Wednesday, 26 December 2012
Monday, 10 December 2012
Next Mars Rover Sports a Set of New Wheels
Next Mars Rover Sports a Set of New Wheels
NASA's next
Mars rover, Curiosity, is sitting pretty on a set of spiffy new wheels
that would be the envy of any car show on Earth.
The wheels and a suspension system were added recently by spacecraft
technicians and engineers. These new and important touches are a key
step in assembling and testing the flight system in advance of a planned
2011 launch.
Curiosity, centerpiece of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is a six-wheeler and uses a rocker-bogie suspension system like its smaller predecessors: Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner. Each wheel has its own drive motor, and the corner wheels also have independent steering motors. Unlike earlier Mars rovers, Curiosity will also use its mobility system as a landing gear when the mission's rocket-powered descent stage lowers the rover directly onto the Martian surface on a tether in August 2012.
In coming months at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mobility system will get functional testing and be part of environmental testing of the rover. The mobility system will now stay on Curiosity through launch unless testing identifies a need for rework that would require it to be disassembled.
The mission will launch from Florida during the period Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011. Curiosity will examine an area of Mars for modern or ancient habitable environments, including any that may have also been favorable for preserving clues about life and environment, though this mission will not seek evidence of life. It will examine rocks, soil and atmosphere with a diverse payload of tools, including a laser to vaporize patches of rock from a distance and an instrument designed to test for organic compounds.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Meets Its Match in Florida
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Meets Its Match in Florida
In
preparation for launch later this year, the "back shell powered descent
vehicle" configuration containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover,
Curiosity, has been placed on the spacecraft's heat shield.
The matchup was performed by technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The heat shield and the spacecraft's back shell form an aeroshell that encapsulates and protects the rover from the intense heat it will experience during the final leg of the trip to Mars-the friction-filled descent through the Martian atmosphere.
The mission is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during the period from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18. Arrival at Gale Crater on Mars is expected in August 2012.
After arrival, the Curiosity rover will investigate whether the landing region has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory 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
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Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing
What will the Martian atmosphere be like when the next Mars rover descends through it for landing in August of 2012?
An instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a
four-week campaign to characterize daily atmosphere changes, one Mars
year before the arrival of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity.
A Mars year equals 687 Earth days.
The planet's thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide is highly repeatable from year to year at the same time of day and seasonal date during northern spring and summer on Mars.
The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter maps the distribution of temperature, dust, and water ice in the atmosphere. Temperature variations with height indicate how fast air density changes and thus the rates at which the incoming spacecraft slows down and heats up during its descent.
"It is currently one Mars year before the Mars Science Laboratory arrival season," said atmospheric scientist David Kass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This campaign will provide a set of observations to support the Mars Science Laboratory engineering team and Mars atmospheric modelers. The information will constrain the expected climate at their landing season. It will also help define the range of possible weather conditions on landing day."
During the four years the Mars Climate Sounder has been studying the Martian atmosphere, its observations have seen conditions only at about three in the afternoon and three in the morning. For the new campaign, the instrument team is inaugurating a new observation mode, looking to both sides as well as forward. This provides views of the atmosphere earlier and later in the day by more than an hour, covering the range of possible times of day that the rover will pass through the atmosphere before landing.
The planet's thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide is highly repeatable from year to year at the same time of day and seasonal date during northern spring and summer on Mars.
The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter maps the distribution of temperature, dust, and water ice in the atmosphere. Temperature variations with height indicate how fast air density changes and thus the rates at which the incoming spacecraft slows down and heats up during its descent.
"It is currently one Mars year before the Mars Science Laboratory arrival season," said atmospheric scientist David Kass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This campaign will provide a set of observations to support the Mars Science Laboratory engineering team and Mars atmospheric modelers. The information will constrain the expected climate at their landing season. It will also help define the range of possible weather conditions on landing day."
During the four years the Mars Climate Sounder has been studying the Martian atmosphere, its observations have seen conditions only at about three in the afternoon and three in the morning. For the new campaign, the instrument team is inaugurating a new observation mode, looking to both sides as well as forward. This provides views of the atmosphere earlier and later in the day by more than an hour, covering the range of possible times of day that the rover will pass through the atmosphere before landing.
Yahoo and NBC Sports Group to combine sports content
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Yahoo!
Inc and NBC Sports Group said they will integrate and promote each
others sports content on the Internet as well as on television in a move
that would help both the companies draw on their respective strengths
across both mediums.
The Yahoo logo is seen at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada January 7, 2008. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
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The two companies will maintain separate websites and independent newsrooms, but will collaborate on big sports news stories as well as events coverage both online and on the air, the companies said in a statement late on Sunday.
Yahoo has looked to increase its involvement with television content, it announced a major content sharing deal for financial news with CNBC in June.
The sports news providers will also jointly develop made-for-web video programs that will appear on both Yahoo Sports and NBCSports.com as well as collaborate in how they provide advertising.
The alliance will include, Yahoo Sports, the Rivals Network, NBCSports.com, NBC Sports Regional Networks, Golf Channel.com, Rotoworld.com and Allisports.com. NBCSports.com will continue to provide sports content for NBCNews.com.
NBC Sports is part of NBC Universal Media, a unit of Comcast Corp.
Satellite captures "black marble" view of Earth at night
Almost
40 years to the day after the Apollo 17 crew snapped the famed "blue
marble" image of Earth floating in space on December 7, 1972, NASA has
unveiled "black marble" video views of the planet by night.
Lights across the earth are pictured in this NASA
handout satellite image obtained by Reuters December 5, 2012. This new
image of the Earth at night is a composite assembled from data acquired
by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite
over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took
312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel
of Earth’s land surface and islands. REUTERS/NASA/Handout.
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The sensor can capture the equivalent of three low-light images simultaneously, giving researchers the opportunity to study Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans at night.
"It's very high-quality data," NOAA scientist Christopher Elvidge told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.
"I rate it six times better spatial resolution."
The so-called day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS, can distinguish the night-time glow of Earth's atmosphere as well as a light from a single ship at sea. The resolution is far sharper than what has been available previously.
VIIRS is aboard the Suomi NPP satellite, which orbits about 500 miles above Earth's poles.
Scientists used the day-night sensor to watch the superstorm Sandy, illuminated by moonlight, hit the New Jersey shore on October 29. It also captured the power outages that plunged the area into darkness as the storm tore into populated areas.
The National Weather Service is starting to use the VIIRS day-night sensor to forecast fog in coastal regions, including San Francisco.
Some VIIRS images have surprised scientists. The sensor, for example, captured light from the upper atmosphere illuminating clouds and ice in visible wavelengths - by night.
Link to images: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html
Mars Constantly Loses Part of Its Atmosphere to Space Due to Solar Wind
Space physicists from the University of Leicester are part
of an international team that has identified the impact of the Sun on
Mars' atmosphere.
Writing in the AGU journal Geophysics Research Letters, the scientists report that Mars is constantly losing part of its atmosphere to space.
The new study shows that pressure from solar wind pulses is a significant contributor to Mars's atmospheric escape.
The researchers analysed solar wind data and satellite observations that track the flux of heavy ions leaving Mars's atmosphere. The authors found that Mars's atmosphere does not drift away at a steady pace; instead, atmospheric escape occurs in bursts.
The researchers related those bursts of atmospheric loss to solar events known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). CIRs form when regions of fast solar wind encounter slower solar wind, creating a high-pressure pulse. When these CIR pulses pass by Mars, they can drive away particles from Mars's atmosphere.
The authors found that during times when these CIRs occurred, the outflow of atmospheric particles from Mars was about 2.5 times the outflow when these events were not occurring. Furthermore, about one third of the material lost from Mars into space is lost during the impact and passing of CIRs.
The study should help scientists better understand the evolution of Mars's atmosphere.
Professor Mark Lester, Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester said: "The main reason it happens at Mars and not at Earth is the lack of a magnetic field produced by the planet, which protects the atmosphere at Earth.
"One other aspect of this work is that the observations were made during a very quiet period in the eleven year solar cycle and so we would expect the effect of these and other large scale disturbances to be higher at other times in the solar cycle."
Leicester's role in the study was to analyse the data using ideas that academic researchers had from discussions within the Radio and Space Plasma Physics Research Group.
The new study shows that pressure from solar wind pulses is a significant contributor to Mars's atmospheric escape.
The researchers analysed solar wind data and satellite observations that track the flux of heavy ions leaving Mars's atmosphere. The authors found that Mars's atmosphere does not drift away at a steady pace; instead, atmospheric escape occurs in bursts.
The researchers related those bursts of atmospheric loss to solar events known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). CIRs form when regions of fast solar wind encounter slower solar wind, creating a high-pressure pulse. When these CIR pulses pass by Mars, they can drive away particles from Mars's atmosphere.
The authors found that during times when these CIRs occurred, the outflow of atmospheric particles from Mars was about 2.5 times the outflow when these events were not occurring. Furthermore, about one third of the material lost from Mars into space is lost during the impact and passing of CIRs.
The study should help scientists better understand the evolution of Mars's atmosphere.
Professor Mark Lester, Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester said: "The main reason it happens at Mars and not at Earth is the lack of a magnetic field produced by the planet, which protects the atmosphere at Earth.
"One other aspect of this work is that the observations were made during a very quiet period in the eleven year solar cycle and so we would expect the effect of these and other large scale disturbances to be higher at other times in the solar cycle."
Leicester's role in the study was to analyse the data using ideas that academic researchers had from discussions within the Radio and Space Plasma Physics Research Group.
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