Microwave Sized Spacecraft Reaches Lunar Orbit by Kale Cunningham

On November 13, 2022, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) spacecraft entered lunar orbit becoming the first Cubesat spacecraft to do so. 

The spacecraft, operated by NASA, was launched in New Zealand on June 28, 2022. But instead of taking the normal three-day mission course, NASA tried something else. 

Most spacecraft, when they go to the moon or other places in the solar system, will fire their engines until there's no fuel left. This can work and the technique is used a lot. But NASA considered a different way; the rocket could slowly make it to the moon by slowly raising its orbit, until it came in contact with the moon. This proved to be successful and could work with future missions. 

CAPSTONE itself is a masterpiece. It is what many people call a Cubesat, which is a microwave sized spacecraft that is normally low-budget but easier to launch. The spacecraft is the first Cubesat to orbit another body besides Earth.

CAPSTONE got into a polar orbit around the moon, which means the spacecraft is circling the moon always at a 90 degrees tip. This was also another first. 

And many spacecraft like this will follow. SpaceX and NASA teamed up to launch a small ice hunting Cubesat called SmallSat, which is supposed to launch within the next few weeks. 

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission with the Orion spacecraft, which is also supposed to launch this month, also carries a dozen of Cubesats hitching a ride on the second stage of the SLS rocket. CAPSTONE is supposed to be a trailblazer in future technology that we can use when we land back on the moon and go to Mars.   

Rating the Seasons of the Year by Stephenie Wang

I will be rating the seasons from best to worst.

Image Source: Dreamstime.com

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The best season of the year, in my opinion, is fall. I think the best season is fall because I like the whole feel and aesthetic of the colors, the weather, and the holidays that are in fall. I think that fall is a cozy and comfortable season for hanging out with friends and family. I also like seeing the leaves fall off of trees while drinking a hot beverage or reading outside.

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 The second best season in my opinion is winter because I like the cold and I also like the feel and the holidays in winter. I like playing in the snow and doing snowball fights with family or friends. I also like to celebrate Christmas and bake cookies with my family, watch Christmas movies, and presents from family and friends.

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 The third best season is spring because I also like the weather and the aesthetic of spring. I also like it because my birthday is in spring. I feel like spring is underrated for a lot of people. I think spring should get more popularity and recognition from others.

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The least best is summer because I hate hot temperatures! Also I hate the mosquitos that bite you every second. The only thing that I like about summer is summer break and that’s it. Ice Cream melts so easily, THAT’S DEPRESSING! I also hate the sunlight because it blinds my eyes! (Don’t call me a vampire ok?)

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Anyways this is my opinion of the seasons, If you like it great! If you don't, that's fine! All of this is my opinion. Thank you for reading!

LOFTID Successfully Completes Mission by Kale Cunningham

NASA’s Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) just completed its first successful flight in space. The inflatable heat shield launched with the JPSS-2 satellite on November, 10, 2022 at 4:49 am on an Atlas V rocket. LOFTID hitched a ride on the second stage of the rocket and once the JPSS-2 satellite was set free from the rocket, the second stage deorbited and sent the technology destination on its way. 

The biggest concern with the technology team at NASA, was that the heat shield would fail to inflate. But fortunately the deployment went well and it re entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed in the ocean near Hawaii just 2 hours after its launch. It dropped a data recorder in the ocean nearly a mile away from where it landed. When it landed the 13 foot heat shield  opened a parachute before landing at around 15 miles per hour. 

NASA already had a recovery team waiting out in a boat when it splashed down. The team recovered the spacecraft within minutes of splash down and are now currently on their way home.

LOFTID will help land bigger and heavier spacecraft on Mars and over places. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) also wants to work with NASA to use LOFTID technology on their planned reusable Vulcan rockets.

 NASA says the mission was a complete success and even performed  better than expected. 

This is one of the most critical technologies that we're establishing right now with this mission, and also with that first successful orbital flight and recovery," Jim Reuter, NASA's associate administrator for the space technology mission directorate, said. 

Image Source: NASA

MARIE CURIE'S BIRTHDAY 11/7/22 by Carolyn Frank

Marie Curie was an amazing scientist who discovered radiation. She won a nobel prize and sadly died of radiation poisoning due to all the exposure she had to it. TOday is her birthday and I hope you enjoy this poem!

Nobel prize,

Science,

Radiation,

This is Marie's life.

From 1867,

To 1934,

Marie is always in our hearts,

Evermore. 

The Electric Mission Of Apollo 12 Part 2 by Kale Cunningham

Apollo 12 was in bad shape, the mission was supposed to be the second moon landing. But it seemed now that the astronauts would have to abort the mission. 

The data was messy, nothing made sense. Mission controllers couldn’t do anything that helpful, if you have no control then what good does that do? 

But in the back John Aaron, a flight controller who specialized in the Apollo spacecraft's electrical systems, knew of a switch that could possibly help. The SEC switch was basically a reboot system. It could reboot the whole Apollo spacecraft computer system, the problem about SCE was it was barely ever used and mostly forgotten. The Apollo space capsule had around 350 different switches. And normally only half of these were used in a mission. 

“Flight, EECOM, try SCE to aux.” -Aaron suggested 

 Flight director Gerald Griffin answered him puzzled 

“Say again, SEC to off?”  

“Auxiliary flight.” - Aaron repeated 

Griffin had no idea what it meant but at least it was something so  radioed it to the Capcom. (Astronaut communicator)

The Capcom had no idea what it was, but he told Conrad up in the rogue ship. 

But Conrad just scowled and said, “FCE to aux? What the hell is that!?”

“SEC.” the Capcom corrected. 

Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon the experienced astronauts had no idea where to start looking for the switch, but Alan Bean, the rookie onboard, did. The switch was above his arm. He quickly flicked it and just as soon as it started, everything went back to normal. 

The data returned to normal.

“It looks… Everything looks good.” Bean reported calmly.

Indeed it had, the lights and alarms that were going crazy just seconds before were now normal.

After that Apollo 12 would get into Earth orbit, and go on to land on the moon. Conrad and Bean would step foot on the moon for a total of 8 hours (Gordon stayed in orbit around the moon.) 

And an investigation of the incident would show what had happened. 

The rocket had been struck by lightning twice, when the rocket launched lightning had found its way towards the big lightning rod. 

And in the future NASA would not launch a rocket when storms are near.

But Alan Bean did however have problems on Apollo 12 even though he saved the mission.

When the mission splashed down in the ocean a camera fell on his head and gave him a concussion. But this did not stop Bean from flying into space again, on the mission Skylab 3 on America's first space station.

But, he would never forget his first mission that was struck by lightning.                        

The Electric Mission Of Apollo 12 Part 1 by Kale Cunningham

It was a stormy day in Cape Cravel Florida on November 14, 1969. It was however warm and a fresh breeze of the Atlantic was floating in the air.

And Kennedy Space Center at the mighty Saturn V, stood high and proud and on the top in a small capsule astronauts, Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, and Alan Bean. The three astronauts were a part of the Apollo 12 mission or NASA’s second crack at a moon landing. Apollo 11 had landed around 4 months ago, you know the historical flight that Neil Armstorng, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins flew on the amazing mission. And now today it was Conrad's opportunity to be in the spotlight. 

The Commander had flown twice into space and was not going to let some bad weather get in the way of his goal. 

Richard Gordon would remain in orbit around the moon while Conard and Bean landed on the moon. Gordon was well known for his 2 hour space walk on Gemini 11. 

Bean was the rookie of the mission, it would be his first time going into space. But he was a good military pilot and a nice member of the crew. 

But it would seem that the moon mission would have to wait, the bad weather was really slowing things down. And it was putting everyone in a bad mood. And NASA really needed to get the rocket to the moon especially because the president himself Richard Nixon was one of the thousands of people gathering around to see the launch. 

But what seemed like luck at the time, there was a break in the bad weather and NASA grabbed the chance. At 11:22 a.m. the rocket lit its engines and lifted off the ground. 

“This baby is really going! - Conrad yelled over the roar of the rocket 

“Man, is it ever!” - Gordon agreed 

But what no one knew was as soon as the rocket launched it became something else. The storms that had been around the area were thunderstorms. And even though the closest storm was over 20 miles away. The metal on the football field sized rocket, made electricity  come towards it. The rocket was now the world's biggest lighting rod. And it only took seconds and suddenly a large bang shook the rocket. 

“What the hell was that?”  Gordon screamed 

Then to all of the astronaut’s horror, the control panel which was showing normal data seconds before, went wild. 

“Okay, we lost the platform, gang, I don’t know what happened here; we have everything in the world drop out.” - Conrad radio back to the ground. And yes indeed they had. Almost Everything going crazy 

data with nothing but a mix of numbers, letters, and symbols poured in from the rocket. And it seemed so bad that some people in mission control thought that Conard would have to abort the mission…. 

New Way To Land On Mars? by Kale Cunningham

Landing on Mars is no easy job, just getting a spacecraft down on the surface costs millions of dollars. For space agencies like NASA who have landed on the surface of Mars successfully nine times.  However,  that has involved using parachutes, airbags, jet packs, and costy engines. The landing system which NASA calls EDL (Entry, Descent and Landing), can cost up to 300 million dollars on its own! Which is almost the cost it takes to build a rocket to get there in the first place! And with more missions coming up in Mars exploration, NASA needs a cheaper way to land on the surface Mars and other objects.

And one way to do that, how about crashing into it?

Rather than slow a spacecraft’s high-speed descent, use a shock absorbed shield on the spacecraft. Like the crumple zone of a car and absorbs the energy of a hard impact. So meet SHIELD (Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device), a mission test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL.) 

Image Source: NASA

“We think we could go to more treacherous areas, where we wouldn’t want to risk trying to place a billion-dollar rover with our current landing systems,” said SHIELD’s project manager, Lou Giersch “Maybe we could even land several of these at different difficult-to-access locations to build a network.” 

Could it be possible? The SHIELD team created a prototype and on August 12, 2022 they dropped it 90 feet to the ground with a cell phone attracted. The probe impacted the ground at 110 mile per hour, but the shield completely absorbed the impact. And the shield wasn’t hitting any normal ground at 110 miles per hour it hit pure steel. 

And the cell phone didn’t have a single crack on it! 

The idea may sound crazy, but it has been done before. 

In the 1970s and 1980s when the Soviet Union landed probes on Venus, when they detached the parachutes. The shock shield would absorb the ground in final seconds on the landing. And NASA uses shock absorber shields on some manned spacecraft before they splashdown in the ocean around 18 miles per hour. 

So here's what a mission would look like using SHIELD: a probe would have a heat shield protecting it from the heat of the atmosphere as it entered it. After that it would deploy a small parachute that would slow it down from 1,000 miles per hour down to 100 miles per hour. And then after a couple of minutes it would cut the parachute and hopefully make a hard landing on the surface. 

A test flight could be made sometime in the late 2020s and could start becoming popular in the 2030s.   

To Watch a Video of the success click here! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkejVTkAnXc

NASA Ready For New Technology Demonstration For Future by Kale Cunningham

NASA is getting ready to launch the JPSS-2 satellite, or Joint Polar Satellite System-2. Scheduled to lift off on November 1st (Please note that the launch could change.)

However the JPSS-2 satellite is not the main goal for the mission, hitchhiking on board the LOFTID 

(Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator) 

LOFTID is an inflatable heat shield, which has a main goal of proving itself for future missions to Mars and other worlds. 

Heat shields are needed to help spacecraft from burning up in the atmospheres of planets, a spacecraft travels so fast to get to another planet and when they reach there, a spacecraft going so fast is going to create friction, which gets so hot it will be able to melt steel. All of the times NASA or other space agencies have landed on other planets, they have used metal heat shields that have protected them. But now with bigger and heavier spacecraft coming up like the Mars sample return mission and manned missions to other planets, metal heat shields will just be too heavy and expensive to use. 

So NASA decided to come up with a cheaper way, which was LOFTID. 

Before it inflates it is the size of a person, and when LOFTID does inflate it stretches over 20 feet, and it can inflate minutes before a planned landing, instead of just being dead weight. 

LOFTID is made of the same material of metal heat shields, and to get rid of heat, it has small holes that slowly let heat go past it. 

The planned mission is for it to launch and enter Earth's atmosphere, survive and parachute in the Pacific ocean. 

Hopefully this will be successful and show that the inflatable heat shield could help the first people to land on Mars, and beyond. 

Watch an animation of LOFTID’s deployment!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6IbqNFHcuU

To watch the live event on November 1st 

(Please note that it could change)

Click here! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg

20 Years Of The Atlas V: America’s Most Hard Working Rocket by Kale Cunningham

The Atlas 5 or Atlas V rocket is one of America’s most hardest working rockets, alongside the Space Shuttle, Delta ll, Falcon 9, and the legendary Saturn V. 

The Atlas V was first supposed to be a low budget, but useful rocket for Network services. The first launch launched a basic communication satellite into low Earth orbit. The second launch successfully got the first satellite by the country Greece. And by the time the third launch rolled the rocket had grabbed the attention of the US military, who was having trouble sharing rockets with NASA saw this as a better option then playing tug of war over the Delta ll rocket. 

In 2004 NASA asked the developers  Lockheed Martin and ULA (United Launch Alliance) with the Atlas's biggest challenge yet. 

NASA was building a probe that would fly past the dwarf planet Pluto, and they needed someone to launch the human sized spacecraft around 3.2 billion miles to the far away world and couldn't find anyone else to do it. It was a really big leap from just launching satellites less than a million miles into low Earth orbit to over 3 billion miles, but Lockheed Martin and ULA decided to take the Changelle, and on January, 19, 2006 the Atlas V rocket sent the probe whom NASA had named New Horizons to Pluto at 10 miles per second, the fastest speed ever traveled at that time. New Horizons would fly by Pluto in the summer of 2015 returning data and up close images of the small world, just 9 years after launch. 

 NASA was impressed by Lockheed Martin and ULA’s grand Atlas V rocket and have been able to launch many space probes since. Some of the highlights include: 

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to the Moon 2009 

Curiosity rover to Mars 2011 

Juno probe to Jupiter 2011 

MAVEN to Mars 2013

Insight to Mars 2018 

Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter to Mars 2020 

Landsat 9 to map Earth 2021 

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the ISS in May 2022.

In 2021 ULA and Lockheed Martin announced that the rocket would retire in the late 2020s but until then would host at least 20 more launches.  

As of today the Atlas V is one of the few rockets that has not had a single launch failure so far. Leaving it with a success rate of around 99%. Most rockets only have a success rate of 95% or less.

The Atlas V rocket is a true hero in the rocket committee and its legacy will not end there, ULA is trying to fund a bigger rocket much like it, but more powerful and faster. 

As of today the Atlas V is active and healthy          

The Sinking Liberty Bell by Kale Cunningham

Gus Grissiom, an American astronaut, was in a good mood. He had just finished a flawless 15 minute flight into space. The mission called Mercury- Redstone 4, had just placed the second American in space. The Redstone rocket, which was a weapon and could kill anyone, had been recycled from the US military launching a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to launching men in 1-ton spacecraft into space. The Redstone however could not make men reach orbit, only a small up and down 15 minute flight. And Grissiom’s  had gone perfectly, much like the other flight back in May had launched Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Now on this nice, clear, warm July day Grissom could let out a joyful smile. NASA now had two flawless flights between them, it would be a very important step to convince Congress to fund more space missions. The recovery ship and helicopters were flying above his capsule in the deep water, and Grissiom was proud. 

He and his spacecraft which he named Liberty Bell 7, were now on their way to be greeted by happy NASA engineers and offinals.

“Liberty Bell 7, we have your entry into the water. We will be over you in 30 seconds.” the recovery helicopter pilot informed

Grissiom heard the noise of the helicopter blades, and knew that they were close. And just seconds later the pilot called down again 

“We are around the capsule now.” 

“Roger, give me about 5 more minutes before to mark these switches here, before I call you to come in and hook up.” Grissom responded. 

Hooking up the capsule was just how it sounded, it involved the helicopter hooking up the spacecraft and pulling it onto the recovery ship, another helicopter would lower down a horse collar for Grissom and pull him up. 

But something very bad happened, the hatch which was held in by explosive bolts and would only open when the astronaut pushed a button that would make the small bolts explode and leave an opening. Grissom who was just going to get a small carry on he had brought, a survival knife. Suddenly the hatch blew and fell into the ocean leaving an opening to the cold Atlantic. Water started rushing in and the telephone booth sized spacecraft started to sink and Grissiom did the only thing he could do to survive which was tumble into the water. Now that he was in the water another problem came up, which was he was not wearing his helmet which meant that his neck collar splashed by the waves started to fill his space suit with water and Grissom was got heavy and started to sink down into the waves like his capsule which, was also going down and taking the helicopter that had a capable on it with it. Another helicopter started to fly toward Grissom but the helicopter that was going down with the casple was two close and the blades smashed into each other showering sparks everywhere. So the helicopter that was made to rescue Grissom backed off. And to add more to the drama someone spotted a 10 foot shark swimming around, most likely confused on what the heck was happening.

The sinking helicopter pilot decided that his life along with Grissom’s and his helicopter, were worth it and cut the cable to the million dollar casple. And it sank out of sight, the helicopter that had failed to save Grissom early now could come close and saved him by throwing down the horse collar. And a tired and weak Grissom grabbed on and was put into a recovery chopper. Grissom was safe, but not so much for the capsule, where it had gone was unknown. 

Grissom would suffer no injuries and would be cleared from as some people claimed, hitting the button to open the hatch by mistake. But today NASA says that it was a computer fault. Liberty Bell 7 would be recovered in 1999, and the survival knife that Grissom had lost, was still onboard. 

Image Source: National Geographic

Top Ten Weirdest Animals by Dakota Smith and Aerin Gamble

Links:  

Dumbo Octopus - Oceana

 11 Incredible Goblin Shark Facts - Fact Animal 

10 Facts About the Creatively Camouflaged Potoo Bird - Fact Animal 

14 Incredible Yeti Crab Facts - Fact Animal 

Red-lipped Batfish | Galapatours 

Red-Lipped Batfish Facts 

15 Gigantic Japanese Spider Crab Facts - Fact Animal 

10 Extraordinary Facts About the Elusive Okapi 

13 Bizarre Aye-Aye Facts - Fact Animal 

16 Spikey Thorny Devil Facts - Fact Animal 

17 Astonishing Axolotl (Mexican Walking Fish) Facts - Fact Animal 

Picture sites:

Why some fish are really bad at swimming | National Geographic

Okapi | Dallas ZooHoo!  

Dumbo Octopus - Buy Royalty Free 3D model by NestaEric (@Nestaeric) [ae6b150] 

10 Wild Facts About the Aye-Aye, a Most Improbable Animal | HowStuffWorks  

Goblin Shark 

Common Potoo - American Bird Conservancy 

14 Incredible Yeti Crab Facts - Fact Animal 

15 Gigantic Japanese Spider Crab Facts - Fact Animal 

16 Spikey Thorny Devil Facts - Fact Animal 

10 Scary Things About The Moon by Kale Cunningham

The Moon is the 5th biggest moon in the solar system stretching out 1,079.6 miles long, it controls our tides, people have explored it and mapped out around 99.8% of its surface, but this thing has some spooky things, here are the top 10 scariest things about the moon.

10: The moon is a crazy place, it has almost no atmosphere so it can’t store up heat like Earth, and can’t block out heat. If you were in lunar daylight, it boils up to 200 degrees and if you were in the shade of a rock or something else then it would be under -250 degrees. 

9: There is no Dark side of the moon, but there is a far side. All parts of the moon are exposed to sunlight, but there is a side of the moon that we never see. On this side of the moon you can’t see Earth and you can’t communicate with radio singles behind the moon, this part of the moon as some astronauts told it, has a erely dim glow. And is covered in craters. 

8: In 2011 the film Apollo 18 was released, it told a lost classified mission of astronauts who were infected by rock spiders, so when a claimed image from a rover was released of a rock that looked like a spider, the media went wild. However this was later claimed to be a fake image. 

7: In the late 1990s astronomers discovered a strange asteroid following Earth, or was it following? Some astronomers thought Earth had a second moon! But later that year it disappeared, leaving astronomers puzzled.

6: Back in medieval times people reported one night the moon flashing. What was happening? Today astronomers think that an asteroid hit the moon, but are still not sure. 

5: Some Astronauts who went to the moon have died or gotten ill from the toxic moon dust. 

4: On the mission Apollo 15, astronaut Dave Scott spotted a strange shining object on the ground. He and his fellow astronaut Jim Irwin investigated and found a 3.4 billion year old rock. Which they brought home to Earth. 

3: The Moon Is Believed To Have An Effect On Sleep, an experiment by the University of Basel found that there maybe was a link between sleep cycles and the phases of the moon. 

2: In early February of 2022, a chunk of a rocket was found flying through space on a crash course for the moon. Many people thought that it was a rocket that SpaceX had launched, but later they claimed it was China’s. But people still didn’t know if this was true. It impacted the moon in the spring and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the impact site, which left not the expected single crater but 2 craters. NASA couldn’t tell how the impact site had gotten 2 craters instead of 1. 

1: Apollo 13 on its way to the moon exploded, leaving the astronauts to return home to Earth in a damaged spacecraft. Some people at mission control had thought that the spacecraft had impacted the moon. 

What are hydrogen cars, and are they the future of transportation? by Ishaan Pareek

Karl Benz invented cars in the year of 1885/1886, and since then, they have evolved and have improved in many aspects. Automakers have always been obsessed with making faster, more luxurious, and more efficient cars. 

Hydrogen cars work by hydrogen fuel cells creating a chemical reaction between the hydrogen and oxygen from the air to create a chemical reaction that would produce electricity, with the only emission being water. 

The electricity produced would then be stored in a battery, where electricity would be used to power the motors to make the car move. Hydrogen is extracted using many methods, one of which is a process known as electrolysis, which is when you apply a current to the water so that the water molecules separate, causing hydrogen molecules to be released from the negatively charged anode, and oxygen is released through the positively charged cathode. 

The hydrogen bubbles would then be stored and transported to a hydrogen fueling station, where it would be used by cars. Another type of way to extract hydrogen is steam reforming, which is the process of combining both high-temperature steam with natural gasses. 

This process is incredibly inefficient and produces less energy in hydrogen than just burning the natural gasses used for extraction. While the actual fuel cell doesn’t make C02, the process of extracting it through steam reforming does. This technology all sounds great and futuristic, so there remains the question: why has hydrogen not caught on? Well, that is because of two major problems.

Image Source: H2 Station Maps

 #1. There are not enough hydrogen fueling stations in the United States or anywhere else in the world, for hydrogen to be feasible. In the U.S, as of January 2021, there were 45 charging stations, most of which were in California.

 #2. Getting hydrogen through the process of electrolysis and steam reforming is incredibly inefficient because of both processes and transportation. However, that may begin to change in recent years as more scientists are interested in hydrogen transportation. While someday you may see hydrogen-powered cars hitting the road, it is not the time for hydrogen power to shine.

Source: Nat Geo Kids magazine September 2022 Special Future Issue

American And Russian Space Start Working Together by Kale Cunningham

Today (September 21st, 2022) the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, launched a crewed Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).  This is the first crewed launch since the invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this March, NASA announced that they would halt their space relationship with Russia. Russia also said that they were taking a break from working with the ISS and NASA. 

Russia is responsible for launching a third of the ISS life support systems and around half of the astronauts. So NASA, SpaceX, and Northtop Grumman had to make up this gap. In May, Russia came out saying that they would quit the ISS immediately and build a new space station. But later they delayed that and now claim they plan to leave the ISS in 2024. 

In June, NASA and Roscosmos agreed that they would start working together again. For now, Russia will keep on ferrying up astronauts from Russian soil until late 2023. Then SpaceX and Boeing will be responsible for serving cargo and astronauts back up to the ISS. 

As for Russia's space station, it is planned that it will start construction in 2026.    

Image Source: NASA

Frost All Over Mars by Kale Cunningham

NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has been orbiting the planet Mars for over 20 years. And in its lifetime, it has spotted frost in the morning on Mars. 

“Our first thought was (that) ice could be buried there,” Lucas Lange, a JPL intern said. “Dry ice is plentiful near Mars’ poles, but we were looking closer to the equator of the planet, where it’s generally too warm for dry ice frost to form.”  

Scientists at NASA were almost certainly puzzled, but it wasn’t just seen from orbit. Many different Mars landers and rovers had seen the frost in the morning, but by the time the sun was up they disappeared. 

And what confused people even more was the fact that they seem to disappear into thin air and then suddenly be there again in the morning. However, most recently scientists discovered something shocking. 

The ice does disappear, when the sun comes out and turns the frost into ice clouds! Then when the sun goes down the clouds float down to the surface and turn back into frost! 

This data just solved a 45 year old mystery and may help us understand what this “frost” is made out of. 

Smashed Up Backshell Discovered On Mars by Kale Cunningham

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity was flying a smooth flight, recording the surface below. The helicopter was flying over to meet up with its partner the Perseverance rover. When it flew over a smashed up body looking like it impacted the surface, it looked like it was made from Earth. Which it was! 

Over a year ago when Perseverance and Ingenuity were landing on Mars, the backshell which protected the rover through most of the trip to the red planet. The backshell opened a parachute which slowed the rover going down from a thousand miles per hour to 100 miles per hour. That was still much too fast to land so the rover and the helicopter dropped away from the backshell and were carried on a jetpack called a “Skycrane”. The vehicles were then lowered down onto the surface, then the Skycrane took off and crashed a couple hundreds feet away. Meanwhile the backshell crashed going nearly 100 miles per hour. A couple of miles away. Almost a year and 2 months later Ingenuity spotted it on its 26th flight. 

The parachute is covered in dust and the backshell is mostly intact, however some little bits have been blown around. The backshell is believed to be the last alive part of the landing system. 

(The skycrane is nothing but ash according to satellite footage from above.)

However, NASA will not investigate more about this. The goal of the mission is to return Mars samples to Earth, not look at landing systems, so even though it was a nice find it will not be studied any further.   

Solar Eclipse on Mars by Kale Cunningham

On April 20th, the Mars rover Perseverance recorded a solar eclipse on Mars with the martian moon Phobos passing by the sun for 40 seconds.

The eclipse was not like the one you see on Earth. Earth's moon is big enough to cover up the Sun completely. Mars’s lumpy shaped potato moon can only cover up less than a third of the Sun. This event is common every few years, and it is not the first time an eclipse has been seen on Mars.

But the Perseverance’s Mastcam Z camera has captured the highest definition video of an eclipse. Many people worry that the Sun may damage the camera of the rover and the camera would be nothing but dead weight, but NASA has found its way around that. They just focus the camera on Phobos, not the Sun.

This event will happen again in the next few years.

50 Years Ago… Apollo 16 by Kale Cunningham

Apollo 16 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Florida on April 16, 1972. With a very experienced astronaut John Young who flew 3 missions before and rookies: Charles Duke and Thomas Mattingly II.

After a three day journey, Young and Duke climbed into the LM (Lunar Module) named Orion. 

Orion touched down in The Descartes highlands region. Young went out of Orion first, Duke followed (Mattingly stayed in lunar orbit.)

Orion's landing was overdue, because of a thought problem with the lander’s engine that kept Young and Duke for 16 full orbits around the moon. Until mission control sorted out the problem. After landing the crew slept for a few hours and then got ready to go outside. 

Work

After a few minutes of messing around on the moon, both astronauts started getting out the instruments made to study the moon. 

Young set up a mini telescope and started looking at stars and planets. Meanwhile Duke carried the rest of the instruments in a fold out box and by mistake dropped the package onto the ground. Duke quickly grabbed the package to see if anything was damaged. It was full of dust, but nothing was broken. After that Young and Duke set up the instruments. After everything was set up Young and Duke went back to Orion for some rest. The astronauts slept for a few hours before waking up, and going outside again. 

By then it was the second day so they decided to do some driving on the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) , a battery-powered four-wheeled car. The astronauts were searching for Basalt rocks, a common form of Lava to take back to Earth. Young and Duke found some great finds with meteorites. But no Basalts were found. Scientists were very puzzled by this, it looked from orbit that there would be plenty of Basalts. This place had not been formed by Lava, meteorites are what really formed it! The scientists were wrong. 

Return 

After nearly 71 hours on the moon, Young and Duke took off again and docked with Mattingly in orbit. Before they left the crew launched a small probe into orbit around the moon. The probe sent back data for over a month before crashing into the moon. The crew splashed down in the pacific ocean on April 27, 1972. The rocks and soil brought back from the moon were studied for nearly 20 years. 

Apollo 17 flew just 8 months later as the last mission to the moon

But that is another story for another time… 

Image Source: NASA.gov

Mars Sample Return Rocket Designer Picked by Kale Cunningham

Angie Jackman – who has spent more than 35 years leading some of the agency’s most advanced propulsion and engineering projects, has been chosen to be the Mars Ascent Vehicle project manager. Set to be the first rocket ever to launch from the surface of another planet, the Mars Ascent Vehicle will play a big role in the Mars Sample Return mission, launching into low orbit around the Red Planet to deliver samples gathered by the Perseverance rover from the crater floor of Jerzo crater. 

They’ll be transferred there to ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter. The Marshall team is partnering with Lockheed Martin Space which is building the Mars Ascent Vehicle system and designing and developing the rocket’s ground support equipment, and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation which leads development of the ascent vehicle’s propulsion system.

NASA’s New Rocket Sees The Light by Kale Cunningham

NASA's new megarocket for its Artemis 1 moon mission is on the launch pad for the first time. On Thursday March 17, with the largest doors in the world wide open at the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center here on Florida's Space Coast, the rocket that will launch the next astronauts to the moon began rolling out to the launch pad. It reached its destination more than 11 hours later. For its wet dress rehearsal for launch that will happen later this May. Artemis will be an uncrewed flight to the moon and back by the Orion spacecraft. Which will carry humans back to the moon in 2024. 

Image Source: NASA