Pioneer Venus

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Thirty-five years ago today — May 20, 1978 — Pioneer Venus launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas Centaur rocket.


(Artist’s conception of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. NASA image.)

The Pioneer Venus Orbiter was designed to study Venusian from orbit, and was followed about three months later by a second spacecraft, the “Multiprobe,” which carried small probes to be dropped into the Venusian atmosphere.

The Orbiter arrived at Venus on December 4, 1978, and continued operating until its fuel ran out, it dropped out of orbit, and burned up in October 1992. During its operational life, the Orbiter observed Comet Halley when it was not visible from Earth, became the first spacecraft to map the surface of Venus, and

measured the detailed structure of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Venus, investigated the interaction of the solar wind with the ionosphere and the magnetic field in the vicinity of Venus, determined the characteristics of the atmosphere and surface of Venus on a planetary scale, determined the planet’s gravitational field harmonics from perturbations of the spacecraft orbit, and detected gamma-ray bursts.

You can read more on this Pioneer Venus page and also on this overview page.

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The Loss of Nimbus-B … and Recovery of Its Radioactive Power Source

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Forty-five years ago today — May 18, 1968 — a Thor-Agena rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB, carrying the Nimbus-B satellite. Unfortunately, a problem with the launch vehicle’s guidance system caused the rocket to veer off-course, and it had to be destroyed by Range Safety.


(The Nimbus B RTG fuel containers on the seafloor. NASA image.)

Nimbus-B was a research-and-development weather satellite, with a number of instruments and experimental packages:

(1) a satellite infrared spectrometer (SIRS) for determining the [vertical] temperature profiles of the atmosphere,
(2) an infrared interferometer spectrometer (IRIS) for measuring the emission spectra of the earth-atmosphere system,
(3) both high- and medium-resolution infrared radiometers (HRIR and MRIR) for yielding information on the distribution and intensity of infrared radiation emitted and reflected by the earth and its atmosphere,
(4) a monitor of ultraviolet solar energy (MUSE) for detecting solar UV radiation,
(5) an image dissector camera system (IDCS) for providing daytime cloudcover pictures in both real-time mode, using the real-time transmission system (RTTS), and tape recorder mode, using the high data rate storage system (DHRSS),
(6) a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), SNAP-19, to assess the operational capability of radioisotope power for space applications, and
(7) an interrogation, recording, and location system (IRLS) designed to locate, interrogate, record, and retransmit meteorological data from remote collection stations.

When the spacecraft ended up the ocean, that item number 6 became a prime concern. But according to this page on radioisotope power systems, everything functioned as designed and the SNAP-19 generator’s plutonium fuel remained intact and protected. In fact, the plutonium was recovered from the ocean floor and eventually used to power the Nimbus-III satellite.

Finally, on a personal note, this reminds me of the loss of another rocket, 20 years ago this fall, for which I ran the maritime search-and-salvage operation. But that will be the subject of another post when its anniversary date rolls around.

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Last Mercury Mission: the Flight of ‘Faith 7’

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Fifty years ago today — May 15, 1963 — L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., launched from Cape Canaveral on the final manned mission of the Mercury program.


(Mercury/Atlas-9. NASA image.)

Riding the “Faith 7” capsule for mission Mercury/Atlas-9, Cooper became the first US astronaut to spend more than 24 hours in space. This mission was also the first US spaceflight to include a live TV broadcast.

Because of a suspected malfunction in the automatic reentry system, Cooper also became the first astronaut to use only the manual reentry mode. He initiated reentry after 22 orbits, and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean near Midway Island after spending about 34 hours in orbit.

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Skylab

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Forty years ago today — May 14, 1973 — the last operational Saturn V rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center and carried the Skylab space station to orbit.


(Skylab. NASA image.)

Skylab was “composed of five parts, the Apollo telescope mount (ATM), the multiple docking adapter (MDA), the airlock module (AM), the instrument unit (IU), and the orbital workshop (OWS).”

The “telescope mount” — positioned at a right angle to the main body, as seen in the image — pointed at the sun, and provided some spectacular images of solar activity in addition to being the primary reference point for the station’s attitude control subsystem. Technology being what it was at the time, astronauts had to retrieve film from the ATM’s cameras by taking spacewalks to it.

The “workshop”

was a modified Saturn 4B stage suitable for long duration manned habitation in orbit. It contained provisions and crew quarters necessary to support three-person crews for periods of up to 84 days each.

The first crew to inhabit the station launched eleven days after the station itself went into orbit.

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First Asteroid Mission, Triumphant Despite Many Troubles

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Ten years ago today — May 9, 2003 — Japan launched a daring asteroid sample-return mission from the Uchinoura Space Center, atop an M-5 rocket.


(Hayabusa. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Originally called Muses-C, Hayabusa (“Falcon”) was a difficult mission to begin with, but experienced a series of setbacks that made its ultimate success all the more impressive.

  • In late 2003, a large solar flare degraded the spacecraft’s solar panels, reducing the power available to its ion engines. The original rendezvous date in early summer 2005 was pushed back to September.
  • On July 31, 2004, Hayabusa’s X-axis reaction wheel failed.
  • The spacecraft successfully rendezvoused with 25143 Itokawa (1998 SF36) — an asteroid  about as big as three football stadiums at 550 x 180 meters (1800 x 590 feet) — on September 12, 2005. Hayabusa established itself in a heliocentric orbit for station-keeping about 20 km (12.4 mi) from the asteroid.
  • On October 3, 2005 Hayabusa’s Y-axis reaction wheel failed, leaving its attitude control subsystem operating only on “one reaction wheel and two chemical thrusters.”
  • Hayabusa mapped the asteroid’s surface in two phases, then began descent operations. During the second touchdown rehearsal on November 12th, the spacecraft released a “lander/hopper” called Minerva; unfortunately, “the release was at a higher altitude than planned…. and it is believed Minerva moved off into space without landing.”
  • A week later, on November 19, Hayabusa again descended toward the asteroid, and released a “target marker” before contact was lost as it fell to the surface.

Later telemetry indicated that Hayabusa hit the surface at 20:40 UT 19 November (5:40 a.m. JST 20 November) at roughly 10 cm/sec and bounced. It bounced again at 21:10 and then landed at 21:30 within about 30 meters of the target marker. At 21:58 (6:58 a.m. JST 20 November) it was commanded to make an emergency ascent. The craft remained on the surface for about half an hour but did not collect a sample. This was the first ever controlled landing on an asteroid and first ascent from any other solar system body except the Moon.

  • On November 25, Hayabusa touched down again, and fired two “sampling bullets” at the surface. Telemetry could not verify that they actually fired; nevertheless, Hayabusa lifted off.
  • On December 9, ground controllers lost contact with the spacecraft, “presumably because of torques caused by a thruster leak which altered the pointing of the antenna.”
  • Controllers restored communication in March 2006, and learned over the next several months that the spacecraft’s status was somewhat grim: low on fuel, two out of three reaction wheels inoperative, plus 4 out of 11 batteries had also stopped working. The spacecraft’s degraded solar cells and batteries were still sufficient to maintain thrust and attitude control with its xenon ion engine, and in April 2007 it started its journey Earth-ward.

When Hayabusa was a little outside the Moon’s orbit, it released its sample return capsule, which de-orbited on June 13, 2010 and landed near Woomera, Australia.

Subsequent examination of the sample return capsule showed that there were roughly 1500 dust particles, presumably from asteroid Itokawa.

Well done, Hayabusa!

You can learn more about this remarkable mission at this Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) page.

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New ASIMOV’S, with My Story, ‘What is a Warrior Without His Wounds?’

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Here’s a look at the cover of the July issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, which should be available on newsstands and/or in bookstores later this week:


(Asimov’s, July 2013.)

As noted in the title, I have a novelette (i.e., a story of a certain length) in this issue. The story opens as follows:

Miroslav did not expect to find a Colonel waiting for him when he returned from physical therapy. The officer was looking out the window; Miroslav came to sluggish attention, unused to his ill-fitted prosthetic leg.

The stranger turned away from the window and regarded Miroslav’s awkward pose. “Please, Captain,” he said, his voice heavy though he smiled and nodded, “stand at ease, or sit if you prefer.”

Miroslav shifted his single crutch a little, careful not to throw his balance off. He would not sit unless the Colonel did so, even though his muscles quivered as if he had just completed a twenty-kilometer forced march.

Would they send a high-ranking officer to discharge him? Any nurse could have delivered the paperwork; it would be less humiliating.

“How is your recovery?” the Colonel asked. “Are you receiving adequate treatment? Are you progressing well?”

Miroslav acquiesced to the small talk. “I am stronger,” he said. He stood on his own for a second and tapped his false leg with the crutch. As he put the crutch back down, he lifted his prosthetic left arm. “I am not … as capable as I once was.”

If you get a chance to read it, I hope you find the story worth your while.

___

Related Posts:

– New Issue of LORE, with My Story, ‘A Star That Moves’

– My Story, The Second Engineer, in Asimov’s Science Fiction

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Some Perspective on Fan Mail

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Or on fan e-mail, as it were.

Having only published a few stories, I don’t get much in the way of reader feedback, whether by e-mail, or here on the blog, or in person. When it does come — as when a young fellow asked for my autograph at a recent convention, or yesterday when a young lady wrote in about one of the stories I had in Asimov’s last year — it can be both refreshing and humbling.

I must be getting old...
(“I must be getting old…” by idogcow, from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

It just so happens that last night, barely an hour after reading yesterday’s very complimentary e-mail, I read something else that helps put such things in perspective. My leisure reading of late has been The Best of Gene Wolfe, a collection of his short fiction, and in the afterword to “The Detective of Dreams” Mr. Wolfe writes,

I will not lecture you on Jesus of Nazareth, but I advise you to find [G.K.] Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. In [“The Detective of Dreams”] I asked you to consider that everlasting man’s short fiction. Fans have written me to say that this or that story stayed with them for days. Each letter makes me proud and happy. In my happiness and pride, I am prone to forget that there was once a storyteller from Galilee whose stories have stayed with us for millennia.

I like that very much.

So as much as I appreciate knowing that someone has read and appreciated something I wrote, I must recognize that, as Audio Adrenaline sang, I’m “never gonna be as big as Jesus.”

And that’s okay.

___

P.S. I also recommend The Everlasting Man, which is interesting and at times fascinating. I listened to the audiobook, but I admit that to me the text came across as almost too complex for audio. I would like to find a good print copy, in order to consider Chesterton’s arguments in their proper depth. GWR

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New Issue of LORE, with My Story, ‘A Star That Moves’

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Now available at an Internet near you: the latest edition of LORE with one of my short stories in it!


(Lore, Volume 2, Number 3.)

Here’s the opening:

A little paranoia is healthy in a soldier, and Gaius Antonius Marcellus was a good soldier.

Marcellus did not question the prickly feeling of being targeted. He reacted to it. That reflex had left him with scratches instead of gaping wounds as he rose through the Legion ranks; it saved him from many Gallic spears in his campaigns as a Centurion; and it even warned him of political dangers through this first year as Legatus Legionis, the garrison commander. It had never failed him.

For half a month he had felt it — the hairs alert on the back of his neck — but he could not find the source. And facing the unknown was worse than facing an enemy’s sword.

And, just so you know that this is science fiction rather than fantasy, a tiny spoiler: the alien spacecraft shows up in the next paragraph.

If you want to see the other issues of LORE, check out their online store; otherwise, you can go straight to this CreateSpace page to order your copy of the magazine.

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Exploring the Evolution of Galaxies

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Ten years ago today — April 28, 2003 — a Pegasus XL rocket carried a small spacecraft to probe the origin of stars and galaxies.


(A 2012 GALEX composite image of the Andromeda galaxy. NASA/JPL-Caltech image.)

Called GALEX, for GALaxy Evolution eXplorer, the spacecraft’s primary instrument was a telescope tuned to the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. With its mission now extended beyond the original 29-month timeline, GALEX is conducting “an all-sky imaging survey, a deep imaging survey, and a survey of 200 galaxies nearest to the Milky Way” in order to explore the origins of heavy elements, stars, and galaxies. You can find more information about the mission, including many stunning images, on this page

For more down-to-earth mapping purposes, on this date 5 years ago India launched CartoSat 2A, a remote-sensing satellite, along with 9 smaller spacecraft, from the Sriharikota launch center on a PSLV 9 rocket. Urban and rural planners use CartoSat’s data.

___

P.S. The full resolution JPEG (19.3 MB) of the Andromeda image above is here.

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Shuttle, Soyuz, and Space-Based Navigation

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Twenty years ago today — April 26, 1993 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on an international Spacelab mission.


(Spacelab D-2 in the shuttle payload bay. Note the lightning flashes in the clouds below. NASA image.)

The STS-55 crew consisted of U.S. astronauts Steven R. Nagel, Terence T. Henricks, Jerry L. Ross, Charles J. Precourt, Bernard A. Harris Jr., and Ulrich Walter, plus German astronaut Hans W. Schlegel. The shuttle carried the second of the German-built reusable Spacelab modules, and the crew spent 9 days in space conducting a variety of experiments in the laboratory. One highlight of the mission was the first IV established in orbit, in which Dr. Harris “inject[ed] Schlegel with saline as part of study to replace body fluids lost during adaptation to weightlessness.”

Then, on this date 10 years ago, astronaut Edward T. Lu launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on mission Soyuz TMA-2, making him the first U.S. astronaut to serve as the Flight Engineer of a Soyuz spacecraft. The spacecraft commander was cosmonaut Yuri I. Malenchenko, and their destination was the International Space Station where they became the Expedition 7 crew.

Finally, 5 years ago today — April 26, 2008 — a Soyuz-Fregat rocket launched from Baikonur carrying GIOVE-B (Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element-B), the second of two test spacecraft for the European Union’s own fleet of navigational satellites.

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