Category Archives: Space

Studying Magnetic Storms in Space

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Five years ago today — February 17, 2007 — a Delta-II rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying five nearly identical satellites on a mission to study magnetic field “substorms.”


(Artist’s concept of THEMIS in orbit. NASA image.)

The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms, or THEMIS, spacecraft — in practical NASA fashion, designated THEMIS-1 through THEMIS-5 (or sometimes -A through -E) — were designed to “track the origins of substorms within the Earth’s magnetic field.” Energetic particles from such substorms cause the famed Northern and Southern Lights: the Aurorae Borealis and Australis, respectively.

The National Space Science Data Center page about THEMIS-1 describes the different mission phases and the unique orbits of the five spacecraft:

The mission consists of several phases. In the first phase, the spacecraft will all orbit as a tight cluster in the same orbital plane with apogee at 15.4 Earth radii (RE). In the second phase, also called the Dawn Phase, the satellites will be placed in their orbits and during this time their apogees will be on the dawn side of the magnetosphere. During the third phase (also known as the Tail Science Phase) the apogees will be in the magnetotail. The fourth phase is called the Dusk Phase or Radiation Belt Science Phase, with all apogees on the dusk side. In the fifth and final phase, the apogees will shift to the sunward side (Dayside Science Phase).

All five satellites will have similar perigee altitudes (1.16-1.5 Re) but varying apogee altitudes (P1: ~30 RE, P2: ~20 RE, P3 & P4: ~12 RE, P5: ~10RE) with corresponding orbital periods of ~4, 2, and 1 days, respectively. This results in multi-point magnetic conjunctions. Every four days the satellites will line up along the Earth’s magnetic tail with magnetic foot points in the North American sector, allowing the tracking of disturbances through different geospace regions from tail to ground.

The whole “magnetic storm” thing sounds science fiction-y, doesn’t it? But that makes it cool.

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Soviet Lunar Sample Return

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Forty years ago today — February 14, 1972 — a Proton-K rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying the latest lunar sampling mission from the Soviet Union.


(Luna-20 sample return capsule in the Kazakhstan snow. Image from the NSSDC.)

Luna-20, or Lunik-20, arrived in lunar orbit on the 18th and soft-landed on the Moon on the 21st. It landed less than 2 km from the crash site of its predecessor, Luna-18.

The robotic spacecraft extended a drill which it used to collect samples of the lunar soil. According to the National Space Science Data Center, the craft collected 30 grams of soil; however, according to NASA’s Solar System Exploration site, the total was 55 grams. The return vessel brought the sample back to earth on February 25th, making this the second successful robotic sampling mission. The Soviets traded 2 grams of the Luna-20 sample to NASA for 1 gram of Apollo-15 soil.

Luna-20 landed in the Apollonius highlands, a mountainous region near Mare Foecunditatis, the “Sea of Fertility.” A sideways reference to its Valentine’s Day launch? You be the judge.

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Second Hubble Servicing Mission

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Fifteen years ago today — February 11, 1997 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope.


(Astronauts Steven Smith and Mark Lee ride the Shuttle’s remote manipulator arm while effecting repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA image.)

Mission STS-82 astronauts Kenneth D. Bowersox, Scott J. Horowitz, Mark C. Lee, Steven A. Hawley, Gregory J. Harbaugh, Steven L. Smith, and Joseph R. Tanner completed five spacewalks during the mission and placed the telescope in a higher orbit.

The astronauts

  • Replaced the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
  • Replaced the Faint Object Spectrograph with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer
  • Replaced a degraded Fine Guidance Sensor and a failed Engineering and Science Tape Recorder
  • Installed the Optical Control Electronics Enhancement Kit to increase the capability of the Fine Guidance Sensor
  • Replaced a Data Interface Unit and an old reel-to-reel Engineering and Science Tape Recorder with a new digital Solid State Recorder
  • Changed out one of four Reaction Wheel Assemblies
  • Replaced a Solar Array Drive Electronics package

During the second EVA crewmembers “noted cracking and wear on thermal insulation on side of telescope facing the sun and in the direction of travel.” Mission controllers added a fifth spacewalk to the schedule so the astronauts could install insulating blankets — some of which were put together on Discovery‘s middeck during the mission — over key component areas.

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Riding a Pegasus To Observe the Sun

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Ten years ago today — February 5, 2002 — a Pegasus-XL rocket launched a solar flare observatory into orbit. The Pegasus’s L-1011 carrier aircraft flew out of Cape Canaveral for this launch.


(Artist’s conception of HESSI. NASA image.)

About two months after being launched, the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, or HESSI, was renamed the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). It is still on-orbit and functioning today.

As some folks know, the Pegasus is special to me because I was on the Flight Readiness Review Committee for the first-ever live launch. And this seems a timely bit of space history, given the big solar flare that occurred about a week ago.

And in bonus space history: on this date 25 years ago, cosmonauts Yuri V. Romanenko and Aleksandr I. Laveykin launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on mission Soyuz TM-2. Romanenko eventually spent 326 days in space aboard the Mir space station, establishing a world record.

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Last Thor-Delta Launch

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Forty years ago today — January 31, 1972 — the HEOS (Highly Elliptical Orbit Satellite) A-2 launched from the Western Space and Missile Center at Vandenberg AFB.

HEOS A-2 was built by the European Space Research Organization, the precursor to today’s European Space Agency, to study “interplanetary space and the high-latitude magnetosphere.”

HEOS 2 provided new data on the sources and acceleration mechanisms of particles found in the trapped radiation belts and in the polar precipitation regions and auroral zones. It also monitored solar activity and cosmic radiation.

According to this Wikipedia page on 1972 spaceflight, this was also the last launch of the Thor-Delta rocket configuration, which itself was part of the family of Delta rockets that are still launching satellites today.


(An early Thor-Delta, from 1961. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.)

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A Bleak Day in Space History: The Apollo-1 Tragedy

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Some space history moments we might rather forget … but in some ways they’re more important to remember. Like this one.

Forty-five years ago today — January 27, 1967 — the Apollo-1 capsule caught fire during an on-pad test, killing astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee.


(The Apollo-1 crew. L-R: White, Grissom, Chaffee. NASA image.)

Originally known as AS-204 (Apollo-Saturn-204), the mission was scheduled to be launched on February 21st. The test being run was officially known as the Space Vehicle Plugs-Out Integrated Test, Operational Checkout Procedures (OCP) FO-K-0021-1, and was intended to “demonstrate all space vehicle systems and operational procedures in as near a flight configuration as is practical and to verify their capability in a simulated launch.” The specific objectives were:

  • To verify overall spacecraft/launch vehicle compatibility and demonstrate proper function of spacecraft systems with all umbilicals and Ground Support Equipment disconnected.
  • To verify no electrical interference at the time of umbilical disconnect.
  • To verify astronaut emergency egress procedures (unaided egress) at the conclusion of the test.

That last objective was actually added by the astronauts themselves, “because a subsequent test, Countdown Demonstration, would involve a fully fueled Launch Vehicle and this latter test was identified as hazardous.”

Unfortunately, few if any of the operators and engineers had considered how hazardous the Plugs-Out test conditions would turn out to be.

The Review Board’s Findings, Determinations And Recommendations found that power failed in the capsule momentarily, and several electrical arcs occurred but “no single ignition source of the fire was conclusively identified.”

The most probable initiator was an electrical arc in the sector between -Y and +Z spacecraft axes. The exact location best fitting the total available information is near the floor in the lower forward section of the left-hand equipment bay where Environmental Control System (ECS) instrumentation power wiring leads into the area between the Environmental Control Unit (ECU) and the oxygen panel.

What made the Command Module more dangerous than anticipated were “many types and classes of combustible material in areas contiguous to possible ignition sources,” and the test being conducted “with a 16.7 pounds per square inch absolute, 100-percent oxygen atmosphere.” With respect to the spacecraft itself, the investigators found “deficiencies [in] design, workmanship and quality control,” some of which were:

  • Components of the Environmental Control System installed in Command Module 012 had a history of many removals and of technical difficulties including regulator failures, line failures and Environmental Control Unit failures. The design and installation features of the Environmental Control Unit makes removal or repair difficult.
  • Coolant leakage at solder joints has been a chronic problem.
  • The coolant is both corrosive and combustible.
  • Deficiencies in design, manufacture, installation, rework and quality control existed in the electrical wiring.
  • No vibration test was made of a complete flight-configured spacecraft.
  • Spacecraft design and operating procedures currently require the disconnecting of electrical connections while powered.
  • No design features for fire protection were incorporated.

When the fire started during the Plugs-Out test, it spread rapidly and increased the pressure in the capsule, which sealed the inner hatch so tightly that the crew could not open it. Eventually the Command Module actually ruptured, spreading fire into the surrounding structure, but by that time the crew had died “from asphyxia due to inhalation of toxic gases due to fire.”

The investigation into the accident led to many significant improvements in the vehicle design, as well as better test and flight procedures that made the ensuing Apollo missions much safer. It’s unfortunate that the cost of those lessons was so high, but that seems to be the case with many of the important lessons we learn.

May we never forget.

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Missing the Moon, 50 Years Ago: Ranger-3

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Fifty years ago today — January 26, 1962 — Ranger-3 launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas-Agena rocket.


(Ranger-3. NASA image.)

Ranger-3 had several mission goals, only the last of which would be fulfilled:

  • “Transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon”
  • “Rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon”
  • “Collect gamma-ray data in flight”
  • “Study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface”
  • “Continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft”

The mission profile called for the Atlas-Agena to provide the initial boost toward the Moon, with one mid-course correction on the way. Unfortunately,

A malfunction in the booster guidance system resulted in excessive spacecraft speed. Reversed command signals caused the spacecraft to pitch in the wrong direction and the TM antenna to lose earth acquisition, and mid-course correction was not possible. Finally a spurious signal during the terminal maneuver prevented transmission of useful TV pictures. Ranger 3 missed the Moon by approximately 36,800 km on 28 January and is now in a heliocentric orbit.

Sounds like Mr. Murphy of the eponymous law paid the Ranger program a visit. But, to paraphrase my friend Bill Hixon, a test is worth a thousand expert opinions — and sometimes we learn more from failures than from successes.

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International Microgravity Laboratory, Flight 1

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Twenty years ago today — January 22, 1992 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying the International Microgravity Laboratory on its maiden voyage.


(IML-1 spacelab module and tunnel in the shuttle’s payload bay. NASA image.)

The STS-42 crew — U.S. astronauts Ronald J. Grabe, Stephen S. Oswald, Norman E. Thagard, David C. Hilmers, and William F. Readdy, Canadian astronaut Roberta L. Bondar, and German astronaut Ulf D. Merbold — “was divided into two teams for around-the-clock research on the human nervous system’s adaptation to low gravity and the effects of microgravity on other life forms.” The crew also conducted materials processing experiments.

The IML-1 experiments were so successful that the mission was extended an exra day — after “mission managers concluded enough onboard consumables remained to extend the mission.”

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India's Space Program Matures

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Five years ago today — January 10, 2007 — a PSLV-C7 rocket launched from Sriharikota, India, carrying four spacecraft including India’s first recoverable space capsule.


(CartoSat-2 remote sensing satellite. ISRO image.)

The largest of the four spacecraft was CartoSat-2, a three-axis-stabilized remote sensing platform with one-meter resolution. The SRE-1 technology demonstrator was the recoverable capsule, equipped with a heat shield for re-entry and a floatation system. SRE-1 “re-entered in the Bay of Bengal precisely as planned at 04:14 UT on 22 January at 150 km east of Sriharikota, and was hauled by a helicopter from a coast guard vessel.”

The other two spacecraft were LAPAN-Tubsat, a microsatellite built by Indonesia, and PehuenSat-1, a picosatellite from Argentina.

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Iowans, the Choice is Clear … And Here's Some Space History

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I suppose most Iowans who are disappointed with the field of potential Republican candidates — and let’s face it, the field as a whole has been pretty disappointing for the last several months — will just stay away from the caucuses, but here’s an alternative for the more daring: show up and support the Anti-Candidate!

As always, I’m available as your convenient throwaway write-in vote for any office, anywhere. I don’t make any promises, not even to show up for the job … that way I won’t be as much of a disappointment as your run-of-the-mill politicians.

And what other candidate offers you occasional space history items? None, I tell you!

Speaking of which: a half-century ago today — January 3, 1962 — NASA announced that its two-manned vehicle program, a major precursor to the eventual Apollo missions to the Moon, would be named “Gemini.” Up until that point it had been called Mercury Mark II, and NASA considered other names such as “Diana,” “Valiant,” and “Orpheus.” But Gemini it became.

For more on the names of NASA’s early missions, check out the “Origins of NASA Names”.

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this space history post.

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