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Space News Update — January 24, 2014 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

NASA's Opportunity at 10: New Findings from Old Rover

Story 2:

NASA Launches TDRS-L a Third Generation Communications Satellite

Story 3:

Rosetta's Comet Chase Is On

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. NASA's Opportunity at 10: New Findings from Old Rover

New findings from rock samples collected and examined by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have confirmed an ancient wet environment that was milder and older than the acidic and oxidizing conditions told by rocks the rover examined previously.

In the Jan. 24 edition of the journal Science, Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, writes in detail about the discoveries made by the rover and how these discoveries have shaped our knowledge of the planet. According to Arvidson and others on the team, the latest evidence from Opportunity is landmark.

"These rocks are older than any we examined earlier in the mission, and they reveal more favorable conditions for microbial life than any evidence previously examined by investigations with Opportunity," said Arvidson.

While the Opportunity team celebrates the rover's 10th anniversary on Mars, they also look forward to what discoveries lie ahead and how a better understanding of Mars will help advance plans for human missions to the planet in the 2030s.

Opportunity's original mission was to last only three months. On the day of its 10th anniversary on the Red Planet, Opportunity is examining the rim of the Endeavour Crater. It has driven 24 miles (38.7 kilometers) from where it landed on Jan. 24, 2004. The site is about halfway around the planet from NASA's latest Mars rover, Curiosity.

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To find rocks for examination, the rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., steered Opportunity in a loop, scanning the ground for promising rocks in an area of Endeavour's rim called Matijevic Hill. The search was guided by a mineral-mapping instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which did not arrive at Mars until 2006, long after Opportunity's mission was expected to end.

Beginning in 2010, the mapping instrument, called the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, detected evidence on Matijevic Hill of a clay mineral known as iron-rich smectite. The Opportunity team set a goal to examine this mineral in its natural context -- where it is found, how it is situated with respect to other minerals and the area's geological layers -- a valuable method for gathering more information about this ancient environment. Researchers believe the wet conditions that produced the iron-rich smectite preceded the formation of the Endeavor Crater about 4 billion years ago.

"The more we explore Mars, the more interesting it becomes. These latest findings present yet another kind of gift that just happens to coincide with Opportunity's 10th anniversary on Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. "We're finding more places where Mars reveals a warmer and wetter planet in its history. This gives us greater incentive to continue seeking evidence of past life on Mars."

Opportunity has not experienced much change in health in the past year, and the vehicle remains a capable research partner for the team of scientists and engineers who plot each day's activities to be carried out on Mars.

"We're looking at the legacy of Opportunity's first decade this week, but there's more good stuff ahead," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., the mission's principal investigator. "We are examining a rock right in front of the rover that is unlike anything we've seen before. Mars keeps surprising us, just like in the very first week of the mission."

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, which worked for six years, and their successor, Curiosity, also contributed valuable information about the diverse watery environments of ancient Mars, from hot springs to flowing streams. NASA's Mars orbiters Odyssey and MRO study the whole planet and assist the rovers.

"Over the past decade, Mars rovers have made the Red Planet our workplace, our neighborhood," said John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, which built and operates Opportunity. "The longevity and the distances driven are remarkable. But even more important are the discoveries that are made and the generation that has been inspired."

Special products for the 10th anniversary of the twin rovers' landings, including a gallery of selected images, are available online at: http://mars.nasa.gov/mer10/ . For more information about Spirit and Opportunity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers .

You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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2. NASA Launches TDRS-L a Third Generation Communications Satellite

NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite L (TDRS-L), the 12th spacecraft in the agency's TDRS Project, is safely in orbit after launching at 9:33 p.m. EST Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Ground controllers report the satellite -- part of a network providing high-data-rate communications to the International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, launch vehicles and a host of other spacecraft -- is in good health at the start of a three-month checkout by its manufacturer, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems of El Segundo, Calif. NASA

will conduct additional tests before putting TDRS-L into service.

"TDRS-L and the entire TDRS fleet provide a vital service to America's space program by supporting missions that range from Earth-observation to deep space discoveries," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "TDRS also will support the first test of NASA's new deep space spacecraft, the Orion crew module, in September. This test will see Orion travel farther into space than any human spacecraft has gone in more than 40 years."

The mission of the TDRS Project, established in 1973, is to provide follow-on and replacement spacecraft to support NASA's space communications network. This network provides high data-rate communications. The TDRS-L spacecraft is identical to the TDRS-K spacecraft launched in 2013.

"This launch ensures continuity of services for the many missions that rely on the system every day," said Jeffrey Gramling, TDRS project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

The TDRS fleet began operating during the space shuttle era with the launch of TDRS-1 in 1983. Of the 11 TDRS spacecraft placed in service to date, eight still are operational. Four of the eight have exceeded their design life.

Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems completed the TDRS-L integration and testing at its satellite factory in El Segundo in November and launch processing began after the spacecraft arrived in Florida Dec. 6.

TDRS-M, the next spacecraft in this series, is on track to be ready for launch in late 2015.

NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Program, part of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, is responsible for the space network. The TDRS Project Office at Goddard manages the TDRS development program. Launch management of the launch service for TDRS-L is the responsibility of HEOMD's Launch Services Program based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. United Launch Alliance provided the Atlas V rocket launch service.

To join the online conversation about TDRS on Twitter, use the hashtag #TDRS.

For more information about TDRS, visit: http://tdrs.gsfc.nasa.gov .

Source: Spaceref.com Return to Contents

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3 Rosetta's Comet Chase Is On

Fresh out of an unprecedented power-saving sleep mode, Europe's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft awakened and phoned home Monday on the way to an enigmatic ball of rock and ice for a daring close-up inspection later this year.

Out of contact with Earth since June 2011, Rosetta is about to conclude a 10-year sojourn through space and pull alongside comet named Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August, when the European Space Agency probe will become the first mission to ever orbit one of the "dirty snowballs" believed to harbor the building blocks of life.

European Space Agency officials say Monday's wakeup launches Rosetta into a year of firsts: rendezvousing with a little-known comet beyond the orbit of Mars, maneuvering into a series of jagged, imprecise orbits, surviving blasts from dust and ice crystals, then ejecting a hitchhiking robot named Philae to latch onto the comet with harpoons and ice screws.

Such a tricky encounter, set to begin this summer, has never been tried before. "We have our comet-chaser back," said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration. "With Rosetta, we will take comet exploration to a new level. This incredible mission continues our history of 'firsts' at comets, building on the technological and scientific achievements of our first deep space mission Giotto, which returned the first close-up images of a comet nucleus as it flew past Halley in 1986."

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Rosetta's on-board timer was programmed to go off at 1000 GMT (5 a.m. EST) Monday, but it took more than eight hours to receive a report on the spacecraft's condition. The probe roused itself from sleep, activated heaters and regained control of its orientation before aiming its high-power antenna toward Earth.

Admittedly nervous after waiting 31 months with no signals from the $1.7 billion mission, ground teams at ESA's control center in Darmstadt, Germany, were elated with the news.

Although Rosetta's signal made it to Earth within the expected window, the team had to wait a little longer than most officials expected. NASA-owned 70-meter (230-foot) antennas in California and Australia were trained on Rosetta's predicted location in the sky waiting on a peep from the probe 500 million miles away.

A video feed streamed from the Darmstadt control center finally showed a spike in the signal at 1818 GMT (1:18 p.m. EST). "I think that's been the longest hour of my life," said Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta's spacecraft operations manager. "It's been a spectacular few moments of torture," said Martin Kessler, Rosetta's science operations manager.

The slumber was necessary to keep Rosetta going because it flew so far from the sun -- a maximum distance of 490 million miles -- that its solar panels could no longer generate enough power to supply the probe's control and communications systems. Engineers only left Rosetta's heaters on standby to turn on intermittently to keep the spacecraft's internal components warm.

Rosetta's control team will learn more about the spacecraft's condition in the coming hours and days. The signal initially received Monday was just a carrier tone, Rosetta's way telling the ground team, "I'm alive!"

One of the first commands sent up to Rosetta after wakeup was to trigger a torrent of telemetry data detailing the status of every system aboard the spacecraft except its science instruments, which will be activated and tested in the next few weeks.

Rosetta's journey began March 2, 2004, with a middle-of-the-night blastoff aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from its French Guiana launch base. The mission was a year late getting off the ground due to worries over the Ariane 5 rocket's reliability after a launch mishap in December 2002. The delay prompted a change in destination to Churyumov-Gerasimenko, colloquially known as 67P or C-G, an ice world four times larger than Rosetta's original target.

Since departing Earth a decade ago, Rosetta has returned for flybys three times and zoomed past Mars in February 2007, returning a spectacular self-portrait of the probe's solar panel backdropped by the stark landscape of the red planet. Rosetta also logged flybys of asteroids Steins and Lutetia in September 2008 and July 2010, collecting data and imagery in a chance for bonus science on the way to the mission's ultimate objective. Since lifting off in 2004, Rosetta's odometer stands at 3.8 billion miles.

The craft's extensive suite of cameras, spectrometers, dust analyzers and other science instruments will be switched on and tested in the next few months. In late March, the German-led Philae lander riding piggyback on Rosetta will be activated for the first time in three-and-a-half years to check its status.

A major course correction maneuver is planned for May to change Rosetta's velocity by approximately 800 meters per second, or 1,800 mph, and adjust the craft's trajectory to arrive in the vicinity of Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August.

Rosetta's long-range camera should acquire the first images of the comet this spring, with the 3-mile-wide comet growing larger in the probe's apertures over the summer.

In August, Rosetta is scheduled for a delicate, untried maneuver to enter orbit around the comet.

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Scientists are not sure what they will find there. Some experts predict Rosetta will have to dodge chunks of rock, dust grains and ice blown off the comet as it is heated by the sun.

One finding by scientists who observed Churyumov-Gerasimenko with NASA's WISE infrared survey telescope estimated the comet flings off about 70 kilograms -- more than 150 pounds -- of dust every second at speeds of nearly 2,000 mph.

Rosetta carries a pair of solar panels extending 105 feet tip-to-tip. The unwieldy wings are not ideal for operating in close quarters with a comet. "Hopefully, it will not affect the performance of the solar arrays," said Paolo Ferri, head of ESA's mission operations. "It may affect the performance of the optics. The risk that dust will deteroriate the spacecraft will grow" as Rosetta moves closer to the comet.

Rosetta will eventually move within 15 miles of Churyumov-Gerasimenko to gauge the comet's tenuous gravity field and map the surface of its nucleus. It will release Philae for a nail-biting descent to the comet in November.

Philae has its own ambitious research program. The lander will use harpoons and ice screws to latch on to the comet before collecting panoramic imagery and drilling into the rock's subsurface to analyze samples from a depth of 30 centimeters, or about 1 foot.

Philae will overheat and succumb about three or four months after landing when Churyumov-Gerasimenko gets closer to the sun.

Rosetta will escort the comet more than a year, monitoring how the body reacts to greater solar heating as it moves toward perihelion, its closest approach to the sun, in August 2015. "All other comet missions have been flybys, capturing fleeting moments in the life of these icy treasure chests," says Matt Taylor, ESA's Rosetta project scientist. "With Rosetta, we will track the evolution of a comet on a daily basis and for over a year, giving us a unique insight into a comet's behavior and ultimately helping us to decipher their role in the formation of the solar system."

Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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The Night Sky

Friday, January 24

Mercury is becoming easy to spot; look for it low in the west-southwest as twilight fades, as shown above. Don't confuse it with twinkly Fomalhaut, well off to its left in the southwest. Mercury is beginning its best evening apparition since last June for mid-northern skywatchers. See our article.

The Moon rises around 2 a.m. Saturday morning, with Saturn glowing just 1° or 2° from it (as seen from the Americas). They're high in the south together by dawn, as shown at right.

Saturday, January 25

Algol is at minimum brightness, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.3, for a couple hours centered on 10:09 p.m. EST. It takes several additional hours to fade and to rebrighten.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot transits Jupiter's central meridian around 11:01 p.m. EST.

Sunday, January 26

This is the frigid time of year when the Little Dipper (mostly dim) hangs straight down from Polaris shortly after dark. Look due north.

Monday, January 27

In the dawn Tuesday morning the 28th, make a point to look low in the southeast to catch Venus with the waning crescent Moon to its right, as shown at lower right. A telescope shows that Venus too is a crescent!

Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

For Denver:

Date Visible Max

Height Appears Disappears

Sat Jan 25, 5:51 AM 3 min 32° 20 above NNW 23 above ENE

Sun Jan 26, 5:05 AM 1 min 21° 21 above NE 14 above ENE

Sun Jan 26, 6:38 AM 5 min 52° 10 above WNW 19 above SSE

Mon Jan 27, 5:52 AM 3 min 83° 35 above NW 25 above SE

Tue Jan 28, 5:05 AM 1 min 37° 37 above ENE 22 above E

Tue Jan 28, 6:39 AM 4 min 17° 10 above W 11 above S Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time) January 24, Friday

1 p.m. - Opportunity 10th Anniversary - HQ (All Channels) 4 p.m. - Opportunity 10th Anniversary - HQ (All Channels) 8 p.m. - Opportunity 10th Anniversary - HQ (All Channels)

January 27, Monday 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. - Coverage of ISS Expedition 38 Russian Spacewalk (Spacewalk begins at 9:10 a.m. ET) - JSC (All Channels) 1 p.m. - Continued Coverage of ISS Expedition 38 Russian Spacewalk - JSC (NTV-1, NTV-2) 1 - 3 p.m. - Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) L-30 Press Briefing - GSFC (NTV-3)

Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website.

Return to Contents

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Space Calendar

Jan 24 - Comet 293P/Spacewatch At Opposition (1.142 AU) Jan 24 - Comet 121P/Shoemaker-Holt Closest Approach To Earth (2.831 AU)

Jan 24 - [Jan 23] Asteroid 2014 BZ2 Near-Earth Flyby (0.015 AU) Jan 24 - Asteroid 25137 Seansolomon Closest Approach To Earth (1.775 AU)

Jan 25 - [Jan 22] 10th Anniversary (2004), Mars Exploration Rover B (Opportunity), Mars Landing

Jan 25 - Cassini, Orbital Trim Maneuver #369 (OTM-369) Jan 25 - Moon Occults Saturn Jan 25 - Comet 80P/Peters-Hartley At Opposition (2.214 AU) Jan 25 - Comet P/2012 SB6 (Lemmon) At Opposition (2.661 AU) Jan 25 - Comet 121P/Shoemaker-Holt At Opposition (2.831 AU) Jan 25 - Asteroid 2 Pallas Occults TYC 6054-00157-1 (11.4 Magnitude Star) Jan 25 - Asteroid 2006 AL4 Near-Earth Flyby (0.051 AU) Jan 25 - Asteroid 295565 Hannover Closest Approach To Earth (1.775 AU) Jan 25 - Asteroid 6489 Golevka Closest Approach To Earth (2.728 AU) Jan 25 - 20th Anniversary (1994), Clementine Launch (USA Moon Orbiter)

Jan 26 - [Jan 23] Asteroid 2014 BA3 Near-Earth Flyby (0.015 AU)

Jan 26 - [Jan 24] Asteroid 2014 BE3 Near-Earth Flyby (0.082 AU) Jan 26 - Asteroid 4330 Vivaldi Closest Approach To Earth (1.236 AU) Jan 26 - Asteroid 51825 Davidbrown Closest Approach To Earth (1.912 AU) Jan 27 - Asteroid 602 Marianna Occults HIP 37265 (4.9 Magnitude Star) Jan 27 - Asteroid 1997 Leverrier Closest Approach To Earth (1.511 AU) Jan 27 - Asteroid 310 Margarita Closest Approach To Earth (1.642 AU)

Jan 28 - [Jan 17] Comet P/2014 A3 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (3.073 AU)

Jan 28 - [Jan 17] Comet P/2014 A3 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (3.073 AU) Jan 28 - Comet 267P/LONEOS At Opposition (3.190 AU) Jan 28 - Asteroid 1179 Mally Occults HIP 7097 (3.6 Magnitude Star) Jan 28 - Asteroid 2012 BX34 Near-Earth Flyby (0.025 AU) Jan 28 - Asteroid 2791 Paradise Closest Approach To Earth (1.141 AU) Jan 28 - Asteroid 58671 Diplodocus Closest Approach To Earth (1.724 AU) Jan 28 - Asteroid 6030 Zolensky Closest Approach To Earth (2.227 AU)

Clementine launch, 1994

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

NASA Set for a Big Year in Earth Science with Five New Missions

For the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth science missions will be launched into space in the same year, opening new and improved remote eyes to monitor our changing planet.

The five launches, including two to the International Space Station (ISS), are part of an active year for NASA Earth science researchers, who also will conduct airborne campaigns to the poles and hurricanes, develop advanced sensor technologies, and use satellite data and analytical tools to improve natural hazard and climate change preparedness.

NASA satellites, aircraft, and research help scientists and policymakers find answers to critical challenges facing our planet, including climate change, sea level rise, decreasing availability of fresh water, and extreme weather events. "As NASA prepares for future missions to an asteroid and Mars, we’re focused on Earth right now," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "With five new missions set to launch in 2014, this really is shaping up to be the year of the Earth, and this focus on our home planet will make a significant difference in people’s lives around the world."

Find out more about the 2014 slate of Earth science missions at http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/nasa-set-for-a-big-year-in-earth-science-with-five-new-missions/index.html.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Micro Moon over Super Moon

Explanation: Did you see the big, bright, beautiful Full Moon January 15? That was actually a Micro Moon! On that night, the smallest Full Moon of 2014 reached its full phase only a few hours from lunar apogee, the time of its the most distant point from Earth in the Moon's elliptical orbit. Of course, last year on the night of June 22, a Full Super Moon was near perigee, the closest point in its orbit. The relative apparent size of January 15's Micro Moon is compared to the June 22 Super Moon in the above composite image digitally superimposing telescopic images from Perugia, Italy. The difference in apparent size represents a difference in distance of just under 50,000 kilometers between apogee and perigee, given the Moon's average distance of about 385,000 kilometers. How long do you have to wait to see another Full Micro Moon? Until March 5, 2015, when the lunar full phase will again occur within a few hours of lunar apogee.

Image Credit: Stefano Sciarpetti

Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day Return to Contents