Space Tidbits for September – A non-technical roundup
CURIOSITY MILESTONE: The Mars rover has arrived at Mount Sharp! Curiosity has passed it’s initial two-year mission, during which it proved that Mars would have been habitable for microbes in the distant past. The rover continued onward, despite wheel damage and computer reboot drama, to its second main goal, the mountain at the center of Gale Crater. This mountain represents a over two billion years of history in its 18,000 foot heights. Curiosity enters the foothills this week.
ORION COMPLETED: The first of NASA’s Orion capsules, the long-awaited replacement for the Space Shuttle, rolled off the assembly line last week at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Lockheed-Martin Aerospace had handed off the the spacecraft earlier. It has now been moved to another facility at KSC for fueling in preparation for a December test flight. This first flight will take Orion over 3600 miles away from Earth, then plunge in back into the atmosphere for a high-speed test of its heat shield, simulating near lunar-return speeds.
ASTEROIDAL GRAFFITI: When we think of stopping Earth-killing asteroids, we usually picture nuclear missiles and rockets. A private company is experimenting with the Yarkovsky effect, which predicts variances in an asteroid’s path due to temperature reactions by the surface. By sending a spacecraft to rendezvous and paint different parts of the space rock either white or black its pathway can be affected, and the asteroid could be deflected away from Earth. The effect is slow, however, so early intervention is critical. Tests are planned between 2018 and 2022, the last being a flight to an asteroid named Apophis that could threaten Earth in 2036. That space rock will be painted and the effects of this observed during the following14 years.
NORTHERN LIGHTS: Two large solar flares detected on September 9 and 10 reached Earth on Sept. 12, creating a huge display of the Aurora Borealis. The geomagnetic storms that result from the highly charged solar energy hitting Earth’s magnetic field resulted in a great sky show and a few communication disruptions. The two flares caused a category G3 solar storm, in a scale of 1 to 5. Much larger storms could result in massive power grid failures and communications issues (via fried satellites), but flares of that size have not hit Earth since the 1850’s. We did have a near miss in 2012, and it will happen one day, so preparation is key.
CURIOSITY’S EXTENDED MISSION: Also, my recent article on NASA and JPL defending the Curiosity mission against a very critical report… generated by NASA! https://goo.gl/PD7ZFA