Civil – Page 185 – SpacePolicyOnline.com

Programming Error May Have Doomed Russian Phobos-Grunt Probe

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 17, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 17, 2012 12:49 pm ET

Russia’s Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-soil) Mars mission may have failed because of a computer programming error according to unofficial Russian sources.

Officially, a special Russian commission headed by former Russian space agency director Yuri Koptev continues to investigate what led to the failure. However, RussianSpaceWeb.com’s Anatoly Zak reports today on a story in the Russian publication Novosti Kosmonavtiki (Space News) that postulates that “the most likely culprit … was a programming error in the flight control system.”

Zak’s report goes on to say that post-failure tests showed the processor on the main flight control computer would overload in 90 percent of cases. “Following the initial failure, as ground controllers apparently succeeded in activating the X-band transmitter onboard the spacecraft, new problems arose” because the transmitter was not deactivated when the spacecraft was “flying in the shadow of the Earth for prolonged periods of time.” Consequently, “the probe slowly drained its recharable [sic] power batteries and then its emergency power source … leading to a complete deactivation….”

The Novosti Kosmonavtiki story reportedly is based on information from sources in the Russian aerospace industry. It appears to have more credibility than an alternate theory being publicized in other Russian media sources that a U.S. radar inadvertently damaged the spacecraft while it was being used to study an asteroid. Even one Russian news source, RIA Novosti, discounted the idea in a story today entitled “Russian Scientists Mock U.S. Radar Theory on Mars Probe.” Koptev said that his commission will conduct an experiment to prove or disprove that theory.

The Koptev commission is scheduled to make its report to Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, later this month, which then will report to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin. Rogozin was recently put in charge of Russia’s space sector, in addition to responsibiities in overseeing the atomic energy and defense sectors.

Last Updated: Jan 17, 2012 12:49 pm ET

"Sophisticated" 4th Graders Choose Ebb & Flow as GRAIL Names

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 17, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 17, 2012 1:49 pm ET

A fourth grade class in Bozeman, MT won the competition to name NASA’s two GRAIL spacecraft. The GRAIL mission is mapping the Moon’s gravity field. The winning names are Ebb & Flow, a reference to the tides here on Earth that are caused by gravitational interaction between the Moon and Earth.

GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber commented in a press conference today that the winning essay written by the 4th graders showed “sophisticated thinking.” The students and their teacher, Nina Dimauro, participated in the press conference via Skype from their schoolroom at Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman. Zuber later added that the GRAIL team members had their own favorite names for the probes, but none was as good as the names submitted by the students participating in the competition. About 900 pairs of names were submitted, she said.

The prize for the winners is that they will be the first class to use the MoonKAM cameras aboard the two GRAIL spacecraft. Former astronaut Sally Ride and Zuber worked together to include the MoonKAM cameras on the spacecraft. Ride now leads Sally Ride Science, a company dedicated to supporting children’s interest in science, math, engineering, and technology. Ride, who spoke via teleconference, said it was the first science mission to carry an experiment specifically devoted to education. She said that over 2,100 classrooms already had signed up for the MoonKAM project, and as many as 3,000 were expected to sign up by March when GRAIL’s mapping mission begins. The students will “own” the cameras and get to control them.

The twin spacecraft entered lunar orbit over New Year’s, and three orbit-lowering engine burns have taken place already. GRAIL A (Ebb) is at 93 kilometers above the lunar surface now, while GRAIL B (Flow) is at 109 kilometers. Several more burns are scheduled to lower the orbits to 55 kilometers, when the mapping mission will begin.

Last Updated: Jan 17, 2012 1:49 pm ET

Events of Interest: Week of January 16-20, 2012

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 15, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 15, 2012 10:44 pm ET

The following events may be of interest in the week ahead. The House returns to work in Washington for two days of legislative session (Tuesday-Wednesday). The Senate continues to meet only in pro forma (non-legislative) session until next week.

Tuesday, January 17

NASA press conference announcing new names for the twin GRAIL probes orbiting the moon, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, 1:00 pm EST

Wednesday-Thursday, January 18-19

National Research Council (NRC) study committee meeting on NASA’s potential cooperation with ESA on the Euclid dark energy mission, Keck Center, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington DC (some sessions are closed to the public)
Special Aerospace Services (SAS) 2nd Annual Human Spaceflight Technical Forum, Boulder, CO

Last Updated: Jan 15, 2012 10:44 pm ET

Failed Phobos-Grunt Spacecraft to Reenter Today

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 15, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 15, 2012 8:59 am ET

Russia’s failed Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-soil) Mars spacecraft will reenter Earth’s atmosphere today, perhaps before noon Eastern Standard Time (EST). It will be the sad end of a promising mission whose failure to leave Earth orbit remains a mystery.

Various groups monitoring the reentry offer different times for the probe to plunge back through Earth’s atmosphere, but agree that it will happen sometime today EST. Space-track.org, which is associated with the U.S. Joint Space Operations Center (JPSoC), currently estimates 16:11-18:35Z, which translates to 11:11 am – 1:35 pm EST.

The European Space Agency (ESA) states that it is coordinating the “international satellite reentry campaign” for the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination (IADC) committee, which includes NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos as well. The ESA Space Operations (ESOC) website is not quite up to date, but according to its Twitter feed @esaoperations, its current prediction is “late evening” Central European Time (CET) plus or minus 4 hours. CET is six hours ahead of EST.

Roscosmos itself is currently predicting January 15 at 20:51 Moscow Time to January 16 01:05 Moscow Time, which would be between 11:41 am – 4:05 pm EST, according to Russianspaceweb.com.

The Russian government set up a panel to investigate what happened to the spacecraft, which was successfully launched into Earth orbit, but its Fregat upper stage did not fire to send it on to Mars. Former Russian space agency director Yuri Koptev is leading the panel, which is due to report at the end of January. ESA was able to contact the probe on Russia’s behalf twice in the days after launch, but the probe went silent thereafter.

The Phobos-Grunt mission was intended to return to Earth a sample of the Martian moon Phobos, as well as deploy a small Chinese spacecraft, Yinghou-1, that was to orbit Mars. It also carried a small experiment from The Planetary Society called LIFE.

Predicting when or where satellites will reenter is an imprecise science. The satellite is in an orbit inclined 51.4 degrees to the equator, so reentry can occur anywhere between 51.4 degrees north and 51.4 degrees south latitude. Russia expects that 20-30 fragments may survive the heat of reentry and reach Earth’s surface, which is 70 percent covered with water, reducing, but not eliminating, the risk to people or property.

Last Updated: Jan 15, 2012 8:59 am ET

It's Over: Phobos-Grunt Reenters into Pacific Ocean

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 15, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 15, 2012 3:32 pm ET

Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency quotes a Russian defense official as saying Phobos-Grunt reentered into the Pacific Ocean at 21:45 Moscow Time (12:45 Eastern Standard Time) today.

The news agency quotes Russian defense ministry official Alexei Zolotukhin as saying that the spacecraft fell 1,250 kilometers west of Wellington Island in the Pacific.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, had predicted it would fall into the Atlantic. Predicting when and where spacecraft reentries will occur is an inexact science.

Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-soil) was intended to return to Earth a sample of the Martian moon Phobos and deploy a small Chinese spacecraft, Yinghuo-1, into Mars orbit. It also carried a small experiment called LIFE from The Planetary Society. It was successfully launched into Earth orbit on November 8, 2011 (EST), but its Fregat upper stage failed to fire to send it on to Mars. The reasons for the failure remain unknown. A Russian panel is investigating the failure and is expected to report at the end of this month.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the reentry time cited by the Russian official as 21:55 instead of 21:45 Moscow Time (12:55 instead of 12:45 EST).

Last Updated: Jan 15, 2012 3:32 pm ET

Russian Space Agency Says Phobos-Grunt Reentry Imminent

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 15, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 15, 2012 12:39 pm ET

UPDATE: The latest Roscosmos prediction is that Phobos-Grunt will reenter between 12:50 and 1:34 EST over the Atlantic Ocean. This is their latest ground track, showing the predicted reentry point.

ORIGINAL STORY: Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, has posted an updated prediction of when the Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-soil) probe will reenter Earth’s atmosphere today.

According to its website, the agency has narrowed the reentry window to a specific orbit and believes it will reenter between 21:30 and 23:12 Moscow Time today, which is 12:30 – 3:12 pm EST. Roscosmos provides this groundtrack of the spacecraft’s orbit at that time:

Last Updated: Jan 15, 2012 12:39 pm ET

Obama Wants to Move NOAA to the Interior Department

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 13, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 13, 2012 4:34 pm ET

President Obama announced today a plan to reorganize part of the U.S. government that could have a significant impact on the U.S. civil weather satellite program.

The focal point of the plan, which requires congressional approval, is to merge five business- and trade-related agencies with some elements of the Department of Commerce. The Commerce Department itself would be abolished. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which manages the nation’s civil weather satellites, is currently part of the Commerce Department, but under the Obama plan would be transferred to the Department of the Interior.

In his remarks today, the President blamed President Richard Nixon for putting NOAA in the Commerce Department in the first place.

“My favorite example — which I mentioned in last year’s State of the Union address — as it turns out, the Interior Department is in charge of salmon in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in saltwater. (Laughter.) If you’re wondering what the genesis of this was, apparently, it had something to do with President Nixon being unhappy with his Interior Secretary for criticizing him about the Vietnam War. And so he decided not to put NOAA in what would have been a more sensible place.”

Although the details of President Obama’s proposal are not yet posted on the White House website, Politico, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and The Hill newspaper all state that the plan includes moving NOAA to Interior. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director for Management Jeff Zients, who oversaw development of the reorganization plan, also stated that NOAA would move to Interior during a meeting with the press at the White House this morning.

Reaction to the President’s overall proposal so far has been mixed. As for the idea of transferring NOAA to Interior, the NRDC said it was “extremely troubled” because it could “erode the capabilities and mute the voice of the government’s primary agency for protecting our oceans and the ecosystems and economies that depend on them.” In addition to its satellite activities through the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), NOAA’s major components are the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Ocean Service, the National Weather Service, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, and the Office of Program Planning and Integration.

Last Updated: Jan 13, 2012 4:34 pm ET

Phobos-Grunt Reentry Window Narrows-UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 13, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 14, 2012 5:46 pm ET

UPDATE (Jan. 14, 2012, 5:30 pm EST): Space-track.org’s current estimate of the reentry window is 15JAN12 1326Z-15JAN12 2302Z, which translates into tomorrow, January 15, between 8:26 am and 6:02 pm EST. Russia’s main news agency, Itar-Tass, reports that Russia’s space agency Roscosmos is predicting it will fall on January 15 or 16, with the midpoint of the window at 21:51 Moscow Time tomorrow (or 1:51 pm EST), and that reentry will occur “off of Chile.” Forecasting satellite reentry times and locations is a very imprecise science, so these predictions should not be considered definitive.

ORIGINAL STORY (Jan. 13, 2012): Russia’s failed Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-soil) spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere this weekend. The reentry window continues to narrow, and Sunday, January 15, Eastern Standard Time (EST) appears to be the most likely day.

Space-track.org, a U.S. government website associated with the Joint Space Operations Center (JSPoC), currently lists “15Jan12 0804Z – 16Jan12 0304Z” as the predicted reentry window. Z stands for “Zulu,” an alternate name for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). That would translate to 03:04 am – 10:04 pm EST on January 15, 2012.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, states on its website today that a precise time and point of impact of the fragments will be known 24 hours in advance and it will keep the Secretary General of the United Nations and countries on which debris may fall informed of the situation (as translated by Yahoo! Babel Fish). Even 24 hours in advance, however, an exact time and location for reentry is difficult to predict. A variety of government and amateur space observers are tracking Phobos-Grunt’s final days. Bob Christy at Zarya.info has a table showing a number of the predictions, which focus on January 15 with varying bands of uncertainty.

Russia anticipates that 20-30 fragments weighing no more than 200 kilograms may survive the heat of reentry. The Earth is 70 percent covered with water, reducing the likelihood of damage to people or property, but some risk remains. The spacecraft is in an orbit inclined 51.4 degrees to the equator, so debris can fall anywhere between 51.4 degrees north and 51.4 degrees south latitude.

Last Updated: Jan 14, 2012 5:46 pm ET

Apollo Artifacts: Which to Sell, Which to Protect?

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 10, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 10, 2012 6:21 pm ET

This year is the 40th anniversary of the last — or perhaps “most recent” — human visit to the Moon and it is starting off with controversy over whether the astronauts who participated in the Apollo program have the right to sell mementoes of those missions. At the same time, some historians are trying to preserve the artifacts that remain on the lunar surface as companies and other countries make plans to send robots or people there.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, himself a former NASA astronaut — though from the space shuttle era, not the earlier Apollo missions — met with four Apollo astronauts yesterday to discuss the rules that guide whether their personal mementoes are their property or the government’s. Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell, Apolllo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, and Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickert, met with Bolden along with representatives of other astronauts and NASA personnel. Bolden said in a press statement that the meeting was to talk about “how to resolve the misunderstandings and ownership questions regarding flight mementoes and other artifacts.” Bolden called the men “American heroes, fellow astronauts and personal friends who have acted in good faith” and promised to work on resolving “the right policy and legal paths forward…”

NASA has not taken kindly to the actions of some Apollo astronauts who have sold or attempted to sell mementoes in their possession. Quite recently, Lovell reportedly sold a checklist from his ill-fated Apollo 13 mission at auction for $400,000, setting off the latest wave of concern. Bolden said that he believes there have been “fundamental misunderstandings and unclear policies” and the agency will “explore all policy, legislative and other legal means” to clarify ownership and “ensure that appropriate artifacts are preserved and available for display to the American people.”

While those discussions proceed, others are focused on preserving artifacts left behind on the Moon. Resurgent interest in the Moon not only for scientific studies or human exploration, but also potential commercial activities, could mean that sites and items of historical interest could be damaged or destroyed. Should the Apollo 11 landing site and the bottom half of its lunar lander, which remains on the Moon, not to mention the American flag implanted by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, be preserved for history or are future robotic or human explorers free to tread upon or take whatever they find?

Writing in the The Space Review in November 2011, Matthew Kleiman, who chairs the space law committee of the American Bar Association Section of Science &Technology Law, concluded that the only guarantee for “comprehensive protection” would be an international agreement. He added, however, that “international space law and traditional property and tort law” offer “limited mechanisms.”

NASA issued a set of recommendations last year, posted on the CollectSpace website, about what exactly should be preserved on the lunar surface. Entitled “NASA’s Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities: How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Lunar Artifacts,” the document was issued on July 20, 2011, the 42nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing — the first time humans walked on the Moon. Google Lunar X-Prize, which is sponsoring a competition where a team can win a bonus if its robotic spacecraft makes a “precision landing near an Apollo site or other lunar sites of interest,” applauded release of the document in an October 13, 2011 statement.

The New York Times took note of the debate over preserving lunar artifacts on the Moon yesterday, but did not mention the corollary debate over what the Apollo astronauts can do with their own mementoes.

Last Updated: Jan 10, 2012 6:21 pm ET

NRC Initating Five New Space-Related Studies

By Marcia Smith | Posted: January 9, 2012 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: January 9, 2012 11:36 am ET

The National Research Council (NRC) is about to begin five new space-related studies. Two are for NASA, two for the Department of Defense (DOD), and one for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The provisional memberships of three of the five study committees are open for comment at the website of the National Academies, of which the NRC is part.

The five studies are:

Assessment of a Plan for U.S. Participation in Euclid (for NASA)
Reusable Booster System: Review and Assessment (for DOD)
Review of NASA Human Research Program’s Scientific Merit Assessment Processes (for NASA)
Assessment of the U.S. Air Force’s Astrodynamic Standards (for DOD)
Implementation of a Sustained Land Imaging Program (for USGS)

Euclid is the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) dark energy mission. An earlier NRC study, the decadal survey for astronomy and astrophysics — New Worlds, New Horizons — recommended that NASA build a spacecraft to investigate dark energy (labeled “dark” because scientists do not understand what it is) as well as search for exoplanets and conduct surveys of the universe in the infrared region of the spectrum. That spacecraft, the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), will be delayed, however, because of NASA’s constrained budget and the decision that completing the over-budget James Webb Space Telescope is an agency priority. ESA is moving ahead with its plan for its Euclid dark energy mission and U.S. scientists would like to be part of it. The NRC study will “determine whether a proposed NASA plan for a U.S. hardware contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) Euclid mission in exchange for U.S. membership on the Euclid Science Team and science data access is a viable part of an overall strategy to pursue the science goals (dark energy measurements, exoplanet detection, and infrared survey science) of the New Worlds, New Horizons report’s top-ranked, large-scale, space-based priority: the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope(WFIRST).” The study will be conducted under the auspices of the Space Studies Board (SSB) and the Board on Physics and Astronomy (BPA). The provisional membership list is available here.

DOD has requested the NRC to review and assess an Air Force concept for a reusable launch vehicle. The NRC study will “review and assess the SMC/AFRL concept for a Reusable Booster System (RBS) for the U.S. Air Force. Among the items the committee will consider in carrying out this review are: the criteria and assumptions used in the formulation of current RBS plans; the methodologies used in the current cost estimates for RBS; the modeling methodology used to frame the business case for an RBS capability including: the data used in the analysis, the models’ robustness if new data become available, and the impact of unclassified government data that was previously unavailable and which will be supplied by the USAF; the technical maturity of key elements critical to RBS implementation and the ability of current technology development plans to meet technical readiness milestones.” The study will be conducted under the auspices of the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) and the Air Force Studies Board (AFSB). The provisional membership list is available here.

DOD also asked the NRC to “assess the astrodynamic standards established by Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) and their effectiveness in meeting mission performance needs, as well as possible alternatives. The Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) uses astrodynamic algorithms to perform satellite orbit determination and prediction in order to maintain a catalog of over 20,000 objects, ranging from active satellites to tiny pieces of orbital debris. AFSPC established this set of astrodynamic algorithms as standards to be used in operational space surveillance mission systems. These standards were implemented to achieve interoperability between the JSpOC and the mission systems and to ensure mission performance.” The study will be conducted under the aupices of the AFSB, ASEB, and Board on Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications. The provisional membership of this committee has not yet been posted on the NRC website.

At the request of NASA, the Board on Health Sciences Policy, part of the Institute of Medicine (another component of the National Academies), will conduct a study that will review “the scientific merit assessment processes used to evaluate NASA Human Research Program’s directed research tasks. The study will include a public workshop focused on identifying and exploring best practices in similar peer-reviewed applied research programs in other federal government agencies. The study will also evaluate the scientific rigor of the NASA processes and the effectiveness of those processes in producing protocols that address programmatic research gaps.” The provisional membership list is available here.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has asked the NRC to “assess the needs and opportunities to develop a space-based operational land imaging capability. In particular, the committee will examine the elements of a sustained space-based Land Imaging Program with a focus on the Department of Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey role in such a program.” USGS operates the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 spacecraft that were built by NASA and will operate the next in the series — the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM, also called Landsat 8). The Obama Administration proposed in the FY2012 budget request that USGS take over responsibility for the entire Landsat program, including defining the requirements and paying for the spacecraft to be built and launched, roles that NASA currently plays. Congress did not agree with that plan, however, and the question remains as to how the Landsat program will continue after Landsat 8 is launched. Scientists are anxious to obtain long term data sets of comparable information and want the Landsat series to continue. The first Landsat was launched in 1972; the two currently in orbit are well past their design lifetimes and each has partially failed. This study will be conducted under the auspices of the SSB. The provisional membership of this study committee has not yet been posted on the NRC’s website.

The NRC is required to post the provisional memberships of its study committees for a 20-day public comment period prior to when a study begins in accordance with section 15 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Membership on NRC study committees remains provisional until the NRC determines that individuals do not have improper biases or conflicts of interest with regard to the topic of the study.

Category: Civil