December 29, 2015 at 13:40Cosmonautics-2015 at Geektimes
This year I decided to continue the tradition of publishing the most interesting cosmonautics events for the year. There were ups, downs and many discoveries. In this post, I collected the most interesting and significant facts and events that we discussed at Geektimes in the outgoing 2015.
Under the cut are beautiful photographs of the Sun and Pluto, a chronicle of the International Space Station and successes in creating reusable rockets.
Merry Christmas from NASA - Photo of Pluto
Space Lab NASA NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) for the first time since the opening in 2012. With the camera pointed at the sun . Scientists received a high-quality photograph in the X-ray spectrum, saw the "layers" of the atmosphere of the Sun.
In March, a solar eclipse occurred. See beautiful pictures of this phenomenon , taken from the air and from space.
What is going on in the sun? Three days of activity, the luminaries added up in a minute video . For this, astronomers have collected several thousand photographs of the active region of the Sun.
A man aspires to Mars, NASA plans to land astronauts on this planet in 2030, and private space companies are thinking about colonizing the planet. The environment of Mars is different from the Earth, so scientists have to solve a huge number of technological problems. Read the list of reasons why a person on Mars will die .
The Planetary Society reports on NASA mission plans for Mars. Read the translation of the Q & A section .
The Mars One program, meanwhile, is bursting at the seams , the organizers of this program have not fulfilled too many promises .
According to Elon Musk, the exploration of Mars may be disrupted due to the third world war. In an interview with GQ, the entrepreneur spoke about his plans for the colonization of this planet. In the meantime, we can look at high resolution photographs of Mars .
In October, NASA determined the three winners of the competition for the best architectural design for the Martian base. The main requirements for the participants are the use of 3D printing and the maximum use of local materials.
Curiosity continues to plow the expanses of Mars, while taking selfies . In October, the robot drilled a surface for the eighth time to analyze rock samples using two mini-laboratories: CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy X-Ray diffractometer) and SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars).
It is impossible not to mention the movie "Martian"from the book of the same name by Andy Weir. The author now writes a book about a woman on the moon .
The New Horizons apparatus, sent to Pluto on January 19, 2006 and “woken up” in December 2015, continues to delight with excellent staff . In October, NASA uploaded a 3D image of Pluto . Detailed photographs taken by New Horizons enable stereoscopic maps. Scientists using the pictures learned that the "heart" of Pluto is an impact crater . All satellites of Pluto are already captured by the cameras of the device.
In just three months, NASA made about a hundred discoveries across Pluto , including found water ice and a blue “sky” .
July 14, 2015 the device approached Pluto. He managed to shoot a video using a LEISA hyperspectrometer. Shots allowed scientists to learn about water ice on Pluto. NASA published a video where this video is accelerated by 17 times, and the infrared spectrum in which LEISA sees is replaced with colors visible to the human eye.
On November 2, 2015, the International Space Station celebrated its 15th anniversary . The first expedition began on November 2, 2000; William Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergey Krikalev participated in the ISS-1 - they spent 136 days at the station.
If you really want to visit the ISS, but for some reason you can’t do this, watch a video tour of the station from Roscosmos.
NASA engineer Robert Frost spoke about what a normal working day looks like on the ISS . Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov spoke about health, weightlessness and space mutants .
This is how a drop of water behaves under microgravity conditions on the ISS .
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The ISS receives all its energy from the Sun. How the whole system works - read this article .
The year began with an emergency on board. On January 14, an ammonia leak detector tripped in the US ISS segment . Ammonia is used at the station in a cooling and heat exchange system.
https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/555335880077238272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
In March 2015, the Soyuz TMA-16M was launched to the ISS with record-breaking astronauts on board. Gennady Padalka at the time of launch spent 710 days in space and completed nine spacewalks. In September, the astronaut returned to Earth , adding another 168 days in space and another spacewalk to his track record. Now the astronaut has a record 878 days in space and 10 exits with 38 hours of work. Next time, Scavenger will fly for a thousand .
Roscosmos in March announced the resumption of sending tourists to the ISS. From 2001 to 2009, Roscosmos sent eight tourists to the International Space Station, then the program was turned off. The resumption of the program will allow Roscosmos to reduce financial losses after the American astronauts cease to fly to the ISS in the Russian Soyuz.
On March 12, the Soyuz TMA-14M descent capsule landed successfully in the Kazakh steppe, returning three ISS-42 crew members to Earth : Alexander Samokutyaev, Barry Wilmore, and Elena Serova. Serova became the first Russian woman aboard the ISS, and the last time a woman-cosmonaut was sent into space at the Soyuz more than 20 years ago - Elena Kondakova at Mir station.
In April, the Progress M-27M truck was launched to the ISS. Due to a problem, the docking was canceled, the ship spun and did not respond to telemetry commands. The crew had enough supplies, the problem was only in the fuel needed to correct the orbit. Due to the incident, astronauts remained on the ISS longer than planned, and the launch of a new expedition was postponed until the end of July .
In April , bacteria DNA from Madagascar was discovered on the ISS casing .
In May , Geektimes chatted with the International Space Station.
On June 11, the crew of Soyuz TMA-15M, consisting of cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and American astronaut Terry Woerths, successfully landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan .
On June 28, the SpaceX CRS-7 truck was launched from the Cape Canaveral to the ISS on the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle - again a failure . On board the ship were scientific experiments, food, clothing, hygiene items and other traditional items for astronauts, as well as two sealed docking adapters for future ships, including Dragon 2. After two unsuccessful launches in a row at the station, American astronauts shared them with Russian colleagues .
The accident of two cargo ships did not affect the implementation of the scientific program.
On July 3, another lorry was sent to the ISS - Progress M-28M. He successfully delivered to the station 880 kg of fuel, 520 kg of fuel for refueling, 22 kg of oxygen, 26 kg of air, 420 kg of water and 430 kg of Russian food and utensils, 186 kg of cargo for the Russian crew.
On July 23, 2015, the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft set off from the ISS with NASA astronaut Chell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japanese space agency astronaut Kimiya Yui. The crew returned to Earth on December 11 , and astronaut Sergei Volkov and the "annual" crew remained on board - astronaut Mikhail Kornienko and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.
Scott Kelly left a twin brother on Earth - this is a NASA experiment . The NASA Twin Study program will study the effect on the human body of long-term conditions in space.
In August, the first successful launch of Proton took place after the accident in May 2015.
In the same month, Japan Aerospace Research Agency (JAXA)launched from Tanegashima the cargo spacecraft Konotori-5 with 5.5 tons of payload to supply the International Space Station.
On August 10, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko went into outer space and worked there for six hours. They inspected the casing, mounted auxiliary bridges to facilitate future spacewalks, took data from equipment, mounted a new telecommunication antenna, and cleaned up the portholes of the Zvezda module
In September, an event occurred in space where you can shoot a movie: the Soyuz-TMA-18M manned spacecraft with three astronauts successfully launched to the International Space Station, and a fragment of a spent 3rd stage of a Japanese launch vehicle launched on its way in 1989.
On board were Danes Andreas Mogensen, Kazakhstani Aydin Aimbetov and Russian crew commander Sergei Volkov.
On December 15, the Soyuz-FG rocket sent the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft to the International Space Station with Yuri Malenchenko, Timothy Kopra and Timothy Peak. The astronauts will work at the station for seven months.
Timothy Peak explores food cultivation in space. And he is not lucky for phone calls - either his parents are not at home, then he made a mistake with the number. The diet for the British astronaut was a specialist in molecular cuisine Heston Blumenthal. In August, the ISS already ate food grown in space .
If you really want to see the International Space Station from a window or from the roof of your house - study this instruction .
The Americans, as in 2014, again had to purchase Russian engines for space rockets. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) will buy an additional batch of 20 Russian RD-180 rocket engines for Atlas V launch vehicles. In the USA there was a ban on their purchase, but it was lifted - there is no alternative, but it should appear in four years.
The ULA Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, plans to launch a new reusable Vulcan rocket . Reuse is to return part of the stage.
The undeniable success in returning the first stage of the rocket was achieved by SpaceX Ilona Mask. In December, the Falcon 9 rocket launched 11 Orbcomm telecommunications satellites into orbit and workedlanding the first stage of the rocket on land . SpaceX uploaded high-resolution photos of the entire process.
New breakthroughs were expected from the private cosmonautics, but now an understanding has come: the renaissance is postponed, if not canceled. Read about the dreams and realities of private space .
In November, the President of the United States signed a law on the extraction of resources in space . This law allows US citizens to own resources extracted in space - on other planets, asteroids. According to this law , the US government will support up to 2025 private aerospace companies such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin. Until October 1, 2023, private American aerospace companies will be relieved of regulatory oversight.
Look at space in motion , watch the International Space Station , read Geektimes. Happy New Year!
Under the cut are beautiful photographs of the Sun and Pluto, a chronicle of the International Space Station and successes in creating reusable rockets.
Merry Christmas from NASA - Photo of Pluto
The sun
Space Lab NASA NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) for the first time since the opening in 2012. With the camera pointed at the sun . Scientists received a high-quality photograph in the X-ray spectrum, saw the "layers" of the atmosphere of the Sun.
In March, a solar eclipse occurred. See beautiful pictures of this phenomenon , taken from the air and from space.
What is going on in the sun? Three days of activity, the luminaries added up in a minute video . For this, astronomers have collected several thousand photographs of the active region of the Sun.
Mars
A man aspires to Mars, NASA plans to land astronauts on this planet in 2030, and private space companies are thinking about colonizing the planet. The environment of Mars is different from the Earth, so scientists have to solve a huge number of technological problems. Read the list of reasons why a person on Mars will die .
The Planetary Society reports on NASA mission plans for Mars. Read the translation of the Q & A section .
The Mars One program, meanwhile, is bursting at the seams , the organizers of this program have not fulfilled too many promises .
According to Elon Musk, the exploration of Mars may be disrupted due to the third world war. In an interview with GQ, the entrepreneur spoke about his plans for the colonization of this planet. In the meantime, we can look at high resolution photographs of Mars .
In October, NASA determined the three winners of the competition for the best architectural design for the Martian base. The main requirements for the participants are the use of 3D printing and the maximum use of local materials.
Curiosity continues to plow the expanses of Mars, while taking selfies . In October, the robot drilled a surface for the eighth time to analyze rock samples using two mini-laboratories: CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy X-Ray diffractometer) and SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars).
It is impossible not to mention the movie "Martian"from the book of the same name by Andy Weir. The author now writes a book about a woman on the moon .
Pluto
The New Horizons apparatus, sent to Pluto on January 19, 2006 and “woken up” in December 2015, continues to delight with excellent staff . In October, NASA uploaded a 3D image of Pluto . Detailed photographs taken by New Horizons enable stereoscopic maps. Scientists using the pictures learned that the "heart" of Pluto is an impact crater . All satellites of Pluto are already captured by the cameras of the device.
In just three months, NASA made about a hundred discoveries across Pluto , including found water ice and a blue “sky” .
July 14, 2015 the device approached Pluto. He managed to shoot a video using a LEISA hyperspectrometer. Shots allowed scientists to learn about water ice on Pluto. NASA published a video where this video is accelerated by 17 times, and the infrared spectrum in which LEISA sees is replaced with colors visible to the human eye.
International Space Station
On November 2, 2015, the International Space Station celebrated its 15th anniversary . The first expedition began on November 2, 2000; William Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergey Krikalev participated in the ISS-1 - they spent 136 days at the station.
If you really want to visit the ISS, but for some reason you can’t do this, watch a video tour of the station from Roscosmos.
NASA engineer Robert Frost spoke about what a normal working day looks like on the ISS . Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov spoke about health, weightlessness and space mutants .
This is how a drop of water behaves under microgravity conditions on the ISS .
The ISS receives all its energy from the Sun. How the whole system works - read this article .
The year began with an emergency on board. On January 14, an ammonia leak detector tripped in the US ISS segment . Ammonia is used at the station in a cooling and heat exchange system.
In March 2015, the Soyuz TMA-16M was launched to the ISS with record-breaking astronauts on board. Gennady Padalka at the time of launch spent 710 days in space and completed nine spacewalks. In September, the astronaut returned to Earth , adding another 168 days in space and another spacewalk to his track record. Now the astronaut has a record 878 days in space and 10 exits with 38 hours of work. Next time, Scavenger will fly for a thousand .
Roscosmos in March announced the resumption of sending tourists to the ISS. From 2001 to 2009, Roscosmos sent eight tourists to the International Space Station, then the program was turned off. The resumption of the program will allow Roscosmos to reduce financial losses after the American astronauts cease to fly to the ISS in the Russian Soyuz.
On March 12, the Soyuz TMA-14M descent capsule landed successfully in the Kazakh steppe, returning three ISS-42 crew members to Earth : Alexander Samokutyaev, Barry Wilmore, and Elena Serova. Serova became the first Russian woman aboard the ISS, and the last time a woman-cosmonaut was sent into space at the Soyuz more than 20 years ago - Elena Kondakova at Mir station.
In April, the Progress M-27M truck was launched to the ISS. Due to a problem, the docking was canceled, the ship spun and did not respond to telemetry commands. The crew had enough supplies, the problem was only in the fuel needed to correct the orbit. Due to the incident, astronauts remained on the ISS longer than planned, and the launch of a new expedition was postponed until the end of July .
In April , bacteria DNA from Madagascar was discovered on the ISS casing .
In May , Geektimes chatted with the International Space Station.
On June 11, the crew of Soyuz TMA-15M, consisting of cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and American astronaut Terry Woerths, successfully landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan .
On June 28, the SpaceX CRS-7 truck was launched from the Cape Canaveral to the ISS on the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle - again a failure . On board the ship were scientific experiments, food, clothing, hygiene items and other traditional items for astronauts, as well as two sealed docking adapters for future ships, including Dragon 2. After two unsuccessful launches in a row at the station, American astronauts shared them with Russian colleagues .
The accident of two cargo ships did not affect the implementation of the scientific program.
On July 3, another lorry was sent to the ISS - Progress M-28M. He successfully delivered to the station 880 kg of fuel, 520 kg of fuel for refueling, 22 kg of oxygen, 26 kg of air, 420 kg of water and 430 kg of Russian food and utensils, 186 kg of cargo for the Russian crew.
On July 23, 2015, the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft set off from the ISS with NASA astronaut Chell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japanese space agency astronaut Kimiya Yui. The crew returned to Earth on December 11 , and astronaut Sergei Volkov and the "annual" crew remained on board - astronaut Mikhail Kornienko and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.
Scott Kelly left a twin brother on Earth - this is a NASA experiment . The NASA Twin Study program will study the effect on the human body of long-term conditions in space.
In August, the first successful launch of Proton took place after the accident in May 2015.
In the same month, Japan Aerospace Research Agency (JAXA)launched from Tanegashima the cargo spacecraft Konotori-5 with 5.5 tons of payload to supply the International Space Station.
On August 10, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko went into outer space and worked there for six hours. They inspected the casing, mounted auxiliary bridges to facilitate future spacewalks, took data from equipment, mounted a new telecommunication antenna, and cleaned up the portholes of the Zvezda module
In September, an event occurred in space where you can shoot a movie: the Soyuz-TMA-18M manned spacecraft with three astronauts successfully launched to the International Space Station, and a fragment of a spent 3rd stage of a Japanese launch vehicle launched on its way in 1989.
On board were Danes Andreas Mogensen, Kazakhstani Aydin Aimbetov and Russian crew commander Sergei Volkov.
# SoyuzTMA18M performed a maneuver to evade a fragment of the 3rd stage of the Japanese launch vehicle http://t.co/kXcwi622pr pic.twitter.com/XUDIajIyGy
- ROSKOSMOS (@fka_roscosmos) September 3, 2015On December 15, the Soyuz-FG rocket sent the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft to the International Space Station with Yuri Malenchenko, Timothy Kopra and Timothy Peak. The astronauts will work at the station for seven months.
Timothy Peak explores food cultivation in space. And he is not lucky for phone calls - either his parents are not at home, then he made a mistake with the number. The diet for the British astronaut was a specialist in molecular cuisine Heston Blumenthal. In August, the ISS already ate food grown in space .
If you really want to see the International Space Station from a window or from the roof of your house - study this instruction .
Flying
The Americans, as in 2014, again had to purchase Russian engines for space rockets. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) will buy an additional batch of 20 Russian RD-180 rocket engines for Atlas V launch vehicles. In the USA there was a ban on their purchase, but it was lifted - there is no alternative, but it should appear in four years.
The ULA Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, plans to launch a new reusable Vulcan rocket . Reuse is to return part of the stage.
The undeniable success in returning the first stage of the rocket was achieved by SpaceX Ilona Mask. In December, the Falcon 9 rocket launched 11 Orbcomm telecommunications satellites into orbit and workedlanding the first stage of the rocket on land . SpaceX uploaded high-resolution photos of the entire process.
New breakthroughs were expected from the private cosmonautics, but now an understanding has come: the renaissance is postponed, if not canceled. Read about the dreams and realities of private space .
In November, the President of the United States signed a law on the extraction of resources in space . This law allows US citizens to own resources extracted in space - on other planets, asteroids. According to this law , the US government will support up to 2025 private aerospace companies such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin. Until October 1, 2023, private American aerospace companies will be relieved of regulatory oversight.
Look at space in motion , watch the International Space Station , read Geektimes. Happy New Year!