Space Computation is around us

This is summarizing post in my blog. Everything, that we've learn during this few days have changed our way of looking at certain things. Asking is a space computation around us is just the same thing as asking if there is life somewhere in outer space. People live their lives and don't see how complex our universe is and how much science stands behind it. We are surrounded by computations and we really don't see it. Same as other life in space, if there is almost infinite number of galaxies with billions systems and billions planets, there have to be some other organic forms of life. It's just probability.

People will always want to know where is their place in our universe. Why they are here? Are they alone? This questions sooner or later will be answered, but they cannot be answered without space exploration and the most important thing in space exploration is computation in space.

NASA's computation in the past

The Model 95 - two of which were installed in 1968 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. - were used to solve space exploration problems requiring unusually high computation speeds. The machines were capable of computing 14-digit multiplications at a rate of over 330 million in one minute.

Students form Białystok have ashamed the NASA

Team from Białystok and their robot Magma2

 Mars rover MAGMA2 built on University of Technology in Białystok has won in international championship University Rover Challenge in the USA.

Polish robot success was achievable only thanks to very original approach. Students used few small helicopters floating above the robot and scanning the area, looking for obstacles. No one has ever used this technology.

Competition held at the American desert in Utah, close to the simulation of the "Mars Society" Mars base. During three days the teams had to perform complicated tasks, including reconnaissance of the terrain, searching for signs of life in the soil samples and to provide an injured astronaut medical package. One of the tasks was to arrival at the base and an examination of a sample of rock. Jeep brought in this case six samples, which caused confusion among the organizers, who were not sure whether this is consistent with the regulations. Finally they said that this is not prohibited. One of the six samples was taken for presentation, where, thanks to the blue light scattering method, students have detected the presence of chlorophyll.


That's quite amazing, that Polish Universities of Technology can compete on international stage in such complicated technological aspects.

NASA starts The NEBULA program

NASA starts The NEBULA Cloud Computing Platform.

We can read on their site:

"Nebula is an open-source cloud computing project and service developed to provide an alternative to the costly construction of additional data centers whenever NASA scientist or engineers require additional data processing. Nebula also provides a simplified avenue for NASA scientists and researchers to share large, complex data sets with external partners and the public."

So this cloud will help all of NASA employees to analyse and process data remotely, that's a very efficient, time saving and money saving solution of processing so much data at one time, on which NASA operates.

Students crashed NASA's satellite

NASA asked students of The University of Colorado to destroy their own satellite. ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation) stopped working after seven years of working and there wasn't any solution to restart it back. This satellite was collecting informations about the thickness of ice in the different parts of the Earth, but, from unknown reason, it stopped working. Scientists decided to destroy it.

NASA - ICESat

Students have had very difficult and unusual task. They had to find and possible way to use last fuel container of the satellite, to guide it just into to the Barents Sea. Team was formed from many students and scientists. They have managed to make a command for the satellite, which was took back to Earth in 30th of august. 

Team worked very hard. They had to make complicated computations, to determine, where the satellite is and predict it's trajectory. They've worked for seven days in the week, until plan of destroying the satellite was ready. 

Whole operation was ended successfully and students gained much experience. They worked for NASA and that's quite cool in my opinion. This is why I'll study at the Electronics and Informatics department on my University of Technology in Gdańsk

If you ever wondered how to calculate the orbits of bodies and their trajectories, we have a whole page dedicated to the equations.

Iridium flares

Have you ever think what happens when a sunlight reflects from the satellite?

The answer is this:

An iridium flare on the night sky

A huge flash across the sky just for a second.

The most spectacular flash happens when the ISS (International Space Station) reflects the sunlight back to earth.

There is a website called "Heavens Above", which can calculate where and when those flares will occur with approximation of 1 second! That's very accurate approximation, so if you want to see this flash, you have to find a place outside the city lights, check it's coordinates, visit this site, write down a time, when this even occurs and the azimuth and just go to that place and watch the sky!

In my humble opinion, this effect is worth seeing. I've seen it many times and it's really great. I just wonder what algorithms can predict those events so accurately.

How do you land on Mars?

Did you ever think about landing on Mars and the technology, which is behind it? This short animation can help you understand which of the landing technologies were taken in to consideration when launching spacecrafts to the Mars. Finally the first option was used when the Spirit and Opportunity was sent toward the Mars.

In my humble opinion, the most interesting option still is the third one, but from the far as I can see, it looks the most complicated.

Can you imagine, how many computer simulation were done before sending those spacecrafts into space?

Credit for Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech