January 1996
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| January 1996 |
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The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a huge black hole near the centre of 2 colliding galaxies near the constellation of Virgo. One of the 2 galaxies seems to be falling into the core of the other, larger galaxy, called NGC4261.
The black hole was discovered after a vast rotating accretion disc of gas, 800 light years in diameter was discovered. The speed of rotation of the accretion disc was discovered to be so fast, that only an object such as a black hole would have a sufficiently strong gravitational pull to prevent the accretion disc from flying apart. One of the two colliding galaxies, the one falling into the other, actually forms the accretion disc of gas, dust and stars swirling around and into the black hole.
More information, and images of this fascinating phenomena, as well as other spectacular Hubble Telescope imagery is available on the Hubble Space Telescope World Wide Web pages at:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/hubble /
Once again, a number of universities and societies will be attending AstroFest, as well as telescope makers & Starlab. A series of lectures will take place in the main hall.
Astrofest 96 will be held, as before, in Kensington Town Hall (nearest Tube station: High Street Kensington).
More details on European AstroFest 96 can be found either in the February 1996 issue of Astronomy Now, or on the Astronomy Now World Wide Web site located at:
http://www.astronow.demon.co.uk/
The first tantalising results from the Galileo probe's 57 minute plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere have been released. After descending more than 120 kilometres beneath the cloud tops of Jupiter, the results suggest that there is an abundance of Methane and Ammonia, a larger amount of Neon and Xenon than was expected, and surprisingly, less Oxygen than expected. Planetary scientists now have to develop a model to explain where all of Jupiter's oxygen has gone.
More results were due to be released early in January, but due to the U.S. government shutdown due to budgetary constraints, the results have been delayed. It is hope that they will be available later in January.
The latest results on Galileo are available on the World Wide Web at: the following JPL-NASA site
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/
Progress is being made on the X-34, a small air assisted spaceplane designed to compete in the lightsat market. The original concept designed by Orbital Sciences Corporation / Rockwell was for a Pegasus like air-launched, 2 stage, re-usable vehicle to orbit lightsats at a greatly reduced cost over the current market price.
This plan has had to be scaled back somewhat, and now the vehicle has become a 3-stage vehicle, with the 2 upper stages being expendable. This has increased the launch costs to a figure similar to that of Pegasus, which it is supposed to replace, somewhat defeating the object of the X-34. In fact, a number of space experts have questioned the viability of the X-34 already.
Recently, work has been held up over a dispute about the rocket engines. NASA wanted to use Russian RD-120 engines, whereas Rockwell, wanted to use their own engines. Agreement has now been reached, allowing the project to move forward.
NASA is to spend up to $900 million in conjunction with an industrial partner, developing an X-33 Single Stage To Orbit reusable demonstrator spacecraft for first flight in 1999. The spacecraft would then enter service by 2005, effectively heralding a new era of more affordable space transportation. Submissions for spacecraft proposals are due from the 3 competing contractors in January 1996. A final decision on which design to adopt will be made by NASA in July 1996.
The 3 competing designs are the Delta Clipper (Vertical Take Off / Vertical Landing) from MacDonnell-Douglas / Boeing, a lifting body with linear aerospike engines (Vertical Take-off / Horizontal Landing) from Lockheed, and a Vertical Take-off / Horizontal Design from Rockwell.
Phillips Labs, a U.S. research lab in Kirkland, New Mexico, has demonstrated a complete micromotor the size of a grain of pollen. The motor, whose microscopic pistons can be powered by electricity or steam, could one day be useful in microspacecraft applications, compact life support and power applications and even ultra-miniaturised rovers. Phillips Labs have already said that they are working on medical applications for the micromotor.
A scaleable cube robot which could be built as large as a production line robot, or small enough to crawl through human arteries, repairing damage, has won its London based designer, Joe Michael, the European Inventor of the Year Prize.
Mr Michael envisages the robots use in a whole range of space based applications, these could include planetary base and space station fabrication and planetary exploration. Smaller cube robots could, perhaps use motors similar to the Phillips lab micromotor described above.
The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission is approaching launch, with the launch date still scheduled for late February 1996. The NEAR mission, first of the NASA Discovery class missions to be launched, will visit the asteroid 433-Eros after a 3 year journey, arriving in 1999. It may fly by another asteroid on the way to 433 Eros, although this is yet to be decided
More details on the NEAR mission are available on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.gsfc/nasa.gov/near/
NASA-JPL is hoping for an official start to the Pluto Express mission in 1997-1998. Much preliminary work has been performed on the Pluto Express mission by SEDS students at California Institute of Technology (CalTech). The preliminary work included construction of mock-ups of the spacecraft and construction of subsystems. 2 identical spacecraft will be constructed, with one reaching Pluto approximately 6 months ahead of the other.
Currently there is talk of using a Russian Proton launcher, in which case a small Russian Pluto lander will be carried on each spacecraft, these will be called Drop Zonds. A proposed extended mission would see the Pluto Express spacecraft explore the recently detected Kuiper Belt, following the Pluto fly-by.
2 other JPL proposed outer solar system missions are the Kuiper Express and Deep Space One. These would use ion engines for the propulsion sources, as well as even more innovative avionics and miniaturised science packages than the Pluto Express.
Details are available on the Pluto Express mission, at the following World Wide Web site:
The DX-XA experimental rocketship will now start flight tests in the late spring, according to NASA. It was due to start flight tests in early spring, but delays have occurred in the construction, so it was decided to put back the launch date a few months.
The DC-XA takes over where the DC-X rocketship left off. Following the 8 successful test flights of the DC-X, it was returned to its manufacturing facility for upgrading to the DC-X, with much more extensive use of lightweight aerospace materials.
Following a meeting of ESA's council of ministers at the end of October, 1995, it was agreed to freeze the ESA space science budget for the next 5 years. This agreement will be reviewed again in 1998. This arrangement could actually benefit UK space science, since it reduces the UK contribution to ESA by £15 million over the 5 year timescale, allowing more funding for domestic space activities.
In a remarkable U-turn by the UK government, it was announced that the UK had made a mistake in not supporting Ariane V, and that they would contribute a small sum towards Ariane V development in the future. Although this is about 10 years late, it is at least a step in the right direction, compared with previous governments which have cancelled the highly successful Blue Streak and Black Arrow rockets, not to mention the revolutionary HOTOL space plane. The contribution will probably allow the UK to become involved in the gyroscopic control system of Ariane V. An area in which it has considerable expertise.
It is not clear how the budget freeze will affect the ESA Horizon 2000 or Horizon 2000+ space programmes yet. Horizon 2000 includes 4 cornerstone missions and 4 medium missions. ESA's Science Director, Roger Bonnett, has already had to put the fourth medium mission on hold.
The agreement also means that work on the European Columbus Laboratory Module, which will be attached to the Alpha Space Station will now be able to carry on. It was also agreed to proceed with development of an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), which will be able to ferry modules & provisions up to the space station, following launch by an Ariane V. Work may later encompass development of a Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV), derived from the ATV.
The majority of the money for the ESA manned space infrastructure is to be provided by France, Germany and Italy. The UK will not contribute to the manned programme.
Dear Member,
Let me introduce myself - my name is Sean Bennett, and I was elected as the UK-SEDS Chair at the last Annual General Meeting held during the 1995 UK-SEDS conference at University College London.
I will try and keep the conference report brief.
At the conference, the other officers elected were:
Oliver De Peyer (General Member),Erik Seedhouse (General Member),Weng Ang (Treasurer),Andrew Ball (Secretary),Stephen Warwick (Vice Chair).An additional General Member co-opted at the 1st subsequent Committee Meeting was Rebecca Lale.
The conference was attended by over one hundred people during the course of the two days. The various exhibitors included Matra Marconi Space, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University of Kent, University of Southampton, STAAR Research, AspireSpace, providing fascinating displays demonstrating the wealth of space talent in the UK.
This year, UK-SEDS must give an extra-ordinary special thank you to the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, who provided the vast majority of their facilities free of charge, and also provided a number of lecturers.
I would like to pay special thanks to Dr Furniss for his help throughout the conference, and Sarah Dunkin (UCL PhD Student, UK-SEDS member and ISU alumni) who was the main conference organiser - Sarah did an outstanding job !
As a result of UCL`s generosity, UK-SEDS this year finds itself in a slightly stronger financial position than in previous years - we hope you will be seeing the results of this in the months to come, with improved quality of publications, and improved services for members. We will also take advantage of this situation to further improve UK-SEDS's financial situation, and put us on a more professional footing.
Don`t forget also, the UK-SEDS web page, located at:
http://www.gbnet.net/orgs/seds/
which since December has been growing rapidly. We hope to provide a wide range of services on our web pages over the coming year.
Those with access to the world wide web, will have already noticed that the UK-SEDS newsletters are available on-line, and can also be downloaded from the web page, should another copy be required. We intend to provide documents for downloading in 4 formats: Postscript, Rich Text Format, Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0, and Microsoft Word for Macintosh 6.0.
Copies of AURORA will also go on-line on the UK-SEDS web pages, as will UK-SEDS career / space course information.
There will be vast improvements to the web site in terms of graphical presentation and content and services to members.
At the same time, not wishing to neglect one form of media over another, a range of UK-SEDS publications is, this year, being prepared for release. There will be more Newsletters, & of better quality than before. The quality of the AURORA magazine will be improved. Work is currently underway on other publications which will hopefully offer UK-SEDS members more value for money than previously.
I hope this year, that we can provide a useful service to members. Please feel free to write to us or e-mail us with any comments you may have. We believe that the more professional approach we have adopted is already paying dividends.
Watch this space......
Yours sincerely,
Sean Bennett, (UK-SEDS Chair, 1996)
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