The Delta II Launch Vehicle Has Entered The History Books, And Will Soon Enter Kennedy Space Center's 'Rocket Garden' As Well...

NASA

United Launch Alliance Selects NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex as the Future Home of the Last Delta II Rocket (Press Release)

Centennial, Colo., Sept. 15, 2018 – United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced today that the last Delta II rocket will join a lineup of historic rockets in the Rocket Garden on display at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“The Delta II rocket has been a venerable workhorse for NASA and civilian scientists, the U.S. military, and commercial clients throughout its almost 30 years of service,” said Tory Bruno, ULA president and CEO. “This program comes to a close with the final launch of NASA’s ICESat-2, but its legacy will continue and the Visitor Complex will help us keep the story of the success of this much-revered rocket in the hearts and minds of the public.”

The maiden Delta II took flight on Valentine's Day in 1989, successfully delivering the first operational GPS satellite into space. Since that first launch, Delta II rockets have launched 154 successful missions. Its resume includes several trips to Mars as well as the planet-hunting Kepler, the twin lunar-orbiting GRAIL spacecraft, 48 GPS satellites and numerous commercial imaging and communications satellites.

With more than a century of combined heritage, United Launch Alliance is the nation's most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 125 satellites to orbit that provide critical capabilities for troops in the field, aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, enable personal device-based GPS navigation and unlock the mysteries of our solar system.

Source: United Launch Alliance

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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

NASA Seeks to Make New Discoveries with More Discovery-Class Missions...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA Selects Investigations for Future Key Planetary Mission (Press Release - September 30)

NASA has selected five science investigations for refinement during the next year as a first step in choosing one or two missions for flight opportunities as early as 2020. The submitted proposals would study Venus, near-Earth objects and a variety of asteroids.

Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct concept design studies and analyses. After a detailed review and evaluation of the concept studies, NASA will make the final selections by September 2016 for continued development leading up to launch. Any selected mission will cost approximately $500 million, not including launch vehicle funding or the cost of post-launch operations.

"The selected investigations have the potential to reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Dynamic and exciting missions like these hold promise to unravel the mysteries of our solar system and inspire future generations of explorers. It’s an incredible time for science, and NASA is leading the way.”

NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in November 2014. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 27 submissions.

The planetary missions selected to pursue concept design studies are:

Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI):
DAVINCI would study the chemical composition of Venus’ atmosphere during a 63-minute descent. It would answer scientific questions that have been considered high priorities for many years, such as whether there are volcanoes active today on the surface of Venus and how the surface interacts with the atmosphere of the planet. Lori Glaze of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is the principal investigator. Goddard would manage the project.

The Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy mission (VERITAS):
VERITAS would produce global, high-resolution topography and imaging of Venus’ surface and produce the first maps of deformation and global surface composition. Suzanne Smrekar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California is the principal investigator. JPL would manage the project.

Psyche:
Psyche would explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid Psyche. This asteroid is likely the survivor of a violent hit-and-run with another object that stripped off the outer, rocky layers of a protoplanet. Linda Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona is the principal investigator. JPL would manage the project.

Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam):
NEOCAM would discover ten times more near-Earth objects than all NEOs discovered to date. It would also begin to characterize them. Amy Mainzer of JPL is the principal investigator, and JPL would manage the project.

Lucy:
Lucy would perform the first reconnaissance of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, objects thought to hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system. Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado is the principal investigator. Goddard would manage the project.

Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent, cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals. The program has funded and developed 12 missions to date, including MESSENGER, Dawn, Stardust, Deep Impact, Genesis and GRAIL, and is currently completing development of InSight. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama manages the program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

Oh, China— Just Keep Droppin' the Ball...

Ten years ago this month, I posted this lengthy Blog entry highlighting my disappointment when I found out that I missed the opportunity to have my name on a DVD that was placed aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. The disappointment was so great that not only did it bring back my obsession for space exploration in a big way (the last time I was a major space geek was back in 8th grade...21 years ago), but it motivated me to keep track of every future interplanetary missions that NASA and other government space agencies developed that would have the potential of allowing the public to place names on them. It was after losing my chance to fly past Pluto and into interstellar space aboard New Horizons that the Dawn asteroid mission started collecting monikers for its ion propulsion-powered orbiter (Dawn was briefly canceled by NASA due to technical reasons a few weeks later, in October of 2005—but was reinstated in March of 2006). In October of 2006, the Phoenix Mars mission started collecting names via the California-based space advocacy group, The Planetary Society, and a little over a month after that, Japan's space agency (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA) collected names to be place on its SELENE spacecraft (eventually renamed to Kaguya) that was destined for the Moon. These three robotic probes were launched in 2007 alone.


NASA / JHU APL / SwRI / Steve Gribben

Jump to 2015, and NASA and JAXA have given me the opportunity to have a virtual presence on more than a dozen missions. Not just Dawn, Phoenix and Kaguya (and Deep Impact, which NASA collected names for back in 2003...that intentionally got obliterated by a comet's nucleus in 2005), but the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Kepler space telescope, JAXA's Akatsuki Venus orbiter, IKAROS solar sail and asteroid-bound Hayabusa 2 spacecraft, the Curiosity Mars rover, the MAVEN Mars orbiter, the last three space shuttle missions (STS-133, STS-134 and STS-135) in 2011 and even Orion's first space voyage on Exploration Flight Test-1 last year. And next year, cross my fingers, my name plus hundreds of thousands of others will hopefully be soaring towards Mars and asteroid Bennu with NASA's InSight lander and the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission, respectively. Not bad... Not bad at all.


NASA

So what does this have to do with China, you ask? Well, not only is having my name aboard a spacecraft that will eventually leave our solar system on my wishlist (or to be blunt: bucket list), but I also think that it would be cool to have my name on the surface of the Moon (intact) as well. JAXA has been proposing a lunar lander (dubbed SELENE-2) that would be the follow-up to its successful Kaguya mission. However, this was back in 2008 (or 2009, I think) and SELENE-2 is nowhere near the assembly stage. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2013, then 2015, and then 2017, but now it's not slated to take flight till 2019 at the earliest. A U.S. lander that would touch down on the Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin was proposed through a competition by NASA's New Frontiers program, but it eventually lost out to the OSIRIS-REx mission that will head to asteroid Bennu in late 2016.


JAXA

So again—what does this have to do with China, you ask? Well— China's lunar rover, Yutu, launched and landed on the Moon in December of 2014...as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. Reading about Yutu online was exciting; it would've been more exciting, personally, if I knew that my name briefly strolled around the lunar surface aboard this rover. So now Chang'e 4 is in the planning stages, with another lander and rover slated to head back to the Moon by 2020. And after that, the Chang'e 5 mission...which would collect samples from the Moon's surface and return them to China next decade.


NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS

Admittedly, there's still enough time before Chang'e 4 launches that China could decide to follow in the footsteps of NASA, JAXA and the European Space Agency (which collected names for the Huygens lander that touched down on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005, courtesy of NASA's Cassini orbiter) and allow the public to take part in this mission by collecting names via the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, this is China... A Communist superpower that enjoys grabbing territory in the Pacific Ocean at the expense of its Asian neighbors (including the Philippines; I'm Filipino), improving its technological infrastructure by conducting industrial espionage on the United States, and of course, continuing to have an abysmal human-rights record. (And let's not ignore the recent news about Chinese naval ships milling about off the coast of Alaska.) I'm gonna come out and admit that my opinion for China, despite these negative qualities, would improve if Beijing at least allowed folks (not just its Chinese populace) to submit their monikers to fly on its next mission to the Moon's surface. China is, after all, a fledgling space-faring nation...and has the political will to conduct missions that NASA wants to do but otherwise can't due to those stupid things called budget cuts, continuing resolutions and sequestration.


NASA

So the gist of this entry: If I can't have my name on a New Horizons-type spacecraft that will venture towards interstellar space anytime soon, then I can at least have my name resting on the lunar surface the same way the first Yutu rover and Apollo hardware from 40-plus years ago still sit peacefully on the Moon's landscape. If JAXA follows through with SELENE 2 and launches it in 2019 (but not before collecting names for it a la Kaguya, Akatsuki, IKAROS and Hayabusa 2), then all is good with Chang'e 4. If not, then I hope China will one day open a webpage that allows Chinese and non-Chinese folks alike to submit their names to be placed aboard Yutu's successor. The same way that NASA is currently collecting names to be placed aboard NASA's InSight lander. The deadline is this Tuesday, September 8, by the way.

That is all. Again, Happy Labor Day weekend to my fellow Yanks!

The Dark Side of the Moon...in Broad Daylight!

NASA / NOAA

From a Million Miles Away, NASA Camera Shows Moon Crossing Face of Earth (Press Release)

A NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a unique view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth last month. The series of test images shows the fully illuminated “dark side” of the moon that is never visible from Earth.

The images were captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth. From its position between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR conducts its primary mission of real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

EPIC maintains a constant view of the fully illuminated Earth as it rotates, providing scientific observations of ozone, vegetation, cloud height and aerosols in the atmosphere. Once EPIC begins regular observations next month, the camera will provide a series of Earth images allowing study of daily variations over the entire globe. About twice a year the camera will capture the moon and Earth together as the orbit of DSCOVR crosses the orbital plane of the moon.

These images were taken between 3:50 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. EDT on July 16, showing the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America. The North Pole is in the upper left corner of the image, reflecting the orbital tilt of Earth from the vantage point of the spacecraft.

The far side of the moon was not seen until 1959 when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned the first images. Since then, several NASA missions have imaged the lunar far side in great detail. The same side of the moon always faces an earthbound observer because the moon is tidally locked to Earth. That means its orbital period is the same as its rotation around its axis.

In May 2008 NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft captured a similar view of Earth and the moon from a distance of 31 million miles away. The series of images showed the moon passing in front of our home planet when it was only partially illuminated by the sun.

EPIC’s “natural color” images of Earth are generated by combining three separate monochrome exposures taken by the camera in quick succession. EPIC takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband spectral filters -- from ultraviolet to near infrared -- to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these color images.

Combining three images taken about 30 seconds apart as the moon moves produces a slight but noticeable camera artifact on the right side of the moon. Because the moon has moved in relation to the Earth between the time the first (red) and last (green) exposures were made, a thin green offset appears on the right side of the moon when the three exposures are combined. This natural lunar movement also produces a slight red and blue offset on the left side of the moon in these unaltered images.

The lunar far side lacks the large, dark, basaltic plains, or maria, that are so prominent on the Earth-facing side. The largest far side features are Mare Moscoviense in the upper left and Tsiolkovskiy crater in the lower left. A thin sliver of shadowed area of moon is visible on its right side.

“It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface.”

Once EPIC begins regular observations next month, NASA will post daily color images of Earth to a dedicated public website. These images, showing different views of the planet as it rotates through the day, will be available 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired.

DSCOVR is a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the U.S. Air Force with the primary objective of maintaining the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Dawn Update (Sort Of)...

ESA / ATG medialab

Herschel Telescope Detects Water on Dwarf Planet (Press Release)

Scientists using the Herschel space observatory have made the first definitive detection of water vapor on the largest and roundest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres.

Plumes of water vapor are thought to shoot up periodically from Ceres when portions of its icy surface warm slightly. Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet, a solar system body bigger than an asteroid and smaller than a planet.

Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with important NASA contributions.

"This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere," said Michael Küppers of ESA in Spain, lead author of a paper in the journal Nature.

The results come at the right time for NASA's Dawn mission, which is on its way to Ceres now after spending more than a year orbiting the large asteroid Vesta. Dawn is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in the spring of 2015, where it will take the closest look ever at its surface.

"We've got a spacecraft on the way to Ceres, so we don't have to wait long before getting more context on this intriguing result, right from the source itself," said Carol Raymond, the deputy principal investigator for Dawn at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Dawn will map the geology and chemistry of the surface in high resolution, revealing the processes that drive the outgassing activity."

For the last century, Ceres was known as the largest asteroid in our solar system. But in 2006, the International Astronomical Union, the governing organization responsible for naming planetary objects, reclassified Ceres as a dwarf planet because of its large size. It is roughly 590 miles (950 kilometers) in diameter. When it first was spotted in 1801, astronomers thought it was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Later, other cosmic bodies with similar orbits were found, marking the discovery of our solar system's main belt of asteroids.

Scientists believe Ceres contains rock in its interior with a thick mantle of ice that, if melted, would amount to more fresh water than is present on all of Earth. The materials making up Ceres likely date from the first few million years of our solar system's existence and accumulated before the planets formed.

Until now, ice had been theorized to exist on Ceres but had not been detected conclusively. It took Herschel's far-infrared vision to see, finally, a clear spectral signature of the water vapor. But Herschel did not see water vapor every time it looked. While the telescope spied water vapor four different times, on one occasion there was no signature.

Here is what scientists think is happening: when Ceres swings through the part of its orbit that is closer to the sun, a portion of its icy surface becomes warm enough to cause water vapor to escape in plumes at a rate of about 6 kilograms (13 pounds) per second. When Ceres is in the colder part of its orbit, no water escapes.

The strength of the signal also varied over hours, weeks and months, because of the water vapor plumes rotating in and out of Herschel's views as the object spun on its axis. This enabled the scientists to localize the source of water to two darker spots on the surface of Ceres, previously seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. The dark spots might be more likely to outgas because dark material warms faster than light material. When the Dawn spacecraft arrives at Ceres, it will be able to investigate these features.

The results are somewhat unexpected because comets, the icier cousins of asteroids, are known typically to sprout jets and plumes, while objects in the asteroid belt are not.

"The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids," said Seungwon Lee of JPL, who helped with the water vapor models along with Paul von Allmen, also of JPL. "We knew before about main belt asteroids that show comet-like activity, but this is the first detection of water vapor in an asteroid-like object."

The research is part of the Measurements of 11 Asteroids and Comets Using Herschel (MACH-11) program, which used Herschel to look at small bodies that have been or will be visited by spacecraft, including the targets of NASA's previous Deep Impact mission and upcoming Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex). Laurence O' Rourke of the European Space Agency is the principal investigator of the MACH-11 program.

Herschel is a European Space Agency mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. While the observatory stopped making science observations in April 2013, after running out of liquid coolant, as expected, scientists continue to analyze its data. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community.

Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

The End of Deep Impact

NASA / JPL

Overlooking the fact I was annoyed that a CD bearing the names of 625,000 people (including mine) was only placed on the so-called Impactor that smashed into a comet in 2005, it's still sad to see a prolific mission like Deep Impact finally come to an end. Oh well— It's not like it runs the risk of being intentionally rammed into an asteroid or something... Thanks NASA.

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NASA's Deep Space Comet Hunter Mission Comes to an End (Press Release - September 20)

PASADENA, Calif. - After almost 9 years in space that included an unprecedented July 4th impact and subsequent flyby of a comet, an additional comet flyby, and the return of approximately 500,000 images of celestial objects, NASA's Deep Impact mission has ended.

The project team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has reluctantly pronounced the mission at an end after being unable to communicate with the spacecraft for over a month. The last communication with the probe was Aug. 8. Deep Impact was history's most traveled comet research mission, going about 4.7 billion miles (7.58 billion kilometers).

"Deep Impact has been a fantastic, long-lasting spacecraft that has produced far more data than we had planned," said Mike A'Hearn, the Deep Impact principal investigator at the University of Maryland in College Park. "It has revolutionized our understanding of comets and their activity."

Deep Impact successfully completed its original bold mission of six months in 2005 to investigate both the surface and interior composition of a comet, and a subsequent extended mission of another comet flyby and observations of planets around other stars that lasted from July 2007 to December 2010. Since then, the spacecraft has been continually used as a space-borne planetary observatory to capture images and other scientific data on several targets of opportunity with its telescopes and instrumentation.

Launched in January 2005, the spacecraft first traveled about 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) to the vicinity of comet Tempel 1. On July 3, 2005, the spacecraft deployed an impactor into the path of comet to essentially be run over by its nucleus on July 4. This caused material from below the comet's surface to be blasted out into space where it could be examined by the telescopes and instrumentation of the flyby spacecraft. Sixteen days after that comet encounter, the Deep Impact team placed the spacecraft on a trajectory to fly back past Earth in late December 2007 to put it on course to encounter another comet, Hartley 2 in November 2010.

"Six months after launch, this spacecraft had already completed its planned mission to study comet Tempel 1," said Tim Larson, project manager of Deep Impact at JPL. "But the science team kept finding interesting things to do, and through the ingenuity of our mission team and navigators and support of NASA's Discovery Program, this spacecraft kept it up for more than eight years, producing amazing results all along the way."

The spacecraft's extended mission culminated in the successful flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010. Along the way, it also observed six different stars to confirm the motion of planets orbiting them, and took images and data of Earth, the moon and Mars. These data helped to confirm the existence of water on the moon, and attempted to confirm the methane signature in the atmosphere of Mars. One sequence of images is a breathtaking view of the moon transiting across the face of Earth.

In January 2012, Deep Impact performed imaging and accessed the composition of distant comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd). It took images of comet ISON this year and collected early images of ISON in June.

After losing contact with the spacecraft last month, mission controllers spent several weeks trying to uplink commands to reactivate its onboard systems. Although the exact cause of the loss is not known, analysis has uncovered a potential problem with computer time tagging that could have led to loss of control for Deep Impact's orientation. That would then affect the positioning of its radio antennas, making communication difficult, as well as its solar arrays, which would in turn prevent the spacecraft from getting power and allow cold temperatures to ruin onboard equipment, essentially freezing its battery and propulsion systems.

"Despite this unexpected final curtain call, Deep Impact already achieved much more than ever was envisioned," said Lindley Johnson, the Discovery Program Executive at NASA Headquarters, and the Program Executive for the mission since a year before it launched. "Deep Impact has completely overturned what we thought we knew about comets and also provided a treasure trove of additional planetary science that will be the source data of research for years to come."

The mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. JPL manages the Deep Impact mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL - Caltech / UMD

NASA / Tony Gray

WHY I’M GLAD THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM IS NO MORE... Earlier today, the orbiter Atlantis safely touched down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida...officially ending a 30-year-old program that resulted in the launch of great observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the creation of a giant orbiting research outpost known as the International Space Station (ISS). While there are lots of folks out there who think that the space shuttles could’ve safely flown for many more years to come (which they most likely could have), I’m glad the program has ended. I’d prefer if people debate on how many more useful years the shuttles have than actually risk losing another of these amazing vehicles in an accident that would obviously conclude the program in a tragic and disgraceful note. But there are other reasons why I’m glad the space shuttle is now fully retired.

I’ve been interested in the space program since 4th grade. I’ve been interested in movies for just as long—with me growing an interest in filmmaking after drawing storyboards for my own submarine thriller upon watching The Hunt for Red October at the theater in 1990 (when I was also in 4th grade). It was filmmaking I pursued in college...and it was between early 2003 and mid-2005 (from the time I was in film school at Cal State Long Beach to me starting a cool 1-year employment gig at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood) that my interest in the movie industry was at its strongest. I worked on various short films, wrote feature-length screenplays, edited videos (on Final Cut Pro, but mostly on Windows Movie Maker, heh) that I shot using my old Fujifilm still digital camera and even worked on another short film that starred a gangsta rapper one of my college classmates knew. I got my first real job in the entertainment industry in October 2004 before starting work at Paramount Pictures in July of 2005. (Sorry to toot my own horn like that...just trying to make a point.) The reason why I could completely focus on my work in the entertainment industry at this time is because there was nothing major happening in the space program between early 2003 and mid-2005—due to the 2-year hiatus caused by the space shuttle Columbia disaster.

Sure, there were the Spirit and Opportunity rovers launching towards Mars in 2003, me submitting my name that same year to fly on the Deep Impact spacecraft to Comet Tempel 1 in 2005, Spirit and Opportunity landing on Mars in early 2004 and the Cassini spacecraft entering orbit around Saturn in July of 2004...but these awesome unmanned missions still didn’t attract my interest as strongly as watching 7 astronauts suit up and soar to the ISS or HST on a technological marvel like the space shuttle. I was on the computer watching NASA TV when Cassini did its Saturn Orbit Insertion Maneuver, and cut out practically every newspaper article there was about the Mars rovers. But it's human spaceflight that had the greatest impact on me.

Slowly but surely, my interest in the space program started to outgrow my passion for moviemaking in mid-to-late 2005. The launch of space shuttle Discovery on STS-114 (the first flight since the Columbia accident) in July of 2005 was an exciting time—but I started my job at Paramount Pictures that same month and wasn’t totally distracted by the Return To Flight mission then. My interest in space exploration quadrupled upon learning in late September of 2005 that I could’ve had my name fly to Pluto onboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft [I missed the opportunity by about two weeks...and grew obsessed with searching for the next robotic space mission that I could have my moniker on (which would be the Dawn spacecraft before it traveled to asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres)]. But what really diverted my focus away from nurturing my film career was the space shuttle officially resuming flight operations in the summer of 2006...when Discovery flew on the STS-121 mission. The countdown clock at the very top of this Blog was born in the days leading up to the launch of STS-121...and if you visit my archive section for July 2006 and onward, then you’ll see that the number of posts I made about spaceflight exploded tremendously once NASA was back to work constructing the ISS (starting with STS-115).

So almost 6 years after Discovery’s launch on STS-114, the space shuttle program is now a thing of the past. After half a decade of keeping track of ISS assembly missions, now is the time to get back to focusing on my film career (which has stagnated considerably). Sure, I’ll still be distracted by upcoming robotic missions such as Juno (which launches to Jupiter next month), GRAIL (which launches to the Moon in September) and the Curiosity Mars rover (which launches to the Red Planet in November), but hopefully there won’t be anymore space-related events that preoccupied me as much as shuttle flights did. NASA’s Space Launch System is scheduled to lift off for the first time in 2016 (don’t hold your breath, though)...with the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle along with it. So for the next five years presumably, I can focus on pursuing and advancing my career in an industry I wanted to be part of since watching a Tom Clancy novel-inspired submarine thriller on the big screen in 1990. Hopefully. Not to sound selfish—but human spaceflight's uncertain future in this country may be a blessing for me, personally. That is all.

NASA


PERSONALLY SPEAKING, I'm hoping it's the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) that gets chosen in 2016... This mission definitely intrigues me.

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NASA Selects Investigations for Future Key Missions (Press Release)

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn's moons; or study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., would lead the Mars investigation.

Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission's concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in June 2010. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 28 submissions. The selected investigations could reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes. Three technology developments for possible future planetary missions also were selected.

"NASA continues to do extraordinary science that is re-writing textbooks," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Missions like these hold great promise to vastly increase our knowledge, extend our reach into the solar system and inspire future generations of explorers."

The planetary missions selected to pursue preliminary design studies are:

-- Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) would study the structure and composition of the interior of Mars and advance understanding of the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets. Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is principal investigator. JPL would manage the project.

The proposed Mars lander would carry three experiments. A seismometer for measuring Mars quakes would yield knowledge about interior materials from the crust to the core. A thermal probe beneath the surface would monitor heat flow from the planet's interior. Radio capability for Doppler tracking of tiny variations in the planet's wobble would provide information about the size and nature of the core. Understanding more about the deep interior of another planet would enable important new comparisons with what is known about Earth's interior.

"We want to know more about how the pieces that formed planets came together in the first place, and about the changes that took place afterwards," Banerdt said. "This would be a mission to understand the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets."

-- Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would provide the first direct exploration of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., is principal investigator. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., would manage the project.

-- Comet Hopper would study cometary evolution by landing on a comet multiple times and observing its changes as it interacts with the sun. Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland in College Park is principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., would manage the project.

"This is high science return at a price that's right," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "The selected studies clearly demonstrate a new era with missions that all touch their targets to perform unique and exciting science."

The three selected technology development proposals will expand the ability to catalog near-Earth objects, or NEOs; enhance the capability to determine the composition of comet ices; and validate a new method to reveal the population of objects in the poorly understood, far-distant part of our solar system. During the next several years, selected teams will receive funding that is determined through contract negotiations to bring their respective technologies to a higher level of readiness. To be considered for flight, teams must demonstrate progress in a future mission proposal competition.

The proposals selected for technology development are:

-- NEOCam would develop a telescope to study the origin and evolution of near-Earth Objects and study the present risk of Earth-impact. It would generate a catalog of objects and accurate infrared measurements to provide a better understanding of small bodies that cross our planet's orbit. Amy Mainzer of JPL is principal investigator.

A space-based telescope, NEOCam would be positioned in a location about four times the distance between Earth and the moon. From this lofty perch, NEOCam could observe the comings and goings of NEOs every day without the impediments to efficient observing like cloud cover and even daylight. The location in space NEOCam would inhabit is also important, because it allows the monitoring of areas of the sky generally inaccessible to ground-based surveys.

"Near-Earth objects are some of the most bountiful, intriguing and least understood of Earth's neighbors," said Amy Mainzer. "With NEOCam, we would get to know these solar system nomads in greater detail."

-- Primitive Material Explorer (PriME) would develop a mass spectrometer that would provide highly precise measurements of the chemical composition of a comet and explore the objects' role in delivering volatiles to Earth. Anita Cochran of the University of Texas in Austin is principal investigator.

-- Whipple: Reaching into the Outer Solar System would develop and validate a technique called blind occultation that could lead to the discovery of various celestial objects in the outer solar system and revolutionize our understanding of the area's structure. Charles Alcock of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., is principal investigator.

Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent, cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals. The program's 11 missions include MESSENGER, Dawn, Stardust, Deep Impact and Genesis. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

****


NASA

PHOTOS OF THE DAY... In case you wanted to know how huge of an obsessive space nerd I am, here are the latest (or oldest) evidence of that. Ever since I was in 4th grade (back in um, 1989-90), I would cut out practically every space-related article from a newspaper (specifically the Los Angeles Times, since I live in SoCal) and put them in plastic report covers I bought at the local supermarket. My interest in the space program started in the 3rd grade, and increased dramatically around August 25, 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune and its icy moon Triton. During this flyby, I would get up early in the morning and see a photo that Voyager 2 took of the giant gas planet and its main satellite on the front page of the L.A. Times almost every day during the following week. In the photos above is the very first album (I don’t want to call it a scrapbook, despite the fact the latest albums are entitled The Space Scrapbook, haha) I worked on. As you can see, it was actually autographed by someone who worked at NASA. He visited my elementary school and gave a presentation to the entire student body when I was in 6th grade back in 1992.





As you can see below, I also did an album (back in 5th grade, I think. Or maybe it was 7th grade?) on the Persian Gulf War (the first one in 1991, that is) and the U.S. involvement in Somalia (also in ’91). Yep, I’m a space/tech/war nut who has lots of free time on my hands...especially since last January. That is all.

TitanFan - NASASpaceflight.com

IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN... After having my name successfully fly into space onboard the Cassini Saturn orbiter, Deep Impact’s "impactor", the Phoenix Mars Lander, Japan’s Kaguya lunar spacecraft, the Dawn space probe, the Kepler telescope, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Japan’s IKAROS solar sail and the Akatsuki spacecraft (even though it failed to enter Venus’ orbit last December), it was inevitable that my name would fail to soar beyond Earth (again) onboard a future space mission. Turns out— Glory was that mission. Much like what happened during the launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) in 2009, the payload fairing that encapsulated Glory onboard the Taurus XL rocket (which was also used by OCO) failed to separate during flight this morning, preventing the vehicle from gaining sufficient speed to reach Earth orbit...and causing another NASA climate-observing satellite to find its final resting spot at the bottom of the south Pacific Ocean. Awesome. A microchip bearing my name, along with that of 243,200 others, is now—to borrow a line from Godfather: Part 1—sleeping with the fishes. Oh well.



This isn’t the first spacecraft with my name on it to end up underwater. My name was also onboard Russia’s Mars ’96 lander...which also plunged into the Pacific Ocean after experiencing a launch mishap 15 years ago. Spaceflight is definitely risky business. My apologies to the Glory mission team who has to suffer through this devastating setback and the Orbital Sciences team (who was responsible for the Taurus XL) who spent the last 2 years trying to fix the payload fairing issue. That is all.


NASA

PHOTO OF THE DAY... The image below is of Comet Hartley 2, whose nucleus NASA’s EPOXI spacecraft (formerly known as Deep Impact) flew within 435 miles of at around 7 AM Pacific Daylight Time today. Deep Impact, FYI, was the spacecraft that released an ‘Impactor’ (which contained a CD bearing the names of 625,000 people...including that of Yours Truly) which smashed into the nucleus of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. For more info on today’s successful flyby, click here.


NASA / JPL - Caltech / UMD

Just when I thought I wouldn’t be turning my journal page into a mini-version of Space.com, I read an interesting (err, to me at least...but then that's why I'm posting an entry about this on my very own websi— Ahh, forget it) article about engineers being one step closer towards preparing the first-ever spacecraft to fly towards the ninth planet in the solar system: Mustafar. Just kidding... I meant Pluto. Mustafar is that volcanic world in Revenge of the Sith (Just felt like nerding up this entry even more, haha). For more info on the New Horizons spacecraft, click on the link I posted above. Other than that, have a nice day. Or evening. Wherever you live.


For additional info, go to the New Horizons website

EDIT: WARNING: A GEEK RANT... Well son-of-a-b****!!! I just found out on the New Horizons website that people could've submitted their names to be put on a compact disc that will be installed on the spacecraft. And the contest is already over (it ended on September 15)!! Darn!! My name could've went to Mustafar--err, Pluto!! That definitely beats having my name vaporized by some comet!! I also submitted my name to be put on the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn, but I don't know if my name was indeed placed on a CD that was attached to that probe (since the Cassini contest took place in 1992-93, and you couldn't download an online certificate confirming that your name was submitted during that time, which you could now do with the Deep Impact and New Horizons missions), and it's inevitable that Cassini will eventually be destroyed by crashing into one of Saturn's moons in the future, or if NASA deliberately sends the probe into the planet's atmosphere to burn up and be destroyed a la Galileo at Jupiter and Magellan at Venus. At least New Horizons will fly on forever like the distant Pioneer or Voyager spacecraft...assuming it doesn't fly into a star millions of years from now. Again, darn!! For those of you who actually submitted your names to the New Horizons contest, click here to look them up. DARN!! I'm a lot more disappointed than I sound.

BELOW: A DVD bearing 616,420 digitized signatures of people from nations around the world that was attached to the Cassini spacecraft. My signature is among them...err, hopefully.




EDIT #2: I bought the Explore the Universe 2006 Collector's Edition of Astronomy magazine on October 7 (you thought I was done talking like a nerd? I don't think so), and at the end of the "Cassini's 4-year Odyssey" article, the writer (John Shibley) also states that Cassini will be sent into Saturn's atmosphere many years from now for final destruction....so as not to contaminate any of the planet's moons should the probe crash into 'em. NOOOO!!




ABOVE: No, this pic isn't Photoshopped. The Cassini space probe actually took this image of the moon Dione with Saturn in the background. Click here for more news on the mission.



ABOVE: The Voyager spacecraft... Now these are the space probes to have your name on, considering they're both at least ten years away from entering interstellar space (Has anyone seen my pocket protector?). Image courtesy of JPL's Voyager website.



ABOVE: And don't forget about Pioneers' 10 and 11. Pioneer 10 will reach the red star Aldebaran—which forms the eye of the constellation Taurus (The Bull)—about 2 million years from now, while Pioneer 11 will reach one of the stars in the constellation Aquila (The Eagle) in about 4 million years.



ABOVE: The Dawn spacecraft...which is scheduled for launch on June 30, 2007 and will arrive at the asteroid Vesta in 2011 and then dwarf planet Ceres in 2015.

EDIT #3: The two photos below show the Send Your Name CD being installed onto Deep Impact's Impactor...but that doesn't take away from the fact that this CD no longer exists. And if it does, it's now in the forms of millions of atomized particles.




BELOW: The Deep Impact flyby spacecraft is about to be mated with the Impactor (resting on the floor).

HAPPY 4th OF JULY, EVERYONE!! Around 11 PM Pacific Standard Time last night, the "Impactor" released from the Deep Impact spacecraft struck Comet Tempel 1, which marked the first time a manmade object touched the surface of a comet (that sounds kinda...sexual, does it? Or is my mind that corrupted?). I'd be thrilled, if I wasn't bummed out on the fact that a compact disc bearing my name, and 625,000 others (click here to read more about that), wasn't vaporized along with the Impactor. Oh well. In other space news, Discovery is only nine days away from marking the space shuttle's return to space. "Woohoo!" if you're a geek and "Blah" if you're not. Guess which one I am. (Actually, don't answer that.) Click here to read an earlier rant I had about my name being torn into millions of pieces in space, hahaha.

WOOHOO! My name is going to be vaporized in outer space!! I was being sarcastic with the "woohoo", by the way. A Delta II rocket carrying the Deep Impact spacecraft was launched from Florida today, and the spacecraft is scheduled to fly to a comet known as Tempel 1, where the probe will release a small projectile that will collide with the comet this July 4 and (supposedly) cause a crater that will be studied by the spacecraft and telescopes here on Earth. I'd say this was a cool mission, since a compact disc bearing the names of thousands of people (Yours Truly included, as well as other people I know personally whose names I submitted without them knowing. Haha) has been flown on Deep Impact (click here to look up names). But guess what? The CD has been attached to the projectile (known as the Impactor) itself, not the spacecraft! And according to this CNN.com article, the Impactor will hit the comet's surface at 23,000 MPH...meaning that the Impactor will obviously be pulverized when it hits the icy body! The heck?? Why couldn't the CD be attached to the spacecraft itself?? I wonder if that was the catch by NASA: They'll send something bearing your name into outer space, but that object can't survive in space for too long. You guys blow!!

On the other hand, I also submitted by name to NASA more than ten years ago to be put on a CD that is on the Cassini spacecraft, which is currently orbiting Saturn (I submitted a postcard with my name written on it). So until Cassini is directed by flight controllers to burn up in Saturn's atmosphere or collide with a moon once its mission is complete, my name will still be intact in the heavens (nice wording, eh?). I guess NASA doesn't blow, afterall. No wait, I didn't get a certificate confirming that my name has indeed been included on the CD. NASA still blows.