Starship Asterisk*

http://www.universetoday.com/105688/nasas-ladee-probe-starts-science-study-of-thin-lunar-atmosphere-and-dusty-mystery/#more-105688 wrote:
NASA’s LADEE Probe Starts Science Study of Thin Lunar Atmosphere and Dusty Mystery
by Ken Kremer on November 23, 2013

[b][color=#0000FF]LADEE Science Instrument locations[/color][/b]

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – <<NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) has descended to its planned low altitude orbit and begun capturing science data on its ground breaking mission to study the Moon’s ultra tenuous atmosphere and dust using a spacecraft based on a revolutionary new design aimed at speeding development and cutting costs.

LADEE set sail for Earth’s nearest neighbor during a spectacular night time launch atop the maiden flight of an Air Force Minotaur V rocket on Sept. 6 from NASA’s Wallops Island launch facility on Virginia’s Eastern shore. Following a month long voyage and three and a half long looping orbits of the Earth, LADEE successfully fired its main engine for 4 minutes and 12 seconds on Oct. 6 and successfully entered lunar orbit, Dawn McIntosh, LADEE deputy project manager at NASA Ames Research Center, told Universe Today in an exclusive interview. A series of engine firings over the past month gradually circularized and lowered LADEE into its final science orbit around our Moon while engineers checked out the spacecraft during the commissioning phase of the mission.

The do or die initial Lunar Orbit Insertion burn (LOI-1) allowed LADEE to be captured into a highly elliptical, equatorial lunar orbit, said McIntosh. “Two additional LOI burns on Oct. 6 and Oct 9 lowered LADEE to an approximately 4 hour orbit with a periapsis altitude of 234 Kilometers (km) and apoapsis altitude of 250 km” McIntosh told me. The trio of LOI main engine firings used up most of LADEE’s precious on board fuel. “LADEE launched with 134.5 kilograms (kg) of fuel. Post LOI-3, 80% of our fuel has been consumed,” said McIntosh. “Additional orbit-lowering maneuvers with the orbital control system (OCS) and reaction control system (RCS) of approximately 40 seconds were used to get LADEE into the science orbit.

The spacecraft finally entered its planned two hour science orbit around the moon’s equator on Nov. 20. Its flying at an extremely low altitude ranging from merely 12-60 kilometers above the moon’s surface. By circling in this very low altitude equatorial orbit, the washing machine sized probe will make frequent passes crossing from lunar day to lunar night enabling it to precisely measure changes and processes occurring within the moon’s tenuous atmosphere while simultaneously sniffing for uplifted lunar dust in the lunar sky.

The purpose of LADEE is to collect data that will inform scientists in unprecedented detail about the ultra thin lunar atmosphere, environmental influences on lunar dust and conditions near the surface. In turn this will lead to a better understanding of other planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond. “A thorough understanding of the characteristics of our lunar neighbor will help researchers understand other small bodies in the solar system, such as asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of outer planets,” said Sarah Noble, LADEE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. By studying the raised dust, scientists also hope to solve a 40 year old mystery – Why did the Apollo astronauts and early unmanned landers see a glow of rays and streamers at the moon’s horizon stretching high into the lunar sky.

The $280 million probe is built on a revolutionary ‘modular common spacecraft bus’, or body, that could dramatically cut the cost of exploring space and also be utilized on space probes to explore a wide variety of inviting targets in the solar system. “LADEE is the first in a new class of interplanetary exploration missions,” NASA Ames Director Worden told Universe Today. “It will study the pristine moon to study significant questions. This is probably our last best chance to study the pristine Moon before there is a lot of human activity there changing things.”

The 383 kg robot explorer was assembled at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and is a cooperative project with NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland. LADEE arrived at the Moon last month in the midst of the US government shutdown – which negatively impacted a host of other NASA missions. Only a ‘skeleton crew’ was available. “All burns went super well,” Worden told me. And he is extremely proud of the entire team of “dedicated” professional men and women who made it possible during the shutdown. “It says a lot about our people’s dedication and capability when a skeleton crew’ can get a new spacecraft into lunar orbit and fully commissioned in the face of a shutdown!” Worden said to Universe Today.>>

http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2013/10/07/nasas-ladee-probe-reaches-moon-lunar-crescent-and-venus-pair-up-at-dusk/ wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

NASA’s LADEE probe reaches moon.
Astrobob, October 7, 2013

<<NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft (LADEE) safely entered lunar orbit yesterday and will soon test its futuristic laser communications system. The Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration aboard LADEE will link up with ground stations in New Mexico, California and the Canary Islands, sending data packets back to Earth at the rate of hundreds of megabits per second. After the testing is complete, NASA will lower LADEE’s orbit to begin its 100-day mission measuring the composition of the moon’s extremely tenuous atmosphere, where atoms are so few they never collide. LADEE will also explore the dust environment closer to the surface. Scientists hope to explain what causes the mysterious glow along the sunrise and sunset horizons seen by Apollo astronauts back in the 1960s and 70s. A leading theory holds that dust gets electrostatically levitated after being charged by solar radiation.>>

neufer wrote:
And what exactly would you have the FDA do with that 88¢ per person?

fatcitymax wrote:Anything they would want to do with it would be better than having it spent on moon dust. The sooner NASA is shut down the better for the US. NASA has no relevant mission. It is just a self-serving bureaucracy. This is the golden age of biology. That is were NASA's budget should be spent.

Mr. Toad wrote:

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
It's also foolish to think that somehow health and disease research isn't already well-funded at this point. Besides, you can only tell people so many times to exercise, not overeat, and not smoke cigarettes.

...not stand too close to a rocket launch.

Apparently the frog didn't get the word. Maybe we should spend the money on advertising.

• Aye, Laddie, t'isn't safe out there

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/12/badger-cull-target wrote: Badger cull: government refuses to deny marksmen failing to meet target
Patrick Barkham and Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 12 September 2013

<<The government has refused to deny that less than 100 badgers have been killed in Somerset over two weeks, a figure that would mean marksmen had culled less than 5% of the badgers they must shoot in six weeks for the cull to be judged a success.

A source told the Western Daily Press that more than 60 marksmen working in West Somerset, one of two pilot cull zones, were experiencing major problems. "Only three or four badgers are being shot every day," the source said. "It is just a case now of who gets the blame for the whole thing failing." However, a source close to the cull told the Guardian that such figures "rubbish" and "wildly out", although they would not say how many badgers had been killed in Somerset. Marksmen need to shoot 50 badgers each night to hit the target of killing a minimum of 2,081 badgers in the Somerset zone. If 70% of the estimated badger population is not dispatched in this way, the cull will be considered a failure by its own targets.

Jay Tiernan of Stop the Cull said he was "flabbergasted" that so few badgers had been killed and called for the cull to be abandoned. "It's encouraging because we always thought the whole thing would be a farce but we didn't realise it would be this bad for them and they wouldn't be able to get anywhere near the numbers," he said. "What are they hoping to achieve? The cull should be pulled."

Mary Creagh, shadow environment secretary, attacked the government for not saying how many badgers had been culled. "Ministers have failed to answer my questions on how many badgers have been shot. Scientists have warned that a botched cull could spread bovine TB in cull areas, making things worse not better. Ministers should listen to the scientists and drop this cull which is bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife."

Activists have struggled to find marksmen who are using night-vision equipment to track badgers and remained undetected but protesters believe that nocturnal "badger patrols" in the area have disrupted and deterred the gunmen. According to Tiernan, anti-cull campaigners have just raised £10,000 to fund night-vision kit similar to that used by the marksmen. "With more equipment we expect to have a much higher effectiveness at stopping the cull," he said. Another farmer who lives in the Somerset cull zone told the Guardian he was not aware whether marksmen were being successful or not, but said: "The fact that the antis are roaming around in the dark isn't helping."

Mead, an influential figure in the region, is in favour of gassing diseased badgers in their setts to control bovine TB in cattle, a technique which was scrapped by the government in 1982 after scientific experiments showed it was inhumane for badgers that received sub-lethal doses of the poison. The Somerset farmer in the cull zone echoed Mead's previous call for gassing to be adopted by the government. "It's far more sensible," he said. "You haven't got the disposal problems and if they can identify setts that are affected by bovine TB you're going to have less badgers to deal with.">>

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
It's also foolish to think that somehow health and disease research isn't already well-funded at this point. Besides, you can only tell people so many times to exercise, not overeat, and not smoke cigarettes.

...not stand too close to a rocket launch.

geckzilla wrote:
It's also foolish to think that somehow health and disease research isn't already well-funded at this point. Besides, you can only tell people so many times to exercise, not overeat, and not smoke cigarettes.

fatcitymax wrote:There's nothing beautiful about $280 million flushed down the toilet. That money should have been spent on health and disease prevention research by the FDA. LADEE is just another NASA boondoggle, trying to justify its existence. NASA desperately wants manned missions to Mars or back to the Moon. Neither will ever be funded by the US taxpayer.

fatcitymax wrote:
There's nothing beautiful about $280 million flushed down the toilet.
That money should have been spent on health and disease prevention research by the FDA.

neufer wrote:An unfortunate frog

http://www.universetoday.com/104679/absolutely-incredible-photo-frog-launches-with-ladee/#more-104679 wrote:
Frog Launches With LADEE
by Nancy Atkinson on September 11, 2013

<<Oh my! We’re not sure to laugh or cry on this one (maybe both). This frog gives new meaning to “flying leap,” (or giant leap). This little guy was obviously startled by the ignition of the Minotaur V rocket that launched the LADEE spacecraft last Friday.

We’ve confirmed this image is in fact an actual photo taken by one of NASA’s remote cameras set up for the launch on September 6, 2013 from the Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Wallops spokesman Jeremy Eggers confirms the picture is legitimate and was not altered in any way.

Why would a frog be hanging around a launchpad? The launchpad at the Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport has a “pool” for the high-volume water deluge system that activates during launches to protect the pad from damage and for noise suppression, and likely there was a (formerly) damp, cool place that was a nice spot for a frog to hang out.>>

geckzilla wrote:
I suppose if you had the energy to waste, you could use any arc (or roller coaster inspired path) to get there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_sled_launch wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]An example of rocket sled launch assist: NASA's Maglifter proposal for giving a 500+ ton rocket initial velocity from a mountain.[/color][/b]

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<<A rocket sled launch is a method of launching space vehicles. A rail or maglev track and a rocket or jet booster is used to accelerate a sled holding a vehicle up an eastward facing mountain slope. Substantial fuel savings can be gained since the spacecraft does not need to use its engines for the initial acceleration, allowing a single-stage-to-orbit reusable vehicle.

Effectively a 'sky ramp' would make the most expensive, first stage of a rocket fully reusable since the sled is returned to its starting position, to be refueled and may be reused in the order of hours after use. Present launch vehicles have performance-driven costs of thousands of dollars per kilogram of dry weight; sled launch would aim to reduce performance requirements and amortize hardware expenses over frequent, repeated launches. Designs for mountain based inclined rail 'rocket' sleds often use jet engines or rockets to accelerate the spacecraft mounted on it. Electromagnetic methods (such as Bantam, Maglifter, and StarTram) are another technique investigated to accelerate a rocket before launch, potentially scalable to greater rocket masses and velocities than air launch.

NASA studies have shown that the Space Shuttle uses more than a third of its fuel just to reach 1,000 mph. If a rocket was already moving at launch, with corresponding reduced propellant needs, a greater fraction of liftoff mass could be payload and hardware.

Due to factors including the exponential nature of the rocket equation and higher propulsive efficiency than if a rocket takes off stationary, a NASA Maglifter study estimated that a 600 mph launch of an ELV rocket from a 3000 meter altitude mountain peak could increase payload to LEO by 80% compared to the same rocket from a conventional launch pad. Mountains of such height are available within the mainland U.S. for the easiest logistics, or nearer to the Equator for a little more gain from Earth's rotation. Among other possibilities, a larger SSTO could be reduced in liftoff mass by 35% with such launch assist, dropping to 4 instead of 6 engines in one case considered.

At an anticipated efficiency close to 90%, electrical energy consumed per launch of a 500-ton rocket would be around 30 GJ, 8000 kilowatt hours (each kilowatt-hour costing a few cents at the current cost of electricity in the United States), aside from any additional losses in energy storage. It is a system with low marginal costs dominated by initial capital costs Although a fixed site, it was estimated to provide a substantial net payload increase for a high portion of the varying launch azimuths needed by different satellites, with rocket maneuvering during the early stage of post-launch ascent (an alternative to adding electric propulsion for later orbital inclination change). Maglev guideway costs were estimated as $10 – $20 million per mile in the 1994 study, which had anticipated annual maglev maintenance costs on the order of 1% of capital costs.>>

Tszabeau wrote:Looking at this beautiful photo I am taken by the arching rocket and wonder if it (the arc) reflects the curvature of the Earth or does it create an arc that exceeds the arc of the Earth's curvature, in order to achieve orbit? I assume an arc smaller than the curvature of the Earth would not achieve orbit.

geckzilla wrote:It's funny how the less we know about an object in the sky the more likely it will be declared an alien craft. You'd think we'd want to know a whole lot about such an object before supposing it's extraterrestrial.

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
That depends upon one's definition of UFO:

1) Some one can't identify it
2) No one can identify it
3) An alien spacecraft

4) The person observing it can't identify it.