Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
By European Space Agency
Video: 00:03:02 From the arrival of Earth-obversation satellite Sentinel-2C in July 2024 and the first fit-check to launch on the from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, this timelapse shows how the third Sentinel 2 satellite was prepared for launch. The last Vega rocket, flight VV24, lifted off on 5 September at 03:50 CEST (4 September 22:50 local time).
Sentinel-2C will provide high-resolution data that is essential to Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme. Developed, built and operated by ESA, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission provides high-resolution optical imagery for a wide range of applications including land, water and atmospheric monitoring.
The mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites flying in the same orbit but 180° apart: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B. Together, they cover all of Earth’s land and coastal waters every five days. Once Sentinel-2C is operational, it will replace its predecessor, Sentinel-2A, following a brief period of tandem observations. Sentinel-2D will eventually take over from Sentinel-2B.
Sentinel-2C was the last liftoff for the Vega rocket – after 12 years of service this was the final flight, the original Vega is being retired to make way for an upgraded Vega-C.
Access the related broadcast quality video material.
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Video: 00:02:32 Sentinel-2C is ready for launch! The new satellite will soon join its Copernicus Sentinel-2 family in orbit – where it will continue to provide detailed views of Earth’s land and coastal waters.
The mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B. The constellation was originally designed to monitor land surfaces – but its scope has since expanded.
It now covers a wide range of applications including deforestation, water quality, monitoring natural disasters, methane emissions and much more.
Sentinel-2C, once in orbit, will replace the Sentinel-2A unit – prolonging the life of the Sentinel-2 mission – ensuring a continuous supply of data for Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the EU Space Programme.
Tune in to ESA WebTV on 4 September from 03:30 CEST to watch the satellite soar into space on the last Vega rocket to be launched from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Access the related broadcast quality footage.
View the full article
-
By NASA
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, shown where it’s installed aboard the International Space Station, recently demonstrated the use of a tool called an atom interferometer that can precisely measure gravity and other forces — and has many potential applications in space.NASA/JPL-Caltech Future space missions could use quantum technology to track water on Earth, explore the composition of moons and other planets, or probe mysterious cosmic phenomena.
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, a first-of-its-kind facility aboard the International Space Station, has taken another step toward revolutionizing how quantum science can be used in space. Members of the science team measured subtle vibrations of the space station with one of the lab’s onboard tools — the first time ultra-cold atoms have been employed to detect changes in the surrounding environment in space.
The study, which appeared in Nature Communications on Aug. 13, also reports the longest demonstration of the wave-like nature of atoms in freefall in space.
The Cold Atom Lab science team made their measurements with a quantum tool called an atom interferometer, which can precisely measure gravity, magnetic fields, and other forces. Scientists and engineers on Earth use this tool to study the fundamental nature of gravity and advance technologies that aid aircraft and ship navigation. (Cell phones, transistors, and GPS are just a few other major technologies based on quantum science but do not involve atom interferometry.)
Physicists have been eager to apply atom interferometry in space because the microgravity there allows longer measurement times and greater instrument sensitivity, but the exquisitely sensitive equipment has been considered too fragile to function for extended periods without hands-on assistance. The Cold Atom Lab, which is operated remotely from Earth, has now shown it’s possible.
“Reaching this milestone was incredibly challenging, and our success was not always a given,” said Jason Williams, the Cold Atom Lab project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It took dedication and a sense of adventure by the team to make this happen.”
Power of Precision
Space-based sensors that can measure gravity with high precision have a wide range of potential applications. For instance, they could reveal the composition of planets and moons in our solar system, because different materials have different densities that create subtle variations in gravity.
This type of measurement is already being performed by the U.S.-German collaboration GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on), which detects slight changes in gravity to track the movement of water and ice on Earth. An atom interferometer could provide additional precision and stability, revealing more detail about surface mass changes.
Precise measurements of gravity could also offer insights into the nature of dark matter and dark energy, two major cosmological mysteries. Dark matter is an invisible substance five times more common in the universe than the “regular” matter that composes planets, stars, and everything else we can see. Dark energy is the name given to the unknown driver of the universe’s accelerating expansion.
“Atom interferometry could also be used to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity in new ways,” said University of Virginia professor Cass Sackett, a Cold Atom Lab principal investigator and co-author of the new study. “This is the basic theory explaining the large-scale structure of our universe, and we know that there are aspects of the theory that we don’t understand correctly. This technology may help us fill in those gaps and give us a more complete picture of the reality we inhabit.”
A Portable Lab
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab studies the quantum nature of atoms, the building blocks of our universe, in a place that is out of this world – the International Space Station. This animated explainer explores what quantum science is and why NASA wants to do it in space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech About the size of a minifridge, the Cold Atom Lab launched to the space station in 2018 with the goal of advancing quantum science by putting a long-term facility in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit. The lab cools atoms to almost absolute zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273 degrees Celsius). At this temperature, some atoms can form a Bose-Einstein condensate, a state of matter in which all atoms essentially share the same quantum identity. As a result, some of the atoms’ typically microscopic quantum properties become macroscopic, making them easier to study.
Quantum properties include sometimes acting like solid particles and sometimes like waves. Scientists don’t know how these building blocks of all matter can transition between such different physical behaviors, but they’re using quantum technology like what’s available on the Cold Atom Lab to seek answers.
In microgravity, Bose-Einstein condensates can reach colder temperatures and exist for longer, giving scientists more opportunities to study them. The atom interferometer is among several tools in the facility enabling precision measurements by harnessing the quantum nature of atoms.
Due to its wave-like behavior, a single atom can simultaneously travel two physically separate paths. If gravity or other forces are acting on those waves, scientists can measure that influence by observing how the waves recombine and interact.
“I expect that space-based atom interferometry will lead to exciting new discoveries and fantastic quantum technologies impacting everyday life, and will transport us into a quantum future,” said Nick Bigelow, a professor at University of Rochester in New York and Cold Atom Lab principal investigator for a consortium of U.S. and German scientists who co-authored the study.
More About the Mission
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL designed and built Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. BPS pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefitting life on Earth.
To learn more about Cold Atom Lab, visit:
https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/
News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-106
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 13, 2024 Related Terms
Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) Biological & Physical Sciences International Space Station (ISS) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Science & Research Explore More
3 min read Station Science Top News: August 9, 2024
Article 21 hours ago 3 min read Earth Educators Rendezvous with Infiniscope and Tour It
At the Earth Educator’s Rendezvous, held July 15-19, 2024, NASA’s Infiniscope project from Arizona State…
Article 1 day ago 2 min read Astro Campers SCoPE Out New Worlds
Teachers at Smokey Mountain Elementary School have collaborated with the NASA Science Activation (SciAct) program’s…
Article 4 days ago View the full article
-
By NASA
6 min read
Quantum Scale Sensors used to Measure Planetary Scale Magnetic Fields
Magnetic fields are everywhere in our solar system. They originate from the Sun, planets, and moons, and are carried throughout interplanetary space by solar wind. This is precisely why magnetometers—devices used to measure magnetic fields—are flown on almost all missions in space to benefit the Earth, Planetary, and Heliophysics science communities, and ultimately enrich knowledge for all humankind. These instruments can remotely probe the interior of a planetary body to provide insight into its internal composition, structure, dynamics, and even evolution based on the magnetic history frozen into the body’s crustal rock layers. Magnetometers can even discover hidden oceans within our solar system and help determine their salinity, thereby providing insight into the potential habitability of these icy worlds.
Left: The magnetic field of Jupiter provides insight into its interior composition, structure, dynamics, and even its evolutionary history. Right: Image of the first prototype 4H-SiC solid-state magnetometer sensor die (2mm by 2mm) developed by NASA-GRC. Each gold rectangle or square on the surface represents an individual sensor, the smallest being 10 microns by 10 microns. Fluxgates are the most widely used magnetometers for missions in space due to their proven performance and simplicity. However, the conventional size, weight, and power (SWaP) of fluxgate instruments can restrict them from being used on small platforms like CubeSats and sometimes limit the number of sensors that can be used on a spacecraft for inter-sensor calibration, redundancy, and spacecraft magnetic field removal. Traditionally, a long boom is used to distance the fluxgate magnetometers from the contaminate magnetic field generated by the spacecraft, itself, and at least two sensors are used to characterize the falloff of this field contribution so it can be removed from the measurements. Fluxgates also do not provide an absolute measurement, meaning that they need to be routinely calibrated in space through spacecraft rolls, which can be time and resource intensive.
An SMD-funded team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has partnered with NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio to prototype a new magnetometer called the silicon carbide (SiC) magnetometer, or SiCMag, that could change the way magnetic fields are measured in space. SiCMag uses a solid-state sensor made of a silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor. Inside the SiC sensor are quantum centers—intentionally introduced defects or irregularities at an atomic scale—that give rise to a magnetoresistance signal that can be detected by monitoring changes in the sensor’s electrical current, which indicate changes in the strength and direction of the external magnetic field. This new technology has the potential to be incredibly sensitive, and due to its large bandgap (i.e., the energy required to free an electron from its bound state so it can participate in electrical conduction), is capable of operating in the wide range of temperature extremes and harsh radiation environments commonly encountered in space.
Team member David Spry of NASA Glenn indicates, “Not only is the SiC material great for magnetic field sensing, but here at NASA Glenn we’re further developing robust SiC electronics that operate in hot environments far beyond the upper temperature limitations of silicon electronics. These SiC-based technologies will someday enable long-duration robotic scientific exploration of the 460 °C Venus surface.”
SiCMag is also very small— the sensor area is only 0.1 x 0.1 mm and the compensation coils are smaller than a penny. Consequently, dozens of SiCMag sensors can easily be incorporated on a spacecraft to better remove the complex contaminate magnetic field generated by the spacecraft, reducing the need for a long boom to distance the sensors from the spacecraft, like implemented on most spacecraft, including Psyche (see figure below).
The magnetic field lines associated with the Psyche spacecraft, modeled from over 200 individual magnetic sources. Removing this magnetic field contribution from the measurements conventionally requires the use of two fluxgate sensors on a long boom. Incorporating 4 or more SiCMag sensors in such a scenario would significantly reduce the size of the boom required, or even remove the need for a boom completely. Image Credit: This image was adopted from https://science.nasa.gov/resource/magnetic-field-of-the-psyche-spacecraft/ SiCMag has several advantages when compared to fluxgates and other types of heritage magnetometers including those based on optically pumped atomic vapor. SiCMag is a simple instrument that doesn’t rely on optics or high-frequency components, which are sensitive to temperature variations. SiCMag’s low SWaP also allows for accommodation on small platforms such as CubeSats, enabling simultaneous spatial and temporal magnetic field measurements not possible with single large-scale spacecraft. This capability will enable planetary magnetic field mapping and space weather monitoring by constellations of CubeSats. Multiplatform measurements would also be very valuable on the surface of the Moon and Mars for crustal magnetic field mapping, composition identification, and magnetic history investigation of these bodies.
SiCMag has a true zero-field magnetic sensing ability (i.e., SiCMag can measure extremely weak magnetic fields), which is unattainable with most conventional atomic vapor magnetometers due to the requisite minimum magnetic field needed for the sensor to operate. And because the spin-carrying electrons in SiCMag are tied up in the quantum centers, they won’t escape the sensor, meaning they are well-suited for decades-long journeys to the ice-giants or to the edges of the heliosphere. This capability is also an advantage of SiCMag’s optical equivalent sibling, OPuS-MAGNM, an optically pumped solid state quantum magnetometer developed by Hannes Kraus and matured by Andreas Gottscholl of the JPL solid-state magnetometry group. SiCMag has the advantage of being extremely simple, while OPuS-MAGNM promises to have lower noise characteristics, but uses complex optical components.
According to Dr. Andreas Gottscholl, “SiCMag and OPuS-MAGNM are very similar, actually. Progress in one sensor system translates directly into benefits for the other. Therefore, enhancements in design and electronics advance both projects, effectively doubling the impact of our efforts while we are still flexible for different applications.”
SiCMag has the ability to self-calibrate due to its absolute sensing capability, which is a significant advantage in the remote space environment. SiCMag uses a spectroscopic calibration technique that atomic vapor magnetometers also leverage called magnetic resonance (in the case of SiCMag, the magnetic resonance is electrically detected) to measure the precession frequency of electrons associated with the quantum centers, which is directly related to the magnetic field in which the sensor is immersed. This relationship is a fundamental physical constant in nature that doesn’t change as a function of time or temperature, making the response ideal for calibration of the sensor’s measurements. “If we are successful in achieving the sought-out sensitivity improvement we anticipate using isotopically purer materials, SiC could change the way magnetometry is typically performed in space due to the instrument’s attractive SWaP, robustness, and self-calibration ability,” says JPL’s Dr. Corey Cochrane, principal investigator of the SiCMag technology.
The 3-axis 3D printed electromagnet – no larger than the size of a US penny – is used to modulate and maintain a region of zero magnetic field around our 0.1 mm x 0.1 mm 4H-SiC solid-state sensor. NASA has been funding this team’s solid-state quantum magnetometer sensor research through its PICASSO (Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Observations) program since 2016. A variety of domestic partners from industry and academia also support this research, including NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Penn State University, University of Iowa, QuantCAD LLC, as well as international partners such as Japan’s Quantum Materials and Applications Research Center (QUARC) and Infineon Technologies.
The SiC magnetometer team leads from JPL and GRC (left: Dr. Hannes Kraus, middle: Dr. Phillip Neudeck, right: Dr. Corey Cochrane) at the last International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ICSCRM) where their research is presented annually. Acknowledgment: The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004) and the NASA Glenn Research Center.
Project Lead(s):
Dr. Corey Cochrane, Dr. Hannes Kraus, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology
Dr. Phil Neudeck, David Spry, NASA Glenn Research Center
Sponsoring Organization(s):
Science Mission Directorate PICASSO, JPL R&D fund
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 06, 2024 Related Terms
Glenn Research Center Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary Science Science-enabling Technology Technology Highlights Explore More
4 min read AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of Creation Star in NASA’s New 3D Visualization
Article
20 hours ago
4 min read NASA Sends More Science to Space, More Strides for Future Exploration
Biological and physical investigations aboard the Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply mission NG-21 included experiments studying…
Article
1 day ago
5 min read NASA Scientists on Why We Might Not Spot Solar Panel Technosignatures
Article
4 days ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA Glenn Research Center’s quantum team stands with new quantum memory laboratory equipment.Credit: NASA/Jef Janis Bringing bright minds together has once again proven to be the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. Researchers developed technology that will store information within a cloud of atoms.
Together with Infleqtion Inc., researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland produced NASA’s first-ever quantum memory. This technology is NASA’s first step in creating a large-scale quantum network, which could lead to more secure space communications and, eventually, new scientific discoveries.
Quantum memory stores information encoded in matter or on photons — which are single particles of light — for a certain amount of time. The memory developed in partnership with Glenn stores information in a cloud of laser-cooled atoms and later releases it as photons.
On Earth, many quantum networks use fiber optic infrastructure. However, quantum information degrades after just a few dozen miles, greatly limiting the size of any future network. Quantum memory will help enable the expansion of quantum networks to send information over longer distances.
Credit: NASA/Steve Logan “If we’re able to put quantum memory into space, then we could use free space transmission and further those distances to spanning the country,” said Dr. Adam Fallon, quantum scientist at NASA Glenn.
A large-scale quantum network would process information faster, provide better information security, and improve the accuracy of how we explore the world compared to a traditional computer network.
“So, quantum may provide NASA the ability to explore or sense things in space that we could not do otherwise classically,” said Evan Katz, quantum scientist at NASA Glenn. “While quantum networks are a little further down the road, in the here-and-now, we are excited to have received this memory through an SBIR effort with Infleqtion Inc. so that we can understand more about how quantum memory impacts quantum networks.”
A cloud of rubidium atoms is illuminated by a red laser. Quantum memory stores information that is encoded in matter or on photons for a certain amount of time. Credit: NASA/Jef Janis Glenn’s quantum team intends to study and refine the new technology and then plug what they’ve learned into models to simulate how it would work in a large-scale quantum network. From there, they plan to provide feedback to NASA, academia, and industry so all parties can come closer to their goal of developing a quantum network.
Infleqtion Inc. created the quantum memory through the NASA Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Program, which provides funding for research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill the needs of NASA and the commercial marketplace.
Learn more about the SBIR/STTR program.
Explore More
8 min read Overview for NASA’s Northrop Grumman 21st Commercial Resupply Mission
NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 11:28 a.m. EDT on Saturday,…
Article 18 hours ago 2 min read Ames Science Directorate’s Stars of the Month, July 2024
Article 20 hours ago 3 min read NASA Embraces Streaming Service to Reach, Inspire Artemis Generation
Article 2 days ago View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.