sun. As Pluto completes its orbit, it experiences some of the most extreme season shifts in the solar system. When scientists try to simulate these seasonal changes taking into account how Pluto’s title can wobble, they found out that the nitrogen atmosphere of the dwarf planet becomes dramatically thicker and thinner over millions of years.
The exact event when this frozen liquid nitrogen melts was estimated by scientists to have took place at least 800,000 years ago when the Pluto’s axial tilt reached 103 degrees. Scientists believe that Pluto is currently in an intermediate phase between its climate extremes. This means that it will take a very long time before this event happens again.
What really excites scientists is the fact that New Horizons have only transmitted half of all its captured data about Pluto. Scientists are very keen to know the rest of the data in order for them to release a solid conclusion regarding their theories about the dwarf planet.
The New Horizons team recently delivered 40 scientific papers at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference based on the data transmitted by the space probe.
For the past 58 years, starting in 1957, mankind has been launching enormous swarms of satellites and useless space debris in the vicinity of planet Earth. Many of these fragments swoop around our home planet at 17,000 miles per hour. When they collide at such high speeds, huge numbers of space debris fragments are instantly […]
FIGURE CAPTION: More than 20,000 space debris fragments are now orbiting the Earth and presenting serious collision hazards to their companions in space. In 1978 a NASA researcher, Donald Kessler, concluded that, if too many large objects were placed in low altitude orbits around the Earth, successive collisions between them could create a "chain reaction" that would, in turn, create so many additional objects, safe space launches could become impossible for future generations.
For the past 58 years, starting in 1957, mankind has been launching
enormous swarms of satellites and useless space debris in the
vicinity of planet Earth. Many of these fragments swoop around our
home planet at 17,000 miles per hour. When they collide at such high
speeds, huge numbers of space debris fragments are instantly
created many of which continue to circle around the Earth with the
possibility of further collisions.
In the 1978 Donald Kessler, a talented researcher at NASA Houston,
realized that successive collisions could create ever larger swarms of
debris fragments that could, in turn, engage in further collisions to
create even more dangerous fragments. Soon the space around the
Earth would be swarming with dangerous, high-speed metallic
shrapnel. This phenomenon has, in the meantime, then called the
“Kessler Syndrome”. It is similar in concept to the nuclear chain
reactions that make atomic bombs possible. Donald Kessler made
careful estimates of the total tonnage of large objects in Earth orbit
that could end up imprisoning us on our beautiful, blue planet. Flying
space missions through swarms of high-speed debris could become
much too dangerous for anyone to advocate.
Separate studies have indicated that a highly energetic collision at a
speed of about five miles per second (typical for low-altitude impacts)
could create as many as 20 objects per pound of mass involved in
the collision.
What can be done to minimize the probability of a runaway “Kessler
Syndrome” that could, theoretically, imprison all of us on planet
Earth?
1. We could impose more stringent rules on the launching
satellites and the debris fragments that typically result from such a
launch. Some rules have already been established in conjunction
with space exploration. These could be made more stringent. And
they could be accompanied by fines or other penalties for those who
fail to comply.
2. We could remove existing debris fragments from space to
minimize the hazard of collisions. Some experts envision roving
capture devices (e. g., spaceborne drones) that would rendezvous
with — and remove — useless debris fragments from their orbits and
hurl them back to Earth into remote oceans areas for safe disposal.
3. Ground-based lasers could illuminate selected debris
fragments to push them out of orbit. Serious studies of this approach
have been conducted at NASA headquarters, at NASA Houston, and
at the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
4. Large debris fragments could be tracked with precision with
ground-based and space-based sensors to pin down their trajectories
to a high degree of accuracy. Probable collisions could then be
predicted and spaceborne devices could be launched to nudge one
or both of the objects onto safe collision-free trajectories. Among
other approaches, puffs of air have been proposed to accomplish
this goal.
In 1978 Donald Kessler managed to develop a highly imaginative
concept now called the Kessler Syndrome. His analysis indicated
that, if we continue on our present path, we could all become
prisoners on planet Earth unable to engage in the safe exploration of
outer space. Fortunately, techniques are available to help mitigate
this worrisome hazard.
Tom Logsdon, who penned this account, tells the story of the space
debris fragments now enveloping planet Earth in his special short
course: “ORBITAL AND LAUNCH MECHANICS” which is being
sponsored by the Applied Technology Institute on January 25 – 28,
2016, in Albuquerque, New Mexico and on March 1 – 4, 2016, in
Columbia, Maryland
These courses, which are lavishly illustrated with 400 full-color
visuals, also include detailed explanations of the counterintuitive
nature of powered flight maneuvers together with explanations of the
new “Superhighways in Space”, and the contrasting philosophies of
Russian and American booster rocket design.
The illustrative calculations included in the course all employ realworld
data values gleaned from the instructor’s professional
experiences in the aerospace industry. Each student will receive a
full-color version of every chart that appears on the screen, several
pamphlets and written explanations of the concepts under review,
and autographed copies of two of Logsdon’s published books.
A few slots are still available in those two classes. Register early to assure your acceptance.
IT LOOKS LIKE an alien balloon. Except that it flies at 17,500 mph in near-Earth orbit and can carry a science experiment—potentially your science experiment—for two months before it burns up in the atmosphere. And early next year, 20 of these ThumbSats will beam data back to a network of 50 listening stations all over the world. […]
Each mini satellite measures 16 inches and includes a micro camera and GPS. Aerospace engineer Shaun Whitehead is putting a $15,000 price tag on each ThumbSat's launch cost. (Photo : Cristiano Rinaldi)
IT LOOKS LIKE an alien balloon. Except that it flies at 17,500 mph in near-Earth orbit and can carry a science experiment—potentially your science experiment—for two months before it burns up in the atmosphere. And early next year, 20 of these ThumbSats will beam data back to a network of 50 listening stations all over the world.
Aerospace engineer Shaun Whitehead came up with the ThumbSat project because he wanted to help regular people send stuff into space. “We get slowed down by old-school ways of thinking,” he says. “I hope that ThumbSat accelerates progress in space, inspires everyone to look up.” His craft are so small that they fit into the nooks and crannies of commercial launchers, hitching a ride with bigger payloads and keeping costs down.
The people conducting the first experiments are a diverse group. Engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory hope to use a cluster of connected ThumbSats to study gravitational waves. Three teenage sisters from Tennessee who go by the moniker Chicks in Space want to orbit algae and sea monkey eggs. Artist Stefan G. Bucher will deploy magnetized fluids and shape-memory alloys.
Eventually a global network of volunteers, including a Boy Scout group in Wisconsin and a school in the Cook Islands, will monitor all the ThumbSat data. (Without receivers on those remote islands, there’d be a big gap in coverage out in the South Pacific.) Space is the place, and pretty soon anyone will be able to reach it.
Do you still wish you could be an astronaut after watching the lung-flattening launches and bone-crunching landings? Has the eyeball-oscillating gimbal failed to dampen your spirits? What if we told you that coffee, the most precious of nectars essential for civilized behavior, will be brewed from your own pee? When every gram lifted into orbit […]
Do you still wish you could be an astronaut after watching the lung-flattening launches and bone-crunching landings? Has the eyeball-oscillating gimbal failed to dampen your spirits? What if we told you that coffee, the most precious of nectars essential for civilized behavior, will be brewed from your own pee?
When every gram lifted into orbit costs a fortune, “Reduce, reuse, and recycle” becomes more than just a trite saying. That covers everything, up to and including purifying liquid waste (ie, urine) into a more palatable beverage.
Or, to put it more bluntly: yesterday’s coffee is today’s coffee. Suddenly that coffee spot with the greatest view imaginable is looking a bit less appealing, even if the mechanics of making it happen is impressive engineering.
But recycling pee into water in space isn’t as easy as it is here on Earth. When the original Urine Processor Assembly went to the space station, it developed a “pee pancake,” a precipitate of that clogged up the system. The system needed to be modified to filter additional calcium ions: all that bone loss in microgravity resulted in astronauts peeing out double the normal concentration of calcium ions!
Applied Technology Institute (ATICourses) offer technical training on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering. Ever wanted to make your own satellite? Now you can. Building a Cubesat is affordable and you may even qualify for a free ride from NASA. What are CubeSats? A CubeSat is a small satellite in the shape of a 10 centimeter cube and […]
Artist's illustration of NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Scout cubesat, which is scheduled to launch aboard the maiden flight of the agency’s Space Launch System rocket in 2018. Credit: NASAApplied Technology Institute (ATICourses) offer technical training on Space, Satellite & Aerospace Engineering.
Ever wanted to make your own satellite? Now you can. Building a Cubesat is affordable and you may even qualify for a free ride from NASA.
What are CubeSats?
A CubeSat is a small satellite in the shape of a 10 centimeter cube and weighs just 1 kilogram. That’s about 4 inches and 2 pounds. The design has been simplified so almost anyone can build them and the instructions are available for free online. CubeSats can be combined to make larger satellites in case you need bigger payloads. Deployable solar panels and antennas make Cubesats even more versatile. The cost to build one? Typically less than $50,000.
CubeSats are carried into space on a Poly-PicoSatellite Orbital Deployer or P-POD for short. The standard P-POD holds 3 Cubesats and fits on almost any rocket as a secondary payload. Over 100 Cubesats have been launched into space since they were first introduced by CalPoly and Stanford in 1999. To reduce space debris they are usually placed in low orbits and fall back to earth in a few weeks or months.
Why are they so popular?
Cubesats are popular with schools and governments because they are cheap and relatively easy to build. Because a lot of the hardware has been standardized, you can even buy Cubesat hardware online.
NASA is offering free rides for science missions through their Cubesat Launch Initiative. If you don’t qualify for a free ride, launching a CubeSat is much cheaper than traditional satellites but still costs over $100,000.
They might be small but you can do a lot with them. Including…Taking Pictures from space, Send radio communications, Perform Atmospheric Research, Do Biology Experiments and as a test platform for future technology.
Cubesats have become THE standard microsatellite thanks to their Open Source Hardware design and will become even more popular as we find new uses for them. If launch costs can become more affordable in the next few years…we can see a new era of personal satellites.
Only a few years ago you needed a degree in Engineering or millions of dollars to build a satellite. Now all you need is a credit card and some hard work.
Launching it…is another story.
Would you want your own personal satellite? Let us know in the comments below.
Applied Technology Institute (ATI) is proud to have several course authors, instructors and subject-matter experts that led portions of the New Horizons Mission and/or were directly involved in the project, which began in 2003. This is the countdown time to the New Horizons Missions closest point of approach to Pluto; The spacecraft is on track […]
American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, the ninth planet in our solar system, on February 18, 1930. Many key questions about Pluto, it's moon Charon, and the outer fringes of our solar system await close-up observations. A proposed NASA mission called New Horizons, depicted in the artist's concept above, would use miniature cameras, radio science experiments, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments to study Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's atmosphere in detail. Image Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteApplied Technology Institute (ATI) is proud to have several course authors, instructors and subject-matter experts that led portions of the New Horizons Mission and/or were directly involved in the project, which began in 2003.This is the countdown time to the New Horizons Missions closest point of approach to Pluto; The spacecraft is on track toward an “aim point” approximately 7,750 miles above Pluto’s surface on July 14, but meaningful data is already streaming in to JHU/APL and NASA.http://seeplutonow.com/
On Sunday, June 20, 2015, the “Washington Post” published a front-page and extensive article on the New Horizons Mission to Pluto:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pluto-poised-for-a-star-turn-as-nasa-probe-races-toward-historic-encounter/2015/06/20/46ffd54e-0d1f-11e5-a0dc-2b6f404ff5cf_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
This is the original 2003 press release describing the New Horizons Mission.
Boulder, Colo. – April 9, 2003 – This week NASA authorized the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt (PKB) mission to go forward with preliminary spacecraft and ground system construction. New Horizons is led by the Southwest Research Institute(r) (SwRI(r)) and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
Neither Pluto nor Kuiper Belt Objects have ever been explored by spacecraft.
In July 2002, the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey for Planetary Science ranked the reconnaissance of Pluto-Charon and the Kuiper Belt as its highest priority for a new start mission in planetary science, citing the fundamental scientific importance of understanding this region of the solar system.
Read more at
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=040903prATI instructors who helped plan, develop and engineer the New Horizons Mission. These include the following engineers and scientists, with their bios and links to their related ATI courses1. Dr. Alan Stern https://aticourses.com/planetary_science.htm
Dr. Alan Stern is a planetary scientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant, and
author. In 2010, he was elected to be the President and CEO of The Golden Spike Company, a commercial space corporation planning human lunar expeditions. Additionally, since 2009, he has been an Associate Vice President at the Southwest Research Institute, and since 2008 has had his own aerospace consulting practice.
Dr. Stern is the Principal Investigator (PI) of NASA’s $720M New Horizon’s Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission, the largest PI-led space mission ever launched by NASA. New Horizons launched in 2006 and is arriving July 14, 2015. Dr. Stern is also the PI of two instruments aboard New Horizons, the Alice UV spectrometer and the Ralph Visible Imager/IR Spectrometer.
2. Eric Hoffmanhttps://aticourses.com/effective_design_reviews.htmhttps://aticourses.com/spacecraft_quality.htmhttps://aticourses.com/satellite_rf_communications.htm
Eric Hoffman has designed space-borne communications and navigation equipment and performed systems engineering on many APL satellites and communications systems. He has authored over 60 papers and holds 8 patents in these fields. Mr. Hoffman was involved in the proposal (as well as several prior Pluto mission concepts). He chaired the major system level design reviews (and now teaches the course Effective Design Reviews). He was Space Department Chief Engineer during the concept, design, fabrication, and test of New Horizons. His still actively consulting in the field. He is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA and coauthor of the leading textbook Fundamentals of Space Systems
3. Chris DeBoy https://aticourses.com/Satellite_Communications_Design_Engineering.htm
Chris DeBoy leads the RF Engineering Group in the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and is a member of APL’s Principal Professional Staff. He has over 20 years of experience in satellite communications, from systems engineering (he is the lead RF communications engineer for the New Horizons Mission to Pluto) to flight hardware design for both Low-Earth orbit and deep-space missions. He holds a BSEE from Virginia Tech, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins, and teaches the satellite communications course for the Johns Hopkins University.
4. Dr. Mark E. Pittelkau https://aticourses.com/attitude_determination.htm
Dr. Pittelkau was previously with the Applied Physics Laboratory, Orbital Sciences Corporation, CTA Space Systems (now Orbital), and Swales Aerospace. His experience in satellite systems covers all phases of design and operation, including conceptual design, implementation, and testing of attitude control systems, attitude and orbit determination, and attitude sensor alignment and calibration, control-structure interaction analysis, stability and jitter analysis, and post-launch support. His current interests are precision attitude determination, attitude sensor calibration, orbit determination, and optimization of attitude maneuvers. Dr. Pittelkau earned the B.S. and Ph. D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University and the M.S. degree in EE from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
5. Douglas Mehoke https://aticourses.com/spacecraft_thermal_control.htm
Douglas Mehoke is the Assistant Group Supervisor and Technology Manager for the Mechanical System Group in the Space Department at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He has worked in the field of spacecraft and instrument thermal design for 30 years, and has a wide background in the fields of heat transfer and fluid mechanics. He has been the lead thermal engineer on a variety spacecraft and scientific instruments, including MSX, CONTOUR, and New Horizons. He is presently the Technical Lead for the development of the Solar Probe Plus Thermal Protection System. He was the original thermal engineer for New Horizons, the mechanical system engineer, and is currently the spacecraft damage lead for the flyby Hazard Team
6. Steven Gemeny https://aticourses.com/ground_systems_design.htm
Steve Gemeny is a Principal Program Engineer and a former Senior Member of the Professional Staff at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he served as Ground Station Lead for the TIMED mission to explore Earth’s atmosphere and Lead Ground System Engineer on the New Horizons mission to explore Pluto by 2020. Mr. Gemeny is an experienced professional in the field of Ground Station and Ground System design in both the commercial world and on NASA Science missions with a wealth of practical knowledge spanning nearly three decades. Mr. Gemeny delivers his experiences and knowledge to his ATIcourses’ students with an informative and entertaining presentation style. Mr Gemeny is Director Business Development at Syntonics LLC, working in RF over fiber product enhancement, new application development for RF over fiber technology, oversight of advanced DOD SBIR/STTR research and development activities related to wireless sensors and software defined antennas.
7. John Penn https://aticourses.com/fundamentals_of_RF_engineering.html
John Penn is currently the Team Lead for RFIC Design at Army Research Labs. Previously, he was a full time engineer at the Applied Physics Laboratory for 26 years where he contributed to the New Horizons Mission. He joined the Army Research Laboratory in 2008. Since 1989, he has been a part-time professor at Johns Hopkins University where he teaches RF & Microwaves I & II, MMIC Design, and RFIC Design. He received a B.E.E. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1980, an M.S. (EE) from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in 1982, and a second M.S. (CS) from JHU in 1988.
8. Timothy Cole https://aticourses.com/space_based_lasers.htmhttps://aticourses.com/Tactical_Intelligence_Surveillance_Reconnaissance_System_Engineering.htmhttps://aticourses.com/Wireless_Sensor_Networking.htm
Timothy Cole is a leading authority with 30 years of experience exclusively working in electro-optical systems as a systems and design engineer. While at Applied Physics Laboratory for 21 years, Tim was awarded the NASA Achievement Award in connection with the design, development and operation of the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Laser Radar and was also the initial technical lead for the New Horizons LOng-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI instrument). He has presented technical papers addressing space-based laser altimetry all over the US and Europe. His industry experience has been focused on the systems engineering and analysis associated development of optical detectors, wireless ad hoc remote sensing, exoatmospheric sensor design and now leads ICESat-2 ATLAS altimeter calibration effort.
9. Robert Moore https://aticourses.com/satellite_rf_communications.htm
Robert C. Moore worked in the Electronic Systems Group at the JHU/APL Space Department since 1965 and is now a consultant. He designed embedded microprocessor systems for space applications. He led the design and testing efforts for the New Horizons spacecraft autonomy subsystem. Mr. Moore holds four U.S. patents. He teaches for ATIcourses and the command-telemetry-data processing segment of “Space Systems” at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering.
10. Jay Jenkins https://aticourses.com/spacecraft_solar_arrays.htm
Jay Jenkins is a Systems Engineer in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA and an Associate Fellow in the AIAA. His 24-year aerospace career provided many years of experience in design, analysis and test of aerospace power systems, solar arrays, and batteries. His career has afforded him opportunities for hands-on fabrication and testing, concurrent with his design responsibilities. He was recognized as a winner of the ASME International George Westinghouse Silver Medal for his development of the first solar arrays beyond Mars’ orbit and the first solar arrays to orbit the planet Mercury. He was recognized with two Best Paper Awards in the area of Aerospace Power Systems.
For more information on the New Horizons Mission, we encourage you to visit:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Participate/community/Plutopalooza-Toolkit.phpAbout Applied Technology Institute (ATIcourses or ATI and ATII)
ATIcourses is a national leader in professional development seminars in the technical areas of space, communications, defense, sonar, radar, engineering, and signal processing. Since 1984, ATIcourses has presented leading-edge technical training to defense and NASA facilities, as well as DOD and aerospace contractors. ATI’s programs create a clear understanding of the fundamental principles and a working knowledge of current technology and applications. ATI offers customized on-site training at your facility anywhere in the United States, as well as internationally, and over 200 annual public courses in dozens of locations. ATI is proud to have world-class experts instructing courses. For more information, call 410-956-8805 or 1-888-501-2100 (toll free), or visit them on the web at www.ATIcourses.com and www.aticourse.com/atii
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In June 2014 while on assignment for the Applied Technology Institute in Riva, Maryland, Logsdon and his professional colleague, Dr. Moha El-Ayachi, a professor at Rabat, Morocco, taught a group of international students who were flown into the United Nations Humanitarian Services Center in Brindisi, Italy. The students came in from such far-flung locales as […]
Instructor Tom Logsdon, turquoise shirt at front center, poses with some of his students at the United Nations Humanitarian Center located on the heel of the boot in Brindisi, Italy. Over a period of five days, the students learned how to use the GPS-based radio navigation system to survey their countries with extreme precision. The students and their instructors were flown into Brindisi by the United Nations from various other countries around the globe.
In June 2014 while on assignment for the Applied Technology Institute in Riva, Maryland, Logsdon and his professional colleague, Dr. Moha El-Ayachi, a professor at Rabat, Morocco, taught a group of international students who were flown into the United Nations Humanitarian Services Center in Brindisi, Italy. The students came in from such far-flung locales as Haiti, Liberia, Georgia, Western Sahara, the South Sudan, Germany, and Senegal to learn how to better survey land parcels in their various countries. Studies have shown that if clear, unequivocal boundaries defining property ownership can be assured to the citizens of a Third-World Country, financial prosperity inevitably follows. By mastering modern space-age surveying techniques using Trimble Navigation’s highly precise equipment modules, the international students were able to achieve quarter-inch (1 centimeter) accuracy levels for precise benchmarks situated all over the globe.
This was Logsdon’s second year of teaching the course in Brindisi and the Applied Technology Institute has already been invited to submit bids for another, similar course with the same two instructors for the spring of 2015. The students who converged on Brindisi were all fluent in English and well-versed in American culture. Their special skills were especially helpful to their instructors, Tom and Moha, who trained them to use the precisely timed navigation signals streaming down from the 31 GPS satellites circling the Earth 12,500 miles high.
The DOD’s Request for Proposal for the GPS navigation system was released in 1973.
Rockwell International won that contract to build 12 satellites with the total contract value of $330 million. Over the next dozen years, the company was awarded a total of $3 billion in contracts to build more than 40 GPS navigation satellites. Today 1 billion GPS navigation receivers are serving satisfied users all around the globe. The course taught by Tom and Moha covered a variety of topics of interest to specialized GPS users: What is the GPS? How does it work? What is the best way to build or select a GPS receiver? How is the GPS serving its user base? And how can specialize users find clever new ways accentuate its performance?
The GPS constellation currently consists of 31 satellites. That specialized constellation provides at least six-fold coverage to users everywhere in the world. Each of the GPS satellites transmits precisely timed electromagnetic pulses down to the ground, that require about one 11th of a second to make that quick journey. The electronic circuits inside the GPS receiver measure the signal travel time and multiply it by the speed of light to obtain the line-of-sight range to that particular satellite. When it has made at least four ranging measurements to a comparable number of satellites, the receiver employees a four-dimensional analogy of the Pythagorean theorem to determine its exact position and the exact time. This solution utilizes four equations in four unknowns: the receiver’s three position coordinates and the current time. The GPS system must keep track of time intervals to an astonishing level of precision. A radio wave moving through a vacuum travels a foot in a billionth of a second. So an accurate and effective GPS system must be able to keep track of time to within a few billionths of a second. This is accomplished by designing and building satellite clocks that are so accurate and reliable they would lose or gain only one second every 300,000 years. These amazingly accurate clocks are based on esoteric, but well-understood principles, from quantum mechanics. Despite their amazing accuracy, the clocks on board the GPS satellites must be re-synchronized using hardware modules situated on the ground three times each and every day.
The timing measurements for the GPS system are so accurate and precise Einstein’s two famous Theories of Relativity come into play. The GPS receivers located on or near the ground are in a one-g environment and they are essentially stationary compared the satellites whizzing overhead. A GPS satellite travels around its orbit at a speed of 8600 miles per hour and the gravity at its 12,500-mile altitude above the earth is only six percent as strong as the gravity being experienced by a GPS receiver situated on or near the ground. The difference in speed creates a systematic distortion in time due to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. And the difference in gravitational attraction creates a systematic (and predictable) time distortion due to Einstein’s General Theory Of Relativity. If the designers of the GPS navigation system did not understand and compensate for these relativistic time-dilation effects, the GPS radionavigation system would, on average, be in error by about 7 miles. Fortunately, today’s scientists and engineers have gradually developed a firm grasp of the mathematics associated with relativity so they are able to make extremely accurate compensations to all of the GPS navigation solutions. The positions provided by the GPS, for rapidly moving users such as race cars and military airplanes, are typically accurate to within 15 or 20 feet. For the stationary benchmarks of interest to professional surveyors, the positioning solutions can be accurate to within one quarter of an inch, or about one centimeter.
Tom Logsdon has been teaching short courses for the Applied Technology Institute (www.ATIcourses.com) for more than 20 years. During that interval, he has taught nearly 300 short courses, most of which have spanned 3 to 5 days. His specialties include “Orbital and Launch Mechanics”, “GPS Technology”, “Team-Based Problem Solving”, and “Strapped-Down Inertial Navigation Systems”. Logsdon has written and sold 1.8 million words including 33 nonfiction books. These have included The Robot Revolution (Simon and Schuster), Striking It Rich in Space (Random House), The Navstar Global Positioning System (Van Nostrand Reinhold), Mobile Communications Satellites (McGraw-Hill), and Orbital Mechanics (John Wiley & Sons). All of his books have sold well, but his best-selling work has been Programming in Basic, a college textbook that, over nine printings, has sold 130,000 copies. Logsdon also, on occasion, writes magazine articles and newspaper stories and, over the years, he has written 18,000 words for Encyclopaedia Britannica. In addition, he has applied for a patent, help design an exhibit for the Smithsonian Institution, and helped write the text and design the illustrations for four full-color ads that appeared in the Reader’s Digest.
In 1973 Tom Logsdon received his first assignment on the GPS when he was asked to figure out how many GPS satellites would be required to provide at least fourfold coverage at all times to any receiver located anywhere on planet Earth. What a wonderful assignment for a budding young mathematician! Working in Technicolor— with colored pencils and colored marking pens on oversize quad-pad sheets four times as big as a standard sheet of paper— Logsdon used his hard-won knowledge of three-dimensional geometry, graphical techniques, and integral calculus to puzzle out the salient characteristics of the smallest constellation that would provide the necessary fourfold coverage. He accomplish this in three days— without using any computers! And the constellation he devised was the one that appeared in the winning proposal that brought in $330 million in revenues for Rockwell International.
Even as a young boy growing up wild and free in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky, Tom Logsdon always seemed to have an intuitive understanding of and subtle mathematical relationships of the type that proved to be so useful in the early days of the American space program. His family had always been “gravel-driveway poor.” At age 18 he had never eaten in a restaurant; he had never stayed in a hotel; he had never visited a museum. But, somehow, he managed to work his way through Eastern Kentucky University as a math-physics major while serving as the office assistant to Dr. Smith Park, head of the mathematics department. He also worked as the editor of the campus newspaper, at a noisy Del Monte Cannery in Markesan, Wisconsin, and as a student trainee at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Later he earned a Master’s Degree in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky where he wrote a regular column for the campus newspaper, played ping-pong with the number 9 competitor in the America, and specialized in a highly abstract branch of mathematics called combinatorial topology. In his 92-page thesis, jam-packed with highly abstract mathematical symbols, he evaluated the connectivity and orientation properties of simplicial and cell complexes and various multidimensional analogies of Veblin’s Theorem.
Soon after he finished his thesis, Logsdon accepted a position as a trajectory and orbital mechanics expert at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, California. His most famous projects there included the giant 135 foot-in-diameter Echo Balloon, the six Transit Navigation Satellites, the Thor-Delta booster, and the third stage of the Saturn V moon rocket. A few years later, he moved on to Rockwell International in Downey, California, where he worked his mathematical magic on the second stage of the Saturn V, the four manned Skylab missions, the 24-satellite constellation of GPS radionavigation satellites, the manned Mars mission of 2016, various unmanned asteroid and comet probes, and the solar-power satellite project which, if it had reached fruition, would have incorporated at least 100 geosynchronous satellites each with a surface area equal to that of Manhattan Island (about 20 square miles).
Among his proudest accomplishments at Rockwell International was the clever utilization of nine different branches of advanced mathematics, in partnership with his friend, Bob Africano, to increase the performance capabilities of the Saturn V moon rocket by 4700 extra pounds of payload bound for the moon — each pound of which was worth five times its weight in 24 karat gold! These important performance gains were accomplished without changing any of the hardware elements on the rocket. Logsdon and Africano, instead, employed their highly specialized knowledge of mathematics and physics to work out ways to operate the mighty Saturn V more efficiently. This involved shaping the trajectories of the rocket for maximum propulsive efficiency, shifting the burning mixture ratio in mid flight in an optimal manner, and analyzing their six-degree-of-freedom post-flight trajectory simulations to minimize the heavy reserve propellants necessary to assure completion of the mission. These powerful breakthroughs in math and physics led to a saving of $3.5 billion for NASA – an amount equal to the lifetime earnings of 2000 average American workers!
Currently, Logsdon and his wife, Cyndy, live in Seal Beach, California. Logsdon is now retired from Rockwell International, but he is still writing books, acting as an expert witness in a variety of aerospace-related legal cases, lecturing professionally at big conventions, and teaching short courses on rocket science, orbital mechanics, and GPS technology at major universities, NASA bases, military installations, and at a variety of international locations. Prior to his recent trips to Italy, Logsdon delivered two lectures at Hong Kong University in southern China and taught two short courses at Stellenbach University near Cape Town, South Africa. Over the past 30 years or so he has taught and lectured at 31 different countries scattered across six continents. At the International Platform Association meetings in Washington, DC, two of his presentations in successive years placed in the top 10 among the 45 professional platform lecturers making presentations there. Colleges and Universities that have sponsored his presentations have included Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, USC, Oxford, North Texas University, the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, Saddleback.
Recently, NASA along with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory into space from Japan. Data from GPM is helping to provide scientists with new insights into finding out how Earth works as a system and specific weather patterns including rain and snowfall. Together with these missions, NASA […]
Recently, NASA along with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory into space from Japan. Data from GPM is helping to provide scientists with new insights into finding out how Earth works as a system and specific weather patterns including rain and snowfall. Together with these missions, NASA now has 20 ongoing Earth-observing missions. The observations from these missions will be openly available to both scientists and decision makers worldwide.
“The highly accurate measurements from these new missions will help scientists around the world tackle some of the biggest questions about how our planet is changing,” said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These new capabilities will also be put to work to help improve lives here on Earth and support informed decision-making by citizens and communities.”
In January, NASA released the most comprehensive global rain and snowfall product to date from the GPM mission that was comprised of data from a system of 12 international satellites and the Core Observatory. The Core Observatory combines measurements of other satellites, which offers a global picture of rain and snow, called the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM, or IMERG. On Thursday February 26, 2015, the first global visualization of the initial IMERG data was released.
“The IMERG data gives us an unprecedented view of global precipitation every 30 minutes,” said Gail Skofronick-Jackson, GPM project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Knowing where, when and how much it rains and snows is vital to understanding Earth’s water cycle.”
NASA deployed two Earth-observing instruments to the International Space Station: ISS-RapidScat, in September of 2014 which is a scatterometer that is using wind measurements to help figure out how ocean winds differ from day and night, and the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS), in January of 2015 which is a lidar that measures the altitude of clouds and airborne particles (aerosols) which will help scientists determine the future potential impact of climate change.
The launch of the GPM core observatory will help scientists to study Earth’s interconnected natural systems and better understand how our planet is changing.