This computer model shows the OSIRIS-REx satellite as it will appear in September. 24, 2023, it will pass near Earth and leave a capsule containing a sample from an asteroid. The sample will parachute into the Utah Test and Training Ground in Tooele County. (Gen Payne, Open Space)
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SALT LAKE CITY — Want to go to Mars? Or how about visiting the James Webb Space Telescope? A virtual, real-time visit to these places is taking place through a project at the University of Utah’s Institute for Scientific Computing and Imaging.
Partially funded by NASA, the project brings scientifically accurate visualizations of objects in the celestial sphere, including planets, satellites and other NASA missions.
Enabling space exploration from home is one of many projects at the Institute for Scientific Computing and Imaging. The Institute contributes to the development of an open source software program called OpenSpace. This downloadable program allows anyone to track the real-time or past and future trajectory and position of multiple objects in space.
“It’s a very open-ended framework for showing all kinds of space content, telescopes, data from probes, sent missions, and everything from planetary scale to showing where galaxies, known galaxies are. It’s located in the universe,” says Gene Payne, a research software developer at the Institute.
OpenSpace is widely used by planetariums, museums, university professors and even YouTube creators. Since it is open source software, it is free to use and no one can tell who is using it because anyone can use it.
Chuck Hansen is the project’s principal investigator at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute. “The overall goal of the project is to bring NASA data to the masses,” Hansen says, “to show the public what NASA is doing with mission data.”
“It’s also part of an educational print,” Payne says.
The Institute is developing OpenSpace in collaboration with the project’s other two official partners, New York University and Linköping University in Sweden.
Building on the university’s reputation for computer graphics and scientific visualization, Hansen says NASA’s invitation to participate in the development of OpenSpace came to the University of Utah. This is where the University of Utah makes its main contribution.
Payne says the University of Utah “has a pretty good track record in graphics.”
Another part of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute’s contribution is adding additional features to the software.
Developers in the US made it possible for OpenSpace to “read and play the (NASA) mission … or play forward in time. We can see where a task is at a given time.”
“The really important thing here is that there are no artist impressions,” Payne says. “Everything is scientifically correct.”
James Webb Space Telescope
Launched on Christmas Day 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope orbits the sun a million miles from Earth.
The 14,000-pound telescope always stays behind a sun shield that’s 69 feet by 46 feet, or roughly the size of a tennis court.
This shield keeps the telescope cool at all times and is less affected by the sun’s infrared rays. Payne says this allows for a clean return of the telescope’s own infrared images.
Via OpenSpace, users can view the telescope from its location at the Lagrange point or L2. The Lagrangian point is the ideal place for a telescope to orbit the sun and enjoy the balance of the sun and Earth’s gravitational forces, allowing the telescope to use minimal fuel.
OpenSpace users can follow the telescope from the moment of launch, monitor the telescope opens its golden mirror and reach your goal. “It uses real NASA data for locations over time. That’s the actual orbit and where it’s going,” Payne said.
Conclusion stunning images The Hubble Telescope has no capture capability.
Parachuting from an asteroid to Utah
A NASA-launched satellite called OSIRIS-REx will drop a valuable payload over Tooele County in 2023.
OSIRIS-REx – or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Source Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer – was launched back in 2016 and made a rapid transit of Earth in 2017 to gain momentum before going deep into space.
Its mission is a first for NASA: to obtain an asteroid sample and return the sample to Earth.
The target was Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid. The satellite reached Bennu in 2018, where it spent several years in orbit and picked up some debris from the asteroid’s surface. Cameras made by a team at Utah State University on satellitewhich helped navigate and land on the asteroid.
In May 2021, OSIRIS-REx began its return journey to Earth. It will pass over the Earth in September. On January 24, 2023, that rubble will be delivered to Earth and released from space to the Utah Training and Testing Ground in Tooele County.
“There’s a bit of drama in there, too. One of the previous missions where he returned a real sample from an asteroid, landed correctly with a parachute, but crashed hard and opened the box a little bit, contaminating the sample,” Payne said. .
After descending far above Utah, ORISIS-REx will embark on an even longer mission to the asteroid Apophis.
Artemis I
Like many space observers, the team at the Institute for Scientific Computing and Imaging looks forward to the launch of the Artemis rocket. return of astronauts to the lunar surface.
encountering technical problems, faulty equipmentand one hurricaneArtemis was put off many times.
When Artemis I finally launches, the entire trip will be recaptured in OpenSpace.
“Once the Artemis missions go to the moon,” Hansen says, “OpenSpace will be ready to show the details of that.”
So, this trip to Mars doesn’t have to be just one flight.
“Obviously for Earth, there are terrain images where we use telescopes to take images of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, all the planets we’re flying over, or the terrain,” Payne said. Said.
Or, if your preferred route is to stay closer to home, you have this option.
“We have a satellite in orbit around the Earth, taking pictures of the whole world every day. … These are the actual cloud formations that existed yesterday,” Payne said.
You can learn more about the OpenSpace project and download the latest version of the software at Open Space website.
