Earth rise

Forty-four years ago tonight on Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 was taking men around the Moon for the first time in history.

From lunar orbit Commander Frank Borman turned the camera toward Earth and gave mankind the first look at itself from deep space.

The crew then took turns reading from Genesis 1 to a mesmerised audience of millions back home.

William Anders: "For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."

Jim Lovell: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Borman: "And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good."

Borman concluded the broadcast with the words: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."

Moonwalker's tribute

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, received a standing ovation after offering a moving and poignant personal tribute to his former colleague Neil Armstrong on the final day of the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy, today (Friday, 5 October).

The presence of Aldrin, alongside two European astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, guaranteed there was standing room only in the International Astronautical Federation's (IAF) Global Networking Forum (GNF) meeting room.

Aldrin said that he had hoped that all three members of the Apollo 11 crew - Armstrong, Mike Collins and himself - would have been around to celebrate together the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing in 2019.

"His one ‘small step' changed the world and will forever be remembered as a landmark moment in all of human history," said Aldrin.

He also showed his film ‘The Apollo Dream', adding that Armstrong, who died in August, had left the world a strong and lasting legacy which everyone had a duty to fulfill.

After his presentation, European astronauts Christer Fuglesang and Paulo Nespoli, along with cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, gave short presentations on their spaceflight experiences and then answered a variety of questions from the audience.

 

The GNF, an evolution and transformation of the former IAF Cluster Forum, proved a big success throughout the week, attracting a large number of delegates to a range of meetings and sessions.

It included several dedicated days and sessions, including a Heads of Agencies press conference, an Industry Day, and sessions looking at the Social Impacts of Human Spaceflight and Space Careers, as well as the Astronauts' Day.

During Industry Day (Tuesday, 2 October) panels of industry and space organisation experts debated the economic impacts of Satellite Navigation Systems, Earth Observation challenges and the new European-developed rocket Vega.

Among the items that came up for discussion during the session on ‘Economic impacts of Satellite Navigation Systems' was the dispute over satellite navigation frequencies between China and Europe.

Paul Weissenberg, Deputy DG, Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General of the European Commission, stated that it had been agreed to take their dispute to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) by the end of this year.

The GNF was also the location on Wednesday for the IAF's extraordinary session at which space-flown flags were handed to member organisations to commemorate the Federation's 60th anniversary.

The flags - flown on Soyuz TMA-20, the International Space Station, Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134), and China's Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou-9 spacecraft - were presented to IAF member organisations by President Berndt Feuerbacher.


The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

SpaceX on target

Delegates at the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy, were treated to a first-hand update on the latest news from commercial space company SpaceX on Friday, 5 October - just two days before the planned launch of its latest mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Introducing the third ‘breaking news' session of the week Barry Matsumori, Senior Vice-President of Commercial Sales and Business Development at SpaceX, quipped that he and his colleague Robert Feierbach, Vice-President of Business Development, were the only two employees not working on Sunday's launch.

On the heels of a successful debut flight to the Space Station in May of this year, SpaceX launches its first commercial Dragon resupply mission to the Space Station under a contract that will see 12 such missions.

Launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 flight was set for 20:35 EDT on 7 October from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

After arrival at the ISS on 10 October, Dragon, grappled and berthed to the complex for an expected two-week visit, is scheduled to return to Earth on October 28 for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of southern California.

Dragon is currently the only Space Station cargo craft capable of returning a significant amount of supplies back to Earth, including experiments.

For this mission, it is filled with about 1,000 pounds of supplies, including critical materials to support the 166 investigations planned for the Station's Expedition 33 crew.

Dragon will return with about 734 pounds of scientific materials, including results from human research, biotechnology, materials and education experiments, as well as about 504 pounds of Space Station hardware.

Matsumori explained that SpaceX had been in existence for just a decade, making it a young company in aerospace terms. "We have come a long way in that time and now have 1800 employees which are growing at around 200 per year," he said.

SpaceX currently launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California but Matsumori said the company is looking at the possibility of an additional commercial launch site.

"We want to ensure we have plenty of capacity and a new launch site would be used particularly for sending payloads into geostationary orbits," he said.

Potential sites under evaluation are in South Texas, where the company also has an engine test range, Florida, and "other locations" on mainland USA.

Matsumori wasn't able to provide further details but said that the timing of any new site coming on stream would be largely dependent on the length of time required for environmental approvals.

He described SpaceX as an ‘internet' company and said that it had a reputation in the industry for being very competitive, and was driven by the goals of achieving high reliability and lost cost production.

The company's current product line comprises the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, the Falcon 9 with a 5.2 metre fairing, and the upcoming Falcon Heavy - essentially made from three Falcon 9's strapped together - which is under development.

"The Falcon 9 - so-called because it has nine engines and after the Millennium Falcon spacecraft of Star War's fame - is a two-stage vehicle for reliability and simplicity," he explained.

During the session, Matsumori also gave a technical overview of the summer's COTS 2 (Commercial Orbital Transportation Service) mission carrying cargo to the ISS for the first time and showed a short film of mission footage.

Afterwards, he said the simplicity of the film wasn't able to convey the true complexity of the flight in all its detail. "It was our first mission to the ISS and we didn't want to make any mistakes," he told delegates.


The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

Unique space flags

The only objects on Earth to have flown on all spacecraft belonging to all nations with an active human spaceflight programme formed part of an extraordinary presentation by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) at this year's 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy.

Special IAF 60th anniversary flags - flown on Soyuz TMA-20, the International Space Station, Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134), and China's Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou-9 spacecraft - were presented to IAF member organisations by President Berndt Feuerbacher.

The flags, in commemorative frames along with mission logos and flight authentification certificates, were handed out to IAF member organisations as tokens of recognition and gratitude during an Extraordinary Session of the IAF General Assembly on Wednesday (4 October).

In his introduction to the presentations Prof Feuerbacher said this was the first time the IAF had arranged an extraordinary session for such an "extraordinary event".

He explained that for the IAF's 60th anniversary in 2011 the Executive Director at the time, Philippe Willekens, had wanted something unique and of value for members and came up with the plan for an anniversary flag to be flown in space.

Sergey Savelyev, Deputy Head of Roscosmos, said it had been in everyone's interests to support the initiative. "There is no limit to what we can do as an international team and the IAF helps us to do that. It was our privilege to fly these flags," he stated.

Zhasya Wang, head of China's manned spaceflight programme, added his own endorsement, saying: "We believe this event is an example of how IAF efforts can help advance the human spaceflight programme.

"Our agency is honoured to part of this great event and we gave our support, even though it came to us at short notice.

"Even though we had payload limitations we finally got approval from central government to complete the full circle of flying the flags on all of the space vehicles of the world."

Before handing out the frames flags Prof Feuerbacher expressed his sincere thanks to Roscosmos, NASA and the Chinese Manned Space Agency for this "wonderful cooperation".


The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

Curiosity's journey of discovery

The ‘promised land’ beckons for the Curiosity Mars rover but it is likely to be around six months before the car-sized craft arrives in the foothills of Mt Sharpe whose rocks may have preserved a geological record of the ancient Martian environment.

Just two months into its mission on the red planet, delegates at the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy, were treated to a first-hand update on the progress of the Curiosity Mars on Thursday, 4 October during the second ‘breaking news' session.

Richard Cook, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Project Manager, described the mission as making a "great start" to a deeply interesting mission.

Reviewing the ‘seven minutes of terror landing', he said that what Curiosity is going to achieve on the surface will be equally inspiring as its spectacular landing.

He explained that the Gale Crater objective was chosen after a labourious process spread over several years - selected on the basis that it is most likely to offer a glimpse into the ancient history of Mars based on its rock records.

He likened Gale Crater - 150 km across with the central peak of Mt Sharpe rising to 4,000 metres - as similar in size and elevation to the ‘big' island of Hawaii.

"It gives you an idea of the scale and the challenge of trying to explore that - for the first two years, we will essentially be driving in the foothills."

He said that from a landing site safety perspective, mission planners couldn't have picked a better spot and that Curiosity would now be moving away from the direction of Mt Sharpe in order to explore a close by alluvial fan area in the opposite direction of originally planned travel.

Cook explained that the basic mission concept was to use either the onboard scoop or drill to acquire samples of rock or soil for testing.

In order to select which part or area of a rock to sample, Curiosity will use its ChemCam laser to vaporise a small portion of a potential target rock and analyse its spectral composition. This will help scientists determine which rocks or areas are of most interest to sample with the scoop or drill.

"We intend to use ChemCam repeatedly in any given area to help identify rocks that will be of the most interest," he explained.

Curiosity is capable of travelling around 200 metres a day but is unlikely to proceed at that kind of rate to the prime target area in the foothills of Mt Sharpe because scientists will want to "stop off on the way" to look at interesting features in closer detail.

Cook estimated that the journey to the lower reaches of Mt Sharpe would likely take around six months once extra stopping time for science work is factored in.

He showed a number of stunning Mars images, including one of the latest Curiosity releases of a conglomerate rock which has already given scientists their strongest indication yet that water once flowed in the landing area.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images will be used to track the progress of Curiosity across the surface and he described a view showing the rover's first short traverse with its tracks in the Martian soil as a "gee wiz" image.

He said that cross-contamination from Earth had been a big area of concern during mission planning and in a pre-planned exercise, the rover team had already been using Mars' soil to clean through the sampling system prior to feeding in a collected sample for the first time.

Cook announced that they were preparing for the first scoop sample within the next 24 hours and that it would be about a month longer before the first drill sample is taken.

"The difference with this mission compared to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers is that you have to think about chunks of time rather than one day at a time - it is that much more complicated," he said.

"In a way the mission is still in 'cruise' phase," Cook added. "Curiosity is going to continue to surprise us and show us new things. This kind of mission doesn't get boring and the promised land is yet to come."

The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

The perfect map

When natural disaster strikes in any part of the globe, the space agencies of the world spring into action to provide valuable and timely data from the unique vantage point of Earth orbit to help with critical relief efforts.

Tsunamis, forest fires, earthquakes, volcanoes or other phenomena can have both immediate and far-reaching effects on the population and the ecology of the land, as the recent tsunami on the coast of Japan demonstrated.

With the shadow of Mt Vesuvius close by, the topic was also close to the heart for delegates attending the fifth Plenary session on Wednesday, 3 October at the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy.

One expert in disaster relief operations, Francesco Pisano of the United Nations, told delegates that in crisis management, the end user was not always looking for "the prefect map".

This is because the situation can often change within hours - and he urged those responsible for providing Earth Observation (EO) data not to become obsessed with detail.

As Manager of UNOSAT (Operational Satellite Applications Programme) at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Pisano explained that he made regular use of EO data.

UNOSAT is an operational programme of the United Nations, offering humanitarian aid and relief coordination, human security, and territorial planning and mapping.

"In the professional domains represented in this gathering, we all have responsibility," he stated. "Mapping from satellites is now a standard and serious business - it is no longer about ‘stunning' audiences."

He said that space provides a "slice of the sandwich" to enhance the decision-making capacity of those who have to take action in disaster situations.

Pisano went on to suggest that in order to make data "digestible" for local use - where there may be no or little expertise in EO data interpretation - more decisions by operators had to be user-driven.

Overall the Plenary looked at three key elements of disaster monitoring:

• the role of space in the pre-crisis period (risk assessment, prevention and preparedness), including in particular on the consideration and presentation of a large range of usable sensors and missions,
• the role of space in crisis response, including the role of the International Disaster Charter: how it works, its main achievements to date and future challenges,
• and post crisis disaster management, with an important focus on user needs, and covering volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters.

Maurice Borgeaud, Head of Department, Science, Applications and Future Technologies Earth Observation Directorate at ESA, agreed that in order to deliver the most valuable kind of data, the space community needed to question exactly what users wanted.

He explained that ESA, a member of the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters, had a huge archive of Earth Observation (EO) data from the ERS and Envisat missions which was invaluable when wanting to compare current data with that from the past.

He described three stages of disaster risk management - pre-disaster, disaster response and post-disaster and explained how EO data could help with each.

Masanori Homma, Executive Director, Space Applications Mission, Spectrum Management, Space Tracking and Data Acquisition, and Environmental Test Technology, at JAXA, said Japan had introduced the concept of ‘Sentinel' to the Asia region over the past four to five years.

Space provides value-added information and he showed examples of satellite EO images taken before and after the Tsunami of March 2011 showing the extent of the flooded areas. "Such imagery gives us an overview of how serious such a disaster is," he said.

"Satellite data helps us find solutions to some problems," though data supplied from many different satellites includes duplications because of similar orbital parameters.

He urged delegates and those responsible for defining and operating new systems to work together to ensure coverage is as wide as possible.

Satellites can also play a role in assisting post-disaster recovery efforts. One example being navigation satellite systems which can help with efficient infrastructure reconstruction.

Homma also warned that ground systems could be vulnerable in large scale disasters and operators should consider ways of making the ground segment as robust as possible.


The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

China's first space woman

China’s first female astronaut proved a major draw when she appeared at the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy, this week.

During the first of the Congress’ early morning Breaking News sessions on Wednesday (3 October), Liu Yang spoke about her mission and introduced a film showing highlights of the flight.

The 33-year-old became the first Chinese woman to fly in space when she and two male crew mates blasted off aboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft in June of this year.

Two days later, the three taikonauts (the Chinese term for astronauts) hooked up with the already orbiting Tiangong 1 module, pulling off China's first-ever crewed space docking.

She said she was astonished by the beauty of Earth as seen from space, and that she was pleasantly surprised by the toy panda that had been left aboard Tiangong 1 by the ground crew.

An illustrated overview of the flight was given by Dr Zhaoyao Wang, Director of China’s Manned Space Agency, covering mission planning and implementation.


Dr Zhaoyao Wang speaking at IAC 2012.

He revealed that the Chinese space station is expected to be completed and fully operational around 2020 and said China intended to strengthen international exchange and cooperation in its future development and operation.

"During the operational phase, the Space Station will conduct long-term man-tended operations with the nominal status of three crew who will alternate every half year," he explained.

Dr Wang said that the construction phase would see intermittent visits and stays depending on mission requirements and that some EVAs would be performed.

Artist's impression showing elements of China's space station.

There will also be a cargo re-supply ship sent up to the orbiting complex between one and two times a year.

Asked about the possibility of a second mission, Liu Yang said that flight schedules were closely connected with the country’s development programme.

"The next mission will come soon, and whether I am selected or not, I am preparing all the time for the country’s selection," she said.

Lui Yang in Naples with her minder.

As well as on-going training, Yang said part of her work now involved sharing her experiences with others who have yet to make a spaceflight.

Another crewed Chinese mission (Shenzhou 10) to Tiangong 1 is planned for next year but the officials with the Chinese delegation said a date for launch had not yet been announced.

Lui Yang poses with Clive Simpson.

The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website