NASA PRESS RELEASE
30 July 2008
NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.
Scientists made the discovery using data from an instrument aboard the Cassini spacecraft. The instrument identified chemically different materials based on the way they absorb and reflect infrared light. Before Cassini, scientists thought Titan would have global oceans of methane, ethane and other light hydrocarbons. More than 40 close flybys of Titan by Cassini show no such global oceans exist, but hundreds of dark lake-like features are present. Until now, it was not known whether these features were liquid or simply dark, solid material.
“This is the first observation that really pins down that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid,” said Bob Brown of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Brown is the team leader of Cassini’s visual and mapping instrument. The results will be published in the July 31 issue of the journal Nature.
Continue reading ‘Water Water Everywhere (Even on Titan)’
ESA MISSION UPDATE
30 July 2008
Mars Express closed in on the intriguing martian moon Phobos at 6:49 CEST on 23 July, flying past at 3 km/s, only 93 km from the moon. The ESA spacecraft’s fly-bys of the moon have returned its most detailed full-disc images ever, also in 3-D, using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board.
Phobos is what scientists call a ‘small irregular body’. Measuring 27 km × 22 km × 19 km, it is one of the least reflective objects in the Solar System, thought to be a capture-asteroid or a remnant of the material that formed the planets.
The best images of Phobos ever
The HRSC images, which are still under processing, form a bounty for scientists studying Phobos. They are a result of observations carried out over several close fly-bys of the martian moon, performed over the past three weeks. At their best, the pictures have a resolution of 3.7 m/pixel and are taken in five channels (in the stereo channel) for images in 3-D and (in the photometric channels) to perform analyses of the physical properties of the surface.
Continue reading ‘Mars Express Photographs Universe’s Largest Known Potato; Best Images Ever of Hideously Misshapen Moon’
The Russians Are Coming…to launch rockets from European base
AFP
“Today, though, the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) is girding for a new era when it will host Russian rockets and Russian engineers who just a short while ago were Europe’s space rivals.
“On Sunday, a freighter is due to dock in Cayenne bearing a first consignment of 150 containers of equipment to fit out a launch pad at CSG where, from the second half of 2009, the first “European” Soyuz is scheduled to blast into space.”
Russian Rocket Launches German Reconnaissance Satellite
Spaceflight Today
“The capstone of a fleet of German military satellites rocketed into space from Russia early Tuesday, completing a series of five launchings of spacecraft designed to scout locations around the world.
“The SAR-Lupe 5 satellite, a 1,700-pound craft (771-kg) outfitted with cloud-piercing and night-vision radar, launched aboard a Russian Kosmos 3M rocket at 0240 GMT Tuesday (10:40 p.m. EDT Monday), according to news reports.”
Manned spaceship design unveiled
BBC News
“It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system….
“‘If ESA and the Russian Space Agency reach agreement, Europe will supply the service module of that co-operative spacecraft,’ [Anatoly] Zak told BBC News.
“This service module will use technology - such as the propulsion systems - developed for Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned freighter recently sent to re-supply the International Space Station (ISS).”
ESA aims for manned capsule by 2020
Flight International
“A €300 million ($475 million) three-year Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Advanced Return Vehicle (ARV) development project, to be proposed to the European Space Agency’s November ministerial meeting, could become a stepping stone to a human transport system in 2020.
“ESA wants to evolve its expendable 20,000kg (44,000lb) ATV, which docked with the International Space Station for the first time in April, into an EADS Astrium Ariane 5-launched ARV. That cargo vehicle would be the basis for the manned system operating around 2020. ESA will design ARV with a view to man-rating it in future. The cargo version will be about 5,000kg lighter than the Ariane 5’s low-Earth orbit capability to allow for the future addition of a launch abort tower.”
Credit: ESA
ESA News Release
The first robotic mission to return samples to Earth from Mars took a further step toward realisation with the recent publication of a mission design report by the iMARS Working Group. The report, defines key elements of the future internationally-funded mission involving the cooperation of ESA, NASA and other national agencies.
iMARS, which stands for the International Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples is a committee of the International Mars Exploration Working Group made up of scientists, engineers, strategic planners, and managers. The report, which comes after months of deliberation, outlines the scientific and engineering requirements of such an international mission to be undertaken in the timeframe 2020-2022.
The Mars Sample Return mission is an essential step with respect to future exploration goals and the prospect of establishing a future human mission to Mars. Returned samples will increase the knowledge of the properties of Martian soil and contribute significantly to answering questions about the possibility of life on the Red Planet. This mission will improve our understanding of the Mars environment to support planning for the future human exploration.
Guy Bujold, Canadian Space Agency president; Jean-Jacques Dordain, European Space Agency director-general; NASA Administrator Michael Griffin; Anatolii N. Perminov, Russian Federal Space Agency head; and Keiji Tachikawa, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency president. Credit: ESA/S. Corvaja
The Heads of the Five Families Space Agencies met in Paris this week to discuss ending the Mob war, dividing up the narcotics trade, and bringing Michael Corleone back from Sicily the future of the International Space Station.
Among other things, the meeting produced this statement supporting their own efforts on - of all things - the International Space Station, which they have spent the last 20 years building.
Heads of Agency International Space Station Joint Statement
PARIS — The heads of the International Space Station (ISS) agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met at European Space Agency (ESA) Headquarters in Paris on July 17, 2008, to review ISS cooperation. As part of their discussions, they noted the significantly expanded capability that the ISS now provides for on-orbit research and technology development activities and as an engineering test bed for flight systems and operations that are critical to future space exploration initiatives. These activities improve the quality of life on Earth by expanding the frontiers of human knowledge.
Continue reading ‘Heads of the Five Space Agencies Meet; Is Bloody ISS Turf War Finally Over?’
ESA PRESS RELEASE
3 July 2008
Spacecraft controllers have just awoken Rosetta from hibernation to prepare for its encounter with asteroid (2867) Steins on 5 September. ESA’s comet chaser will study the relatively rare asteroid as it flies by on its way to comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Launched in March 2004, Rosetta will reach its final destination only in 2014, after travelling a total of about 6500 million km. The distance between the spacecraft and the Sun as it approaches the comet will be about 600 million or 4 AU (1 AU or 1 Astronomical Unit is equal to 150 million km, the mean distance between Earth and the Sun).
Rosetta has swung by Earth twice and Mars once, performing gravity-assist manoeuvres, that gave it the necessary boost to continue on its journey. The third and last Earth swing-by is scheduled for November 2009. The spacecraft will also fly by two asteroids and study them on the way: (2867) Steins in September this year and (21) Lutetia in June 2010. As it closes in on (2867) Steins in September, Rosetta will have travelled about 3700 million km and will be 2.1 AU from the Sun.
After its last planetary swing-by on 13 November last year, Rosetta headed towards the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. On 27 March 2008, the spacecraft switched to its near-Sun hibernation mode for a period of three months. During this phase, a few subsystems were put into a dormant state to optimise their lifetime (as this is only the beginning of the mission’s science phase).
Continue reading ‘Rosetta Awakes from Hibernation for Asteroid Encounter’
ESA PRESS RELEASE
2 July 2008
As interest in exploration of the Moon soars among the world’s space agencies, ESA, through its General Studies Programme, has challenged university students to develop a robotic vehicle that is capable of working in difficult terrain, comparable to that found at the lunar poles. Eight university teams have been selected to proceed to the design stage of ESA’s Lunar Robotics Challenge.
ESA’s first Lunar Robotics Challenge got under way in late March with the issuing of an Announcement of Opportunity that invited teams of university students to create an innovative, mobile robot capable of retrieving samples from a lunar-like crater.
Eight of the submitted proposals have been selected for funding after evaluation by a team of ESA experts. The selected student teams received the go-ahead to design their robotic systems, and eventually build them to compete in the challenge event.
Continue reading ‘Eight teams taking up ESA’s Lunar Robotics Challenge’
ESA PRESS RELEASE
2 July 2008
ESA and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) will be co-hosting, in cooperation with NASA and the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG), an International Conference on 9 and 10 July in the Auditorium of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris* to discuss the next step in the exploration of Mars.
We are still collecting data under NASA’s Phoenix, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Odyssey missions, as well as under ESA’s Mars Express mission, as we prepare for even more exciting missions to come, notably NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory and ESA’s ExoMars. Mars exploration is continuing at a steady pace and future missions will integrate scientific payloads and technologies that will eventually serve the ultimate goal of carrying out a manned mission to Mars.
The international community has for a long time agreed that the next imperative step, one which will exponentially increase our knowledge and understanding of the Red Planet and its environment, is a Sample Return Mission.
International cooperation is increasingly being regarded as an enabling element of space exploration, especially when it comes to challenging endeavours. These two factors – the compelling next step in the exploration of Mars and international cooperation – prompted the IMEWG to decide to set up an ad hoc international committee to study an international architecture for a Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission concept.
Continue reading ‘Paris Confab to Explore International Mars Sample Return Mission’
Despite approval ratings that are rapidly sinking into George W. Bush territory, French leader Nicolas Sarkozy has shown no sign of letting his own people’s lack of confidence in his leadership stop him from pursuing lofty visions.
Just in the last week alone, the French president flew to Tokyo for the G-8 summit, pissed off striking French labor unions, embarked on a campaign to save the European Union, demanded that Poland approve the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, vowed to find a way “to contain the problem to the Irish” over the Lisbon Treaty, attacked the European Central Bank for raising interest rates, got into a public row with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson over free trade, unveiled sweeping plans to control EU immigration, promoted his new plan for easing the global food crisis, demanded the G-8 to invite China and India to future meetings, decided he would attend the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing after all, announced the construction of a new nuclear reactor, greeted freed Columbian-French hostage Ingrid Betancourt at a French airbase, vowed to press Syria for the release of an Israeli soldier, and prepared for the release of his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s new folk album.
It’s all in a week’s work for the energetic Sarkozy, who assumed the EU’s rotating six-month presidency on July 1. In addition to the above list, the French president is also trying to overhaul the European space program, according to a BBC report.
“President Nicolas Sarkozy’s well-known admiration for all things American now extends to space exploration. Speaking to the BBC, a senior official involved in French space policy said that it was time to shake up the European Space Agency and make it more like the US space agency (NASA) by giving it a new, politically-led direction.”
Continue reading ‘Sarkozy Reaches for the Heavens Even as His Star Plummets to Earth’