Category: Robotics

On May 24, 2023, the private American aerospace company Rocket Lab, using its Electron rocket, will send its own Photon spacecraft to Venus, which will have to collect data on the chemical composition of its atmosphere. The backup launch window will be available in January 2025.
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In October 2023, Photon will enter orbit around Venus, and after that it will drop a 20-kilogram probe into its atmosphere (on the night side), which will have a direct connection with Earth to transmit data received during descent.
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If everything goes according to plan, it will be the first ever private scientific interplanetary mission.

Such close attention to the atmosphere of Venus is due to the fact that in 2020 a large amount of phosphine was found in the upper layers of its atmosphere, a colorless, odorless gas that may indicate the presence of life, since phosphine is produced on Earth by anaerobic ecosystems.

The ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission has experienced its second rendezvous with the Sun.

Solar Orbiter was located at a distance of 0.29 AU from the Sun.

The corona is the outer atmosphere of the Sun.

The photo shows the dynamic nature of the solar corona, incandescent by a million degrees. The solar plasma is in constant motion, guided and accelerated by the magnetic field of the Sun.

Currently, the Sun is approaching the peak of its activity, the solar maximum, which it will reach in 2025. Thus, in the next few years, images of the “calm” crown are likely to become rare.

“I look forward to downloading data from all ten instruments over the next few weeks, and then the global scientific community will be very busy discovering new phenomena with this unique data set,” says Daniel Muller, ESA Solar Orbiter project scientist.

In the new study, scientists used the radiation spectrum of a brown dwarf to determine the composition of VHS 1256-1257 b. The study showed that water, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, sodium and potassium are common in the atmosphere of the brown dwarf.

Inside the atmosphere, scientists were able to detect clouds of silicates. These are long structures of and particles with a submicron grain size. Such clouds were previously predicted theoretically, but no one has been able to confirm them. Researchers believe that these clouds are forsterite, enstatite and quartz.

Planetary scientists note that this is the first such detailed study of the composition of a brown dwarf. Its results can be used to observe other similar objects.

The Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 space probes will have some systems disabled to extend their operability at least until 2030.

The fact is that the United States, together with European countries, plan to launch the Interstellar spacecraft into space in the early 2030s, which will partially duplicate the goals of the Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 missions.

Both probes were originally designed for five years of operation. However, thanks to the high-quality work of engineers, the devices work up to the present day.

According to some experts, the service life of the devices may end as early as 2025, because plutonium, which is used as fuel, decomposes too quickly.

Previously, the device was running on a special version of Windows 98 and was already preparing to complete its program. Scientists have found that it is too early for the probe to retire.

After the update, Mars Express will begin to cover a large area of the surface of Mars for study.
Scientists expect that using this device will allow them to detect and give more opportunities to search for water on the planet. In addition, the update will increase the battery life of the probe by five times.

The inclinometer of the Ingenuity Martian helicopter failed — this was affected as a result of a strong decrease in the night temperature of the environment as a result of the onset of winter on Mars. Now the copter will use an inertial measurement module to assess roll and pitch before takeoff, which will take over the functions of an inclinometer, according to the NASA website.

Ingenuity became the first mini unmanned helicopter to make a controlled flight in the atmosphere of Mars, and indeed another planet. His work on Mars has been calculated as a year and a half. He has already managed to perform 28 flights and fly a total of almost seven kilometers. The drone successfully coped with a number of technical problems. The onset of the Martian winter and the low temperatures of the Martian environment, the dustiness of the atmosphere, this increasingly complicates his work, since the helicopter was designed for a short flight program during the Martian summer. In other temperature conditions
After a malfunction of the battery in mid-May led to the loss of communication between the drone and the Ground, engineers developed a new work program for it for the winter period. According to it, Ingenuity should turn off at night, and in the morning warm up, charge the battery and restart your computer. However, such actions increase the risk of failure of electronic components of the drone.

On June 6, 2022, engineers reported that the drone’s inclinometer, used to control orientation before flight and included in the navigation system, failed, which is associated with the influence of low temperatures. As a result, specialists had to develop a new work plan with the navigation system before each drone takeoff. Now the functions of the inclinometer will be performed by an inertial measuring module, in the near future the drone team will transfer the software update for the navigation system to the drone. Only then will preparations for the 29th flight begin.

Let’s hope that our copter will fulfill its mission to the end, and will continue to work in such extreme conditions.

DAVINCI and the automatic VERITAS station were chosen by NASA to implement the Discovery program. A project to create an orbital repeater probe and a descent atmospheric probe. All this should be prepared and launched, sent to Venus in June 2029.

It will take six months for the CRIS orbiter to make its close flyby near Venus after launch. It will conduct remote sensing and spectroscopy of the lower layers and clouds of Venus. Already in November 2030, the second flight will be implemented according to the plan, during which much attention will be paid to observations of the mountainous regions of Venus. According to the results of 7 months, the orbiting probe will visit Venus for the third time and on June 21, 2031, the descent probe should drop into the atmosphere of the planet.

The mountainous Alpha Region in the southern hemisphere of Venus, near its equator, was chosen as the area of work of interest to scientists. It represents a unique type of geological objects characteristic of Venus — tesserae. The major axis of the landing ellipse for the descent probe is about 310 km, and it is located near the top of the ridge, with a height of about 900 m.

Under the placed station located on the surface of Mars is about three meters of sandy regolith. Then, as a result of scanning, there is 20 meters of breccia formed as a result of meteorite falls. A layer of Amazonian basalts, followed by sedimentary rocks. And the last thing they were able to scan was a layer of Amazonian and Hesperian basalts. There is a version of the scientists’ version that sedimentary rocks lie below 175 meters.

Based on the data obtained, the researchers have built an assumption that the uppermost volcanic rocks (basalts) were formed about 1.7 billion years ago. The deepest — 3.6 billion years ago.
All these scanned layers are separated by sedimentary rocks. Most likely, these layers were formed when the climate on Mars changed — it became drier and colder.

Astronaut Ann McClain is suspected of spying on his ex-wife from the ISS.

McLane’s ex-wife, Samar Worden, found out that someone had looked at her bank account details by simply entering her own username and password. Summer Warden asked the representatives of the bank to determine the location of the computer from which someone logged into her account. It turned out that it was a NASA computer.

Worden reported to NASA and the Federal Trade Commission that she suspected McClain of illegal surveillance. McClain replied that she logged into the account to make sure that her ex-wife had enough money to provide for her son.

If the accusations against McClain are confirmed, her case will be the first crime in history committed from outer space. She will be judged according to American laws, since the laws of their countries apply to the ISS crew members.

Antennas for spacecraft communication systems are one of the few things in the industry for which “size matters”. After all, it is the size of the antenna that primarily determines its gain, radiation pattern and other parameters that ultimately affect the very possibility of communication or observation. The bigger the antenna, the better it is. But we cannot indefinitely increase the antennas — strict restrictions on their size are imposed by the diameter and length of the head fairing of the launch vehicle.

A number of technical techniques, such as unfolded antennas that are placed into orbit in folded form, allow you to partially circumvent this limitation, but impose new ones. Everyone remembers how impatiently we waited not so long ago for the opening of the mirror of the James Webb telescope, the slightest malfunction in one of the hundreds of joints of which could jeopardize the success of the entire mission. In addition, the overloads experienced by the spacecraft at the launch stage force engineers to make antennas an order of magnitude more durable and, as a result, heavier than is required for their subsequent operation, which, in turn, “steals” an invaluable mass reserve of the output device.

However, engineers of the Japanese company Mitsubishi Electric Corporation made a breakthrough discovery without exaggeration. They have developed a special resin that allows using 3D printing to produce antenna reflectors directly in orbit. The photopolymerizing resin developed by Mitsubishi hardens under the influence of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and, thus, does not require additional energy costs for its curing. Finished parts can withstand temperatures up to 400 ° C, which fully meets the requirements.

At the moment, the material and the technology of its use are in the process of testing. But the first tests carried out in a vacuum chamber turned out to be encouraging: a 16-centimeter antenna made using a new technology was not inferior in its parameters to antennas made by traditional methods.

According to Mitsubishi specialists, their technology is not limited to the manufacture of antennas and can be used for the production of any large-sized parts in orbit, the removal of which in finished form is difficult or impossible.