Dan Baker

After 2-year delay, international student team set to launch satellite into space

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 22:39:19 +0000

After 2-year delay, international student team set to launch satellite into space Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/10/2022 - 15:39

From 2017 to 2020, students from five different countries traveled to the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU �鶹�� to engage in an ambitious undertaking: to design and build a miniature satellite.

Watch the launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation's PSLV-C52 live Feb. 13 Mountain Time

After two years of delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, their global collaboration is about to pay off. The team’s spacecraft, called INSPIRESat-1, is set to launch from a rocket pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India on Monday, Feb. 14 local time (Feb. 13 at 5:29 p.m. Mountain Time).

“We’re good to go,” said Spencer Boyajian, a professional research assistant at LASP who worked on INSPIRESat-1 while earning his master’s degree at CU �鶹��. “We’re all thinking: ‘finally.’”

The spacecraft is about the size of a small cooler. But it has hefty goals: over the course of a year, the roughly $3 million satellite will circle Earth to observe radiation from the sun and how it influences the planet's atmosphere.

INSPIRESat-1 marks the flagship mission of the International Satellite Program in Research and Education (INSPIRE). This coalition of 11 universities from Canada to Singapore brings together undergraduate and graduate students to get hands-on experience in designing spacecraft—building satellites that collect real scientific data in space. The roughly 30 students on the INSPIRESat-1 team experienced a lot of late nights, around-the-world flights and Zoom calls before Zoom calls were the norm. They cooked their regional dishes for each other, played soccer and, in some cases, saw snow for the first time in the Rocky Mountains.

CU �鶹�� graduate student Bennet Schwab preps INSPIRESat-1 for vibration testing at LASP. (Credit: Amal Chandran)

A team from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) loads INSPIRESat-1 onto a launch vehicle. (Credit: ISRO)

Engineers from ISRO and the Indian Institute for Space Science and Technology stand in front of the launch vehicle that will carry INSPIRESat-1 into space. (Credit: ISRO)

“It was a cross-cultural experience,” said Amal Chandran, the program manager for INSPIRE at LASP. “We’re bringing together students who are going to be the leaders of the space community in the future. We want to engrain in them that working collaboratively is a good thing.”

Six universities collaborated on INSPIRESat-1, including CU �鶹��, the Indian Institute for Space Science and Technology (IIST), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan, the University of Alberta in Canada and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. The mission was funded, in part, by a grant from CU �鶹�� Provost Russell Moore.

“INSPIRE has given students from around the world new opportunities to work collaboratively in international teams to develop real spacecraft from the idea stage to launch and beyond,” Moore said. “The program shows CU �鶹��’s commitment with providing students with hands-on research experiences that will allow them to become the scientific and engineering leaders of the future.”

Out in the snow

The global team of students behind INSPIRESat-1 aren’t just top-notch scientists and engineers—they also represent the future of space exploration. By the end of the decade, Chandran estimates that as many as 50 new countries could launch their first satellites into space.

“Space is going international,” said Chandran who also leads the Satellite Research Centre at NTU. “What we want to do at LASP is teach these new entrants into space how to create a sustainable space industry by supporting high-quality research.”

Daniel Baker, director of LASP, agreed.

"Small spacecraft are revolutionizing how space research is done, and the INSPIRE program has been changing how young people from around the Earth see themselves and what they can contribute to understanding our planet,” he said. “We are pleased that INSPIRESat-1 is ready to go into space. With it go the aspirations of students and institutions that see a bright future in space exploration.”

Duann Yi joined the INSPIRE team in 2017, when she was pursuing her master’s degree at NCU in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. She traveled to the United States three times for the project—over the summers in 2017 and 2018 and for eight months in 2019.

“The views in �鶹�� are really beautiful, and the people there are really nice,” said Yi, now a doctoral student at NCU.

Sarthak Srivastava, who started on INSPIRE while working as a research engineer at NTU, said that CubeSats are the perfect sandboxes for learning about spacecraft. When your satellite is that small, you have to know how every component and subsystem works.

“Given the lean teams and smaller scale of such projects, very often we get involved in technical work very different from our area of expertise,” said Srivastava, now a doctoral student.

INSPIRESat-1 boasts two scientific instruments in one small package. The Dual-zone Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (DAXSS), developed by LASP, will look outward, collecting data on X-ray radiation emanating from the sun. The Compact Ionospheric Probe (CIP), developed by NCU, will point down to measure fluctuations in Earth’s ionosphere—or the highest layer of the atmosphere beginning about 50 miles above the planet’s surface.

Boyajian noted that the cross-cultural aspect of the project wasn’t always easy. The students had to overcome big cultural and language barriers to function as a team. But they also had fun together, both in and out of the lab. One summer, he took a group of students to St. Mary’s Glacier to the southwest of �鶹�� where they slipped and played in the snow.

“At the end of the day, we’re all nerds,” said Boyajian.

First contact

Now, they’re counting down the hours until INSPIRESat-1 finally launches. Once it makes it to space, Boyajian explained, the CubeSat will push off from its rocket to enter into orbit around Earth. The team will then have to scramble, using satellite antennas on the ground to try to locate the spacecraft’s faint radio signal above.

“Our orbit is going to fall within a slim trajectory, but space is big,” he said. “The stress won’t abate until we get that first contact.”

When that first contact comes, however, Yi said students across many different countries will have reason to celebrate: “There is always a sense of achievement to see something you worked on for so long go up into orbit.”

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UAE’s Hope mission on its way to Mars

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:35:36 +0000

UAE’s Hope mission on its way to Mars Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/20/2020 - 13:35

A H-2A rocket carrying the UAE's Hope Mars orbiter mission lifts off July 19. Credit: MHI webcast

From SpaceNews.com: A Japanese rocket launched the United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars July 19, an orbiter that will study the planet’s weather while demonstrating the country’s growing space capabilities.

The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 5:58 p.m. Eastern. The launch was originally scheduled for July 14 but delayed five days by poor weather at the launch site.

The rocket’s upper stage released the Emirates Mars Mission, or Hope, spacecraft, nearly an hour after liftoff. The spacecraft contracted controllers shortly after separation.

The UAE is not doing Hope entirely on its own. Besides purchasing the H-2A launch from Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, MBRSC partnered with several universities in the United States, such as Arizona State University, the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado. Those universities collaborated on the spacecraft and its instruments.

That partnership included building and testing Hope at LASP’s facilities in Colorado.

Read the full story at SpaceNews.com

A Japanese rocket launched the United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars July 19, an orbiter that will study the planet’s weather while demonstrating the country’s growing space capabilities. The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 5:58 p.m. Eastern. The rocket’s upper stage released the...

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Emirates Mars Mission to begin journey to the red planet

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:15:40 +0000

Emirates Mars Mission to begin journey to the red planet Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/20/2020 - 13:15

This month, researchers from �鶹�� and beyond will watch live as a slice of space exploration history launches from a pad on the Japanese island of Tanegashima.

The Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) is slated to blast off aboard an H-IIA rocket. As soon as the weather in Japan behaves, which it hasn’t done recently, the event will mark the first step in the mission's 7-month-long journey to the red planet—the first voyage to another planet undertaken by the Arab world. The mission is led by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in the United Arab Emirates.

How to watch the launch

The EMM launch has been delayed due to weather. Once a new launch time is confirmed, viewers can watch it live online.

The EMM team is “waiting for a clear weather window,” said Omran Sharaf, project director for the mission, “which we expect daily now.”

The launch of the spacecraft, called the "Mars Hope probe," will also be a big moment for the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the �鶹��. Since 2014, researchers at the institute have worked side-by-side with dozens of young scientists and engineers from the UAE to help them make this mission a reality.

“Hope will capture the ebbs and flows of weather on Mars to a degree that wasn’t possible before," said Daniel Baker, director of LASP. "It’s a showcase for how space exploration has become an increasingly international endeavor."

Read the announcement from LASP

CU �鶹�� Chancellor Philip DiStefano applauded the efforts of the Colorado scientists and students who worked on the mission and their colleagues overseas.

“This new Mars mission shows Colorado’s growing leadership in the aerospace industry, both here at home and around the world,” DiStefano said. “That our scientists and engineers can share their knowledge with the next generation of space pioneers across borders is inspiring.”

From MAVEN to Hope

For LASP, the Emirates Mars Mission is the latest step in more than 70 years spent exploring the solar system. For example, LASP is the lead research institute for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which arrived at Mars in 2014. Among other pursuits, the mission investigates how gases escape from the Martian atmosphere into space, leaving the planet with unusually thin air.

Hope science will be complementary to the science data gathered by MAVEN and a number of other orbital missions that have taken atmospheric measurements on the planet. The probe will enter into a unique orbit around Mars, allowing it to observe weather patterns at every point around the red planet and from the top to the bottom of its atmosphere—something that no mission from any country has ever done to date.

“If there’s a dust storm on Mars, changes in temperature, how do those impact rates of atmospheric escape?” said Sarah Al Amiri, EMM’s science lead, in last week’s press conference.

One integrated international team

Designing a spacecraft to do all of that was no easy feat, said Pete Withnell, program manager for EMM at LASP.

To finish the project in just six years, the UAE partnered with LASP to assemble and test the spacecraft in facilities on the CU �鶹�� campus. The UAE’s goal for the project was to “build it not buy it,” according to Sharaf.

Teams worked on both sides of the globe, both separately, and in extended trips and stays. The hands-on experience of building hardware happened primarily in �鶹��, but team members experienced cultural exchanges and outdoor adventures in both locations.

The effort was a lesson in how people from different cultures can work together to complete a space mission on time and under budget. Knowledge transfer on the mission came in the form of hands-on learning through an integrated team approach with shared responsibilities.

“There are multiple stories of Emirates engineers who started on the program with perhaps little experience in aerospace and ended up defending complex spacecraft subsystems and designs in front of seasoned review panels,” Withnell said.

Withnell added that the team is confident that EMM will get the job done, but that won’t make the next few weeks any less nerve-wracking. About an hour after the Hope Probe leaves its launch pad, the spacecraft will separate from its rocket and extend its solar panels. From there, it will begin making moves that will take it to Mars—not an easy target to hit from Earth.

“It’s equivalent to an archer hitting a 2-mm target 1 kilometer away,” Withnell said. “This is not for the faint of heart.”

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An infrared close up of the moon

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 14:53:25 +0000

An infrared close up of the moon Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2019 - 08:53

A first-of-its-kind camera developed in partnership between CU �鶹�� and Ball Aerospace will soon be landing on the moon.

NASA announced today that it has selected the scientific instrument, called the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System (L-CIRiS), for its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

The camera will ride along with one of three robotic landers that will touch down on the lunar surface in the next several years—a key step in NASA’s goal of sending people back to the moon by 2024. Planetary scientist Paul Hayne, who is leading the development of the instrument, said that the goal is to collect better maps of the lunar surface to understand how it formed and its geologic history. L-CIRiS will use infrared technology to map the temperatures of the shadows and boulders that dot the lunar surface in greater detail than any images to date.

And, Hayne added, the team believes that similar cameras could hitch a ride on many more future moon missions.

“In L-CIRiS, we have designed a cutting-edge instrument in a very small package,” said Hayne, an assistant professor at CU �鶹��’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). “We can envision including an infrared camera based on L-CIRiS on nearly every lunar mission going forward, for both science and reconnaissance.”

A simulation of the level of detail that L-CIRiS's infrared camera will reveal of the moon's surface. (Credit: Ball Aerospace)

Colorado-based Ball Aerospace will build the instrument, and researchers from the University of Central Florida and the University of California, Los Angeles will contribute to the project.

“Collecting better data on the surface of the moon will be crucial step in understanding not just how this body evolved but also in paving the way for the return of American astronauts,” said Daniel Baker, director of LASP. “This project highlights how scientists at LASP are partnering with top engineers and industry partners to lead the way for the next generation of human space exploration.”

Touch down

The commercial lander program is a critical component of that next wave of lunar voyages. In May, NASA picked three companies—Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines and Orbit Beyond—to send robotic spacecraft to the moon as early as 2020.

Those missions will, in part, test out possible landing sites for human missions in the following years, from craters on the near side of the moon to possible ice deposits near the lunar poles.

Hayne isn’t sure where on the moon L-CIRiS will be heading to yet. But the instrument will pack a big punch once it arrives.

That’s because the infrared camera will sit directly on top of one of the commercial landers and will scan the area around where it comes down, beginning a few feet away from the lander and extending to the horizon. The images will enable scientists to determine what the materials at the landing site are made of and how dense they are.

Such detailed images can also help to keep astronauts safe as they land their own spacecraft at similar sites.

“Data from L-CIRiS will help plan future lander, rover and astronaut missions by identifying hazardous rocks and determining the density of the lunar soil,” said Hayne, also of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

And it could map out what is, perhaps, the moon’s most valuable resource: water.

Scientists know that ice exists on the moon’s surface, usually in the shadows cast by craters near the poles. But they’re not sure what conditions are most conducive to forming this lunar ice. L-CIRiS’s data may help researchers to develop a more complete picture of how and where water collects on the moon.

Hayne says that he’s also thrilled to see his work become a small piece of what he hopes will be a renewed national excitement for exploring space.

“I think going back to the moon and building a permanent presence there will inspire people,” Hayne said. “I think it will lead to a lot of little girls and boys pursuing careers in science.”

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Five questions for Daniel Baker

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 15:33:55 +0000

Five questions for Daniel Baker Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/13/2019 - 09:33

What would your life be like without the benefits that space and years of research affords us?

It’s a question that Daniel Baker frequently asks in his role as director of the �鶹��’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

Imagine a world without cell phones or TV or telecommunications. No Global Positioning System (GPS) to help get us safely to our destinations. No weather photos or forecasting equipment.

“Without those things, many would revert to a ‘Stone Age existence’ pretty quickly,” Baker says.

Luckily, what we take for granted are the same things that Baker and his colleagues at LASP think about every day. The lab recently celebrated its 70th year of existence, but it is exceptional for more than its longevity.

“It’s unique in the world, an extraordinary collection of people with all the skills necessary to carry out exciting research and engineering,” says Baker, who has been directing LASP for more than two decades. “What keeps me here is the fact that I am constantly amazed, constantly surprised, constantly impressed with the ability of the team of people that we have put together to go far beyond the expectations – to do more than anyone thought we could do.”

There have been times when the team was asked to have a mission payload ready in six months, instead of the usual timeline of two or three years. There have been missions when the team gave back money to the government, something that is almost unheard of in the aerospace industry, Baker says. Even though LASP had never specifically built high-energy particle detectors, and some expressed skepticism about the lab’s plan to do it, the team built instruments that have “broken all the records. They have performed so beautifully and have revealed completely new things that haven’t been known about the radiation environment around the Earth.”

“It’s because of the quality of the instruments,” Baker says. “When the LASP team undertakes something, it is focused on one thing and that is scientific excellence.”

Such drive begins at the top. Alongside his managerial duties, Baker continues his research in numerous areas and is a Distinguished Professor of planetary and space physics, professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, professor of aerospace engineering, and professor of physics. He has earned numerous awards, most recently the American Geophysical Union’s highest honor – the 2018 William Bowie Medal – which recognizes “outstanding contributions for fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research.”

1. How did you come to be at CU and how did you choose this career path?

I was recruited from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight center where I was a laboratory chief. I was primarily recruited by a member of the LASP director search committee, the late Noel Hinners, who was vice president of Lockheed Martin Astronautics. I’d known him when he was director at Goddard. I came here to join the faculty, of course, but more specifically to take on the directorship of LASP.

Like most scientists, I was intrigued by science from my earliest years. I loved the act of learning. Early TV shows, like “Watch Mr. Wizard” and things like that, always intrigued me, but it was probably the prominence of NASA and space exploration in the ’60s that really brought it home to me.

My mentor was James Van Allen (the namesake of the Van Allen radiation belts, zones of charged particles around the Earth). He got me involved in space research as an undergrad at the University of Iowa. Those students who did well in his class were invited to work in his group, and as an undergraduate, he asked me if I would like to build an instrument that was going to go to Jupiter. That was really exciting, and obviously, the answer to a question like that is, “Yes, you bet!”

I didn’t know what my career path was going to be, but after my time at Caltech I went to work at the Los Alamos National Lab and was group leader there for seven years, and then went to NASA. But I vowed even early on, when I worked for Van Allen, that if I ever had the chance to be at an academic institution, I’d really like to repay what he did for me. I wanted to make sure there were opportunities provided to students, especially undergraduate students, to get involved in space research. So it has come full circle.

LASP is perhaps one of the preeminent places to employ students and give them the chance to work, hands on, on real space programs, and I think it is one of our proudest aspects. We build things that go to space, and students are involved in all aspects of the mission, including operations and data collection. More and more organizations are attempting this, but they have not accomplished it nearly as well as I think we do here at the University of Colorado.

2. What is your role as director of LASP?

I would say I have many roles – providing vision, ultimately deciding what new things the lab is going to undertake, what changes we might be making in our direction, and providing top-level management and decision-making, which is crucial for LASP. And I also do personal research, which is in my genetic makeup. This is only possible because we have such an outstanding group of people here at LASP. They all are extraordinary. They could collectively suggest that I should stop doing research and just be a manager, but instead, they take on more of the responsibilities so that I’m able to do the kind of science and science writing that I really enjoy doing.

I try to be a great cheerleader for LASP and what we do, and I try to do that in the local Colorado region and on the national and international fronts. Much of what I do I would liken to conducting an orchestra. We have many individuals in science, engineering and management who are virtuosos in what they do. However, they have entered into something of a social contract we have here at LASP, and maybe subsume a little bit of their own individuality, to become part of what I think of as a remarkable orchestra that plays together so well. That is an important part of my job which is to provide the kind of guidance, vision and oversight that allows these outstanding individuals to work more collectively to accomplish amazing things.

When I became director of LASP, it was a much smaller, much different organization. LASP was known for some of its work in Earth and solar science, and it had become active in planetary science. By one measure, LASP has grown a lot, going from just a few teaching faculty to about 25 tenure-track faculty now. The staff has gone from fewer than 100 people to more than 600 people. We have about 100 undergraduates working at LASP at any one time, as well as about 60 or 70 graduate students.

More fundamentally, LASP has gone from largely measuring ultraviolet light from various objects – the sun, the planets and so on – to being a much broader, more capable lab in many different kinds of measurement techniques in space. We now are making measurements across all the wave lengths of light; we’re making measurements of particles in space; we’re probably the premier institute in the world when it comes to measuring properties of cosmic dust – the things that are left over from collisions between objects in space; and we are moving more toward working to understand not only the planets in our own solar system, but also planets around other stars.

I would say that LASP has become one of the preeminent institutes in the world for studying the effects of the space environment – what is called space weather – on human technology. We have been reviewed by a number of outside people and most assert that LASP is perhaps the preeminent university-related, space-research institute in the nation and possibly in the world. It makes us very proud that LASP has evolved so progressively over these past couple of decades and has become so prominent in so many different areas of engineering, science and technology.

Though I have been heavily involved in management since my Los Alamos National Laboratory days, I’ve always insisted that I would only take jobs if I could continue to do my own science research. Being active in research is essential for me, and I’ve published many scientific papers per year as an author or co-author, and I also present dozens of invited talks, mostly on scientific topics, in any one year. As I like to say, the first 40 hours a week are for the lab, and the second 40 hours a week are mine to do research. Clearly, scientific research is what motivates me, what stimulates my thinking. I don’t feel that a scientific manager can be effective unless he or she knows about, and remains very heavily engaged in, what the organization really does.

3. One area of your research is space weather. What is space weather and how does it affect us?

Space weather is something that is crucial to our society. It takes advantage of the understanding we have of the sun, the space environment, the near-Earth environment, and so on. I’ve been blessed to be able to work on many different things, from basic space physics to plasma astrophysics, planetary exploration and national security space activities. But space weather is maybe the most important in a practical sense.

Space weather is essentially conditions on the sun and in near-Earth space that affect humans in space and technological systems in space and on Earth. Along with interruptions of communications and things like that, there can be severe effects on spacecraft operations and airline operations, navigation systems, and resource exploration communications. The threats to electric power systems are very substantial, and so space weather has become much more appreciated, in no small measure because of our efforts at LASP.

Policy makers have come to understand over the past 10 to 15 years that space weather is a real hazard to advanced nations such as our own. We’ve gone from this being some esoteric topic that very few people knew anything about to having space weather join the group of more appreciated hazards such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Policy makers recently have spoken about the need to take preventive measures and find mitigation strategies, and to make the technology systems more robust to the effects of space weather.

Space weather is not just a United States problem, it is a world problem. Understanding the disturbances on the sun and how they operate in a basic astrophysical sense is fascinating, but we need to be able to take that understanding and make it practical and useful for societal needs. That is our goal and we are moving forward. There are, however, many challenges that remain.

Our goal is to have observing platforms in space and on the ground that can provide enough information to make accurate forecasts about the sun’s activities. We know that the sun undergoes an 11-year activity cycle where it becomes more active for several years and then that activity wanes. We know that the disturbances that cause the biggest effects are related to powerful, emerging magnetic fields on the sun. A lot of the things we study are closely related to those disturbances so that we can reduce the danger or the economic impact of these kinds of major space weather events. I think we are moving forward on this, but we are probably some decades behind where we are in our ability to forecast terrestrial weather events.

4. How does LASP earn participation in missions? Do NASA or other agencies reach out to you, or do you submit proposals to these entities?

LASP is specifically sought out more and more, but we of course submit proposals, too. First and foremost, LASP and the people here are regarded as thought-leaders, and we help NASA and other agencies think about what ought to be done. In the space community, there needs to be a consensus about the most important issues or problems that should be addressed.

Helping to make sure that those questions are formulated well is something that especially our senior scientists get quite involved with on the national and international level. Then program plans are put together by NASA or other agencies, and the agency issues an announcement of opportunity. This will call for ideas of how to address the questions. This is one of the principal ways over the years that LASP has gotten missions, by responding to those announcements and coming up with the most creative, the most novel, and often the lowest-cost way to address a key question.

LASP has been involved in dozens and dozens of different missions. We may have more than 100 active individual research projects ongoing at one time. Aerospace companies often come to LASP and want us to be involved with them. Ball Aerospace, which was founded by some LASP engineers who spun off in the 1950s, is one example. We continue to work closely with Ball Aerospace and Lockheed Martin, Sierra Nevada and many other companies. When they need scientific involvement or engineering involvement or operational capabilities, often they come to us. More agencies and non-governmental organizations, and even foreign entities, are beating a path to LASP’s door because of the lab’s successes and the vast knowledge base that we have.

(For a rundown of some of LASP’s missions, visit its website at http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/missions-projects/ )

5. What do you consider the biggest threat from space we face? What do you think is the biggest benefit we can potentially glean from space exploration/research?

I would say that the most likely threat from space is the one we’ve talked about previously: space weather. It’s not a question of if, but when, we are going to have highly damaging coronal mass ejections (as they are called). I wrote a paper about this in 2013. We narrowly averted an event of such a huge magnitude in 2012. Had it occurred just a week earlier, we would have been in the line of fire from that solar disturbance, and I have suggested that we still would be picking up the pieces technologically.

We happen to be in a relatively weak solar activity period right now, but I can say with complete confidence that over the next decade or two, the sun is going to become much more active, and space weather will be a much bigger threat.

There certainly are other space concerns. A killer asteroid, for instance. It would be a bad day for the entire planet if a large body were to hit the Earth’s atmosphere à la 65 million years ago, but the probability of such an event is much lower than severe space weather and we are now more aware of what the large threatening asteroids are. Of course, what we would do about an approaching bolide is another question.

I also have real concerns that space is going from a rather scientific realm to being more weaponized and more of a theater of possible conflicts. I think it is really important for us as university people to try to establish deep policy thought about how to avoid the militarization of space more than it already is. How can we make sure that space remains a relatively pristine scientific arena?

The benefits of space exploration speak for themselves. If one goes back to the beginning of the Space Age in the 1950s, there was little reliance on space. By the 1960s, the benefits began to be more evident, and this has escalated tremendously every decade thereafter. Space has become more and more built into people’s lives.

When I give public talks, I ask people to think about “a day without space.” What if you didn’t have the Global Positioning System (GPS), television or radio communication, navigation capabilities, weather photos and all the knowledge that systems from space give us each day? Space is intrinsic to our daily lives and it is only going to become more so. When you start to conflate that with the threats to those systems, you realize that space benefits and space threats have to go hand in hand. We need to think carefully about the kind of dependences we are building on these systems and how vulnerable they might be to disruption, either by human or natural causes.

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Daniel N. Baker: Keep Colorado at forefront of space discovery

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 15:47:31 +0000

Daniel N. Baker: Keep Colorado at forefront of space discovery Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/15/2019 - 09:47

This column by Dan Baker, Director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), appeared in the March 15, 2019 �鶹�� Daily Camera:

Today there are space missions exploring every corner of our solar system, looking back to the beginning of time itself and peering globally from space at our planet Earth. Most of these achievements have been made possible because Colorado universities, national labs and aerospace companies have expanded the frontiers of space exploration. No other place in the world has brought together science, engineering and advanced technology for the betterment of humankind through space exploration more than Colorado.

The confluence of national security infrastructure, civilian space agencies, and academic research investment over several decades has produced an aerospace equivalent of Silicon Valley right here in Colorado. There is no comparable...

Read the full column at The Daily Camera

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Scientists and dignitaries celebrate 7 decades of CU �鶹�� in space

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:23:23 +0000

Scientists and dignitaries celebrate 7 decades of CU �鶹�� in space Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/04/2019 - 09:23

In 1948, William Pietenpol, the chair of physics at the University of Colorado, assembled a team of scientists and engineers for an ambitious venture: to launch an Aerobee rocket into the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere and collect new observations of the ultraviolet radiation emanating from the sun.

Just over 70 years later, dignitaries from Colorado and beyond gathered at a gala event on March 1 to mark the anniversary of that first rocket team—the beginnings of what would become CU �鶹��’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

The guest of honor at this gala, held at the Byron R. White Stadium Club at Folsom Field, was NASA Deputy Administrator James Morhard. He was joined by U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera, Regents Sue Sharkey and Jack Kroll and Chancellor Philip DiStefano in toasting LASP’s success.

The research institute is the only body of its kind that has sent scientific instruments to all eight planets in the solar system, plus Pluto, the sun and a host of moons.

Daniel Baker, director of LASP, spoke at the event about the early days of the institute—when, he said, the university was just a “little house on the prairie.”

“And, of course, things have grown quite a bit from that time,” Baker said. “Today, I’m so proud of the fact that LASP is part of this ecosystem here on the Front Range.”

Chancellor DiStefano echoed that enthusiasm.

“The �鶹�� is proud of LASP’s long history of space exploration,” DiStefano said. “This is all made possible by the importance of NASA’s investment in fundamental scientific research at universities, like CU �鶹��, which is among the top NASA research recipients among public universities. This investment is critical to the next generation of science discoveries, commercialization opportunities and for developing the workforce talent pipeline that Colorado and the nation need.”

But the event focused on more than growth and history. In his own remarks, Morhard described the future of space exploration in the United States, including NASA’s current race to return Americans to the moon by the 2020s.

“We are in the early steps of a journey that leads astronauts into deep space for sustainable exploration and leads the science and engineering communities to new heights of discovery,” said Morhard, who was making his first official visit since stepping into his leadership role at NASA five months ago.

Watch the livestream of remarks at the LASP 70th anniversary event.

Small and fast

For LASP, there have been many heights of discovery along the way. Pietenpol and his team—then called the Upper Air Laboratory, or “Rocket Project”—succeeded in launching their rocket from White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico in 1951.

A slideshow playing at Friday’s gala ticked off the institute’s achievements in the decades following.

LASP played a critical role, for example, in the Mariner 9 mission, the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. Instruments designed in Colorado are still riding onboard Voyager 1 and 2, satellites that were launched in 1977 and have since pushed past the boundaries of Earth’s solar system.

Some things, however, in science never change, as Baker joked in his remarks: physicists aren’t “any better dressed than they were 70 years ago.”

Top: James Morhard in front of a model Dream Chaser shuttle. Middle: Dean Bobby Braun joins Morhard on a tour of the new aerospace engineering building. Bottom: Jim Bridenstine poses with student's in "The Politics of Space." (Credits: Casey Cass/CU �鶹�� and Patrick Campbell/CU �鶹��)

Fran Bagenal, a professor at LASP, thinks it’s important to look back on the early days of space science at CU �鶹��—bad clothes and all. When she first joined the research institute 26 years ago, she said that researchers at LASP worked with small budgets, small satellites and a “can-do attitude.”

LASP has channeled that same spirit in its current work with “CubeSats,” Bagenal said. They are satellites that are about the size of a toaster oven and can be built for a fraction of the cost of a major NASA mission. CU �鶹�� has launched nine of these wee scientific instruments into space to date, with another four slated for the near future.

“It’s a useful perspective … to look back and think about how we can leap-frog forward,” Bagenal said.

What’s next?

Leap-frogging was the topic of conversation earlier in the week. On Thursday night, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine met with students in a space politics course on campus.

And on Friday morning, Morhard joined Bobby Braun, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, in a dusty adventure—a tour of the construction site for the future home of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, which will open this summer.

“This building will serve as a hub for the workforce of Colorado’s future aerospace industry, and will be a central part of the new ‘Aerospace Alley’ on campus,” Dean Braun said.

Donning a hard hat and standing below a model of a Dream Chaser spacecraft, a gift from the Sierra Nevada Corp., Morhard answered questions from more than a dozen CU �鶹�� students.

Michelle Lin, a sophomore studying aerospace, was part of that cluster. She’s currently working on a project funded by NASA through the university’s bioastronautics program.

“That’s really cool that they are visiting,” said Lin, who was also one of five students at CU �鶹�� to land a prestigious Brooke Owens Fellowship this year. “I get to kind of see who I’m working for.”

And Morhard had words of encouragement for future space explorers like her.

“We’re going to low-Earth orbit. We’re to going the moon, and we’re going to Mars and other planets,” he said. “The logistics that that entails are so technical and complex, and you all are going to be making the decisions on how we do that.”

Lin, at least, is game: “I hope to go to Mars someday,” she said.

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Grand Challenge: Solar storm chasers

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Grand Challenge: Solar storm chasers Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/13/2018 - 00:00

Mass media representations of space weather—variable conditions in space that can affect the technological systems modern society depends on—often evoke visions of catastrophic power grid failures and global chaos. The result can be gripping film or literature but, while such worst-case scenarios are possible, they can distort our understanding of space weather’s more frequent and broader effects.

“Our concerns about space weather focus more on things like ground-induced currents disrupting power grid operations, atmospheric drag shifting satellite orbits, ionosphere disturbances interrupting high-frequency communications and GPS signals, and radiation exposure affecting satellite operability and human space activity,” said Jeffrey Thayer, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

These are some of the less flashy day-to-day effects of space weather, or the ebbs and flows of energy from the sun to space. Solar winds blow and bluster, disturbing satellite orbits and damaging pricey scientific instruments in space.

Minimizing the dangers posed by this flow and facilitating systemic coordination between space weather researchers and space operators are key objectives of the newly launched Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center (SWx-TREC) within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at CU �鶹��. The center, a main component of the university’s Grand Challenge: Our Space. Our Future., brings together diverse research on space weather occurring across the university and the Front Range.

The “Grand Challenge: Our Space. Our Future.” initiative launched the ambitious Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center in 2017, reinforcing CU �鶹��’s leadership in Earth and space sciences.

“It’s a recognition that space weather activities have been going on for some time at CU in a variety of capacities, in the scientific arena but also in the technological arena, including mission concepts, instrument development and satellite operations,” said Thayer, SWx-TREC principal investigator and research office lead for the center.

There’s a lot to build on, too. CU �鶹�� has long been a national leader in understanding the physics of space weather and its implications for people on Earth. That reputation draws on the contributions from researchers in aerospace engineering, astrophysical and planetary sciences, atmospheric sciences, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and more. When LASP, for example, started launching rockets into space in the 1950s and 1960s, many of these early missions explored the influence of the sun on Earth’s atmosphere.

The new CU �鶹�� center, which kicked off in 2017 with a three-year mandate, will deliver practical tools for people around the world, said Thomas Berger, director of SWx-TREC. When it comes to predicting how solar winds might cause spacecraft to drift, satellite operators have few accurate resources to draw on, he said. SWx-TREC will work to develop new computer simulations that can give these operators a heads-up on impending hazards up to three days in advance.

That’s not an easy scientific feat, Berger said. Traditional weather forecasters, for comparison, only have to worry about a relatively narrow region of Earth’s atmosphere.

“We’re creating a forecasting system that extends weather models from zero to 60 kilometers to 1,000 kilometers to cover low Earth orbit—a much larger volume with more complex physics to deal with,” said Berger, who previously directed the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

SWx-TREC will also help to develop new space missions and educational opportunities at the university, including a space weather certificate that undergraduate and graduate students will soon be able to earn.

Daniel Baker, director of LASP, added that the focus on space weather shows that CU �鶹�� isn’t just interested in exploring the physics and wonder of space. The university also wants to make a difference in the lives of people on Earth.

“We recognize that basic research is hugely important,” said Baker, a co-investigator at SWx-TREC. “But basic research that has practical utility is also extremely important in this day and age.”

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LASP director awarded EGU’s Alfvén Medal

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 16:19:16 +0000

LASP director awarded EGU’s Alfvén Medal Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/18/2018 - 10:19

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) has named LASP Director Daniel Baker as the recipient of the 2019 Hannes Alfvén Medal. The medal was established in 1997 in recognition of the scientific achievements of Hannes Alfvén and is awarded for outstanding scientific contributions towards the understanding of plasma processes in the solar system and other cosmical plasma environments.

Baker is one of 45 individuals to be recognized this year for their important contributions to and leadership in the Earth, planetary, and space sciences. Baker will receive his award during the EGU 2019 General Assembly, which will take place from April 7-12, 2019, in Vienna, Austria.

Hannes Alfvén was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist, and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics. Among his many contributions to plasma physics, he characterized a class of low-frequency, hydromagnetic plasma oscillations that came to be known as Alfvén waves in his honor. Alfvén was awarded the American Geophysical Union’s highest honor, the William Bowie Medal, in 1988, 30 years prior to Baker receiving the same award.

In addition to being LASP director, Baker is a �鶹�� Distinguished Professor of Planetary and Space Physics, Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, and Professor of Physics. He holds the Moog-Broad Reach Endowed Chair of Space Sciences at CU. His primary research interest is the study of plasma physics and energetic particle phenomena in planetary magnetospheres and in the Earth’s vicinity. He conducts research in space instrument design, space physics data analysis, and magnetospheric modeling.

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Dan Baker

After 2-year delay, international student team set to launch satellite into space

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First contact

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Emirates Mars Mission to begin journey to the red planet

From MAVEN to Hope

One integrated international team

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Touch down

Five questions for Daniel Baker

Daniel N. Baker: Keep Colorado at forefront of space discovery

Scientists and dignitaries celebrate 7 decades of CU �鶹���� in space

Small and fast

What’s next?

Grand Challenge: Solar storm chasers

LASP director awarded EGU’s Alfvén Medal

Scientists and dignitaries celebrate 7 decades of CU �鶹�� in space