Frida Space

The first burn under performed, whilst the second burn (programmed to compensate the under performance of the first burn) over performed, so a third burn will be required. Sorry for the confusion, hope it's clearer now.

LISA Pathfinder has left the Earth and is now cruising towards L1. The sixth and last apogee-rasing manoeuvre (ARM6) took place as planned on Saturday, 12 December, at 06:18 CET | 05:18 UTC. The burn showed an under performance of the planned change in speed by less than 1%, well within expectations. Still, a follow-on burn slot had to be planned for the following day (Sunday) to give an additional push of 7 m/second. This burn, too, was analysed and was found to have delivered a slight over performance of about 1-2% – and so there will be a further small transfer correction manoeuvre in approximately one week. The cruise towards L1 will last approximately six weeks.

Five apogee raising manoeuvres (ARMs) performed, one to go. This weekend, LISA Pathfinder will leave the Earth, heading for L1. blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2015/12/11/five-down-one-to-go/

Thanks, I had put LISA Pathfinder, but all the others I had forgotten about (shame on my for forgetting about MESSENGER!).

Like last year, I wanted to create a list of the most important events in space that happened this year, 2015. There are two main categories: spaceflight and astronomy. The first one relates to the operational side of space missions, whilst the second relates to scientific discoveries. There are some events which fall in between (for example, the Pluto flyby was both an operational and a scientific success), so I think it's better not to create two separate lists. This is what comes to my mind, but obviously I'm forgetting a lot, so you're welcomed to suggest events and discoveries that you think should be added. Also, there is no specific order. New Horizons flies by the Pluto system Dawn begins exploring Ceres Philae wakes up; Rosetta follows its comet through perihelion Akatsuki settles into orbit around Venus SpaceX's Falcon 9 fails during a Dragon launch to the ISS Orbital ATK's Cygnus performs return to flight mission Venus Express burns in Venus' atmosphere Cassini discovers Enceladus' subsurface ocean is global LISA Pathfinder is launched to test gravitational wave detection MAVEN observes solar wind stripping Mars' atmosphere MRO finds evidence of current liquid water flows on Mars (RSL) Russia loses a Progress capsule Kepler finds Earth's older cousin (Kepler-452b) Rings 200 times bigger than Saturn's are found around exoplanet (J1407b) KIC 8462852's mysterious light curve, maybe a family of comets?

JAXA confirmed Akatsuki achieved target orbit. This image was taken shortly after insertion burn:

We've been following the orbital insertion as it took place on another topic, forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/126766-akatsuki-venus-orbital-insertion

Dawn should have stopped thrusting yesterday. Tomorrow engineers will decide whether the descent is fine or a correction manoeuvre is needed.

NASA Releases New Visualization of Space Environment at Pluto www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-releases-new-visualization-of-space-environment-at-pluto

Check the three posts before yours.

The insertion manoeuvre was less than 1 km/s of DeltaV. However yes, with all the propellant they've dumped (65 kg) it probably has. JAXA says it will last for at least another two Earth years, so that's pretty good! Akatsuki was designed to enter a much lower elliptical orbit, one with a period of 30 hours. Its new orbit (which it hopefully reached yesterday) has a period of 15 days. But in March-April it will be lowered to 9 days.

Manouvre started at 23:51:29 UT, ended at 0:11:57. 1228 seconds total. 1233 planned, seems within reasonable error. Also, this image of Venus taken by Akatsuki on December 1st:

From SF101: The instrument suite is comprised of two 12 x 12° infrared imaging instruments, the first covering the 0.90, 0.97 and 1.01-micrometer wavelengths while the second is sensitive at 1.73, 2.26 and 2.32 microns. These cameras will be able to complete imaging of the deepest levels of the dense Venusian atmosphere up to the middle and lower atmosphere at the longer wavelengths. For cloud top mapping, a 12.4 x 16.4° Longwave Infrared Camera at 10 microns will be employed while the Ultraviolet Imager will also look at the cloud tops and associated motion at wavelengths of 263 and 365 nanometers. A Lightning and Airglow Camera with a 16 by 16 ° field of view will be used to capture airglows and lightning on the night side of the planet at wavelengths of 551, 553, 558, 630, and 777 nanometers. The spacecraft’s instruments will be employed to map the high and low-altitude cloud patterns, measure the distribution of water vapor and carbon monoxide, and image the surface of the planet in the search of active volcanoes using the infrared imagers of Akatsuki that can peer through the thick clouds of the planet to detect the surface. Sulfur dioxide, a precursor to cloud formation, will be mapped with the ultraviolet imaging system and radio waves sent from Earth will be directed through the atmosphere to study its structure by looking at changes introduced into the signals.

FYI (I just found out too), yatta = "I did it!" so definitely a positive thing to hear being shouted multiple times in the livestream. I guess next step is press briefing at 3 UT.

SHAKING HANDS!! "YATTA!" We have Range and Doppler confirmation!

No confirmation yet, but reports of engineers applauding from Japanese press

They're applauding!!

Just to clarify, that's a simulation. If things haven't gone as planned, the velocity should be higher. But let's hope everything went well! We need a Venus orbiter so bad... VOI C3 window closes in 540 seconds. 3 min to know the result of burn!!

Now attitude change for potential second try (if needed; evaluation of data should now be underway to determine just that)

CUTOFF!

No confirmation yet of burn start signal. Not even from the Japanese press on site at the mission control center. But the engineers looked relaxed.

Yea, it's a really beautiful animation!

Akatsuki passed 541 km above Venus' surface a couple of minutes ago and now is gaining altitude. In the meanwhile, the manoeuvre continues, with 450 seconds left. T-400 in this moment.

T-1000 seconds to burn end.

And ignition!