Can we re-purpose space assets?

Express-AM4: Total loss or a new purpose?

Paul D. Spudis
The Once and Future Moon
Smithsonian Air & Space
 

The Russians launched a communications satellite, the Astrium Express-AM4, in August 2011.  After a failure in its Proton launch vehicle (resulting in loss of contact and control), it was presumed lost.  However, it survived and is trapped in a high-inclination orbit – a 20,000 by 650 km elliptical orbit (inclined 52° from the equator).  Forcing it to operational geosynchronous (GEO) orbit would take most of its fuel, leaving the satellite with a very limited useful lifetime.  The satellite was insured and payment has been collected on the mishap of the launch but the Russians have yet to decide on what to do with this wayward satellite circling Earth in the “wrong” orbit.  Recently they indicated that there is enough fuel to conduct a controlled re-entry and descent, guiding the satellite to a safe, watery grave somewhere in one of the Earth’s oceans.

Must this be the fate of a newly orbiting space asset?  True, it is in the wrong orbit for its original use as a commercial communications satellite, originally headed for 36,000 km above Earth to GEO, but what if instead it were repurposed?  A company called Polar Broadband has an interesting idea about turning this mishap around and using it for a good purpose.  Though not for its original users, they see a way to use this communication satellite for an assignment it is now suited to do.*  Polar Broadband envisions moving this satellite into an elongate orbit with a 24-hour period and apogee (high point) over its southern extreme (52° S) because a satellite in such an orbit can do service as a communications resource for Antarctica.

Antarctica!?  It’s a remote barren landscape!  True it is remote, but the population of this lonely continent swells greatly during southern summer when hundreds of scientists descend down under to conduct a wide variety of scientific studies.  Although there are a few central bases (like McMurdo), communications with teams in the field can be spotty and unreliable.  If this satellite could be positioned into a new orbit, it would appear in the sky for about 16 hours each day, allowing predictable, reliable communications from a variety of locations in Antarctica, including the difficult to access Amundsen-Scott South Polar Station.

An attempt to repurpose this satellite hardware appears to be a win-win for everybody.  The National Science Foundation gets a new satellite asset for safe and productive communications with and operations in the Antarctic, Polar Broadband gets to sell this service to the NSF, and by giving a green light to this endeavor, the Russians will have benefited the international scientific community.  There are no guarantees but the possibility for these rewards make the attempt worthwhile.

Two of the original 5-vehicle swarm having completed the THEMIS mission were re-purposed to become ARTEMIS, exploring the solar-terrestrial and lunar electro-magnetic plasma environment, arriving in lunar orbit after a long, low energy transfer maneuver by way of LaGrange points in 2011. Now these robust spacecraft are part of an American team totaling five unmanned probes now in orbit around the Moon [NASA].

This experiment also holds relevance for future lunar exploration.  What is being proposed for Express-AM4 is to create a reliable satellite  system so that a distant base can communicate with its mission control for science and operations.  Building and operating a working outpost at one of the lunar poles will require high bandwidth communication to remotely control robotic assets and return volumes of scientific and engineering data to Earth.  Acquiring and gaining operational experience with polar communications is a good analog to doing so around the Moon, where we will require similar communications relays with long dwell times over the poles for access to polar spacecraft and robotic vehicles.

The Russians have said that the satellite has suffered extensive radiation damage as a result of its continued passage through the Van Allen radiation belts.  But in its new guise, the satellite would receive far less radiation exposure than it would by going to GEO.  Put to new use, this “lost” satellite could provide vital communications to and between scientific expeditions and assets in Antarctica and provide us with experience relevant to future operations on the Moon.  A wayward communications satellite has presented us with an unexpected and rich opportunity.

Originally published March 19, 2012 at his Smithsonian Air & Space blogThe Once and Future Moon, Dr. Spudis is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are better informed than average.

*Update: Controllers deorbited Astrium Express AM4 on Sunday, March 25, despite the last-minute bid to salvage the spacecraft.

NASA to upgrade “space internet” by 2018

John Brownlee
Geek.com

In space, no one can hear you Tweet.

Well, that’s not entirely true, but what is true is space Internet is a strange hodgepodge of communication systems, and collectively it all largely sucks. A new plan by NASA, however, will result in the agency consolidating its Space Network, Near Earth Network and Deep Space Network into one unified system… and hopefully, this will lead to vastly improved Internet access for astronauts.

The problem is that right now, NASA has no unified communication infrastructure. Each mission the agency puts together is uniquely put together, and communication equipment widely varies. This equipment consequently proves difficult to upgrade, leaving wide discrepancies in performance: the International Space Station, for example, gets sub-dial-up rates, while the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter can suck up over 450GB a day.

NASA’s aiming to fix this by appointing Badri Younes as deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation, who will overhaul, consolidate and standardize all of NASA’s disparate communications system by 2018.

Read the post, HERE.

Long Distance calling, LRO on the Line

ScienceDaily

Communicating across great distances has always been a challenge. So when NASA engineers designed the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), they knew it would need an extraordinary communications system.

Over the next year, the LRO, NASA's diligent robotic scout, will collect more information about the moon's surface and environment than any previous mission. It takes a powerful system to send all of this information more than 238,800 miles back to Earth.

A 13-inch-long tube, called a Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier, is making it possible for scientists to receive massive amounts of images and data from the orbiter at an unusually fast rate. It is the first high data rate K-band transmitter to fly on a NASA spacecraft.

With this new amplifier, LRO can transmit 461 gigabytes of data per day. That's more information than you can find in a four-story library. And it transmits this information at a rate of up to 100 megabytes per second. By comparison, typical high-speed internet service provides about 1 to 3 megabytes per second.

L-3 Communications Electron Technologies built the amplifier under the supervision of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The device uses electrodes in a vacuum tube to amplify microwave signals to high power. It's ideal for sending large amounts of data over a long distance because it provides more power and more efficiency than its alternative, the transistor amplifier.

As the orbiter collects information about the moon's geography, climate and environment, the communication system transmits this information to a receiver at a Ka band antenna network at White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. Scientists are using the data to compile high-resolution, 3D maps of the lunar surface.

Read the article HERE.

Space Weather: What it is and why it matters

Communications Technology

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting a mild solar storm season for the next 11-year solar cycle. (For the initial announcement, click here.) But what does that mean, and why do we care?

What it is

To simplify, space weather is electromagnetic stuff happening in space - usually involving the sun - that can affect us here on Earth. That can include such things as solar flares, solar storms, coronal mass ejections and solar wind. These can affect satellites, power grids and radio propagation.

"This whole concept of space weather is kind of an interesting one," said Ron Hranac, a technical leader at Cisco and CT's senior technology editor. "The sun can do a lot of good stuff for us ... but it can also do some interesting and some nasty things, like spit out huge storms that can have a pretty severe impact on things here on Earth, including the climate and technology."

As an aside, sun transit outages, sometimes mistakenly called "sunspot outages," are not space weather and have nothing to do with sunspots. Sun transit outages interfere with signals from geostationary satellites around the spring and fall equinoxes because of geometry. During the equinoxes, the orbits of the sun, Earth and geostationary satellites align such that a receive antenna on the Earth can't "see" the satellite because the sun is directly behind it.
What it can do

Of primary interest in telecommunications is space weather's effect on satellites and power grids.

"What happens in a space weather storm is, yes, there's a risk to satellites; yes, there can be interference at discrete frequencies; and there can be problems induced in the (power) transmission lines, which saturates the core of the transformers at the power stations, which then can make its way to the distribution network," said Doug Biesecker, a scientist with the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

Biesecker said geostationary satellites, via which many cable operators receive programming, are subject to RFI from the sun and that severe space weather can take out a transponder or entire satellite. He cites the following example.

"Telstar 401 in 1997, space weather, it was gone for good," he said. "Yeah, there are instances of satellites completely killed by space weather."

Losing the bird leads to a scramble to re-establish the programming it formerly carried, Hranac said.

"If a satellite gets damaged - permanently damaged - by a solar event," he said, "then the cable companies that are carrying those program services they are receiving by satellite would then have to point the satellite dish to another satellite that is operating in a backup capacity."

Power grids and railroad tracks, both essentially being very long conductors, are also at risk. A big solar flare in 1989 caused power outages in Canada that affected about 6 million people.

"There are surge currents, if you will, induced in those long conductors - railroad tracks, cross-country high-voltage transmission lines, and things like that," Hranac said. "These surges can, if they're severe enough, damage electrical equipment - transformers, substations, and other things. It essentially overloads this stuff, and it gets some pretty substantial surge damage."

What to do

Luckily, space weather events affecting satellites and power grids are rare. Because the sun is a sphere, relatively few solar events face the Earth, so most dissipate out into space. Still, it's wise to be prepared, Hranac said. Know the backup transponders and satellites for your programming and whether your dishes have a clear line of sight to them.

"There probably should be some kind of Plan B in place at the system level, or certainly at the corporate level of a cable operator," he said. "What are you going to tell your systems to do if the satellite carrying HBO goes out because of a solar flare? It may be one of those low priority things, but discuss it. Put together a Plan B; just be aware of it. Say, 'This happens, and this is what you do. This is who you call, here are the numbers, this is the information.'"

To learn more about space weather, check out the Web sites for the Space Weather Center and the National Weather Service Space Weather Prediction Center. *

- Ron Hendrickson
*Don't forget Spaceweather.com!

NASA wants a for-profit network to support lunar missions

By James Oberg

IEEE Spectrum

Lead engineer Rob Kelso says NASA has already begun discussions with satellite communications industry experts to figure out the bandwidth and system architecture requirements needed for such a network. However, at this point, NASA is focused on the business structure of the network and finding “a mutually acceptable approach to balancing investment, commitment, and risk,” says Kelso.

NASA could take a number of paths toward a commercial moon network, but according to Kelso the agency is leaning toward using satellite communications firm Intelsat as a model. With its fleet of more than 50 orbiters, Intelsat is now the largest commercial satellite operator in the world. The company began as an intergovernmental organization serving its member nations and was privatized in 2001. The U.S. government would be a major stockholder in the new lunar-network company, and the corporation would choose and develop the technology to serve its customers.

Read the story HERE.

Upper Ionosphere lower than expected-USAF

At AGU meeting, Air Force satellite data reveals upper Ionosphere layer lower than expected. Relation to Solar Minimum likely.

Currently, the ionosphere - a layer of charged particles that envelopes the planet - is at an altitude of about 420km, some 200km lower than expected.

The C/NOFS (Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System) was launched back in April and put into an elliptical equatorial orbit at altitudes between 400 and 860km to investigate this enigmatic layer.

Its sensors record the density and temperature of the plasma, as well as the strength and direction of electric and magnetic fields within it.

One of C/NOFS' first discoveries has been simply to identify where precisely in the sky the ionosphere is right now; and it is a lot lower than expected.

During the night it has been detected at about 420km, rising to 800km during the day. Scientists here at the American Geophysical Union meeting said more typical values would be 640km during night-time and about 960km during the day.

To some extent, this should not be too surprising. The ionosphere reacts to the Sun's 11-year cycle of activity and our star is currently in a very quiet phase.

More from BBC Science HERE.

Lidar For Lunar Landers Tested

By Graham Warwick/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

An experimental laser sensor has been flight-tested at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California as part of the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) program aimed at future robotic lunar missions.

The light detection and ranging (lidar) sensor is designed to recognize the landing site during final descent, detect hazards such as craters or boulders and direct the lander to a safer touchdown spot. For the tests at Dryden, a helicopter flew repeated tracks over two target areas on the dry lakebed, at altitudes increasing from 300 feet to 6,200 feet, while the nose-mounted gimbaled lidar focused on plywood circles simulating surface hazards. Data was collected for post-flight processing.

ALHAT is a five-year program to develop a system providing 100-meter landing accuracy in all lighting conditions. Precision landings will enable the assembly of a lunar outpost from modular payloads landed in close proximity.

Quantum Entanglement for Space Experiments

NewScientist.com News Service

Colin Barras

The International Space Station could soon be relaying messages secured using quantum entanglement, if a proposed experiment is accepted by the European Space Agency later this year.

If the experiment was successful it would be a step towards unbeatably secure satellite communications between any two points on earth.

One form of quantum cryptography exploits the way particles like photons can become "entangled", into a state where any change to the properties of one affects the other, even across great distances. Einstein famously described it as "spooky action at a distance."

When entangled photons are used to communicate a secret pass-phrase, monitoring their quantum partners makes it possible to know instantly if someone has tried to intercept the message.

Distance record

The current distance record for transmitting entangled photons stands at 144 kilometres, between telescopes in the Canary Islands and Tenerife.

The team that set that record, led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna in Austria, now hopes to smash that figure by transmitting keys over thousands of kilometres using the International Space Station to carry the source of the quantum signals.

Read more HERE.

Telescopes on Lunar FarSide 'Revived'

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer

"Not only would that avoid all the distortions and disturbances caused by Earth's turbulent atmosphere, but equally important, the moon's mass would block the noisy torrent of radio signals emanating from Earth. Only in the moon's radio "shadow" could the farseeing radio telescopes envisioned for the future pick up the extremely faint signals left over from the early universe, signals that would otherwise be drowned out by the broadcast barrage from Earth."

LNBLOG EDITORS NOTE: Some of us never stopped thinking about the Farside's "radio-quiet" as the place to begin direct and 400,000 kilometer long baseline interferometry. How, then, is this concept "revived?" And weren't Farside landings well within the capabilities of the Apollo Program, perhaps at Coriolis and other likely Farside equatorial spots? The problem of how to relay the data from such a site and the limitations placed on the instrument package by weight, 1969 sophistication and size would have presented quite a quandary. And high-end frequency communication we take for granted in the GHz range was barely the stuff of Extra-Class ham radio experiments at the time. Imagine, however, where the state of both radio astronomy and perhaps Lunar exploration might have been if this unoriginal idea had been followed through, at the expense of trusting experimental landings to astronauts with buggy, unimaginably slow computers without the aid of Houston's watchful eye. Though admittedly difficult, and a likely cause very high groundside anxiety, it still seems a Farside landing might well have been within the realm of possibility for Apollo -if it had been a priority.

As future problems arise (such as sticky questions like how to retrieve and restore the Apollo 11 ascent stage blow-over of the original American Flag placed at Tranquillity by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin in July 1969, without disturbing those historic first foot prints) Lunar Networks will be asked to review present day news to discover such dilimia. In the case of the long-acknowledged distinctly anthropomorphic radio-quiet for radio astronomy on the Lunar Farside, how much of a problem will the inherently unstable orbits and spurious emissions from LPS/Cellular satellites needed for exploration of the Moon become for the planned (and important) Deep Space Radio Telescopes, and their controllers?

Answers to such questions are welcome.

Meanwhile, read the remainder of this late article from today's Washington Post.

NASA & BNSC collaborate planning for Lunar Cellular Network

With a horizon only two miles away, the notion of a lunar surface with sufficient cellphone towers to prevent the frustrating "dead zones" experienced on Earth, as tall needed or tall as necessary and could be built in low gravity, brings to mind Doug Bradley in full "Pin Head" make-up and ready as always to "play."

Nevertheless, as attention naturally continues to focus on the Nearside rim of the massive and ancient Aiken Basin, which has within it's wide realm much of the southern Farside, the Lunar South Pole while peaking out into sight from Earth, for a primary permanent habitat on the Moon, NASA and the British National Space Centre (BNSC) are already planning a cellular phone network.

Most attention is clearly on the complexities of a stable constellation of satellites in "Goldilocks" orbits, neither too high or low and in orbits as unaffected by lunar MassCons and the Moon's inherent lack of mass homogenaity; flying cell towers, beginning with two and with testing using an underground relay beginning as soon as 2012.

There will be towers, to be sure, here and there - perhaps on Malapert, for example.

Malapert has the distinction of being high-ground situated close to the South Pole but never quite slipping out of line-of-sight from Earth with the Moon's libration. On Malapert the sunset is seasonal but Earthset never quite happens. Instead Earth rises less than 10 degrees up and falls to kiss the horizon, sometimes dipping low enough that only Earth's southern hemisphere remains visible, while the rest of the Universe wheels about with the Sun.

Malapert does not qualify as a "mountain of perpetual sunlight," as is may exist nearer to both poles, but as an Earth observation post, with proximity to the South Pole only some 50 kilometers and 180 degrees south of an observer, it is particularly well-situated for a microwave wireless power distribution node and to relay communications between Earth, the Lunar South Pole and for Farside satellite and optical fiber head-ins. The mountain also appears to be a good location for nesting underground or in close-by permanent shade from X-Class Massive Coronal Eruptions.

In fact, as NASA and others, including myself, have long-noted Malapert seems to be one of many ideal and even strategic locations on the Moon for a lot of Human activity.

But NASA working with BNSC envisions most Lunar cellular phone and realtime data traffic around the Moon handled a small swarm of satellites much like the GPS systems dancing around Earth. It also may resemble the high ground swarms flown for satellite phone traffic on Earth, and both LPS and cell exchange may eventually ride together.

Traffic for such a proposed cellular system might be light at first, but it may well be absolutely critical, also. Whether planners can overcome problems with Lunar perturbations and its possible effect on orbital timing for predictable hand-overs, both Lunar-centric Positioning Systems for orbital traffic control, navigation and mapping and for local communications more reliable than what consumers often have on Earth today may be needed sooner than most of our fellow "ground-pounders" can yet imagine.

Report from Silicon.com

SpaceDev to Develop Payload for International Lunar Observatory

Design to include astrophysics and communications capability for private Moon mission

Poway, CA – SpaceDev, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) of Hawaii to conduct requirements definition and preliminary design of the ILO spacecraft’s astrophysics and communications payload. ILO will perform various astronomical observations from the South Pole of the Moon, and will also engage in commercial communications activities.

“We see this as a critical phase of work for ILO, as it will solidify the mission’s goals and priorities,” said Mark N. Sirangelo, SpaceDev’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We will determine how to deliver the most valuable and desirable astrophysics data from the surface of the Moon to scientists around the world, while pursuing a design to allow the rapid, low-cost mission development that will be a hallmark of ILO.”

About SpaceDev
SpaceDev, Inc. is a space technology/aerospace company that creates and sells affordable and innovative space products and mission solutions. For more information, please visit www.spacedev.com.

About ILOA
The International Lunar Observatory Association is a Hawaii-based non-profit organization dedicated to expanding human knowledge of the Cosmos through observation from the Moon, via its ILO and ILO Human Service missions. For more information, please visit www.iloa.org.

SpaceDev Flies Prototype Hybrid Rocket Lunar Lander

Project is first to demonstrate applied throttling capability

POWAY, CA – SpaceDev, Inc. announced today that it has concluded the first phase of development on its hybrid rocket powered lunar lander prototype, with a successful flight test. The effort was supported by the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) led by Steve Durst, who envision using the technology to bring their ILO spacecraft to a soft landing on the South Pole of the Moon, where it will perform various astrophysics and communication functions.

During the flight test, the lander prototype vehicle’s four hybrid rocket motors were ignited and throttled via radio control, their thrust adjusted in real time to achieve lift-off, ascended to approximately 35 feet, hovered, descended, and landed softly. A video of the flight may be seen here - Lander Test Video.

This test marked the first ever of a hybrid rocket powered lander vehicle and demonstrated applied throttling, a key capability of SpaceDev’s reliable, safe, and non-toxic hybrid propulsion technology. “This is an exciting project that has shown not only the versatility of our hybrid motors, but also SpaceDev’s high levels of responsiveness and efficiency,” said Mark N. Sirangelo, SpaceDev’s Chairman and CEO. “We see many important applications for our throttleable rockets, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with ILOA as well as our research and development of lander vehicles.”