Category: Missions

“Swift,” a new NASA satellite, will head for the heavens Nov. 17, designed to detect gamma-ray bursts and whip around to catch them in the act. And the trigger software that makes the flying observatory smart enough to do this comes from the Space Science team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Gamma-ray bursts, first discovered by Los Alamos in the course of nuclear nonproliferation data analysis, occur randomly throughout the universe. They are the most powerful explosions known to mankind, exceeded only by the Big Bang. Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope will detect and locate about two bursts a week and relay their positions to the ground in less than 15 seconds.

By studying the bursts, scientists have the opportunity to illuminate some of the earliest mysteries of the universe. “We believe Swift is capable of observing gamma-ray bursts right back through time to the very first stars that ever formed after the Big Bang,” said lead Los Alamos project scientist Ed Fenimore, a Laboratory Fellow.

The main mission objectives for Swift are to determine what makes gamma-ray bursts tick, and perhaps more importantly, determine how the burst evolves and interacts with the surroundings: The burst’s afterglow is the only place in the universe where something 10 times the size of the Earth is moving 0.9999 the speed of light.

The component with which Los Alamos is most intimately involved is the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), hardware built and developed by Goddard Space Flight Center, under the direction of Neal Gehrels. The Los Alamos role was in developing the BAT’s onboard scientific software that, as Fenimore says, “basically tells Swift when to point, and where to point.”

The onboard “trigger” software scans the data from the BAT and determines when a gamma-ray burst is in progress. “Although human eyes on the ground can easily do this, doing it blindly on the satellite is quite difficult,” Fenimore said. “In fact, in past gamma-ray burst experiments, it has been common that nine out of 10 triggers are false alarms. False alarms would be disastrous since Swift will actually slew itself around to try to observe the false source.” Swift turns in space within 70 to 100 seconds to view the fading event.

The GRBs location information from Swift will also be broadcast to waiting robotic telescopes on the ground. Among them is the Los Alamos RAPTOR telescope, which can point anywhere within 6 seconds and capture the burst while it is still happening.

The critical second piece of the Los Alamos effort is the software to locate the gamma-ray burst so that the satellite knows exactly which direction it should orient its other telescopes. The BAT uses an imaging technique pioneered by Los Alamos called coded-aperture imaging, and most recently used by Los Alamos aboard the High Energy Transient Explorer (HETE) satellite.

In the imaging equipment aboard Swift, 54,000 pinholes in a panel of lead the size of a full sheet of plywood produce an “image,” actually thousands of overlapping images (approximately 30,000 of them). The Los Alamos software must unscramble those overlapping images and make one stronger, brighter picture from which the precise location of the gamma-ray burst can be found, while eliminating known sources and statistical variations.

David Palmer, a Los Alamos astrophysicist with a special expertise in coded-aperture imaging and clever algorithms, is the key person for virtually all of the scientific software on BAT, some 30,000 lines of code. For the software to handle the required tasks takes a vast amount of computer code, with hundreds of interacting components. “It was thanks to his grasp of the whole picture in all its complexity that Palmer was able to develop this scientific package” Fenimore said, “Palmer probably did the work of 20 people on this project.”

To prepare for the ongoing software work during the craft’s two-year life, Fenimore and his team have developed complex simulations at Los Alamos to recreate the BAT instrument’s likely behavior and experiences in space. The simulator allows the team to practice responding to potential issues that may require tuning of the software. The software was designed with “lots of knobs” as Fenimore phrases it, to allow the team to continuously tweak software. A special challenge for Palmer has been the relative age of the computer aboard the craft: it is a 25 MHz computer, 100 times slower than the computers most people have at home.

The Swift observatory is scheduled for launch at 12:09 p.m., EST Wednesday, Nov. 17 at, with a one-hour launch window. The satellite is aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket, launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Fla.

Swift is part of NASA’s medium explorer (MIDEX) program. The hardware was developed by an international team from the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy, with additional scientific involvement in France, Japan, Germany, Denmark, Spain and South Africa.

Original Source: Los Alamos News Release

The maiden flight of a Soyuz 2-1a launch vehicle took place on Monday 8 November 2004 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia at 21:30 Moscow time (19:30 Paris). Starsem, Arianespace and their Russian partners report that the mission was accomplished successfully.

This launch marks a major step forward in the Soyuz evolution programme as this modernised version of the launcher implements a digital control system providing additional mission flexibility and enabling control of the launch vehicle with a larger fairing.

The next step will be the introduction of the Soyuz 2-1b. This launcher version will have a more powerful third-stage engine to significantly increase the overall launch vehicle performance and provide additional payload mass capability. The inaugural flight of the Soyuz 2-1b is presently scheduled for mid-2006 from Baikonur.

Both new versions of the Soyuz launcher will be adapted in view of their exploitation by Arianespace from the Europe?s spaceport in French Guiana. This will be made possible through the ?Soyuz at CSG? ESA programme, which encompasses the development of a Soyuz launch complex on the territory of Sinnamary and participation in the Soyuz 2-1b development.

The Soyuz at CSG programme is a key building block in the implementation of strategic cooperation between ESA and the Russian Space Agency, which falls under the general framework of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and ESA on Cooperation and Partnership in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes, signed in Paris on 11 February 2003.

ESA?s decision to open the CSG for the exploitation of the Soyuz ST launcher from Europe?s Spaceport in French Guiana is a major step forward in reinforcing the range of accessible missions that can be performed from the Spaceport. The versatile and flexible medium-class Soyuz ST launch vehicle, together with the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and the Vega small launcher will provide Arianespace with a family of launchers enabling it to cost-effectively perform the full spectrum of commercial and institutional missions from French Guiana.

The inaugural flight of a Soyuz ST from French Guiana is scheduled for 2007.

?We share the excitement of Starsem, Arianespace and their Russian partners for the successful launch of the new Soyuz 2-1a model and we will continue to strive to accomplish what we have started: to bring Soyuz to the European spaceport as soon as possible to enhance Europe?s launch capabilities? says Jean-Pierre Haigner?, ESA?s Soyuz at CSG Programme Manager.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Image credit: NASA
By the end of this day, somewhere in the visible universe a new black hole will have formed. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most distant and powerful explosions known, are likely the birth cries of these new black holes.

NASA’s Swift mission is dedicated to studying the gamma-ray burst/black hole connection. The Swift spacecraft, an international collaboration, is scheduled to lift off in November aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

“Swift caps off a 30-year hunt to understand the nature of gamma-ray bursts, flashes of light that burn as brightly as a billion billion suns,” said Dr. Anne Kinney, Director of the Universe Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington. “Swift is fine-tuned to quickly locate these bursts and study them in several different wavelengths before they disappear forever. Swift is a little satellite with a big appetite,” she said.

Gamma-ray bursts are fleeting events, lasting only a few milliseconds to a few minutes, never to appear in the same spot again. They occur from our vantage point about once a day. Some bursts appear to be from massive star explosions that form black holes.

The Swift observatory comprises three telescopes, which work in tandem to provide rapid identification and multi-wavelength follow-up of GRBs and their afterglows. Within 20 to 75 seconds of a detected GRB, the observatory will rotate autonomously, so the onboard X-ray and optical telescopes can view the burst. The afterglows will be monitored over their durations, and the data will be rapidly released to the public.

The afterglow phenomenon follows the initial gamma-ray flash in most bursts. It can linger in X-ray light, optical light and radio waves for hours to weeks, providing great detail. The crucial link here, however, is having a precise location to direct other telescopes. Swift is the first satellite to provide this capability with both great precision and speed. “We expect to detect and analyze over 100 gamma-ray bursts a year,” said Dr. Neil Gehrels, Swift’s Principal Investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md. “Swift will lead to a windfall of discovery on these most powerful explosions in the universe.”

While the link between some bursts and massive star explosions appears firm, other bursts may signal the merger of neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other in exotic binary star systems. Swift will determine whether there are different classes of gamma-ray bursts associated with a particular origin scenario. Swift will be fast enough to identify afterglows from short bursts, if they exist. Afterglows have only been seen for bursts lasting longer than two seconds.

“Some bursts likely originate from the farthest reaches, and hence earliest epoch, of the universe,” said Swift Mission Director John Nousek. He is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State’s University Park, Pa., campus. “They act like beacons shining through everything along their paths, including the gas between and within galaxies along the line of sight,” he said.

Swift notifies the community, which includes museums, general public, and scientists at world-class observatories, via the GSFC-maintained Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network (GCN). A network of dedicated ground-based robotic telescopes distributed around the world awaits Swift-GCN alerts. The Swift Mission Operations Center, located at Penn State’s University Park campus, controls the Swift observatory and provides continuous burst information.

Swift, a medium-class explorer mission, is managed by GSFC. Swift is a NASA mission with participation of the Italian Space Agency and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in the United Kingdom. It was built in collaboration with national laboratories, universities and international partners, including Penn State University; Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif.; Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Dorking, Surrey, England; the University of Leicester, England and the Brera Observatory in Milan, Italy.

More information about Swift is available on the Internet at:
http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov

Original Source: NASA News Release

An international team of NASA and university researchers has found the first direct evidence the Earth is dragging space and time around itself as it rotates.

The researchers believe they have measured the effect, first predicted in 1918 by using Einstein’s theory of general relativity, by precisely observing shifts in the orbits of two Earth-orbiting laser-ranging satellites. The researchers observed the orbits of the Laser Geodynamics Satellite I (LAGEOS I), a NASA spacecraft, and LAGEOS II, a joint NASA/Italian Space Agency (ASI) spacecraft.

The research, reported in the journal Nature, is the first accurate measurement of a bizarre effect that predicts a rotating mass will drag space around it. The Lense-Thirring Effect is also known as frame dragging.

The team was led by Dr. Ignazio Ciufolini of the University of Lecce, Italy, and Dr. Erricos C. Pavlis of the Joint Center for Earth System Technology, a research collaboration between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

“General relativity predicts massive rotating objects should drag space-time around themselves as they rotate,” Pavlis said. “Frame dragging is like what happens if a bowling ball spins in a thick fluid such as molasses. As the ball spins, it pulls the molasses around itself. Anything stuck in the molasses will also move around the ball. Similarly, as the Earth rotates, it pulls space-time in its vicinity around itself. This will shift the orbits of satellites near Earth.” The study is a follow-up to earlier work in 1998 where the authors’ team reported the first direct detection of the effect.

The previous measurement was much less accurate than the current work, due to inaccuracies in the gravitational model available at the time. Data from NASA’s GRACE mission allowed for a vast improvement in the accuracy of new models, which made this new result possible.

“We found the plane of the orbits of LAGEOS I and II were shifted about six feet (two meters) per year in the direction of the Earth’s rotation,” Pavlis said. “Our measurement agrees 99 percent with what is predicted by general relativity, which is within our margin of error of plus or minus five percent. Even if the gravitational model errors are off by two or three times the officially quoted values, our measurement is still accurate to 10 percent or better.” Future measurements by Gravity Probe B, a NASA spacecraft launched in 2004, should reduce this error margin to less than one percent. This promises to tell researchers much more about the physics involved.

Ciufolini’s team, using the LAGEOS satellites, previously observed the Lense-Thirring effect. It has recently been observed around distant celestial objects with intense gravitational fields, such as black holes and neutron stars. The new research around Earth is the first direct, precise measurement of this phenomenon at the five to 10 percent level. The team analyzed an 11-year period of laser ranging data from the LAGEOS satellites from 1993 to 2003, using a method devised by Ciufolini a decade ago.

The measurements required the use of an extremely accurate model of the Earth’s gravitational field, called EIGEN-GRACE02S, which became available only recently, based on an analysis of GRACE data. The model was developed at the GeoForschungs Zentrum Potsdam, Germany, by a group who are co-principal investigators of the GRACE mission along with the Center for Space Research of the University of Texas at Austin.

LAGEOS II, launched in 1992, and its predecessor, LAGEOS I, launched in 1976, are passive satellites dedicated exclusively to laser ranging. The process entails sending laser pulses to the satellite from ranging stations on Earth and then recording the round-trip travel time. Given the known value for the speed of light, this measurement enables scientists to precisely determine the distances between laser ranging stations on Earth and the satellite.

NASA and Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. developed Gravity Probe B. It will precisely check tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes contained in an Earth satellite orbiting 400-miles directly over the poles. The experiment will test two theories relating to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, including the Lense-Thirring Effect. These effects, though small for Earth, have far-reaching implications for the nature of matter and the structure of the universe.

Original Source: NASA News Release

NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft has arrived in Florida to begin final preparations for a launch on Dec. 30, 2004 . The spacecraft was shipped from Ball Aerospace & Technologies in Boulder , Colo. , to the Astrotech Space Operations facility located near the Kennedy Space Center .

“Deep Impact has begun its journey to comet Tempel 1,” said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “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 83 million miles from Earth. When this 820-pound “impactor” hits the surface of the comet at approximately 23,000 miles per hour, the 3-by-3 foot projectile will create a crater several hundred feet in size. 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.

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 begins 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. Next, Deep Impact will be ready for fueling preparations. Once this is complete, the 2,152-pound spacecraft 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.

Deep Impact mission scientists are confident such 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 Dec. 30, 2004 from Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window extends from 2:39 – 3:19 p.m. EST.

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 the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , Calif. The spacecraft has been built for NASA by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation. The spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch countdown management are the responsibility of the Launch Services Program office headquartered at Kennedy Space Center .

Original Source: NASA News Release

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. “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, Colo., 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), Calif., 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

Original Source: NASA News Release

A new NASA mission will scan the entire sky in infrared light in search of nearby cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies in the universe.

Called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the mission has been approved to proceed into the preliminary design phase as the next in NASA’s Medium-class Explorer program of lower cost, highly focused, rapid-development scientific spacecraft. It is scheduled to launch in 2008.

Like a powerful set of night vision goggles, the new space-based telescope will survey the cosmos with infrared detectors up to 500,000 times more sensitive than previous survey missions. It will reveal hundreds of cool, or failed, stars, called brown dwarfs, some of which may lie closer to us than any known stars.

“Approximately two-thirds of nearby stars are too cool to be detected with visible light,” said Principal Investigator Dr. Edward Wright of the University of California, Los Angeles, who proposed the new mission to NASA. “The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer will see most of them.”

The telescope will also provide a complete inventory of dusty planet-forming discs around nearby stars, and find colliding galaxies that emit more light – specifically infrared light – than any other galaxies in the universe. In the end, the survey will consist of more than one million images, from which hundreds of millions of space objects will be catalogued.

“The mission will complete the basic reconnaissance of the universe in mid-infrared wavelengths, providing a vast storehouse of knowledge that will endure for decades,” said Dr. Peter Eisenhardt, project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “This catalogue of data will also provide NASA’s future James Webb Space Telescope with a comprehensive list of targets.”

JPL will manage the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer at a total cost to NASA of approximately $208 million. William Irace of JPL is the project manager. The cryogenic instrument will be built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft will be built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colorado. Science operations and data processing will take place at the JPL/Caltech Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Pasadena. Calif. JPL is a division of Caltech.

More than 70 U.S. and cooperative international scientific space missions have been part of NASA’s Explorer program. The missions are characterized by relatively moderate cost, and by small- to medium-sized missions that are capable of being built, tested and launched in a short time interval compared to the large observatories. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorer program for the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington.

For more information, visit http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/wise/ or http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

A NASA-led team is studying the construction of a railway in space for a pair of telescopes that will provide views of planet, star, and galaxy formation in unprecedented detail. The proposed Space Infrared Interferometric Telescope (SPIRIT) mission will also examine the atmospheric chemistry of giant planets around other stars.

SPIRIT will consist of two telescopes at opposite ends of a 120-foot (40-meter) beam. The telescopes will move along the beam like cars on a railway, combing their images using the techniques of interferometry to achieve the resolving power of a single giant telescope 120 feet across.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., will lead a NASA/university/industry team to develop a preliminary design for SPIRIT. The team will evaluate various mission concepts, create a roadmap of the technology development required for the mission, and generate independent cost assessments.

The study was commissioned in July 2004 by NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., as one of nine proposals that will help strategic planning for NASA’s Origins Space Science research theme. NASA’s Origins program seeks to answer the fundamental questions about the universe, such as where we came from and whether or not we are alone. The team will report to the Origins Roadmap Committee in early January, 2005, and a final report is due three months later.

“I’m delighted that SPIRIT was chosen for study,” said Dr. David Leisawitz of NASA Goddard, Principal Investigator for the proposed mission. “We’re going to give NASA a chance to build a telescope that will dazzle the world with crisp, clear infrared pictures of the universe.”

“These images will help us to answer some very profound questions. How did we living critters wind up on a rocky planet bathed in light from the Sun, one of a hundred billion stellar denizens of the magnificently spiral-shaped Milky Way galaxy? Perhaps even more tantalizing, we should expect the unexpected, as that’s what we find whenever a big step is taken to improve the scientific community’s tools. SPIRIT will use techniques pioneered a century ago by Nobel Laureate Albert A. Michelson, so we know it can be done, and I think it’s an excellent match to the Origins mission class envisioned in NASA’s call for proposals,” said Leisawitz.

SPIRIT will examine the universe in the far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths of light. This light is invisible to the human eye, but some types of infrared light are perceived as heat.

The processes that build planets, stars, and galaxies are most readily visible in these kinds of light. For example, stars are born when massive interstellar clouds collapse under their own gravity. The collapse generates heat, causing the central star-forming region of the cloud to glow in infrared. Newborn stars are frequently surrounded by disks of dust and gas, which also collapse under their own gravity to form planets. While the planets are too small to be seen directly, their gravity disturbs the dust disk, forming ripples and lumps. Warmed by the central star, the dust glows in infrared light, revealing the dusty structures to SPIRIT and divulging the locations and sizes of previously unknown planets.

Looking farther into space is equivalent to seeing back in time, because the speed of light is finite, and it takes light a significant amount of time to traverse immense cosmic distances. We see the nearest large galaxy (Andromeda) as it appeared about two million years ago, because that’s how long it took for its light to reach us. We cast our gaze back billions of years by looking toward the limit of the observable universe, and thus can watch galaxies as they evolve. However, since the universe is expanding, light emitted by remote galaxies has been stretched by the expansion of space to infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths, so we need telescopes highly sensitive to these types of light to observe distant galaxy formation.

Many of these objects appear too small, or shine too faintly at their remote distances for existing telescopes to observe in great detail. To accomplish such ambitious observations, SPIRIT will have 100 times the angular resolution (ability to see fine detail) than existing infrared telescopes, complemented with a matching improvement in sensitivity.

Technical challenges to overcome include keeping the telescope mirrors extremely cold (about 4 degrees Kelvin or minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit) so their own heat does not obscure the faint infrared light they are trying to collect. The detectors also need to have greater sensitivity and more pixels. The Goddard/industry team is up to the challenge: “Our engineers love working on this project; there’s a lot of room for creative thought, and everyone understands that this is an opportunity to take a giant leap forward scientifically while inspiring the next generation of explorers.” says Leisawitz.

If approved, SPIRIT could be ready for launch in 2014, on board a large expendable rocket. SPIRIT would travel to the L2 libration point one million miles from Earth where it will automatically unfold its beam and deploy the telescopes. The Goddard-led team includes collaborators from Caltech, Cornell, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the University of Maryland, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Naval Research Laboratory, Princeton, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Wisconsin, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center. The industry team includes Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrop-Grumman.

Original Source: NASA News Release

A NASA institute has selected a new University of Colorado at Boulder proposal for further study that describes how existing technologies can be used to study planets around distant stars with the help of an orbiting “starshade.”

The concept by CU-Boulder Professor Webster Cash of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy was one of 12 proposals selected for funding Sept. 28 by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, or NIAC. Cash’s proposal details the methods needed to design and build what essentially is a giant “pinhole camera” in space.

The football field-sized starshade would be made of thin, opaque material and contain an aperture, or hole, in the center roughly 30 feet in diameter to separate a distant planet’s light from the light of its adjacent parent star, Cash said. A detector spacecraft equipped with a telescope would trail tens of thousands of miles behind the orbiting starshade to collect the light and process it.

Such a system could be used to map planetary systems around other stars, detect planets as small as Earth’s moon and search for “biomarkers” such as methane, water, oxygen and ozone. Known as the New Worlds Imager, the system also could map planet rotation rates, detect the presence of weather and even confirm the existence of liquid oceans on distant planets, he said.

“In its most advanced form, the New Worlds Imager would be able to capture actual pictures of planets as far away as 100 light-years, showing oceans, continents, polar caps and cloud banks,” said Cash. If extra-terrestrial rainforests exist, he said, they might be distinguishable from deserts.

“To me, one of the most interesting challenges in space astronomy today is the detection of exo-solar planets,” said Cash. “We have created an affordable concept with very practical technology that would allow us to conduct planet imaging in visible and other wavelengths of light.”

The beauty of the pinhole as an optical device is that it functions as an almost perfect lens, said Cash, who is a professor in CU-Boulder’s astrophysical and planetary sciences department. ‘This device would remove the limiting problem of light scattered from the parent star due to optical imperfections.”

The successful proposal was authored by Cash, Princeton University’s Jeremy Kasdin and Sara Seager of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Nine other proposal advisers from universities and industry contributed to the New Worlds Imager concept, said Cash.

NIAC was created in 1998 to solicit revolutionary concepts from people and organizations outside the space agency that could advance NASA’s missions. The winning concepts, chosen because they “push the limits of known science and technology,” are expected to take at least a decade to develop if they eventually are selected for a mission flight, according to NASA.

In 1999, Cash headed a winning NIAC proposal for a new, powerful x-ray telescope technology that will allow astronomers to peer into the mouths of black holes. That telescope package is now under development by NASA as the multi-million dollar MAXIM mission and is slated for launch next decade.

Other concepts funded in 2004 by NIAC include a proposal for a lunar space elevator, new super-conducting magnet technology for astronaut radiation protection and a magnetized beam plasma-propulsion system.

Teams that submitted winning proposals to NIAC this year were awarded $75,000 for a Phase 1, six-month viability study. Those proposals that go on to win approval for Phase 2 studies next year by the space agency will be funded with up to $400,000 for two additional years, according to NASA.

“We are thrilled to team up with imaginative people from industry and universities to discover innovative systems that meet the tremendous challenge of space exploration and development,” said NIAC Director Robert Cassanova. Cassanova also is a member of the Universities Space Research Association, which administers NIAC for NASA.

Original Source: UCB News Release

The Genesis team has shipped its first scientific sample from the mission’s specially constructed cleanroom at the U.S. Army Proving Ground in Dugway, Utah. The sample, containing what are known as “lid foils,” was attached to the interior lid of the Genesis sample return capsule.

“This is the first batch in what we are growing more confident will be many more scientifically valuable samples,” said Genesis Project Manager Don Sweetnam of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “It appears that we have recovered about 75 to 80 percent of these lid foils. A great deal of credit has to go to the dedicated men and women of Genesis who continue to do very precise, detailed work out there in the Utah desert.”

After the sample was shipped from Utah, it was received by Genesis co-investigator Nishiizumi Kunihiko from the University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory.

In addition to the lid foils, there was optimistic news about the collector array. Team members from JPL arrived in Utah on Monday with a special fixture to aid in handling the science canister’s stack of four collector arrays. The stack was successfully removed as one piece. With the stack on the fixture, the team has begun the process of disassembling the arrays. Several large pieces of individual collector materials, including one completely intact hexagon, were recovered from the top array.

The Genesis cleanroom activities are focused on getting the materials ready for shipping. A date has not yet been selected for transporting the Genesis science canister and recovered collector materials from Dugway to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The team continues its meticulous work and believes that a significant repository of solar wind materials has survived that will keep the science community busy working on their science objectives.

News and information about Genesis is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/genesis. For background information about Genesis, visit http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov. For information about NASA visit http://www.nasa.gov.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release