The ice giant Uranus and its rings steal the show in this Dec. 18, 2023, image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope captured new images of Uranus, revealing detailed features of the planet’s rings and seasonal north polar cap, as well as bright storms near and below the southern border of the cap.
This Webb image also shows 14 of the planet’s 27 moons: Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Juliet, Perdita, Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Ariel, Miranda, Bianca, and Portia. Webb’s extreme sensitivity also picks up a smattering of background galaxies—most appear as orange smudges, and there are two larger, fuzzy white galaxies to the right of the planet in this field of view.
Two Spaceships Depart, Crew Will Spend Holidays in Space
The Cygnus space freighter is pictured attached to the space station as the Canadarm2 robotic arm prepares to grapple the cargo craft.
Two spaceships in two days have departed the International Space Station and the Expedition 70 crew will spend Christmas and New Year’s Day orbiting Earth.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara monitored the Canadarm2 robotic arm release of the Cygnus space freighter on Friday, Dec. 22. Earlier, ground engineers remotely maneuvered the Canadarm2 and detached Cygnus from the Unity module where it had been installed since Aug. 4.
Packed inside Cygnus, along with disposable cargo, is the SAFFIRE-VI experiment that will be remotely activated aboard the spacecraft to explore fire safety. The space freighter from Northrop Grumman will orbit Earth on its own until early January for a safe, but fiery demise above the south Pacific Ocean.
The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft completed its cargo mission at 5:05 p.m. on Thursday when it automatically undocked from the Harmony module’s forward port. Dragon parachuted to splashdown off the coast of Florida on Dec. 22 returning station science and hardware for retrieval and analysis in laboratories on Earth.
Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Andreas Mogensen spent the first part of Friday on lab maintenance. Moghbeli from NASA serviced a U.S. spacesuit in the Quest airlock then swapped fiber optic samples inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox. Mogensen from ESA (European Space Agency) spent most of the day setting up ARED, the (Advanced Resistive Exercise device, for the ARED Kinematics study to improve workout programs for Earth and space. The duo met at the end of the day for eye exams using standard medical imaging gear found in an optometrist’s office on Earth.
Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) set up interactive studio gear inside the Kibo laboratory module in preparation for an event with Japanese audiences on Earth. In the afternoon, the two-time station resident inspected and photographed windows in the Kibo and Destiny lab modules for any contamination or damage.
Veteran cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko began his day with cardiac research attaching sensors to himself measuring his heart activity in weightlessness. Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov assisted Kononenko with the cardiac study then joined him in the afternoon for checkouts of audio and antenna gear in the Zvezda service module. Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub replaced smoke detectors in the Poisk module then activated a 3D printing experiment.
The seven astronauts and cosmonauts representing Expedition 70 will spend the final week of 2023 continuing ongoing research and lab upkeep. The orbital septet will also relax, open gifts, share a meal, and call down to their families on Christmas and New Year’s Day. The astronauts sent their thoughts and well wishes while in orbit this holiday season. The next space station blog post is planned to publish on Jan. 2, 2024.
NASA’s Deep Space Network Turns 60 and Prepares for the Future
The radio antennas of the NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex are located near the Australian capital. It’s one of three Deep Space Network complexes around the world that keep the agency in contact with over 40 space missions. The DSN marks its 60th anniversary in December 2023.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
A single radio antenna dish stands alone at the Deep Space Network’s Canberra complex in this photo from 1969, six years after the DSN was founded. Canberra now consists of three 34-meter (112-foot) antennas and one 70-meter (230-foot) antenna.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The agency’s DSN provides critical communications and navigation services to dozens of space missions, and it’s being modernized to support dozens more.
NASA’s Deep Space Network marks its 60th year on Dec. 24. In continuous operations since 1963, the DSN is what makes it possible for NASA to communicate with spacecraft at or beyond the Moon. The dazzling galactic images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the cutting-edge science data being sent back from Mars by the Perseverance rover, and the historic images sent from the far side of the Moon by Artemis I – they all reached Earth via the network’s giant radio dish antennas.
During 2024, these and other historic contributions from the past 60 years will be celebrated by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, which manages and directs the ground-based facilities and services that the DSN provides.
More than 40 missions depend on the network, which is expected to support twice that number in the coming years. That’s why NASA is looking to the future by expanding and modernizing this critical global infrastructure with new dishes, new technologies, and new approaches.
“The DSN is the heart of NASA – it has the vital job of keeping the data flowing between Earth and space,” said Philip Baldwin, acting director of the network services division for SCaN at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “But to support our growing portfolio of robotic missions, and now the human Artemis missions to the Moon, we need to push forward with the next phase of DSN modernization.”
Meeting Added Demands
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for SCaN, the DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from faraway spacecraft. To ensure those spacecraft can always connect with Earth, the DSN’s 14 antennas are divided between three complexes spaced equally around the world – in Goldstone, California; Canberra, Australia; and Madrid, Spain.
The Deep Space Network is much more than a deep space messaging service. Learn more about how the DSN carries out radio and gravity science experiments throughout the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
To make sure the network can maximize coverage between so many missions, schedulers work with DSN team members to secure network support for critical operations. For more efficiency, NASA has also changed how the network is operated: With a protocol called “Follow the Sun,” each complex takes turns running the entire network during their day shift and then hands off control to the next complex at the end of the day in that region – essentially, a global relay race that takes place every 24 hours. The cost savings, in turn, help fund DSN enhancements.
At the same time, NASA has been busy making improvements to increase capacity, from upgrading and adding dishes to developing new technologies that will help support more spacecraft and dramatically increase the amount of data that can be delivered.
One such technology is laser, or optical, communications, which could enable more data to be packed into transmissions. “Laser communications could transform how NASA communicates with faraway space missions,” said Amy Smith, deputy project manager for the DSN at JPL.
After successfully testing the technique in Earth orbit and out to the Moon, NASA is currently using the DSOC (Deep Space Optical Communications) technology demonstration to test laser communications from ever-greater distances. Riding aboard the agency’s Psyche mission, DSOC has already sent video via laser to Earth from 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away and aims to prove that high-bandwidth data can be sent from as far away as Mars.
“NASA is proving that laser communication is viable, so now we are looking at ways to build optical terminals inside the existing radio antennas,” said Smith. “These hybrid antennas will be able to still transmit and receive radio frequencies but will also support optical frequencies.”
New technology is something that NASA and the DSN have embraced from their inception. The network’s roots extend to 1958, when JPL was contracted by the U.S. Army to deploy portable radio tracking stations to receive telemetry of the first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, which JPL built. A few days after Explorer 1’s launch, but before the creation of NASA later that year, JPL was tasked with figuring out what would be needed to create an unprecedented telecommunications network to support future deep space missions, beginning with the early Pioneer missions.
After NASA formed in 1958, JPL’s ground stations were named Deep Space Information Facilities, and they operated largely independently from one another until 1963. That’s when the DSN was officially founded and the ground stations were connected to JPL’s new network control center, which was nearing completion. Called the Space Flight Operations Facility, that building remains the “Center of the Universe” through which data from the DSN’s three global complexes flows.
“We have six decades driving technological innovation, supporting hundreds of missions that have made countless discoveries about our planet and the universe it inhabits,” said Bradford Arnold, deputy director for the Interplanetary Network at JPL. “Our amazing workforce that continues to drive that innovation today forms a steadfast foundation upon which we can build the next 60 years of space exploration and scientific advancement.”
In this image from Dec. 8, 2017, four reindeer walk past the Balloon Array for Radiation-belt Relativistic Electron Losses, or BARREL, payload on the launch pad at Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden. BARREL primarily measured X-rays in Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. These X-rays are caused by electrons that rain down, or precipitate, into the atmosphere from the giant swaths of radiation that surround Earth, called the Van Allen Belts. Understanding this radiation and its interaction with Earth’s atmosphere helps us to learn about planetary radiation belts, and to better protect satellites that orbit Earth.
The primary BARREL mission ended when scientists sent their last balloon over Sweden on Aug. 30, 2016. Recovered BARREL payloads were launched as targets of opportunities on three additional flights. In addition to X-ray instruments, several of the BARREL balloons also carried instruments built by undergraduate students to measure the total electron content of Earth’s ionosphere, as well as the low-frequency electromagnetic waves that help to scatter electrons into Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA Issues New Space Security Best Practices Guide
NASA Logo.
NASA
As space missions and technologies grow increasingly interconnected, NASA has released the first iteration of its Space Security Best Practices Guide to bolster mission cybersecurity efforts for both public sector and private sector space activities.
The guide represents a significant milestone in NASA’s commitment to ensuring the longevity and resilience of its space missions and will serve as a resource for enhancing their security and reliability.
Additionally, the Space Security Best Practices Guide was designed to benefit users beyond NASA – international partners, industry, and others working in the expanding fields of space exploration and development. The guide is designed to provide security guidance for missions, programs, or projects of any size.
“At NASA, we recognize the importance of protecting our space missions from potential threats and vulnerabilities” said Misty Finical, deputy principal advisor for Enterprise Protection at NASA. “This guide represents a collective effort to establish a set of principles that will enable us to identify and mitigate risks and ensure continued success of our missions, both in Earth’s orbit and beyond.”
In terms of both information systems and operational technologies, space systems are becoming more integrated and interconnected. These developments carry benefits – NASA and other organizations have unprecedented new possibilities for working, communicating, and gathering data in space. But new, complex systems can also have vulnerabilities. Through its new guide, NASA aims to provide best practices for adapting to these new challenges and implementing safety and security measures.
The guide reflects NASAs continued commitment to helping develop clear cybersecurity principles for its space systems, encapsulated in its Space System Protection Standard. The agency developed the handbook to further support the goals of Space Policy Directive 5, Cybersecurity Principles for Space Systems.
NASA will collect feedback from the space community to integrate into future versions of the guide.
