Astronomy & Space Science Space Mission Mars at the United Space School235

Astronomy & Space Science

Mr Bill Cooper Observatory Manager Another orbit around the Sun

This year we saw the Philae lander on comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko come back to life briefly, but has now gone silent. The comet itself has passed its closest point to the Sun. Measurements by the Rosetta orbiter suggest that up to 300 kilograms of water vapour – equivalent to two filled bath tubs – are spewing out of the comet every second.

We were all witnesses to those amazing images from New Horizons of Pluto and its moons. Like most scientific discoveries, it told us a lot, but raised more questions to tantalise us. The surface of Pluto looks quite young, but as such a distant and cold member of the solar system we don’t have a satisfactory model as to where Pluto gets the energy for this resurfacing.

The boys were excited about a possible megastructure around a distant star KIC 8462852. Could this be an advanced civilisation building a Dyson sphere around their home star? The Kepler telescope that is observing this phenomenon looks at the light output of the star and measures its changes a technique known as photometry. Whatever the cause of these light changes, it will tell us something about stars that we haven’t seen before.

James Pears (11.7), our current scholarship student, has been looking at how variable stars alter their light output by this technique. The pictures don’t look visually stunning but they allow us to produce light curves. James started by looking at Cepheid variables – stars that were invaluable to astronomers determining stellar distances. Now James is looking at Delta Scuti variables – short period variable stars. The observation of pulsating stars enables us to derive their physical parameters like mass, temperature and luminosity.

This has been a great year for Samuel Carbone (11.1), who was selected to represent Australia and Trinity College at the International Space School in Houston. Samuel tells me that this was a life-changing experience for him. Channel 7 came into school and interviewed Samuel about his experiences in the USA. At the end of last year, Samuel also won the Gemini Observatory Astrophotography Competition with a picture of NGC 7727 – a late-stage interacting galaxy. We were delighted to have Prof Richard McDermid, from the Australian Astronomical Observatory, coming to Perth especially to give Samuel a framed picture of his image.

Samuel Carbone receives his Gemini Award from Prof Richard McDermid

Galaxy NGC 7727

Astronomy scholars James Pears (11.7), Julian Chilcott (12.6) and Luke Di Dio (12.1) have been responsible for running the astronomy nights for the Year 6 leadership camp at Dwellingup and the Junior School astronomy camp at Trinity.

This year, Year 9 students built a large V2 model rocket which hasn’t launched yet but will launch early in 2016.

We continue to have success with our high altitude balloon launches, launching twice this year. On the first flight, the balloon disappeared into low cloud and the video, even at 30km up, was an image of complete cloud cover, although the black box recorder showed a near perfect flight. Our second flight was on a cloud-free day and we had great views looking towards Lake Dumbleyung in the morning. Issues with the parachute meant a rapid descent into a paddock just east of Lake Dumbleyung.

Mr Bill Cooper Observatory Manager

The payload had broken open and go-pros and equipment were scattered over the ground, but all the equipment was working so it lives to be used another day.

Turning Heads Media came to Trinity to make a promotional video for astronomy and space science. They talked to the students and went to Toodyay to see the students launch their bigger rockets under the guidance of the Perth Advanced Rocketry Association. If you haven’t seen the video you can watch it at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=9zfrCxiJ0YU

Although he didn’t win, Max Thorniley (9.5) at 14 years-of-age was the youngest finalist in the prestigious Breakthrough Challenge and the Khan Academy. His superb video on relativity can be seen at https://qa.breakthroughjuniorchallenge.org/.

Samuel Carbone at the Houston Space school Success! Preparations for the early morning balloon launch

A successful launch

Space Mission Mars at the United Space School

In July this year I was given the incredible opportunity of attending the United Space School (USS) in Houston, Texas.

Samuel Carbone Year 11.1

USS is run by the Foundation for International Space Education in association with NASA. The program is held at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, over a two week period in the northern hemisphere’s summer holidays. USS 2015 brought together 52 students from 24 different countries, with one girl and one boy representing each nation.

My adventure started with meeting my host family, Rick and Myra and German student Florian, who would also be sharing their home. Florian and I were fortunate to have wonderful hosts who went out of their way to make sure we experienced as much as possible of what Houston has to offer, from a Texas barbecue dinner to a major league baseball game at Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros.

Our first day at USS began with a welcome lunch for all the students at an Italian restaurant. We had all travelled from afar to attend the program, but I had the honour of having travelled the furthest, with Perth being the longest distance from Houston. It was wonderful getting to know all the students from diverse backgrounds such as Bolivia, Russia and Argentina and within a very short time I had 51 new friends. It was then off to the University of Houston which we would attend daily from 7.45am until 5.00pm for the duration of the two week program.

There was much excitement on the second day of the space school as we scrambled to be seated in the university lecture theatre by 7.15am sharp for a special surprise – a live link-up to the International Space Station (ISS) via amateur radio. This had been arranged just for us students and we were lucky to be allowed to ask the ISS crew various questions. Hearing the astronauts’ voices direct from space was an awe-inspiring experience.

Over the course of the next week, we were given talks by various NASA scientists, engineers and astronauts. One of the scientists who talked to us was a member of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team, who gave a presentation on the Mars Curiosity rover and the incredible data that it has sent back to Earth. For example, did you know that for every cubic metre of Martian soil you dig up, you can obtain 32 litres of water? Another interesting talk was given to us by a lead engineer at ILC Dover, a state-of-the-art

company responsible for engineering the space suit that was recently worn by Google executive Alan Eustace as he broke the record for the highest altitude skydive. At the end of the talk we were guided to a nearby table where this same space suit together with a Russian Sokol space suit had been laid out for us. Much to our surprise we were then invited to pick up, examine and operate the various space suit components!

In addition to interesting presentations, we were also taken on a number of tours including NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, Houston’s major tourist attraction. Here we were given exclusive access to the Apollo Mission Control Centre, with a rare opportunity to sit at the consoles and, yes, I did press some of the buttons! We were also taken to the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, the largest indoor swimming pool in the world and also home to a full-scale replica of the ISS. It was incredible to see this facility up-close, especially while astronauts were in the middle of training. There was also a trip to the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility where we were able to see a prototype of ‘Orion’, the new generation spacecraft currently being developed for human space travel. Another highlight was visiting the Space Centre’s Rocket Park, the home of many NASA rockets including a Saturn V! Seeing the huge, 111 metre long Saturn V up close in its specially-built, temperature-controlled hangar took my breath away. To think that such a vehicle was designed half a century ago! The Saturn V is truly an engineering marvel.

A tour of the Ad Astra rocket company was also very exciting as their engineers and scientists are in the process of developing a plasma engine which promises to reduce the transit time to Mars to around 30 days. Here, we were introduced to the company’s founder, Dr Franklin Diaz who, during his presentation, calmly informed us that he had been to space seven times! There was also a trip to the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at Rice University, an extremely modern facility that aims to find solutions to overcome many of the obstacles humans face in pursuing space flight.

Now for the really exciting part! For the final week, each student was placed into one of five teams to create a theoretical manned mission to Mars. I was a member of the Maroon team, which was in charge of safely delivering the crew and cargo from Mars’ orbit to Mars’ surface and then back up to the transit craft. The other teams were Gold, who were responsible for logistics; Green, who had to plan the crew’s habitat; Blue, who decided how to explore the surface and Red, who designed the transit craft to travel from Earth to Mars. My team was made up of ten students from ten different countries. From the outset we worked exceptionally well as a team, bringing all our ideas together to produce a feasible design. Our challenge in designing an effective system was summed up by a NASA engineer, “The Martian atmosphere is thin enough that it won’t slow you down, yet it is thick enough to still be a problem” At times the challenges we faced seemed insurmountable but our team used all its ingenuity and creativity to overcome these obstacles. Not only did we have to work collaboratively to meet the design brief, we also had to liaise with the other teams to make sure each of the five distinct phases would work together to produce a viable Mars mission.

The culmination of two weeks at USS was the opportunity to present our team’s design and explain its operation to an audience of NASA scientists, engineers and the host families. We were very relieved to receive positive feedback on our project. Our time at USS came to an end with a graduation ceremony where we were presented with certificates from the University of Houston.

The United Space School program was the most incredible experience I have ever had – no question! Not only did the insight into the workings of NASA cement my decision to study aerospace engineering at university, it also became clear that the space industry requires the skills from a wide range of professions from medicine to business. The field of space science is so incredibly diverse and offers so many opportunities that I urge all Trinity College students to become involved in Astronomy and work towards participating in future USS programs. The chance to attend USS 2015 was a dream come true for me and I thank Mr Bill Cooper, Mr Tim Blake and Mr Cyrus Naseri for helping me to achieve this goal.

Samuel Carbone (11.1)