Missions | Universe Today

Okay, now astronomers are just showing off. See the three little multicolored dots in the upper right of this image? That's NASA's WMAP satellite, seen from a distance of 1.5 million km. The photograph was taken from the 2.2 meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile. Apart from demonstrating some impressive imagine power and technique, the astronomers are testing out new tracking techniques for ESA's upcoming Gaia space observatory.
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Space shuttle Discovery now sits majestically out on launch pad 39A, preparing for the upcoming STS-124 mission to the International Space Station. With the shuttle program slated to terminate in 2010, there's a limited amount of times we'll see that sight again: a space shuttle will crawl out to the pad only 10 more times –or possibly only 9 more. And whether that thought chokes you up a bit, or evokes a shout of "It's about time!" here's a quick look at the remaining shuttle missions and what each will accomplish. All dates and personnel are subject to change.
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It's a great idea, so all the missions might as well join in. Earlier today, Ian reported on how the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is offering the chance for the public to 'ride along' to the moon by sending their names to be added to a computer chip which will be embedded on the spacecraft. Well, not to be outdone, the upcoming Kepler mission that will search for Earth-sized exoplanets is offering the same chance. But this is no sluff opportunity where you just fill in your name and you're done: you've got to work a little and be creative! The Kepler folks would like you to also state in 100 words or less why you think the Kepler mission is important. I think that's a great idea, and I'm going to add my name and statement right away. But there's more reasons why I prefer the Kepler mission's approach to sending your name to space:
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A mission to the sun is difficult stuff. For 30 years scientists and engineers have struggled with developing a spacecraft that could survive the harsh environment close to the sun, but always ended up running into insurmountable technology limitations or blowing the top off the budget. But now the Applied Physics Lab believes they have come up with a plan that will work, and NASA has given them the go-ahead to get a mission ready by 2015. And contrary to the old joke about a mission to the sun, the new Solar Probe won’t have an easy time of it by just heading to the sun at night…
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New results from the The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) reveal the mineral composition of the bottom of Chandor Chasma. There is a rich mix of sulfate and pyroxene-containing deposits in this region and the CRISM instrument continues to find deposits of minerals never thought to exist on the planet's surface. However, the primary mission objective is to find evidence of water, past and present, aiding the hunt for the best location of the first Mars settlements. SETI Institute principal investigator and CRISM scientist Dr Adrian Brown answers some of my questions about CRISM and how the results may be useful for future manned missions to the Red Planet…
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Steve Squyres and the Mars Exploration Rover team knew from the beginning that dust could cause a problem for the rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. When a thick layer of dust coats the solar panels, it blocks the sunlight that generates power for the six-wheeled robots. In the summer of 2007 a huge dust storm blanketed Mars, and deposited a fair amount of dust on solar panels of both rovers. Spirit, especially accumulated a lot of dust on its solar array. Currently, only about one-third of incoming sunlight is able to penetrate dust on Spirit’s solar panels to be converted to electricity. As a result, Spirit is experiencing the lowest energy levels to date and accumulating a backlog of data waiting to be transmitted to Earth. If only a dust devil would come along…
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India’s space agency sent a record 10 satellites into Earth orbit with a single launch early Monday. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket ejected all the satellites within minutes of each other after liftoff from the Sriharikota space station in southern India. Initial signals indicated all the satellites were working normally. India is seeking to compete with other space-faring nations for commercial launch services, and this mission's success demonstrates India's ability to launch multiple payloads into precise orbit. The flight breaks the previous record of eight satellites launched at once by a Russian rocket, according to Indian news reports.

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The Japanese SELENE lunar orbiter has returned some of the most detailed maps of the Moon to date. The new collection of high-definition maps includes topological data and mineral location. Critically, the locations of uranium, thorium and potassium have been mapped, essential for mission planners when considering the future of manned settlements on the Moon. Seeing the lunar relief mapped to such fine detail makes for an impressive sight. So far six million data points have been collected and there's more to come…
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NOTE: This was the Universe Today's contribution to April Fools Day (April 1st), but it isn't all a joke… International efforts in space are being seriously hindered by budget cuts, forcing agencies to think up alternative methods to raise money. The following article could be a possibility…

In an effort to raise additional funds, NASA has announced new partnerships with corporate sponsors. It is becoming increasingly difficult for government-backed space agencies to support the vast range of missions currently exploring the solar system, so urgent measures are being taken. Planetary missions in particular, such as the Mars Exploration Rover project, have fallen on tough times. As already demonstrated by research groups in the UK, funds from private companies are essential for survival and some weird and wonderful methods to capture public interest have already been exploited.

Now it is the perfect time for the biggest marketing stunt yet: tattoo Mars with corporate logos for orbiting spacecraft and ground-based telescopes to observe…
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The answer was: "A NASA Mars lander has this mythic name because it was made of parts from a scrapped 2001 mission," and the correct question was "What is Phoenix?". The Mars mission currently en-route to Mars hasn't only set the science world alight, it appears to be growing into the public mindset. Appearing as the subject for one of the questions on the highly popular US gameshow Jeopardy! before it has even arrived at Mars, I wonder how popular it will become when the mission actually begins…

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No sooner had news hit the web that NASA had cut funding to the Mars Exploratory Rovers (MER), NASA took a huge U-turn and voided the letter that was sent to MER mission scientists. Apparently both Spirit and Opportunity can continue to roll around the Mars landscape as if nothing had ever happened; in fact the two robots will probably be unaware of the drama that unfolded here on Earth in the last 24 hours. Talk about a storm in a teacup…

But what caused the change of heart? What was behind all this funding craziness? Unfortunately, this ordeal highlights the pressures government-funded space agencies are under, and it is unlikely this will be the end of it…

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As the parachute failed on re-entry, a man hanging out of a helicopter wielding a big hook didn't have chance to grab the falling object. Instead, it entered the atmosphere and thudded into the crusty layer of sand in the Utah Desert. This isn't some Monty Python sketch, it was the demise of the Genesis sample return probe as the descent mechanism failed to release its parachutes on September 8th 2004. Hope to analyze any of the pristine samples of the Sun's atmosphere quickly dissipated as scientists realized the precious cargo was likely destroyed and contaminated. But now, with a bit of luck and a lot of patience, mission scientists have recovered some samples from the wreckage and hope most of the Genesis mission goals will be accomplished regardless…
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The first tests of Constellation Program technology will start toward the end of 2008. In the first tests, a mock-launch will demonstrate the safety measures worked into the design. The crew module will blast away from the rocket boosters and take the (unmanned) capsule away to safety from the launch pad. This is an important design implication as NASA demonstrates the Constellation Program's safety measures should the crew inside Orion get into difficulty as man is launched back into space, to the Moon and Mars, starting in 2020…
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Space traffic control will be needed at the International Space Station as a busy timeframe of missions and resupply flights continue for our home port in space. In a choreographed ballet of spaceships, ESA's first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) resupply ship and NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour are scheduled to liftoff on March 9 and 11, respectively, to dock with the ISS, while a third - Russia's Soyuz - is due to arrive early in April. The heavy traffic comes just a few weeks after Space Shuttle Atlantis left the ISS on February 18, delivering the Columbus science lab to the station. With Endeavour scheduled to be docked to the ISS from March 13 – 24, the ATV must patiently wait in a “parking orbit,” travelling in a holding pattern below the station, and will then dock after the shuttle leaves.
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If you think the discoveries made by planet hunters is exciting already, just you wait. There are some missions in the works that are going multiply the number of planets discovered, and zoom in on the holy grail of finding habitable planets around other stars. The next planet hunter being readied for launch is NASA's Kepler Mission. This week engineers conducted a series of tests on its image detectors - will it really be able to see planets?
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Have you ever named a space mission? Well, here's your chance. NASA announced today that they're looking for help from the public to rename their upcoming Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) before it launches in mid-2008.
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On January 14 the MESSENGER spacecraft skimmed just 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface of Mercury in the first of three flybys of the planet. Today (Jan. 15) the spacecraft will turn back towards the Earth to start down-linking the on-board stored science data it acquired during the flyby. The probe's equipment gathered data on the mineral and chemical composition of Mercury's surface, its magnetic field, its surface topography and its interactions with the solar wind. "This was fantastic," said Michael Paul, a mission engineer. "We were closer to the surface of Mercury than the International Space Station is to the Earth."
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Continuing on its epic journey around the Sun, Ulysses has reached the Sun's north pole just in the nick of time. In fact, its timing couldn't be better, just as the Sun begins "Solar Cycle 24". The probe is in a unique orbit, passing over the solar north and south poles, out of the ecliptic plane of the solar system, giving it an unprecedented view of parts of the Sun we cannot observe on Earth. "Graveyards for sunspots" and mysterious coronal holes lurk in these regions and Ulysses will be perfectly placed, directly above.
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Lunar orbit is getting to be a busy place, with several different countries sending spacecraft to the moon. Currently orbiting the moon are Japan’s Kaguya (also known as SELENE) spacecraft, which has been sending back 3-D movies of the lunar surface, and China’s Chang’e 1, which will gather information on the moon’s chemical composition with its various cameras, spectrometers and other scientific equipment. In addition, two new missions to the moon will launch this year: India’s Chandrayaan-1 and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Today, the MESSENGER spacecraft will perform a significant task in its mission by making its first flyby of Mercury (see more info below). Additionally, other spacecraft that are out doing their jobs in various locations of our solar system will have significant mission events occur in 2008. Let’s take a look at the big events coming up this year.
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On December 2^nd, 1995 a large joint ESA and NASA mission was launched to gain an insight to the dynamics of the Sun and its relationship with the space between the planets. 12 years on, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) continues to witness some of the largest explosions ever seen in the solar system, observes beautiful magnetic coronal arcs reach out into space and tracks comets as they fall to a fiery death. In the line of duty, SoHO even suffered a near-fatal shutdown (in 1998). As far as astronomy goes, this is a tough assignment.
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Blinking spots of intense light are being observed all over the lower atmosphere of the Sun. Not just in the active regions, but in polar regions, quiet regions, sunspots, coronal holes and loops. These small explosions fire elegant jets of hot solar matter into space, generating X-rays as they go. Although X-ray jets are known to have existed for many years, the Japanese Hinode observatory is seeing these small flares with unprecedented clarity, showing us that X-ray jets may yet hold the answers to some of the most puzzling questions about the Sun and its hot corona.
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My kids find it fascinating that the gold in the ring on my finger was formed in an instant when a massive star detonated in a supernova explosion. But it's not just the heavier elements that get produced in a supernova, there's also dust. Lots and lots of dust that can eventually collect together into new planets. And according to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, a typical supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A contains enough dust for 10,000 Earths.
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It seemed like such a shame. NASA built Deep Impact to see what happens when you smash a refrigerator-sized object into a comet. Mission accomplished, science gathered. But what about the flyby part of the spacecraft? It captured images of the collision with Comet Tempel 1, and then flew on without a target. Well, NASA announced this week that it has a new target: Comet Hartley 2.
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Just in case you'd forgotten that the focus is going to be on the Moon for the next few decades, here's another mission announcement: the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL). Due to launch in 2011, this mission will fly a pair of spacecraft around the Moon to measure its gravity field in precise detail. By the time GRAIL's done with the Moon, we'll know every lump and bump 1,000 times better than before
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