Tag: NASA

Nikon Z 9 Makes Historic Journey to International Space Station

Nikon India Pvt. Ltd. has launched the Nikon Z 9 camera into space, which is headed to the International Space Station (ISS). This marks the first time a Nikon mirrorless camera will be used by astronauts on the space station.

Multiple Nikon Z 9 bodies, accompanied by a range of NIKKOR Z lenses, were taken into space on the 20th Northrop Grumman commercial resupply services mission for NASA.

The Nikon Z 9 mirrorless camera is replacing the existing Nikon D6 and D5 digital SLR cameras on the ISS. Nikon has a history of over 50 years in space exploration, with Nikon cameras and lenses playing important roles in numerous NASA missions. Since 1999, Nikon equipment has been integral to scientific research, maintenance tasks, and capturing imagery both inside and outside the space station.

The Nikon Z series, introduced in 2018, is known for its robust construction, reliability, and next-generation features. The Z 9 is Nikon’s flagship full-frame mirrorless camera, and it eliminates a physical shutter, enhancing durability and reliability even in extreme environments.

While the Nikon Z 9 used in space is physically identical to its terrestrial counterpart, Nikon engineers worked closely with NASA to develop custom firmware tailored to the unique challenges of space exploration. This specialized firmware enhances noise reduction at faster shutter speeds to counter cosmic radiation exposure, optimizes file naming sequences, and streamlines workflow protocols for efficient image transfer from space to Earth.

The successful integration of the Nikon Z 9 into the ISS operations highlights Nikon’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of photographic technology and its adaptability to the rigors of space exploration. This historic milestone not only showcases Nikon’s prowess in camera innovation but also reaffirms its commitment to supporting human endeavors beyond the confines of Earth’s atmosphere.

Wish to send something to the moon? America’s commercial attempt in 5 decades!

The first country to land on the moon was the Soviet Union in 1966. America was the first country to land humans on the moon in 1969, and ever since, only two countries have achieved a successful landing, including China, which managed three successful landings in the past decade and India, which achieved the feat on its second attempt. America is pushing the private industry of their country to complete space exploration and missions at a fraction of the cost required by a government initiative for the same. Called the Vulcan Centaur, America blasted off an attempt to land on the moon after almost 5 decades from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Vulcan Centaur is a two-stage-to-orbit, heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by United Launch Alliance (ULA). It is principally designed to meet launch demands for the U.S. government’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program for use by the United States Space Force and U.S. intelligence agencies for national security satellite launches. It will replace both of ULA’s existing heavy-lift launch systems (Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy) due to their retirement. Vulcan Centaur will also be used for commercial launches, including an order for 38 launches from Kuiper Systems.

Development of the Vulcan rocket started in 2014, largely in response to growing competition from SpaceX and a desire to phase out the Russian RD-180 used on the Atlas V. Initially scheduled for an inaugural flight in 2020, the program was delayed by over three years due to problems with the development of the BE-4 engine and the new Centaur upper stage. Vulcan Centaur launched for the first time on 8 January 2024, successfully carrying Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lunar lander, the first mission on NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

The lander Peregrine is carrying confidential scientific equipment that shall measure the Moon’s radiation and surface composition. The most interesting part is the remaining cargo: the cremated remains and DNA of Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, DNA remains of scientist and author Arthur C. Clarke, a live dog, a physical bitcoin and a small rover built by Carnegie Mellon University! The US has paid only $100 million for the transport to Astrobotic, and in space exploration terms, it’s a good deal on a taxi fare.

Moonstruck – ISRO’s Vision to Grace the Moon with Indian Astronauts by 2040

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is poised for an ambitious lunar endeavour, setting its sights on dispatching Indian astronauts to the Moon by the visionary year of 2040, as declared by Chairman S Somanath. Charting the course for the next frontier in space exploration, ISRO unveils the Gaganyaan program, an audacious plan to propel a crew of 2 to 3 Indian astronauts into the celestial theatre of Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Their cosmic odyssey is envisioned to span up to three awe-inspiring days, culminating in a secure return to a predesignated site in the vast expanse of Indian waters. Somanath detailed this cosmic vision in a compelling article for the Manorama Yearbook 2024.

From the ranks of the Indian Air Force, four intrepid test pilots have been anointed as “Astronaut-Designates” for the Gaganyaan mission. Currently undergoing specialized training at the Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru, these aviators are poised to etch their names in the annals of space exploration.

The inaugural Gaganyaan mission will be a crucible of cutting-edge technologies, scrutinizing the resilience of the human-rated LVM3 launch vehicle, the orbital ballet of the Crew Module and Service Module encapsulated within the Orbital Module, and an array of life support systems. Preceding the historic crewed mission, the spacefaring endeavour will conduct two parallel uncrewed missions, in addition to rigorous Air Drop Tests, Pad Abort Tests, and Test Vehicle flights.

The recent milestone achievement, the TV-D1 mission on October 21, 2023, showcased the mettle of the Crew Escape System. The unpressurized incarnation of the Crew Module gracefully detached from the launch vehicle, free-falling into the Bay of Bengal, where the Indian Navy deftly retrieved it.

Somanath underscores the pivotal role of this test flight as a prerequisite for the imminent missions, projecting a potential launch of the crewed Gaganyaan mission in the celestial dance of 2025. The cosmic tapestry of India’s space odyssey continues to unfold, weaving a narrative of bold exploration and scientific prowess.

Chasing the Sun – Aditya L-1’s Epic Quest for Solar Enlightenment

India’s Aditya L-1 mission has shattered the cosmic silence by unveiling the Sun’s mesmerizing picture in exceptional detail. Through the lens of the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), an emissary aboard ISRO’s inaugural solar expedition, the mission has etched the inaugural full-disk images of our radiant star, unveiling its celestial dance in near ultraviolet splendour. The breathtaking visuals, spanning 200 to 400 nm wavelengths, have ushered humanity into uncharted realms, offering a cosmic spectacle never witnessed before.

ISRO, the architect of this cosmic revelation, shared these celestial snapshots on the digital canvas of social media. In their announcement, they heralded these images as gateways to “pioneering insights into the intricate details of the Sun’s photosphere and chromosphere.” The Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, a luminary among seven payloads on Aditya L-1, stands as a sentinel, capturing the Sun’s ultraviolet essence and scrutinizing the nuances of light energy emissions.

The Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS), a maestro within the Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) payload, commenced its cosmic sonata on December 2. Preceding this, the High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) unveiled the solar flares’ mystique in a mesmerizing display last month.

Launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on September 2, Aditya L-1 rides the powerful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), a stalwart among ISRO’s cosmic steeds. Beyond its visual revelations, Aditya L-1 seeks to unravel the Sun’s secrets—its radiance, the ebb and flow of particles, magnetic fields, and their profound influence on our cosmic ballet. As the PSLV sets Aditya L-1 on its orbital dance, humanity eagerly anticipates the unveiling of the solar saga, enriching our cosmic tapestry with newfound wisdom.

Exploring the Red Planet: NASA’s Mars Mission Aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn

NASA’s search for life beyond Earth has been ongoing for many years, and one of the key locations of interest is the planet Mars. In order to further explore the red planet, NASA has collaborated with Blue Origin, a private aerospace company, to send the next Mars mission on their new spacecraft, the New Glenn. This new spacecraft is a heavy-lift reusable rocket that has been designed to carry both crew and cargo into space.

The spacecraft New Glenn is named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, and it has been designed to be one of the most advanced rockets in operation today. It is nearly 270 feet tall and features seven BE-4 engines that generate over 3 million pounds of thrust. This powerful rocket will be capable of launching payloads of up to 45 tons into space, making it one of the most capable rockets in the world.

NASA’s Mars mission will be a crucial step in our search for life beyond Earth. Mars has long been a target of interest for scientists due to its similarities to Earth, and recent discoveries of water on the planet have only increased our curiosity. The Mars mission will be designed to study the planet’s geology, climate, and search for evidence of past or present life. This mission will involve multiple spacecraft, including orbiters, rovers, and landers, all of which will be launched on the New Glenn.

The use of Blue Origin’s New Glenn for NASA’s Mars mission is significant for several reasons. Firstly, the New Glenn has been designed to be highly reusable, which will allow for cost-effective launches in the future. This is a major advantage for NASA, as it will allow the organisation to send multiple missions to Mars without incurring significant costs. Additionally, New Glenn’s advanced technology will ensure that the Mars mission will be carried out efficiently and effectively.

Humans could be living on the Moon in 10 years, says NASA

Space exploration is undoubtedly a vital part of the human experience that could bring about the advancement of humanity on a greater scale. While humans have the ambition to migrate to a different planet like Mars, we have not even been able to base a camp on the Moon! Interstellar travel is only limited to Nolan films in the current scenario, however, it looks like things are about to change.

Humans could live on Moon

NASA has claimed recently that humans could be living on the moon as soon as the next 10 years. The Artemis rocket was launched recently containing the Orion lunar spacecraft which is the inception of the start of a mission to take astronauts back to the moon. There has been nearly a fifty-year hiatus from moon landings and humanity is gearing up to bring them back, and how!

Howard Hu, the head of the Orion program recently said to the BBC that in this decade itself, NASA will have people living for durations on the moon. The Orion program head also shared that depending on how long humans will be on the surface, the Moon will have habitats and rovers on the ground! Howard stated furthermore that NASA will definitely be sending people up to the Moon’s surface and they will be ‘doing science’. This will be the first step NASA is taking for long-term deep space exploration not just for the United States but also for the world.

If you ask me, space exploration has been not just a fascinating subject but also a realization of us being a speckle of dust in the vast universe. However, the conspiracy theories about the ‘dark side of the moon’ have also been intriguing to me. Thus, it will be interesting to see where humanity lands up with this level of space exploration where we base camps on the surface of the moon!

NASA and Google Collaborate to Track Air Pollution in Real-Time

The problem of pollution, especially, air pollution is one of the biggest challenges for governments across the world. According to WHO, 7 million people in the world die due to air pollution. In order to tackle this serious issue, Google and NASA have joined hands to develop advanced machine learning-based algorithms that can generate high-resolution air quality maps in real-time.

Real-Time Air pollution Tracking

NASA announced the collaboration with Google in an official post. The new algorithm aims to link NASA data with Google Earth Engine data streams in order to achieve the feat of delivering real-time air pollution maps. “We’re thrilled about our partnership with NASA to make daily air quality more actionable at a local level,” said Rebecca Moore, director at Google Earth, Earth Engine and Outreach at Google. “Environmental insights, like high resolution air quality maps, can be useful tools for cities and community organizations who can take action on climate and health in their neighborhoods,” Moore said. “This scientific research partnership with NASA will help us improve the resolution, validation and the usefulness, of air quality maps in both space and time — giving everyone more data for decisions towards cleaner air”

NASA and Google had signed a 2-year Annex Agreement only back in July 2022. The agreement aims upon enhancing NASA’s science data discovery, usability and accessibility through the storage and sharing of data on the Google Cloud Platform and the Google Earth Engine. To accomplish real-time air pollution maps, Google has added two new NASA data sets to the Earth Engine Catalogue. These data sets are updated automatically on a daily basis.

NASA is currently working to develop machine-learning algorithms in the Google Earth Engine to identify the connections between the newly added data and data from Google’s Street View. “This partnership is a major step forward in integrating air pollution data from a range of critical sources, from ground-level observations to satellite data, into advanced machine learning algorithms,” said Pawan Gupta, senior scientist with Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

 

 

Saggitarius A* – Supermassive Black Hole Gets Captured

The first image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. May 12th turned out to be a historic day as the astronomers at National Science Foundation (NSF) were successful in getting the first image of the black hole residing at the centre of the Milky Way. Sagittarius A* is located 27,0000 light-years away from the Earth and is 4million times bigger than the sun.

The picture does not show the black hole itself, considering black holes do not permit light to escape from them. Instead, it depicts a darkish central region, known as a shadow, surrounded by a shiny ring-like shape that is sparkling gases across the black hole.

“Our own black hole! Astronomers have just revealed the 1st image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy using the @ehtelescope – a planet-scale array of radio telescopes that emerged from decades of NSF support,” NSF said on its Twitter handle.

EHT

The black hole was captured using an Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The EHT is a network of radio dishes launched in 2015 and involved 80 astronomy institutes. 4 years after the launch of the EHT, the first-ever image of a black hole, M87*, in our galaxy was revealed.

The EHT is a unique network of antennae spread across the world that makes a virtual telescope. The role of the EHT is to detect the light cast when a matter disappears in the muzzle of a black hole. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) records the flash of light produced when planets, debris, or something else comes too close — is sucked right into a black hole’s outer boundary, known as an event horizon, which is the point of no return.

 

China Plans To Build A Kilometre-Long Starship

The Cold War space race, which has always involved countries like Russia and America, now have a new competitor. China is looking forward to building a spacecraft spanning nearly a kilometre in length. 

Bill Nelson, President Biden’s new NASA administrator, has cast China as “a very aggressive competitor” that has big ambitions in Space and is challenging America’s leadership.

“Watch the Chinese,” he recently warned.

According to a report by Global Times, China has announced one of the most ambitious projects in human history – to build a kilometre long starship, which is at least ten times the length of the International Space Station (ISS).

As soon as the news came out, it took the Chinese internet by storm, especially among the space sci-fi fans. However, the experts say that there will be many challenges for China along the way, apart from the massive demand for manpower and resources, considering the size and complexity of the spacecraft. 

Notably, this comes at a time when China has been achieving multiple milestones in space science. Earlier this year, China became the second nation to successfully land a rover on Mars and the first to land a mission that consisted of an orbiter, lander and rover. Two years ago, China became the first nation to land a robotic mission on the far side of the moon.

According to a project outline published by the Chinese Foundation, the spacecraft elements will be built on Earth and then launched individually to orbit to be assembled in Space. The spacecraft will be “a major strategic aerospace equipment for the future use of space resources, exploration of the mysteries of the universe and staying in long-term.”

During China’s sixth annual National Space Day, there were already speculations that the country is interested in pursuing a starship-like spacecraft and spaceplanes. Recently, China also announced plans to conduct a crewed mission to Mars by 2023 as a long-term plan to build a permanent base there. 

Whatever the long-term goal might be, it is clear that with the pace that China is moving with its space plans, it can leave NASA and Roscosmos behind to become the world’s leading power in Space. 

Driving NASA to Space – Elon Musk’s SpaceX

While you all were thinking of all the controversies and downfall that Elon Musk must’ve seen in the last two years, he launched yet another milestone, literally. SpaceX successfully launched NASA astronauts into space! 

Elon Musk and the team have been working on this dream for the last 18 years and on 30th May of 2020, the automobile tycoon’s SpaceX launched astronauts beyond the skies. The Falcon 9 rocket left Launch Complex 39A carrying two astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. This marked history for Elon Musk as SpaceX became the very first private company to have launched astronauts for NASA. 

With all of this, if all goes well, SpaceX will also begin launching astronauts not only for NASA but other space agencies and private companies. The first operational Crew Dragon mission, called Crew-1, is expected to launch to the ISS on or around Aug. 30, with 3 NASA astronauts and 1 astronaut from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. 

A test dummy named Ripley was onboard Demo-1 that was launched previously in March 2019 with no real astronauts on board. This was for a week-long test. Elon Musk has been extremely overwhelmed with emotion and when someone’s hard work does pay off, it definitely is a victory worth all the emotions and celebrations. 

While the return is more important than entry, Musk and team are geared up to ensure that the reentry is safe and only then will he consider it to be a true victory. Elon Musk has earned quite a reputation over the years. Tesla fans are many and now SpaceX is all set to create a wave of new fandom. He has shown remarkable resilience even during tough times and his crisis management skills have proven to be unparalleled. After all, courage is the true virtue that one must live by. 

Amidst all the Coronavirus chaos that the world has been hit really hard with, there’s consolation here in this huge achievement that showcases what all a human being can do. It is all about setting goals and following through to achieve them. Elon Musk has set an example for all to follow. 

Leaving you with a positive note by Adidas – ‘Impossible is nothing’. 

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