Photo of the Day: Hubble's Successor Unveils Its Giant Eye on the Ground...

NASA / Chris Gunn

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Full Mirror Deployment a Success (News Release)

In a recent test, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its primary mirror into the same configuration it will have when in space.

As Webb progresses towards liftoff in 2021, technicians and engineers have been diligently checking off a long list of final tests the observatory will undergo before being packaged for delivery to French Guiana for launch. Performed in early March, this procedure involved commanding the spacecraft’s internal systems to fully extend and latch Webb’s iconic 21 feet 4-inch (6.5 meter) primary mirror, appearing just like it would after it has been launched to orbit. The observatory is currently in a cleanroom at Northrop Grumman Space Systems in Redondo Beach, California.

The difficulty and complexity of performing tests for Webb has increased significantly, now that the observatory has been fully assembled. Special gravity offsetting equipment was attached to Webb’s mirror to simulate the zero-gravity environment its mechanisms will have to operate in. Tests like these help safeguard mission success by physically demonstrating that the spacecraft is able to move and unfold as intended. The Webb team will deploy the observatory’s primary mirror only once more on the ground, just before preparing it for delivery to the launch site.

A telescope’s sensitivity, or how much detail it can see, is directly related to the size of the mirror that collects light from the objects being observed. A larger surface area collects more light, just like a larger bucket collects more water in a rain shower than a small one. Webb’s mirror is the biggest of its kind that NASA has ever built.

In order to perform groundbreaking science, Webb’s primary mirror needs to be so large that it cannot fit inside any rocket available in its fully extended form. Like the art of origami, Webb is a collection of movable parts employing applied material science that have been specifically designed to fold themselves to a compact formation that is considerably smaller than when the observatory is fully deployed. This allows it to just barely fit within a 16-foot (5-meter) payload fairing, with little room to spare.

“Deploying both wings of the telescope while part of the fully assembled observatory is another significant milestone showing Webb will deploy properly in space. This is a great achievement and an inspiring image for the entire team,” said Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for Webb at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The evolving novel coronavirus COVID-19 situation is causing significant impact and disruption globally. Given these circumstances, Webb’s Northrop Grumman team in California has resumed integration and testing work with reduced personnel and shifts until the Deployable Tower Assembly set up in April. The project will then shut down integration and testing operations due to the lack of required NASA onsite personnel related to the COVID-19 situation. The project will reassess over the next couple of weeks and adjust decisions as the situation continues to unfold.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world’s premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Europe and Japan's Mercury-Bound Spacecraft Will Soon Fly Past a Pandemic-Ravaged Earth...

ESA / BepiColombo / MTM

ESA to Conduct BepiColombo Flyby Amid Coronavirus Crisis (Press Release)

Controllers at ESA’s mission control centre are preparing for a gravity-assist flyby of the European-Japanese Mercury explorer BepiColombo. The manoeuvre, which will see the mission adjust its trajectory by harnessing Earth’s gravitational pull as it swings past the planet, will be performed amid restrictions ESA has implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

BepiColombo, launched in October 2018, is currently orbiting the Sun at a similar distance as Earth. On 10 April, at about 06:25 am (CEST), the spacecraft will approach Earth at the distance of only 12,700 km, which is less than half the altitude of Europe’s Galileo navigational satellites. The manoeuvre will slow down the BepiColombo spacecraft and bend its trajectory towards the centre of the Solar System, thus tightening its orbit around the Sun.

“This is the last time we will see BepiColombo from Earth,” says Joe Zender, BepiColombo Deputy Project Scientist at ESA. “After that it will head deeper into the inner Solar System.”

Mission scientists plan to use the flyby to test some of the 11 instruments aboard ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), one of the European components of the mission, which travels to the innermost planet of the Solar System together with the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The two science orbiters are stacked on top of the ESA-made Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), with Mio sitting atop hidden behind a protective sunshield. The transfer module obscures the view of some of the MPO instruments, but the scientists expect to be able to obtain data from eight of the 11 science payloads. Mio’s view is mostly blocked by the sunshield, but some of its sensors will also be switched on during the flyby.

The operation, however, will be performed with limited personnel at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, where engineers will have to comply with social distancing rules presently in place all over Europe as a response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Earth swing-by is a phase where we need daily contact with the spacecraft,” says Elsa Montagnon, BepiColombo Spacecraft Operations Manager at ESA. “This is something that we cannot postpone. The spacecraft will swing by Earth independently in any case.”

The coronavirus threat forces the team to work with minimal face to face interaction while ensuring all steps in the process are properly covered.

“During the critical two weeks prior to the closest approach, we need to upload safety commands to prepare the spacecraft for unexpected problems,” says Christoph Steiger, BepiColombo Deputy Spacecraft Operations Manager. “For example, we need to prepare the transfer module for the 34 minute-long eclipse when its solar panels will not be exposed to sunlight to prevent battery discharge.”

Operations can still be conducted as planned, he adds, but will require more effort and attention than in a normal situation.

ESA’s BepiColombo Project Scientist Johannes Benkhoff hopes that, despite the challenging circumstances, the science teams will be able to switch on the MPO instruments to test and calibrate them.

“For example, the PHEBUS spectroscope will use the Moon as a calibration target to then produce better data once at Mercury,” says Johannes. “We also want to make some measurements of the solar wind and its interaction with Earth’s magnetic field. The main purpose of having the instruments on at this stage, however, is testing and calibration. If we can use the data for some scientific investigation, it will be a bonus.”

BepiColombo also carries three GoPro-style ‘selfie’ cameras, mounted on the transfer module, that will be taking photographs as the spacecraft approaches Earth. The scientists activated the cameras in early March and took a few snaps of the Earth-Moon system as viewed by BepiColombo from its position hurtling towards the Earth.

“We will see the Earth approaching and getting bigger,” says Joe. “When it reaches the nearest point, we will take a few images, and then we are planning to capture a whole sequence of photographs over several hours looking at the Earth-Moon system as it gets smaller and smaller until we lose it completely.”

Frank Budnik, ESA’s BepiColombo Flight Dynamics manager, adds: “As long as all team members are healthy and the spacecraft continues to perform nominally, everything can proceed as planned.”

The Earth flyby on 10 April is only the first of nine gravity assist manoeuvres awaiting BepiColombo during its 7-year journey to Mercury. In October, the spacecraft will perform the first of two flybys at Venus. The final six orbit-tightening manoeuvres will use the gravity of BepiColombo’s destination, Mercury.

BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury in late 2025. The science mission will commence three months later, after Mio and the MPO separate from the transfer module and enter their respective target orbits. Together, the two orbiters will help scientists shed light on the evolution of Mercury, the least explored of the four rocky planets in the Solar System and the one closest to the Sun.

Learning about Mercury’s composition, the geological processes on its surface and the environment around it will help scientists answer some fundamental questions not only about Mercury, but also about the formation and evolution of the entire Solar System.

Amateur astronomers equipped with small telescopes will be able to observe BepiColombo during the flyby, if located in southern latitudes. Observers in southern Europe might be able to spot the spacecraft briefly. The best view, however, will only be possible from the southern hemisphere.

Source: European Space Agency

Headin' Back to Mars (Hopefully)!

NASA / JPL - Caltech

10.9 Million Names Now Aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (News Release)

As part of NASA's 'Send Your Name to Mars' campaign, they've been stenciled onto three microchips along with essays from NASA's 'Name the Rover' contest. Next stop: Mars.

NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign invited people around the world to submit their names to ride aboard the agency's next rover to the Red Planet. Some 10,932,295 people did just that. The names were stenciled by electron beam onto three fingernail-sized silicon chips, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA's "Name the Rover" contest. The chips were then attached to an aluminum plate on NASA's Perseverance Mars rover at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 16. Scheduled to launch this summer, Perseverance will land at Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

The three chips share space on the anodized plate with a laser-etched graphic depicting Earth and Mars joined by the star that gives light to both. While commemorating the rover that connects the two worlds, the simple illustration also pays tribute to the elegant line art of the plaques aboard the Pioneer spacecraft and golden records carried by Voyagers 1 and 2. Affixed to the center of the rover's aft crossbeam, the plate will be visible to cameras on Perseverance's mast.

Currently, the coronavirus has not impacted the Mars Perseverance rover launch schedule. The installation was one of numerous recent activities performed by the Perseverance assembly, test and launch operations team. On March 21, the team began reconfiguring the rover so it can ride atop the Atlas V rocket. Steps included stowing the robotic arm, lowering and locking in place the remote sensing mast and high-gain antenna, and retracting its legs and wheels.

The Perseverance rover is a robotic scientist weighing just under 2,300 pounds (1,043 kilograms). It will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize Mars' climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, is building and will manage operations of the Mars Perseverance rover for NASA. The agency's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management. The Mars 2020 project with its Perseverance rover is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

Now That the COVID-19 Outbreak Has Become a Pandemic...

HEALTH TIPS: How to avoid getting the novel coronavirus...

- Wash your hands completely and often. Use soap and water for at least 20 seconds.

- Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizing rub (must have at least 60% alcohol).

- Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.

- Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze by coughing/sneezing into a tissue or inside of your elbow.

- Immediately throw away tissues in a trash can after use.

- Keep a safe distance of at least 6 feet between yourself and others. Stay home as much as possible.

- Clean highly touched surfaces thoroughly using soap and water.

- Stay home when you are sick except for getting medical care. Follow your doctor’s instructions.

- Avoid shaking hands.

- Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

- And lastly, DO NOT hoard supplies like toilet paper, gloves and/or face masks from supermarkets and other stores!

Social distance, everyone! And stay safe.

Meet PERSEVERANCE: The Mars 2020 Rover Finally Has An Official Name!

NASA

Virginia Middle School Student Earns Honor of Naming NASA's Next Mars Rover (News Release)

NASA chose seventh-grader from Virginia as winner of the agency's "Name the Rover" essay contest. Alexander Mather's entry for "Perseverance" was voted tops among 28,000 entries.

NASA's next Mars rover has a new name - Perseverance.

The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency's "Name the Rover" essay contest, which received 28,000 entries from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.

"Alex's entry captured the spirit of exploration," said Zurbuchen. "Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it's going to make amazing discoveries. It's already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today - processing for launch. Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they're going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can't wait to see that nameplate on Mars."

Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004, to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012. In each case, the name was selected following a nationwide contest.

The contest that resulted in Alex's winning entry of Perseverance began Aug. 28, 2019. Nearly 4,700 volunteer judges - educators, professionals and space enthusiasts from around the country - reviewed submissions to help narrow the pool down to 155 semifinalists. Once that group was whittled down to nine finalists, the public had five days to weigh in on their favorites, logging more than 770,000 votes online, with the results submitted to NASA for consideration. The nine finalists also talked with a panel of experts, including Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division; NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins; rover driver Nick Wiltsie at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California; and Clara Ma, who, as a sixth-grade student in 2009, named Curiosity.

Up until two years ago, Mather was more interested in video games than space. That all changed in the summer of 2018, when he visited Space Camp in Alabama. From his first glimpse of a Saturn V - the rocket that launched the Apollo astronauts to the Moon half a century ago - Mather became a bona fide space enthusiast, checking NASA.gov daily, consuming astronaut autobiographies and even 3D-printing flyable model rockets. When the call went out for students to propose a name for NASA's new Mars rover, Mather knew he wanted to contribute.

"This was a chance to help the agency that put humans on the Moon and will soon do it again," said Mather. "This Mars rover will help pave the way for human presence there, and I wanted to try and help in any way I could. Refusal of the challenge was not an option."

Along with forever being associated with the mission, Mather will also receive an invitation to travel with his family to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to witness the rover begin its journey when it launches this summer. While Mather has received NASA's grand prize in this competition, NASA also is acknowledging the valuable contributions of the semifinalists whose entries were among the top ones considered.

"They came so far, and their expressive submissions helped make this naming contest the biggest and best in NASA history," said Glaze, who also attended the event Thursday. "So, we decided to send them a little farther - 314 million miles farther. All 155 semifinalists' proposed rover names and essays have been stenciled onto a silicon chip with lines of text smaller than one-thousandth the width of a human hair and will be flown to Mars aboard the rover."

NASA's Perseverance rover is a robotic scientist weighing just under 2,300 pounds (1,043 kilograms). Managed for the agency by JPL, the rover's astrobiology mission includes searching for signs of past microbial life. It also will characterize the planet's climate and geology, and collect samples of Martian rocks and dust for a future Mars Sample Return mission to Earth while paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

"When word went out during the naming event here at JPL, I took a moment to look around the auditorium," said John McNamee, project manager of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at JPL. "I saw all these dedicated men and women who for years have invested the full measure of their intellect and stamina into the most technologically advanced rover mission in history - and I saw a lot of smiling faces and high-fives. Perseverance? You bet, that is a worthy name that we can be proud of as the first leg of a sample return campaign."

Perseverance currently is undergoing final assembly and checkout at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It's targeted to land at Mars' Jezero Crater a little after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) Feb. 18, 2021.

The rover naming contest partnership was part of a Space Act Agreement in educational and public outreach efforts between NASA, Battelle of Columbus, Ohio, and Future Engineers of Burbank, California. Amazon Web Services is an additional prize provider for the Mars 2020 naming contest and will provide Alex and his family a trip to see the launch.

Mars 2020 is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis program.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA