Getting a mission to the point of officially being accepted for launch is an ordeal. However, even when they aren’t selected for implementation, their ideas, and in some cases, their technologies, can live on in other missions. That was the case for the Oversize Kite-craft for Exploration and AstroNautics in the Outer Solar system (OKEANOS) project, originally planned as a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission. Despite not receiving funding to complete its entire mission, the project team released a paper that details the original plan for the mission, and some of those plans were incorporated into other missions that are still under development. OKEANOS sought to build on JAXA’s success in returning samples from asteroids to Earth. Its most well-known mission in that regard was Hayabusa-2, which returned samples from the asteroid Ryugu in 2020 and has been the subject of dozens of scientific papers since. Ryugu is a near-earth asteroid, which means its origins in the solar system are dramatically different from those of other asteroids farther out from the Sun, which is where OKEANOS came in. The original plan for OKEANOS was to launch a sample return mission to one of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids that sit in the Lagrange points in front of and behind Juptier and its orbital path. Scientists believe these asteroids originated outside of Neptune’s orbit in the Kuiper belt but were brought closer to the Sun due to gravitational fluctuations caused by the migration of the gas giant planets. Since they would hold clues to the early solar system, astronomers are interested in their composition, and some space exploration enthusiasts are interested in the materials they hold for in-situ resource utilization purposes. But so far, no missions have visited them yet. A solar panel, like the one shown in the video, would have been a key component of the OKEANOS missions.Credit – The Japan Times YouTube Channel That is about to change, though, with Lucy, a NASA mission that launched in 2021 to visit them. However, Lucy will simply do remote observations and lacks the equipment to sample them directly, let alone return a sample back to Earth. The project team had hoped OKEANOS would do just that. Several novel technologies would be used to enable OKEANOS’ scientific objectives. One of the most interesting was a combination solar sail and ion drive known as a solar power sail. A solar power sail combines the solar pushing power of a solar sail with flexible photovoltaic solar collectors that can collect a significant amount of energy while deployed in a sail-like configuration. JAXA has also successfully tested a similar system with its IKAROS mission, demonstrating the technology in 2010. Since solar sails have tiny thrust out near Jupiter, OKEANOS relies entirely on an ion engine and simply deploys its “sails” to deploy the solar panels that collect energy to power the ion drive. But once it reached its destination, it would utilize its second interesting technology—a lander. Fraser talks about Lucy, the first mission to explore the Trojan asteroids. The two main asteroid sample return missions – OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa-2 – directly touched down on the surface of their respective asteroids. However, there have been deployed landers that have at least attempted to land on an asteroid before – Philae, the lander that accompanied ESA’s Rosetta mission, is probably the most famous. But never before has a mission attempted to land a lander, collect a sample, and return it to a “mothership” that would then transport that sample back to Earth. Doing so out at the Trojan asteroids would add a new difficulty level of having significant communications lag time, making it difficult to troubleshoot any problems with the mission. Given JAXA’s track record, it seemed likely that they could pull off that technical challenge. However, the mission was never fully funded due to a “cost issue,” according to the paper. JAXA selected a project known as LiteBIRD to study the cosmic microwave background as its large-class mission for this decade instead. Despite that, the technical details of some of the instrumentation have been described in other papers, and the project team feels confident that future asteroid sample return missions will adopt at least some of them. We’ll be sure to see more of those in the future as interest grows in understanding the roots of our solar system and how we might utilize the readily available resources on asteroids. Learn More:Takao et al. – Sample return system of OKEANOS—the solar power sail for Jupiter Trojan explorationUT – Lucy Adds Another Asteroid to its Flyby ListUT – Separation Camera Takes Full Images and ‘Movie’ of IKAROS Solar SailUT – Tiny Fragments of a 4-Billion Year Old Asteroid Reveal Its History Lead Image:Concept images of the OKEANOS mission.Credit – Takao et al. The post OKEANOS – A Mission That Would Have Retrurned Samples From the Trojan Asteroids appeared first on Universe Today.

Band extends dates through the first quarter of the new year. Continue reading…

Good Lord... that was... something. For the last week and a half or so, I've had Brooks & Dunn's new collaborative album Reboot II on repeat, which is a continuation of their 2019 Reboot record, which featured artists like Luke Combs, Kacey Musgraves, Cody Johnson and more. This version has some great ones too, with Morgan Wallen joining them on "Neon Moon," Lainey Wilson on "Play Something Country," and the standout for me, which is Riley Green's rendition of the heartbreaker "She Used To Be Mine." In general, I like the idea and concept of the Reboot albums, mostly because I think it's cool that Kix and Ronnie bring in younger artists to work with them directly and invite them to recreate music that so many of the featured artists loved and listened to growing up. If you're a country purist, you probably hate that part and wish they'd leave well enough alone (I totally get that, and I agree in some aspects), but if you have a more modern take on it, maybe you appreciate the creativity and artistry it takes to reimagine an already-classic country song like so many on the Reboot tracklist. I kind of go back and forth on it, because I definitely don't think any of these songs need to be "redone," and in my humble opinion, none of the new artists obviously did it better than Brooks & Dunn did with the original, even on the first installment of Reboot. I'll be honest, a lot of them I'll never go back to, because why would I? I already love the originals so much... but for the most part, I wasn't necessarily offended by anything, it just wasn't my taste... except for whatever Halestorm did to Brooks & Dunn's '90s heater, "Boot Scootin’ Boogie." The song was actually first recorded by Asleep at the Wheel in 1990, and Brooks & Dunn included their cover as the eighth track on their 1991 debut album, Brand New Man. It ultimately became the duo's fourth single release and fourth consecutive #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, and Midland redid it for the first Reboot album, and thy did a solid job, and it was obviously a lot more similar to the original Brooks & Dunn version. Don't get me wrong, I like Halestorm, and I generally really like that kind of music. When Lzzy Hale has worked with artist like Eric Church and Ashley McBryde in the past, I was into it, and again, I'm not overly-sensitive when it comes to music and creative freedom. The part I don't like isn't that they made a very heavy metal, rockin' song, because the point of this project was to make the songs sounds different (and I reiterate, I like that kind of music)... But I genuinely can't believe this version of "Boot Scootin’ Boogie" actually made the cut. I know Lzzy is talented, I think she's a great artist, and I was actually intrigued that Halestorm was on the tracklist because I thought they might do something really neat with the song. But it's so much worse than I could've even imagined, and I wasn't going to bring it up until I saw a few TikToks like this and realized I wasn't the only one who felt this way: @countrybits What… #morganwallen #countrymusic #countrysong #alanjackson ♬ Boot Scootin' Boogie (with Halestorm) - Brooks & Dunn Halestorm shared a few comments about this song on Instagram, saying how excited they were to be part of the project and how much they loved having no rules in terms of how far they could go with recreating it... "Months ago we received an email we were never expecting to receive. Brooks and Dunn asking us to create a reimagined version of their legendary song “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”. This, a request too wild to even consider passing on, more than wet our appetite for adventure. We asked if there were any rules for this particular project…and when they replied with a resounding 'NO RULES APPLY,' the boys and I knew this was gonna get weird. It’s such an honor to have earned the trust of these legends, thank you so much to Kix Brooks, Ronnie Dunn, Dan Huff, Juice and the entire B&D team for putting your faith in us and letting us throw a wild party in the beautiful house you built." https://www.instagram.com/halestormrocks/p/C__RV0cxeAc/?hl=en&img_index=2 While I've seen some negative comments about it, I've actually seen way more of fans saying they love it, both on Halestorm's Instagram page and even in the comments on the YouTube video... I mean, people were raving about it, which I was pretty shocked to discover: "As someone who likes the original and a rock, metal, and y'allternative fan, this kicks ass!" "I love this! The music of my childhood collabing with the music of my adulthood." "Yall! This was sick!" "Lzzy Hale makes everything better!" "I absolutely love this!" "This is actually pretty amazing!" "I was unsure when I first heard about this collab but omg I’m in love." "Love it!!" "Don't mind me just dancing in my living room. This is too good!!" I feel like I missed something... maybe it will grow on me? I mean, all three of these artists are legends, who rarely miss, so it's highly like it's just me. Check it out for yourself and see what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GflNjgf8Ik Cleanse your palate with this, if you need to: "Boot Scootin' Boogie" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05tQrhNMkA

CASE CLOSED: Special counsel's case dismissed with Trump's impending White House returnFollow NewsClips channel at Brighteon.com for more updatesSubscribe to Brighteon newsletter to get the latest news and more featured videos:https://support.brighteon.com/Subscribe.html

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Barack Obama: America's Most Dangerous Follow NewsClips channel at Brighteon.com for more updatesSubscribe to Brighteon newsletter to get the latest news and more featured videos:https://support.brighteon.com/Subscribe.html President

Walmart Dumps Wokeness, Says Goodbye To DEI And LatinX After Conversation With Starbuck [WATCH]