Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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March 16th, 2016
Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1282, March 15, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity successfully wheeled itself 85-feet (26-meters) on Sol 1282 “giving the rover nice views of interesting features in the Stimson unit,” reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
“Some of these features appear to be the result of erosion by windblown sand,” Herkenhoff adds and are the subject of Curiosity’s Right Mastcam mosaic planned for today, on Sol 1283.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1283, March 16, 2016
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rover’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) is on tap to measure elemental chemistry at the edge of one of the bedrock blocks and Mastcam will acquire another mosaic of a fracture named “Welwitschia Wash” before the rover drives away.
First-rate viewing
The view from the intended location, Herkenhoff reports, is roughly 130 feet (about 40 meters) toward the west and is expected to be excellent “because much of the Gale crater rim and Mt. Sharp will be visible, and the atmosphere is not as dusty as usual.
Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1281, March 14, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Other rover post-drive observations include ChemCam remote micro-imager (RMI) and Right Mastcam mosaics of features on Mt. Sharp that are so far away that they can be targeted accurately using available image data.
Also, the Left Navcam will be used to search for clouds and dust devils, Herkenhoff notes.
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1281 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (March, 14, 2016).
Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 1 kilometer (~0.62 mile). From Sol 1276 to Sol 1281, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 43.73 feet (13.33 meters).
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
Planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
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Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image taken on Sol 1279, March 12, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity rover is a few hours from entering Sol 1280.
Reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona: “It’s time to wrap up our investigation of the interesting nodules at the contact between the Murray and Stimson formations and resume driving!”
Knobbly textured sandstone on Mount Sharp. Patches of Martian sandstone visible in the lower-left and upper portions of this view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover have a knobbly texture due to nodules apparently more resistant to erosion than the host rock in which some are still embedded.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The weekend starts off focused mostly on contact science.
Nodule looks
On Sol 1279, the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument was slated to analyze two neighboring locations on a group of nodules collectively called “Khomas”, and then on Sol 1280 APXS will analyze a third location on Khomas.
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. Image taken on March 11, 2016, Sol 1278.
Imagery of this nodule shows individual grains of sand and laminations from the sandstone deposit in which the nodule formed. This nodule is about one inch (two centimeters) across.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The plan also tags Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to collect supporting images, taking pictures of the targets “Etendeka” and “Maieberg”.
In the morning on Sol 1280, the rover is scheduled to make some atmospheric measurements using Navcam, Mastcam, and the Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam), followed by a 20-spot ChemCam analysis of the target “Marienfluss”, right across the Murray-Stimson contact.
Mastcam is set to take a support image of Marienfluss, plus a small mosaic of a target called “Kerpfenkliff”.
Driving onto Naukluft plateau
“Then on Sol 1281, we will get moving again with a roughly 70 meter drive that should take us up onto the Naukluft plateau,” Anderson explains. During that drive of 230 feet, the rover’s Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) is scheduled to collect images of the terrain underneath the rover.
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover from where it landed in 2012 to its location in early March 2016, approaching “Naukluft Plateau.” As the rover continues up Mount SharpThe scale bar at lower right represents two kilometers (1.2 miles).The base image for the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. North is up. Bagnold Dunes form a band of dark, wind-blown material at the foot of Mount Sharp.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Anderson notes that after the drive, the plan is to take post-drive imaging using Navcam to snag photos of Mt. Sharp. Doing so will help target potential long distance ChemCam remote micro-imager (RMI) images next week.
Planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Roll out completed, launcher in vertical position on the pad: Proton-M launcher from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Credit: ESA – B. Bethge
The European Space Agency’s ExoMars 2016 spacecraft is primed and ready to go – slated for liftoff on March 14 atop a Russian Proton-M launcher from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
This first mission of ESA’s ExoMars program consists of a Trace Gas Orbiter plus an entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, known as Schiaparelli.
Launch is scheduled for 09:31 GMT (10:31 CET) on March 14 with first acquisition of signal expected at around 21:29 GMT (22:29 CET).
An objective of the mission is to search for evidence of methane and other trace atmospheric gases that could be signatures of active biological or geological processes and to test key technologies in preparation for ESA’s contribution to subsequent missions to Mars.
For a video view of the rollout, go to:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2016/03/ExoMars_2016_rollout
NOTE: Livestreaming of the launch will begin on March 14 at 08:30 UTC (09:30 CET) available at:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Watch_ExoMars_launch
ExoMars 2016 is encapsulated into the payload fairing. Credit: ESA-B. Bethge
Artist’s impression of the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Schiaparelli – the entry, descent and landing demonstrator module.
Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
Credit: NASA
There is now a 360 degrees view that allows you to explore the International Space Station’s first module, Zarya.
Launched on November 20, 1998, the Zarya module was joined three weeks later by the U.S. Unity module.
Zarya is also known as the Functional Cargo Block, the module is now mainly used for storage.
Explore this module in Flickr, Facebook or Youtube format with your mobile phone and virtual-reality headset or take the full tour including all Space Station modules with videos and extra information included.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is releasing a new Space Station module view in 360° every week on Thursday.
For this eye-catching new perspective, go to:
Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1276, March 9, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
In a few hours NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover will enter Sol 1278.
Recent images from the robot show it busily working in a new location, inspecting veins and textures in nearby rocks.
Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image taken on Sol 1276, March 9, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1276, March 9, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 1276, March 9, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s InSight Mars lander fully deployed for studying the deep interior of Mars. Robot arm would deploy the sensitive Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) device, white object in foreground.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA announced today that the delayed InSight mission to Mars is back – headed for a May 2018 launch date, with landing on the Red Planet in late November 2018.
The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission was to fly this month. However, a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument prompted NASA last December to suspend preparations for launch.
InSight’s primary goal is to help us understand how rocky planets — including Earth — formed and evolved.
Redesign of SEIS
Preparing the SEIS instrument for thermal vacuum testing.
Credit: CNES / MALIGNE Frederick, 2015.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will redesign, build and conduct qualifications of the new vacuum enclosure for the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), the component that failed in pre-launch tests. The French space agency (CNES) will lead instrument level integration and test activities, allowing the InSight Project to take advantage of each organization’s proven strengths.
Pre-ship photo shows NASA’s InSight Mars lander spacecraft in a Lockheed Martin clean room near Denver. As part of a series of deployment tests, the spacecraft was commanded to deploy its solar arrays in the clean room to test and verify the exact process that it will use on the surface of Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
In storage
The InSight spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. It was delivered to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in December 2015 in preparation for launch, and returned to Lockheed Martin’s Colorado facility last month for storage until spacecraft preparations resume in 2017.
InSight Mars lander undergoing a solar array deployment test in the MTF clean room at Lockheed Martin.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin’s spacecraft program manager for InSight, Stu Spath, said in a statement:
“We’re delighted that NASA has approved the launch of the InSight mission in May 2018. Our team worked hard to get the InSight spacecraft built and tested, and although InSight didn’t launch this year as planned, we know ultimately the scientific knowledge it will bring us is crucial to our understanding of how Mars and other rocky planets formed. Currently, we are preparing the spacecraft to go into storage at our Space Systems facility near Denver.”
The targeting of InSight’s launch to Mars begins May 5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018.
Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1274, March 7, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Word from the Mars Curiosity team is that last weekend’s drive of the rover went well.
That wheeling away on Mars put the robot in “a great location for some contact science, right near the contact between the “Murray” and “Stimson” formations, with some interesting veins and textures in the nearby rocks,” reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The Curiosity Mars rover is at this moment in Sol 1276.
Nice location
“Given our nice location, we opted not to do any driving in the Sol 1275 plan and instead study the area in front of us,” Anderson adds.
Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1274, March 7, 2016.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Sol 1275 plan started off with a Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) passive sky observation and ChemCam’s laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) observations of the targets “Palmhorst”, “Palmwag”, and “Mirabib.”
Mastcam took documentation images of each of the ChemCam targets, plus a couple of mosaics of the Murray-Stimson contact.
Later in the day, the robot used its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture images of Mirabib before and after brushing the dust off, as well as mosaics of Palmwag and Palmhorst.
Curiosity’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) then analyzed the composition of Palmwag and then did an overnight measurement of Mirabib.
Knobby textures
In the March 8 plan, the goal was to place the rover in position to study some interesting knobby textures. Prior to the drive, Navcam will do some atmospheric measurements and ChemCam will analyze the targets “Duruchaus”, “Eiseb”, and “Aranos”.
As usual, Mastcam will take some documentation images of the ChemCam targets.
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo, take on Sol 1275. March 8, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Mastcam also has a mosaic of fine laminations in the rock at the Murray-Stimson contact, another mosaic to extend the coverage of the contact, and a small 2×1 mosaic of Mirabib and nearby veins using all of Mastcam’s science filters.
Onward to Naukluft plateau
“After that, we will do a short drive toward the knobby texture followed by post-drive imaging. The knobby texture is not in a great position for us to continue driving after we analyze it, so we’ll likely return back to our current position before continuing up onto Naukluft plateau,” Anderson concludes.
Curiosity Rover’s Location for Sol 1274
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1274 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission as of (March, 7, 2016
Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. From Sol 1269 to Sol 1274, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 130.45 feet (39.76 meters).
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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.
Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has always had solar system travel on its mind.
But a set of vintage travel posters are now available, depicting planets and moons within our solar system as potential vacation getaways.
Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Credit: Invisible Creature Studio
“Imagination is our window into the future. At NASA/JPL we strive to be bold in advancing the edge of possibility so that someday, with the help of new generations of innovators and explorers, these visions of the future can become a reality,” explains the JPL website.
To download your own set of the posters, go to:
Curiosity’s Front Hazcam Right B image taken on Sol 1272, March 5, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1273, with the weekend plan calling for driving up to the Naukluft Plateau.
On Sol 1273, the rover’s Mastcam is to acquire a multispectral image of the contact between the Murray and Stimson geologic units, explains Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
“This set of images, taken using all of the Mastcam filters, will be acquired just after noon, when the illumination of the contact should be better than in previous images,” Herkenhoff notes.
Also on tap is use of Curiosity’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) instrument, along with the rover’s Mastcam to observe bedrock targets “Kleinberg” and “Tumas 2” and then acquire a stereo mosaic of a low ridge southwest of the rover.
Curiosity Navcam Left image taken on Sol 1271, March 4, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock target
Herkenhoff adds that the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is slated to take images of a bedrock target named “Schwarzrand” before the dust removal tool brushes it off.
The MAHLI will then acquire a full suite of images of the brushed spot and of Kleinberg before the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is placed on Kleinberg to collect data. Then the APXS will be moved over to Schwarzrand data collection.
“The Sol 1274 plan starts with a drive toward the plateau to the southwest of the vehicle, followed by imaging needed to plan contact science in the new location,” Herkenhoff reports. Post-drive images of the likely drive direction, he adds, will also be acquired, “in case we decide not to do contact science on Monday.”
Curiosity’s Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1271, March 4, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
These over the weekend planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
An expert white paper has been released, calling upon the next U.S. administration and Congress to make space exploration and use a policy priority.
A coalition of 13 space organizations has released: “Ensuring U.S. Leadership in Space.”
Key issues
Despite a treasure trove of benefits that space has provided the United States, maintaining the country’s space leadership is not guaranteed, the white paper suggests.
There are four key issues spanning Civil, Commercial, and National Security Space that threaten U.S. leadership and require immediate attention:
Budget uncertainty; international competition; the space operating environment; and workforce trends.
Congested, contested, and competitive
In these key areas identified, the white paper flags a number of back-up statements, such as:
— NASA’s funding has fallen to historically low levels (adjusted for inflation) – below where it was during the mid-1990s – squeezing the agency’s ability to develop new missions for human exploration, astronomy, planetary science, Earth science, solar science, technology development, and aeronautics research, which has led to cost and schedule inefficiencies for ongoing programs and missions.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
— Fourteen countries – including North Korea – operate their own launch vehicles and more than 100 nations have some type of space program. At least four countries are presently investing billions of dollars in the development of new launch systems. The U.S. is beginning to win back market share of commercial satellite launches for the first time in over a decade. Policies that promote open competition and innovation should be prioritized to maintain this positive trend, but mission assurance for national security launches remains paramount.
— Space is an increasingly congested, contested, and competitive domain in which space-based assets are threatened by orbital debris as well as cyber and kinetic attacks. Moreover, there is risk introduced by both unintentional and intentional interference (jamming) of radiofrequencies by both terrestrial and space-based systems. This puts human missions at risk and threatens the safety of all space platforms.
LauncherOne hauls satellites into orbit.
Credit: Virgin Galactic
— Although the U.S. space workforce remains one of the largest in the world, the U.S. civilian space workforce has declined more than 17 percent since 2006 due to reduced U.S. space exports, reduced government space budgets, and increased foreign competition. As an example, of the world’s 25 largest commercial satellite operators, only one is based in the United States.
Actions needed
The white paper suggests several actions needed to continue U.S. leadership in space, such as:
- Commit to predictable budgets, fund robust investments, promote innovative partnerships, and repeal the Budget Control Act of 2011.
- Continue global space engagement.
- Restore American access to space.
- Encourage the continued use of fully competitive, innovative partnerships.
- Maintain, strengthen, and grow the domestic industrial base.
- Commit to a robust national security space program that maintains U.S. dominance of the high ground in space.
- Define and commit to new missions to expand the frontiers of science.
Coalition groups
Credit: M. Wade Holler
Director, Digital Content and Media Strategy
Explore Mars, Inc.
Used with permission
The Coalition is led by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Commercial Spaceflight Foundation, and the Space Foundation, with members: Aerospace Industries Association, Aerospace States Association, American Astronautical Society, Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, Colorado Space Coalition, Satellite Industry Association, Silicon Valley Space Business Roundtable, Space Angels Network, Space Florida, and the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.
The Coalition’s lead group, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), is an organization having more than 30,000 engineers and scientists from 88 countries dedicated to the global aerospace profession.
For the full white paper, go to:
http://www.aiaa.org/EnsuringUSLeadershipInSpace/
Also, go to:
http://www.aiaa.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/EnsuringUSLeadershipInSpace_FINAL.pdf
