Tag Archives: nasa

Virtual AGC Home Page

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The Apollo spacecraft used for lunar missions in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was really two different spacecraft, the Command Module (CM) and the Lunar Module (LM).  The CM was used to get the three astronauts to the moon, and back again.  The LM was used to land two of the astronauts on the moon while the third astronaut remained in the CM, in orbit around the moon.

via Virtual AGC Home Page.

The Virtual AGC project provides a virtual machine which simulates the AGC, the DSKY, and some other portions of the guidance system.  In other words, if the virtual machine—which we call yaAGC—is given the same software which was originally run by the real AGCs, and is fed the same input signals encountered by the real AGCs during Apollo missions, then it will responds in the same way as the real AGCs did.  The Virtual AGC software is free of charge, can be obtained for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, or as open source software source code so that it can be studied or modified.

How to return to the moon in just four years

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In a four-launch scenario, the lander would precede the crew to the moon. The first two launches would be a moon injection stage followed by a lunar lander. These two vehicles would rendezvous in Earth’s orbit before the moon injection stage would send the lander ahead to the moon. The next two Falcon launches would carry a second moon injection stage and then the crew in their capsule/service module. After a similar boost in a moon-injection stage, they would meet up with the lander in lunar orbit.

The rest of the mission would be like the Apollo mission — Americans on the moon, once again taking giant leaps for mankind.

via How to return to the moon in just four years | Fox News.

Responding to Potential Asteroid Redirect Mission Targets

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NASA is developing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) — a first-ever mission to identify, capture and redirect an asteroid to a safe orbit of Earth’s moon for future exploration by astronauts in the 2020s.

ARM will use capabilities in development, including the new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and high-power Solar Electric Propulsion. All are critical components of deep-space exploration and essential to meet NASA’s goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s. The mission represents an unprecedented technological feat, raising the bar for human exploration and discovery, while helping protect our home planet and bringing us closer to a human mission to one of these intriguing objects.

via Responding to Potential Asteroid Redirect Mission Targets | NASA.

Here is an article from 12/24/2012 about this.

NASA’s LLCD tests confirm laser communication capabilities in space

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The LLCD is a demonstration of the practicality of using broadband lasers for deep space communications with download speeds orders of magnitude greater than conventional radio communications. With the ability to download data to Earth at 622 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload at 20 Mbps, the LLCD transmitted a record-breaking download on October 20 from lunar orbit using a pulsed laser beam that was picked up by the main LLCD ground station in New Mexico, which is one of three set up in the US and Spain.

via NASA’s LLCD tests confirm laser communication capabilities in space.

NASA aiming for moon again, this time from Va., to probe thinnest of atmospheres, lunar dust

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Hitching a ride on LADEE is an experimental laser communication system designed to handle higher data rates than currently available. NASA hopes to eventually replace its traditional radio systems with laser communications, which uses less power and requires smaller transmitters and receivers, while providing lightning-fast bandwidth.

via NASA aiming for moon again, this time from Va., to probe thinnest of atmospheres, lunar dust – The Washington Post.

NASA’S Mars Curiosity Debuts Autonomous Navigation

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The drive on Tuesday, the mission’s 376th Martian day, or “sol,” took Curiosity across a depression where ground-surface details had not been visible from the location where the previous drive ended. The drive included about 33 feet (10 meters) of autonomous navigation across hidden ground as part of a day’s total drive of about 141 feet (43 meters).

“We could see the area before the dip, and we told the rover where to drive on that part. We could see the ground on the other side, where we designated a point for the rover to end the drive, but Curiosity figured out for herself how to drive the uncharted part in between,” said JPL’s John Wright, a rover driver.

via NASA’S Mars Curiosity Debuts Autonomous Navigation – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA’s NEXT ion thruster runs five and a half years nonstop to set new record

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NEXT is a solar electric propulsion system where electricity from the spacecraft’s solar panels is used to power a a 7-kW class ion thruster. In this, particles of xenon gas are electrically charged and then accelerated to speeds up to 90,000 mph (145,000 km/h). Such thrusters have already been used on spacecraft, such as NASA’s Dawn probe, and engineers are very interested in them because of their much higher performance compared to conventional chemical rocket engines.

via NASA’s NEXT ion thruster runs five and a half years nonstop to set new record.

Space Station Leaking Vital Coolant, NASA Says

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The space station uses chilled liquid ammonia to cool down the power systems on its eight giant solararray panels. A minor leak of this ammonia was first noticed in 2007, and NASA has been studying the issue ever since. In November 2012 two astronauts took a spacewalk to fix the problem, rewiring some coolant lines and installing a spare radiator due to fears the original radiator was damaged by a micrometeorite impact.

via Space Station Leaking Vital Coolant, NASA Says | Weather Underground.

Update: Astronauts Complete Spacewalk to Repair Ammonia Leak

A little more than 2 1/2 hours into the spacewalk, Cassidy and Marshburn removed the 260-pound pump controller box from the P6 truss and replaced it with a spare that had been stowed nearby on the port-side truss, or backbone of the station. Mission Control ran the new pump while the spacewalkers watched for any ammonia snowflakes, but so far there have been no new signs of a leak. Long-term monitoring of the pump will be required to determine whether the pump replacement has fixed the leak.

NASA’s system for avoiding collisions with space junk

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Potential collisions are flagged for monitoring if there’s simply a high probability of conjunction. Typically, the probability goes down after a couple of additional days of tracking, but in rare cases this doesn’t happen (and, in a few, the probability went up with further monitoring). When the probability doesn’t go down, the software can calculate a maneuver that will reduce the probability of collision to an acceptable level. The solution will take into account other potential hazards as well as mission requirements—some Earth-monitoring satellites can’t orbit above a certain altitude and still perform their jobs.

via Saving Fermi: NASA’s system for avoiding collisions with space junk | Ars Technica.