Frida Space

Yea, at least one of the >10 fragments is definitely a solar panel, I believe.

When the attitude control anomaly occured, ASTRO-H had just completed an attitude manoeuvre and had begun observing Markarian 205. The attitude control anomaly was visible as a lack of solar illumination on the panels, as low power in the systems and as a variation in the temperature distribution. 6.5 hours later, the breakup.

Yea, I'm guessing it's a mix of the two. If you have a very dense atmosphere that is contracting and expanding unpredictably, you don't want to fly too close to the planet, I'm assuming.

It was considered as an alternative to the KSP-esque insertion orbit. However, as project manager Nakamura puts it, "aerobraking would be difficult because the atmosphere of Venus is always expanding and contracting; it's hard to forecast"

It makes it that much more special for us plus, the latest reports say the current manouvering capability will allow it to reach 90% of its original science goals... Kerbal is the way to go!

Great news: first science from Akatsuki! The probe is currently busy lowering its apoapsis to 310,000 km and is scheduled to begin regular observations in mid-April, but some science has already arrived back to Earth and it is definitely tantalizing. On Dec. 7th, the LIR camera (mid-infrared, 10 micrometres) observed a mysterious bow-shaped structure in the high altitude clouds, spanning both hemispheres. The structure was still visible in images taken 4 days laters. "No similar structure has ever been observed," said Japanese scientists. On March 4th (and then again on March 25th), the USO experiment observed a radio occultation, meaning Akatsuki passed behind Venus' disk as seen from Earth. Just before disappearing and immediately after reappearing on the other side of the planet, the instrument sent radio waves back to Earth. The waves were filtered through the planet's atmosphere, enabling scientists to reconstruct the temperature profile. The graph is on the right side of the image above, with altitude in km on the y-axis and temperature in K on the x-axis. The blue line represents the data collected at entry, while the red line represents the data collected at egress. The graph on the left is a frequency change graph. The IR1 camera (1 micrometer) observed the highlands of Aphrodite Terra (the darker regions in the image above) during nighttime. The image was obtained on January 21st from 44,000 km away. On December 9th, the UVI camera (293-365 nanometers) observed Venus three times, with two hours between each image (14:10 - 16:10 - 18:10 UTC). The image allows scientists to measure the winds speed. The spatial resolution is 70 km per pixel. Seeing these images, I'm so glad Akatsuki managed to reach Venus (and stay, this time). Lacking a Venus orbiter for so long would have been terrible for science!

Yes, JSpOC ruled out the possibility of a collision (of course, there could have been some undetected debris, but it's extremely unlikely). The main other possibility is an event of explosive or propulsive nature. The following is a timeline updated this morning with the latest info: (all the times are in UT, however because of summer time change, UT = British time only for March 25th-26th. Starting from March 27th, the UK is one hour ahead of UT, so if you're in the UK you should add an hour to the times from March 27th onwards on this infographic)

I think (might be totally wrong) even black and white is a filter. I have some experience using telescopes and black and white is considered a filter by itself ("Luminance" filter). Not sure if the same applies to cameras though.

Apparently the launch was far from flawless, had Cygnus been slightly heavier, it would have probably failed to achieve orbit. The great folks over at SpaceFlight101 noticed the Booster Engine Cut-Off occured 5.4 seconds earlier than planned, forcing the Centaur upper stage to burn for 61 seconds longer than expected. 30 seconds after the NASA commentator announced "30 seconds to Centaur cutoff", in fact, the Cygnus hadn't yet achieved orbit. Luckily, there was spare fuel on board. I guess it's a bad news but also a good one, as it shows the Atlas is capable of recovering from a performance hit. http://spaceflight101.com/potential-performance-hit-suffered-by-atlas-v-a-closer-look-at-the-data/

Briz-M upper stage delivered the probes on the desidered trajectory with a velocity error of just 1.5 m/s! Also, a few hours after AOS, TGO's main engine started overheating. This was fixed by adjusting the probe's orientation so that the engine nozzle wasn't in sunlight. Aside from that, a pretty calm beginning of cruise, let's hope it stays that way! www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/ExoMars_performing_flawlessly

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/bright-spots-and-color-differences-revealed-on-ceres

Had a quick read through the five papers. These are my personal highlights, not by any means complete. I still suggest to anyone who's really interested to read the actual papers, they're quite fascinating! Atmosphere Near-symmetry between ingress and egress structure Pressure profile consistent with Earth-based observations Strong temperature inversion within the first 20 km from the ground with horizontal variations (stronger at ingress, where it goes all the way down to the surface, than egress) Surface pressure of 9-12 microbar: no big atmospheric mass change in recent years Air temperature adjacent to surface is 42-48 K, close to saturation temperature of N2 First 1800 km of height are dominated by N2, with abundant minor species (methane, acetylene, ethylene, ethane) Over 20 haze layers, the most visible of which are at 10, 30, 90 and 190 km from the ground. Haze density near surface is 0.8 particles per centimetre cube 10^23 and 5 x 10^25 molecules of nitrogen and methane are lost due to Jeans escape every second, respectively (146 and 42000 tons a year, if my calculations are correct). If these rates have been constant throughout Pluto's history (which doesn't seem to be the case), Pluto has lost 6 cm of nitrogen and 28 m of methane Hazes could be due to gravity waves produced via orographic forcing (winds at speeds of <10 m/s blowing across the mountains and being lifted up in the atmosphere) Interaction with solar wind Solar wind speed is 403 km/s. Very high density and pressures are likely due to a strong interplanetary shock that was felt by New Horizons 5 days prior to flyby Measurements at 20 RP (Plutonian radii) inbound show the solar wind is not slowing down (<1%), suggesting no pickup of heavy ions and therefore that few atmospheric molecules are escaping upstream and becoming ionized At 9.6 RP behind Pluto (tailward), solar wind is slowed by 20% according to SWAP, and PEPSSI detects an enhancement of keV ions This suggests the region of Pluto-Sun interaction extends >400 RP tailward but only 6 RP upstream. However, considering probable compressed state of this region at the moment of flyby, it is likely that it usually extends up to 25 RP upstream Dust counter (SDC) detected 102 events between 5 days prior to flyby and 5 days after flyby, however only one is very likely (95%) to be a dust impact Considering SDC carved 0.83 km^3 during this period, the resulting density of dust is one particle every 1.2 km^3, slightly more than what was observed in the previous months leading to flyby SDC detects grains bigger than 1.4 micrometers Geology Sputnik Planum covers 870,000 km^2 and is 3-4 km below surrounding uplands. It is fragmented in a cellular pattern in its central and northern parts, with each cell separated by 100 m-deep troughs and with the centres of the cells being on average 50 m above the edges The other half of Tombaugh Regio (i.e. the eastern part) is 2-4 km above Sputnik Planum and is populated by many pits (sublimation?), with depths of 1 km and diameters of up to 25 km. 1.5-6 km wide troughs contain glacial flows towards Sputnik Planum Crater sizes range from 0.5 to 250 km Globally, the surface dates back to epoch of gas giant migration (4 bln years ago), except for Tartarus Dorsa, mountain ranges and Sputnik Planum Sputnik Planum has no crater > 2 km, suggesting it's <10 million years old. However, its basin (perhaps an impact crater) is likely very ancient and modified Two quasi-circular mounds (Wright and Piccard Monts) to the south of Sputnik Planum are likely cryovolcanoes. They are 4-6 km high and 150-225 km wide Charon's northern terrains are networks of polygonal troughs 3-6 km deep; the southern terrains are smoother plains, possibly hinting to tectonic resurfacing, with fields of small hills and less crater which hint at cryovolcanic resurfacing Overall, Charon is very different from Pluto, not showing signs of volatile transport (except possibly for Mordor Macula). Maybe the volatiles were lost to space due to the lower gravity? Pluto's activity can be explained by atmosphere-surface interaction, volatile mobility, radiogenic heat. However, youngness of mountain chains and possible cryovolcanoes is mysterious Composition Main ices are: N2, CO (very volatile) and CH4 (less volatile), which act like Earth snow even at Pluto's frigid 35-50 K. Other ices include water (which, being very rigid at such low temperatures, is the bedrock on which the other ices flow, sublimate and condense, and also makes up most of the mountains), C2H6 and NH3, plus obviously non-volatile tholins. Sputnik Planum features all three of the main ices, but no water ice. The three ices are all soluble in each other to an extent, so they are likely mixed at a molecular level CH4 is found in Sputnik Planum, crater rims and pathces in northern mid-latitudes N2 is found in Sputnik Planum, crater floors and none in the high northern latitudes (which have been in constant sunlight since the '80s, so any N2 there is likely to have sublimated long ago Sputnik Planum is continuously refreshed by glacial flows, possibly powered by convective overturning Four major global albedo units are evident: low equatorial regions (Cthulhu Regio, Krun Macula), northern summer polar region (Lowell Regio), sliver of southern winter hemisphere, and high-albedo Tombaugh Regio. Darkest equatorial regions have albedos similar to some outer solar system moons rich in carbonaceous or organic materials (Hyperion, Phoebe, Umbriel) Albedo interacts with composition: high-albedo regions absorb more sunlight, driving sublimation Charon is made predominantly of water ice, partially in crystalline phase Minor Moons All four are highly elongated objects Their very high albedos (56-83%, approx. 6-8x brighter than a typical KBO) mean they are unlikely to be captured KBO objects. Also, their albedos suggest they are rich in water ice Their highly asymmetrical shapes (see double-lobed Kerberos) suggest a growth process by agglomeration of small objects into single, loosely bound, macroporous bodies, which in turn is consistent with formation within the remnant disk of the Pluto-Charon-forming collision The abundance of water ice suggests the two parents of Pluto and Charon were at least partially differentiated on the inside, with icy surfaces Crater counts (11 on Nix, 3 on Hydra) lead to densities equal or great than the ones of Pluto's oldest surfaces (i.e. they are >4 bln years old) Regolith sharing between moons is less extensive than thought Surfaces are mostly greish (neutral in color), except for a reddish crater on Nix, implying different composition either in the impacting body or in the moon's subsurface layers, excavated by the impact Sorry for the long post -- hope it helps!

Unfortunately the cloud cover made the rocket disappear after a few seconds. And the Briz-M burns occured so far away from Earth that nothing more than computer animations and renderings are available. I'm not sure whether there are highlights from mission control either (so far, the best I've seen on Russian launches is a camera pointing towards the big screen in front of the engineers and flight controllers). The only highlight from mission control I'm aware of is from ESOC and is the TGO AOS.

Now the s/c will be decommissioned, which will take up to the 24th of April.

Didn't even know! Ahaha thank you! And even better news: solar deploys are arrayed! Well, I should maybe type slower next time. ^Solar arrays are deployed!

YES!! Acquisition of signal!!

Flight dynamics and Briz navigation system say s/c are on right course to Mars. Less than ten minutes to expected AOS from Malindi!

And, I guess, first Briz to reach Mars! Although shortly after s/c separation, it will complete two manoeuvres to avoid collisions with the probes and Mars Update: AND WE HAVE SPACECRAFT SEPARATION!! Now 76 minutes of silence!

And fourth and final burn is a success!!! Spacecraft separation should be occuring in a few seconds. Then 76 minutes of silence, waiting for TGO to phone home

ESA has stations in Africa, Spain, Argentina, Australia... so it can get 24 hour coverage. I don't think Roscosmos has such global coverage

Fourth and final burn should be finishing now, 12 minutes 29 seconds after it began. However, due to the stage currently being over the Great Lakes and therefore over the horizon for Roscosmos' antennas, it will take a while to confirm the burn.

ESA has just sent us a few more predicted coordinates, so far we got something like 120 images... I'm hoping that in at least one of them there's ExoMars!

Yes, I was watching Roscosmos' stream - much better quality than ESA. And surely ESA could have put a better camera. On a personal note: I have just received from ESA the latest batch with the expected celestial coordinates of the ExoMars probes - will try photographing them later today! Our main window is in Australia, but, as the weather there seems proibitive, we'll probably go with Spain. If we manage to catch it I'll post our results here (once ESA approves, because I have to send it to them first).

Now six hours of *hopefully* boring coast phase until final manoeuvre.