Jump to content

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 Splash Down Near Florida Coast, Safe on Earth


NASA

Recommended Posts

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Topics

    • By European Space Agency
      Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission takes us over northern Brazil, where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean. View the full article
    • By NASA
      5 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      Europa Clipper is seen in the 25-Foot Space Simulator at JPL in February, before the start of thermal vacuum testing. A battery of tests ensures that the NASA spacecraft can withstand the extreme hot, cold, and airless environment of space. NASA/JPL-Caltech A gantlet of tests prepared the spacecraft for its challenging trip to the Jupiter system, where it will explore the icy moon Europa and its subsurface ocean.
      In less than six months, NASA is set to launch Europa Clipper on a 1.6-billion-mile (2.6-billion-kilometer) voyage to Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa. From the wild vibrations of the rocket ride to the intense heat and cold of space to the punishing radiation of Jupiter, it will be a journey of extremes. The spacecraft was recently put through a series of hard-core tests at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to ensure it’s up to the challenge.
      Called environmental testing, the battery of trials simulates the environment that the spacecraft will face, subjecting it to shaking, chilling, airlessness, electromagnetic fields, and more.
      NASA’s Europa Clipper is seen being lifted into the Space Simulator at JPL in February. Thermal vacuum testing, which lasted 16 days, ensures that the spacecraft will withstand the harsh conditions of space. NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Europa Clipper is visible in the clean room of High Bay 1 within JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility in January. The tent around the spacecraft was erected to support electromagnetic testing, which was part of a regimen of environmental tests. NASA/JPL-Caltech “These were the last big tests to find any flaws,” said JPL’s Jordan Evans, the mission’s project manager. “Our engineers executed a well-designed and challenging set of tests that put the system through its paces. What we found is that the spacecraft can handle the environments that it will see during and after launch. The system performed very well and operates as expected.”
      The Gantlet
      The most recent environmental test for Europa Clipper was also one of the most elaborate, requiring 16 days to complete. The spacecraft is the largest NASA has ever built for a planetary mission and one of the largest ever to squeeze into JPL’s historic 85-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide (26-meter-by-8-meter) thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC). Known as the 25-foot Space Simulator, the chamber creates a near-perfect vacuum inside to mimic the airless environment of space.
      At the same time, engineers subjected the hardware to the high temperatures it will experience on the side of Europa Clipper that faces the Sun while the spacecraft is close to Earth. Beams from powerful lamps at the base of the Space Simulator bounced off a massive mirror at its top to mimic the heat the spacecraft will endure.
      To simulate the journey away from the Sun, the lamps were dimmed and liquid nitrogen filled tubes in the chamber walls to chill them to temperatures replicating space. The team then gauged whether the spacecraft could warm itself, monitoring it with about 500 temperature sensors, each of which had been attached by hand.
      Watch as engineers and technicians move NASA’s Europa Clipper into the thermal vacuum chamber at JPL in February 2024.
      Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech TVAC marked the culmination of environmental testing, which included a regimen of tests to ensure the electrical and magnetic components that make up the spacecraft don’t interfere with one another.
      The orbiter also underwent vibration, shock, and acoustics testing. During vibration testing, the spacecraft was shaken repeatedly – up and down and side to side – the same way it will be jostled aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during liftoff. Shock testing involved pyrotechnics to mimic the explosive jolt the spacecraft will get when it separates from the rocket to fly its mission. Finally, acoustic testing ensured that Europa Clipper can withstand the noise of launch, when the rumbling of the rocket is so loud it can damage the spacecraft if it’s not sturdy enough.
      “There still is work to be done, but we’re on track for an on-time launch,” Evans said. “And the fact that this testing was so successful is a huge positive and helps us rest more easily.”
      Looking to Launch
      Later this spring, the spacecraft will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There, teams of engineers and technicians will carry out final preparations with eyes on the clock. Europa Clipper’s launch period opens Oct. 10.
      After liftoff, the spacecraft will zip toward Mars, and in late February 2025, it will be close enough to use the Red Planet’s gravitational force for added momentum. From there, the solar-powered spacecraft will swing back toward Earth to get another slingshot boost – from our own planet’s gravitational field – in December 2026.
      Then it’s on to the outer solar system, where Europa Clipper is set to arrive at Jupiter in 2030. The spacecraft will orbit the gas giant while it flies by Europa 49 times, dipping as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the moon’s surface to gather data with its powerful suite of science instruments. The information gathered will tell scientists more about the moon’s watery interior.
      More About the Mission
      Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. The mission’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
      Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
      Find more information about Europa here:
      europa.nasa.gov
      News Media Contacts
      Gretchen McCartney
      Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
      818-393-6215
      gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
      Karen Fox / Charles Blue
      NASA Headquarters, Washington
      301-286-6284 / 202-802-5345
      karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov
      2024-032
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Mar 27, 2024 Related Terms
      Europa Clipper Europa Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jupiter The Solar System Explore More
      5 min read ESA, NASA Solar Observatory Discovers Its 5,000th Comet
      On March 25, 2024, a citizen scientist in the Czech Republic spotted a comet in…
      Article 2 hours ago 3 min read NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission Awarded Collier Trophy
      Article 21 hours ago 6 min read NASA to Launch Sounding Rockets into Moon’s Shadow During Solar Eclipse
      NASA will launch three sounding rockets during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024,…
      Article 2 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      5 Min Read Antarctic Sea Ice Near Historic Lows; Arctic Ice Continues Decline
      On Feb. 20, 2024, Antarctic sea ice officially reached its minimum extent for the year. This cycle of growth and melting occurs every year, with the ice reaching its smallest size during the Southern Hemisphere's summer. Credits: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Trent L. Schindler Sea ice at both the top and bottom of the planet continued its decline in 2024. In the waters around Antarctica, ice coverage shrank to near-historic lows for the third year in a row. The recurring loss hints at a long-term shift in conditions in the Southern Ocean, likely resulting from global climate change, according to scientists at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Meanwhile, the 46-year trend of shrinking and thinning ice in the Arctic Ocean shows no sign of reversing.
      “Sea ice acts like a buffer between the ocean and the atmosphere,” said ice scientist Linette Boisvert of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Sea ice prevents much of the exchange of heat and moisture from the relatively warm ocean to the atmosphere above it.”
      Less ice coverage allows the ocean to warm the atmosphere over the poles, leading to more ice melting in a vicious cycle of rising temperatures.
      Historically, the area of sea ice surrounding the Antarctic continent has fluctuated dramatically from year to year while averages over decades have been relatively stable. In recent years, though, sea ice cover around Antarctica has plummeted.
      On Feb. 20, 2024, Antarctic sea ice officially reached its minimum extent for the year. This cycle of growth and melting occurs every year, with the ice reaching its smallest size during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, this marks the second-lowest sea ice extent recorded by satellites, reflecting a trend of declining coverage over time.
      Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio
      Download this video in HD formats from https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14538.
      “In 2016, we saw what some people are calling a regime shift,” said sea ice scientist Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “The Antarctic sea ice coverage dropped and has largely remained lower than normal. Over the past seven years, we’ve had three record lows.”
      This year, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest annual extent on Feb. 20 with a total of 768,000 square miles (1.99 million square kilometers). That’s 30% below the 1981 to 2010 end-of-summer average. The difference in ice cover spans an area about the size of Texas. Sea ice extent is defined as the total area of the ocean in which the ice cover fraction is at least 15%.
      This year’s minimum is tied with February 2022 for the second lowest ice coverage around the Antarctic and close to the 2023 all-time low of 691,000 square miles (1.79 million square kilometers). With the latest ice retreat, this year marks the lowest three-year average for ice coverage observed around the Antarctic continent across more than four decades.
      The changes were observed in data collected with microwave sensors aboard the Nimbus-7 satellite, jointly operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), along with satellites in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program.
      NASA’s Earth Observatory: Antarctic Sea Ice at Near-Historic Lows Meanwhile, at the other end of the planet, the maximum winter ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean is consistent with an ongoing 46-year decline. Satellite images reveal that the total area of the Arctic Ocean covered in sea ice reached 6 million square miles (15.65 million square kilometers) on March 14. That’s 247,000 square miles (640,000 square kilometers) less ice than the average between 1981 and 2010. Overall, the maximum winter ice coverage in the Arctic has shrunk by an area equivalent to the size of Alaska since 1979.
      This year’s Arctic ice maximum is the 14th lowest on record. Complex weather patterns make it difficult to predict what will happen in any given year.
      The Arctic Ocean sea ice reached its annual maximum on March 14, continuing the long-term decline in ice at the poles.Chart by Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory, using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Shrinking ice makes Earth more susceptible to solar heating. “The sea ice and the snow on top of it are very reflective,” Boisvert said. “In the summer, if we have more sea ice, it reflects the Sun’s radiation and helps keep the planet cooler.”
      On the other hand, the exposed ocean is darker and readily absorbs solar radiation, capturing and retaining that energy and ultimately contributing to warming in the planet’s oceans and atmosphere. 
      Sea ice around the poles is more susceptible to the weather than it was a dozen years ago. Ice thickness measurements collected with laser altimeters aboard NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite show that less ice has managed to stick around through the warmer months. This means new ice must form from scratch each year, rather than building on old ice to make thicker layers. Thinner ice, in turn, is more prone to melting than multi-year accumulations.
      “The thought is that in a couple of decades, we’re going to have these essentially ice-free summers,” Boisvert said, with ice coverage reduced below 400,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) and most of the Arctic Ocean exposed to the Sun’s warming glare.
      It’s too soon to know whether recent sea ice lows at the South Pole point to a long-term change rather than a statistical fluctuation, but Meier believes long term declines are inevitable.
      “It’s only a matter of time,” he said. “After six, seven, eight years, it’s starting to look like maybe it’s happening. It’s just a question of whether there’s enough data to say for sure.”
      Reference: NSIDC Sea Ice Index Daily and Monthly Image Viewer By James Riordon
      NASA’s Earth Science News Team

      Media contact: Elizabeth Vlock
      NASA Headquarters
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Mar 25, 2024 EditorGoddard Digital TeamLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
      Earth Climate Change Goddard Space Flight Center Ice & Glaciers Sea Ice Explore More
      5 min read Arctic Sea Ice 6th Lowest on Record; Antarctic Sees Record Low Growth
      Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent on September 19, 2023, making it…
      Article 6 months ago 3 min read NASA Finds 2022 Arctic Winter Sea Ice 10th-Lowest on Record
      Article 2 years ago 5 min read Meet NASA’s Twin Spacecraft Headed to the Ends of the Earth
      Article 1 month ago View the full article
    • By European Space Agency
      Imagine being able to ask a chatbot, “Can you make me an extremely accurate classification map of crop cultivation in Kenya?” or “Are buildings subsiding in my street?” And imagine that the information that comes back is scientifically sound and based on verified Earth observation data.
      ESA, in conjunction with technology partners, is working to make such a tool a reality by developing AI applications that will revolutionise information retrieval in Earth observation.
      View the full article
    • By Amazing Space
      🌎 LIVE: NASA Live Stream Earth From Space / Real ISS Live Feed
  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...