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Où se trouve la Station spatiale internationale (ISS) en ce moment ?

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Julien Lausson
17 février 2024 à 10:33

Des outils renseignent la position de la Station spatiale internationale (ISS) au-dessus de la Terre. D'autres servent à anticiper sa trajectoire et à noter les heures de passage de l'ISS au-dessus de la France en 2024, et dans quelle direction regarder.

Les petits secrets des futures combinaisons pour éviter aux astronautes de mourir dans l’espace

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : David González-Bárcena
19 février 2024 à 07:01

Les prochaines combinaisons spatiales préparent l'humanité au retour sur la Lune. Elles comportent des avancées notables pour aider les astronautes à surmonter l'hostilité de l'espace.

Voici le plan de la Nasa en cas d’astéroïde dangereux

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Marcus Dupont-Besnard
20 février 2024 à 13:10

C'est un scénario catastrophe classique : que se passerait-il si un astéroïde dangereux menaçait la Terre d'un impact dévastateur ? La réalité est rassurante : il y a peu de chance que l'humanité soit prise de court, étant donné notre niveau de surveillance, auquel s'ajoutent des techniques de protection en voie de développement.

Suivez l’arrivée historique de la mission IM-1 sur la Lune

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Julien Lausson
22 février 2024 à 08:19

lune croissant

Dans la soirée du jeudi 22 février, la société Intuitive Machines tentera un alunissage de sa mission IM-1, au pôle Sud du satellite naturel. Si elle réussit, ce sera une grande première aux États-Unis, pour une entreprise privée.

Le retour réussi des USA sur la Lune n’est que le début

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Julien Lausson
23 février 2024 à 09:59

aigle pygargue

L'Amérique est retournée sur la Lune, 52 ans après la mission Apollo 17. Certes, la mission privée IM-1 n'était pas habitée, mais cela reste un alunissage réussi. Surtout, elle marque symboliquement le top départ d'un retour des États-Unis sur la Lune. Bien d'autres missions vont se succéder, avant l'arrivée des astronautes.

Cette photo révèle l’étendue des dégâts sur l’hélico Ingenuity

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Nelly Lesage
26 février 2024 à 10:44

Ingenuity, l'hélicoptère de la Nasa sur Mars, est sérieusement amoché. Une nouvelle image de Perseverance montre à quel point le petit aéronef est abimé par son dernier atterrissage en catastrophe.

NASA's Crash Into an Asteroid May Have Altered Its Shape

✇Slashdot
Par : BeauHD
27 février 2024 à 10:00
Robin George Andrews writes via The New York Times: In 2022, when NASA's $325 million spacecraft crashed into an asteroid named Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour, cheers and applause erupted back on Earth. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission deliberately targeted Dimorphos to change its orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos as a dress rehearsal of sorts for thwarting a deadly space rock that might someday head toward Earth. The world's first-ever planetary defense experiment was deemed a triumph: The asteroid's orbit shrank by 33 minutes, far above the minimum threshold of 73 seconds. But what the DART team didn't realize then was just how bizarrely Dimorphos responded to that punch. A new study, published on Monday in Nature Astronomy, has concluded that DART hit Dimorphos so hard that the asteroid changed shape. Simulations of the impact suggest that the spacecraft's death did not excavate a normal, bowl-shaped crater. Instead, it left behind something that resembles a dent. And although the artificial impact blasted millions of tons of rock into space, plenty splashed back onto its sides like tremendous tidal waves. It widened Dimorphos, transforming it from a squat orb into a flat-topped oval -- like an M&M candy. That the asteroid acted like a fluid comes down to its peculiar composition. It's not a solid contiguous rock, but more like "a pile of sand," said Sabina Raducan, a planetary scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland and the study's lead author. And a low-density asteroid barely held together by its own gravity was never going to respond in a straightforward manner when a van-size spacecraft flew into its face. Dimorphos's response is "completely outside of the realm of physics as we understand it" in our day-to-day lives, said Cristina Thomas, the lead of the mission's observations working group at Northern Arizona University who was not involved with the study. And "this has overarching implications for planetary defense." DART showed that a tiny spacecraft can deflect an asteroid. But the study indicates that crashing a similarly disjointed space rock too forcefully risks fragmenting it, which, in a real asteroid emergency, could create multiple Earthbound asteroids. Planetary defense, as a concept, clearly works. "We know we can do it," said Federica Spoto, an asteroid dynamics researcher at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian, who was not involved with the new study. "But we have to do it right."

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Pourquoi la Nasa va déjà perdre le contact avec la mission Odysseus sur la Lune

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Nelly Lesage
27 février 2024 à 14:16

La mission Odysseus d'Intuitive Machines et de la Nasa s'est posée sur la Lune. Cependant, sa durée de vie risque d'être bien plus courte que prévu. Voici pourquoi IM-1 est en difficulté.

Pourquoi la Nasa ne retente pas de faire voler Ingenuity une dernière fois

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Nelly Lesage
28 février 2024 à 09:15

Ingenuity, l'hélicoptère qui volait sur Mars, a été endommagé. La Nasa a déclaré sa mission terminée. Mais, pourquoi ne pas tenter le tout pour le tout en essayant de le faire voler une dernière fois ?

Une nouvelle image montre Odysseus en mauvaise posture sur la Lune

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Julien Lausson
1 mars 2024 à 11:04

Odysseus

L'alunisseur Odysseus est bien posé sur la Lune, mais dans une position loin d'être commode pour ses opérations. S'il est toujours actif et en mesure de transmettre des données, son avenir reste incertain.

Nikon and NASA Are Putting a Mirrorless Camera on the Moon

✇Slashdot
Par : msmash
1 mars 2024 à 18:40
Nikon is working with NASA to make a mirrorless camera that astronauts will use during the agency's incoming Artemis III mission to document their return to the Moon. From a report: On Thursday, NASA announced that it had entered a Space Act agreement with Nikon to develop the Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC), a camera system designed to capture imagery in low light and survive the harsh lunar environment. The crewed Artemis III mission -- which will launch "no earlier than September 2026" -- aims to explore the lunar south pole, a region of the Moon that contains water ice within permanently shadowed craters. That makes it an area of scientific interest, but the extreme lighting and temperature conditions pose particular technical challenges for operating equipment within the lunar south pole region. Nikon's full-frame Z9 flagship has already been used in thermal, vacuum, and radiation testing before the agreement, with a modified version of the camera forming the base of the HULC system alongside Nikkor lenses. The HULC design also implements thermal blankets designed by NASA to protect the camera from dust and extreme temperatures and modified electrical components to minimize potential issues caused by radiation. A custom grip with modified buttons has been used to make it easier for suited crew members to operate the camera system while wearing gloves.

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NASA Shutters $2B Satellite Refueling Project, Blames Contractor For Delays.

✇Slashdot
Par : EditorDavid
3 mars 2024 à 21:45
"NASA said Friday it is shutting down a $2 billion satellite refueling project," reports UPI, "after criticizing the project's contractor for poor performance." The agency in a statement said it will discontinue the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing 1 project after nearly a decade of work due to "continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges, and a broader community evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to a lack of a committed partner." [...] The spacecraft would have utilized an attached Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) to refuel the Landsat, assemble a communications antenna and demonstrate in-space manufacture of a 32-foot carbon fiber composite beam to verify the capability of constructing large spacecraft structures in orbit... An audit from NASA's Inspector General, however, found OSAM-1 was on track to exceed the projected $2.05 billion budget and would not make its December 2026 launch date, laying the blame on the "poor performance of Maxar." "NASA and Maxar officials acknowledged that Maxar underestimated the scope and complexity of the work, lacked full understanding of NASA technical requirements, and were deficient in necessary expertise," the report read. The report also noted Maxar was "no longer profiting from their work on OSAM-1," after which the xproject appeared not "to be a high priority for Maxar in terms of the quality of its staffing." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

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Setback For Hopes of Life As NASA Says Less Oxygen On Jupiter Moon Than Thought

✇Slashdot
Par : BeauHD
5 mars 2024 à 03:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: New research suggests there's less oxygen on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa than thought -- and that could affect what if any life might be lurking in Europa's underground ocean. Even with little or no oxygen, microbes might still be bustling around in the ocean believed to exist miles beneath Europa's frozen crust. As for what else, "who knows," said the Nasa scientist Kevin Hand, who was not involved in the study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy. More work is needed to confirm these findings, which are contrary to earlier telescope observations of condensed oxygen in Europa's ice, indicating a higher oxygen concentration, said Hand. The new study is based on data collected by Nasa's Juno spacecraft during a particularly close flyby of Europa in 2022 -- a distance of just 219 miles (353km). A US-European team calculated that between 13 and 39lbs (6 and 18kg) of oxygen are produced every second at Europa's surface. Previous estimates had a much wider spread, with as much as 2,245 pounds (1,100 kilograms) of oxygen produced per second. So "unless Europa's oxygen production was significantly higher in the past," the new measurements provide "a narrower range to support habitability," the researchers wrote. This oxygen is formed, along with hydrogen, as Jupiter's radiation blasts Europa's global shell of frozen water. It is unknown how much oxygen escapes into the moon's atmosphere, how much remains in the ice and how much might find its way to the subterranean sea. The report notes that NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper this fall. "The spacecraft will make dozens of close flybys of Europa -- nearly the size of our moon -- while orbiting the giant gas planet."

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Blue Origin Targets 2025 For Cargo Lander's Inaugural Moon Trip, With Humans To Follow

✇Slashdot
Par : BeauHD
5 mars 2024 à 07:00
In an update on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Blue Origin said it was aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months. A crewed version is expected to follow. GeekWire reports: "We're expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today," [said John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin]. "I understand I'm saying that publicly, but that's what our team is aiming towards." Couluris was referring to a pathfinder version of Blue Origin's nearly three-story-tall Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander, which is taking shape at Blue Origin's production facility in Huntsville, Ala. The Pathfinder Mission would demonstrate the MK1's capabilities -- including its hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine, its precision landing system and its ability to deliver up to 3 tons of payload anywhere on the moon. Blue Origin envisions building multiple cargo landers, as well as a crewed version of the Blue Moon lander that could transport NASA astronauts to and from the lunar surface. The MK1 cargo lander is designed for a single launch and delivery, but the crewed lander would be reusable. "We'll launch them to lunar orbit, and we'll leave them there," Couluris explained. "And we'll refuel them in orbit, so that multiple astronauts can use the same vehicle back and forth." The Pathfinder Mission would be funded by Blue Origin, but NASA is providing support for other Blue Moon missions. Blue Origin's $3.4 billion contract with NASA calls for the crewed lander to be available for the Artemis 5 moon mission by 2029, with an uncrewed test flight as part of the buildup. The in-space refueling operation would make use of a cislunar transporter, built by Lockheed Martin, that could travel between low Earth orbit and lunar orbit with supplies. "We are now building with NASA the infrastructure to ensure lunar permanency," Couluris said. NASA is providing funding for the Blue Moon landing system as an alternative to SpaceX's Starship system, which is under development at SpaceX's Starbase in South Texas. The crewed Starship lunar lander is scheduled to come into play for Artemis 3, a milestone landing mission that's currently scheduled for 2026. [...] Blue Origin plans to send the MK1 lander to the moon on its reusable New Glenn rocket, which is also under development. A couple of weeks ago, a pathfinder version of that rocket was raised on a Florida launch pad for the first time, and it's currently going through a series of cryogenic tanking tests. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, who was brought over to the company from Amazon last year to accelerate work on New Glenn, said in a LinkedIn post that he's "looking forward to bringing this heavy-lift capacity to our customers later this year." One of the early launches is tasked with sending a pair of NASA probes to Mars.

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Le bug persistant de Voyager 1 inquiète : « C’est un problème grave »

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Nelly Lesage
7 mars 2024 à 11:05

Les scientifiques de la Nasa sont préoccupés par le bug de la sonde Voyager 1. Depuis des mois, la mission interstellaire communique mal. Les équipes travaillent à la résolution du problème.

Que signifient ces messages cryptiques envoyés vers Jupiter ?

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Julien Lausson
12 mars 2024 à 06:50

La mission Europa Clipper contiendra une plaque contenant plusieurs messages plus ou moins cryptiques. Elle sera envoyée dans l'espace fin 2024, direction Jupiter. Cette plaque est une sorte de bouteille à la mer interstellaire.

Succès ou explosion ? 15 questions sur Starship avant le 3e vol de la fusée géante

✇Numerama.com - Magazine
Par : Hugo Ruher
13 mars 2024 à 07:10

La fusée Starship doit effectuer très bientôt son prochain vol orbital d'essai. L'occasion de voir si le bébé de SpaceX va enfin tenir ses promesses après ses deux premiers tests retentissants.

Aging Voyager 1 Sends Back Response After 'Poke' Signal From Earth

✇Slashdot
Par : EditorDavid
16 mars 2024 à 19:34
"Engineers have sent a 'poke' to the Voyager 1 probe," reports CNN, "and received a potentially encouraging response..." "A new signal recently received from the spacecraft suggests that the NASA mission team may be making progress in its quest to understand what Voyager 1 is experiencing..." [T]hey hope to fix a communication issue with the aging spacecraft that has persisted for five months. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are venturing through uncharted cosmic territory along the outer reaches of the solar system. While Voyager 1 has continued to relay a steady radio signal to its mission control team on Earth, that signal has not carried any usable data since November, which has pointed to an issue with one of the spacecraft's three onboard computers... On March 3, the team noticed that activity from one part of the flight data system stood out from the rest of the garbled data. While the signal wasn't in the format the Voyager team is used to when the flight data system is functioning as expected, an engineer with NASA's Deep Space Network was able to decode it... The decoded signal included a readout of the entire flight data system's memory, according to an update NASA shared. "The (flight data system) memory includes its code, or instructions for what to do, as well as variables, or values used in the code that can change based on commands or the spacecraft's status," according to a NASA blog post. "It also contains science or engineering data for downlink. The team will compare this readout to the one that came down before the issue arose and look for discrepancies in the code and the variables to potentially find the source of the ongoing issue." "The source of the issue appears to be with one of three onboard computers, the flight data subsystem (FDS), which is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it's sent to Earth," according to NASA's statement. CNN reminds readers that Voyager 1 "is currently the farthest spacecraft from Earth at about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away." Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are now in interstellar space. Thanks to Slashdot reader Thelasko for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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