SPACE: WHERE ARE WE GOING? : REFUELING IN SPACE

Sunday, February 10, 2013

NASA SAYS VIABILITY OF SATELLITE-SERVICING TECHNOLOGY PROVEN BY RRM

FROM: NASA
NASA'S Refueling Demonstration Proves Viability Of Satellite-Servicing Technologies

WASHINGTON -- NASA has demonstrated robotic fluid transfer in space, an objective that will help inform the development of robotic technology to refuel satellites. The first-of-its-kind demonstration was performed during the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) aboard the International Space Station.

"This achievement is a major step forward in servicing satellites," said Frank Cepollina, associate director of the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "RRM gives NASA and the emerging commercial satellite servicing industry the confidence to robotically refuel, repair and maintain satellites in both near and distant orbits -- well beyond the reach of where humans can go today."

A joint effort with the Canadian Space Agency, RRM uses the International Space Station as test bed for the research and development of robotic satellite-servicing capabilities. During six days of activity last month, controllers on the ground at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston used the space station's remotely operated Dextre, a robotic space handyman, to cut wires, remove and stow caps and perform tasks necessary to refuel satellites not designed to be refueled.

The cutting-edge technologies that RRM is demonstrating could extend the lives of many of the hundreds of satellites currently in geosynchronous Earth orbit. These are satellites that deliver essential services such as weather reports, cell phone communications, television broadcasts, government communications and air traffic management.

RRM tasks scheduled to be performed later this year include thermal blanket cutting and fastener and electronic termination cap removals. NASA anticipates RRM technologies may help boost the commercial satellite-servicing industry in the future. Such servicing capabilities could greatly expand options for government and commercial fleet operators

Sunday, February 3, 2013

ROBOTIC REFUELING MISSION DEMO

FROM: NASA

Robotic Refueling Mission Demo
Robots present certain advantages when working in the harsh environment of space. They're not susceptible to hunger, to sleepiness, or catastrophic injury for starters. They're also capable of highly precise, yet highly tedious tasks-- tasks that might otherwise consume huge resources and attention from already busy astronauts and ground controllers. In an important demonstration of new technical methodologies, NASA engineers will try to simulate the transfer of fuel from one vehicle to another, in space, with nothing but robots doing the physical work. Called the Robotic Refueling Mission, it's a major step on the road to developing a robust suite of essential robotic capabilities in space.

Credit-NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

STAR FLASH

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before -- supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash. In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above spans about six light years in diameter. Image Credit: NASA, ESA

THE SPIDERWEB GALAXY

Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, Galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Seen in infrared light, faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy's disk. At a distance of about 10 million light-years, IC 342 is relatively close by galactic standards, however our vantage point places it directly behind the disk of our own Milky Way. The intervening dust makes it difficult to see in visible light, but infrared light penetrates this veil easily. IC 342 belongs to the same group as its even more obscured galactic neighbor, Maffei 2. IC 342 is nearly face-on to our view, giving a clear, top-down view of the structure of its disk. It has a low surface brightness compared to other spirals, indicating a lower density of stars (seen here as a blue haze). Its dust structures show up much more vividly (red). Blue dots are stars closer to us, in our own Milky Way. New stars are forming in the disk at a healthy rate. The very center glows especially brightly in the infrared, highlighting an enormous burst of star formation occurring in this tiny region. To either side of the center, a small bar of dust and gas is helping to fuel this central star formation. Data from Spitzer's infrared array camera are shown in blue (3.6 microns), green (4.5 microns) and red (5.8 and 8.0 microns). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

JUMPING TO WARP SPEED

This cockpit view of a hypothetical spacecraft traveling at eight-tenths the speed of light shows the visual distortions that would be experienced at such high speeds. The star field is actually being wrapped toward the front of the craft in addition to being significantly blue-shifted. NASA Glenn leads the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, NASA's primary effort to produce near-term, credible, and measurable progress toward the technology breakthroughs needed to revolutionize space travel and enable interstellar voyages. NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio.

OBSERVATION FROM THE SPACE STATION