Missions | Universe Today

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have intentionally driven their engineering rover into soft soil in a sandbox testbed, to simulate how the Spirit rover is stuck on Mars. And they did a good job of it, too, as the test rover, called SSTB1, is stuck, as well, with its wheels spinning and going nowhere. The science team has confirmed a rock on Mars, underneath Spirit is touching the underside of the rover, so engineers have placed a similar looking rock in the test sandbox, as seen above.

"We want to experiment with different extraction techniques down here on Earth before we actually do them for real on Mars," said John Callas, project manager for the Mars rovers. "Our expectation is that it will some time to get Spirit out, so we will be able to get a better feel for that here in this facility to see how well the techniques work and how long it will take for them to work."
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UPDATE: Use this link to watch the webcast (the other one isn't working very well!)

It's the spacecraft that just won't quit. We ran a story about a year ago that the Ulysses spacecraft was dying of natural causes (running out of power to keep the spacecraft warm and functional) and its mission would likely end by July 1, 2008. The thing is, the spacecraft just kept hanging on…and hanging on….and hanging on. But now, after 18.6 years in space and defying several earlier expectations of its demise, Ulysses will finally be switched off. You can watch a live webcast of the final communication with the spacecraft, which will occur on June 30, 2009, starting at 15:35 GMT and go until 20:20 GMT.
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When your rover has abundant energy but can't go anywhere, what's a scientist to do? How about making observations of the evening and night skies on Mars? With the benefit of a boost in electrical power from a wind gust cleaning off her solar panels, the Spirit rover has more energy available than she's had for a couple of years. But unfortunately, Spirit is stuck in a patch of loose soil in the Home Plate region on Mars. While the engineers at JPL work hard at figuring out how to "Free Spirit" (see the new website dedicated to their efforts) scientists are making observations of her surroundings to aid in the effort to get her out. But there's also enough power to do additional observations, and astronomy was a logical choice. "Certainly, a month or more ago, no one was considering astronomy with the rovers," said Mark Lemmon, planetary scientist at Texas A&M University and member of the rover team. "We thought that was done. With the dust cleanings, though, everyone thinks it is better to use the new found energy on night time science than to just burn it with heaters." Besides, Lemmon added, using all the energy in the daytime might lead to overheating.
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its braking thrusters for 40 minutes early today, successfully inserting the spacecraft into orbit around the Moon. Over the next several days, LRO's instruments will be turned on and its orbit will be fine-tuned. Then LRO will begin its primary mission of mapping the lunar surface to find future landing sites and searching for resources that would make possible a permanent human presence on the moon. Also, early Tuesday, the companion mission Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) sent back live video as it flew 9,000 km above the Moon, as it enters its elongated Earth orbit, which will bring it on course to impact the Moon's south pole in October.
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On Tuesday morning, the LCROSS spacecraft will fly by the Moon only 9,000 km above the lunar surface and send back live streaming video for about an hour. This relatively close encounter with the Moon, will help put LCROSS in the correct position to impact the lunar surface in October. LCROSS will never actually be lunar orbit, but is working its way to an elongated Earth orbit which will eventually bring it to the correct orientation for meeting up with the south pole of the Moon later this year. LCROSS will search for water ice on the moon by sending the spent upper-stage Centaur rocket to impact part of a polar crater in permanent shadows. The LCROSS spacecraft will fly into the plume of dust left by the impact and measure the properties before also colliding with the lunar surface. Live video streaming of the flyby begins at approximately 12:20 GMT (8:20 EDT) on Tuesday, June 23, 2009. Click here to watch.
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NASA is going back to the Moon today! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and a piggyback mission called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) are at the launch pad, ready to blast off on an Atlas V today (Thursday June 18), with launch windows at 5:12 p.m., 5:22 p.m. or 5:32 p.m. EDT. (9:12, 9:22 or 9:32 GMT). The dual mission will provide detailed lunar maps to aid in returning humans to the moon, while searching for water ice in permanently shaded craters at the moon's poles.
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This is just cool.

Nature, the publishing group, is mixing the old with the new by "tweeting" the Apollo 11 moon mission as it happened — 40 years later. Followers on Twitter will be able to read about technical milestones, political challenges, and related events in the space race starting today, just over a month before the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

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More images have been released by the Lunar Orbiter Imagery Recovery Project (LOIRP), the endeavor that has been called a "time machine" by team member Keith Cowing of NASA Watch. In 1966 and 1967, NASA sent five Lunar Orbiter missions to photograph the lunar surface to prepare for the Apollo missions to land humans on moon. Data were recorded on large magnetic tapes, and a special machine was needed to just to view the images. The LOIRP team is working on digitizing the data, and restoring the images to their full resolution. These images are especially timely, given the upcoming launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, hopefully this week. NASA can compare detailed high-resolution images from 1966 to the present and see what changes occurred in 40-plus years. "What this gives you is literally before and after photos," Cowing said.
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It's a crowded dance floor and someone had to step aside. Because of Saturday's launch delay for STS-127, the shuttle and the upcoming dual mission to the moon — the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) — were both vying to launch from Kennedy Space Center on the same day, which is not a possibility (usually there needs to be at least 48 hours between launches as the Air Force's Eastern Range that monitors needs that amount of time to reconfigure the systems.) At a press conference today, NASA launch manager at KSC, Chuck Dovale announced LRO/LRCROSS will give up their originally schedule launch date of June 17 so that the shuttle can go. "We are relinquishing the June 17 date to the shuttle," he said. "However, we will maintain June 18 as the earliest possible date for LRO/LCROSS. We will monitor the shuttle's progress, and if they were to scrub the launch for any reason before midnight on the 16th, we can still maintain launch on the 18th." But there's a lot that has to go right for the optimum and hoped for launch schedules to happen.
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The Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya will end its two-year mission with a controlled impact on the Moon's surface on June 10th at 18:30 Universal Time. The impact location is near the southeast limb at 80ºE, 63ºS. If you live in Asia and Australia, you may have the opportunity to observe the impact event, and the Japanese Space Agency –JAXA – wants to hear from you if you plan on watching for the impact. The event may be visible with a bright flash or plume. JAXA is making available precise information on the projected time and location of the event. If you are interested in observing the impact, contact JAXA at sel_hp@jaxa.jp and provide your name, location, and planned observation method.
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The Spirit rover has now taken two sets of close-up images showing the ground where it has been stuck for several weeks. Spirit used the microscopic imager on the robotic arm to peer underneath her own belly in an attempt to determine how the vehicle is embedded, and if there might be something obstructing the rover. Sure enough, the images appear to show a rock or mound of dirt that might be in the way, but more pictures and tests are needed before the rover team can develop a strategy for getting the rover out of its current predicament. Rover project manager John Callas said using the robotic arm for this purpose was never in the original design book, but it appears to have worked quite well.
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We're all concerned about the Spirit rover, currently stuck in some soft soil on Mars. But some people are actually working hard to figure out how to rescue the rover. That includes a 7-year old boy named Julian who sent this drawing in to JPL with his idea of how help Spirit: use the robotic arm as a "tripod" to lift the rover up and help move it out of the spot where it is embedded. Julian, you have a bright future ahead of you as an engineer! "We are getting a lot of interesting suggestions from the public," said JPL’s John Callas, MER project manager, "and we think that's wonderful. It shows people are interested in these rovers. We certainly are canvassing the full range of possibilities to get Spirit unstuck."

And Callas said they are actually planning to use the robotic arm to help get Spirit unstuck, but not quite the way Julian had in mind.
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The Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011, now has a new name, thanks to a sixth-grade student from Kansas. Twelve-year-old Clara Ma submitted the winning entry, "Curiosity" in the name-the-rover contest for schoolchildren, sponsored by NASA. "We have been eager to call the rover by name," said Pete Theisinger, who manages the JPL team building and testing Curiosity. "Giving it a name worthy of this mission's quest means a lot to the people working on it."

For winning the naming contest, Clara gets to sign her name directly on the rover. But you can send your name to Mars with Curiosity, too.
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Space Shuttle Lands

Space shuttle Atlantis landed safely in California on Sunday morning after "dynamic and unpredictable" weather kept the orbiter from returning to Florida. Atlantis touched down on runway 22 of Edwards Air Force Base at 11:39 am EDT (1539 GMT) Sunday, the first of two opportunities to land the shuttle in California. Atlantis spent nearly 13 days in orbit on the STS-125 mission, successfully repairing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope during a series of five spacewalks. Atlantis will be ferried to Kennedy Space Center on top of a modified 747 in about a week. Next shuttle mission: STS-127, slated for liftoff on June 13, on a trip to the International Space Station.
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STS-125 crew members aboard Atlantis (pictured above) will hang out at least a day longer in space, following foul weather that prevented a timely landing today at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

And the forecast isn't looking any sunnier for at least a little while.

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