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By NASA
NASA wants you to visualize the future of space exploration! This art challenge is looking for creative, artistic images to represent NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture, the agency’s roadmap for crewed exploration of deep space. With NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives in hand, the agency is developing an architecture for crewed exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Using systems engineering processes, NASA has begun to perform the analyses and studies needed to make informed decisions about a sustained lunar evolution and initial human missions to Mars. NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture currently includes four segments of increasing complexity: Human Lunar Return, Foundational Exploration, Sustained Lunar Evolution, and Humans to Mars. For this competition, NASA is interested in your artistic interpretation of the latter two segments: Sustained Lunar Evolution and Humans to Mars. These depictions could include operations in space, on the surface, or both. Artists may develop and submit a still image for either the lunar and Mars exploration segments.
Award: $10,000 in total prizes
Open Date: September 12, 2024
Close Date: October 31, 2024
For more information, visit: https://nasa.yet2.com/
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Tests on Earth appear to confirm how the Red Planet’s spider-shaped geologic formations are carved by carbon dioxide.
Spider-shaped features called araneiform terrain are found in the southern hemisphere of Mars, carved into the landscape by carbon dioxide gas. This 2009 image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows several of these distinctive formations within an area three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) wide. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Dark splotches seen in this example of araneiform terrain captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2018 are believed to be soil ejected from the surface by carbon dioxide gas plumes. A set of experiments at JPL has sought to re-create these spider-like formations in a lab. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Since discovering them in 2003 via images from orbiters, scientists have marveled at spider-like shapes sprawled across the southern hemisphere of Mars. No one is entirely sure how these geologic features are created. Each branched formation can stretch more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) from end to end and include hundreds of spindly “legs.” Called araneiform terrain, these features are often found in clusters, giving the surface a wrinkled appearance.
The leading theory is that the spiders are created by processes involving carbon dioxide ice, which doesn’t occur naturally on Earth. Thanks to experiments detailed in a new paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, scientists have, for the first time, re-created those formation processes in simulated Martian temperatures and air pressure.
Here’s a look inside of JPL’s DUSTIE, a wine barrel-size chamber used to simulate the temperatures and air pressure of other planets – in this case, the carbon dioxide ice found on Mars’ south pole. Experiments conducted in the chamber confirmed how Martian formations known as “spiders” are created.NASA/JPL-Caltech “The spiders are strange, beautiful geologic features in their own right,” said Lauren Mc Keown of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “These experiments will help tune our models for how they form.”
The study confirms several formation processes described by what’s called the Kieffer model: Sunlight heats the soil when it shines through transparent slabs of carbon dioxide ice that built up on the Martian surface each winter. Being darker than the ice above it, the soil absorbs the heat and causes the ice closest to it to turn directly into carbon dioxide gas — without turning to liquid first — in a process called sublimation (the same process that sends clouds of “smoke” billowing up from dry ice). As the gas builds in pressure, the Martian ice cracks, allowing the gas to escape. As it seeps upward, the gas takes with it a stream of dark dust and sand from the soil that lands on the surface of the ice.
When winter turns to spring and the remaining ice sublimates, according to the theory, the spiderlike scars from those small eruptions are what’s left behind.
These formations similar to the Red Planet’s “spiders” appeared within Martian soil simulant during experiments in JPL’s DUSTIE chamber. Carbon dioxide ice frozen within the simulant was warmed by a heater below, turning it back into gas that eventually cracked through the frozen top layer and formed a plume.NASA/JPL-Caltech Re-Creating Mars in the Lab
For Mc Keown and her co-authors, the hardest part of conducting these experiments was re-creating conditions found on the Martian polar surface: extremely low air pressure and temperatures as low as minus 301 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 185 degrees Celsius). To do that, Mc Keown used a liquid-nitrogen-cooled test chamber at JPL, the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE.
“I love DUSTIE. It’s historic,” Mc Keown said, noting that the wine barrel-size chamber was used to test a prototype of a rasping tool designed for NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander. The tool was used to break water ice, which the spacecraft scooped up and analyzed near the planet’s north pole.
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This video shows Martian soil simulant erupting in a plume during a JPL lab experiment that was designed to replicate the process believed to form Martian features called “spiders.” When a researcher who had tried for years to re-create these conditions spotted this plume, she was ecstatic. NASA/JPL-Caltech For this experiment, the researchers chilled Martian soil simulant in a container submerged within a liquid nitrogen bath. They placed it in the DUSTIE chamber, where the air pressure was reduced to be similar to that of Mars’ southern hemisphere. Carbon dioxide gas then flowed into the chamber and condensed from gas to ice over the course of three to five hours. It took many tries before Mc Keown found just the right conditions for the ice to become thick and translucent enough for the experiments to work.
Once they got ice with the right properties, they placed a heater inside the chamber below the simulant to warm it up and crack the ice. Mc Keown was ecstatic when she finally saw a plume of carbon dioxide gas erupting from within the powdery simulant.
“It was late on a Friday evening and the lab manager burst in after hearing me shrieking,” said Mc Keown, who had been working to make a plume like this for five years. “She thought there had been an accident.”
The dark plumes opened holes in the simulant as they streamed out, spewing simulant for as long as 10 minutes before all the pressurized gas was expelled.
The experiments included a surprise that wasn’t reflected in the Kieffer model: Ice formed between the grains of the simulant, then cracked it open. This alternative process might explain why spiders have a more “cracked” appearance. Whether this happens or not seems dependent on the size of soil grains and how embedded water ice is underground.
“It’s one of those details that show that nature is a little messier than the textbook image,” said Serina Diniega of JPL, a co-author of the paper.
What’s Next for Plume Testing
Now that the conditions have been found for plumes to form, the next step is to try the same experiments with simulated sunlight from above, rather than using a heater below. That could help scientists narrow down the range of conditions under which the plumes and ejection of soil might occur.
There are still many questions about the spiders that can’t be answered in a lab. Why have they formed in some places on Mars but not others? Since they appear to result from seasonal changes that are still occurring, why don’t they seem to be growing in number or size over time? It’s possible that they’re left over from long ago, when the climate was different on Mars— and could therefore provide a unique window into the planet’s past.
For the time being, lab experiments will be as close to the spiders as scientists can get. Both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are exploring the Red Planet far from the southern hemisphere, which is where these formations appear (and where no spacecraft has ever landed). The Phoenix mission, which landed in the northern hemisphere, lasted only a few months before succumbing to the intense polar cold and limited sunlight.
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-122
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Last Updated Sep 11, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Urban air mobility means a safe and efficient system for vehicles, piloted or not, to move passengers and cargo within a city.NASA As the aviation industry evolves, new air vehicles and operators are entering the airspace. NASA is working to ensure these new diverse set of operations can be safely integrated into the current airspace. The agency is researching how traditional and emerging aircraft operations can efficiently operate in a shared airspace.
NASA’s Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) project is a holistic approach to advancing a digital aviation ecosystem through research, development and testing. To accommodate the growing complexity and scale of new operations in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), ATM-X leverages technologies that contribute to transforming the national airspace, improving airspace access, and making operations safer and more efficient for all users.
ATM-X fosters access to data by enhancing the availability of digital information and predictive services – including flight traffic predictions – for airspace operations.
ATM-X works closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), commercial partners, industry experts, and stakeholders in evaluating the sustainable impacts of emerging mobility solutions. ATM-X is conducting research to augment current key stakeholders that enable safe operations today such as pilots and air traffic controllers. Through these cooperations, ATM-X researches and validates technological advances in computing, communications, and increasingly automated technologies to support the continued evolution of aviation operations.
ATM-X supports the modernization of today’s air transportation system through a diverse portfolio of core capabilities, which include remotely supervised missions up through high-altitude operations. The four research subprojects under ATM-X work collaboratively to enable a robust transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS).
NASA/Maria Werries Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management Beyond-Visual-Line-of Sight (UTM-BVLOS)
UTM BVLOS is supporting the future of aviation by operationalizing UTM for safe use of drones in our everyday lives. UTM BVLOS is part of a new traffic management paradigm called Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) that will use digital information exchange, cooperative operating practices, and automation to provide air traffic management for remotely piloted operations for small UAS beyond an operator’s visual line of sight. This project focuses on enabling operations in a low- altitude airspace, including drone package delivery and public safety operations.
As the FAA works to authorize these types of flights, NASA’s UTM BVLOS team is working with industry to ensure these operations can be routine, safe, and efficient. One such effort is the industry-driven “Key Site Operational Evaluation” out of North Texas, where UTM BVLOS is helping to test UTM tools and services in an operational context.
Digital Information Platform (DIP)
DIP is focused on increasing access to digital information to enable increasingly sustainable and efficient operations for today and future airspace systems. DIP is prototyping a digital service-oriented framework that uses machine learning to provide information, including traffic predictions, weather information, and in-time flight trajectory updates. DIP tests and validates key services for end-to-end trajectory planning and surface operations.
DIP is engaging with the FAA, industry, flight operators, and relevant stakeholders, in a series of Sustainable Flight National Partnership – Operations demonstrations to support the United States Climate Action Plan objective of net-zero emissions by 2050. Through these types of collaborations, DIP tests and validates key services and capabilities for end-to-end trajectory planning and surface operations.
Pathfinding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV)
PAAV is focused on enabling remotely piloted operations in today’s airspace, which includes assessing increasingly automated capabilities to allow safe operations across all phases of flight.
PAAV is working with key stakeholders, including the FAA, industry standards organizations, and industry partners to develop an ecosystem which helps validate standards, concepts, procedures, and technology. This research will help test and validate a broad range of tools and services that could provide critical information and functions necessary for remotely piloted operations at lower complexity airspace shared with conventional aircrafts. This includes ground-based surveillance to detect and avoid hazards, command and control communications, and relevant weather information, which is critical for safe, seamless, and scalable UAS cargo operations.
NAS Exploratory Concepts & Technologies (NExCT)
Advancements in aircraft design, power, and propulsion systems are enabling high-altitude long-endurance vehicles, such as balloons, airships, and solar aircraft to operate at altitudes of 60,000 feet and above. This airspace is referred to as “Upper Class E” airspace in the United States, or ETM. These advancements open doors to benefits ranging from increased internet coverage, improved disaster response, expanded scientific missions, to even supersonic flight. To accommodate and foster this growth, NExCT is developing a new traffic management concept in this airspace.
NExCT is working with the FAA and industry partners to extend a new concept for safely integrating and scaling air traffic across UTM, UAM, and ETM, collectively referenced as the Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) domain. Together, this research project will enable, test, and validate a common xTM framework that is efficient and safe.
ATM-X
AOSP
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Artist David Bowen works on “tele-present wind,” featuring grass stalks that move in response to Martian wind data previously collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover mission. Behind him sits JPL data systems architect Rishi Verma.NASA/JPL-Caltech Works in ‘Blended Worlds: Experiments in Interplanetary Imagination,’ an exhibit in Glendale, California, help shrink the universe into something tangible.
The universe is vast and filled with countless worlds, but a new exhibit at the Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California, aims to shrink time and space. For “Blended Worlds: Experiments in Interplanetary Imagination,” artists collaborated with scientists and engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to create cross-disciplinary works that help illuminate the universe by bringing art and science together.
On view from Sept. 21, 2024, to Jan. 4, 2025, the exhibition is part of “PST ART: Art & Science Collide,” an event presented by the Getty and involving more than 70 exhibitions from museums and institutions across Southern California exploring the intersection of art and science.
“The magic of art is that it enhances our experiences and interactions with the world — and in this case, our universe,” said Dr. Laurie Leshin, director of JPL in Southern California. “We’re honored to work with great artists to bring the wonders of space to our community through this exhibition, which invites us all to be part of a grand journey of exploration and discovery.”
The 126 grass stalks of “tele-present wind” are attached to mechanical tilting devices that move in response to Martian wind data.NASA/JPL-Caltech David Bowen’s installation “tele-present wind” features grass stalks attached to tilting mechanical devices that move in response to Martian wind data previously collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover mission. Helping make the effort possible were Rishi Verma, a data systems architect at JPL, and José Antonio Rodríguez-Manfredi, the principal investigator of the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) system on Perseverance.
For “Seismic Percussion,” artist Moon Ribas creates an interplanetary drum score by translating seismic data from Earth, the Moon, and Mars. For Mars data, JPL’s Verma worked with Nobuaki Fuji of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, who collaborated on NASA’s now-retired InSight lander. Ceri Nunn, a JPL planetary scientist, assisted with moonquake data.
Also featured is a handwritten version of U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” the poem she dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which is targeting an October launch and will make multiple flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The poem has been etched onto a metal plate on the spacecraft and will ride with the orbiter on its long journey.
Additional works allow visitors to experience Earth’s wonders through scents, use sound to convey the vast distances between our planet and those beyond our solar system, and blend heartbeats and other Earthly sounds with sonified data from Europa’s magnetic field.
“We were looking to create imaginative opportunities for people to connect with each other as they connect with the awe-inspiring science being conducted today,” said David Delgado, a cultural strategist and the project lead at JPL. “I know this experience has really opened the eyes of everyone collaborating on the project, and we hope it does the same for people who come to see ‘Blended Worlds.’”
As part of PST ART, a number of public programs and community events will also accompany the “Blended Worlds” gallery exhibition, including “Blended Worlds: An Evening of Art, Theater, and Science” hosted by Reggie Watts at the Alex Theatre in Glendale on Oct. 5, and “Earth Data: The Musical,” an original musical developed by Theater Arts at Caltech exploring the challenges of climate research and science as a human pursuit at Caltech’s Ramo Auditorium Nov. 1 to 3.
Artists’ collaborations with JPL and the display of their works at Glendale’s Brand Library were made possible by the generous support of the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission and the Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Trust.
More About JPL
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL began in 1936 and ultimately built and helped launch America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958. By the end of that year, Congress established NASA and JPL became a part of the agency. Since then, JPL has managed such historic missions as Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, the Mars Exploration Rover program, the Perseverance Mars rover, and many more.
More About Glendale Library, Arts & Culture
Founded in 1907, the Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Department includes eight neighborhood libraries including the Brand Library & Art Center, a regional visual arts and music library and performance venue housed in the historic 1904 mansion of Glendale pioneer Leslie C. Brand, and the Central Library, a 93,000-square-foot center for individuals and groups to convene, collaborate, and create. The department also serves as the chief liaison to the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission which works to continually transform Glendale into an ever-evolving arts destination. Glendale Library Arts & Culture is supported in part through the efforts of the Glendale Library Arts & Culture Trust (GLACT). For more information visit GlendaleLAC.org, or contact Library, Arts & Culture at 818-548-2021 or via email at LibraryInfo@GlendaleCA.gov. Follow on Instagram, Facebook, and X at @MyGlendaleLAC.
For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, visit: pst.art
News Media Contact
Matthew Segal / Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-8307 / 626-314-4928
matthew.j.segal@jpl.nasa.gov / melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-120
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Last Updated Sep 09, 2024 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:00 Rover trials in a quarry in the UK showing a four-wheeled rover, known as Codi, using its robotic arm and a powerful computer vision system to pick up sample tubes.
The rover drives to the samples with an accuracy of 10cm, constantly mapping the terrain. Codi uses its arm and four cameras to locate the sample tube, retrieve it and safely store it on the rover – all of it without human intervention. At every stop, the rover uses stereo cameras to build up a 180-degree map of the surroundings and plan its next maneouvres. Once parked, the camera on top of the mast detects the tube and estimates its position with respect to the rover. The robotic arm initiates a complex choreography to move closer to the sample, fetch it and store it.
The sample tubes are a replica of the hermetically sealed samples inside which NASA’s Perseverance rover is collecting precious martian soil inside. To most people on Earth, they resemble lightsabres.
The reddish terrain, although not fully representative of Mars in terms of soil composition, has plenty of slopes and rocks of different sizes, similar to what a rover might encounter on the martian surface. Quarry testing is an essential next step in the development process, providing a unique and dynamic landscape that cannot be replicated indoors.
ESA continues to run further research using the rover to maintain and develop rover capabilities in Europe.
Read the full article: Rovers, lightsabres and a piglet.
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