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Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology NewsletterVolume 11, Number 41, 19 October 2004
Editor/Publisher: David J. Thomas, Ph.D., Science Division, Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas 72503-2317, USA. [email protected]
Marsbugs is published on a weekly to monthly basis as warranted by the number of articles and announcements. Copyright of this compilation exists with the editor, except for specific articles, in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. Opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors, and are not necessarily endorsed by the editor or by Lyon College. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting the editor. Information concerning the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available at http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs. The editor does not condone "spamming" of subscribers. Readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing lists. Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editor.
Articles and News
Page 1 RUSSIA PLANS 500-DAY MOCK MARS MISSION By Tariq Malik
Page 1 A SLEEPY SCIENCE: WILL HUMANS HIBERNATE THEIR WAY THROUGH SPACE?By Tariq Malik
Page 2 SCIENTISTS PREPARE FOR SPACE PROBE'S PLUNGE INTO TITAN'S ATMOSPHERE By Robert Sanders
Page 3 DEBATING THE DINOSAUR EXTINCTION, PART 1By Leslie Mullen
Page 4 IN EXTINCTION DEBATE, DINOSAURS AND SCIENCE WRITERS ARE THE LOSERSBy Robert Roy Britt
Page 4 RED PLANET BOUND: MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITERBy Leonard David
Page 4 VIRGINIA TECH RESEARCHERS SUGGEST LIQUID WATER MAY HAVE EXISTED ON MARS; FINDINGS PUBLISHED IN NATUREBy Sally Harris
Page 5 WHY THE SEARCH FOR LIFE DRIVES SPACE EXPLORATIONBy Seth Shostak
Page 5 NEW PROPULSION CONCEPT COULD MAKE POSSIBLE 90-DAY ROUND TRIP TO THE RED PLANETBy Vince Stricherz
Page 6 IN THE STARS: A TALE OF TWO PLANETSFrom United Press International and SpaceDaily
Page 6 EMOTICONS INVADE MARS—READING NATURAL GRAFFITIFrom Astrobiology Magazine
Page 7 MARS RECONSIDERED: NEW DATA RAISE FRESH QUESTIONSBy Leonard David
Page 7 SCIENTISTS SAY COMET SMASHED INTO SOUTHERN GERMANY IN 200 BCFrom Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily
Page 7 ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER PLANET BUILDING IS BIG MESSNASA/JPL release 2004-257
Mission Reports
Page 8 CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 7-13 OCTOBER 2004NASA/JPL release
Page 10 DEEP IMPACT ARRIVES IN FLORIDA TO PREPARE FOR LAUNCHNASA/JPL release 2004-258
Page 11 NASA'S GENESIS MISHAP BOARD & RESEARCHERS BOTH REPORT PROGRESSNASA release 04-345
Page 11 MARS EXPRESS: PROMETHEI TERRA, SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS OF MARSESA release
Page 12 MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGESNASA/JPL/MSSS release
Page 13 MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGESNASA/JPL/ASU releases
RUSSIA PLANS 500-DAY MOCK MARS MISSION By Tariq Malik
11 October 2004
Russian space researchers will lock six men in a metal tube for more than year in an effort to mimic the stresses and challenges of a manned mission to Mars. The 500 Days experiment, under development by the Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, will isolate human volunteers in a mock space station module for—as its namesake suggests—a complete 500 days to study how a long mission to Mars might affect its human crew.
"Obviously, we're very interested in the results," NASA spokeswoman Dolores Beasley said of the long-duration study during a telephone interview. "It is a high priority for us."
During the 500 Days study, six volunteers will depend on a preset limit of supplies, including about 5 tons of food and oxygen and 3 tons of water. A doctor will accompany volunteers inside the module to treat illnesses and
injuries. Volunteers will only be allowed to quit the experiment if the develop a severe ailment of psychological stress.
Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/russia_500days_041011.html.
A SLEEPY SCIENCE: WILL HUMANS HIBERNATE THEIR WAY THROUGH SPACE?By Tariq MalikFrom Space.com
12 October 2004
In the future, bedtime for astronauts may be more than a few evening hours of regular shuteye. It may help them reach other planets, though admittedly they would have to sleep for quite a long time. European researchers, however, are on the case, conducting hibernation experiments that will hopefully help them understand whether humans could ever sleep through the multiple years it would take for a spaceflight to the outer planets or beyond.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 11, Number 41, 19 October 2004
"At the moment, the level of inquiry really is just speculative," said Mark Ayre, of the European Space Agency (ESA), in an e-mail interview. "[Our] interest in this topic is borne out of the realization that, if it were an effective technology, it could be an enabler for deep-space manned missions."
What seems like science fiction is not completely far-fetched. Researchers have been able to chemically induce a stasis-like state in living cells and have moved on to small, non-hibernating mammals like rats.
Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/scitues_hibernation_041012.html.
SCIENTISTS PREPARE FOR SPACE PROBE'S PLUNGE INTO TITAN'S ATMOSPHERE By Robert SandersUniversity of California, Berkeley release
13 October 2004
On January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe will plow into the orange atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan, becoming the first spacecraft to attempt to land on a moon in our solar system since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 touched down on Earth's moon in 1976. Though scientists hope that Huygens will survive the plunge, it will be flying blind through hydrocarbon haze and methane clouds to a surface that could consist of seven-kilometer-high ice mountains and liquid methane seas.
Encircled in purple stratospheric haze, Titan appears as a softly glowing orange sphere in this colorized image taken one day after Cassini's first flyby of that moon. The orange ball is as our eyes see it, but the haze, imaged in the ultraviolet, has been tinted purple. Two thin haze layers are visible. The outer haze layer is detached and appears to float high in the atmosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
That's the picture that emerges from a series of articles—half of them by University of California, Berkeley, researchers—published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month and detailing what scientists know to date about the surface, atmosphere and magnetic field of Titan. This view sets the stage for an analysis of new data soon to arrive from the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens probe.
"These (journal) papers really give a state-of-the-art picture of Titan, before Cassini goes into orbit around Saturn and the Huygens probe goes into Titan's atmosphere," said Imke de Pater, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley
who wrote the introductory paper in the series and co-authored four of the nine papers. The papers came out of a meeting De Pater hosted last November at UC Berkeley to discuss what has been gleaned to date about the moon from optical, infrared and radar telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the twin Keck Telescopes in Hawaii.
Scientists expect the current sketchy picture of Titan's surface, totally obscured by clouds and haze, will much improve when the Cassini spacecraft, which is carrying the Huygens probe, starts an intense observation of Titan later this month. While on-board infrared imaging cameras can pierce the cloud cover, however, they can only reveal bright and dark spots on the surface, which are difficult to interpret. What Huygens will encounter at Titan's surface will remain a mystery until the probe plops into an ocean or parachutes to solid ground.
"Based upon their spectral characteristics, the bright areas imaged by various Earth-bound telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope could be a mixture of rock and water ice," de Pater said. Such a mixture appears relatively bright in comparison with substances like tar and liquid hydrocarbons, which absorb essentially all sunlight at these wavelengths and hence appear very dark. "The dark areas could contain liquid hydrocarbons," she said. "But they're all still a mystery."
Some scientists have suggested that one large bright area, Xanadu, is a mountain of rock and water ice that stands out because runoff (hydrocarbon rain) has washed off the dark hydrocarbon particles. UC Berkeley graduate student J. Taylor Perron and de Pater concluded in one of the papers that such an ice continent, primarily composed of water ice, could be no higher than 3 to 7 kilometers—that is, at most, 23,000 feet, about the height of Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina. That is even more impressive on a globe less than half the diameter of Earth.
The Huygens probe, which will take from two to two and a half hours to float to the surface, is aiming for a landing site in a dark area bordering a bright area near the equator, so it could land instead in a gasoline-like hydrocarbon brew of methane, propane or butane. Though the probe is designed to float, its builders expect, at most, 45 minutes of data once it sets down. A few minutes would be cause for celebration.
The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center in 1997, the product of an international collaboration between three space agencies—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space agency—involving contributions from 17 nations. It arrived at Saturn in July 2004, beginning a four-year mission to photograph and collect data on Saturn, its rings and moons. This October 26, it will get within 1,000 kilometers of Titan—closer than ever before—turning its remote sensing instruments on that moon's surface and atmosphere. Cassini will release the Huygens probe on Christmas Day, December 25.
The second largest moon in the solar system and the only one with a thick, methane-rich, nitrogen atmosphere, Titan intrigues scientists because of its resemblance to a young Earth. The atmospheres of both Titan and the early Earth were dominated by nearly the same amount of nitrogen, and the chemistry discovered on Titan could provide clues to the origins of life on our planet.
De Pater and chemistry graduate student Mate Adamkovics have used the adaptive optics on the Keck Telescope in Hawaii to image the hydrocarbon haze that envelops the moon, taking snapshots at various altitudes from 150 to 200 kilometers down to the surface. In the movie they constructed from these snapshots, haze is very evident in the atmosphere at about 30-50 kilometers over the South Pole. Stratospheric haze at about 150 kilometers is visible over a large area in the northern hemisphere but not the southern hemisphere, an asymmetry observed previously. And at the southern hemisphere's tropopause—the border between the lower atmosphere and the stratosphere at about 42 kilometers altitude—cirrus haze is visible, analogous to cirrus haze on Earth.
These observations agree with a theory of haze formation whereby sunlight creates haze particles at a high altitude—400 to 600 kilometers above the surface - that are blown to the winter pole, where the haze accumulates as a polar "hood." The haze particles start to settle out and are carried by a lower-elevation return flow to the summer hemisphere.
Laboratory experiments by Melissa Trainer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, reported in the journal suggest that the haze particles could be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons if the methane concentration in the
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atmosphere is high—around 10 percent—though they would be primarily long-chain hydrocarbons at low concentrations. The Huygens probe will measure gas concentrations as it plummets through the atmosphere, hopefully testing this connection between methane concentration and aerosol composition.
Cassini's observations of Titan over the next four years should yield much more information about the atmospheric haze and surface topography, as well as raise new questions. De Pater urges ground-based astronomers to continue to observe Titan's moon, "so the Cassini/Huygens data can be tied in with the long-term data base on Titan's seasons," she wrote.
De Pater herself will be peering at Titan through the Keck Telescope on January 15 when the Huygens probe disappears into the atmosphere.
"I'm skeptical that we'll see a meteor trail, as some have predicted, but our observations will give us a good image of Titan at the time of probe entry, which could be very relevant to calibrating Titan at entry time," de Pater said.
De Pater's research is supported by the National Science Foundation. The November 17, 2003, workshop on Titan was sponsored by the Center for Integrative Planetary Studies at UC Berkeley.
Read the original news release at http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/10/13_Huygens.shtml.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1245.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04zzzi.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/15huygens/http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/preparing_huygens_release.html
DEBATING THE DINOSAUR EXTINCTION, PART 1By Leslie Mullen
13 October 2004
The dinosaurs dominated the landscape for 160 million years, living over a thousand times longer than modern humans (Homo sapiens first evolved about 150 thousand years ago). During this vast stretch of time some dinosaur species became extinct, but overall the impression is one of an immensely tough class of animals that could endure whatever hardships the planet managed to throw at it. When the end finally came, it came from beyond Earth.
A meteorite impact 65 million years ago is the simple explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The exact details are much more complex, and researchers are still trying to nail down exactly what happened. The Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event is like an ancient tapestry that has become matted and soiled due to time and neglect. There are hundreds of threads of evidence that need to be untangled, smoothed out, and put in their proper place before a clear picture can emerge.
The first, most important thread of evidence is a strip of clay that runs through rocks around the world. Known as the K-T boundary layer, this is the line no dinosaur could cross (although their relatives, the birds, did survive). In 1980, a team of researchers led by Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, discovered that the boundary layer contains a relatively high concentration of iridium. Iridium is rare on the Earth's surface but is often found in meteorites. During the molten phase of our planet's formation, most of the iridium of Earth traveled down with iron to form the planetary core. The Earth does receive a light surface dusting of iridium from the occasional meteorites, and some volcanoes can release iridium if their lava comes from a deep enough source. These events give the planet's surface a background iridium level of 0.02 parts per billion (ppb) or less.
Depending on the location of the rocks, the K-T boundary layer has varying amounts of iridium, but all are far above that background level. The section analyzed by Alvarez had 9 ppb. Other sections have upwards of a million times the background level. Luis and Walter Alvarez surmised that a large meteorite rich in iridium must have hit the Earth, and the after-effects of the impact led to the demise of the dinosaurs.
Artist's depiction of the Chicxulub asteroid impact event. Image credit: NASA/Don Davis.
Later, a large impact crater underneath Mexico's Yucatan peninsula was fingered as the smoking gun. When a meteorite punches the Earth's crust, some rocks and minerals are vaporized, some are flash heated and become molten, while others shatter, or become "shocked" in a distinctive pattern. Samples of the Chicxulub crater had all these features of a meteorite impact. The crater was dated to be about 65 million years old, the same age as the K-T extinction.
The meteorite that made the Chicxulub crater was 10 to 15 kilometers in diameter, or about the size of the island of Manhattan. It screamed to Earth faster than a bullet, smashing open a vast cavern 40 kilometers deep and 100 kilometers across. This crater quickly collapsed under the force of gravity, leaving a hole 180 kilometers wide and only 2 kilometers deep. The energy released by this impact was equal to 100 million megatons of TNT. In comparison, the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens released energy equivalent to just 10 megatons of TNT. The atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima released energy equivalent to about 10 kilotons of TNT (or 0.01 megatons). The impact obviously destroyed life in the immediate area, and the shock wave likely generated huge tsunamis and earthquakes further away from ground zero. Other, longer-lasting effects, such as dust and chemicals from the vaporized rocks, dispersed around the world.
The debate about the K-T extinction was contentious before Alvarez's hypothesis, and the discovery of Chicxulub seems to have done little to stem the often emotional arguments about the extinction event. At first, some doubted that Chicxulub even was an impact crater. The structure is buried 1 to 2 kilometers under ground—half under land and half under the sea floor—and was only discovered by gravitational and magnetic anomalies from readings taken at the Earth's surface. However, samples from drill cores helped confirm that Chicxulub was formed by a meteorite impact.
While most scientists now agree that Chicxulub is an impact crater, not everyone believes it caused the K-T extinction. For instance, some wonder if the Chicxulub impact occurred at the right time. Gerta Keller of Princeton University argues that its true age pre-dates the dinosaur's demise by 300,000 years. However, other scientists contend that Keller's sampling method was flawed, and resulted in an inaccurate date.
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Among scientists who agree that Chicxulub was the cause of the extinction, there are disagreements about the tangible effects of the impact. Some scientists think so much dust was sent flying high into the air that the skies darkened for years, halting photosynthesis and killing plants worldwide. Others contend that the dust wouldn't have been so long lasting, since rain would have soon cleared the air. Some have suggested that red-hot impact debris raining back down would have ignited forest fires worldwide, darkening the skies with black soot. Another theory suggests that so much sulfur was sent up into the stratosphere that the rains became like battery acid, poisoning land and sea.
Finally, there are some who believe that while Chicxulub played a role in the extinction, it was not the primary cause. They are seeking answers beyond Chicxulub, wondering if anything else could have contributed to the loss of species. The dinosaurs weren't the only creatures to suffer death and destruction, after all. The K-T mass extinction event killed at least 50 percent of the entire world's species. Could a single meteorite impact—even one as large as Chicxulub—have dealt such a fatal blow to life?
Part 2 of this series will discuss whether Earth was hit by more than one meteorite 65 million years ago. Part 3 will look at a controversial crater off the coast of India. Part 4 will cover the debate over whether the K-T extinction was the result of global warming.
Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1243.html.
IN EXTINCTION DEBATE, DINOSAURS AND SCIENCE WRITERS ARE THE LOSERSBy Robert Roy BrittFrom Space.com
14 October 2004
Ever since a huge crater was discovered off Mexico's Yucatan Penninsula in the early 1990s, scientists have grown increasingly confident that an asteroid impact 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs. Science journalists have dutifully reflected this view.
A pocket of skeptics has never quite bought the scenario, however. Other environmental factors—perhaps increased volcanic activity or long-term climate change—likely played a role, many experts figure. A handful of researchers think the impact and the extinction were only minimally related.
Science journalists and headline writers make much of these stories, too.Now in two separate papers revealed this week, researchers looked at the extinction of dinosaurs from two different viewpoints and drew completely opposite conclusions. The polarization of scientific views on the topic—and its flip-flopping reportage—achieved an extreme not unlike last night's presidential debate.
Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/dinosaur_debate_041014.html.
RED PLANET BOUND: MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITERBy Leonard DavidFrom Space.com
13 October 2004
The next spacecraft destined for Mars is rapidly coming together here on Earth—an interplanetary probe that carries the most powerful instruments ever sent to the red planet. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO for short, is being readied for sendoff next year. The huge spacecraft carries a suite of instruments, including a camera system able to provide ultra-close-up images of Mars' surface, and a sounder to probe for water that might linger subsurface on the planet. MRO is a crucial link to a wave of upcoming robotic landers slated to dot Mars in coming years. But more so, MRO stamps the passport for human visitation rights, road mapping Mars to help resolve where expeditionary crews can best land, sustain their presence, and continue the quest to unravel the past and present state of affairs on Mars.
Read the full article at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/ mro_tech_041013.html.
VIRGINIA TECH RESEARCHERS SUGGEST LIQUID WATER MAY HAVE EXISTED ON MARS; FINDINGS PUBLISHED IN NATUREBy Sally Harris Virginia Tech release
14 October 2004
A Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech has research published this week in Nature that shows Mars probably had liquid water at some point, but likely for only a short time, geologically speaking. Megan Elwood Madden, of Jacksonville, IL, a graduate student in geosciences in the College of Science, along with Robert Bodnar, University Distinguished Professor and Clifton C. Garvin Professor of Geosciences, and Donald Rimstidt, professor of geosciences, both in the College of Science, published "Jarosite as an indicator of water-limited chemical weathering on Mars" in the October 14 issue of Nature according to a press release from Nature.
NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity recently found the mineral jarosite and possibly gypsum on Mars' surface, further adding to the speculation that water existed there in the past because those minerals "generally form in a wet environment," according to a Nature news release.
It was already well known from previous Mars research and meteorites that basalt is likely a common rock type on Mars, Elwood Madden said. Scientists are interested in the history of water on Mars since life as we know it cannot survive without liquid water. Ice can be found on Mars today; however, liquid water likely froze or evaporated some time in the past.
Using a computer-modeling program that uses thermodynamic data to determine the types of minerals that form from reactions between rocks and water, Elwood Madden looked at the way basalts weather, or react with water, under the conditions found on Mars and used the results to interpret how jarosite and gypsum might have formed. "We predicted jarosite likely did form from a reaction of basalt with liquid water," Madden said.
According to the press release from Nature, "On Earth, jarosite forms in acid mine drainage environments as sulphide minerals oxidize—it has been found in Idaho or California, for example. It also forms while volcanic rocks are being altered by acidic, sulphur-rich fluids near volcanic vents. As such, jarosite formation is thought to need a wet, oxidizing and acidic environment."
However, it is preserved only in arid regions. The reason, Elwood Madden and Rimstidt said, is that jarosite forms when only a small amount of reaction has occurred and completely decomposes if more water is available. "This shows that the reaction on Mars ran out of water," Elwood Madden said.
"Either there was not enough water to begin with or it disappeared quickly," Rimstidt said.
Elwood Madden, Bodnar, and Rimstidt showed "that the water in which the minerals formed either evaporated or soaked into the ground after a short time," according to Nature.
Because water is important for life, the discovery could have implications of how long water was present on Mars and the likelihood of finding living organisms there now. "There's probably no likelihood of living organisms today, but we can't say there wasn't enough water a long time ago," Rimstidt said.
As to how much water was on Mars, the researchers do not know if there was a great deal for a short time or a little for a longer period. However, they can say there was a geologically short window in which liquid water was present, suggesting there also was a limited time period when conditions may have been hospitable for life, Rimstidt said.
The researchers will present the results of their work in November at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver.
Contacts:Megan Elwood Madden Phone: 540-250-5833 E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Donald Rimstidt Phone: 550-392-8913E-mail: [email protected]
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Robert Bodnar Phone: 540-231-7455 E-mail: [email protected]
Read the original news release at http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?itemno=375.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-water-science-04k.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/14marswater/
WHY THE SEARCH FOR LIFE DRIVES SPACE EXPLORATIONBy Seth ShostakFrom Space.com
14 October 2004
They don't wear coonskin caps, but they're traipsing the wilderness nonetheless, working the margins of the Final Frontier. The accomplishments, plans, and dreams of today's space industry are showcased every year at a mammoth event known as the International Astronautics Congress (IAC). For an entire week, thousands of rocket engineers, space agency types, and satellite builders swarm like psychotic ants within the IAC's cavernous convention halls, seeking the most exciting panels and plenaries. Furry fedoras and Bowie knives are out, while Italian suits and cell phones are in. Fact is—sartorial distinctions aside—exploration today is not much different than when the pioneers slogged the west: difficult, dangerous, and oddly seductive.
Since 1971, SETI has been part of the IAC, and is usually celebrated with an entire day of presentations on the latest data, the technology, and the social implications of the search for intelligent life beyond Earth. This year's Congress was in Vancouver, a Canadian city that crouches like a spangled jewel caught hard in the grip of mountains and sea. Appropriately enough, Vancouver bears the name of one of the 18th century's most accomplished explorers.
Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_pioneer_041014.html.
NEW PROPULSION CONCEPT COULD MAKE POSSIBLE 90-DAY ROUND TRIP TO THE RED PLANETBy Vince StricherzUniversity of Washington release
14 October 2004
A new means of propelling spacecraft being developed at the University of Washington could dramatically cut the time needed for astronauts to travel to and from Mars and could make humans a permanent fixture in space. In fact, with magnetized-beam plasma propulsion, or mag-beam, quick trips to distant parts of the solar system could become routine, said Robert Winglee, a UW Earth and space sciences professor who is leading the project. Currently, using conventional technology and adjusting for the orbits of both the Earth and Mars around the sun, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars, conduct their scientific mission and return.
"We're trying to get to Mars and back in 90 days," Winglee said. "Our philosophy is that, if it's going to take two-and-a-half years, the chances of a successful mission are pretty low."
Mag-beam is one of 12 proposals that this month began receiving support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Advanced Concepts. Each gets $75,000 for a six-month study to validate the concept and identify challenges in developing it. Projects that make it through that phase are eligible for as much as $400,000 more over two years.
Under the mag-beam concept, a space-based station would generate a stream of magnetized ions that would interact with a magnetic sail on a spacecraft and propel it through the solar system at high speeds that increase with the size of the plasma beam. Winglee estimates that a control nozzle 32 meters wide would generate a plasma beam capable of propelling a spacecraft at 11.7 kilometers per second. That translates to more than 26,000 miles an hour or more than 625,000 miles a day.
In this artist's conception, a plasma station (lower left) applies a magnetized beam of ionized plasma to a spacecraft bound for Jupiter. Image credit: John Carscadden, U. of Washington.
Mars is an average of 48 million miles from Earth, though the distance can vary greatly depending on where the two planets are in their orbits around the sun. At that distance, a spacecraft traveling 625,000 miles a day would take more than 76 days to get to the red planet. But Winglee is working on ways to devise even greater speeds so the round trip could be accomplished in three months. But to make such high speeds practical, another plasma unit must be stationed on a platform at the other end of the trip to apply brakes to the spacecraft.
"Rather than a spacecraft having to carry these big powerful propulsion units, you can have much smaller payloads," he said.
Winglee envisions units being placed around the solar system by missions already planned by NASA. One could be used as an integral part of a research mission to Jupiter, for instance, and then left in orbit there when the mission is completed. Units placed farther out in the solar system would use nuclear power to create the ionized plasma; those closer to the sun would be able to use electricity generated by solar panels.
The mag-beam concept grew out of an earlier effort Winglee led to develop a system called mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion. In that system, a plasma bubble would be created around a spacecraft and sail on the solar wind. The mag-beam concept removes reliance on the solar wind, replacing it with a plasma beam that can be controlled for strength and direction.
A mag-beam test mission could be possible within five years if financial support remains consistent, he said. Winglee acknowledges that it would take an initial investment of billions of dollars to place stations around the solar system. But once they are in place, their power sources should allow them to generate plasma indefinitely. The system ultimately would reduce spacecraft costs, since individual craft would no longer have to carry their own propulsion systems. They would get up to speed quickly with a strong push from a plasma station, then coast at high speed until they reach their destination, where they would be slowed by another plasma station.
"This would facilitate a permanent human presence in space," Winglee said. "That's what we are trying to get to."
More details on advanced propulsion concepts can be found at http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/propulsion.html.
The Web site for the Research Institute for Space Exploration is http://www.ess.washington.edu/RISE/.
Contacts:Vince StricherzPhone: 206-543-2580E-mail: [email protected]
Robert WingleePhone: 206-685-8160E-mail: [email protected]
Read the original news release at http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=5817.
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Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-04zh.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/16marspropulsion/http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/ mag_beam_propulsion_system.html
IN THE STARS: A TALE OF TWO PLANETSFrom United Press International and SpaceDaily
15 October 2004
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, as the storyline begins. Shifted to a planetary context, the classic Dickens phrase also can be applied to Earth and Mars. The two worlds, created at about the same time in the history of the solar system, and similar in size and composition, both started along the path to a livable environment. The findings by NASA's twin Mars exploration rovers this year have made that assumption clear. Spirit and Opportunity have been exploring the surface of the red planet now about three times longer than their designers expected, and the more they look, the more evidence of past liquid water they discover.
Read the full article at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zzzzzzzn.html.
EMOTICONS INVADE MARS—READING NATURAL GRAFFITIFrom Astrobiology Magazine
15 October 2004
Light and shadow can play tricks with any geological formation, particularly in cropped imagery that can make any terrain eventually look like some kind of "smiley face". The Cydonia region on Mars—and its accompanying Face on Mars image—is legendary in this regard; it has been compared to a martian face eroded over time like an Egyptian Sphinx and has even become a troublesome diversion in the earliest science targeting for the Mars Global Surveyor.
Mars Says "hi"! MGS MOC Release MOC2-877, 12 October 2004. The 400 meter scale bar is about 437 yards long. The features are located near 1.8 degrees N, 357.2 degrees W. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. Image credit: Mars Global Surveyor, Malin Space Systems.
The latest entry in this game of reading geological hieroglyphs is notable however, in actually spelling out a message: "Hi". Although one might argue that most of the "i" is missing, and part of the "h" has been eroded away, the October 12th image of "Hi" glyphs was photographed from orbit, by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). The image shows light-toned sedimentary rock outcrops in northern Sinus Meridiani that almost seem to spell out the word, "hi". This natural graffiti is all that remains of a suite of sedimentary rock that once covered the area shown here. Is this a case of the internet serving up its first interplanetary versions of emotional icons, or "emoticons"?
No longer must one speculate about the intentions of a secret, subterranean fortress operating beneath an ancient Mars' face. Now the intentions are clear (at least assuming the hieroglyph is communicating to an English-speaking terrestrial audience). No longer must one wonder if the intention is friendly or hostile. The rocks on Mars are welcoming our cameras. The "Hi" rock formation joins the "Happy Face" crater and the circular Inca City—each a view from above that shows a whimsical side to remote sensing.
View of crater ring, sometimes whimsically called the "Happy Face" crater. Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS.
In some ways, the high-jinx centers on finding a Goldilocks' balance between vivid language and precise scientific terms. Arizona planetary scientist and painter, Bill Hartmann, put some historical perspective on the discussion, "I think the mania for "neutral" and often "cute" names is beginning to be more destructive than helpful."
Hartmann said, "As my archaeologist wife commented recently, the appealing story about Mars is that it is so Earth-like, but the proliferation of strange sounding geologic names for surface textures, like 'chaotic terrain,' 'fretted terrain,' and so on, leads the public to perceive Mars as ever more alien and non-understandable."
"This was started with a vengeance during the the Mariner 9 imaging team interpretations in the early 1970s, in which I was involved," continued Hartmann. "But it's gotten out of hand! Not to mention the 25 year absurdity of the "'face on Mars,' a whimsical name that got completely out of control, with the 'face on Mars' buffs claiming NASA purposely aborted the Mars Observer mission to hide the truth, and later requiring our Mars Global Surveyor team to drop its science plan, reorient the spacecraft, and waste tax dollars to get images of the 'face' as one of the first activities of the mission."
There is a serious question buried somewhere in the hieroglyphic interpretations. How does one approach a biological signature when visual or instrumental ambiguities cloud the data? As the principal science investigator on the European Beagle 2 mission, Colin Pillinger, described earlier biological experiments, "It wasn't that Viking didn't find life, it was that they thought the conditions were just so horrid, so harsh, nobody anticipated that life could exist there."
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Cydonia region, showing the effects of sun position on shadows cast across the "Mars Face". Left: 1976 Viking image, right: 2001 MGS image. Image credits: NASA/JPL/MOC.
The Mars program has structured a series of missions to take on the major questions of water history first, continuing with later follow-ups to make a comprehensive investigation of how water might interact with any remnant biochemistry. Harvard's Andy Knoll described this staged approach to Astrobiology Magazine as a methodic testing of hypotheses against each other: "A couple of years ago, NASA embarked on a funding campaign to essentially try and anticipate any kind of suggestively biological signature that might be found in any kind of exploration of another planet so that we wouldn't be seen to be scratching our heads. But the plain fact is that you can't anticipate anything you might see... I actually like the whole architecture of NASA's plan to go one step at a time, do each step carefully, and in step two build on what you learned in step one. It makes sense."
The 2009 Mars Science Laboratory is planned as the first set of biological experiments in the current exploration strategy. As the NASA Office of Space Science noted however, there has been considerable debate about when to time a sample return: "We note with concern that there appears to be a growing division within the Mars community between scientists seeking early Mars Sample Return and those who believe it is best to delay it."
As principal investigator Steve Squyres described the team's public profile: "We're letting the science hang out there for everyone to see. We risk letting people think we're confused, but hey, science is really like that. It's exciting and we don't have all the answers. That's why we do it."
Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1247.html.
MARS RECONSIDERED: NEW DATA RAISE FRESH QUESTIONSBy Leonard David
15 October 2004
There is mounting evidence of the role of water in Mars' evolution. That fact appears to have been favorable to the development of life—and the leftover calling card of past biology may be preserved in that world's geologic record. Scientists from around the world have gathered here to present what is known, as well as agree on need-to-know essentials, at The Second Conference on Early Mars: Geologic, Hydrologic, and Climate Evolution and the Implications for Life. Even more compelling is the thought that life may well have taken a beating and kept on ticking over time. And if so, where on the planet is it today? Scientists are admittedly awash in new data. Mars is being scrutinized daily by the largest contingent of sensor-laden orbiters and rovers ever sent there. But teasing out the planet's secrets is a daunting, long-term task. A crossbreeding of research talents to investigate Mars has proven essential.
Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_reconsidered_041015.html.
SCIENTISTS SAY COMET SMASHED INTO SOUTHERN GERMANY IN 200 BCFrom Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily
15 October 2004
A comet or asteroid smashed into modern-day Germany some 2,200 years ago, unleashing energy equivalent to thousands of atomic bombs, scientists reported on Friday. The 1.1-kilometer (0.7-mile) diameter rock wacked into southeastern Bavaria, leaving an "exceptional field" of meteorites and impact
craters that stretch from the town of Altoetting to an area around Lake Chiemsee, the scientists said in an article in the latest issue of U.S. magazine, Astronomy. Colliding with the Earth's atmosphere at more than 43,000 km per hour, the space rock probably broke up at an altitude of 70 km, they believe. The biggest chunk smashed into the ground with a force equivalent to 106 million tons of TNT, or 8,500 Hiroshima bombs.
Read the full article at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/comet-04l.html.
ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER PLANET BUILDING IS BIG MESSNASA/JPL release 2004-257
18 October 2004 Planets are built over a long period of massive collisions between rocky bodies as big as mountain ranges, astronomers announced today. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal surprisingly large dust clouds around several stars. These clouds most likely flared up when rocky, embryonic planets smashed together. The Earth's own Moon may have formed from such a catastrophe. Prior to these new results, astronomers thought planets were formed under less chaotic circumstances.
This artist's concept illustrates how planetary systems arise out of massive collisions between rocky bodies. New findings from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that these catastrophes continue to occur around stars even after they have developed full-sized planets, when they are as old as one hundred million years. For reference, our own Sun, at 4.5 billion years old, is far past this late stage of planet formation. In this image, a young star is shown circled by full-sized planets, and rings of dust beyond. These rings, also called "debris discs" arise when embryonic planets smash into each other. One of these collisions is illustrated in the inset above. Spitzer was able to see the dust generated by these collisions with its powerful infrared vision. Image credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech/T. Pyle.
"It's a mess out there," said Dr. George Rieke of the University of Arizona, Tucson, first author of the findings and a Spitzer scientist. "We are seeing that planets have a long, rocky road to go down before they become full grown." Spitzer was able to see the dusty aftermaths of these collisions with its powerful infrared vision. When embryonic planets, the rocky cores of planets like Earth and Mars, crash together, they are believed to either merge into a bigger planet or splinter into pieces. The dust generated by these events is warmed by the host star and glows in the infrared, where Spitzer can see it. The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal. They mirror what we know about the formation of our own planetary system. Recent observations from studies of our Moon's impact craters also reveal a turbulent early solar system. "Our Moon took a lot of violent hits when planets had already begun to take shape," Rieke said. According to the most popular theory, rocky planets form somewhat like snowmen. They start out around young stars as tiny balls in a disc-shaped field of thick dust. Then, through sticky interactions with other dust grains,
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they gradually accumulate more mass. Eventually, mountain-sized bodies take shape, which further collide to make planets.
This graph shows the extent of planetary debris discs around nearby stars of various ages, as measured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Disc brightness or size (vertical axis) is plotted against the age of the stars observed by Spitzer (horizontal axis). The data show that there can be huge amounts of debris from collisions between large asteroid-like bodies around young stars, up to ages of 100 to 200 million years. However, even around some of the youngest stars, there is no detectable debris, indicating that the collision rate shows a large range of properties from star to star. Planets are built up as a result of rocky objects smashing into each other and merging to make larger bodies. The violence of these collisions causes immense clouds of dust to escape and spread out into rings, or "debris discs." These discs are warmed by the star, which allows Spitzer to detect them with its infrared vision. Image credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech/G. Rieke.
Previously, astronomers envisioned this process proceeding smoothly toward a mature planetary system over a few million to a few tens of millions of years. Dusty planet-forming discs, they predicted, should steadily fade away with age, with occasional flare-ups from collisions between leftover rocky bodies. Rieke and his colleagues have observed a more varied planet-forming environment. They used new Spitzer data, together with previous data from the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory and the joint NASA, United Kingdom and the Netherlands' Infrared Astronomical Satellite. They looked for dusty discs around 266 nearby stars of similar size, about two to three times the mass of the Sun, and various ages. Seventy-one of those stars were found to harbor discs, presumably containing planets at different stages of development. But, instead of seeing the discs disappear in older stars, the astronomers observed the opposite in some cases. "We thought young stars, about one million years old, would have larger, brighter discs, and older stars from 10 to 100 million years old would have fainter ones," Rieke said. "But we found some young stars missing discs and some old stars with massive discs." This variability implies planet-forming discs can become choked with dust throughout the discs' lifetime, up to hundreds of millions of years after the host star was formed. "The only way to produce as much dust as we are seeing in these older stars is through huge collisions," Rieke said. Before Spitzer, only a few dozen planet-forming discs had been observed around stars older than a few million years. Spitzer's uniquely sensitive infrared vision allows it to sense the dim heat from thousands of discs of various ages. "Spitzer has opened a new door to the study of discs and planetary evolution," said Dr. Michael Werner, project scientist for Spitzer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "These exciting new findings give us new insights into the process of planetary formation, a process that led to the birth of planet Earth and to life," said Dr. Anne Kinney, director of the universe division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "Spitzer truly embodies NASA's mission to explore the universe and search for life," she said.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Artist's concepts and additional information about the Spitzer Space Telescope is available at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu.
Contacts:Donald SavageNASA Headquarters, Washington, DCPhone: 202-358-1727
Whitney ClavinJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CAPhone: 818-354-4673
Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/extrasolar-04zm.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/18planet/
CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 7-13 OCTOBER 2004NASA/JPL release
15 October 2004
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, October 13. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.
On-board activities this week featured more varied Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) observations than in previous weeks. In addition to movies of Saturn's rings, ISS performed a global color map of Iapetus, numerous observations of small satellites used for orbit determination, diffuse ring images, and Phoebe spectrophotometry. The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed a stellar occultation interior to the B ring, which provided a high-resolution study of low optical depth regions.
Commands were approved and uplinked to the spacecraft this week to perform a live update for Iapetus, to turn off the Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument collimator, perform a Cosmic Dust Analyzer decontamination, and clear a global variable as part of the scheduled cleanup after the Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) 8.7.1 flight software update and ACS flight computer swap. The Iapetus live update will execute on October 15, with closest approach on October 17. The S04 background sequence will then conclude on October 18.
The Spacecraft Operations Office ran a successful test of the Iapetus Live Inertial Vector Propagator (IVP) Update in the Integrated Test Laboratory (ITL) this week. The Flight Software Development System (FSDS) run also completed successfully. The ACS data from the test was reviewed and the files were verified for uplink. The pointing difference, during the Iapetus observation, between the FSDS C-Kernel and the Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation (PSIV) 2 C-Kernel is 4.1 mrads. This is consistent with known ephemeris differences.
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Gazing beyond Saturn's magnificent rings, Cassini spotted the cause of the dark gap visible in the foreground of this image: Mimas, which is 398 kilometers (247 miles) wide. The gravitational influence of Mimas is responsible for the 4,800 kilometer- (2,980 mile-) wide Cassini division, which stretches across the lower left portion of this view. The little moon is at a nearly half-full phase in this view. A small clump of material is visible in the narrow F ring, beyond the edge of the main rings. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on August 25, 2004, at a distance of 8.9 million kilometers (5.5 million miles) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 88 degrees. The image scale is 54 kilometers (34 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified by a factor of four to aid visibility.
In this image, Dione, a moon of Saturn, exhibits some of the interesting bright and dark markings for which it is renowned. From Voyager images, Dione is known to have bright wispy markings, some of which may be visible here. Dione is 1,118 kilometers (695 miles) wide. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on September 15, 2004, at a distance of 8.8 million kilometers (5.4 million miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 83 degrees. The image scale is 53 kilometers (33 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of four and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility.
Science Planning has adjusted the schedule for Science Operations Plan (SOP) Implementation deliveries. The decision to modify the schedule was made in order to provide relief to the flight team as they support additional workload on the sequence development process as a result of last week's update of the Cassini reference trajectory. The only deliveries affected are for the last five sequences of the tour, S37 through S41. Preliminary port 2 for S37/S38
occurred on Friday of last week. The next delivery in support of SOP Implementation occurs on November 10.
The official port for the S08 SOP Update process occurred this week. The products were merged and delivered to the ACS team for end-to-end pointing validation. The Titan Orbiter Science Team (TOST) and Satellite Orbiter Science Team (SOST) met to begin to re-integrate the Titan b, Titan 3, and Enceladus-4 flybys.
A Program internal science talk was given this week on recent ISS satellite discoveries. The presentation covered why instrument teams are interested in locating additional satellites, and the process used by the imaging team to find them.
This Cassini image shows beautifully the complex eddies and wave patterns in Saturn's cloud bands. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on September 7, 2004, at a distance of 8.9 million kilometers (5.5 million miles) from Saturn, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 727 nanometers. The image scale is 53 kilometers (33 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified by a factor of two and slightly contrast-enhanced to improve visibility of features in the atmosphere.
S05 development had the tightest time constraints for modifications as a result of the release of the new reference trajectory. Last week the Sequence Team (ST) participated in a Sequence Change Request (SCR) approval meeting, command approval meeting for the Instrument Expanded Blocks to be uplinked to the spacecraft, and a final sequence approval meeting. In the last week, stripped subsequences were produced for use in the final FSIV merge, the merge was produced, products generated, and the Sequence of Events listing and Spaceflight Operations Schedule were generated. All this was done with no slip to the development schedule. An unexpected benefit of the new reference trajectory was the determination made by Science Planning that a live IVP update would not be necessary during S05, and thus, no ITL testing for those additional products would be required. The ST Lead has expressed much appreciation for all the hard work everyone put in to get this sequence out on time. S05 begins execution on Monday, October 18.
The Instrument Operations and Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory have begun preparations to support the display of Titan-a ISS and VIMS data in near real-time. Interaction with Media Relations, JPL Audio/Visual, and Cassini Outreach are underway.
Mission Planning has released a Titan-a mission description. It is a brief, concise description of the Titan-a encounter events, including an estimated playback schedule for all instruments.
Delivery meetings were held this week for Maneuver Automation Software (MAS) 4.5, MDT V8.1, and MAPDF_GEN V8.1. In addition, a delivery coordination meeting was held to review RADAR build-5 ground software to be used to process the Ta data. The software has been tested and is ready for use. The Mission Support & Services Office (MSSO) reported that last week the Flight Control Team supported 7 DSN passes, and uplinked 21 command files to the spacecraft.
Laminated images representing the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft during Saturn Orbit Insertion, a map of participating countries, and a selection of images
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will be included in a time capsule celebrating the 50th anniversary of the North Museum of Natural History and Science in Lancaster, PA. The capsule information will be displayed at the museum October 16-17. The selected images are on the Cassini Multimedia webpage http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/mission/index.cfm. Cassini Science Planning presented "Cassini-Huygens: The Real Lord of the Rings" during DePaul University's Space Sciences symposium for 150 K-12 educators, and again at the Swift Art Gallery, Los Angeles, for 40 members of the public.
Excerpts from the North Museum of Natural History and Science time capsule set.
Cassini Science Planning participated in "Journey Week" in Menominee, Michigan. During the week-long event, 1727 students and 72 teachers and adults from 8 different elementary, middle and high schools learned about the Cassini-Huygens mission and its exciting science results. This is the second year Cassini has participated in this program. Science Planning and Huygens Probe Science & Engineering staff co-led a Solar System Ambassador Training class. This two-part training session focused on Titan and the Probe Mission. Over 50 members of the Ambassador network were trained on these materials. For the most recent Cassini information, press releases, and images, go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1248.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04zzzh.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04zzzj.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/041011mimas.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/17saturn/http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/ new_insights_saturns_magnetosphere.html
DEEP IMPACT ARRIVES IN FLORIDA TO PREPARE FOR LAUNCHNASA/JPL release 2004-258
18 October 2004
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has arrived in Florida to begin final preparations for a launch on December 30, 2004. The spacecraft was shipped from Ball Aerospace & Technologies in Boulder, CO, to the Astrotech Space Operations facility located near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "Deep Impact has begun its journey to comet Tempel 1," said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "First to Florida, then to space, and then to the comet itself. It will be quite a journey and one which we can all witness together." The Deep Impact spacecraft is designed to launch a copper projectile into the surface of comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, when the comet is 133.6 million kilometers (83 million miles) from Earth. When this 372-kilogram(820-pound) "impactor" hits the surface of the comet at approximately 37,000 kilometers per hour (23,000 miles per hour), the 1-by-1 meter projectile (39-by-39 inches) will create a crater that could be as large as a football field. Deep Impact's "flyby" spacecraft will collect pictures and data of the event. It will send the data back to Earth through the antennas of the Deep Space
Network. Professional and amateur astronomers on Earth will also be able to observe the material flying from the comet's newly formed crater, adding to the data and images collected by the Deep Impact spacecraft and other telescopes. Tempel 1 poses no threat to Earth in the foreseeable future.
In the clean room at Astrotech Space Operations near Kennedy Space Center, the Deep Impact spacecraft is lifted off its movable stand. It will be moved to another stand. The spacecraft will undergo functional testing to verify its state of health after the over-the-road journey from Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, CO. This will be followed by loading updated flight software and beginning a series of Mission Readiness Tests. Deep Impact, a NASA Discovery mission, will probe beneath the surface of Comet Tempel 1 and reveal the secrets of its interior. Image credit: NASA/KSC.
Today at Astrotech, Deep Impact is being removed from its shipping container, the first of the numerous milestones to prepare it for launch. Later this week, the spacecraft will begin functional testing to verify its state of health after the over-the-road journey from Colorado. This will be followed by loading updated flight software and beginning a series of mission readiness tests. These tests involve the entire spacecraft flight system that includes the flyby and impactor, as well as the associated science instruments and the spacecraft's basic subsystems. Next, the high gain antenna used for spacecraft communications will be installed. The solar array will then be stowed and an illumination test performed as a final check of its performance. Then, Deep Impact will be ready for fueling preparations. Once this is complete, the 976-kilogram spacecraft (2,152 pounds) will be mated atop the upper stage booster, the Delta rocket's third stage. The integrated stack will be installed into a transportation canister in preparation for going to the launch pad in mid-December. Once at the pad and hoisted onto the Boeing Delta II rocket, a brief functional test will be performed to re-verify spacecraft state of health. Next will be an integrated test with the Delta II before installing the fairing around the spacecraft.
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Deep Impact mission scientists are confident that an intimate glimpse beneath the surface of a comet, where material and debris from the formation of the solar system remain relatively unchanged, will answer basic questions about the formation of the solar system and offer a better look at the nature and composition of these celestial wanderers. Launch aboard the Boeing Delta II rocket is scheduled to occur on December 30 from Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window extends from 2:39 to 3:19 PM Eastern Standard Time (11:39 AM to 12:19 PM Pacific Standard Time) The overall Deep Impact mission management for this Discovery class program is conducted by the University of Maryland, College Park, Md. Deep Impact project management is by JPL. The spacecraft has been built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, CO. The spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch countdown management are the responsibility of the Launch Services Program office headquartered at Kennedy Space Center. Photos of Deep Impact's arrival and processing can be found at the following URL. Additional photos will be added to the page as they are available: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=126.
Contacts:D. C. AgleJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CAPhone: 818-393-9011
George DillerNASA Kennedy Space Center, FLPhone: 321-867-2468
Donald SavageNASA Headquarters, Washington, DCPhone: 202-358-1727
NASA'S GENESIS MISHAP BOARD & RESEARCHERS BOTH REPORT PROGRESSNASA release 04-345
14 October 2004
As scientists begin to unpack more than 3,000 containers of samples of the sun brought to Earth by NASA's Genesis mission, the Mishap Investigation Board (MIB) has identified a likely direct cause of the failure of Genesis' parachute system to open. The parachute system failed to deploy when Genesis returned to Earth September 8, 2004. The MIB, analyzing the Genesis capsule at a facility near Denver, said the likely cause was a design error that involves the orientation of gravity-switch devices. The switches sense the braking caused by the high-speed entry into the atmosphere, and then initiate the timing sequence leading to deployment of the craft's drogue parachute and parafoil.
"This single cause has not yet been fully confirmed, nor has it been determined whether it is the only problem within the Genesis system," said Dr. Michael G. Ryschkewitsch, the MIB chair. "The Board is working to confirm this proximate cause, to determine why this error happened, why it was not caught by the test program and an extensive set of in-process and after-the-fact reviews of the Genesis system."
Meanwhile, scientists unpacking samples at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, curation facility remain upbeat in their assessment of the prospects for obtaining useful science from the recovered samples. The facility counted more than 3,000 tracking numbers for the containers that hold pieces of wafers from the five collector panels. The panels secured samples of atoms and ions from the solar wind that were collected during Genesis' nearly three- year mission in deep space. Some of the containers hold as many as 96 pieces of the wafers. The team has been preparing the samples for study since the science payload and recovered samples arrived at JSC October 4.
Planning is under way for preliminary examination of the samples to prepare for allocation to the science community. The samples eventually will be moved to the JSC Genesis clean room where they will be cleaned, examined and then distributed to scientists, promising researchers years of study into the origins and evolution of the solar system.
"We cheered the news from the science team about the recovery of a significant amount of the precious samples of the sun," said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, deputy associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "Despite the hard landing, Genesis was able to deliver. However, we await the final report of the Mishap Board to understand what caused the malfunction, and to hear the Board's recommendations for how we can avoid such a problem in the future," he added.
The recovered remains of the Sample Return Capsule (SRC) are undergoing engineering inspections and tests at the Waterton, CO, facility of Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA). The Genesis spacecraft and SRC were built at Waterton. Lockheed Martin is supporting the MIB both to examine the recovered hardware and in assembling documentation relevant to the development of the space system.
"Both Lockheed Martin and JPL have been providing every possible support to our investigation. All of the people from both organizations who were involved in the Genesis project have been extremely professional and cooperative in helping the Board do its work," said Dr. Ryschkewitsch.
The safety critical pyrotechnic devices and the damaged lithium sulfur dioxide battery have been secured to allow safe operations. The battery has been transported to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (JPL), CA, to begin detailed evaluation. The MIB is evaluating the recovered hardware, pertinent documentation, impact site recovery activities and interviewing people from development teams. The MIB is using a fault tree as its guide. A fault tree is a formal method for determining, organizing and evaluating possible direct causes for a mishap and to trace them to root causes. The Board's charter is to examine every possible cause and to determine whether it was related to the mishap. The Board expects to complete its work by late November.
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov.
Contact:Donald SavageNASA Headquarters, Washington, DCPhone: 202-358-1727
Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1246.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/genesis-04v.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/14genesis/http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/ potential_cause_genesis_crash.html
MARS EXPRESS: PROMETHEI TERRA, SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS OF MARSESA release
12 October 2004
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show a part of the southern highlands of Mars, called Promethei Terra. The images were taken during orbit 368 in May 2004 with a ground resolution of approximately 14 meters per pixel. The displayed region is centered around longitude 118° East and latitude 42° South.
The images show an area in the Promethei Terra region, east of the Hellas Planitia impact basin. The smooth surface is caused by a layer of dust or volcanic ash that is up to several tens of meters thick. This layer has covered all landforms, and even young impact craters have lost their contours due to in-fill and collapse of their fragile crater walls. This layer has been removed by the wind at some ridges and crater walls. Although the above close-up image was taken at high resolution and shows very fine detail like the dunes seen in the close-up image at right, this dust covering layer leads to a slightly fuzzy appearance.
The large impact crater in the southern part of the image is 32 kilometers wide and up to 1200 meters deep. The dark crater floor is most likely the result of "deflation", the geological term for the lifting and removal of loose material. The dust removed here has accumulated in the southern part of the crater, forming a thick layer. The numerous dark tracks to the north-western and west are "dust devil" tracks. These atmospheric "eddies", like tornadoes on
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Earth, remove the uppermost dust layers which have a slightly different color to the now-exposed surface. The tracks can be more than 20 kilometers long and contrast prominently with the lighter-colored surroundings. Dust devil tracks provide short-lived evidence of the ongoing geological and atmospheric activity on Mars, which consists mainly of the transport of dust by wind.
Another sign for this "aeolian" (wind-related) activity in the area is the existence of small dune fields that have formed in some of the depressions. They can be seen in the crater in the north and in its surroundings (see lower close-up view). The dust devils are not limited by geomorphological boundaries: for example, their tracks cross the crater rim. Dust devil tracks can also be seen on the thick dust layer in the southern part of the crater. Due to the thickness of the dust layer, no darker material is exposed here. The dust devil tracks show two distinct directions of movement: east to west and south-east to north-west.
The color images have been processed using the nadir (vertical view) and three color channels, and the perspective views have been calculated from the digital terrain model derived from the stereo channels. The 3D anaglyph image has been created from the nadir and one stereo channel.
Read the original news release at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM95XMKPZD_0.html.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/marsexpress-04zh.htmlhttp://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/dust_obscured_martian_landscape.html
MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGESNASA/JPL/MSSS release
7-13 October 2004
The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available.
Rock Outcrops near Hellas (Released 7 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/07/index.html
Bedforms in Maja Valles (Released 8 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/08/index.html
Schiaparelli's Sedimentary Rocks (Released 9 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/09/index.html
Rippled Dune (Released 10 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/10/index.html
Cerberus Fossae Troughs (Released 11 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/11/index.html
Mars Says "hi"! (Released 12 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/12/index.html
The Flows of Olympus (Released 13 October 2004)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/10/13/index.html
All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are archived at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html.
Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO.
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Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 11, Number 41, 19 October 2004
MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGESNASA/JPL/ASU releases
4-8 0ctober 2004
Chaotic Candor Chasma (Released 4 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041004a.html
Layered Candor Chasma (Released 5 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041005a.html
Candor Chasma (Released 6 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041006a.html
Candor Chasma (Released 7 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041007a.html
Valles Marineris Mosaic (Released 8 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041008A.html
11-15 October 2004
Tyrrhena Patera (Released 11 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041011a.html
Tyrrhena Patera (Released 12 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041012a.html
Tyrrhena Patera (Released 13 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041013a.html
Tyrrhena Patera (Released 14 October 2004)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041014a.html
Tyrrhena Patera Mosaic (Released 15 October 2004http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20041015A.html
All of the THEMIS images are archived at http://themis.la.asu.edu/latest.html.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
End Marsbugs, Volume 11, Number 41.
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