Analyzing NASA Spaceflight Microgravity Effects on Mouse Antibody Repertoire

[Special thanks to Jacci Cenci, Senior Solutions Architect at NVIDIA, Dr. Trisha Rettig and Bailey Bye from Kansas State University for the edits on this blog post.]

Over the last 40 years, NASA has completed over 135 spaceflights. That’s more than 198,700 person-hours, which roughly translates to more than 8,280 days of space travel. More than 830 crew members have taken the ride; some have done so multiple times. During their travels, crew members are exposed to 10 times more radiation than on Earth, as well as microbial pathogens such as Salmonella typhimurium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans. In the absence of gravity, improper tailward fluid shifts are also observed in crew members, which can cause swollen heads and ineffective healing, especially in the lower body. Scientists at NASA have been working hard to analyze the causes in order to minimize the negative health impact of deep space missions on astronauts’ health.

Research conducted on the immune responses of mice shows that microgravity causes detrimental effects to the immune system, along with behavioral changes and altered immunized responses. In addition to fluid shift, some possibilities for this change include stress, radiation, and changes in nutritional intake. One important part of the adaptive immune system impacted is B lymphocytes or “B cells”. B cells produce antibodies, which bind to foreign substances in the body. One particularly important region of the antibody is Complementarity-Determining Region 3 (CDR3), which is important for foreign substance binding and is used to measure antibody repertoire diversity. One question scientists are investigating is whether exposure to microgravity alters CDR3 subpopulations. Right now scientists are facing an uphill battle in tracking the CDR3 changes from the origins because they are manually assessing observation from spreadsheets and other data sources.

I partnered with Jacci Cenci, Sr. Solutions Architect, NVIDIA, to introduce scientists at NASA and Kansas State University (KSU) to GOAi (the GPU Open Analytics Initiative) which enables end-to-end analytics, including exploration, extraction, preprocessing, model training, and prediction, by keeping the data in a GPU buffer for maximum efficiency. Our hope was that this framework could help В Dr. Stephen Chapes, Dr. Trisha Rettig, Bailey Bye, Claire Ward, and Savannah Hlavacek characterize mice repertoire from space flights in a fast and repeatable workflow. In the end, scientists were amazed and delighted to see the fast response times. MapD is a founding and active member of GOAi along with Anaconda, Apache Arrow, H2O.ai, and Graphistry, and we are proud we could help the scientific community.

Science takes time, and data has to be carefully analyzed to see variety and variability of results over time. Even simple characterizations, such as identifying important C-xx-W motifs, В take at least a couple of hours, not only because of the vast amount of data but also because it takes time to utilize multiple tools within the currently established workflow. With the help of MapD, which uses the unique parallel processing power of GPUs, we can see the same insights within a framexwork that returns results in a matter of seconds.

Dataset Description and Objectives

The dataset used in the project was obtained from current research on mice subjected to a physiological model of spaceflight, which is unpublished but will eventually be available at NASA Genelab Data Repository. This dataset consists of 8 treatment groups with 4 mice in each group. For each mouse, the frequency of CDR3 amino acid junctions is captured along with treatment group labels. Each symbol of the treatment group labels denotes the presence or absence of suspension, vaccination with Tetanus toxoid, and the use of the adjuvant (immune stimulator) CPG. For example, mice in treatment group “+-+” were suspended via their tails, not immunized with Tetanus Toxoid, and were injected with CPG.

Each B cell’s unique antibody is generated through a process called V(D)J Recombination in which Variable (V), Diversity (D), and Joining (J) gene segments are cut and spliced together to form the antibody structure. The CDR3 amino acid sequence, which consists of part of the V-, the entirety of the D-, and part of the J-gene segments, provides much of the antibody binding specificity.

The top two experimental goals for this dataset were:

• To distinguish the untreated mice from the ones who are treated, within those 8 treatment groups
• Using machine learning, find the clusters that have been treated the same way within the clustered nodes (treatment groups)

We utilized the GOAi platform to perform analysis and data extraction from MapD, preprocess it in Pygdf/Pandas, analyze nodes in Graphistry, train the model to make clusters with H2O’s KMeans, and store the results back in MapD Core. This notebook illustrates the code along with the steps mentioned for the dataset in this post, driven by Docker so that you don’t have to install everything from scratch.

Getting Started

Setup MapD Community Edition (which includes both the MapD Core SQL engine and the Immerse front-end visualization system) and then install pygdf, pymapd, pygraphistry, and h204gpu. MapD GPU accelerated container can also be downloaded from NVIDIA GPU Cloud.

conda install -c conda-forge pymapd
conda install -c gpuopenanalytics/label/dev pygdf
pip install graphistry
pip install h2o4gpu-0.2.0-cp36-cp36m-linux_x86_64.whl

Loading Data

The first step is to import the libraries and load data into MapD using the pymapd pandas dataframe as an input variable. Pymapd’s load_table automatically chooses pyarrow or binary columnar format to insert values into the table.

Initial Analysis

After loading the data in MapD, we use MapD Immerse, which by default starts on https://localhost:9092, to analyze the dataset. The capability to display charts from different tables in one dashboard, which I’ve shown here, is limited to MapD Immerse Enterprise edition, but you can use the Community Edition to create separate dashboards for each source.

We see 4,128,122 records with 3 feature columns (amino acid junction, frequency, and mouse ID), and a class variable sequence. The distribution of AA junction frequency across the dataset is Right-Skewed and Unimodal; the mean (0.00733) is greater than the median (0.00227) which makes the tail extend to the right with few positive outliers. Mouse AOS 70 has the highest number of CDR3s: 19644, followed by AOS 77 with 18049. And mouse AOS 3 has the least number of CDR3s: 6282. Mouse AOS 15 has the maximum frequency of junctions across the dataset, with 0.02.

Extract Data

Using pymapd, data is extracted to the pygdf dataframe using a SELECT statement. We also extracted  MapD’s native rowid which contains a virtual id for each row generated. Through rowid we will associate the predicted results with the original data, which is especially helpful when there is no unique identifier for the dataset.

Preprocess Data

The next step is to remove any duplicate instances of AA junctions. We also need to make sure there are not any null values in the dataset. Then we will capture the position of each amino acid’s position in each junction in the CDR3 region, in order to analyze the repertoire changes across treatment groups. A quick reference to single letter codes of each amino acid can be found here. The helper function below accomplishes this task, and loads data back in MapD:

With the location of each amino acid we can distinguish mice from each other. We will use MapD’s cross-filtering functionality to read the behaviors. For example, A (Alanine) has only one instance at the beginning of an AA junction in CDR3, so we can drill down to the mouse and sequence with this unique junction.

We can see that Mouse 74 exhibits a unique repertoire from the other mice (42, 34, and 18) in the treatment group labeled “—” (control group i.e., no suspension, no tetanus shots, and no CPG). We will use graphistry to further investigate the 72 nodes for this group. Just by looking at the top-level data, we can see the different junctions shared by mice. By drilling down into a treatment group or multiple treatment groups we can begin to analyze their different repertoires.

Now we will label encode categorical columns and split data into 80:20 (train|test) for predictive analysis.

Predictive Model Analysis

Our team used H2O’s KMeans to train the model on GPUs with frequency and aa_junction as features to divide observations into clusters. Finding clusters requires iterative tuning of hyperparameters in order to reach the optimal based upon each dataset. The objective was to make 8 clusters (treatment groups) from the dataset and then evaluate the efficiency of the model.

Model Metrics

Centroids of 8 clusters (treatment groups) obtained from the model can further be optimized by techniques such as Gap Statistic or Silhouette method depending on what platform you’re using, but let’s just stick to the centroids we already have.

Predictions

Assuming we determined the optimal cluster centroids, we can proceed to make clusters on the test set, and based on requirements we can store the results back in MapD.

Conclusion

We did not see any huge changes across treatment groups and the model may need to be further optimized by capturing more continuous variables. But by accelerating В machine learning and deep learning research for NASA and KSU, GOAi provides an open source alternative to reduce significant research clock time and computational cost. Utilizing a GPU accelerated pipeline, scientists can focus on reviewing more data from the research. We believe that combining different datasets together in one analytics platform shifts the focus towards further analysis and deeper insights.

Try It Out

You can download the Docker version of the Jupyter notebook demo here. Let us know what you think, on our community forums, or on GitHub. You can also download a fully featured Community Edition of MapD, which includes the open source MapD Core SQL engine, and our MapD Immerse data exploration UI.

NASA spaceflight chief: “Amazing time” for building rockets at the agency

Development of monster rocket proceeding largely on schedule—so far.

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For most of the last five years, NASA’s space launch system has been largely a PowerPoint rocket, consisting of designs on computers and disparate hardware in various stages of development across the United States. But now the massive SLS rocket is starting to come together, and senior NASA managers are optimistic about its future.

“This is an amazing period of time in US spaceflight,” Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of human spaceflight for NASA, said last week during a meeting of the agency’s advisory council. “I’m starting to see a real shift from just kind of hardware development to almost a flight cadence. The volume of work is just amazing.” He added that with “roughly” two years to go before the first launch of SLS and the Orion spacecraft, the agency is beginning to test flight hardware.

Further Reading

Barring further delays, the maiden launch of SLS will occur between September and November 2018. Until now NASA has been mostly designing and building individual components of the massive rocket, which will have an initial capability to heft 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit but may eventually grow into a 130-ton rocket. However, now the focus is turning toward testing that hardware and, later next year and in 2018, beginning to integrate it for launch.

Historically during development programs, this is where the most problems and potential delays occur, as systems may not work together exactly as intended. And the SLS rocket has a lot of different parts. For the core stage, which provides the primary thrust, there is the liquid oxygen tank, the intertank, the liquid hydrogen tank, and the engine section. The core stage also houses the vehicle’s avionics. At the side of the core stage are two solid rocket boosters, which provide initial thrust off the pad. Then, atop the core stage, is the upper stage which provides thrust later during the flight. Finally there is the payload itself, the Orion spacecraft and its service module, which are also under schedule pressure to meet the 2018 flight.

Gerstenmaier acknowledged as much during his comments last week. “We’ve got reasonable margin in our schedules,” he said. “It’s foolish to think there won’t be problems ahead of us, that’s the nature of a development program. I guarantee there will be more stuff coming. But we’re in the process of building a robust schedule that can deal with the challenges ahead of us.”

Costs

It is costing NASA a lot of money to do all of this work. The agency has committed to spending $23 billion (

£17 billion) from 2011 through 2018 to get SLS and Orion ready for a maiden flight, and that doesn’t include another $9 billion spent before 2011 during the Constellation Program, under which work began on Orion and a precursor rocket to the SLS.

NASA has not said how much it will cost to continue development of these launch systems beyond 2018, nor, critically, has it specified the amount of the ongoing, or fixed costs, once the SLS begins flying once every other year during the mid-2020s. These fixed costs for the space shuttle were about $2.5 billion annually, meaning that much was spent on expenses whether the vehicle flew or not. NASA luminaries such as Chris Kraft have warned that the SLS fixed costs will “eat NASA alive.”

Further Reading

Accordingly, one of the biggest concerns when it comes to the SLS and Orion is that the vehicles will cost so much to build and fly, precious little money will be left behind to develop hardware for meaningful missions, such as lunar orbit stations or flights beyond the Earth-Moon system. “I can understand where one would come to that conclusion,” Bill Hill, the headquarters official who oversees development of SLS and Orion for NASA, told Ars in an interview. “We are in the process of defining flight test objectives, and we believe at least for now we can do a lot of this under the current budget level. We’re trying to pace ourselves.”

“Better than I expected”

But to get to those test objectives in space, NASA must first complete them on the ground. At the Michoud Assembly Facility, Hill said, work is proceeding on “qualification” tanks for both liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. These tanks will be shipped to the Marshall Space Flight Center later this year for testing. Meanwhile work is also proceeding on the actual fuel tanks to be used for the 2018 test flight, Exploration Mission-1. Additionally, four of the 10 segments for the flight test’s solid rocket boosters have been poured, and main engine test firings continue.

Further Reading

After this testing and assembly, a big moment for the SLS program will come during the fall of 2017. At that time, NASA plans a “hot fire test” of the full core stage at Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi. During this test the core stage will be clamped down while a full thrust test of the launch system is performed. This test will go a long way toward proving that the large, 200-foot-tall core stage is ready for spaceflight.

Despite the concerns about costs and low-flight rate, Hill said NASA views the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft as “foundational” to its efforts to press ahead with deep space exploration. And all things considered, he said NASA is doing well with the budgets the president and Congress have provided. “At the funding levels we have we’re doing a lot better than I expected,” he said.

Review: NASA Spaceflight: A History of Innovation

by Jeff Foust
Monday, January 8, 2018

NASA Spaceflight: A History of Innovation
by Roger D. Launius and Hoawrd E. McCurdy (eds.)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2018
hardcover, 402 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-319-60112-0
US$109.00

It’s hard to escape the buzzword of “innovation” regarding NASA and its programs these days. The agency is being pressured to do more with the same or less funding, and take advantage of the growing capabilities of the private sector in spaceflight. That theme was present as recently as last Friday’s release of the new decadal survey for Earth science and applications from space, which made innovation, in the form of competitively-selected missions with firm cost caps and new technology development, a theme of its report.

Not all of the examples included in the book are successful cases of innovation. One essay examined the failed efforts to commercialize the Landsat program in the 1980s, which ended up driving away users.

Innovation, and partnerships with the private sector, are hardly new to NASA, though. That’s the thesis of NASA Spaceflight: A History of Innovation, a collection of essays edited by Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy on various examples—successful and not—about how NASA worked with companies and other organizations to develop new technologies and capabilities over the years. The book is an insightful, if pricey, look at a wide range of efforts.

The book includes a dozen essays contributed by historians looking at various examples of innovation over the history of the space agency. They range from early cooperation with Britain on the Ariel satellite, setting an example for international cooperation that NASA would follow for decades to come, to NASA’s role in the development of microelectronics in the 1960s, to the more recent examples of partnerships with companies to develop commercial cargo and crew transportation systems.

Not all of the examples included in the book are successful cases of innovation. One essay examined the failed efforts to commercialize the Landsat program in the 1980s, which ended up driving away users and “demonstrates how innovation and commercialization lack linearity and can be a highly political process,” author Brian Jirout argues. Another essay examines the X-33 and X-34 programs of the 1990s, which sought to demonstrate technology for reusable launch vehicles but never flew a single test flight before being cancelled.

In the book’s final chapter, Launius and McCurdy try to use the case studies from the preceding chapters to draw conclusions about innovation. “Although public agencies are not noted for their capacity to innovate,” they conclude, “they are capable of doing so, occasionally alone or more often through arrangements with other bodies.” Innovation is nonlinear and evolutionary, they argue, and difficult to maintain and institutionalize, a lesson they draw from an essay examining the Discovery program of low-cost planetary science missions, which initially adopted a high degree of risk but became more conservative over time.

Innovation is nonlinear and evolutionary, they argue, and difficult to maintain and institutionalize, a lesson they draw from an essay examining the Discovery program of low-cost planetary science missions.

The one drawback of NASA Spaceflight: A History of Innovation is its list price of more than $100 (although it is available, in both hardcover and ebook versions, at significant discounts.) That’s a shame since many of the essays are excellent, even when read outside of the context of a larger book on innovation. Paul Ceruzzi, for example, offers a detailed history of microelectronics development in the 1960s and the role NASA played as what would become known as Silicon Valley took shape during the decade. John Logsdon looks at the origins of what might be considered the first “NewSpace” company, Orbital Sciences Corporation, started by three entrepreneurs in 1982 who pooled $1,500 to create a company now on the verge of being acquired by Northrop Grumman for more than $9 billion.

Perhaps, as NASA looks to innovation to find new ways of carrying out existing and proposed missions, book publishing could use a little innovation as well.

Want to go to the moon? NASA is now taking new astronaut applications

If you’ve always wanted to fly to the International Space Station or go on to the moon, NASA’s next recruitment effort promises to bring future astronauts to both locations.

The agency began accepting applications for its next class of astronauts today (March 2), and U.S. citizens can apply here until March 31 at 11:59 p.m. EDT (0459 GMT April 1). The application process will take awhile, but NASA expects to make its final selections for astronaut candidates in mid-2021.

There’s no word yet on how many people will be chosen, but competition will be fierce; the agency only picked 12 out of 18,300 applicants during the last selection, which wrapped up in 2017. One of the finalists resigned during training, leaving 11 people who graduated and became eligible for spaceflight early this year.

The basics for qualification are rigorous, and accepted astronaut candidates usually exceed the mark. That said, NASA said applicants should hold a master’s degree (or equivalent) in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) field, which could include engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics.

Some applicants may be accepted without the master’s degree, if they hold one of these qualifications:

• Two years of work toward a STEM Ph.D. program.
• A completed doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathic medicine degree.
• Completion (or expected completion by June 2021) of a nationally or internationally recognized test pilot school program. If test pilot school is your only advanced degree, NASA requires a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field as well.

Outside of basic education, NASA demands experience — either two years of “related, progressively responsible” work in your field, or a minimum of 1,000 hours command-piloting a jet aircraft. Candidates also must pass a NASA long-duration spaceflight physical, as you may spend anywhere from six months to a year in space on the International Space Station (ISS) after being selected for a flight.

NASA often asks new recruits about their experience working in isolated or dangerous environments, since it builds up useful skills for work on the ISS. For example: Christina Koch, who recently wrapped up nearly a year in space, did research for months at a time in Antarctica during her career before NASA.

New recruits typically spend about 2.5 years in basic training before being eligible for missions, and ISS missions often require 18 months or more of crew training before liftoff. This means new recruits likely won’t fly until after 2024, when the first crewed moon landings of NASA’s Artemis program are scheduled to take place, unless the schedule changes. That said, the agency plans to build a permanent presence on the moon in future flights — and, if the funding and will persist, to go on to Mars in the mid-2030s.

“Becoming an astronaut is no easy task, because being an astronaut is no easy task,” Steve Koerner, NASA’s director of flight operations and chair of the astronaut selection board at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.

“Those who apply will likely be competing against thousands who have dreamed of, and worked toward, going to space for as long as they can remember. But somewhere among those applicants are our next astronauts, and we look forward to meeting you.”

For more information on how to apply to be a NASA astronaut, visit the agency’s application page here.

LISTEN: Captain Bill Shepherd Talks NASA, Spaceflight, & Mars

Former astronaut Bill Shepherd is a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. He also commanded the first expedition to the newly constructed International Space Station in 2000, leading a crew that included two Russians. He recently spoke at the Evening Lecture Series at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition about that expedition and the space station. He spoke to IHMC communications manager.

William Shepherd has had a diverse career as a Navy SEAL, NASA Astronaut, Program Manager, and Senior Government Official with NASA and DOD. He started his military service in 1971 as a Navy “frogman”, with assignments to the Pacific, Atlantic, and European theaters of operation. In 1984, he was selected as one of 17 candidates in NASA’s Astronaut Group 10. At NASA, “Shep” flew as a Mission Specialist on 3 Shuttle flights, carrying DOD and scientific payloads to space, including the deployment of the probe “Ulysses” into polar orbit of the Sun. He served as the first International Space Station (ISS) Program Manager, and helped to organize the 16 nation partnership to build a large orbital “gateway” to space. Capt. Shepherd was selected in 1996 to command the “First Expedition” to the new station. In 2000, Capt. Shepherd, with Russian Cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, launched from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket, flew into Earth orbit, and docked with the ISS. Capt Shepherd’s crew brought the station to “life” on their 141 day mission, starting many of the technical and operational capabilities of the new outpost. Now in its 14th year of continuous human operations, ISS is a robust 500 ton space complex, which has been home to 38 expeditions, hundreds of space explorers, and has provided thousands of hoursofuniqueresearchopportunity. The ISS partnership, formed 20 years ago, remains a singular example of international cooperation.

Capt. Shepherd left NASA in 2001 to serve as a special advisor to the Navy’s SEAL headquarters, and later as the Command Science Advisor at US Special Operations Command. Capt Shepherd is now in private industry, working on research and development projects in the aerospace and defense sectors.

Capt. Shepherd has a bachelors’ degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Naval Academy, and graduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Ocean Engineering from MIT. He has received military and civilian awards including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the National Intelligence Medal of Merit, ASME’s Spirit of St. Louis Medal, the Gagarin Gold Medal, the Robert H. Goddard Trophy, and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. He is an “Honorary Naval Aviator”, one of 30 individuals so designated in the 103 year history of Naval Aviation.

In 2009, NASA’s International Space Station Team, which Capt. Shepherd led on the ground and in space, was awarded the Collier Trophy, which recognizes the Nation’s greatest achievements in aviation and astronautics.

Nasa spaceflight now

ASTRONAUTS CAPTURE SPACEX CARGO CAPSULE WITH ROBOT ARM FOR FINAL TIME – For the final time, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule approached the International Space Station Monday for capture with the research lab’s robotic arm, delivering more than 4,300 pounds of food, experiments and spare parts. Future Dragon resupply missions will use a new spaceship design to automatically dock with the space station. The unpiloted cargo freighter completed a two-day pursuit of the space station Monday with an automated approach to the orbiting research outpost. More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now – Mar 10)

OLYMPIC ORBITER: ‘GUNDAM SATELLITE’ HITCHES RIDE TO ISS TO PROMOTE 2020 GAMES – A microsatellite carrying model robots from the popular science fiction anime “Mobile Suit Gundam” was successfully launched to promote the Olympics, organizers said Saturday. The so-called G-Satellite, which contains two figurines from the animated series, hitched a ride to the International Space Station on Friday aboard a SpaceX/Dragon cargo flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It will reach the ISS on Monday at 8 p.m. Japan time. More
(Source: The Japan Times – Mar 8)

THE DSCOVR EARTH AND SPACE WEATHER SATELLITE IS BACK ONLINE AFTER A MONTHS-LONG GLITCH – A disabled satellite that tracks space weather is back online after nine months of efforts to get it communicating with Earth, according to a U.S. government update. The nearly five-year-old Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) went into a safe mode lockdown on June 27, 2019, due to issues with the attitude control system that keeps it properly oriented in space to receive commands and send data. More
(Source: Space.com – Mar 8)

SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW THE IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS – A crowd at Mecca’s Grand Mosque and the Kaaba on Feb. 14, 2020 (top) and a much smaller group of visitors on March 3, 2020, a day before fears over the novel coronavirus led to the the suspension of the “umrah” pilgrimage. Satellite images released on March 5, 2020 by Maxar Technologies reveal the impact of coronavirus on activities around the world. More
(Source: USA TODAY – Mar 7)

ROCKET ISSUE DELAYS LAUNCH OF UAE’S FALCON EYE 2 SATELLITE FOR A MONTH: REPORT – A sharp-eyed satellite’s launch has been pushed back from its expected Thursday (March 5) launch date until no earlier than April due to a rocket problem, according to a media report. Arianespace, which will be providing the launch from French Guiana, has not disclosed a reason for the delay. Nor did it release a new launch date for Falcon Eye 2, which is a high-performance optical observation satellite for commercial and military users in the United Arab Emirates. More
(Source: Space.com – Mar 7)

SPACEX LAUNCHES CARGO TOWARD SPACE STATION, ACES 50TH ROCKET LANDING – SpaceX successfully launched an uncrewed Dragon spacecraft for NASA today (March 6), sending fresh supplies toward the International Space Station (ISS) — and also sticking another rocket landing, the 50th for the company overall. The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket used in today’s flight is a veteran; its first stage also lofted the previous Dragon cargo mission, in December 2019. The rocket blasted off from Pad 40 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:50 p.m. EST (0450 GMT on Saturday, March 7), illuminating the skies above Florida’s Space Coast. More
(Source: Space.com – Mar 7)

ROCKET LAB TO SEND CAPELLA RADAR SATELLITE TO MID-INCLINATION ORBIT – Capella Space will send a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite into a mid-inclination orbit later this year on a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle, the two companies announced March 5. “It will be the first commercial SAR satellite in a mid-inclination orbit,” Payam Banazadeh, Capella Space CEO, told SpaceNews. “Customers want to monitor areas around Korea, the Middle East, some portions of Europe and North America. Putting a satellite in a 45-degree-inclination orbit allows you to have good coverage of those areas.” More
(Source: SpaceNews – Mar 6)

ISRO POSTPONES LAUNCH OF GEO IMAGING SATELLITE GISAT-1 DUE TO TECHNICAL REASONS – The launch of Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) Gisat-1, scheduled for Thursday, has been postponed due to technical reasons. Isro said that a new launch date for Gisat-1 will be announced in due course. The launch of Gisat-1 was scheduled for March 5 from the second launchpad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. More
(Source: India Today – Mar 5)

DARPA PICKS NORTHROP GRUMMAN AS ITS COMMERCIAL PARTNER FOR SATELLITE SERVICING PROGRAM – The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency selected Northrop Grumman as its commercial partner for the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites program, the company announced March 4. The announcement comes on the heels of Northrop Grumman’s successful operation of its first satellite servicing Mission Extension Vehicle. The MEV-1 launched in October 2019 and last month docked in-orbit with an Intelsat communications satellite in an effort to keep the spacecraft in operation for an additional five years. More
(Source: SpaceNews – Mar 5)

AUSTRALIA DEVELOPING SATELLITE TO PREDICT BUSHFIRE DANGER ZONES – Australian scientists are developing the country’s first satellite designed to predict where bushfires are likely to start, following months of devastating fires. The Australian National University said Wednesday a team is creating a “shoebox-sized” satellite that will measure forest ground cover and moisture levels using infrared detectors. It is hoped the data will help determine where bushfires are likely to start and where they may be difficult to contain. More
(Source: Phys.org – Mar 5)

EXPANDING, AND EVENTUALLY REPLACING, THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION – Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), humanity has managed to maintain an uninterrupted foothold in low Earth orbit for just shy of 20 years. There are people reading these words who have had the ISS orbiting overhead for their entire lives, the first generation born into a truly spacefaring civilization. But as the saying goes, what goes up must eventually come down. The ISS is at too low of an altitude to remain in orbit indefinitely, and core modules of the structure are already operating years beyond their original design lifetimes. More
(Source: Hackaday – Mar 4)

YOUR PHONE MAY SOON RECEIVE 4G SERVICE . FROM SPACE! – In the United States it’s easy to take cell reception for granted. With few exceptions, you can use your phone to text, call, and get online from pretty much anywhere in the country. Yet about 2 billion people around the world live in areas that lack mobile coverage, mostly far from major cities, which makes building a network of terrestrial cell towers to connect them prohibitively expensive. If you built a cell network in space, it could plug the gaps in global mobile coverage by raining 4G service from satellites to users on the ground. More
(Source: WIRED – Mar 4)

AFTER LAST-MINUTE ABORT, DARPA LAUNCH CHALLENGE ENDS WITHOUT A WINNER – Astra engineers scrubbed a launch attempt Monday at Kodiak Island, Alaska, to assess troubling data from a guidance, navigation and control sensor on the company’s new small satellite launcher, ending a bid to win up to $12 million in prize money from a U.S. military research agency. Monday’s countdown was aborted on the final day of a 15-day window set by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which offered Astra a $2 million prize if it successfully placed three small CubeSats into orbit. More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now – Mar 3)

SPACEX TEST-FIRES ROCKET, PREPS FOR FINAL FLIGHT OF FIRST-GENERATION DRAGON CAPSULE – The Falcon 9 booster for SpaceX’s next mission fired up briefly on a Cape Canaveral launch pad Sunday in a routine pre-flight test before a scheduled launch Friday night to kick off the final flight of the first version of the company’s Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station. Nine Merlin 1D main engines at the base of the Falcon 9 booster fired up at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) Sunday at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now – Mar 3)

NITROGEN DIOXIDE POLLUTION OVER CHINA PLUMMETS IN NEW SATELLITE IMAGES – The COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak has caused widespread alarm, travel bans, and the quarantine of multiple cities across the world. But there’s also been an unexpected effect on the environment, in the form of a notable drop in nitrogen dioxide emissions levels across China. Data collected from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on ESA’s Sentinel-5 satellite shows a significant drop of nitrogen dioxide – a gas mainly emitted by cars, trucks, power plants and some industrial plants – between January 1 and February 25. More
(Source: ScienceAlert – Mar 2)

NASA WANTS YOU TO PHOTOGRAPH STARLINK SATELLITES WITH YOUR SMARTPHONE – SpaceX and others plan to launch thousands of new satellites into low-Earth orbit, creating streaks that cut through astronomers’ images. Now educators at NASA are asking citizen scientists to help document the problem. Over the coming years, Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, SpaceX, will launch thousands of small satellites as part of an effort to provide global, space-based internet. More
(Source: Discover Magezine – Mar 1)

CHINA TO COMPLETE ITS ANSWER TO GPS WITH BEIDOU NAVIGATION SATELLITE LAUNCHES IN MARCH, MAY – China will launch Beidou navigation satellites in March and May this year, completing a constellation designed for an array of civil and military applications. A Long March 3B rocket arrived at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center Feb. 14, according to China News Service. The Beidou satellite for the launch has also arrived at Xichang, the report states. Both missions will launch single satellites to geosynchronous transfer orbits using enhanced hypergolic Long March 3B rockets. More
(Source: SpaceNews – Feb 29)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION RESUPPLY MISSION TO CARRY NEW ARISS HAM RADIO GEAR – The scheduled March 7 SpaceX CRS-20 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will include the initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Interoperable Radio System (IORS) flight unit. The IORS is the foundation of the ARISS next-generation amateur radio system on the space station. The ARISS hardware team built four flight units, and the first will be installed in the ISS Columbus module. More
(Source: ARRL – Feb 29)

Another Reminder that Spaceflight is Difficult. Starship Prototype Explodes and Falls Over

SpaceX’s Starship has been hitting some bumps making its way from the drawing board to space. As the spacecraft element of the Elon Musk’s proposed super-heavy launch system, the Starship will one day become the workhorse of SpaceX, replacing the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launchers. Unfortunately, another Starship prototype recently experienced a structural failure during pressure testing that caused it to explode.

The explosion took place at around 11:00 p.m. EST (0:800 p.m. PST) on Feb. 28th, about an hour after ground crews began loading simulated propellant (liquid nitrogen) into the SN1 prototype. It was here that the liquid oxygen tank violently burst, causing the entire launch vehicle to be tossed a few dozen meters into the air before it came crashing down and burst again on the launch pad.

This was the second time in the past six months that SpaceX lost a prototype vehicle during load testing. This process consists of filling the liquid methane and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellant tanks with a cryogenic liquid to ensure they can withstand being fully-pressurized. The last accident occurred back in November, when the Mk. 1 prototype blew up on the pad, casting its nose cone into the air.

This time around, the SN1 prototype (which had not yet had its nose cone or Raptor engines installed) appeared to have come apart near the bottom. This caused the upper section to be launched into the air and the hull to implode. The top section then came down on its side and experienced a second explosion, this time from the top.

This second explosion was clearly the methane tank (also pressurized with liquid nitrogen), which then shot off and flew about 150 to 300 meters (500 – 1000 ft) from the pad. Several observers who were on the scene captured the explosion on video – including famed NASASpaceFlight member BocaChicaGal, who captured the video shown above.

Mercifully, no injuries have been reported in the area. But the next day, photos taken of the site revealed that very little was left of the SN1 prototype. And while the company did not issue a statement immediately thereafter, Musk responded to the incident on Monday morning (March 2nd) by uploaded a video of the accident on his official Twitter account (shown above).

In true Musk fashion, he also made some cheeky comments that let his followers know that SpaceX was taking this latest setback in stride. In the original Tweet, the video appears with the caption, “So… how was your night?” He later added, “It’s fine, we’ll just buff it out,” and “Where’s the Flextape when you need it?”

No word has been given yet how this might affect the overall development of the Starship and Super Heavy launch system. However, it will mean some changes in terms of time tables. Prior to the accident, Musk had indicated that the SN1 was intended for a full wet dress rehearsal (WDR) with LOX and methane, which was to be followed by a static fire test with a Raptor engine.

Obviously, that won’t be happening anymore. However, Musk has also confirmed that his crews are currently focused on finishing work on the next Starship prototype (SN2). If all goes well, SpaceX’s ground crews could have the SN2 assembled and ready for testing within a few weeks.

SpaceX Crew Dragon success heralds a new era for NASA spaceflight

The Demo-1 mission paves the way for crews to launch from US soil for the first time since 2011.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the first commercial spacecraft built for humans to travel in to the International Space Station, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday morning, ending a historic mission and beginning the next phase of human spaceflight.

A huge round of applause and cheers erupted at SpaceX mission control in California as the capsule hit the water. With that — the first water landing in the Atlantic since Apollo 9 in 1969 — SpaceX moved one step closer to sending humans into orbit.

Significant delays hampered the launch of the Crew Dragon , but on March 2 it finally achieved liftoff from storied Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. It then trailed the ISS for 24 hours before achieving a landmark docking via the station’s Harmony module, and special docking adapter, on March 3.

The Crew Dragon re-entering the atmosphere on March 8.

While docked at the ISS, humans entered the vehicle for the first time in space . It remained docked with the station until Thursday, at which point the hatch was closed and locked and the capsule was readied for its return. At 11:32 p.m. PT, it released a set of hooks from the ISS and slowly drifted away from the space laboratory with two short thruster firings. A dummy, lovingly known as Ripley and dressed in SpaceX’s astronaut gear and a suite of sensors, was its lone crew member.

The Crew Dragon drifts away from the ISS.

“Fifty years after humans landed on the moon for the first time, America has driven a golden spike on the trail to new space exploration feats through the work of our commercial partner SpaceX and all the talented and dedicated flight controllers at NASA and our international partners,” said Anne McClain, NASA flight engineer currently stationed at the ISS, as the capsule drifted away.

Five hours later, when it was safely away from the ISS, Crew Dragon jettisoned its lower trunk section to burn up in space. At 4:52 a.m. PT, the capsule’s thrusters fired once more, starting a 15-minute “deorbit burn,” slowing the craft enough to fall back to Earth.

Its biggest challenge was yet to come: atmospheric re-entry.

The forces exerted on the capsule as it blazed a trail through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds had SpaceX CEO Elon Musk concerned during the week. Although his team had run hundreds of simulations, the unusual shape of the spacecraft meant it might roll or spin as it dropped from space to sea.

Yet, when the moment arrived, the spacecraft showed no signs of a rickety descent, eventually deploying its quad-parachute system and safely splashing down in the Atlantic some 280 miles ( about 450 kilometers) from its original launching spot at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The capsule’s splashdown was attended by SpaceX’s recovery vessel “Go Searcher,” a ship equipped to pluck it from the roiling ocean waves and carry it back to shore.

Dragon’s drogue parachutes

With the landing, Crew Dragon’s six-day-long mission is complete, but there’s still work to be done. SpaceX was able to demonstrate the capsule’s launch, docking, undocking and re-entry capabilities and the validity of its parachute system, and now it has reams of data to analyze, including from Ripley’s suite of body sensors, to ensure the capsule is ready to ferry humans from Earth to the space station in just a few months’ time.

As part of the validation process, SpaceX and NASA will conduct an in-flight abort test, launching the Crew Dragon on top of a modified Falcon 9 rocket and then terminating the rocket engine as it reaches the point of max q — when pressure on the spacecraft is at its greatest. When it reaches this point, the Crew Dragon would use its own set of rocket boosters to launch away from the Falcon 9 and return to Earth.

That test is scheduled for June. Provided it goes well, the first crewed mission of SpaceX’s capsule will occur in July, featuring astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. Success will also mean that “Earthy,” a plush anthropomorphic doll of our planet, will be coming home from the space station.

— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) March 8, 2019

While the limelight has been squarely on SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space venture is only one half of NASA’s overall Commercial Crew ambitions. Historic aerospace company Boeing is also readying to fly to the ISS with its own capsule, the Starliner, in the coming months. Launching atop an Atlas V rocket, the Starliner will undergo similar testing in preparation for its own manned missions to space in the coming year.

For now, SpaceX wins the day — and continues to forge a path between the US and the International Space Station.

NASA still doesn’t know if it wants Boeing to perform another test flight of its passenger spacecraft

The company is issuing 61 corrective actions in the meantime

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An artistic rendering of NASA’s Starliner vehicle Image: Boeing

NASA still doesn’t know if it wants Boeing to perform another test flight of its new passenger spacecraft without people on board — three months after the vehicle’s first test flight failed to go according to plan.

Today, NASA announced that it had finished an investigation into the botched debut flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, a new crew capsule designed to take NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA’s team identified 61 corrective actions that Boeing needs to take in order to fix all the issues the Starliner experienced during that first mission. But NASA officials will not say whether Boeing needs to repeat the flight or if the company’s next flight will have its first passengers on board.

“Quite frankly, right now, we don’t know,” Doug Loverro, NASA’s associate administrator for human spaceflight, said during a press conference on the investigation. “The findings and the corrective actions that Boeing has laid out — they have to now come back to NASA with a plan, how they’re going to go ahead and address all of those.”

No people were on board Starliner’s first flight on December 20th from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission was a test, meant to demonstrate that the vehicle can do what it’s supposed to do: safely dock with the International Space Station and then return to Earth. But that didn’t happen. A glitch with Starliner’s clock prevented the capsule from firing its main engines at the right time, and the vehicle got into the wrong orbit. As a result, Starliner never made it to the space station and had to come back to Earth earlier than planned. The capsule landed safely in the New Mexico desert using its parachutes two days after launch.

Boeing’s Starliner, after landing in the desert in December (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

At the time of the mission, NASA and Boeing only detailed the software issue with Starliner’s clock. But in the months since, even more problems have come to light. On February 7th, Boeing and NASA admitted there was a second software glitch the Boeing team caught before the Starliner landed. If it hadn’t been corrected, it’s possible the Starliner could have fired its thrusters incorrectly during the descent to Earth, and it might have bumped into a piece of hardware it shed on the way down. NASA noted that both of these software bugs went unnoticed before the flight, even though there were “multiple safeguards” in place. Today, NASA claimed that the investigation team identified 49 gaps in software testing at Boeing.

It’s unclear exactly what Boeing’s 61 corrective actions entail, though NASA said they will be both “organizational and technical.” Loverro said there will be a discussion with the company on whether to make the list of corrective actions public. While Boeing implements these corrections, NASA plans to embed more of its own software experts within Boeing’s software team.

In the meantime, NASA has also decided to do another review at Boeing, one that will look at both the company’s and NASA’s organizational processes. This new review is in addition to a more rigorous safety review that NASA announced it would do with Boeing in February.

Back in 2018, Boeing and SpaceX (NASA’s other human spaceflight partner) had to undergo safety reviews, after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk smoked marijuana on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Boeing got away with a much smaller review at the time, but the Starliner flight prompted a more extensive look from NASA. This new review, according to Loverro, is meant to “make sure we truly do learn from this event, and that we know how to fix it and make sure it does not happen again.”

NASA did not say when to expect a decision on how Boeing will proceed with its next Starliner flight. Boeing claims the company is prepared to conduct a second uncrewed test flight if NASA wants and has set aside $410 million of its own budget if that’s the case. However, NASA officials have repeatedly argued that performing an uncrewed test flight was not an original requirement from the agency when it set up the Commercial Crew Program. NASA only made the decision to include the requirement after both companies suggested doing test missions. Loverro argued that there are other ways Boeing might be able to prove that its Starliner can perform in orbit — without the vehicle going to space.

“There are many things that we can do to provide the confidence that we can fly safely without docking,” Loverro said. “I’m not saying we will or we won’t. I’m saying that Boeing will come back to us with a plan. They will propose to us whether they intend to go ahead and do another flight to dock or if they propose to do other things that give us the confidence they can do it. And we’ll make sure that every decision we make is with crew safety and spacecraft safety in mind.”

As Boeing tries to move on from the Starliner debut, SpaceX is gearing up for the next test flight of its crew capsule, the Crew Dragon. After performing an uncrewed flight of the Crew Dragon one year ago, SpaceX is poised to finally put people on the spacecraft in the months ahead, though NASA has not formally announced a target date for the launch. If everything goes to plan, SpaceX will likely be the first commercial company to send astronauts to space for NASA.

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Pluto’s iconic heart feature, named Tombaugh Regio, functions as a “beating heart” that controls the small planet’s winds and might even play a role in shaping its surface features.

Arrokoth data sheds light on planet formation

February 19th
Data returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft taken during its January 2019 flyby of Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Arrokoth, also known as 2014 MU 69, located four billion miles from Earth, supports the theory that planet formation in the solar system occurred in a gentle rather than violent process.

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February 10th
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Pluto’s hazy atmosphere is similar to that of Titan

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Pluto is often compared to Neptune’s largest moon Triton, but its hazy atmosphere is actually more akin to that of Saturn’s largest moon Titan, which is sometimes viewed as an analog of early Earth.

NASA broadcast celebrates Spitzer telescope’s accomplishments

January 24th
In a live broadcast on Wednesday, January 22, NASA celebrated 16 years of incredible accomplishments by the Spitzer Space Telescope, one of its four “Great Observatories” in space.

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January 11th
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CRS-19 Dragon wet and waiting for next mission

January 7th
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OPINION: 2019 – Numbers and Names

January 1st
Well that happened. 2019 was a roller-coaster of ups and downs that will have far-reaching consequences for future space exploration efforts.

SpaceX prepares for first of many Starlink launches in 2020

December 31st
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NASA Mars 2020 rover passes driving test

December 27th
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