Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Managing the Deluge of 'Big Data' From Space

Ed remembered a link from a previous post that fits with where we are going to be as we find ways to return more data from missions.  Once you get the data back, how do you handle it?  How hard is it to digest what you received?  It also brought to mind the discussions about large data bases that companies and our national security folks are collecting.  As I mentioned to Ed, Amazon.com certainly has algorithms that can guess at what book I might like to buy. 
-LRK-

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From one of your previous messages
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20131017.html
Managing the Deluge of 'Big Data' From Space

An interesting overlap with your current post.

As best I can tell hard disk drives hit their equivalent of "Moore's Law" two to three years ago.
Up until then home disk drives at Costco were doubling in size every year or so.  They have ceased doing so.
Solid state drives may now catch up with spinning drives - but may hit "Moore's Law" before then.

One thing an optical link could really do is shrink antenna sizes on earth and in space, while maintaining current data rates.
For an optical link a parabolic reflector is probably lighter than a lens.
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I would not have been able to copy and save Pioneer 10-11 Master Data Record data if it had been in the amounts that can be gathered now. 
This data from the total mission time is just a drop in a bucket compared to what you might gather with something new like the  download rate of 622 megabits per second (Mbps) shown with the NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD).
Pioneer 10: 155 disks x 128 MB (16.33 GB)
Pioneer 11: 217 disks x 128 MB (23.01 GB)

NASA is looking at the problems of dealing with large amounts of data as Ed reminded me.
-LRK-

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For NASA and its dozens of missions, data pour in every day like rushing rivers. Spacecraft monitor everything from our home planet to faraway galaxies, beaming back images and information to Earth. All those digital records need to be stored, indexed and processed so that spacecraft engineers, scientists and people across the globe can use the data to understand Earth and the universe beyond.
At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., mission planners and software engineers are coming up with new strategies for managing the ever-increasing flow of such large and complex data streams, referred to in the information technology community as "big data."
How big is big data? For NASA missions, hundreds of terabytes are gathered every hour. Just one terabyte is equivalent to the information printed on 50,000 trees worth of paper.
"Scientists use big data for everything from predicting weather on Earth to monitoring ice caps on Mars to searching for distant galaxies," said Eric De Jong of JPL, principal investigator for NASA’s Solar System Visualization project, which converts NASA mission science into visualization products that researchers can use. "We are the keepers of the data, and the users are the astronomers and scientists who need images, mosaics, maps and movies to find patterns and verify theories."
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Even if you have the money that NSA commands to store data it gathers, it can be a problem just running the hardware.
- LRK -

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The NSA's Hugely Expensive Utah Data Center Has Major Electrical Problems And Basically Isn't Working
10/07/2013 @ 9:31PM

Well, this is good news for those with privacy concerns about the NSA and terrible news for those concerned about government spending. The National Security Agency’s new billion-dollar-plus data center in Bluffdale, Utah was supposed to go online in September, but the Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gormanreports that it has major electrical problems and that the facility known as “the country’s biggest spy center” is presently nearly unusable:

"Chronic electrical surges at the massive new data-storage facility central to the National Security Agency’s spying operation have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery and delayed the center’s opening for a year, according to project documents and current and former officials.

There have been 10 meltdowns in the past 13 months that have prevented the NSA from using computers at its new Utah data-storage center, slated to be the spy agency’s largest, according to project documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal."
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Data from missions has to be used and evaluated. The same goes for other databases.
-LRK-

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Data mining

Data mining (the analysis step of the "Knowledge Discovery in Databases" process, or KDD),[1] an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science,[2][3][4] is the computational process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligencemachine learningstatistics, and database systems.[2] The overall goal of the data mining process is to extract information from a data set and transform it into an understandable structure for further use.[2] Aside from the raw analysis step, it involves database and data management aspects, data pre-processingmodel and inference considerations, interestingness metrics, complexity considerations, post-processing of discovered structures, visualization, and online updating.[2]
The term is a buzzword,[5] and is frequently misused to mean any form of large-scale data or information processing (collectionextractionwarehousinganalysis, and statistics) but is also generalized to any kind of computer decision support system, including artificial intelligencemachine learning, and business intelligence. In the proper use of the word, the key term isdiscovery[citation needed], commonly defined as "detecting something new". Even the popular book "Data mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques with Java"[6] (which covers mostly machine learning material) was originally to be named just "Practical machine learning", and the term "data mining" was only added for marketing reasons.[7] Often the more general terms "(large scale) data analysis", or "analytics" – or when referring to actual methods, artificial intelligence and machine learning – are more appropriate.
...
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Just for fun, consider the Internet and its many nodes, connections, and data transferred.  Now take a data image snap of what is out there and store it in the Web Archive.
-LRK-

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The Internet Archive has updated its Wayback Machine with a significant bump in coverage: the service has gone from 150,000,000,000 URLs to having 240,000,000,000 URLs, a total of about 5 petabytes of data. More specifically, the Wayback Machine now covers the Web from late 1996 to December 9, 2012.
Why is this significant? Well, as the Internet Archive points out, the Wayback Machine’s database is queried over 1,000 times every second by over 500,000 people a day, making Archive.org the 250th most popular site on the Web.
The team has spent the last year archiving various pages, including those related to the US 2012 presidential election. Yet the Wayback Machine doesn’t just feature archives of sites that still exist today: it also contains many that no longer exist.
...
https://archive.org/
Wayback Machine
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And if you like Science Fiction that comes too close to reality or might in a few years, you might enjoy the WWW Trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer where the Internet wakes up and begins to communicate with a blind girl. The security folks don't like someone else looking at the whole Internet.  (I am cheap and bought my copies used.) :-)
-LRK-

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The World Wide Web wakes up
"Lately, I've been inspired by ideas from Robert J. Sawyer."
—Artificial-intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky

WAKE

WATCH

WONDER

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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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NASA Laser Communication System Sets Record with Data Transmissions to and from Moon

Look at these speeds. 

"NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) has made history using a pulsed laser beam to transmit data over the 239,000 miles between the moon and Earth at a record-breaking download rate of 622 megabits per second (Mbps)."
-LRK-

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October 22, 2013

Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
jbuck@nasa.gov

Dewayne Washington
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0040
dewayne.a.washington@nasa.gov

RELEASE 13-309

NASA Laser Communication System Sets Record with Data Transmissions to and from Moon

NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) has made history using a pulsed laser beam to transmit data over the 239,000 miles between the moon and Earth at a record-breaking download rate of 622 megabits per second (Mbps).

LLCD is NASA's first system for two-way communication using a laser instead of radio waves. It also has demonstrated an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps transmitted from the primary ground station in New Mexico to the spacecraft currently orbiting the moon.

"LLCD is the first step on our roadmap toward building the next generation of space communication capability," said Badri Younes, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation (SCaN) in Washington. "We are encouraged by the results of the demonstration to this point, and we are confident we are on the right path to introduce this new capability into operational service soon."

Since NASA first ventured into space, it has relied on radio frequency (RF) communication. However, RF is reaching its limit as demand for more data capacity continues to increase. The development and deployment of laser communications will enable NASA to extend communication capabilities such as increased image resolution and 3-D video transmission from deep space.

"The goal of LLCD is to validate and build confidence in this technology so that future missions will consider using it," said Don Cornwell, LLCD manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This unique ability developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory has incredible application possibilities."

LLCD is a short-duration experiment and the precursor to NASA's long-duration demonstration, the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD). LCRD is a part of the agency's Technology Demonstration Missions Program, which is working to develop crosscutting technology capable of operating in the rigors of space. It is scheduled to launch in 2017.

LLCD is hosted aboard NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), launched in September from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. LADEE is a 100-day robotic mission operated by the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. LADEE's mission is to provide data that will help NASA determine whether dust caused the mysterious glow astronauts observed on the lunar horizon during several Apollo missions. It also will explore the moon's atmosphere. Ames designed, developed, built, integrated and tested LADEE, and manages overall operations of the spacecraft. NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LADEE mission.

The LLCD system, flight terminal and primary ground terminal at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, N.M., were developed by the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT. The Table Mountain Optical Communications Technology Laboratory operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is participating in the demonstration. A third ground station operated by the European Space Agency on Tenerife in the Canary Islands also will be participating in the demonstration.For more information about LLCD, visit:

http://llcd.gsfc.nasa.gov

For more information about the LADEE mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ladee

For more information about LCRD, visit:

http://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/267/LCRD.html

For more information about SCaN, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/scan

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And way back, Pioneer 10 at launch 256 bit/s.
-LRK-

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Pioneer 10
...
The space probe included a redundant system of transceivers, one attached to the narrow-beam, high-gain antenna, the other to an omni-antenna and medium-gain antenna. The parabolic dish for the high-gain antenna was 2.74 meters (9.0 ft) in diameter and made from an aluminum honeycomb sandwich material. The spacecraft was spun about an axis that was parallel to the axis of this antenna so that it could remain oriented toward the Earth.[12] Each transceiver was 8 W and transmitted data across the S-band using 2110 MHz for the uplink from Earth and 2292 MHz for the downlink to Earth with the Deep Space Network tracking the signal. Data to be transmitted was passed through a convolutional encoder so that most communication errors could becorrected by the receiving equipment on Earth.[1]:43 The data transmission rate at launch was 256 bit/s, with the rate degrading by about −1.27 millibit/s for each day during the mission.[12]
...
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Lasers Find Varied Uses in Space Applications
-LRK-

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Lasers Find Varied Uses in Space Applications
Valerie C. Coffey, Freelance Science Writer
From the first laser fired on another planet to observatory guide stars and space collision avoidance systems, lasers in space are making news with numerous advances and universal firsts (as far as we know).

With the beginning of the Laser Lunar Ranging experiment in the 1960s, the use of lasers in space moved out of the realm of science fiction into reality. While lasers-as-lightsabers are still only Star Wars fiction, the numerous ways we use lasers in space applications are pretty cool, even to non-nerdy folks.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has been front and center in the news since its landing on the distant big red rock on Aug. 6 of this year.1 Part of its mission is to search for markers of biological habitability as well as to study geology, climate and the role of water on the planet. In a functional “target practice” test on Aug. 19, Curiosity’s powerful megawatt laser became our first to be fired on another planet (see Figure 1). In that first self-test of the instrument after landing, it fired 30 5-ns-long pulses, each with more than 1 million W of power, over a 10-s period at a fist-size rock dubbed “Coronation.”
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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Monday, October 21, 2013

NASA Administrator to Visit Goddard in First Trip to a Field Center Post-Shutdown

Should be an interesting visit. Would love to see the James Webb Space Telescope.
-LRK-

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NASA Administrator to Visit Goddard in First Trip to a Field Center Post-Shutdown
October 21, 2013
David Weaver
Headquarter, Washington
202-358-1600
david.s.weaver@nasa.gov
Ed Campion                                                                                    
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0697/202-423-6285
edward.s.campion@nasa.gov
MEDIA ADVISORY M13-161
NASA Administrator to Visit Goddard in First Trip to a Field Center Post-Shutdown
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will visit the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Tuesday, Oct. 22 -- his first visit to a NASA center since the end of the government shutdown. The visit is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. EDT.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who is Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, will join Bolden at Goddard to view the latest launch preparations for the Global Precipitation Measurement and Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft, as well as the James Webb Space Telescope.  
Media interested in attending the event should contact Ed Campion in Goddard’s Office of Communications to arrange access. He can be reached at 301-286-0697202-423-6285, or atedward.s.campion@nasa.gov. The deadline for accreditation is noon Tuesday.
For information about NASA's programs and missions, visit:
-end-

NASA news releases and other information are available automatically by sending an e-mail message with the subject line subscribe to hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov. 
To unsubscribe from the list, send an e-mail message with the subject line unsubscribe to hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov.
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NASA Back to work.
-LRK-

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NASA is once again open for business in a big way, and we’re back to our core mission implementing America’s ambitious space program.

With LADEE in lunar orbit and Juno heading toward the Jupiter after an Earth flyby, we're getting ready to wrap up another commercial cargo flight to the International Space Station and send a new crew of three to the orbital outpost. Meanwhile, MAVEN is on track for a launch to Mars on Nov. 18.
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Birds fly in formation, why not satellites.
-LRK-

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Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission

The Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) is a planned NASA unmanned space mission, to study the Earth's magnetosphere using four identical spacecraft flying in a tetrahedral formation. It will be deployed in 2014. It is designed to gather information about the microphysics of magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence, processes that occur in many astrophysical plasmas.[1]
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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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A First-Person Account of Debugging a LivA First-Person Account of Debugging a Live Saturn V Rocket

A First-Person Account of Debugging a LivA First-Person Account of Debugging a Live Saturn V Rocket


Matt sent me this link and I think you all will like as well.
This is the kind of action that made going to the Moon possible.
Many thanks to Brennan, Gizmodo, and Matt for sharing.
-LRK-

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Here is where the above came from.
-LRK-

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DEBUGGING A LIVE SATURN V

13 · 10 · 13
We all have stories, as engineers, of fixing some crazy thing at the last minute right before the demo goes up. We have all encountered situations where we needed to fix something that was our fault and we needed to fix it now.
This story is something that I think about in those times to remember to stay calm. No last minute fix could ever be this dramatic or important.
My grandfather passed away about a week ago. At the service, I was asked to say a few words and read from his memoirs. This was my choice.
....

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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Sunday, October 20, 2013

[NASA HQ News] NASA TV Coverage Set Cygnus and ATV Departures, Soyuz Launch Preparations

Maybe in time to watch on NASA TV.
-LRK-

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[NASA HQ News] NASA TV Coverage Set Cygnus and ATV Departures, Soyuz Launch Preparations
October 18, 2013
Trent J. Perrotto
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov
Josh Byerly
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
josh.byerly@nasa.gov
MEDIA ADVISORY M13-158
NASA TV Coverage Set Cygnus and ATV Departures, Soyuz Launch Preparations
NASA Television will provide live coverage of the departure of the newest U.S. commercial cargo spacecraft to deliver supplies to the International Space Station and undocking of the fourth European Space Agency cargo vehicle.
Coverage for departure of the Cygnus spacecraft begins at 7 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 22. The spacecraft has been attached to the space station since Sept. 29 on a demonstration cargo resupply mission by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.
Coverage for departure of the fourth European Space Agency (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) cargo spacecraft begins at 4:45 a.m.  Monday, Oct. 28.
Cygnus delivered about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothing and student experiments to the Expedition 37 crew aboard the space station. Future flights of Cygnus will significantly increase NASA's ability to deliver new science investigations to the only laboratory in microgravity.
Astronauts will load Cygnus with items no longer needed and detach the spacecraft from the station's Harmony module using the orbiting complex's robotic arm. The crew will release Cygnus at 7:30 a.m.Orbital engineers then will conduct a series of planned burns and maneuvers to move Cygnus toward a destructive re-entry in Earth's atmosphere Wednesday, Oct. 23.
Cygnus was launched on the company's Antares rocket on Sept. 18 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Orbital is the second of NASA’s two partners taking part in the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The goal of COTS is to develop safe, reliable and cost effective cargo transportation systems. Following a successful demonstration mission, the company is poised to begin regular resupply missions.
The ATV-4 spacecraft, named Albert Einstein by ESA in honor of the 20th century theoretical physicist and icon of modern science, launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana June 5. The spacecraft docked to the aft port of the Russian Zvezda Service Module June 15, delivering more than 7 tons of supplies.
ATV-4 also will be loaded with items no longer needed aboard the space station. The spacecraft will back away from the station to a safe distance for an engine firing that will enable it to make a planned destructive return through Earth's atmosphere Sunday, Nov. 2.
Preparations also are under way for launch of a new expedition crew to the space station. Launch is scheduled for 11:14 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Nov. 6, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. New video of launch preparations will begin airing on NASA Television Oct. 22.
For the full schedule of video files and live events on NASA TV, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntvnews
For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
For information on the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
 

NASA news releases and other information are available automatically by sending an e-mail message with the subject line subscribe to hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov. 
To unsubscribe from the list, send an e-mail message with the subject line unsubscribe to hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov.

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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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NASA is back open - well at least the web sites - Watching to see where we go now.

I was watching to see if my Navy Retirement, for 26 years of service, would continue to be funded and I see that the government will, for the short term, continue to borrow money to pay me. 

My Social Security check should be here this week so maybe I will be able to pay my property tax that is due by December 10. Furloughed Federal employee daughter back to work and expects to get back pay for the thee weeks she wasn't allowed to work. Had made her mortgage payment before the shutdown and will now be able to make the next one.

I know the above expose is not stuff about going back to the Moon and may not be of interest to you, still I should think those that are working on such ideas would have been affected by all of this government indecision.  Now we wait and see if we play the same game come January, February 2014.  

I would really like to report on exciting space related items.
- LRK -

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Government Shutdown Ends, OMB Tells Furloughed Employees to Return to Work Tomorrow - UPDATE
Marcia S. Smith
Posted: 16-Oct-2013
Updated: 17-Oct-2013 12:40 AM
UPDATE, October 17, 2013, 12:37 am ET:   The President has signed the bill into law.
ORIGINAL STORY, October 16, 2013, 11:50 pm ET:  President Obama is expected to sign the bill that reopens the government and raises the debt limit tonight and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is telling furloughed federal workers to return to work tomorrow morning, Thursday, October 17. 
The FY2014 Continuing Appropriations Act (H.R. 2775 as amended) passed the Senate this evening by a vote of 81-18 and the House by a vote of 285-144.  All no votes were Republican.  All Democrats who cast a vote, voted yes. 
In the Senate, 27 Republicans joined the 52 Democrats and two Independents (who usually vote with Democrats) in voting in favor of the measure.  (One Republican Senator did not vote.)  A tally of the vote is posted on the Senate'swebsite.
....
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Before we had a lot of belt tightening to save money.  I don't see this shutdown as helping.
-LRK-

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October 20, 2013

The Shutdown's NASA-Sized Price Tag (Source: Slate)
A few research firms have tried to attach a number to the shutdown. Macroeconomic Advisers put the figure at $12 billion. S&P estimate the cost was twice as high, at $24 billion. Split the difference, and you're talking about $18 billion in lost work. What's a good way to think about that kind of money—a sliver of the entire $15 trillion U.S. economy, but still, you know, $18 billion? In July this year, NASA funding was approved at around $17 billion for the fiscal year. So, there: The shutdown took a NASA-sized bite out of the U.S. economy." (10/17)
...
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Well at least the stale links now work.  We should probably take a look and see what is on the menu.
-LRK-

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Newly discovered asteroid 2013 TV135 made a close approach to Earth on Sept. 16, when it came within about 4.2 million miles (6.7 million kilometers).

NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office states the probability this asteroid could impact Earth in 2032 is only one in 63,000.

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How about the folks at JPL?
-LRK-

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What's up for October 2013

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NASA Ames still working the LADEE mission

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Ames Research Center


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Goddard Space Flight Center open and adjusting
-LRK-

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Due to the recent partial Government shutdown, the Sunday Experiment scheduled for October 20 at NASA's Goddard Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Md., has been cancelled.  Once a new date has been set it will be included in the Visitor Center's on-line events calendar.
---
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, our solar system and the universe.
Named for American rocketry pioneer Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the center was established in 1959 as NASA's first space flight complex. Goddard and its several facilities are critical in carrying out NASA's missions of space exploration and scientific discovery.http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/index.html#.UmSj5_mTiSo
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Hey, the ISS is still up there.

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Latest News Archives

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Alright, should have done better.  Hubble telescope still looking at the sky. :-)
-LRK-

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Hubble Image: Incoming Comet ISON Appears Intact
  • Posted by Keith Cowing - Source: STSCI
  • Posted October 17, 2013 5:55 PM
A new image of the Sunward plunging Comet ISON suggests that the comet is intact despite some predictions that the fragile icy nucleus might disintegrate as the Sun warms it. The comet will pass closest to the Sun on November 28.
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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Which way to the Moon?

Some have said we never went to the Moon. Back when computations were done with paper and pencil, slide rule and graphs, one might have believed such stories, even if made into some sort of documentary.

Do you fall back to Earth like a ball thrown into the sky or can you reach a point where the Moon will pull you in?  You know the answer.  What about your young students?
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The following problem is solved: On the way to the Moon the Apollo astronauts reached a point where the Moon's gravitational pull became stronger than the Earth's. a) Determine the distance of this point from the center of the Earth. b) What is the acceleration of Earth's due to Earth's gravitation at this point?
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A look at some of what ESA has done.

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rbulletin 103 — august 2000
Ways to the Moon?
R. Biesbroek
JAQAR Space Engineering, Den Haag, The Netherlands
G. Janin
Mission Analysis Section, ESA Directorate of Technical and Operational Support,
ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany

ESA has conducted several studies on missions to the Moon in recent years. The lunar trajectories for most of these missions differ substantially from those of the lunar missions flown in the 1960s and 70s. In particular, the use of shared Ariane-5 launches to reduce cost puts the spacecraft into a transfer orbit from which novel transfers and trajectories are needed to inimise the propellant required to reach lunar orbit. This has led to intensive studies of Weak Stability Boundary (WSB) transfers, which exploit the presence of low-gravity fields in which small manoeuvres can have large effects on the spacecraft’s motion. The long travel times incurred with this approach are compensated by the large reduction in propellant mass.

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And since we have already mentioned AGI's STK check out this study that was done when we were planing on setting up camp on the Moon.

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A COMPARISON OF LUNAR LANDING TRAJECTORY STRATEGIES USING 
NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS 
Mike Loucks1
, John Carrico2
, Timothy Carrico2
, Chuck Deiterich3
1
Space Exploration Engineering Co.687 Chinook Way, Friday Harbor WA 98250 360-378-7168 loucks@see.com 
2Analytical Graphics Inc. 220 Valley Creek Blvd. Exton, PA 19341 jcarrico@agi.comtcarrico@agi.com 
3Applied Technology and Engineering. P.O. Box 476, Bertram, TX 87605 cfd@.thegateway.net 

Abstract 
The authors present several lunar landing trajectory strategies, including those used on the Apollo, Ranger and Surveyor programs; some planned for a commercial lunar mission; and some new techniques based on artificial intelligence. The paper describes the complete strategies for trajectory design from Earth-launch to Lunar landing. This includes a comparison between using Earth and Lunar orbit strategies versus direct ascent and direct descent methods. Closed-loop landing controls for the descent to the Lunar surface are also discussed. Each of these cases is modeled with a high-precision numerical integrator using full force models. The authors document and compare the maneuvers, fuel use, and other parameters affecting the transfer and landing trajectories. In addition, the authors discuss methods to expand the launch window. The fully integrated end-to-end trajectory ephemerides are available from the authors in electronic ASCII text by request. 

Background 
The work presented in this paper originally started in support of developing a software framework in response to the NASA Space Exploration Initiative1. In developing the software framework, it became apparent that there was not a lot of recent literature on the methods of Lunar landing. This current work is the result of investigating how Lunar landings were achieved on previous missions, and modeling these techniques with modern software. The results of modeling previous techniques with high-precision numerical integration are presented. In addition, some work has been done to use new methods, and a subset of that work is also presented. 

Earth-to-Moon Transfers 
Earth-to-Moon transfer trajectories can be described in three major phases: Leaving the Earth, transferring from the Earth to the proximity of the Moon, and approaching the Moon.

1.  NASA Space Exploration Initiative, announced at NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C., U.S. President Bush, 14 
January, 2004
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Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
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Why the Moon Landings Could Have Never EVER Been Faked: The Definitive Proof

This video is so good, so incredibly brilliant, solid and simple, that you will want to paste it all over your Facebooks and Twitters just to piss off all the IMBECILES who still claim that the Moon landings were faked.* The reason is simple: the technology to fake it didn't exist.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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