NASA's Voyager to prepare us for future deep space missions

September 13, 2013 03:58 PM ETComputerworld - As NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft travels outside the solar system, scientists hope to learn about the forces pushing on the "bubble" around the sun and how interstellar radiation could affect future space exploration.

"There's never been anything like this," said Ed Stone, chief scientist for the Voyager mission. "Nothing has ever been outside the solar bubble before. Nothing."

NASA scientists confirmed that the Voyager 1 space probe has gone into the interstellar region beyond our solar system. (Image: NASA)

Stone is hardly a newcomer to the Voyager mission. He was the chief scientist on the project during Voyager's planning stages in the early 1970s.

Not only did Voyager 1 make history by becoming the first human-made spacecraft to journey beyond the solar system, but it did so on 36- to 40-year-old technology, Stone told Computerworld on Friday.

"This was one of our long-range hopes," Stone said. "We had no way to know at the time that this was possible because we didn't know how far away the edge of the bubble was. When Voyager was launched, the space age was only 20 years old. Most things didn't even last a few years back then. We had no idea if Voyager could last for 36 years and go as far as it has."

To put it in perspective, a smartphone today has 240,000 more memory than Voyager 1. That makes the Voyager 1 probe a testament to the power of engineering.

"This whole mission has been a major part of my life," Stone said. "I've been so fortunate to be part of this historic journey. This is the first spacecraft to sail in the cosmic sea between the stars."

The Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 with its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2 . On Thursday, NASA announced what had already been suspected -- that the spacecraft had left the solar system and had entered interstellar space in August 2012. The probe has journeyed between 14 billion and 15 billion miles.

"The Voyager team needed time to analyze those observations and make sense of them," Stone said during a press conference Thursday. "But we can now answer the question we've all been asking -- 'Are we there yet?' Yes, we are."

Stone explained that it took scientists months to figure out whether Voyager 1 had left the solar system because the instrument that Voyager used to measures plasma, an ionic gas, stopped working in 1980. Plasma is different depending on whether it is inside or outside the heliosphere, which is like a bubble that surrounds the sun. Without that measurement tool, scientists had to analyze plasma waves, which was a more time-consuming process.

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NASA's lunar mission could lead to Internet in space

Computerworld - With the launch of NASA's lunar mission tonight, the space agency is taking a big step in an effort to create an outer space Internet.

"This is akin to the fact that you have a fiber-optic connection into your house and you get faster downloads. We want to get faster downloads in space," said Don Boroson, principal investigator for NASA's lunar mission and a Laboratory Fellow at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. "We're told by scientists that they have cameras to send to Mars, but they're stuck because radio systems are not capable of sending much of the data and images collected there back to Earth. With higher download speeds they could send all of their data back. They could do much more with more downloads."

At 11:27 p.m. ET, NASA is scheduled to launch its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.

NASA will provide live coverage and commentary on the LADEE launch beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET tonight on NASA TV.

The robotic space probe's main mission is to study the moon's atmosphere.

However, it also has another mission.

About a month after launch, the spacecraft will begin a limited test of a high-data-rate laser communication system. If that system works as planned, similar systems are expected to be used to speed up future satellite communications, as well as deep space communications with robots and human exploration crews.

Don Cornwell, Lunar Laser Communications Mission Manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told Computerworld that this will be the space agency's first laser communications test.

In 2017, NASA is expected to launch a Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, which is expected to run tests for two to five years.

Using a laser for communications, instead of radio systems, would enable robots -- similar to the Mars rover Curiosity -- as well as astronauts to send and receive far greater data loads, whether they're in orbit around Earth, on the moon or a distant asteroid.

The two-way laser communications system can deliver six times more data with 25% less power than what can be done with the best radio systems, according to Cornwell.

He also said that laser communications would use devices that weigh half of what radio devices on rockets, rovers and spacecraft weigh today. When scientists are sending spacecraft into space, weight is a critical factor.

"When you send satellite communicationss up in space, every pound really counts," said Boroson. "You could send a mission very far away but the size of the radio [on the rocket] grows and grows. This is a fraction of the weight... Every ounce counts. The fact that we could be smaller and deliver a much higher deliver rate is very important."

And space exploration is largely about the data. Rovers and astronauts are expected to take measurements, shoot images and video of distant planets and asteroids. However, if they can't get that data back to scientists on Earth, it's scientifically limiting the entire mission.

"Right now, there's often a bottleneck with the radio system," said Cornwell. "Scientists have to pick and choose which images and data they want because it's not optimal to send it all back. With laser systems, they shouldn't have to choose. And as NASA goes further and further out in space, we'd like to... send more of that data back."

He added that the large pipe that laser communications give them will become increasingly important as explorations travel farther from Earth.

Cornwell said that some commercial operations are looking into testing laser communications in an effort to create an Earth-orbiting network of satellites that would speed data transmissions using lasers.

"We're really in the formulation phase," he said.

This article, NASA's lunar mission could lead to Internet in space, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

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NASA's Voyager 2 marks 36 years on its space odyssey

Computerworld - Voyager 2, one of two NASA spacecraft to travel farthest from Earth, marked 36 years in space Tuesday.

The spacecraft, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket, is more than 9 billion miles away from the sun, according to NASA.

Voyager 2, working in conjunction with its twin Voyager 1, were launched to explore the outer solar system. Both spacecraft have flown past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, along with 48 of their moons and their magnetic fields.

Voyager 2 is the only NASA spacecraft to have visited and explored Uranus and Neptune.

In 1990, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 both embarked on a mission to enter interstellar space, the space between star systems in a galaxy.

NASA noted that both spacecraft still are sending scientific information about their surroundings back through the Deep Space Network, an international network of large antennas and communication facilities.

There's a scientific debate going on about where Voyager 1 is.

NASA reported late in June that Voyager 1, which was launched on Sep. 5, 1977, was nearing the edge of the solar system, flying near the edge of the heliosphere, which is akin to a bubble around the sun. The spacecraft is so close to the edge of the solar system that it is sending back more information about charged particles from outside the solar system and less from those inside it, according to the space agency.

However, a team of researchers from the University of Maryland last week reported that they believe the spacecraft has already left the solar system and entered interstellar space.

Voyager 1, according to university researchers, has begun the first exploration of our galaxy beyond the sun's influence.

Despite the debate over Voyager 1, scientists seem to consistently believe that Voyager 2 still is within the heliosphere.

This article, NASA's Voyager 2 marks 36 years on its space odyssey, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

Read more about Government/Industries in Computerworld's Government/Industries Topic Center.

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NASA's cloud audit holds value for all

Computerworld - NASA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently audited and evaluated the efficacy of the space agency's efforts to adopt cloud-computing technologies. The resulting report, "NASA's Progress in Adopting Cloud-Computing Technologies," includes six recommendations "to strengthen NASA's IT governance practices with respect to cloud computing, mitigate business and IT security risks and improve contractor oversight." While the recommendations are specific to NASA, their underlying concepts can be leveraged by any organization that wants to more effectively adopt cloud-computing services.

RECOMMENDATION
Require that NASA organizations use the WestPrime contract or a contract that helps ensure risks are mitigated and FedRAMP requirements are met when acquiring cloud-computing services.

The adoption of public cloud computing services entails a paradigm shift from a traditional, technically managed approach in which an organization builds and maintains technology solutions in-house, to a contractually managed approach where an organization pays someone else to do all that off-site. As a result, NASA OIG accurately recognizes that effective risk mitigation requires developing contracts that address the specific risks of cloud computing, including but not limited to those related to infrastructure/security, service-level agreements, data protection, access and location, and vendor relationship.

The OIG evaluated existing public cloud-computing contracts at NASA in comparison with best-practice risk-mitigation measures, particularly as recommended by the Federal CIO and Chief Acquisition Officer Councils. The OIG identified one existing contract (WestPrime) that effectively accomplished these goals, four contracts where NASA agreed to the cloud vendor's standard contract terms and conditions without negotiating any revisions, and a fifth where NASA negotiated the terms of the contract with the cloud service vendor, but with limited success.

Except for the WestPrime contract, the OIG found that:

* None of the contracts reviewed included language to effectively address the roles and responsibilities of the vendor and customer, reporting of service level metrics, e-discovery mechanisms, data retention and destruction policies, or data privacy requirements.

* Only one of the contracts included penalties for not meeting service levels.

* And only two of the contracts included a guaranteed level of service availability, defined security incident detection and handling practices, or required third-party evaluation/certification of the cloud vendor's IT infrastructure and security.

It should come as no surprise that the standard vendor contracts did not come close to best practices for meeting customer data security needs. When placing sensitive data or business-critical functions in the cloud, it is essential for customers to negotiate contract terms and conditions that effectively address their needs. Otherwise, the customer's data and access to the service could be inappropriately put at risk. To effectively do this typically requires having appropriate processes in place for a customer to understand its needs and manage these processes.

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