How Mankind is Exploring the Solar System

     Humanity has a long way to go in fully exploring let alone understanding our solar system and the universe at large. How exactly are we going about this? There are numerous countries with even more numerous probes, satellites, and programs in motion towards the goal of mapping what lays outside our tiny rock of a world.

     According to the magazine, Astronomer, the following probes and rovers are wandering out there in the stars:

Mercury: The MESSENGER probe will arrive around March 18^th.

Venus: Europe’s Venus Express is currently in orbit studying the impossibly hot planets atmosphere. Japan also has its Akatsuki probe in orbit. (Keep in mind Venus is so unimaginably hot any probe sent into the atmosphere would last an extremely short amount of time. Proposals to plummet probes into the surface for a short window of exploration are in process).

The Moon: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO is still in orbit, mapping the Moons landscape along with China’s second probe, Chang’e 2. Two long-serving solar wind monitors are currently entering orbit close by the Earth-Moon system.

Mars: There are three orbiters currently surveying the planet, these are the Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Express. The surviving rover of two, Opportunity is still in operation long past it’s end date, lasting approximately 20 times longer than planned.

The asteroid belt: The Dawn spacecraft is already at the belt, though still making its way to its asteroid goal, 4 Vesta. It will study the rocky body for a year, at which point Dawn will depart and make its way to the dwarf planet, 1 Ceres.

Jupiter: This monster of a planet is unvisited for the time being.

Saturn: Cassini’s “Extended-Extended Mission” is exploring the entire system’s rings and moons

Uranus: As of right now is off the list of bodies to be explored.

Neptune: As of right now is off the list of bodies to be explored.

Pluto: The New Horizons robotic spacecraft is currently en route to Pluto, set to arrive in 2015, hopefully afterwards astronomers plan to tilt the spacecraft’s path closer to the Kuiper Belt.

     The above is by no means the end of mankind’s list of robotics making the trek into the stars. Rosetta, Europe’s probe cleared its path through the asteroid belt, entering into hibernation sometime in May. It will reach its target, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

     Beyond all expectations, Voyager 1 and 2 are still in operation, mapping the edges of our solar system and beyond.

     Various smaller probes are still in operation albeit much closer to home. These small but strong crafts have long outlived their primary goals, but have been redirected to other objectives. These include the Deep Impact probe, and Japan’s futuristic Ikaros solar sail launched this past May is on its way through the solar system, eventually reaching the sun.

     Though no more probes, rovers or spacecraft’s are set to launch for a number of years, this current armada of high-tech and fantastic explorers will provide enough information to fill a lifetime!

     As always keep your eyes to the sky, and imagine the treasure trove these machines are finding!

(Information pulled from Astronomer, Vol. 39, Issue 1, pg. 30)

Hypersonic X-43A Changes NASA's Travel Plans

     If you're a sky gazer or telescope enthusiast like you’ve probably heard about the X-43A scramjet plane NASA has been testing. Shhh, its path in Earth’s low orbit is supposed to be a tight-lipped secret, but amateur astronomers have managed to find it in orbit and actually track its path. I myself got a glimpse of it one night, and it sped across the night sky like lightning. I assume that’s what I saw, either that or a UFO, because this light was gone from the sky (And I was under an open sky) in a matter of a few seconds.

     As the title says this machine has the potential to change how we travel anywhere including into space, across oceans and so on. The X-43A plane is the fastest jet-powered aircraft in the entire world. Let me put the speed of this plane into perspective; it flies at a rate of up to Mach 9.6 according to NASA. Mach is considered the speed at which sound travels, about 767 mph. Mach 9.6 represents a speed 9.6 times faster that of sound, approximately around 7,000 mph. If and when this technology begins to be implemented into real world capabilities (who know when and if that will ever happen) flying across the world would take at most 2 hours. A trip to Hong Kong, China would be like a drive to Boston from where I live.

     Imagine having a swim at the Great Barrier Reef and two hours later having lunch at a Pizzeria Uno’s in Chicago. I’m sure my brother would love that!  However, the scramjet was an immense undertaking and was only put into orbit after a seven-year program of tests, which cost around $230 million. So don’t hold your breath as NASA is struggling to find funds, and often suffers from the axe of cutting budgets.

     Hope is still on the horizon as this is the second world record for this program, called Hyper-X. The first was a speed of Mach 6.8 or about 5,000 mph in March of 2004. This program may be one of the few that NASA has that won’t be tossed (besides sending a man to an asteroid), due to the fact that its use spans across numerous facets.

     The Hyper-X program is so important because will it not only save on fuel consumption (both economically and environmentally), but also offers increased safety and flexibility while being more affordable than fuel powered engines. The X-43A’s engine works so well, because its oxygen is pulled right from our atmosphere, which makes it fantastic for getting astronauts into low orbit or the International Space Station.

     This method also lowers the aircrafts weight due to no longer needing to carry a heavy oxidizer.

     With NASA’s soon to be dead shuttle program, the X-43A gives hope to the idea of a still government funded program to put astronauts into orbit. As of right now it looks like that job will fall into commercial hands, which may also be a boon seeing as private companies can more readily afford such a large undertaking.

     Once again keep your eyes to the sky, and hopefully you’ll see the amazing and supersonic X-43A plane.

Nanotechnology and Solar Sails Success...So Far!

     Japan successfully launched its first Solar Sail this year calling it Ikaros, as an ode to the famous child of the same name (though his name was spelt Icarus) in Greek mythology. The son of the craftsman Daedalus, Icarus attempted to escape the island of Crete using wings his father had made for him from wax and feathers. Ignoring Daedalus’ warnings Icarus flew too close to the Sun, melting the wax on the wings and sending the boy to his death in the ocean below him.

     JAXA’s Ikaros was the first of its kind to successfully reach space (NASA has just released theirs), and was designed to obtain its energy from sunlight via a thin solar sail membrane, which can then convert the light into power. It was carried into space by a H-IIA rocket, and it’s purpose was to measure the amount of solar energy and radiation it could muster from the Sun and to what speed it could accelerate as it heads towards Venus. JAXA also wanted to see if tiny reflective, liquid crystal panels installed on the sail could control Ikaros’ attitude.

     Ikaros was launched sometime in May of this year, began unfurling its solar sail in June, and by July JAXA was able to confirm the sail was working properly and causing the craft to accelerate in speed. The news is wild success for space travel in all aspects.

     Fast-forward 4 months to this past November and NASA has just launched their own Solar Sail for testing aboard the FASTSAT (Fast, Affordable, Science, Technology Satellite). Just this morning the NanoSail-D abandoned the FASTSAT it caught a ride from, and will now have to wait three days before unfurling the ultra-thin polymer sail. Once deployed the sail should reach a size of 100-square feet and will attempt to maintain low-Earth orbit for as long as it can, by gathering light and radiation from the Sun. NASA is expecting the NanoSail-D to be able to cruise over the Earth from at least 7-120 days.

     The name NanoSail might not make sense to you, considering the fact it’s 100-square feet in size when deployed, but before being unfurled the sail is about the size of a loaf of bread. However, JAXA’s Ikaros’ sail is far larger when deployed, being about 160-square feet. NASA designates any craft weighing between 1 and 5 kilograms as ‘Nano’. 

     NanoSail-D’s purpose is completely experimental. NASA is hoping to show that Solar Sails could be used to degrade a satellites orbit at its end of service, eliminating the amount of fuel needed to leave orbit. The unused fuel will extend the amount of time a satellite could perform its job.

     NASA also hopes to show that once deployed the microsatellite will be able to remain in orbit without having to come in contact with the FASTSAT again, showing that this technology is a viable method to send other crafts off into the stars. In about three days when the solar sails are released it won’t be long before we can test that theory.

     Solar Sails are also being hailed as the future of space travel, if the technology proves successful (my fingers are crossed), as it is an alternative method to hauling vast amounts of fuel. The reason fuel is so cumbersome is mainly the fact it weighs a lot! Having to carry such hefty loads makes it so the ship carrying it must be stronger and bigger, which then requires more fuel. You can see what a vicious cycle it becomes. After all a single shuttle launch is about $450 million. Everyone in astronomy is hoping Solar Sails can slash that price greatly!

     As always keep your eyes to the sky, and hope those ultra-thin polymer membranes don’t rip!

Hailing Voyager 1: Where Are You?

     Our Solar System is a massive vacuum filled with planets, moons, dwarf planets, comets, asteroids, meteors and other space materials. The distance from one end of our system to the other is almost incomprehensibly long, the Sun being about 3.7 billion miles from Pluto. Some of our probes have been hurdling through this forlorn expanse for decades without ever reaching its borders. That is until now.

     Voyager 1, a probe launched on September 5^th of 1977 weighing in at 1,592 pounds, has for all intended purposes reached the boundaries of our Solar System about two days ago. It is now the furthest man-made object from our little blue rock, being about 10.8 billion miles away from the Sun (that’s 10,800,000,000 miles). Traveling at 38,000 miles per hour, it took Voyager 33 years to reach this point, and NASA expects to be able to keep her going for another 5 years until 2015. Voyager may not last that long, but NASAs probes, rovers and satellites have been known to last amazingly longer than they were designed to. Another example of this is the Spirit rover that is still exploring Mars (though now as a stationary researcher) after being in moveable operation 20 times longer than NASA had originally planned.

     Voyager 1 was launched with the mission to stop by and study both Jupiter and Saturn, being successful in that goal, it was the first probe ever to show detailed pictures of the two planets moons. Once completed, NASA then turned Voyagers attention toward studying the edges of the Solar System, including the Kuiper Belt, an area of frozen methane, ammonia and water that surrounds our system and is 20 times wider than the asteroid belt and about 20-200 times more massive.

     In January of 1979 Voyager 1 began capturing the first in-depth images of Jupiter, making its closest approach sometime in March of that same year, at a distance of 217,000 miles (sounds far, but in a universal scale it really isn’t). In its nearest position, the probe was able to capture images of the planets moons, magnetic fields, rings and radiation belt of Jupiter. The most startling information gathered was the presence of volcano activities occurring on the Jovian moon, Io.

     After watching Jupiter Voyager 1 then made a somewhat brief flyby of Saturn in November of 1980, making its closest approach on the 12^th of that month. At a distance of 77,000 miles above the planets clouds Voyager was able to study the composition of Saturn’s rings along with its atmosphere. The probe was also able to investigate its massive moon, Titan on its way by. However, Titan’s gravitational pull ricocheted Voyager out of its path, finally ending its planetary expedition.

     After 10 years of flying at a speed of 38,000 miles per hour past relatively empty space, Voyager 1 was able to take the first picture of our Solar System from the outside looking in. This picture was the furthest away from Earth ever taken and was hailed as the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ photo, because that’s what our planet looked like in the vastness of space. We have Carl Sagan to thank for this image, as he had convinced NASA control to turn the Voyager around in order to capture images from outside our system.

     As of right now Voyager 1 is still sailing its way through space, though since 2007 several of its main powers have been disabled due to lack of electricity availability. These include the plasma subsystem shutting down, powering down its Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment in 2008, and just recently in 2010 the scan platform and its ultraviolet spectrometer were terminated.

     So what is Voyager 1 up to right now? Well, still being turned about face it continues to study our Solar System as it continues on its way into interstellar space. NASAs goal is for the probe to investigate the Heliopause, an expanse where solar wind from our Sun enters into interstellar medium. The medium is an area in between solar systems, which is filled with various gases, dust and other materials. Think of it as a long rural highway between two major cities.

     As stated in the beginning, two days ago Voyager 1 exited our Solar System, finally reaching the point where our Suns solar wind has dissipated into the interstellar medium. Who knows what will come next for this little probe that could, only time will tell.

     As always keep your eyes to the sky, and when you’re feeling down just imagine how lonely Voyager 1 must be sailing through a rural, empty highway billions of miles long!