Scientists hope the mission will finally end a row over where the moon came from. Analysing the lunar surface should allow them to tell if the moon is, as they suspect, the remnant of a massive collision between a young Earth and another planet.
If this theory is correct, the moon should contain less iron than Earth, something Smart 1’s D-CIXS sensor developed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Hampshire can spot.
Bernard Foing, a scientist on the project at ESA, said:
“We’ll be able to make the first comprehensive inventory of chemical elements in the lunar surface. We’ll also carry a multi-colour camera, so we will get some new views of the moon.
“As the moon is effectively the daughter of the Earth, we should also get some indications of the early conditions here.”
While conventional rocket engines use vast amounts of fuel, and can only run for short periods of time, ion engines use very little propellant. NASA has been running an experimental ion engine continuously for five years.
Although NASA has already launched a space probe using ion engines, the ESA project will test several advances in technology, and also be far more manoeuvrable than NASA’s craft.
Smart 1 should gradually accelerate from 0 to 70,000 mph. At its slowest, the craft travels at 0.2mm per second – slower than a snail – but over several years this increases to speeds of up to 70,000 mph.
The Smart 1 craft weighs about 367kg, less than a small family car. It is no more than a metre square at launch (the size of a washing machine) but extends to the length of three delivery vans. The initial push created by the ion engine feels no more powerful than having a postcard dropped onto your hand. Smart 1 will get to within 300km of the moon’s surface, far closer than previous orbiting probes.
Smart 1 was launched by an ESA Ariane 5 booster and was the smallest part of the payload of the Ariane 5 V162 mission. The main payload was INSAT-3E, India’s largest telecom satellite to date, and e-Bird, the first of Eutelsat’s craft, purpose built for high-speed, two-way, Internet access.
Two minutes after being released, Smart 1’s on-board computer was activated and 21 minutes later its 14-metre solar generators unfolded over a lengthy nine minutes. An hour later, ground controllers at ESA’s Satellite Operations Centre in Darmstadt got their hands on the baby. The new-technology solar drive motor is due to function for the first time on 30 September, the lunar journey itself taking between 15 and 18 months. After so much interest in the launch, ESA hoped that public interest continued during the journey as “we” all ride up to the moon.
On 6 January 2004 the spacecraft reached its 176th orbit with all functions performing nominally. It had achieved its first mission target: to exit the most dangerous part of the radiation belts. The pericentre altitude (the closest distance of the spacecraft from the centre of the Earth) reached the prelaunch target of 20,000km on 7 January 2004.
Between 23 December 2003 and 2 January 2004, the thruster fired continuously for a record duration of more than 240 hours. Later in the week Smart 1 changed from a continuous thrust strategy to a more orbitally efficient thrust arcing.
By 6 January, the total cumulated thrust was more than 1,500 hours. It had consumed 24 kg of Xenon which provided a velocity increment of about 1070 ms-1 (equivalent to 3,850km per hour, 2,406.25 mph). The electric propulsion engine’s performance, periodically monitored by means of the telemetry data transmitted by the spacecraft and by radio-tracking by the ground stations, showed a small overperformance in thrust varying from 1.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent over the previous week.
At first there was a little degradation of the electrical power produced by the solar arrays, however this ceased and the power available has remained virtually constant since November 2003. The communication, data handling, on-board software and thermal subsystems all performed well.
By 23 February 2004 Smart 1 had already reached its top speed and slowed down. The milestone occurred during the first orbit, about 10 hours after launch, when the craft hit about 22,400 mph (10 kilometres per second). After that it fluctuated dramatically between 3,800 and 19,900 mph (1.7 and 8.9 kilometres per second) depending on its distance from Earth.
As with any object in an elliptical, off-centre orbit, Smart 1 travels fastest when it is close to Earth and slower on the outer reaches of its path.
The craft will spiral outward in ever-widening ellipses around Earth for another two months. Ion thrust will then carry it to a special spot in space, about 37,300 miles (60,000 kilometres) from the moon, called Lagrangian point L1. Lagrangian points are locations where gravity from two objects balances out. A craft at a Lagrangian point is free to go either way with very little thrust.
“It is kind of a gateway for the entrance into moon orbit, almost free of charge,” Racca said.
Smart 1 will enter lunar orbit in March 2005, when it will look for clues to the moon’s origin and try to confirm that there is frozen water hidden at the lunar poles.
Storm of stardust threatens satellites
On 19 August 2003 Mark Henderson reported in The Times:
A cosmic dust storm is heading for the Earth, threatening to damage the solar panels of satellites and spacecraft.
The cloud of dust particles has already penetrated the Solar System, which is usually protected by the Sun’s magnetic field, the European space probe Ulysses has discovered.
Although the stardust is too small to have any direct effect on the Earth, being 100th of the width of a human hair, it is likely to rip chunks off the sides of asteroids. This will increase the amount of debris in the Solar System, creating a hazard for spacecraft and satellites. It is unlikely to knock out craft completely, but could damage solar panels, reducing their lifespan.
The dust storm, details of which are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, could increase the number of meteors entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
A team led by Markus Landgraf, at the European Space Operation Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, has found that two to three times more stardust is pouring into the Solar System than at the end of the 1990s. The influx may be due to the system entering a region of dense cloud.
“Our Sun is about to join our closest stellar neighbour Alpha Centauri in its cloud,” the European Space Agency said. It takes more than 70,000 years to traverse a typical interstellar cloud.
Goodbye Galileo
Galileo was launched from the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1989. It was an unmanned probe which was sent to Jupiter to bring back information, and was named after the astronomer, Galileo Galilei, who had first observed Jupiter’s moons in 1610.
The Galileo spacecraft’s 14-year odyssey finally came to an end on Sunday, 21 September 2003. The spacecraft passed into Jupiter’s shadow then disintegrated in the planet’s dense atmosphere at 11:57 am Pacific Daylight Time. The Deep Space Network tracking station in Goldstone, California, received the last signal at 12:43:14 PDT, the delay being due to the time it took for the signal to travel to Earth.
Hundreds of former Galileo project members and their families were present at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for a celebration to bid the spacecraft goodbye.
Dr Claudia Alexander, Galileo project manager said:
“We learned mind-boggling things. This mission was worth its weight in gold.”
Having travelled approximately 4.6 billion kilometres (about 2.8 billion miles), the hardy spacecraft endured more than four times the cumulative dose of harmful Jovian radiation it was designed to withstand. During a previous fly-by of the moon Amalthea in November 2002, flashes of light were seen by the star scanner that indicated the presence of rocky debris circling Jupiter in the vicinity of the small moon. Another measurement of this area was taken today during Galileo’s final pass, further analysis of which may help confirm or constrain the existence of a ring at Amalthea’s orbit.
Dr Torrance Johnson, Galileo project scientist:
“We haven’t lost a spacecraf
t, we’ve gained a stepping stone into the future of space exploration.”
The spacecraft was deliberately put on a collision course with Jupiter because the onboard propellant was nearly depleted. Consequently it was necessary to eliminate any chance of an unwanted impact between the spacecraft and Jupiter’s moon Europa, which Galileo discovered is likely to have a subsurface ocean. Without propellant it would be impossible to control the spacecraft because it would not be able to point its antenna toward Earth or adjust its trajectory. The possibility of life existing on Europa is so compelling and has raised so many unanswered questions that it is prompting plans for future spacecraft to return to the icy moon.
The exciting list of discoveries started even before Galileo got a glimpse of Jupiter. As it crossed the asteroid belt in October 1991, Galileo snapped images of Gaspra, returning the first ever close-up image of an asteroid. Less then a year later, the spacecraft got up close to yet another asteroid, Ida, revealing it had its own little “moon”, Dactyl, the first known moon of an asteroid. In 1994 the spacecraft made the only direct observation of a comet impacting a planet – comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s collision with Jupiter.
The descent probe made the first in-place studies of the planet’s clouds and winds, and it furthered scientists’ understanding of how Jupiter evolved. The probe also made composition measurements designed to assess the degree of evolution of Jupiter compared to the sun.
Galileo made the first observation of ammonia clouds in another planet’s atmosphere. It also observed numerous large thunderstorms on Jupiter many times larger than those on Earth, with lightning strikes up to 1,000 times more powerful than on Earth. It was the first spacecraft to dwell in a giant planet’s magnetosphere long enough to identify its global structure and to investigate the dynamics of Jupiter’s magnetic field. Galileo determined that Jupiter’s ring system is formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smash into the planet’s four small inner moons. Galileo data showed that Jupiter’s outermost ring is actually two rings, one embedded within the other.
Galileo extensively investigated the geologic diversity of Jupiter’s four largest moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa. Galileo found that Io’s extensive volcanic activity is 100 times greater than that found on Earth. The moon Europa, Galileo unveiled, could be hiding a salty ocean up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) deep underneath its frozen surface, containing about twice as much water as all the Earth’s oceans. Data also showed Ganymede and Callisto may have a liquid-saltwater layer. The biggest discovery surrounding Ganymede was the presence of a magnetic field. No other moon of any planet is known to have one.
The prime mission ended six years ago, after two years of orbiting Jupiter, but NASA extended the mission three times to continue taking advantage of Galileo’s unique capabilities for accomplishing valuable science. The mission was possible because it drew its power from two long-lasting radioisotope thermoelectric generators provided by the Department of Energy.
Sean O’Keefe, NASA administrator, said:
“The mission was a testimonial to the persistence of NASA even through tremendous challenges. It was a phenomenal mission.”
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, not only designed and built the Galileo orbiter, but also managed and operated the Galileo mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
Heinlein Prize
In 2003 the estate of the science fiction author Robert Heinlein offered substantial prize money for innovations in space.
On 2 October 2003 a major new award for practical accomplishments in commercial space activities was announced today at the 54th International Aeronautical Congress underway in Bremen, Germany. Trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust revealed that the first Heinlein Prize award has been set at $500,000 USD.
The Heinlein Prize may be given as frequently as annually to one or more individuals who have achieved practical accomplishments in the field of commercial space activities. The Trustees emphasize that the award is for effort by an individual – not corporate or government sponsored activities – and that the Heinlein Prize is intended to be worldwide in scope.
“The purpose of the Heinlein Prize is to provide an incentive to spur the advancement of the commercial use of outer space,” explained Arthur M. Dula of Houston, Texas, USA, one of three Trustees.
“In order to accomplish that goal, the Trustees will establish an Advisory Board drawn from respected persons in space activities from around the world. The Advisory Board will keep abreast of developments in space commercialization and will review nominations and propose its own candidates for the Heinlein Prize. The Trustees will select recipients of the Prize based upon recommendations from the Advisory Board. The Heinlein Prize will be awarded on July 7th of those years in which the Prize is given.”
The Trustees are currently in the process of selecting the Board of Advisors. Until the Board of Advisors is announced, nominations for the Heinlein Prize may be made directly to the Trustees though the Heinlein Prize website at www.heinleinprize.com.
The Trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust are Mr Dula, Dr Buckner Hightower of Austin, Texas, USA, and Mr James Miller Vaughn, Jr., also of Houston, Texas.
The Heinlein Prize honors the memory of Robert A. Heinlein, a renowned American author. Through his body of work in fiction spanning nearly fifty years during the commencement of man’s entry into space, Mr Heinlein advocated human advancement into space through commercial endeavors. After Mr Heinlein’s death in 1988, his widow, Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein, established the Trust in order to further her husband’s vision of humanity’s future in space. Funding for the Heinlein Prize came from Mrs Heinlein’s estate after her death earlier this year.
Alt.Space
On 8 December 2003 the Space Frontier Foundation in Los Angeles hailed the rollout of a new SpaceX rocket.
The new “Falcon” launch system by SpaceX Inc. was seen as a symbol of major change in the commercial space arena. The group sees the new entrant in the space launch field as the first of several new orbital and sub-orbital systems that will help drive the cost of access to space downward, and open the frontier of space.
Unveiled in front of the Smithsonian’s famous Air and Space Museum, the Foundation believes the rollout of the new rocket can help to alert Congress and the White House that there is a new space industry arising in America, just at the moment when the old space establishment is faltering.
Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson said:
“It is time for those who direct national space efforts and policy to wake up and realize that there is a new game in town when it comes to the private space sector. Many leaders have been wringing their hands in despair over the slow decay of our traditional old school space firms and institutions, but today, right there in front of them, is proof that a new order is rising in space.”
The group, while not endorsing any particular firm or company, has been calling for a revolution in space access, and supports the efforts of Alternative Space firms (Alt.Space). The Foundation sees SpaceX as just one example of positive change in the space industry.
It contrasts the 18-month, low cost (less than $100 million) development time of the privately financed Falcon, with the multiyear, billion-dollar plus government-subsidized cost of rocket projects by traditional firms and agencies.
“SpaceX and the other Alt.Space efforts out there, such as Xcor, Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, Constellation Services, Armadillo and others, are demonstrating that it isn’t the space industry that is sick, it is the systems that we use to finance, develop, build and regulate them that is the problem,” stated Tumlinson. “There is a true genetic split occurring between the old aerospace industrial complex and the new Alt.Space movement, and projects like Falcon are only the beginning.”
The Foundation has long called for the government to support such innovative projects and firms as SpaceX through tax breaks
and other investment incentives, regulatory streamlining, and changes in launch service procurement policies. The group believes that the US can regain its leadership in space launch and at the same time lower the cost of space exploration, by changing how NASA, the Air Force, the FAA and other government entities approach space issues.
Tumlinson concluded:
“Although self funded, the Falcon and other breakthrough space systems need to be nurtured by our government, not ignored, tripped up by regulations or competed against by taxpayer financed efforts to prop up the old ways of doing things in space.
“If we are to return to the Moon and begin the exploration of Mars economically and in a sustainable fashion, we must have a partnership that encourages innovation, new ideas and access to capital and government and commercial markets by the Alt.Space community. If this can be done, we will all win, and our children will have a bright tomorrow as they open the space frontier.”
SpaceShipOne
The supersonic passenger aircraft, Concorde, flew its last scheduled commercial flight on 24 October 2003. The next day The Times featured a report by Giles Whittell which described a new spacecraft called SpaceShipOne:
Concorde dies, and with her a little of the test pilot in all of us. We don’t fly supersonic any more except to drop bombs. We don’t go to the Moon anymore except by robot. We don’t visit the Mariana Trench beeause we can’t be bothered. We won’t use the Shuttle for much longer because we’re too scared and not sure what it was for in the first place. The age when nations launched great technological schemes that were defiant but still admirable has ended. The age of zombies is upon us, and we are the zombies.
All of us? Not quite. In a corner of the United States, a group of men in flying suits and baseball caps is on the verge of doing something only military-industrial superpowers once did. The men plan to go into space, any day now, in a three-person rocketplane built entirely and not a little mysteriously with private funds. Powered by rubber and laughing gas, the rocket will scream up to a place 12 times higher than Everest, where the sky is black and Earth is like a big blue ball, then float back down like a shuttlecock.
The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster Page 49
