Mars 2020 is on its way.

 Mars, Solar System, Spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 012020
 

NASA’s Mars 2020 mission carrying the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter successfully launched on the 30th of July. The spacecraft is currently flying a trajectory that will miss Mars. This will force the Centaur upper stage that is on the same path to miss the planet. Over the next 60 days there will be two trajectory correction maneuvers (TCM-1 & TCM-2) that will turn Mars 2020 toward an intercept course. So right now, the spacecraft is still close enough to be visible in small telescopes and the path is known well enough to forecast its position.

I’ve been fighting clouds all month and they have been particularly successful in preventing decent images of comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). Because the comet is not visible in the sky above the PTO due to its altitude and my tree line, I have to pack up portable equipment and move to a different location to try to get pictures. I do not have portable equipment with the capability necessary to image the spacecraft the way I want. Luckily, the spacecraft was visible in the sky above the PTO so I didn’t have to go anywhere. However, I did have to wait for it to clear the trees around 0230.

The image shows the NASA Mars 2020 spacecraft against a background of stars. The image is a negative view with the sky white and the stars and spacecraft dark. The spacecraft is a small dark spot in the center of the image. The telescope tracked the spacecraft which is why the stars are streaked from upper left to lower right.

Mars 2020 [CV:1x300s]

I generated an ephemeris for the craft using JPL’s HORIZONS software tool. This not only provides Mars 2020 position information but rate information as well. My mount control software can take advantage of the rate info and change the mount’s motion to track the spacecraft and not the sky. Tracking the spacecraft and not the sky is why the stars are streaked. I have been taking advantage of this capability during my planetary imaging sessions. This is the first time I have used it for spacecraft. I was hoping to get a series of images that I could combine into a short animation but the clouds got the last laugh after all.

This is the 3rd interplanetary craft I have been able to get pictures of. The previous two were during Earth gravity assist fly-bys.

 Posted by at 15:24

NGC 2149 and friend

 DSO, General Commentary, Nebulae, Spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jan 312018
 

The target of this image is NGC 2149, a small reflection nebula in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn). It is quite near the constellation Orion and often gets overlooked due to the more flamboyant objects in “The Hunter”. I routinely exclude images taken of deep sky objects when a satellite intrudes into the photo. The brightness of the intruder skews the desired object’s post processing. I must admit however, last night I intentionally chose NGC 2149 because of the impending satellite pass. The guilty party this time was the Hubble Space Telescope.
 

I decided to attempt the exposure knowing full well the Moon’s brightness would cause a strong gradient in the exposures. After all, the Moon was only a few hours from entering the Earth’s shadow and the resultant total lunar eclipse. Hubble would cross my FOV in just over one second. It takes 10 seconds to download an image from my camera, so in order to not miss the pass I set the exposure to 300 seconds and started it a couple of minutes before the expected arrival. I then joined family members in the front yard to watch the flyby. Hubble silently glided west to east and near the point where it disappeared, it did its best imitation of an Iridium flare. The scope’s solar arrays were at just the right angle to reflect the Sun’s light right back at us. It then faded as its orbit took it into the Earth’s shadow.

Luckily, the satellite’s orbital elements used to predict its path were right on and the 300 second exposure showed the very bright telescope streaking through the image. I then took additional images of the nebula to increase its brightness a little. The result is a stack of one 300 second image and 25 sixty second images.

 Posted by at 15:17

OSIRIS-REx Earth gravity assist fly-by

 General Commentary, Minor Planet, Solar System, Spacecraft  No Responses »
Sep 222017
 

As many of you know the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made an Earth gravitational assist fly-by today. The spacecraft needed the slingshot maneuver to make it to its rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in August 2018. The spacecraft will orbit the asteroid for up close study, then drop low enough to grab a sample of the surface for return to the Earth in September 2023.

NASA put out a call to amateur astronomers to take images of the spacecraft as it approached the Earth. So, for the past week I have been attempting to do just that. Last night the spacecraft was finally bright enough for me to catch it in a series of exposures. Even so, the speed, brightness and size of the spacecraft makes it very difficult to see.
 

The above image is the third of eight 300 second exposures that I was able to get before the clouds closed in. The circle shows the location of the automobile sized craft which should give you an idea where it will be in the following animation. The craft’s motion is from upper right to middle left.

I had to stretch the images as well as invert them to make the faint streak a little more visible. This close to the Earth the apparent velocity of OSIRIS-REx is obvious.

[Update: 03 Jan 2018] OSIRIS-Rex is now projected to arrive at Bennu in December of 2018. Approach operations will begin in August.

 Posted by at 14:37

Juno about the spacecraft that flew by the Earth yesterday?

 General Commentary, Jupiter, Planet, Solar System, Spacecraft  2 Responses »
Oct 102013
 

In August 2011, an Atlas V rocket was launched from Kennedy Space Center. On top was the Juno spacecraft bound for Jupiter. Juno’s task is to study Jupiter’s atmosphere and interior in order to better understand the planet’s creation and by extension, planet creation in general.

Due to the hazardous radiation environment of Jupiter the spacecraft carries its sensitive control electronics in a titanium tub known as a radiation vault. Partly due to the mass of the vault, the size of the spacecraft and its solar arrays and partly due to the fact we don’t have an upper stage that has the necessary power, a direct trajectory to Jupiter was not possible. So, Juno needed some additional help achieving the speed necessary to go the distance.  

Copyright NASA

Observe the size of the human silhouette in comparison to the spacecraft in this NASA briefing slide.

The craft was sent into an orbit that took it out past Mars to the vicinity of the asteroid belt. It then fell back into the inner solar system with a planned close pass by the Earth. The spacecraft would then use the Earth’s gravity well as an aid to gain the necessary speed to make the journey. That close pass occurred yesterday the 9th of October with the closest approach at 1425 CDT at a distance of about 347 miles. Unfortunately for us, closest approach was at night above South Africa and Southwest Asia. Juno did not come into view at PTO until just before 0100 on the 10th. The following animation is a set of nine 300 second images.

Juno-outbound

North is to the right and East is up. By the time I took the images, the spacecraft was already 250,000+ miles away. In 1969, it took the Apollo astronauts 3 days to fly the 238,900 mile distance to the moon. Juno had already passed that distance in the 10.5 hours since closest approach.

I must thank Heavens-Above.com for the very accurate pointing data. It was spot on.

 Posted by at 21:49
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