Tag Archives: European Space Agency

Tech

ESA: Earth’s close call with asteroid demonstrates need for more eyes in the sky

Leave a comment
Image by Alexander Antropov from Pixabay

The European Space Agency (ESA) said on 2 August that the fly-by of a 100-metre-wide asteroid last month illustrates the need to increase Earth’s asteroid detection capabilities.

Dubbed “2019 OK”, the football field-sized asteroid came within 65 000 km of the Earth’s surface during its closest approach – about one fifth of the distance to the Moon. It was detected just days before it passed Earth, although archival records from sky surveys show it had previously been observed but wasn’t recognised as a near-Earth asteroid.

Asteroids the size of “2019 OK” are relatively common but hit Earth once every 100,000 years. ESA said that its planned network of Flyeye telescopes will allow astronomers to detect risky space rocks in order to provide early warnings.

The ESA observed the asteroid just before its flyby, by requesting two separate telescopes in the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) take images of the space rock. With these observations, asteroid experts at the ESA were able to extract precise measurements of the position and movement of the rocky body.

“With the ISON observations we were able to determine the distance of the close approach incredibly accurately,” explained Marco Micheli from the ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre. “In fact, with a combination of observations from across the globe, the distance is now known to better than one kilometre!”

The asteroid was first discovered by the Southern Observatory for Near-Earth Asteroids Research (SONEAR) just a day before its close approach. Observations of “2019 OK” were independently confirmed by other observatories, including the Arecibo radar in Puerto Rico and a third telescope in the ISON network.

Since the discovery, with knowledge of where the asteroid would have been and by searching for it by eye, existing images were found in the Pan-STARRS and ATLAS sky survey archives. Both surveys had in fact captured the asteroid in the weeks before the flyby, but the slow space rock appeared to move just a tiny amount between images, and was therefore not recognised.

“This ‘un-recognition’ of an asteroid, despite it being photographed will be used to test the software going into ESA’s upcoming asteroid-hunting telescope, the Flyeye,” Rüdiger Jehn, ESA’s Head of Planetary Defence, said.

Eyes on the sky

Scientists know of – and are tracking – thousands of asteroids in the Solar System, so why was this one discovered so late? Unfortunately, there is currently no single obvious reason, apart from its slow motion in the sky before close approach.

“2019 OK” travels in a highly elliptical orbit, taking it from within the orbit of Venus to well beyond that of Mars. This means that the time it spends near Earth, and is detectable with current telescope capabilities, is relatively short.

The ESA, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and other agencies and organisations around the globe – both professional and amateur – discover new asteroids every day, which constantly increases scientists’ understanding of the number, distribution and movement of orbiting “rocky bodies”.

Asteroids the size of “2019 OK” size are relatively common in our Solar System but hit Earth on average only every 100,000 years. Travelling in a highly elliptical orbit that takes it within the orbit of Venus, this asteroid won’t come close to Earth again for at least another 200 years.

Planetary Defence at the ESA

According to the ESA, it’s planned developments should mean that by 2030, Europe will be able to:

  • provide early warning for dangerous asteroids larger than 40 m in size, about three weeks in advance;
  • deflect asteroids smaller than 1 km if known more than two years in advance.

The ESA’s planned network of Flyeye telescopes is expected to significantly help in the global search for risky space rocks, which is necessary to provide early warnings. The agency’s Hera mission – currently being designed to test asteroid deflection for the first time – will look to develop the ESA’s capacity to knock asteroids off a dangerous path.

Tech

Scottish supercomputer satellites launched into orbit

Leave a comment
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

A pair of Glasgow-built satellites which could revolutionize how data is downloaded from space were successfully launched on 5 July, the UK Space Agency said.

Both satellites were developed under the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) Pioneer program, which turns research and development investment into successful commercial products and services by offering varying degrees of support to projects with different levels of operational and commercial maturity.

The two new satellites, operated by Spire Global and supported by the UK Space Agency, will be able to “process and cherry-pick data from other satellites in orbit before transmitting it to Earth, optimizing and freeing up bandwidth for other tasks and users”.

Spire Global is a data and analytics company that “collects data from space to solve problems on Earth”. It owns and operates a networks of small satellites, known as nanosatellites, identifies, tracks, and predicts the movement of the world’s resources and weather systems – and provides that information to governments and businesses to inform decision-making processes at those institutions.

“Over the past five years, Glasgow has become the best place in Europe to build these innovative, small satellites, with Spire Global alone manufacturing more than 100 on the Clyde,” Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said in a statement.

“These new Glaswegian nanosats were launched from Russia, but we are working hard to ensure that in future we can design, build, test, launch and manage satellites as part of the UK government’s modern Industrial Strategy,” he added. “We are also a leading member of the [ESA] which delivers significant economic benefits back to businesses in the UK.”

“The whole idea of the Pioneer Programme is to give European and Canadian industries access to space, rapidly and at low cost,” Khalil Kably, Pioneer Programme Manager for the ESA, said. “As soon as they have an innovative idea, such as supercomputing by Spire here, we want people to be able to try it in orbit. It’s the ability to go from a new idea to market very quickly, through in-orbit validation.”

“We see these parallel supercomputing scalable devices as a crucially important next step for a new level of accuracy and timeliness in space data analytics,” Peter Platzer, CEO of Spire Global concluded. “The UK Space Agency and ESA have been extremely forward-looking and supportive of Spire’s innovative approach to deploying space technology to solve problems here on Earth.”

The UK Space Agency is also supporting a space incubation centre in Glasgow and has provided support to the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, based at the University of Strathclyde and working across the whole of Scotland.

The Centre’s role is to raise awareness of the potential of satellite services and data to be used in new and improved products and services in other so-called “space enabled” markets – including, for example, offshore renewable energy and aquaculture.

The UK Space Agency said it wants the country to “lead the new space age” and is looking to drive growth across the sector as part of the government’ Industrial Strategy with initiatives such as the £50m Spaceflight programme.

Tech

ESA expertise to support Portugal’s national spaceport program

Leave a comment
Image by Maria e Fernando Cabral from Pixabay

The European Space Agency (ESA) said on 27 June that Portugal has requested its “tailored expertise and technical assistance” as it develops the infrastructure for a national spaceport on one of the islands of the Azores archipelago, Santa Maria, a European launch and landing location for small satellites.

ESA Director General Jan Wörner and Manuel Heitor, Portuguese Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, signed an agreement on 21 June after Portugal, as an ESA member state, requested the organization’s help with the project.

As part of its remit, the ESA provides assistance to its member states for national activities. Portugal is expected to benefit from the ESA’s “technical and programmatic expertise in managing launch base development and ground infrastructures, related services, and testing as well as in the application of specific legal frameworks for national spaceports”.

Portugal Space, the country’s national space agency, will retain overall technical and financial responsibility for request and use of ESA expertise.

As its member states respond to a “growing demand” for the launch of small satellites, the ESA said it intends to lend support to those who request it, in “the domain of spaceports and test infrastructures under their jurisdiction as well as related services”.

This ESA assistance to Member States is further defined as part of the Commercial Space Transportation Services and Support programme proposed for decision at Space19+, a semi-regular meeting of the ESA’s member states and observers, in November.

European ministers in charge of space activities will gather in Sevilla, Spain, to decide on ESA’s vision for the future of Europe in space. Space19+ is billed as an opportunity for delegates to direct Europe’s “next generation” ambitions in space and address the challenges facing not only the European space sector but also European society as a whole.

This proposal includes the Director General’s plan for space programmes to be carried out by the Agency beyond 2019, and covers all aspects of space activities: science and exploration, applications, access to space, operations, research and development.

ESA said it might make use of the Azores landing location in 2022 for its Space Rider lifting body, which is planned to serve as a laboratory platform in space for extended periods and return to Earth with its cargo. The Azores landing base would be suitable as it could allow Space Rider to return at the same latitude as its operational orbit, requiring fewer deorbiting manoeuvres.

Space Rider aims to provide Europe with an affordable, independent, reusable end-to-end integrated space transportation system for routine access and return from low orbit. It will transport payloads for an array of applications, orbit altitudes and inclinations, and provide a space laboratory for payloads to operate in orbit for a variety of applications in missions lasting about two months.