Skip to main content

Space for everyone🌑

🌚Space exploration used to be an extremely exclusive activity and understandably so.

It costs a lot of money to put traditional spacecraft on rockets, explains Robbie Schingler, who worked as part of the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA before cofounding an Earth-imaging company called Planet. “And if you’re going to put something like that on a rocket, you want to make sure that it works. It needs to be designed and built perfectly. There is no room for risk because there is only one shot. And then, before you know it, the satellite has a lot of redundancy,” he says. “You only use components that have flown in space before, so you know they’ll actually work, and then you end up with a satellite that’s actually quite large and therefore quite expensive—and complex.


The situation has evolved dramatically over the last 15 years, as small spacecraft and the science experiments they carry have become smaller, cheaper, and easier to get into space. First, academia standardized the specifications for satellites so small that several fit in a backpack. Meanwhile, consumer electronics were getting both tinier and increasingly powerful, making it possible to infuse fascinating technology into the shrinking spacecraft. At the same time, many of the launch vehicles themselves have become bigger and more capable of transporting multiple payloads—including small spacecraft—although NASA and industry are still working to make the process of finding a ride to space more efficient.


Still, by 2016, space had become within reach even for a group of elementary school students who, with NASA’s help, deployed a small satellite they built into low-Earth orbit. The children joined researchers, graduate students, enthusiasts, and government contractors of all sizes who are directly participating in space exploration through the space agency’s small spacecraft.🤗

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research. NASA was established NASA is under presidential orders to land humans on Mars by 2033, and NASA-funded engineers are studying a way to build potential human habitats there by producing bricks from pressurized Martian soil. The European Space Agency has a long-term goal to send humans but has not yet built a crewed spacecraft NASA has made use of technologies such as the multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG), which is a type of radioisotope thermoelectric generator used to power spacecraft.[170] Shortages of the required plutonium-238 have curtailed deep space missions since the turn of the millennium.[171] An example of a spacecraft that was not developed because of a shortage of this material was New Horizons 2.[171] The Earth science research program was c...
1 comment
Read more

Biological life raft☣️

🌍 Earth is a biological life raft thatsustains human life in the inhospitable environment of the cosmos. This planetary closed-loop system provides oxygen, water and essential nutrients while recycling waste, purifying contaminants and renewing resources. It does all of this using only the things that already exist in the biosphere. And NASA is learning just how this life raft functions in order to create a portable replica of the biological system we call home. A closed-loop system only uses the resources on hand. In other words, no resupply shipments make it necessary to reuse and recycle everything. On Earth, biology takes care of these processes naturally and efficiently, according to Jitendra Joshi, an engineer based at NASA Headquarters. Joshi studies the systems that sustain human life in space, such as microbiological systems for waste treatment for long duration space missions.   A closed-loop system only uses the resources on hand.   “The water we drank this morning...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mini_pumps ? life on Mars☄️🌑

MINI-PUMPS The same miniaturized pumps on the Mars Curiosity rover are at work on Earth. Finding evidence of life on Mars requires high-tech equipment, whether that life is extinct or currently living below the surface and producing methane. Those same resources can be used on this planet during an industrial accident or dangerous chemical spill to let emergency crews know what they’re dealing with. But that’s only if the equipment can be used onsite. A mass spectrometer offers that kind of support on and off this planet. A mass spectrometer analyzes ionized samples of material by measuring the mass of the ionized molecules to determine the ratio of different isotopes in it or learn about the structure of its molecules. This information can be used to determine a sample’s age, how it formed or what molecules it contains (See Distant Encounters). But to land on Mars or be available for onsite emergency use on Earth, this equipment needs to be smaller and more rugged than the large mo...
Post a Comment
Read more