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China to set up a permanent Moon base
Posted in space
Category: space – Page 467
1969, the Luna 15 lander was crashing into the other side of the moon. It is a story the Soviets did not want the world to know…
Such thrusters have been used since the 1970s; however, the Tiangong’s core module is set to become the first crewed spaceship propelled by ion drives. China is betting big on ion thrusters and intends to develop them on a far greater scale for its deep-space missions.
The space station’s core Tianhe module, which will welcome its first astronauts later this month if all goes to plan, is propelled by four ion thrusters, which utilize electricity to accelerate ions as a type of propulsion.
When compared to chemical propulsion, which keeps the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit, ion drives are much more efficient. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the ISS’s thrusters require four tons of rocket fuel to keep it afloat for a year, whereas ion thrusters would require only 882 pounds (400kg) to do the same.
Meet the ambitious P-ONE proposal.
The P-ONE design currently involves seven 10-string clusters, with each string hosting 20 optical elements. That s a grand total of 1,400 photodetectors floating around an area of the Pacific several miles across, providing much more coverage than IceCube.
Once it’s up and running, you just need to wait. Even neutrinos will strike some ocean water and give off a little flash, and the detectors will trace it.
Of course, it’s harder than it sounds. The strands will be moving constantly, waving back and forth with the ocean itself. And the Pacific Ocean is … less than pure, with salt and plankton and all manner of fish excrement floating around. That will change the behavior of light between the strands, making precise measurement difficult.
Webb’s science goals cover a very broad range of themes, and will tackle many open questions in astronomy. They can be divided into four main areas:
Other worlds
Key questions: Where and how do planetary systems form and evolve?
Thanks to the rapidly evolving field of exoplanet studies – planets beyond our Solar System – Webb will be able to contribute to key questions such as: is Earth unique? Do other planetary systems similar to ours exist? Are we alone in the Universe?
As of Tuesday afternoon, the James Webb Space Telescope was more than 93 percent of the way to its operating orbit around Lagrangian Point 2.
‘Bringing archaeological perspectives to an active space domain’.
While most people naturally associate archaeology with ancient remains and treasured artifacts, one group of scientists is breaking that mold by kickstarting the first-ever archaeological project aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a press statement reveals.
It is the first time such a project has taken place aboard any space habitat and its aim is to catalog how humans adapt their living behaviors while in space for months at a time. As a point of reference, the longest stay aboard the ISS so far is NASA astronaut Christina Koch’s 328-day stay, which ended last year.
“We’re the first to try to understand how humans relate to the items they live with in space,” explained Associate Professor Justin Walsh of Chapman University in California, one of the study leads. “By bringing archaeological perspectives to an active space domain, we’re the first to show how people adapt their behavior to a completely new environment.”
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After a decade of failed attempts, scientists successfully bounced photons off of a reflector aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, some 240,000 miles from Earth.
FSO communication systems are where free space acts as a communication channel between transceivers that are line-of-sight (LOS) for successful transmission of optical signals. The channel can be atmosphere, space, or vacuum, whose characteristics determine the transmission and reception of optical signals for designing reliable and efficient communication systems. Using FSO technology data is transmitted by propagation of light through atmospheric or space communication channels, allowing optical connectivity. FSO communication offers a high data rate to meet the tremendous increasing demand of broadband traffic mostly driven by Internet access and HDTV broadcasting services. Compared to fiber optics technology, FSO offers much more flexibility in designing optical network architectures at very high speeds, at tens and hundreds of Gbit/s rates. However, FSO communication is affected by atmospheric effects, which limits sensitivity and achievable data rates with acceptable BER. Some of these degradations are turbulence, absorption, and scattering, and various mitigation techniques exist for reliable and efficient data transmission [1] and to increase the communication performance. Both point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, multipoint-to-point, and multipoint-to-multipoint FSO communications are possible, depending on the different scenarios of establishing optical links. FSO communication is the most practical alternative to solve the bottleneck broadband connectivity problem. The data rates provided by FSO links continue to increase in both long-and short-range applications. FSO will be one of the most unique and powerful tools to address connectivity bottlenecks that have been created in high-speed networks during the past decade due to the tremendous success and continued acceptance of the Internet. The next generation of Internet connectivity will push the limits of existing infrastructure with high-bandwidth applications such as videoconferencing, streaming multimedia content, and network-enabled portable devices. Clearing these bottlenecks is crucial for the future growth and success of the contemporary Internet society. The bandwidth of optical communications access and edge networks will be needed to satisfy these demands. Communication systems are concerned with the transmission of information from a source to a user. The purpose of a communication system is therefore to transfer information. A very basic block diagram of any communication system (optical or radiofrequency (RF)) is shown in Fig. 4.1.
Fig. 4.1 shows a single point-to-point system, whereas in a multiplexed system there may be multiple input and output message sources and users (also called destinations). Fig. 4.2 shows other possible configurations and links for multipoint connections.
OWC is the next frontier for high-speed broadband connection and offers the following unique features and advantages: high bandwidth/capacity, ease of deployment, compact size, low power, and improved channel security. OWC can transmit and exchange voice and video communication data through the atmosphere/free-space at the rates of tens of Gbit/s and much more.