NASA Archives

June 21, 2014December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

India’s 1st Mars Mission Celebrates 100 Days and 100 Million Kilometers from Mars Orbit Insertion Firing – Cruising Right behind NASA’s MAVEN

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) marked 100 days out from Mars on June 16, 2014 and the Mars Orbit Insertion engine firing when it arrives at the Red Planet on September 24, 2014 after its 10 month interplanetary journey. Credit ISRO

India’s inaugural voyager to the Red Planet, the Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM, has just celebrated 100 days and 100 million kilometers out from Mars on June 16, until the crucial Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) engine firing that will culminate in a historic rendezvous on September 24, 2014.

MOM is cruising right behind NASA’s MAVEN orbiter which celebrated 100 days out from Mars on Friday the 13th of June. MAVEN arrives about 48 hours ahead of MOM on September 21, 2014.

After streaking through space for some ten and a half months, the 1,350 kilogram (2,980 pound) MOM probe will fire its 440 Newton liquid fueled main engine to brake into orbit around the Red Planet on September 24, 2014 – where she will study the atmosphere and sniff for signals of methane.

Working together, MOM and MAVEN will revolutionize our understanding of Mars atmosphere, dramatic climatic history and potential for habitability.

The do or die MOI burn on September 24, 2014 places MOM into an 377 km x 80,000 km elliptical orbit around Mars.

Trans Mars Injection (TMI), carried out on Dec 01, 2013 at 00:49 hrs (IST) has moved the spacecraft in the Mars Transfer Trajectory (MTT). With TMI the Earth orbiting phase of the spacecraft ended and the spacecraft is now on a course to encounter Mars after a journey of about 10 months around the Sun. Credit: ISRO

MOM was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) at a cost of $69 Million and marks India’s maiden foray into interplanetary flight.

But before reaching Mars, mission navigators must keep the craft meticulously on course on its heliocentric trajectory from Earth to Mars through a series of in flight Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TMSs).

The second TCM was just successfully performed on June 11 by firing the spacecraft’s 22 Newton thrusters for a duration of 16 seconds. TCM-1 was conducted on December 11, 2013 by firing the 22 Newton Thrusters for 40.5 seconds. Two additional TCM firings are planned in August and September 2014.

To date the probe has flown about 70% of the way to Mars, traveling about 466 million kilometers out of a total of 680 million kilometers (400 million miles) overall, with about 95 days to go. One way radio signals to Earth take approximately 340 seconds.

MOM reached the halfway mark to Mars on April 9, 2014.

MOM's first Trajectory Correction Manoeuver in Baiju Raj's imagination. — MOM conducts Trajectory Correction Manoeuver (TCM) in Baiju Raj’s imagination.

ISRO reports the spacecraft and its five science instruments are healthy. It is being continuously monitored by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) and NASA JPL’s Deep Space Network (DSN).

MOM’s journey began with a picture perfect blast off on Nov. 5, 2013 from India’s spaceport at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, atop the nations indigenous four stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) which placed the probe into its initial Earth parking orbit.

A series of six subsequent orbit raising maneuvers ultimately culminated with a liquid fueled main engine firing on Dec. 1, 2013 for the Trans Mars Injection(TMI) maneuver that successfully placed MOM on a heliocentric elliptical trajectory to the Red Planet.

If all goes well, India will join an elite club of only four who have launched probes that successfully investigated the Red Planet from orbit or the surface – following the Soviet Union, the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA).

First ever image of Earth Taken by Mars Color Camera aboard India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft while orbiting Earth and before the Trans Mars Insertion firing on Dec. 1, 2013. Image is focused on the Indian subcontinent. Credit: ISRO

Both MAVEN and MOM’s goal is to study the Martian atmosphere, unlock the mysteries of its current atmosphere and determine how, why and when the atmosphere and liquid water was lost – and how this transformed Mars climate into its cold, desiccated state of today.

Together, MOM and MAVEN will fortify Earth’s invasion fleet at Mars. They join 3 current orbiters from NASA and ESA as well as NASA’s pair of sister surface rovers Curiosity and Opportunity.

Although they were developed independently and have different suites of scientific instruments, the MAVEN and MOM science teams will “work together” to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history, MAVEN’s top scientist told Universe Today.

“We have had some discussions with their science team, and there are some overlapping objectives,” Bruce Jakosky told me. Jakosky is MAVEN’s principal Investigator from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“At the point where we [MAVEN and MOM] are both in orbit collecting data we do plan to collaborate and work together with the data jointly,” Jakosky said.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing MOM, MAVEN, Opportunity, Curiosity, Mars rover and more planetary and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

MAVEN - NASA’s next Red Planet orbiter - marks 100 days from Mars orbit insertion (MOI) engine firing on Friday the 13th of June 2014. MAVEN arrives at Mars on September 21, 2014. Credit: NASA — MAVEN – NASA’s next Red Planet orbiter – marks 100 days from Mars orbit insertion (MOI) engine firing on Friday the 13th of June 2014. MAVEN arrives at Mars on September 21, 2014. Credit: NASA

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Learn more about NASA’s Mars missions, upcoming sounding rocket and Orbital Sciences Antares ISS launch from NASA Wallops, VA in July and more about SpaceX, Boeing and commercial space and more at Ken’s upcoming presentations.

June 25: “Antares/Cygnus ISS Launch (July 10) and Suborbital Rocket Launch (June 26) from Virginia” & “Space mission updates”; Rodeway Inn, Chincoteague, VA, evening

June 20, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

How to Find Your Way Around the Milky Way This Summer

The band of the Milky Way stretches from Cygnus (left) to the Sagittarius in this wide-angle, guided photo. Credit: Bob King

Look east on a dark June night and you’ll get a face full of stars. Billions of them. With the moon now out of the sky for a couple weeks, the summer Milky Way is putting on a grand show. Some of its members are brilliant like Vega, Deneb and Altair in the Summer Triangle, but most are so far away their weak light blends into a hazy, luminous band that stretches the sky from northeast to southwest. Ever wonder just where in the galaxy you’re looking on a summer night? Down which spiral arm your gaze takes you?

Artist's conception of the Milky Way galaxy based on the latest survey data from ESO’s VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory. A prominent bar of older, yellower stars lies at galaxy center surrounded by a series of spiral arms. The galaxy spans some 100,000 light years. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, ESO, J. Hurt — Artist’s conception of the Milky Way galaxy based on the latest survey data from ESO’s VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory. A prominent bar of older, yellower stars lies at galaxy center surrounded by a series of spiral arms. The galaxy spans some 100,000 light years. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, ESO, J. Hurt

Two different perspectives on our galaxy to help us better understand its shape. A face-on artist's view at left reveals the core and arms. At right, we see a photo of the Milky Way in infrared light by the Cosmic Background Explorer probe showing us an edge-on perspective, the view we're 'stuck with' but dint of orbiting inside the galaxy's flat plane. Credit: NASA/JPL et. all (left) and NASA — Two different perspectives on our galaxy help us better understand its shape. A face-on artist’s view at left reveals the core, spiral arms and the sun’s position. At right, we see an edge-on perspective photographed by the Cosmic Background Explorer probe. Because the sun and planets orbit in the galaxy’s plane, we’re ‘stuck’ with an edge-on view until we build a fast-enough rocket to take us above our galactic home. Credit: NASA/JPL et. all (left) and NASA

Because all stars are too far away for us to perceive depth, they appear pasted on the sky in two dimensions. We know this is only an illusion. Stars shine from every corner of the galaxy, congregating in its bar-shaped core, outer halo and along its shapely spiral arms. The trick is using your mind’s eye to see them that way.

Employing optical, infrared and radio telescopes, astronomers have mapped the broad outlines of the home galaxy, placing the sun in a minor spiral arm called the Orion or Local Arm some 26,000 light years from the galactic center. Spiral arms are named for the constellation(s) in which they appear. The grand Perseus Arm unfurls beyond our local whorl and beyond it, the Outer Arm. Peering in the direction of the galaxy’s core we first encounter the Sagittarius Arm, home to sumptuous star clusters and nebulae that make Sagittarius a favorite hunting ground for amateur astronomers.

Further in lies the massive Scutum-Centaurus Arm and finally the inner Norma Arm. Astronomers still disagree on the number of major arms and even their names, but the basic outline of the galaxy will serve as our foundation. With it, we can look out on a dark summer night at the Milky Way band and get a sense where we are in this magnificent celestial pinwheel.

The Milky Way band arches across the east and south as seen about 11:30 p.m. in mid-late June. The center of the galaxy is located in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Stellarium — The Milky Way band arches across the east and south as seen about 11:30 p.m. in mid-late June. The center of the galaxy is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The dark ‘rift’ that appears to cleave the Milky Way in two is formed of clouds of interstellar dust that blocks the light of stars beyond it. Stellarium

We’ll start with the band of the Milky Way itself. Its ribbon-like form reflects the galaxy’s flattened, lens-like profile shown in the edge-on illustration above. The sun and planets are located within the galaxy’s plane (near the equator) where the stars are concentrated in a flattened disk some 100,000 light years across. When we look into the galaxy’s plane, billions of stars pile up across thousands of light years to create a narrow band of light we call the Milky Way. The same term is applied to the galaxy as a whole.

Since the average thickness of the galaxy is only about 1,000 light years, if you look above or below the band, your gaze penetrates a relatively short distance – and fewer stars – until entering intergalactic (starless) space. That why the rest of the sky outside of the Milky Way band has so few stars compared to the hordes we see within the band.

Here’s the galactic big picture showing the outline of the galaxy with constellations added. In this edge-on view, we see that the summertime Milky Way from Cassiopeia to Sagittarius includes the central bulge (in the direction of Sagittarius) and a hefty portion of one side of the flattened disk:

The outline of the Milky Way viewed edge-on is shown in gray. The yellow box includes the summer portion of the Milky Way from Cassiopeia to Scorpius with a red dot marking the galaxy's center. This is the section we see crossing the eastern sky in June and includes the galactic center. Click to enlarge. Credit: Richard Powell with additions by the author — The outline of the Milky Way viewed edge-on is shown in gray. The yellow box includes the summer portion of the Milky Way from Cassiopeia to Scorpius with a red dot marking the galaxy’s center. This is the section we see crossing the eastern sky in June. Click to enlarge. Credit: Richard Powell with additions by the author

If you enlarge the map, you’ll see lines of galactic latitude and longitude much like those used on Earth but applied to the entire galaxy. Latitude ranges from +90 degrees at the North Galactic Pole to -90 at the South Galactic Pole. Likewise for longitude. 0 degrees latitude, o degrees longitude marks the galactic center. The summer Milky Way band extends from about longitude 340 degrees in Scorpius to 110 in Cassiopeia.

Now that we know what section of the Milky Way we peer into this time of year, let’s take an imaginary rocket journey and see it all from above:

Viewed from above, we can now see that our gaze takes across the Perseus Arm (toward the constellation Cygnus), parts of the Sagittarius and Scutum-Centaurus arms (toward the constellations Scutum, Sagittarius and Ophiuchus) and across the central bar. Interstellar dust obscures much of the center of the galaxy. Credit: NASA et. all with additions by the author. — Viewed from above, we can now see that our gaze (red arrows) reaches down the Perseus Arm (toward the constellation Cygnus) and across the Sagittarius and Scutum-Centaurus arms (toward the constellations Scutum, Sagittarius and Ophiuchus) and directly into the central bar. Interstellar dust obscures much of the center of the galaxy. Blue arrows show the direction we face during the winter months. Credit: NASA et. all with additions by the author.

Wow! The hazy arch of June’s Milky Way takes in a lot of galactic real estate. A casual look on a dark night takes us from Cassiopeia in the outer Perseus Arm across Cygnus in our Local Arm clear over to Sagittarius, the next arm in. Interstellar dust deposited by supernovae and other evolved stars obscures much of the center of the galaxy. If we could vacuum it all up, the galaxy’s center – where so many stars are concentrated – would be bright enough to cast shadows.

A view showing the summer Milky Way from mid-northern latitudes with three constellations and the spiral arms to which they belong. Stellarium — A view showing the summer Milky Way from mid-northern latitudes with three prominent constellations and the spiral arms we peer into when we face them. Stellarium

Here and there, there are windows or clearings in the dust cover that allow us to see star clouds in the Scutum-Centaurus and Norma Arms. In the map, I’ve also shown the section of Milky Way we face in winter. If you’ve ever compared the winter Milky Way band to the summer’s you’ve noticed it’s much fainter. I think you can see the reason why. In winter, we face away from the galaxy’s core and out into the fringes where the stars are sparser.

Look up the next dark night and contemplate the grand architecture of our home galaxy. If you close your eyes, you might almost feel it spinning.

June 19, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

See This Orange Smudge? This Could Be NASA’s Target For The Asteroid Mission

An image of asteroid 2011 MD -- a candidate for a potential future mission to an asteroid -- taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in February 2014. The exposure took 20 hours to accomplish and was done in infrared light. Credit: NASA

In the center of the image above is an orange smudge. It may not look like much to the untrained eye, but to NASA it represents potential. It’s a candidate asteroid target for a mission the agency badly wants to happen, even though nobody knows for sure yet if things will line up for humans to visit there one day.

This is a picture of asteroid 2011 MD taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. It’s about 6 meters (20 feet) across and appears to have a low density, the agency said in a statement. While NASA is still looking for other candidates for its asteroid initiative, the agency added this would be the sort of asteroid it’s looking to visit.

“The asteroid appears to have a structure perhaps resembling a pile of rocks, or a ‘rubble pile.’Since solid rock is about three times as dense as water, this suggests about two-thirds of the asteroid must be empty space,” NASA stated in this press release.

“The research team behind the observation says the asteroid could be a collection of small rocks, held loosely together by gravity, or it may be one solid rock with a surrounding halo of small particles.”

Artist's conception of the structure around 2011 MD, a candidate asteroid for NASA's proposed asteroid redirect mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech — Artist’s conception of the structure around 2011 MD, a candidate asteroid for NASA’s proposed asteroid redirect mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

You can read more about this asteroid in Astrophysical Journal Letters. There was another study done on 2011 MD earlier this year that was also in ApJL, or in preprint version in Arxiv.

Announcing this asteroid candidate was just one of several things NASA made public today. It added that it plans to send off an ARM (Asteroid Redirect Mission) robotic spacecraft in 2019, and about one year before that it will decide which asteroid to send this spacecraft to.

NASA has two concept ideas for ARM, and it’s planning to award $4.9 million (it had initially planned for up to $6 million) for others to make more detailed investigations into which is the more feasible. Read the full list of recipients at this NASA website.

One idea is to pick up a small asteroid, and the other is to carve off a small portion of a bigger asteroid. Whatever the choice, it would involve coming up with an object that is less than 32 feet (10 meters) across to move to the moon’s orbit. NASA will decide what to do later this year.

“The studies will be completed over a six-month period beginning in July, during which time system concepts and key technologies needed for ARM will be refined and matured. The studies also will include an assessment of the feasibility of potential commercial partners to support the robotic mission,” NASA stated.

An astronaut retrieves a sample from an asteroid in this artist's conception. Credit: NASA — An astronaut retrieves a sample from an asteroid in this artist’s conception. Credit: NASA

Also, some more details about other candidates: NASA has found nine so far that it deems suitable, and size estimates have been made on three of those nine candidates. A fourth, 2008 HU4, will be close to Earth in 2016 and allow for “interplanetary radar” to learn more about its size and rotation, NASA said. The other ones will not get close enough to Earth for a better look before the mission selection is done.

NASA added that it expects to add more through its Near-Earth Object program, as one to two asteroids get close enough to our planet every year for analysis. Further, the agency hopes to learn more about asteroid makeup through its planned Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission, which is on its way to asteroid Bennu in 2018 after a launch in 2016.

All of this, of course, is dependent on NASA’s budgetary situation for the years to come, which in turn depends on support in Congress.

June 17, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Where To Go After Pluto? Hubble Seeks The Next Target For New Horizons

Artist's impression of New Horizons' encounter with Pluto and Charon. Credit: NASA/Thierry Lombry

It’s going to be a really busy summer for the New Horizons team. While they’re checking out the newly awakened spacecraft to make sure it’s working properly for its close encounter with Pluto next year, NASA is already thinking about where to put it next: possibly towards a Kuiper Belt Object!

So now the Hubble Space Telescope (in Earth orbit) is scoping out icy objects beyond Pluto. Luckily for us, one of the team members — Alex Parker, a planetary astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, provided an entertaining livetweet of the process — even through a power failure.

So, the secret is out. On Friday, we were awarded the Hubble time to search for a @NewHorizons2015 KBO target!

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) June 16, 2014

This is an extremely quick-turnaround survey. The first observations hit the ground this morning and our team is about to process them.

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) June 16, 2014

Right now there is a robot in space searching the fringes of our solar system for an icy world that another robot will visit in a few years.

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) June 16, 2014

I have seen the first of the Hubble data, and it is beautiful.

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) June 16, 2014

Here’s the first raw Hubble image from our KBO search. We should have our first clean stacks by the end of the day. pic.twitter.com/3FNSgDHL4M

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) June 16, 2014

There’s far more to Parker’s tweets than we are indicating here; his Twitter feed also has details about the collaborators, for example, so be sure to read through the entire exchange from yesterday. The survey is led by the Southwest Research Institute’s John Spencer.

What astronomers are doing now is a “pilot observation” where the space telescope looks at a spot in the constellation Sagittarius. Controllers will try to turn the telescope at the same rate as what a KBO would be orbiting around the sun. If the method works, stars will look like streaks and the KBOs will look like “pinpoint objects”, NASA stated.

A view of the Hubble Space Telescope from inside space shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-125 in 2009. Credit: NASA

“If the test observation identifies at least two KBOs of a specified brightness it will demonstrate statistically that Hubble has a chance of finding an appropriate KBO for New Horizons to visit. At that point, an additional allotment of observing time will continue the search across a field of view roughly the angular size of the full moon,” NASA said in a press release.

The reason for this step is Hubble is a high-profile telescope, receiving a lot of requests for observing time around the world. The agency wants to ensure that the telescope is being used for the best scientific return possible. NASA also noted the search might be difficult.

“Though Hubble is powerful enough to see galaxies near the horizon of the universe, finding a KBO is a challenging needle-in-haystack search. A typical KBO along the New Horizons trajectory may be no larger than Manhattan Island and as black as charcoal,” NASA stated.

This isn’t the first time the telescope has done a pinch-hit for Plutonian science. Four new moons have been found around Pluto, a discovery that involved Hubble time. The telescope has also looked for dust rings near the dwarf planet (to do a risk analysis for New Horizons’ approach) and done a map of the surface, to help controllers figure out where to target New Horizons.

June 17, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Pale White Dot: Saturn’s Moon Atlas Shines Between Gas Giant’s Rings

Saturn's moon Atlas peeks out between the rings in this Cassini shot taken Jan. 23, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

See that small pixel? That’s an entire moon you’re looking at! Peeking between the rings of Saturn is the tiny saucer-shaped moon Atlas, as viewed from the Cassini spacecraft. The image is pretty, but there’s also a scientific reason to watch the planet’s many moons while moving around the rings.

“Although the sunlight at Saturn’s distance is feeble compared to that at the Earth, objects cut off from the Sun within Saturn’s shadow cool off considerably,” NASA stated.

“Scientists study how the moons around Saturn cool and warm as they enter and leave Saturn’s shadow to better understand the physical properties of Saturn’s moons.”

And if you look at Atlas close-up, it looks a little like a flying saucer! The moon is only 20 miles (32 km) across, which is a bit shy of the length of a marathon. The Voyager 1 team spotted the moon in 1980 when the spacecraft zoomed through the system. You can learn more about Saturn’s moons here.

Cassini is still in excellent health (it arrived at Saturn in 2004, and has been in space since 1997), and scientists are eagerly getting ready for when Saturn gets to its summer solstice in 2017. Among the things being looked at is a hurricane at Saturn’s north pole.

Saturn's moon Atlas. Left image: viewed from the side, at a scale of 0.6 miles (1 km) per pixel. Right image: the mid-southern latitudes, at 820 feet (250 m) per pixel. The images are composite views from the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI — Saturn’s moon Atlas. Left image: viewed from the side, at a scale of 0.6 miles (1 km) per pixel. Right image: the mid-southern latitudes, at 820 feet (250 m) per pixel. The images are composite views from the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

June 16, 2014December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Peers Out from ‘Pillinger Point’ – Honoring British Beagle 2 Mars Scientist Where Ancient Water Flowed

Opportunity Mars rover peers into vast Endeavour Crater from Pillinger Point mountain ridge named in honor of Colin Pillinger, the Principal Investigator for the British Beagle 2 lander built to search for life on Mars. Pillinger passed away from a brain hemorrhage on May 7, 2014. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on June 5, 2014 (Sol 3684) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com

NASA’s decade old Opportunity rover has reached a long sought after region of aluminum-rich clay mineral outcrops at a new Endeavour crater ridge now “named ‘Pillinger Point’ after Colin Pillinger the Principal Investigator for the [British] Beagle 2 Mars lander”, Prof. Ray Arvidson, Deputy Principal Investigator for the rover, told Universe Today exclusively. See above the spectacular panoramic view from ‘Pillinger Point’ – where ancient water once flowed billions of year ago.

The Beagle 2 lander was built to search for signs of life on Mars.

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) team named the noteworthy ridge in honor of Prof. Colin Pillinger – a British planetary scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, who passed away at the age of 70 on May 7, 2014.

‘Pillinger Point’ is a scientifically bountiful place possessing both clay mineral outcrops and mineral veins where “waters came up through the cracks”, Arvidson explained to me.

Since water is a prerequisite for life as we know it, this is a truly fitting tribute to name Opportunity’s current exploration site ‘Pillinger Point’ after Prof. Pillinger.

See our new photo mosaic above captured by Opportunity peering out from ‘Pillinger Point’ ridge on June 5, 2014 (Sol 3684) and showing a panoramic view around the eroded mountain ridge and into vast Endeavour crater.

The gigantic crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.

See below our Opportunity 10 Year traverse map showing the location of Pillinger Point along the segmented rim of Endeavour crater.

British planetary scientist Colin Pillinger with the Beagle 2 lander.

Pillinger Point is situated south of Solander Point and Murray Ridge along the western rim of Endeavour in a region with caches of clay minerals indicative of an ancient Martian habitable zone.

For the past several months, the six wheeled robot has been trekking southwards from Solander towards the exposures of aluminum-rich clays – now named Pillinger Point- detected from orbit by the CRISM spectrometer aboard NASA’s powerful Martian ‘Spysat’ – the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) – while gathering context data at rock outcrops along the winding way.

“We are about 3/5 of the way along the outcrops that show an Al-OH [aluminum-hydroxl] montmorillonite [clay mineral] signature at 2.2 micrometers from CRISM along track oversampled data,” Arvidson told me.

“We have another ~160 meters to go before reaching a break in the outcrops and a broad valley.”

The rover mission scientists ultimate goal is travel even further south to ‘Cape Tribulation’ which holds a motherlode of the ‘phyllosilicate’ clay minerals based on extensive CRISM measurements accomplished earlier at Arvidson’s direction.

“The idea is to characterize the outcrops as we go and then once we reach the valley travel quickly to Cape Tribulation and the smectite valley, which is still ~2 km to the south of the present rover location,” Arvidson explained.

Mars Express and Beagle 2 were launched in 2003, the same year as NASA’s twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, on their interplanetary voyages to help unlock the mysteries of Mars potential for supporting microbial life forms.

Pillinger was the driving force behind the British built Beagle 2 lander which flew to the Red Planet piggybacked on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter. Unfortunately Beagle 2 vanished without a trace after being deployed from the orbiter on Dec. 19, 2003 with an expected air bag assisted landing on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2003.

In an obituary by the BBC, Dr David Parker, the chief executive of the UK Space Agency, said that Prof. Pillinger had played a critical role in raising the profile of the British space programme and had inspired “young people to dream big dreams”.

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover captures sweeping panoramic vista near the ridgeline of 22 km (14 mi) wide Endeavour Crater’s western rim. The center is southeastward and also clearly shows the distant rim. See the complete panorama below. This navcam panorama was stitched from images taken on May 10, 2014 (Sol 3659) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com

During his distinguished career Pillinger also analyzed lunar rock samples from NASA’s Apollo moon landing missions and worked on ESA’s Rosetta mission.

“It’s important to note that Colin’s contribution to planetary science goes back to working on Moon samples from Apollo, as well as his work on meteorites,” Dr Parker told the BBC.

Today, June 16, marks Opportunity’s 3696th Sol or Martian Day roving Mars – compared to a warranty of just 90 Sols.

So far she has snapped over 193,400 amazing images on the first overland expedition across the Red Planet.

Her total odometry stands at over 24.51 miles (39.44 kilometers) since touchdown on Jan. 24, 2004 at Meridiani Planum.

Meanwhile on the opposite side of Mars, Opportunity’s younger sister rover Curiosity is trekking towards gigantic Mount Sharp after drilling into her 3rd Red Planet rock at Kimberley.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Curiosity, Opportunity, Orion, SpaceX, Boeing, Orbital Sciences, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

Traverse Map for NASA’s Opportunity rover from 2004 to 2014 - A Decade on Mars. This map shows the entire path the rover has driven during a decade on Mars and over 3692 Sols, or Martian days, since landing inside Eagle Crater on Jan 24, 2004 to current location along Pillinger Point ridge south of Solander Point summit at the western rim of Endeavour Crater and heading to clay minerals at Cape Tribulation. Opportunity discovered clay minerals at Esperance - indicative of a habitable zone. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer — Traverse Map for NASA’s Opportunity rover from 2004 to 2014 – A Decade on Mars
This map shows the entire path the rover has driven during a decade on Mars and over 3692 Sols, or Martian days, since landing inside Eagle Crater on Jan 24, 2004 to current location along Pillinger Point ridge south of Solander Point summit at the western rim of Endeavour Crater and heading to clay minerals at Cape Tribulation. Opportunity discovered clay minerals at Esperance – indicative of a habitable zone. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer

June 16, 2014April 26, 2016 by Jason Major

New Horizons Wakes Up for the Summer

While many kids in the U.S. are starting their school summer vacations, New Horizons is about to get back to work! Speeding along on its way to Pluto the spacecraft has just woken up from hibernation, a nap it began five months (and 100 million miles) ago.

The next time New Horizons awakens from hibernation in December, it will be beginning its actual and long-awaited encounter with Pluto! But first the spacecraft and its team have a busy and exciting summer ahead.

New Horizons Tweeted about its Father's Day wakeup call — New Horizons tweeted about its Father’s Day wakeup call

After an in-depth checkout of its onboard systems and instruments, the New Horizons team will “track the spacecraft to refine its orbit, do a host of instrument calibrations needed before encounter, carry out a small but important course correction, and gather some cruise science,” according to principal investigator Alan Stern in his June 11 update, aptly titled “Childhood’s End.”

What’ll be particularly exciting for us space fans is an animation of Pluto and Charon in motion around each other, to be made from new observations to be acquired in July. Because of New Horizons’ position, the view will be from a perspective not possible from Earth.

New Horizons LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) composite image showing the detection of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, cleanly separated from Pluto itself. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) — New Horizons LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) image of Pluto and Charon from July 2013 (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

The next major milestone for New Horizons will be its crossing of Neptune’s orbit on August 25. (This just happens to fall on the 25th anniversary of Voyager 2’s closest approach in 1989.) “After that,” Stern says, “we’ll be in ‘Pluto space!'”

Launched on Jan. 19, 2006, New Horizons will make its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 at 11:49 UTC. Traveling nearly 35,000 mph (55,500 km/h) it’s one of the fastest vehicles ever built, moving almost 20 times faster than a bullet.

Read more from Alan Stern in his latest “PI Perspective” article on the New Horizons web site here, and check out NASA’s mission page here for the latest news as well.

“There is a lot to tell you about over the next 12 weeks, and this is just the warm-up act. Showtime — the start of the encounter — begins in just six months. This is what New Horizons was built for, and what we came to do. In a very real sense, the mission is emerging into its prime.”

– Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator

Also, check out a video on Pluto and the New Horizons mission here.

June 13, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

An Ocean On Pluto’s Moon? Hopeful Scientists Will Keep An Eye Out For Cracks

Artist impression of Pluto and Charon (NASA)

It’s a lot of speculation right now, but the buzz in a new NASA study is Pluto’s largest moon (Charon) could have a cracked surface.

If the New Horizons mission catches these cracks when it whizzes by in 2015, this could hint at an ocean underneath the lunar surface — just like what we talk about with Europa (near Jupiter) and Enceladus (near Saturn). But don’t get too excited — it’s also possible Charon had an ocean, but it froze out over time.

“Our model predicts different fracture patterns on the surface of Charon depending on the thickness of its surface ice, the structure of the moon’s interior and how easily it deforms, and how its orbit evolved,” stated Alyssa Rhoden of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who led the research.

“By comparing the actual New Horizons observations of Charon to the various predictions, we can see what fits best and discover if Charon could have had a subsurface ocean in its past, driven by high eccentricity.”

It seems an unlikely proposition given that Pluto is so far from the Sun — about 29 times further away than the Earth is. Its surface temperature is -380 degrees Farhenheit (-229 degrees Celsius), which — to say the least — would not be a good environment for liquid water on the surface.

But it could happen with enough tidal heating. To back up, both Europa and Enceladus are small moons fighting gravity from their much larger gas giant planets, not to mention a swarm of other moons. This “tug-of-war” not only makes their orbits eccentric, but creates tides that change the interior and the surface, causing the cracks. Perhaps this might have kept subsurface oceans alive on these moons.

Encaladus, a moon of Saturn, as shown in this Voyager 1 image. Credit: NASA

Since Charon once had an eccentric orbit, perhaps it also had tidal heating. Scientists think that the moon was created after a large object smacked into Pluto and created a chain of debris (similar to the leading theory for how our Moon was formed). The proportionally huge Charon — it’s one-eighth Pluto’s mass — would have been close to its parent planet, causing gravity to tug on both objects and creating friction inside their interiors.

“This friction would have also caused the tides to slightly lag behind their orbital positions,” NASA stated. “The lag would act like a brake on Pluto, causing its rotation to slow while transferring that rotational energy to Charon, making it speed up and move farther away from Pluto.”

But this friction would have ceased long ago, given that observations show Charon orbits in a stable circle further away from Pluto, and there are no extraneous tugs on its path today. So another possibility is there was an ocean beneath the moon’s surface that today is a block of ice.

The study was published in April in the journal Icarus. And by the way, some have even speculated that Pluto itself could have an ocean.

Source: NASA

June 13, 2014December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

It’s Hurricane Season and NASA is Ready Like Never Before

A member of NASA's Global Hawk fleet takes to the air. Credit: NASA/Armstrong Spaceflight Research Center.

What’s in the cards weather-wise for the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season? Although the start of astronomical summer for the northern hemisphere is still over a week away on June 21^st, meteorological summer has already begun and with it, hurricane season, which runs from June 1^st to November 30^th.

This year, NASA is deploying its latest weapons in its hurricane-hunting arsenal to study tropical storms like never before, including two new Earth observing satellites and two uncrewed Global Hawk aircraft.

The Global Hawk flights are set to begin on August 26^th from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility based along the Virginia coast and run through September 29th. This coincides with the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, when storm activity should be in full swing. The campaign is part of NASA’s airborne Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel mission, also known as HS3.

“This year, we’re going full-force into tropical cyclone research,” stated HS3 mission principal investigator Scott Braun in a recent press release from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight center headquartered at Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ll have two Global Hawks equipped with six instruments. The new NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory will be providing much higher quality data than previously available on rain structure in tropical cyclones in all ocean basins. The surface-wind monitoring ISS-RapidScat instrument to be launched to the International Space Station this season will provide valuable information on surface winds and storms.”

One of the key mysteries that the HS3 program is targeting is the role that a dry hot air phenomenon known as the Saharan Air Layer or SAL plays in hurricane formation and subsequent intensification. Some studies suggest the SAL feeds and triggers hurricane formation off of the north African coast —a mainstream view held by many meteorologists — while other studies imply that it may actually suppress it. HS3 will also give researchers the enhanced capability to monitor and track the formation of thunderstorms near the core of hurricanes and tropical storms and follow their progression.

To accomplish this, the HS3 Global Hawk aircraft will deploy devices that measure humidity, temperature and wind speeds known as dropsondes. All of the dropsondes to be deployed by NASA in the 2014 season are managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Global Hawk aircraft are ideal for hurricane tracking and hunting because they can stay aloft for up to 26 hours and fly at altitudes of over 18,000 metres. HS3 mission control for the Global Hawks is based out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

The first Global Hawk will provide data on the storm’s environment. The gear it uses to accomplish this will include the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS), and the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS).

Global Hawk number two will analyze the core storm regions to gauge temperature, humidity, surface winds and precipitation. It will use an array of instruments to accomplish this, including the High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD), and Doppler Radar.

The dramatic night launch of the GPM satellite from Tanegashima, Japan. Credit: NASA/JAXA

In orbit, the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) will continue with the legacy of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and follow hurricanes through all phases of formation and decay. A joint NASA/JAXA mission, GPM was launched atop an H-IIA rocket earlier this year on February 27^th from Tanegashima Space Center located on the southern tip of Kyushu Island in Japan. Of particular interest to GPM researchers is the formation of deep thunderstorms known as hot towers near the hurricane eyewall. GPM is located in an 65° degree inclination in low Earth orbit and will be able to track hurricanes and study hot tower formation as they move out of the tropics.

Newsflash- no sooner than we finished this article than we noticed that a rocket booster associated with the GPM launch is set to reenter soon on June 17th.

A diagram of RapidScat's future home on the ISS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Johnson Spaceflight Center. — A diagram of RapidScat’s future home on the ISS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Johnson Spaceflight Center.

And finally, RapidScat is set to head to the International Space Station later this year. Set to be mounted on the exterior of the Columbus module of the ISS, RapidScat will be an invaluable tool for monitoring ocean surface winds and is a cost effective replacement for the QuickScat satellite that ceased operation in 2009. RapidScat is set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket as part of the CRS-4 Dragon resupply mission slated for sometime this August.

These assets will give NASA the ability to study hurricanes that form during the 2014 season like never before. And speaking of the ISS, the live camera that now broadcasts HD images 24 hours a day will make for some interesting views of hurricanes online from space.

And what’s on tap for the 2014 Atlantic season? Well, forecast models out of Colorado State University suggest that an anomalous cooling early on in the Atlantic will lead to fewer than usual named storms, with perhaps only 9, as opposed to the usual average number of 12. Of these, perhaps 1-2 will reach category 3 or higher, as opposed to the average number of 3. A leading factor in this weakened trend is the possibility of a moderate to strong El Nino event earlier this year. Keep in mind through, that it only takes one destructive hurricane to wreak havoc, and these still can and do occur, even on off years.

Whatever the case, NASA and the NOAA will have all their tools at their disposal ready to study these powerful storms as the season rolls on.

June 13, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

NASA’s Saucer-Shaped Mars Vehicle Idea Loses Flight Test ‘Window’ Due To Weather

Artist's impression of NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA has lost its reserved time at a range in Hawaii to test a saucer-shaped vehicle that one day could help spacecraft get on the Red Planet safely.

The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) was supposed to take to the air this month, but bad weather means that officials won’t get to test the vehicle’s flight and landing abilities before their range time expires tomorrow (Saturday).

The plan had been to test LDSD’s new inflatable technology, which would put a buffer around its heat shield to slow the speed down when it was still high in the atmosphere. NASA wanted to send the test device up on a weather balloon to 120,000 feet (36,600 meters) before releasing it for a short powered flight to 180,000 feet (54,900 meters). LDSD would then inflate the device and subsequently, open up a large parachute for the drop to Earth. Now it looks like that won’t happen until later this month.

“There were six total opportunities to test the vehicle, and the delay of all six opportunities was caused by weather,” stated Mark Adler, the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project manager. “We needed the mid-level winds between 15,000 and 60,000 feet [4,500 meters to 18,230 meters] to take the balloon away from the island. While there were a few days that were very close, none of the days had the proper wind conditions.”

A timeline of events for a test of NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech — A timeline of events for a test of NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

While officials don’t know when they will next get time at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range in Kauai, Hawaii, they’re hoping to start the testing near the end of June. NASA emphasized that the bad weather was quite unexpected, as the team had spent two years looking at wind conditions worldwide and determined Kauai was the best spot for both the wind and also doing the test over the ocean, away from where people live.

If the technology works, NASA says it will be useful for landing heavier spacecraft on the Red Planet. This is one of the challenges the agency must surmount if it launches human missions to the planet, which would require more equipment and living supplies than the rover missions currently roaming the Martian surface.

For more information on LDSD, check out this past Universe Today article and the NASA website.