Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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August 23rd, 2016
Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1437, August 21, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Curiosity rover on Mars carried out a drive over the weekend, but halted a bit early, “but everything is looking good and we will continue to drive in today’s plan,” reported Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona on Monday.
Now in Sol 1439, the plan for the rover starts off with Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) observations of the layered rock targets “Quibala” and “Quibaxe.”
The rover’s Mastcam is set to then image Quibala, followed by taking mosaics that document the stratigraphy in the nearby buttes as well as the locations called “Quibaxe”, “Quipungo” and “Quicombo.”
Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1433, August 17, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
More driving, auto-observations
Anderson adds that after these functions, the schedule calls for the rover to drive, with follow up post-drive imaging as well as use of ChemCam AEGIS software, that is, an Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) observation. This software allows Curiosity to autonomously select targets for the laser and telescopic camera of its ChemCam instrument.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1438, August 22, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The following morning, Anderson adds, the robot’s Mastcam and Navcam have on tap atmospheric observations, and then in the afternoon ChemCam will analyze its calibration targets.
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) image taken on August 22, 2016, Sol 1438.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Rover’s location
Meanwhile, a new map has been posted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory showing the rover’s location for Sol 1435.
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) image taken on August 22, 2016, Sol 1438.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The map shows the route driven by Curiosity through the 1435 Martian day, or sol, of the Mars machinery as of August, 19, 2016.
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up.
From Sol 1433 to Sol 1435, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 205.80 feet (62.73 meters).
Since touching down in August 2012, Curiosity has driven 8.61 miles (13.85 kilometers).
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Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1434, August 18, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Now deep into Sol 1437 in its exploration of Mars, the Curiosity rover has succeeded in recent drives to various spots on the Red Planet.
“We are making good progress with our drives…we’re already approaching our next drill site…and the road in front of us is looking pretty smooth,” notes Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Layered rock targets
Yesterday, on Sol 1436, the plan for the NASA robot was to start off with Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam observations of the layered rock targets “Conda” and “Savungo.”
Mastcam then was slated to take a mosaic of one of the buttes, and another mosaic of an interesting feature within the Murray formation called “Chitado.”
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1436, August 20, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Later in the day, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will take a look at the targets “Biula” and “Conda”. Then Curiosity will brush the dust off of Conda and do an overnight Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement. Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) was also slated to do another analysis of Marimba2 overnight.
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on Sol 1436, August 20, 2016.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
On Sol 1437, ChemCam has on the schedule a passive observation of Conda and a Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic of the target “Chicala.”
Mastcam is then scheduled to take a picture of Chicala and do an atmospheric measurement.
Big mosaic, long drive
Anderson says that in the morning on Sol 1438, the robot’s Mastcam has a big 16×3 mosaic of the Murray Buttes, and Navcam is set to make an atmospheric observation.
Then the rover is on tap to take a long drive – perhaps up to 295 feet (90 meters) — followed by the usual post-drive imaging, Anderson says.
Dates of planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1435, August 19, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
This 360-degree vista was acquired on Aug. 5, 2016, by the Mastcam on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called “Murray Buttes” on lower Mount Sharp. The dark, flat-topped mesa seen to the left of the rover’s arm is about 50 feet high and, near the top, about 200 feet wide.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1436 – returning detailed imagery of eroded mesas and buttes, even churning out a new 360-degree color panorama of the scenery.
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 1435, August 19, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As noted in a Jet Propulsion Laboratory release: “The buttes and mesas are capped with rock that is relatively resistant to wind erosion. This helps preserve these monumental remnants of a layer that formerly more fully covered the underlying layer that the rover is now driving on.”
For taking your own panoramic look at the Martian surroundings in which Curiosity has encountered, go to:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-213
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B image taken on Sol 1435, August 19, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity made use of its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to capture dozens of component images of this scene on Aug. 5, 2016, four years after Curiosity’s landing inside Gale Crater in 2012.
New just-in imagery shows a self-inspection of the robot’s wheels.
Engineers have been monitoring wear and tear of the robot’s wheels due to the rocky conditions upon which the rover travels.
Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, took this image on August 19, 2016, Sol 1435.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, took this image on August 19, 2016, Sol 1435.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
SpaceX Dragon makes use of Supersonic Retro-Propulsion (SRP) to land on Mars.
Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX founder, CEO, and Lead Designer Elon Musk is unveiling his humans to Mars plan at next month’s 67th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), to be held in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The world space meeting runs from September 26-30.
Multiplanetary species
On the second day of the IAC, during a special keynote entitled “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species,” Musk will discuss the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars.
SpaceX Dragon on Mars.
Credit: SpaceX
The technical presentation will focus on potential architectures for colonizing the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead.
Red Dragon
In the past, Musk has detailed his intention to use a Red Dragon spacecraft to fly in un-crewed mode to Mars in the 2018 time period. Later flights of the craft would transport humans to the planet.
Using Supersonic Retro Propulsion to touch down on the Red Planet, the Red Dragon may well deploy scientific devices, particularly hardware that could demonstrate made-on-Mars propellant.
Conversation has changed
Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX, underscored her firm’s Mars plans, speaking August 9 at the 30th annual Conference on Small Satellites, held at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.
“If you talked about this15 years ago we probably would have been institutionalized,” Shotwell told a standing room only audience. “The conversation has changed…now we can talk about going to Mars,” she said.
Shotwell said retro-propulsion is “really the answer” contrasted to airfoils, parachutes and ballutes. “In addition, retro-propulsion will scale. We’re not talking about dropping 10 tons on Mars. We’ll be dropping hundreds of tons on Mars…dropping, I mean, settling down gently.”
Retro-propulsion trial by fire. SpaceX first stage landing taken by remote camera photo from “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship on April 8, 2016.
Credit: SpaceX
Raptor engine
A key SpaceX propulsion development for Mars is the Raptor, a liquid oxygen/methane engine, Shotwell noted, pointing out that the first Raptor engine will soon be test fired.
In terms of what a 2018 un-crewed Red Dragon might take to Mars, “we haven’t figured out how do you get stuff in Dragon onto the surface, but we’re working on it,” Shotwell said.
“We’re working on some ISRU [in-situ resource utilization] payloads,” Shotwell added. “I need my spaceship back to take more people to Mars. The return trip is free.”
Scene from “Mars,” a National Geographic Channel miniseries due to air in November.
Credit: National Geographic, Imagine,RadicalMedia,Robert Viglasky
Clothing opportunities
In terms of degree of difficulty for SpaceX Mars planning, Shotwell said that the hardest thing is getting return fuel from Martian resources. “Mining your own fuel on the surface to lift off again…because the return trip I think is really important,” she said.
Shotwell said that SpaceX is looking at some electric propulsion technologies for in-space activities.
“There’s a lot to do,” Shotwell observed. “I want to see transportation to other solar systems…get into a spaceship and go to some crazy planet. All those new clothing opportunities,” she suggested.
Resources
To view a July 29th trailer for National Geographic Channel’s global event series MARS, premiering in November, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwUB0GYjHN0
Among those interviewed is Elon Musk, chief rocketeer at SpaceX:
“The future of humanity is fundamentally going to bifurcate along one of two directions: either we’re going to become a multi-planet species and a spacefaring civilization, or we’re going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event. In order for me to be excited and inspired about the future, it’s got to be the first option,” Musk says in the series.
Before MARS premiers, there will be an extensive digital virtual-reality experience available at:
For more information on the book – Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet — to be released October 25th, go to:
https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/books/books/new-books/mars
Also go to Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/Mars-Our-Future-Red-Planet/dp/1426217587/ref=sr_1_1?ie
For a pre-look at Musk’s masterplan for Mars, go to this video via:
http://www.recode.net/2016/6/6/11840936/elon-musk-tesla-spacex-mars-full-video-code
Opportunity image taken by rover’s Front Hazcam on Sol 4461.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Following over a year of exploration at Marathon Valley on the rim of Endeavour crater, scientists and engineers operating the long-lived Opportunity Mars rover are wrapping up their final work at that site.
“We are finishing up in Marathon Valley…investigating some interesting grooves with red zone fractures,” notes Ray Arvidson, Mars Exploration Rover deputy principal investigator at Washington University St. Louis.
The rover’s activities there should be done by the end of the week with the robot then heading south to Lewis and Clark Gap to leave Marathon Valley.
Gully channel
There is an on-going search for more of the Matijevic formation – a group of rocks at a site called Cape York that suggest mild conditions on Mars long ago, Arvidson adds. “The formation predates Endeavour crater and underlies the crater’s Shoemaker formation impact breccias.”
Opportunity’s Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 4467.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Opportunity is to then drive to Cape Byron, “the next rim segment south and a gully that looks like it formed by fluvial processes,” Arvidson explains. “We expect to drive right down the gully channel to check out evidence for ancient fluid flow.
Spectacular spot
The solar powered Opportunity arrived at Marathon Valley in August 2015, wheeling itself across the planet since landing at Meridiana Planum over 12 years ago in January 2004. Not bad for Mars machinery given a 90-day warranty.
“Basically, we’re still finishing up work before we say goodbye to this spectacular spot,” Arvidson told Inside Outer Space.
Schiaparelli entry
Arvidson said that Opportunity will try to image the European Space Agency’s ExoMars 2016 Schiaparelli entry craft. “It depends on where we are relative to a site view to the entry zone.”
ESA’s Schiaparelli landing at Meridiani Planum on Mars on October 19, 2016.
Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
Now en route to the Red Planet, the ExoMars 2016 — the orbiter and Schiaparelli landing vehicle — were launched together on March 14, 2016 on a Russian Proton rocket.
Three days before reaching the atmosphere of Mars, Schiaparelli will be ejected from the orbiter towards the Red Planet.
October sky show
Schiaparelli will coast towards its destination, enter the Martian atmosphere, decelerate using aerobraking and a parachute, and then brake with the aid of a thruster system before landing on the surface of the planet.
The entire entry, descent and landing sequence will be complete in less than six minutes.
Schiaparelli is set to touch down on Meridiani Planum, a relatively smooth, flat region on October 19, 2016 – with the possibility that the Opportunity rover will have a ring-side seat to the sky show.
Projected landing zone for ESA’s Schiaparelli lander.
Credit: IRSPS/TAS-I
Road cut
“The past week we have been investigating some super interesting grooves carved into the valley floor,” explains James Rice, a Mars Exploration Rover Project Science Team Member at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
Rice said the robot is slated to drive southward, carrying out imaging and collect science data on bedrock targets.
“The highlight of our final days in Marathon Valley will be imaging stops of Wharton Ridge followed by the Lewis and Clark Gap,” Rice told Inside Outer Space. The Lewis and Clark Gap is located between two very different looking ridges – Knudsen and Wharton, he said.
“The Lewis and Clark Gap may permit us to get a ‘road cut’ view of these two ridge systems and if traversable it will be our exit route from Marathon Valley to points south for our extended mission,” Rice explained.
Name calling
Opportunity’s lengthy survey of the area has led to a special celebratory salute to earlier Mars landers from four decades ago: The U.S. Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft.
Big Joe I at Viking landing site.
Credit: NASA/JPL
“We have been using Viking rock names with the Roman numeral II in order to differentiate these rock targets from the Viking ones,” Rice said.
So far rock targets have been dubbed Big Joe II, Sponge II, Bashful II, Sleepy II, Rocky Flats II, Badger II, Notch II, Gibraltar II, Rice said.
The NASA Curiosity Mars rover is studying the stratigraphy of the Murray Buttes – and it’s quite the scenery.
New imagery from the robot visitor from Earth:
Images taken by the rover’s Mastcam Left on Sol 1432, August 16, 2016, include:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1432, August 16, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Also, check out this impressive tour of the buttes courtesy of Roundme.com at:
https://roundme.com/tour/68083/view/167100/
Credit: NASA/JPL/MSS/Justin Cowart
Moon bound SkyFire, a 6U CubeSat.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
CubeSats are planned to launch to the Moon in 2018 – tiny packages that could deliver key info on lunar characteristics like solar illumination areas and available water ice.
One such CubeSat is dubbed SkyFire. This diminutive spacecraft is a 6U CubeSat slated to grab a ride on NASA Orion’s Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1).
Infrared technology
SkyFire’s lunar flyby mission would test out high-tech infrared technology. This infrared camera will take high quality images with a lighter, simpler unit. This reduction in mass means lower payload cost and easier maneuverability in space, according to a Lockheed Martin statement.
The company has signed a contract with NASA to build and deploy SkyFire.
SkyFire is the first CubeSat that Lockheed Martin is building. Over the past 50 years, Lockheed Martin has built 150 “smallsats,” including GRAIL and XSS-11, Elizabeth Howard, a company spokeswoman told Inside Outer Space.
Resource potential
“If successful, the infrared system on SkyFire could eventually be used for cost-effective studies of a planet’s resources before humans arrive. This includes tasks like analyzing soil conditions, determining ideal landing sites and discovering a planet’s most livable areas,” according to the company press statement.
SkyFire will catch a ride to the Moon with 12 other CubeSats on EM-1, doing so as part of NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program.
Space Launch System heads outward on projected 2018 Exploration Mission-1.
Credit: NASA
Industry-university effort
SkyFire is a public-private partnership between Lockheed Martin and NASA.
Lockheed Martin will build the satellite with internal investments, and the newly-signed contract will grant Lockheed Martin access to send the satellite to the Moon aboard the EM-1 launch.
NASA will in turn receive data from the mission. The Lockheed Martin development team primarily consists of early-career engineers in partnership with the University of Colorado Boulder.
Flashing the moon
Yet another CubeSat geared for Moon exploration is the Lunar Flashlight. It too is slated for launch on the Space Launch System’s Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) flight. Development of the tiny spacecraft is being lead by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Ames Research Center.
Orbiting Lunar Flashlight.
Credit: NASA/JPL
The orbiting Lunar Flashlight is designed to map the Moon’s south pole for volatiles and demonstrate several technologies, including use of “green” (less toxic) propulsion and utilize a laser system to prowl for evidence of water ice.
The Lunar Flashlight will use its near infrared lasers to shine light into the shaded polar regions of the Moon, while the on-board spectrometer measures surface reflection and composition.
Delta-Aquarids meteor caught on camera, acquired July 30, 2016.
Credit: NASA/SwRI/ISS Meteor Project
Flaming meteors from on-high!
The Meteor Observation on ISS (Meteor) project, led by Michael Fortenberry of the Southwest Research Institute, has provided a downward-looking view of the annual light show visiting our skies August 11-12.
Imagery from the Meteor’s high sensitivity, high-definition TV camera installed in the International Space Station’s (ISS) Window Observational Research Facility has been released courtesy of NASA’s Earth Observatory website.
The Meteor project’s camera made its first observations on July 7, 2016.
Photo of Meteor installed in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF) Simulator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. This is how it should look given its installation on the International Space Station.
Credit: Southwest Research Institute/Chiba Institute of Technology
No clouds my lady!
“The Meteor team is very excited to start making observations on the ISS,” said co-investigator Tomoko Arai of Japan’s Planetary Exploration Research Center, Chiba Institute of Technology. “We will focus on photometric observations for the first year. In our second year, spectroscopic observations will be made.”
The camera also can improve estimates of how much material is actually entering Earth’s atmosphere.
According to the Earth Observatory website, “some of the dust associated with these meteors is so tiny that it burns high in the atmosphere—where it is visible from the space station but not detectable from the ground. Moreover, the space camera has the opportunity to observe meteors during 560 minutes of darkness over 16 orbits of Earth per day, a view that is never obstructed by clouds.”
Shower streak
Published on Aug 12, 2016, a video was acquired August 10, 2016 from high-resolution video camera gear onboard the ISS.
Within the span of about 10 seconds, two meteors associated with the Perseid meteor shower streak across the sky above Pakistan. Video was provided by Tomoko Arai/Japan’s Planetary Exploration Research Center/Meteor Composition Determination (Meteor) investigation.
Take a look for yourself at:
Look out below! Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo of balancing boulder taken on Sol 1428, August 12, 2016.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now at work on Sol 1432, returning some terrific landscape imagery.
According to Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, the rover’s weekend plan went well.
Add on to the robot’s current activities a drive of some 170 feet (52 meters) across a patch of sand.
Boulder balancing act
Curiosity’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) instrument is on tap to observe the target “Longa” and Mastcam has two mosaics of the nearby buttes, Anderson notes.
A recent ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) image shows a precariously balanced rock – a feature seen earlier but the new image catches its hazardous-looking situation.
Panorama of the “Murray Buttes” shows a boulder that appears to be precariously balanced.
Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1387 July 1, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Beautiful buttes
After the rover’s drive, post-drive imaging is scheduled, and some onboard data processing of Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of the “Marimba” drill hole, as well as some Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) data processing are also in the plan.
Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1429, August 13, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
In the morning of Sol 1433, the script calls for atmospheric observations with Curiosity’s Navcam and Mastcam, “although one of them had to be removed from the plan,” Anderson notes, “when we realized that one of the nearby buttes was blocking our view of the crater rim!”
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1432, August 16, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NAS
A just issued report has focused a critical eye on the suite of large-, medium-, and small-scale astronomy and astrophysics programs, including NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and the NSF/DOE’s Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).
The new report — New Worlds, New Horizons: A Midterm Assessment — gives advice on midcourse corrections to the funding agencies involved in a bevy of ground and space-based tools.
As a bottom line, the report explains that many goals outlined in an earlier decadal survey in astronomy and astrophysics have been met…but others are delayed by “unforeseen constraints.”
The report comes from a blue ribbon committee of experts pulled together under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and calls for NASA, National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) – the federal agencies largely responsible for funding and implementing these research activities – to maintain, and in some cases adjust, their programs in order to meet the survey’s scientific objectives.
Hubble Frontier Fields image of the galaxy cluster MACS J07175+3745. Faint blue arcs are distant galaxies that have been magnified and distorted by the light-bending gravity of the massive cluster in front of them. The six clusters observed to unprecedented depth by the Frontier Fields program serve as natural gravitational telescopes, allowing Hubble to discover galaxies back into the first half billion years of cosmic history.
Credit: NASA, ESA and the HST Frontier Fields team (STScI).
Major accomplishments
As noted in a National Academies of Sciences press statement, some of the recent major scientific accomplishments that the report highlights are:
- The first detection of gravitational waves by the NSF-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)
- The NASA-funded Kepler satellite’s extraordinary discovery of diverse planets and planetary systems that indicate the possibility of more than a billion Earth-like planets among the exoplanets that are present around stars throughout the galaxy
- Success of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) – a huge array of radio telescopes in the Atacama desert of Chile, recommended by the 2000 decadal survey and built by NSF and a consortium of international partners.
WFIRST – dark energy
Spotlighted in the report is a look at NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), designed to answer questions about dark energy, exoplanets, and general astrophysics.
The WFIRST scope and design have evolved to include a 2.4-meter telescope, larger infrared detectors, and an instrument called a coronagraph that enables directly imaging an exoplanet by blocking the light emitted by its parent star.
NASA-Astrophysics Division Program (APD) budget from FY2004 to FY2021. Squares on the upper boundary mark the sum of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) budget and the NASA-APD budget, with values for FY2017 and FY2018-FY2021 representing the administration request and the notional out-year planning budget, respectively.
Credit: Figure adapted from a presentation by P. Hertz, NASA/Data from NASA
JWST – driving factor
These WFIRST changes, while scientifically compelling, could result in further increased costs and further delays for the mission, the committee said.
A committee recommendation is that prior to final confirmation of the WFIRST changes, NASA conduct an independent review of the project to ensure it does not crowd out investment in the rest of NASA’s astrophysics portfolio and, if necessary, de-scope the mission.
The report also finds that the driving factor in the delay or non-pursuit of some new NASA initiatives, including WFIRST, was the schedule change and increased cost associated with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that is set to launch in 2018.
Report PDF
The study was sponsored by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
To focus in on the report and read a free PDF of its conclusions and recommendations, go to:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/23560/new-worlds-new-horizons-a-midterm-assessment
