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The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) is an advanced re-entry demonstrator vehicle aimed to perform in-flight experimentation of atmospheric re-entry enabling systems and technologies. The IXV integrates key technologies at the system level, with significant advancements on Europe's previous flying test-beds. The project builds on previous achievements at system and technology levels, and provides a unique and concrete way of establishing and consolidating Europe's autonomous position in the strategic field of atmospheric re-entry. The IXV mission and system objectives are the design, development, manufacturing, assembling and on-ground to in-flight verification of an autonomous European lifting and aerodynamically controlled reentry system, integrating critical re-entry technologies at system level. Among such critical technologies of interest, special attention is paid to aerodynamic and aerothermodynamics experimentation, including advanced instrumentation for aerothermodynamics phenomena investigations, thermal protections and hot-structures, guidance, navigation and flight control through combined jets and aerodynamic surfaces (i.e. flaps), in particular focusing on the technologies integration at system level for flight. Following the extensive detailed design, manufacturing, qualification, integration and testing of the flight segment and ground segment elements, IXV has performed a full successful flight on February 11th 2015. After the launch with the VEGA launcher form the CSG spaceport in French Guyana, IXV has performed a full nominal mission ending with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. During Flight Phase, the IXV space and ground segments worked perfectly, implementing the whole flight program in line with the commanded maneuvers and trajectory prediction, performing an overall flight of 34.400 km including 7.600 km with hot atmospheric re-entry in automatic guidance, concluding with successful precision landing at a distance of ~1 km from the target, including the wind drift acting on the parachute from an altitude of 4.5 km. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Titan’s lakes and seas are targets of particular interest for future exploration. We review candidate splashdown areas in Ligeia and Kraken Mare, and Ontario Lacus. Titan’s thick and dense atmosphere means that landing dispersions of spacecraft are dominated by uncertainties in wind drift, and thus the feasibility of landing safely in the sea with a simple Huygens-like descent system (i.e. without guidance or propulsion) is dependent upon these uncertainties being small enough that the landing point dispersion lies within the sea. Because Titan’s winds vary with season, notably through the formation of a high-speed stratospheric jet in the winter hemisphere, landing point dispersions are seasonally-dependent as well as latitude-dependent. Ligeia Mare, at 78 o N, sees relatively small dispersions but offers viable Direct-to-Earth (DTE) communication only until 2024. A wide part of Kraken Mare (450 × 90 km) at 70 o N can be comfortably reached at all times, and is viable for assured Direct-to-Earth communication until 2026, or with a relay spacecraft thereafter. The seasonal geometry permits DTE from the northern seas again after 2040. Wind dispersions are always too large for Ontario, unless a steerable parachute or similar system is used to tighten the landing ellipse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water entry tests are conducted with a scale model capsule to explore the sensitivity of splashdown accelerations and motions to impact conditions, to support estimation of splashdown loads and behaviours of the proposed Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) mission. A 3D printed capsule with off-the-shelf USB accelerometer loggers enabled tests to be performed on a tight schedule. Contact impulse and peak loads are presented for a range of impact speeds and geometries, and predicted loads at full-scale on Titan are derived. The observed variation of peak load with impact speed is broadly consistent with the theoretically-expected square law but is surprisingly also consistent with a linear function (in common with some results from the literature). Test execution procedures and the performance of the data acquisition system are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NASA's development of new concepts for the Crew Exploration Vehicle Orion presents many similar challenges to those worked in the 1960s during the Apollo programme. However, with improved modelling capabilities, new challenges arise. For example, the use of the commercial code LS-DYNA, although widely used and accepted in the technical community, often involves high-dimensional, time-consuming and computationally intensive simulations. Because of the computational cost, these tools are often used to evaluate specific conditions and are rarely used for statistical analysis. This paper discusses an approach to capture what is learned from a limited number of LS-DYNA simulations to develop models that allow users to conduct interpolation of solutions at a fraction of the computational time. In this approach, response surface models are used to predict the system time responses to a water landing as a function of capsule speed, direction, attitude, water speed and water direction. Furthermore, these models can also be used to ascertain the adequacy of the design in terms of probability measures. This paper presents a description of the LS-DYNA model, a brief summary of the response surface techniques, the analysis of variance approach used in the sensitivity studies, equations used to estimate impact parameters, results showing conditions that might cause injuries and concluding remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the preparation of astronomers to observe the impact of a piece of space debris, officially designated WT1190F, with the Earth in the Indian Ocean on November 13, 2015. Topics include detection of WT1190F by the Catalina Sky Survey in October 2015, scientists' computation of WT1190F's trajectory by reviewing telescope archives and observations, and the lack of funding dedicated to tracking space debris in deep-Earth orbits.

The article offers news briefs related to nature science in January 2012. On January 15, the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft of Russia splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. President Barack Obama has recommended transferring the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to the Department of the Interior. On January 12, scientists Theresa Deisher and James Sherley filed their arguments against U.S. funding of human embryonic stem (ES) cells research to an appeals court.

The article offers information on the Splashdown 45, a festival event to be hosted by the nonprofit organization USS Hornet Museum in San Francisco Bay, California on July 26, 2014. Topics include 45th anniversary celebration for the Apollo 11, a space mission in 1969, the book "Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration," by Buzz Aldrin, one of the first two men to walk on the moon, and community outreach activities of the organization such as youth education program, and merit badges.