Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 9, 2015 at 11:20:47 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Friday – Jan. 9, 2015
Have a great weekend everyone and be safe! Lets hope SpaceX can get rocket problem resolved and get launched soon!NASA and Human Spaceflight NewsFriday – Jan. 9, 2015HEADLINES AND LEADSThe Debate About The Future Of Human Spaceflight – 30 Years OnMarcia Smith - Aviation Week & Space TechnologyExactly 30 years ago, the Reagan White House was in the midst of choosing the members of a National Commission on Space (NCOS) to satisfy Title II of the FY1985 NASA Authorization Act (P.L. 98-361).Redirecting Asteroid Not Top Objective of Asteroid Redirect Mission, NASA Official SaysDan Leone – Space NewsA NASA official on Jan. 7 offered one of the clearest reminders yet that the agency's proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) is more about technology development than actually sending a small asteroid to lunar orbit to be visited by astronauts next decade.Senate Commerce Names Subcommittee Chairs: Ted Cruz for NASA, Marco Rubio for NOAAMarcia S. Smith - Spacepolicyonline.comThe Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today announced who will chair its subcommittees in the 114th Congress. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will chair the subcommittee that oversees NASA, while Marco Rubio (R-FL) will chair the one with jurisdiction over NOAA.Surprisingly Bright Comet Lovejoy Dazzles SkywatchersIan O'Neill - Discovery.comIf, like me, you have been fascinated with the appearance of Comet Lovejoy in the night sky this month, you may have tried to track it down with a pair of binoculars or telescope. Using just a 250mm lens on my DSLR was enough for me to pinpoint the interplanetary vagabond glowing beneath the constellation of Orion. Although mildly chuffed with my very amateur astrophotography attempt, seasoned astronomers are having a field day with a comet whose brightness has outstripped expectations.Mercury may be sole survivor of planetary pile-upLisa Grossman – New ScientistThe inner solar system may once have been a crowded and violent place – and Mercury its lone survivor. A new model suggests that most young planetary systems start with several close-in, rocky planets, which later destroy each other in a cascade of collisions.NASA's Juno spacecraft on its way to unveil Jupiter's mysteriesTomasz Nowakowski - Spaceflight InsiderThe gas giant Jupiter safeguards many secrets crucial to our understanding of the evolution of our solar system. It could also provide insights on how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar neighborhood. NASA's Juno spacecraft is on its way to reveal those mysteries as the probe is on course for its planned arrival at Jupiter on July 4, 2016.Opportunity Tops Martian Mountain! Milestone Achievement 11 Years afterTouchdown Reveals Stunning VistaKen Kremer – AmericaSpaceAlmost exactly 3900 Sols into her planned 3 month mission, NASA's world renowned Opportunity rover climbed proudly atop the tallest Martian mountain she will ever ascend, achieving a "milestone that can't be underestimated," Prof. Steve Squyres, the rovers Science Principal Investigator of Cornell University, said exclusively to AmericaSpace, today, soon after signals were received that the astonishing event took place.Hubble Telescope Captures Best View Ever of the Andromeda GalaxyMiriam Kramer - Space.comThe Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. The new mosaic image represents the sharpest and largest mosaic image of the Milky Way's galactic neighbor ever taken, Hubble officials said.Nissan, NASA to Work on Autonomous Car TechnologyAssociated Press via New York TimesJapanese automaker Nissan and NASA are teaming up to advance the technology behind cars that drive autonomously.COMPLETE STORIESThe Debate About The Future Of Human Spaceflight – 30 Years OnMarcia Smith - Aviation Week & Space TechnologyExactly 30 years ago, the Reagan White House was in the midst of choosing the members of a National Commission on Space (NCOS) to satisfy Title II of the FY1985 NASA Authorization Act (P.L. 98-361).
A year earlier, President Reagan had announced in his State of the Union address that NASA would build a space station and invite other countries to join. Congress agreed, authorizing the program in the FY1985 Act, but it also wanted to know where the space shuttle and this new space station were taking the United States.
NASA sold the space station as "the next logical step" in human spaceflight. Congress wanted to know "the next logical step to where?"
I was privileged to be executive director of NCOS and confess to being astonished that 30 years later we are still debating that question.
Congress asked for a report that looked out at the next 20 years, but also said that NCOS could not make any recommendations about the space shuttle or space station. They were "givens" and since they would consume many of those 20 years, we got permission to extend our time frame to 50 years – to the year 2035.
Former NASA Administrator Tom Paine was our chairman. Paine was a true visionary whose zeal for human exploration of Mars was well known. Thus it was no surprise that humans on Mars was the long term goal expounded by the NCOS report.
But it was much more than that. Congress asked not only about human spaceflight, but all of civilian space, including activities by both the public and private sectors. "Commercial space" was the talk of the town back then, too.
Paine met with key members of Congress who agreed that we should make bold recommendations, and bold they were. Our 15 member panel included astronauts Neil Armstrong and Kathy Sullivan (now head of NOAA), scientists Laurel Wilkening (our vice-chair) and George Field, commercialization guru Gerry O'Neill, and other exceptional individuals with broad expertise including Luis Alvarez, Chuck Yeager, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Gen. Bernard Schriever.
Our overarching recommendation was to open the inner solar system for science, exploration and development.
Human spaceflight was a big part of it, with a return to Moon by 2005, landing on Mars by 2015 and establishing a base there by 2035. The key was establishing a permanent inner solar system transportation system – a "Highway to Space" and a "Bridge Between Worlds." We wanted to establish infrastructure, as boring as that sounds, to avoid another dead-end effort like Apollo. Involving international and commercial partners was a sine qua non.
So what happened? The Challenger tragedy occurred mid-way through our deliberations and that certainly had an effect. Our report was formally released in July 1986, six months after Challenger, when the appetite for bold recommendations about the future of the space program was at a low point. Commercial space ventures that planned to use the space shuttle fell by the wayside (although the accident opened the door to commercial space launch services).
More important than Challenger, in my view, however, is that it took 25 years to build the space station instead of 10 and it cost between $60-100 billion (depending on how one does the math) instead of $8 billion. Whatever the merits of the program now that it is finally built, it was an impediment to moving beyond.
Many "future of space" reports have been written between 1986 and today, including the excellent NRC "Pathways report" from last year. But they are just reports. It is time to take action.
NASA is developing interesting ideas in its "Evolvable Mars Campaign." It is heartwarming, in fact, to see so many similarities between what is described there and what we recommended in the NCOS report – good ideas may languish for decades, but sooner or later they resurface. NASA has rediscovered the word "pioneering," too. The title of our report was Pioneering the Space Frontier. While some object to the use of that term these days because it is old fashioned or has unpleasant connotations, we meant it in the most positive context and I believe NASA does, too.
Will NASA's newest plans languish as well, or are we finally ready to move out on the next phase of human exploration? Can we avoid diversions like the Asteroid Redirect Mission? Will Congress sustain the level of funding it provided for NASA in FY2015 -- $549 million more than the President requested? Is that enough to make real progress? The "Journey to Mars" hype associated with the Orion test last month seems to have been effective in educating the public that NASA has not, in fact, gone out of business, but won't the public wonder what happened when this year and next year and the year after that pass with no more Orion flights?
The aspiration of landing people on Mars enunciated by NCOS and so many groups before and after is the one goal on which there is widespread consensus. The problem is agreeing on the steps in between. Perhaps this will be the year that debate ends. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House agreed on the path forward – the Constellation program. This is not an appeal to restore that particular program (which was too focused on the Moon in my view), but it did demonstrate that political consensus is possible. If Congress can continue to find the funds, and if Congress and the White House can agree on the steps, perhaps the first humans will land on Mars by the end of the NCOS timeframe in 2035, at least, and begin establishing a permanent presence to enable science, exploration and development as we envisioned so long ago.
Some may think my views are too government-centric. I wholeheartedly support the private sector charting its own path to the stars, but rash efforts – by anyone – that unnecessarily risk lives would prove a setback to effective human exploration of Mars. It would be extremely unfortunate if the first human trip to Mars was the last because of public backlash.Redirecting Asteroid Not Top Objective of Asteroid Redirect Mission, NASA Official SaysDan Leone – Space NewsA NASA official on Jan. 7 offered one of the clearest reminders yet that the agency's proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) is more about technology development than actually sending a small asteroid to lunar orbit to be visited by astronauts next decade.After a presentation in Phoenix to the NASA-chartered Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), Lindley Johnson, head of the agency's Near Earth Object Observations Program, said redirecting an asteroid to a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon is "not the top objective of the [ARM] mission," which was trotted out in spring 2013 as a means to road test technology needed for a crewed Mars expedition and provide — in the form of the titular asteroid — a near-term destination for the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule NASA is building.NASA's notional ARM concept involves launching a $1.25 billion robotic spacecraft around 2020 to either capture a free-floating asteroid about 10 meters wide, or pluck a somewhat smaller boulder from the surface of a much larger space rock. The probe would then take the specimen to a lunar storage orbit where it could be visited by astronauts aboard the Space Launch System and Orion.Asteroid redirection has dominated public discussion of ARM, both in the press and the halls of Congress, since NASA unveiled the proposed mission with great fanfare almost two years ago.Yet now, according to Johnson, NASA may not even make redirection of a boulder or asteroid a requirement for mission success. Pressed by SBAG member Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, on whether a mission concept review scheduled for Feb. 26 would cement redirection as an ARM requirement, Johnson said no.Redirecting an asteroid "is certainly something that the agency as a whole wants to do with the mission, but to a certain level, objectives are tradable," Johnson said.Sykes, a veteran planetary scientist, scoffed at that answer in a Jan. 7 Twitter post, asking rhetorically, "then what is the point?"Johnson's remarks at SBAG are the latest, but not first, attempt on NASA's part to manage expectations about ARM. Even NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has advised the public to brace for the possibility that no asteroid will show up in lunar orbit for astronauts to poke and prod.In March, Bolden told attendees of the American Astronautical Society's Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium in Greenbelt, Maryland, he would be "happy" if the ARM spacecraft is able to move an asteroid at all, "even if it's an arcsecond that we can measure [and] we miss lunar orbit."Whether it can capture an asteroid or not, just getting the ARM spacecraft into orbit would provide NASA with a chance to test technologies that are not obvious fits for any of the other missions in the agency's pipeline.Prominent among these are large-scale, solar-electric propulsion systems, which if successful could be scaled up further and adapted for the interplanetary cargo-hauling spacecraft NASA says it needs to deliver hardware for a crewed Mars landing to the red planet in advance of the crew's arrival.The same day SBAG met in Phoenix, Johnson said, NASA officials were scheduled to convene at the agency's Washington headquarters to settle the question of how the robotic ARM spacecraft will attempt to collect the asteroid the agency hopes to return to the Earth-Moon system.NASA is weighing two options: Option A, assumed to be the cheaper of the two by about $100 million, involves capturing a free-floating asteroid roughly 10 meters across with a petal-like grappling system. Option B calls for flying out to a much larger asteroid, one about 100 meters wide, and collecting a boulder from its surface using a robotic arm tipped with small, finger-like appendages.NASA was expected to announce its choice in a Dec. 17 press conference, but wound up punting until after the winter holidays. A decision is now expected in January, Johnson told SBAG.Robert Lightfoot, NASA associate administrator and pointman on ARM, indicated a preference for Option B at the Dec. 17 press event. The boulder-plucking option, Lightfoot said, would mature more technology and operational techniques applicable to future human exploration missions, such as visits to Mars' two small, asteroid-like moons, Phobos and Deimos.Johnson, meanwhile, told SBAG members he did not know exactly when senior NASA managers would decide between Option A and Option B — only that they would do so before the mission concept review now scheduled for Feb. 26.That decision "is out of my hands, and out of the ARM team's hands, frankly," Johnson said.The robotic ARM spacecraft would launch on either a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy, the Space Launch System — which is still under development at NASA, but scheduled for a maiden flight around 2018 — or SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, which like the NASA rocket is still under development.Senate Commerce Names Subcommittee Chairs: Ted Cruz for NASA, Marco Rubio for NOAAMarcia S. Smith - Spacepolicyonline.comThe Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today announced who will chair its subcommittees in the 114th Congress. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will chair the subcommittee that oversees NASA, while Marco Rubio (R-FL) will chair the one with jurisdiction over NOAA.The Senate is now in Republican hands, so all committee and subcommittee chairs are Republican and ranking members are Democrats (though there are two Independents, who usually vote with Democrats, who might also hold committee leadership positions). The full Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is chaired by Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who announced the six subcommittee chairs today. The two of most interest to the space policy community are the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, which includes NOAA, and the Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, which includes NASA and added "competitiveness" to its title this year.Cruz was the top Republican on the Science and Space subcommittee last year, so his ascension to chair is not unexpected. He did not play a prominent public role in NASA matters in the last Congress, and is known mostly for his advocacy of reduced government spending overall and opposition to almost anything that the Obama Administration supports. Bill Nelson (D-FL) chaired the subcommittee in the previous Congress, when it was controlled by Democrats, and is an ardent NASA supporter, having flown on the space shuttle in 1986 when he was a Member of the House of Representatives. Nelson is now the top Democrat on the full Senate Commerce Committee.Like Cruz, Rubio was the top Republican on the Oceans/Atmosphere subcommittee in the last Congress and now becomes chair. All of NOAA's activities are within the jurisdiction of the subcommittee and historically it has focused more on fisheries and coastal issues than on space.Surprisingly Bright Comet Lovejoy Dazzles SkywatchersIan O'Neill - Discovery.comIf, like me, you have been fascinated with the appearance of Comet Lovejoy in the night sky this month, you may have tried to track it down with a pair of binoculars or telescope. Using just a 250mm lens on my DSLR was enough for me to pinpoint the interplanetary vagabond glowing beneath the constellation of Orion. Although mildly chuffed with my very amateur astrophotography attempt, seasoned astronomers are having a field day with a comet whose brightness has outstripped expectations.This stunning view of C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), for example, was captured by astronomer Nick Howes using the Tzec Maun Network's access to the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. The observation was made on Jan. 8 around the time the comet made closest approach to Earth. Although "close approach" was a distant 44 million miles away between the orbits of Earth and Mars, it was the closest C/2014 Q2 had been to Earth in 8,000 years.Discovered last August by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, C/2014 Q2 can currently be seen passing through the boundaries of the constellation Eridanus, near Orion. SPACE.com has a handy guide and map so you too can track down Lovejoy's beautiful blue-green fuzz.As can be seen in Howes' observation of Lovejoy, the comet has some wonderful structure in its tail. Comets are composed of a solid nucleus (ices, rock and dust), coma (the dust and gas surrounding the nucleus) and a tail. Often comets will appear to have two tails — charged particles follow the sun's interplanetary magnetic field, whereas neutral particles are 'blown' away with the solar wind.Late last year, the European Rosetta mission landed the Philae lander on a comet for the first time in history, so many cometary mysteries are currently being revealed. But as we look at Comet Lovejoy as it continues to make its journey through the inner solar system, we can only imagine what the nucleus must look like up-close; ice being heated by the sun, outgassing and spluttering vapor and dust into space.Mercury may be sole survivor of planetary pile-upLisa Grossman – New ScientistThe inner solar system may once have been a crowded and violent place – and Mercury its lone survivor. A new model suggests that most young planetary systems start with several close-in, rocky planets, which later destroy each other in a cascade of collisions."If forming tightly packed systems of inner planets is easy, there's no reason it shouldn't happen in our solar system," says Kathryn Volk at the University of British Columbia, Canada. "And if it happened here, it would solve several problems."As astronomers discover more and more planets orbiting other stars, our solar system looks increasingly unusual. While we have four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants, many other systems have "hot Jupiters" very close to their star. What's more, observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope suggest that between 5 and 10 per cent of planetary systems cram several planets closer to their host star than Mercury is to the sun.Within our solar system, Mercury itself is an oddball. Its dense iron core takes up 42 per cent of its volume, its orbit is less circular than that of the other planets, and current planetary formation models predict Mercury should be closer to the sun and bigger, so we know we're missing something.Cadre of rocky planetsIn a talk at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle on 6 January, Volk suggested a way to explain both mysteries at once: nearly all stars form a cadre of rocky planets close to them, and most destroy themselves within a billion years. Kepler just sees the ones that survive.To test this idea, Volk selected 12 of Kepler's systems with four or more planets within the orbital distance of Mercury, tweaked their orbits slightly, and simulated what happened next. Some planets collided almost immediately, while others remained stable for 100 million years.The most violent collisions happen at such high speeds that the planets could simply vaporise each other. Because lighter material would be blown away more easily by the stellar wind, any surviving planets would have to be unusually dense – like Mercury."We're imagining that Mercury would be the lone, highly dense, eccentric planet that's the outcome of this process," Volk says.It also means our solar system may have formed more like the rest of the planetary systems we see in the galaxy."This would make our solar system look a lot like the Kepler systems, at least in the beginning," Volk says. "It makes us less of a weirdo.""I think that's perfectly viable," says Rory Barnes of the University of Washington in Seattle. His one worry is whether the material closer to our sun would have been solid enough to clump into planets in the first place. If it were all vapour, that would also explain why there are no planets inside Mercury's orbit. "She's kind of turning that on its head. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, although it will be hard to prove that that's what really happened."NASA's Juno spacecraft on its way to unveil Jupiter's mysteriesTomasz Nowakowski - Spaceflight InsiderThe gas giant Jupiter safeguards many secrets crucial to our understanding of the evolution of our solar system. It could also provide insights on how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar neighborhood. NASA's Juno spacecraft is on its way to reveal those mysteries as the probe is on course for its planned arrival at Jupiter on July 4, 2016."On that date, Juno will make its first dive over the planet's poles, firing its rocket engine to slow down just enough for the giant planet's gravity to capture the spacecraft into orbit," Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, Juno's principal investigator told astrowatch.net. "All of Juno's instruments are healthy and working well. The Juno team anticipates some truly wonderful results when their experiments reach Jupiter."Juno has now traveled 1.5 billion miles (2.40 billion kilometers, or 16.05 AU) since the launch on Aug. 5, 2011, and has another 267 million miles (430 million kilometers or 2.88 AU) before entering Jupiter's orbit.In Oct. 2013, the spacecraft used a gravity assist speed boost of more than 8,800 mph (about 3.9 kilometers per second) when it flew past Earth. Bolton revealed that now its speed relative to the sun is about 27,000 mph (44,000 kph) and relative to Earth – approximately 41,000 mph (65,000 kph).Like in Greek and Roman mythology, goddess Juno, able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature, the Juno spacecraft will look beneath the clouds to better understand the planet's structure and history."When Juno passes over the planet, coming within just 3000 miles (5000 kilometers) of the cloud tops, its color camera (called JunoCam) will obtain some of the best-ever close-up views of the clouds," Bolton said. "By studying Jupiter's atmosphere we can learn a great deal about the planet itself, our solar system's history, and giant planets in general, including those outside our solar system."The spacecraft will measure the amount of water and ammonia in Jupiter's atmosphere and find out if the planet has a solid core, resolving the origin of this giant planet and thereby the solar system."One of the most important things Juno will tell us is the water content of Jupiter's atmosphere. The amount of water — or more precisely, the amount of oxygen — is one of the key missing ingredients in the recipe for how Jupiter was made. Several different theories about the conditions Jupiter's formation depend on the amount of oxygen the planet contains," Bolton noticed. "Juno will measure this quantity globally, helping us understand which version of Jupiter's story is most likely to be the correct one."Jupiter's magnetosphere will also be of interest to Juno, as this powerful magnetic environment creates the brightest auroras in our solar system when charged particles precipitate down into the planet's atmosphere. Juno will directly sample the charged particles and magnetic fields near Jupiter's poles for the first time. "Juno will have the first-ever view of Jupiter's north and south poles, as it will pass directly over them on each orbit. No spacecraft has ever explored these places, so we're certain to see and learn new things."After the arrival at Jupiter, the spacecraft will circle the planet 33 times, from pole to pole, and use its collection of science instruments to probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover.The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for the principal investigator Scott Bolton.Opportunity Tops Martian Mountain! Milestone Achievement 11 Years afterTouchdown Reveals Stunning VistaKen Kremer – AmericaSpaceStunning new mountain top vista from NASA's Opportunity rover after reaching summit of Cape Tribulation in January 2015 nearly eleven years after Martian touchdown. Panoramic scene shows vast expanse of Endeavour Crater from highest mountain rover will ever climb. See crater rim expanding out from center and rover solar panels at right and wheel tracks at left. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3894, Jan. 6, 2015 and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.comAlmost exactly 3900 Sols into her planned 3 month mission, NASA's world renowned Opportunity rover climbed proudly atop the tallest Martian mountain she will ever ascend, achieving a "milestone that can't be underestimated," Prof. Steve Squyres, the rovers Science Principal Investigator of Cornell University, said exclusively to AmericaSpace, today, soon after signals were received that the astonishing event took place."Yes we're at the summit," confirmed Squyres, who has led the rover mission during more than a decade and a half of conception, development, launch, landing and breathtaking science operations across the stunningly beautiful but inhospitable surface floor of the alien Red Planet. See Mars as it looks today in our exclusive new mosaic above."The symbolic value of reaching a major summit on Mars eleven years into a 90-day mission can't be underestimated," noted Squyres. And it's especially gratifying because the rover has suffered some significant problems recently with the flash memory and been somewhat "crippled"."We're having difficulties with our aging flash memory, and until we can correct the problem we're operating the vehicle in a 'crippled mode' that bypasses flash completely."The six wheeled Opportunity rover has reached the summit of Cape Tribulation nearly 11 years after her daunting air-bag assisted and bouncing ball touchdown on 24 January 2004 on Mars, and rolling to a stop after falling inside Eagle crater. It amounted to a 250 million mile hole in hole!"The drive that put us on the summit was executed on Sol 3894 [Jan. 6, 2015]," said Squyres."I am tremendously happy and proud of the team!"Initial images reveal a spectacular view from the summit. See above our brand new panoramic mosaic compilation view from Sol 3894 – where the rover sits right now!- created for AmericaSpace by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer.Humanity's longest living rover reached the summit of Cape Tribulation while traversing southwards along gigantic Endeavour crater. This counts as the highest Martian mountain she will ever scale in her unbelievably incredible and momentous life of exploration and discovery.NASA's long term goal is to send Humans to Mars in the 2030s and Opportunity and sister rover Curiosity are paving the path to the Red PlanetAs of today the rover stands at an elevation of about 1380 meters overlooking humongous Endeavour crater, spanning some 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter.So the view is incomparable to anything we've seen thus far.Additional high resolution imagery is being taken now by the Pancam camera."It should be a great view into the crater, along the rim, and of the rocks that form the summit,: said Squyres.The mountain peak is called "Summit Lithology," Prof. Ray Arvidson, the rover Deputy Principal Investigator of Washington University told AmericaSpace.Cape Tribulation is located along the eroded western rim segment of Endeavour crater.She arrived at Endeavour in August 2011 at another rim segment to the north named "Cape York" after a multiyear traverse across the plains of Meridiani Planum.Furthermore, Opportunity has accomplished the first overland expedition across the surface of another planet. Mars is the most Earth-like planet in our Solar System.You can see the entire 11 year overland traverse of Opportunity and her current location, in our exclusive route map below."A spectacular Pancam view was returned on sol 3894 showing Shoemaker formation brecccias and part of the crater interior," Arvidson explained.Opportunity will likely spend the remainder of her robotic life traveling around and investigating Endeavour's magnificent and vast expanse.Reaching the crater rim peak at last is an especially sweet feat for the team because the daunting task was accomplished while the rover suffered a series of near crippling 'amnesia' events in recent months of the ascent."I think this milestone is particularly significant because we accomplished the steepest and hardest parts of it in what we call "crippled mode". We're having difficulties with our aging flash memory, and until we can correct the problem we're operating the vehicle in a mode that bypasses flash completely," Squyres elaborated.So the team was resourceful in the face of a big challenge and developed workarounds to save the rover and the science!"What that means is that after each sol's activities, any data not downlinked immediately is lost forever. This requires a very different way of operating the vehicle, and the team has mastered it.""We expect to address the flash problem in the near future, but what this accomplishment shows is that the rover is not crippled in "crippled mode". It's just a little forgetful. :)"Now that Opportunity has climbed atop the mountain, the rover is collecting images and spectral data and reevaluating the way forward plan."We will get additional Pancam color data. How much is being considered as we communicate with one another," Arvidson explained."The area looks very much like a sediment shaped by wind. Thin soil cover, with cobbles, over bedrock.""The scientific value of reaching the summit depends on the lithology of the rocks there, and we haven't made that measurement yet," Squyres added.What observations are planned at the peak in the near term?"A big Pancam panorama, of course, and then a closer looks at the summit rocks if the Pancams suggest it'll be worthwhile," replied Sqyures.The real science riches lie about a half a kilometer beyond and down slope, in an area called 'Marathon Valley.'"We are about 500 meters from 'Spirit of Saint Louis' crater at the entrance to Marathon Valley (named because the rover will have traveled one marathon's distance to reach it)!" said Arvidson.Arriving at Cape Tribulation has been a long sought goal of the science team because it puts the six wheeled rover by a region of clay minerals that's a scientific goldmine. The phyllosilicate clay minerals formed in neutral liquid water billions of years ago when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter and thus much more conducive to the formation of Martian microbes, if they ever existed.What's the driving and science plan ahead?"Well, the next major stop after this one will be 'Spirit of St. Louis' crater, which lies to the west of Marathon Valley," Squyres replied."And then into Marathon Valley itself.""The view at the summit is spectacular," according to rover science team member Larry Crumpler, of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science (NMMNHS), in an update."From here we can see all the way to the other side of the crater, we can see the rim looking north along the path to this location, and we can see far to the south, including another large impact crater that lies 10 km or so south of Endeavour."The ancient, weathered slopes of Cape Tribulation hold a motherlode of the 'phyllosilicate' clay minerals, based on data obtained from the extensive orbital measurements made by the CRISM spectrometer accomplished earlier at the direction of Arvidson.The clay minerals were 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 long and winding way over the past few years.The robots science team specifically directed Opportunity towards Cape Tribulation several years ago based on the detection of abundant exposures of aluminum-rich clay minerals at a spot a bit beyond the summit called "Marathon Valley," using the spectral measurements from CRISM and MRO.The clay minerals are now in the line of sight of Opportunity and the science team is bursting with excitement back here on Earth.Today, 8 January 2015 marks Opportunity's 3894th Sol or Martian day roving Mars. So far she has snapped over 199,600 amazing images since her air-bag assisted touchdown on 24 January 2004 inside Eagle crater.Opportunity's total odometry is over 25.73 miles (41.42 kilometers).Stay tuned here for continuing developments from Earth's invasion fleet at Mars.Hubble Telescope Captures Best View Ever of the Andromeda GalaxyMiriam Kramer - Space.comThe Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. The new mosaic image represents the sharpest and largest mosaic image of the Milky Way's galactic neighbor ever taken, Hubble officials said.The panoramic image shows striking details of the bright galaxy, which is located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth. While that may seem far away, Hubble usually trains its view on more distant targets. Because Andromeda fills up so much of Hubble's field of view, the telescope was able to capture incredible detail in its survey of the galaxy. Fly through the amazing Andromeda image in a new video as well.The newly-released image stretches across about 48,000 light-years of the galaxy's disk, according to Hubble officials. In total, the image shows more than 100 million stars in the galaxy. Hubble officials revealed the new photo during a news conference here at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. [See more amazing Hubble Space Telescope photos]"Hubble traces densely packed stars extending from the innermost hub of the galaxy, seen at left," Hubble representatives said in a statement. "Moving out from this central galactic bulge, the panorama sweeps from the galaxy's central bulge across lanes of stars and dust to the sparser outer disk."Scientists can use this image to help them interpret other spiral galaxies like the Andromeda galaxy that might have similar light signatures, but are farther from Earth.The panorama was created as part of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program. This image was created as a mosaic of 7,398 exposures taken over the course of 411 pointings of the telescope, according to Hubble officials.
This wide-field view shows the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) The extent of the new PHAT survey of Andromeda using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope appears in the irregularly shaped region, and the rectangle within represents the main image of this article. Image released Jan. 5, 2015.
Credit: M31 PHAT Mosaic Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington), B. F. Williams (University of Washington, USA), L. C. Johnson (University of Washington, USA), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler; Credit for ground-based background Image of M31: © 20"Large groups of young blue stars indicate the locations of star clusters and star-forming regions. The stars bunch up in the blue ring-like feature toward the right side of the image," Hubble representatives said in the same statement. "The dark silhouettes trace out complex dust structures. Underlying the entire galaxy is a smooth distribution of cooler red stars that trace Andromeda's evolution over billions of years."Andromeda and the Milky Way are on the way toward a crash of cosmic proportions. The two galaxies will merge, forming one new galaxy billions of years from now.
An image by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope displays a section of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) with annotations. Image released Jan. 5, 2015.
Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble, and Z. Levay; PHAT Brick Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington), B. F. Williams (University of Washington, USA), L. C. Johnson (University of Washington, USA) and the PHAT team (STScI/AURA)You can explore a zoomable version of the new PHAT image directly through Hubble here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/02/image/a/format/zoom/Nissan, NASA to Work on Autonomous Car TechnologyAssociated Press via New York TimesJapanese automaker Nissan and NASA are teaming up to advance the technology behind cars that drive autonomously.Yokohama-based Nissan Motor Co. and NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, announced Thursday a five-year research-and-development partnership for autonomous vehicle systems so they can eventually be applied to commercially sold cars.Nissan is excited about the potential of self-driving cars, which executives say could lead to improved safety, a pillar for future autos along with low emission technology.NASA researchers will be working with Nissan's research unit in Silicon Valley, they said in a joint statement.The maker of the Leaf electric car and Infiniti luxury models aims to introduce autonomous driving technology to consumers between 2016 and 2020. Ames developed the Mars rover software and robots onboard the International Space Station."The partnership brings together the best and brightest of NASA and Nissan and validates our investments in Silicon Valley," said Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn.The safety technology in the works includes cars that know through sensors they are about to collide and will brake automatically, even if the driver doesn't do a thing. There are also cars that can park themselves.At its most sophisticated, the technology could replace human drivers altogether, though there are many hurdles to that being put into practice on roads.Automakers besides Nissan are working on the technology, including Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp. and U.S. manufacturers General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.And companies outside the industry are getting involved, such as Google Inc.The driverless car was the topic of a keynote address by Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields at the International CES gadget show in Las Vegas earlier this week.ENDMore at www.spacetoday.net
No comments:
Post a Comment