Category: Missions

Genesis team scientists and engineers continue their work on the mission’s sample return canister in a specially constructed clean room at the U.S. Army Proving Ground in Dugway, Utah. As more of the capsule’s contents are revealed, the team’s level of enthusiasm for the amount of science obtainable continues to rise.

At present, the science canister that holds the majority of the mission’s scientific samples is lying upside down – on its lid. Scientists are very methodically working their way “up” from the bottom portion of the canister by trimming away small portions of the canister’s wall. The team continues to extract, from the interior of the science canister, small but potentially analyzable fragments of collector array material. One-half of a sapphire wafer was collected Tuesday – the biggest piece of collector array to date.

The mission’s main priority is to measure oxygen isotopes to determine which of several theories is correct regarding the role of oxygen in the formation of the solar system. Scientists hope to determine this with isotopes collected in the four target segments of the solar wind concentrator carried by the Genesis spacecraft. The condition of these segments will be better known over the next few days, after the canister’s solar wind concentrator is extricated. At this time, it is believed that three of these segments are relatively intact and that the fourth may have sustained one or more fractures. There are no concrete plans regarding the shipping date of the Genesis capsule or its contents from Dugway to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The team continues its meticulous work and believes that a significant repository of solar wind materials may have survived that will keep the science community busy for some time.

The Genesis sample return capsule landed well within the projected ellipse path in the Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 8, but its parachutes did not open. It impacted the ground at nearly 320 kilometers per hour (nearly 200 miles per hour).

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

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Scientists who conducted the preliminary assessment of the Genesis canister are encouraged by what they see. They believe it may be possible to achieve the most important portions of their science objectives.

“We are bouncing back from a hard landing, and spirits are picking up again,” said Orlando Figueroa, deputy associate administrator for programs for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

“This may result in snatching victory from the jaws of defeat,” added Dr. Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a member of the Genesis science team. “We are very encouraged.” Based on initial inspection, it is possible a repository of solar wind materials may have survived that will keep the science community busy for some time.

“We are pleased and encouraged by the preliminary inspection,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. “The outstanding design and sturdy construction of Genesis may yield the important scientific results we hoped for from the mission.”

“I want to emphasize the excellent work by the navigation team to bring the capsule back exactly on target was key in our ability to recover the science,” said Andrew Dantzler, director of the Solar System Division at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “In addition, the robustness of the design of the spacecraft was the reason it could take such a hard landing and still give us a chance to recover the samples.”

The mission’s main priority is to measure oxygen isotopes to determine which of several theories is correct regarding the role of oxygen in the formation of the solar system. Scientists hope to determine this with isotopes collected in the four target segments of the solar wind concentrator carried by the Genesis spacecraft. “From our initial look, we can see that two of the four concentrator segments are in place, and all four may be intact,” Wiens said.

The mission’s second priority is to analyze nitrogen isotopes that will help us understand how the atmospheres of the planets in our solar system evolved. “These isotopes will be analyzed using gold foil, which we have also found intact,” Wiens said.

Other samples of solar winds are contained on hexagonal wafers. It appears these are all or nearly all broken, but sizable pieces will be recovered, and some are still mounted in their holders. “We won’t really know how many can be recovered for some time, but we are far more hopeful important science can be conducted than we were on Wednesday,” Wiens said.

Another type of collector material, foils contained on the canister’s lid, were designed to collect other isotopes in the solar wind. It appears approximately three-fourths of these are recoverable, according to Dr. Dave Lindstrom, mission program scientist at NASA Headquarters. However, these foils have been exposed to elements of the Utah desert.

The Genesis sample return capsule landed well within the projected ellipse path in the Utah Test & Training Range on Sept. 8, but its parachutes did not open. It impacted the ground at nearly 320 kilometers per hour (nearly 200 miles per hour). NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Genesis mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft.

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

Original Source: NASA News Release

The Genesis sample return capsule entered Earth’s atmosphere at 9:52:47 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time and entered the preplanned entry ellipse in the Utah Test and Training Range as predicted. However, the Genesis capsule, as a result of its parachute not deploying, impacted the ground at a speed of 311 kilometers per hour (193 miles per hour). The impact occurred near Granite Peak on a remote portion of the range. No people or structures were anywhere near the area.

“We have the capsule,” said Genesis project manager Don Sweetnam of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “It is on the ground. We have previously written procedures and tools at our disposal for such an event. We are beginning capsule recovery operations at this time.”

By the time the capsule entered Earth’s atmosphere, the flight crews tasked to capture Genesis were already in the air. Once it was confirmed the capsule touched down out on the range, the flight crews were guided toward the site to initiate a previously developed contingency plan. They landed close to the capsule and, per the plan, began to document the capsule and the area.

“For the velocity of the impact, I thought there was surprisingly little damage,” said Roy Haggard of Vertigo Inc., Lake Elsinore, Calif., who took part in the initial reconnaissance of the capsule. “I observed the capsule penetrated the soil about 50 percent of its diameter. The shell had been breached about three inches and I could see the science canister inside and that also appeared to have a small breach,” he said.

The science canister from the Genesis mission was moved into the cleanroom at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah early Wednesday evening. First, a team of specialists plucked pieces of dirt and mud that had lodged in the canister after the mission?s sample return capsule landed at high speed in the Utah desert. The Genesis team will begin examining the contents of the canister on Thursday morning.

The Genesis mission was launched in August 2001 on a journey to capture samples from the storehouse of 99 percent of all the material in our solar system — the Sun. The samples of solar wind particles, collected on ultra-pure wafers of gold, sapphire, silicon and diamond, were designed to be returned for analysis by Earth-bound scientists.

JPL manages the Genesis mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

For information about the Genesis Sample Return Mission on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov/genesis. For background information about Genesis, visit http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov.

Original Source: Genesis Status Reports

ESA?s ?discovery machine? Gaia is designed to photograph one thousand million stars and hundreds of thousands of other celestial objects, so its camera will have to be something truly special.

Indeed, when Gaia lifts off from ESA?s Spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana, sometime after 2010, it will be carrying the largest digital camera in the Solar System. Essentially, Gaia will survey anything in the Universe that it can lay its electronic eyes on. As it spins gently in its orbit, 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, it will scan the entire sky for stars, planets, asteroids, distant galaxies and everything in between.

The aim is to detect every celestial object down to about a million times fainter than the unaided human eye can see. To do that, it needs a large camera. In fact, there will be 170 separate cameras in Gaia, tiled together in a mosaic to register every object that passes through the field of view.

Scientists call each individual camera a ?charge-coupled device? (CCD). An additional instrument will take the total number of CCDs to over 200.

Each CCD is itself a major piece of hi-tech kit that converts light into electrical charge and stores it in tiny traps known as ?pixels? until the computer reads out this information. With about nine million pixels, Gaia?s CCDs are each between 5 and 10 times larger than those used in digital cameras currently on sale in our shops.

The size of each CCD presents some unique manufacturing challenges. Even in the purest silicon, defects can occur. Typically, with the CCDs that are used in our digital cameras on Earth, perhaps 20 or more are manufactured from the same silicon wafer and one or two rejects are tolerable.

However, the Gaia CCDs are so large that only two will fit onto each silicon wafer. So the chance of a defect occurring in a Gaia CCD is considerable.

To help refine the manufacturing process, ESA is running a prototype production line with the company e2v, who specialise in cutting-edge research quality CCDs. They are the same company that provided most of the scientific CCDs for ESA’s orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton.

?For XMM-Newton, e2v provided 23 flight quality CCDs. This was a major achievement, but for Gaia, we aim to fly more than 200 in all,? says Alexander Short, one of Gaia?s CCD experts at the European Space Technology and Research Centre (ESTEC), in the Netherlands.

Once Gaia is in space, solar activity such as solar flares and ?coronal mass ejections? could damage the CCDs and blur the images.

To minimise the effects of this ?radiation damage? during the mission, Short and colleagues are working on shielding and a number of other solutions to ensure that Gaia can become the most successful discovery machine in the history of astronomy.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Helicopters were waiting in Utah to gently catch a capsule from the Genesis probe carrying precious samples of the Sun’s solar wind, but the safe recovery didn’t happen. It appears that the capsule’s parachute failed to open as it entered the Earth atmosphere, and it crashed into the ground at 161 km/h (100 mph). It could take some time to recover the capsule because the charges designed to open the parachute might still be live, and could still explode. The $264 million mission was launched in 2001, and carried delicate wafers of pure silicon, gold, sapphire, and diamond designed to gently catch solar wind particles. It’s unknown how much of the experiment can be recovered at this point.

It’s “all systems go” for one of the most ambitious physics experiments ever attempted.

On August 27th, after four months in orbit, NASA’s Gravity Probe B satellite began its year-long hunt for signs of a subtle space-time vortex around Earth predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity. The search isn’t going to be easy, but for scientists involved, one of the hardest parts is already over: months of delicately starting up and checking out the satellite, when one wrong move could have ruined the experiment before it ever got started.

“It’s a long and tortuous story,” says Francis Everitt, principal investigator for Gravity Probe B (GP-B) and a professor at Stanford University.

One of the key parts of GP-B is an onboard telescope that locks on to the star IM Pegasus, which serves as a fixed point of reference in the sky. Everitt and his colleagues had figured that pointing the telescope at that star would be quick and painless, taking only three days after the launch.

Instead it took weeks.

First, sunlight reflecting off floating dust particles confused the satellite’s star-tracking sensors. These sensors use the locations of constellations to orient the spacecraft, and the tiny shining specs looked like stars. The dust eventually cleared, but then another problem arose: Cosmic radiation in the form of high-speed protons peppered the telescope’s light sensor, causing false signals. Mission scientists had to tweak the satellite’s software to ignore these pulses. And on it went like this for weeks; scientists would solve one problem only to encounter another.

“Now it has become very routine, and we only take about a minute to acquire the star as we come up over the horizon,” Everitt says. (The satellite loses sight of the guide star during each orbit because it passes behind the Earth, so it must reacquire the star as it comes back into sight.)

The purpose of the telescope and the guide star is to help scientists keep track of four spinning spheres, or gyros, onboard the satellite. These gyros, which will be listed in a forthcoming edition of the Guinness Book of World Records as the roundest objects ever manufactured, are the heart of the experiment. In the beginning, their spin axes are aligned with IM Pegasus. If space-time around Earth is really twisted, as Einstein says, the gyros will wobble, slowly drifting out of alignment with the distant star during GP-B’s one-year mission.

“One of the things all of us were terribly worried about was getting some dirt in the gyro housings,” Everitt says. The gyros float a near-perfect vacuum, and only a thousandth-of-an-inch gap separates the spheres from their casings.

“The gyros were cleaned before they went up, but we gave this thing a tremendous vibration during launch. Wouldn’t you expect a piece of dirt to come in through one of the pump-out ports, land right on one of the gyros and jam it?” he says. “That would be the end of that gyro.”

This time all the worrying was for nothing. “The gyros have all been as clean as a whistle,” he says. They’re suspended in their casings, aligned with the guide star, and spinning thousands of times per minute. “Amazing, delightful.”

Now the gathering of science data begins. The satellite’s onboard computers should be able to handle this phase of the mission automatically. Still, at least one person will be on duty monitoring GP-B at all times throughout the year, Everitt says. “It should run itself, but you can never relax.”

After more than 40 years of methodical planning and four months of intense troubleshooting, GP-B’s scientists feel “a real sense of gladness,” he says. “What a difference it makes to be up there and operating. How thrilling that is. We all feel that.”

“Some people,” laughs Everitt, “are talking about taking a week or two of well-deserved vacation.”

Original Source: NASA Science News

In a dramatic ending that marks a beginning in scientific research, NASA’s Genesis spacecraft is set to swing by Earth and jettison a sample return capsule filled with particles of the Sun that may ultimately tell us more about the genesis of our solar system.

“The Genesis mission — to capture a piece of the Sun and return it to Earth — is truly in the NASA spirit: a bold, inspiring mission that makes a fundamental contribution to scientific knowledge,” said Steven Brody, NASA’s program executive for the Genesis mission, NASA Headquarters, Washington.

On September 8, 2004, the drama will unfold over the skies of central Utah when the spacecraft’s sample return capsule will be snagged in midair by helicopter. The rendezvous will occur at the Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City.

“What a prize Genesis will be,” said Genesis Principal Investigator Dr. Don Burnett of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. “Our spacecraft has logged almost 27 months far beyond the moon’s orbit, collecting atoms from the Sun. With it, we should be able to say what the Sun is composed of, at a level of precision for planetary science purposes that has never been seen before.”

The prizes Burnett and company are waiting for are hexagonal wafers of pure silicon, gold, sapphire, diamond and other materials that have served as a celestial prison for their samples of solar wind particles. These wafers have weathered 26-plus months in deep space and are now safely stowed in the return capsule. If the capsule were to descend all the way to the ground, some might fracture or break away from their mountings; hence, the midair retrieval by helicopter, with crew members including some who have performed helicopter stunt work for Hollywood.

“These guys fly in some of Hollywood’s biggest movies,” said Don Sweetnam, Genesis project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “But this time, the Genesis capsule will be the star.”

The Genesis capsule — carrying the agency’s first sample return since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972, and the first material collected beyond the Moon — will enter Earth’s atmosphere at 9:55 am Mountain Time. Two minutes and seven seconds after atmospheric entry, while still flying supersonically, the capsule will deploy a drogue parachute at 33 kilometers (108,000 feet) altitude. Six minutes after that, the main parachute, a parafoil, will deploy 6.1 kilometers (20,000 feet) up. Waiting below will be two helicopters and their flight crews looking for their chance to grab a piece of the Sun.

“Each helicopter will carry a crew of three,” said Roy Haggard, chief executive officer of Vertigo Inc. and director of flight operations for the lead helicopter. “The lead helicopter will deploy an eighteen-and-a-half foot long pole with what you could best describe as an oversized, Space-Age fishing hook on its end. When we make the approach we want the helicopter skids to be about eight feet above the top of the parafoil. If for some reason the capture is not successful, the second helicopter is 1,000 feet behind us and setting up for its approach. We estimate we will have five opportunities to achieve capture.”

The helicopter that does achieve capture will carry the sample canister to a clean room at the Michael Army Air Field at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, where scientists await their cosmic prize. The samples will then be moved to a special laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, where they will be preserved and studied by scientists for many years to come.

“I understand much of the interest is in how we retrieve Genesis,” added Burnett. “But to me the excitement really begins when scientists from around the world get hold of those samples for their research. That will be something.”

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Genesis mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA’s Johnson Space Center contributed to Genesis payload development, and the Johnson Space Center will curate the sample and support analysis and sample allocation.

News and information are available at http://www.nasa.gov/genesis. More detailed background on the mission is available at http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/.

Original Source: NASA News Release

Thirty days before its historic return to Earth with NASA’s first samples from space since the Apollo missions, the Genesis spacecraft successfully completed its twentieth trajectory maneuver.

At 12:00 Universal Time (5:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time), Mon., August 9, Genesis fired its 90 gram (.2 pound) thrusters for a grand total of 50 minutes, changing the solar sampler’s speed by 1.4 meters per second (about 3.1 miles per hour). The maneuver required half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of hydrazine monopropellant to complete.

“It was a textbook maneuver,” said Ed Hirst, Genesis’s mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “After sifting through all the post-burn data, I expect we will find ourselves right on the money.”

The Genesis mission was launched in August of 2001 on a journey to capture samples from the storehouse of 99 percent of all the material in our solar system — the Sun. The samples of solar wind particles, collected on ultra-pure wafers of gold, sapphire, silicon and diamond, will be returned for analysis by Earth-bound scientists. The samples Genesis provides will supply scientists with vital information on the composition of the Sun, and will shed light on the origins of our solar system.

Helicopter flight crews, navigators and mission engineers continue to prepare for the return of the Genesis spacecraft on September 8. On that date, Genesis will dispatch a sample return capsule that will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for a planned mid-air capture at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range. To preserve the delicate particles of the Sun in their prisons of silicon, gold, sapphire and diamond, specially trained helicopter pilots will snag the return capsule from mid-air using the space-age equivalent of a fisherman’s rod and reel. The flight crews for the two helicopters assigned for Genesis capture and return are comprised of former military aviators and Hollywood stunt pilots.

JPL manages the Genesis mission for NASA’s Space Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, the home institute of Genesis’s principal investigator Dr. Don Burnett.

More information about Genesis is available at http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/. More information about the actual capture and return process is available at http://www.genesismission.org/mission/recgallery.html.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

NASA will extend operation of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) through the end of 2004, in light of a recent request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The extension, to be undertaken jointly with NASA’s TRMM partner, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), will provide data during another storm season in the U.S. and Asia.

TRMM has yielded significant scientific research data over the last seven years to users around the globe. In addition, TRMM data has aided NOAA, other government agencies, and other users in their operational work of monitoring and predicting rainfall and storms, as well as in storm research. Launched in 1997, TRMM was originally designed as a three-year research mission. Following four years of extending TRMM, NASA and JAXA recently announced a decision to decommission TRMM, and proceed with a safe, controlled deorbit. Options for safe re-entry become increasingly limited the longer TRMM is operated, as it is already more than 3 years beyond design life.

“NASA is committed to working with our partner agencies to help them carry out their mission. We have decided to extend TRMM through this year’s hurricane season in our effort to aid NOAA in capturing another full season of storm data,” said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “The United States is a leader in Earth remote sensing, and NASA is proud of our role in building that leadership. Our work in partnership with NOAA and international partners such as JAXA is an important part of the world’s scientific research on global precipitation and weather. TRMM has been a valuable part of that legacy and we look to our follow-on missions to continue to reap great public benefit,” he added.

TRMM is the first satellite to measure rainfall over the global tropics, allowing scientists to study the transfer of water and energy among the global atmosphere and ocean surface that form the faster portions of the Earth’s climate system. Because TRMM’s radar enables it to “see through” clouds, it allows weather researchers to make the equivalent of a CAT-scan of hurricanes and helps weather forecasters to use TRMM data to improve prediction of severe storms.

“TRMM has proven helpful in complementing the other satellite data used by NOAA’s National Weather Service in its operations,” said Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson, Director of NOAA’s National Weather Service.

JAXA welcomes and supports the decision to extend TRMM. The extension will be of benefit to the worldwide science and research communities. NASA and JAXA look forward to continuing their close collaboration beyond TRMM through establishment of a new advanced capability for the measurement of precipitation globally with the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM). GPM will use an extensive ground validation network to further improve the accuracy of its measurements compared to those made by TRMM.

NASA and NOAA have asked the National Academy of Sciences to convene a workshop next month to advise NASA and NOAA on the best use of TRMM’s remaining spacecraft life; the overall risks and benefits of the TRMM mission extension options; the advisability of transfer of operational responsibility for TRMM to NOAA; any requirement for a follow-on operational satellite to provide comparable TRMM data; and optimal use of GPM, a follow-on research spacecraft to TRMM, planned for launch by the end of the decade.

“It’s important to note that we are able to extend TRMM for this brief period and are vigilant in maintaining our requirement for a safe, controlled re-entry and deorbit of the spacecraft,” said Asrar. “We also welcome the opportunity to receive advice from the National Academy of Sciences next month on the best use of TRMM’s remaining spacecraft life, TRMM re-entry risk, and the best use of our upcoming next-generation research spacecraft, GPM,” he added

NASA and NOAA will work with the National Academy of Sciences to share with the public outcomes from next month’s workshop.

For more information about TRMM on the Internet, visit:

http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Original Source: NASA News Release

Image credit: ESA
This image, taken by ESA?s Rosetta comet-chaser spacecraft, shows the Earth-Moon system from a distance of 70 million kilometres. This is close to the maximum distance reached by the spacecraft so far this year.

However, this is a tiny distance compared to Rosetta?s epic journey when, in 10 years time, it will have travelled distances of over one thousand million kilometres from Earth, and about 800 million kilometres from the Sun, to meet Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

This image was taken by the Navigation Camera System (NAVCAM) on board the Rosetta spacecraft, activated for the first time on 25 July 2004. This system, comprising two separate independent camera units (for back-up), will help to navigate the spacecraft near the comet nucleus. The cameras perform both as imaging cameras and star sensors, and switch functions by means of a refocusing system in front of the first lens.

At the comet, extremely high-precision measurements of the relative distance and velocity (between spacecraft and nucleus) will be needed. These are not achievable with the ground-based methods normally used with all other spacecraft or for normal Rosetta trajectory determinations.

In the meantime though, the cameras can also be used to automatically track the two asteroids that Rosetta will be visiting during its long cruise, Steins and Lutetia.

Original Source: ESA News Release