MARS PHOENIX UPDATE
14 August 2008
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has taken the first-ever image of a single particle of Mars’ ubiquitous dust, using its atomic force microscope.
The particle — shown at higher magnification than anything ever seen from another world — is a rounded particle about one micrometer, or one millionth of a meter, across. It is a speck of the dust that cloaks Mars. Such dust particles color the Martian sky pink, feed storms that regularly envelop the planet and produce Mars’ distinctive red soil.
“This is the first picture of a clay-sized particle on Mars, and the size agrees with predictions from the colors seen in sunsets on the Red Planet,” said Phoenix co-investigator Urs Staufer of the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, who leads a Swiss consortium that made the microscope.
“Taking this image required the highest resolution microscope operated off Earth and a specially designed substrate to hold the Martian dust,” said Tom Pike, Phoenix science team member from Imperial College London. “We always knew it was going to be technically very challenging to image particles this small.”
Continue reading ‘Phoenix Microscope Takes First Image of Martian Dust Particle’
Undaunted by a record of near total failure at Mars, the Russian space agency will launch an ambitious mission next year to land on the planet’s moon Phobos and return soil samples to Earth.
The massive 8-ton Phobos-Grunt (”soil”) spacecraft, set for launch in October 2009, would be one of the most ambitious missions ever launched to Mars. It will also be the first Mars spacecraft launched by Russia since the ill-fated Mars 96 mission, which plunged into the Pacific Ocean.
If it works, Phobos-Grunt would be the first successful effort to return soil from a Martian moon. It would also reverse a nearly 50-year record of failure. Of 20 missions launched by the Soviet Union and Russia, not one was a complete success.
Anatoly Zak has a great story about Phobos-Grunt on the Air & Space Magazine website.
NASA MISSION UPDATE
PASADENA, Calif.—NASA’s Cassini mission is closing one chapter of its journey at Saturn and embarking on a new one with a two-year mission that will address new questions and bring it closer to two of its most intriguing targets—Titan and Enceladus.
On June 30, Cassini completes its four-year prime mission and begins its extended mission, which was approved in April of this year.
Among other things, Cassini revealed the Earth-like world of Saturn’s moon Titan and showed the potential habitability of another moon, Enceladus. These two worlds are primary targets in the two-year extended mission, dubbed the Cassini Equinox Mission. This time period also will allow for monitoring seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn, exploring new places within Saturn’s magnetosphere, and observing the unique ring geometry of the Saturn equinox in August of 2009 when sunlight will pass directly through the plane of the rings.
“We’ve had a wonderful mission and a very eventful one in terms of the scientific discoveries we’ve made, and yet an uneventful one when it comes to the spacecraft behaving so well,” said Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “We are incredibly proud to have completed all of the objectives we set out to accomplish when we launched. We answered old questions and raised quite a few new ones and so our journey continues.”
Continue reading ‘Cassini Begins Teen Years With Brand New Mission, Bitchin’ Attitude’
NASA MISSION UPDATE
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil Wednesday onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft’s robotic microscope station, images received early Thursday confirmed.
“It looks like a light dusting and that’s just what we wanted. The Robotic Arm team did a great job,” said Michael Hecht of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is the lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) instrument on Phoenix.
The delivery of scooped-up soil for inspection by the lander’s Optical Microscope, a component of MECA, marks the second success in consecutive days for getting samples delivered to laboratory instruments on Phoenix’s deck. Some soil from an earlier scoopful reached a tiny oven in another instrument on Tuesday, as confirmed in data received early Wednesday. That instrument is the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. Commands being sent to Phoenix today include instructions to close TEGA oven number 4 and begin analyzing the sample inside, a process that will take several days.
Continue reading ‘Mars Update: Phoenix Sprinkles Soil for Microscopic Analysis’
USA Today reports that NASA’s massive Mars Science Laboratory is giving the U.S. space agency a huge migraine: it’s 24-percent over budget and in danger of missing its 2009 launch window.
Costs on the 2-ton Martian rover have ballooned to about $1.2 billion, an increase of $235 million over the original estimate. Engineer have grappled with problems with the spacecraft’s heat shield, motors, scientific instruments and landing system.
“We underestimated what it was going to take,” laboratory project manager Richard Cook told USA Today. “To do it right, we’re going to need more funding.”
NASA has been forced to take money from other programs to keep the rover on schedule for a 2009 launch. Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers are racing to prepare the spacecraft in time; if they miss the launch window, they will have to wait until 2011 when Earth and Mars are again properly aligned.
The Mars Science Laboratory will drive across the planet’s surface, searching for “the molecules that are precursors to life and for evidence of microbes at work,” the paper reports.
NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft is on course for a May 25 landing near the Martian north pole, where it will sample ice and soil to determine whether life ever evolved on the Red Planet, Tariq Malik reports at Space.com.
Scientists have dubbed the spacecraft’s broad, flat landing site the “Green Valley” even though it is frozen solid. The area contains a large concentration of ice and permafrost.
The Phoenix will use a robotic arm to scoop up ice and soil. The spacecraft will use onboard ovens and a chemistry lab to analyze the samples for evidence of microbial life. The spacecraft will also monitor weather conditions near the north pole.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin recently announced that the agency would cut back somewhat on Mars exploration so it can focus the outer planets. The space agency hopes to launch a “flagship” mission to either Jupiter or Saturn while at the same time funding a Mars sample return mission at the end of the next decade.
The big question is: Can NASA afford it all? Taylor Dinerman explores this question in an essay in this week’s edition of The Space Review.
NASA’s Science group has seen an abrupt turnover in its top leadership. S. Alan Stern, associate administrator for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, announced his resignation on Wednesday. John Mather, the directorate’s chief scientist, is also reported to be heading back to his full-time position on the James Webb Space Telescope program.
“Alan has rendered invaluable service to NASA as the Principal Investigator for the Pluto/New Horizons mission, as a member of the NASA Advisory Council, and as the associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate,” Administrator Mike Griffin said in a statement. “While I deeply regret his decision to leave NASA, I understand his reasons for doing so, and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Continue reading ‘Stern Out, Weiler in at NASA Science Directorate; Mather Will Reportedly Leave’
Heat radiating from the entire length of 150 kilometer (95 mile)-long fractures is seen in this best-yet heat map of the active south polar region of Saturn’s ice moon Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
NASA PRESS RELEASE
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Cassini spacecraft tasted and sampled a surprising organic brew erupting in geyser-like fashion from Saturn’s moon Enceladus during a close flyby on March 12. Scientists are amazed that this tiny moon is so active, “hot” and brimming with water vapor and organic chemicals.
New heat maps of the surface show higher temperatures than previously known in the south polar region, with hot tracks running the length of giant fissures. Additionally, scientists say the organics “taste and smell” like some of those found in a comet. The jets themselves harmlessly peppered Cassini, exerting measurable torque on the spacecraft, and providing an indirect measure of the plume density.
“A completely unexpected surprise is that the chemistry of Enceladus, what’s coming out from inside, resembles that of a comet,” said Hunter Waite, principal investigator for the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “To have primordial material coming out from inside a Saturn moon raises many questions on the formation of the Saturn system.”
Continue reading ‘Cassini Samples Organic Material at Saturn’s Geyser Moon’
After years of brilliant success studying the Red Planet, scientists and engineers working on NASA’s Mars exploration are getting their just desserts: deep cutbacks in their programs for the next four years.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin announced last week that he was refocusing the agency’s exploration budget on the outer planets. RedOrbit.com reports that NASA is requesting around $343 million annually for Mars exploration for 2009-12, just over half the $620 million it had estimated just a year ago.
Griffin said the change was spurred by a recent National Research Council report which gave the agency an “A” for its Mars work and a “D” for its exploration of the outer worlds.
“After Mars Science Lab - the current planetary sciences flagship - we are now planning in earnest for an outer planets flagship to Europa, Titan or Ganymede,” Griffin told attendees at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston last week.
Continue reading ‘Mars Program Gets an “A”; NASA Slashes Funding’