PRESS Release
Date Released: Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Source: NASA HQ

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.

"Spitzer has amazed us yet again," said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The spacecraft is pioneering the study of atmospheres of distant planets and paving the way for NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to apply a similar technique on potentially habitable planets."

The planet, called 55 Cancri e, falls into a class of planets termed super Earths, which are more massive than our home world but lighter than giant planets like Neptune. Fifty-five Cancri e is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. The planet orbits a bright star, called 55 Cancri, in a mere 18 hours.

Previously, Spitzer and other telescopes were able to study the planet by analyzing how the light from 55 Cancri changed as the planet passed in front of the star. In the new study, Spitzer measured how much infrared light comes from the planet itself. The results reveal the planet is likely dark and its sun-facing side is more than 2,000 Kelvin (3,140 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to melt metal.

The new information is consistent with a prior theory that 55 Cancri e is a water world: a rocky core surrounded by a layer of water in a "supercritical" state where it is both liquid and gas, and topped by a blanket of steam.

"It could be very similar to Neptune, if you pulled Neptune in toward our sun and watched its atmosphere boil away," said Michael Gillon of Universite de Liege in Belgium, principal investigator of the research, which appears in the Astrophysical Journal. The lead author is Brice-Olivier Demory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

The 55 Cancri system is relatively close to Earth at 41 light-years away. It has five planets, with 55 Cancri e being the closest to the star and tidally locked, so one side always faces the star. Spitzer discovered the sun-facing side is extremely hot, indicating the planet probably does not have a substantial atmosphere to carry the sun's heat to the unlit side.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, likely will be able to learn even more about the planet's composition. The telescope might be able to use a similar infrared method as Spitzer to search other potentially habitable planets for signs of molecules possibly related to life.

"When we conceived of Spitzer more than 40 years ago, exoplanets hadn't even been discovered," said Michael Werner, Spitzer project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "Because Spitzer was built very well, it's been able to adapt to this new field and make historic advances such as this."

In 2005, Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system. To the surprise of many, the observatory saw the infrared light of a "hot Jupiter," a gaseous planet much larger than the solid 55 Cancri e. Since then, other telescopes, including NASA's Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, have performed similar feats with gas giants using the same method.

In this method, a telescope gazes at a star as a planet circles behind it. When the planet disappears from view, the light from the star system dips ever so slightly, but enough that astronomers can determine how much light came from the planet itself. This information reveals the temperature of a planet, and, in some cases, its atmospheric components. Most other current planet-hunting methods obtain indirect measurements of a planet by observing its effects on the star.

During Spitzer's ongoing extended mission, steps were taken to enhance its unique ability to see exoplanets, including 55 Cancri e. Those steps, which included changing the cycling of a heater and using an instrument in a new way, led to improvements in how precisely the telescope points at targets.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

This artist's concept shows NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbiting the giant asteroid Vesta. The depiction of Vesta is based on images obtained by Dawn's framing cameras. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech 
› Full image and caption

May 07, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news conference on Thursday, May 10, at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) to present a new analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta using data from the agency's Dawn spacecraft. 

The event will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.  For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .   

The event will also be streamed live on Ustream with a moderated chat available at: 
http://www.ustream.com/nasajpl2 . Questions may also be asked via Twitter using the hashtag #asknasa .

The panelists for the briefing are:
-- Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
-- Harry McSween, chair, Dawn surface composition working group, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
-- Vishnu Reddy, Dawn framing camera team member, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany; and the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks
-- David O'Brien, Dawn participating scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.
-- Maria Cristina De Sanctis, Dawn co-investigator and visible and infrared mapping spectrometer team lead, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome

More information about Dawn is at: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

 Acidalia Planitia --A Vast Dark Region of Mars Sculpted by Ancient Waterways

By Marc Boucher of Space Ref.com

The European Space Agency (Esa) is to mount a billion-euro mission to Jupiter and its icy moons.

The probe, called Juice, has just been approved at a meeting of member state delegations in Paris.

It would be built in time for a launch in 2022, although it would be a further eight years before it reached the Jovian system.

The mission has emerged from a five-year-long competition to find the next "large class" space venture in Europe.

Juice stands for JUpiter ICy moon Explorer. The concept proposes an instrument-packed, nearly five-tonne satellite to be sent out to the Solar System's biggest planet, to make a careful investigation of three of its biggest moons.

The spacecraft would use the gravity of Jupiter to initiate a series of close fly-bys around Callisto and Europa, and then finally to put itself in a settled orbit around Ganymede.

Emphasis would be put on "habitability" - in trying to understand whether there is any possibility that these moons could host microbial life.

Callisto, Europa and Ganymede are all suspected to have oceans of water below their icy surfaces. As such, they may have environments conducive to simple biology.

"People probably don't realise that habitable zones don't necessarily need to be close to a star - in our case, close to the Sun," explained Prof Michele Dougherty, a Juice science team member from Imperial College London, UK.

"There are four conditions required for life to form. You need water; you need an energy source - so the ice can become liquid; you need the right chemistry - nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen; and the fourth thing you need is stability - a length of time that allows life to form.

Full Story

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

At 10:31 p.m. PDT on April 27 NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, carrying the one-ton Curiosity rover, was within 100 days from its appointment with the Martian surface. At that moment, the mission had about 119 million miles (191 million kilometers) to go and was closing at a speed of 13,000 mph (21,000 kilometers per hour).

"Every day is one day closer to the most challenging part of this mission," said Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Landing an SUV-sized vehicle next to the side of a mountain 85 million miles from home is always stimulating. Our engineering and science teams continue their preparations for that big day and the surface operations to follow."

On Sunday, April 22, a week-long operational readiness test concluded at JPL. The test simulated aspects of the mission's early surface operations. Mission planners and engineers sent some of the same commands they will send to the real Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars to a test rover used at JPL.

"Our test rover has a central computer identical to Curiosity's currently on its way to Mars," said Eric Aguilar, the mission's engineering test lead at JPL. "We ran all our commands through it and watched to make sure it drove, took pictures and collected samples as expected by the mission planners. It was a great test and gave us a lot of confidence moving forward."

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, launched Nov. 26, 2011, will deliver Curiosity to the surface of Mars on the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early on Aug. 6, Universal Time and EDT) to begin a two-year prime mission. Curiosity's landing site is near the base of a mountain inside Gale Crater, near the Martian equator. Researchers plan to use Curiosity to study layers in the mountain that hold evidence about wet environments of early Mars.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

By Marc Boucher at spaceref.com

NASA astronaut and Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank officially transferred the helm of the orbiting outpost to Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Kononenko who, along with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency, has now begun Expedition 31.

Two days later, Burbank and his Expedition 30 crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, said their farewells, climbed into their Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft and departed the station for the trip back to Earth. After a five-and-a-half month stay onboard the ISS, Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin landed safely in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the other three members of Expedition 31, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba, and his Russian crewmates, Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin, participated in pre-launch activities at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. The trio is scheduled to launch to the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft on May 15 to join Pettit, Kuipers and Kononenko. Also, Space Shuttle Enterprise is flown to The Big Apple, the next-generation J-2X Engine is ready for more tests, Snowballs make waves in Saturn's outer ring and more!

Published by NASAtelevision

NASA astronaut and Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank officially transferred the helm of the orbiting outpost to Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Kononenko who, along with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency, has now begun Expedition 31. Two days later, Burbank and his Expedition 30 crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, said their farewells, climbed into their Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft and departed the station for the trip back to Earth. After a five-and-a-half month stay onboard the ISS, Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin landed safely in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the other three members of Expedition 31, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba, and his Russian crewmates, Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin, participated in pre-launch activities at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. The trio is scheduled to launch to the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft on May 15 to join Pettit, Kuipers and Kononenko. Also, Space Shuttle Enterprise is flown to The Big Apple, the next-generation J-2X Engine is ready for more tests, Snowballs make waves in Saturn's outer ring and more!

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Source: Astrobotic Technology

NASA Contract to Astrobotic Technology Investigates Prospecting for Lunar Resources

Astrobotic Technology today announced a NASA contract to determine whether its polar rover can deploy an ice-prospecting payload to the Moon. The ice could yield water, oxygen, methane and rocket propellant to dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration.

"Astrobotic seeks the immense resources available on the Moon to both accelerate space exploration and improve life on Earth," said David Gump, president. "The lunar path is near term. We intend a prospecting mission in 2015."

Astrobotic began development of its lunar excavation robot in 2009 under a series of NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts that now total $795,000. The new NASA SBIR Phase 3 follow-on contract is to consider robot refinements for carrying NASA-supplied instruments and a drill.

Recent lunar-orbiting satellites from several nations, and a NASA probe that impacted near the Moon's south pole, have sensed polar ice composed of water, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and other substances. These polar resources went undiscovered during the Apollo expeditions which landed near the equator. The next step is to drill and measure the polar ices directly to see if they are sufficiently concentrated to be useful.

Lunar propellant derived from the ice could fuel spacecraft for long voyages, Earth-return, or maneuvering satellites. Water and oxygen would be invaluable for life support. Other elements have immense value for energy, processes, fabrication and habitation.

When seeking resources from planetary destinations, the four-day travel time to reach the Moon enables early return on investment compared to more distant targets.

Astrobotic has reserved a Falcon 9 launch vehicle made by SpaceX to send its spacecraft and robot explorer on a trajectory toward the Moon. The Astrobotic spacecraft will deliver the prospector to the lunar surface with technology that autonomously avoids landing hazards such as large rocks and craters. The navigation system is derived from technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University under Dr. William "Red" Whittaker, Astrobotic's founder. Dr. Whittaker won the DARPA Urban Challenge with a driverless car able to autonomously navigate through city streets, avoiding other cars and obeying the California traffic code. The ability to detect hazards and automatically select alternative pathways is the core of Astrobotic's automatic lunar landing system.

Astrobotic has won $12 million in nine NASA lunar contracts, covering topics from simulating lunar gravity on Earth to discovering ways to robotically explore the Moon's volcanic caves. Lunar satellites recently spotted potential entrances to these caves, which can provide shelter to robot and human explorers from the radiation, micrometeorites and extreme temperature swings of the lunar surface.

About Astrobotic Technology:

Astrobotic delivers payloads and collects data for space agencies, aerospace corporations and academic researchers. For corporate sponsors, it delivers promotions that involve customers directly in the adventure of lunar exploration. Astrobotic was spun out in 2008 from Carnegie Mellon University, where it funds research into lunar robotics. More information is available at: www.astrobotic.net.

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, April 26, 2012
Source: ESA Mars Express Mission

Five years of Mars Express gravity mapping data are providing unique insights into what lies beneath the Red Planet's largest volcanoes. The results show that the lava grew denser over time and that the thickness of the planet's rigid outer layers varies across the Tharsis region.

The measurements were made while Mars Express was at altitudes of between 275-330 km above the Tharsis volcanic 'bulge' during the closest points of its eccentric orbit, and were combined with data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Tharsis bulge includes Olympus Mons - the tallest volcano in the Solar System, at 21 km - and the three smaller Tharsis Montes that are evenly spaced in a row.

The region is thought to have been volcanically active until 100-250 million years ago, relatively recent on a geological timescale.

The large mass of the volcanoes caused tiny 'wobbles' in the trajectory of Mars Express as it flew overhead; these were measured from Earth via radio tracking and translated into measurements of density variations below the surface.

Overall, the high density of the volcanoes corresponds to a basaltic composition that is in agreement with the many martian meteorites that have fallen to Earth.

The new data also reveal how the lava density changed during the construction of the three Tharsis Montes volcanoes. They started with a lighter andesitic lava that can form in the presence of water, and were then overlaid with heavier basaltic lava that makes up the visible surface of the martian crust.

"Combined with the varying height of the volcanoes, we can say that Arsia Mons is the oldest, then Pavonis Mons formed and finally Ascraeus Mons," says Mikael Beuthe of the Royal Observatory of Belgium and lead author of the paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

At Ascraeus Mons, however, the density of the lava decreased at a later stage, so that the top of the volcano is of lower density."

The transition could reflect changes in heating beneath the surface in the form of a single mantle plume - an upwelling of abnormally hot rock from deeper within the viscous mantle, created in a process that can be likened to a lava lamp but on a gigantic scale - that slowly moved sideways to create each of the three Tharsis Montes in turn. This is the exact opposite of Earth where 'plates' of crust move above a stationary plume to form chains of volcanoes, such as the Hawaiian islands.

The data also describe the thickness of the lithosphere - the outermost shell of the planet, including the upper portion of the mantle - and find surprising lateral variations between Olympus Mons and the Tharsis Montes, with the three smaller volcanoes having a much higher density underground 'root' than Olympus Mons.

These roots could be dense pockets of solidified lava or an ancient network of underground magma chambers.

"The lack of a high-density root below Olympus Mons indicates it was built on a lithosphere of high rigidity, while the other volcanoes partially sank into a less rigid lithosphere," says co-author Veronique Dehant, also of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. "This tells us that there were large spatial variations in the heat flux from the mantle at the time of their formation."

Since the three Tharsis Montes sit on top of the Tharsis bulge, whereas Olympus Mons stands on the edge, the greater crustal thickness at the centre may have acted as an insulating lid to increase the temperature, creating a less rigid lithosphere. Here rising magma interacted with the pre-existing bulge, whereas the magma forming Olympus Mons ascended through the older crust that is supporting the Tharsis bulge, perhaps creating the observed density differences between the volcanoes.

"These results show that data on the Mars interior are key to understanding the evolution of the Red Planet," says Olivier Witasse, ESA Mars Express Project Scientist. "One option for a future mission to Mars would be a network of small landers, simultaneously measuring seismic activity in order to probe the interior.

Images

by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor

New Cassini photos show mini jet trails in Saturn's outermost F ring, likely created by snowballs flying through the icy ring.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/QMUL

Mysterious objects appear to be doing some damage to Saturn's "weirdest ring," scientists say.

The discovery comes from detailed photos taken of the Saturn system by NASA's Cassini orbiter. In these images, researchers spotted strange objects about a half-mile (kilometer) wide tearing through Saturn's F ring, the thin outermost discrete ring around the planet.

As they pass through the ring, these interlopers drag glittering ice particles out with them, creating visible trails of debris scientists are calling "mini jets."

"I think the F ring is Saturn's weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought," Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at London's Queen Mary University, said in a statement. "These findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile in size to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles in size, creating a spectacular show."

More:

Cassini sees 'snowball fight' in Saturn ring

By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News, Vienna

The ice balls impact the ring at slow speed (about 2m per second), pulling out jets of particles.

It is like a huge snowball fight and it is taking place in the outer Solar System around Saturn.

Scientists working on the Cassini probe have witnessed small clumps of ice ploughing through one of the gas giant's main rings - its F-ring.

As they plunge through, the km-sized ice balls leave glittering trails behind them referred to as mini-jets.

Some of these collisions trace quite exotic shapes in the F-ring that look like barbs on a harpoon.

The research has been presented here at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna, Austria, by Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at Queen Mary University of London, UK.

The F-ring is the outermost of Saturn's main rings. It is located 3,000km beyond the bright A-ring and has a circumference approaching 900,000km.

The Cassini imaging team had been watching the 40km-wide Prometheus moon dance along the edge of this ring for some time.

The moon's gravitational perturbations regularly produce channels and ripples in the F-ring, and it was known some of the disturbed ice particles could clump together. But it was assumed collisions or tidal forces in their orbit around Saturn would soon break these clumps apart.

"We know that Prometheus, as well as producing regular patterns, is capable of producing concentrations of material in the ring," Prof Murray explained to BBC News.

"We just call them large snowballs, and if these things can survive - because Prometheus will come around to the same part of the F-ring again and interact with them again - they may grow, and maybe these are what form the moonlets that collide with the core of the F-ring."

Cassini's archive of pictures would certainly seem to suggest they can survive and play their own game in the F-ring.

The discovery was somewhat lucky. It was while observing Prometheus one more time that Prof Murray and colleagues noticed a jet in the ring that could not have been formed by the moon or by a quasi-moon referred to simply as S6, which is known to cross right through the ring on occasions.

And when the team examined 20,000 images stretching back over Cassini's seven years at Saturn, the researchers found 500 examples of similar rogue jets.

System simulation
It is clear the ice balls collide with the F-ring at slow speed - about two meters per second. The jets they produce in their wake are about 40-180km long.

In some instances, it is the jets of lone rogues that are seen. In other cases, there is evidence that groups of ice balls have ploughed through the F-ring en masse to produce a series of jets.

Saturn's rings are composed primarily of water ice. Although the rings extend some 140,000km from the centre of the planet, their average thickness is far less than 100m.

Apart from their great beauty, scientists are fascinated by the rings because they can be used as a model to study Solar System formation.

Some of the behaviours seen in the rings are probably very similar to the ones that occurred in the disc of material that collected around the infant Sun more than four and a half billion years ago, and which eventually gave rise to the planets, Saturn included.

"The rings of Saturn are simply our closest example of an astrophysical disc," Prof Murray told the BBC.

"We're trying to understand the processes going on in Saturn's rings because they're direct analogues for processes that went on in the early history of not only our Solar System but other planetary systems as well.

"These are discs of gas and dust where larger objects form and start influencing the material around them, and then the whole system evolves."

Cassini is a cooperative mission between the US, European and Italian space agencies.

The spacecraft entered into orbit around Saturn in 2004. It is due continue its science observations until 2017, when it will then be commanded to destroy itself in the atmosphere of the gas giant.

Scientists are keen to avoid any chance that parts of Cassini will end up on Saturn's moons Enceladus or Titan (targets of interest in the search for extraterrestrial life) and contaminate them with any Earth bugs that have survived all these years on the spacecraft.

Projections of the F-ring assembled from Cassini observations. The structure is caused by perturbations from Prometheus and the object known as S6

Asteroid Mining Mission Revealed by Planetary Resources, Inc.

Planetary Resources' mission is mine near-Earth asteroids for raw materials, ranging from water to precious metals. Through the development of cost-effective exploration technologies, the company is poised to initiate prospecting missions targeting resource-rich asteroids that are easily accessible.

Resource extraction from asteroids will deliver multiple benefits to humanity and could be valued at billions of dollars annually. The effort will tap into the high concentration of precious metals found on asteroids and provide a sustainable supply to the ever-growing population on Earth.

The company was founded by space visionary Peter H. Diamandis, M.D. and leading commercial space entrepreneur Eric Anderson, and is supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google's Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & explorer James Cameron; Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Microsoft's former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, Ph.D.; Founder of Sherpalo and Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram; and Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr.

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Source: Washington State University

Sensors would punch into soil, run range of tests

A Washington State University astrobiologist is leading a group of 20 scientists in calling for a mission to Mars with "a strong and comprehensive life detection component." At the heart of their proposal is a small fleet of sensor packages that can punch into the Martian soil and run a range of tests for signs of ancient or existing life.

They call the mission BOLD. It's both an acronym for Biological Oxidant and Life Detection and a nod to the proposal's chutzpah. The proposal, which comes as NASA is reevaluating its Mars exploration program, appears in the journal Planetary and Space Science.

"We really want to address the big questions on Mars and not fiddle around," says Dirk Schulze-Makuch, whose earlier proposals have included an economical one-way trip to the red planet. "With the money for space exploration drying up, we finally have to get some exciting results that not only the experts and scientists in the field are interested in but that the public is interested too."

The BOLD mission would feature six 130-pound probes that could be dropped to various locations. Shaped like inverted pyramids, they would parachute to the surface and thrust a soil sampler nearly a foot into the ground upon landing. On-board instrumentation would then conduct half a dozen experiments, transmitting data to an orbiter overhead.

The soil analyzer would moisten a sample and measure inorganic ions, pH and light characteristics that might get at the sample's concentration of hydrogen peroxide. Schulze-Makuch has hypothesized that microbial organisms on Mars could be using a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide as their internal fluid. The compound might also account for several of the findings of the Viking Mars landers in the late 1970s.

The probe's microscopic imager would look for shapes similar to known terrestrial microfossils.

Another instrument would look for single long molecules similar to the long nucleic acids created by life on earth.

Some experiments would repeat work done by the Viking landers but with a greater precision that could detect previously overlooked organic material.

Each probe would have about a 50-50 chance of landing successfully. But with the redundancy of six probes, the chance of one succeeding is better than 98 percent.

By Keith Cowling of Space Ref

By Keith Cowing of SpaceRef

DARPA's HTV-2 In Flight

Aerodynamic design validated and new understanding of thermal material properties gained Following an extensive seven-month analysis of data collected from the Aug. 11, 2011, second flight of DARPA's Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), an independent engineering review board (ERB) investigating the cause of a flight anomaly completed its report.

The findings of the ERB validated the vehicle's aerodynamic design and uncovered new information regarding the thermal material properties of the vehicle. "The greatest achievement from Flight Two, which the ERB's findings underscored, was that we successfully incorporated aerodynamic knowledge gained from the first flight into the second flight," said Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, DARPA program manager, who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering.

A technology demonstration and data-gathering platform, the HTV-2's second test flight was conducted to validate current models and increase technical understanding of the hypersonic regime. The flight successfully demonstrated stable aerodynamically-controlled flight at speeds up to Mach 20 (twenty times the speed of sound) for nearly three minutes. Approximately nine minutes into the test flight, the vehicle experienced a series of shocks culminating in an anomaly, which prompted the autonomous flight safety system to use the vehicle's aerodynamic systems to make a controlled descent and splashdown into the ocean.

"The initial shockwave disturbances experienced during second flight, from which the vehicle was able to recover and continue controlled flight, exceeded by more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand," said DARPA Acting Director, Kaigham J. Gabriel. "That's a major validation that we're advancing our understanding of aerodynamic control for hypersonic flight."

The ERB concluded that the "most probable cause of the HTV-2 Flight 2 premature flight termination was unexpected aeroshell degradation, creating multiple upsets of increasing severity that ultimately activated the Flight Safety System."

Based on state-of-the-art models, ground testing of high-temperature materials and understanding of thermal effects in other more well-known flight regimes, a gradual wearing away of the vehicle's skin as it reached stress tolerance limits was expected. However, larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle's skin peeled from the aerostructure. The resulting gaps created strong, impulsive shock waves around the vehicle as it travelled nearly 13,000 miles per hour, causing the vehicle to roll abruptly. Based on knowledge gained from the first flight in 2010 and incorporated into the second flight, the vehicle's aerodynamic stability allowed it to right itself successfully after several shockwave-induced rolls. Eventually, however, the severity of the continued disturbances finally exceeded the vehicle's ability to recover.

According to Schulz, "HTV-2's first flight test corrected our models regarding aerodynamic design within this flight regime. We applied that data in flight test two, which ultimately led to stable aerodynamically controlled flight. Data collected during the second test flight revealed new knowledge about thermal-protective material properties and uncertainties for Mach 20 flight inside the atmosphere, which can now be used to adjust our assumptions based on actual flight data and modify our modeling and simulation to better characterize thermal uncertainties and determine how to assess integrated thermal systems."

Aerodynamic assumptions and extrapolations from known flight regimes proved inadequate when preparing for HTV-2 inaugural flight test. The data from second flight revealed that extrapolating from known flight regimes and relying solely on advanced thermal modeling and ground testing could not successfully predict the harsh realities of Mach 20 atmospheric flight.

"A group of nationally-recognized experts from government and academia came together to analyze the flight data and conduct extensive additional modeling and ground testing for this review," Schulz said. "The result of these findings is a profound advancement in understanding the areas we need to focus on to advance aerothermal structures for future hypersonic vehicles. Only actual flight data could have revealed this to us."

Moving forward, the HTV-2 program will incorporate new knowledge gained to improve models for characterizing thermal uncertainties and heat-stress allowances for the vehicle's outer shell. The remediation phase will involve further analysis and ground testing using flight data to validate new tools for this flight regime. The ERB findings and remediation phase efforts will inform policy, acquisition and operational decisions for future Conventional Prompt Global Strike initiatives executed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, Strategic Warfare directorate--the goal of which, ultimately, is to have the capability to reach anywhere in the world in less than one hour.

Original Story at SpaceRef

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Sunday, April 22, 2012
Source: LRO LROC

Earthrise in black and white is presented with the horizon oriented vertically because that is how the astronauts described seeing it. Credit: NASA Larger image

Everyone can see an Earthrise in this new NASA visualization, which draws on richly detailed maps of the moon's surface made from data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. 

Imagine yourself in orbit, your spacecraft flying backward with its small window facing down toward the surface of the moon. You peer out, scouring the ash-colored contours of the cratered landscape for traces of ancient volcanic activity. Around you, the silent, velvety blackness of space stretches out in every direction.

The spacecraft rolls over, and you glimpse a sliver of intense light starting to climb over the rough horizon. It might be dawn, except that the bright sliver quickly morphs into an arc of dazzling white swirled with vivid blue and then rises far enough to be recognized as the brilliant, marbled Earth. Captured on film, this breathtaking view becomes the iconic photograph "Earthrise."

On December 24, 1968, three people saw this happen firsthand: Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman and crew members William A. Anders and James A. Lovell, Jr. Now, in honor of Earth Day 2012, the rest of us can see what that was like in a new NASA visualization, which draws on richly detailed maps of the moon's surface made from data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

"This visualization recreates for everyone the wondrous experience of seeing Earth from that privileged viewpoint," says LRO Project Scientist Rich Vondrak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

At the time of the famous photo, Apollo 8 was rounding the moon for the fourth time, traveling in a nearly circular orbit about 110 kilometers (68 miles) above the moon's surface at about a mile per second. "The spacecraft was pointed down to look at the moon's surface, because Anders was conducting an extensive photographic survey," explains James Rice, an astrogeologist at Goddard. "But Lovell needed to perform a navigation sighting, so Borman rolled the spacecraft." That's when Earth abruptly appeared.

To recreate this scene, NASA animator Ernie Wright reconstructed the orbit in software, using coordinates from an Apollo 8 mission report and photographs taken by the crew. "Apollo 8 was at 11 degrees south latitude and between 118 and 114 east longitude, with a westward view," says Wright. "The floor of Pasteur crater is visible in the foreground of the photograph."

Wright rendered the crisp contours of the moonscape using high-resolution topography data from LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, which has provided the most precise and complete maps to date of the moon's complex, heavily cratered terrain.

The Earth shown in the visualization is not an exact duplication of what the astronauts saw but a mosaic of more recent images taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (known as MODIS) instrument on the Terra satellite and assembled by NASA's Visible Earth team.

The narration in the visualization comes from the original audio recording of the Apollo 8 astronauts, their commentary on the task at hand interrupted as they react to the sudden sighting of Earth. "Oh my God!" an astronaut calls out. "Look at that picture over there!"

A black-and-white image is snapped with one of the Hasselblad cameras on board, capturing the very first picture of Earth taken by a human in orbit around the moon. The crew then scrambles to get a color picture, which is taken 58 seconds after the black-and-white photo.

The color image, which simultaneously captures Earth's bold vitality and its fragility, is later named "Earthrise" and has been reproduced countless times, including a U.S. postage stamp issued on May 5, 1969. This popularity earned the photo the featured spot on the cover of Life's book "100 Photographs that Changed the World," in which wilderness photographer Galen Rowell deemed it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken."

LRO and LOLA were built and are managed by NASA Goddard. The research was funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. The visualizations were created at Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.

For more information on LRO and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, visit: http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov

For more information on Apollo 8, visit: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=1968-118A

For more information about NASA's Visible Earth, visit: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=57735

Flying atop NASA's Space Shuttle Carrier (SCA), orbiter Discover traveled from the Kennedy Space Center to its new space at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center outside Washington, D.C. Also, targeting beyond Earth orbit, and more!

 PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

New research suggests that billions of stars in our galaxy have captured rogue planets that once roamed interstellar space. The nomad worlds, which were kicked out of the star systems in which they formed, occasionally find a new home with a different sun. This finding could explain the existence of some planets that orbit surprisingly far from their stars, and even the existence of a double-planet system.

"Stars trade planets just like baseball teams trade players," said Hagai Perets of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The study, co-authored by Perets and Thijs Kouwenhoven of Peking University, China, will appear in the April 20th issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

To reach their conclusion, Perets and Kouwenhoven simulated young star clusters containing free-floating planets. They found that if the number of rogue planets equaled the number of stars, then 3 to 6 percent of the stars would grab a planet over time. The more massive a star, the more likely it is to snag a planet drifting by.

They studied young star clusters because capture is more likely when stars and free-floating planets are crowded together in a small space. Over time, the clusters disperse due to close interactions between their stars, so any planet-star encounters have to happen early in the cluster's history.

Rogue planets are a natural consequence of star formation. Newborn star systems often contain multiple planets. If two planets interact, one can be ejected and become an interstellar traveler. If it later encounters a different star moving in the same direction at the same speed, it can hitch a ride.

A captured planet tends to end up hundreds or thousands of times farther from its star than Earth is from the Sun. It's also likely to have a orbit that's tilted relative to any native planets, and may even revolve around its star backward.

Astronomers haven't detected any clear-cut cases of captured planets yet. Imposters can be difficult to rule out. Gravitational interactions within a planetary system can throw a planet into a wide, tilted orbit that mimics the signature of a captured world.

Finding a planet in a distant orbit around a low-mass star would be a good sign of capture, because the star's disk wouldn't have had enough material to form the planet so far out.

The best evidence to date in support of planetary capture comes from the European Southern Observatory, which announced in 2006 the discovery of two planets (weighing 14 and 7 times Jupiter) orbiting each other without a star.

"The rogue double-planet system is the closest thing we have to a 'smoking gun' right now," said Perets. "To get more proof, we'll have to build up statistics by studying a lot of planetary systems."

Could our solar system harbor an alien world far beyond Pluto? Astronomers have looked, and haven't found anything yet.

"There's no evidence that the Sun captured a planet," said Perets. "We can rule out large planets. But there's a non-zero chance that a small world might lurk on the fringes of our solar system."

Contacts:
David Aguilar
+1 617-495-7462
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu

Christine Pulliam
+1 617-495-7463
cpulliam@cfa.harvard.edu

Preprint of research paper to appear in The Astrophysical Journal:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.2362v2

Announcement of double planet without a central star:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0629/

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

Source: NASA/UA MRO HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC)

This image covers a region of Mars near Nili Fossae that contains some of the best exposures of ancient bedrock on Mars. The enhanced-color subimage shows part of the ejecta from an impact crater. The impact broke up already diverse rocks types and mixed them together to create this wild jumble of colors, each representing a different type of rock. Larger image.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, at podium, speaks to those in attendance at Apron W after the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) with space shuttle Discovery mounted on top rolled to a halt at Washington Dulles International Airport, Tuesday, April 17, 2012 in Sterling, Va. Discovery, the first orbiter retired from NASA’s shuttle fleet, completed 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited the Earth 5,830 times, and traveled 148,221,675 miles. NASA will transfer Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum to begin its new mission to commemorate past achievements in space and to educate and inspire future generations of explorers. Photo Credit: (NASA/Smithsonian Institution/Dane Penland)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/

Space Shuttle Discovery, atop its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, NASA 905, is shown from various vantage points around the National Capital region on April 17 on the final leg of its ferry flight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Dulles International Airport in Virginia.