Like so many scientific endeavors, the Pioneer 4 spacecraft wasn't perfect. When it launched in 1959, it didn't get close enough to the mysterious lunar surface to study the moon. Nevertheless, it still accelerated science and achieved several important milestones in space exploration.  What Was the Pioneer 4 Spacecraft? This unmanned spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral in 1959 to photograph the moon during a close flyby. It was a spin-stabilized vehicle. It had a mechanical despinning mechanism that included weights attached to long wires wrapped around the base of the cone, according to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum where Pioneer 4 now resides. After the vehicle was on its trajectory, the weights were released to unwind and slow the rate of spin down.  It was a cone-shaped probe that was only 13 pounds and 20 inches (51 cm) high, according to NASA. The probe was made of fiberglass and coated with gold to make it conductive, and was painted with white stripes to help it maintain the proper temperature. A ring of mercury batteries at the base of the cone provided power, and the tip of the cone was a small probe, which, combined with the rest of the cone, acted as an antenna.  The probe was equipped with Geiger counters, which are instruments that measure radiation. A photoelectric sensor poked out of the center of the ring. The sensor had two photocells that were meant to be triggered by moonlight when the probe got close enough to the moon. The Pioneer 4 spacecraft went down in history as being the first American lunar probe to escape Earth's gravity and the first American probe to orbit around the sun. It got close to the moon, passing 37,300 miles by the moon's surface, according to NASA. Unfortunately, this wasn't close enough — it would need to be 20,000 miles from the moon to trigger the photocell or to measure the moon's radiation.  A Path to the Moon Landing  The mission didn't get close enough to capture images or data about the moon itself, but it did bring back excellent data that helped scientists understand the nature of space. It was the first American lunar probe to break out of Earth's gravity, which was a necessary step toward landing on the moon a decade later.  It was also a valuable exercise in how to track objects in space. Its radio transmitted data for 82 hours and 655,000 miles of travel, according to NASA. This was the farthest distance that anyone had ever tracked a human-made object at the time.  Pioneer 4 sent back excellent radiation data about the Van Allen Belts, which Space.com explains are rings of magnetically trapped, highly energetic charged particles that surround Earth. The data from this mission helped scientists understand the inner and outer structures and varying intensities of different areas of Van Allen Belts. This knowledge was critical in early space missions and it's even more important now that we have space vehicles loaded with high-tech, sensitive gear.  "Our current technology is ever more susceptible to these accelerated particles because even a single hit from a particle can upset our ever smaller instruments and electronics," said David Sibeck, Van Allen Probes mission scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "As technology advances, it's actually becoming even more pressing to understand and predict our space environment."  Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  

Pioneer 4 Spacecraft Was a Successful Failure

 Black holes remain a contentious issue among stellar scientists. While their existence is all but confirmed, debate continues about exact mechanisms of operation, size and impact on general relativity. However, we are close to having some answers. As noted by National Geographic in 2017, a global team of researchers completed the first ever "photo shoot" of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). These pictures are close to being developed by the MIT Haystack Observatory and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Mother Nature Network said.  Then there will finally be hard evidence — one way or another — of the existence or absence of mega-sized black holes.  The Theory  According to general relativity, massive objects curve or "warp" space—time and create gravity. Conceptually, the easiest visual is stretching out a blanket and then dropping a ball in the middle — the heavier the ball, the bigger its depression.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Smaller objects will naturally fall "down" toward the ball, but if they're moving at high speed — like planets orbiting the sun — they roll around the massive center. Einstein's theory also predicts that the closer objects get to massive objects, the more gravity affects their orbit. As noted by New Scientist, this is evident in Mercury's orbit, which is odd enough that scientists once argued for the existence of another planet inside its orbit to explain the disturbance.  General relativity also predicts the existence of black holes at the center of galaxies that are orbited by all mass in that galaxy. And while repeated testing has yielded results consistent with black hole formation and existence, researchers have never been able to directly observe a black hole. If the EHT worked as intended, a close-up may soon be available. [skyword_iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/e-P5IFTqB98" height="315" width="560" ]  Current Observations  There's a sizable amount of research that suggests that black holes are out in the cosmos warping space-time and consuming all matter that comes their way. In January 2017, for example, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory detected gravitational wave distortions that indicated a black hole—to—black hole binary collision. In 2015, LIGO spotted these black holes on a collision course; the current measurement lines up with predictions about their impending crash.  Or consider the work of Aurelien Hees of the University of California. In the 1990s, Hees and other scientists began tracking the orbits of stars close to Sagittarius A* — S0-2 and S0-38 take 16 and 19 years, respectively, to complete full revolutions. Now Hees and his team have tracked their entire orbits and found that general relativity accurately describes their path and movement. Next year, S0-2's elliptical orbit will take it just 111 AUs from the black hole, for an even better chance to view potential deviations. So far, however, relativity and the four fundamental forces hold up, with no sign of the mysterious "fifth force" posited by some experts.  Teams at the University of Texas and Harvard University, meanwhile, tackled another question: What happens when a black hole "eats" stars that stray too close? The accepted theory is that they're trapped by the event horizon — the point past which even light cannot escape — and then simply "vanish." But other theories postulate the existence of a hard surface, something stars would crash into once they're trapped in the gravity well. Researchers determined what would happen if the hard surface theory were true — the star's gas would envelop the black hole and create a glow. Researchers then sought evidence of these so-called "transients" using current data on star masses. The result? No transients and further affirmation of Einstein's theory.  Smile!  All this goes to show why the work of the EHT is so critical. Using five telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, Mexico, the South Pole and Spain — combined with the acuity-enhancing Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers may finally have taken the first picture of black-hole event horizons. It was a grueling process, since the telescopes needed clear weather at all locations simultaneously to gather solid data. While there's no guarantee that the end result will be usable, and even if the images aren't ideal, astronomer Heino Falcke said they "will turn black holes from some mythical object to something concrete we can study."  Let's just hope we caught Sagittarius A*'s good side.   

Physics Photo Op: Black Hole Images May Soon Be Available

Sixty years ago NASA opened its doors. In just over a decade, the agency put a man on the moon and permanently expanded human perception. But in 2011, NASA's space shuttle program ended and astronauts began hitching rides on Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS. In 2014, the Obama administration put any plans for a new moon mission on hold indefinitely. Space Policy Directive-1, however, has now driven NASA to embrace commercial space flight as a way to manage routine operations in low-earth orbit, while the agency develops plans for both manned moon landings and trips to Mars. With private companies ready for blast off in 2019 and looking to pave the way for large-scale commercial tourism, the future of space travel may be much closer than it appears. Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth As noted by NPR, the first commercial space flights carrying four NASA astronauts will launch in 2019. The upcoming flights are a test-run of sorts: If everything goes well, further missions will be scheduled to deliver and retrieve ISS crews, shuttle supplies and support other NASA low-earth initiatives. They're not without challenges: Astronauts used to taking the helm and making critical decisions will instead be along for the ride unless something goes wrong. In Air & Space, astronaut Bob Behnken described the shift to automation as "'transitioning to allow humans to do things they're good at, like recognizing when something's not quite right. What we're not good at is monitoring one parameter for hours and hours to make sure it's perfect.'" Getting it Right "Space taxi" manufacturers also have to pass rigorous NASA tests to ensure their craft are up to the challenge. For example, issues with fuel pressure and cracked engine turbines prompted redesigns of the Falcon 9 rocket — NASA wants at least seven successful launches before signing off, along with five successful fueling runs designed to be carried out when crews are on board. Boeing, meanwhile, must address concerns about a crew abort system that Air & Space noted could "tumble dangerously," along with contact potential between the craft's heat shield and parachute system. Bottom line? If commercial companies can't produce craft with odds of a fatal incident less than one in 270, NASA won't green-light new space taxis. Costs of Doing Business Beyond a better way to reach the ISS than buying seats on a Soyuz, what's the advantage of commercial space flight for NASA? According to Bloomberg, one major benefit is the cost savings yielded by the ability to re-use rockets by landing them upright rather than having them burn up on re-entry. The use of private companies also helps NASA leverage what amounts to a cloud model of space travel: The agency doesn't pay for the hardware or maintenance, just the use of resources. But when the future of space flight is driven by commercial interests, new costs must also be considered. As EnGadget points out, current NASA space crews are effectively elite athletes. Commercial space flight solutions will need to account for a wide variety of medical needs without sacrificing too much power, space and material consumption. The Coming Age of Commercial Space Flight So what happens if the 2019 flights are successful? Large aerospace companies and other smaller ventures will start ramping up private tourism opportunities and commercial offerings. According to Forbes Technology Council, increasing competition in this market will drive lower prices, while the advent of space mineral exploration will drive a kind of "goldrush" of companies looking to stake their claim. Back to Basics For NASA, commercial trips let them focus on the future of space flight from their perspective: getting to the moon and beyond. The agency has plans to build a lunar-orbiting station — the Gateway — by 2023, and land astronauts on the moon shortly after. The Insight Lander touched down on Mars Nov. 26, and in July 2020, NASA will launch its next Mars rover, laying the foundation for manned missions by the mid-2030s. Final Frontier Space continues to fascinate and excite humankind. But the costs of space exploration are incredibly high, making it difficult for NASA to secure funding as budget restraint dominates government discussions. As noted by Time, however, the benefits are also substantial; exploration "is in effect a cultural conversation on the nature and meaning of human life." Leveraging commercial space flight to defray routine costs, NASA has the chance to redefine the future of space travel and take first steps into the next phase of human space exploration. Northrop Grumman and NASA are leaders in space discovery. To learn more about our partnership and Northrop Grumman job openings, take a look at our careers page.

Commercial Space Flight, Private Taxis and the Future of Space Travel

Solar flares are energetic explosions of radiation released from the surface of the sun. Coronal mass ejections — solar explosions that release extremely hot streams of plasma into space — can cause solar flares to reach the Earth's surface. Although rare, some of the most serious solar flare effects include damaging magnetic storms on Earth; in the past, they have triggered regional blackouts. There are telltale signs of an impending solar explosion, but scientists have recently discovered a new way of predicting coronal mass ejections. The answer lies in the sun. What Happens When a Solar Flare Erupts? Scientists already know that some eruptive solar flares have warning signs. Often, they are preceded by arches of plasma — magnetic flux ropes — that visibly rise from the surface of the sun, according to Space.com. However, scientists have made a new discovery, recently published in Nature, about how solar flares occur and erupt. After careful research and observation, a team of scientists located the presence of what they call "magnetic cages," which might explain why some eruptive solar flares reach Earth and others do not. According to the study, magnetic cages are structures made of magnetic field lines that rise from the sun's surface. Before a dangerous flare, a magnetic flux rope grows under a solar arcade. If the rope develops a kink and becomes unstable, a burst of energy might blast through the cage, leading to coronal mass ejections that have the potential to reach Earth. If the cage is more substantial, however, NASA explained that the flare may not be able to blast through. "Our results show that the role of the cage, and thus of the environment, crucially affects the class of eruption ... that can be produced in an active region," the study authors wrote in Nature. What Are Solar Flare Effects? The Earth rarely experiences solar flare effects, yet they can have dramatic effects when they occur. In 1859, a plume of magnetized plasma shot 93 million miles from the sun to the Earth in less than a day. Known as the Carrington Event, it is the largest geomagnetic storm in history, according to Motherboard. Based on information from FEMA, Motherboard speculates that if a storm of that magnitude hit the Earth today, GPS signals, telecommunications and electricity would be in serious danger. On March 10, 1989, astronomers witnessed a powerful solar explosion on the surface of the sun that created a blackout in all of Quebec. This explosion released a billion-ton cloud of gas; NASA noted that this would be like the energy of thousands of nuclear bombs exploding at the same time. Companies like Northrop Grumman have joined forces with the Space Weather and Analysis Forecast System to monitor space weather's effect on military operations. Can We Prepare for Solar Flares? Scientists cannot stop these coronal mass ejections from happening. However, if scientists learn to predict coronal mass ejections, humans can take preventative measures here on Earth. "Shedding light on the origin and evolution of solar flares could help scientists forecast how powerful these explosions occur, which could help experts prevent widespread havoc on earth," according to Space.com. Survivalist websites, like Ready.gov, recommend taking precautions against solar flares just as you would for any other natural disaster: learn to purify water, and keep an emergency kit on hand with flashlights, medical supplies and non-perishable foods.   

A Rare Type of Solar Flare May Have Potentially Devastating Effects

On February 11, 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — LIGO — announced the detection of gravitational waves for the first time. It ended a 50-year search for direct confirmation of the elusive gravitational waves, first predicted by Albert Einstein.The observatory is sometimes described as two observatories, because its key instrument, a laser interferometer, has two sections. One is located in Livingstone, Louisiana, the other in Hanford, Washington. Working together, they form a single precision instrument a couple of thousand miles across.If success in detecting gravitational waves marked the end of one era, it signaled the beginning of another: the exploration of the universe using new instruments of fantastic, nearly unimaginable precision, of which LIGO is only a beginning.Elusive GravitySir Isaac Newton identified gravity as a basic property of nature and described its characteristics, but he did not explain how it worked. Albert Einstein proposed in 1916 that gravity was not a mysterious "force" but rather a bending of space itself in the presence of a heavy mass. He also showed that the massive accelerating objects — such as orbiting black holes — would distort the fabric of space, sending gravitational waves outwards in all directions like ripples expanding on a pond.Strong indirect evidence supported Einstein's theory of gravity, but actually detecting gravitational waves was difficult — so difficult that while active efforts to detect them began in the 1960s, no one succeeded until LIGO did a year ago.The LIGO instrument consists essentially of two vacuum pipes, each two and a half miles long, containing lasers that can measure each pipe's length with extreme precision. Extreme as in measuring a change equal to 1/5000 the size of a proton. Neil DeGrasse Tyson describes this as "the most precise measurement ever made, by far."This unfathomable precision allowed researchers to detect the subtle jostling of the pipes by a powerful gravitational disturbance: the collision of two black holes, each many times more massive than the Sun, in a distant galaxy.David Yeaton-Massey, an experimental physicist doing basic research at Northrop Grumman, had the opportunity to work on LIGO while completing his PhD at Caltech."Being part of a team dedicated to listening to what the universe is whispering to us was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The concept is relatively simple, much like electromagnetic radiation is produced when you shake an electron, gravitational radiation (a little ripple in spacetime) is produced when you shake matter. Despite the simplicity the analogy offers, it took a pair of massive, distant black holes colliding close enough to earth (140 billion light years) for us to see the event. The scale and scope of what the LIGO community accomplished cannot be underestimated."A Quiet Place in the SkyWhile scientists were already confident that Einstein was right, LIGO's success opens the way to a new branch of astronomy, exploring the universe by measuring gravitational waves and mapping their patterns.This will require even more precision than LIGO achieved, and by far the best place to make such measurements is in outer space. A space mission called LISA Pathfinder has already been launched — not to detect gravitational waves itself but to test the technology needed for a future mission.A deep space gravitational wave observatory remains years down the road, but 2018 should see the launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). A successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope, it will take precision astronomy in space to a new level. Unlike Hubble, the JWST will primarily observe the universe in infrared light, blocked from ground-based observatories by Earth's atmosphere.And instead of orbiting a few hundred miles above Earth, JWST, for which Northrop Grumman is the main industrial partner, will float in space in a position about a million miles from Earth (technically, in the second Sun—Earth Lagrange point). The distant location will help shield the JWST from Earth's own heat radiation, which otherwise would wreak havoc on infrared sensors that must operate at very low temperature.The JWST will not observe gravitational waves, but its infrared telescope will be able to look farther into deep space — and further back into the early history of the universe — than any existing telescope. The science is astounding: JWST will help us see the first stars and galaxies, better understand how galaxies form over billions of years and, finally, help identify earth-like planets that potentally support life. Whether earth-based or space-based, a new era of amazingly engineered machines will unlock mysteries that we can only guess at today.Learn more about how you can play an active role in Northrop Grumman-affiliated projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope.

Making Waves: LIGO Celebrates an Anniversary of Proving Einstein's Theory

Commercial space travel may no longer be a shot in the dark thanks to rapid advancements in aerospace technology and a shift in how space technology is funded. Space programs have historically been limited by government budget constraints, but during the last two decades, a few adventurous billionaires began investing in space technology. Private space travel is an emerging industry that's changing the way we view the universe. Why it Makes Sense Now Public funding for space programs isn't guaranteed — each country's current administration must determine how to manage priorities within a budget. Commercializing space travel invites competition, which brings not only new opportunities for funding, but also a new enthusiasm from the private sector that could spark innovation. When private companies get paid to bring things or people into space, some of the burdens are shifted away from government space programs, such as NASA. Commercial space travel is possible as a result of recent advancements in propulsion methods, robotics and communication, plus new solutions such as autonomous rocket-tracking technology, as described by MIT Technology Review. Traditionally, astronauts have undergone extensive training to prepare physically and mentally for the challenges of space travel, but today's spacecraft are automated, so anyone who is healthy and wealthy can travel beyond our planet. Not only have robotic spacecrafts improved, but so have the communication methods. With low latency live video feeds, an amateur space traveler can get help from experts back on Earth. Types of Commercial Space Travel If you have enough money to travel anywhere, there's not a more far-flung and unique destination than space. Space tourism began in 2001, when American Dennis Tito paid $20 million to become the first space tourist, traveling on a Russian rocket to visit the International Space Station (ISS). Billionaire tech entrepreneurs are responding to the siren song of space travel, as some companies have laid out big plans for bringing people to visit lower Earth orbit and eventually to live on Mars or other planets. Contracted government work is another way commercial space companies can make money. NASA's shuttle program was retired in 2011, and now private companies are paid to bring cargo and people to space. With commercial rockets launching satellites into orbit and delivering supplies to the ISS, traditional space programs have more capacity to focus on developing spacecraft and rockets for deep space missions. There are economic benefits, too; according to NASA, more than 1,000 suppliers are working across the U.S. on commercial crew spacecraft systems. Additionally, private companies need commercial services — especially delivering satellites to space. Satellites are used for navigation, aerial photography and mapping, television, communication and internet. Infinity and Beyond For many space experts, the next big goal is visiting and perhaps colonizing Mars. Projects such as Bill Nye's LightSail aim to find ways to travel long distances without traditional rocket fuel, which is heavy, expensive and finite. Stratolaunch, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is pioneering a new way to lift heavy objects into space with minimal fuel by launching rockets off a gigantic airplane, according to Engadget. Other projects are exploring ideas such as reusable rockets, propellant depots and asteroid mining, which could make deep space reachable and profitable. With more companies getting involved in space exploration travel, the places we've only dreamed of visiting may eventually be common destinations.

The Future of Commercial Space Travel

Halley's Comet last appeared in 1986, and it won't return again until 2061. But according to Space.com, early in May, the Eta Aquarid meteor shower offered a Halley's Comet reminder — its celestial calling card, if you will. Messengers From the Dawn Although comets are usually invisible from Earth, something magical happens when they near the sun's surface. Comprised of mostly dust and ice, the nuclei of comets are described as sooty snowballs of primordial matter. But as a comet passes near the sun, it is surrounded by a temporary atmosphere of vapor and dust, highly reflective in the bright sunlight. For a few weeks or months, the comet may be one of the brightest objects in Earth's sky, Space.com explained. A Repeat Visitor Most bright comets are one-time visitors. They will not return for thousands or even millions of years. But occasionally a comet's orbit is deflected a second time, and, per Space.com, it becomes a "periodic" comet, making regular return visits to the inner solar system. During the 1600s, astronomer Edmund Halley studied observations of famous historical comets and realized that several of them were repeat visits by the same comet. Halley predicted that this comet would make its next pass in 1758. And it did, right on schedule. Halley did not live to see it, but we still call the comet by his name. Its next visit will not be for 43 years, but earlier this month, we got a preview — the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. A Twice-Yearly Show Earth's orbit intersects the track of Halley's orbit twice every year, in May and October. Space.com noted that the early May encounter causes the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, while October brings the Orionid shower. If you've never seen a meteor shower before, you may be surprised when you see colorful, bright streaks shoot across the night sky. When a comet's dust trail collides with the Earth's atmosphere, the dust particles disintegrate as they burn, which produces this colorful phenomenon, according to NASA. Meteor showers are named for stars, such as Eta Aquarii, or star groups, such as Orion, not because they have any direct connection to these stars but purely as visual guideposts. NASA reported that Eta Aquarii marks the radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, or the portion of the sky that meteors in the shower seem to be hurling away from. This is purely a perspective effect: When we look toward Eta Aquarii we are looking back along the "flight path" of Halley's fragments as they hurl toward Earth. Preview of a Comet A meteor shower is usually not like a celestial fireworks show, though a few have been. This year's Eta Aquarid meteor shower was expected to produce about 10 meteors an hour for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. Mark your calendar for October 21 and 22, predicted to be the peak days to observe the Orionid shower. To observe it, just find a spot where you have a good view, make yourself warm and comfortable in the predawn hours — and wait.

Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower: A Calling Card From Halley's Comet

Key Takeaways Data creation from Internet of Things devices and sensors is accelerating globally. Increasing volume and variety of data needs faster transmission and analytical capabilities to extract value. Autonomous surveillance success from Triton MQ-4C relies on onboard AI with machine learning and connectivity for real-time data transmission back to base.It's often said that data is the new oil and that data drives business. Yet, just like real oil, a glut of data is almost useless.The U.S. Navy is one such organization trying to make sense, in real time, of massive amounts of information. It might have found an engine for its oil: an unmanned aerial vehicle with advanced processing powers to provide in-the-moment insight about the world's seas.The MQ-4C Triton aircraft, built by Northrop Grumman, began supporting U.S. Navy operations in early 2020, demonstrating unprecedented data collection capabilities as part of operational capability deployment.But it's not just the autonomous capabilities of Triton that excites the Navy — the aircraft's ability to process a massive amount of data means they can distinguish an authorized shipping vessel from an unauthorized, potentially threatening one.The Gigabyte ProblemData is everywhere. Just about every type of organization and business emphasizes digital-first operations and strategies as the linchpin to efficiency, productivity and ingenuity. However, increased data brings a new set of problems with volume, transfer speeds and diversity.Organizations are tripping over structured and unstructured data from a wide variety of sources. Advances in Internet of Things (IoT) and, more specifically, the Internet of Bodies mean more data is coming in from more connected devices, and the tricky part is analyzing it all.Even organizations that have data scientists can't keep up. Already, daily data production runs at an estimated 328.77 billion gigabytes per day, according to Business2Community. By 2025, Deloitte estimates global data creation at 175 zettabytes.Just like any other organization, the Navy faces this kind of data challenge deploying advanced technologies. At first, the Triton aircraft seems like just another source of data to manage: an unmanned vehicle that will give military commanders in the Pacific region and, eventually, around the globe all sorts of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) information. Yet, Triton is unique for more than its ability to fly for more than a day without coming "back home" — it actually solves the gigabyte challenge with its onboard analytical processor that sifts through data in the air for easier interpretation.A Vast Theater"Triton is a real paradigm shift in unmanned systems," said Bill Beck, director of advanced development for Northrop Grumman's Triton program. To put this in context, Beck points out that Triton will be on a mission longer than the shifts of the Navy personnel managing those missions.In sports, it's difficult to compare athletes of different eras — gear, training methods and travel have all changed. In surveillance air flight, it's perfectly acceptable to contrast Triton to the P-3 Orion maritime aircraft of the 1960s. Triton builds on P-3's long legacy of mission-critical capability and extends that capability, integrating state-of-the-art electronics, software, sensors and data analysis.The original P-3 had analogue data that couldn't be transferred until the plane returned from a mission, Beck explained. Triton, however, is a high-powered network relay and data center with wide-band satellite connectivity. It receives messages and data input from a variety of sources — other planes, ships at sea and land sensors — and synthesizes it all to create a picture of the theater of operations it's canvassing. That picture is created and transmitted over satellite link in near-real time to ground operators.And quite a theater it will be: Check out this Northrop Grumman video that describes how Triton has an operating altitude greater than 50,000 feet and its 360-degree radar can scan 2.5 million square kilometers (0.96 million square miles). It can also survey four million nautical miles in one 24-hour mission.The MQ-4C's mission payload includes multiple sensors and radars specifically designed for the maritime environment. They account for the movement of water and wind to absorb key information.The advanced technologies wouldn't matter, though, if all the data Triton collects couldn't be disseminated during the mission. The data links that send information from the aircraft back to base are critical to Triton's successes. This real-time dissemination also includes operation during disasters, where autonomous unmanned aerial reconnaissance helps plan for aid and support."The data links on Triton are what make it all happen," Beck said of the design process. "A major design and operational consideration is how much processing needs to be done aboard the aircraft autonomously. Too little processing aboard means a huge amount of data needs to be offloaded, requiring large and available communications links. Too much processing aboard, with too little bandwidth available to offload data, and the operators question whether they're really getting all the information and data they need."Limitless PotentialBetween the advanced sensors and the data analytical capabilities on Triton, the Navy can accomplish a broad range of surveillance tasks.Trying to locate specific vessels in packed waterways is like looking for a needle in a haystack, Beck said. "These dense areas are a great place to hide and conduct mischief. With advances in AI and machine learning, Triton is able to sort through much of the noise and confusion in a way that allows clarity that the human eye simply cannot discern."The sky is the limit, as is the sea. "Time matters," Beck said of the aircraft's real-time data processing. "With Triton, you can figure out what you're looking at and what you're encountering. Time is of the essence, so sooner is better."Learn more about Triton and what it's capable of.

The Triton Aircraft Quickly Makes Sense of a Mysterious Sea

Ellen Ochoa is an inventor, a NASA leader and a classical flutist. But she's best known as a boundary breaker: She was the first Hispanic woman in space, and the first Hispanic person to lead the Johnson Space Center, NASA's hub for human spaceflight activity. Preparing to Launch Born and raised in California, Ochoa was a talented flutist who thought about pursuing a music degree when she was in high school. But her friends from her calculus class were all going into science and engineering fields, and that helped nudge her toward physics, according to the American Physical Society. She earned a bachelor's degree in physics from San Diego State University, then she earned a master's degree and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University. She developed a keen interest in optics, the behavior and characteristics of light. As a research engineer, first at Sandia National Laboratories and then at NASA's Ames Research Center, she helped develop optical systems for information processing. During her research days, NASA says, she wrote several technical papers and co-invented three patents: one for an optical inspection system, one for an optical object recognition method, and one for a method for noise removal in images. A Career in Orbit Ochoa joined NASA in 1988 and was selected as an astronaut in 1990. She became the first Hispanic woman in space in 1993 when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery. She brought her flute along and played it in space. (She was the first person to play a musical instrument in low-Earth orbit, too.) Ochoa flew into space three more times: Her first two missions studied the Earth's atmosphere and ozone depletion; on her third and fourth missions, she helped build the International Space Station. Across her four spaceflights, Ochoa logged more than 1,000 hours in space. "I felt like I was contributing to something larger than myself, that benefits people on Earth, and I was willing to take the risk," she told the Harvard Gazette. After her astronaut career ended, she went to work for the Johnson Space Center, first as a deputy director and then as the center's 11th director. She was the first Hispanic person and the second woman to hold the position. During her tenure as director, from 2013 to 2018, she oversaw crucial research and exploration projects, such as the first Orion flight test and the selection of four astronauts for Commercial Crew training. What Ochoa Means to Women of Color in STEM "I know that role models make a difference, and I take seriously that part of my career and life," Ochoa told the National Women's History Museum. "For young Hispanic women, there are few well-known women in STEM fields so it's even more important to let them know about the interesting and rewarding careers that they can pursue." Ellen Ochoa is a pioneer for women of color in STEM. Though there are more women in STEM than ever, they're still underrepresented in physics and engineering — women of color especially so. Ochoa didn't have many role models when she entered NASA's program out of graduate school, but she's helped open the door for more diverse candidates in the program.

Ellen Ochoa: The First Hispanic Woman in Space

Hurtling asteroids are in the news again. According to CNET, 2006 QV89, a lump of rock half the size of a football field, has a slight chance (one in 7,000) of hitting Earth this fall. Meanwhile, KQED reports that a larger asteroid named Apophis will make a very close pass in 2029, coming closer than the television and telephone satellites that orbit the Earth. Planetary Defense: Not Just Science Fiction Luckily, the chances of Apophis slamming directly into us have been reduced from an earlier estimate of 2.7% to "practically nil." Even if Apophis misses us, there is a chance of an asteroid eventually hitting Earth. A really large asteroid could wipe us out, just as one wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago, says KQED. Even an asteroid a mere thousand feet across — about the size of Apophis, notes KQED — could hit Earth with 1,000 times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, destroying any city in its path and devastating an entire region, says EarthSky.org. In the golden age of science fiction, planetary defense usually meant guarding Earth against malicious aliens or the occasional fleet of rebel space colonists. Now, according to NASA's planetary defense web pages, it means guarding Earth against boulders and mountains left over from the creation of the planets. Eyes on the Skies Foresight is essential in preventing an asteroid hitting Earth. Until recently, there was no systematic effort to track asteroids that pass near Earth. According to KQED, an Apophis-sized asteroid passed us closer than the moon in 2001 — but one knew it until 2017, when it was tracked, and analysis of its orbit revealed the earlier near miss. Now, as the NASA planetary defense FAQ reports, the detection and tracking elements of defense are coming together, making it likely that we will know of any collision threat years in advance. How to Shoot Down an Asteroid When we know an asteroid's path in advance, we can deflect it. The goal of deflection, says Space.com, is to "nudge" the asteroid into a slightly different orbit, so that it misses the Earth instead of slamming into us. A very slight nudge is sufficient if done early enough before the predicted impact. A velocity change of one meter per second adds up to roughly 20,000 miles in a year — five times Earth's radius, or the difference between impact and a clean miss. (Orbital dynamics can complicate this picture, but small changes in speed still add up over time.) So, how do you nudge an asteroid? Hitting it with a nuclear bomb is a Hollywood favorite, but it might break it apart if hit it too hard. Then you just have several smaller asteroids to contend with — one or more of which may still be on a collision course with Earth. For this reason, the favored technique is a kinetic impactor, a spacecraft that hits the asteroid hard enough to move it into a slightly different orbit, but not so hard as to break it into fragments. NASA is already in the planning stages of a mission to test the idea on an asteroid called Didymos B, due to pass conveniently (but not dangerously) close to Earth in 2022 and 2024. Alas, for Hollywood, a kinetic impactor requires neither a nuclear warhead nor astronauts, since the impactor will hit the asteroid at several miles per second. Planetary defense will, therefore, be strictly a robotic mission.

Asteroid Attack: Planetary Defense Gets Real

There were 144 orbital rocket launch attempts in 2021, which is a record — and the numbers are just going to keep going up from here. Everyone seems to want to go to space. Demand is higher than ever. That's why the industry is taking note of the environmental impacts of rocket fuel — and looking for more sustainable fuels and alternatives.Biofuels are of huge interest to the rocketry industry because they're more sustainable and less harmful to the environment than current options. One promising option from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab promises more energy density than any current fuel option available — without the toxic byproducts of petroleum. How would this biofuel work, and what are the downsides and challenges? Here's what we know.
Bacteria as Sustainable Biofuel
This new fuel, called POP-FAME (polycyclopropanated fatty acid methyl ester), is based on the antifungal bacteria Streptomyces. Project leader Jay Keasling specifically focused in on this molecule because of its shape, but Streptomyces has proven difficult to grow in a lab. However, because it had been genetically mapped, the team attempted to recreate the bacteria's shape without copying the more troublesome parts of the structure — which would make it easy to replicate. They succeeded, and POP-FAME is the result.The key to this new potential biofuel is in its shape: It has three carbon rings in the shape of a triangle. Typical fuels also have carbon chains — but they aren't subject to the same stress that a sharper 60-degree angle creates. Energy is created when these bonds are broken, and these bonds under duress (at a sharper angle) produce a lot more energy when broken than typical fuels do. What's more, because of its shape, it can be packed even tighter than regular petroleum, which further increases its energy potential.The potential energy output of POP-FAME is enormous. According to the Science News release, it will be "more than 50 megajoules per liter after chemical processing." In comparison, a popular kerosene-based rocket fuel has around 35. Basically, this means that it has the potential to be more energy efficient at a lower consumption rate — and because it's biofuel, it will produce fewer toxic byproducts.
How Could Biofuels Change the Aerospace Industry?
The force of Earth's gravity is significant; as a result, it takes a lot of fuel to propel a rocket out of Earth's atmosphere. When there were just a few rocket launches a year, no one paid much attention to environmental costs. But now that rocket launches are happening more regularly, experts are taking notice.While it's too early to say that this biofuel would have no effect on climate change or be completely neutral (even simple, seemingly harmless byproducts such as water can have an effect on climate change, after all), it will likely produce lower toxicity than current options.Additionally, it's important to take note of energy efficiency and costs. Inexpensive, sustainable fuels would bring the costs of reaching orbit down, which would encourage more launches. That, in turn, might spur a new era of space exploration and travel. What's more, sustainable biofuel that's easy to produce could make Mars trips feasible — once astronauts arrive, they could simply grow the fuel needed to get them back home.
What Are the Next Steps?
It's important to note that POP-FAME is still in the very early stages. The team hasn't even done field tests yet, so all of this is still theoretical. Still, POP-FAME has performed excellently in simulations. These tests have shown that the molecule is safe and stable at room temperature. In contrast, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, two popular rocket fuels, must be kept at -297 degrees Fahrenheit and -423 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively.Now the challenge is to produce enough of the biofuel for testing, which could take a while. Additionally, scientists want to test out different applications of biofuels for jet fuel and other possible uses. In other words, it will be a long time before this biofuel is ready for any practical uses — but it's incredibly promising for right now.Are you interested in science and innovation? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Biofuels Could Be a More Environmentally Friendly Rocket Fuel

From the beginning of humanity, people have wondered: What's out there? It began as stargazing but eventually gave way to science, with human curiosity driving the discovery of new and more innovative ways to slip the surly bonds of Earth. While rocket launch technology is now developing at a breakneck pace, it's worth taking a look back at the evolution of space exploration — where did we start? Where have we been? And where are we going next? Eyes to the Skies With rapid advances in rocketry largely coming over the last century, it's easy to suggest technology as the driving factor: Without the right materials and equipment, surely rocket launches were out of reach. Not quite. Historical records show burgeoning interest in rocket precursors, such as steam-powered devices, around 400 B.C., and it's generally agreed that Chinese innovators developed the first real rockets in the first century A.D. Much like modern fireworks, these small rockets were often used in local and religious festivals, and so-called "Chinese fire arrows" were also used against Mongol invaders. Further refinement over the next millennium led to more extensive use of rockets in warfare. For example, the Congreve rocket used in the late 1700s was a stick-guided rocket capable of carrying incendiary or antipersonnel munitions up to two miles. By 1844, spin stabilization techniques, which made rockets spin like a bullet using angled jet vents, were implemented for greater accuracy. Making It Work In 1898, Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested that rockets might be capable of space travel if they could achieve great enough range and speed. His solution was liquid propellant. That way, rockets would only be limited by the velocity of escaping gases. To underpin this idea, he developed the Rocket Equation:  The equation applies to any device with the characteristics of a rocket — that is, it can apply acceleration to itself using thrust generated by expelling its mass at high velocity. For his substantive contributions to the field, Tsiolkovsky is often called the father of modern astronautics. Next came work from Robert H. Goddard and Hermann Oberth. Oberth helped develop Germany's suite of advanced V-2 rockets that could achieve massive thrust over short distances by burning one ton of alcohol and oxygen every seven seconds, while Goddard developed plans for both two-stage and three-stage rockets along with gyroscope flight instruments and parachute-equipped cargo containers. He was the first to launch a rocket powered by liquid and gasoline. Up, Up and Away! It all came together on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union successfully launched the first rocket into space. The R-7 ICBM rocket carried Sputnik, humanity's first satellite, into orbit. Being about the size of a beach ball, Sputnik only transmitted a signal for just over two weeks and burned up in the atmosphere on January 4, 1958 after its orbit decayed. By January 31, 1958 the United States launched a rocket of its own, Explorer I, and in October 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officially launched. The Race to Space These ongoing efforts also launched the space race. Both Russia and the United States threw everything they had into creating better, faster and safer rockets that were capable of sustained space travel. The US began with the Mercury program. The Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle used a combination of liquid oxygen and alcohol to produce 78,000 pounds of thrust — enough to send astronaut Alan Shepard into space. The Mercury-Atlas launch vehicle, meanwhile, lifted John Glenn into orbit with 365,000 pounds of thrust. The Gemini program came next and saw the world's first spacewalk and in-orbit rendezvous. Getting there required the Gemini-Titan II launch vehicle, which boasted an impressive 430,000 pounds of thrust. This paved the way for the iconic Apollo program and moon landing, but getting from Earth to its small, rocky companion was no easy task. To accomplish this goal, the Saturn V rocket weighed more than 6.1 million pounds at launch and generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust — more than 17 times the thrust of the Gemini-Titan II. The familiar space shuttle, meanwhile, which was used to carry crews into space from 1981 to 2011, clocked in at 7.8 million pounds of thrust. Passengers Come on Board The rockets themselves weren't the only things getting upgrades. What began as unmanned space flights eventually led to rocket launches that included primate passengers as human analogues to assess the impact of spaceflight on circulatory, nervous and skeletal systems. First was Albert the rhesus monkey in 1948, followed by his successor Albert II in 1949 and then Albert III through VI in quick succession. Sadly, all died either in space or shortly after their return. In 1959, the United States successfully recovered Able the rhesus monkey and Baker the squirrel monkey alive after their flight and did the same with a chimpanzee named Ham in 1961. This paved the way for Alan Shepard's historic flight into space on May 5, 1961, followed by John Glenn's orbit of Earth in February 1962. In 1963, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space aboard the Vostok 6, and in 1983, mission specialist Sally Ride became the first American female astronaut in space on the seventh space shuttle mission. All Systems Go What's next for rockets? First up is even more power. With NASA looking to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars, a new space shuttle launch system (SLS) was required. While it bears some visual similarity to the retired space shuttle, it's taller and heavier, and it will generate up to 8.8 million pounds of thrust — 15% more than its Saturn V counterpart. There's also a push to make rockets reusable. Historically, the first stages of multi-stage rockets were unrecoverable after being jettisoned when they ran out of fuel. Now, companies are working on reusable stage one and two boosters that can return to Earth intact and upright. Not only could this reduce the total amount of rocket launch waste being created, but it's much more cost- and time-efficient to refuel and reuse these boosters than it is to build new ones from scratch. This is rocket science — two millennia worth. While launch efforts are finally hitting their stride as technology and innovation collide, they're built on a platform of human curiosity that's always been determined to discover what lies beyond. Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics, and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation.

Rocket Launch Rundown: Exploring Two Millennia of Space Travel

Let's be honest: It's not a great photo — taken by Explorer 6, the first satellite image of Earth was a blocky, blurry mess. But it was also a history-making achievement that helped fuel human imagination and kick off decades of outer space discovery.      Not Exactly Earth's Best Look      On Aug. 14, 1959, the sixth Explorer iteration captured the first satellite image of Earth. Snapped above a partly cloudy stretch of the central Pacific Ocean, it took 40 minutes for picture data to make the trip from the Explorer 6 to a receiving station in Hawaii. Compared to current photo-taking technology, the Explorer's black-and-white image is crude at best and bears little resemblance to later, higher-resolution photos taken both from orbit and the lunar surface.      Considering the conditions of capture, however, the photograph was a stunning achievement. Not only was the spacecraft more than 16,700 feet above Earth's surface and moving more than 20,000 miles per hour, it was also operating with just 63% power since only three of its solar cells were operating. Nonetheless, Explorer lived up to its namesake by giving humankind the first glimpse of Earth from orbit.      The Science of Solar Snaps      NASA's Explorer series of satellites came with a clear mission: "To provide frequent flight opportunities for scientific investigations from space." Achieving this goal meant designing and deploying spacecraft that were lightweight, relatively low-cost and focused on specific scientific observations.      Launched under U.S. Army auspices on Jan. 31, 1958, Explorer 1 ushered in a new era of space exploration. Control of the program was then transferred to NASA when the space agency opened its doors in October 1958 — and on Aug. 7, 1959, Explorer 6 blasted off into space.      Often known as "paddlewheel" satellites thanks to the shape and positioning of their four solar panels, Explorer-type craft were purpose-built for mission mandates, allowing NASA to substantially increase the pace of solar scientific discoveries. In the first decade of this program alone, the agency launched 35 Explorers to help expand the scope of human understanding.      Version 6 followed the typical production pattern: According to NASA, It was a small, spheroid-shaped satellite "designed to study trapped radiation of various energies, galactic cosmic rays, geomagnetism, radio propagation in the upper atmosphere, and the flux of micrometeorites." It also carried a scanning device designed for capturing pictures of Earth's cloud cover. Coming in at just over 142 pounds, the satellite was launched into a highly elliptical orbit. NASA engineers stabilized the craft's spin at 2.8 revolutions per second (rps) with a right ascension spin axis of 217 degrees and a declination of 23 degrees. Unfortunately, only three of the four solar panels fully extended, leaving Explorer 6 with just 63% power. This caused significant signal noise and gave NASA limited operational time before the craft went dark.      Oct. 6, 1959 marked the last spacecraft contact as power failed — but despite having less than two months operational time under its orbital belt, Explorer 6 managed to record 827 hours of analog data, 23 hours of digital data and make history with the first satellite image of Earth.      Fueling the Future of Extra-Earth Exploration      Along with snapping Earth's photo from a distance, Explorer 6 also conducted the first in-depth survey of the Van Allen radiation belt. However, this wouldn't have been possible without previous Explorer missions; Explorer 1 detected this radiation saturation 600 miles above Earth, prompting astrophysicist James Van Allen to posit the existence of trapped solar particles.      Subsequent Explorer missions helped solve more solar mysteries by confirming the presence of helium in the upper atmosphere, determining that the interplanetary magnetic field is primarily powered by the sun's magnetic field and demonstrating the existence of solar wind shock waves on Earth's magnetosphere.      The Explorer series also laid the groundwork for NASA's famous Apollo initiative. Not only were solar solutions and scientific instruments critical to help inform Apollo craft design, but the potential for cameras to capture Earth from space led to rapid advancement in picture-taking technologies. It's not a stretch to say that without the legacy and legwork of Explorer craft, Apollo 8's famous "Earthrise" image might not exist.      Teamwork Makes the Dream Work      Put simply? Taking on the task of space exploration at scale is a team effort. From the "failed" Pioneer 4 craft to Explorer, Voyager, Gemini and Apollo missions, each investigative iteration builds on its predecessors to fly further, dig deeper and expand the scope of space exploration.      Sure, the first satellite snap of Earth wasn't great, but it proved the point: Seeing is believing — and drives scientific achieving.    

Pics or It Didn't Happen: The History-Making Snap of Explorer 6

The essential ingredients of life as we know include water and carbon. These two substances make DNA, RNA, proteins, fats and sugars, which are part of every living thing. In searching for the possibility of life beyond our planet, scientists have found water elsewhere in our solar system and in other solar systems. The search for carbon has been more challenging, but recent advances in radio telescopes have allowed us to analyze the cloudy disks swirling around young stars to identify molecules that are present as new planets are being born. Key Molecules of Life In 2021, the complex carbon molecule methanol was discovered in a developing solar system 320 light-years away, as Nature Astronomy reports. This planet-forming disk around star HD10056 was analyzed by an international team led by Alice Booth of Leiden University (the Netherlands) using the ALMA observatory in Chile. Methanol (chemical formula CH3OH) — also known as wood alcohol — is considered a key molecule of life because it can be used to form more complex organic molecules. In space, the only efficient way to make methanol is for hydrogen atoms (H) to bond with carbon monoxide (CO) on cosmic dust at temperatures below 20 Kelvin (-423.67 Fahrenheit). Complex carbon molecules have been detected in young solar systems with cooler stars, as Space.com explains. According to Leiden University, the recent discovery around star HD10056 is especially exciting because it was detected in a part of the planet-forming disk that is "warm" at 30 Kelvin (-405.67 Fahrenheit). Methanol cannot form at this temperature, so the large amount detected must be leftover from an earlier cold phase. One possibility is that the methanol formed in a cold interstellar cloud containing just dust, gas and ice, and then survived the heat of that cloud collapsing into a planet-forming disc with a new star at its center. The abundant methanol detected around the young star HD10056 can be incorporated into planets, moons, asteroids and comets as they are being formed. The available evidence indicates that two giant planets are already present in this solar system. Furthermore, when complex molecules are exposed to ultraviolet radiation from a hot sun, chemical bonds will break and occasionally form more stable and more complex compounds. Therefore, many newly formed planets may start with the essential ingredients of life. Our Solar System Scientists are still working to understand how Earth acquired the key ingredients of life. As the Natural History Museum of London describes, our current understanding is as follows: Around 4.6 billion years ago, 99.9% of the material in a swirling cloud of gas, dust and ice coalesced to form our sun. The remaining debris orbited the sun in a flat disc shape and cooled to form solid material. In the high temperatures close to the sun, minerals and metals formed. Farther away, less volatile solids such as ice and ammonia formed. The tiny, dust-like particles bumped into each other, sticking together to form larger particles. They eventually formed planets that swept up the remaining dust and gas in their orbits. Near the hot sun, the rocky debris gave rise to the four terrestrial planets with metal cores: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Farther from the sun, the gas and ice giants formed Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The remaining bits of debris became asteroids (made mostly of metal and rock) and comets (made mostly of ice, dust and rock). Today, many asteroids reside in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and many comets reside in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune. Special Delivery In the early days of the solar system, the new planets were constantly bombarded with asteroids and comets. As Smithsonian Magazine shares, it's believed that these impacts delivered carbon molecules and water from the outer solar system to Earth. These would become the building blocks for life on Earth. With hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, and perhaps 100 billion stars per galaxy, it seems inevitable that there is life elsewhere in the universe. However, while it was once believed that the conditions for life were the result of an almost impossible series of events, new observations suggest that these conditions might be fairly common. Extraordinary new technologies are allowing us to peer into distant galaxies at all stages of development. Thus, the answer to whether there is life on other planets — and where that life might be — may soon come. Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation. 

Planet-Forming Disks Contain Key Ingredients for Life: Methanol

Key Takeaways  The U.S. military denies the existence of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) but acknowledges the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Of the 12,000 UFO reports collected by the U.S. Air Force between 1952 and 1969, only 6% could not be explained. In a 2021 report on UAPs, 143 out of 144 sightings remain unexplained.The U.S. government recently confirmed reports by military pilots of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), which are more commonly called unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The government also acknowledged the need to better understand UAP for the purpose of pilot safety and national security. There was no mention of aliens from other planets visiting Earth, but the possibility was not ruled out. For decades, the U.S. government has denied the existence of UFOs, making this a major step.History of UFO SightingsThe first widely reported UFO sighting was made on June 24, 1947, by an amateur pilot named Kenneth Arnold, as The Atlantic explains. Mr. Arnold was flying from his home in Idaho to an air show in Oregon and took a detour to Mount Rainier, Washington.Suddenly, Mr. Arnold saw a flash of bright blue-white light, followed by nine additional flashes in rapid succession. The lights were coming from nine "circular-type" objects moving in unison through the sky. Using the mountains as landmarks and the clock on his dashboard, Mr. Arnold estimated that the objects traveled a distance of 50 miles in 1 minute and 42 seconds before disappearing from view. This would be twice the speed of sound. Mr. Arnold was surprised, but thought the flying objects might be new military aircraft.After arriving in Oregon, Mr. Arnold described the unidentified flying objects he had seen to a reporter. As an experienced pilot, respected businessman and family man, Mr. Arnold appeared to be a credible witness. The local newspaper published a brief article, which was picked up by The Associated Press and reported across the country. Some of the news outlets used the term "flying saucer," which ignited the public's imagination.By the end of 1947 — just six months after Mr. Arnold's UFO sighting — a total of 140 newspapers from across the United States and Canada had reported on 853 UFO sightings. Flying saucers would soon become ubiquitous in comic books, TV shows and movies.The Military Denies all Evidence of UFOsJust two weeks after Mr. Arnold's UFO sighting, the Air Force felt compelled to issue a statement about the crash of a military weather balloon in Roswell, New Mexico. The incident had initially been reported as a possible "flying disk" crash. The Air Force explanation did not have the desired effect, and "Roswell" is still synonymous with UFOs and theories about government conspiracies to conceal evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth.The Army did send officials to talk to Mr. Arnold, and they officially concluded that he had either seen a mirage or was hallucinating. Nonetheless, UFO sightings persisted. Given the possibility that UFOs might be sophisticated Soviet aircraft, the U.S. Air Force launched a UFO investigation called Project Blue Book in 1952. As Britannica explains, 12,000 reports of UFO sightings or related events were collected from 1952 to 1969. Only 6% could not be explained, and then only because of insufficient information. The project was shut down. For decades, the military would continue to deny any evidence of flying objects that could not be explained, which further emboldened conspiracy theorists.The Military Acknowledges Existence of UAPThe document acknowledging the existence of UAP came from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in June 2021. It is a preliminary intelligence assessment of the threat posed by UAP and the progress made by the Department of Defense in understanding the threat.The report focused on events that occurred between 2004 and 2021, with the majority occurring within the last two years. This increase is because a standardized UAP reporting system was first established by the Navy in 2019 and was fully adopted in 2020. The document uses the term "unidentified aerial phenomena" to remove the stigma associated with discussing UFOs.The report focused on UAP witnessed firsthand by military pilots and those registered on aircraft sensors including radar, infrared, electro-optical and weapons seekers. These sensors can provide accurate information about relative size, shape, structure, velocity and range.The Military Explanation for UAPOf the 144 reports of UAP included in this UFO investigation, 80 involved multiple sensors. Most UAP appeared to be physical objects. One was identified with high confidence as a large, deflating balloon. The remaining 143 UAP remain unexplained.All UAP incidents are expected to eventually be included in one of five categories: Airborne clutter (birds, balloons, recreational drones, plastic bags) Natural atmospheric phenomena (ice crystals, moisture, thermal fluctuations) USA or industry developmental programs (classified government programs) Foreign adversary systems (advanced aircraft by countries other than the USA that use breakthrough technology) Other (UAP without enough data to be identified and alien spacecraft)In 18 reports, UAP exhibited unusual movement patterns and "appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion." These patterns could be due to sensor errors or observer misperception, but they could also be due to breakthrough technologies (from Earth) or aliens.A Recent Increase in UFO Sightings?The New York Times and other media outlets have reported that UFO sightings increased in 2020. This has largely been attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and more people looking up at the night sky because they had nowhere to go.The National UFO Reporting Center (founded in 1974) and the Mutual UFO Network (founded in 1969) are non-government agencies that collect information about and investigate UFO sightings. The vast majority of sightings can be attributed to satellites, meteors, the planet Venus, birds, bats, planes, drones and the light playing tricks on the eye or the camera lens. Serious UFO researchers know that humans are not adept at gauging the size, speed and distance of an object in the air, especially when there are no background objects for comparison.A small percentage of UFO sightings remain unexplained, but that percentage does not change when more sightings are reported. Oftentimes, an increase in reports can be traced to UFO stories in the news — such as the ones covering the recently released government report on unidentified aerial phenomena.The vast majority of unidentified flying objects are definitely not due to aliens. However, astronomers estimate that there are 300 million habitable worlds in the Milky Way galaxy alone — it isn't unreasonable to look.Long the site of extraterrestrial speculation, Area 51 may indeed be more than meets the eye. Learn more.

UFO Sightings Are Real, but Aliens Are Not Responsible

Peggy Whitson's space missions are iconic. She spent 665 days in space, more than any other woman or U.S. astronaut, and she commanded the International Space Station (ISS) twice. Whitson retired from NASA in June after a successful career that broke records and demonstrated the incredible value that women bring to science and space. "I have hit my radiation limit," Whitson told Business Insider. "So [I'm] not going into space with NASA anymore."  A Farm Girl Who Became One of the Most Successful Female Astronauts Whitson was inspired to explore space at nine years old when humans walked on the moon for the first time in 1969. "I thought, what a cool job! It really didn't become a reality to me to become a goal until I graduated from high school, which was coincidentally the same year they picked the first set of female astronauts," Whitson said in an interview with NASA. After growing up on a farm in Iowa, Whitson went on to study biology. She double majored in biology and chemistry — completing college in just three years — and went on to Rice University to study biochemistry. Whitson worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Johnson Space Center; in 1989, she was hired by NASA to be head of the Space Center's biochemistry section. "I've always said I've never had a real job because I've always done what I wanted to do, which was work at NASA," Whitson said. At Johnson, Whitson served in a number of scientific roles that involved joint projects between the U.S. and Russia — the Soviet Union at the time — which prepared her for her future leadership role at the ISS. However, she didn't have instant success. According to Business Insider, Whitson applied to be an astronaut 10 times before she was finally selected in 1996. After years of training on the ground, she experienced her first space mission in 2002, where she completed 21 science investigations and became NASA's first space station science officer. Peggy Whitson's Space Missions and Achievements On each of Peggy Whitson's space missions, she set new records and changed perceptions of gender and its representation in space. In 2008, during her second mission, she became the first female commander of the ISS, according to NASA. She continued to break glass ceilings back on Earth, where she became the first woman and first non-military person to serve as chief of the astronaut corps. From 2016 to 2017, she was back in space, yet again setting records. She became the first woman to command the ISS twice, the oldest female astronaut and the most experienced female spacewalker, rounding out her career with "10 spacewalks totaling 60 hours and 21 minutes" in space outside an aircraft, said NASA. On one spacewalk, Whitson saw her reflection in an array of solar panels. She told Business Insider, "I could see myself in a space suit, I could see the Earth behind me in the solar arrays, and I was like, 'holy cow, I really am an astronaut!' Because you forget. You're in this moment. You're getting a job done." Want to work with female engineers who are changing the game? Check out our careers page.  [tweet width="500" id="943151969081937920"]    

665 Days in Orbit: Peggy Whitson's Space Missions

In the United States, the day after Thanksgiving is commonly referred to as Black Friday — so called because the money shoppers spend tips retailers from "the red" into "the black," according to Oxford. On this day, millions of crazed shoppers pack tightly into stores, trying to amass bargains. On Nov. 24, 2014, NASA decided to give the day another meaning: Black Hole Friday. On this day each year, NASA features gorgeous illustrations and details about one of the most cosmically cool space discoveries in the known universe. As a follow-up to Black Hole Friday, these facts about black holes are sure to take your mind off the holiday madness.   Black Holes May Connect to Other Universes   Black holes are celestial objects with gravity so immense no object can escape. It's been said that to fall into a black hole is to never return. But according to an announcement in 2016 from the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, falling into a black hole may not be all that bad. In a research paper he published with other colleagues, Hawking asserted that a black hole could be a tunnel between two universes, said Independent.   The Milky Way May Have Thousands of Them   In 1974, scientists discovered a huge, highly energetic structure at the center of the Milky Way that was emitting radio waves. It was a black hole. They named it Sagittarius A* (pronounced "Sagittarius A-star"), according to the Cornell University Library. For years, people thought Sagittarius A* was the only black hole at the center of our galaxy. But in May 2018, scientists analyzing data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory — a satellite designed to detect X-ray emissions from exploded stars, clusters of galaxies and black holes — announced that they found evidence for the existence of thousands of black holes at the center of the Milky Way. More work is needed to confirm this, but one thing is for sure: Sagittarius A* is not alone.   There Are Four Categories   Not all black holes are created equal. Scientists tend to classify black holes into four categories: micro, stellar, intermediate and supermassive, said Earth Eclipse. Although they vary in size, they are all very dense. Miniature black holes, which are still theoretical, may be as small as an atom but have the mass of a mountain. Stellar black holes, the most common in the universe, have the mass of 10 to 20 of our suns. Intermediate black holes are about the size of Earth and have the mass equivalent to something between 100 and a million suns. Supermassive black holes, which likely exist at the center of most galaxies, are "millions, if not billions, of times as massive as the Sun," said NASA.   Black Holes Have a Big Appetite   One of the most fascinating space discoveries about black holes is that they are voracious eaters. Their incredible mass and intense gravity draw nearby cosmic gases and structures toward them, sparing nothing. In September 2018, scientists reported that they had calculated the speed at which one black hole, located billions of miles from Earth, was eating a glob of material about the size of our planet; it came out to one-third the speed of light, according to Science Trends.   An Image Capture May Be Available Soon   Thanks to a variety of astronomical satellites and instruments launched into space, scientists have created wonderful images of our solar system's planets, distant stars, galaxies and other objects from this home we call our universe. But one character is missing: Sagittarius A*, the largest black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Enter the Event Horizon Telescope, a planetary array of multiple earthbound telescopes and instruments working together to directly image Sagittarius A* to gather more facts about black holes. The telescope is named after a feature on a black hole known as the event horizon, a boundary around the edge of a black hole beyond which no light or other radiation can escape. The team hopes to have the first image soon.       

5 Uncommon Facts About Black Holes

The International Space Station (ISS) is rounding the track toward its 20th year in orbit. On Nov. 20, 1998, according to the station chronology at CASIS, the first section of the ISS was launched into orbit by Zarya, a Russian Proton booster rocket. A year later, the first American-built section was carried up aboard a shuttle. And on Nov. 2, 2000, the station's first crew — an American and two Russians — reported aboard.  The Miracle of Routine Operation Notably, when Space Safety magazine listed major mishaps in the history of spaceflight, none of them involved the ISS. However, to call the history of the ISS a history of routine operation is a misnomer because nothing about space travel is routine, or will be for a long time to come. More than anything else, the station is a training mission for the long-duration spaceflights of the future, to Mars and beyond. According to NASA, the One-Year Mission accomplished by astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on the ISS was twice as long as most U.S. missions. Missions to Mars are approximately 30 months long, said NASA, so the One-Year Mission is shedding "new insights into how the human body adjusts to weightlessness, isolation, radiation and stress of long duration spaceflight." The ISS has shown us that we can indeed build spacecraft capable of safely carrying humans on such long-duration missions. The history of the ISS has also shown us that, as NASA observed, we can do this collaboratively, through cooperation that has persisted for nearly two decades, even through the ups and down of earthly international relations. This is an equally breathtaking piece of good news because outer space is simply too big for any one country to explore. If we are going to do it — and we will! — we will be doing it together.   Spaceship and City This quiet and amazing double achievement did not happen by itself. It involved solving a lot of technical challenges. First of all, the ISS is big. It is a true spaceship, larger and heavier than any airliner. And it continues to grow, with new modules still being added. "The space station is approximately the size of a football field ... it is about four times as large as the Russian space station Mir and five times as large as the U.S. Skylab," said CASIS. At the same time, the central role of cooperation and collaboration makes the ISS in some ways the prototype of something even more futuristic: a city in space. The sections and modules that make up the ISS are at once self-contained, like buildings in a city, yet tied together by shared infrastructure facilities, such as the station's power-generating solar wings. This semi-decentralized approach created a host of engineering complications involving features as basic as the docking collars that connect station modules — and which needed to conform to both American and Russian specifications. At the same time, the reward is greater flexibility and survivability due to having essentially two independent life-support systems, each of which is capable of supporting the entire crew in a pinch. Similar engineering complications — and advantages — are reproduced in the provision for attaching European, Japanese and other modules. Each has its own role, while also adding to the overall capability of the station. Again, the result is suggestive not so much of our traditional notion of a spaceship as of a city in space, its three-dimensional streets filled with multiple languages and an endless variety of activities. Part interplanetary training mission, part prototype space city — the final remarkable thing about the history of the ISS is that these roles have taken form as the station itself did, over nearly two decades of operating experience in space. And where does the ISS go next? That part is up to you.

20-Year Mission — History of the ISS

Scientists and curious people all over the planet have dreamt of interplanetary travel. Is this sci-fi trope finally within our grasp? NASA saw great success with its DAWN mission, which explored the giant asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. The DAWN mission successfully hopped from one extraterrestrial destination to another, potentially laying the groundwork for exploring multiple planets in future missions. Success of DAWN NASA's robotic DAWN spacecraft, developed by Northrop Grumman, achieved several major milestones in its 11 years of spaceflight. According to NASA, DAWN was the first spacecraft to:   Orbit two planetary bodies  Orbit an object in the main asteroid belt  Visit a dwarf planet  It collected data and images about Vesta and Ceres, two bodies that scientists barely understood before the mission. "There was some expectation based on observations done by earth telescopes or Hubble, but we really didn't know what we would find at either of these places until we got there," says Joe Makowski, DAWN Operations Program Manager. The spacecraft launched in 2007 and made the slow but steady trek to the asteroid belt. It orbited Vesta from mid-2011 until 2012, then spent the next three years traveling to Ceres. It studied Ceres from 2015 through 2018, and though the mission has been completed, scientists are still making new discoveries from the 100,000 images that DAWN collected. By getting a closer look at bodies in the asteroid belt, scientists confirmed that asteroids, protoplanets and dwarf planets are much more than a bunch of giant space rocks. They are diverse astronomical bodies that hold evidence of how the early solar system was organized and evolved. The mission revealed that Vesta's surface contains a historical record of the many thousands of impacts it has seen since it formed, and that it has trace amounts of water, which was unexpected.  In August 2020, NBC News reported that the latest scientific analysis revealed that Ceres is more geologically active than scientists previously thought. DAWN revealed that it has surface features such as huge salt-domes, muddy 'ice-volcanos,' and potentially some liquid saltwater beneath the surface. This reinforced the idea that dwarf planets like Ceres could have previously hosted sub-surface oceans — and possibly still do — according to NASA. Ion Propulsion The key to visiting multiple places in the solar system in one mission is having an efficient propulsion system for the spacecraft. While many other spacecraft are powered by chemical propulsion, DAWN used solar electric propulsion — using solar power to drive its ion engines — provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dawn's solar electric propulsion was about ten times more efficient than chemical propulsion, requiring only a tenth of the propellant to go the same distance. So, does that mean that ion propulsion is the technical key to interplanetary travel? Perhaps. Ion propulsion worked especially well for a mission like DAWN that required orbiting two different bodies, because the bodies were close enough to the sun. It could have limitations in other scenarios. "Solar electric propulsion works well until you get somewhere around Jupiter and Saturn," Makowski explains. He adds, "Those planets are so far from the sun, where solar energy is so limited, that you need another electrical power source." Lessons for the Future of Space Travel Ion propulsion with new power sources may be the silver bullet for interplanetary space travel, with lessons from DAWN providing the foundation for future missions. "Another big challenge with planetary missions is fault management," says Makowski. This means making sure that if something goes wrong with the spacecraft's hardware, the software can detect the problem and make adjustments to correct these failures. This is critical for interplanetary travel where the spacecraft are too far from Earth for constant communication. As Makowski says, "If you're supposed to be thrusting and you're not, and you don't talk to Earth for five days, the spacecraft won't be in the place in the sky where you expect it to be." He explains that over the course of the 11-year mission, the fault management system helped the spacecraft safely recover from any issues that arose. During the handful of issues that happened during the mission, ground crews could adjust trajectories and get DAWN back on track with plenty of propellant to spare, aided by the ion propulsion system's efficiency. According to Makowski, the team that designed and built DAWN have already used variants of the electric propulsion and fault management systems for:   Communication satellites  A proposed mission to fly to a comet  The Cygnus cargo spacecraft that resupplies the International Space Station  The mission extension vehicle (MEV), a new vehicle that flies to orbiting satellites to refuel them.  Space exploration is a time-consuming and expensive endeavor. Each mission builds on the last, allowing us to become more efficient in our exploration. As we learned from Dawn, harnessing lessons from today's missions, allows us to develop a greater understanding of our place in the history of the solar system. "An achievement like DAWN just opens us up to a universe of possibilities," says Makowski. "You can look back and say - we learned something from that project — more than we ever expected."

Interplanetary Travel Lessons From DAWN

Imagine it's the year 2034, and you're boarding a lunar railroad that will carry you from your research base to your living quarters after studying the lunar landscape. This isn't as far-fetched as you might think. NASA's Artemis program, for example, currently includes plans to establish a human presence on and around the moon, an outpost at the moon's south pole and expeditions across the lunar surface.In fact, a moon economy with sustained human settlements, held together by a network of robots and automated trains for transportation on the moon, is solidly in the works.Planning a Lunar RailwayThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been developing a model for NASA, international governments and commercial industries to rapidly scale up both lunar exploration and commerce. The agency has been conducting a 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study (LunA-10) with the goal of making progress in the development of future lunar habitats.Scientists and engineers across the space community have teamed up during this seven-month-long study, combining their knowledge and skills to develop a future civil lunar framework with sturdy and reliable infrastructure for activities on the moon. Fast Company and others report that, as part of the LunA-10 Capability Study, DARPA selected Northrop Grumman to develop the concept of a moon-based railroad network."For a mission to the moon today," says Northrop Grumman Program Manager Steven Floyd, "you must bring everything to the moon yourself — your mining experiment, your power and your communications equipment."Once permanent lunar bases are established, surface transportation will be necessary to expand human activities.Northrop Grumman Principal Investigator Spencer Levin, who came up with the idea for better transportation on the moon, says, "A lunar railway would provide mobility to many missions."Connecting Valuable Locations on the MoonEngineers at Northrop Grumman started by thinking innovatively about the feasibility of using a lunar railroad for transportation on the moon and identified several important uses. The lunar railroad could provide access to remote areas of the moon, such as permanently shadowed regions in the south pole region that may contain valuable deposits of water ice and hydrocarbons. Other local resources, such as mined regolith, could be used for construction instead of hauling the needed supplies all the way from Earth.The study also looked at the types of metallic materials that could be extracted to produce the rail network. In an ideal situation, the lunar railroad would be constructed from indigenous lunar materials by tele-operated robots. "We're studying how to make the trains and the rail network with as much material sourced from the moon as possible," says Floyd.The payloads, then, would need to be transported around the lunar base — for example, to and from living quarters to landing zones and other outposts. NASA or a private company could also use the moon as a launch point to Mars, so a lunar station would act as a depot, like the Wild West, where cities grew around train stations.Advantages of Rail Transportation on the MoonAnother advantage of the lunar railroad is that railway carts move large quantities of materials significantly faster than traditional lunar rovers. "The rail network would move about the speed of a golf cart," says Floyd. Each train car is shaped like a large version of a mine cart and could haul enough material to fill a full-sized truck bed. Depending on demand, a single train could connect hundreds of cars.Industrial-grade construction rovers with autonomous robotics would be the primary means of laying the track. Like bulldozers on Earth, these rovers would prepare the area and then place the materials. As the railroad grows outward from the lunar base, it would provide transportation for its growth and other construction projects, such as the lunar electric power grid, solar arrays and telecommunications networks. Eventually, the lunar rail system would be expanded to all geographic areas of interest.In addition, LunA-10 investigated which type of propulsion mechanism made the most sense: batteries and electric motors versus electrification, which is currently used for light rail transit on Earth.The Moon Meets Lunar TourismThe study also looked at what could be monetizable. "There could be a market for people willing to pay for a tour around the moon," says Floyd. "A tourist might want to see different sights on the moon, and a rail network would facilitate those types of opportunities."To an astronaut on the moon, riding the lunar railway might seem like an attraction at an amusement park, except that, instead of an artificial set, it's actually the surface of the moon."If someone wanted to send me to the moon and bring me back, I would 100% do that," says Levin, noting that the moon is still a wild, uncharted place."Part of the mission of Northrop Grumman is to have a vision for what the future could be," says Floyd. "We can do that because we understand how to operate complex vehicles in the harsh environment of the lunar surface."Even if you don't get a seat on the lunar train, it's still possible that someone might send you a postcard from the moon someday... as long as the next plan is for a lunar post office.Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.

Building a Lunar Railroad in Space

Astronauts not only have the privilege of exploring space, but they look cool doing it. Anyone who has dreamed of leaving Earth has visualized slipping on an astronaut's standard gear of pure white spacesuit, reflective helmet and black boots. But space travel is about more than looking good. It's also about surviving against all odds and successfully completing the mission. That's why astronaut gear is designed to be practical and tough, giving space travelers comfort and a sense of security. It's also why aerospace textiles in general are durable and flexible. These materials shape essential components that can't wither when exposed to the extreme conditions of space travel. They're the backbone of everything from spacesuits and inflatable habitats to antennas and rovers. Just as aerospace technologies constantly evolve, materials for space also keep taking new forms so that astronauts can achieve their goals with ease and confidence. Designing for Comfort and Safety NASA fully recognized the dangers of space travel in 1967 when the three-member crew of Apollo 1 — the first piloted mission of the Apollo program — died in a fire during a launch pad test. The tragedy led to many significant changes to NASA spacecraft and the attire of astronauts, including the introduction of PBI textiles. Non-flammable and stable at high temperatures, PBI found its way into astronaut flight suits, webbing, tethers and other space gear. Success in the stars led earth-bound agencies such as fire departments and the U.S. military to use PBI in gear. Decades later, fire safety is still paramount. With the interior atmosphere of the International Space Station (ISS) closely mirroring Earth, the fibers of astronaut clothing have to char during a fire, instead of melting and dripping into human skin. But NASA also had a problem with cotton — the material most used for astronaut clothing in the past. Cotton lint interfered with the onboard air filters of the ISS, so yarns made of multifilament fibers are now preferred. As NASA itself highlights, textiles are the oldest engineering material and are a source of unique properties that are conducive to space travel: light in weight, flexible and a high strength-to-weight ratio. The best features of textiles can also mesh to create composite structures. NASA, for instance, has a patent on carbon fiber reinforced phenolic composites that offer optimal thermal protection from the high heat of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Textiles make missions easier inside and outside the spacecraft. For extravehicular activity — "EVA" in NASA parlance — textiles are behind thermal insulation blankets, inflatable structures and tools such as restraints and tethers. Inside the ship, textiles make up bag and storage containers, a sleep station's cushion and cover, a harness for an exercise treadmill and, of course, clothing. Space Is a Booming Textile Market With several government agencies and private companies racing to again explore the moon, visit Mars for the first time and travel farther into deep space, the market for aerospace textiles is larger than ever, leading to more experiments and more creations. For example, space industry customers of Composite Fabrics of America (CFA) have increased orders for the company's carbon fiber textiles. "Carbon fiber is very strong and durable. It starts as a textile, but when it's encapsulated in a resin and cured, it holds a shape, yet it is very lightweight. That makes it an excellent solution for aerospace use," CFA's executive director of sales told the non-profit Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI). Because missions vary, Clark Co., a developer of space suits since NASA's Gemini program, takes different approaches to the design of materials for space. To keep costs low, it takes advantage of CAD modeling and uses prototyping before manufacturing. "Inside the suit, you are essentially in your own personal spacecraft," a company design manager explained to IFAI. "It needs to be airtight yet selectively permeable to allow water vapor to escapeâ€¦We use low-elongation fabrics that will hold their shape while allowing people to move. You have to design the suit from the inside and understand what the user is feeling. If the suit isn't optimally sized or is designed improperly, it can be pretty painful when it is pressurized." Mars Needs Origami and Metals Because of the flexibility, durability and adaptability of textiles, all sorts of applications are possible in space. And as seen with Clark Co., it helps that modern technology allows textile designers to be creative before spending large sums of money on manufacturing. For instance, a collaboration between research organizations and a textile studio — known as MoonMars — is integrating origami structures and digital weaving to create inflatable human habitats and research stations on the moon and Mars. "Origami structures made of textiles can be unfolded into a myriad of different shapes," the head of MoonMars said. "They are lightweight. They can be easily deployed and re-used in different configurations and sizes for flexible spatial usage." NASA, meanwhile, invented technology that uses 3D weaving techniques to create textiles that have a specific use in space, increasing the chances the materials will thrive because they are specific to a mission. But a focus on specificity hasn't stopped NASA from thinking outside the box. A NASA systems engineer whose mother was a fashion designer is creating woven metal fabrics to potentially be used for large antennas, meteorite shields and other uses in space. Think about it, the catwalk is influencing a spacewalk.

Space Travel Calls for Flexible and Protective Aerospace Textiles

Neil Armstrong could never escape the spotlight that always followed the world's most famous astronaut. But behind the scenes, more than 400,000 government employees and private contractors toiled in anonymity on the Apollo 11 mission, helping to ensure NASA would win the space race with the Soviet Union. For years, engineers, scientists and even security guards worked feverishly around the clock to answer President John F. Kennedy's call to put the first man on the moon and return him safely to earth. For Gerard "Jerry" Elverum, work on the "moon shot" started in 1960, a year before the Apollo program formally began, with him designing the rocket engine that powered the descent of the lunar module (LM) used on all six moon landings. Meanwhile, Howard "Howie" Frauenberger alternated college studies with a Grumman Corporation internship that had him participating in three high-profile scientific tests on Apollo. Their ingenuity, scientific insight and diligence enabled Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to bounce around the moon's surface on July 20, 1969. Millions of people back on Earth watched in astonishment, while Elverum and Frauenberger observed history with a mix of confidence and the slightest of worries. Now, as the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing approaches, the retired engineers look back on their accomplishments with wonder and pride. "No matter what you were working on, there was this intense feeling that you have to get it right," Frauenberger recalled. Elverum remembers being driven by an expectation that individual efforts had to match the collective national drive to achieve the extraordinary. "We had a goal and knew we had to be committed to make it work," he said. Confidence in a Design In 1960, a year after Elverum joined Grumman legacy company Space Technology Laboratories (STL), he started creating one of the most critical mechanical components for a moon landing. The LM needed an engine powerful enough to separate from Apollo's command and service module (CSM) in lunar orbit but also nimble enough for a soft and precise touchdown on the moon's surface. Elverum knew he had the right stuff, but it took a bit of convincing. Grumman Corporation was charged with developing and building the LM, and Rocketdyne — then one of the biggest rocket engine companies — had secured the job to create the spacecraft's descent engine. But, as Elverum recalls, NASA was worried about Rocketdyne's design. Hearing this, he showed his design to NASA officials, who wondered aloud about the legitimacy of an engineer from a largely unknown company. But tests supported Elverum's belief that his rocket would consistently perform under all conditions. In 1963, NASA asked STL to build its engine as a backup to Rocketdyne's product; a year later, it realized Elverum was correct all along. Now 92 and living about 80 miles east of Los Angeles in Murrieta, California, Elverum still holds the patent on the concept of the lunar descent throttling engine. "The lunar module descent engine probably was the biggest challenge and the most outstanding technical development of Apollo," according to "Chariots for Apollo," a NASA history of the program. "It had a dynamically stable configuration, so if there was a major disruption, it would recover within 10 seconds and could take all types of glitches," Elverum said in a telephone interview. "I was convinced of that. And all through the time we were developing it, that had to be the most critical thing that NASA and Grumman would have to see. I had a lot of confidence in it." The throttling capabilities of the engine enabled Armstrong to safely guide the LM to a new landing spot when it overshot the planned touchdown area. "During those 12 minutes, it felt like I had the whole world on my shoulder," Elverum said. His engine performed capably not just on the Apollo 11 mission but on five others. On the Apollo 13 mission, when the engine intended to bring astronauts home was irreparably damaged in an explosion on the way to the moon, Elverum's engine ultimately brought them back to earth. For that and other career accomplishments, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1987. He retired three years later. A Dream Internship Frauenberger attended Pratt Institute, a university in his native Brooklyn, New York, because it offered a unique work-study program. Although it would take five years to earn an engineering degree, he gained work experience by interning for three full semesters at Grumman's campus in Bethpage, New York. It didn't take long during his first internship semester, in spring 1966, to be assigned to the LM project, as he helped vouchsafe the dependability of the craft's landing gear. "It better work, because if it doesn't work, you can't land," Frauenberger joked in a recent telephone interview from his home in Malverne, New York. Not long after, Frauenberger found himself in the cold-flow test facility, using inert gases in a methodical assessment of the functionality of ascent and descent vehicles that were ready to be shipped to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. "It was a test that had to keep going and going around the clock for about six or seven days for each module," he recalled. Two years later, with NASA pushing hard to land the first man on the moon, Frauenberger had one more Apollo assignment: help the thermodynamic engineering department conduct an analysis of the LM's cabin, simulating the conditions it would face on the moon. He ran a computer program that examined "how the temperature would vary from the landing to the take-off from the moon," he said. "It was for the sake of the astronauts and the electronic equipment." Several times throughout his internship, Apollo astronauts stopped by the Grumman facility to check on progress and inspire employees. Frauenberger has forgotten which astronauts visited because at the time he was unabashedly giddy about meeting his heroes. "You don't wash your hands for days. It was the closest thing to meeting God." Frauenberger graduated in the summer of 1969, just in time to witness the moon landing on television while at a friend's birthday party. Five decades later, he believes his work on Apollo was the pinnacle of his career. His colleagues might disagree. Grumman hired him after college, and he spent 47 years with the company, working on, among several projects, the development of the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet and the MQ-4C Triton. Now retired, the 72-year-old holds the distinguished title of Grumman technical fellow. Frauenberger can't believe 50 years have passed since Armstrong stepped down from the ladder of Apollo 11 and left his first imprint on lunar soil. Those heady times still seem like they happened yesterday. "The whole world kind of stopped," he said. "It is one of the greatest events in history. It is certainly one of the greatest aerospace events."

Northrop Grumman Engineers Recall Their Work on Apollo 11 Mission

Key Takeaways  NASA martian rover missions have found opals on ancient lake beds. Opals, which form in the presence of silica and water, have been found in fracture halos widespread across the Mars survey areas. Abundance could indicate stores of water on Mars.For more than a decade, NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars, analyzing the surface of Gale Crater, where a lake once existed in the early days of Mars. Recent study of both new and old Curiosity images has revealed signs that, long after the lake itself dried up, enough underground water remained in the former lakebed to form the semiprecious gemstone opalAn opal gemstone found on Mars evokes classic science fiction images of grizzled Martian prospectors searching for mother lodes and fending off claim jumpers. While people may one day wear jewelry from Mars, the current excitement isn't about bling; as Space.com reports, it could be a sign of a substance on Mars that's even more precious than opal gemstones: water.The first hints of opal gemstones on Mars, according to Metal Tech News, were detected as early as 2008 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but these early detections from space gave no hints of the concentration level of "opal-like minerals" that might be found on Mars.Observing a Network of Fracture HalosThe Curiosity rover has provided much closer views of a type of feature called a fracture halo: an area of lighter-colored material surrounding fractures in a rock surface. The lighter coloring of the halo is the sheen of opal, essentially the same sheen that makes opal a semiprecious stone.As fracture halos continued to turn up in the images sent back from Curiosity, it became clear to mission scientists that not only was gemstone discovered on Mars, but these fractures were also widespread on the planet. A search back through the archive of images already taken by Curiosity showed even more.Says researcher Travis Gabriel, per Interesting Engineering, "Our new analysis of archival data showed striking similarity between all of the fracture halos we've observed much later in the mission. Seeing that these fracture networks were so widespread and likely chock-full of opal was incredible."Seeing Through Rock With NeutronsWhile most of Curiosity's instruments, like its cameras, were intended for investigation of the immediate surface, it carries one instrument that could be used to "see" down into the subsurface fractures that the halos surround. This instrument, called Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), measures the speed of neutrons that are kicked off the surface of Mars by high-energy cosmic rays from space. The DAN readings, according to Live Science, have shown that some of the neutrons detected have been slowed down by interacting with hydrogen atoms — a telltale sign of the presence of water.Opal gemstones are formed by a solution of silica and water; on Earth, this formation process can take place in hot springs or on the seabed. Today, the open surface of Mars, which is nearly unprotected by its thin atmosphere, is fiercely hostile to life, bombarded by the same radiation that kicks loose the neutrons detected by DAN. This has been the case throughout the "modern" era of Mars, which extends back some 2.9 billion years. But even a slight distance underground — for example, in a rock fracture — conditions would have been far more benign. If enough water remained in the fractures to form opals, even millions of years after the lake above had evaporated, life may also have persisted there.The Implications of Finding Water on MarsOpal gemstones, and the water that helped to form them, have breathtaking implications for the ongoing search for life on Mars. Some of the effects will be almost immediate. Even as Curiosity continues exploring Gale Crater, another NASA Mars rover, Perseverance, is currently exploring another crater that was an ancient lakebed: Jezero Crater. Its mission is now being adjusted to look for signs of fracture halos and opals in Jezero Crater.Looking forward, the widespread presence of opal found on Mars could provide a boon for future missions, in addition to being a research objective. The reason is that, in spite of being a gemstone, opal is technically not quite a "mineral." It does not have a rigid crystal structure, and with proper processing, some of the water in it can be recovered. According to EarthSky, researchers estimate that a single square meter of fracture halo material, down to a depth of one foot, could contain a gallon and a half of recoverable water.The polar regions of Mars were already known to be rich in water ice, while Gale Crater is near the Martian equator. If recoverable subsurface water is widely available in equatorial regions of Mars, it could be a boon for astronauts during future long-term missions to Mars. This, in turn, could bring us another step closer to wearing bling from Mars.Learn how Northrop Grumman innovation is driving space exploration and discovery.

Opal Gemstone Found on Mars: Another Sign of Martian Water

Since the year 2000, not all living humans have resided on Earth — the International Space Station, or ISS, has been continually occupied since then. At any given time, there are six to seven crew members aboard the ISS.   Supporting astronauts in orbit can be a real challenge, especially when it comes to space medicine. It's not like there's a hospital in orbit, and there certainly aren't doctors on every mission. What happens when an astronaut finds themselves getting sick in space? How does NASA manage the medical care of its astronauts?   How Are Astronauts Trained for Space-Based Medicine?   For the most part, NASA uses telemedicine to handle an astronaut's health and sickness. But astronauts also have to do their part. Before launch, as a routine part of training, astronauts learn about all the medical devices aboard the ISS. Because there's neither room nor bandwidth to keep a medical doctor in space at all times, crews will have a designated medical officer. That person undergoes 40 hours of paramedic-level training to ensure they're ready to deal with any emergencies that may come up.   Extended exposure to microgravity can have serious health consequences, especially once astronauts return to Earth. Alongside their mission training, astronauts undergo demanding physical training to ensure their bodies can endure the harsh conditions they'll face. In essence, they need to be built up enough to have room to deteriorate during long duration missions. Astronauts also perform rigorous fitness routines during their missions, spending around two hours a day exercising so they're healthy enough to handle anything that may come their way. By focusing on preventative care, NASA avoids many medical emergencies in space that could occur.   How Does NASA Monitor Astronauts' Health?   NASA keeps close track on astronauts' health on the ground, thanks to the flight surgeon. This specialist in aerospace medicine is assigned to each crew while they're still on the ground. They oversee their exercise regimen and medical training, and build trust with the astronauts that's crucial to managing their health when they're finally in flight.   Dealing with getting sick in space requires open, honest communication between the astronauts and flight surgeon. Each week, the astronauts have a private medical conference with the flight surgeon. This information is held in confidence unless it's something that could affect the mission. NASA also collects biometric data, results of ultrasounds and more to gain a full understanding of an astronaut's health during a mission.   Have There Ever Been Medical Emergencies in Space?   Of course, all of the preventative care in the world can't prevent every single medical emergency. Thankfully, there have been few true medical emergencies in space so far. But they have occurred on occasion.   A recent scare involved an astronaut who found a blood clot in their neck — called deep vein thrombosis. The identity of the astronaut and when, precisely, the incident occurred haven't been released to maintain medical privacy, but we do know they were two months into a six-month mission when it happened.   The clot was identified thanks to the routine ultrasounds the crew give each other to monitor health. There were no external symptoms. NASA had no procedure at the time for treating a blood clot in space.   A 2020 article in The New England Journal of Medicine dives into the issue. NASA brought in a blood clot expert to talk through options for treatment. The doctor prescribed a blood thinner, but there was a limited amount available on the ISS. They worked with the astronauts to determine how to ration the drug until more could be sent on a resupply mission. It worked — the astronaut didn't require any further treatment for the clot once they returned to Earth.   Astronaut healthcare is a huge concern, and will become even more important as missions get longer and further away from Earth. That's probably why one of the most recent astronaut candidates, Anil Menon, is a former NASA flight surgeon — having a doctor on a mission to Mars to care for the crew seems like a smart idea.   Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team. 

How Do Astronauts Handle Medical Emergencies in Space?

Key Takeaways Mars deeds are not recognized by any government authority as legitimate. They're great as a gift, not as an investment. While personal property isn't for sale on Mars, the plan is to put people on the Red Planet by 2030. Large-scale Martian terraforming is unlikely with current technologies, but terrarium-like habitats are possible for future colonists.On Nov. 26, 2018, NASA's InSight lander touched down on Mars, becoming the eighth space-exploring robot to visit the Red Planet. For adventurous humans inspired to eventually follow in the footsteps of this spacecraft, possibly terraforming Mars or owning land there may seem like the next best thing. A handful of companies, such as Buy Mars and Lunar Embassy, sell ads on Facebook and elsewhere claiming they "possess a legal trademark and copyright for the sale of extraterrestrial property" or are the "only recognized world authority" for the sale of lunar and planetary real estate. Deeds sell between $30 and $500. While it may be true that colonizing Mars is on the horizon, can anyone really own property on Mars?How Valid Is a Mars Land Deed?Like all real estate transactions, it comes down to the law. The foundational law for space was drafted 50 years ago, when space exploration was still in its infancy. In 1967, the United States, the then–Soviet Union and the United Kingdom wrote the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies." Nicknamed the "Outer Space Treaty," the document established guidelines to ensure equal and peaceful access to space. More than 100 nations signed it. It accounts for real estate in space, among other things. Article II of the Outer Space Treaty states, "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." In short, nobody can claim ownership of Mars or land on Mars, or do so with any other celestial body.But the treaty was made to be modified as society advanced. In 2015, the United States Congress passed the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015, or SPACE Act, which allows U.S. citizens to "possess, own, transport, use and sell" materials extracted from celestial bodies, reported Nature. The new law accounts for the growing interest in mining asteroids, the moon or other celestial bodies for minerals or other resources. Private companies will be able to set up shop on Mars, mine it and lay claim to those resources, but won't be able to own the land.For those who really want a Mars land deed with their name on it, there's nothing wrong with buying one. It's a novelty item that might make a nice gift for the person who has everything. But it's just for fun. The document won't be recognized by any government authority as legitimate or legally binding.A Mars Colony Is ComingEven as the Mars InSight lander begins to gather scientific data from the Red Planet to better inform the potential for human survival there, Earthlings are making plans to colonize Mars. In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Space Policy Directive-1, which refocused America's space program on human exploration. The plan involves returning humans to the moon, establishing a means for traveling to Mars by the 2030s and eventually expanding human presence across the solar system later in the century.Getting beyond the moon will require advanced rocket propulsion to speed astronauts to their destination. Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems is building the boosters for NASA's Space Launch System rocket, designed to take humans beyond Earth orbit. In 2020, the rockets will launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the lunar vicinity as part of Exploration Mission-1. The mission will be step one in a series of increasingly complex missions that will work like stepping stones to lead humans into deep space.Others are shooting for Mars, too. Mars One, a venture launched by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, says they aim to have humans on Mars by 2031.When Will Humans Begin Terraforming Mars?A hundred years from now, humans may be thriving on Mars. But they'll likely be conducting their lives under the confines of a transparent dome akin to a large terrarium. Climate, temperature and atmosphere will be controlled, and humans will be able to grow plants for food. Terraforming Mars — that is, manipulating the atmosphere to create an Earth-like, habitable environment — is simply not possible using any of the technology available to humans, according to NASA. Scientists have proposed large-scale geo-engineering projects, such as releasing carbon dioxide trapped in the Martian soil to create a thicker atmosphere that warms the planet. But recent studies have shown that there isn't enough CO2 in the soil. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is also less than 1 percent of that on Earth. If, somehow, scientists could figure out how to warm the skies and get them to rain, the water would evaporate quickly.For now, humans will have to be satisfied with standing on planet Earth and gazing up at the red dot in the sky. Over the ages, that dot has inspired humanity to imagine an existence beyond the heavens. The potential for extraterrestrial life, colonization and terraformation calls to civilization and soon, we will make our way into space. We've taken the first steps by sending machines ahead of us. In fact, Mars is the only planet in the solar system inhabited by robots. Perhaps, one day soon, we will join them.The first step to Mars? Getting back to the moon — and it all starts with the Artemis program. Learn more.

Can You Really Become a Mars Land Owner?

 Since the 19th century, the term "gold rush" has reminded us of that uniquely human drive to seek out riches in desolate areas no matter the risk. Whether it was the intrepid forty-niners traveling west to scavenge California's Sacramento Valley or searching the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874, people have ventured far and wide to find treasures that exceed our wildest dreams. Now, asteroid mining is on track to be a potential treasure trove of resources for our generation. While the quest for gold has diminished since the 18th and 19th centuries, our desire to search far and wide for riches hasn't — we're just looking in a different direction. Riches and Resources Abound?  Asteroid mining has been on the minds of space exploration companies a lot lately, and for good reason. On top of boosting the economy of private space exploration and getting humans more engaged with their galactic surroundings, there may be actual treasures waiting to be found on asteroids: palladium and platinum. Some classes of asteroids are estimated to carry almost one ton of extractable platinum group metals, a quantity that alone could be worth upwards of $50 million. Finding these metals on Earth would require a dig of about 4,000 miles, so the benefits they could provide to our current and future status might be worth the trouble of mining in space.  Palladium is a key component of many pieces of machinery, used to make them run cleanly and more efficiently. The metal is used in catalytic converters, which convert about 90 percent of harmful automobile exhaust fumes into less noxious ones, as well as groundwater treatment and hydrogen purification. Palladium also works as a key part of fuel cells that react to hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity. Aside from metal, there's also the potential to find carbonaceous chondrite asteroids. These C-type asteroids have been cited as the original source of water found on Earth. Water collected from asteroids can provide hydration to astronauts, oxygen for life support and hydrogen and oxygen-based fuel for rockets. Eyes on the Prize and in the Sky  Despite the potential reward, mining asteroids does pose some situational challenges, especially when it comes to deciding which ones are worth pursuing and which will be the space version of fool's gold. Gold rush miners didn't have experts to tell them when a potential dig would lead to a dud, but their asteroid-mining descendants do: astronomers. Martin Elvis, an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian, says that tools like the Magellan 6.5-meter telescopes in Chile could be used to characterize which asteroids might be valuable in about one to two minutes. According to Elvis, 85 percent of the asteroids could be ruled out based on color, leaving only 15 percent as prospective mining areas for exploratory missions.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Planetary Resources, the private company backed by investors like Google's Larry Page and filmmaker James Cameron, plans to build a fleet of small, simple telescopes with the sole focus of hunting for asteroids. Lightweight, cost-effective telescopes and space crafts, similar to Northrop Grumman's line of Eagle Spacecraft products, are cheaper to make than larger government-funded ones, and can be launched in numbers, making it easier to replace a broken unit.  Once a prospective asteroid has been spotted, the plan is to launch tiny probe bots that can latch on to the asteroids using an anchor. Because smaller asteroids don't carry their own field of gravity, the best way to do this is through the deployment tiny drills that can secure themselves into the surface to dock the bot. When docked, the bot would analyze the rock for valuable metals and could potentially attach a tracker to the asteroid to find it again later if further testing is needed. At this point, harvesting becomes the most significant challenge to overcome.  Where collecting water vapors from a C-type asteroid is relatively simple, retrieving metals will prove to be more complicated. Harry McSween, geoscientist at the University of Tennessee and chair of the surface composition group for NASA's Dawn asteroid probe, worries that anchoring to these bodies would be difficult, as would trying to cut a piece off for processing. But John Lewis, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, thinks that if the asteroids are composed of enough metal, samples could be collected using a magnet.  While still riddled with uncertainty and roadblocks, the path to mining asteroids for riches and resources we need (or just want) is getting clearer. With the evolution of private space exploration, the partnerships between intrepid university researchers and unwavering human determination, the next discovery phase of unknown treasure is closer and more feasible than ever before.

Asteroid Mining and the Gold Rush of the 21st Century

Women in aerospace have been making important strides in the field ever since June 16, 1963, when Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova blasted into the blue beyond to become the first woman to travel in space. As the rocked launched, BBC notes that the 26-year-old shouted, "Hey, sky, take off your hat, I'm on my way!" Over three days, she completed 48 orbits of Earth aboard the Vostok 6, literally blazing a trail for female astronauts who followed. In the half century since, 58 other women in aerospace have demonstrated what Linda Cureton, the first African-American CIO of NASA, calls "leadership courage," the kind that helps someone overcome the fear embedded in being the first to do something remarkable: "The fear looks like voices in your head. It looks like the people saying you can't do it. It looks like a mountain too high to climb," said Cureton, who retired from NASA in 2013 and is now the founder and CEO of Muse Technologies. But it's also the fear that motivates, she said. "Courage takes that fear and turns it into preparations for success." In honor of International Women's Day, here are three courageous women who left indelible impressions on history — not just for women, but for everyone. First U.S. Woman in Space "'The moment of the launch, when the engines actually ignited and the solid rockets lit, everyone on the crew was, for a few seconds, overcome with what was about to happen to us,'" Sally Ride said in an interview for PBS. She was talking about the seconds before blasting into the cosmos aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. But another thing was happening on that 18th day of June 1983. Ride was making history as the first U.S. woman to travel into space. As a mission specialist for STS-7, NASA's seventh shuttle trip, Ride operated the shuttle's robotic arm to deploy and retrieve communication satellites. A little more than a year later, on Oct. 5, 1984, Ride went into space for a second mission, STS-41-G. Again, she used the spacecraft's robotic arm, this time to remove ice from the shuttle's exterior and to readjust a radar antenna. Though she had an advanced degree in astrophysics and was a trained astronaut, talking with the press proved to be a difficult challenge for Ride. Journalists asked Ride questions that focused more on her gender and less on her skills. "'Everybody wanted to know what kind of makeup I was taking up,'" Ride said in an interview for PBS. Years later, for a segment on NOVA, Ride said she felt that the extra attention she received made her all the more determined to do things right. Sadly, Sally Ride passed away at age 61 on July 23, 2012, from pancreatic cancer. When her obituary was published, stating that Ride was survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her "partner of 27 years," the world realized that Ride had achieved another first: the first gay woman in space. First African-American Woman in Space "'I was a young girl who used to stare up at the stars. I imagined myself going there,'" said Mae Carol Jemison in an interview for NOVA. On Sept. 12, 1992, Jemison fulfilled her wish. She flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, mission STS-47, and in doing so became the first African-American woman in space. Her journey to space took an unconventional route. In 1981, Jemison obtained her M.D. degree from Cornell Medical College and began working as a general practitioner. Her passion for healthcare took her to many different countries, including Cuba, Kenya, Cambodia and Thailand, where she provided care to people without access to basic medical services. Jemison joined the Peace Corps, and from 1983 to 1985 she worked as a Peace Corps Medical Officer in Liberia and Sierra Leone. But she always had her eyes on the stars. After seeing Sally Ride go into space, Jemison said she felt that NASA had become open to accepting women into the space program. "'I picked up the phone. I called down to Johnson Space Center. I said, 'I would like an application to be an astronaut.' They didn't laugh,'" she said in the NOVA interview. On June 4, 1987, Jemison became the first African-American woman to be admitted into the NASA astronaut training program, earning the title of mission specialist. Onboard, she conducted scientific experiments related to bone cell research, weightlessness, fertility, motion sickness and others. "'Once I got into space, I was feeling very comfortable in the universe. I felt like I had a right to be anywhere in this universe, that I belonged here as much as any speck of stardust, any comet, any planet,'" said Jemison. Among many of her accomplishments, Jemison has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the National Medical Association Hall of Fame and is a recipient of the National Organization for Women's Intrepid Award. Today, she leads 100 Year Starship, a global nonprofit initiative to ensure that humans have the capacity to travel beyond our solar system within the next 100 years. "I did always want to be an astronaut just like her," Cureton says of Jemison. But when Cureton was a young girl, she didn't see any astronauts that looked like her. While at NASA, Cureton participated in many STEM events designed to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and technology. "I wanted the young girls to see somebody like them in places that they dreamed to go," she said. First Woman Space Shuttle Commander "'When I was very young and first started reading about astronauts, there were no women astronauts,'" Eileen Collins said in a NASA press statement. Collins helped change that, and, in the course of her career as an astronaut, she accomplished two aerospace firsts: She became the first female space shuttle pilot and the first female shuttle commander. From the time Collins was a little girl, she wanted to be a pilot. She said she was inspired by astronauts, including John Glenn and Alan Shepherd, who flew in Project Mercury — the U.S.'s first human spaceflight program, running from 1958 through 1963. Even though she had no female astronauts for role models, Collins followed her dream. After earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics from Syracuse University in 1978, Collins enrolled in a pilot training course at Oklahoma's Vance Air Force Base. It was one of the first classes at the base to include women. She eventually became a test pilot and in 1990 was selected as a NASA astronaut, said Biography.com. As commander of STS-93, which launched on July 23, 1999, Collins led a four-day mission to deploy the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, an instrument designed to detect X-ray emission from hot regions of the universe. In 2005, Collins served as commander for a second shuttle mission, STS-114. Throughout her career, Collins received many awards, including an Air Force Commendation Medal and a NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal. Collins was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame and retired on May 1, 2006. Do these women inspire you to follow a career in aerospace? Check out our Careers Page to see how you can become the next trailblazer. 

Celebrating Women in Aerospace

"Without diversity in all fields, the United States will not remain technically competitive," Dr. Aprille Ericsson-Jackson told the USA Science and Engineering Festival. As the first Black woman to receive a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University — and the first Black woman at NASA's prestigious Goddard Space Flight Center to receive a Ph.D. in Engineering — Ericsson-Jackson has firsthand experience breaking barriers. Throughout her busy career, she has advocated for more diversity in STEM. Aerospace Contributions As an aerospace engineer and instrument manager for NASA, Dr. Ericsson-Jackson has designed spacecraft and instruments that have helped us understand the Sun-Earth connection, space science and our own planet. Her most notable contributions include:   Predetermining the dynamics and structural reactions of satellites  NASA's Tropical Rain Measuring Mission, which helped to observe the effects of weather cycles (El Nié±o and La Nié±a)  Designing instrumentation for the Wilkerson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter  Designing a laser altimeter instrument for the ICESat-2 Atlas satellite, which measures ice sheets over Greenland and Antarctica to determine the impact on global sea level  "From peering into the distant reaches of the universe to examine things like the Big Bang Theory, black holes and gravitational waves, to our exploration efforts with the moon and Mars, to addressing a vital issue such as climate change, it has been an honor to work with so many bright and committed individuals," she told NASA, in response to winning the Washington Award in 2016. She joins other notable Washington Award winners, including Orville Wright, Henry Ford, Neil Armstrong and Bill Nye, all of whom changed the course of science and technology. Aprille Ericsson-Jackson on Women in STEM In her youth, Ericsson-Jackson was inspired by watching the Apollo missions on television. She enjoyed science and built her first scientific instruments for middle-school science fairs. In high school, she participated in a science outreach program for minority students at MIT. There, she had the opportunity to sit in the aircraft control tower and fly in a flight simulator. Her experience demonstrates the power that educational outreach has for underrepresented populations in STEM. Diversity and inclusion are important goals in STEM fields today, and Ericsson-Jackson has been advocating for underrepresented groups throughout her entire career, emphasizing the fact that the economy is falling behind because talented people are systematically excluded from opportunities in STEM fields. When she delivered the Women's History Month keynote address at the Library of Congress in 2001, she explained why there were so few young women in STEM fields: "It's not that they're incapable. It's just that they have been unwittingly discouraged from succeeding in these fields." She emphasized, "This downward spiral is especially severe for girls of color, girls with disabilities, girls living in poverty and girls who are learning English as a new language." Valuable Perspectives Dr. Aprille Ericsson-Jackson is an inspiration and advocate for STEM diversification and inclusion, with a focus on minority female students. At various speaking engagements throughout her career, she has explained that without a diverse range of perspectives in STEM, we are missing out on valuable creativity and innovation.

Dr. Aprille Ericsson-Jackson, Aerospace Engineer and Advocate for Diversity in STEM

Key Takeaways The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversees U.S. civil aviation, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a U.S. government agency, investigates civil transportation accidents. Safety systems for commercial airliners include ground proximity warning, collision avoidance and smart landing guidance. Future flights could be in autonomous vehicles driven by electric or hybrid engines.When you board a commercial aircraft, stow your carry-on luggage and buckle in, you generally assume that your jet will taxi and take off safely, keep you comfortable during the flight and deliver you to your destination.This comfort with commercial air travel is no accident. Since 1914, which Space.com marked as the beginning of scheduled airline passenger service, passenger safety has been central to commercial aircraft evolution.According to the Air Safety Network (ASN), 2017 was the safest year in commercial aviation history, with just 10 fatal airline accidents and 44 airline fatalities worldwide. The New York Times reported that the April 2018 death of a passenger aboard a Southwest Airlines jet marked the first passenger fatality on a U.S. commercial airliner in more than nine years. Bureau of Transportation Statistics reveals that during that time, more than 7 billion passengers took off and landed safely.Teamwork in InnovationSo what's behind this remarkable safety record? It begins with a singular focus on passenger safety by commercial airlines and organizations like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — the overseer of U.S. civil aviation — and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the U.S. government agency that investigates civil transportation accidents. It plays out as new aerospace technologies and processes that beef up safety in the design, operation and maintenance of commercial aircraft."When there is an accident, it's our responsibility to get to the bottom of it in an unbiased, fully transparent fashion," said John DeLisi, director of aviation safety for the NTSB. "Our main goal is to learn the lessons from every accident and make recommendations to prevent their recurrence."DeLisi points to improved avionics, a better understanding of fuel tank dynamics, more rigorous aircraft maintenance processes and enhancements to cabin safety as examples of lessons learned from aircraft accidents.Safety From the Ground UpNo commercial aircraft would fly today, for example, without something like Honeywell's ground proximity warning system, an aerospace technology that helps jets avoid unplanned Controlled Flights into Terrain. "This is a great example of a safety system that has helped eliminate a complete category of accidents," said DeLisi.According to Becky Sidelinger, vice president of safety systems, Honeywell Aerospace, traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS), detailed by the National Business Aviation Association, have largely eliminated mid-air collisions between airliners. A TCAS "creates pilot awareness of all other nearby aircraft and sends directives to him on how to avoid any collisions," she explained. Increasingly a TCAS receives its positional data from GPS satellites, which enhances precision and passenger safety.Another example of aerospace technology making the skies safer, added Sidelinger, is Honeywell's smart landing systems, which notify pilots if they are flying too low, too fast or even in the wrong direction as they prepare to land. "These systems are designed to prevent aircraft from overshooting or undershooting a runway, as Asiana Airlines (Flight 214) did in July 2013 on final approach to San Francisco International Airport," she said.You Can't Win if You Don't Exit Passenger lives can also be at risk even if a jet never leaves the tarmac. A fire that erupts in the cabin prior to takeoff can be just as dangerous as a mid-air collision. That's why commercial aircraft evolution has included a variety of NTSB-recommended upgrades to cabin safety requirements."Getting survivors out of a cabin quickly is an important aspect of any emergency situation," explained DeLisi. "The biggest changes in cabin safety have come from the introduction and use of fire retardant materials on seats and internal structures such as overhead baggage compartments, walls, ceilings and cabin partitions," he added.Other examples of FAA-motivated safety features found in commercial cabins today include floor proximity emergency escape path lighting, lavatory smoke detectors and seats that protect passengers from injury when exposed to dynamic forces of up to 16Gs.Window Into the FutureSo how will future jetliners compare to the 787s and A380s ferrying us around the world today?DeLisi expects to see us flying in totally autonomous commercial aircraft in a cocoon of safety, precision and great fuel economy. The new jets might be powered by electric or hybrid engines, and include more modular seating and entertainment options, but don't look for larger windows or standing seats."The recent Southwest Airlines incident will (remind) us that a window is just a transparent piece of the fuselage designed to hold in the cabin pressure we need to breathe comfortably," DeLisi said. "It's not likely that manufacturers will be eager to sacrifice a significantly larger portion of that structure by installing large windows."And there's one more pesky, unavoidable aspect of commercial air travel: turbulence."As smart as we are about the weather, we still want to be able to go through it and not let it disrupt our travel plans," claimed DeLisi. "Standing up is no way to experience turbulence."Defining possible in the air, Northrop Grumman brings expertise and leadership to manned and autonomous flight, composites for vehice construction, and instrumentation for sensor and navigation prowess. 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Commercial Aircraft Evolution Puts Safety First

Scientists are developing technology to make sustainable space travel possible. As NASA prepares for long term space missions to the moon, Mars and beyond, many challenges remain. The future of space travel requires solutions for long-duration missions with limited resources. They will need access to fuel and the essential elements that sustain life. Scientists recently demonstrated a possible solution by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen in zero gravity using a semiconductor material and light. Challenges for Sustainable Space Travel It's already difficult for astronauts to live at the International Space Station (ISS) and that's a well-established station located nearby in low earth orbit. Longer missions will be even trickier. According to NASA, the ISS uses a system that recycles approximately 90% of the water and 42% of the oxygen in the spacecraft. The system purifies the crew's waste — including urine and sweat — and turns it into potable water for the crew to drink. Still, cargo spacecraft regularly visit the space station to supplement essential supplies and replace some of the system's components. How will future astronauts get the elements they need to survive on long-term space missions? What will fuel their spaceships and the electronic gadgets they'll need onboard? Fuel Cell Space Vehicles The Conversation reports that an international team of researchers demonstrated that it is possible to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water using a semiconductor material and sunlight (or light from any star) in zero gravity. These findings, which are published in Nature Communications, are a step toward long-term space travel with storable, renewable energy. While water may be a relatively heavy supply for space travel, it's a reasonable option because it provides a two-for-one, with hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for astronauts to breathe. Plus, it can be recycled, making sustainable space travel possible. As a bonus, launching a space vehicle loaded with water is safer than the potentially explosive alternative of rocket fuel and oxygen. If this idea is going to be realistic, scientists need to develop a method for splitting water apart and putting it back together again. They're working on how to create water from oxygen and hydrogen, plus the opposite. The Process In space, we don't have the luxury of plants releasing oxygen, but we can mimic photosynthesis. According to the Conversation, water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, where scientists run an electric current through a water sample that contains a soluble electrolyte. A new version is even better for space travel because it uses lightweight equipment and sunlight (or starlight). While solar power is useful on earth, it's even more abundant in space, where light isn't filtered through an atmosphere. In this alternative method, photo catalysts absorb photons into a semiconductor material in the water. The researchers explain in Nature, "The photoelectrochemical cell consists of an integrated catalyst-functionalized semiconductor system that generates hydrogen." As a bonus that will be especially useful with limited resources in space, the process can be reversed. How to Create Water From Oxygen and Hydrogen The hydrogen and oxygen can be recombined, according to the Conversation, "using a fuel cell returning the solar energy taken in by the photocatalysis." This energy can be used to power electronics, and it produces water that can be reused. Drop Tower Testing To test their system, the researchers dropped their experiment down a 120-meter tower. As the object accelerated toward Earth, the "drop tower" simulates microgravity by creating an opposite effect to the G forces that astronauts experience during lift-off. The Bubble Problem While the researchers did successfully split water into hydrogen and oxygen in this microgravity environment, a big challenge popped up: bubbles. When the water is split to create gas, bubbles form. On Earth, gravity causes the bubbles to float to the surface, but in zero gravity the bubble lurks near the catalyst, blocking the next potential bubble, and therefore obstructing overall gas production. They attempted to fix the bubble problem by creating pyramid-shaped zones on the catalyst so that the bubble could easily move from the pointed tip and float away. But even though this forced the bubbles away from the catalyst, without gravity, they remain in the liquid and create a pesky foam that blocks the catalyst and electrodes, making the whole system inefficient. Despite these remaining challenges, the new water-splitting method proves that there's great potential for sustainable space travel in the future. Advanced technology and creative scientific processes can make the most of limited resources, on Earth and in space.

Recycling in Zero Gravity for Sustainable Space Travel

Over the past decade, we've seen every type of science fiction TV series hit the market, from adaptations of novels like "The Expanse" and "Altered Carbon" to original series like "Black Mirror." The opportunities to showcase science, as well as stretch the truth, are seemingly endless. Topics explored in some of the best sci-fi shows span all realms of science, but some shows are more realistic than others. Let's take a look at topics that get the most attention from the genre. Space Travel: Not Quite a Cruise Most modern depictions of space travel aren't realistic, according to Space.com. One show that accurately depicted the harsh reality of current space travel was SyFy's series, "The Expanse." Based on the sci-fi novel series of the same name by James S.A. Corey, the pen name for authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, "The Expanse" has been a quiet darling in the science community because of its dedication to getting the physics of space travel as accurate as possible. While a classic science fiction TV series like "Star Trek" makes hurtling through the universe seem pleasant, "The Expanse" depicts it much more accurately. As Public Radio International noted, "Spaceships aren't sleek and responsive, and space isn't sexy — it's downright inhospitable." Naren Shankar, the show's executive producer, told PRI, "The issues of air and water and just protection from that environment are constantly an issue in the show." Body Swapping The Netflix series "Altered Carbon" has taken topics in biology and neuroscience to the outskirts of current possibilities, but it isn't that far off. "Altered Carbon" explores the world of body swapping, where one's consciousness can be uploaded into new bodies, called "sleeves." These sleeves go on living the life of the consciousness now inhabiting the body regardless of what they were in their old sleeves — a child could become a middle-aged woman, or a man could wake up centuries after his death in an entirely new body. But wouldn't human consciousness be too deep and profound to be boiled down to a few uploadable cells and neurons? Not necessarily. Anil Seth, a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience, explained to SyFyWire that consciousness is "any kind of subjective experience" and lives in a series of neurons that produce memories when activated. Transferring neurons to a new body could be as simple as mapping and recording them. Seth explained that, in the case of "Altered Carbon," the problem lies in the transferring. As SyFyWire puts it, "A person's sense of self is not just a set of memories but is tied to their physical body. So if human consciousness could be transferred then it would 'massively' alter their personal identity." Even transferring just the brain to a new body doesn't ensure that the consciousness will remain the same. Recreating Memories The same concept holds true for visual reconstruction. In season 4 of "Black Mirror," visual reconstruction, or the concept of gathering the memories of others for viewing, is explored. In the series, this method is used for tracking and surveillance, and to aid in criminal investigations. Constraint-free neural image reconstruction was recently tested by a Chinese research team. They "found that the reconstructed images resembled the natural stimuli, especially in position and shape. The experimental results suggest that hierarchical visual features can effectively express the visual perception process of [the] human brain." The science journal Nature also reported on a technique called multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA), which can decode the brain by uploading fMRI data to software that learns and assesses neural patterns that coincide with certain thoughts and experiences.  While some of the best sci-fi shows have taken more liberties than others, a few take their depictions of science very seriously and do their best to be as realistic as possible. Even if they aren't 100 percent accurate, promoting the sciences is important. More interest translates into a bigger and brighter future for the world of research. If you're interested in making scientific research your life's work, consider a career with Northrop Grumman.

The Reality of Science Fiction TV Series

You don't need an engine to fly. A balloon can carry you aloft with no means of propulsion, while sailplanes can stay in the air by exploiting rising air currents. You don't even need an engine to travel in space once you're in orbit. The moon needs no propulsion system to keep orbiting Earth.
But practical air and space travel require some controlled means of getting where you want to go, and that's where a propulsion system comes in. The technologies that provide this capability are commonly grouped together as "aerospace propulsion," because they all rely on Sir Isaac Newton's principle of action and reaction.
Action and Reaction
This principle states that, if you exert a force in one direction — for example, by throwing a heavy weight in a certain direction — that same action will produce a force in the opposite direction. This is most dramatically visible during a rocket launch. The rocket engine directs a powerful blast of hot gas downward, pushing the rocket vehicle upward.
A jet engine works on the same principle, though the jet exhaust is usually not so dramatically visible. An important but subtle difference is where the hot exhaust gas comes from.
A rocket produces its exhaust entirely from the propellant it carries onboard. The good news for rocket propulsion is that this means it works perfectly well in the vacuum of space. It carries the stuff it pushes against. The bad news is all that propellant is penalty weight it needs to carry up with it until expended as reaction mass.
Air-Breathing Propulsion
In contrast to a rocket, a jet engine grabs most of its reaction mass from the air it is flying through. The jet still needs fuel to heat the air passing through the engine, giving it the extra oomph that produces thrust, but the fuel requirement is much less than the total reaction mass. This means the jet aircraft needs to carry a much smaller load with it to power the engine.
Where do airplane propellers fit into this? They work on the same principle as a jet, but instead of heating the passing air to produce thrust, the spinning propeller produces aerodynamic lift by grabbing passing air and hurtling it backward. This reaction drives the propeller — and the plane it's attached to — forward.
Most modern jet engines combine these techniques. A jet engine uses ducted fans that grab air and throw it back but only pass a fraction of it through the combustion chamber, where fuel is then burned to power the whole thing.
The Newtonian principle of aerospace propulsion, in its self-contained rocket and air-breathing jet variations, has been sufficient to make air travel commonplace and open the door to space. But the climb from Earth to orbit is so demanding, and the needed rocket propellant adds such enormous penalty weight, that getting into space by rocket remains a terribly expensive proposition.
Too Hot to Handle?
From the dawn of the space age, people have wondered if the air-breathing principle could be adapted to space lift. A jet engine won't work in space, but in principle, a jet flying in the upper atmosphere could approach orbital speed and only need rocket propulsion for the final insertion into orbit.
The problem is heat. Atmospheric flight at very high speed produces enormous frictional heating, and jet engines must produce even more heat to generate thrust. Conventional turbine jet engines are limited to roughly three times the speed of sound, or Mach 3. Ramjet engines, which have no moving parts but need to be boosted up to high speed before they work at all, could reach about Mach 6 before they, too, overheat.
Decades ago, engineers came up with a possible solution called the supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet. ("Supersonic" here refers not to the speed of the aircraft but to the speed of airflow through the engine.) If air could flow through a ramjet without having to slow down to give time for the fuel to burn, frictional heating inside the engine would not be so enormous.
The science is clear, but the engineering has been incredibly demanding. According to the University of Notre Dame, "the internal aerodynamics of a scramjet engine are extremely complicated and not well understood." Aviation Week Network gives a different expression of the same challenge: "A drop of kerosene sprayed into the combustion chamber of a scramjet engine has a lot of work to do in 1/1,000th of a second."
Progress at Mach Speed
On top of these engineering challenges, the only real way to test a scramjet engine is to launch it into the upper atmosphere at hypersonic speed — upward of Mach 5, or about a mile per second. Thus, it's taken decades to develop scramjets from experimental testbed to a practical working technology.
But, at last, those years of work are paying off. The first practical hypersonic scramjet aerospace craft will be for defense — in particular, for engaging hypersonic glide vehicles boosted by rockets (the only currently operational form of hypersonic propulsion). Several countries have already deployed these as weapons intended to evade antimissile defenses.
In 2021, reports Design and Development Today, a Northrop Grumman scramjet engine powered the successful first flight of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept. According to Military & Aerospace Electronics, this program is now developing a Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, "a scramjet-powered hypersonic weapon designed to hold high-value targets at risk in contested environments from standoff distances."
This initial defense application is a long way from hypersonic aerospace liners crossing the Pacific in two hours, much less flying to orbit. But air-breathing hypersonic propulsion has arrived, and revolutions in traveling through air and exploring space are likely to follow.
Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.
 

Breaking Down the Science Behind Aerospace Propulsion

Scientists have created an ultrasensitive torque detector that could measure a counterintuitive quantum effect called vacuum friction. While we may think of a vacuum as being truly empty and therefore frictionless, physicists have theorized that friction is possible in a vacuum. Now, a laser-based detector could prove whether the theory is true.  A Few Contradictory Definitions Friction is the force that resists the relative motion of one thing against another. Or, in more technical terms, friction "corresponds to wasted energy and therefore determines the efficiency and useful lifetime of all moving systems, from biological to aeronautical," according to Science Advances. In the simplest terms, a vacuum is a space without matter (remember, air is matter — it's just not very dense). Scientists can create a vacuum on Earth by using a vacuum pump to remove the air from a sealed container or by reducing the pressure using a fast flow of fluid, according to Britannica. Given these definitions, the idea of vacuum friction doesn't make sense. How can friction exist in a frictionless environment? Vacuum friction is a quantum effect where an object spinning in a vacuum experiences drag even though it's surrounded by nothingness, according to Science News. Why? Scientists suggest that even when there isn't any matter present, drag can be caused by the ever-present electromagnetic fields that constantly appear and disappear. It would be great to confirm this weird quantum effect, but it would be so subtle and on such a small scale that it's extremely difficult to measure. Torque Detector to the Rescue A team of physicists at Purdue University may have the answer. Phys.org reports that the Purdue scientists built the world's most sensitive torque measuring device. They suspended a speck of twirling dust in a laser beam inside a vacuum. Then they used another laser to alternate the torque and test its sensitivity. The device is made of a silica nanoparticle (that's the dust) suspended inside of a vacuum chamber by a laser beam. The physicists fired a pulsating, circularly polarized laser beam at the nanoparticle for 100 seconds at a time. This made the particle spin 300 billion times per minute, making it the fastest human-made rotor in the world. According to Science News, the torque detector can measure tiny twisting forces, and it is the most sensitive torque detector ever — 700 times as sensitive as the next best sensor. Just how sensitive is it? In the lab, the sensor could measure torques as tiny as 0.4 trillionths of a quadrillionth of a newton-meter, a unit of torque. For context, Science News explains that it takes about one newton-meter of torque to twist a cap off a soda bottle. Quantum Mechanics in Practice According to the researchers at Purdue, the nano-torque detector will help measure and investigate several aspects of quantum theory. Not only will it help unveil vacuum friction, but it could also measure other related effects. It could eventually measure the Casmir effect and nanoscale magnetism. With a better understanding of these quantum effects in the future, engineers could use them to develop and control nanoelectronic devices.

Torque Detector Could Determine if Vacuum Friction Is Possible

Whether it's photos from a bygone era or descriptions of a faraway land, people are fascinated by distant times and places. Astronomers are no different, always trying to peer into the far reaches of the distant past.
This is exactly what researchers from the Indian Institute of Science and McGill University have done — they recently used a radio signal from space to gain new knowledge about a star-forming galaxy that's nearly 9 billion light years away, as reported in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. To put that in perspective, the Big Bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and our solar system formed a mere 4.5 billion years ago.
 
The previous record for this type of radio signal from space was "just" 5 billion light years away, as described in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and was achieved by using a state-of-the-art telescope for a long period of time. In contrast, the method used for the new record is compatible with a modest amount of time on less sophisticated telescopes, which makes additional discoveries more likely. The secret is one weird trick that Einstein described back in 1916 involving radio signals emitted by hydrogen and the use of a nearby galaxy to magnify the signal.
 
Hydrogen and the 21-Centimeter Line
 
About 400,000 years after the Big Bang, protons and electrons bonded to neutrons to form neutral hydrogen, which would eventually give rise to the first stars and galaxies. The energy from ultraviolet light emitted by newly formed stars can strip the electrons from neutral hydrogen, creating ionized hydrogen. When ionized hydrogen returns to its neutral state, it emits a radio wave with a characteristic wavelength of 21 centimeters, according to Big Think. Astronomers call this the "21-centimeter line," or the "hydrogen line," and use it to learn about early stars and the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time.
 
Unfortunately, radio waves have long wavelengths and low intensity, so the 21-centimeter line is often drowned out before it can travel through the vast distances of space. Thus, most of the hydrogen radio signals that have been successfully detected come from nearby — like from within the Milky Way Galaxy, which is 100,000 light years across, and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, which is about 2.5 million years away.
 
Einstein's Weird Trick
 
To amplify these radio waves, the record-breaking research made use of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Einstein postulated that the curving of spacetime causes light to bend as it passes by objects of enormous mass, such as a black hole or a galaxy. The greater the mass, the more extreme the curvature.
When light traveling through the universe encounters a massive object, each ray takes a different path and bends around it. This can make a single object appear at multiple points in the sky — which is evidence that this "gravitational lensing" has occurred — and can magnify the signal so it can be more easily detected by telescopes on Earth. Radio waves, such as the 21-centimeter line, are a form of light and can therefore be magnified by gravitational lensing.
 
The aforementioned researchers started with nearby galaxies that could serve as a strong lens for satellites located on Earth. Then, they looked for signals that were being magnified. The best result came from a gigantic galaxy that was relatively close to Earth at 1.7 billion light years away. It was magnifying the signal from a galaxy behind it (named SDSSJ0826+5630) by a factor of 30.
 
Determining Distance Traveled
 
When a wave of light travels across the ever-expanding universe, its wavelength becomes longer and its frequency is reduced. This is called "redshift." The higher the redshift, the farther a wave has been traveling.
In the study, the nearby galaxy that provided gravitational lensing had a redshift of 0.13. The previous record holder that was 4.1 billion light years away had a redshift of 0.376. In the most recent finding, the 21-centimeter line had a redshift of 1.3, which corresponds to a travel time of nearly 9 billion years. The wavelength of the 21-centimeter line had more than doubled to 48 centimeters.
 
The magnified 21-centimeter line allowed astronomers to calculate how mass was distributed in this distant galaxy from nearly 9 billion years ago. Compared to the stars visible from Earth, this galaxy had a much larger percentage of mass floating around compared to mass in the stars. The significance of this finding is not immediately clear, but the clever technique of gravitational lensing will allow astronomers to gather more information from the early days of the universe. This will help us understand the evolution of stars and galaxies and how the early universe led to the cosmos that currently surround us.
 
 
Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.
 
 

Tuning in to a Radio Signal From Space That&#8217;s 9 Billion Years Old

Researchers have discovered a solar radio burst with a signal pattern comparable to the Sun's heartbeat. What does cardiology have to do with astronomy? The familiar lub-dub sound of a heart is a rhythmic pattern caused by electrical signals stimulating the heart muscle to contract. Similarly, the radio bursts feature a signal pattern reminiscent of a heartbeat.
An Electromagnetic Discovery
The electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is a range of wavelengths of EM radiation covering a wide spectrum from short gamma- and X-rays to longer waves, such as infrared, radio and microwaves. The human eye can only see a small portion of the spectrum (visible light), but scientific instruments, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, can capture invisible radiation that astronomers use to understand the universe.
An international team of researchers from institutions in China, Germany, the United Kingdom and New Jersey detected the solar radio burst by studying microwave imaging observations from a telescope in California called the Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array. They reported their findings in Nature Communications.
The study describes a solar radio burst, an intense burst of radio waves from the Sun. These bursts can feature signals with repeating patterns, and the signal pattern comes from within a solar flare more than 5,000 kilometers (~3,107 miles) above the Sun's surface.
What Is a Solar Flare?
Solar flares are a type of powerful explosion from the surface of the Sun. According to Live Science, solar flares are intense bursts of EM radiation generated in the layers of sparse, hot gas that comprise the Sun's atmosphere.
The researchers have labeled this particular solar flare as a C5.9 class, which is a medium-sized explosion on the immense scale of the universe. For context, the most powerful solar flares are equivalent to the energy of a billion hydrogen bombs, which is enough energy to power the world for 20,000 years, according to NASA.
What Causes Solar Flares?
The big yellow ball in the sky is a mixture of hydrogen and helium held together by the force of gravity. But there is another fundamental force at work: electromagnetism, which involves the interaction of electric currents and magnetic fields. This force causes matter to behave in certain ways, and when it comes to the Sun, magnetic energy sometimes builds up in the atmosphere and is suddenly released as a solar flare.
Most of the energy released by solar flares is in the ultraviolet and X-ray part of the EM spectrum at shorter wavelengths and higher energies than visible light. These events are not unusual. The Sun's magnetic field drives a solar cycle, which is a period of solar activity that lasts approximately 11 years, according to Space.com.
How Solar Flares Affect Earth
The recent discovery of "the Sun's heartbeat" can help astronomers understand more about electromagnetism and how it affects activity in the universe and space weather in general.
"The discovery is unexpected," said Sijie Yu, the study's corresponding author and astronomer affiliated with the New Jersey Institute of Technology Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research. "This beating pattern is important for understanding how energy is released and is dissipated in the Sun's atmosphere during these incredibly powerful explosions on the Sun. However, the origin of these repetitive patterns, also called quasi-periodic pulsations, has long been a mystery and a source of debate among solar physicists."
Fortunately, Earth's atmosphere protects our bodies from solar flares and similar solar activity. However, these events can affect technology on Earth because they can inhibit radio communications and GPS navigation. They can reach Earth in just about eight minutes — the amount of time it takes light to travel from the Sun to our planet — so the more we understand about solar flares, the better we can prepare.
As NASA and other space agencies prepare to send crews into space, a deeper understanding of solar activity will be crucial for safety as astronauts travel without the atmosphere's protection.
Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.

The Sun&#8217;s Heartbeat: A Solar Radio Burst

 According to Space.com, last Wednesday morning, April 26, 2017, for the first time, a human-built spaceship flew through the space between Saturn's atmosphere and the innermost rings and lived to tell the tale. But really there are two tales to tell about the Cassini spacecraft and its encounter. One is about the rings of Saturn. Of all the virtual tourist spots in the solar system — and there are many, only a handful of which we have yet visited — none is more beautiful or unearthly, yet more familiar. Saturn with its rings is, after all, the popular culture image of a planet. The other tale is about the long, long journey that brought Cassini to its encounters with the rings, the culmination of a voyage of exploration that began in another century.  One Ring to Rule Them All Galileo, the first observer to study the night sky through a telescope, saw that there was something odd about Saturn. To him and other early observers, it looked as though it had handles on each side. Not until decades later did astronomer Christiaan Huygens identify the "handles" as a flat ring that surrounded Saturn. Another astronomer, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, was the first to discover that Saturn had not one ring but a series of concentric rings, with what appeared to be gaps between them. The Cassini spacecraft, appropriately named after him, shot through one of those gaps on Wednesday morning. But the more we learn about the rings of Saturn, the more astonishing they become. From Earth, the rings look like solid, flat doughnuts. However, we learned from earlier space missions that there are in fact thousands of rings, each made up of innumerable pieces of ice, each orbiting Saturn, some passing so close to each other that they may form ever-changing chains and clumps that behave like rivers of ice and rock. Cassini first passed through a gap in the outer rings of Saturn on June 30, 2004. As data comes in from Cassini's close encounter with the innermost rings — the first of dozens scheduled before Cassini's final September swan dive into Saturn itself — we will learn more about the rings. We naturally don't know what we will learn, but one thing you can count on is that it will be amazing. The Long Road to a Grand Finale Swan Dive But for the Cassini spacecraft, diving between Saturn and its inner ring is only the second-to-last act in a long-running adventure. Launched in 1997, nearly 20 years ago, Cassini reached the neighborhood of Saturn in 2004 after a series of gravitational flybys gave it the energy to reach the distant outer planet, and its Scalable SIRUâ„¢ (Scalable Inertial Reference Unit) navigational system helped its insertion into Saturn's orbit through a gap in Saturn's outer rings. The SIRUâ„¢ system was especially integral to the precise positioning of the spacecraft, says Greg Levin, systems engineer at Northrop Grumman. "As an example of precision during the Cassini mission, there are often 'blackout' periods during operation of the spacecraft where it can't lock on to the sun or the stars to identify its position in space," says Levin. "During these periods, which can last up to five nail-biting hours at a time, the SIRU is critical for ensuring the spacecraft maintains its precise orientation. Over eight years, the SIRU precision during these blackouts was maintained to less than one half of one degree of rotation." Levin adds that SIRUâ„¢ remains a highly reliable sensor more than seven years past its specified life span. Shortly after reaching Saturn space, Cassini released a robotic passenger — the Huygens probe, named for the ring discoverer who also discovered Saturn's giant moon Titan. Huygens landed on Titan in early 2005, giving us close-ups of a unique world of methane lakes. (Doesn't that sound straight out of old-time science fiction?) Through the years that followed, Cassini sent back thousands of images of Saturn's enormous and varied moon system, along with other data suggesting that some of these worlds may have liquid water beneath their frozen surfaces — and, just possibly, life.One Does Not Blithley Fly Through the Rings But for nearly 13 years, Cassini carefully kept its distance from and precisely slipped through the gap between the magnificent outer rings of Saturn. As Brian Resnick recounts at Vox, meticulous flying was needed for a very good reason. Most of outer space is, well, empty space. The rings of Saturn are a dense celestial shooting gallery of ice particles, all of them orbiting Saturn at speeds many times faster than a bullet. Even the gaps in the rings are not empty; they are merely less cluttered than the brightly visible rings and even a tiny spec of ice floating in a relatively empty gap could wreck a spacecraft. Which makes shooting the gap in the rings a risky maneuver, no matter how precise the navigation. Such perilous maneuvers require precision instruments. Again, the SIRUâ„¢ system has its role in maneuvering the dangerously tight space between the rings. Says Levin: "Cassini is designed such that its instruments are fixed to the spacecraft. In order for the spacecraft to accomplish different parts of the scientific mission, the entire spacecraft needs to move to point each of the 12 instruments. Northrop Grumman's SIRUâ„¢ is critical to this process and is an enabler for the science mission of the spacecraft." In 2017, Cassini is, for the first time, exploring the space between Saturn and its innermost ring. During this final phase, the spacecraft is traversing the 3,000-kilometer gap between the outer fringe of Saturn's atmosphere and the inner edge of the main ring. As the spacecraft executes 22 orbits, it will draw closer and closer to Saturn until the planet's atmosphere slows down the spacecraft and Cassini swan dives into Saturn itself. That mission's most eagerly anticipated chapters are being written as you read this article, as Cassini reports back on its last close encounter with the rings. Stay tuned, because in all likelihood the best is yet to come.

Cassini Spacecraft: The New Lord of the Rings

As rising global temperatures melt polar ice and open new sea routes, the Arctic is more physically accessible than ever before. But delivering a reliable communications capability to the High North, as the Northern polar region is called, has remained elusive — until now.
On Aug. 11, 2024, the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) — a combined effort between Space Norway, the U.S. Space Force and Northrop Grumman — launched. Its payloads, hosted on Northrop Grumman's GEOStar-3 satellite bus, will establish full broadband coverage above 65°N for commercial and military end users.
But this first-of-its-kind achievement required scientists and engineers to look outside their orbit, literally.
Tapping In
As the name implies, GEOStar-3 satellites — like most communications satellites — have traditionally flown in geostationary orbit (GEO), explained Carlos Niederstrasser, mission architect, Northrop Grumman. Spacecraft in GEO fly 36,786 kilometers in altitude above the equator and move at the same speed as the Earth rotates, completing a full orbit every 24 hours.
However, due to Earth's curvature, GEO satellites cannot provide coverage to the poles from their vantage point. It's the satellite equivalent of something being just outside your line of sight.
To address this challenge, the Northrop Grumman and Space Norway teams turned to a rarely-used type of highly elliptical orbit (HEO) called a Three Apogee (TAP) orbit. Instead of a circular path around the equator — like GEO — a TAP orbit is elongated into an ellipse and tilted relative to the globe, giving satellites in TAP orbit visibility to the High North during a large percentage of the orbit.
"What results is that one side of the orbit is pretty close to the Earth, and the other side is pretty far away," said Carlos.
Seeing Double
Due to Earth's gravitational pull, a spacecraft in a TAP orbit travels slowly along its path when it is furthest away from the Earth (known as apogee), then moves more quickly through the portion of its orbit that's closest to the Earth (known as perigee). For ASBM, the orbit's apogee is at a high northern latitude, which means that the satellite moves slowly over the Arctic for 10 hours of its 16-hour orbit and, and during that time, can provide coverage to the High North.
"The satellite appears to hang right in the same place in the sky," said Carlos. "It gives you something that almost behaves like a GEO but has the benefit of being very well-visible from all of the Arctic region."
But to achieve continuous communications coverage, one satellite wouldn't cut it, according to Richard Macheske, chief engineer, ASBM, Northrop Grumman.
The solution? A two-satellite constellation.
The ASBM satellites are twins — each GEOStar-3 satellite hosts Northrop Grumman-built payloads for the Norwegian Armed Forces, Viasat and the U.S. Space Force — and travel on opposite sides of the TAP orbit. This mirrored approach ensures that one of the two satellites is always on deck to deliver assured communications in the High North.

From GEO to HEO
Flying the GEOStar-3 in HEO may seem counterintuitive. But, according to Richard, the GEOStar-3 is more than up to the task of flying in different orbits.
"Overall, GEOStar-3 is perfectly suited for this and many other orbits, even though it's called a GEOStar," said Richard. "It should operate more or less like a GEO, which was the whole intent: doing the minimum amount of changes to work in this different orbit."
The ASBM satellites leveraged Northrop Grumman-produced solar arrays, propellant tanks, heat pipe panels and satellite bus structures with very few modifications. Tweaks for operating in HEO included structural changes to account for different radiation levels, changes to the attitude control system, solar array system and star tracker as well as adaptations for surface charging. The satellite's command and control system is also operated differently, explained Carlos, because — unlike in GEO — ground stations do not have constant contact with HEO satellites.
In addition to its communication mission, ASBM offers a unique opportunity to study the nuances of HEO. The mission includes a radiation monitor, owned by the European Commission, and designed and built by a Norwegian company called IDEAS. This monitor which will collect radiation data providing engineers and scientists with insights into this little-flown orbit, charting the course for future missions in the Northern polar region.
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To Reach the Arctic, Scientists Look Outside Their Orbit

Bennu is a 500-meter wide asteroid that orbits our sun, following a trajectory that periodically brings it alarmingly close to planet Earth. NASA scientists have used new data and complex computer models to predict the precise path of the Bennu asteroid for the next 300 years, according to Icarus. Of particular interest is the probability of an asteroid impact, which for an asteroid of Bennu's size, could leave a 3-to-6-mile-wide crater and pack the energy of more than 1.1 billion tons of TNT. As NASA's planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson told reporters, "An object Bennu's size impacting in the Eastern Seaboard states would pretty much devastate things up and down the coast." Low Chance of Asteroid Impact Thankfully, the probability of Bennu colliding with Earth is small: about a 1 in 1,750 (or 0.057%) chance between now and the year 2300. The date with the highest probability of a collision is September 24, 2182, when Bennu has a 1 in 2,700 (about 0.037%) chance of hitting the Earth. While these numbers are slightly higher than previous estimates, any increased anxiety should be offset by the improved ability to predict the movement of near-Earth objects accurately. This also makes it far more likely that humans will eventually be able to alter the movement of such objects if necessary.  OSIRIS-REx Provides Unprecedented Precision As reported by NASA, precise predictions for the Bennu asteroid were possible because of data from the agency's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. Bennu was discovered in 1999, and ground-based telescopes were used to study close encounters with Earth in 1999, 2005 and 2011. OSIRIS-REx was launched in 2016 and reached Bennu in December 2018. For nearly two and a half years, OSIRIS-REx flew around Bennu like a hummingbird, taking pictures and gathering information about Bennu's size, shape, mass and composition, and monitoring its spin and orbital trajectory. During that time, it constantly sent information back to Earth using NASA's Deep Space Network of giant radio antennas and was often able to pinpoint the position of Bennu to within a few meters. This is quite an accomplishment, considering that the radius of its orbit is about 168 million kilometers, according to NASA. Small Forces Can Change Asteroid Trajectories Asteroids are much smaller than planets, so their trajectories are affected by a wide variety of small forces, including heat from the sun. The Bennu asteroid rotates around its axis, constantly changing which areas are exposed to the sun. As areas warmed by the sun rotate into darkness, they cool and release infrared energy, which generates a small amount of thrust. Steve Chesley, a senior research scientist who was involved in the study says: "The effect on Bennu is equivalent to the weight of three grapes constantly acting on the asteroid — tiny, yes, but significant when determining Bennu's future impact chances over the decades and centuries to come." That force has caused Bennu to drift by about 934 feet a year. Other factors incorporated into the calculations include the effect of gravity from the sun, the planets, the moon, Pluto and more than 300 asteroids in the asteroid belt. Also included was the drag caused by solar wind and the effect of Bennu's habit of ejecting particles from its surface, which NASA describes as unexpected. Finally, researchers considered the effect of OSIRIS-REx collecting a sample from Bennu's surface in October 2020. This last effect was negligible, which is encouraging news for future asteroid missions. Close Encounters With Earth The data collected by OSIRIS-REx has allowed scientists to calculate the trajectory of the Bennu asteroid with a very high degree of certainty through 2135, improving on previous estimates by a factor of 20. There is no chance of an asteroid impact from Bennu until after 2135, when calculations for the trajectory become less certain because of a major event. In September 2135, Bennu will temporarily be closer to Earth than the moon (about 123,000 miles from the Earth's surface, compared to 238,900 miles from the Earth to the moon). Depending on exactly when and where Bennu makes this close approach, it's possible that Earth's gravitational pull will change Bennu's orbit around the sun just enough that it will collide with Earth at a later date. Computer simulations have identified the small regions of space that Bennu would have to pass through in September 2135 to set up a future impact with Earth. These 26 "gravitation keyholes" range in size from several hundred feet to a few miles wide. With data from OSIRIS-REx, researchers were able to eliminate the possibility of Bennu passing through 24 of these keyholes. Two of the keyholes remain a possibility. Astronomers will be closely watching this event in September 2135 and revising estimates for potential future impacts. That will give humanity nearly 50 years to prepare for a possible impact in September 2182. The information and technology available by then should be spectacular. Alas, that event is two lifetimes away. Nonetheless, there will be exciting events to enjoy well before then. OSIRIS-REx left Bennu in May 2021 and is on track to drop a 4.5-billion-year-old rock sample into the Utah desert in September 2023. In 2022, NASA will attempt to nudge the Didymos asteroid enough to alter its trajectory, as The New York Times reports. Didymos poses no immediate threat and is only about one-third as wide as Bennu, but this mission will test whether humans can prevent an asteroid impact. Scientists have cataloged more than 26,000 near-Earth asteroids to date, including about half of the asteroids of Bennu's size (larger than ~140 m). Until more work is complete, we can only imagine what remains to be discovered. Interested in all things outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman, and consider joining our team.

Bennu Asteroid Unlikely to Hit Earth in the Next 300 Years

 Factory work is being transformed as the manufacturing industry enters a new era of flexible and customized "smart" production. Once dominated by routine and repetition, the factory floor is becoming a more complex, fluid and interesting place. As a result of this transformation, skilled production work is becoming more central to the manufacturing process than at any time since the dawn of the industrial era. Moreover, this reskilling of the factory floor is multidimensional. It extends across a range of tasks and roles, from traditional skills such as machining to new tech-related skills such as working with computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technology, to a set of aptitudes and habits of mind that are hard to pigeonhole in traditional slots but are instantly recognizable on the shop floor. And with the new era of skilled production comes new challenges for firms in training their workforce to deploy new skills in a new environment.Not So Dead After All Even as much public discussion has focused on the woes of the manufacturing sector and of industrial workers, the reality of the manufacturing industry has been moving on. By 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing employment is seeing a resurgence, with demand focused on skilled workers. Many unskilled production jobs had vanished, replaced by machines — but "people need to maintain or fix the machines. So manufacturers need fewer workers, but the workers they do need require higher level skills." The first, negative stage of this process is largely completed — meaning that the manufacturing industry is now focused on the second stage of finding (or training) skilled workers to "fix the machines." The Agile Factory Floor This transformation is not happening in a vacuum, and to understand the new factory floor, you need to understand the new manufacturing. Kevin O'Marah at Industry Week characterizes this new manufacturing as shaped by consumerization and mass customization. In a nutshell, customers — both individual consumers and business customers — are more demanding, insisting on manufactured products that are made to order, not standardized items of mass production. And this demand is supported by technologies, such as software-controlled manufacturing, that can respond rapidly to individual requirements. Which means that "fixing the machines" is not simply repairing them if they break down, but reconfiguring them for a new production run or even to fabricate a single customized item.And the Agile Production Worker The new manufacturing continues to involve a great deal of "traditional" skilled work, so that machinists, for example, are much in demand. Alongside these skilled trades are a newer group, from working with CAM technology to maintaining robots. But alongside these skill sets, familiar or more recent, the agile factory floor requires workers who can quickly shift tasks as needs change, and who have a sense of the big picture, so that they not only know what they are doing but why they are doing it. This is the skill that allows an experienced line worker, for example, to say that the setup for a new customized production job is wrong, and should be adjusted to avoid manufacturing errors. Skill and judgment of this type, in particular, cannot be taught in a school environment, or fully taught even in an apprenticeship. It must be learned through shop experience, on the factory floor. And for this reason it is the most challenging component of training for the new manufacturing industry. This training challenge has brought forth such efforts as the partnership of Northrop Grumman, California's Antelope Valley College and other public and private agencies. As CA FWD reports, these participants have come together to build a training program for skilled aircraft production workers. (Northrop Grumman gets first dibs on recruiting program graduates, but other aerospace firms have also shown interest.) Manufacturing is back, and innovative training programs are opening new paths to opportunities on the factory floor.

For the Manufacturing Industry, a Golden Age of Skilled Work

When the Dragon spacecraft returned from 199 days in space with an unusual nighttime splashdown off the Gulf Coast of Florida, it obliquely reinstated a parachute-braked descent into a water landing as the standard method for bringing back spacecraft.   Why have spaceflight operations like Dragon gone back to splashdowns decades after abandoning the technique? Why did NASA select the option of splashing down in the first place? And why do some missions opt for dry landings instead?   When Every Ounce Matters   It all comes down to the confluence of two factors, both profoundly central to human spaceflight: weight and safety. Weight (or formally speaking, mass) plays a decisive role in spaceflight because of the enormous speed, and even more enormous energy requirement, needed for orbital spaceflight.   For every ounce of a spacecraft that returns from orbit, including its crew, several pounds have to go up from the launch pad in the form of rocket stages and their load of propellant.   Air and Space notes that this critical fact drives every aspect of spacecraft design. Flying back to a runway, as the space shuttle did, has numerous advantages but one massive disadvantage: the weight of wings and aircraft-style landing gear. Parachutes are far lighter, a key reason for their adoption at the dawn of the space age by both American and Russian spacecraft.   But why not simply land on land? On dry land there is no risk of a spacecraft sinking, as one Mercury capsule did after splashing down, nearly drowning an astronaut.   A Boat Can Float Anywhere   Landing on dry land turns out to have some complications. Landing on uneven ground could lead to a capsule tipping over or even rolling down a slope. And "dry land" can't be counted on to be dry. As Air and Space also reports, one Soviet-era Russian space mission happened to come down on a freezing lake, and the cosmonauts aboard were lucky to survive.   Moreover, even with parachute braking, space capsules hit the ground pretty hard — hard enough to risk injury to the crew. Russian spacecraft use a short final blast of retrorockets to slow enough for a gentler touchdown, but the landing is still pretty bumpy. The rockets also add weight. As Space.com reported at the time, NASA originally favored landing on land for the Orion moonship, but later, per Air and Space, went back to water landing to avoid the extra weight of retrorockets.   Landing on water is also fairly abrupt, but the splash provides a final stretch of relatively smooth braking.   One factor that further affected the decision — then and now — to splash down at sea is that US launch sites are coastal, and their launch paths stretch out over the ocean. In the event of an emergency abort, an American space capsule would thus almost certainly come down over water, so the design needed to float and be suited to water rescue.   Parameters of Return   A modern-day splashdown is far less chancy than the return of early American spacecraft in the Apollo era and before, or the mid-1970s Russian mission that came down on a frozen lake. But they can still have their surprises. As Ars Technica reported, the Dragon spacecraft's four main parachutes was noticeably slower to fully open than the other three — enough to get the attention of the recovery team and onlookers, though within design parameters.   Parameters — formalized definitions of conditions that are considered safe — are the key guidelines ensuring the safe return of spacecraft, and are set forth in great detail by NASA. Per Space.com, the Dragon's night landing was selected because of ideal weather conditions at the primary landing site, but the great flexibility of splashdown landings meant that multiple alternative zones were available for the Dragon splashdown.   Parameters of Recovery   Once the spacecraft is in the water, the final stage of the mission begins: extracting the crew and recovering the spacecraft.   The same guidelines that specify parameters for recovery site suitability also specify subtle but critical details about readiness for the recovery operation. For example, the Dragon return could not commence until the recovery helicopters successfully started up and performed a hover operation.   Another NASA document outlines the way these procedures and parameters have been determined for the Orion moonship. While decades have passed since the last of the Apollo-era landings, the recovery operations for the shuttle's reusable solid boosters (and of future SLS boosters) have kept NASA thoroughly current in handling complex recovery tasks at sea.   Mastering splashdown and recovery, with a focus on safety and reliability, could open new doors in the future of commercial space travel.   Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics, and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation. 

Splashdown! Why Spacecraft Return by Sea

On a moonless night, far from city lights, the sky seems filled with countless stars. And of course the stars we can see, even on the darkest and clearest night, are only a tiny fraction of the total: billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. Most of these stars have characteristics that are familiar to astronomers, and their lives unfold in fairly predictable ways. In the case of our sun, this is very good news for us. But there are also some decidedly strange stars out there. Some pose mysteries for astronomers; others are not so much puzzling as they are just plain awesome. All of them come in handy when you want to entertain your friends with some interesting space facts. Zombie Stars Supernova explosions, disintegrating stars that briefly flare up to several hundred million times brighter than the sun, ought to have the ring of finality if anything does. But Science Alert reports that astronomers have now discovered several cases of zombie stars that underwent supernova explosions yet somehow managed to reassemble themselves and go on shining. Strange stars don't get much stranger than that. The name might seem a bit unfair. After all, while these certainly qualify as strange stars, there is no evidence that they resemble zombies. Surely "supernova survivor" would be just as accurate. But zombie stars don't just reanimate after going supernova — they do so by dining on other stars, gravitationally stripping them away until nothing is left of the other star. So perhaps the name fits! A New Alien Megastructure Candidate Astronomers sometimes observe objects that seem to be fairly ordinary stars, except that their light output seems to vary in ways that are completely inexplicable. A familiar recent example was a star officially named KIC 8462852, better known as Tabby's Star, after the astronomer who investigated it. Its light patterns are so strange that Tabetha Boyajian and other astronomers seriously considered the possibility that it was surrounded by an artificial structure. Alas, further observations were not consistent with this theory, and mere dust clouds are a more likely culprit. But there is a new kid in town among strange stars, HD 139139. It has not yet acquired a popular name, but as Scientific American reports, the astronomers are still scrambling to come with a robust explanation for what they are seeing. A megastructure, perhaps? The Methusaleh Star  One of the most interesting space facts concerns HD 140283, named the Methusaleh star after the biblical figure. Classified as a subgiant, the Methusaleh star is fairly normal, not what you'd expect in a list of strange stars — except for one subtle but serious complication. Observations of HD 140283 indicate that, according to our understanding of stellar aging, it ought to be between 13.2 and 14.4 billion years old. The hitch is that, as NASA points out, by our best estimate the entire universe is about 13.8 billion years old. This rules out the upper half of the age range for HD 140283, and makes even the low-end estimate seriously problematic. How can such an ordinary star have been formed when the universe itself was only just starting to take shape? A good question, and cosmologists would love to know the answer. A Baby Star That Will Outlive the Sun If the Methusaleh star is unusually old for a star, a dim nearby star designated 2MASS J0523-1403 is in its merest infancy — and will be for billions of years to come, long after our sun has flared into a red giant, then dwindled away. There is no particular mystery here, just a sheer breadth of time that sends shivers up the spine. 2MASS J0523-1403, according to a report in Scientific American, is very close to the dividing line between the smallest and least massive red dwarf stars and their slightly smaller and less massive cousins, brown dwarfs — objects that are not quite full-blown stars, because they are not big enough to sustain hydrogen fusion. Small as it is, 2MASS J0523-1403 is a true star that does burn hydrogen — and will go on burning it for an estimated 12 trillion years, long after the sun has become a tiny dark cinder. The Most Massive Star in the Universe At the far end of the stellar mass and brightness range from 2MASS J0523-1403 is a star known as R136a1, and located approximately 170,000 light-years away in the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. According to NASA, R136a1 is the most massive known star. In cosmic terms, R136a1 will not shine for long. Stars of this type are headed for supernova explosions, says EarthSky, and that should be the end of it. Unless, perhaps, it becomes a zombie star, and comes back for another round.

Five Strange Stars That Keep Astronomers on Their Toes

For casual stargazers, one of the most easily recognizable observable constellations is Orion. This constellation is visible high in the night sky during winter. Observers might notice a bright star, or the famous Orion's "belt" of three bright blue stars, but an odd feature has astronomers taking a closer look. Recently, they observed a funky star system in the constellation called GW Orionis, about 1,300 light-years away from Earth. GW Orionis has three warped, misaligned rings, and it appears to be the first of its kind among the star systems that have been observed to this day. What's So Strange About GW Orionis? In May 2020, Jiaqing Bi, Nienke van der Marel and their colleagues published a study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters which suggested that a planet could be the reason GW Orionis has such a strange misalignment of rings. "To our knowledge, its outermost ring is the largest dust ring ever found in protoplanetary disks," they wrote. Researchers observed the odd rings for the first time in 2017. "We were surprised to see the strong misalignment of the inner ring," said Bi in a National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) announcement. "But the strange warp in the disk is confirmed by a twisted pattern that ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) measured in the gas of the disk." In September 2020, astrophysicist Stefan Kraus and 32 colleagues published a study in Science that reveals new details about an odd trio of stars in Orion. The authors explain that young stars are surrounded by a circumstellar disk made of gas and dust. Scientists theorize that planets can form from the materials in these disks. Kraus stated in the NRAO announcement, "In our images, we see the shadow of the inner ring on the outer disk. At the same time, ALMA allowed us to measure the precise shape of the ring that casts the shadow. Combining this information allows us to derive the three-dimensional orientation of the misaligned ring and of the warped disk surface." In a straightforward solar system like ours, planets orbit a single star like the sun. But GW Orionis is more complicated. Two of the stars are orbiting each other, while a third star orbits them hundreds of millions of miles away. This appears to be creating an odd gravitational situation that is warping the disk. The authors write, "Our images show an eccentric ring that is misaligned with the orbital planes and the outer disk. The ring casts shadows on a strongly warped intermediate region of the disk. If planets can form within the warped disk, disk tearing could provide a mechanism for forming wide-separation planets on oblique orbits." Gaining Deeper Insights From Space Popular Science reports that the system's inner ring has enough dust to build 30 Earths. The new study, which is the culmination of 11 years of work, provides new insight into how planets are formed, especially in unusual orbits. According to the NRAO, if future studies find an exotic planet in GW Orionis, it would be the first planet ever observed to orbit three stars, and it would "possess a very unusual orbit." In the latest Orion studies, astronomers used instruments on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array and ALMA, both of which are located in the Chilean desert, and Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) telescope array in California. Along with ground-based observatories, the Hubble Space Telescope has been taking awe-inspiring images from space since 1990. And soon, the James Webb Space Telescope, an orbiting infrared observatory that's 100 times more powerful than Hubble, will be positioned even deeper in space — 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. This will allow astronomers to peer even deeper into space to discover previously unknown details of funky star systems and much more. If astronomers have been able to find fascinating systems like GW Orionis with the existing tools so far, the next generation of space exploration is bound to be even more exciting. Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

GW Orionis: A First-of-Its-Kind Star System in the Orion Constellation

1.1 Establishment of NASA, Oct. 1, 1958 https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-history-overviewNASA begins operation. The agency's passion for discovery and commitment to innovation fuel the future of space exploration.1.2 Project Mercury, Feb. 20, 1962 https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/index.htmlAstronaut John Glenn, onboard Friendship 7, orbits the Earth in NASA's Mercury capsule, expanding our perception of the possible.1.3 Apollo 11 Moon Landing, July 20, 1969 https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo-11.htmlWith one small step, Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew make a giant leap for the future of human space travel.1.4 Voyager, Sept. 5, 1977 https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/Interstellar probe Voyager 1 launches from Cape Canaveral on a mission to explore the universe. Today, the craft is more than 13 billion miles from Earth.1.5 Opportunity, Jan. 3, 2004 https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/overview/NASA's Opportunity rover sets a new standard for the future of space exploration, covering more than 28 miles of Martian surface over 15 years.1.6 Cygnus, Sept. 2013 https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/cygnus.html#.XN2ZLshKhPZCloser to home, the Cygnus cargo delivery spacecraft first launched in 2013, providing a critical resupply line for the International Space Station (ISS).1.7 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), April 18, 2018 https://tess.mit.edu/science/TESS will spend two years looking into the sky — and deep into space — to find thousands of exoplanets and help bolster the search for habitable worlds beyond our solar system.1.8 Orion Launch Abort System (LAS), In Development https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/orion_las_fact_sheet_8.5x11_4page_11_19_15.pdfThe Orion LAS protects astronauts if something goes wrong — its abort motor produces over 400,000 pounds of thrust to pull the spacecraft out of harm's way.1.9 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Launch in 2021 https://jwst.nasa.gov/about.htmlThe JWST features a 6.5-meter ultra-lightweight beryllium mirror and five-layer sunshield capable of attenuating the sun's heat more than a million-fold.1.10 Space Launch System (SLS) Solid Rocket Boosters, In Development https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/sls_solid_rocket_booster_fact_sheet_final_508_june2018.pdfSLS solid rocket boosters are the most powerful ever built for flight. Standing 17 stories tall and burning six tons of propellant per second, they're powering the future of space exploration.Interested in all things on the space? We are too. Take a look at our open positions and consider joining our team: NorthropGrumman.com/careers.

Milestones to Moonshots: The Past, Present and Future of Space Exploration

In July 2021, the world experienced something it had not seen since July 1969: a head-to-head race between rival space launch teams, with real uncertainty about which one would be first to reach its goal. The original Space Race of the 1960s between the U.S. and the Soviet Union ended when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The Soviets, uninterested in winning the silver, ended their moon project and shifted focus to their Soyuz orbital spacecraft, which even today remains a space access workhorse. The new competition involves not rival superpowers but rival billionaires: Jeff Bezos, who went to space aboard his New Shepard spacecraft, and Richard Branson, who went there on his VSS Unity spaceplane. According to Geekwire, the two sides have consistently denied that any rivalry was involved. The big-picture race in the 1960s was to achieve human space travel, and humanity accomplished its goal. The new race is to achieve commercial space travel, and this seems to be working out so far — though in a way that hardly anyone expected even a few years ago. To the Edge of Space A striking fact about the new space race is that the goals of the contestants were relatively modest. The rival mission teams did not aim to send people into orbit, or even to send them as high as the first American suborbital spaceflights did. Indeed, the Soviets skipped this step entirely, notes Space.com, as their first human spaceflight, by Yuri Gagarin in 1961, went into orbit. Instead, according to CBS News, the rival private spaceflight teams settled for reaching just high enough to cross the official threshold of space, as defined by two different agencies. NASA defines outer space as beginning at an altitude of 50 miles (about 80 km), while the Fé©dé©ration Aé©ronautique Internationale puts the beginning of outer space at a higher altitude: 100 km, about 62 miles up. Difficult — But Not Impossible The reason why the space-racing billionaires settled for modest suborbital flights instead of dropping by for a visit to the ISS is that human orbital spaceflight is incredibly challenging. And with current technology, it comes with a hefty price tag, even for billionaires. What exactly makes human spaceflight so challenging? Practically everything, though requirements like keeping people alive while their vessel is surrounded by hard vacuum apply as much to suborbital "space-adjacent" flights as to orbital missions. But the biggest challenge is the enormous speed needed to reach orbit, about five miles per second, or around 30 times faster than jetliners. And because kinetic energy (the energy you have to put into something to make it go fast) rises as the square of velocity, it takes nearly a thousand times as much energy for your body to reach orbit as it does to push you along to a pokey 550 mph, a typical passenger jet speed. For comparison, the New Shepard (per CNBC) and VSS Unity (per CNN) suborbital spacecraft only clocked in at around 2,200 to 2,300 mph, a mere four times the speed (and 16 times the kinetic energy per pound) of standard commercial jets. This is certainly enough to send them and their passengers a few dozen miles to the edge of space, where they experienced about three minutes of weightlessness. It may only be a taste of space, but even a taste would be pretty awesome for a lot of us. Old Space, New Space, Just Plain Space The billionaire space race of 2021 had one conspicuous non-participant: Elon Musk. This is striking because Musk is the one new-era commercial space entrepreneur whose company can and has launched people not just on a suborbital hop to the edge of space, but into orbit. Indeed, as Axios reported, a few weeks after Branson and Bezos made their trips, Musk's company, SpaceX, launched four people into orbit on what it billed as the first "all-civilian" orbital spaceflight. The flight, called Inspiration4, drew less media attention than the summer competition, since Musk himself was not on the passenger list. In the bigger picture, the most striking fact about Musk's version of private enterprise in space is how much SpaceX and its technology resembles its "old space" competitors. Its Falcon rocket family looks and flies very much like the Atlas and Delta rockets, whose roots go back to the early days of the original space race. Mostly this is a matter of physics and engineering. Multi-stage rockets with boosters are a proven technology for sending spacecraft and people into orbit and beyond, and Musk chose to stick mostly with what was already known to work when he started out. This is a sensible-shoes approach to space travel. The Subtle Limits of Commerce Another reason why Musk's approach and technology look familiar is that private enterprise in space is not actually new. Every American space booster has been the product of private industry, so in its overall technology and organization, SpaceX is going where the American space launch industry has often gone before. This does not mean "nothing to see here." One crucial difference between SpaceX and its competitors is that Musk started out developing space rockets "on spec" — not designing them to meet a customer's specific requirements, but designing them with the hope that if you build it, they will come. Economically this was very risky, but it did allow a potentially crucial innovation: the recovery, refurbishment, and reuse of booster stages. As Universe Today points out, from the dawn of the space age, people have been dismayed at the price tag of building a vehicle as large, complex and expensive as a jetliner that could only be used once. The Space Shuttle was reusable, except for the big yet relatively simple and cheap external tank, but it pushed the limits of 1970s technology so hard that it ended up being more expensive to fly than conventional expendable boosters. With four decades of technology progress to work with, SpaceX was able to develop an alternative approach to reusability. Its first stage and boosters, the most expensive section of a multistage rocket, are fitted with landing legs and automatically guided to land on floating barges positioned downrange from the launch site. And this works; the recovered stages are refurbished and used again. According to Universe Today, these second-hand rockets are then sold to customers as "flight tested" models. Why didn't the "old space" companies try that same trick first? The reason is simple. They are commercial businesses, and their business is launching rockets for specific customers who want to send things or people into space. None of those customers were eager to pay extra for the development and testing of this new technology, even if it might reduce costs in the future. SpaceX did not face that problem, and because its original "customer" was Elon Musk himself, he was perfectly happy to spend his own money to develop technology he sees as important to a space-centric future. This gets to the heart of the matter: SpaceX itself was not a commercial business proposition in the usual sense, at least not at the beginning. Space travel was, in a sense, approached as a hobby — Musk thought it would be awesome to do. A lot of us think space travel is awesome, and if you're reading this, chances are good that you agree. However, most of us don't have several billion dollars to spend on things we think are awesome. Musk did and has. The Amazing Power of Awesome Musk is not the only one to pursue space travel because it's cool. While the original space race was all about competition between world powers, the half-century of NASA spaceflight since then has been fueled by American taxpayers. Yes, there are numerous practical reasons for a space program to exist, such as the desire to launch weather or internet satellites tied to profit-making businesses, but human spaceflight and interplanetary exploration probes have been funded at least partly because they are, well, awesome. The power of awesome is also what propelled the summer space race of billionaires. A suborbital hop crosses no frontier that Alan Shepard didn't cross 60 years ago, but Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson both thought it would be worth spending a few billion dollars to do it. Both also think it's awesome enough that they will get their money back by selling suborbital hops to paying customers. We cannot yet say whether enough well-heeled customers will agree to make Blue Origins or Virgin Galactic profitable propositions. What we can say is that commercial space travel has already taken a direction that hardly anyone would have expected until a few years ago. Profit-making "practical" space missions, such as launching constellations of satellites for global phone service, are ongoing. Meanwhile, technology such as winged spacecraft released from mother-ship airplanes — like Branson's VSS Unity, and the legendary X-15 before it — are transforming this industry. But because this does not involve human spaceflight, it takes place largely out of the public eye. For decades, space visionaries have anticipated that profit-oriented business operations would drive a private enterprise future for human spaceflight. A whole subgenre of science fiction proposed that commercial enterprises such as orbital solar power stations or asteroid mining would provide the impetus to take people into space. The awesome factor might be reason enough for some, but hope of profit was expected to bring in the cold, hard cash. But at least so far, it has not worked out quite that way. None of those technologies has drawn enough interest from investors to gain substantial funding. Instead, it turned out to be the sheer awesome factor that motivated private entrepreneurs to reach for space. If human commercial space travel also turns out to be profitable, we'll likely see the funding of even more amazing human space missions. But the profit motive has been more of a hoped-for fringe benefit than a driving motivation in the new space race. Awesome, as it turns out, may be enough.

The Next Age of the Space Race Is Already Here

As rising global temperatures melt polar ice and open new sea routes, the Arctic is more physically accessible than ever before. But delivering a reliable communications capability to the High North, as the Northern polar region is called, has remained elusive — until now.
On Aug. 11, 2024, the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) — a combined effort between Space Norway, the U.S. Space Force and Northrop Grumman — launched. Its payloads, hosted on Northrop Grumman's GEOStar-3 satellite bus, will establish full broadband coverage above 65°N for commercial and military end users.
But this first-of-its-kind achievement required scientists and engineers to look outside their orbit, literally.
Tapping In
As the name implies, GEOStar-3 satellites — like most communications satellites — have traditionally flown in geostationary orbit (GEO), explained Carlos Niederstrasser, mission architect, Northrop Grumman. Spacecraft in GEO fly 36,786 kilometers in altitude above the equator and move at the same speed as the Earth rotates, completing a full orbit every 24 hours.
However, due to Earth's curvature, GEO satellites cannot provide coverage to the poles from their vantage point. It's the satellite equivalent of something being just outside your line of sight.
To address this challenge, the Northrop Grumman and Space Norway teams turned to a rarely-used type of highly elliptical orbit (HEO) called a Three Apogee (TAP) orbit. Instead of a circular path around the equator — like GEO — a TAP orbit is elongated into an ellipse and tilted relative to the globe, giving satellites in TAP orbit visibility to the High North during a large percentage of the orbit.
"What results is that one side of the orbit is pretty close to the Earth, and the other side is pretty far away," said Carlos.
Seeing Double
Due to Earth's gravitational pull, a spacecraft in a TAP orbit travels slowly along its path when it is furthest away from the Earth (known as apogee), then moves more quickly through the portion of its orbit that's closest to the Earth (known as perigee). For ASBM, the orbit's apogee is at a high northern latitude, which means that the satellite moves slowly over the Arctic for 10 hours of its 16-hour orbit and, and during that time, can provide coverage to the High North.
"The satellite appears to hang right in the same place in the sky," said Carlos. "It gives you something that almost behaves like a GEO but has the benefit of being very well-visible from all of the Arctic region."
But to achieve continuous communications coverage, one satellite wouldn't cut it, according to Richard Macheske, chief engineer, ASBM, Northrop Grumman.
The solution? A two-satellite constellation.
The ASBM satellites are twins — each GEOStar-3 satellite hosts Northrop Grumman-built payloads for the Norwegian Armed Forces, Viasat and the U.S. Space Force — and travel on opposite sides of the TAP orbit. This mirrored approach ensures that one of the two satellites is always on deck to deliver assured communications in the High North.

From GEO to HEO
Flying the GEOStar-3 in HEO may seem counterintuitive. But, according to Richard, the GEOStar-3 is more than up to the task of flying in different orbits.
"Overall, GEOStar-3 is perfectly suited for this and many other orbits, even though it's called a GEOStar," said Richard. "It should operate more or less like a GEO, which was the whole intent: doing the minimum amount of changes to work in this different orbit."
The ASBM satellites leveraged Northrop Grumman-produced solar arrays, propellant tanks, heat pipe panels and satellite bus structures with very few modifications. Tweaks for operating in HEO included structural changes to account for different radiation levels, changes to the attitude control system, solar array system and star tracker as well as adaptations for surface charging. The satellite's command and control system is also operated differently, explained Carlos, because — unlike in GEO — ground stations do not have constant contact with HEO satellites.
In addition to its communication mission, ASBM offers a unique opportunity to study the nuances of HEO. The mission includes a radiation monitor, owned by the European Commission, and designed and built by a Norwegian company called IDEAS. This monitor which will collect radiation data providing engineers and scientists with insights into this little-flown orbit, charting the course for future missions in the Northern polar region.
Learn more about Northrop Grumman connecting the Arctic with Cutting-Edge Satellite Communications. 

Activities conducted using spacecraft have become a ubiquitous part of our society. From monitoring hurricanes to measuring the ozone layer to a host of defense-related missions, U.S. government agencies today rely heavily on satellites and aerospace technology to conduct their day-to-day activities. But how are satellites conceived, designed, produced and deployed? NASA describes a spacecraft as "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the Earth's atmosphere." A satellite is described as "a type of spacecraft that orbits the Earth, the moon or another celestial body." In this series, we will use the terms spacecraft and satellite interchangeably. * * * Planning for the launch and deployment of a spacecraft begins in the earliest days of its conception, when a customer is still defining mission requirements on the "back of a napkin." How large the spacecraft will be, what orbit it will occupy, and how much shock and dynamic loading it can sustain during liftoff all help determine the type of launch vehicle that can deliver it most effectively to orbit. "Typically, we're procuring the launch vehicle as a commercial service for the government or working with them to figure out what launch vehicle they plan to provide," says Will Whalen, a launch system integration (LSI) specialist with Northrop Grumman. Either way, Whalen adds, the LSI team is working with a customer team and the contractor's space vehicle and mission payload team very early in the proposal development phase to define the most appropriate — and most competitive — launch vehicle. Launch and launch vehicle costs can make up 10 to 30% of the mission value, so it's very important to get it right. Creating the Right Match After a contractor secures a satellite contract, its LSI team begins working closely with the space vehicle team and the launch vehicle provider to ensure a good match — mechanically and electrically — between the space vehicle, or satellite, and the launch vehicle. "It's critical that all stakeholders in the launch and deployment process work together from day one," emphasizes Whalen. The LSI team works with the launch vehicle provider to define the electrical and mechanical interfaces between the satellite and launch vehicle, the dynamic forces that the satellite and the upper stage will experience, and the details of the separation sequence, adds Whalen. It's important, for example, that the second stage provide sufficient thrust and stability to steer and control the satellite safely through the suborbital and separation phases of launch. The LSI team also coordinates early in the satellite development process, Whalen explains, with U.S. government entities —typically U.S. Air Force — that will need to support the launch. For military launches, for example, the Air Force provides satellite fueling services on the ground, plus radar systems and ground control stations that track the satellite during launch and deployment. Shipping for Safety After the satellite has been completed, it is shipped to its launch site, typically two to four months before launch depending on how much work the contractor team expects to do at the launch site. Most U.S. satellites are launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Satellites are either shipped by air (a few hours) or truck (a week or longer). "Whenever possible, we transport satellites by air because it's faster, involves less risk, and avoids delays that can occur if we ship an oversize container by truck on normal U.S. highways," explains Whalen. "Sometimes our customer arranges for us to use a specialty government transport system such as a C-17 Globemaster or C-5 Galaxy aircraft." Coming Clean At the launch site, the satellite is brought into a processing facility that contains a series of progressively cleaner rooms. The first stop is an airlock where the shipping container is cleaned of all its road or air transport grime. Next is a high bay where the satellite is erected, lifted out of its shipping container, and placed on a processing stand that will allow integration and test (I&T) specialists to work on the satellite at different levels. Checking Reality After the I&T team connects its test sets and charges the satellite's batteries — they are shipped in a low state of charge to ensure safety and preserve battery life — it begins a carefully scripted series of tests. "During this phase of launch preparation, we activate the space vehicle, check out its payloads, and make sure that all of its subsystems — command and data handling, propulsion, attitude control etc. — are functioning the way we expect," says Whalen. "We want the specialists who designed and tested these systems in the factory to review the data and validate one last time that the data looks good and that none of our subsystems have been damaged in transit." Preparing for Launch After the space vehicle has been shown to be operating correctly, and before it is fueled, the launch preparation team simulates connecting the satellite to the Air Force Space Command Network (AFSCN), the communication link used during launch, deployment and on-orbit checkout. The AFSCN also provides a backup channel for sending commands or receiving telemetry should the satellite's primary communications link become unavailable during normal on-orbit operations. The final phases of the contractor's launch preparation include integrating the satellite mechanically with its separation system, and installing a special nose cone called the payload fairing around that entire assembly. The fairing protects the spacecraft against aerodynamic pressure and heating during launch and its ascent through the atmosphere. With the space vehicle contractor in observation mode only, the launch vehicle provider then integrates the fairing-enclosed payload with the launch vehicle. Counting Down And then the countdown to launch begins. The countdown period is normally 12 hours or less. Prior to countdown, all of the launch stakeholders, including contractors, customers and base authorities, meet for a final "launch commit" review. The goal is to ensure that all tasks associated with launch vehicle and satellite payload preparation have been completed, and that all assets needed to support the launch such as radar and tracking stations are available and working properly. It's also time for the satellite contractor team to go through its final checklist in preparation for launch. "On the day of launch, we power up the satellite and configure it for launch," explains Rob Woods, a satellite systems operation expert with Northrop Grumman. "If our technical team members spot anything they feel could jeopardize the safety or success of the mission, they can call for a launch hold or even a scrub." Skyway to Heaven Following a nominal countdown and liftoff, the launch vehicle provider takes the lead during the early, or ascent, phase of launch. Teams on the ground monitor the health and status of the launch vehicle as its main stage and any booster stages execute their specified burns, then drop off. Once the launch vehicle reaches a predetermined altitude above the atmosphere, it also releases the payload fairing, exposing the satellite to the space environment. During this ascent phase, the satellite contractor team puts the satellite into its separation configuration. Satellite batteries only have so much power, so during launch and liftoff, only a minimum, critical set of hardware (typically command and data handling) is powered up," says Woods. "Once a satellite separates from the second stage, however, it must be ready to assume complete control of itself, so all of its primary subsystems such as attitude control, propulsion, and communication have to be switched on." The second stage of the launch vehicle typically separates from the satellite and places it into either a circular low Earth orbit (LEO) or an intermediate transfer orbit. For more urgent, time-sensitive missions, the second stage might boost the satellite into a higher altitude (medium earth or geosynchronous) orbit before separation. Some satellites boost themselves from LEO to their final orbit using their own propulsion system, a process that can take several days, weeks or months. Final Checks Once the satellite reaches its final orbit, a team of engineers located at the satellite's permanent ground control station — often located at a customer site — begins a disciplined, on-orbit checkout of the spacecraft. This team typically includes the satellite contractor and customer representatives. "You can think of on-orbit checkout like the boot-up of your home computer, except that ours lasts for about 90 days," explains Woods. "Unlike your computer, however, which was booted up many times before you purchased it, a satellite can't be booted up in its operational configuration until the day you launch it. We have to turn things on very slowly and methodically." During this checkout phase, Woods continues, the ground operators configure the satellite for on-orbit operations. Their work includes powering on any remaining subsystems and mission payloads, and deploying the satellite's solar arrays, communications antennae, payloads or other articulations. "Once everything's activated and deployed, we verify that all of our satellite subsystems are fully operational," says Woods. "For example, we might change the pointing of the satellite, check that our star trackers are tracking stars as expected, or make sure that our mission sensors are seeing what they're supposed to see." The team also calibrates the satellite's instruments, and confirms, through a process called validation, that the data being collected by those instruments is consistent with expected and previously characterized data sets, he added. The on-orbit check-out process typically takes 30 to 90 days depending on the size of the satellite and complexity of the mission. Letting Go, Moving On Before "turning over the keys" to the spacecraft, however, Woods and his team provide the satellite's operators with all the critical and relevant details they'll need to ensure the safe, continuous and effective operation of the spacecraft. After that, they are typically kept on stand-by to provide periodic maintenance support or to diagnose and help resolve any technical issues that arise once the satellite goes operational. In summary, developing, producing and launching a satellite is a challenging, complex and extremely disciplined process. It takes the collective skills and talents of many people working toward a common goal. Space is a harsh and unforgiving environment, and critical details overlooked or misunderstood during satellite development can lead to disappointing or disastrous outcomes. If done right, however, every satellite has the potential to deliver valuable insights about the state of the planet and the human condition for many years to come. If you're ready to launch your career into a new orbit, check out the latest job opportunities at www.northropgrumman.com/careers

How Spacecraft Are Created: Launch and Deployment

More than 700 Earth observing satellites orbit the globe. Flying miles above the planet, the spacecraft use remote sensing instruments, such as cameras, radar, lidar and radio receivers to monitor a wide range of weather and environmental conditions as well as radio communications. Some sensing systems already collect gigabytes and even terabytes of data per hour. And because each sensor type has its own unique way of analyzing information, the world can be surveyed for abundant reasons in details as small as 10 inches, reports MIT Technology Review. "The progress we have seen is stunning," says Anne Hale Miglarese, founder and CEO of Radiant Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization creating training data libraries of satellite imagery that can be used to improve machine learning algorithms meant to support research around agriculture, conservation and climate change. Soon researchers will be able to build a digital twin of the Earth on a daily basis. "We'll see buildings going up, ships crossing the sea, and we will be able to monitor the physical footprint of climate change," says Miglarese. Scientists armed with sensing data — from ocean temperatures, storm system, snow cover, vegetation, pollution, artificial lights and more — gain a deeper understanding of global events and processes so expansive they cannot be studied easily from the ground. Not only that, researchers can uncover hidden worlds obscured by tropical jungles or sheets of ice. Here are five discoveries made by Earth observing satellites flying high in the sky. Ancient Ruins Space archaeologist Sarah Parcak, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, uses satellites orbiting high above Earth to discover clues to ancient civilizations. Her most memorable find occurred in 2010, while looking at satellite images of Egypt. The region was normally an unremarkable region of sandy soil, but in these particular images, which were taken during a wet time of the year, Parcak noticed the outlines of buildings and streets of what turned out to be the 3,000-year-old city of Tanis. The ancient ruins stood out in the photos because rain had soaked into mud bricks, making them easy to distinguish from the sandy ground, Parcak told The Guardian. Since, then Parcak has discovered 18 new pyramids and thousands of new tombs and has scoured satellite images looking for evidence of ancient civilizations, including the Vikings and the Romans. In 2016, she won a $1 million TED Prize, which she used to build the citizen science platform, GlobalXplorer. It allows any person to search high-resolution images for hints of archaeological sites. "We've had about 90,000 users find almost 20,000 previously unrecorded potential sites there, 700 of which we think are of major archaeological importance," Parcak told The Guardian. Invasive Species Around the world, invasive plants and animals, introduced more often than not by humans, crowd out native species. They decrease biodiversity and degrade wildlife, pushing parts toward extinction, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the fragile ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands, for instance, the quinine tree, Cuban cedar, blackberry, guava and others threaten indigenous plants, reports The Darwin Foundation. The organization, which was founded to ensure the conservation of the environment and biodiversity of the archipelago, is currently collaborating with universities to use remote sensing imagery from satellites to locate a variety of invasive plant species in order to eradicate them. In a project with Brown University, researchers from the Darwin Foundation are analyzing images donated by the commercial satellite company Maxar (formerly DigitalGlobe). Their network of spacecraft collects high-resolution images of the planet daily, capturing photos in a wide spectrum of light, including infrared. Multi-spectral images pick up different concentrations of chlorophyll in plants and can be used to characterize specific species. By combining data from these images with camera data taken with low-flying drones, researchers trained a computer model to find invasive plants in satellite images alone. They have created maps of the most dominant invasive plants on Santa Cruz island, namely blackberry, guava and Cuban cedar, and are working on the maps for the islands of Floreana and Santiago. Lost Continents Not all Earth observing satellites turn cameras on our planet. A satellite from the European Space Agency named GOCE (for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) had an incredibly sensitive instrument designed to measure Earth's gravity, which changes across the globe, depending on the topography and the density of material below the surface. GOCE orbited Earth from 2009 to 2013, gathering data and transmitting it back to Europe. Eventually it finished its mission and plummeted into the atmosphere, where it burned up. Scientists kept studying the remote sensing data it had collected, though. In 2018, researchers from Kiel University in Germany combined the information from GOCE with data from a different satellite to digitally strip the ice from Antarctica and peer beneath. In the bedrock they found remnants of ancient continents beneath Antarctica, reports Live Science. East Antarctica's crust has a very old mix of features called cratons, cores of continents that came before Antarctica. They also found orogens, crumpled-up regions where ancient continents would have rammed together and created mountains. "This observation leads back to the break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana and the link of Antarctica to the surrounding continents," the study's leader Jé¶rg Ebbing told Live Science. Illegal Fishing Boats High crimes run rampant on the high seas. Up to one in five fish sold in the world is caught illegally, according to Pew research. Large-scale illegal fishing damages ecosystems and depletes fish stocks and is linked to arms and wildlife smuggling, drug trafficking, human rights abuses and slavery. A patchwork of fishing policies, lax enforcement and the impossibility of policing the open ocean only exacerbates, reports Pew. How to combat it? The answer lies in satellite technology. Some satellites are equipped with receivers that receive radio signals from a ship's Automatic Identification System, or AIS. The signal is analogous to a plane's air traffic control data and contains information about the ship's identity, position, course and speed. They're automatically generated and sent every two to 180 seconds from vessels more than 120 feet long as a way to prevent collisions and allows authorities to monitor vessel activities. Researchers around the word are beginning to analyze this and other data to piece together the otherwise unseen happenings in commercial fishing. One project, Global Fishing Watch, a nonprofit launched in 2016 and funded by Oceana, Google and SkyTruth, leverages satellite data and machine learning to track, visualize and share data about global fishing activity in near-real time and for free. To date, the platform has tracked approximately 65,000 commercial fishing vessels globally, an effort that has improved transparency and enforcement. Migrating Animals In the United States, big game species such as deer, elk, antelope, mountain goats and wild sheep draw lucrative amounts of hunting revenue to local economies. But human development, increased road traffic and expanded oil and gas drilling is adversely impacting wildlife. In Wyoming, for instance, mule deer herds have declined by 40% over 15 years in regions where oil and gas extraction has boomed, reports the Center for American Progress. Not only do shrinking herds reduce biodiversity, but they negatively impact Western state economies, where hunters and outdoor enthusiasts spend hundreds of billions of dollars Recently Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and New Mexico have begun ramping up funding and research efforts to study animal migration in an effort to improve wildlife management and conservation. Most scientists have turned to GPS collars and satellite tracking technology. Advancements in the technology have made it possible to not only accurately locate animals but do so every hour, reports Smithsonian. Scientists can reprogram a collar remotely, too, setting up so-called "geo-fences" that send out a notification if a group of animals leaves a predetermined border. Although studies have found that migration patterns change, species have unique pathways and timing. The majority of herds travel to the same summer ranges and return to the same winter ranges, year after year, reports Smithsonian. Knowing those routes can help conservation efforts. Research from the University of Wyoming, for instance, found that 4,000 to 5,000 pronghorn used a migration route that passed through the small town of Pinedale, Wyoming, situated in a valley between two large peaks. Preventing the development of private land there was critical to keeping the herds flowing through unimpeded. Another study from the University of Wyoming that used GPS collars on mule deer found that the animals "have a cognitive map of their migration routes and seasonal ranges, which helps them navigate tens to hundreds of miles between seasonal ranges," assistant professor, Jerod Merkle said in a press statement. "Because landscape memory so strongly underlies mule deer migratory behavior, the loss of a migratory population also will destroy the herd's collective mental map of how to move within a landscape, making it very difficult to restore lost migration routes," the researchers say. The view of Earth from miles above is expanding our understanding of the world and our place on it. And although there are more than 700 Earth observing satellites circling the globe, more are coming online. According to MarketWatch, the global commercial satellite imaging market is expected to grow more than 10% by 2023. It's only a matter of time before other hidden mysteries are laid bare.

5 Mysteries Earth Observing Satellites See From Space

Aerospace medicine combines two challenging and important disciplines. This field of study has existed for a century, but it is especially exciting now that commercial space travel and deep space missions are both in the works. What is this unique career? An Overview of Aerospace Medicine Aerospace physicians support the health of people who fly for a living — pilots, aircrews and astronauts, all of whom face unique occupational hazards. These doctors often have military backgrounds, as they need to have training and experience in both medicine and aviation. Here on Earth, doctors often take care of sick or injured patients in normal environments, but in space medicine, the situation is quite the opposite. A big part of this field revolves around preventative medicine, with doctors making sure that their patients are in top health so that they can handle the abnormal environment of flights, especially if their patients are going to space. Much like sports trainers, these doctors make sure that astronauts are physically prepared to perform at the highest levels. According to the Aerospace Medicine Association, aviation medicine was originally driven by the high losses of life due to physically unfit pilots during World War I. Later, the field evolved beyond aviation medicine to include aerospace medicine once crewed space flight began. Today, aerospace physicians, such as flight surgeons, provide medical support for astronauts during training and missions. They also play a role in selecting astronauts for flying on missions, according to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). If astronauts have health issues in space, it is a dangerous and expensive problem to solve. The CSA explains that flight surgeons help during:   Pre-flight, by ensuring that the crew is healthy and prepared to use medical equipment or necessary countermeasures to reduce the negative effects spaceflight can have on their health.  In-flight by maintaining the health of the astronauts and providing 24-hour support at the Mission Control Center.  Post-flight by examining returning astronauts at the landing site and overseeing their rehabilitation as they reacclimate to Earth.  Effects of Space on the Body Space agencies have studied the short- and long-term effects of space environments on the human body. Civilians get a small peek into the effects of flight when they experience conditions such as altitude sickness or the feeling of your ears "popping" during a flight. In space, there's much more to contend with, as leaving the comfortable bubble of our atmosphere creates a range of hazards for humans. NASA describes five categories of stress related to space travel:   Gravity fields. The weightlessness of space affects spatial orientation, head-eye and hand-eye coordination, balance and locomotion. Plus, without gravity, your bones lose minerals, with density dropping at over 1% per month. To counteract this, astronauts must devote two-and-a-half hours each day to exercising in space.  Isolation and confinement. The psychological effects of living at the International Space Station (ISS) or in a space vehicle are just as important as the physical issues. Being confined to a small space over long periods of time can cause behavioral issues among the group, as well as declines in mood and morale, trouble sleeping and boredom.  Hostile/closed environments. It's not healthy to live in a bubble. Microorganisms such as bacteria transfer easily, your immune system is altered, and stress hormones are elevated.  Space radiation. At the International Space Station, astronauts are exposed to ten times the radiation that we experience at home. This poses an increased cancer risk and possible damage to the central nervous system, which can cause problems with cognitive function, motor function and behavioral changes. Space can also cause radiation sickness and degenerative tissue diseases, such as cataracts and cardiac issues.  Distance from Earth. If an astronaut is sick or injured, they can't exactly call 911 for an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital. The simple fact that they are far away from Earth is a health risk. This is a concern on the ISS, but it will be even more critical for future missions to the Moon and Mars. While today's space travelers can at least use telemedicine to speak to doctors from millions of miles away, there will be communication delays.  Space Medicine Career Outlook This highly specialized career helps to support the future of space travel and is crucial to the aerospace industry. The Emergency Medicine Residents' Association suggests that there is a greater need for highly trained aerospace medicine physicians because of the recent focus on an accelerated lunar program and the emerging commercial space flight industry. This medical specialty isn't just about space, either. Many space physicians also study the physiology of microgravity on the human body and how it can help to fight conditions here on Earth, such as NASA's study of astronaut twins Scott and Mark Kelly. Aerospace medicine helps humans push the bounds of what is possible, as we continue to explore the unknown.

The Next Frontier: Aerospace Medicine

Astronomers will soon use the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) to look farther into space than even the Hubble Space Telescope has been able to. They've already gathered an incredible amount of data and breathtaking images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Despite these gains, so much about space is still unknown. One of the fundamental facts that still hasn't been answered is what the most distant galaxies in the universe are like. The Webb telescope will extend Hubble's capabilities and help astronomers catch a glimpse of the most distant galaxies in the universe. Historical Misunderstandings Throughout history, philosophers and scientists have grappled with deep questions about humanity's relationship to space. Back in Aristotle's day, people thought Earth was the center of everything, and that everything else revolved around it. This misconception was eventually dispelled by Copernicus and Galileo (and many others in between), when Galileo pointed a telescope at the stars and used evidence to prove that the universe doesn't revolve around Earth. Centuries later, astronomers debated the size of the Milky Way. The BBC reports that in a 1920 debate between astronomers, estimates ranged from 30,000 to 300,000 light-years in diameter. It turns out that those estimates were either three times too small or three times too big. Today, astronomers measure the Milky Way to be 100,000-150,000 light-years across. In the 1920s American astronomer Edwin Hubble was the first astronomer to determine that other galaxies existed beyond the Milky Way. Until then, most astronomers thought the fuzzy patches they saw through their telescopes were nebulous gas clouds within the Milky Way. Hubble's discovery expanded our modern understanding of space. During this time period, scientists also believed that space was static, according to NBC News. And yet when Albert Einstein developed his theory of relativity, it predicted a universe that must either expand or contract. To fix the disagreement, Einstein hedged his theory with a "cosmological constant" to produce a static universe. Then, astronomers like Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble measured the motions of galaxies for the first time and found that most appeared to be speeding away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding. Measuring the Observable Universe The universe is larger than we can possibly comprehend, and it is still expanding. Now, a century after Hubble's discovery, his namesake telescope continues to reveal galaxies that are billions of light-years away. Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that there are 100 to 200 billion galaxies, according to Space.com. When the Webb Telescope launches, it will reveal even more information about the farthest galaxies. When we talk about the distance of anything in space, we're also talking about time. Looking at the night sky is like time traveling. The shiny things that we perceive as stars are actually like snapshots of what those stars looked like in the past, according to LiveScience. Stars and other objects in space are so far away that their light can take thousands or even millions of years to reach Earth. The farthest objects are so far away from us that their light still hasn't reached Earth. What Is a Light-Year?      Enable targeting cookies to view this content. A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. According to NASA, one light-year is equal to 6 trillion miles, or 9 trillion kilometers. Astronomer Dr. Katie Mack explains that everything you look at is in the past. The farther away in space, the longer that light has been traveling. Even if you hold up your hand in front of your face, you're actually seeing your hand as it was a nanosecond ago, because that's how long it takes light to travel the distance between your hand and your eyes. It takes approximately eight minutes for light to travel from our sun to us, and several years for light to travel from our next-door neighbor Alpha Centauri. Astronomers can use the world's most powerful telescopes to see galaxies that are more than 13 billion light-years away. Scientists know that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, according to LiveScience. So, is it 13.8 billion light-years wide? No; it's more complicated than that. That pesky expansion that Hubble observed means that while the farthest light traveled to us, outer space continued to expand. When accounting for the expansion, scientists estimate that the edge of the observable universe is now 46.5 billion light-years away. But what about the galaxies that we can't see? LiveScience reports that astronomers have used models to estimate that the universe could be at least 250 times the size of the 46.5 billion light-years we can actually see. Webb Will See Farther The edge of space — if there is such a thing — will always be beyond our grasp. As Hubble noted, space is expanding. As a result, the farthest galaxies are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can't "see" them, no matter how awesome modern telescopes may be. The Webb telescope will peer into our universe's history by observing the most distant stars and galaxies. The telescope is 100 times more powerful than Hubble. While its predecessor orbits Earth at an altitude of approximately 570 kilometers, Webb will sit deeper in space, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. From that vantage point, the largest telescope ever launched into space will observe infrared light. It will use a suite of scientific instruments to capture faint objects that could be more than 13 billion light-years away, including young galaxies that were born just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang occurred.                   

NASA's Webb Telescope Will Look Farther into Space

As a child, Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling played with building sets and spent her spare change on tools for tinkering with projects; at 16, she bought herself a motorcycle and started modifying it. She was a trailblazer practically from the day of her birth on March 8, 1909, so it's not surprising that this British aircraft engineer would go on to solve a dangerous flaw in the Supermarine Spitfire, an iconic World War II aircraft. She was a pioneer in military aviation technology and an early advocate for women in engineering. It is quite fitting that we now celebrate International Women's Day on her birthday.   Book Smart and Street Smart      Though she was clearly skilled from an early age, Shilling hadn't considered pursuing a career as an engineer until her mother discovered The Women's Engineering Society. After high school, she secured an apprenticeship at an electrical firm owned by Margaret Partridge, who mentored Shilling and urged her to study electrical engineering formally. Shilling became one of the first two women to study engineering at the University of Manchester, where her student record card defaulted to "Mr." since all students were presumed to be male, says the BBC.    Despite the challenges, Shilling graduated in 1932 with an honors degree in electrical engineering. Work was scarce during the Great Depression, so she continued school. She earned a master's degree by researching combustion engines, which had fascinated her ever since she started motorcycling. "I got a lot of pleasure from dismantling and rebuilding this motorcycle," Shilling wrote of her teenage project in a 1969 letter in The Woman Engineer: The Journal of the Women's Engineering Society of the UK. (Skip to page 326 to read it in full).   As soon as women were allowed to race motorcycles at Brooklands, the world's first motor racing circuit, Shilling bought herself a Norton M30 and modified the engine to make it even faster. In 1934, she hit speeds of 106 mph (171 kph) to win a Brooklands gold star, according to Engineering and Technology.    Enable targeting cookies to view this content. Savior of the Royal Air Force   Following her success in both racing and academia, Shilling started working at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, which supplied the Royal Air Force with military aviation technology. During this time, it was uncommon to hire women, notes the BBC.   Shilling explains in her 1969 letter, "The Air Ministry, having had some experience of women's work in the First World War, were not entirely unsympathetic and I was offered a job as an assistant in the Technical Publications Department at the Establishment." After spending eight months writing aero-engine handbooks, she was transferred to the engine department, where she specialized in research and development on carburetors, a much better match for her skills and interest.   When World War II broke out, the Royal Air Force had an urgent problem: The engines of its warplanes were prone to cutting out mid-flight. There was a glitch in the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines that powered the iconic Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane and the Hurricane fighter-bomber. When planes performed g-maneuvers, such as dives and other aerobatics, fuel could flood the engine and cause stalling, Real Engineering explains.   Tilly Shilling fixed the defective engine problem in 1940 by adding a small disk to the carburetor that stopped the fuel surge and prevented stalling. She spent the next year touring air force bases to show them how to make the repair. Her device was a relatively easy and temporary fix so that they didn't have to refit planes, and it enabled pilots to win the war.   Post-War Life   In 1938, Shilling married George Naylor, who also raced motorcycles and worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Although her work was crucial to the RAE, Shilling spent a decade as a temporary worker because jobs were only open to single women, who, as a rule, were paid less than men. In 1948, the marriage rule was removed and she became an official RAE employee. That same year, she received the Order of the British Empire and was recognized as a crucial contributor to the eventual Allied victory, according to Motherboard.   She continued aeronautical work for the RAE on projects such as solid-fuel rockets, aircraft brakes and more until she retired in 1969. Shilling stayed active in the aerospace engineering and racing communities for the rest of her life, but much like NASA's "Hidden Figures," she remains an underappreciated hero of 20th century innovation. 

Fearless Beatrice Shilling Saved the Spitfire

Valentine's Day 2046 may be a memorable occasion — beyond roses and chocolates, it could feature a 50-meter-wide asteroid trying to make a move on Earth. Thankfully, the odds are in our favor.
 
When Is an Asteroid Next Predicted to Hit the Earth?
 
According to NASA, asteroid 2023 DW will make its approach on February 14, 2046. Current predictions put its closest distance to Earth at 4,730,285 kilometers. Considering that the moon orbits about 360,000 km away, this should give us plenty of room to spare.
 
Still, the announcement of this close call sparked some concern about a potential collision. Given that the asteroid is 49.13 meters in diameter and currently moving at 21.78 km/s relative to the sun, this worry isn't entirely misplaced: If 2023 DW comes into contact with Earth, it could level a small city.
 
By putting this in perspective, however, it's possible to get a better sense of the risk. First, it's worth noting that asteroids are continually hitting Earth's atmosphere, according to NASA. The vast majority are so small they burn up on impact. Large asteroids may leave behind bright trails as they disintegrate, but very few actually reach the surface. For example, in 2013, an asteroid the size of a small building hit the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk, Russia. While it broke up 20 kilometers above the ground, smaller pieces of it did reach the ground as meteorites.
 
If you're looking for a bigger bang, you need to go back about 35 million years, according to Live Science. That's when an asteroid slammed into what's now Chesapeake Bay, giving the bay its curved western shoreline.
 
So, when is an asteroid next predicted to hit the earth, and should we be worried? To sum it up, asteroid hits are common. Larger strikes are rare. Big strikes are once-in-35-million-year events.
 
Course Correction: How to Navigate a NEO
 
Asteroid 2023 DW is known as a near-Earth object (NEO) because it's less than 150 meters wide and will pass relatively close to Earth. Objects bigger than 150 meters that cross Earth's path are known as potentially hazardous objects (PHOs).
 
While there's no way for 2023 DW to get bigger before it comes back around toward Earth, there is a possibility it could change course. This is because no object in the solar system has a perfectly circular orbit. Instead, planets and asteroids alike take elliptical paths around the sun. This deviation from circular is known as eccentricity. A perfectly circular orbit would have an eccentricity of 0 — the higher the number, the more elliptical an object's orbit.
 
According to NASA data, 2023 DW has an orbital eccentricity of 0.396. Compare this to the moon, which has an eccentricity of 0.055, or Earth's, which is just 0.017, and it's clear that the orbit of this NEO is substantially more elliptical than its planetary counterparts. This means that, at certain points in its orbit, it will be much closer (or farther away) from the sun, the planets and other asteroids. It's during these close approaches that the asteroid could see speed or course changes, which would require NASA to update its likely path.
 
That said, NASA isn't waiting for these changes to happen — the organization is continually tracking multiple asteroid orbits to determine their potential risk. One of the most important factors in orbit accuracy is time. More time observing means more accurate measurements, and since DW 2023 is more than 20 years away from its closest approach, there's plenty of time for tracking.
 
Why We Won't End Up Like the Dinosaurs
 
Warnings of a possible, if improbable, asteroid impact raise a familiar question: What about the dinosaurs? Despite our ability to see asteroids coming, could we end up on the receiving end of an extinction event? In a word, no.
 
First, consider the size of the asteroid that created the Chicxulub Crater more than 66 million years ago. Estimates put it at around 180 kilometers across, which is orders of magnitude larger than 2023 DW. In addition, current modeling suggests this asteroid will miss Earth completely. Even if its trajectory changes, scientists will have plenty of warning.
 
Of course, that leads to another question: What happens if it's heading straight for us? The good news is that NASA has several strategies to keep these cosmic intruders at bay. One option is to fly a spaceship alongside the asteroid and use the gravitational pull of the ship to nudge the asteroid slightly off course. Given the massive distances involved, even a small change could mean a complete miss. It may also be possible to launch nuclear explosives onto an asteroid and then detonate them, resulting in a course change. Unsurprisingly, NASA recommends doing this at the farthest distance possible.
 
While both options remain untested, the space agency recently conducted a real-world experiment with its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). DART used what's known as kinematic impact, which is a fancy way of saying NASA slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid at high speed. The asteroid they chose was Dimorphos, which is 160 meters in diameter and orbits another asteroid, Didymos. Both orbit the sun every 2.1 years but are not threats to Earth.
NASA scientists hoped the collision would shorten Dimorphos's orbit by 10 minutes, but DART outperformed expectations, reducing the rock's orbital time by 32 minutes. This is good news for DW 2023 — not only is it more than 23 years away, it's also less than one-third the size of the successful DART case.
 
The takeaway here is simple: Go ahead with your Valentine's Day 2046 plans. Asteroid DW 2023 has a 99.82% chance of passing harmlessly by our planet. In the very unlikely event that it does decide to make a move on Earth, we've got ships, nukes and DARTs we can toss its way to send it packing.
 
Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.
 

Asteroid 2023 DW: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Close Call

If you haven't heard of digital twin technology yet, you will soon. While there is plenty of exaggerated and hypothetical talk about a virtual reality world called the metaverse, scientists are busy building a three-dimensional simulation of Earth. In other words, they are creating our planet's digital twin.Digital Twins DefinedWhat is a digital twin? It's a virtual representation of real-world entities and processes, synchronized at a specified frequency and fidelity. In other words, it is an exact digital replica of a physical object. Engineers use digital twins as part of digital transformation in aerospace manufacturing and, more broadly, Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution. But scientists, doctors, designers and other experts are also starting to use digital twins to monitor and understand the physical world on a deeper level.How Digital Twins WorkWhen defining what is a digital twin, it's important to realize that we can create digital twins at various levels. Digital twins can range from the tiniest transistor on a computer chip to something as vast and complicated as our planet's weather pattern or a logistics company's trucking route.Digital twins take 3D simulation farther in the life cycle because they reflect changes in the real world. Say, for example, an architect designs a home. They can create a 3D model of that house and even simulate how the structure will hold up as weather and time erode the materials. But what if we want to know how the actual house is after it's built? If a severe storm blows a few shingles off the roof, or if a child accidentally sends a baseball into a window, a digital twin would include those changes.In practice, engineers equip the products they build with sensors to monitor them and update the virtual versions. In this way, they can monitor the product long after it leaves the factory floor. This helps with maintenance and informing future designs and iterations. According to IBM, digital twins are designed around a two-way flow of information.Engineers also use the virtual model to run simulations, apply artificial intelligence and analyze the data they receive. Those insights are then shared with the physical object in the real world, creating a smart system and a constant feedback loop.Use Cases for Digital TwinsDigital twins are particularly helpful for projects that involve physically large structures or mechanical complex systems. It's no surprise that the aerospace industry, which involves large and complex designs, is quickly adding digital twin technology to its toolkit. Some examples of digital twins from IBM, Popular Mechanics and Fast Company include: 	Aircraft, spacecraft, automobiles, etc. in manufacturing 	Buildings, bridges and other infrastructure in design 	Energy sources and power equipment 	A digital twin of Earth for climate researchers to run simulations to understand how to plan for approaching extreme climate events and new challenges 	Hospitals and related ambulatory services twins for doctors and hospital administrators to optimize staffing and operations 	Patient digital twins to help physicians monitor disease progression and treatment 	Avatars of people suffering from chronic pain, which can help researchers optimize and predict the impact of medications 	Astronaut digital twins, which NASA is looking to utilize to prepare for deep space missionsFuture of Digital TwinsDigital twins are possible now because several technologies have recently matured and become widely adopted, including the Internet of Things, cloud computing, extended reality and artificial intelligence. Digital twins are already making a difference, and as their underlying technologies mature, the potential impact grows, too.Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Digital Twin Technology Has an Avatar for Everything

Even a quick glance into the night sky should inspire wonder about how humans found a foothold to the universe by stepping on the moon for the first time.  While space exploration has proceeded in fits and starts since then, the discoveries of Apollo 11 continue to present a greater understanding of the moon and Earth. As the 50th anniversary of the first moon exploration nears, scientists continue unlocking clues about our place in the universe by further studying the lunar samples collected by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and the astronauts of five subsequent moon missions.  "I think people in general think, 'We've had the Apollo samples for a long time, so why are we still studying them?'" Ryan Zeigler, Apollo sample curator and manager of NASA's Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office, recently told Space.com. "There's real, new work that's being done on them that's not just repeating what was done decades ago."  Moon Discoveries Keep Providing Clues  It is lunar legend that on an otherwise by-the-book walk around the moon, the commander of Apollo 11 went a bit off script. After placing about 20 moon rocks into a collection box, Armstrong couldn't miss his ride; the lunar module that taxied him and Aldrin between the main spacecraft and the moon would soon leave. But believing his box didn't have enough samples, he decided to gather more soil, 5.9 kilos (13 pounds) worth.  Armstrong and the astronauts of other Apollo missions didn't realize it at the time, but some moon rocks wouldn't be studied until 2019. That's because NASA knew that the technology didn't exist during the Apollo program to properly study samples in a way that future scientific tools could. So, despite some remarkable research on lunar materials over the past 50 years, some of the 842 pounds of rock collected from the six moon missions have remained sealed, awaiting analysis.  Technology has indeed taken a giant leap since Armstrong jumped around on the moon. For one, NASA has a new X-ray CT scanner that identifies structures within objects, allowing scientists to see precisely where they should cut rocks to avoid destroying them. That should help scientists when they soon examine three samples for the first time: two vacuum-sealed cores and a long-frozen rock. Those studies can be performed just once — at the moment the samples are opened — so the scanner should provide guidance that wasn't available until now.  The results from the next experiment might prove as surprising as those from a 2014 study of lunar basaltic glasses brought back by the Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 missions. That research showed that traces of water in the recovered moon rocks might share a common source with water on Earth.  Apollo Findings Provided Answers  Despite relative technological limitations, NASA nonetheless studied many of the lunar samples in earnest as soon as the Apollo missions returned home. In fact, just six months after the moon exploration by Apollo 11, so many observations had already been made about the soil of Earth's satellite that Science published a special issue four times the size of a regular edition to cover all of the findings.  The importance of what the moon's materials have revealed can't be overstated. Prior to Apollo 11, no one could speak with certainty about the moon's provenance. Was it hot or cold? Could it support life?  Now we know it is a terrestrial planet with interior zoning similar to Earth and that it was formed from rocky material that took shape through meteorite crashes, volcanic eruptions and widescale melting. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum neatly encapsulates those findings and many others, including that the moon has no life forms, that it has a radiation history that helps understand climate change on Earth, and that lunar samples offer time scales for the evolution of Mars, Mercury and Venus.  A New Perspective and New Aims  Although Apollo 11 captured hearts and headlines, the other missions earned acclaim for either setting the stage for the first moon walk or by following the lead of Armstrong and Aldrin and making more moon discoveries.  Yet, it is argued that it was a single color photograph — not a scientific sample — that changed humans' perceptions of their place in space. Taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, "Earthrise" shows our blue and white globe climbing above the moon's horizon. For the first time, Earthlings had an understanding of what our world looked like from space, giving many an appreciation of life, science and, for some, the need to better care for our only place to live.  Now, as NASA and other public and private space agencies aim to return to our lunar cousin — and potentially use it as a springboard to Mars and beyond — Apollo's many discoveries are a reminder that the human quest to learn more about the universe should never cease for the simple reason that we'll never know what we'll find. 

Apollo 11 Showed That Moon Exploration Is Just the Beginning

Although 5G promises to revolutionize the internet, the next wave of broadband may actually come from satellite technology. Amazon, SES Networks and OneWeb, to name a few, have plans to launch constellations of small satellites that are designed to deliver telecommunications and internet services. Flying less than 1,000 miles above the planet in low-Earth orbit (LEO), these networks of hundreds, and eventually thousands, of small satellites will blanket the planet in beams of broadband internet.  Origins of a Space-Based Internet  Companies like Dish Network and DirecTV have satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), about 22,000 miles up. Although this is a traditional space for telecommunications satellites, the distance creates too much of a signal delay, or latency, to provide high-speed broadband internet.  In 2007, Greg Wyler founded the company O3b Networks with the intent of sending internet satellites into medium-Earth orbit (MEO) — about 5,000 miles above Earth, reports Bloomberg. At that height, latency is less of a problem than it is for satellites in GEO. Signals from MEO satellites take just 0.15 seconds to travel down to a gateway on Earth and back up again, compared to nearly half a second with satellites flying in GEO. The gateway connects to internet providers, who then deliver the signal to customers.  Wyler sold the company in 2016 to SES, which has put 20 satellites into MEO to date. In an interview with Space News, the company's CEO John-Paul Hemingway called MEO a "sweet spot" for space satellites. They're high enough that the spacecrafts can cover wide swaths of land, but low enough that their latency isn't an issue. In LEO, satellites cover smaller areas of land, which forces them to route their signals through multiple stops to achieve long-distance communications; that takes time and creates delays, Hemingway said.  But not everyone is convinced that LEO isn't efficient, including Wyler. After he sold O3b Networks to SES, Wyler founded OneWeb with plans to launch internet satellites into LEO. In February 2019, the company rocketed its first six satellites into space, according to a press release. OneWeb is sending more than 650 satellites into orbit and aims to provide full global coverage by 2021. According to CNBC, the company also announced it had secured its first customer, Talia, which delivers consumer broadband internet and community Wi-Fi to regions in Africa and the Middle East.  Internet Space Race Is On  Nearly half of the world's population lacks high-speed connectivity, according to a 2018 report from the International Telecommunications Union. Building out fiber networks in rural areas, or in countries that lack a reliable electrical grid, is expensive and creates an unreliable network. Luckily, a boom in commercial space ventures has raised competition and lowered the price of rocket launches as much as 25 percent, according to Bloomberg, igniting a new space race.  Amazon is following on the heels of SES and OneWeb. In April, the company announced that it was in talks with international regulators to gain spectrum rights for a constellation of about 3,200 satellites. The network, called Project Kuiper, would have three layers of orbiting satellites, one at 366 miles (590 km), one at 391 miles (630 km) and one at 380 miles (610 km), according to Space News. It has yet to secure FCC approval and has not yet set a deadline for deployment.  Companies able to deliver satellite-based broadband to the billions of people who lack it will open up new markets and completely change the future of the internet.  Challenges of Satellite Technology  Although thousands of new satellites orbiting Earth promise to deliver high-speed internet to people who need it the most, the abundance of spacecraft creates a considerable amount of orbital congestion. More than 4,000 intact spacecraft already orbit our planet along with 500,000 bits of debris, according to NASA. Adding thousands more satellites would greatly increase the risk of collisions. Concerned, the agency released a report in 2018 arguing that 99 percent all satellites would need to be taken out of orbit within five years of completing a mission. Making that happen is fairly straightforward. Controllers lower the altitude of a satellite's orbit so that it's pulled by Earth's gravity into the atmosphere, where it burns up.  In the next few years, the future of the internet will change dramatically. As satellites begin beaming high-speed internet to the Earth, terrestrial providers will need to scramble to compete. Billions of people will come online, gaining access to the apps, services and information so much of the world takes for granted. A major challenge will be ensuring that the space above our blue planet does not become heaped with the kind of junk and debris already clogging our lands and precious oceans. 

Satellite Technology Has Ignited a New Space Race

Activities conducted using spacecraft have become a ubiquitous part of our society. From monitoring hurricanes to measuring the ozone layer, U.S. government agencies today rely heavily on satellites and aerospace technology to conduct their day-to-day activities. But how are satellites conceived, designed, produced and deployed? NASA describes a spacecraft as "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the Earth's atmosphere." A satellite is described as "a type of spacecraft that orbits the Earth, the moon or another celestial body." In this series, we will use the terms spacecraft and satellite interchangeably. * * * One of the most challenging aspects of spacecraft development, and indeed the activity that underpins the success of a satellite mission, is an iterative process called systems engineering. Through this process, a spacecraft developer such as Northrop Grumman decides how best to design, launch and support a satellite system that meets a customer's mission requirements for cost, schedule, performance and reliability. Systems engineering begins during a company's earliest discussions with a customer about a new system, then continues on through the study, proposal and detailed design phases of satellite development. It never really stops, in fact, until the design for the satellite system has been formally approved for production by the customer.  Breaking Down the Mission "One of the first things we do is to perform a functional decomposition of a satellite mission," said Erin Shaw, systems engineering lead for Northrop Grumman's Spacecraft Resiliency and Rapid Prototyping Division. "We break it down into functions to perform the mission, functions to maintain the health and safety of the space vehicle, and functions to provide communications, and command and control between the satellite and the ground." Out of this process comes a top-level set of requirements that the systems engineers allocate or "flow down" to the major segments of the mission: the space vehicle, which carries the mission payload(s); the ground system, which manages command and control of the satellite; and the launch vehicle, which carries the satellite to orbit. In a typical satellite development program, systems engineers are sprinkled throughout the organization. They serve primarily as referees, working to resolve issues between and within mission segments. Their goal is to ensure that all requirements are accounted for, and that the satellite system meets the customer's expectations. Building the Architecture In concert with a mission's functional decomposition, explained Shaw, systems engineers use "block diagrams" to identify the physical and functional pieces required in each segment, and to define the interfaces required between segments. The diagrams help the engineers outline the main satellite architecture and bridge the gap between functional descriptions and physical reality. "The systems engineers are absolutely talking to the hardware folks at this point," she said. "We need to assure ourselves that the proposed system can actually get built and that all of the units shown in the physical block diagram can actually talk to each other." Shaw has also learned to include space vehicle integration and test (I&T) specialists in those early conversations. "I&T comes much later in a program," Shaw said, "but you don't want them to walk in, see all the parts on the floor, and tell you that your satellite can't be built the way you've designed it, or that the equipment they'll need to test it is not compatible with the satellite design." Studying the Options At the heart of every discussion between systems engineers and other spacecraft engineers is a process called trade studies. Through trade studies, team members weigh the benefits and risks of using one technical approach versus another. For example, a team might consider using a smaller, more expensive processor with higher performance instead of a heavier, more mature, but less expensive unit. Or they might compare the costs and mission benefits of processing satellite sensor data in space versus on the ground. Mission reliability is also a frequent factor in trade studies. "If your customer asks you to design a satellite for a Class A mission that absolutely cannot fail, you can't afford to use parts that are risky or unproven," explained Mike Ciffone, a director of programs in Northrop Grumman's Strategic Space Division. "On the other hand, if you're doing a Class D mission, which is more of a demonstration, you might be able to use components that are less proven but offer a higher potential payoff for the mission." Creating Balance After the systems engineering team assigns requirements to the main mission segments, each segment team can take a more detailed look at how to implement its portion of the mission. The first order of business for space vehicle systems engineers, for example, is to perform basic "sizing" calculations on the satellite's expected mass (weight), power consumption and power generating capabilities. "Satellite design is all about creating a balance between mission requirements and the fundamental characteristics and capabilities of the satellite," explained Ciffone. Typically, his engineering team lists out all the components required to do the mission, totals up the mass and power consumption of those components, then compares those figures to the lift capacity of the proposed launch vehicle and the power generation budget of the satellite. The goal is to get the satellite to orbit and remain "power positive," i.e., be able to generate the power its payload and support subsystems need throughout the mission. If that goal is met, Ciffone's designers will start producing detailed schematic drawings of the space vehicle's main structure and its key subsystems, including electrical power, propulsion, thermal, attitude control, and command and data handling. If, however, the space vehicle budgets don't "add up" to an achievable satellite system, cautioned Ciffone, "the systems engineering team will recommend adjustments to the size, power, performance, and cost of the mission payload and the space vehicle's major subsystems."  Negotiating Changes Perhaps nowhere is the role of systems engineers more important than in helping to "referee" proposed changes in design within or between mission segments. "One of the big problems that programs face during these early phases of design and development is managing the baseline and keeping everyone on the same page," emphasized Shaw. In other words, everything potentially affects everything. "We use a process called an engineering review board (ERB) to serve as a forum for anyone who's considering making a change to the design of a satellite subsystem or interface," she said. When changes are proposed, every major group on the satellite team gets to review the changes, then explain to the ERB how those changes might affect the team's ability to produce the satellite or satisfy its mission requirements. Convergence This iterative design process continues through the study phase of spacecraft development with a core team of perhaps a dozen systems engineers, satellite designers, payload specialists and integration and test experts. Their collaboration produces a satellite concept that can meet, to first approximation, the customer's requirements. In fact, by the time the customer finalizes their mission requirements, secures the required funding and issues a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) to potential bidders, much of the thinking about the satellite's design, and how it will be built and launched has been done. But no matter how much a satellite developer thinks they know what the customer wants, the draft RFP always produces surprises. "When we get a draft RFP, the most important task is to look at section M, the evaluation criteria, to find out what formally matters most to a customer," said Greg Davidson, Northrop Grumman's director of capture and proposal excellence. "The big question is always how much do they care about performance that exceeds requirements, and how much do they care about cost." If the customer indicates that they will not award "extra credit" for exceeding requirements, and is intent on obtaining adequate performance at the lowest possible cost, it's time to start looking for ways to reduce costs while providing the desired level of performance, added Davidson. Reducing Risks One way to reduce cost without sacrificing performance is to use units that have flown in space before, or that can be obtained more quickly. By eliminating the need to space qualify units, or by shortening a spacecraft's integration and test schedule, one can effectively reduce program cost. Another smart way to reduce development cost, advised Davidson, is to consider the real costs of spacecraft integration and test. "More often than not, schedule drives your overall cost," he said, "You can sometimes avoid risk in schedule by selecting hardware that does not require time-consuming or expensive integration and test procedures." The draft RFP period typically lasts about two months. During this period, satellite teams "scrub" their design to make sure it still complies with the latest requirements. They will also use the time to get clarifications from the customer about requirements, or to propose modifications to those requirements. Generally, a customer will take bidders' comments and suggestions into consideration before issuing the final RFP. Bidders typically receive about 45 days to prepare and submit their final proposals for the spacecraft system. Getting to "Yes" If a company wins the satellite production contract, the systems engineering process kicks back in, this time to verify that all of the requirements presented in the original RFP still pertain. "What the customer asked for 10 months or a year ago (during early phases of the competition) may not be precisely what they want now that you're on contract," explained Davidson. The typical sequence of events following contract award is a system requirements review (SRR) to make sure contractor and customer agree on the top-level system requirements; a preliminary design review (PDR), which produces a design with nearly all subsystem level requirements defined, and finally, the critical design review (CDR), which implies zero undefined requirements. "Passing CDR means 'okay, you can start cutting metal and fabricating real hardware,'" said Ciffone. "You have now officially transitioned from design into pure production. From that point on, the systems engineering team focuses mainly on verifying and validating that design."   # # # Part III of this series will focus on how satellites are assembled, integrated and tested.

How Spacecraft Are Designed: Balancing Requirements With Reality

NASA's Cassini space probe launched in 1997 to study Saturn, its rings and its system of moons. It concluded its voyage of exploration in 2017 with a spectacular final swan dive into Saturn's atmosphere. But Cassini is still yielding new discoveries as scientists go through the vast amount of imagery and other data that it sent back to Earth. According to Space.com, its latest posthumous discovery was evidence of fresh ice on the northern surface of Enceladus, Saturn's moon. A Little World With an Ocean Enceladus is a small world, only 314 miles in diameter according to NASA — which is only about a tenth the diameter of Titan, the giant of Saturn's moon system. Experts already predicted it had geysers, but Cassini was able to capture images of these during close passes. The images were surprising proof that Enceladus has an internal supply of liquid water. The source of this water supply, as EarthSky.org notes, is believed to be a subsurface ocean layer sandwiched between the moon's solid core and its icy surface. The gravitation interplay of Saturn's moon system provides an energy source that keeps this underground ocean from freezing solid. The geysers originally imaged by Cassini — more than a hundred of them, per Space.com — are clustered around the moon's south pole. Scientists believe that water from the underground ocean in this region is forced up through cracks in the surface ice. When it breaks through to the surface, it spurts into space, forming the geysers Cassini observed. Some of the water from the geysers vaporizes in the vacuum of space and is lost, but some falls back to the surface and freezes. This process is gradually "repaving" the surface of Enceladus' south polar region. Teasing Secrets Out of Images All of this was discovered during Cassini's mission, before its final swan dive into Saturn. But scientists have continued to examine the imagery that Cassini sent back, using image-processing software to tease out subtle details that could not be seen by simply looking at the images. These techniques led to the latest Cassini discovery: A research team combined visible-light and infrared images to examine the surface of Enceladus and found infrared heat signatures, such as "tiger stripes," that matched up with the location of the southern polar geysers. Now, this detailed search has also detected infrared signatures indicative of recent surface "repaving" in the northern hemisphere as well. The researchers do not yet know whether this repaving is produced by additional geysers, less powerful than the southern polar geysers and thus not dramatically visible, or by a more subtle seepage process. This might be equivalent to the hot springs that are commonly associated with geysers here on Earth, such as in Yellowstone Park. Looking for Life in Unexpected Places Will future space tourists take selfies standing in front of geysers on Saturn's moon? We don't know, but the scientists have more than just tourism prospects in mind. In 2018, as Chemical & Engineering News reported, another research team found that the water spurting from the geysers contains "large, complex organic molecules." These molecules resemble the building blocks of life, and while they are not by themselves proof of life , they certainly get the attention of biochemists. As a result, Enceladus has now emerged as one of the solar system's prime candidates for potential extraterrestrial life. This in itself is a remarkable discovery. Until recently, no one would have expected to find life anywhere amid the frigid reaches of Saturn's moon system (with the possible exception of Titan). A Solar System Full of Surprises But it gets better. Scientists are finding growing evidence for hidden oceans of liquid water beneath the surfaces of a variety of small- to medium-sized bodies scattered across the solar system, including two dwarf planets: Ceres in the asteroid belt and Pluto in the remote Kuiper Belt. The search for life, once almost wholly confined to Mars, is now spreading across the solar system. The more we look, the more surprises we continue to find.

More Geysers on Saturn's Moon Enceladus

From Music to Missile Defense: The Very Interesting Life of Jeff Baxter

Key Takeaways Space weather includes any events on or near the sun or in near-Earth space that impact technology and human life. Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere protect us from the brunt of severe space weather. The geomagnetic storm of 1859, also called the Carrington Event, caused the Northern Lights to be visible as far south as Hawaii.Everyone is familiar with the concept of weather and how it can affect daily activity and change with the seasons. But what is space weather?According to NASA, "Space weather includes any and all conditions and events on the sun, in the solar wind, in near-Earth space and in our upper atmosphere that can affect space-borne and ground-based technological systems and through these, human life and endeavor."As far as humans are concerned, almost all space weather is due to activity on the Sun's surface. Let's dig into what space weather is by examining four major phenomena: auroras, solar wind, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares. But first, we must discuss how the Earth is protected from these events.Earth's Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and AtmosphereWe are protected from most space weather by Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere. The Earth's magnetic field (or magnetosphere) extends far into space and provides the first layer of protection from weather in space. The magnetosphere isn't actually sphere-shaped but has a shape that's strongly influenced by the solar wind coming from the sun. Like a long-haired dog enjoying the breeze during a car ride, Earth's magnetosphere is teardrop-shaped. The side facing the Sun is compressed by the solar wind, while the night side is stretched into a long "magnetotail." The magnetosphere helps block harmful solar and cosmic radiation.The next layer of protection is the ionosphere, which contains atoms that interact with high-energy particles from the Sun to form charged ions. In the case of auroras, the ions release energy as light. Closer to the Earth's surface, the atmosphere blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation.Let's take a look at a few examples of space weather, starting with auroras — space weather events you've probably seen in photos or videos.AurorasAuroras are colorful, dancing light shows that appear in the night sky at latitudes far from the equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, auroras are known as the Northern Lights or the aurora borealis. In the Southern Hemisphere, they are the Southern Lights or the aurora australis. As National Geographic explains, travelers hoping to see auroras should aim for a magnetic latitude above 55ºC and dark, moonless nights. Auroras can be especially bright around the Spring equinox and the Fall equinox, but there is no guarantee that sky gazers will be lucky enough to see an aurora on any given night. Like many space weather events, auroras are highly unpredictable.Auroras are emissions of visible light that occur at 60 to 250 miles (100 to 400 kilometers) above the Earth's surface. They are due to charged particles (electrons) from the Sun colliding with gases in Earth's upper atmosphere, which is called the ionosphere. An aurora's colors depend on the molecules involved, as described by NASA. Oxygen molecules produce the more common green-yellow auroras as well as rare red auroras. Nitrogen molecules produce blue auroras.Solar WindFrom 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) away, the sun is constantly spewing gas and particles into space. This material becomes charged as it passes through the Sun's outer atmosphere (the corona) and streams into space as the solar wind. Like sunlight, the solar wind radiates in all directions, passing through the entire solar system. When the solar wind reaches Earth, it can cause the Earth's magnetosphere to contract and then expand. These changes can cause electromagnetic disturbances on Earth that are usually mild.The solar wind is mild and fairly consistent, whereas coronal mass ejections are extreme and unpredictable.Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occur when gigantic clouds of magnetized solar particles called plasma erupt from the Sun's outer atmosphere (the corona). CMEs are the result of powerful solar storms and can cause 100 million tons of plasma to hurl through space at over a million miles per hour. It takes this plasma a few days to reach Earth, where it can cause the magnetosphere to temporarily buckle and create colorful auroras in the ionosphere.If a CME reaches Earth, it can trigger a geomagnetic storm. The fluctuating magnetic fields associated with these storms can induce current in long electrical wires. These currents can damage electrical equipment, such as transformers, leading to widespread power failures.A cloud of plasma from a CME can also cause the ionosphere to heat and expand, then cool and contract, which is problematic for satellites that orbit just beyond the ionosphere. Increased friction between a satellite and the atmosphere can drag the satellite into a lower altitude and/or damage it. Both the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station regularly adjust their altitude to remain in orbit.Solar FlaresMagnetic activity within the Sun can cause intense solar storms. During a solar storm, sudden explosions called solar flares can send huge bursts of electromagnetic and particle radiation into space at the speed of light. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet (UV) light, X-rays and gamma rays. Particle radiation includes subatomic particles like alpha particles, beta particles, neutrons and positrons. The high-energy UV light, X-rays, gamma rays and particle radiation can be especially damaging.Solar flares are hard to predict and can reach Earth's atmosphere just 8.5 minutes after they occur. Most of the energetic particles will be captured by Earth's magnetosphere, but these high-energy particles can damage spacecraft and satellites used for communication, GPS, imaging, weather and more. Electronic components are especially vulnerable.During a solar flare, the increase in X-ray radiation causes the ionosphere to absorb high-frequency radio waves instead of reflecting them. The resulting radio blackouts temporarily interfere with communication systems and GPS. Solar flares can also produce CMEs, which reach Earth a few days later.Historic Geomagnetic StormThe strongest geomagnetic storm on record is the Carrington Event of September 1859, which caused excess electrical currents to flow through telegraph lines around the world. Telegraph operators were literally shocked, and telegraph equipment and papers caught on fire, as described by History. The Northern Lights were visible as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. The event is named for Richard Carrington, an amateur British astronomer who had observed a solar flare a day or two earlier and noted the coincidence with these worldwide events.Our reliance on electricity has only increased since 1859. Beyond the electrical devices that people plug in every day, such as refrigerators and medical equipment, essential services like clean water distribution, wastewater treatment, and fuel delivery now require electricity for some steps. When the next Carrington-sized event occurs, it could disable a large portion of the North American power grid, which might take years to recover. Many smaller geomagnetic storms have impacted Earth in the meantime, including one on March 13, 1989 that left six million Canadians without electricity for up to nine hours.Dangers to Human HealthHumans are at risk of radiation exposure due to weather in space. Doses of high-energy radiation increase with altitude and can lead to radiation sickness and DNA damage that increases the risk of cancer and other diseases. For someone flying in a plane at 25,000 feet, the exposure to radiation is ~10 times higher than at sea level. At 40,000 feet, which is common for commercial aircraft, the exposure is 50 times higher. Astronauts in low orbit on the International Space Station (ISS) receive the radiation equivalent of 5-10 chest X-rays per day, even without any major space weather events. The situation only becomes more hazardous as humans venture further into space. The planet Mars does not generate its own magnetic field, so any humans traveling to Mars will need other means of protection.Discover how Northrop Grumman is unlocking the mysteries of our solar system with space exploration. 

What Is Space Weather?

Key Takeaways Anything over five times the speed of sound is hypersonic. Challenges with frictional heat have hampered hypersonic development. New technologies, such as oblique detonation waves, may make hypersonic speeds possible at scale.Hypersonic speeds are possible but problematic. From managing intense friction heat to controlling detonation shockwaves, going (really) fast and staying safe isn't easy. New developments in hypersonic technologies, however, may pave the way for the next generation of speedy air and spacecraft.Fast, Faster, FastestConventional, commercial aircraft travel is much slower than the speed of sound, typically between 500 and 600 miles per hour. Jet fighters, meanwhile, regularly break the sound barrier. According to the official U.S. Air Force website, the F-15E Strike Eagle can reach speeds of Mach 2.5, or 1,875 miles per hour.Push the speed limit to Mach 5 or more, however, and you're in hypersonic territory. At this point, aircraft travel would be almost a mile each second, making even intercontinental travel a relatively quick trip.Breaking the Speed Barrier ... AgainOnly one human-piloted airplane has ever achieved hypersonic flight. According to Space.com, this was the legendary X-15 research plane, which made its last hypersonic flight 50 years ago in 1967.In addition, orbital spacecraft briefly hit hypersonic speeds during their climb into space and again when returning to Earth's atmosphere. The Space Shuttle operated as a hypersonic aircraft during re-entry, before slowing down to merely supersonic speeds. Beyond the initial X-15 flight and the occasional spacecraft, however, hypersonic flight has been limited to a handful of unpiloted research vehicles.The biggest barrier to piloted hypersonic aircraft? These speeds are hot stuff. Any object passing through the air at Mach 5 and above produces intense frictional heating as it pushes the air out of its path. Keeping this heat from melting the airframe is the first great challenge of sustained hypersonic flight.The second temperature trouble is keeping the heat from melting critical parts of a jet engine. This is not a problem for rocket planes, such as the X-15, but the intakes of conventional jet engines and even ramjets are limited to about Mach 6 — toward the "slow" (relatively speaking) end of the hypersonic range. So-called scramjets (short for supersonic combusting ramjet, a technology that limits heat buildup) have shown promise in sustaining higher speeds without burning up.Work on new engine technologies is also underway. For example, researchers at the University of Central Florida recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to help develop their hypersonic high-enthalpy system. Their approach relies on detonation — fuel is detonated in a hypersonic reaction chamber. This detonation produces a shockwave that sends aircraft hurtling forward at hypersonic speeds.While detonation-based propulsion efforts aren't new, they're notoriously difficult to control. Researchers at the university also encountered this problem but have developed a potential solution: oblique detonation waves. Unlike their rotating counterparts, which naturally spin and are harder to manage, oblique waves are stationary and stabilized, allowing for a more focused shockwave output. The result is a hypersonic propulsion system that could deliver speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 17, or 4,600 to 13,000 miles per hour.Hypersonics for National DefenseAfter half a century on the back burner, what has put hypersonics back in the technology spotlight? The most immediate concerns relate to national defense, as noted by Politico. With intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere, there's a growing need for hypersonic military aircraft that can intercept these missiles and carry out high-speed reconnaissance of potential threats.In addition, many air defense systems are now able to target and shoot down merely supersonic aircraft, potentially even stealthy ones, and the only way for aircraft to avoid these systems is to outrun them by reaching and sustaining hypersonic speeds.National security also depends on hypersonic missile defense systems capable of detecting and responding to hypersonic missile speeds. The field of "counter hypersonics" focuses on neutralizing hypersonic threats from detection to interception.Hypersonics for Commercial UseWhile the first operational hypersonic planes will be military, a new generation of hypersonic airliners could follow them through the speed barrier. Supersonic transports, such as the now-retired Concorde, did not sufficiently reduce intercontinental travel times enough to transform commercial flying. Hypersonic transports, however, could fundamentally change the airline industry.Consider the straight-line distance between Los Angeles and New York, which is roughly 2,445 miles. Using a conventional jet engine flying at 500 miles per hour, the trip takes just over 4 hours. In a hypersonic plane capable of reaching Mach 6, however, this trip is a quick 30 minutes.And beyond the hypersonic transport lies the possibility of a true spaceplane, an aircraft that could take off and land like an ordinary jet, but capable of carrying payloads — and astronauts — into orbit. A hypersonic orbital spaceplane would make space travel as affordable as air travel is today.The technology of hypersonics calls for flying outside the box.This need for speed is something that Northrop Grumman has been passionate about since its pioneering Flying Wing took to the air in the 1940s. Learn more.

Hypersonic Speeds: When "Fast" Just Isn't Fast Enough

The future of space travel might seem stalled at the moment, but Aldo Spadoni believes humankind won't remain earthbound for long. A longtime advanced projects manager for Northrop Grumman, Spadoni is now retired at 60 but still working as a technical consultant for his former employer and movies like "Iron Man." For him, it's not science fiction or even an untenable reality that the U.S. and other countries can again explore Earth's moon and one day finally reach Mars. With continued growth in private initiatives, cooperation between governments and — most importantly — innovative engineering, he thinks that the next 100 years look bright for space travel. "Planning for the next 100 years has nothing to do with prediction," Spadoni said. "We have to make sound plans. We have to think for the long term, and we have to keep the 'mission' focused." Private Space Initiatives Give Hope The general public might think that the pace of space exploration has slowed since NASA ended the Space Shuttle program in 2011, but several developments point to actual progress. First, the habitable International Space Station has hovered in low-Earth orbit for more than 7,000 days running, and astronauts from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia continue to conduct groundbreaking research onboard. At the same time, private initiatives are all aiming to win the "Billionaire Space Race" by respectively trying to build spacecraft that will lead to sustainable and consistent trips to the moon, Mars and maybe beyond, said The New York Times. Those initiatives give Spadoni hope that in about 25 years, moon colonization will begin, and that within a century, Mars will start to be inhabited by Earthlings. Even though NASA hasn't had an extended period of triumph like the successive Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs that initiated the first human spaceflights and subsequent landings on the moon, the future of space travel is far from limited, he said. For one, billionaire ventures as well as other private efforts like Stratolaunch are reducing the potential cost of space launches and journeys, Spadoni said. The competition for profit in private industry can lead to innovative engineering at a lower cost than government projects, he said. Stratolaunch, for example, looks promising for its ability to launch satellite-carrying rockets at an altitude of 35,000 feet, he said. Because it is an airplane, Stratolaunch can take off from many locations and avoid costly weather-related delays. And NASA's plan to someday launch an outpost for astronauts near the moon, the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, shows Spadoni that government space programs still have a vital role in space exploration. If public and private work together, there should be a forward thrust in space travel not seen since the days of Apollo, he added. Overcoming Gravity and Radiation Even if private sector and government cooperation kick-starts a steady round of space missions, that still doesn't mean there won't be hurdles to overcome if the moon and Mars are to be explored and colonized in the next 100 years. First, Spadoni said, there are two unavoidable hurdles that will always make space travel expensive and physically challenging: radiation and gravity. Radiation poses a risk once space flights pass low-Earth orbit. "Radiation protection wouldn't be too hard [for those living] on the moon or Mars because we could bury habitats under several feet of rock or dirt," Spadoni said. But humans would have to first build those habitats and travel to the moon and Mars, which could take six to eight months and lengthen exposure to radiation. A spacecraft with an effective radiation shield that is also lightweight would be essential, and might not be expensive if private companies intend to profit from its development, he explained. Journeys to Mars and extended colonization both there and on the moon mean overcoming the problems of low gravity. It would be ideal to have space travelers experience gravity levels as close to Earth as possible, and that would mean the creation of artificial gravity through a spinning spacecraft or other mechanisms, Spadoni said. "That's hard to do," he added. "Also, how much artificial gravity is enough? Is one-sixth of Earth's gravity enough?" Cooperation for Exploration With an expanded roster of people and organizations wanting to explore space, ethical issues could arise. A private company could have nefarious reasons for going to space, including warfare or the strip-mining of planets' natural resources, Spadoni said. And he thinks it's not far-fetched to wonder if children who are born in a moon or Mars colony might not be accepted on Earth should they try to journey back. Basically, there's no road map for this next chapter in space exploration, but to prevent space from becoming a lawless place, "we need global cooperation," Spadoni said. Space travel could be a necessity if Earth succumbs to environmental degradation, disease or war, he added. That's why cooperation, economic incentive and engineering ingenuity are musts if future generations are to make homes away from Earth. 

The Future of Space Travel

Activities conducted using spacecraft have become a ubiquitous part of our society. From monitoring hurricanes to measuring the ozone layer to a host of defense missions, U.S. government agencies today rely heavily on satellites and aerospace technology to conduct their day-to-day activities. But how are satellites conceived, designed, produced and deployed? NASA describes a spacecraft as "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the Earth's atmosphere." A satellite is described as "a type of spacecraft that orbits the Earth, the moon or another celestial body." In this series, we will use the terms spacecraft and satellite interchangeably. * * * Before a new spacecraft can be launched, its main structural, electronic and propulsion components must be attached to the satellite structure, connected to each other electrically, and then tested as an integrated system, a process called integration and test (I&T). In the very competitive aerospace industry, it's no surprise that the planning behind these steps begins long before the space vehicle has even been designed. After all, you can't afford to design a spacecraft that can't be assembled, integrated and tested in a straightforward and cost-effective manner. Burning Down Risk "Typically, a few members of the integration and test team come on board a program very early to support the initial requirements development and flow-down process. We're there to identify and help reduce or 'burn-down' risk for the program," says Marty Sterling, a director of engineering for integration and test for Northrop Grumman. "We also work with the design folks on issues such as accessibility and testability, and help them by laying out notional test schedules which we will mature as the design matures."  Once a company wins a spacecraft production contract, she adds, the I&T process begins to gain momentum. Her team begins working closely with the systems engineering and space vehicle engineering teams, helping them write theI&T plans and recommending small design changes to flight hardware that will allow I&T to proceed more smoothly. "In those early days, we'll also be designing the electrical ground support equipment used to test the space vehicle, and the mechanical ground support equipment used to support the structural build of the satellite and any ground testing prior to launch," says Sterling. Satellite production doesn't begin in earnest, she clarifies, until a program has successfully passed its critical design review (CDR), a point at which most design details have been finalized and the customer has given their approval for production to begin. But the actual space vehicle I&T process doesn't start until all of the satellite's structural and electronic components have been fabricated, assembled and individually tested, a process that can take a year or more. Assembling the Pieces The procurement of the major components that make up a satellite is typically handled by a joint manufacturing and space vehicle team. This team acquires major satellite support subsystems such as propulsion, electrical power, and command and data handling, and fabricates the satellite bus, i.e. the physical structure that houses these subsystems and the mission payloads. The team is also responsible for the fabrication of hinges, gears, and gimbals used in movable or deployable subsystems; antenna and solar array structures; and radiators, which provide thermal control for different zones of the spacecraft. Spacecraft boxes or units are fabricated, assembled and tested either by outside vendors or by manufacturing organizations within the spacecraft contractor's company. "We start fabricating circuit boards as soon as possible after CDR," explains Ken Weber, communications payload deputy for a current Northrop Grumman satellite program. "Each board is populated with components, tested at the board level, then inserted into a mechanical frame to create what we call a slice, or plugged into a backplane that holds multiple circuit cards. The slices - the backplane and its plug cards - are then bolted together or enclosed in a housing and then tested as a single unit." For boxes manufactured in-house, Weber adds, unit-level testing is done under the supervision of the engineer responsible for the design of that unit. For units produced by outside vendors, the spacecraft contractor will typically send a team to the vendor's site to inspect each flight unit, review its test data and confirm its readiness to be delivered to the contractor's I&T facility. Powering Up The same is generally true of a satellite's electrical power subsystem (EPS), which comprises of solar arrays, batteries and electronic units that generate, store, process and distribute power within the spacecraft. "It can take about 18 to 24 months to fabricate, assemble and test the electrical boxes, both functionally and environmentally," says Tommy Vo, the EPS manager for a current Northrop Grumman satellite program. "Assembly and test of a satellite's solar arrays can take upward of 54 months." Vo's team tests EPS boxes and solar arrays vigorously to ensure that each one meets its specification — a process called unit verification — before delivering them to the integration and test team. Boosting Reliability A satellite's propulsion system, which includes propellant tanks, thrusters, valves, heaters and precision metallic fuel lines, is treated differently from other subsystems, partly because of its critical role in satellite operations. As such, it is assembled and integrated with the bus by a team of propulsion specialists before the bus is delivered to the I&T team. "The propulsion assembly team provides special expertise in handling, installing and welding the system together," explains Arne Graffer, a senior satellite propulsion specialist with Northrop Grumman. "This work includes alignment of thrusters, electrical and functional checkouts, and proof and leak testing of the completed system. We have to demonstrate that the system will perform reliably under all flight conditions." Growing the Satellite Once the propulsion system has been installed in the satellite bus, the integrated structure is delivered officially to the integration and test team. "Typically, the bus is delivered to us as a main structure and a series of panels that form the outer 'walls' of the bus," explains Sterling. "We begin by installing bus electronics into the bus structure, and attaching payload electronics onto these individual panels." This process includes installing all the cabling required to interconnect the satellite's electronics, she adds. And then comes the moment of truth. "We start the integration process by flowing voltage through one of the cables to make sure we get the expected signal out the other end," says Sterling. "If it all looks good, we know it's okay to mate that cable to the next box. Then we check the signal coming out of that box to make sure it's what we expect." This validation process continues, she adds, until all the bus electronic units and wire harness cables have been tested and mated. Sterling's team next performs a series of functional checks on the integrated system, still at ambient temperature, to make sure that all of the bus electronics units are communicating and interacting with each other as expected. The integration process is then expanded to include auxiliary payloads such as sensors and other mission-specific electronics. Sterling's team conducts this satellite checkout process with the aid of ground support test equipment. The test equipment functions, in effect, like a "ground station" sending and receiving data to and from the satellite. This communication also helps verify, therefore, the ability of the satellite bus and mission payloads to talk to the "Earth." The integration and test team also installs a satellite's mechanical systems, such as its solar arrays, antennas, radiators and launch vehicle separation system, and then tests the ability of these systems to deploy properly. To ensure their proper operation on orbit, the team aligns these systems with a precision of .002" or about half the thickness of a standard sheet of paper. Simulating Launch and Deployment Once a satellite is fully assembled, and its electrical systems have been proven functional at ambient temperature, the I&T team begins a series of rigorous environmental stress tests. Collectively, these tests are designed to prove (1) that the satellite can survive the extreme acoustic and vibration environment of launch, (2) that it can sustain the explosive shock associated with separation from the launch vehicle, and (3) that once on orbit, its electronic subsystems can operate successfully in the extreme temperature and radiation environments of space. During vibration testing, the satellite is placed on a large shaker table and shaken for several minutes at frequencies expected during launch. For acoustic testing, the satellite is placed in a large chamber, then exposed to high-intensity sound waves that simulate the acoustic environment of launch. Shock testing involves exploding the ordnance that's used on orbit to release the mechanical pins that hold deployable devices in their stowed position. During acoustic, vibration and shock testing, Sterling noted, the satellite's electronic systems are all placed in their launch configuration. For many of the satellite's systems, such as mission payloads, that means the electronics are switched off completely. Testing the Extremes of Space Another key phase of environmental testing within integration and test is called thermal vacuum (thermal vac) testing. For this testing, the entire satellite is placed in a special chamber that can be pumped down to near-vacuum conditions. The chamber also includes high-performance heating and cooling equipment. As the I&T team "exercises" the satellite's electronics functionally, the temperature inside the chamber is cycled repeatedly — typically six or seven times — between extremely hot and cold temperatures (+180 to -200 degrees C) over the course of several days. In conjunction with thermal vac testing — either before or after — the I&T team also conducts electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility (EMI/EMC) testing to ensure that no devices on the satellite are emitting significant amounts of electromagnetic energy. Such emissions could interfere with the proper operation of the satellite bus or its mission payloads. Wrapping Up When all of the functional and environmental tests are complete, the I&T team puts the satellite into its shipping configuration with all mechanical appendages stowed, tests it one last time for electrical "aliveness" and then packs and ships the satellite by truck or cargo plane to the launch site. But the I&T team's work doesn't end when the satellite leaves the factory. At the launch site, explains Sterling, the I&T team unpacks the satellite and performs post-delivery health checks on its bus electronics and payloads to verify that the transportation process didn't harm them. Then her team works closely with the launch vehicle team to integrate the satellite to the launch vehicle in preparation for launch. "I think it's safe to say that the I&T process never really ends until the launch vehicle clears the tower," she advises. If you're ready to assemble and test out a new career with Northrop Grumman's space team, check out our latest opportunities at www.northropgrumman.com/careers.

How Spacecraft Are Created: Assembly, Integration and Test

More than fifty years ago, the dreams of stargazers and the grand ambitions of a nation were realized when NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong crunched his left foot on lunar soil and became the first human to walk on the moon. But before Armstrong could utter his famed phrase, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind," and before the five subsequent missions to explore the moon would be possible, aerospace engineering had to move forward at a furious and daring pace in order to make the Apollo 11 mission possible. NASA had to make good on President John F. Kennedy's promise in 1961 to transport people to the moon, a challenge that intensified when the Soviet Union bested the U.S. in the race to put the first man, woman and dog in space. The Soviets couldn't win the moon, too. Battling the clock, NASA and its contractors had to create and improvise machinery and technology to withstand the harsh conditions of space and the unique challenge of landing on and relaunching from the moon. Images of Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin hopping around the lunar surface are just as remarkable now as they were on July 20, 1969. But for years, engineers back on Earth worked without fanfare to piece together the many components that would make the moon landing less of a miracle and more an achievement of science. Here are a few of their accomplishments. A Powerful Thrust Was Needed to Reach the Moon It can be argued that every mechanical component of Apollo 11 was an essential piece of the first mission to the moon. But without the thrust to push the spacecraft some 240,000 miles to the moon, and at least another 240,000 miles back home (distance depends on the moon's orbit around Earth), a lunar mission would have remained a distant dream. Thanks to a heavy lift vehicle rocket called Saturn V, Apollo 11 had the power to travel 953,054 round-trip miles in eight days. At 363 feet, Saturn V stood 60 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. At 6.2 million pounds, including a big belly of fuel, the rocket weighed as much as 400 elephants before liftoff. The thrust it generated at launch — 7.6 million pounds — created 85 times more power than the Hoover Dam. But three is the number that best illustrates the worth of Saturn V. Because most of the mission's fuel would be needed for Apollo's push out of Earth's orbit, the spacecraft didn't have to be heavy for the rest of the mission. NASA designed Saturn V to separate into three sections, each breaking off the main section as it expended its fuel. The first two stages fell into the ocean, but NASA isn't sure where the third one went: either it stayed in space or hit the moon. The remainder of Apollo was relatively nimble, consisting of the command and service module (CSM) where astronauts would pilot the craft, as well as sleep and eat, and the lunar module (LM) that touched down on the moon. With Saturn V serving as an ideal taxi to the moon, the five subsequent Apollo missions also relied on the three-stage propulsion system. It was used once more in 1973, carrying the Skylab space station into orbit. Apollo Had Small but Strong Computing Power Landing on the moon called for precision. Yet, NASA recognized it would be difficult from the mission control center to navigate Apollo onto the moving moon, so it got creative and designed two computerized guidance and navigation systems instead of one. According to a history of the space agency's computing systems, NASA installed separate computing systems on the CSM and LM. This had a twofold effect. If the command module system failed, Apollo astronauts could still find their way home because the on-board computer and its guidance system accepted data from the ground to aid with manual flight. If contact with mission control was lost, the system had autonomous return capability. Also, by having a separate computing system on the Apollo 11 lunar module, navigating a moon landing from the craft itself was more manageable than doing so from the CSM. It's long been noted that a single iPhone has more computing power than all that NASA had for each Apollo mission. But NASA's computers had a feature that no modern consumer electronic product can claim. The computing system couldn't — and didn't — crash. A Perfect Landing Set the Stage for More Exploration With the three-section Saturn V shedding weight, and with separate computing systems making navigation easier, the stage was set for an eagle to take flight. Named "Eagle" for the Apollo 11 mission, the LM was designed, developed and built by Grumman Corporation, as were those for the next five missions. The Apollo 11 lunar module featured an environmental control system that maintained the module interior temperature between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It also had a landing radar and computer system that measured the delay between the microwaves from the moon's surface so that it could calculate the distance for landing. As the U.S. and other countries once again aim to explore the moon, some of the technological feats of the Apollo missions can be applied decades later. At a recent Universities Space Research Association conference, one expert suggested building a rocket like Saturn V. More tellingly, National Space Council Executive Director Scott Pace intimated that the successful aerospace engineering of the Apollo race proved that the current five-year timeline for the next mission to the moon could provide a "clarifying nature" to the hard work involved. There is a lot to learn from what transpired on July 20, 1969. As millions watched on Earth, the Eagle landed four miles away from its predicted touchdown point but on a spot befitting the safe journey, the Sea of Tranquility. Years in the making, the U.S. had won the biggest prize of the space race, but Armstrong's reflection about a giant leap was a reminder that this accomplishment was for everyone. Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

Apollo 11 Demonstrated the Daring of Aerospace Engineering

It has been nicknamed the Bermuda Triangle of space. Spacecraft passing through are prone to electronic malfunctions, which have caused at least one spacecraft to break up in flight. Astronauts' laptop computers are disabled, and astronauts themselves report seeing flashing lights that no instruments can detect. This region of near-Earth space is called the South Atlantic Anomaly. As cosmic distances go, it is a pretty close neighbor to the Bermuda Triangle, located in a region above the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America, dipping as close as 200 miles to Earth. A Peculiar Corner of Space While a popular legend has manifested about ships and planes traversing the Bermuda Triangle being affected by strange instrument readings, sometimes with deadly results, no investigation has ever confirmed any such effects. In contrast, according to David Crookes at Space.com, the Anomaly is a well-known distortion of Earth's magnetic field, charted by both Earth-based explorers and spacecraft. We even know what causes it, in a general way. What we don't know are crucial details that would help us understand how the Anomaly developed, why it is currently undergoing changes and what the consequence of those changes could be — not only for future space exploration but for the future of human life and civilization here on Earth. When Magnetism Goes Awry The short-form explanation of the South Atlantic Anomaly is that it is a distortion in Earth's magnetic field. The basic principle of this magnetic field is similar to that of a bar magnet. But Earth's magnetic field is produced by the very slow, but enormously powerful churning of Earth's liquid iron core. This process is not perfectly symmetrical. Earth's magnetic poles do not line up exactly with the geographical North and South poles. The centerline of the magnetic field is also offset by about 400 miles from the actual center of the Earth. But what happens deep inside Earth does not always stay deep inside Earth. Energetic, charged particles from the sun get trapped in Earth's magnetic field, forming the Van Allen radiation belts. And because of the magnetic field's offset, the Van Allen belts dip closest to Earth's surface over the Atlantic ocean between Africa and South America. This low overhang of the Van Allen belts is the South Atlantic Anomaly. The Anomaly and the Van Allen Belts The Anomaly is a problem for space exploration because most satellites orbit just a few hundred miles above Earth, this being the easiest region of space for us to reach. For the most part, these satellites are safely below the Van Allen belts, which Space Center Houston describes as "two donuts of seething radiation." But whenever a satellite's orbit crosses the Anomaly, it passes through the low-hanging sections of the Van Allen belts, exposing it to a period of intense radiation. This radiation is the cause of the electronic oddities and failures that have afflicted spacecraft passing through the Anomaly. One such malfunction, aboard Japan's Hitomi spacecraft, triggered an uncontrolled rotation that eventually tore the craft apart. Radiation effects also produce the light flashes reported by astronauts. Heavy radiation armor had to be included in the International Space Station design to protect its crew when it passes through the Anomaly. Future space exploration will only increase the number of spacecraft — and humans — passing through the Anomaly, which will require special protection. But there are also implications for people here on Earth. The Anomaly is gradually weakening and changing shape, reports Stephanie Pappas at Space.com. Meanwhile, ScienceAlert notes indications that it is quite possibly breaking into two separate anomalies. This may be related to the phenomenon of Earth's magnetic field periodically reversing directions. This matters, because the same Van Allen belts that are dangerous to spacecraft also help to protect Earth itself from dangerous radiation. If Earth's magnetic field starts to fade and reverse, we do not yet know what the impact might be on human life and health, or on the host of earthbound electronic devices that we rely on. All of this makes continued study of the South Atlantic Anomaly a very big deal.

The South Atlantic Anomaly: The Bermuda Triangle of Space

From space travel to the World Wide Web, email to nanoscale robotics, humanity's constant drive for improvement and innovation has changed the course of history. So hop aboard and get comfortable — the time machine is all fired up and ready to relive the greatest scientific discoveries of decades past. Let's go! First stop? Space-race technology from the 1960s that put humans on the moon and laid the foundation for computer development at breakneck speed: the microchip. To the Moon! Today, travel to the moon and Mars is the subject of governmental funding debates, executive orders and the drive to recapture public interest. But in the mid-1960s, the United States was fully committed to winning the space race against the Soviet Union, and NASA brought its A-game with Apollo 11. On July 20, 1969, NASA's Mission Control got its first message from the surface of the moon: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." It was the culmination of a decade's worth of hard work, political one-upmanship and — perhaps most importantly — technological innovation. To reach the stars, NASA needed computer technology that was lightweight and scalable and that could out-perform anything on the market, but nothing like that had ever existed. At $10,000 a pound, it's astronomically expensive to put anything into lower Earth orbit, says Computer World. It was important to keep Apollo's weight low to reduce the amount of fuel needed and free up budget for other projects. Computing speed was also a big hurdle: According to NASA, Apollo required "a small, lightweight guidance and navigation unit that could process complex trajectory equations and issue guidance commands to the Apollo spacecraft in 'real time' during the flight." The Integration Generation In the late 1950s, transistor technology was struggling to stay ahead of shrinking device sizes, but a revolution was coming. In July 1958, electric engineer Jack Kilby realized that entire circuits — transistors and all — could be integrated onto silicon crystals, offering both better performance and significantly reduced size. Months later, Robert Noyce had the same idea, but he refined the chip by linking component parts with copper lines printed on an oxide layer to create a monolithic circuit, reports Computer History. On April 12, 1961, the first patent for an integrated circuit was issued. Harvey Cragon, Kilby's colleague, designed a demo computer for the U.S. Air Force showing that 587 integrated circuits could replace 8,500 transistors and deliver the same functionality. Noyce's company and MIT were chosen by NASA to build the Apollo Guidance Computer, says Computer World. While there's no doubt that integrated circuit technology from the 1960s helped the U.S. win the space race, microchips were just getting started. Innovation at Scale Much like the transistor technology that preceded it, microchip manufacturing took off, allowing companies to scale down the size of components and create computing products small enough — and cheap enough — for consumers. It's the natural second stage of the greatest scientific discoveries: leveraging what began as something revolutionary to drive mass production at scale. From microwaves to personal computers, portable cassette players to advanced touchscreen tablets, microchips are now the mainstay of electronic design. Consider smartphones. This computer-in-your-pocket revolution wouldn't have been possible without the use of tiny, high-performance microchips capable of carrying massive amounts of information at speed. Competition among manufacturers has led to increasingly small transistors and smaller chips. According to The Verge, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have managed to create a transistor that's just 1 nanometer long — a feat that pushes right up against the notion of what physical laws suggest is possible. Commercially, the result of integrated circuit innovation is stunning. As reported by Venture Beat, there are more than 3 billion smartphone users worldwide. Emerging products such as wearable devices and injectable microchips that can track bodily drug and alcohol levels, meanwhile, are helping to expand the microchip market in new (and sometimes worrisome) ways. Breaking Moore's Law Moore's Law was conceived in 1965 when Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors on microchips doubled each year even as prices were halved. As noted by TechRadar, however, silicon is reaching its physical limits. The time it takes for chips to shrink is increasing — up to 18 months and counting. Threshold transistors won't work properly past a certain size because there isn't enough room for both "on" and "off" states. In addition, new devices and applications now require reduced latency, increased speed and enhanced light detection not possible with existing silicon chips. Is this the end for integrated circuits? Not quite. New, compound semiconductors made of elements such as gallium and nitrogen (GaN) could offer 100 times improvements to current silicon capabilities. While this (probably) won't break any immutable physical laws, it could bridge the gap between emerging device demands and existing circuit limitations. It All Starts Here There's no denying it: Microchip technology from the 1960s was not only the greatest scientific discovery of the decade but laid the groundwork for generations of human advancement, ingenuity and innovation. Ready for another ride? Flash forward to the disco-driven discoveries of the 1970s.

Microchips and Moon Landings: Technology From the 1960s

Key Takeaways  Different atmospheres mean that weather conditions aren't necessarily the same on each planet. Lack of water and presence of other gases in the atmosphere influences the type of rain that forms. Gathering planetary weather data for modeling could help the search for other worlds capable of sustaining life and also give insight into climate change here on Earth.The weather outside might be frightful, but have you ever wondered about the weather in space? Since other planets have different atmospheres than Earth, weather conditions aren't necessarily the same on each planet.Solar System-Wide WeatherSystem-wide weather exists in the form of solar storms; waves of electromagnetic particles blast off from the sun's surface as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The effects range from widespread power outages to interference with the radiocommunications, as well as impressive light shows like the auroras or polar lights over the poles.NASA invests heavily in space weather technology like satellites and low Earth orbiting systems to monitor impact on our own climate. The agency is also keeping tabs on weather across our solar system and beyond, with findings that could be useful to life here on Earth.Windy Outlook on MarsWeather tech here on Earth helps predict extreme weather scenarios, like shifting polar vortex impact on cold weather outflow. It also helps outpace storms for proactive response to prevent damage. Our storms are localized to specific areas on Earth, but the entirety of Mars can be enveloped in a dust storm. On Jupiter, NASA has found cyclones that cover most of the planet. Storms also last a long time in space; the biggest storm on Jupiter — visible as the Great Red Spot to astronomers — has been active for hundreds of years. On Uranus, IFL Science describes how infrared telescopes track giant hurricanes across the planet.Martian winds form due to the difference in air temperatures between hot and cold surfaces; the planet's sandy surface gains and loses heat rapidly to drive air movement, but the atmosphere lacks moisture and is much thinner than Earth's. Although it's easier to whip up a planet-wide dust storm, wind speeds measured by the various Mars rovers are not as great as on Earth. Despite the lack of power, Space notes that Martian dust is electromagnetically charged; in addition to "sticky" particles obscuring solar panels powering planetary rovers, storms wreak havoc on sensitive electronics.Raining Diamonds on SaturnConditions on other planets are not the same as on Earth. Planets such as Venus and Jupiter lack our atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen, and there is no moisture to drive a lifegiving water cycle. It shouldn't be surprising that the weather in space also differs; something as simple as rain might not be the same wet stuff we're used to here on Earth.For example, according to a report in Nature, scientists believe it could be raining diamonds on Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.Based on observations by interplanetary spacecraft like Cassini, researchers theorized that lightning could split carbon atoms from atmospheric methane, forming soot, which would then create diamond or graphite under combinations of high pressure, heat and then rapid cooling. Saturn's intense atmospheric pressure squeezes carbon into diamond or graphite projectiles that zip around like bullets in the wind. These extremes could also create diamond oceans on Neptune.This might also be happening outside our solar system. Gizmodo reports that it could be raining gemstones on exoplanet HAT-P-7b. The Kepler space telescope spotted changes in brightness that could signify rubies and sapphires squeezing from the corundum-containing clouds circling the far-off world.Acid Rain on Venus and Dry Ice Snow on MarsPollution causes acid rain on Earth; on Venus, it happens naturally as sunlight splits sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere, according to research from the European Space Agency Venus Express probe. However, the Venusian atmosphere comprises a thick blanket of carbon dioxide that prevents heat from the sun escaping, so the acid rain drops evaporate long before they hit the planet's surface.Methane rains on Saturn's moon Titan, according to Astronomy. Over the polar regions on Mars, snow falls as dry ice or solid carbon dioxide since the atmosphere is largely devoid of water vapor.What We Can Learn From Weather in SpaceSo why bother with weather forecasts on other planets? Is it worth knowing about the vertical double eye of the northern polar vortex on Venus? The answer is that this kind of data can help with life on Earth, especially in the face of climate change.Weather on Mars, for example could help scientists understand vulnerabilities in the water cycle here on Earth. Research has shown that Mars once held surface water. A report in Nature on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter describes how dust storms transport water vapor into the escape region of the upper atmosphere.Gathering planetary weather data for modeling could help the search for other worlds capable of sustaining life. A report from the NASA Goddard Space Institute mentioned in Science Alert proposes that Venus might have been habitable at one point. Virtual modeling suggests that although its current climate causes an intense greenhouse effect, the planet might have been habitable for around 3 billion years. This could re-direct searches for Earth-like exoplanets into regions around stars previously discounted.Farther from home, New Atlas reports on climate data modeling for the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet system of Earth-like planets circling a red dwarf star. This kind of research can help space telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope pick out habitability signals across space and perhaps direct interplanetary travel in the future.Space technology gives us an eye on distant planets. Learn how the James Webb space telescope gives us a view of our universe.

Raining Diamonds on Saturn, and Other Stories of Weather in Space

The actor Harrison Ford famously played both space smuggler Han Solo and earthbound archaeologist Indiana Jones. Aside from Ford's irascible charm, the characters had little in common. Surely, not even fiction would delve into space archaeology.   But truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, as is the case with the International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP). ISSAP has embarked on a novel endeavor: the archaeological study of human culture in a space habitat.    The people behind ISSAP figure there's no better test tube than the 356-foot-wide, nearly one-million-pound International Space Station (ISS). For nearly 20 years, ISS has hosted more than 200 people from 18 countries, facilitated all sorts of scientific work and prepared humans and their technology for voyages beyond Earth. With such a central and exceptional role in space exploration and human relations, it made sense to treat the space station itself as a one-of-a-kind archaeological site.   Embarking on a New Kind of Archaeology   Archaeology usually digs into the secrets of Earth. Space research usually focuses on the mostly unexplored vastness of our universe.    Archaeologists Alice Gorman and Justin Walsh, who lead ISSAP, believe the space station offers untold stories about culture, society and material properties that deserve study following the principles of archaeology. For them, ISS is like a civilization within itself because its missions and crew members often change but still have to conform to a confined space that's ... in space. Just as the ruins of Egyptian, Mayan, Roman and other civilizations are worthy of close examination, so too is ISS.   ISS "serves as evidence for human adaptation to a completely new environment," Drs. Gorman and Walsh wrote on their website, ISS Archaeology. And, just as the striking beauty of Egypt's massive pyramids called for a closer look, Gorman and Walsh make the case that ISS "is arguably the most complex and expensive building project ever undertaken by humans."   In an interview with R&D, Walsh said she hopes NASA and other space agencies recognize the significance of including social science with space research. "'The whole reason to have the ISS is to help plan for long duration missions," she said. "NASA has done decades of physiological and psychological research on the impact and consequences of long duration space missions. But they have never done a study on the society or the culture that does form in a space craft."   A Picture Could be Worth a Thousand Meanings   Archaeologists usually handle, albeit delicately and precisely, the artifacts they uncover and discover on Earth. Walsh and Gorman, however, aren't suiting up for a trip to ISS, at least not yet. For now, their form of space archaeology means they have to take a novel approach to studying their subjects.   First, they'll be looking at a lot of pictures. As R&D reported, more than a million digital photographs have been taken inside and outside ISS since it launched in 1998. The metadata of the files show when and where the photos were taken, helping Walsh and Gorman see the subtext behind the captured moments. This could help peel back the layers of cultural experiences of space travelers, like the moment when Russian crew members posed with religious images on board. The spots where the Russians placed the images might reveal whether they were making certain cultural and religious statements.   The details of those and many other photographs offer a "'unique opportunity to study human adaptation to a unique, 'micro-society in a mini world' that is multi-ethnic, multi-gender and multi-lingual,'" Walsh told R&D.   Sorting Through Space Cargo for Clues   Walsh and Gorman will be able to observe materials from ISS, but not until those items are back on Earth. At least twice last year, they studied cargo that came back on capsules that were attached to ISS. They didn't specify what they studied, but the capsules can carry scientific samples like the products of tests on mice and astronauts, as well as crew members' personal items (including their dirty laundry). A closer look at these and other objects could speak to how people and these items react to microgravity.   Between the photos, cargo and other materials, Walsh and Gorman will be busy. But they hope their research will answer not just how people in space interact with one another and their surrounding environment but also whether they changed ISS to better suit their needs. In other words, does space shape people, or do they try to shape space? 

Space Archaeology Aims to Analyze Experiences of Astronauts on the ISS

Just over 400 years ago, Galileo made the first telescopic observations of Mars. Ever since, earthlings have been obsessed with watching the Red Planet. In the 19th century, astronomer Percival Lowell noted that canals seemed to line the surface of Mars, according to National Geographic. Curiosity about Mars's surface has persisted. While dozens of robotic missions have flown by, orbited and landed on Mars since the 20th century, a new Mars lander will begin the first detailed study of the planet's interior after it lands later this year. Hunting for Marsquakes Aiming to open a new chapter in space discoveries, NASA's InSight lander began its 205-day, 485 million-kilometer journey to Earth's neighbor, with a boost from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that took off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on May 5, 2018. It's scheduled to land on Mars on Nov. 26, according to NASA. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will examine the planet's deep interior to build on our knowledge of how tectonically active it is as well as the formation of the rocky planets of our solar system, including Earth. To do that, the Mars lander has three main instruments: the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), a seismometer that will try to detect "marsquakes" for the first time; the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), which tracks Mars' wobble as it orbits, potentially shedding light on the composition of its core; and the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3), which can take temperature readings up to almost 5 meters below the surface — the deepest drill ever done outside Earth, said NASA. Life on Mars, Past and Future NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been on Mars since 2012, found the first confirmed particles of organic matter on Mars in 2014, according to NASA. In June 2018, researchers reported in Science that data from Curiosity "provide conclusive evidence for the presence of organic compounds — thiophenic, aromatic, and aliphatic compounds — in drill samples from Mars' Gale crater." The presence of organic molecules has fueled the hunt for water on Mars. Researchers affiliated with the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, which launched in 2003, reported the discovery of a lake of liquid water beneath the frozen ice cap on Mars' south pole, said Science. Commenting on the findings, NASA reported that InSight "will provide crucial data on how much heat escapes the planet and where liquid water could exist near its surface." If InSight can determine whether Mars is seismically "alive," it could aid in humanity's search for extraterrestrials. Any mention of water on Mars stokes popular interest in the prospects of humans exploring and colonizing Mars. Under its Space Policy Directive 1, the U.S. is planning to return astronauts to the moon and eventually send people to Mars, said NASA. The challenges of getting them to the Red Planet safely are manifold. For instance, scientists are still debating how much radiation Mars-bound humans could withstand and how they could be best protected during the long journey, according to Smithsonian.com. Even if that problem is solved, Mars explorers must be provided with shelter, food and water. Boots on the Regolith  If there is a water source already on Mars, the concept of building a long-term colony could be a lot more feasible.  Mars One is a one-way mission to Mars in efforts to establish a permanent settlement, with no possibility of returning to Earth. Spearheaded by entrepreneur Bas Landorp, Mars One noted, "Mars is an unforgiving environment where a small mistake or accident can result in large failure, injury, and death. Every component must work perfectly. Every system (and its backup) must function without fail or human life is at risk." Could InSight help pave the way for a future settlement on Mars? When it comes to space discoveries, the more we know about the Red Planet, the better. Once the latest Mars lander gets to work, we'll begin a whole new chapter in our understanding of this new frontier.

NASA's InSight Mars Lander Could Gather Vital Data for Colonization

 Mars has always captured the human imagination, and people have long dreamed of ways of getting there. The first technically plausible Mars exploration mission concept was Wernher von Braun's Das Marsprojekt, or The Mars Project, developed in the early 1950s. Many mission architectures have been studied and proposed since then. In 2016, SpaceX's Elon Musk unveiled a grand vision for Mars colonization, using the company's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) concept.     Enable targeting cookies to view this content.    It's All About Propulsion    A critical factor in getting people to Mars is speed. Humans need to get there as fast as possible to streamline mission logistics and minimize exposure to hazards along the way. In the near term, conventional chemical rocket propulsion can reasonably get the job done. NASA is planning to get us to Mars in the 2030s using an architecture based on the Space Launch System and Orion crewed spacecraft, both currently in development. But some consider chemical propulsion too slow and inefficient, advocating instead the use of more exotic rocket propulsion methods such as nuclear thermal rockets and various types of ion thrusters (which powered the fictional Hermes spacecraft in Andy Weir's novel, "The Martian"). These and many other propulsion concepts are being studied but will require further development before they are mature propulsion-technology options for human spaceflight.    To achieve the goal of colonization, unlike with previous lunar missions, it is essential to think in terms of building a sustainable transportation architecture. The Apollo program was much like an X-plane project, designed to achieve the lunar landing goal, but not to establish a reliable and enduring transportation infrastructure.    We can't afford to do that with Mars. Realistic Mars exploration and colonization plans must go beyond the transportation problem, and they have evolved to keep pace with technological developments. Early plans assumed everything needed would be carried to Mars from Earth, which doesn't make practical or economic sense. Mission plans such as Mars Direct, an influential plan developed by Dr. Robert Zubrin in the 1990s, pioneered the idea of in-situ resource utilization or living off the land. This idea has matured with evolving Mars exploration plans, incorporating recent technological advances such as 3-D printing, which could be used to meet needs such as base/habitat construction and spare-part fabrication.    Radiation, Gravity and Human Survival     Despite the human experience in space to date, the long-term biological effects of radiation and reduced gravity exposure are largely unknown. Astronaut Scott Kelly recently spent a year on the ISS, and by running tests comparing him to his twin brother on returning to Earth, he provided invaluable data on human health in a microgravity environment.  [skyword_iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OL9cpxuN7NY" height="315" width="560" ]   But humans have never spent a significant amount of time in a reduced-gravity field. The surface gravity on Mars is only about 38 percent of Earth's gravity, and the long-term effects of living in such an environment are unknown. The ISS is largely protected from cosmic radiation by the Earth's magnetosphere, a luxury that will not be afforded to Mars-bound travelers and colonists. Various radiation-shielding techniques are being explored and will require considerable development to provide adequate protection for long-duration human spaceflight.    Given the difficulty, expense and long duration of travel between Earth and Mars, the successful human colonization of Mars will require the creation of an independent self-sustaining biosphere. This is something that has yet to be demonstrated even on Earth. The Biosphere 2 project attempted to do this in the 1990s and failed. NASA conducts a variety of analog missions on Earth to address these challenges facing future Mars colonists.    The Human—Robotic Partnership    The ultimate success of human Mars exploration and colonization still depends on learning more about the red planet through robotic precursor missions. NASA's robotic Mars program has been spectacularly successful, but the existing Mars fleet is aging. New missions such as the Mars 2020 Rover are in the pipeline to replace them. A number of companies — including Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope — are conducting concept studies for a potential future Mars orbiter mission. When humans are finally on their way to Mars, the human—robotic partnership will continue to play an important role. In addition to the direct support of human exploration, robot systems will be essential to the future Martian technological infrastructure, such as planetary communications and a GPS-like navigation network.  

Mars Exploration: Getting There and Staying There

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is a crucial tool that astronomers use to understand the nature and history of the high energy universe. It covers an important area of the electromagnetic spectrum, X-rays, that are not detectable from the ground. Without Chandra and its vantage point in space, we would be blind to many of the most fascinating aspects of the universe. This year, we celebrate Chandra's 20th anniversary. Chandra's Origins Originally named AXAF, it was renamed Chandra to honor Subramanyan "Chandra" Chandrasekhar, the Indian American physicist and 1983 Nobel laureate. Chandra is the first space telescope named for a person of color, according to National Geographic. The Chandra telescope is comprised of high resolution grazing incidence X-ray optics, transmission gratings and focal plane detectors that can collect spectra and images. Chandra launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia in July of 1999. Weighing nearly 13,000 pounds at launch, the telescope is powered by a pair of solar arrays, and it only requires 2 kilowatts of power to operate — that's about the same as operating a hair dryer, notes Chandra's website. It was built by Northrop Grumman and is operated by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from a facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pieces of a Space Technology Puzzle Chandra observes space in the X-ray bandwidth with a hundred times greater sensitivity than humans have ever known, according to National Geographic. Over the last 20 years, it has revealed some of the universe's highest-energy phenomena in unprecedented detail. Chandra's orbit is highly eccentric, with an apogee over a 1/3 of the way to the moon. It complements the data from other telescopes that observe in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. They all come together like pieces of a space technology puzzle to reveal the universe. CNN explains that the Chandra X-ray Observatory is in NASA's Great Observatories family. They each capture different wavelengths of light:   Chandra covers X-rays.  Spitzer captures infrared light.  Hubble detects visible and UV light.  Compton observes gamma rays.  What Do X-Rays Tell Us About Space? "Since virtually every astronomical source emits X-rays, we need a telescope like Chandra to fully view and understand our universe," said Chandra X-ray Center director Belinda Wilkes. Chandra is a part of many of the biggest space discoveries. It recently made news for its part in capturing the first image of a black hole, according to NASA. We don't just "see" black holes — Chandra has also detected sounds produced by a black hole. In its 20-year career, this X-ray telescope has provided evidence to back essential principals of astrophysics as we know it.   Dark Matter: Chandra has traced the separation of dark matter from normal matter in the collision of galaxies in a cluster. The data contributes to both dark matter and dark energy studies.  Supermassive Black Holes: Chandra has found black holes across the universe. It captured the eruptions of supermassive black holes, including the X-rays from hot particles right until the last second before they swirl into the black hole.  Supernovas: The telescope has mapped how supernovas leave behind glowing bits of stardust that contain the elements necessary for life.   Trailblazing for the Next Generation of Powerful Telescopes When Chandra launched 20 years ago, there wasn't evidence for many of the phenomena that it observes today, such as the effects of gravitational waves, radiation and dark matter. The success of Chandra has scientists dreaming of tomorrow's discoveries. That's the beauty of astronomy: We're always exploring the exciting unknown.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Key Takeaways  Northrop Grumman's autonomous Global Hawk can "see" through clouds and weather to provide disaster zone data. The Firebird aircraft, meanwhile, can convert between human-flown and un-piloted to explore more dangerous areas. Devices such as FINDER analyze how signals change when they bounce back after transmission. FINDER detected the heartbeats of buried survivors in Nepal.When people are trapped under debris without access to fresh air or water, timing is crucial. In disaster scenarios such as earthquakes, floods and terrorist attacks or local infrastructure collapses, survivors and rescue workers contend with precarious scenes, often without the help of communications networks. Disaster relief technology can find survivors just in time.When hazards such as tsunamis and wildfires get out of control, they become disasters that can turn an otherwise peaceful location into something like a war zone. While military leaders use advanced technology for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the same technology can be applied to disaster aid.A Bird's-Eye ViewAutonomous aircraft can fly above disaster zones to collect images and data that rescue teams can use to decide how to proceed.Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk, for example, provides views of disaster zones without putting people at unnecessary risk. This autonomous aircraft system is designed to fly at high altitudes for long hours without a pilot. In the defense industry, Global Hawk provides military field commanders with real-time ISR over large swaths of land, gathering high-resolution imagery via infrared cameras that can "see" through clouds and bad weather, day and night. In addition to intelligence, Global Hawk fleets have also supported air and ground users with communications relay support. Similarly, the same aircraft can be utilized as a disaster relief technology.After a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Global Hawk surveilled damaged airports to find safe landing sites for relief aircraft. Rescue workers also used videos from Global Hawk observations to compare before and after images of the area to identify areas of need and plan clear routes to get to those locations.A year later, U.S. Air Force Global Hawks helped survey damage and perform relief missions during the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, notably, providing views of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant without risking human crews' potential radiation exposure.Additionally, a new aircraft called Firebird can provide similar assistance. It's a medium-altitude aircraft that's designed to be inexpensive and uniquely flexible. Pilots can fly this aircraft and then quickly transform it into an un-piloted aircraft, for example, in order to stay in the air longer and to go near dangerous areas to gather information.A Heartbeat AwayWhile aircraft and satellite images such as NOAA's Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System provide overhead views, smaller drones like the popular recreational consumer drones can be used to get a closer look at the situation. Land robots, too, can get more detailed information without putting humans at risk.Some disaster relief technology isn't nearly as flashy as a robot but can be extremely effective. When a severe earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, a suitcase-sized device saved four men. The device, called FINDER, which stands for Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response, operates using a similar approach that NASA uses to observe distant planets. It sends a signal out and then deduces information about the unknown object based on how the signal changes when it bounces back. In this way, the technology identifies subtle distortions that humans can't detect, such as the bending of a signal when it encounters a galactic object. Similarly, FINDER sent a microwave signal that detected survivors' heartbeats in Nepal, even though the men were buried under about 10 feet of brick, mud, wood and other debris.Enhancing the Humanitarian Disaster Aid ToolkitRescue aid workers continue to use traditional tools such as listening devices, cameras and dogs that are trained to sniff out survivors. And over time, they're also adding new disaster relief technology to their toolkits. With each new technological improvement, lives are saved.See how the Global Hawk family is enhancing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts worldwide.

Disaster Relief Technology Borrowed From Aerospace

 Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Brandon Balasbas wanted to be a tattoo artist. But in an interview with Adam Ugolink, Balasbas noted his hands were "too shaky" for that line of work — so he spent most of his childhood sketching, developing his skills as a graffiti artist and trying to give his lettering a tattoo-inspired edge. Now he's found new passions: designing corporate street art and shooting professional aerospace photography for Northrop Grumman. "The Brandon Film" traces his evolution from Los Angeles street artist to corporate innovator. It also showcases the growing drive of cutting-edge companies to empower new creative mediums. Paying His Dues Balasbas grew up in LA, and low-riders, motorcycles, surfing and tattoos were cultural touchstones. Graffiti was a way to express his artistic side and stay true to his roots; artists like the 1913 Crew, RIS and Rawtoons helped Balasbas develop his own style. Photography was a natural extension, and, inspired by the work of Estevan Oriol, Balasbas began capturing shots of his family surfing. But the need for steady income pushed Balasbas out of the graffiti artist lifestyle and into Northrop Grumman's corporate mail room. Building Bridges His plan was to stay for six months, but when the mail room got slow, Balasbas started helping out in the print shop and taught himself Photoshop and Illustrator. Combined with his photography experience, his new skills opened doors into photo shoots for product tests and build documentation. His aerospace photography is now used to record project development and identify potential cases of oversight or error.  But Northrop Grumman also recognized the potential in his street-art roots. The company gave Balasbas complete freedom to create a graffiti-inspired mural that spoke to the company's mandate for innovation and technological evolution. For Balasbas, it's confirmation that "there's room for creative stuff in any company." Reaction to his first piece was overwhelmingly positive; he's already been asked to create another. Simply put? Art innovates life. Discover how in this short film.

Art Innovates Life: The Brandon Balasbas Story

Our Legacy "Here Men From the Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind" — Apollo 11 Plaque On the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's "giant leap," we celebrate the work dedicated to achieving the impossible. NASA required craft capable of conquering Earth's orbit for liftoff. Northrop Grumman heritage companies created Pioneer, the first commercially built spacecraft. Once in orbit around our nearest neighbor, astronauts needed a ride to the surface. The Grumman Corporation designed, assembled, integrated and tested the Lunar Module (LM). Heritage companies TRW and Westinghouse developed the lunar excursion model descent engine (LEMDE) and the lightweight, low-power camera used to capture humanity's first steps on the moon, respectively. Your Future "Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns." — Carl Sagan Apollo 11 marked a new era in exploration. Today, Northrop Grumman is developing the future of space exploration technologies. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has already discovered new exoplanets and supernovae, while the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope will study every phase in the history of our universe — from the Big Bang to the formation of life-supporting solar systems. From the Sea of Tranquility to the origins of the universe, we're pushing the boundaries of space exploration. Discover your future with Northrop Grumman.

The Future of Space Exploration: 50 Years of Innovation, Inspiration and Achievement

It's not a bird or a plane: It's a semi-autonomous space helicopter. On April 19, 2021, the short-range Mars helicopter Ingenuity took off for the first time. As a powered flight being guided over the surface of another planet, Ingenuity was a much-anticipated exploration milestone. While the landing was soft, safe and by most accounts spectacular, Ingenuity's evolution from futuristic concept to a flight-ready vehicle strapped to the belly of a Mars rover was anything but easy. In fact, the many bumps, blips and pockets of turbulence encountered by the space helicopter over its 20-year journey to being launched reads more like the Wright Brothers' run down the dunes of Kitty Hawk than most people know. Flight of Infancy As is often the case with invention, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity was a slow-growing idea. JPL engineer Bob Balaram read the 1999 "mesicopter" proposal to NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) and was inspired to design one for Mars. He sought out a partnership with Stanford University and private aerospace company AeroVironment. Together, they built prototype space helicopter blades. Fifteen years later, when JPL director Charles Elachi requested proposals for Mars-exploring drones and helicopters, Balaram dusted off his rotors and got to work. Small but Mighty Like the Mars Skycrane, the space helicopter is part technology demonstration — something that had never been tried in the field and could only be partially tested before deployment. As a demonstration of technology, Ingenuity earned its name from start to finish. Very few robots that make it to Mars are this small. That's not for lack of trying, mind you. Less is more when it comes to launching mass at high speed. However, until Ingenuity, no one had successfully jammed space-worthy navigation, telecommunication, cameras and sensor arrays — not to mention batteries and heaters — into a flying box. A generation after the original NIAC mesicopter proposal, miniaturization made this feat possible. Ingenuity, which weighs far less than most human children at birth, can lift off Mars using the power budget of a few 100-watt bulbs. As NASA notes, because it is so light, all the necessary power can be generated by a single solar panel perched above the rotors, which charges six lithium ion batteries. It's Flight, Jim, but Not as We Know It Part of the reason Ingenuity can alight so easily is that Mars has less gravity than Earth. That would be great news for flying fans if Mars also had Earth's thick atmosphere. Unfortunately for space helicopters, the Martian atmosphere is scant at 1/100th of the air pressure at our sea level, as NASA points out. For things that like to take off and land, the key to success on the red planet is to go big — or more specifically, to go wide. To help them catch enough air to slow down, Perseverance and Curiosity both had large-diameter parachuting systems. For its size (14 centimeters by 16 cm by 20 cm), Ingenuity has huge rotor blades. They extend 60 cm from the center for a total length of 1.2 meters each. That's a lot of blade for a little body. They are also double-layered and rotate in opposite directions, giving the helicopter both stability and control. Stiff blades and spinning rotors are an Ingenuity special design, flying in the face of Earth helicopters. To keep weight at a minimum, the propeller blades are made of foam at their core. A carbon fiber coating holds each blade together while keeping them light. The coating also makes them very stiff. Here, our helicopter blades sag when the vehicle is not in flight. We get away with that here because a floppy blade cutting quickly through Earth air will straighten out, like a whip. Martian wind wouldn't straighten a flag, much less a helicopter blade. Large, stiff blades solve some of the flight challenges for a Martian helicopter, but not all. Even when the blades were holding their shapes, the batteries were charged and the vehicle weighed less than four American footballs, there was still the problem of how to generate thrust to pull enough air through the blades to hover the helicopter off the ground. In a very real way, "spin fast, go faster" is another Wright brothers invention. For the propellers on their flights, the brothers used thin, long pieces of twisted wood, as NASA reports. They placed two of these behind the wings of their aircraft, spinning them fast — 350 times a minute — to create a pressure difference from the front to the back. The pressure difference pulled air through the plane and created the thrust they needed to travel hundreds of feet over the dunes that first day. Using that principle, Ingenuity can still launch, even with 1/100 an atmosphere to bite into — if its blades rotate faster. By rotating more than 2,400 times a minute, 10 times faster than helicopter blades on Earth, Ingenuity pulls through enough Martian atmosphere to support its 90-second flights. If it rotated any slower, the space helicopter wouldn't get off the ground. Any faster, Ingenuity cold come close to breaking the Martian sound barrier. That barrier is lower because of the thinner atmosphere. Such a sonic boom would be quite an earful for Perseverance, which, like any helicopter parent, is never far away. On April 30th, JPL scientists recorded the sound of Ingenuity's blades and rotors: a steady hum against the background of fine dust shifting over the flat Martian plane that's come to be known as Wright field. Collect Calls The physical ability of a vehicle to get off the ground is just one of several keys to a successful flight. Piloting the craft — not crashing, and heading in the right direction — is also important. In the case of robotic exploration, there's the collected observations to relay back to base. How can we give Ingenuity, or any small vehicle, the power for communication and navigation without weighing it down with heavy transmitters and big batteries? Part of the solution was to give Ingenuity the power to make some of its own decisions. The first interplanetary helicopter flies and lands on its own, sends transmissions, moderates its own energy supply and keeps itself warm through the bitter Martian days and nights, according to NASA. The other part of the solution was to treat it like any valued explorer by making sure it was never completely alone. Like Wilbur Wright racing along on foot while Orville made that first flight, Perseverance serves as Ingenuity's communication relay. The Mars rover, which cradled the helicopter under a dust shield for the better part of a year, transmits instructions from the pilots back on Earth. It also sends Ingenuity's photos and weather data back. In the end, Ingenuity can fly for up to 90 seconds for distances of up to 300 meters, per NASA. Future Mars helicopters will likely travel further afield, stay aloft longer and take more detailed observations, aiding human and robotic explorers alike in their quest to find water, life and each other. One Small Hover for a Robot, One Giant Leap for Science More than 117 years after Orville and Wilbur Wright lifted humankind off the ground with wings and propellers, a 1.8 kg space helicopter carried us even closer to becoming a true interplanetary species. The ability to fly — really fly — a vehicle semi-autonomously from hundreds of millions of kilometers away has a huge impact on our ability to plan space missions — not just to Mars, but to Venus, Europa, Titan and anywhere a small, highly mobile craft would be an asset (i.e. basically everywhere). The deep-space, remote piloting skills we're learning don't stop at helicopters, either. They apply to drones, submarines and even entire launch vehicles. The proposed Mars sample return mission, slated to be launched in 2026, will feature many more new and as-yet untested technologies. Chief among those will be another first flight: this time, the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). Using solid propulsion instead of solar power, the MAV will bring the Martian soil collected by Perseverance back to Earth. Planetary scientists will interrogate those samples for the possibility of life on Mars, so we can protect ourselves from it and it from us. They'll use what they find to develop methods of water extraction and plant growth to see what sort of future we can create from the building blocks of another world. With five flights over 30 days, Ingenuity proved that bold, transformative technologies can be built for environments far, far away — and in spite of never having been there before, can hit the ground running. Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity: Space Exploration Unplugged

 In late 1919, a young American woman arrived in Paris, seeking opportunities she was not allowed to pursue at home. Her name was Bessie Coleman, and she wanted to learn how to fly. Her gender was a barrier to achieving her dreams, but not an absolute one. In the years after World War I, women were making a place for themselves in many new fields, and aviation was one of them. But Coleman was black and a woman during a time where the Jim Crow laws were in effect in the southern states, and no American flying school would allow her to enroll because of her race and gender. From Sharecropping to the Sky Born in 1892 to a family of Texas sharecroppers of mixed African-American and Native American background, Coleman showed an early determination, as she put it, to "amount to something." After eight years of one-room school and a semester at Langston University in Oklahoma, she joined her two brothers in Chicago in 1915 and found work as a hairdresser and manager of a chili parlor. Her brothers both served in World War I, and after they returned, one of them remarked to Bessie that French women could do something she would never be able to do: fly. But "never" was not a word in Bessie's vocabulary. She enrolled in French classes, and enlisted supporters in Chicago's small but growing African-American business community to raise the money she needed to go to France and take flying lessons. The art of flying instruction, like aviation itself, was still in its infancy and, as PBS reports, her flight-school experiences included seeing the fatal crash of another student. Though the crash was, in her own words, a "terrible shock," she kept at it, and in June 1921, she earned her pilot's license from the Fé©dé©ration Aé©ronautique Internationale. "Aviatrix" and Barnstormer Coleman came back to the United States in 1921 to find that she was now something of a celebrity. According to Heavy.com, the Air Service News hailed her, in the language of the time, as "a full-fledged aviatrix, the first of her race." But the only way for anyone to fly for a living in that era was as a barnstorming stunt pilot, and Coleman returned to Paris for further advanced training. A year later, in September of 1922, she made her first appearance at an airshow. She had a gift for showmanship along with her flying skills, and for the next four years she was a popular figure in the air-show circuit, known as Queen Bess. But she did not forget where she had come from, and refused to perform at segregated air shows. Everyone who attended, she insisted, had to come in through the same gates. Offered a part in a film, "Shadow and Sunshine," she turned it down because she felt that the role, which had the character dressed in rags at one point, perpetuated stereotypes about African-Americans. Sadly, like so many pilots of the barnstorming era, she died in an accident. On April 30, 1926, she went up to rehearse for an airshow. Her mechanic, William Wills, was at the controls, and Coleman left her seat belt unfastened because she would later be making a parachute jump. Something went wrong. The plane went out of control, and Bessie Coleman was thrown from the cockpit and killed. She was 34 years old. Wills was also killed when the plane crashed; examination of the wreckage indicated that a loose wrench got jammed in the controls. Some 15,000 people attended her funeral. More enduring tributes followed. The Bessie Coleman Aero Club, established in Los Angeles in 1929, fulfilled her dream of a flying school for African-Americans, and according to the National Aviation Hall of Fame, it played a large part in training the first generation of black pilots. For years, African-American pilots in Chicago made an annual fly-over of her grave, Many years later, in 1977, the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club was founded by a group of African-American woman pilots, and in 1995, the Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in her honor. Nearly a century later, her contributions to flight continue to be remembered.

Bessie Coleman and the Open Sky

NASA mission planners are weighing the possibility of a new Jupiter mission to further explore the atmosphere of the solar system's largest planet, its moons, and the little-studied rings of Jupiter, as Space News reports. If the four-year mission is approved, no giant booster rocket will thunder up from Cape Canaveral or anywhere else on Earth. None will be needed. The probe that will carry out the mission, the Juno spacecraft, is already orbiting Jupiter and has been since 2016. But it will be assigned new tasks and new objectives. In effect, Juno will become a new exploratory mission: a spaceship with a second act and a second life. A Space Explorer Recycled Mission extensions are nothing new for NASA. From Mars rovers to outer-planet probes, many spacecraft have turned out to be more rugged and reliable than their designers dared hope for, allowing their missions to be extended for years or even decades. Sometimes, like the Mars rovers, they continued their original missions much longer than expected. Other times, like with outer planet fly-bys, they left their initial objectives billions of miles behind them but are still making measurements and reporting back to us from the fringes of interstellar space. However, the Juno spacecraft will take this mission extension capability to a new level, exploring Jupiter and its environs in ways not anticipated when it launched from Earth in 2015. Mysteries of Mighty Jove The original Juno mission, according to Astronomy magazine, was intended to study the origin and evolution of Jupiter, a world more massive than all other solar planets, moons, asteroids and comets combined. Juno's elongated orbit brings it within a thousand miles of Jupiter's cloud tops, per Astronomy, while allowing it to almost entirely avoid the planet's intense, spacecraft-frying radiation belt. The greatest-hits list from its original (and currently still-continuing) mission features spectacular, surreal close-ups of the Jovian atmosphere, including neatly arranged clusters of monster storms, each the size of the United States, grouped around Jupiter's north and south poles. Other instruments aboard the Juno spacecraft have allowed us to examine Jupiter's deep interior, finding hints that enormous protoplanetary collisions early in its history may have dramatically reshaped its interior structure. A Full System Explorer In a sense, the proposed extension of the Juno mission will be not Act II in the story of the Juno spacecraft, but Act III. The mission was already extended once, according to NASA. As Space News explains, possible problems with the spacecraft's main rocket engine forced cancellation of a planned shift to a closer, more frequent orbit. The change meant it took longer for Juno to complete its initial tasks, and the spacecraft checked out for a mission extension. But the new Juno extension will be a bigger deal — less an extension than an entirely new mission. Says mission principal investigator Scott Bolton, "It really becomes a full system explorer, not as focused as the prime mission was." Juno's orbit is gradually shifting and will continue to shift, and the new, extended mission will take full advantage of this shift. As it passes near Jupiter itself, Juno will be able to closely examine auroras in the Jovian upper atmosphere. But its shifting orbit will also allow close passes over three of Jupiter's four giant moons: Ganymede, Europa and Io. Another objective of the new Juno mission will be Jupiter's rings, which Bolton notes have received little study. That Jupiter — not just Saturn — had rings was one of the most startling discoveries made by the early Jupiter missions. But with so much else to explore, there has been little opportunity for follow-up. As Space.com notes, we now know that all four of the solar system's giant planets have rings. And astronomers have seen tantalizing hints that planets far beyond the solar system, exoplanets, may have vast ring systems even more spectacular than Saturn's. All of this makes Juno's extended Jupiter mission an excellent opportunity to learn more about Jupiter itself, its giant moons and its remarkable (if visually subdued) rings.

Juno Spacecraft May Extend Jupiter Mission

As NASA will tell you, there are no electrical outlets in space. Satellites rely on arrays of solar cells to generate the electricity needed to power their instruments and other onboard electronics. This aerospace technology is more efficient for generating electricity, more resilient to extreme temperatures — and much more expensive — than the solar cells used by utility companies or consumers to power applications on Earth. The good news is that government researchers are intent on driving down the cost of this space-qualified aerospace technology to make it more available for terrestrial applications. The III-V Standard Solar cells are made from materials that generate a voltage and an electric current when exposed to sunlight. This phenomenon is called the photovoltaic effect. According to the Department of Energy, the photovoltaic effect was first observed in 1839 by French scientist Edmond Becquerel. Solar cells are rated according to their efficiency, i.e. their ability to absorb light and convert it into electricity. The higher the efficiency, the more electricity a solar cell can produce. "State-of-the-art spacecraft solar arrays use an aerospace technology called triple junction III-V semiconductors," said Tim Peshek, a research electrical engineer at NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio. III-V materials are so named because they combine an element from group III of the periodic table with an element from group V. Typical III-V compounds include gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium gallium phosphide (InGaP). "Triple junction solar cells comprise three types of semiconductors grown on top of each other, typically germanium on the bottom, GaAs in the middle and InGaP on top," he added. "Each layer absorbs light above a particular threshold energy of the solar spectrum, which spans wavelengths from mid-infrared through visible to near-ultraviolet. By using three complementary materials, we can create devices that absorb light across the entire solar spectrum, which makes them much more efficient than single-material solar cells." III-V vs. Silicon According to Peshek, approximately 30 to 32% is the typical efficiency for III-V semiconductor solar panels. Solar industry data, by comparison, places the typical efficiency at about 18-20% for terrestrial silicon-based solar panels. And while silicon solar panels can be installed for about $2-3 per watt, III-V spacecraft solar panels will set you back $100 to $300 per watt. A solar panel comprises multiple solar cells. "The standard process for growing III-V cells for space applications is called Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition [MOCVD]," said Nancy Haegel, center director for materials science at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Golden, Colorado. MOCVD is a high precision but time-consuming process. It relies on a chemical reaction between a substrate and special "precursor" molecules in a gas vapor to deposit high-quality, thin-film epitaxial layers on a substrate. "III-V solar cells are grown carefully, layer by layer, typically on a substrate of GaAs or germanium," said Haegel. "GaAs is an outstanding solar cell material, but it does not tolerate manufacturing defects well. Its component materials are also more expensive and less abundant than silicon." By contrast, she added, silicon solar cells used in utility and consumer applications are typically fabricated directly on silicon wafers cut from mass-produced ingots of pure silicon, the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Driving Down III-V Costs NREL is working to reduce III-V production costs by increasing the rate at which solar cells are grown. To reach these higher growth rates, the agency is revamping an older solar cell manufacturing process called hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). Test results from this updated approach, known as "dynamic HVPE," indicate that solar cell growth times could shrink dramatically, from the current several hours to just a few minutes. "HVPE is really promising because it uses a starting material with a much lower cost than that used by MOCVD," said Haegel. "It also has the potential for much higher growth rates." To be fair, she added, MOCVD vendors are also trying to bring down their costs by using higher throughput and faster growth techniques. NREL is also focused on re-using GaAs substrates to reduce III-V production costs. "We'd like to be able to grow a thin film on a GaAs substrate, lift the film off, then use the substrate again, potentially several more times, to grow more solar cells," explained Haegel. Building on Silicon Government researchers are also looking for ways to capitalize on silicon's maturity and economic scale factors. NREL, for example, is working on what it calls "next generation" solar cells. "NREL's silicon Group is working to improve the performance of silicon solar cells by optimizing the design and performance of the contact layers of the cell," said Haegel. And innovators at NASA Glenn have developed a technique to bond a multi-junction III-V solar cell to a silicon substrate. This approach, NASA claims, could couple the high efficiency of III-V semiconductors with the maturity and low cost of silicon. Near-Term Payoff Neither NREL nor NASA expects III-V solar cells to compete economically with terrestrial, high-volume silicon solar cells anytime soon. A more realistic near-term target for the technology, cautions Haegel, would be intermediate markets such as transportation, aerospace or portable charging systems — markets where the benefit of mobility and remote power could entice people to pay perhaps $10-20 per watt. "Our goal is to lower the cost of growing III-V solar cells by a factor of 100 through lower cost materials and higher growth rates," Haegel said. "If we can reduce each of these elements by a factor of 10, we could start writing a very exciting new chapter in renewable energy." If you'd like to generate more power for your career, please check out the latest opportunities at careers.northropgrumman.com.

Aerospace Technology Coming Soon to a Solar Installation Near You

Four billion miles from the sun, at the edge of the solar system, orbits an object — or pair of objects — that, according to Ars Technica, is known officially only as 2014 MU69. Until a couple of months ago, it was almost completely unknown, even to scientists. Now, it has become the latest of our new space discoveries and is far better known as Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever visited by a human spacecraft. NASA's New Horizons space probe flashed past these tiny distant joined worlds on New Year's Day at a speed of more than 32,000 miles per hour. At closest report, says Space.com, the spacecraft passed within 2,200 miles of Ultima Thule, snapping high-resolution imagery as it hurtled past. A "Snowman" in Space Images and other data from this fast close encounter are still coming in. Ultima Thule orbits some 4.1 billion miles from Earth, according to NASA, and Sky & Telescope reports that it will take years for New Horizons to send back all the data it gathered in those few short hours on New Year's Day. In fact, according to Sky & Telescope, so far less than 1% of the data has been sent back, but even that opening teaser is startling. Space.com has described Ultima Thule as resembling a snowman, a pair of roughly spherical mini-worlds stuck together. Sky & Telescope reports that these two halves are about nine and 12 miles in diameter and have been nicknamed Ultima and Thule. A Freeze-Dried Sample  Celestial objects orbiting each other so close that they touch are weird enough for science fiction, but this is not the first time that astronomers have seen such objects. It is, however, the first time they have seen them at the outer edge of the solar system, in a region beyond Pluto known as the Kuiper Belt. What really interests astronomers about the Kuiper Belt is not just odd combinations such as contact binaries, but its history — as in, it doesn't have much. This region of space has been relatively placid since the solar system formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Uneventful may sound boring, but it also means pristine: worldlets like Ultima Thule have orbited the sun all but undisturbed since they formed — and still retain signs of their formation processes that were long ago obliterated in the more turbulent region of space where Earth and the other major planets orbit. The latest images from New Horizons are giving us our first clear look at the subtle processes that shaped these worlds and left their marks for us to examine, 4 billion years later. More Beyond Four billion miles is a long way from home, and Ultima Thule is the farthest destination our deep space missions have yet directly reached. But new space discoveries and even planetary exploration are not confined to the solar system. The Transiting Extrasolar Survey Satellite, TESS, orbits Earth not much farther away than the moon — but its four precision cameras are finding planets orbiting stars dozens or hundreds of light-years away. And it is paving the way for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will take deep space exploration to a new level.

A Visit to Ultima Thule: Exploring the Kuiper Belt

On average, you can expect to see perhaps seven meteors per hour and considerably more during a meteor shower. What you're actually witnessing is the fiery descent of a small particle through the Earth's atmosphere. Most meteors simply burn up in the atmosphere, but some survive to strike the Earth as meteorites. By finding these space rocks and analyzing their composition, we've learned a great deal about the origins of the Earth, the evolution of the solar system and some interesting astronomy facts.  Asteroid vs Meteor: What's in a Name? The terms meteor, meteorite, meteoroid, micrometeoroid and asteroid all refer to space rocks in one form or another. What's the difference between them? Meteoroids and micrometeoroids refer to the vast number of relatively small rocks and particles in orbit around the sun. If a meteoroid encounters the Earth's atmosphere and vaporizes, the visible trail we see in the sky is referred to as a meteor. They are sometimes called a falling star or shooting star, though they aren't stars at all. Sometimes a meteor survives its fiery descent and strikes the ground. Meteors that have hit Earth are referred to as meteorites. There are also fireballs and bolides, which refer to very bright meteors that often explode as they descend. Asteroid vs meteor. What's the difference? It's largely a matter of size but not all that well-defined. According to the American Meteor Society, the vast majority of meteoroids range in size from small pebbles down to a grain of sand. Micrometeoroids are dust-sized particles. The largest meteoroids are those space rocks up to one meter or perhaps several meters in size. Anything larger is generally considered an asteroid. Asteroids can be as large as hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The largest, such as Ceres at about 952 km (592 miles) in diameter, are considered dwarf planets. What Have We Learned? According to National Geographic, approximately 50 tons of space debris falls onto the Earth's surface every day. The vast majority of these particles are dust-sized micrometeorites. Occasionally, meteorites as large as boulders strike the Earth and a few impressive examples have survived the impact event and have been found intact. The largest of these is the Hoba meteorite in Namibia, discovered in 1920. This 54,000 kilogram-monster is too large to move. Other large meteorites are mostly destroyed on impact, leaving behind huge craters such as the Barringer Meteorite Crater near Winslow, Arizona. Here's a case where the distinction between asteroids and meteorites is somewhat blurred. The object that created the Barringer Meteorite Crater about 50,000 years ago was a nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters across that massed about 270,000 metric tons. This huge rock is clearly large enough to be considered an asteroid but is still commonly referred to as a meteorite. Of course, there have been actual asteroid strikes in the distant past, such as the 10 kilometer asteroid that formed the Chicxulub Crater in Yucatan, Mexico. Chicxulub is one of the largest impact craters ever discovered on the Earth. That violent event is believed to have triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs and other animal and plant life some 65 million years ago. The Earth's Origins Most meteorites appear to come from large asteroids that broke up, or never completely formed, billions of years ago. Studying them helps scientists understand the processes taking place deep inside the Earth. Although the center of the Earth has never been directly seen or examined, meteorite studies have enabled us to determine that the Earth's core is composed mostly of nickel and iron metal. This is true for the other planets as well. When the Earth was in the process of being formed and still molten, the metals sank to the center while the lighter materials formed the mantle and rocky crust on the exterior. Evolution of the Solar System The scientific study of meteors that have hit Earth, or meteorites, is crucial to the understanding of the solar system's history and origin. Researchers have determined the age of certain ancient meteorite materials and have used that to establish the age of the solar system to be almost 4.6 billion years. The study of these primitive meteorites has yielded clues to the conditions present during planetary formation, as well as the composition and proportion of elements present in the entire solar system. This kind of information supports the process of mission planning for asteroid visits and will ultimately help identify the resources necessary to enable human spacefaring into the solar system. Astronomy Facts: Meteorite or "Meteorwrong"? Meteorites are extremely rare and there are those dedicated to hunting for them. As you pursue your own adventures, you might come across an unusual rock. Did you actually find a meteorite or the much more common "meteorwrong"? Geoffrey Notkin, star of TV's Meteorite Men and National Space Society president certainly knows his meteor facts and offers an excellent Comprehensive Guide To Meteorite Identification to help you. Happy hunting! 

Wish Upon a Falling Star: Asteroid vs Meteor

Have you ever wondered what causes the Northern Lights phenomenon? It's not magic; it's electrically charged particles and gaseous particles colliding in the air. What causes this collision? The answer can be found in space.   As human infrastructure expands into space, predicting the weather in that environment becomes just as important as it is on Earth. The U.S. military is steadily increasing its dependence on satellites for communication, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, so accurate space weather prediction technology is vital.   A Solar Storm Is Brewing   The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center monitors Earth's upper atmosphere for possible hazardous solar flares and coronal mass ejections, or large releases of matter and electromagnetic radiation.   These outbursts, known as a solar storm, are occasionally directed toward Earth, creating large disturbances in our magnetic field and upper atmosphere. Such events can have a major or even catastrophic impact on the performance and reliability of technological systems in space and on Earth, and can even endanger human health, according to NOAA.   How to Forecast   Accurate prediction is a challenge, which is why meteorologists seek to improve the ability to characterize the global climate and predict and track storms. To accomplish this, scientists gather data from remote sensing assets like unmanned aerial vehicles and geostationary satellites. Space weather forecasting helps meteorologists better understand how Earth's atmosphere responds to changes in the space environment and how satellites are impacted.   The History of Space Situational Awareness Tech In collaboration with the European Space Agency, NASA operates the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. SOHO's instruments monitor the sun, from its deep core to its outer corona. Continuously imaging the solar corona is critical to forecasting, as it provides advance warning of a solar storm.   In 2006, NASA launched the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecraft. STEREO employs 3-D vision and advanced stereoscopic imaging to observe the sun and determine how quickly phenomena are moving.   NASA's Living With a Star program manages various space weather missions. In 2010, NASA launched the first LWS mission, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to study the sun's magnetic field. In 2012, NASA launched the Van Allen Probes to monitor the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth. The more we understand about the belts, the easier it will be to predict future storms. Future LWS missions include the Space Environment Testbed, launched in 2019, with the goal of improving spacecraft hardware performance in the space radiation environment.   Parallel to NASA's efforts, the U.S. Air Force is improving its own forecasting abilities and its understanding of space weather's impact on its current and future fleet of spacecraft. The Air Force plans to install Energetic Charged Particle sensors on its next generation of spacecraft by 2023, according to Space News.   The Key Players   In addition to NASA, many organizations across the planet contribute to space weather situational awareness and knowledge database, according to NOAA. The European Space Agency's Space Situational Awareness program includes extensive space weather monitoring, for example.    The American Commercial Space Weather Association includes a growing number of commercial companies, such as Space Environment Technologies, the Carmel Research Center and many others, that are major providers of data products. The Air Force is actively working to expand its collaboration with these commercial and international partners.   Yes, There's an App for That . . .    For those who want to keep track of space weather themselves, a number of smartphone apps are available, such as the Space Weather App or <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2012/12-20.html" target="_blaNASA Space Weather.    

Space Weather Prediction: Weathering the Solar Storm

Activities conducted using spacecraft have become a ubiquitous part of our society. From monitoring hurricanes to measuring the ozone layer, U.S. government agencies today rely heavily on satellites and aerospace technology to conduct their day-to-day activities. But how are satellites conceived, designed, produced and deployed?  NASA describes spacecraft as "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the Earth's atmosphere." A satellite is described as "a type of spacecraft that orbits the Earth, the moon or another celestial body." In this series, we will use the terms spacecraft and satellite interchangeably. * * * Every satellite project begins with a problem to be solved. The problem may be scientific, societal or political. And it typically involves questions such as, "What could we learn by collecting data X from space?" or "How often do we need to collect that data to understand phenomenon Y more clearly?" An idea for a new satellite can come from anywhere: an executive or program manager with a U.S. government agency such as NASA or the Department of Defense, an engineer in a government or industry laboratory, or maybe even a university student. A new satellite program could also originate from an informal conversation between a U.S. government official and an aerospace contractor, perhaps at the executive level, explains Brandt Pyles, a director of business development for Northrop Grumman. "If the priority (for the new program) is high, and it doesn't cost too much, it could get sketched out on the back of the proverbial napkin, iterated a few times, and kicked off in pretty short order," he said. But generally, the process takes longer and includes a more formal set of steps, he cautioned. What's Available Today? No matter how the conversation starts, the next step for the government is to identify the technical feasibility of developing and launching the new satellite system. That step usually comes in the form of a request for information (RFI) to potential satellite developers such as Northrop Grumman. By law, the government has to give all aerospace contractors an equal opportunity to learn about and bid on potential new projects. The RFI helps the government identify satellite capabilities and aerospace technologies that are currently available to address its new mission requirement. It's also an opportunity for a contractor to propose using a new aerospace technology that's been developed through the contractor's Independent Research & Development (IR&D) efforts.  Mapping Out Options If the information gleaned from the RFI process seems promising, the government may issue a short-term agreement called a study contract — notionally six to 12 months long with a value of maybe $1 million — to several potential bidders. The purpose of the study contract is to flesh out a conceptual design or mission architecture for the customer's desired satellite system. The design might describe, for example, the size and number of satellites needed to achieve the mission, the inclination of the orbits, the frequency of data collection, and perhaps the techniques used to downlink that data to the Earth. According to Pyles, the study contract is the beginning of an iterative "conversation" with the customer about the satellite system they want. The process typically involves at least two rounds of studies during which contractors refine their understanding of the customer's problem, and "dial-in" their proposed solutions. "Study contracts bring together a small team of people with the skills and experience to map out the desired system," he said. "Typically, the team includes spacecraft systems engineers, space vehicle designers, payload systems engineers, and specialists in satellite integration and test." The key concept here, added Pyles, is that the study contract team should represent every major discipline — mission engineering, systems engineering, design, assembly, integration and test, launch, deployment, and ground command and control —- that would participate in an actual satellite development program. "You can't afford to design a satellite that can't be produced, produce a satellite that can't be tested, or launch a satellite that can't reach its desired orbit simply because you failed to engage key stakeholders early enough in the design process," he said. Are We There Yet? By the end of the study contracts process, the customer will likely have narrowed the field of bidders and started to gain confidence in the design of the satellite system it wants to produce. "As much as possible, you'd like to accomplish the proposed mission with existing payload elements and existing sensors," said Howard Eller, advanced systems tech fellow for Northrop Grumman. "The more you can use existing technologies and capabilities, the lower the risk, the more quickly you can deliver the spacecraft, and the lower the likelihood of exceeding the program budget." On the other hand, Eller continued, opting to use newly-developed aerospace technology can open up a new world of scientific discovery or enable a new military capability, even if it means adding cost or technical risk to the spacecraft development process. Final Touches Once the government is confident in the system it wants to produce, it double-checks to make sure its final mission requirements are affordable, not too risky, and can be met in a reasonable amount of time by its bidders. Enter the draft request for proposals (RFP). As its name implies, the draft RFP is a preliminary version of the official document that the government will issue to solicit bids from industry to design, produce and deliver the desired spacecraft. "The government will issue a draft RFP and say, 'How does this look to you?'" explains Eller. "And we'll say, 'Oh, you know this looks great, except this would be a problem for us, or this proposed approach will cost you a lot more money and not deliver the performance you want, so we suggest you change this.'" Every potential bidder has an opportunity to comment on the draft RFP. And inevitably, those comments reflect differences of opinion on how the satellite system should be defined and developed. "Ultimately," said Eller, "the customer has to decide what is fair, what is equitable and most importantly, what is in the best interests of the US government and the taxpayers. If we've done our job, the final RFP will represent a high-value opportunity for our shareholders, our customers, and the American people." * * * Part II of this series will explore how aerospace companies translate customer requirements into a more detailed satellite system design as part of developing their proposal for a government contract. If you're ready to put your career into a new orbit, check out the launch options available to you at www.northropgrumman.com/careers.

How Spacecraft Are Created: Mission Conception

Fifty years ago, engineers created a vehicle powerful enough to escape Earth's orbit, tough enough to handle a moon landing and safe enough to bring the crew home. The Apollo Lunar Module required never-before-seen software, engines, landing gear and a host of other features to help humans set foot on our nearest stellar neighbor.Here's what it took.Software https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch2-6.htmlRequirements for the Apollo Guideance Computer (AGC) were beyond the scope of existing software. The design principles developed for Apollo became foundational tenets of effective software engineering.Antennas https://www.popsci.com/how-nasa-broadcast-neil-armstrong-live-from-moonUsing four flush-mounted S-band 2-gigahertz high-gain antennas, the crew was able to transmit voice, biomedical, telemetry and television image data simultaneously.Propellant Motors https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/spacecraft/saturn_v.cfmFirst-stage F1 motors delivered 7.7 million pounds of thrust to escape Earth's gravity, a second set of five J-2 engines took Apollo to 115 miles altitude and the third stage, single J-2 motor boosted the craft to 17,500 mph, then 24,500 mph to achieve translunar trajectory.Lunar Camera http://www.northropgrumman.com/AboutUs/OurHeritage/Documents/pdfs/history-of-apollo-11-lunar-camera.pdfThe seven-pound Lunar Camera, which operates on just six watts and can withstand temperatures of -300 degrees Fahrenheit, remains on the moon today, a testament to human ingenuity.Earth Landing System https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740003586.pdfBringing the Apollo 11 astronauts back to Earth required a landing system capable of operating under extreme heat and stress. The parachute-based Earth Landing System demanded continual testing and redesign to balance weight, strength and operability.Descent Engine https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/rocket-engine-liquid-fuel-apollo-lunar-module-descent-engineEngineers created the Apollo Lunar Module Descent Engine, the first gimballed and throttable spacecraft engine capable of producing between 1,000 and 10,000 pounds of thrust on-demand.Flagpole https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/flag-pole-apolloThe flagpole carried by Apollo astronauts, made of telescoping, anodized aluminum tubing, was designed to serve as testament that we are forever explorers, pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and experience.

Building the Impossible: The Apollo Lunar Module

For about the last 4.5 billion years, Earth has had a moon. Since that far-off time, the moon has done anything but grow closer to Earth — the moon has actually been slowly drifting away. Today, our largest natural satellite is about 37,282 miles (~60,000 kilometers) farther away than when it was just 2.46 billion years ago.
 
But if the moon is farther away than ever before, why does it seem like supermoons have begun popping up all over the place lately? And what is a supermoon exactly? Let's explore these questions and the differences in the supermoon vs. regular moon debate — which mostly come down to distance, timing and our love of giving natural phenomena fun names.
 
Constant as the Moon
 
Romantic notions aside, our moon should get more credit for being consistent. After all, it is tidally locked, meaning that it rotates around its own axis at roughly the same rate that it revolves around Earth. In addition to always showing us the same face, the moon is technically always half-illuminated. As the earth moves in its own orbital plane, we see different parts of the moon lit up: a sliver here and a half-moon there. Ultimately, it's our motion and our Earth-centric perspective that make the phases of the moon.
 
Where the moon is arguably a little less than constant is in its own orbit. Like all orbiting bodies, the moon's path through space is not quite perfectly round. At apogee, its furthest point from Earth, the moon is about 251,000 miles (~405,500 km) away, according to NASA. At perigee, the closest pass in its elliptical orbit, the moon is about 226,000 miles (~363,300 km) from Earth.
 
That variation in distance over a 27.3 days revolution is minor on the scale of space phenomenon. However, the variation in brightness between a full moon that occurs a quarter-million miles away and one that occurs when the moon is nearly at perigee makes a big difference.
 
What Is a Supermoon?
 
The technical definition of a supermoon is a full moon that occurs within 90% of perigee. It also involves a trick or two of the light. Because the moon itself is rotating, and therefore slightly in shadow at one edge, even when it is full, we never quite see the whole 50% that's always facing us. When it's at apogee, we have a "micromoon" phenomenon, where the full moon appears 30% dimmer to us compared to when it's at perigee.
 
This "micromoon" moniker puts the "supermoon" phenomenon into perspective. Near perigee, a fully lit full moon appears from Earth not only to be significantly brighter but also significantly bigger. Though these are very small distances on the cosmic scale — about 25,000 miles difference — supermoons do appear to be 17% bigger in the sky.
 
By this definition, and due to this brightening effect, citizens of Earth have earned four supermoons to view in 2023. The full moon in July, both full moons in August and the full moon in September all come within 90% of perigee.
 
Level Up: Supermoon vs. Regular Moon
 
Humans have taken note of bigger and brighter supermoons since before we understood orbital mechanics and albedo, the reflectivity of materials like the dust that coats the moon and makes it bright. Ancient people named the full moons and supermoons after other natural phenomena. Cultures the world over gave the first full moon of every month at least one name.
 
For example, the Abenaki, a North American Native American tribe in Maine, called October's moon the "leaf falling moon" and November's moon the "freezing river maker moon." The Tlingit of the Pacific Northwest called December's moon "shanáx dis" — which translates to "unborn seals are getting hair."
 
Some of the moon names recorded in the Farmers' Almanac are "Wolf Moon" for January, "Snow Moon" for February and "Worm Moon" for March, which represent when the worms awaken and rise out of the ground. South of the equator, the themes behind moon-month names are inverted: In the Southern Hemisphere, the Cold Moon occurs in June, during their winter.
 
Many Names, One Face
 
The many given names for the full moon combined with the increased brightness of a supermoon can create a truly dramatic effect. For example, a supermoon occurring in January could be called a "Super Wolf Moon." If that moon were to go into eclipse, it would be a "Super Blood Wolf Moon, matching that bigger-appearing body with a distinctly blood-red tinge. Supermoons can also become "sturgeon" and "green corn" moons depending on the cultural name of the month in which they occur.
Most of these grand titles are somewhat easier to say than the scientific term for the phenomenon in play: perigee syzygy, which signifies when the earth, sun and moon are more or less in alignment. Whenever they occur, supermoons mark a regular event in our dynamic with the two celestial bodies that make our planet not only livable but also a great spot to observe local astronomical phenomena. Thanks to perigee syzygy, Earth will have been treated to four supermoons in 2023 and will have two more in 2024. We should enjoy it while it lasts.
As the moon continues to drift away over millions of years, micromoons will become increasingly more common. To humans living on Earth in the far future, a supermoon will resemble the humble brightness of the regular full moon that marks our skies most of the year and goes unmarked except by those who take a moment or two to look up and appreciate it.
 
Interested in all things in outer space? We are, too. Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.
 

Supermoon Madness: What Is a Supermoon, and Why Are There So Many Now?

Edwin Hubble was born in Missouri on Nov. 20, 1889. He served in both World Wars and earned a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago. He's most famous for his research at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California that revolutionized the field of astrophysics. His work as an astronomer provides the foundation for modern astronomy, and his legacy continues to grow as today's scientists use the telescope that was named in his honor to make new discoveries about the universe. Edwin Hubble's Biggest Contributions Hubble's research confirmed an expanding universe, which provided the foundation for the Big Bang Theory. Using Mount Wilson's Hooker telescope — the largest telescope available at the time — he observed space and found evidence to back his theories. Galaxies Hubble proved that other galaxies existed outside of our home in the Milky Way by taking photos and comparing the brightness of stars, according to Biography.com. He estimated the size of Milky Way. (There had been no idea of its size at the time). Hubble estimated that the Andromeda "Nebula" was nearly 900,000 light-years away from the Milky Way, and therefore was its own galaxy. It has since been renamed the Andromeda Galaxy and proven to be 2.48 million light-years away. Hubble Sequence He is also famous for creating the Hubble sequence, a classification system for galaxies that has been used since 1926. Hubble's sequence sorts and characterizes or classifies galaxies by their shape. Although it is a basic classification system, it's still used almost a century later. Redshift According to Space.com, Hubble was the first astronomer to describe the "redshift" phenomenon and tie it to an expanding universe. When an object such as a star moves away from us, its wavelengths get longer, so we perceive the light as becoming red. As it moves toward us, the light appears to become bluer, as its wavelengths get shorter and correspond with the blue end of the rainbow (or, in astronomy speak, the "visible light spectrum"). Space.com explains that wavelengths of light can stretch or crunch together depending on the relative position of objects. Astronomers can use redshift to measure the speed and distance of objects in space. Hubble observed that galaxies were moving away, with larger redshifts for the most distant galaxies. He demonstrated that the farther a galaxy, the faster it was moving away from Earth. It ultimately proved that the universe is expanding. Today's astronomers regularly use modern telescopes to study redshift, but during Hubble's time, it was revolutionary. According to Biography.com, in 1929, Hubble and his colleague Milton Humason published research that showed that a galaxy's redshift is proportionate to its distance from another galaxy. Big Bang Theory Support Their research supported the theory that galaxies come from a central point of origin. Scientists have cited Hubble and Humason's work as evidence that helps prove the Big Bang Theory — one of the most popular theories on the universe's origin, which was first suggested by Georges Lemaé®tre in 1927, according to Biography.com. Hubble Space Telescope It's fitting that the most powerful telescope in the sky is named after Edwin Hubble. According to NASA, the Hubble Telescope was the first major optical telescope to be placed in space. The telescope's images of deep space confirm what Edwin Hubble's research suggested about galaxies and the universe, and provide images that give physical evidence for theoretical concepts. Scientists have used the Hubble Telescope to observe distant stars and galaxies and the planets in our solar system. When the Hubble Telescope deployed in April 1990, it was the most significant advancement in astronomy since Galileo's telescope. Hubble's Legacy Astronomy has changed since Hubble's glory days, but his contributions are still at the core. In 2011, astronomers used redshift to verify Einstein's theory of general relativity. In 2018, the International Astronomical Union renamed Hubble's law as the Hubble—Lemaé®tre law, according to EarthSky. According to Live Science, 90 years after Hubble and his colleagues demonstrated that other galaxies are speeding away from the Milky Way, scientists are still working to better understand the expansion of the universe. In 2018, astronomers used the Hubble Telescope to observe that the expansion is even faster than expected. The same researchers also found that more distant reaches of the universe seem to be expanding less quickly than closer galaxies. Scientists are now trying to understand this relative slowdown, which could be caused by dark energy, dark matter, or another phenomenon that we haven't discovered yet. Soon, astronomers will have a new tool for studying our ever-expanding universe. The Hubble Telescope will soon be joined by an even more powerful research tool, the James Webb Space Telescope. But as we move on to the next generation of astronomical discoveries, Edwin Hubble will remain a legend in the field.

Celebrating Edwin Hubble, Legendary Astronomer

According to NASA, less than 5% of the universe is made of normal matter. That means everything we can observe from Earth is just a tiny fraction of reality. The rest is dark and unknown; 68% of the universe is dark energy and 27% is dark matter. Two of the biggest mysteries of the universe aren't nearly as related as their names imply. Dark energy is a property that pushes things apart in space, while a dark substance pulls celestial objects toward it. We don't know much about either one, although experiments could find the answers, and you never know when scientists will have a breakthrough that would fundamentally change our understanding of the universe. Dark Matter There is a physical substance in space that we can't see, although astronomers can observe its influence. The force of gravity from all visible matter isn't strong enough to keep a galaxy together, so there must be something else that has mass that we can't see. A dark and mysterious form of matter fills out the missing parts of the equation. This invisible substance produces an attractive force (gravity) that pulls matter inward and helps hold galaxies together, according to Mental Floss. Discovery Previously, astronomers expected the stars at the center of our galaxy to move faster than those on the galaxy's edge, according to the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy eXperiment (HETDEX). This seems logical because the center of the galaxy, which is the center of the mass, should have the strongest gravity. But when astronomers measured the stars that form a bright disk across the Milky Way galaxy, they were surprised to discover that all stars orbit the center of the galaxy at about the same speed. There's some other invisible matter pulling at the stars from the outside. Astronomer Fritz Zwicky discovered the substance in 1933, according to Britannica, when he observed that visible matter didn't provide nearly enough mass to keep the stars from flying off into space. Astronomers have since observed this effect in other galaxies, as well as clusters of galaxies. Calculations now show that a vast "halo" of a dark substance surrounds the Milky Way. This halo may be 10 times as massive as the bright disk, so it exerts a strong gravitational pull. What Is It Made of? We still don't know exactly what it is, but scientists have a few working theories. In the meantime, according to NASA, we're working on process of elimination. Here are some things that it is not:   Visible matter (we can't see it).  Dark clouds of normal matter made of particles called baryons. Scientists would be able to detect baryonic clouds because they would observe radiation passing through them.  Antimatter. Scientists do not see the unique gamma rays that are produced when antimatter annihilates with matter.  Galaxy-sized black holes. Astronomers say the gravitational lenses that they see eliminates this possibility.  So, what does that leave us? Some possible candidates are dense astronomical bodies called massive astrophysical compact halo objects (MACHOs) or weakly interacting massive particles (appropriately nicknamed WIMPs), according to Mental Floss. Dark matter likely consists of an exotic subatomic particle that hasn't been detected yet. Scientists are conducting experiments at the International Space Station and CERN to try to capture these elusive particles, although nobody has succeeded yet. Dark Energy While matter attracts (gravity), energy, on the other hand, produces a repulsive force (antigravity) that pushes matter outward. It's not an object but rather a property of space, and it helps explain why our universe is expanding. According to HETDEX, dark energy shows itself only on the largest cosmic scale. Discovery In 1929, legendary astronomer Edwin Hubble observed the "redshift" phenomenon that proved that our universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. For decades, astronomers believed that gravity would cause the expansion to slow down. Then in 1998, astronomers were shocked to learn the opposite. According to Mental Floss, astronomers were using the Hubble Space Telescope to study distant supernovae, when they observed that around 7.5 billion years after the Big Bang, the universe began expanding at an even faster rate. According to NASA, no one expected to discover that the expansion was accelerating, and scientists still can't explain it, but they can tell that it exists because it affects the expansion of the universe. What Is It Made of? According to NASA, there are several theories for what dark energy is. It may be an inherent property of space. Contrary to popular belief, empty space is not nothing. It has properties; it can expand and possess its own energy, as Albert Einstein suggested with his gravity theory and cosmological constant. The quantum theory of matter provides a second explanation. This theory suggests that "'empty space' is actually full of temporary ('virtual') particles that continually form and disappear." However, this theory is highly unlikely, because when physicists attempted to use this theory for calculations, the answer came out wrong, according to NASA. A third option is that dark energy is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, which some scientists have called "quintessence." If that's the case, we still don't know anything about it, says NASA. Lastly, perhaps Einstein's theory of gravity is not correct, and that's why dark energy doesn't fit into our equation of the universe. All of our current knowledge and understanding of the universe depend on Einstein's theory being true, so if dark energy exposes an error, then we're back at square one. It would upend our entire understanding of the universe. Mysteries Remain All this is to say, we still don't know much about these "dark" aspects of space. One is a thing, another is a property, and they are both invisible and illogical. That's why dark matter and dark energy are two of the most exciting areas of science, and scientists around the world are racing to find the answers to the dark parts of space. At this point, what we know is a process of elimination and circumstantial evidence. We know what they're not, we see the effects, and there is evidence that they exist. Space is often seen as the ultimate symbol of nothingness, but in reality, space isn't empty at all. It's just full of dark things and dark forces that we don't understand yet. 

Dark Energy vs. Dark Matter: What's the Difference?

The Atacama Desert has a stark and beautiful landscape that mirrors the mysterious celestial objects that the ALMA observatory is investigating. This Chilean region is a quiet, peaceful place where flamingos swarm in salt fields while the sun rises over volcanoes in the distance. It's no wonder that the area is called the Valley of the Moon. It doesn't just appear to be a unique location — scientific evidence shows that the soil is so dry that it is comparable to Martian land. Here, in the world's driest desert, on the Chajnantor plateau, the ALMA observatory scans the sky to learn about the universe. A Prime Location for Observing the Sky ALMA stands for Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, but the acronym also spells "alma," the Spanish word for soul. An international consortium of countries built the observatory, which includes 66 antennae that make up 6,492 square meters of total surface area of radio wave data collection, according to ALMA's website. Several geological factors make Atacama the perfect place to observe the universe:   Lack of humidity. With no clouds or moisture to get in the way, Atacama has some of the world's clearest skies, according to Space.com.  High altitude. At an altitude of 16,570 feet above sea level, ALMA is one of the highest instruments on Earth. It's located so high that there is minimal light distortion from the atmosphere.  Minimal light pollution and interference. The region is not overly developed, which helps astronomers observe space without any interference from other electronics or infrastructure such as city lights.  Exceptional Capabilities The desert skies are so clear and the antennas are so powerful that the images obtained at ALMA are 10 times more detailed than the Hubble Space Telescope images, according to the ALMA website. The atmospheric conditions are ideal for transparency and stability at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. Space.com says ALMA is the world's most powerful observatory for studying the universe at these wavelengths. ALMA's capabilities are world-renowned, but it's not a place where tourists can go peer through a telescope to see the stars. The instruments at ALMA observe long waves of invisible light, a portion of electromagnetic spectrum that reveals the dark universe. Interestingly, the region's indigenous people were observing dark space long before the observatory was built. According to ALMA's website, while some cultures looked at the stars that formed constellations, Andean cultures looked at the dark shapes between constellations, just like the dark universe that ALMA is currently investigating with the most powerful telescopes. Between the Stars The cold universe isn't picked up by optic telescopes, but ALMA's telescopes are designed for the specific purpose of viewing that mysterious portion of the universe. This helps scientists observe ancient, distant planets and stars that could help us understand how these celestial objects are formed. The location also has the perspective of the southern sky, which includes the center of the Magellanic Clouds and the center of the Milky Way. ALMA's high resolution enables scientists to find clues about the universe, such as a 2018 report in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Scientists detected cloudlets surrounding Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It's usually difficult for scientists to observe these longer waves in the electromagnetic spectrum because water vapor in Earth's atmosphere absorbs these waves, but that's not an issue in ALMA's dry, high location. According to the New York Times, 70 percent of the world's professional astronomy observatories are located in Chile, mostly in Atacama. ALMA has an array of the most powerful telescopes in the best possible location.

ALMA Observatory: The Most Powerful Telescopes in an Ideal Location

It's been more than 45 years since the last U.S. astronaut left the moon. And while NASA is finally making plans to send humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars, the technology we'll use to get us there promises to be much different from the approaches we've used up until now. In-space manufacturing and assembly technology, for example, could help reduce the high costs and complexity associated with traditional launch systems, two factors that have hampered the quest for space colonization. "Manufacturing and assembling systems in space allows us to think about fundamentally new ways to design, launch, deploy and even repair space systems on orbit," says Howard Eller, an Advanced Missions Tech Fellow with Northrop Grumman. "Instead of producing a satellite on Earth and figuring out how to fold it up and launch it on top of a large rocket, we could produce large structural elements in space, launch payloads separately on smaller rockets, then integrate the payloads with the structure in space." Since much of the satellite's structure would be produced in space and thus not affected by the force of gravity, he adds, it could be designed with simpler, less costly, less rigid materials while not sacrificing its on-orbit performance. Another way to reduce launch costs would be to launch a satellite in discrete pieces packed compactly inside a rocket fairing, then use 3D printing processes and robots to perform final assembly on orbit. Tipping to the Future Both of these visions will require maturation of manufacturing and assembly systems for space environments. Through its "Tipping Point Technologies" program, NASA has selected nine companies, including Made in Space (MIS), Moffett Field, Calif., to mature technologies required to stimulate the commercial space industry and enable capabilities needed for future NASA missions. Northrop Grumman is a member of the MIS-led team, which is developing the Versatile In-Space Robotic Precision Manufacturing and Assembly System, aka Archinaut. The team is driving toward a ground demonstration of this robotic 3-D manufacturing system in a simulated space environment in summer 2018. The team hopes Archinaut will be selected by NASA for a future in-space flight demonstration. To date, MIS has demonstrated the ability to 3D print simple, one-material parts at its Additive Manufacturing Facility inside the International Space Station. The company is printing parts using a variety of materials including PEI/PC (polyetherimide/polycarbonate), a high performance polymer; ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic; and green polyethylene. Building Stuff Outside The long game, of course, is to produce complex, multi-material objects "outside," in the harsh environment of space. Initially, systems such as Archinaut will focus on manufacturing structures such as reflectors, antennae, trusses and booms — objects that can be extruded into objects of any desired length using 3D printing, then assembled and integrated by robots into large space structures. Eventually, this production process will include additional types of materials such as conductors (metals) and insulators, which would make it possible, for example, to produce structures with any required power circuitry integrated directly into the structure. For its part, Northrop Grumman is helping MIS develop space-compatible 3D printing materials that can perform well and withstand the extreme temperatures and radiation levels of space. "The end goal is to be able to fabricate parts with a polymer material that is light, strong, dense and stable under extreme temperature conditions," says Eric Fodran, a materials specialist with Northrop Grumman. "Most importantly, the material has to be conductive, to ensure that it won't build up static electricity that could discharge and damage satellite electronics." Resupply Redefined "In-space manufacturing could create a new 'on-demand' paradigm for repairing or providing new equipment for orbiting or deep space platforms," said Lauren Smith, a Northrop Grumman program manager for applied research. "Instead of bringing to space redundant spares of components or equipment that might be needed over time," she explains, "astronauts could simply 'order' new parts from Earth as needed. The appropriate print file would be 'beamed up' to a 3D printer in space, where astronauts could make the needed repairs." Raw materials will still have to be ferried to space using conventional launch systems. This approach promises to be less costly and logistically simpler, however, than producing structures on Earth and delivering them to space. In coming years, adds Smith, the aerospace industry will be debating how and under what circumstances this type of manufacturing would benefit space missions. "On-orbit, on-demand production of components is viewed as helpful," she says. "In-space printing of satellites and large structures, however, is a fundamentally new mission architecture; we need to understand how this approach is better, faster, or cheaper than what we're doing today." Recycle, Reuse, Reinvent Regardless of advances made in in-space manufacturing, there will likely remain categories of parts and equipment — processors, traveling wave tubes, high performance microelectronic chips — that are simply too hard to make in space. Those parts, payloads or processing modules will still have to be delivered to space by rockets, then plugged into their respective systems. According to Eller, one way to reduce launch costs over time and facilitate in-space production of more complex items would be to scavenge all of the required raw materials from the space environment itself. "There is a wealth of orbiting space junk – dead satellites — that we believe could be recycled and used as raw material for in-space manufacturing," he says. A recycling system he envisions would use robotic arms to capture and place dead satellites in a large crucible. The crucible, which would be made of a material with an extremely high melting temperature, would be heated by a large solar concentrator. "Satellites contain a variety of rare materials, each with its own unique melting temperature," explains Eller. "We could selectively melt and capture all of the material of type A, heat it more to melt and capture material of type B and so on." This recycling process would create ingots of raw material with varying degrees of purity, each stored in its own compartment. In theory, this material could be processed and made available for future operations. The Price of Progress Even if we could get to a point where a complete satellite system could be produced in space, said Eller, there could be subtle and unintended consequences. "When we produce satellites on Earth, we obtain parts from many suppliers, each of whom has perfected the recipe for making those part(s) with high reliability," he says. "When we manufacture in space, we might lose that collective wealth of engineering and manufacturing know-how. So we either have to replicate the original level of expertise — a big challenge — or we have to do without it." Either way, he believes, the future of in-space manufacturing and assembly systems is full of promise, excitement and yet-to-be-invented technologies. "It's hard to know which aspects of how we use space are going to change," says Eller. "There is a growing consensus that manufacturing in space is something that will make things completely different." Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

In-Space Manufacturing and Assembly: A Different Kind of Future

Additive manufacturing, also called 3D printing, is an integral aspect of advanced manufacturing, and it keeps getting better with advanced materials. Advanced materials are like high-tech cloth, woven together with multiple chemicals and other properties, which are often stronger, lighter, more heat resistant, or in some other way better suited to certain jobs. One of the latest breakthroughs in this area is ESD PEKK with discontinuous carbon fibers, which is leading to exciting advancements in aircraft and spacecraft design. What Makes It So Special ESD PEKK stands for electrostatic dissipative (ESD) PolyEtherEtherKetone. That's a long name that means it is a plastic with carbon fiber in it. But this isn't just any composite material: It is a high-performance thermoplastic. "It makes aircraft cheaper, lighter weight and faster to build," said Eric Barnes, Northrop Grumman fellow in additive manufacturing and engineering. Northrop Grumman developed ESD PEKK in partnership with NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The process works just like many other additive manufacturing processes. A powder material is put into a vat, and then a laser heats the material to melt it at precise locations. The process is repeated layer by layer to build the required part. "One of the benefits as compared to other high-performance thermoplastic is it's relatively easy to process," said Barnes. "It brings a lot of really good performance properties to our applications." Unlike other 3D printing materials, ESD PEKK has properties that meet Federal Aviation Administration requirements for crewed aircraft. This means that more aircraft manufacturing can benefit from the perks of 3D printing, such as rapid prototyping, customization and portability. The performance properties of this material include:   High thermal stability — the material will stay stable, with minimal change, up to high temperatures.  Outstanding chemical resistance — the material won't be affected by chemicals, solvents and liquids as some polymers are.  Low fire and smoke toxicity  Excellent mechanical properties over a wide range of temperatures  Little susceptibility to gamma radiation and thermal cycling in space — the material is only slightly affected by radiation. (Most polymers can't handle gamma radiation at all; they break down.)  Doesn't outgas in a vacuum space environment — outgassing is an issue that makes other materials unsuitable for space.  Regarding outgassing, Barnes explained, "When you put material in a vacuum in space, especially polymers, some of the molecules can come off and float around." He added, "Eventually they attach to something and create a film." According to Barnes, in a recent experiment with America Makes and NASA, engineers saw that ESD PEKK lasted even under the most extreme radiation and temperature conditions. "It survived unique space environments with gamma radiation, outgassing and thermal cycling [requirements] that most polymers do not meet," Barnes said. "Most polymers are not able to be used in space because of those requirements, or those conditions." Advanced Manufacturing Previously, manufacturers could only use less capable polymers for additive manufacturing. Those materials don't meet safety standards for crewed aircraft because they give off toxic chemicals when exposed to fire, and they don't have ESD capability. The new material incorporates carbon fiber into the powder. This helps prevent the static discharge buildup that can occur on an aircraft. Just like the little sparks that can happen when you shuffle your socks across a rug, you can get static buildup on an airplane. This is a common problem in the environmental control system ducting of an airplane, Barnes said. "You want it to go somewhere to prevent it, so we incorporate carbon fiber," he explained. ESD PEKK solves several problems in aerospace manufacturing. Because it's approved for manned aircraft, it allows new types of aircraft to benefit from additive manufacturing. These benefits include the ability to make unique designs tailored to the requirements. For example, when an aircraft is in production and you need to make changes, it's normally a huge disruption to the schedule. Additive manufacturing doesn't require tooling, so the whole process is faster and easier. This manufacturing process also saves weight, which is a huge benefit for aircraft and satellites. A component that used to be made of several parts can now be printed as one single unit. It can also save volume, which is limited in places such as a fighter aircraft, where space is premium and electronics take up all the room. "We have the potential to design all these subsystems, such as ducting and heat exchangers, to fit volumetrically, like a jigsaw puzzle," Barnes said, "Because you can tailor all these shapes to fit like a jigsaw puzzle, you can fit more stuff in an airplane belly or fuselage." Rapid Prototyping for Aerospace Applications This material will also give engineers more flexibility during the design process because they can iterate the best solutions. "It gives us creative freedom without worrying about the cost or time penalties," Barnes said. He explained that ESD PEKK can be used in many aerospace applications; in addition to its potential use in ducting as mentioned above, it can also be used to manufacture access covers and brackets. "Tooling is a huge driver in the schedule of aircraft fabrication," said Barnes. "It typically takes at least six months to get most tools in place. We can often get them done in a week now." Additive manufacturing has already done so much to transform many industries. Now, materials engineers are continuing the evolution by developing new materials to expand 3D printing's capabilities.

ESD PEKK: Engineered Material for Aerospace Manufacturing

May 4th — also known as Star Wars Day — is just around the corner. It's a day for fans everywhere to make that "May the Fourth be with you" joke without shame. It also offers a great opportunity to break down some of the most interesting technologies from the Star Wars universe. With the franchise's newest iteration "Solo" headed to theaters on Memorial Day weekend, it's worth taking a look at the fictional universe's most popular ship and answering the question everyone eventually asks: Could the Millennium Falcon really fly? Faster Than Light? One of the fastest ships in the galaxy, the Millennium Falcon flies at a faster-than-light drive, known in Star Wars as hyperdrive. As noted by Space.com, hyperdrives use "hypermatter particles," which let spacecraft enter an alternate dimension, known as hyperspace, and exceed the speed of light. Hyperdrive unfortunately doesn't exist yet. Current science hasn't found a solution to several critical problems. As you approach the speed of light, the amount of mass needed trends toward infinite, along with the amount of energy needed to move the Falcon. Ignition energy is also problematic. Space.com points out that starting the Millennium Falcon would require mass-energy on par "with the total mass-energy of the planet Jupiter." Potential solutions — such as the Alcubierre drive — postulate ways to "bend" space-time and effectively push ships faster than light. But they also come with their own issues. Blueshifting of microwave background photons could kill everyone onboard without some type of shielding in place, and crashing into an object like an asteroid or planet could put a quick end to any Kessel runs, according to Space.com. Air on the Side of Caution Even if we skip the idea of faster-than-light space flight, could the Millennium Falcon really fly in a planet's atmosphere? It happens regularly during the movies — from Han rescuing Luke at the bottom of Cloud City to Rey jump-starting the defunct Falcon on Jakku. Once it's up and running, the ship maneuvers nimbly through the skies, but is this really possible? One theory is that the Falcon's computers and engines are powerful enough to enable it to force its way through the atmosphere, even though it shouldn't really fly. Business Insider, however, said that the clunky shape of the ship makes it less than optimal for non-space travel. It would likely be outrun by current fighter jets and lose its iconic radar dish at high speeds.  There's also the wing problem. While not all aircraft have wings, they're the go-to answer if you're looking to generate lift. The Falcon's design — a large, clunky circle — doesn't offer much in the way of air efficiency or maneuverability. While advanced engines might let the Falcon stay airborne, real-life technology combined with efficient wing design makes current craft more than a match in-atmosphere. Not the Ship You're Looking For? The Falcon isn't real, but Mic notes you could build and maintain it (minus the laser cannons and hyperdrive) for $2.5 billion. Still, with Star Wars day on the horizon, it's worth thinking about. Here's the bottom line: In the cold vacuum of space, some type of light-bending hyperdrive might give Solo's spacecraft the Kessel Run advantage. As a typical aircraft, however, its maneuverability and speed are outpaced by emerging Earth technologies.

Star Wars Day Trivia: Could the Millennium Falcon Really Fly?

Chinese scientists teleported a particle into Earth's orbit for the first time last year in an experiment that illustrated sci-fi technology in real life.    Teleportation has long been a sci-fi staple, from blockbusters like "X-Men" to popular TV series like "Star Trek." We're all familiar with the fictitious technology that can transport you from one place to another in a nanosecond. Well, this is no longer fantasy, but real-life teleportation using quantum entanglement is more likely to improve communication and national security than to be used for travel or space exploration. Real World Versus Science Fiction It's important to distinguish between teleportation as we know it in sci-fi entertainment and as the term is used in quantum physics.  As described by Popular Mechanics, teleportation — in the "Beam me up, Scotty" sense — involves breaking down an object (or a person) to a bunch of atoms, transferring that object's blueprint to another location and then rebuilding it with atoms in the new location.  In quantum mechanics, teleportation has a very different meaning. Jerome Luine, principal scientist and quantum sensing and metrology research lead at Northrop Grumman Next Basic Research, explained, "Quantum teleportation is the transfer of the quantum state of some quantum object (photon, atom, molecule, etc.) to another without alteration."       How to Teleport a Quantum Object       Scientists at University of Science and Technology, located in Shanghai, achieved quantum teleportation at a record distance by sending entangled photons from Tibet to the Micius satellite in orbit 870 miles above the Earth, according to Space.com.        The recent record-setting teleportation experiment relied on quantum entanglement, a phenomenon that Albert Einstein called "'spooky action at a distance,'" according to Science magazine.  When two quantum objects are entangled, they are connected so that if one is disturbed, the other will also immediately change, no matter how far apart they are from each other. Simply observing one of these particles will change its quantum state, therefore also changing the state of the other entangled particle, no matter the distance between them. Theoretically, even if they are light-years apart, if you observe one, it will immediately change the other, without any time delay, according to Popular Mechanics.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.         Implications of This Development       Will we ever learn how to teleport humans? "Not by quantum teleportation. Perhaps by some other completely different means," said Luine.   However, quantum technology could become the foundation of a super-secure communications network, and because simply observing a quantum object changes its properties, a quantum internet would be spy-proof.       "In the future, it is quite possible that certain types of information will be transferred via quantum networks," Luine said. "Teleportation will enable the transfer of quantum information in the form of quantum states from one place to another, thereby forming a quantum network. One advantage of a quantum network is that information can be transferred with absolute privacy. Messages cannot be intercepted and read by eavesdroppers." The Future of Quantum Teleportation According to Science, the Chinese researchers are taking next steps toward practical sci-fi technology in real life by developing a space-based quantum internet. They plan to send strings of entangled photons from Micius to base stations on Earth, creating quantum "keys" for secret communications. Any attempt at eavesdropping on the quantum network would be obvious.               

Quantum Entanglement and Teleportation Is Sci-Fi Technology in Real Life

 Saturn, with its glorious rings, is the most operatic of all the planets. So what could be more fitting than for the Cassini spaceship, after more than a decade of exploring Saturn, its moons and its rings, to go out with a final, spectacular swan dive into the clouds of Saturn? Every space mission must come to an end, including this 20-year mission to explore Saturn and its moons. The guidance system keeps the ship oriented so that its instruments can explore, while its radio antenna relays its findings back to Earth. But keeping the ship in position takes fuel — and Cassini's fuel supply is running out. Other interplanetary space missions have ended with the spacecraft drifting on into the depths of interstellar space. But Cassini is gravitationally bound to Saturn and would continue to orbit it indefinitely — or until the complex gravity field of Saturn and its dozens of moons perturbed its orbit so that it crashed into one of those moons.  Environmental Protection for Two Moons This is something that NASA was determined should never happen, not even centuries into the future. Which is the real reason for Cassini's swan dive into Saturn next month. In its years exploring Saturn's moons, Cassini found reason to suspect that two of Saturn's moons, Titan and Enceladus, may harbor "prebiotic" chemical activity, complex thermal reactions that produce the building blocks of life. Or, Titan or Enceladus might be home to full-blown living organisms and ecosystems. If there is even a chance of life, or almost-life, on these distant worlds, it is crucial to protect them against biological contamination originating from Earth. Cassini carried a robotic passenger, Huygens, that landed on Titan in 2005. While Huygens was especially sterilized for its landing mission, no one yet realized when the mission was first designed that the Cassini spacecraft might also become an eventual contamination threat. So microbes might have slipped aboard as stowaways. To present a risk, these stowaways would need to survive not only years in space but the bullet-speed impact of a collision. But one thing we have learned is that life is both fantastically delicate and fantastically rugged. So to ensure that Saturn's moons are protected from contamination, NASA mission commanders decided to plunge Cassini into Saturn itself. Destination: Saturn Saturn has no solid surface, so there is nothing to crash into but an atmosphere that grows denser as you descend. Due to Saturn's intense gravity, however, Cassini's final dive will reach a much higher speed than a collision with a mere moon. The ship will burn up in the atmosphere like a meteor, vaporizing any stowaway microbes so that Saturn is safe from contamination. Because the Cassini spaceship was not originally designed for this plunge, it will not be able to transmit data as far down into the atmosphere as the Galileo probe did when it took a pre-planned plunge into Jupiter in 1995. And the cameras will not record Cassini's final moments — they require too much bandwidth for real-time transmission of images. But other instruments aboard Cassini will send back a stream of data until atmospheric drag sends the ship into a final tumble before it burns up. What a gloriously operatic way to go!

Cassini Spaceship Ready For Its Final Swan Dive

Venus is in some ways the forbidden planet of our solar system. In size and mass, it is a near twin of Earth. Yet, it resembles the popular image of hell; its surface bakes at some 800 degrees Fahrenheit beneath a carbon dioxide atmosphere that's 90 times denser than Earth's with an endless rain of sulfuric acid. Space probes have survived there just long enough to send back images of Venus rocks scattered across a volcanic landscape. A Planet With a Past As Space.com reports, Venus may not always have been so hellish. Planetary scientists believe that conditions were much less extreme on early Venus. The dense greenhouse atmosphere with its blistering heat had not yet formed. While Venus, being closer to the sun, was always hotter than Earth, the sun itself was fainter in its early days. Thus, Venus may once have had liquid water — perhaps rivers and seas, possibly even life on its surface — before volcanic eruptions built up enough CO2 to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect and boil off any oceans it had. Indeed, according to National Geographic, recent tantalizing hints of the organic gas phosphine, high above the clouds, might even indicate that some form of life still hangs on there — all the more reason why scientists would love to know more about Venus's distant past. A Tough Place to Get To A lot of our questions could be answered if only we could obtain some Venus rocks for closer geological and chemical study. As Space.com notes, liquid water has distinctive chemical effects on rocks exposed to it, and these effects remain even after the water is long gone. The bad news is that bringing rocks back from Venus is so difficult that it's impractical with current space technology. A prospecting mission would not only have to recover Venus rocks from its hellish surface, but also launch itself back into space against Venus's gravity, which is nearly as strong as Earth's. The good news is that we might be able to find and examine Venus rocks without having to haul them back from Venus. Over the four and a half billion years since the solar system formed, planets have been hit multiple times by asteroids and comets. The most famous of these is the asteroid that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, but many others are known. These impacts blasted giant craters on the planets they hit, and some of the material was blasted out so fast that it escaped into space, going into orbit around the sun. In turn, some bits of this material eventually fell as meteorites on other planets. We know this because some of this debris landed on Earth, including a piece of Mars rock that ended up in Africa. Looking for Venus on the Moon If bits of Mars could fall onto Earth, so could bits of Venus. But searching for interplanetary debris such as stray Venus rocks on Earth has its challenges. While we got lucky with the Mars meteorite, Earth is not a good museum for preserving space fragments. Earth's active geology grinds down rocks with wind and water erosion or buries them under deep layers of sediment. A much better place to look might be Earth's nearest neighbor in space, the moon. Rocks on the moon have a much better prospect of surviving intact for millions or even billions of years than similar rocks on Earth. The heavily cratered lunar surface is a testament to a world that, since its formation, has not only been shaped primarily by space impacts but has also endured almost none of the same weathering forces that have "repaved" so much of Earth's surface. Thus, Venus rocks on the moon are much more likely to have survived intact. There is even a slight possibility that rocks collected by the Apollo astronauts already contain bits of Venus. But, in any case, future space missions will bring back additional lunar rocks for examination as we look to the moon to understand the second planet from the sun.

Venus Rocks! And Some May Have Ended Up on the Moon

If you were a geologist searching for evidence about the formation of Mars, you might think that you would have to travel to Mars to look for it. But some critical new Mars discoveries have come from an unexpected place — the Sahara Desert. The evidence, reported by Space.com, came in the form of a meteorite found in 2011 in Northwest Africa, appropriately named Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034. Dubbed "Black Beauty," the meteorite was at first taken for an ordinary earthly rock. It sat for months on one scientist's shelf before close examination showed that it was indeed a meteorite, according to Science.  Through Zircons, a Window Into Deep Time NWA 7034's chemical composition showed that it originated on Mars — yet it differed from other meteorites known to be of Martian origin, said Science.com.  A rock's composition and structure tell the story of its history; for NWA 7034, this means an extraordinary history stretching back 4.547 billion years to a time when, per Space.com, the entire solar system was only about 20 million years old. The meteorite contains crystals known as zircons, which contain naturally radioactive uranium and hafnium atoms. The gradual radioactive decay of these atoms allows precise measurement of the time that has passed since a zircon formed. This trait leads one researcher to describe a zircon, according to Space.com, as "'a small time capsule'" Analysis of seven zircons from NWA 7034 shows that they formed between 4.43 and 4.48 billion years ago; one zircon is the oldest piece of Mars measured so far. But measurement of hafnium in the zircons showed that it had been encased in solid rock for some 100 million years before cataclysmic ancient forces transformed the original rock and formed the zircons themselves, said Space.com. A Journey Through Space and Time The halfnium measurements show that Mars took form rapidly by cosmic standards. By the time the solar system was 20 million years old, the formation of Mars had already proceeded far enough to form a solid rocky crust — a necessary precondition for water vapor in the atmosphere to condense into oceans as the planet gradually cooled, according to Space.com. By comparison, the solidification of Earth's crust, noted Space.com, took about 130 million years longer. Mars may have had a substantial head start over Earth in forming oceans and, potentially, providing an environment in which life could emerge. We don't know when oceans actually formed on Mars — only that they did. We can still identify seabeds and riverbeds, all now cold and dry. The History of Mars and "Black Beauty" The early history of Mars had its share of dramatic events. According to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a probable enormous impact "repaved" much of the surface a hundred million years after it solidified — it was the forces of this impact that created the zircons in NWA 7034. The Lawrence Livermore account also noted that between 1.3 and 1.7 billion years ago, volcanic eruptions reshaped the surface from which NWA 7034 later came. Later still, according to Science, came another massive impact on Mars that knocked "Black Beauty" into space, where it finally collided with Earth and ended up in the Sahara Desert a few thousand years ago. Meanwhile, reported Space.com, Mars lost its oceans, beginning some 4 billion years ago when its planetary magnetic field weakened to the point where it could no longer protect the Martian atmosphere from solar radiation storms. Mars became cold and dry. But all of the water was not lost. As National Geographic noted, other recent Mars discoveries suggest that at least one underground lake still exists on Mars. And where there is liquid water, there might be life.

Africa Yields Clues to the Formation of Mars

One of the greatest challenges with designing solid rockets and control systems for missiles and space launch vehicles is protecting the hardware and payloads from the intense heat and high pressures generated by burning solid propellant. Flame temperatures can range from 2000 — 6000 degrees Fahrenheit and motor operating pressures can be thousands of pounds per square inch. In this extreme environment, the material used to insulate key components of rocket propulsion control systems begins to erode, decompose or change states, often within tens of seconds. Without insulation, these components can rapidly overheat and fail structurally, limiting a rocket's performance and operational range. Cool Under Pressure Enter Tim Dominick, senior principal engineer for propulsion, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. Since 2013, he's been leading the company's efforts to develop a new type of thermal insulator that remains stable and effective in high-temperature, high-pressure environments. Known as JT-700, the new insulator is a carbon-fiber-reinforced silicon carbide material. It is part of a class of materials known as ceramic matrix composites (CMC). JT-700 promises to improve the performance and extend the mission duration of solid propulsion control systems by an order of magnitude. "With JT-700, we can meet our customers' desire for increasingly compact, high-performance rockets that can fly for extended periods of time," said Dominick, who received AIAA's coveted 2019 Engineer of the Year award for his leadership of the JT-700 effort. High Strength, Low Conductivity JT-700, Dominick explains, is an aerospace technology called a structural insulator; it performs well as a thermal insulator (i.e., low in heat conductivity), yet is strong enough to serve as a load-bearing part of a structure. "Carbon-fiber reinforced silicon carbide CMCs have been around for about 25 years, but they've exhibited both high strength and high heat conductivity," said Dominick. "We've figured out a way to make JT-700 in a way that retains its strength while driving down its conductivity." Fabricating the Future Northrop Grumman is using JT-700 to fabricate complete nozzles for rocket propulsion control systems, he adds. Each nozzle is machined from a single block of JT-700 CMC material, which simplifies the nozzle assembly process. In the past, these parts were produced from refractory (high-temperature) metals to which phenolic insulation had been bonded. During rocket flight, explain NASA scientists, combustion of a rocket's solid propellant produces large amounts of gas at high temperature and high pressure. This exhaust gas flows through the rocket motor's nozzles, creating thrust. A propulsion control system "steers" the rocket by diverting exhaust gas selectively through each nozzle for discrete periods of time. To date, reports Dominick, Northrop Grumman has validated the JT-700 technology in both laboratory and prototype tests as a zero-erosion, low conductivity nozzle material suitable for use in solid propulsion control systems. High-Flying Possibilities Dominick believes that JT-700's insulating and structural properties also lend themselves potentially to another high-temperature, high-pressure defense application called hypersonic weapons. The Economist describes hypersonic weapons as "those that can travel more than five times the speed of sound, or about one mile (1.6km) per second." Hypersonic boost-glide weapons are so named because they are launched into the upper atmosphere atop ballistic missiles, then release hypersonic glide vehicles to carry a weapon to its target. According to Arun Bhattacharya, Ph.D., a senior engineer and subject matter expert in hypersonic structures and high temperature materials for Northrop Grumman, the company is exploring the possible use of JT-700 in this application. "Hypersonic air and space vehicles experience extremely high temperatures and high rates of heating during flight," he said. "This extreme environment demands that we select materials that can best meet the critical temperature, structural and weight requirements of these evolving air and space missions." Higher Temps, Higher Efficiency The commercial aircraft industry could also benefit potentially from JT-700, Dominick believes. "In a jet aircraft, a lot of incoming air is diverted and used for cooling metal parts in the engine," he explains. "Those metal parts can't survive at higher operating temperatures, which artificially limits the engines to a combustion temperature less than the service temperature of those parts." By replacing key metal turbine parts with a structural insulator such as JT-700, Dominick proposes, the need to cool those metal parts with "bleed air" could be eliminated. These "new" turbines would be able to operate at much higher temperatures, which would allow them to operate more efficiently and burn less fuel, an important economic consideration for any airline fleet. A Very Cool Future Although JT-700 has not entered production, it is an aerospace technology that promises to broaden, enhance and disrupt the material capabilities of the aerospace industry. Its arrival has not only inspired the development of other types of novel CMC materials, but also encouraged industry suppliers to enhance their CMC manufacturing capabilities to support the nation's most critical air and space missions.

Propulsion Control Systems Keep Their Cool With New Aerospace Technology

 Who is Barbara Cartland? A quick Google search turns up the obvious result: Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland (later honored as Dame Cartland) was one of the most prolific romance novel writers in history, with more than 700 published books. As noted by the New York Times, she regularly churned out 23 novels every year. No surprise, then, that she appeared more than once in the Guiness Book of Records as the world's best-selling author, and her works have been translated into 36 languages.  If that were the whole story, it would certainly be enough for literary enthusiasts and those curious about the sheer speed of potential prose production. But there's another side to Dame Cartland: She was a daredevil who pushed the high-society fad of glider planes to their limits — and shares at least some credit for the Allied victory on D-Day.  Curious? Here's the real story of the romance novelist-turned-innovator.    High Society  Born in July 1901 to Mary Hamilton Scobell and her husband Major Bertram "Bertie" Cartland of the British Army, Barbara Cartland began her life firmly in middle-class comfort. The death of her grandfather and father in short order, however, forced her mother to find a new home for the family and open her own business — a London dress shop — to cover expenses. Cartland's two younger brothers were killed in battle in 1940, while she gained success first as a society reporter and then as a romance novelist. Her work followed a consistent theme: innocent young virgins meeting handsome and entirely honorable men, getting married and enjoying chaste romantic encounters — Cartland herself was said to dislike physical contact and eschewed common vices such as smoking and drinking.  Despite the relatively tame nature of her subject matter, however, her novels remained risqué© for the time and were effectively pulp fiction, especially given the rate at which she churned them out — always dictated to aides, never written by hand or on a typewriter. And while her written work paved the way for financial success, she also earned popular acclaim for her sense of style and contributions as a welfare officer during World War II, eventually securing a place in the Order of the British Empire. Cartland died in May 2000 at the age of 98.  Taking Off  The description above paints a clear picture of Cartland: society woman facing the challenges of family hardship and creating a lucrative career that paved the way for a lasting role in British celebrity life. But there's another side to Barbara Cartland, one with her feet off the ground and her head in the clouds. She was a daredevil, obsessed with the high-society sport of gliding. As noted by io9, gliders became popular among the upper class during the 1920s and 1930s, and Cartland was an accomplished pilot. Gliders occupy an odd space in aeronautics: They're what you get when you take a plane and remove their ability to independently sustain flight. Instead, gliders are towed by powered aircraft and then let go for short-haul flights.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  But this wasn't enough for Cartland. She arranged for the first long-distance (200-mile) tow and, along with two Royal Air Force officers, designed the first aircraft-towed airmail delivery glider. During World War II, the Allies expanded on her idea, using powered aircraft to tow troop-carrying gliders near their destination and then cutting them loose. Skilled pilots were able to land these gliders with almost pinpoint accuracy, meaning units could quickly get to work rather than collecting members and equipment after parachute-based drops. In addition, troop gliders were virtually silent, making them difficult to detect in flight. Early success led to gliders as key troop transports during D-Day, and though Cartland wouldn't have said so herself, her contribution was considered critical to Allied success at Normandy. Today, a thriving tow-and-glider plane culture exists, informed in large part by Cartland's work in the early 1930s.  Dame Barbara Cartland doesn't seem like an innovator at first glance but, just like radio-guidance developer Hedy Lamarr, makes it clear that creativity is an unpredictable force — romance novelists and glider revolutionaries aren't so very far apart as one might initially think.

Barbara Cartland: Romance Novelist, Glider Revolutionary?

In 1763, a pair of surveyors named Mason and Dixon were hired to settle a boundary dispute between two territories that were then British colonies, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The geographical line they drew, the Mason-Dixon line, would go on to become the dividing line between the North and South of the United States.  But, as the American Physical Society (APS) reports, the survey effort by Mason and Dixon had another intriguing result. It inspired a search for the answer to the question, "How much does the universe weigh?"  Newton's Apple  Long before Mason and Dixon set to work, Sir Isaac Newton had demonstrated that gravity is a universal force, acting in the same way on both everyday objects and celestial bodies. Gravity not only caused an apple to fall from a tree (instead of just floating away), but also caused the moon to orbit the Earth instead of flying off through space.  Until Newton, early scientists weren't sure that the question, "How much does the universe weigh?" had any answer at all. Newton showed that it could be answered, at least in principle. But actually working out the answer was another matter.  Enter Henry Cavendish, a British physicist and chemist. Famously eccentric and notoriously shy, Cavendish was in his early 30s when Mason and Dixon did their survey work, and he saw a subtle complication. The region they were surveying included the Allegheny Mountains. According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, the enormous weight of the mountains should affect their survey instruments, perhaps throwing off their measurements.  This complication had no effect on the Mason-Dixon survey, which came out "good enough for government work." But the problem continued to irk Henry Cavendish. The issue, he realized, wasn't just how much mountains weighed, but how much the Earth itself weighed.  Weight or Mass?  Pause here for an important distinction. In everyday life here on Earth we think of weight and mass as the same thing. But as Wired points out, in physics they're quite different things. Mass is an inherent property of all material stuff, while weight is the effect that a gravitational field has on mass. If you take a ride to the International Space Station, once in orbit you'll be effectively weightless, able to float around, but your mass will be the same as it was on the ground.  When we ask how much the universe weighs, we are really asking what its mass is. But for convenience, we talk about "weighing" the universe, without worrying about how you would put it on a scale, even if you had one big enough.  Weighing the Earth  The challenge of weighing the Earth continued to nag at Cavendish for decades. In principle, Newton's laws provided a solution. If he could determine the gravitational pull of, say, a 100-pound weight, he could compare it to the gravitational pull of the Earth, and some complicated but straightforward math would give him the weight (or, strictly speaking, the mass) of the Earth.  The problem is that gravity is a remarkably weak force. A toy store magnet can lift an iron nail, overcoming Earth's gravity. The gravitational pull of any easily weighed object is so slight as to be exceedingly difficult to measure even with a precision apparatus. Certainly no apparatus available in the 18th century was up to the job.  So, in 1797, Cavendish set out to build his own ultra-precise measuring apparatus, called a torsion balance. In essence, this consisted of two small weights, set at each end of a horizontal bar suspended from a string at the midpoint, with two larger weights nearby. Left to rotate freely, the bar would rotate under the gravitational influence of the larger weights.  How Much Does the Universe Weigh?  After months of measurements, Cavendish was able to determine the gravitational forces acting within his torsion balance — and, by comparison to Earth's gravity, he was then able to calculate how much the Earth must weigh, and, from Earth's known size, the average density that must correspond to that weight. The Earth, he announced, was 5.48 times denser (and heavier) than an equal volume of water.  Modern scientists have refined that figure to 5.52 times denser than water, meaning that Cavendish was off by less than 1%.  From weighing the Earth to weighing the universe is a pretty big step, but Cavendish did the heaviest lifting. Once the weight (or mass) of the Earth is known, measurements of orbital distances and velocities provide a framework for calculating the mass of other celestial bodies. Or even estimating the combined mass of all celestial objects, thus answering how much the universe weighs.  Pretty nifty, huh? But in recent decades this has led to one result that might have startled even Henry Cavendish. When cosmologists use the gravitational method to determine how much the universe weighs, the answer comes out much higher than the estimated combined mass of everything we can see in the universe — all its galaxies, large and small, with their stars, gas and dust, and various bits and pieces.  Most of the mass — and therefore weight! — in the universe turns out to be in a form that we cannot see or detect at all, except by its gravitation. This is the mysterious dark matter you've probably heard about. What it is, no one yet knows.  Between them, Sir Isaac Newton and Henry Cavendish showed that the dark matter must be out there. But we're still waiting for a new experimental apparatus — and a new scientist — to show us exactly what it is. 

How Much Does the Universe Weigh?

For years, earthlings have wondered about the potential for life on Mars. Little did we know that clues about the Red Planet could actually be tied to what's here on our blue marble.  A recent discovery of organic matter on Mars led to the detection of a compound, thiophene, that is also native to Earth. Scientists have been studying the Martian compound to learn more about life there and to uncover any further connections with Earth.  It's just another breakthrough on a long list of space discoveries over the past half-century that give us a better understanding of our solar system, and how the 7.6 billion people of Earth fit in with the inestimable pieces of matter in the universe.  Clues That Offer Hints About Martian Life  While making observations on the surface of Mars in 2018, NASA's Curiosity rover found "tough" organic molecules in 3-billion-year-old mudstone — a fine-grained sedimentary rock — in the planet's Gale Crater. Mars' inhospitable surface couldn't sustain life today, but the data collected from the molecules showed that a water lake inside Gale Crater had the necessary ingredients for chemical building blocks and an energy source, enough to kick-start some form of life.  As NASA noted at the time of the rover's discovery, although organic molecules hold carbon and hydrogen — or oxygen, nitrogen and other elements — the molecules from the mudstone don't necessarily suggest there was ever life on the planet. Organic molecules can also be formed by non-biological processes, NASA added.  Still, a study of those observations back here on Earth has recently captured attention because of what's been found in the organic matter on Mars: the heterocyclic compound thiophene. (A heterocyclic compound has atoms of at least two different elements.) Astrobiologists Dirk Schulzeâ€‘Makuch of Washington State University and Jacob Heinz of Technische Université¤t in Berlin believe the presence of thiophenes could point to the presence of early life on Mars.  As they outlined this year in the peer-reviewed journal Astrobiology, Schulzeâ€‘Makuch and Heinz's study of the organic matter suggests that a biological process that probably involved bacteria might have played a hand in the compound's existence on Mars.  "We identified several biological pathways for thiophenes that seem more likely than chemical ones, but we still need proof," Schulzeâ€‘Makuch told the Insider of Washington State University. "If you find thiophenes on Earth, then you would think they are biological, but on Mars, of course, the bar to prove that has to be quite a bit higher."  Coal, crude oil and even white truffles that are found on Earth contain thiophenes. As the Insider notes, thiophene molecules hold four carbon atoms and a sulfur atom arranged in a ring. Although carbon and sulfur are bioâ€‘essential elements, Schulzeâ€‘Makuch and Heinz couldn't definitively rule out any nonâ€‘biological processes creating the compounds on Mars.  One such possibility is that a meteor crashing into Mars created a non-biological condition for the organic compound to develop. Another possibility is a process known as thermochemical sulfate reduction, in which a set of compounds is heated to 248 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.  Yet, the astrobiologists also don't preclude the idea that when Mars was warmer and wetter more than 3 billion years ago, the groundwork for a biological kind of sulfate reduction process could have formed thiophenes.  Opportunities for More Space Discoveries  Further studies of Mars will hopefully discover more elements of the planet that could reveal even more about what formed its landscape and what conditions unfolded to possibly create and sustain life there. And as the astrobiologists' study shows, there may be more connections between Earth and Mars. Still, scientists that they are, Schulzeâ€‘Makuch and Heinz urge holding back on speculation until Mars can be studied up close by humans.  "As Carl Sagan said 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,'" Schulzeâ€‘Makuch told the Insider. "I think the proof will really require that we actually send people there, and an astronaut looks through a microscope and sees a moving microbe." 

Organic Matter on Mars Could Point to Life Years Ago

A lost galaxy has been uncovered in a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In truth, the galaxy was never really lost — but it was buried in stardust. "Astronomy is and always will be a technology-limited science," says Jonathan Arenberg, Chief Engineer for Space Science Missions at Northrop Grumman. Arenberg explains that the new image was created using a combination of several sensors — notably, infrared sensors that can see through the dust that likely clouded earlier views of the galaxy. German-British astronomer William Herschel observed the galaxy, dubbed NGC 4535, in 1785, according to Sci-News.com. The galaxy is located in the Virgo Cluster, and when it's viewed through a small ground-based telescope, it looks fuzzy because the light is dispersed through the dust. In the 1950s, amateur astronomer and poet Leland S. Copeland observed the galaxy and named it "the lost galaxy," likely due to its hazy appearance. Getting to Know NGC 4535 The lost galaxy is one of the largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, which is located 50 million light-years from Earth. This distance across space-time means that, by the time we are able to observe it, we aren't seeing a current image. Rather, we're observing the galaxy's light as it was 50 million years ago. In the context of the history of the universe, this was just a few years after the dinosaurs died, Arenberg explains. "If somebody on that cluster could have seen Earth, they wouldn't have seen humans," he says. "That gives you an idea of how big and far apart things are." Atlas of the Universe points out that the Virgo Cluster has roughly 2,000 galaxies (many of which are dwarf galaxies) in a diameter of approximately 15 million light-years. In comparison, our Milky Way galaxy is in the Local Group, which contains 50 times the number of galaxies in a similar diameter. NGC 4535 is a barred spiral galaxy; it has a spiral structure that is similar to the Milky Way's but with a distinct bar throughout the center and arms stretching from the bar. Older Telescopes vs. Hubble Previous observations of the lost galaxy likely struggled to capture a clear picture because of several limitations with older telescopes, Arenberg says. First, ground-based telescopes have to look through Earth's atmosphere. Some larger ground-based observatories have additional sensors to make up for the atmospheric challenges, but Herschel and Copeland likely could only see visible light. Plus, Hubble is much bigger than the telescopes they would have used and can capture more light. Mostly, the difference is the technology. We can think of old telescopes as being like older cameras that use film. "They would have a thin film of photosensitive material such as silver salt, and when the light hit it, it would change the chemistry to create a negative," Arenberg says. Hubble, on the other hand, has a suite of charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which are like the array of sensors in a digital camera or smartphone. "As light falls on the sensor, it takes that light and turns it into a series of numbers that is a representation of an image," says Arenberg. The lost galaxy has a lot of dust, which is hard to see through because dust scatters light. The longer the wavelength, the less light scatters, so if the earlier astronomers were using a naked eye or film, the dust would have scattered the light from the galaxy, making it appear fuzzy or "lost." Hubble mostly observes visible light, but it also has some capability in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This allows astronomers to lay data from different wavelengths on top of each other to create a picture of the barred spiral galaxy. "Infrared essentially peels away the dust," he says. "And the Webb Telescope will do that in spades because it is designed to primarily work in the infrared range." A Note About Color The breathtaking image of NGC 4535 was created with scientific data and a bit of artistic license. Hubble doesn't actually take color photos, as NASA points out. Instead, it uses several different filters to observe objects in space and represents the intensity of light in different numbers. Humans can only see colors in visible light, which is a relatively tiny portion of the spectrum. Our eyes can't see light in X-rays or infrared, so astronomers choose colors that we can see to represent the images in ways that our eyes and brains can process and appreciate. For example, in the image of the lost galaxy, the yellower stars represent the older, cooler stars that are clustered at the center of the galaxy, as Live Science reports. Meanwhile, the bright blue stars represent the younger, hotter stars in the galaxy's arms. Future Observations and the Importance of Dust When Webb launches later in 2021, it will be approximately 100 times more powerful than Hubble, with an emphasis on using infrared sensors to observe early galaxies. "If Webb were to look at the same galaxy, we would have a crisper view of the stars and the arms of the galaxy," Arenberg says. "The dust halo that we see now would be diminished." While Webb is Hubble's successor, it isn't meant to be its replacement. Instead, both telescopes could be used in tandem, with Hubble focusing on the visible light and Webb focusing on infrared. "They are fundamentally different kinds of instruments, but operating together, they provide much more powerful insight than either one of them operating alone," Arenberg explains. Dust can get in the way and cloud our views of planets and stars in galaxies such as NGC 4535. But understanding the physics and science of space dust is crucial to our understanding of the universe, so we don't want to ignore it. The elements that make up our very existence come from dust moving in space, pushing around heavier elements. "The planet that we live on and the atoms that make up our bodies are manufactured as a result of the evolving universe, and they got to this planet — they got to our ancestors and into us because of dust transport," Arenberg explains. In order to make the best observations of objects in the universe, we need to use several different tools to view space. Ideally, we would look at the lost galaxy with every band of the electromagnetic spectrum — from high-energy, short-wavelength gamma rays to low-energy long-wavelength radio waves and everything in between. In order to observe and understand the universe and how it evolves, we need observations from every part of the spectrum. The recently released image of NGC 4535 emphasizes this point, demonstrating why we need so many different tools — Hubble, Webb and ground telescopes alike — to collect data from the universe at different wavelengths and energies. "There is not one perfect wavelength that will unlock the secrets of the universe," says Arenberg. Hubble's Eventual Descent More than three decades after it launched, the Hubble space telescope continues to provide valuable data for scientists to study and stunning images that inspire amateurs and experts alike. Eventually, NASA will need to retire Hubble and safely remove it from orbit. Arenberg explains that Hubble is located in a low Earth orbit, not entirely out of our atmosphere. "It bumps into the occasional molecule and suffers drag," he says. Plus, it is large enough that it probably wouldn't burn up in the atmosphere the way smaller objects do, and we wouldn't want it to fall without control. Someday, scientists will guide it to safely return home. Until then, we can look forward to continued observations, soon with the added boost of Webb's infrared eyes toward even more distant galaxies. Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

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