Posted on by Fraser Cain

Early Solar System Was a Mess

Planets are built over a long period of massive collisions between rocky bodies as big as mountain ranges, astronomers announced today.

New observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope reveal surprisingly large dust clouds around several stars. These clouds most likely flared up when rocky, embryonic planets smashed together. The Earth’s own Moon may have formed from such a catastrophe. Prior to these new results, astronomers thought planets were formed under less chaotic circumstances.

“It’s a mess out there,” said Dr. George Rieke of the University of Arizona, Tucson, first author of the findings and a Spitzer scientist. “We are seeing that planets have a long, rocky road to go down before they become full grown.”

Spitzer was able to see the dusty aftermaths of these collisions with its powerful infrared vision. When embryonic planets, the rocky cores of planets like Earth and Mars, crash together, they are believed to either merge into a bigger planet or splinter into pieces. The dust generated by these events is warmed by the host star and glows in the infrared, where Spitzer can see it.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal. They mirror what we know about the formation of our own planetary system. Recent observations from studies of our Moon’s impact craters also reveal a turbulent early solar system. “Our Moon took a lot of violent hits when planets had already begun to take shape,” Rieke said.

According to the most popular theory, rocky planets form somewhat like snowmen. They start out around young stars as tiny balls in a disc-shaped field of thick dust. Then, through sticky interactions with other dust grains, they gradually accumulate more mass. Eventually, mountain-sized bodies take shape, which further collide to make planets.

Previously, astronomers envisioned this process proceeding smoothly toward a mature planetary system over a few million to a few tens of millions of years. Dusty planet-forming discs, they predicted, should steadily fade away with age, with occasional flare-ups from collisions between leftover rocky bodies.

Rieke and his colleagues have observed a more varied planet-forming environment. They used new Spitzer data, together with previous data from the joint NASA, United Kingdom and the Netherlands’ Infrared Astronomical Satellite and the European Space Agency’s Infrared Space Observatory. They looked for dusty discs around 266 nearby stars of similar size, about two to three times the mass of the Sun, and various ages. Seventy-one of those stars were found to harbor discs, presumably containing planets at different stages of development. But, instead of seeing the discs disappear in older stars, the astronomers observed the opposite in some cases.

“We thought young stars, about one million years old, would have larger, brighter discs, and older stars from 10 to 100 million years old would have fainter ones,” Rieke said. “But we found some young stars missing discs and some old stars with massive discs.”

This variability implies planet-forming discs can become choked with dust throughout the discs’ lifetime, up to hundreds of millions of years after the host star was formed. “The only way to produce as much dust as we are seeing in these older stars is through huge collisions,” Rieke said.

Before Spitzer, only a few dozen planet-forming discs had been observed around stars older than a few million years. Spitzer’s uniquely sensitive infrared vision allows it to sense the dim heat from thousands of discs of various ages. “Spitzer has opened a new door to the study of discs and planetary evolution,” said Dr. Michael Werner, project scientist for Spitzer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

“These exciting new findings give us new insights into the process of planetary formation, a process that led to the birth of planet Earth and to life,” said Dr. Anne Kinney, director of the universe division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “Spitzer truly embodies NASA’s mission to explore the universe and search for life,” she said.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Artist’s concepts and additional information about the Spitzer Space Telescope is available at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Edge of Huygens Crater

This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA?s Mars Express spacecraft, shows the eastern rim of the Martian impact crater Huygens.

The image was taken during orbit 532 in June 2004 with a ground resolution of approximately 70 metres per pixel. The displayed region is centred around longitude 61? East and latitude 14? South.

Huygens is an impact structure, about 450 kilometres wide, located in the heavily cratered southern highlands of Mars. Crater counts of the rim unit of the impact basin indicate that it is almost 4000 million years old.

This implies that this basin was formed in the early history of the planet and indicates a period of heavy bombardment in roughly the first 500 million years of the planet?s lifetime.

The basin shows an inner ring that has been subsequently filled by sediments transported into the crater.

Thia image showa part of the eastern rim of the crater. The rim is heavily eroded and shows a ?dendritic? pattern. This observation suggests surface water run-off.

Dendritic systems are the most common form of drainage system found on Earth. They consist of a main ?river? valley with tributaries with their own tributaries. From above, they look like a tree or a river delta in reverse.

The valley system is blanketed by dark material, which was either transported by a fluid running through the channels or by wind-driven (?aeolian?) processes. Part of the area has been covered by slightly redder material, which implies a different chemical composition.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

What’s Up This Week? – October 18 – 24

Monday, October 18 – For naked-eye observers, enjoy the beautiful Moon and be sure to gaze upon one of the finest of stars, Vega. Facing West at just after sundown, Vega is bright enough to shine even in the city and will appear just slightly below the zenith. The name Vega means “Falling Eagle” and it is the fifth brightest star in the sky. Enjoyed in either telescopes or binoculars, Vega has a wonderful bluish appearance and a lovely halo of spectra. This magnificent star holds a place in ancient legend and blossomed in our imaginations even more recently as it became the “star” of the movie “Contact”. As the western-most point of the “Southern Triangle”, Vega holds a special appeal for those born in the year 1977. Why? Because Vega is 27 light years away, the light you see from it tonight left the year you were born!

For telescope users, the Moon gives a wonderful opportunity tonight to study ancient the crater Posidonius. Its 84 km by 98 km (52 by 61 mile) expanse is easily seen in the most modest of optical instruments and it offers a wealth of detail in its eroded walls and 1768 meter (5800 ft.) central peak. Be sure to continue on southward from Posidonius to edge of Mare Serenitatis to view the Apollo 17 landing area!

Tuesday, October 19 – The Moon will try to overtake the skies tonight, but observers will turn their backs to it as they face north and look almost directly overhead for bright star, Deneb. Visible even under urban conditions, Deneb marks the “tail” of the constellation of Cygnus and is the northernmost star of the “Summer Triangle”. Although Deneb is around 1600 light years away, it is the 19th brightest star in the sky and also one of the most luminous. Did you know that it shines about 60,000 times brighter than our own Sun?!

For moon watchers tonight, we celebrate 35 years of space exploration as the Apollo 11 landing site now becomes visible. For telescopes and binoculars the landing area will be near the terminator at the southern edge of Mare Tranquillitatus. For those of you who would like a real challenge? Try spotting small craters Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins just east of easy craters Sabine and Ritter. No scope? No problem! Look at the Moon. The dark round area you see on the north eastern limb is Mare Crisium. The dark area below that is Mare Fecundatatis… Now look mid-way on the terminator for the dark area that is Mare Tranquillitatus.

We were there…

Wednesday, October 20 – Tonight is a wonderful chance for binoculars and small telescopes to study the Moon. Craters Aristotle and Eudoxus to the north will be easily apparent, along with the Caucasus and Apennine mountain range. For those of you looking for a slight telescopic lunar challenge? Then look no further than the Valles Alpes. More commonly known as the “Alpine Valley” this deep gash cut across the northern surface will be easily visible and the lighting conditions will be just right to explore its 1.6 km to 20.9 km (1-13 mile) wide and 177 km (110 mile) long expanse.

Don’t stay up too late, though, because the Orionid Meteor Shower is about to begin!

Thursday, October 21 – Be sure to be outdoors before dawn to enjoy one of the year’s most reliable meteor showers. The offspring of Comet Halley will grace the early morning hours as they return once again as the Orionid meteor shower. This dependable shower produces an average of 10-20 meteors per hour at maximum and the best activity begins before local midnight on the 20th; it’ll become more visible as the Moon sets, and reaches its best as Orion stands high to the south at about two hours before local dawn on the 21st.

Although Comet Halley has long since departed our Solar System, the debris left from its trail still remain scattered in Earth’s orbital pattern around the Sun allowing us to predict when this meteor shower will occur. We first enter the “stream” at the beginning of October and do not leave it until the beginning of November, making your chances of “catching a falling star” even greater! These meteors are very fast, and although they are faint, it is still possible to see an occasional “fireball” that leaves a persistent trail.

For best success, try to get away from city lights. Facing South/Southeast, simply relax and enjoy the stars of the Winter Milky Way. The “radiant”, or apparent point of origin, for this shower will be near the red giant Alpha Orionis (Betelguese), but meteors may occur from any point in the sky. You will make your meteor watching experience much more comfortable if you take along a lawn chair, blanket and a thermos of your favourite beverage.

Clouded out? Don’t despair. You don’t always need your eyes or perfect weather to meteor watch. By tuning an FM radio to the lowest frequency possible that does not receive a “clear signal”, you can practice radio meteor listening! An outdoor FM antenna pointed at the zenith and connected to your receiver will increase your chances, but it’s not necessary. Simply turn up the static and listen. Those hums, whistles, beeps, bongs, and occasional snatches of signals are our own radio signals being reflected off the meteor’s ion trail!

Pretty cool, huh?

Now, enjoy your day and be sure to take out your telescopes and have a look at the Moon tonight. One of the most sought-after and unusual features will be visible to small telescopes in the southern half of the Moon near the terminator – Rupes Recta! Also known as “The Straight Wall”, this 130 km (75 mile) long, 366 meter (1200 ft.) high feature slopes upward with the steepest angle on the lunar surface at 41 degrees. It will be a challenge under these lighting conditions, but look for triple ring craters Ptolemy, Alphonsus and Arzachel to guide you. The “Straight Wall” will appear as a very thin line stretching across the edge of Mare Nubium.

Friday, October 22 – Start your weekend with some lunar exploration as crater Copernicus becomes visible to even the most modest of optical aids. Small binoculars will see Copernicus as a bright “ring” about midway along the lunar dividing line of light and dark called the “terminator”. Telescopes will reveal its 97 km (60 mile) expanse and 120 meter (1200 ft.) central peak to perfection. Copernicus holds special appeal as it’s the aftermath of a huge meteoric impact! At 3800 meters (12,600 feet) deep, its walls are around 22 km (14 miles) thick and over the next few days, the impact ray system extending from this tremendous crater will become wonderfully apparent.

Saturday, October 23 – It’s a “Moon Gazer’s” weekend as our nearest astronomical neighbor continues to light up the night sky. Even from 383,000 km (238,000 miles) away! Don’t put away your telescopes and binoculars thinking there will be nothing to view, because one of the most “romantic” features on the lunar surface will be highlighted tonight.

The Sinus Iridium is one of the most fascinating and calming areas on the Moon. At around 241 km (150 miles) in diameter and ringed by the Juras Mountains, it’s known as the quiet name of “The Bay of Rainbows” but was formed by a cataclysm. Science speculates that a minor planet around 201 km (125 miles) in diameter once impacted our forming Moon with a glancing strike and the result of that impact caused “waves” of material to wash up to a “shoreline” forming this delightful C-shaped lunar feature. The effect of looking at a bay is stunning as the smooth inner sands show soft waves called “rilles”, broken only by a few small, impact craters. The picture is complete as Promentoriums Heraclides and LaPlace tower above the surface at 1800 meters (5900 ft.) and 3000 meters (9900 feet) respectively and appear as distant “lighthouses” set on either tip of Sinus Iridum’s opening.

Sunday, October 24 – Take the time tonight to once again return to the Moon and explore with binoculars or telescopes the area to the south around another easy and delightful lunar feature, the crater Gassendi. At around 110 km (70 miles) in diameter and 2010 meters (6600 feet) deep, this ancient crater contains a triple mountain peak in its center. As one of the most “perfect circles” on the Moon, the south wall of Gassendi has been eroded by lava flows over a 48 km (30 mile) expanse and offers a great amount of details to telescopic observers on its ridge and rille covered floor.

For those observing with binoculars? Gassendi’s bright ring stands on the north shore of Mare Humorum… An area about the size of the state of Arkansas!

Writing by Tammy Plotner

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Deep Impact Arrives in Florida

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

Posted on by Fraser Cain

SMART-1 Nearly Captured By the Moon

Image credit: ESA
From 10 to 14 October the ion engine of ESA?s SMART-1 carried out a continuous thrust manoeuvre in a last major push that will get the spacecraft to the Moon capture point on 13 November.

SMART-1, on its way to the Moon, has now covered more than 80 million kilometres. Its journey started on 27 September 2003, when the spacecraft was launched on board an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe?s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Since then, it has been spiralling in progressively larger orbits around Earth, to eventually be captured by the lunar gravity and enter into orbit around the Moon in November this year.

The SMART-1 mission was designed to pursue two main objectives. The first is purely technological: to demonstrate and test a number of space techniques to be applied to future interplanetary exploration missions. The second goal is scientific, mainly dedicated to lunar science. It is the technology demonstration goal, in particular the first European flight test of a solar-powered ion engine as a spacecraft?s main propulsion system, that gave shape to the peculiar route and duration (13 months) of the SMART-1 journey to the Moon.

The long spiralling orbit around Earth, which is bringing the spacecraft closer and closer to the Moon, is needed for the ion engine to function and be tested over a distance comparable to that a spacecraft would travel during a possible interplanetary trip. The SMART-1 mission is also testing the response of a spacecraft propelled by such an engine during gravity-assisted manoeuvres. These are techniques currently used on interplanetary journeys, which make use of the gravitational pull of celestial objects (e.g. planets) for the spacecraft to gain acceleration and reach its final target while saving fuel.

In SMART-1?s case, the Moon?s gravitational pull has been exploited in three ‘lunar resonance’ manoeuvres. The first two successfully took place in August and September 2004. The last resonance manoeuvre was on 12 October, during the last major ion engine thrust, which lasted nearly five days, from 10 to 14 October. Thanks to this final thrust, SMART-1 will make two more orbits around Earth without any further need to switch on the engine, apart from minor trajectory correction if needed. The same thrust will allow the spacecraft to progressively fall into the natural sphere of attraction of the Moon and start orbiting around it from 13 November, when it is 60 000 kilometres from the lunar surface.

SMART-1 will reach its first perilune (initial closest distance from the lunar surface) on 15 November, while the ion engine is performing its first and major thrust in orbit around the Moon. After that it will continue orbiting around the Moon in smaller loops until it reaches its final operational orbit (spanning between 3000 and 300 kilometres over the Moon?s poles) in mid-January 2005. From then, for six months Smart-1 will start the first comprehensive survey of key chemical elements on the lunar surface and will investigate the theory of how the Moon was formed.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Investigators Focus in On a Potential Cause for Genesis Crash

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

Posted on by Fraser Cain

New Guinea From Space

Visible from 800km away in space is the verdant rainforest that covers the distinctive Bird’s Head or Doberai Peninsula of the island of New Guinea, together with the Bomberai Peninsula below it.

This Envisat Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) acquisition shows the western part of New Guinea, just before Borneo as the single largest island in the tropics and the second largest island in the world after Greenland.

New Guinea is divided between the independent nation of Papua New Guinea on its eastern side, and the easternmost – and single largest – province of Indonesia, Papua, the western half of which is seen here.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, New Guinea as a whole is home to the world’s third largest block of unbroken tropical rainforest and contains as many distinct bird and plant species as Australia in just one-tenth its land area – including unique animals such as tree kangaroos and almost all the world’s birds of paradise. Its many tribes speak around 1100 different languages, making it home to almost one fifth of global languages.

The shape of New Guinea is often compared to a bird, with its westernmost extremity as its head. Attached to what is already an ecologically rich island, the Bird’s Head Peninsula is a particular treasure house.

Its beaches are nesting sites for endangered Leatherback turtles, while the montane rainforest of its northeastern highlands ? including the 63000-hectare Arfak Mountains Nature Reserve – is renowned for its many species of bird-wing butterflies and birds.

The relative inaccessibility of the rugged terrain of the Arfuk Mountains means this habitat remains largely intact, although being close to the expanding population centre of Manokwari it is increasingly encroached upon by road construction, expansion of commercial agriculture and ranching.

The southern part of the Bird’s Head Peninsula is made up of lowlands and coastal swamps, through which long rivers run down from the mountains to the sea, as is the Bomberai Peninsula seen below it.

Until 2002 Papua was known as Irian Jaya, meaning ‘Victorious Hot Land’. In 1969 it was the last former Dutch East Indian colony to come under Indonesian rule. Sometimes called Indonesia’s “Wild East”, the territory is the subject of increasing interest by oil and mineral companies.

This image was acquired on 20 March 2004 by MERIS in full resolution mode, providing 300-metre spatial resolution.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Proton Launches AMC-15 Satellite

A Russian Proton launch vehicle placed the AMC-15 satellite into orbit this morning, marking the ninth mission of the year for International Launch Services (ILS).

The Proton lifted off at 3:23 a.m. today in Baikonur (5:23 p.m. Thursday EDT, 21:23 Thursday GMT), with spacecraft separation from the Breeze M upper stage nearly seven hours later, at 10:18 a.m. (12:18 a.m. EDT, 4:18 GMT).

ILS is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [NYSE:LMT] and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Russia. ILS markets and manages the missions on the Proton vehicle and on the American Atlas rocket.

?We thank SES AMERICOM for launching again with ILS,? said ILS President Mark Albrecht. ?This makes three for three, with two to go this year for this customer. I?m proud of our long-standing relationship with AMERICOM and its parent company, SES GLOBAL. And it?s good to be involved with EchoStar again as well, which has launched several dedicated satellites with ILS before teaming with SES AMERICOM on AMC-15.?

AMC-15, an A2100 model satellite built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, carries both Ku- and Ka-band payloads. SES AMERICOM?s customer for this satellite is EchoStar?s DISH Network direct-to-home service.

ILS started its launch year in February by orbiting the AMC-10 satellite on an Atlas vehicle, and it launched AMC-11 in May on another Atlas. The two remaining AMERICOM payloads are set for December launches, with AMC-16 satellite on an Atlas V vehicle and WorldSat 2 on another Proton vehicle.

Dany Harel, SES AMERICOM vice president for satellite and space systems, said: ?This Proton Breeze M launch was picture-perfect in the darkened skies over Kazakhstan, and on spec as we monitored every stage. We thank the ILS team for delivering AMC-15 into transfer orbit. Now we and our Lockheed Martin spacecraft partners can get the satellite ready for service to our customer, EchoStar, by December.?

ILS is the global leader in launch services, offering the industry’s two best launch systems: Atlas and Proton. With a remarkable launch rate of 67 missions since 2000, the Atlas and Proton launch vehicles have consistently demonstrated the reliability and flexibility that have made them preferred choice among satellite operators worldwide. Since the beginning of 2003, ILS has signed more new commercial contracts than all of its competitors combined. ILS was formed in 1995, and is based in McLean, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Original Source: ILS News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Mars and Back in 90 Days on a Mag-Beam

A new means of propelling spacecraft being developed at the University of Washington could dramatically cut the time needed for astronauts to travel to and from Mars and could make humans a permanent fixture in space.

In fact, with magnetized-beam plasma propulsion, or mag-beam, quick trips to distant parts of the solar system could become routine, said Robert Winglee, a UW Earth and space sciences professor who is leading the project.

Currently, using conventional technology and adjusting for the orbits of both the Earth and Mars around the sun, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars, conduct their scientific mission and return.

“We’re trying to get to Mars and back in 90 days,” Winglee said. “Our philosophy is that, if it’s going to take two-and-a-half years, the chances of a successful mission are pretty low.”

Mag-beam is one of 12 proposals that this month began receiving support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Institute for Advanced Concepts. Each gets $75,000 for a six-month study to validate the concept and identify challenges in developing it. Projects that make it through that phase are eligible for as much as $400,000 more over two years.

Under the mag-beam concept, a space-based station would generate a stream of magnetized ions that would interact with a magnetic sail on a spacecraft and propel it through the solar system at high speeds that increase with the size of the plasma beam. Winglee estimates that a control nozzle 32 meters wide would generate a plasma beam capable of propelling a spacecraft at 11.7 kilometers per second. That translates to more than 26,000 miles an hour or more than 625,000 miles a day.

Mars is an average of 48 million miles from Earth, though the distance can vary greatly depending on where the two planets are in their orbits around the sun. At that distance, a spacecraft traveling 625,000 miles a day would take more than 76 days to get to the red planet. But Winglee is working on ways to devise even greater speeds so the round trip could be accomplished in three months.

But to make such high speeds practical, another plasma unit must be stationed on a platform at the other end of the trip to apply brakes to the spacecraft.

“Rather than a spacecraft having to carry these big powerful propulsion units, you can have much smaller payloads,” he said.

Winglee envisions units being placed around the solar system by missions already planned by NASA. One could be used as an integral part of a research mission to Jupiter, for instance, and then left in orbit there when the mission is completed. Units placed farther out in the solar system would use nuclear power to create the ionized plasma; those closer to the sun would be able to use electricity generated by solar panels.

The mag-beam concept grew out of an earlier effort Winglee led to develop a system called mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion. In that system, a plasma bubble would be created around a spacecraft and sail on the solar wind. The mag-beam concept removes reliance on the solar wind, replacing it with a plasma beam that can be controlled for strength and direction.

A mag-beam test mission could be possible within five years if financial support remains consistent, he said. The project will be among the topics during the sixth annual NASA Advanced Concepts Institute meeting Tuesday and Wednesday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seattle. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Winglee acknowledges that it would take an initial investment of billions of dollars to place stations around the solar system. But once they are in place, their power sources should allow them to generate plasma indefinitely. The system ultimately would reduce spacecraft costs, since individual craft would no longer have to carry their own propulsion systems. They would get up to speed quickly with a strong push from a plasma station, then coast at high speed until they reach their destination, where they would be slowed by another plasma station.

“This would facilitate a permanent human presence in space,” Winglee said. “That’s what we are trying to get to.”

Original Source: University of Washington News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Preparing for Huygens’ Release

Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
On Jan. 14, 2005, the Huygens probe will plow into the orange atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan, becoming the first spacecraft to attempt to land on a moon in our solar system since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 touched down on Earth’s moon in 1976.

Though scientists hope that Huygens will survive the plunge, it will be flying blind through hydrocarbon haze and methane clouds to a surface that could consist of seven-kilometer-high ice mountains and liquid methane seas.

That’s the picture that emerges from a series of articles – half of them by University of California, Berkeley, researchers – published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month and detailing what scientists know to date about the surface, atmosphere and magnetic field of Titan. This view sets the stage for an analysis of new data soon to arrive from the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens probe.

“These (journal) papers really give a state-of-the-art picture of Titan, before Cassini goes into orbit around Saturn and the Huygens probe goes into Titan’s atmosphere,” said Imke de Pater, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley who wrote the introductory paper in the series and co-authored four of the nine papers. The papers came out of a meeting De Pater hosted last November at UC Berkeley to discuss what has been gleaned to date about the moon from optical, infrared and radar telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the twin Keck Telescopes in Hawaii.

Scientists expect the current sketchy picture of Titan’s surface, totally obscured by clouds and haze, will much improve when the Cassini spacecraft, which is carrying the Huygens probe, starts an intense observation of Titan later this month. While on-board infrared imaging cameras can pierce the cloud cover, however, they can only reveal bright and dark spots on the surface, which are difficult to interpret. What Huygens will encounter at Titan’s surface will remain a mystery until the probe plops into an ocean or parachutes to solid ground.

“Based upon their spectral characteristics, the bright areas imaged by various Earth-bound telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope could be a mixture of rock and water ice,” de Pater said. Such a mixture appears relatively bright in comparison with substances like tar and liquid hydrocarbons, which absorb essentially all sunlight at these wavelengths and hence appear very dark.

“The dark areas could contain liquid hydrocarbons,” she said. “But they’re all still a mystery.”

Some scientists have suggested that one large bright area, Xanadu, is a mountain of rock and water ice that stands out because runoff (hydrocarbon rain) has washed off the dark hydrocarbon particles. UC Berkeley graduate student J. Taylor Perron and de Pater concluded in one of the papers that such an ice continent, primarily composed of water ice, could be no higher than 3 to 7 kilometers – that is, at most, 23,000 feet, about the height of Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina. That is even more impressive on a globe less than half the diameter of Earth.

The Huygens probe, which will take from two to two and a half hours to float to the surface, is aiming for a landing site in a dark area bordering a bright area near the equator, so it could land instead in a gasoline-like hydrocarbon brew of methane, propane or butane. Though the probe is designed to float, its builders expect, at most, 45 minutes of data once it sets down. A few minutes would be cause for celebration.

The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center in 1997, the product of an international collaboration between three space agencies – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space agency – involving contributions from 17 nations. It arrived at Saturn in July 2004, beginning a four-year mission to photograph and collect data on Saturn, its rings and moons. This Oct. 26, it will get within 1,000 kilometers of Titan – closer than ever before – turning its remote sensing instruments on that moon’s surface and atmosphere. Cassini will release the Huygens probe on Christmas Day, Dec. 25.

The second largest moon in the solar system and the only one with a thick, methane-rich, nitrogen atmosphere, Titan intrigues scientists because of its resemblance to a young Earth. The atmospheres of both Titan and the early Earth were dominated by nearly the same amount of nitrogen, and the chemistry discovered on Titan could provide clues to the origins of life on our planet.

De Pater and chemistry graduate student Mate Adamkovics have used the adaptive optics on the Keck Telescope in Hawaii to image the hydrocarbon haze that envelops the moon, taking snapshots at various altitudes from 150 to 200 kilometers down to the surface. In the movie they constructed from these snapshots, haze is very evident in the atmosphere at about 30-50 kilometers over the South Pole. Stratospheric haze at about 150 kilometers is visible over a large area in the northern hemisphere but not the southern hemisphere, an asymmetry observed previously. And at the southern hemisphere’s tropopause – the border between the lower atmosphere and the stratosphere at about 42 kilometers altitude – cirrus haze is visible, analogous to cirrus haze on Earth.

These observations agree with a theory of haze formation whereby sunlight creates haze particles at a high altitude – 400 to 600 kilometers above the surface – that are blown to the winter pole, where the haze accumulates as a polar “hood.” The haze particles start to settle out and are carried by a lower-elevation return flow to the summer hemisphere.

Laboratory experiments by Melissa Trainer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, reported in the journal suggest that the haze particles could be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons if the methane concentration in the atmosphere is high – around 10 percent – though they would be primarily long-chain hydrocarbons at low concentrations. The Huygens probe will measure gas concentrations as it plummets through the atmosphere, hopefully testing this connection between methane concentration and aerosol composition.

Cassini’s observations of Titan over the next four years should yield much more information about the atmospheric haze and surface topography, as well as raise new questions. De Pater urges ground-based astronomers to continue to observe Titan’s moon, “so the Cassini/Huygens data can be tied in with the long-term data base on Titan’s seasons,” she wrote.

De Pater herself will be peering at Titan through the Keck Telescope on Jan. 15 when the Huygens probe disappears into the atmosphere.

“I’m skeptical that we’ll see a meteor trail, as some have predicted, but our observations will give us a good image of Titan at the time of probe entry, which could be very relevant to calibrating Titan at entry time,” de Pater said.

De Pater’s research is supported by the National Science Foundation. The Nov. 17, 2003, workshop on Titan was sponsored by the Center for Integrative Planetary Studies at UC Berkeley.

Original Source: Berkeley News Release