Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 676

The Verge’s Nicole Wetsman on the tools she uses for covering health news,

We wouldn’t have tech without science, and The Verge wouldn’t be what it is without its team of science reporters. In this time of pandemics, Mars landings, and climate controversies, our skilled science team is more important than ever. We talked to Nicole Wetsman, one of our top science and health reporters, to find out how she does her job and what tools she uses.

What is your job at The Verge?

I’ve always been interested in science and health, but I never wanted to work in a lab or be a doctor. Reporting on those subjects gave me a way to learn and work with those ideas. I write about science, health, and health technology for The Verge. For the past year, that’s primarily meant covering COVID-19 — everything from testing technology to the vaccine rollout to public health data systems. I also help our video team script health-related videos and sometimes jump in as an on-camera host.

Nicole Wetsman studied neuroscience as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College while working for the campus newspaper, and she got her master’s degree at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. She then worked as a freelance reporter for a few years before joining The Verge in December 2019 — right before the pandemic hit.

What is the process you follow when you are writing a science article?

I usually start by reading through any research articles on a particular topic and then talking with scientists and other experts who work in that area. That might include people who did a study or built a new health app or people who work in fields that might apply the new innovation. Then, I organize my research, synthesize what I found, and write up a story.

What hardware tools do you use for your work?

I’m embarrassingly low-tech for a reporter at a technology website. For the most part, I just use my 13-inch MacBook Pro, AirPods, and iPhone 12 to do everything. Occasionally, I pull out a Zoom F1 Field Recorder to record voice-overs for video projects.

Zoom F1-LP

Prices taken at time of publishing.

Two-track portable field recorder with lavalier microphone

What software tools do you use for your work?

I do most of my writing and research organization in Google Docs. I use the recording and transcription service Otter for interviews. It matches audio with the transcript, so I can easily go back and find whatever part of the interview I need, even if the transcription isn’t perfect. (It usually isn’t.)

When I need to find scientific research on any topic vaguely medical, I turn to PubMed, a search engine housed at the National Institutes of Health. I also use Google Scholar to find academic research articles.

Are there any other tools that you use?

I write out my to-do lists and schedule in a Moleskine weekly planner, which is the only notebook I’ve found with a layout that works for me.

Moleskine weekly planner

$9 $18 50% off

Prices taken at time of publishing.

Notebook for weekly planning

What advice do you have for people who are considering reporting as a profession?

Journalism can sometimes seem like a competitive field, with reporters jockeying for scoops, intel, and access. At the core, though, it’s inherently collaborative. Working with others means benefiting from their ideas, edits, and perspectives, and it makes the final product better.

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SpaceX lost a rocket in the ocean last month. Here’s why., ,

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX has traced last month’s loss of a flight-proven booster to an in-flight engine shutdown, according to a top company official.

The loss occurred during the company’s Feb. 15 launch of 60 Starlink internet satellites. The booster, B1059, was making its sixth flight and successfully delivered its payloads to orbit, but missed touching down on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, which was deployed in the Atlantic Ocean to support the launch.

During a NASA news conference held on March 1 regarding the upcoming Crew-2 mission, set to launch on April 22, Benji Reed, senior director for human spaceflight at SpaceX, explained that the anomalous engine shutdown during the February launch happened because hot gas seeped through a worn-out engine cover.

Related: SpaceX’s Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Feb. 15, 2021, during a successful Starlink launch; however, the company lost the booster when it failed to touch down on the waiting drone ship. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The covers, known as “boots,” are installed around certain parts of each Merlin 1D engine that powers the Falcon 9. According to Reed, one of the boots had a tiny hole in it that allowed hot gases produced by the engine to seep through into other engine parts.

“A little bit of hot gas got to where it’s not supposed to be, and it caused that engine to shut down,” he said.

Reed did not say at what point in the mission the engine shut down, but implied that it was during the rocket’s ascent.

“A great thing about Falcon 9 is that we have engine out capability,” Reed said, referring to the rocket’s ability to deliver a payload to orbit even if it loses one of its nine engines. “The vehicle got to orbit and put the satellites where they needed to be.”

SpaceX has always said that its primary objective each launch is to deliver whatever payload it’s carrying to space; recovering boosters is a bonus. And while the Falcon 9 can carry out that primary mission down one engine, the same isn’t true of booster landings.

The shutdown caused the booster to miss its targeted landing spot on the drone ship, Reed added. “Because of the problem with that particular engine, we didn’t have enough thrust to get back to where we needed to be, and didn’t land where we wanted to,” he said.

The mishap ended a landing streak of two dozen consecutive booster recoveries the company established last year, following back-to-back losses of two other boosters in February and March 2020. Those anomalies were triggered by an early engine shutdown with unknown cause and by higher-than-predicted wind shear.

Reed said that the company has learned a lot about reusability, but is still trying to determine the life expectancy of its fleet and which parts are most susceptible to the wear and tear of multiple launches.

While this particular booster was on its sixth flight, which is not a record as two other boosters have more than eight flights on their record, Reed said that some of its components were so-called “life leaders.” “This was the highest number of flights that this particular boot design had seen,” he said.

Falcon 9 has since made three successful landings: the company’s 77th recovery to date, on a March 4 Starlink launch, an additional touchdown on another Starlink mission a week later and a third on Sunday morning (March 14). All three flights flights used a booster with five or more flights under its belt.

Sunday’s flight even set a new record, as booster B1051 became the first to fly nine times. SpaceX successfully recovered that booster and plans to fly it for a 10th time in the near future.

Historically, SpaceX has saved its most veteran boosters — those with more than three or four flights — for its own internal launches, like Starlink. Reed said that practice will continue as the company learns more about how Falcon 9 handles higher launch numbers, helping SpaceX track vehicle wear and tear and anticipate which parts may need replacement between flights.

“We get to fly our higher-count flight-proven vehicles to take the Starlink satellites to orbit,” Reed said.

A thorough grasp on booster life expectancy is crucial for the company as it recently received the green light from both NASA and the Space Force to use previously flown boosters on their missions.

In fact, the upcoming Crew-2 mission will be the first astronaut mission to fly both a reused Falcon 9 rocket and a reused Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The rocket flew last November, ferrying the Crew-1 astronauts — NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Victor Glover and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi — to the space station, while the Dragon flew in May, toting NASA’s Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the orbital outpost on a test flight. Neither craft has flown since, and the company is subjecting both to a thorough inspection and refurbishment process.

Following the February booster loss, NASA has been tracking SpaceX’s internal investigation into the premature engine shutdown, NASA personnel said during the March 1 news conference.

“We will follow on with SpaceX’s investigation, and we’ll look at that, and that will be something we’ll bring to our program control board and make sure that we have separation from that, and understand that anomaly before we go fly [with astronauts],” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program said during the briefing.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, one of the Crew-2 astronauts, said that the crew receives regular briefings on both the rocket and the spacecraft and don’t have any concerns.

“It’s just been a few little things on a few of these rockets. They’re launching almost once a week, so when you’re launching that often everything is not going to go perfectly,” Kimbrough said. “There’s nothing major or catastrophic that’s happened. It’s just a few things on the rocket that are going to get worked out before our flight.”

“We’re very confident they’re going to figure out whatever’s gone wrong,” he added.

Kimbrough and his crewmembers — fellow NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, European astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide — will be the first to ride to orbit atop a previously flown Falcon 9.

“One of the things I really like about what’s happening is SpaceX’s Starlink flights are pretty far out there in terms of the number of times they’ve flown a booster,” Stich said. “We’re about to embark on our first reuse here for a crew vehicle. So what we’re doing is we’re learning from each of those flights, and we’re feeding that back into our certification for reuse.”

SpaceX has a few more Starlink missions up its sleeve before the Crew-2 flight, which is currently scheduled for no earlier than April 22. Those launches mean a few more flights for the teams to review before a veteran Falcon 9 is officially certified to fly people.

In the meantime, SpaceX is taking its time with each launch, as evident by the fact that its most recent launches were delayed due to the need for more prelaunch checkouts. The company is also working on future upgrades to the control systems on Falcon 9 that will help the vehicle land even in the event of an engine shutdown during flight like the one that occurred Feb. 15, Reed said.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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On This Day in Space! March 18, 1980: Soviet rocket explosion kills 48 people, ,

On March 18, 1980, a Soviet rocket exploded on the launchpad and killed 48 people.

The Vostok-2M rocket was about to launch a new spy satellite called Tselina-D. Military technicians were working to fuel the rocket on the launchpad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a top-secret spaceport a few hundred miles north of Moscow.

It wasn’t until three years after the explosion happened that the Soviets admitted that this secret spaceport existed. They continued to keep the deadly explosion a secret until 1989. State officials blamed the explosion on human error. But a later investigation determined the cause to be a design flaw with the rocket.

Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.

[image error]

History of NASA: $22.99 at Magazines Direct

Discover the story of how and why NASA was created, its greatest triumphs, darkest days, and of the times it exceeded all possible hopes. A tale of adventure, heroism and resourcefulness, learn of the space agency’s greatest achievements and how — over six decades — the organization has consistently and tirelessly devoted itself to its founding principle: that “activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humankind”. View Deal

Still not enough space? Don’t forget to check out our Space Image of the Day, and on the weekends our Best Space Photos and Top Space News Stories of the week.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

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NASA will attempt another ‘hot fire’ test of its SLS moon rocket today. Watch it live!, ,

NASA is ready to make another attempt to certify its moon megarocket for spaceflight.

The agency plans to do a test of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on Thursday (March 18), during a two-hour window that opens at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT or 2 p.m. local time at Stennis).

Live coverage of the test should start on NASA Television roughly half an hour before the hot fire test, although the agency says it will “refine the timeline as it proceeds through operations.” The latest timing information will be available on NASA’s Twitter feed on test day. You can watch the webcast live in the window above, courtesy of NASA, or directly via NASA TV.

Video: How NASA’s SLS megarocket engine test works

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The core stage for the SLS rocket is pictured on the B-2 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, during a hot fire test on Jan. 16, 2021. (Image credit: NASA)

“Engineers will power up all the core stage systems, load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic — or supercold — propellant into the tanks, and fire the rocket’s four RS-25 engines at the same time to simulate the stage’s operation during launch, generating 1.6 million pounds of thrust,” NASA said in a description of the testing procedure.

This is NASA’s second attempt at doing a hot fire test of SLS, after the first test shut down unexpectedly early in January. The agency is close to getting this SLS rocket ready to fly the Artemis 1 round-the-moon uncrewed mission, but the “Green Run” series of tests have encountered several delays and technical problems in recent months.

Artemis 1, so far, is supposed to fly to the moon at the end of 2021 to get the agency ready for crewed missions. But making the flight date will depend on SLS passing these tests and getting shipped to its launch site in Florida in time. The young Joe Biden administration hasn’t committed to a timeline yet to put people on the moon, but previous to that, NASA was planning an Artemis 3 landing in 2024.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot may survive by gobbling up smaller storms, ,

The most famous storm in the solar system is an apex predator.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot feasted on numerous smaller storms that wandered into its neighborhood recently, possibly even gaining sustenance from these meals, a new study suggests.

Astronomers have been observing the Great Red Spot continuously since the late 19th century. The storm has shrunk considerably during that stretch, going from 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) wide in the 1870s to about 10,000 miles (16,000 km) wide today. (For perspective: Earth is a little more than 7,900 miles, or 12,700 km, across.)

Related: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in photos

Astronomers aren’t sure why the Great Red Spot is getting smaller. Some have speculated that collisions with smaller storms, which have increased in recent years, may play a role. The new study investigated that hypothesis.

Researchers led by Agustin Sanchez-Lavega, a professor of applied physics at the Basque Country University in Spain, studied images of the Great Red Spot captured between 2018 and 2020 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the space agency’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft and amateur astronomers here on Earth.

The team identified numerous encounters between the Great Red Spot and smaller anticyclones. (Anticyclones swirl around central cores of high atmospheric pressure, whereas cyclones such as Earth’s hurricanes spin around regions of low pressure.) These atmospheric crashes chipped away at the Great Red Spot, peeling off cloud chunks around the big storm’s edges.

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A flake of red peels away from Jupiter’s Great Red Spot during an encounter with a smaller anticyclone, as seen by the Juno spacecraft’s high resolution JunoCam on Feb. 12, 2019. Although the collisions appear violent, planetary scientists believe they are mostly surface effects. (Image credit: AGU/Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets)

The Great Red Spot’s diameter shrank as it gobbled up these smaller storms, the team found. But those changes were likely only skin-deep, “not affecting the full depth of the GRS [Great Red Spot],” Sanchez-Lavega and his colleagues wrote in the new study, which was published online Wednesday (March 17) in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

“The interactions are not necessarily destructive but can transfer energy to the GRS, maintaining it in a steady state and guaranteeing its long lifetime,” they added.

“This group has done an extremely careful, very thorough job,” Timothy Dowling, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Louisville who was not involved in the new study, said in a statement.

The flaking away of Great Red Spot material is likely just a surface phenomenon, leaving the storm’s depths, which extend 125 miles (200 km) beneath Jupiter’s cloud tops, largely untouched, Dowling added.

Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

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Watch live today: NASA fires up its SLS megarocket for final ‘green run’ test, ,

NASA will fire up the core stage of its Space Launch System (SLS) on Wednesday (March 18) for the final test in the series of “green run” tests that will determine whether the new megarocket is ready to fly Artemis moon missions.

The test will take place at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, during a two-hour window that opens at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). NASA TV will provide live coverage beginning about 30 minutes before the hot fire begins. You can watch it live here in the window above, courtesy of NASA, or directly via NASA TV.

Wednesday’s “hot fire” is the eighth and final “green run” test, but this will be NASA’s second attempt at it. An earlier attempt on Jan. 16 ended prematurely when the booster’s engines shut down earlier than planned. NASA originally rescheduled the test for Feb. 25, but that attempt was again delayed due to a valve issue.

NASA is targeting a two-hour test window that opens at 3 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 18, for the second hot fire test of the core stage for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

The agency plans to begin live coverage on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app approximately 30 minutes before the hot fire. The team will refine the timeline as it proceeds through operations. NASA will provide updates on the operations and the target hot fire time at @NASA and the Artemis blog.

On test day, engineers will power up all the core stage systems, load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic, or supercold, propellant into the tanks, and fire the rocket’s four RS-25 engines at the same time to simulate the stage’s operation during launch, generating 1.6 million pounds of thrust.

A post-test briefing will follow on NASA Television approximately two hours after the test. Media can ask questions during the briefing by phone. To participate, reporters must contact Kathryn Hambleton at kathryn.hambleton@nasa.gov by 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, for dial-in information.

The hot fire is the eighth and final test of the Green Run series to ensure the core stage of the SLS rocket is ready to launch Artemis missions to the Moon, beginning with Artemis I. The core stage includes the liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank, four RS-25 engines, as well as the computers, electronics, and avionics that serve as the “brains” of the rocket.

The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will test the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft as an integrated system ahead of crewed flights to the Moon. Under the Artemis program, NASA is working to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon to pave the way for sustainable exploration at the Moon and future missions to Mars.

For more information about the Green Run test series, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/artemisprogram/greenrun

On Friday (March 19), the Soyuz MS-17 crew spacecraft, which brought three Expedition 64 crewmembers to the International Space Station in October 2020, will be relocated from the Russian Rassvet module to the Poisk module.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will board the Soyuz and undock from the Rassvet module at 12:38 p.m. EDT (1638 GMT). The crew will then dock the Soyuz with Poisk at 1:07 p.m. EDT (1707 GMT).

NASA TV will provide live coverage beginning at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). You can watch it live here in the window above, courtesy of NASA, or directly via NASA TV.

Related: The International Space Station: Inside and Out (Infographic)

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Three spaceships are pictured attached to different ports on the International Space Station: Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus NG-15 cargo ship at the Harmony module (left), the Soyuz MS-17 crew spacecraft docked to the Rassvet module (center) and the Progress 77 cargo craft at the Pirs docking compartment (right). The space station was flying 261 miles (420 kilometers) above the Bay of Bengal when this photo was taken, on Feb. 23, 2021. (Image credit: NASA)

Three residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz MS-17 on Friday, March 19, relocating the spacecraft to prepare for the arrival of the next set of crew members. Live coverage on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website will begin at 12:15 p.m. EDT.

Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA and Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, will undock from the Earth-facing port of the station’s Rassvet module at 12:38 p.m. and dock again at the space-facing Poisk docking port at 1:07 p.m.

The relocation will free up the Rassvet port for the docking of another Soyuz vehicle, designated Soyuz MS-18, which will carry three Expedition 65 crew members to the station next month. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos’ Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled to launch to the station Friday, April 9, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

This will be the 15th overall Soyuz port relocation and the first since August 2019.

Rubins, Ryzhikov, and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth April 17 in the Soyuz MS-17 that carried them to the space station in October 2020.

Get breaking news, images and features from the space station on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

NASA will hold a news conference on Tuesday, March 23, to preview the upcoming flight tests of its Ingenuity Mars helicopter. Ingenuity hitched a ride to the Red Planet with the agency’s Perseverance rover and will soon attempt the first flight through another world’s atmosphere.

Tune in Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) to hear the Ingenuity and Perseverance teams discuss their plans for the helicopter’s first test flights. You can watch it live here in the window above, courtesy of NASA TV, or directly via the agency’s website.

Related: The first helicopter on Mars phones home after Perseverance rover landing

NASA will hold a virtual media briefing at 1:30 p.m. EDT (10:30 a.m. PDT) Tuesday, March 23, to discuss upcoming activities for the agency’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter. The teams operating Ingenuity and NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover have chosen the flight zone where the helicopter will attempt the first powered, controlled flights on another planet.

The briefing will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the YouTube and Facebook channels for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Briefing participants include:

Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, NASA HeadquartersBobby Braun, director for planetary science, JPLJ. (Bob) Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer, JPLHavard Grip, Ingenuity chief pilot, JPLFarah Alibay, Perseverance integration lead for Ingenuity, JPL

To participate in the briefing by telephone, reporters must provide their name and affiliation by 11:30 a.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. PDT) Tuesday, March 23, to Rexana Vizza at rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov.

Media and the public also may ask questions on social media during the briefing using #MarsHelicopter.

Ingenuity’s test flights are expected to begin no earlier than the first week of April. The exact timing of the first flight will remain fluid as engineers work out details on the timeline for deployments and vehicle positioning of Perseverance and Ingenuity. Photos showing some of the progress are available on Perseverance’s raw images website.

Perseverance – with Ingenuity attached to its belly – landed in Jezero Crater Feb. 18. Ingenuity is a technology demonstration with a limited test flight duration of up to 31 days (30 Mars days, or sols). The rover will deploy the helicopter and provide environmental monitoring and imaging support. It also hosts Ingenuity’s base station, enabling communication with mission controllers on Earth.

Find out what the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station are up to by tuning in to the “ISS Live” broadcast. Hear conversations between the crew and mission controllers on Earth and watch them work inside the U.S. segment of the orbiting laboratory. When the crew is off duty, you can enjoy live views of Earth from Space. You can watch and listen in the window below, courtesy of NASA.

“Live video from the International Space Station includes internal views when the crew is on-duty and Earth views at other times. The video is accompanied by audio of conversations between the crew and Mission Control. This video is only available when the space station is in contact with the ground. During ‘loss of signal’ periods, viewers will see a blue screen.

“Since the station orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, it experiences a sunrise or a sunset about every 45 minutes. When the station is in darkness, external camera video may appear black, but can sometimes provide spectacular views of lightning or city lights below.”

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NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei could spend a year in space, ,

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei may spend a year in space after his launch in April — and if that’s the case, he’ll welcome the opportunity, Vande Hei said Monday (March 15) in his first news conference since NASA announced his flight last week.

Typically, astronauts spend about six and a half months on the International Space Station, living and working in orbit. But a separate project of NASA’s Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, could mean that Vande Hei must remain in space longer before he can catch a ride back to Earth. If so, that would be just fine with him, he told reporters in a televised news conference on NASA TV on Monday.

“Honestly, for me, it’s just an opportunity for a new life experience,” he said during the news conference, which was held virtually from Star City, Russia, where he is preparing for flight. “I’ve never been in space longer than about six months, so if someone tells me I got to stay in space for a year, I’ll find out what that feels like. I’m really enthusiastic about it.”

Related: Here’s how NASA just booked a last-minute trip to space on a Russian Soyuz

Vande Hei has visited the space station once before, flying to and from the orbiting lab on a Russian Soyuz vehicle in 2017 and 2018 to complete a six-month stay; that experience made a longer flight appealing, he said. “On the previous flight, it felt like every day got a little bit easier,” he said during the news conference. “I was more comfortable with things as time went on, I was much more familiar with my work.”

Vande Hei has already been embracing chance when it comes to his upcoming mission: He learned next month’s launch was confirmed only last week, along with the rest of the world, he said during the media event.

For the past decade, NASA astronauts have been flying to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz capsules in seats that the agency buys from its counterpart, Roscosmos. Now, NASA is beginning to launch its astronauts on U.S. commercial vehicles like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, but it doesn’t want to stop flying on Soyuz.

To that end, NASA spent the past few months hastily arranging for a seat on the April Soyuz flight, dubbed MS-18, this time through Texas-based space tourism company Axiom Space rather than directly through Roscosmos. In exchange for the April launch, NASA will fly an astronaut selected by Axiom on an upcoming commercial flight, likely in 2023, according to an agency statement about the arrangements.

An extended stay would mark a second irregularity in Vande Hei’s mission, one prompted by scheduling on the side of Roscosmos. The agency is partnering with a Russian television channel to film a movie in space, which would require flying two people to the space station for filming.

Previous Roscosmos statements have suggested that may occur in the fall. If that schedule holds true, Vande Hei will have to wait until the next visiting Soyuz — MS-19 — heads for home, rather than flying back to Earth in the same vehicle he launched in, as astronauts typically do.

“It all depends … on whether or not those tourists go up on the spacecraft in the fall, because they would take my seat back, so I’d have to stay longer to wait for another seat,” Vande Hei said during the news conference.

He didn’t specify whether he’ll know the length of his stay before launch; the last NASA astronaut to conduct an extended mission, Christina Koch, learned of her extension when she was already in orbit. (Koch spent 328 days in space in 2019 and 2020, making her visit the second-longest mission for a U.S. astronaut. Scott Kelly set the current record when he returned from a 340-day mission in 2016.)

“My perspective is I’m going back to a job and instead of being a new employee that just showed up, I’m going to be somebody who worked there in the lab a couple years ago,” Vande Hei said. “I’ll start off a little better than I was the first time and I’ll get to continue at that job longer, so hopefully I’ll be able to contribute even more.”

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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On This Day in Space! March 17, 1958: US launches its second satellite, Vanguard 1, ,

On St. Patrick’s Day in 1958, the U.S. Navy launched Vanguard 1, the first solar-powered satellite and the oldest artificial satellite currently orbiting Earth. The main purpose of this mission was to test a new three-stage rocket.

Vanguard 1 was the fourth satellite ever launched into space (following Sputniks 1 and 2 and Explorer 1). It looks a lot like a miniature version of Sputnik. Vanguard 1 was tiny compared to the satellites that came before it. It’s about the size of a grapefruit and weighs only 3 lbs.

Solar technology allowed the satellite to transmit signals to Earth for seven years, while battery-powered satellites couldn’t even last a month. Scientists think the satellite will deorbit by the year 2198 after spending 240 years in space.

Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.

[image error]

History of NASA: $22.99 at Magazines Direct

Discover the story of how and why NASA was created, its greatest triumphs, darkest days, and of the times it exceeded all possible hopes. A tale of adventure, heroism and resourcefulness, learn of the space agency’s greatest achievements and how — over six decades — the organization has consistently and tirelessly devoted itself to its founding principle: that “activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humankind”. View Deal

Still not enough space? Don’t forget to check out our Space Image of the Day, and on the weekends our Best Space Photos and Top Space News Stories of the week.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Mars dust storms may cause mysterious ‘zodiacal light’ in Earth’s night sky, ,

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has detected interplanetary particles that suggest Martian storms fill the solar system with dust, causing a strange haze known as zodiacal light to be seen from Earth.

Zodiacal light is a faint column of light extending up from the horizon after dusk and before dawn. Its luminous glow is caused by sunlight that is scattered by an interplanetary cloud of tiny dust particles orbiting the sun, and reflected toward Earth. Originally, the dust particles were believed to be remnants of asteroids or comets that traveled through the inner solar system. However, new data from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter suggests that the particles are ejected from Mars during global dust storms.

Juno launched in 2011 on a trajectory that carried it out to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, before it swung back around Earth for a gravity assist, which gave the spacecraft a much needed boost to reach Jupiter’s orbit in 2016. Along the way, Juno flew through the dust cloud that is believed to cause the zodiacal light and was repeatedly struck by small grains of dust. These impacts were recorded by the spacecraft’s cameras, which detected unfamiliar pieces of cosmic debris — small shards that had been chipped off of Juno’s solar panels by dust particles traveling about 10,000 miles (or 16,000 kilometers) per hour, according to a statement from NASA.

Video: Juno spacecraft was ‘pelted’ by dust, provides zodiacal light insight
Related: Zodiacal light and meteors light up the night (photo)

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A night sky photo of zodiacal light — a faint column of light extending up from the horizon — on March 1, 2021, in Skull Valley, Utah. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Dunford)

“We thought, ‘Something is really wrong,'” John Leif Jorgensen, lead author of the study and a professor at the Technical University of Denmark, said in the statement. “The images looked like someone was shaking a dusty tablecloth out their window.”

Using the images from Juno, the researchers calculated the apparent size and velocity of the cosmic debris. The study shows that the majority of dust impacts occurred between Earth and the asteroid belt. However, Juno’s solar arrays weren’t damaged by the impacts.

“Even though we’re talking about objects with only a tiny bit of mass, they pack a mean punch,” Jack Connerney, co-author of the study and Juno’s deputy principal investigator, said in the statement. “Each piece of debris we tracked records the impact of an interplanetary dust particle, allowing us to compile a distribution of dust along Juno’s path.”

The researchers estimate the thick disk of dust extends from Earth — whose gravity sucks up particles that get near it — to just beyond Mars, where the influence of Jupiter’s gravity acts as a barrier, preventing dust particles from traveling any further into deep space. Known as orbital resonance, this phenomenon also blocks dust originating in deep space from entering the inner solar system, which helps narrow down the source of the dust cloud that causes the zodiacal light.

In addition, the influence of Jupiter’s gravity barrier also indicates that the dust particles are in a nearly circular orbit around the sun. Therefore, researchers believe the Red Planet is a source of the interplanetary dust, given Mars — the dustiest planet we know of — also has an almost circular orbit and lies within the dusty disk, according to the statement.

Related: Red Planet dust storms rage in Mars Express photos

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Zodiacal light glows in the sky at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory in Chile. Image released Dec. 2, 2013. (Image credit: Yuri Beletsky/ESO)

Using computer models, the researchers mapped the distribution of the dust cloud to simulate how light is reflected by the interplanetary particles. When factoring in the orbital elements of Mars, the models predicted the same pattern of zodiacal light seen from Earth.

While these models helped identify the origin of the dust particles, as well as how the particles orbit in our solar system, further research is needed to understand how dust escapes Mars’ gravity, the authors said. However, mapping the distribution and density of this interplanetary dust will help protect future spacecraft missions, according to the statement.

Their findings were published March 9 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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The Perseverance rover’s 1st month on Mars has been super smooth, scientists say, ,

NASA’s newest Mars rover is settling nicely into its new home.

The Perseverance rover landed inside Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, on a mission to hunt for evidence of past microbial life and collectsamples for future return to Earth. For the past month, the mission team has been checking out Perseverance’s seven science instruments and its various subsystems, and the rover has jumped through every hoop.

“So far, all of this has been going exceedingly well,” Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said on Tuesday (March 16) during a webcast presentation at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). “We’ve had no major technical issues.”

Related: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission in pictures

Perseverance’s first big task after finishing these checkouts is to get its tiny helicopter buddy aloft. The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) chopper, named Ingenuity, traveled to Mars tucked into the rover’s belly and, once the mission team finds a suitable airfield for the test, will deploy to attempt a few short technology-demonstrating flights.

Those flights will be the first ever made by a rotorcraft on a world beyond Earth. If Ingenuity performs well, future Mars missions could routinely include helicopters, which could both serve as scouts for rovers and gather data on their own, NASA officials have said.

After deploying Ingenuity, Perseverance will drive a safe distance away and attempt to document the aerial action with the rover’s high-resolution Mastcam-Z camera suite.

“We plan to use our video capability and our telephoto capability,” Mastcam-Z principal investigator Jim Bell, of Arizona State University, said during a different LPSC presentation on Tuesday. “It’ll be very exciting, and we’re looking forward to those historic, aviation-first kind of movies.”

Perseverance may also be able to record audio of Ingenuity’s flights using its two onboard microphones, mission team members have said.

Those flights are expected to take place this spring. After they’re done, Perseverance will dive into its science work in earnest on Jezero’s floor, which hosted a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago. The mission team has already mapped out a tentative traverse, which would take the rover through the delta region, up onto Jezero’s rim and onto the plains beyond the crater, Farley said.

This notional plan would require about 22 miles (35 kilometers) of driving spread over two mission phases, “Jezero” and “Beyond Jezero.” And Perseverance couldn’t journey so far during its prime mission of one Mars year, or 687 Earth days; it would require a mission extension through 2028, Farley said.

The current plan — which, again, is subject to change — also envisions two caches of sampled material. Perseverance would stash about 10 tubes of Mars dirt and rock somewhere in Jezero and another 28 beyond the crater’s rim.

This plan “involves a lot of driving, but it would produce a really fantastic diversity of rock samples from two really different environments in Jezero and beyond Jezero,” Farley said.

(Precedent suggests that Perseverance could handle a long, driving-heavy stint on Mars. The six-wheeled robot is based heavily on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has put about 15.5 miles (25 km) on its odometer since landing inside the Red Planet’s Gale Crater in August 2012 and is still going strong.)

Perseverance’s samples will be returned to Earth, perhaps as early as 2031, by a joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) campaign, which has yet to get off the ground. The samples will be collected by an ESA-built “fetch rover,” launch off the Martian surface in a NASA-provided rocket and be hauled home by an ESA spacecraft after a handoff in Mars orbit.

Once on Earth, these pristine samples will be studied by scientists around the world in far greater detail than Perseverance, able and complex though the robot is, can muster all by its lonesome on the Martian surface.

So stay tuned; Perseverance’s mission is about to get a lot more action-packed. And that’s saying something — the mission team has already uploaded more than 10,000 photos snapped by the rover, which you can peruse here.

Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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