{"id":13855,"date":"2018-04-17T17:31:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T09:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/potential-contamination-not-a-concern-for-space-stations-new-lightning-instrument\/"},"modified":"2018-04-17T17:31:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T09:31:35","slug":"potential-contamination-not-a-concern-for-space-stations-new-lightning-instrument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/potential-contamination-not-a-concern-for-space-stations-new-lightning-instrument\/","title":{"rendered":"Potential contamination not a concern for space station\u2019s new lightning instrument"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_31371\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31371\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-31371\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_in_Dragon_node_full_image_2-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_in_Dragon_node_full_image_2-3.jpg 700w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_in_Dragon_node_full_image_2-3-300x271.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_in_Dragon_node_full_image_2-3-678x612.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31371\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view inside the Dragon spacecraft\u2019s trunk, housing (clockwise from upper left) the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, the Materials ISS Experiment Flight Facility \u2014 a materials exposure experiment platform \u2014 and the Pump Flow and Control Subassembly. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Scientists working on a new lightning detection instrument mounted outside the International Space Station said Tuesday they expect little effect on the sensor\u2019s performance from possible contamination from the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched it into orbit April 2.<\/p>\n<p>The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, an instrument developed in Denmark and funded by the European Space Agency, was attached to an observation post outside the space station\u2019s European Columbus lab module Friday, then powered up for a six-week calibration and commissioning campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The science payload was activated sooner than expected, and an initial checkout of computers and sensors was accomplished over the weekend, according to Ole Hartnack, ASIM project manager at Terma A\/S, the Danish company that led the technical development of the instrument.<\/p>\n<p>Hartnack told Spaceflight Now on Tuesday that scientists are examining \u201cpossible contamination\u201d on cameras that will be used to detect optical flashes associated with lightning.<\/p>\n<p>But the potential contamination on ASIM\u2019s Modular Multispectral Imaging Array \u2014 a pair of light-sensitive optical cameras \u2014 is not expected to degrade the instrument\u2019s scientific performance, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been assessing possible contamination of the MMIA cameras from (the) Falcon 9 second stage engine, however, we do not expect any problems or issues at this point based on the information we have received from SpaceX,\u201d Hartnack said. \u201cFurthermore, all cameras do have a decontamination system which can be activated if performance issues will be identified, which to my understanding is not likely for now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Torsten Neubert, the ASIM science team coordinator at the Technical University of Denmark, added: \u201cWe do not anticipate issues here, because our optical lenses carry decontamination heaters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The possible contamination may have come from propellant venting from the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage after engine shutdown.<\/p>\n<p>The 692-pound (314-kilogram) ASIM instrument launched April 2 from Cape Canaveral inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, alongside a platform containing materials exposure experiments and a refurbished spare pump for the space station\u2019s coolant system.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX said in a statement that it has heard of no performance issues on any of the three payloads launched inside Dragon\u2019s trunk section, and the decision to call off a Falcon 9 launch attempt Monday with NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was not related to the April 2 launch.<\/p>\n<p>The statement did not say whether SpaceX had studied the contamination concern.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5ehN5NxvNBk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After the Dragon capsule arrived at the station April 4, the research lab\u2019s Canadian-built robotic arm \u2014 with the help of its two-armed appendage nicknamed Dextre \u2014 extracted the three trunk payloads, one at a time.<\/p>\n<p>It was ASIM\u2019s turn Friday after smooth transfers of the external experiment-carrier, known as MISSE-FF, and the coolant pump to their new homes outside the space station.<\/p>\n<p>The Dextre robot grabbed the ASIM instrument package \u2014 about the size of a mini-refrigerator \u2014 and pulled it out of the Dragon cargo bay for the move over to ESA\u2019s Columbus module. Ground controllers wanted to get the instrument plugged into power on Columbus within six hours from the time its heaters were disconnected inside the Dragon trunk.<\/p>\n<p>The transfer took about four-and-a-half hours, and Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai flipped switches inside the space station apply power to the new instrument.<\/p>\n<p>According to Hartnack, ASIM\u2019s initial checkout after power-up occurred as planned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have performed the initial checkout of computers and instruments during the weekend, and everything works fine and as expected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the initial contamination concern, the instrument\u2019s optical cameras registered their first Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs, late Monday, Hartnack said.<\/p>\n<p>TLEs are electrical discharges high in the atmosphere above large thunderstorms, often manifesting themselves as red sprites or blue jets and sometimes visible on dark nights, especially from aircraft. Phenomena known as elves are the most difficult to detect, requiring special photographic equipment.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31783\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31783\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-31783\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/TLEs_sprites_blue_jets_and_elves_node_full_image_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"631\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/TLEs_sprites_blue_jets_and_elves_node_full_image_2.jpg 400w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/TLEs_sprites_blue_jets_and_elves_node_full_image_2-285x300.jpg 285w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31783\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This diagram illustrates the relationship between thunderstorms and Transient Luminous Events like sprites, jets and elves. Credit: DTU Space<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Long theorized with sporadic observations which were spread by word-of-mouth, bright electrical bursts above thunderstorms were first documented in 1989.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the two light-sensitive optical cameras, ASIM also carries sensors to detect X-ray and gamma-ray emissions from thunderstorms. Scientists hope to correlate the high-energy emissions with simultaneous optical observations of high-altitude lightning.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists know little about how the discharges are triggered, or how they reach so high in the atmosphere, near the edge of space, Neubert said before the April 2 launch.<\/p>\n<p>Lightning processes are slowed at high altitude, Neubert said, making it a good laboratory for studying how electrical discharges emanate through the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are really lightning, except they are lightning processes in the upper atmosphere,\u201d Neubert said of sprites and jets. \u201cSo they look a little bit different, but if we understand them, we\u2019ll also understand normal lightning much better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scientists also hope to study lightning\u2019s effects on ozone and other gases in the atmosphere during the nearly $50 million (40 million euro) instrument\u2019s two-year observing campaign.<\/p>\n<p>ASIM will point down at Earth from the space station\u2019s 250-mile-high (400-kilometer) orbit, which covers the regions of the planet where most thunderstorms form and strengthen. Parts of the instrument\u2019s payload were also contributed by scientists in Norway, Poland and Spain.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31786\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31786\" style=\"width: 625px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-31786\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_on_Columbus_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_on_Columbus_large.jpg 625w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ASIM_on_Columbus_large-300x213.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31786\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist\u2019s illustration of the ASIM instrument\u2019s location (at bottom left) on the Columbus module. Credit: ESA\u2013D. Ducros<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In addition to research into lightning formation and electrical processes above thunderstorms, the European instrument could also detect meteors entering Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the calibration effort in the coming weeks will involve determining where to set limits in on-board software to decide whether the instrument\u2019s computer should flag an image for downlink to Earth. Scientists don\u2019t want to overload the pipeline of data coming from the space station with too many images.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSetting the levels will be a matter of trial and error \u2013 setting the trigger too low will flood the network with images that are of no use, too high and some thunderstorms will not be recorded,\u201d ESA said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Regular science observations should begin by late May.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A view inside the Dragon spacecraft\u2019s trunk, housing (clockwise from upper left) the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, the Materials ISS Experiment Flight Facility \u2014 a materials exposure experiment platform \u2014 and the Pump Flow and Control Subassembly. Credit: SpaceX Scientists working on a new lightning detection instrument mounted outside the International Space Station said Tuesday they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2983,2730,1395,2984,159,831,479,1602],"class_list":["post-13855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asim","tag-denmark","tag-dragon","tag-dtu-space","tag-earth-observation","tag-european-space-agency","tag-falcon-9","tag-iss-cargo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}