Space - Tullamore Astronomical Society

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Where No Spacecraft Has Gone Before By Dr. Tony Phillips In 1977, Voyager 1 left our planet. Its mission: to visit Jupiter and Saturn and to study their moons. The flybys were an enormous success. Voyager 1 discovered active volcanoes on Io, found evidence for submerged oceans on Europa, and photographed dark rings around Jupiter itself. Later, the spacecraft buzzed Saturn’s moon Titan—alerting astronomers that it was a very strange place indeed! —and flew behind Saturn’s rings, seeing what was hidden from Earth. Beyond Saturn, Neptune and Uranus beckoned, but Voyager 1’s planet-tour ended there. Saturn’s gravity seized Voyager 1 and slingshot it into deep space. Voyager 1 was heading for the stars—just as NASA had planned. Now, in 2005, the spacecraft is nine billion miles (96 astronomical units) from the Sun, and it has entered a strange region of space no ship has ever visited before. “We call this region ‘the heliosheath.’ It’s where the solar wind piles up against the interstellar medium at the outer edge of our solar system,” says Ed Stone, project scientist for the Voyager mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. heliosheath, the solar wind slows eventually to a dead stop. The slowing wind becomes denser, more turbulent, and its magnetic field—a remnant of the sun’s own magnetism--grows stronger. So far from Earth, this turbulent magnetic gas is curiously important to human life. “The heliosheath is a shield against galactic cosmic rays,” explains Stone. Subatomic particles blasted in our direction by distant supernovas and black holes are deflected by the heliosheath, protecting the inner solar system from much deadly radiation. Voyager 1 is exploring this shield for the first time. “We’ll remain inside the heliosheath for 8 to 10 years,” predicts Stone, “then we’ll break through, finally reaching interstellar space.” What’s out there? Stay tuned… For more about the twin Voyager spacecraft, visit voyager.jpl.nasa.gov. Kids can learn about Voyager 1 and 2 and their grand tour of the outer planets at spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/vgr_fact3.shtml . Out in the Milky Way, where Voyager 1 is trying to go, the “empty space” between stars is not really empty. It’s filled with clouds of gas and dust. The wind from the Sun blows a gigantic bubble in this cloudy “interstellar medium.” All nine planets from Mercury to Pluto fit comfortably inside. The heliosheath is, essentially, the bubble’s skin. “The heliosheath is different from any other place we’ve been,” says Stone. Near the Sun, the solar wind moves at a million miles per hour. At the Voyager 1, after 28 years of travel, has reached the heliosheath of our solar system. 20 Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society
SPACEFLIGHT News Russian Spacecraft Fails to Boost ISS into Higher Orbit A Russian spacecraft stopped short of boosting the International Space Station (ISS) into a higher orbit on Tuesday October 25 th when its engines unexpectedly shut down in mid-manoeuvre, Russian space officials said. After the first turn-on of the engines, they turned off spontaneously. The failed orbital manoeuvre poses no danger to the ISS or its two-astronaut crew, Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, and engineers are currently studying the glitch, according to a Federal Space Agency statement. There is no forecast at the moment as to when they would try again. Russian and U.S. space station flight controllers were expected to perform two engine burns that day using the Progress 19 spacecraft’s engines evening to raise the ISS into a higher orbit. The spacecraft is docked at the aft end of the station’s Zvezda module. The engine burns, each scheduled to run 11 minutes and 40 seconds, were expected to raise the ISS into an orbit that hits 224 statute miles (360 kilometres) at its highest point, a bit higher that the station’s current orbital peak of 220 statute miles (354 kilometres), NASA officials. But the Progress engines switched off less than two minutes into the first burn, NASA officials said, adding that there appeared to be a communications problem between the spacecraft's thrusters and Russian navigation computers, which shut down the engines as designed due to the data dropout. The brief engine burn did accelerate the ISS by about 1.04 feet per second (0.31 meters per second) and raised the lowest point of the station's orbit - 211 miles (339 kilometres) - by about 0.7 miles (1.1 kilometres). Other engines could be used to boost the space station’s orbit, but Russian space officials are still evaluating the glitch Tuesday’s altitude-raising manoeuvre was slated to place the station into the proper position for a second orbital boost later this year that would set up the ISS to receive an unmanned Russianbuilt cargo ship – Progress 20 – slated to launch toward the space station on December 21 st . Progress 20 will ferry vital supplies, spare parts and equipment to McArthur and Tokarev, who began their six-month tour aboard the ISS in October. Contamination cleanup continues on Venus Express orbiter European scientists are reasonably confident their Venus Express spacecraft will launch to Earth's nearest neighbour before the tight window of opportunity when the planets are aligned slams shut in a few weeks. The mission was supposed to blast off on Wednesday October 26 th , from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But contamination found on the satellite forced launch preparations to stop, putting Venus Express into an unplanned holding pattern. The spacecraft was already mated to its Soyuz rocket inside an assembly building in advance of being rolled to the launch pad. Then came the discovery of some insulation material that had come off the Fregat upper stage and was floating free inside the rocket's nose cone where Venus Express sat encapsulated for launch. Over the previous weekend, the Fregat and spacecraft still tucked inside the nose cone were detached from the Soyuz for train transport to another facility 25 miles away. The shroud was opened that Monday, enabling inspections of Venus Express by technicians to determine if any damage had occurred by the insulation. "The scenario is so far very encouraging, as only fairly large particles, pieces of the insulating material initially covering the launcher's Fregat upper stage, have been found on the body of the spacecraft," ESA said in a press statement. "These have been easy to identify by naked eye or with UV lamps, and are being carefully removed with tweezers, vacuumcleaners or nitrogen gas airbrushes, according to size." The cleaning will continue, followed by re-installation of the nose cone and transfer back to the Soyuz rocket's assembly building. Although a new launch date has not been set, lift-off is expected to be targeted for sometime between November 6 and 9. Venus Express must launch by November 24 to Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society 21
Page 1 and 2: REALTA 9+- Reviews, Events And Lect
Page 3 and 4: Key organisers and folks involved i
Page 5 and 6: NEWS UPDATE From Around The Univers
Page 7 and 8: Moon discovered orbiting Solar Syst
Page 9 and 10: Two New Moons for Pluto? New images
Page 11 and 12: viewing for the most part during th
Page 13 and 14: Great Irish Women Astronomers By Gi
Page 15 and 16: One would expect one or some of the
Page 17 and 18: Goldilocks and the (many) more than
Page 19: cold or just right, while the chair
Page 23 and 24: Contributions Wanted Do you ever no

Space - Tullamore Astronomical Society

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