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posted: 03:46 pm ET, 11 February 2003
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splogsarch_021103
Pegasus Launches NASA’s SORCE Spacecraft
An Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus rocket successfully launched NASA’s Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite Jan. 25, NASA announced.
The spacecraft carries four instruments that will measure the amount of solar radiation that enters and leaves the Earth’s atmosphere.
The mission is a partnership between NASA and the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, Colo.
EMS DELIVERS CLOUDSAT SWITCHES
EMS Technologies Inc. delivered two switch modules to Com Dev International Ltd. for NASA’s CloudSat mission, EMS announced. CloudSat, scheduled to launch in April 2004, will use radar to map the vertical structure of clouds.
Com Dev of Cambridge, Ontario, is building the receiver for the radar instrument.
The switches, built by EMS’s Space & Technology Group of Atlanta, will protect CloudSat’s sensitive low-noise amplifier from being damaged by signals from the spacecraft’s cloud profiling radar. CloudSat is sponsored by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the Canadian Space Agency.
STARDUST IMAGES PLEIADES
The navigation camera aboard NASA’s Stardust comet sample-return spacecraft has taken images of the Pleiades star cluster in a test designed to evaluate the performance of the camera’s protective periscope, NASA announced Jan. 24.
The periscope is designed to protect the camera’s sensitive optics as it approaches comet Wild 2 in January 2006. The periscope’s main mirror is made of polished aluminum that is designed to withstand impacts by comet dust, said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Stardust is designed to collect dust from the comet’s tail for return to Earth in 2006.
NASA engineers took a series of images of the star cluster to both test the camera’s ability to make the maneuvers necessary to guide the spacecraft to its target within the time frame of the flyby, and to determine if the periscope will cause any distortions to the images, Duxbury said.
"We wanted to see what the mirror surfaces will do to the star images," Duxbury said. "We expect to take these images and find out the periscope is just fine and that’s it."
NASA expects to receive most of the images from Stardust by the first week of February, Duxbury said.
Shock Waves Helped Bring Water to Earth
The movement of shock waves through the solar nebula during the formation of the solar system may have helped bring water to Earth, according to a study by the University of Arizona and the University of Hawaii.
Chondrites, among the oldest and most primitive of objects in the universe, are believed to have formed within the solar nebula, said Fred Ciesla, a graduate student at the University of Arizona and one of the authors of the study. Chondrites are thought to be the building blocks of Earth, he said.
While in the solar nebula, these chondrites were heated very quickly by shock waves and melted, Ciesla said. These same shock waves also melted ice particles within the nebula, producing high-pressure water vapor in the area of the melted chondrites, he said.
As the chondrite material passed through the water vapor the two became mixed together. When chondrites finally cooled and reformed, the water became trapped inside, Ciesla said.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS MARS EPOCHS
New research has created uncertainty about when the second of Mars’ three geologic time periods occurred, a development that has implications for the possibility that life exists on the red planet, said Tracy Gregg, assistant professor of geology at the University of Buffalo.
Analysis of images from Mars orbiters of an area dubbed Hesperia Planum show that the area contains a combination of materials ranging from very old to very young. Previously scientists believed the area’s surface material was created at about the same time, Gregg said.
The period in which Hesperia Planum was formed defines the Hesperian epoch, the middle of Mars’ three geologic time periods. The timing affects estimates of when the intense volcanic activity that marked the epoch died down, Gregg said.
If the Hesperian epoch occurred earlier than previously thought, geological activity ceased at an earlier time, making it less likely that life exists on Mars, Gregg said. However, if the epoch occurred more recently, it increases the possibility that conditions for supporting life still exist on Mars, she said.
IMPACTS AFFECT VOLCANIC ACTIVITY
Researchers at New York’s Columbia University have found a correlation between the frequency of comet and meteorite impacts on Earth and volcanic activity over the past 4 billion years.
The scientists established the link after matching impact craters with debris left by volcanic activity, according to a university news release.
The statement said there have been 10 major peaks in terrestrial impact activity on Earth over the past 4 billion years. Nine of these peaks are matched by periods of greater volcanic activity worldwide, the statement said.
India To Launch Remote Sensing Satellite for Singapore
India will launch a small remote sensing satellite being developed by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University under an agreement with Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
An ISRO press release said the 100-kilogram X-Sat satellite would be carried as a piggyback payload by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in a mission scheduled for 2005 or 2006. X-Sat will be the fifth foreign satellite launched aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. ISRO officials declined to disclose the launch fee.
The release said Singapore will use X-Sat for land and coastal Earth observations in multiple spectral bands. The three-axis stabilized spacecraft will have deployable solar panels.
GLAST PROPULSION CONTRACT
Atlantic Research Corp., Gainesville, Va., won a contract from Spectrum Astro, Gilbert, Ariz., to supply the propulsion system that will be used to safely deorbit NASA’s planned Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Observatory when its mission is over, Atlantic Research announced Jan. 23.
The GLAST observatory mission, scheduled for a 2006 launch, is being funded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy, along with various government agencies in France, Italy, Japan and Sweden.
Libby Masaitis, a spokeswoman for Atlantic Research and Mike Greenwood, a spokesman for Spectrum Astro, said the contract value would not be released.
Venus Express Contract
The European Space Agency is expected to sign a contract with satellite builder Astrium for the construction of the Venus Express satellite platform. The contract, valued at some 82.4 million euros ($87.8 million), takes advantage of Astrium work on the Mars Express satellite to be launched this summer. Venus Express is scheduled for launch in late 2005.
ESA and several European national space agencies are supplying the satellite’s observing instruments under separate contracts.
Boeing, Finmeccanica Accord
Boeing Co., Chicago, and Finmeccanica, Rome, signed a memorandum of understanding Jan. 23 for closer cooperation on new initiatives in missile defense, avionics and navigation systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, satellites, space launches, commercial aircraft and aircraft modification.
The agreement envisages the formation of an executive steering committee that would study development, production, marketing, sales, modification and engineering support.
The missile defense component extends the July 2002 memorandum for cooperation signed between Boeing and Finmeccanica unit Alenia Spazioto to cover other Finmeccanica companies, such as Galileo Avionica and Marconi Selenia Communications, Giorgio Zappa, chairman of Finmeccanica company, Alenia Aeronautica, said at a news conference in Rome.
Speaking via a live link from Washington, Boeing Executive Vice President Jim Albaugh told reporters that preparatory work on the new executive steering committee had been underway for two years.
MDA’S CANADARM2 WORK
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA), Richmond, British Columbia, received a 3.5 million Canadian dollar ($2.3 million) contract amendment from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to perform additional engineering work on the international space station MDA announced Jan. 23.
MDA will do additional work on the Mobile Servicing System, Canada’s contribution to the space station. The system consists of the Canadarm2 (attached to space station at right), a robotic arm used for various tasks around the exterior of the station such as moving payloads, and the mobile base station, a storage and work platform for astronauts.
The additional work, which includes providing spare parts, repairs and overhaul, and operational support, will be performed by May.
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