US Military's XS-1 Space Plane Project Seeks $27 Million in 2015 Funding

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency expects to spend some $800 million on space programs from 2015 through 2018, an increase of $130 million over what was projected at this time last year, Defense Department budget documents show.

Nearly all of the targeted increase for DARPA's Space Programs and Technology Office is backloaded into the outyears, the documents show. For 2015, the office is seeking nearly $180 million, only $7.5 million more than this year’s funding level. 

DARPA's budget books break out funding on a program-by-program basis for the upcoming fiscal year only; outyear projections are provided only at the department level.

DARPA's mission, generally speaking, is to pursue high-risk, high-payoff technology development projects that could someday benefit the military. These projects are taken on with the understanding that many, if not most, will fail. Defense Department officials often talk about "DARPA-hard" programs to describe their degree of difficulty.

For example, the 2015 request includes $27 million for XS-1, a concept for a reusable space plane that could ultimately fly 10 times in 10 days and boost payloads into low-Earth orbit for less than $5 million per launch. The program received $10 million in 2014.

"Technologies derived from the XS-1 program will enable routine space launch capabilities with aircraft-like cost, operability and reliability," a DARPA announcement from November 2013 reads. "The long-term intent is for XS-1 technologies to be transitioned to support not only next-generation launch for Government and commercial customers, but also global reach hypersonic and space access aircraft." 

The agency hopes to select a single vendor next year for the final design and development of the vehicle, which could make its initial test flight in 2018.

DARPA sees the program potentially transitioning to the Air Force, the Navy or a commercial operator, the budget documents said. 

The budget request also includes $55 million for the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, which is intended to field a system to launch satellites weighing up to 100 lbs (45 kilograms) for $1 million each. The agency requested $42 million for the program in fiscal year 2014.

DARPA awarded ALASA system concept studies contracts last year to Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Virgin Galactic, and technology-development contracts to three other companies.

The program is aiming for a demonstration launch in fiscal year 2015.

DARPA is requesting $65 million for the Phoenix program next year, compared with $60 million this year, according to the agency budget documents. Phoenix is an on-orbit robotics technologies program originally intended, in part, to salvage components from aging satellites. 

DARPA plans to test a core element of the program known as satlets — small modules that perform critical satellite functions including power, pointing and communications — by launching them into a low-inclination orbit as soon as 2015.

The budget request also includes $5 million for what appears to be a new program dubbed the Optical Aperture Self-Assembly in Space, which is intended to demonstrate the "feasibility of constructing large optical apertures in orbit from a number of smaller modular components that self-organize in space."

The request discontinues funding for two programs: an experimental solar electric propulsion vehicle and system F6, a planned formation-flying satellite demonstration that was canceled last year.

Source of Article: Space.com

By Mike Gruss, Space News

Rosetta's Brightening Comet Emerges From Behind the Sun

After its long-awaited awakening on Jan. 20, Europe's Rosetta spacecraft resumed its decade-long journey to meet up with the inbound comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which recently re-emerged from behind the sun as seen from our vantage point on Earth.

The images above show the comet as seen by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile on Feb. 28. The left image shows the comet amidst background star trails — the comet itself is actually overlaid onto a star trail — and the right image has had the trails subtracted and the enhanced comet exposures stacked onto a single spot.

These are the first observations of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko made by the VLT since October. Since then the 4 kilometer-wide comet has increased in brightness by about 50 percent, indicating that its surface ices may have already begun to sublimate into space.

Hello World: Hibernating Rosetta Comet Probe Awakens

Rosetta and its Philae lander are currently awake and doing well after their nearly two-and-a-half year-long hibernation. Launched in March 2004, this May the spacecraft will rendezvous with the comet and enter orbit around it in August. In November, Philae will land on the comet’s nucleus, performing scientific observations as the comet makes its closest approach to the sun in August 2015.

Source of Article: Space.com

NASA Joins Hunt for Missing Jetliner

The world's premier space agency has joined the search for a commercial jetliner that vanished into thin air over the weekend.

On Monday (March 10), NASA began examining ways it can contribute to the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared shortly after takeoff on Friday (March 7), agency officials said.

"Activities under way include mining data archives of satellite data acquired earlier and using space-based assets, such as the Earth-Observing-1(EO-1) satellite and the ISERV camera on the International Space Station, to acquire new images of possible crash sites," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told Space.com via email. "The resolution of images from these instruments could be used to identify objects of about 98 feet (30 meters) or larger."

In addition, Beutel added, NASA will be sending relevant data to the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resource Observations and Science Hazard Data Distribution System, which facilitates the sharing of information whenever the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is activated.

The Charter — which aims to mitigate the effects of natural and man-made disasters by streamlining the delivery of space-acquired data — was activated on Tuesday (March 11) by China, according to CNET.

Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, on Friday afternoon U.S. Eastern time, headed for Beijing. The plane dropped off air traffic controllers' radar less than an hour later; the whereabouts of the Boeing 777 jet, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, remain unknown.

On Wednesday (March 12), however, Chinese officials announced that one of the nation's satellites had spotted a possible crash site for Flight 370. The spacecraft captured images of three large, floating objects in the waters northeast of Kuala Lumpur, along the plane's presumed flight path, CNN reported.

A follow-up investigation by recovery boats and aircraft could confirm if the objects are indeed pieces of the Malaysian Airlines jet, experts say.

The disappearance of Flight 370 calls to mind Air France Flight 447, which vanished over the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009, shortly after taking off from Rio de Janeiro en route to Paris. It took five days to locate the wreckage of Flight 447 and nearly two years to find and recover the jet's "black boxes" from the ocean floor.

Source of Article: Space.com

By Mike Wall, Senior Writer

Hubble Zooms in on Historic Supernova SN 2014J

On Jan. 21, astronomers spotted the closest supernova in recent decades flash to life in the galaxy M82, some 11.5 million light-years from Earth. The supernova, designated SN 2014J, suddenly became a superstar as it became so bright that amateur astronomers with modest telescopes could easily pick out the stellar explosion in the night sky. Now, Hubble has slewed in the direction of M82 to snap this dreamy portrait of the historic stellar event.

SN 2014J is known as a Type 1a supernova, a very special kind of supernova. It is thought a Type 1a supernova is triggered by a white dwarf — an ancient small star that is the stellar husk of a star of approximately the same mass as our sun — accumulating material from a binary partner star. When the accumulated mass reaches a certain threshold, the bloated white dwarf ignites a supernova. As the threshold of material is very specific, which generates a very specific quantity of energy, Type 1a supernovae are used by astronomers as “standard candles” to measure the scale of the Universe. If you know the amount of energy released by this supernova, no matter where it is in the Cosmos, you can precisely measure your distance from it.

In the case of SN 2014J, the closest Type 1a supernova since SN 1972e, this is the perfect opportunity to further understand the mechanisms behind a phenomena that underpins our ability to understand the scale, age and expansion of the Universe. In 1998, astronomers made the groundbreaking discovery that a mysterious force was acting on the expansion of the Universe, dubbed “dark energy,” and Type 1a supernovae were at the root of this revelation.

In this new observation captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, the supernova has been superimposed over a photo mosaic of the entire M82 galaxy in 2006 taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. This supernova portrait was acquired on Jan. 31, just as the explosion was reaching its peak in brightness.

As Hubble is sensitive to ultraviolet wavelengths of light, the impact of the supernova on the surrounding interstellar environment can be studied, building on our knowledge of these important stellar events and how they can impact their host galaxies.

Source of Article: Space.com

By Ian O'Neill, Discovery News 

SN 2014J Oddball: Nearby Supernova Is a Bit Weird

The now-famous supernova that erupted in neighboring galaxy M82 last month is a unique opportunity to study an exploding star up-close. However, SN 2014J isn’t any old supernova, it turns out that it’s a little bit weird.

Discovered by a team of UK astronomy students on Jan. 21, the brightening SN 2014J was quickly identified as a Type 1a supernova. This particular type of supernova is critical to astronomers as they generate a specific amount of energy. They are used as “standard candles” as a means to measure the size of the Universe and the accelerated rate that the Cosmos is expanding. Observations of Type 1a supernovae led to the paradigm-shifting discovery of a mysterious force, known as dark energy, that is driving this expansion.

Type 1a supernovae aren’t triggered by the core collapse of a massive star, however; they are spawned by white dwarfs — the small, compact stellar husks of dead stars that were approximately a similar mass to our sun — stripping gas from a binary partner. Once the amount of gas reaches a certain threshold, the white dwarf (plus gas) explodes as a supernova.

Although the supernova was spotted on Jan. 21, that wasn’t the time the supernova was triggered. Using observational data from the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) at Lick Observatory near San Jose, Calif., astronomer Alex Filippenko (of the University of California, Berkeley) and his team searched earlier images of M82. Luckily, they found an observation that was taken on Jan. 14, only 36 hours after the supernova was initiated. Also, an amateur astronomer in Japan had a chance observation of M82 before it was officially recognized.

Finding these ‘pre-discovery’ observations are an obvious boon to our understanding of the mechanisms at play in a Type 1a supernova in its early stages, but they have also highlighted a puzzle.

Weird is the New Normal?

It turns out that SN 2014J had some unusual characteristics. It brightened faster than theoretical models predicted and, according to a Berkeley press release, exhibited the same rapid brightening as another supernova KAIT discovered in 2013. Another recently-observed Type 1a supernova, called SN 2011FE, did not exhibit this rapid brightening, however, but is considered to be a “normal” Type 1a supernova.

“Now, two of the three most recent and best-observed Type Ia supernovae are weird, giving us new clues to how stars explode,” said Filippenko. “This may be teaching us something general about Type Ia supernovae that theorists need to understand. Maybe what we think of as ‘normal’ behavior for these supernovae is actually unusual, and this weird behavior is the new normal.”

In an effort to better grasp what is going on in the early stages of Type 1a supernovae, effort is being spent on surveying the skies more often so the early signals of these stellar explosions can be detected. New survey telescopes, such as the Palomar Transient Factor in San Diego County and the Pan-STARRS in Hawaii, are continually scanning the skies to detect more of them.

“Very, very early observations give us the most stringent constraints on what the star’s behavior really is in the first stages of the explosion, rather than just relying on theoretical speculation or extrapolating back from observations at later times, which is like observing adolescents to understand early childhood,” said Filippenko.

Refining our understanding on how these “weird” Type 1a supernovae work do not contradict the groundbreaking discoveries on the scale of the universe, it’s expansion or the discovery of dark energy, but it may help to refine our knowledge of these discoveries, providing a more precise understanding of the “standard candles” that occasionally brighten galaxies.

This research will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on March 1.

Source of Article: Space.com

By Ian O'Neill, Discovery News

Mars Meteorite with Odd 'Tunnels' & 'Spheres' Revives Debate Over Ancient Martian Life

The discovery of tiny carbon-rich balls and tunnels inside a Martian meteorite has once again raised the possibility that the Red Planet was teeming with primitive life millions of years ago.

The meteorite, which fell to Earth during the Stone Age, contains microscopic burrows and spheres that resemble the marks microorganisms leave when they eat through rocks on Earth, scientists report in the journal Astrobiology this month. What's more, these features seem to have been pressed into the Mars rock before it was hurled off the Red Planet by an impact event, the researchers add. 

The authors of the new research are not claiming they've found evidence of ancient life on Mars. In fact, nowhere in their paper do they use the word "life." (Their preferred term is "biotic activity.") But their findings revive the debate about the possibility of microbes in Mars' past and highlight how much information scientists can actually glean from Martian meteorites that end up on Earth.

"It further strengthens the case for past life on Mars, but, of course, it is by no means proof," said astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who was not involved in the study.

Scientists haven't yet found any solid proof that life actually existed on ancient Mars — but they have found evidence that the planet could have been habitable. Though Mars is barren today, scientists think water — a key ingredient for life — would have covered its surface in the form of oceans, rivers and streams. And last year, NASA's newest Mars rover, Curiosity, discovered the first evidence that the Red Planet could have supported living microbes billions of years ago.

While Mars rovers, landers and satellites are hunting for life-friendly conditions on the Red Planet, scientists also can look for evidence of ancient life in Martian meteorites that have landed on Earth.

Mars meteorite mystery

The meteorite at the center of the new study is known as Yamato 000593. The 30-lb. (14 kilograms) rock was found by scientists with the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition in 2000 at the Yamato Glacier in Antarctica. Researchers believe it formed on Mars 1.3 billion years ago and was altered by water during the Red Planet's wet past before being blasted to Earth during the last 10,000 years.

The study's principal investigator, Lauren White, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said the main goal of the research was to find out whether the tunnels and carbon-rich spherules inside the meteorite were indigenous or the result of contamination on Earth.

"The paper isn't really meant to identify if these features were formed from biotic or abiotic means, but rather to discover if these features are actually Martian in origin," White told Space.com in an email. "We compare this meteorite, Yamato — which was discovered in Antarctica — to another Martian meteorite, Nakhla, which fell in Egypt."

The Nakhla meteorite dropped from the sky in 1911 in Egypt. In 2006, scientists reported that this 1.3-billion-year-old Mars rock also had a series of microscopic tunnels that resembled the trails of bacteria on Earth.

White said similarities between Yamato and Nakhla strengthen the case for a Martian origin. The team also looked at another meteorite, dubbed LEW87051, found in 1987 in Antarctica, as a control. It's unknown where this space rock came from, but a Mars origin had been ruled out because of the rock's concentration of oxygen isotopes.

This non-Martian meteorite, which was exposed to the same Antarctic environment as Yamato, did not contain any of the microscopic tunnels that were observed in both Martian meteorites. White said this bolsters the argument that the features are Martian, and not created by contamination, though she noted it would be difficult to prove that any meteorite on Earth contains traces of alien life.

"To really determine [ancient life on Mars] in a 'smoking gun' fashion we would need a sample return mission from Mars — samples free of any contamination," White said. 

The study authors also wrote that they couldn't rule out the possibility that these tiny fossils are the result of abiotic (or nonliving) processes.

"However, textural and compositional similarities to features in terrestrial samples, which have been interpreted as biogenic, imply the intriguing possibility that the Martian features were formed by biotic activity," the authors wrote in their paper.

Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who was not involved in the study, said he was doubtful that the scientific community would be swayed by "textural and compositional similarities" as proof of a biological origin.

"At the small scales involved, shapes and compositions are not compelling indications of function," McKay said in an email. He and other researchers who were not involved in the study said they would need stronger evidence before the science community could declare Martian life found.

"It would be hard to find compelling proof of extraterrestrial life in a meteorite short of isolating an organism that grows in the lab but does not have Earth DNA," McKay said.

More intriguing evidence, McKay added, would be a set of complex biomolecules like proteins and DNA that don't resemble anything on Earth life but are too complex to have arisen abiotically. Schulze-Makuch also noted that a better indicator of life on Mars would be "the presence of DNA, some other nucleic acid or organic macromolecules that could be a breakdown product of a nucleic acid associated with these microfeatures."

Astrobiologist Louisa Preston of the U.K.'s Open University said the authors of the study "have done well not to cry wolf and to scientifically speculate on the tubules' origins, accepting that, as of yet, they do not know whether they are of biological origin or not."

Martian meteorite clues of the past

The new study is years in the making and it comes 18 years after the controversy surrounding the oldest meteorite from the Red Planet, known as Allan Hills 84001 (ALH 84001). The Mars rock made headlines in 1996 when researchers, led by David McKay, from NASA's Johnson Space Center, claimed in the journal Science that the meteorite contained evidence of possible Red Planet life forms.

McKay (who is unrelated to Chris McKay) died last year. He is listed as a co-author on the new Astrobiology paper, which was actually first submitted nearly four years ago, White said, but McKay's illness and death stalled publication.

"His loss was very difficult for all of us, but Dr. McKay was an inspiration to me," White said in an email. "This work was his life and legacy, and when I spoke at his funeral, I talked about the fact that I want to continue his legacy by continuing research in the field of astrobiology."

Source of Article: Space.com

By Megan Gannon, News Editor

Can Quiet, Efficient 'Space Elevators' Really Work?

Is it time to push the "up" button on the space elevator?

A space elevator consisting of an Earth-anchored tether that extends 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) into space could eventually provide routine, safe, inexpensive and quiet access to orbit, some researchers say.

A new assessment of the concept has been pulled together titled "Space Elevators: An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward." The study was conducted by a diverse collection of experts from around the world under the auspices of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

The study's final judgment is twofold: A space elevator appears possible, with the understanding that risks must be mitigated through technological progress…and a space elevator infrastructure could indeed be built via a major international effort.

The tether serving as a space elevator would be used to economically place payloads and eventually people into space using electric vehicles called climbers that drive up and down the tether at train-like speeds. The rotation of the Earth would keep the tether taut and capable of supporting the climbers.

Rooted in history

The notion of a beanstalk-like space elevator is rooted in history. 

Many point to the ahead-of-its-time "thought experiment" published in 1895 by Russian space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. He suggested creation of a free-standing tower reaching from the surface of Earth to the height of geostationary orbit (GEO; 22,236 miles, or 35,786 km).

Over the last century or so, writers, scientists, engineers and others have helped finesse the practicality of the space elevator. And the new study marks a major development in the evolution of the idea, says  IAA president Gopalan Madhavan Nair.

"No doubt all the space agencies of the world will welcome such a definitive study that investigates new ways of transportation with major changes associated with inexpensive routine access to GEO and beyond," Nair writes in the new study's preface.

"There is no doubt that the Academy, due to this study, will contribute to advancing international consensus and awareness on the need to search and develop new ways of transportation in conducting space exploration while preserving our universe in the same way we are now trying to preserve our planet Earth," Nair adds.

Elevator operator

While it's always tricky to predict the future study lead editor Peter Swan told Space.com that space elevators are more than just a science-fiction fantasy. "The results of our study are encouraging," he said.

Swan's view is fortified by the late science fact/fiction soothsayer, Arthur C. Clarke, who stated in 2003: "The space elevator will be built ten years after they stop laughing…and they have stopped laughing!"

Swan is chief engineer at SouthWest Analytic Network, Inc. in Paradise Valley, Ariz., and is focused on developing and teaching innovative approaches to "new space" development. He's also head elevator operator of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), which has organizational members in the United States, Europe and Japan and individual members from around the world.

ISEC's goal is nothing short of getting a lengthy space elevator built.

"The question is when, of course," Swan said. "But the point is that the technologies are progressing in a positive manner, such that we who work in it believe that there will be space elevators."

Pacing technologies

Swan said the giggle factor regarding space elevators is "down significantly" given work carried out over the last decade by a global network of individuals and groups. "Still, there are many, many issues and I certainly would not want to say that it's not a challenging project."

The IAA appraisal delves into a number of issues, such as: Why build a space elevator? Can it be done? How would all the elements fit together to create a system of systems? And what are the technical feasibilities of each major space elevator element?

Two technologies are pacing the development of the space elevator, Swan said.

Producing an ultra-strong space tether and other space elevator components, Swan said, has been advanced by the invention of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that are 1,000 times better in strength-to-weight ratio than steel. The good news, he said, is that CNTs are being developed with billions of dollars by nanotechnology, electronics, optics, and materials specialists.

Similarly, lightweight solar cells "are coming along nicely," Swan said. "That's an industry that the space elevator people are watching, too. We're not going to drive it, but we can certainly watch it and appreciate the advances."

Money, motivation and desire

Regarding who would erect a space elevator, Swan said the study dives into details. A primarily commercial effort with some government support is possible, as is a public-private enterprise, or an entirely governmental project.

"All three are viable. Any one of them could work. It's a matter of money, motivation and the desire to do it," Swan said, though the study centers on commercial development of the space elevator. "It's conceivable all three could be going on at the same time."

The study team was encouraged by the future, though Swan and others acknowledge there are many questions left to be studied. Indeed, another evaluation of the space elevator idea 10 years hence would be worthwhile, Swan said.

Erasing the rocket equation

Are there any technical, political or policy "showstoppers" that could prevent the space elevator from becoming a reality?

"You're asking the wrong guy," Swan responded. "I am an optimist. I have always had the attitude that good people, motivated by good rationale working hard will make it work. My guess is that space elevators are going to work, whether it's by 2035, 2060 or even 2100."

Swan said the rationale is moving beyond the "rocket equation," which involves tossing away 94 percent of a rocket's mass sitting on the launch pad.

"And it still costs a lot of stinking money to get up there," he said.

The space elevator opens everything up, Swan said. It's a soft ride, a week to GEO. There are no restrictions on the size or shape of payloads.

"People will laugh and ask why did we ever do space rockets…it's a dumb idea," Swan said. "Space elevators are the answer if we can make them work. Why would you do anything else?"

Source: Space.com

By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist