Missions Archives

December 6, 2007December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Shuttle Launch Postponed

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A problem with space shuttle Atlantisâ€™ fuel sensors has prompted a scrub of todayâ€™s scheduled launch of the STS-122 mission to the International Space Station. During fueling of the shuttleâ€™s external tank, two of four engine cutoff sensors failed. Engineers are working on fixing the problem and NASA will try to launch again tomorrow, Friday, December 7 at 4:09 pm EST.

Sensors located in the hydrogen portion of the tank “failed wet” during fuel loading this morning. That means the sensors could falsely indicate the tank still contains hydrogen in the last stages of the shuttleâ€™s climb to space when it actually is empty. The engines would continue to run, and without fuel, the engines could ignite and explode.

Problems with the engine cutoff sensors have occurred before during tanking, including the first shuttle mission after the Columbia accident, STS-114 with space shuttle Discovery. The failed sensors caused a one-day delay in the launch and after the flight the problem was traced to a faulty connection in electrical cables. NASA hopes that in emptying the tank and then refueling tomorrow the sensors will reset correctly, as was the case with the STS-114 launch.

This shuttle mission, STS-122, will bring the Columbus science module to the ISS. Columbus is the European Space Agencyâ€™s cornerstone contribution to the space station. Two ESA astronauts, Hans Schlegel from Germany, and Leopold Eyharts from France, are part of the shuttle crew, and Eyharts will remain on board the station to lead the activation of the new lab. The other astronauts for the mission are Commander Stephen Frick, pilot Alan Poindexter and mission specialists Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, and Leland Melvin.

STS-122 is expected to be an 11 day mission. It is the 121st shuttle flight and the 24th mission to the ISS.

Original News Source: NASA TV

December 4, 2007December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Columbus to Set Sail for Space

For European scientists and space enthusiasts, the wait will soon be over. The Columbus module, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) major component for the International Space Station, will finally be delivered to the ISS aboard space shuttle Atlantis on STS-122. The launch is scheduled for Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 4:31 pm EST. Flying along with Columbus are two ESA astronauts, Hans Schlegel from Germany, and Leopold Eyharts from France.

The ESA considers Columbus as the most important European mission to the ISS to date and the cornerstone of Europe’s contribution to this cooperative international endeavor.

Creating a human-capable science module for a space station was first proposed by Europeans back in 1985. At that time France was considering building a mini space shuttle called Hermes to fly to a proposed space station called the Man Tended Free Flyer (MTFF) to be built by Germany and Italy. But with the postponement of MTFF in 1991 and the termination of Hermes in 1993, the planned Columbus module was left with no ride to space and nowhere to go.

When the ESA joined as an ISS partner in 1995, the Columbus science module was a logical contribution for the Europeans. The module was completed in 2000, and the original date for delivery of Columbus to orbit was 2004. But that date was pushed back following the Columbia space shuttle accident in 2003.

Columbus is 7 meters (23 feet) long and 4.5 meters (15 feet) in diameter and will hold specialized experiments for multidisciplinary research into biology, physiology, material science, fluid physics, technology, life science and education. Columbus can hold ten science racks, but will launch with only five in place, as future missions will bring more science racks on board. Additionally, there are two stands bolted to the outside of the module that can be used for research on materials and for unfiltered views of space. Columbus will be attached to the Harmony node’s starboard docking port.

Schlegel will play a key role in two of the three spacewalks or EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) scheduled for the mission, helping to install and power up the laboratory.

Eyharts will stay aboard the ISS for a long duration mission, replacing Dan Tani who will return to Earth on the shuttle. Eyharts will play a key part in the installation, activation and in-orbit commissioning of Columbus and its experimental facilities.

Once in orbit, Columbus will be monitored from ESA’s Columbus Control Centre located within DLR’s German Space Operations Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich.

The American astronauts on Atlantis are Commander Stephen Frick, pilot Alan Poindexter and mission specialists Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, and Leland Melvin.

The forecast for Thursday’s launch is 80 percent “go,” decreasing to 60 percent on Friday and Saturday.

Original News Source: ESA Press Release

November 14, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Rosetta Flyby Shows the Earth’s Night Side

Right on schedule on November 13th, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft made its 2nd earthly flyby; testing its scientific instruments, and receiving a much needed gravitational assist. About two hours before its flyby, the spacecraft captured this image of the Earth’s night side, including Asia, Africa and Europe.

When it captured this image, Rosetta was about 80,000 km (50,000 miles) away from the Earth, above the Indian Ocean. It imaged the planet using its OSIRIS instrument.

You can make out the continents Asia, Africa and Europe by the lighted areas of population centres. With less electricity, Africa has large darkened regions. Australia is down at the lower right-hand side of the image, partly lit by the Sun.

Rosetta’s closest approach occurred at 20:57 GMT (3:57 pm EST) at a height of 5,295 km (3,290 miles) above a region of the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Chile.

The spacecraft has now completed 3 billion km of its 7.1 billion km journey to reach comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This was the third planetary swing-by for Rosetta and its second swing-by of Earth.

Now on its way out, Rosetta will focus its instruments on the Moon, and the Earth/Moon system. You can expect more cool images, and maybe even one with both the Earth and the Moon in a single frame. Now that would put things into perspective.

Rosetta will be back. It’s expected to make its third and finally flyby in November 2009. But not before it makes a visit to the asteroid belt, to study asteroid Steins in September 2008.

Original Source: ESA News Release

November 9, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Rosetta Is Returning to Earth for Another Flyby

Mark your calendars for November 13th, 2007. That’s the day ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft will be making a close encounter with Earth on its way to Comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. What’s going on? The comet’s out there guys, why is Rosetta back home? Well, it’s all about speed.

Launching spacecraft is an energy intensive business. You can only get a spacecraft going so fast when it launches directly from Earth. But using a technique called gravity assist, spacecraft can use the gravity of a planet – such as the Earth – to get a speed boost. Most of the robotic explorers do it.

In order for Rosetta to make its encounter with Comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, it needs to be going much faster. It already got a gravity assist from Earth back in March 4, 2005, and another with Mars on February 25, 2007. Now its time for a third on November 13. We won’t be done with Rosetta yet, either. The spacecraft is due to make a 4th and final flyby on November 13, 2009.

Before it returns for the 4th flyby, Rosetta will swing out across the asteroid belt and observe asteroid Lutetia, testing out its scientific equipment.

Finally, in 2014, Rosetta will reach Comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko and begin some serious investigations; even landing a probe down on its surface.

Original Source: ESA News Release

October 12, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Kaguya Releases Its Second Baby Satellite

As we mentioned in past articles, the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft, now orbiting the Moon, is actually a collection of satellites. The largest satellite is Kaguya. It’s the one equipped with all the cameras and the suite of scientific instruments.

But Kaguya was also carrying two baby satellites. The first Relay satellite, nicknamed Okina, was released on October 9th. Today Kaguya released its second sub-satellite: the tiny Very Long Baseline Interferometer (or VRAD). VRAD’s job will be to help Kaguya carefully map out the Moon’s gravity field.

Original Source: JAXA News Release

October 9, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

New Horizons Makes Surprising Discoveries at Jupiter

Remember when New Horizons sped past Jupiter on its way to Pluto. It kept its cameras rolling during the flyby, and captured hard drives full of data. Researchers have had a chance crunch through some of this data, and announced a series of discoveries this week: polar lightning storms, clumpy rings, volcanic eruptions on Io, and more.

New Horizon’s goal may be Pluto, but it’s got some time to kill between now and then. Might as well gather some science along the way. The spacecraft sped past Jupiter on February 28, 2007, picking up a valuable gravity assisted speed boost. It was the 8th spacecraft to make a close encounter with Jupiter, and just those before, it revealed valuable new insights into Jupiter and its satellites.

When the spacecraft was approaching Jupiter, mission planners carefully planned out 700 observations they wanted New Horizons to make. In fact, this is twice the number planned for the brief flyby of Pluto in 2015. They focused their collection on outstanding scientific issues that needed further investigation; to try and give scientists some kind of closure to mysteries opened up by previous spacecraft flybys.

Top on the list is Jupiter’s weather. New Horizons observed the planet’s clouds using visible light, infrared and ultraviolet. They saw ammonia clouds welling up from deeper down and heat-induced lightning strikes in the polar regions – the first polar lightning seen apart from Earth.

The spacecraft also focused in on Jupiter’s tenuous rings. The detailed observations revealed clumps of material that could indicate there was a recent impact inside the rings. Just like Saturn, Jupiter has tiny moons that serve as shepherds, keeping the ring material together.

New Horizons also focused its cameras on Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io. The spacecraft observed 11 different volcanic plumes of varying size, and could see 36 hotspots on the moon in the infrared spectrum. Three of these volcanoes were seen for the very first time.

Finally, the spacecraft measured the magnetic tail that trails behind Jupiter. New Horizons saw material ejected by Io moving down the tail in large, dense, slow-moving blobs, captured in the magnetic field.

New Horizons is now halfway between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and more than 1.19 billion km (743 million miles) from Earth.

Original Source: JHU APL News Release

October 9, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

The End of FUSE

I often talk about the preparation and launch of new missions to space, but every now and then I have to write about just the opposite: the end of a mission. Today’s one of those days. It’s my sad duty to report to you today that NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) is going offline later this month. But don’t think it went quietly into that dark night, engineers working with FUSE came up with an extraordinarily clever way to use the Earth’s magnetic field to re-orient the spacecraft as its gyroscopes failed, one after the other. But now they’ve run out of ways to fix the ailing spacecraft. It’s time to say goodbye.

I’ve mentioned FUSE in many stories in the past, so just in case you weren’t aware of it, I’ll give you a quick recap. FUSE was launched back in June 1999 – just a few months after I started Universe Today. It’s equipped with detectors that allow it to see at short ultraviolet light wavelengths, below the range where Hubble operates. Originally supposed to only run for 3 years, NASA ended up extending its mission 3 times.

Astronomers have produced more than 1,200 papers based on data gathered by FUSE. Because of its spectroscope, the satellite let astronomers break up the ultraviolet radiation coming from distant objects into digital “charts” that let them measure their chemical composition. FUSE discovered molecular hydrogen in the Martian atmosphere, the confirmation of a hot gas halo surrounding the Milky Way, and the first observations of nitrogen outside our Solar System.

So why is FUSE going offline? Wouldn’t NASA try and keep the spacecraft running forever, if possible? Oh, they tried all right.

Here’s the problem. Back in 2001, two of its four momentum wheels failed. These are the gyroscopic wheels that the spacecraft uses to orient itself towards objects in space. And it needed at least 3 to function properly. Clever engineers worked out a way to use magnetic bars inside the spacecraft to pull and push it against the Earth’s magnetic field.

This amazing solution allowed them to keep the spacecraft reoriented. But then another momentum wheel failed in 2004. Once again, though, engineers were able to make the magnetic solution work with just a single wheel and continue gathering data.

Finally, the spacecraft’s final momentum wheel started malfunctioning in May 2007 and completely died in July. Without the final wheel, there was no way to orient the spacecraft.

So on October 18th, 2007, engineers will shut down the control room, turn off the computers, and end communications with FUSE. And some time in the next few decades, the spacecraft will finally reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.

Thanks FUSE.

Original Source: JHU News Release

September 27, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Deep Impact… the Second Visit

When Deep Impact smashed into Comet Tempel 1, it did its job well… too well. Yes, it did carve out a crater on the surface of the comet, releasing a plume of debris visible from here on Earth. But there was a problem. The impact released so much debris into space that the spacecraft couldn’t see the surface of the comet before it sped by. No problem, there’s another handy spacecraft out there, with all the right equipment and nothing to do: Stardust.

Why wasn’t Deep Impact able to see the crater it had just helped carve out of Comet Tempel 1? That was all part of the plan. Researchers wanted to be able to measure the cloud of particles ejected into space after the impact. In order to do that, they needed the flyby spacecraft to pass the comet moments after the impact; to get the best view of the dust. Deep Impact was traveling so quickly that it just swept past and back out into space.

But what size and depth of crater was left behind?

That’s still a mystery that astronomers want solved. Fortunately, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft is in an orbit that will let it rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1 in the future. This was the spacecraft that flew through the tail of Comet Wild 2 in 2004, capturing particles and returning them back to Earth. Stardust released its payload to return to Earth safely, but it remained in space, looking for another task. The spacecraft will be given a new trajectory, burning up some of its remaining fuel.

Obviously, recycling a spacecraft like this can be done at a huge discount to sending a new vehicle up. You just have the operating costs for people; you’re looking at 15% the cost of doing a full mission.

Stardust will arrive in 2011, almost exactly one-cometary year after Deep Impact did the damage in the first place. The dust cloud will have dissipated away into space, and Stardust will have a good view down into the crater. Scientists will also learn what kind kind of changes the Sun will have on the new wound.

The original Deep Impact spacecraft is going to be recycled too. NASA has plans to fly it past Comet Boethin in December 2008 to examine that comet’s nucleus. It will even be tasked to help search for extrasolar planets, by using its sensitive instruments to watch for planets dimming stars as they pass in front.

Original Source: Science@NASA

September 27, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Dawn is Gone

The big day arrived, and nothing could keep that spacecraft on the ground. At 7:34 am EDT NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was lofted into space atop a Boeing Delta 2 rocket, beginning a 3 billion km (1.7 billion mile) journey to meet with two different large asteroids. If all goes well, the spacecraft will make its first encounter with Vesta in October, 2011, and then Ceres in February, 2015.

I know I say this about every mission, but this one, this mission is currently my favourite. In just a few years, a spacecraft is going to orbit an entirely unvisited asteroid, and then just a few years later, it’s going to do it again. It’ll all be so new, I can’t wait. They were once two asteroids, but now Ceres has been reclassified as a dwarf planet, along with Pluto in 2006.

Dawn will serve as a time machine, helping astronomers look back 4.6 billion years to the earliest times in our Solar System’s history. Although they’re both in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, Ceres and Vesta formed in dramatically different ways. Vesta was closer in, and is dry, without a trace of water – even its interior is probably still hot. Ceres formed further out, and astronomers think it might have a thick layer of ice under its crust, covering a rocky core.

Scientists are especially interested in the large crater on Vesta’s southern pole. It alone is 460 km wide and 13 km deep. Astronomers think this mighty collision could account for 5 percent of all the meteorites found here on Earth.

The key to Dawn’s ability to enter orbit around two different objects is its ion drive. Unlike a heavy chemical rocket, an ion propulsion drive uses solar power to accelerate xenon ions to tremendous speeds. It’s not a strong thrust, but it builds up over long periods helping the spacecraft reach tremendous speeds, with a relatively tiny mass of fuel.

NASA originally canceled Dawn, as part of its science cutbacks to help pay for the human missions to return to the Moon, but then the agency revived the mission in 2006, after they had already invested $449 million to get the mission to this point.

Dawn’s next task will be to report in to NASA, to confirm that it reached its proper trajectory, and is able to communicate. We’ll know later today if the mission hit its target window.

Next stop, Vesta.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

September 26, 2007January 24, 2021 by Fraser Cain

Black Hole Mission Returns from the Dead

You can’t keep a good mission down. I guess you can. Actually, it seems like most good missions are kept down (Terrestrial Planet Finder, anyone?). But once, it looks like the good guys are going to win. A cool mission to search for black holes has been resurrected, and will fly in space after all. Wise move NASA, send a spacecraft to help solve one of the most puzzling mysteries in modern astronomy.

The mission is called the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. NASA was originally planning this mission, capable of detecting nearby black holes with unprecedented sensitivity, but they decided to shelve it because of funding pressures back in 2006.

NuSTAR is part of NASA’s Explorers Program. These are low-cost, regular missions to help solve a specific challenge in astronomy. Previous missions include Swift (for tracking down gamma ray bursts), and GALEX (which performs ultraviolet astronomy). Another mission, WMAP, told us that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old.

If all goes well, NuSTAR will be launched in 2011, bridging the gap between the 2009 launch of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and the 2013 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Once in space, it’ll perform deep observations in hard X-rays, searching for the telltale signature of black holes of various sizes and other exotic and extreme objects.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait was actually involved with the program and gives a personal history about it here.

Original Source: NASA News Release