Mars 2020 Update...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA Announces Mars 2020 Rover Payload to Explore the Red Planet as Never Before (Press Release)

The next rover NASA will send to Mars in 2020 will carry seven carefully-selected instruments to conduct unprecedented science and exploration technology investigations on the Red Planet.

NASA announced the selected Mars 2020 rover instruments Thursday at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Managers made the selections out of 58 proposals received in January from researchers and engineers worldwide. Proposals received were twice the usual number submitted for instrument competitions in the recent past. This is an indicator of the extraordinary interest by the science community in the exploration of the Mars. The selected proposals have a total value of approximately $130 million for development of the instruments.

The Mars 2020 mission will be based on the design of the highly successful Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, which landed almost two years ago, and currently is operating on Mars. The new rover will carry more sophisticated, upgraded hardware and new instruments to conduct geological assessments of the rover's landing site, determine the potential habitability of the environment, and directly search for signs of ancient Martian life.

"Today we take another important step on our journey to Mars," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.” While getting to and landing on Mars is hard, Curiosity was an iconic example of how our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way for humans to pioneer Mars and beyond. Mars exploration will be this generation’s legacy, and the Mars 2020 rover will be another critical step on humans' journey to the Red Planet."

Scientists will use the Mars 2020 rover to identify and select a collection of rock and soil samples that will be stored for potential return to Earth by a future mission. The Mars 2020 mission is responsive to the science objectives recommended by the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

“The Mars 2020 rover, with these new advanced scientific instruments, including those from our international partners, holds the promise to unlock more mysteries of Mars’ past as revealed in the geological record,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This mission will further our search for life in the universe and also offer opportunities to advance new capabilities in exploration technology.”

The Mars 2020 rover also will help advance our knowledge of how future human explorers could use natural resources available on the surface of the Red Planet. An ability to live off the Martian land would transform future exploration of the planet. Designers of future human expeditions can use this mission to understand the hazards posed by Martian dust and demonstrate technology to process carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to produce oxygen. These experiments will help engineers learn how to use Martian resources to produce oxygen for human respiration and potentially oxidizer for rocket fuel.

"The 2020 rover will help answer questions about the Martian environment that astronauts will face and test technologies they need before landing on, exploring and returning from the Red Planet," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Mars has resources needed to help sustain life, which can reduce the amount of supplies that human missions will need to carry. Better understanding the Martian dust and weather will be valuable data for planning human Mars missions. Testing ways to extract these resources and understand the environment will help make the pioneering of Mars feasible."

The selected payload proposals are:

- Mastcam-Z, an advanced camera system with panoramic and stereoscopic imaging capability with the ability to zoom. The instrument also will determine mineralogy of the Martian surface and assist with rover operations. The principal investigator is James Bell, Arizona State University in Tempe.

- SuperCam, an instrument that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy. The instrument will also be able to detect the presence of organic compounds in rocks and regolith from a distance. The principal investigator is Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. This instrument also has a significant contribution from the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales,Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Plane’tologie (CNES/IRAP) France.

- Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer that will also contain an imager with high resolution to determine the fine scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials. PIXL will provide capabilities that permit more detailed detection and analysis of chemical elements than ever before. The principal investigator is Abigail Allwood, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

- Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC), a spectrometer that will provide fine-scale imaging and uses an ultraviolet (UV) laser to determine fine-scale mineralogy and detect organic compounds. SHERLOC will be the first UV Raman spectrometer to fly to the surface of Mars and will provide complementary measurements with other instruments in the payload. The principal investigator is Luther Beegle, JPL.

- The Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE), an exploration technology investigation that will produce oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide. The principal investigator is Michael Hecht, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

- Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), a set of sensors that will provide measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity and dust size and shape. The principal investigator is Jose Rodriguez-Manfredi, Centro de Astrobiologia, Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial, Spain.

- The Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration (RIMFAX), a ground-penetrating radar that will provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure of the subsurface. The principal investigator is Svein-Erik Hamran, Forsvarets Forskning Institute, Norway.

"We are excited that NASA's Space Technology Program is partnered with Human Exploration and the Mars 2020 Rover Team to demonstrate our abilities to harvest the Mars atmosphere and convert its abundant carbon dioxide to pure oxygen," said James Reuther, deputy associate administrator for programs for the Space Technology Mission Directorate. "This technology demonstration will pave the way for more affordable human missions to Mars where oxygen is needed for life support and rocket propulsion."

Instruments developed from the selected proposals will be placed on a rover similar to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012. Using a proven landing system and rover chassis design to deliver these new experiments to Mars will ensure mission costs and risks are minimized as much as possible, while still delivering a highly capable rover.

Curiosity recently completed a Martian year on the surface -- 687 Earth days -- having accomplished the mission's main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

The Mars 2020 rover is part the agency's Mars Exploration Program, which includes the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, the Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft currently orbiting the planet, and the MAVEN orbiter, which is set to arrive at the Red Planet in September and will study the Martian upper atmosphere.

In 2016, a Mars lander mission called InSight will launch to take the first look into the deep interior of Mars. The agency also is participating in the European Space Agency's (ESA’s) 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 orbiter and a critical element of the astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.

NASA's Mars Exploration Program seeks to characterize and understand Mars as a dynamic system, including its present and past environment, climate cycles, geology and biological potential. In parallel, NASA is developing the human spaceflight capabilities needed for future round-trip missions to Mars.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build and manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA

A San Diego Adventure...

Earlier today, two friends and I took a road trip down to California's southernmost metropolis. No, it wasn't to get into Comic-Con International (though that didn't stop us from getting close to the convention center where this ever-growing event took place), but to buy donuts, visit the (haunted?) Hotel del Coronado, kick back at a La Jolla beach, walk around the Gaslamp Quarter and eat pizza at an Italian restaurant. Needless to say, it was a very fun adventure. And yes, Nancy was one of the two buddies who I drove to San Diego with (we didn't go hiking at San Diego as mentioned in this earlier entry...but it's all good). I'm missing her as I type this, haha.

SpaceX Does It Again!

SpaceX

I should post this in my Human Spaceflight Blog since this has a huge impact on SpaceX's future plans to conduct manned space exploration at a truly affordable cost, but it's all good. Check out this cool Rocketcam video showing a Falcon 9 first stage booster successfully touching down in the Atlantic Ocean (though the booster broke apart after going horizontal and impacting the water moments later) after launching six Orbcomm communications satellites into Earth orbit on July 14. Much of the footage is obscured by ice that built up on the camera lens during the vehicle's descent through the atmosphere, but the gist of this video is clear: SpaceX is making considerable progress in creating a rocket that will pretty much be completely reusable and allow the company to pursue the goal that it, NASA, um China and all other spacefaring nations want to attain...and that's to send people to Mars. Godspeed everyone! And China.

Kepler Update...

Harvard-Smithsonian, Center for Astrophysics / D. A. Aguilar

Astronomers Discover Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year (Press Release)

Astronomers using NASA Kepler data have discovered a transiting exoplanet with the longest known year. Kepler-421b orbits its star once every 704 days. In comparison, Mars orbits our sun once every 780 days. Most of the more than 1,800 confirmed exoplanets discovered to date are much closer to their stars and have much shorter orbital periods.

"Finding Kepler-421b was a stroke of luck," says lead author David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "The farther a planet is from its star, the less likely it is to transit the star from Earth's point of view. It has to line up just right."

Kepler-421b orbits an orange, K-type star that is cooler and dimmer than our sun and is located about 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

The newly confirmed world circles the star at a distance of about 110 million miles. As a result, this Uranus-sized planet is chilled to a temperature of -135 degrees Fahrenheit (-93 degrees Celsius).

This research has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and is available online. Additional information can be found at https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~dkipping/kepler421.html.

NASA's Ames Research Center is responsible for the Kepler mission concept, ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data.

Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and was funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

Source: NASA.Gov

1 WTC: Photos of the Day...

Image courtesy of One World Trade Center - Facebook

It's been a while since I posted an entry about New York City's (and America's) newest symbol of greatness on this Blog, so just thought I'd share these cool photos that I found on Facebook. The 1 World Trade Center is expected to open to the public later this year.


Image courtesy of One World Trade Center - Facebook


Image courtesy of One World Trade Center - Facebook


Image courtesy of One World Trade Center - Facebook

Back in the Day: Jupiter Gets Hit By A Comet

NASA / Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team

20 years ago this month, I enthusiastically went outside everyday (for seven days) to retrieve the L.A. Times newspaper from my front yard to see awesome photos of this celestial occurrence on the front page. Of course, the press release posted with this entry will tell you why this event was so cool; the summer of 1994 was also the period of time as I prepared to enter the 9th grade. Yup, what better way to get ready for my first year in high school than to geek (or nerd) out over an amazing scientific opportunity instead of looking good for hot freshman girls on the first day of class. Um, anyways... Read on.

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Looking Back at the Jupiter Crash 20 Years Later (Press Release - July 15)

Twenty years ago, human and robotic eyes observed the first recorded impact between cosmic bodies in the solar system, as fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into the atmosphere of Jupiter. Between July 16 and July 22, 1994, space- and Earth-based assets managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, joined an armada of other NASA and international telescopes, straining to get a glimpse of the historic event:

- NASA's Galileo spacecraft, still a year-and-a-half out from its arrival at Jupiter, had a unique view of fireballs that erupted from Jupiter's southern hemisphere as the comet fragments struck.

- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, using the JPL-developed and -built Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, observed the comet and the impact scars it left on Jupiter.

- The giant radio telescopes of NASA's Deep Space Network -- which perform radio and radar astronomy research in addition to their communications functions -- were tasked with observing radio emissions from Jupiter's radiation belt, looking for disturbances caused by comet dust.

- NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, then about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from Jupiter, observed the impacts with its ultraviolet spectrometer and a planetary radio astronomy instrument.

- The Ulysses spacecraft also made observations during the comet impact from about 500 million miles (800 million kilometers) away. Ulysses observed radio transmissions from Jupiter with its combined radio wave and plasma wave instrument.

The work of scientists in studying the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact raised awareness about the potential for asteroid impacts on Earth and the need for predicting them ahead of time, important factors in the formation of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office. The NEO Program Office coordinates NASA-sponsored efforts to detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could approach Earth.

The Galileo mission was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. JPL also manages the Voyager mission and the Deep Space Network for NASA. NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL

Jack Bauer Lives Another Day...But At Great Cost

So last night was the season finale for 24: Live Another Day...and all I can say is, if this is the permanent finale for the hit FOX TV series, then this show ended on a great note! A very sad and bleak note, but a great note nonetheless. Jack Bauer once again proved why he's one of the greatest action heroes to grace the small screen, and Kiefer Sutherland displayed that he was up to the task of bringing this character back to life after a four-year absence from television. Not to be outdone by Sutherland was Mary Lynn Rajskub as Chloe O'Brian—who showed that she will always be Jack's best friend and trusty sidekick whenever a terrorist comes along to make the proverbial crap hit the fan.



In regards to the finale, this episode was completely emotional and action-packed. The fact that there were two silent clocks (one for the death of Audrey, Jack's one true live and the daughter of President James Heller, and the other to mark Bauer's uncertain fate at the hands of the Russians) showed that the producers were gonna have 24: Live Another Day punch TV viewers in the gut (in a good way) before the end credits came rolling. To see the anguish on CIA agent Kate Morgan's (played by the ever talented and beautiful Yvonne Strahovski) face as Audrey (portrayed with grace by Kim Raver) lay dying in her arms after being shot by a second Chinese sniper (the first one was eliminated by Agent Morgan) was devastating to say the least. But it was even more heartbreaking to see the initial responses by Jack and President Heller (played superbly by William Devane) when they got word that Heller's daughter was no more. Heller's collapse to the floor upon hearing the news about Audrey's death, and subsequent confession to the British Prime Minister on an airport tarmac (while Audrey's casket was being loaded aboard Air Force One) that Heller won't remember his daughter's horrific fate, let alone that he had a daughter at all due to Alzheimer's, was the kind of performance that should earn Devane an Emmy nomination next year. As for Jack...



If Kiefer Sutherland gets an Emmy nomination for Live Another Day next year, it will be for the reaction he conveyed upon Jack getting a phone call by Agent Morgan about Audrey being fatally wounded. Jack initially takes out his handgun and ponders doing what he probably thought about doing on the previous 8 'days'—ending his life—but quickly places the firearm back into its holster when Bauer realizes that he has one last job to do as he was about to save the world from disaster once more. The following events proved an adage that's been shown numerous times before in the other seasons: When Jack Bauer is pissed off, he's really pissed off...and you don't mess with him at all. Particularly, you don't mess with Jack when he's welding a Samurai sword. Cheng Zhi (played with sinister relish by Tzi Ma) learned this the hard way when he was the one responsible for Audrey's death and the next world war that would've begun between America and China had Bauer not located him in time. Considering all of the brutal things he did (not just to Audrey but to a couple of Chloe O'Brian's friends) in the few episodes he was in during this season, it was definitely a well-earned payoff to see Bauer dispatch (Re: decapitate) Cheng with that sword. But even though Jack achieved justice for Audrey and the other people who suffered at the hands of Cheng in the final moments of this season, there was more justice to be had in the world of 24; unfortunately, it would be at Jack's expense.



Jack's ability to save the world on nine different days was not without cost: He had to take the lives of colleagues who stood in the way of a crisis being averted, he lost many people (along with Audrey) that he loved, and his anger in wanting to take out the bad guy resulted in him eliminating foreign dignitaries that would cause those nations to seek vengeance on him (which is how Bauer met Cheng Zhi in the first place). One such nation is Russia...who would use Jack's friendship with Chloe O'Brian as a way to force him to surrender himself to the Russians and atone for the acts that he committed against their country in Day 8. Like the previous seasons of 24, there was no way that Jack Bauer was gonna have a happy ending, and to see him say his goodbye to Chloe just as Jack was about to board that Russian helicopter to Moscow (to be interrogated, tortured and incarcerated, no doubt) was fitting for a hero who saved the world so many times and suffered so much while doing it. If this season of 24 is indeed the final time that we'll see Jack Bauer thwart terrorists on the TV screen, then this ending was the right way to conclude it. As mentioned in the second paragraph of this entry, there was a silent clock to mark Jack's fate and the conclusion of Live Another Day. There's no better way to accentuate the ultimate sacrifice that Bauer made in this 12-part series...but here's hoping that there will also be a way to celebrate his ultimate victories if 24 gets another season. Jack deserves as much. Carry on.

July 14, 2015: A Big Day for Space Exploration...

Image courtesy of the New Horizons Mission Website

New Horizons Only One Year from Pluto‏ (Press Release)

In July 2015, NASA will discover a new world. No one knows what to expect when the alien landscape comes into focus. There could be icy geysers, towering mountains, deep valleys, even planetary rings.

At this point, only one thing is certain: Its name is Pluto.

On July 14th, 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make a close flyby of that distant world. "Because Pluto has never been visited up-close by a spacecraft from Earth, everything we see will be a first," says Adriana Ocampo, the Program Executive for NASA's New Frontiers program at NASA headquarters. "I know this will be an astonishing experience full of history making moments."

The mission's principal investigator, Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, has likened the way New Horizons will revolutionize knowledge about the Pluto system to the way that Mariner 4, which flew past Mars in July 1965, revolutionized knowledge of that planet. At the time, many people on Earth thought the Red Planet was a lush world with water and vegetation friendly to life. Instead, Mariner 4 revealed a desert world of haunting beauty.

New Horizons’ flyby of Pluto will occur almost exactly 50 years after Mariner 4’s flyby of Mars—and it could shock observers just as much.

Pluto is almost completely unknown. It is so far away, that even the Hubble Space Telescope strains to see it. The best images so far show little more than Pluto's shape (spherical) and color (reddish). Over the years, changes in those color patterns hint at a dynamic planet where something is happening, but no one knows what.

By late April 2015, New Horizons will be close enough to Pluto to take pictures rivaling those of Hubble—and it only gets better from there. At closest approach in July 2015, New Horizons will be a scant 10,000 km above the surface of Pluto. If New Horizons flew over Earth at the same altitude, it could see individual buildings and their shapes.

Flying so close to Pluto could be risky business. Pluto has five known moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Numerical simulations show that meteoroids striking those satellites could send debris into orbit around Pluto, forming a debris system that waxes and wanes over time in response to changes in the bombardment. During the approach to Pluto, the science team will keep a wary eye out for debris, and guide the spacecraft away from danger.

"The New Horizons Team continues to do a magnificent job in keeping the spacecraft healthy and ready for this incredible rendezvous," Ocampo says. "The spacecraft is in good hands."

No one knows what New Horizons will discover. "Many predictions have being made by the science community, including possible rings, geyser eruptions, and even lakes," says Ocampo. "Whatever we find, I believe Pluto and its satellites will surpass all our expectations and surprise us beyond our imagination."

"Think about seeing something for the first time and discovering the unknown," she concludes. "That’s what we're about to do."

Source: NASA.Gov

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NewHorizons2015 - Twitter.com

FIFA World Cup Brazil...

Earlier today, two of my friends and I went to the Legends sports bar in Long Beach to watch the World Cup final match between Argentina and Germany. Great game... Argentina (who I was rooting for; though it was inadvertent that I wore a shirt with their white and blue color scheme to the bar) had so many chances to score during this match but blew it. Germany deserved to win considering they had possession of the ball a lot more than Argentina did. Despite the fact I wanted the losing team to win (the final score was Germany: 1-0 in double extra time), a German loss wouldn't have allowed us to witness Argentina fans at Maracanã Stadium in Brazil cry like little b*tches (cue Madonna's famous song from the 1996 film Evita for emphasis; you know which song I'm talking about) for all the world to see on television. Sorry, but that put a smile on my face, hah.

The Miami Super Friends Are No More!

Welcome back to Cleveland, LeBron. Nice to know that you were willing to ignore that letter your boss wrote to Cavaliers fans declaring how they were gonna win a title before you did as you joined the Miami Heat in 2010. However, do us Lakers fans a favor and tell Gilbert to go f**k himself for helping nix the Chris Paul trade to Los Angeles' true basketball team three years ago. Have a good day, King James! And in case I need to reiterate this again, screw you Dan.