Marking One Decade Since a Spacecraft That My Name Is On Entered Orbit Around the Red Planet...

NASA / LASP / CU Boulder

Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA’s MAVEN Mission (News Release)

A decade ago, on September 21, 2014, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, beginning its ongoing exploration of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere. The mission has produced a wealth of data about how Mars’ atmosphere responds to the Sun and solar wind, and how these interactions can explain the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space.

Today, MAVEN continues to make exciting new discoveries about the Red Planet that increase our understanding of how atmospheric evolution affected Mars’ climate and the previous presence of liquid water on its surface, potentially determining its prior habitability.

“It is an incredibly exciting time for the MAVEN team as we celebrate 10 years of Martian science and see the tremendous impact this mission has had on the field,” said Shannon Curry, the principal investigator of MAVEN and a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We also look forward to the future discoveries MAVEN will bring.”

In celebration of this mission milestone, we recap some of the most significant scientific results of this unique and long-lasting Mars aeronomy mission.

1.) Extreme atmospheric erosion

One of MAVEN’s first big results was discovering that the erosion of Mars’ atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. The team studied how the solar wind — a stream of charged particles continually streaming from the Sun — and solar storms continually strip away Mars’ atmosphere, and how this process played a key role in altering the Martian climate from a potentially habitable planet to today’s cold, arid world.

2.) Sputtering to space

To better understand how Mars lost much of its atmosphere, MAVEN measured isotopes of argon gas in the upper Martian atmosphere. Argon is a noble gas, meaning it rarely reacts with other constituents in the Martian atmosphere. The only way it can be removed is by atmospheric sputtering — a process where ions crash into the Martian atmosphere at high-enough speeds that they knock gas molecules out of the atmosphere.

When the MAVEN team analyzed argon isotopes in the upper atmosphere, they were able to estimate that roughly 65% of the argon originally present had been lost through sputtering over the planet’s history.

3.) A new type of aurora

MAVEN has discovered several types of auroras that flare up when energetic particles plunge into the atmosphere, bombarding gases and making them glow. The MAVEN team showed that protons, rather than electrons, create auroras at Mars. On Earth, proton auroras only occur in very small regions near the poles, whereas at Mars they can happen everywhere.

4.) Martian dust storm

In 2018, a runaway series of dust storms created a dust cloud so large that it enveloped the planet. The MAVEN team studied how this “global” dust storm affected Mars’ upper atmosphere to understand how these events affect the escape of water to space. It confirmed that heating from dust storms can loft water molecules far higher into the atmosphere than usual, leading to a sudden surge in water lost to space.

5.) Map of Martian winds

MAVEN researchers created the first map of wind circulation in the upper atmosphere of Mars. The new map is helping scientists better understand the Martian climate, including how terrain on the planet’s surface is disturbing high-altitude wind currents. The results provide insight into how the dynamics of the upper Martian atmosphere have influenced the Red Planet’s climate evolution in the past and present.

6.) Twisted tail

Mars has an invisible magnetic “tail” that is twisted by its interaction with the solar wind. Although models predicted that magnetic reconnection causes Mars’ magnetotail to twist, it wasn’t until MAVEN arrived that scientists could confirm that the predictions were correct. The process that creates the twisted tail could also allow some of Mars’ already thin atmosphere to escape to space.

7.) Mapping electric currents

Researchers used MAVEN data to create a map of electric current systems in the Martian atmosphere. These form when solar wind ions and electrons smash into the planet’s induced magnetic field, causing the particles to flow apart. The resulting electric currents, which drape around the planet, play a fundamental role in the atmospheric loss that transformed Mars from a world that could have supported life to an inhospitable desert.

8.) Disappearing solar wind

MAVEN recently observed the unexpected “disappearance” of the solar wind. This was caused by a type of solar event so powerful that it created a void in its wake as it traveled across the Solar System. MAVEN’s measurements showed that when it reached Mars, the solar wind density dropped significantly.

This disappearance of the solar wind allowed the Martian atmosphere and magnetosphere to balloon out by thousands of kilometers.

9.) Ultraviolet views of the Red Planet

MAVEN captured stunning views of Mars in two ultraviolet images taken at different points along the Red Planet’s orbit around the Sun. By viewing the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists gain insight into the Martian atmosphere and view surface features in remarkable ways.

10.) Mars’ response to solar storms

In May 2024, a series of solar events triggered a torrent of energetic particles that quickly traveled to Mars. Many of NASA’s Mars missions, including MAVEN, observed this celestial event and captured images of glowing auroras over the planet.

MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. LASP is also responsible for managing science operations and public outreach and communications. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN mission.

Lockheed Martin Space built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provides navigation and Deep Space Network support.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Lockheed Martin


NASA

Fly Your Name Aboard VIPER to the Lunar Surface!

NASA Ames / Daniel Rutter

NASA Invites Public to Send Names Aboard Artemis Robotic Moon Rover (Press Release)

NASA is inviting people to send their names to the surface of the Moon aboard the agency’s first robotic lunar rover, VIPER – short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover. The rover will embark on a mission to the lunar South Pole to unravel the mysteries of the Moon’s water and better understand the environment where NASA plans to land the first woman and first person of color under its Artemis program.

As part of the Send Your Name with VIPER campaign, NASA will accept names received before 11:59 p.m. EST on March 15. Once collected, the agency will take the names and attach them to the rover.

To add your name, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/send-your-name-with-viper

The site also enables participants to create and download a virtual souvenir – a boarding pass to the VIPER mission featuring their name – to commemorate the experience. Participants are encouraged to share their requests on social media using the hashtag #SendYourName.

“With VIPER, we are going to study and explore parts of the Moon’s surface no one has ever been to before – and with this campaign, we are inviting the world to be part of that risky yet rewarding journey,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Just think: Our names will ride along as VIPER navigates across the rugged terrain of the lunar South Pole and gathers valuable data that will help us better understand the history of the Moon and the environment where we plan to send Artemis astronauts.”

This campaign is like other NASA projects that have enabled tens of millions of people to send their names to ride along with Artemis I, several Mars spacecraft, and the agency’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission. It draws from the agency’s long tradition of shipping inspirational messages on spacecraft that have explored our solar system and beyond.

“Our VIPER is a game-changer,” said Daniel Andrews, VIPER’s project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “It’s the first mission of its kind, expanding our understanding of where lunar resources could be harvested to support a long-term human presence on the Moon.”

In late 2024, Astrobotic Technologies’ Griffin Mission One is scheduled to deliver VIPER to the lunar surface after launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Once there, VIPER will rely on its solar panels and batteries for its roughly 100-day mission to survive extreme temperatures and challenging lighting conditions, while powering a suite of science instruments designed to gather data about the characteristics and concentrations of lunar ice and other possible resources.

NASA’s VIPER delivery is part of its CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative under the Artemis program. With CLPS, as well as with human exploration near the lunar South Pole, NASA will establish a long-term cadence of Moon missions in preparation for sending the first astronauts to Mars.

The rover is part of the LDEP (Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program), managed by the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters and is executed through the Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office. In addition to managing the mission, NASA Ames leads the mission’s science, systems engineering, real-time rover surface operations and flight software.

The rover hardware is designed and built by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the instruments are provided by NASA Ames, the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and commercial partner Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California.

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Photos of the Day: Mars in UV...

NASA / LASP / CU Boulder

NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Stuns with Ultraviolet Views of Red Planet (News Release)

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission acquired stunning views of Mars in two ultraviolet images taken at different points along our neighboring planet’s orbit around the Sun.

By viewing the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists can gain insight into the Martian atmosphere and view surface features in remarkable ways.

MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these global views of Mars in 2022 and 2023 when the planet was near opposite ends of its elliptical orbit.

The IUVS instrument measures wavelengths between 110 and 340 nanometers, outside the visible spectrum. To make these wavelengths visible to the human eye and easier to interpret, the images are rendered with the varying brightness levels of three ultraviolet wavelength ranges represented as red, green and blue.

In this color scheme, atmospheric ozone appears purple, while clouds and hazes appear white or blue. The surface can appear tan or green, depending on how the images have been optimized to increase contrast and show detail.

The first image (shown above) was taken in July 2022 during the southern hemisphere’s summer season, which occurs when Mars passes closest to the Sun. The summer season is caused by the tilt of the planet’s rotational axis, similar to seasons on Earth.

Argyre Basin, one of Mars’ deepest craters, appears at bottom left filled with atmospheric haze (depicted here as pale pink). The deep canyons of Valles Marineris appear at top left filled with clouds (colored tan in this image).

The southern polar ice cap is visible at bottom in white, shrinking from the relative warmth of summer. Southern summer warming and dust storms drive water vapor to very high altitudes, explaining MAVEN’s discovery of enhanced hydrogen loss from Mars at this time of year.

The second image (shown below) is of Mars’ northern hemisphere and was taken in January 2023 after Mars had passed the farthest point in its orbit from the Sun. The rapidly changing seasons in the north polar region cause an abundance of white clouds.

The deep canyons of Valles Marineris can be seen in tan at lower left, along with many craters. Ozone, which appears magenta in this UV view, has built up during the northern winter’s chilly polar nights.

It is then destroyed in northern spring by chemical reactions with water vapor, which is restricted to low altitudes of the atmosphere at this time of year.

MAVEN launched in November 2013 and entered Mars’ orbit in September 2014. The mission’s goal is to explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the Sun and solar wind to explore the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space.

Understanding atmospheric loss gives scientists insight into the history of Mars' atmosphere and climate, liquid water and planetary habitability. The MAVEN team is preparing to celebrate the spacecraft’s 10th year at Mars in September 2024.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / LASP / CU Boulder

Astrobotic's Moon Lander Successfully Conducts a Communications Test with NASA Relay Stations...

Astrobotic / Keystone Space Collaborative

NASA’s Deep Space Network Ground Testing with Peregrine a Success (Press Release)

Pittsburgh, PA – Last month, the Deep Space Network (DSN) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) successfully completed an end-to-end communications test with Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander. These tests demonstrated compatibility with space-to-ground communications that will occur during Peregrine’s mission to the Moon.

After the Peregrine spacecraft separates from United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket, Peregrine will be utilizing DSN’s 34-meter dishes at Canberra, Australia; Madrid, Spain; and Goldstone, California. These dishes are the same suite used to communicate with the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as historic missions such as New Horizons, Solar Parker Probe, InSight, Juno, and MAVEN.

”Our team has completed a major test with the DSN global network and Astrobotic’s communication systems including flight avionics, ground support software, and mission ops infrastructure. We successfully passed commands, received telemetry, and determined ranging performance. The sense of accomplishment was palpable when the screens of our Mission Control center were illuminated by real telemetry coming from our spacecraft,” said Eduardo Lugo, Astrobotic Lead RF Engineer.

Testing with Peregrine and DSN was conducted over two weeks, culminating in confirmation that Peregrine can successfully transmit data and receive commands through DSN and to Astrobotic’s Mission Control Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“This success marks a major program milestone for Peregrine mission as well as for Astrobotic as a company. Confirming the technical capabilities of our team and our custom-built avionics and communications systems in a sophisticated, system-level spacecraft test was a tremendous success. Seeing the entire team overcome test challenges felt close to flying the actual mission. This is a great accomplishment for our historic trip to the Moon,” says Ander Solorzano, Astrobotic’s Lead Systems Engineer and one of the Flight Directors for Peregrine Mission One.

Peregrine’s progress continues as its Space Robotics team also successfully integrated the OPAL Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) compute hardware and associated camera to Peregrine’s flight decks. TRN is designed to enable precise and safe landings on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The system will be leveraged again on Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One. In addition to TRN, all twenty-four of Peregrine’s payloads have also been integrated with its flight decks.

The Peregrine spacecraft continues its final assembly at Astrobotic’s headquarters and is currently on schedule for final environmental testing before delivery to the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Source: Astrobotic

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Astrobotic

OSIRIS-REx Will Study Asteroid Apophis Up-Close in 2029! And Much More...

Lockheed Martin

NASA Extends Exploration for 8 Planetary Science Missions (News Release)

Following a thorough evaluation, NASA has extended the planetary science missions of eight of its spacecraft due to their scientific productivity and potential to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the solar system and beyond.

The missions – Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover), InSight lander, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, OSIRIS-REx, and New Horizons – have been selected for continuation, assuming their spacecraft remain healthy. Most of the missions will be extended for three years; however, OSIRIS-REx will be continued for nine years in order to reach a new destination, and InSight will be continued until the end of 2022, unless the spacecraft’s electrical power allows for longer operations.

Each extended mission proposal was reviewed by a panel of independent experts drawn from academia, industry, and NASA. In total, more than 50 reviewers evaluated the scientific return of the respective proposals. Two independent review chairs oversaw the process and, based on the panel evaluations, validated that these eight science missions hold substantial potential to continue bringing new discoveries and addressing compelling new science questions.

Beyond providing important programmatic benefit to NASA, several of these missions promise multi-divisional science benefits across NASA’s entire Science Mission Directorate (SMD), including their use as data relays for Mars surface landers and rovers, as well as to support other NASA initiatives such as the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS).

“Extended missions provide us with the opportunity to leverage NASA’s large investments in exploration, allowing continued science operations at a cost far lower than developing a new mission,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA’s Headquarters in Washington. “Maximizing taxpayer dollars in this way allows missions to obtain valuable new science data, and in some cases, allows NASA to explore new targets with totally new science goals.”

Two of the extended missions, MAVEN and OSIRIS-REx, welcome new principal investigators (PIs).

OSIRIS-APEX (Principal Investigator: Dr. Daniella DellaGiustina, University of Arizona): The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is currently on its way back to Earth to deliver the samples of asteroid Bennu that it collected in 2020. Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx PI, will remain in place for the primary mission, while DellaGiustina begins her role as the newly-named PI for OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer (OSIRIS-APEX). With a new name to reflect the extended mission’s new goals, the OSIRIS-APEX team will redirect the spacecraft to encounter Apophis, an asteroid roughly 1,200 feet (roughly 370 meters) in diameter that will come within 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) of Earth in 2029. OSIRIS-APEX will enter orbit around Apophis soon after the asteroid’s Earth flyby, providing an unprecedented close-up look at this S-type asteroid. It plans to study changes in the asteroid caused by its close flyby of Earth and use the spacecraft’s gas thrusters to attempt to dislodge and study the dust and small rocks on and below Apophis’ surface.

MAVEN (Principal Investigator: Dr. Shannon Curry, University of California, Berkeley): The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission plans to study the interaction between Mars’ atmosphere and magnetic field during the upcoming solar maximum. MAVEN’s observations as the Sun’s activity level increases toward the maximum of its 11-year cycle will deepen our understanding of how Mars’ upper atmosphere and magnetic field interact with the Sun.

InSight (Principal Investigator: Dr. Bruce Banerdt, JPL): Since landing on Mars in 2018, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission has operated the only active seismic station beyond Earth. Its seismic monitoring of “marsquakes” has provided constraints on Mars’ interior, formation, and current activity. The extended mission will continue InSight’s seismic and weather monitoring if the spacecraft remains healthy. However, due to dust accumulation on its solar panels, InSight’s electrical power production is low, and the mission is unlikely to continue operations for the duration of its current extended mission unless its solar panels are cleared by a passing ‘dust devil’ in Mars’ atmosphere.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (Project Scientist: Dr. Noah Petro, GSFC): LRO will continue to study the surface and geology of the Moon. The evolution of LRO’s orbit will allow it to study new regions away from the poles in unprecedented detail, including the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) near the poles where water ice may be found. LRO will also provide important programmatic support for NASA’s efforts to return to the Moon.

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) (Project Scientist: Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, JPL): The Mars Science Laboratory and its Curiosity rover have driven more than 16 miles (27 km) on the surface of Mars, exploring the history of habitability in Gale Crater. In its fourth extended mission, MSL will climb to higher elevations, exploring the critical sulfate-bearing layers which give unique insights into the history of water on Mars.

New Horizons (Principal Investigator: Dr. Alan Stern, SwRI): New Horizons flew past Pluto in 2015 and the Kuiper belt object (KBO) Arrokoth in 2019. In its second extended mission, New Horizons will continue to explore the distant solar system out to 63 astronomical units (AU) from Earth. The New Horizons spacecraft can potentially conduct multi-disciplinary observations of relevance to the solar system and NASA’s Heliophysics and Astrophysics Divisions. Additional details regarding New Horizons’ science plan will be provided at a later date.

Mars Odyssey (Project Scientist: Dr. Jeffrey Plaut, JPL): Mars Odyssey’s extended mission will perform new thermal studies of rocks and ice below Mars’ surface, monitor the radiation environment, and continue its long-running climate monitoring campaign. The Odyssey orbiter also continues to provide unique support for real-time data relay from other Mars spacecraft. The length of Odyssey’s extended mission may be limited by the amount of propellant remaining aboard the spacecraft.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) (Project Scientist: Dr. Rich Zurek, JPL): MRO has provided a wealth of data regarding the processes on Mars’ surface. In its sixth extended mission, MRO will study the evolution of Mars’ surface, ices, active geology, and atmosphere and climate. In addition, MRO will continue to provide important data-relay service to other Mars missions. MRO’s CRISM instrument will be shut down entirely, after the loss of its cryocooler has ended the use of one of its two spectrometers.

NASA’s Planetary Science Division currently operates 14 spacecraft across the solar system, has 12 missions in formulation and implementation, and partners with international space agencies on seven others.

Source: NASA.Gov

America's Newest Robotic Rover Finally Goes for a Spin on the Red Planet...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Perseverance Drives on Mars’ Terrain for First Time (Press Release)

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover performed its first drive on Mars March 4, covering 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across the Martian landscape. The drive served as a mobility test that marks just one of many milestones as team members check out and calibrate every system, subsystem, and instrument on Perseverance. Once the rover begins pursuing its science goals, regular commutes extending 656 feet (200 meters) or more are expected.

“When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” said Anais Zarifian, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mobility test bed engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This was our first chance to ‘kick the tires’ and take Perseverance out for a spin. The rover’s six-wheel drive responded superbly. We are now confident our drive system is good to go, capable of taking us wherever the science leads us over the next two years.”

The drive, which lasted about 33 minutes, propelled the rover forward 13 feet (4 meters), where it then turned in place 150 degrees to the left and backed up 8 feet (2.5 meters) into its new temporary parking space. To help better understand the dynamics of a retrorocket landing on the Red Planet, engineers used Perseverance’s Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Cameras to image the spot where Perseverance touched down, dispersing Martian dust with plumes from its engines.

More Than Roving

The rover’s mobility system is not the only thing getting a test drive during this period of initial checkouts. On Feb. 26 – Perseverance’s eighth Martian day, or sol, since landing – mission controllers completed a software update, replacing the computer program that helped land Perseverance with one they will rely on to investigate the planet.

More recently, the controllers checked out Perseverance’s Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) and Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instruments, and deployed the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument’s two wind sensors, which extend out from the rover’s mast. Another significant milestone occurred on March 2, or sol 12, when engineers unstowed the rover’s 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm for the first time, flexing each of its five joints over the course of two hours.

“Tuesday’s first test of the robotic arm was a big moment for us,” said Robert Hogg, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover deputy mission manager. “That’s the main tool the science team will use to do close-up examination of the geologic features of Jezero Crater, and then we’ll drill and sample the ones they find the most interesting. When we got confirmation of the robotic arm flexing its muscles, including images of it working beautifully after its long trip to Mars – well, it made my day.”

Upcoming events and evaluations include more detailed testing and calibration of science instruments, sending the rover on longer drives, and jettisoning covers that shield both the adaptive caching assembly (part of the rover’s Sample Caching System) and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during landing. The experimental flight test program for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will also take place during the rover’s commissioning.

Through it all, the rover is sending down images from the most advanced suite of cameras ever to travel to Mars. The mission’s cameras have already sent about 7,000 images. On Earth, Perseverance’s imagery flows through the powerful Deep Space Network (DSN), managed by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. In space, several Mars orbiters play an equally important role.

“Orbiter support for downlink of data has been a real gamechanger,” said Justin Maki, chief engineer for imaging and the imaging scientist for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at JPL. “When you see a beautiful image from Jezero, consider that it took a whole team of Martians to get it to you. Every picture from Perseverance is relayed by either the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter, or NASA’s MAVEN, Mars Odyssey, or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They are important partners in our explorations and our discoveries.”

The sheer volume of imagery and data already coming down on this mission has been a welcome bounty for Matt Wallace, who recalls waiting anxiously for the first images to trickle in during NASA’s first Mars rover mission, Sojourner, which explored Mars in 1997. On March 3, Wallace became the mission’s new project manager. He replaced John McNamee, who is stepping down as he intended, after helming the project for nearly a decade.

“John has provided unwavering support to me and every member of the project for over a decade,” said Wallace. “He has left his mark on this mission and team, and it has been my privilege to not only call him boss but also my friend.”

Touchdown Site Named

With Perseverance departing from its touchdown site, mission team scientists have memorialized the spot, informally naming it for the late science fiction author Octavia E. Butler. The groundbreaking author and Pasadena, California, native was the first African American woman to win both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award, and she was the first science fiction writer honored with a MacArthur Fellowship. The location where Perseverance began its mission on Mars now bears the name “Octavia E. Butler Landing."

Official scientific names for places and objects throughout the solar system – including asteroids, comets, and locations on planets – are designated by the International Astronomical Union. Scientists working with NASA’s Mars rovers have traditionally given unofficial nicknames to various geological features, which they can use as references in scientific papers.

“Butler’s protagonists embody determination and inventiveness, making her a perfect fit for the Perseverance rover mission and its theme of overcoming challenges,” said Kathryn Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist for Perseverance. “Butler inspired and influenced the planetary science community and many beyond, including those typically under-represented in STEM fields.”

“I can think of no better person to mark this historic landing site than Octavia E. Butler, who not only grew up next door to JPL in Pasadena, but she also inspired millions with her visions of a science-based future,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science. “Her guiding principle, ‘When using science, do so accurately,’ is what the science team at NASA is all about. Her work continues to inspire today’s scientists and engineers across the globe – all in the name of a bolder, more equitable future for all.”

Butler, who died in 2006, authored such notable works as Kindred, Bloodchild, Speech Sounds, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, and the Patternist series. Her writing explores themes of race, gender, equality, and humanity, and her works are as relevant today as they were when originally written and published.

More About the Mission

A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

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The Blue Ghost Is Heading to the Moon...

Firefly Aerospace

NASA Selects Firefly Aerospace for Artemis Commercial Moon Delivery in 2023 (Press Release - February 4)

NASA has awarded Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas, approximately $93.3 million to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023. The delivery, planned for Mare Crisium, a low-lying basin on the Moon’s near side, will investigate a variety of lunar surface conditions and resources. Such investigations will help prepare for human missions to the lunar surface.

The award is part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, in which NASA is securing the service of commercial partners to quickly land science and technology payloads on the lunar surface. The initiative is a key part of NASA’s Artemis program. Firefly Aerospace will be responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the Moon, and mission operations. This is the sixth award for lunar surface delivery under the CLPS initiative.

“We’re excited another CLPS provider has won its first task order award. With this initiative, we seek to develop ways for new science and technology development utilizing a service-based model,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This allows U.S. vendors to not only demonstrate their ability to safely deliver payloads to our celestial neighbor, but also expand this capability for others who want to take advantage of this cutting edge approach to explore the Moon.”

This is the first delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace, which will provide the lunar delivery service using its Blue Ghost lander, which the company designed and developed at its Cedar Park facility. This facility also will house the integration of NASA and any non-NASA payloads, and also will serve as the company’s mission operations center for the 2023 delivery.

“The payloads we’re sending as part of this delivery service span across multiple areas, from investigating the lunar soil and testing a sample capture technology, to giving us information about the Moon’s thermal properties and magnetic field,” said Chris Culbert, manager of the CLPS initiative at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Mare Crisium, where Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost will land, is a more than 300-mile-wide basin where instruments will gather data to provide insight into the Moon’s regolith – loose, fragmented rock and soil – properties, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field.

The payloads, collectively expected to total 207 pounds (94 kg) in mass, include:

- The Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC), which will determine how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon's environment during landing and lander operations. Components will be derived from the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) facility currently on the International Space Station.

- The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflectors (NGLR), which will serve as a target for lasers on Earth to precisely measure the distance between Earth and the Moon. The retroreflector that will fly on this mission also will provide data that could be used to understand various aspects of the lunar interior and address fundamental physics questions.

- The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), which will capture images of the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with the flow of charged particles from the Sun, called the solar wind.

- The Reconfigurable, Radiation Tolerant Computer System (RadPC), which aims to demonstrate a radiation-tolerant computing technology. Due to the Moon's lack of atmosphere and magnetic field, radiation from the Sun will be a challenge for electronics. This investigation also will characterize the radiation effects on the lunar surface.

- The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS), which is designed to characterize the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle by studying electric and magnetic fields. The investigation will make use of a flight-spare magnetometer, a device that measures magnetic fields, originally made for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft currently orbiting Mars.

- The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER), which is designed to measure heat flow from the interior of the Moon. The probe will attempt to drill 7 to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) into the lunar regolith to investigate the Moon's thermal properties at different depths.

- The Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), which is designed to acquire lunar regolith from the surface and transfer it to other instruments that would analyze the material or put it in a container that another spacecraft could return to Earth.

- Stereo CAmeras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS 1.1), which will capture video and still images of the area under the lander from when the engine plume first disturbs the lunar surface through engine shutdown. Long-focal-length cameras will determine the pre-landing surface topography. Photogrammetry will be used to reconstruct the changing surface during landing. Understanding the physics of rocket exhaust on the regolith, and the displacement of dust, gravel, and rocks is critical to understanding how to best avoid kicking up surface materials during the terminal phase of flight/landing on the Moon and other celestial bodies.

- The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS), which will generate a non-uniform electric field using varying high voltage on multiple electrodes. This traveling field, in turn, carries away the particles and has potential applications in thermal radiators, spacesuit fabrics, visors, camera lenses, solar panels, and many other technologies.

- The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), which is based on GPS. LuGRE will continue to extend the reach of GPS signals and, if successful, be the first to discern GPS signals at lunar distances.

The CLPS initiative is a key part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration efforts. The science and technology payloads sent to the Moon’s surface as part of the initiative will help lay the foundation for human missions and a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface.

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Our Communications Network for Interplanetary Spacecraft Is About to Get a New Addition in Southern California...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA Prepares for Moon and Mars With New Addition to Its Deep Space Network (News Release)

Robotic spacecraft will be able to communicate with the dish using radio waves and lasers.

Surrounded by California desert, NASA officials broke ground Tuesday, Feb. 11, on a new antenna for communicating with the agency's farthest-flung robotic spacecraft. Part of the Deep Space Network (DSN), the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) antenna dish being built represents a future in which more missions will require advanced technology, such as lasers capable of transmitting vast amounts of data from astronauts on the Martian surface. As part of its Artemis program NASA will send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, applying lessons learned there to send astronauts to Mars.

Using massive antenna dishes, the agency talks to more than 30 deep space missions on any given day, including many international missions. As more missions have launched and with more in the works, NASA is looking to strengthen the network. When completed in 2½ years, the new dish will be christened Deep Space Station-23 (DSS-23), bringing the DSN's number of operational antennas to 13.

"Since the 1960s, when the world first watched live pictures of humans in space and on the Moon, to revealing imagery and scientific data from the surface of Mars and vast, distant galaxies, the Deep Space Network has connected humankind with our solar system and beyond," said Badri Younes, NASA's deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation, or SCaN, which oversees NASA's networks. "This new antenna, the fifth of six currently planned, is another example of NASA's determination to enable science and space exploration through the use of the latest technology."

Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the world's largest and busiest deep space network is clustered in three locations - Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia - that are positioned approximately 120 degrees apart around the globe to enable continual contact with spacecraft as the Earth rotates. (This live tool lets viewers see which DSN dishes are sending up commands or receiving data at any given time.)

The first addition to Goldstone since 2003, the new dish is being built at the complex's Apollo site, so named because its DSS-16 antenna supported NASA's human missions to the Moon. Similar antennas have been built in recent years in Canberra, while two are under construction in Madrid.

"The DSN is Earth's one phone line to our two Voyager spacecraft - both in interstellar space - all our Mars missions and the New Horizons spacecraft that is now far past Pluto," said JPL Deputy Director Larry James. "The more we explore, the more antennas we need to talk to all our missions."

While DSS-23 will function as a radio antenna, it will also be equipped with mirrors and a special receiver for lasers beamed from distant spacecraft. This technology is critical for sending astronauts to places like Mars. Humans there will need to communicate with Earth more than NASA's robotic explorers do, and a Mars base, with its life support systems and equipment, would buzz with data that needs to be monitored.

"Lasers can increase your data rate from Mars by about 10 times what you get from radio," said Suzanne Dodd, director of the Interplanetary Network, the organization that manages the DSN. "Our hope is that providing a platform for optical communications will encourage other space explorers to experiment with lasers on future missions."

While clouds can disrupt lasers, Goldstone's clear desert skies make it an ideal location to serve as a laser receiver about 60% of the time. A demonstration of DSS-23's capabilities is around the corner: When NASA launches an orbiter called Psyche to a metallic asteroid in a few years, it will carry an experimental laser communications terminal developed by JPL. Called the Deep Space Optical Communications project, this equipment will send data and images to an observatory at Southern California's Palomar Mountain. But Psyche will also be able to communicate with the new Goldstone antenna, paving the way for higher data rates in deep space.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

MAVEN Update: Gettin' Ready for America's Next Mars Rover...

NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Shrinking its Mars Orbit to Prepare for Mars 2020 Rover (News Release)

NASA’s 4-year-old atmosphere-sniffing Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is embarking on a new campaign today to tighten its orbit around Mars. The operation will reduce the highest point of the MAVEN spacecraft’s elliptical orbit from 3,850 to 2,800 miles (6,200 to 4,500 kilometers) above the surface and prepare it to take on additional responsibility as a data-relay satellite for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, which launches next year.

“The MAVEN spacecraft has done a phenomenal job teaching us how Mars lost its atmosphere and providing other important scientific insights on the evolution of the Martian climate,” said Jim Watzin, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. “Now we’re recruiting it to help NASA communicate with our forthcoming Mars rover and its successors.”

While MAVEN’s new orbit will not be drastically shorter than its present orbit, even this small change will significantly improve its communications capabilities. “It’s like using your cell phone,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder. “The closer you are to a cell tower, the stronger your signal.”

A strong telecommunications antenna signal is not the only benefit of a tighter orbit. Coming in nearly 1,000 miles (about 1,500 kilometers) closer also will allow the MAVEN orbiter to circle Mars more frequently — 6.8 orbits per Earth day versus 5.3 previously — and thus communicate with the Mars rovers more frequently. While not conducting relay communications, MAVEN will continue to study the structure and composition of the upper atmosphere of Mars. “We’re planning a vigorous science mission far into the future,” Jakosky said.

The MAVEN mission was designed to last two years in space, but the spacecraft is still operating normally. With the mission managing its fuel to last through 2030, NASA plans to use MAVEN's relay capability as long as possible. The MAVEN orbiter carries an ultra high-frequency radio transceiver — similar to transceivers carried on other Mars orbiters ­­— that allows it to relay data between Earth and rovers or landers on Mars. The MAVEN spacecraft already has served occasionally as NASA’s communication liaison with the Curiosity rover.

Over the next few months, MAVEN engineers will use a navigation technique known as aerobraking — like applying the brakes on a car — to take advantage of the drag of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere to slow the spacecraft down gradually, orbit by orbit. This is the same drag you would feel if you put your hand out of the window of a moving car.

Based on the tracking of the spacecraft by the navigation team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, engineers will begin carefully lowering the lowest part of the spacecraft’s orbit into the Martian upper atmosphere over the next couple of days by firing its thrusters. The spacecraft will circle Mars at this lower altitude about 360 times over the next 2.5 months, slowing down slightly with each pass through the atmosphere. While it may seem like a time-consuming process, aerobraking is the most efficient way to change the spacecraft’s trajectory, said Jakosky: “The effect is the same as if we fired our thrusters a little bit on every orbit, but this way, we use very little fuel.”

Fortunately, the team has ample experience operating the spacecraft at these lower altitudes. On nine previous occasions throughout the mission, MAVEN engineers have dipped the orbiter into the same altitude targets for aerobraking to take measurements of the Martian atmosphere. As a result of these “deep dips” and other measurements, NASA has learned that solar wind and radiation had stripped Mars of most of its atmosphere, changing the planet’s early climate from warm and wet to the dry environment we see today. MAVEN also discovered two new types of auroras on Mars and the presence of charged metal atoms in its upper atmosphere that tell us that a lot of debris is hitting Mars that may affect its climate.

MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN project and provided two science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory also provided four science instruments for the mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, as well as the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

BepiColombo Is Now Headed to the First Rock from the Sun!

2018 ESA - CNES - Arianespace

At 6:45 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (9:45 PM, Eastern Daylight Time) yesterday, a European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana...sending the BepiColombo spacecraft on a 7-year journey to Mercury. A joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), BepiColombo will arrive at the planet in early December of 2025...but not before conducting six flybys of Mercury along the way. Comprising BepiColombo are three components: the Mercury Transfer Module (which will propel BepiColombo on its 7-year trip via four ion thrusters), ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (a.k.a. the MIO satellite). It is upon arrival at Mercury around December 5, 2025, that MIO will separate from MPO to enter its own orbit around the desolate world. The BepiColombo mission will last through May 1, 2027—and possibly through May 1, 2028 if it's granted an extended mission.


ESA / BepiColombo / MTM – CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Aboard the MIO satellite is a memory card bearing the names and messages of 6,494 people (including one by me), which were submitted online earlier this year. Just as an FYI, Japan allowed folks to send their names and messages to the Moon via the Kaguya orbiter in 2007, and it allowed folks to fly their names and messages to Venus via the IKAROS solar sail in 2010, and the Akatsuki spacecraft in 2015. So Japan is responsible for sending folks like me on a virtual journey to three planetary bodies in our solar system [my name is at Mars courtesy of NASA's Phoenix, Curiosity and MAVEN spacecraft (and the InSight lander next month, hopefully)]! Thanks JAXA. And Godspeed on your voyage, Bepi! Happy Saturday.




JAXA


JAXA


JAXA

Photos of the Day: Commemorating the Final Launch of the Delta II Rocket...

NASA

At 5:46 AM, Pacific Daylight Time tomorrow, a Delta II rocket is set to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California...carrying NASA's ICESat-2 spacecraft to a polar orbit around the Earth. What makes this flight special, and sad, is that this is the final flight of the Delta II vehicle before it is retired for good. I was pondering for the last two months about whether or not I should make the drive to Ventura County (where Vandenberg is located) to watch the Delta II soar into the sky one last time. Ultimately, and unfortunately, I decided not to go since I've been strapped financially for much of 2018 and can't afford to spend cash on gas, hotel room and other expenses if I made the trip to Central California. Considering the fact that the weather is currently 100% 'GO' for liftoff on Saturday morning, it seems like the rocket gods are trying to make me regret my decision. Here's hoping that some type of minor mechanical issue will crop up that'll delay the Delta II's launch a few days—just to ease my guilt of not going!

To honor the venerable Delta II, here are photos of the four vehicles that launched NASA spacecraft which had my name as well as those of thousands of others on them:

- TOP PHOTO: A Delta II rocket carrying the comet-bound Deep Impact spacecraft (whose now-obliterated impactor held a CD containing the names of 625,000 people, including mine) launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida on January 12, 2005.

- PHOTO DIRECTLY BELOW: A Delta II rocket carrying the Mars-bound Phoenix lander (whose DVD holds the names of 250,000 people, including mine) launched from CCAFS on August 4, 2007.

- SECOND PHOTO FROM THE BOTTOM: A Delta II rocket carrying the asteroid and dwarf planet-bound Dawn space probe (whose microchip is imprinted with the names of 365,000 people, including mine) lifted off from CCAFS on September 27, 2007.

And last, but definitely not least...

- THE PHOTO AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS ENTRY: A Delta II vehicle carrying the exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope (whose DVD is encoded with the names and messages of 60,000 people, including mine) departed from CCAFS on March 6, 2009.

All I can say is, when the day comes that the Atlas V rocket (which sent the Curiosity Mars rover, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the MAVEN spacecraft and InSight Mars lander—which all have my name on them as well—to their deep-space destinations over the past decade) is about to be retired, I'll definitely make the effort to see its final launch in person. Assuming, of course, that its last flight also takes place from Ventura County. Whether or not its final payload is an interplanetary NASA spacecraft or a classified military satellite won't matter. I just want to see one of these marvels of human engineering leave Earth's atmosphere in person before it's grounded permanently. Have a great weekend!


NASA


NASA


NASA

America's Oldest Active Mars Rover Braces Itself for Severe Weather on the Red Planet...

NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS

Opportunity Hunkers Down During Dust Storm (News Release - June 9)

Science operations for NASA's Opportunity rover have been temporarily suspended as it waits out a growing dust storm on Mars.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first detected the storm on Friday, June 1. As soon as the orbiter team saw how close the storm was to Opportunity, they notified the rover's team to begin preparing contingency plans.

In a matter of days, the storm had ballooned. It now spans more than 7 million square miles (18 million square kilometers) -- an area greater than North America -- and includes Opportunity's current location at Perseverance Valley. More importantly, the swirling dust has raised the atmospheric opacity, or "tau," in the valley in the past few days. This is comparable to an extremely smoggy day that blots out sunlight. The rover uses solar panels to provide power and to recharge its batteries.

Opportunity's power levels had dropped significantly by Wednesday, June 6, requiring the rover to shift to minimal operations.

This isn't Opportunity's first time hunkering down in bad weather: in 2007, a much larger storm covered the planet. That led to two weeks of minimal operations, including several days with no contact from the rover to save power. The project's management prepared for the possibility that Opportunity couldn't balance low levels of power with its energy-intensive survival heaters, which protect its batteries from Mars' extreme cold. It's not unlike running a car in the winter so that the cold doesn't sap its battery charge. There is a risk to the rover if the storm persists for too long and Opportunity gets too cold while waiting for the skies to clear.

Ultimately, the storm subsided and Opportunity prevailed. The Martian cold is believed to have resulted in the loss of Spirit, Opportunity's twin in the Mars Exploration Rover mission, back in 2010. Despite this, both rovers have vastly exceeded expectations: they were only designed to last 90 days each. Opportunity is in its 15th year; the team has operated the rover for more than 50 times longer than originally planned. Full dust storms like this one are not surprising, but are infrequent. They can crop up suddenly but last weeks, even months. During southern summer, sunlight warms dust particles, lifting them higher into the atmosphere and creating more wind. That wind kicks up yet more dust, creating a feedback loop that NASA scientists still seek to understand.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and two other NASA spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet -- Odyssey and MAVEN -- routinely support rovers on the ground.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Mars 2020 Update: Curiosity's Successor Will Be Bristling With Cameras...

NASA / JPL

Next Mars Rover Will Have 23 'Eyes' (News Release)

When NASA's Mars Pathfinder touched down in 1997, it had five cameras: two on a mast that popped up from the lander, and three on NASA's first rover, Sojourner.

Since then, camera technology has taken a quantum leap. Photo sensors that were improved by the space program have become commercially ubiquitous. Cameras have shrunk in size, increased in quality and are now carried in every cellphone and laptop.

That same evolution has returned to space. NASA's Mars 2020 mission will have more "eyes" than any rover before it: a grand total of 23, to create sweeping panoramas, reveal obstacles, study the atmosphere, and assist science instruments. They will provide dramatic views during the rover's descent to Mars and be the first to capture images of a parachute as it opens on another planet. There will even be a camera inside the rover's body, which will study samples as they're stored and left on the surface for collection by a future mission.

A Snapshot of Some Mars 2020 Cameras

Enhanced Engineering Cameras: Color, higher resolution and wider fields of view than engineering cameras.

Mastcam-Z: An improved version of Curiosity's MASTCAM with a 3:1 zoom lens.

SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI): The highest-resolution remote imager will have color, a change from the imager that flew with Curiosity's ChemCam.

CacheCam: Will watch as rock samples are deposited into the rover's body.

Entry, descent and landing cameras: Six cameras will record the entry, descent and landing process, providing the first video of a parachute opening on another planet.

Lander Vision System Camera: Will use computer vision to guide the landing, using a new technology called terrain relative navigation.

SkyCam: A suite of weather instruments will include a sky-facing camera for studying clouds and the atmosphere.

All these cameras will be incorporated as the Mars 2020 rover is built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. They represent a steady progression since Pathfinder: after that mission, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers were designed with 10 cameras each, including on their landers; Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover has 17.

"Camera technology keeps improving," said Justin Maki of JPL, Mars 2020's imaging scientist and deputy principal investigator of the Mastcam-Z instrument. "Each successive mission is able to utilize these improvements, with better performance and lower cost."

That advantage represents a full circle of development, from NASA to the private sector and back. In the 1980s, JPL developed active-pixel sensors that used less power than earlier digital camera technology. These sensors were later commercialized by the Photobit Corporation, founded by former JPL researcher Eric Fossum, now at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

20/20 Vision

The cameras on 2020 will include more color and 3-D imaging than on Curiosity, said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, principal investigator for 2020's Mastcam-Z. The "Z" stands for "zoom," which will be added to an improved version of Curiosity's high-definition Mastcam, the rover's main eyes.

Mastcam-Z's stereoscopic cameras can support more 3-D images, which are ideal for examining geologic features and scouting potential samples from long distances away. Features like erosion and soil textures can be spotted at the length of a soccer field. Documenting details like these is important: They could reveal geologic clues and serve as "field notes" to contextualize samples for future scientists.

"Routinely using 3-D images at high resolution could pay off in a big way," Bell said. "They're useful for both long-range and near-field science targets."

Finally, in color

The Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers were all designed with engineering cameras for planning drives (Navcams) and avoiding hazards (Hazcams). These produced 1-megapixel images in black and white.

On the new rover, the engineering cameras have been upgraded to acquire high-resolution, 20-megapixel color images.

Their lenses will also have a wider field of view. That's critical for the 2020 mission, which will try to maximize the time spent doing science and collecting samples.

"Our previous Navcams would snap multiple pictures and stitch them together," said Colin McKinney of JPL, product delivery manager for the new engineering cameras. "With the wider field of view, we get the same perspective in one shot."

That means less time spent panning, snapping pictures and stitching. The cameras are also able to reduce motion blur, so they can take photos while the rover is on the move.

A Data Link to Mars

There's a challenge in all this upgrading: It means beaming more data through space.

"The limiting factor in most imaging systems is the telecommunications link," Maki said. "Cameras are capable of acquiring much more data than can be sent back to Earth."

To address that problem, rover cameras have gotten "smarter" over time -- especially regarding compression.

On Spirit and Opportunity, the compression was done using the onboard computer; on Curiosity, much of it was done using electronics built into the camera. That allows for more 3-D imaging, color, and even high-speed video.

NASA has also gotten better at using orbiting spacecraft as data relays. That concept was pioneered for rover missions with Spirit and Opportunity. The idea of using relays started as an experiment with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, Bell said.

"We were expecting to do that mission on just tens of megabits each Mars day, or sol," he said. "When we got that first Odyssey overflight, and we had about 100 megabits per sol, we realized it was a whole new ballgame."

NASA plans to use existing spacecraft already in orbit at Mars -- the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, and the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter -- as relays for the Mars 2020 mission, which will support the cameras during the rover's first two years.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL

InSight Update: The Mars Lander Is Still On-Track for a May 2018 Launch...

NASA / JPL

NASA's Next Mars Mission to Investigate Interior of Red Planet (Press Release)

Preparation of NASA's next spacecraft to Mars, InSight, has ramped up this summer, on course for launch next May from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California -- the first interplanetary launch in history from America's West Coast.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is assembling and testing the InSight spacecraft in a clean room facility near Denver. "Our team resumed system-level integration and test activities last month," said Stu Spath, spacecraft program manager at Lockheed Martin. "The lander is completed and instruments have been integrated onto it so that we can complete the final spacecraft testing including acoustics, instrument deployments and thermal balance tests."

InSight is the first mission to focus on examining the deep interior of Mars. Information gathered will boost understanding of how all rocky planets formed, including Earth.

"Because the interior of Mars has churned much less than Earth's in the past three billion years, Mars likely preserves evidence about rocky planets' infancy better than our home planet does," said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. He leads the international team that proposed the mission and won NASA selection in a competition with 27 other proposals for missions throughout the solar system. The long form of InSight's name is Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

Whichever day the mission launches during a five-week period beginning May 5, 2018, navigators have charted the flight to reach Mars the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2018.

The mission will place a stationary lander near Mars' equator. With two solar panels that unfold like paper fans, the lander spans about 20 feet (6 meters). Within weeks after the landing -- always a dramatic challenge on Mars -- InSight will use a robotic arm to place its two main instruments directly and permanently onto the Martian ground, an unprecedented set of activities on Mars. These two instruments are:

-- A seismometer, supplied by France's space agency, CNES, with collaboration from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany. Shielded from wind and with sensitivity fine enough to detect ground movements half the diameter of a hydrogen atom, it will record seismic waves from "marsquakes" or meteor impacts that reveal information about the planet's interior layers.

-- A heat probe, designed to hammer itself to a depth of 10 feet (3 meters) or more and measure the amount of energy coming from the planet's deep interior. The heat probe is supplied by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, with the self-hammering mechanism from Poland.

A third experiment will use radio transmissions between Mars and Earth to assess perturbations in how Mars rotates on its axis, which are clues about the size of the planet's core.

The spacecraft's science payload also is on track for next year's launch. The mission's launch was originally planned for March 2016, but was called off due to a leak into a metal container designed to maintain near-vacuum conditions around the seismometer's main sensors. A redesigned vacuum vessel for the instrument has been built and tested, then combined with the instrument's other components and tested again. The full seismometer instrument was delivered to the Lockheed Martin spacecraft assembly facility in Colorado in July and has been installed on the lander.

"We have fixed the problem we had two years ago, and we are eagerly preparing for launch," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, of JPL.

The best planetary geometry for launches to Mars occurs during opportunities about 26 months apart and lasting only a few weeks.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the InSight Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Together with two active NASA Mars rovers, three NASA Mars orbiters and a Mars rover being built for launch in 2020, InSight is part of a legacy of robotic exploration that is helping to lay the groundwork for sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL - Caltech / Lockheed Martin

Back in the Day: Remembering the Pathfinder Mission...

NASA / JPL

Why No One Under 20 Has Experienced a Day Without NASA at Mars (News Release - June 22)

As the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft approached its destination on July 4, 1997, no NASA mission had successfully reached the Red Planet in more than 20 years.

Even the mission team anxiously awaiting confirmation that the spacecraft survived its innovative, bouncy landing could not anticipate the magnitude of the pivot about to shape the Space Age.

In the 20 years since Pathfinder's touchdown, eight other NASA landers and orbiters have arrived successfully, and not a day has passed without the United States having at least one active robot on Mars or in orbit around Mars.

The momentum propelled by Pathfinder's success is still growing. Five NASA robots and three from other nations are currently examining Mars. The two decades since Pathfinder's landing have taken us about halfway from the first Mars rover to the first astronaut bootprint on Mars, proposed for the 2030s.

"Pathfinder initiated two decades of continuous Mars exploration bringing us to the threshold of sample return and the possibility of humans on the first planet beyond Earth," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

Sojourner Rover

Pathfinder's rover, named Sojourner for the civil-rights crusader Sojourner Truth, became the best-known example of the many new technologies developed for the mission. Though Sojourner was only the size of a microwave oven, its six-wheel mobility system and its portable instrument for checking the composition of rocks and soil were the foundation for the expanded size and capabilities of later Mars rovers.

"Without Mars Pathfinder, there could not have been Spirit and Opportunity, and without Spirit and Opportunity, there could not have been Curiosity," Pathfinder Project Scientist Matt Golombek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said of the subsequent generations of Mars rovers. JPL is now developing another Mars rover for launch in 2020.

NASA planned Pathfinder primarily as a technology demonstration mission, but it also harvested new knowledge about Mars, from the planet's iron core to its atmosphere, and from its wetter and warmer past to its arid modern climate.

The space agency was shifting from less-frequent, higher-budget missions to a strategy of faster development and lower budgets. Pathfinder succeeded within a real-year, full-mission budget of $264 million, a small fraction of the only previously successful Mars lander missions, the twin Vikings of 1976.

"We needed to invent or re-invent 25 technologies for this mission in less than three years, and we knew that if we blew the cost cap, the mission would be cancelled," said JPL's Brian Muirhead, flight system manager and deputy project manager for Pathfinder. "Everybody who was part of the Mars Pathfinder Project felt we'd done something extraordinary, against the odds."

Crucial new technologies included an advanced onboard computer, the rover and its deployment system, solid-fuel rockets for deceleration, and airbags inflating just before touchdown to cushion the impact of landing. NASA re-used most of the Pathfinder technologies to carry out the Mars Exploration Rover Project, which landed Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in 2004.

Landing Day on Independence Day

"On the morning of July Fourth, 1997, we were in our tiny mission-control area waiting to see the signal that would confirm Pathfinder had survived its atmospheric entry and landing, and that it was transmitting from the surface of Mars," Muirhead said. "We saw that tiny spike in the signal coming through the Deep Space Network, and we knew."

Pathfinder quickly provided the first fresh images from Mars directly available to the public over the still-young World Wide Web. The mission set a web-traffic record at the time with more than 200 million hits from July 4 to July 8, 1997.

The lander and rover operated for three months -- triple the planned mission for the lander and 12 times the rover's planned mission of one week. This longevity enabled Pathfinder to overlap the Sept. 12, 1997, arrival of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. That orbiter, in turn, operated at Mars for more than nine years, overlapping with arrivals of two later orbiters -- Mars Odyssey in 2001 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2006, which are both still active -- and the 2004 landings of two rovers, one of which -- Opportunity -- is still active. Subsequent successful NASA missions of the post-Pathfinder era have been the Phoenix lander, Curiosity rover and MAVEN orbiter.

Twenty straight years of studying Mars have yielded major advances in understanding active processes on modern Mars, wet environments favorable for life on ancient Mars, and how the planet changed. These two decades of continuous robotic presence have built on the science and engineering gains from NASA's Mars Mariner and Viking missions of the 1960s and '70s.

The advances in understanding Mars during the past two decades have set the stage for even greater advances in the next two decades, particularly in efforts to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars and to put humans on Mars.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

MAVEN Update: A Major Discovery on How the Red Planet Became the Barren World It Is Today...

NASA / GSFC

NASA's MAVEN Reveals Most of Mars' Atmosphere Was Lost to Space (Press Release)

Solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere, transforming Mars from a planet that could have supported life billions of years ago into a frigid desert world, according to new results from NASA's MAVEN spacecraft.

"We've determined that most of the gas ever present in the Mars atmosphere has been lost to space," said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), University of Colorado in Boulder. The team made this determination from the latest results, which reveal that about 65 percent of the argon that was ever in the atmosphere has been lost to space. Jakosky is lead author of a paper on this research to be published in Science on Friday, March 31.

In 2015, MAVEN team members previously announced results that showed atmospheric gas is being lost to space today and described how atmosphere is stripped away. The present analysis uses measurements of today’s atmosphere for the first estimate of how much gas was lost through time.

Liquid water, essential for life, is not stable on Mars' surface today because the atmosphere is too cold and thin to support it. However, evidence such as features resembling dry riverbeds and minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water indicates the ancient Martian climate was much different – warm enough for water to flow on the surface for extended periods.

“This discovery is a significant step toward unraveling the mystery of Mars' past environments,“ said Elsayed Talaat, MAVEN Program Scientist, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “In a broader context, this information teaches us about the processes that can change a planet’s habitability over time.”

There are many ways a planet can lose some of its atmosphere. For example, chemical reactions can lock gas away in surface rocks, or an atmosphere can be eroded by radiation and a stellar wind from a planet's parent star. The new result reveals that solar wind and radiation were responsible for most of the atmospheric loss on Mars, and the depletion was enough to transform the Martian climate. The solar wind is a thin stream of electrically conducting gas constantly blowing out from the surface of the Sun.

The early Sun had far more intense ultraviolet radiation and solar wind, so atmospheric loss by these processes was likely much greater in Mars' history. According to the team, these processes may have been the dominant ones controlling the planet's climate and habitability. It's possible microbial life could have existed at the surface early in Mars’ history. As the planet cooled off and dried up, any life could have been driven underground or forced into rare surface oases.

Jakosky and his team got the new result by measuring the atmospheric abundance of two different isotopes of argon gas. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with different masses. Since the lighter of the two isotopes escapes to space more readily, it will leave the gas remaining behind enriched in the heavier isotope. The team used the relative abundance of the two isotopes measured in the upper atmosphere and at the surface to estimate the fraction of the atmospheric gas that has been lost to space.

As a "noble gas" argon cannot react chemically, so it cannot be sequestered in rocks; the only process that can remove noble gases into space is a physical process called "sputtering" by the solar wind. In sputtering, ions picked up by the solar wind can impact Mars at high speeds and physically knock atmospheric gas into space. The team tracked argon because it can be removed only by sputtering. Once they determined the amount of argon lost by sputtering, they could use this information to determine the sputtering loss of other atoms and molecules, including carbon dioxide (CO2).

CO2 is of interest because it is the major constituent of Mars' atmosphere and because it's an efficient greenhouse gas that can retain heat and warm the planet. "We determined that the majority of the planet's CO2 was also lost to space by sputtering," said Jakosky. "There are other processes that can remove CO2, so this gives the minimum amount of CO2 that's been lost to space."

The team made its estimate using data from the Martian upper atmosphere, which was collected by MAVEN's Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS). This analysis included measurements from the Martian surface made by NASA's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument on board the Curiosity rover.

"The combined measurements enable a better determination of how much Martian argon has been lost to space over billions of years," said Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Using measurements from both platforms points to the value of having multiple missions that make complementary measurements." Mahaffy, a co-author of the paper, is principal investigator on the SAM instrument and lead on the NGIMS instrument, both of which were developed at NASA Goddard.

The research was funded by the MAVEN mission. MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, and NASA Goddard manages the MAVEN project. MSL/Curiosity is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.