Curiosity Rover on Track for Early August Landing
06.26.12
This artist's concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption
Mission Status Report
PASADENA, Calif. -- A maneuver on Tuesday adjusted the flight path of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for delivering the rover Curiosity to a landing target beside a Martian mountain.
The car-size, one-ton rover is bound for arrival the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early Aug. 6, EDT and Universal Time). The landing will mark the beginning of a two-year prime mission to investigate whether one of the most intriguing places on Mars ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life.
The latest trajectory correction maneuver, the third and smallest since the Nov. 26, 2011, launch, used four thruster firings totaling just 40 seconds. Spacecraft data and Doppler-effect changes in radio signal from the craft indicate the maneuver succeeded. As designed by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the maneuver adjusts the location where the spacecraft will enter Mars' atmosphere by about 125 miles (200 kilometers) and advances the time of entry by about 70 seconds.
"This puts us closer to our entry target, so if any further maneuvers are needed, I expect them to be small," said JPL's Tomas Martin-Mur, the mission's navigation team chief. Opportunities for up to three additional trajectory correction maneuvers are scheduled during the final eight days of the flight.
The maneuver served both to correct errors in the flight path that remained after earlier correction maneuvers and to carry out a decision this month to shift the landing target about 4 miles (7 kilometers) closer to the mountain.
It altered the spacecraft's velocity by about one-tenth of a mile per hour (50 millimeters per second). The flight's first and second trajectory correction maneuvers produced velocity changes about 150 times larger on Jan. 11 and about 20 times larger on March 26.
Shifting the landing target closer to the mountain, informally named Mount Sharp, may shave months off the time needed for driving from the touchdown location to selected destinations at exposures of water-related minerals on the slope of the mountain.
The flight to Mars has entered its "approach phase" leading to landing day. Mission Manager Arthur Amador of JPL said, "In the next 40 days, the flight team will be laser-focused on the preparations for the challenging events of landing day -- continuously tracking the spacecraft's trajectory and monitoring the health and performance of its onboard systems, while using NASA's Deep Space Network to stay in continuous communications. We're in the home stretch now. The spacecraft continues to perform very well. And the flight team is up for the challenge."
Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well suited for its mission of discovery. The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human missions to Mars.
A video about the challenges of the landing is online at: http://go.nasa.gov/Q4b35n or http://go.usa.gov/vMn .
As of June 27, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying the rover Curiosity will have traveled about 307 million miles (494 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to 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/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
NASA Completes Another Successful Orion Parachute Test
07.18.12
Image above: The Orion team loads a test version of the spacecraft into a C-17 in preparation for a parachute drop test at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The main objective of the latest drop test is to determine how the entire system would respond if one of the three main parachutes inflated too quickly. Photo credit: NASA
NASA completed another successful test Wednesday of the Orion crew vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert in preparation for the spacecraft’s orbital flight test in 2014. Orion will carry astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a safe re-entry and landing.
› Watch a video of the parachute drop test
A C-17 plane dropped a test version of Orion from an altitude of 25,000 feet above the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona. This test was the second to use an Orion craft that mimics the full size and shape of the spacecraft.
Orion's drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 feet and 20,000 feet, followed by the pilot parachutes, which deployed the main landing parachutes. Orion descended about 25 feet per second, well below its maximum designed touchdown speed, when it landed on the desert floor.
"Across the country, NASA and industry are moving forward on the most advanced spacecraft ever designed, conducting drop and splashdown tests, preparing ground systems, designing software and computers and paving the way for the future of exploration," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Today's parachute test in Yuma is an important reminder of the progress being made on Orion and its ultimate mission -- enabling NASA to meet the goal of sending humans to an asteroid and Mars."
Orion parachutes have so-called reefing lines, which when cut by a pyrotechnic device, allow the parachute to open gradually, managing the initial amount of drag and force on the parachute. The main objective of the latest drop test was to determine how the entire system would respond if one of the reefing lines was cut prematurely, causing the three main parachutes to inflate too quickly.
Since 2007, the Orion program has conducted a vigorous parachute air and ground test program and provided the chutes for NASA's successful pad abort test in 2010. All of the tests build an understanding of the chutes' technical performance for eventual human-rated certification.
In 2014, an uncrewed Orion spacecraft will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Exploration Flight Test-1. The spacecraft will travel 3,600 miles above Earth's surface. This is 15 times farther than the International Space Station's orbit and farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has gone in more than 40 years. The main flight objective is to understand Orion's heat shield performance at speeds generated during a return from deep space.
In 2017, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence across the solar system.
The Serpent Dust Devil of Mars
A towering dust devil casts a serpentine shadow over the Martian surface in this image acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The scene is a late-spring afternoon in the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars. The view covers an area about four-tenths of a mile (644 meters) across. North is toward the top. The length of the dusty whirlwind's shadow indicates that the dust plume reaches more than half a mile (800 meters) in height. The plume is about 30 yards or meters in diameter.
A westerly breeze partway up the height of the dust devil produced a delicate arc in the plume. The image was taken during the time of Martian year when the planet is farthest from the sun. Just as on Earth, winds on Mars are powered by solar heating. Exposure to the sun's rays declines during this season, yet even now, dust devils act relentlessly to clean the surface of freshly deposited dust, a little at a time.
This view is one product from an observation made by HiRISE on Feb. 16, 2012, at 35.8 degrees north latitude, 207 degrees east longitude. Other image products from the same observation are at http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_026051_2160 .
HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
Curiosity Rover on Track for Early August Landing
06.26.12
This artist's concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech› Full image and caption
Mission Status Report
PASADENA, Calif. -- A maneuver on Tuesday adjusted the flight path of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for delivering the rover Curiosity to a landing target beside a Martian mountain.
The car-size, one-ton rover is bound for arrival the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early Aug. 6, EDT and Universal Time). The landing will mark the beginning of a two-year prime mission to investigate whether one of the most intriguing places on Mars ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life.
The latest trajectory correction maneuver, the third and smallest since the Nov. 26, 2011, launch, used four thruster firings totaling just 40 seconds. Spacecraft data and Doppler-effect changes in radio signal from the craft indicate the maneuver succeeded. As designed by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the maneuver adjusts the location where the spacecraft will enter Mars' atmosphere by about 125 miles (200 kilometers) and advances the time of entry by about 70 seconds.
"This puts us closer to our entry target, so if any further maneuvers are needed, I expect them to be small," said JPL's Tomas Martin-Mur, the mission's navigation team chief. Opportunities for up to three additional trajectory correction maneuvers are scheduled during the final eight days of the flight.
The maneuver served both to correct errors in the flight path that remained after earlier correction maneuvers and to carry out a decision this month to shift the landing target about 4 miles (7 kilometers) closer to the mountain.
It altered the spacecraft's velocity by about one-tenth of a mile per hour (50 millimeters per second). The flight's first and second trajectory correction maneuvers produced velocity changes about 150 times larger on Jan. 11 and about 20 times larger on March 26.
Shifting the landing target closer to the mountain, informally named Mount Sharp, may shave months off the time needed for driving from the touchdown location to selected destinations at exposures of water-related minerals on the slope of the mountain.
The flight to Mars has entered its "approach phase" leading to landing day. Mission Manager Arthur Amador of JPL said, "In the next 40 days, the flight team will be laser-focused on the preparations for the challenging events of landing day -- continuously tracking the spacecraft's trajectory and monitoring the health and performance of its onboard systems, while using NASA's Deep Space Network to stay in continuous communications. We're in the home stretch now. The spacecraft continues to perform very well. And the flight team is up for the challenge."
Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well suited for its mission of discovery. The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human missions to Mars.
A video about the challenges of the landing is online at: http://go.nasa.gov/Q4b35n or http://go.usa.gov/vMn .
As of June 27, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying the rover Curiosity will have traveled about 307 million miles (494 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to 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/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
NASA Completes Another Successful Orion Parachute Test
07.18.12
Image above: The Orion team loads a test version of the spacecraft into a C-17 in preparation for a parachute drop test at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The main objective of the latest drop test is to determine how the entire system would respond if one of the three main parachutes inflated too quickly. Photo credit: NASA
NASA completed another successful test Wednesday of the Orion crew vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert in preparation for the spacecraft’s orbital flight test in 2014. Orion will carry astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a safe re-entry and landing. › Watch a video of the parachute drop test
A C-17 plane dropped a test version of Orion from an altitude of 25,000 feet above the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona. This test was the second to use an Orion craft that mimics the full size and shape of the spacecraft.
Orion's drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 feet and 20,000 feet, followed by the pilot parachutes, which deployed the main landing parachutes. Orion descended about 25 feet per second, well below its maximum designed touchdown speed, when it landed on the desert floor.
"Across the country, NASA and industry are moving forward on the most advanced spacecraft ever designed, conducting drop and splashdown tests, preparing ground systems, designing software and computers and paving the way for the future of exploration," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Today's parachute test in Yuma is an important reminder of the progress being made on Orion and its ultimate mission -- enabling NASA to meet the goal of sending humans to an asteroid and Mars."
Orion parachutes have so-called reefing lines, which when cut by a pyrotechnic device, allow the parachute to open gradually, managing the initial amount of drag and force on the parachute. The main objective of the latest drop test was to determine how the entire system would respond if one of the reefing lines was cut prematurely, causing the three main parachutes to inflate too quickly.
Since 2007, the Orion program has conducted a vigorous parachute air and ground test program and provided the chutes for NASA's successful pad abort test in 2010. All of the tests build an understanding of the chutes' technical performance for eventual human-rated certification.
In 2014, an uncrewed Orion spacecraft will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Exploration Flight Test-1. The spacecraft will travel 3,600 miles above Earth's surface. This is 15 times farther than the International Space Station's orbit and farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has gone in more than 40 years. The main flight objective is to understand Orion's heat shield performance at speeds generated during a return from deep space.
In 2017, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence across the solar system.
The scene is a late-spring afternoon in the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars. The view covers an area about four-tenths of a mile (644 meters) across. North is toward the top. The length of the dusty whirlwind's shadow indicates that the dust plume reaches more than half a mile (800 meters) in height. The plume is about 30 yards or meters in diameter.
A westerly breeze partway up the height of the dust devil produced a delicate arc in the plume. The image was taken during the time of Martian year when the planet is farthest from the sun. Just as on Earth, winds on Mars are powered by solar heating. Exposure to the sun's rays declines during this season, yet even now, dust devils act relentlessly to clean the surface of freshly deposited dust, a little at a time.
This view is one product from an observation made by HiRISE on Feb. 16, 2012, at 35.8 degrees north latitude, 207 degrees east longitude. Other image products from the same observation are at http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_026051_2160 .
HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
BORN THIS WAY?
‘Diverse meteorite mix helped create Earth’
Washington: Earth might have formed from collisions of many different types of meteorites, scientists suggest. Our planet is thought to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago from a disk of dust grains left over from the cloud of material that built our sun.
These grains slowly clumped together, drawn by gravity into pebbles, then boulders, then planetary embryos. Eventually, enough mass coalesced to form the planet Earth.
Scientists had thought that most of the bodies that merged to make Earth formed from a narrow zone in space and were similar to each other, belonging to a subclass of meteorites called enstatite chondrites. This idea was based on measurements of numerous striking similarities between different isotopes of elements such as oxygen, nickel and chromium, between the Earth and enstatite chondrites.
But a new study of the silicon isotope signature of Earth rock samples and meteorites suggests that Earth is made of a more diverse mix of meteorites. Geochemists Caroline Fitoussi and Bernard Bourdon of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in France analysed silicon isotopes in terrestrial rock samples collected from diverse types of mantle rocks.
They also analysed lunar rock samples collected by NASA astronauts on moon missions. They compared these to meteorite samples, particularly enstatite chondrites and another type called enstatite achondrites. The measurements were done at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich in Switzerland.
Using computer models of Earth’s formation, researchers calculated that a mix of three types of meteorite ingredients may have produced the right blend of oxygen, nickel, and chromium isotopes previously measured in Earth samples, as well as their new findings about silicon isotopes in terrestrial and meteorite samples. ANI
Washington: Earth might have formed from collisions of many different types of meteorites, scientists suggest. Our planet is thought to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago from a disk of dust grains left over from the cloud of material that built our sun.
These grains slowly clumped together, drawn by gravity into pebbles, then boulders, then planetary embryos. Eventually, enough mass coalesced to form the planet Earth.
Scientists had thought that most of the bodies that merged to make Earth formed from a narrow zone in space and were similar to each other, belonging to a subclass of meteorites called enstatite chondrites. This idea was based on measurements of numerous striking similarities between different isotopes of elements such as oxygen, nickel and chromium, between the Earth and enstatite chondrites.
But a new study of the silicon isotope signature of Earth rock samples and meteorites suggests that Earth is made of a more diverse mix of meteorites. Geochemists Caroline Fitoussi and Bernard Bourdon of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in France analysed silicon isotopes in terrestrial rock samples collected from diverse types of mantle rocks.
They also analysed lunar rock samples collected by NASA astronauts on moon missions. They compared these to meteorite samples, particularly enstatite chondrites and another type called enstatite achondrites. The measurements were done at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich in Switzerland.
Using computer models of Earth’s formation, researchers calculated that a mix of three types of meteorite ingredients may have produced the right blend of oxygen, nickel, and chromium isotopes previously measured in Earth samples, as well as their new findings about silicon isotopes in terrestrial and meteorite samples. ANI
Stephen Hawking Time Travel - Black Hole
Aiming for the moon: China’s next mission in ’13
Beijing: China’s third lunar probe, Chang’e-3, is expected to be launched next year and it will conduct moon landing and lunar explorations, a top space official has said.
Different from the previous two orbiters, Chang’e-3 has “legs” to support the spacecraft in landing, Ye Peijian, chief commander of Chang’e-3 at the China Academy of Space Technology, said.
The orbiter will carry a lunar rover and other instruments for territory surveys, living conditions assessment, and space observations, Ye, a member of China’s political advisory body was quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.
The 100-kg lunar rover, China’s first such device, is designed to operate on the moon for over three consecutive months, Ye said, on the sidelines of the advisory body’s current annual session. It must be capable of avoiding large craters and climbing through smaller ones, Ye said.
PARALLEL UNIVERSE
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse",
although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel
universes that constitute reality. While the terms "parallel universe"
and "alternative reality" are generally synonymous
and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an
additional connotation implied with the term "alternative reality" that
implies that the reality is a variant of our own. The term "parallel
universe" is more general, without any connotations implying a
relationship, or lack of relationship, with our own universe. A universe
where the very laws of nature are different – for example, one in which there are no relativistic limitations and the speed of light can be exceeded – would in general count as a parallel universe but not an alternative reality. The correct quantum mechanical definition of parallel universes is "universes that are separated from each other by a single quantum event."
Hyperspace
Perhaps the most common use of the concept of a parallel universe in
science fiction is the concept of hyperspace. Used in science fiction,
the concept of “hyperspace” often refers to a parallel universe that can
be used as a faster-than-light shortcut for interstellar travel. Rationales for this form of hyperspace vary from work to work, but the two common elements are:
- at least some (if not all) locations in the hyperspace universe map to locations in our universe, providing the "entry" and "exit" points for travellers.
- the travel time between two points in the hyperspace universe is much shorter than the time to travel to the analogous points in our universe. This can be because of a different speed of light, different speed at which time passes, or the analogous points in the hyperspace universe are just much closer to each other.
While use of hyperspace is common, it is mostly used as a plot device and thus of secondary importance. While a parallel universe may be invoked by the concept, the nature of the universe is not often explored. So, while stories involving hyperspace might be the most common use of the parallel universe concept in fiction, it is not the most common source of fiction about parallel universes.
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