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The International Space Station (ISS) has been continuously orbiting Earth for more than 25 years and has been visited by over 270 astronauts, cosmonauts, and commercial astronauts. In January 2031, a special spacecraft designed by SpaceX – aka. The U.S. Deorbit Vehicle – will lower the station’s orbit until it enters our atmosphere and lands in the South Pacific. On July 17th, NASA held a live press conference where it released details about the process, including a first glance at the modified SpaceX Dragon responsible for deorbiting the ISS.

As usual, the company shared details about the press conference and an image of the special Dragon via their official X account (formerly Twitter). As they indicated, SpaceX will deploy a modified spacecraft that will have six times the propellant and four times the power of “their “today’s Dragon spacecraft.” The image shows that the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will have a robust service module in place of the trunk used by the standard Crew Dragon vehicle. This module is larger and has additional fold-out solar arrays in addition to hull-mounted solar panels.

With 6x more propellant and 4x the power of today’s Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX was selected to design and develop the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle for a precise, controlled deorbit of the @Space_Station https://t.co/GgtuplTwqQ pic.twitter.com/E23sS7CE4U

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 17, 2024

It also appears to have more Draco engines than the standard Crew Dragon vehicle – which has 18 engines capable of generating 400 Newtons (90 lbf) each – for a total of 7,200 N (360 lbf) of thrust. Presumably, this means the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will have 72 Draco thrusters (arranged concentrically) and be capable of generating close to 30,000 Newtons (1,440 lbf) of thrust. The image also shows the spacecraft docking with the Kibo module operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

NASA announced the selection of SpaceX in late June to develop the vehicle as part of a single-award contract with a total potential value of $843 million. While SpaceX is responsible for developing the spacecraft, NASA will take ownership once it is complete and operate it throughout the mission. Both the spacecraft and ISS are expected to break up during re-entry, and the remains will land in the “spacecraft cemetery” in the South Pacific. The contract for the launch services has not yet been awarded but is expected to be announced shortly.

SpaceX is also responsible for developing the Human Landing System (HLS) – the Starship HLS – that will transport astronauts to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis III and IV missions. SpaceX has also been contracted to launch the core elements of the Lunar Gateway – the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) – into lunar orbit using a Falcon Heavy rocket in November 2025.

The International Space Station (ISS) in orbit. Credit: NASA

Since 1998, the ISS has served as a unique scientific platform where crew members from five space agencies – including NASA, the Canadian Space Agency), the European Space Agency (ESA), JAXA, and the Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos). During its operational lifetime, crew members have performed experiments ranging from the effects of microgravity and space radiation on human, animal, and plant physiology. This research will play a vital role as NASA and its international partners conduct long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars in the coming decades.

The station has also allowed for extensive research into space science, biology, the physical sciences, and technology demonstrations that are not possible on Earth. Above all, the ISS has served as a symbol of international cooperation, consistent with the Outer Space Treaty and its core philosophy of “space is for all.” NASA, the CSA, the ESA, and JAXA have all committed to operating the station through 2030, while Roscomos has committed to continue operations until 2028 at least. The safe deorbit of the ISS is the responsibility of all five space agencies.

Further Reading: NASA

The post SpaceX Reveals the Beefed-Up Dragon That Will De-Orbit the ISS appeared first on Universe Today.

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Common ground is hard to find in today’s politics. In a society teeming with irreconcilable political perspectives, many people have grown frustrated under a system of government that constantly demands compromise. More and more on both the right and the left have come to blame the Constitution for the resulting discord. But the Constitution is not the problem we face; it is the solution.

Blending engaging history with lucid analysis, conservative scholar Yuval Levin’s American Covenant recovers the Constitution’s true genius and reveals how it charts a path to repairing America’s fault lines. Uncovering the framers’ sophisticated grasp of political division, Levin showcases the Constitution’s exceptional power to facilitate constructive disagreement, negotiate resolutions to disputes, and forge unity in a fractured society. Clear-eyed about the ways that contemporary politics have malfunctioned, Levin also offers practical solutions for reforming those aspects of the constitutional order that have gone awry.

Hopeful, insightful, and rooted in the best of our political tradition, American Covenant celebrates the Constitution’s remarkable power to bind together a diverse society, reassuring us that a less divided future is within our grasp.

Yuval Levin is the director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at the New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. His previous books include The Fractured Republic and A Time to Build. A former member of the White House domestic policy staff under George W. Bush, he lives in Maryland.

Shermer and Levin discuss:

• Trump assassination attempt: conspiracy or incompetence?
• Biden cognitive infirmities and why the party can’t replace him
• Out of 340 million Americans why did we end up with these two guys?
• why we have a two party system
• why the country is more polarized than ever before
• historically divided elections: 1800, 1824
• the unique genius of the founding fathers
• human nature and how politics builds on it
• how liberals and conservatives differ in their view of human nature (and thus politics)
• what is unique about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
• The Federalist Papers
• why the three branches of government—legislative, executive, judicial—were established
• what the founders got right and what they got wrong.

Notes

“Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything—high and low and, most especially, high—lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away.” —Charles Krauthammer, Things That Matter, 2013

“A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.” —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” —James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 51

In Federalist No. 10, Madison outlined the problem with competing factions in a direct democracy (“a landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest…”):

“[A] pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

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Conspiracy Theories; News Items: Lunar Cave, AI Love, AI Scams, Solar Clams; From TikTok: Antimony and Air Fryers; Your Questions and E-mails: Judith Curry; Science or Fiction

For over ten years, the ESA’s Gaia Observatory has monitored the proper motion, luminosity, temperature, and composition of over a billion stars throughout our Milky Way galaxy and beyond. This data will be used to construct the largest and most precise 3D map of the cosmos ever made and provide insight into the origins, structure, and evolutionary history of our galaxy. Unfortunately, this sophisticated astrometry telescope is positioned at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange Point, far beyond the protection of Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere.

As a result, Gaia has experienced two major hazards in recent months that could endanger the mission. These included a micrometeoroid impact in April that disrupted some of Gaia‘s very sensitive sensors. This was followed by a solar storm in May—the strongest in 20 years—that caused electrical problems for the mission. These two incidents could threaten Gaia‘s ability to continue mapping stars, planets, comets, asteroids, quasars, and other objects in the Universe until its planned completion date of 2025.

Micrometeroids are a common problem at the L2 Lagrange Point, roughly 1.5 million km (932,057 mi) from Earth, so engineers designed Gaia with a protective cover. Unfortunately, the particle was traveling at a very high velocity and struck the cover at precisely the wrong angle, causing a breach. This has allowed stray sunlight to interfere with Gaia’s ability to simultaneously collect light from so many distant stars. Gaia‘s engineering team was addressing this issue the moment the solar storm hit, adding electrical issues to their list of problems.

Gaia’s all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars. Credit: ESA

Mission controllers first noticed signs of disruption in May when Gaia began registering thousands of false detections. They soon realized that this may have been due to the solar storm that began on May 11th, which could have caused one of the spacecraft’s charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to fail, which converts light gathered by Gaia’s billion-pixel camera into electronic signals. The observatory relies on 106 CCDs, each playing a different role. The affected sensor was vital for Gaia’s ability to confirm the detection of stars and validate its observations.

While the spacecraft was built to withstand radiation, it has been operating in space for almost twice as long as originally planned (6 years) and may have been pushed to its limits. As Edmund Serpell, Gaia spacecraft operations engineer at ESOC, explained in an ESA press release:

“Gaia typically sends over 25 gigabytes of data to Earth every day, but this amount would be much, much higher if the spacecraft’s onboard software didn’t eliminate false star detections first. Both recent incidents disrupted this process. As a result, the spacecraft began generating a huge number of false detections that overwhelmed our systems. We cannot physically repair the spacecraft from 1.5 million km away. However, by carefully modifying the threshold at which Gaia’s software identifies a faint point of light as a star, we have been able to dramatically reduce the number of false detections generated by both the straylight and CCD issues.”

Meanwhile, the Gaia teams at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), and the European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC) have spent the past few months investigating these problems. They have also worked closely with engineers from Airbus Defence and Space (the spacecraft’s manufacturer) and payload experts at the Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Thanks to their efforts, the Gaia Observatory recently returned to regular operations.

Illustrated effects of Space weather. Credit: ESA/Science Office

In addition, the engineers used the opportunity to refocus the optics on Gaia’s twin telescopes one last time, which has led to some of the best-quality data Gaia has ever produced. As a result, we can expect that Gaia’s final Data Release (DR5)—which will include the full mission data—will be even more poignant!

Further Reading: ESA

The post Gaia Hit by a Micrometeoroid AND Caught in a Solar Storm appeared first on Universe Today.

When deciding what material to use for infrastructure projects, metals are often selected for their durability. However, if placed in a hydrogen-rich environment, like water, metals can become brittle and fail. Since the mid-19th century, this phenomenon, known as hydrogen embrittlement, has puzzled researchers with its unpredictable nature. Now, a study brings us a step closer to predicting it with confidence.

Understanding how soft materials fail under stress is critical for solving engineering challenges as disparate as pharmaceutical technology and landslide prevention. A new study linking a spectrum of soft material behaviors -- previously thought to be unrelated -- led researchers to identify a new parameter they call the brittility factor, which allows them to simplify soft material failure behavior. This will ultimately help engineers design better materials that meet future challenges.

Engineers have shown that using a type of AI that revolutionized computer vision can greatly enhance modern adaptive radar systems. And in a move that parallels the impetus of the computer vision boom, they have released a large dataset of digital landscapes for others to build on their work.

Engineers have shown that using a type of AI that revolutionized computer vision can greatly enhance modern adaptive radar systems. And in a move that parallels the impetus of the computer vision boom, they have released a large dataset of digital landscapes for others to build on their work.

A new study describes a chemical reaction that can convert Styrofoam into a high-value conducting polymer known as PEDOT:PSS. Researchers also noted that the upgraded plastic waste can be successfully incorporated into functional electronic devices, including silicon-based hybrid solar cells and organic electrochemical transistors.

Researchers use microscopy to chart amyloid beta's underlying structure and yield insight into neurodegenerative disease.

A new analysis of deaths during the covid-19 pandemic estimates that women and those in certain minority groups experienced the greatest declines in life expectancy

Here, to end the week on a high note, is a 24-minute video of animals who have been captive their whole lives but are now freed. It’s very heartening. The only reason to keep wild animals in captivity is to rehabilitate them for release or to grow an endangered species to the point when it can be released.

Have a great weekend! I got my seventh Covid shot yesterday and have no reaction save a sore arm. (I got it for traveling to South Africa.)  I’m one of the few people I know that hasn’t caught the virus.

Galaxies that stop making stars don’t usually start up again, but now we’ve seen one wake from the dead for the first time – and it may explain what we’ve got wrong about galaxies in the early universe

The first ever full-scale demonstration of a nuclear reactor designed to passively cool itself in an emergency was a success, showing that it should be possible to build nuclear plants without the risk of dangerous meltdown

Chemists have been working to synthesize high-value materials from waste molecules for years.

The first rumblings of the Sun's next 11-year solar cycle have been detected in sound waves inside our home star -- even though it is only halfway through its current one. This existing cycle is now at its peak, or 'solar maximum' -- which is when the Sun's magnetic field flips and its poles swap places -- until mid-2025.

Space storms could soon be forecasted with greater accuracy than ever before thanks to a big leap forward in our understanding of exactly when a violent solar eruption may hit Earth. Scientists say it is now possible to predict the precise speed a coronal mass ejection (CME) is travelling at and when it will smash into our planet -- even before it has fully erupted from the Sun.

Researchers have found that titanium-48 changes from a shell model structure to an alpha-cluster structure depending on the distance from the center of the nucleus. The results upend the conventional understanding of nuclear structure and are expected to provide clues to the Gamow theory on the alpha-decay process that occurs in heavy nuclei, which has not been solved for nearly 100 years.

A new essay explores which conditions must be met for consciousness to exist. At least one of them can't be found in a computer.

A new ambient-energy-driven membrane that pumps carbon dioxide out of the air has been developed by researchers.