LRO Update: A New Discovery Is Made Beneath the Surface of the Moon...

NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

Radar Points to Moon Being More Metallic Than Researchers Thought (News Release - July 1)

What started out as a hunt for ice lurking in polar lunar craters turned into an unexpected finding that could help clear some muddy history about the Moon’s formation.

Team members of the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft found new evidence that the Moon’s subsurface might be richer in metals, like iron and titanium, than researchers thought. That finding, published July 1 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, could aid in drawing a clearer connection between Earth and the Moon.

“The LRO mission and its radar instrument continue to surprise us with new insights about the origins and complexity of our nearest neighbor,” said Wes Patterson, Mini-RF principal investigator from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and a study coauthor.

Substantial evidence points to the Moon as the product of a collision between a Mars-sized protoplanet and young Earth, forming from the gravitational collapse of the remaining cloud of debris. Consequently, the Moon’s bulk chemical composition closely resembles that of Earth.

Look in detail at the Moon’s chemical composition, however, and that story turns murky. For example, in the bright plains of the Moon’s surface, called the lunar highlands, rocks contain smaller amounts of metal-bearing minerals relative to Earth. That finding might be explained if Earth had fully differentiated into a core, mantle and crust before the impact, leaving the Moon largely metal-poor. But turn to the Moon’s maria — the large, darker plains — and the metal abundance becomes richer than that of many rocks on Earth.

This discrepancy has puzzled scientists, leading to numerous questions and hypotheses regarding how much the impacting protoplanet may have contributed to the differences. The Mini-RF team found a curious pattern that could lead to an answer.

Using Mini-RF, the researchers sought to measure an electrical property within lunar soil piled on crater floors in the Moon’s northern hemisphere. This electrical property is known as the dielectric constant, a number that compares the relative abilities of a material and the vacuum of space to transmit electric fields, and could help locate ice lurking in the crater shadows. The team, however, noticed this property increasing with crater size.

For craters approximately 1 to 3 miles (2 to 5 kilometers) wide, the dielectric constant of the material steadily increased as the craters grew larger, but for craters 3 to 12 miles (5 to 20 kilometers) wide, the property remained constant.

“It was a surprising relationship that we had no reason to believe would exist,” said Essam Heggy, coinvestigator of the Mini-RF experiments from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and lead author of the published paper.

Discovery of this pattern opened a door to a new possibility. Because meteors that form larger craters also dig deeper into the Moon’s subsurface, the team reasoned that the increasing dielectric constant of the dust in larger craters could be the result of meteors excavating iron and titanium oxides that lie below the surface. Dielectric properties are directly linked to the concentration of these metal minerals.

If their hypothesis were true, it would mean only the first few hundred meters of the Moon’s surface is scant in iron and titanium oxides, but below the surface, there’s a steady increase to a rich and unexpected bonanza.

Comparing crater floor radar images from Mini-RF with metal oxide maps from the LRO Wide-Angle Camera, Japan’s Kaguya mission and NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft, the team found exactly what it had suspected. The larger craters, with their increased dielectric material, were also richer in metals, suggesting that more iron and titanium oxides had been excavated from the depths of 0.3 to 1 mile (0.5 to 2 kilometers) than from the upper 0.1 to 0.3 miles (0.2 to 0.5 kilometers) of the lunar subsurface.

“This exciting result from Mini-RF shows that even after 11 years in operation at the Moon, we are still making new discoveries about the ancient history of our nearest neighbor,” said Noah Petro, the LRO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The MINI-RF data is incredibly valuable for telling us about the properties of the lunar surface, but we use that data to infer what was happening over 4.5 billion years ago!”

These results follow recent evidence from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission that suggests a significant mass of dense material exists just a few tens to hundreds of kilometers beneath the Moon’s enormous South Pole-Aitken basin, indicating that dense materials aren’t uniformly distributed in the Moon’s subsurface.

The team emphasizes that the new study can’t directly answer the outstanding questions about the Moon’s formation, but it does reduce the uncertainty in the distribution of iron and titanium oxides in the lunar subsurface and provide critical evidence needed to better understand the Moon’s formation and its connection to Earth.

“It really raises the question of what this means for our previous formation hypotheses,” Heggy said.

Anxious to uncover more, the researchers have already started examining crater floors in the Moon’s southern hemisphere to see if the same trends exist there.

LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Mini-RF was designed, built and tested by a team led by APL, Naval Air Warfare Center, Sandia National Laboratories, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

Source: NASA.Gov

The Final Resting Place for Israel's First Moon Lander Is Spotted from Lunar Orbit...

NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

Beresheet Impact Site Spotted (News Release)

The photo above shows the landing site of the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft on a region of the Moon called Sea of Serenity, or Mare Serenitatis in Latin. On April 11, 2019, SpaceIL, a non-profit organization, attempted to land its spacecraft in this ancient volcanic field on the nearside of the Moon. After a smooth initial descent, Beresheet made a hard landing on the surface.

As soon as its orbit placed NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) over the landing site on April 22, 2019, LRO imaged Beresheet’s impact site. The LRO Camera (LROC) consists of three imagers: a seven-color Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and two black-and-white Narrow Angle Cameras (NAC) mounted on the LRO, which has been studying the Moon from orbit for a decade. NAC captured the Beresheet impact photo.


NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

LROC took this image from 56 miles (90 kilometers) above the surface. The cameras captured a dark smudge, about 10 meters wide, that indicates the point of impact. The dark tone suggests a surface roughened by the hard landing, which is less reflective than a clean, smooth surface.

From so far away, LROC could not detect whether Beresheet formed a surface crater upon impact. It’s possible the crater is just too small to show up in photos. Another possibility is that Beresheet formed a small indent instead of a crater, given its low angle of approach (around 8.4 degrees relative to the surface), light mass (compared to a dense meteoroid of the same size), and low velocity (again, relative to a meteoroid of the same size; Beresheet’s speed was still faster than most speeding bullets).

The light halo around the smudge could have formed from gas associated with the impact or from fine soil particles blown outward during Beresheet’s descent, which smoothed out the soil around the landing site, making it highly reflective.

There are many clues that we’re actually looking at a man-made crater instead of a meteoroid-caused one. This is an important consideration, since the Moon, having no atmosphere, is constantly bombarded by space rocks that leave craters.

Most importantly, we knew the coordinates of the landing site within a few miles thanks to radio tracking of Beresheet, and we have 11 “before” images of the area, spanning a decade, and three “after” images. In all of these images, including one taken 16 days before the landing, we saw only one new feature of the size Beresheet would have created.

Existing mathematical models helped us estimate the size and shape of the crater that would have formed if an object of Beresheet’s mass and velocity struck the surface. We also referenced craters created by similar-size spacecraft (GRAIL, LADEE, Ranger) that have struck the Moon at about the same speed, and we saw that the white tail stretching from the landing halo towards the south is a shape that’s consistent with Beresheet’s southward descent trajectory and angle of approach.

For the before image below, we used a photo from December 16, 2016. This is because the lighting conditions that day, based on the angle at which the Sun would have illuminated the Moon at that particular time in its orbit, were the most similar to the April 22 image. Because LRO was beyond the horizon during Beresheet’s descent and landing, it couldn’t capture a photo until its orbit brought it nearby 11 days later. LRO passes over the lunar poles with each revolution. Meanwhile, the Moon rotates on its axis below the spacecraft, allowing LRO to pass over every part of the Moon twice a month (once during lunar night and once during lunar day). LROC may take more images of the landing site when it passes the same area again on May 19.

Efforts are ongoing to bounce laser pulses from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, also on board LRO, to measure the return from the Laser Retroreflector Array of small corner cube mirrors. This instrument was provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and was installed on the top deck of the Beresheet spacecraft. Attempts are ongoing to examine if the retroreflector may have survived the impact.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

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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More Info on the Lucy Mission...

Southwest Research Institute

Lockheed Martin to Build NASA's Lucy Spacecraft, a Mission to Trojan Asteroids (Press Release)

NASA's Newest Discovery Mission to Study Asteroids Orbiting with Jupiter

DENVER, Jan. 5, 2017 -- Lockheed Martin has been selected to design, build and operate the spacecraft for NASA's Lucy mission. One of NASA's two new Discovery Program missions, Lucy will perform the first reconnaissance of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids orbiting the sun in tandem with the gas giant. The Lucy spacecraft will launch in 2021 to study six of these exciting worlds.

The mission is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland will manage the mission. The program has a development cost cap of about $450 million.

"This is a thrilling mission as the Jupiter Trojan asteroids have never been studied up close," said Guy Beutelschies, director of Interplanetary Systems at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. "The design of the spacecraft draws from the flight-proven OSIRIS-REx spacecraft currently on its way to a near-Earth asteroid. This heritage of spacecraft and mission operations brings known performance, reliability and cost to the mission."

Lucy will study the geology, surface composition and bulk physical properties of these bodies at close range. It's slated to arrive at its first destination, a main belt asteroid, in 2025. From 2027 to 2033, Lucy will explore six Jupiter Trojan asteroids. These asteroids are trapped by Jupiter's gravity in two swarms that share the planet's orbit, one leading and one trailing Jupiter in its 12-year circuit around the sun. The Trojans are thought to be relics of a much earlier era in the history of the solar system, and may have formed far beyond Jupiter's current orbit.

"This is a unique opportunity," said Dr. Levison. "Because the Trojans are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system. Lucy, like the human fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins."

Lucy is the seventh NASA Discovery Program mission in which Lockheed Martin has participated. Previously, the company developed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft; developed the aeroshell entry system for Mars Pathfinder; developed and operated the spacecraft for both Stardust missions; developed and operated the Genesis spacecraft; developed and operated the two GRAIL spacecraft; and developed and will operate the InSight Mars lander set to launch in May 2018.

NASA's Discovery program class missions are relatively low-cost, their development capped at a specific cost. They are managed for NASA's Planetary Science Division by the Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The missions are designed and led by a principal investigator, who assembles a team of scientists and engineers, to address key science questions about the solar system.

Source: Lockheed Martin

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

NASA / GSFC / ASU

Ebb and Flow's Final Resting Places...

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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Sees GRAIL's Explosive Farewell (Press Release - March 19)

Many spacecraft just fade away, drifting silently through space after their mission is over, but not GRAIL. NASA's twin GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) spacecraft went out in a blaze of glory on Dec. 17, 2012, when they were intentionally crashed into a mountain near the moon's north pole.

The successful mission to study the moon's interior took the plunge to get one last bit of science: with the spacecraft kicking up a cloud of dust and gas with each impact, researchers hoped to discover more about the moon's composition. However, with the moon about 380,000 kilometers (over 236,000 miles) away from Earth, the impact plumes would be difficult to observe from here. Fortunately, GRAIL had company. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is orbiting the moon as well, busily making high-resolution maps of the lunar surface. With just three weeks notice, the LRO team scrambled to get their orbiter in the right place at the right time to witness GRAIL's fiery finale.

"We were informed by the GRAIL team about three weeks prior to the impact exactly where the impact site would be," said LRO Project Scientist John Keller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The GRAIL team's focus was on obtaining the highest-resolution gravity measurements possible from the last few orbits of the GRAIL spacecraft, which led to uncertainty in the ultimate impact site until relatively late."

LRO was only about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar surface at the time of the impact, and variations in gravity from massive features like lunar mountains tugged on the spacecraft, altering its orbit.

The site was in shadow at the time of the impact, so the LRO team had to wait until the plumes rose high enough to be in sunlight before making the observation. The Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph on board the spacecraft, saw mercury and enhancements of atomic hydrogen in the plume.

"The mercury observation is consistent with what the LRO team saw from the LCROSS impact in October 2009," said Keller. "LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) saw significant amounts of mercury, but the LCROSS site was at the bottom of the moon's Cabeus crater, which hasn't seen sunlight for more than a billion years and is therefore extremely cold."

LRO's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was able to make an image of the craters from the GRAIL impacts despite their relatively small size.

The two spacecraft were relatively small -- cubes about the size of a washing machine with a mass of about 200 kilograms (440 pounds) each at the time of impact. The spacecraft were traveling about 3,800 mph (6,100 kilometers per hour) when they hit the surface.

"Both craters are relatively small, perhaps 4 to 6 meters (about 13 to 20 feet) in diameter and both have faint, dark, ejecta patterns, which is unusual," said Mark Robinson, LROC principal investigator at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Sciences, Tempe, Ariz. "Fresh impact craters on the moon are typically bright, but these may be dark due to spacecraft material being mixed with the ejecta."

"Both impact sites lie on the southern slope of an unnamed massif [mountain] that lies south of the crater Mouchez and northeast of the crater Philolaus," said Robinson. "The massif stands as much as 2,500 meters [about 8,202 feet] above the surrounding plains. The impact sites are at an elevation of about 700 meters [around 2,296 feet] and 1,000 meters [3,281 feet], respectively, about 500 to 800 meters [approximately 1,640 to 2,625 feet] below the summit. The two impact craters are about 2,200 meters [roughly 7,218 feet] apart. GRAIL B [renamed Flow] impacted about 30 seconds after GRAIL A [Ebb] at a site to the west and north of GRAIL A."

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter complemented the GRAIL mission in other ways as well. LRO's Diviner lunar radiometer observed the impact site and confirmed that the amount of heating of the surface there by the relatively small GRAIL spacecraft was within expectations. LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument bounced laser pulses off the surface to build up a precise map of the lunar terrain, including the three-dimensional structure of features like mountains and craters.

"Combining the LRO LOLA topography map with GRAIL's gravity map yields some very interesting results," said Keller. "You expect that areas with mountains will have a little stronger gravity, while features like craters will have a little less. However, when you subtract out the topography, you get another map that reveals gravity differences that are not tied to the surface. It gives insight into structures deeper in the moon's interior."

JPL manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. GRAIL is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / JPL - Caltech / MIT

NASA / JPL - Caltech / MIT

Farewell, GRAIL...

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NASA's GRAIL Lunar Impact Site Named for Astronaut Sally Ride (Press Release)

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has named the site where twin agency spacecraft impacted the moon Monday in honor of the late astronaut Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space and a member of the probes' mission team.

Last Friday, Ebb and Flow, the two spacecraft comprising NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, were commanded to descend into a lower orbit that would result in an impact Monday on a mountain near the moon's north pole. The formation-flying duo hit the lunar surface as planned at 2:28:51 p.m. PST (5:28:51 p.m. EST) and 2:29:21 p.m. PST (5:29:21 p.m. EST) at a speed of 3,760 mph (1.7 kilometers per second). The location of the Sally K. Ride Impact Site is on the southern face of an approximately 1.5-mile-tall (2.5-kilometer) mountain near a crater named Goldschmidt.

"Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride's contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her."

The impact marked a successful end to the GRAIL mission, which was NASA's first planetary mission to carry cameras fully dedicated to education and public outreach. Ride, who died in July after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, led GRAIL's MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) Program through her company, Sally Ride Science, in San Diego.

Along with its primary science instrument, each spacecraft carried a MoonKAM camera that took more than 115,000 total images of the lunar surface. Imaging targets were proposed by middle school students from across the country and the resulting images returned for them to study. The names of the spacecraft were selected by Ride and the mission team from student submissions in a nationwide contest.

"Sally Ride worked tirelessly throughout her life to remind all of us, especially girls, to keep questioning and learning," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland. "Today her passion for making students part of NASA's science is honored by naming the impact site for her."

Fifty minutes prior to impact, the spacecraft fired their engines until the propellant was depleted. The maneuver was designed to determine precisely the amount of fuel remaining in the tanks. This will help NASA engineers validate computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.

"Ebb fired its engines for 4 minutes 3 seconds, and Flow fired its for 5 minutes 7 seconds," said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It was one final important set of data from a mission that was filled with great science and engineering data."

The mission team deduced that much of the material aboard each spacecraft was broken up in the energy released during the impacts. Most of what remained probably is buried in shallow craters. The craters' size may be determined when NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter returns images of the area in several weeks.

Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow had been orbiting the moon since Jan. 1, 2012. The probes intentionally were sent into the lunar surface because they did not have sufficient altitude or fuel to continue science operations. Their successful prime and extended science missions generated the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The map will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.

"We will miss our lunar twins, but the scientists tell me it will take years to analyze all the great data they got, and that is why we came to the moon in the first place," Lehman said. "So long, Ebb and Flow, and we thank you." JPL manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. GRAIL is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA

Happy New Year, Everyone! 2012 looks to be an action-packed year in terms of sports, movies, politics, space exploration and—if you’re gonna buy into the hype, the end of the world. With sports, you can look forward to the XXX Olympic Summer Games taking place in London. With movies, you have huge summer blockbusters such as The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers waiting to storm into your local theater...with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings follow-up, Part 1 of The Hobbit, storming cinemas this winter. Oh, and don’t forget that Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Titanic and Finding Nemo are returning to the multiplex as well, in 3-D. With politics, you have the U.S. presidential election taking place this November (we'll see if the slight improvements in the economy, the conclusion of the war in Iraq and last spring’s elimination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan will send Obama back to the White House).



With space exploration, you have SpaceX and a few other private companies finally launching commercially-made spacecraft into Earth orbit and to the International Space Station itself. Plus, the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia will finally receive the retired space shuttle Discovery in April while the California Science Center (in downtown Los Angeles...30 miles from where I currently live) will get Discovery’s sister ship Endeavour, also decommissioned, this August. Taking place in August as well will hopefully be the safe and successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.



I'm sure that all of you have things to look forward to this year as well (positive things—not Doomsday this December). Let them come to fruition. As for the Mayan calendar coming to an end on December 21: I hope it doesn't affect the box office take of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey too much...otherwise, Peter Jackson probably won’t be too thrilled. Just being facetious. That is all.



January 2012
-NASA's GRAIL-B spacecraft arrives at the Moon (Jan 1)
-BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans, Louisiana: LSU vs. Alabama (Jan 9)
-Contraband (Jan 13)
-Beauty and the Beast 3D (Jan 13)
-69th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Jan 15)
-Red Tails (Jan 20)
-Underworld: Awakening (Jan 20)
-The Grey (Jan 27)
-Near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros passes Earth at 16.6 million miles (Jan 31)



February 2012
-Super Bowl XLVI in Indiana (Feb 5)
- First flight of SpaceX’s Dragon ship to the International Space Station (Feb 7)
-Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D (Feb 10)
-Launch of Japan’s third H-2 Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station (Feb 18)
-54th Annual Grammy Awards (Feb 12)
-Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Feb 17)
-This Means War (Feb 17)
-54th annual Daytona 500 in Florida (Feb 26)
-2012 NBA All-Star Game in Orlando, Florida (Feb 26)
-84th Academy Awards (Feb 26)



March 2012
-Launch of Europe’s third Automated Transfer Vehicle, Edoardo Amaldi, to the International Space Station (Mar 7)
-John Carter (Mar 9)
-2012 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament begins with Opening Round Game (Mar 13)
-21 Jump Street (Mar 16)
-The Hunger Games (Mar 23)
-Conclusion of the March Madness tournament prior to the 2012 Final Four games in New Orleans (Mar 24)
-Wrath of the Titans (Mar 30)
-2012 NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in New Orleans, Louisiana (Mar 31)



April 2012
-NCAA Final Four Championship Game in New Orleans, Louisiana (Apr 2)
-American Reunion (Apr 6)
-Titanic 3D (Apr 6)
-Retired space shuttle Discovery is transported to Washington, D.C. for permanent museum display (Apr 12)
-The Three Stooges (Apr 13)
-Space shuttle prototype Enterprise is transported to New York City for permanent museum display (Apr 17)
-NFL Draft (Apr 26-28)



May 2012
-The Avengers (May 4)
-Battleship (May 18)
-Annular solar eclipse over the Pacific Ocean (May 20)
-Men in Black III (May 25)
-Start of the 2012 French Open tennis tournament (May 27)
-96th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (May 27)



June 2012
-The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century (Jun 6)
-Prometheus (Jun 8)
-Conclusion of the 2012 French Open (Jun 10)
-G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Jun 29)
-Start of the 2012 Tour de France (Jun 30)



July 2012
-The Amazing Spider-Man (Jul 3)
-2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Kansas City, Missouri (Jul 10)
-SpaceX’s Dragon ship launches cargo to the International Space Station (Jul 10)
-Start of the 2012 World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria (Jul 18)
-The Dark Knight Rises (Jul 20)
-Conclusion of the World Rowing Championships (Jul 21)
-Conclusion of the Tour de France (Jul 22)
-Opening Ceremony – XXX Olympic Summer Games of London (Jul 27)
-NASA’s Dawn spacecraft departs from asteroid Vesta and heads for dwarf planet Ceres (TBA)



August 2012
-The Bourne Legacy (Aug 3)
-Total Recall (Aug 3)
-Retired space shuttle Endeavour embarks on brief cross-country tour before arriving in Los Angeles for permanent museum display (Aug 4)
-NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover arrives at the Red Planet (Aug 5)
-Closing Ceremony – Olympic Summer Games (Aug 12)
-The Expendables 2 (Aug 17)



September 2012
-The 9/11 Memorial Museum is scheduled to open in New York City (Sep 11)
-Finding Nemo 3D (Sep 14)
-Resident Evil: Retribution (Sep 14)
-Dredd (Sep 21)



October 2012
-Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus freighter launches to the International Space Station (Oct 2)
-Taken 2 (Oct 5)
-Gangster Squad (Oct 19)



November 2012
-Red Dawn (Nov 2)
-United States presidential election (Nov 6)
-Skyfall (Nov 9)
-Total solar eclipse over Northern Australia and South Pacific (Nov 13)
-The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (Nov 16)



December 2012
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Dec 14)
-The Mayan Long Count calendar ends...a.k.a. Doomsday (Dec 21)
-World War Z (Dec 21)
-This is Forty (Dec 21)
-The Great Gatsby (Dec 25)
-The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires (Dec 31)

NASA / Kenny Allen

LUNAR-BOUND ONCE MORE...

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NASA Launches Mission to Study Moon From Crust to Core (Press Release)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's twin lunar Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:08 a.m. EDT (6:08 a.m. PDT) Saturday, Sept. 10, to study the moon in unprecedented detail.

GRAIL-A is scheduled to reach the moon on New Year's Eve 2011, while GRAIL-B will arrive New Year's Day 2012. The two solar-powered spacecraft will fly in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field. GRAIL will answer longstanding questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

"If there was ever any doubt that Florida's Space Coast would continue to be open for business, that thought was drowned out by the roar of today's GRAIL launch," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "GRAIL and many other exciting upcoming missions make clear that NASA is taking its next big leap into deep space exploration, and the space industry continues to provide the jobs and workers needed to support this critical effort."

The spacecraft were launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket. GRAIL mission controllers acquired a signal from GRAIL-A at 10:29 a.m. EDT (7:29 a.m. PDT). GRAIL-B's signal was received eight minutes later. The telemetry downlinked from both spacecraft indicates they have deployed their solar panels and are operating as expected.

"Our GRAIL twins have Earth in their rearview mirrors and the moon in their sights," said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The mission team is ready to test, analyze and fine-tune our spacecraft over the next three-and-a-half months on our journey to lunar orbit."

The straight-line distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles (402,336 kilometers). NASA's Apollo moon crews needed approximately three days to cover that distance. However, each spacecraft will take approximately 3.5 months and cover more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) to arrive. This low-energy trajectory results in the longer travel time. The size of the launch vehicle allows more time for spacecraft check-out and time to update plans for lunar operations. The science collection phase for GRAIL is expected to last 82 days.

"Since the earliest humans looked skyward, they have been fascinated by the moon," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "GRAIL will take lunar exploration to a new level, providing an unprecedented characterization of the moon's interior that will advance understanding of how the moon formed and evolved."

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the GRAIL mission. It is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / RocketCam / animation by Emily Lakdawalla

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / ASU

LRO UPDATE: NASA decides to talk about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission right before the twin GRAIL spacecraft dominate the news headlines later this week...

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NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites (Press Release)

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface.

At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior.

"We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the LRO project science team.

All three images show distinct trails left in the moon's thin soil when the astronauts exited the lunar modules and explored on foot. In the Apollo 17 image, the foot trails, including the last path made on the moon by humans, are easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar rover, which remains parked east of the lander.

"The new low-altitude Narrow Angle Camera images sharpen our view of the moon's surface," said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). "A great example is the sharpness of the rover tracks at the Apollo 17 site. In previous images the rover tracks were visible, but now they are sharp parallel lines on the surface."

At each site, trails also run to the west of the landers, where the astronauts placed the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) to monitor the moon's environment and interior.

This equipment was a key part of every Apollo mission. It provided the first insights into the moon's internal structure, measurements of the lunar surface pressure and the composition of its atmosphere. Apollo 11 carried a simpler version of the science package.

One of the details that shows up is a bright L-shape in the Apollo 12 image. It marks the locations of cables running from ALSEP's central station to two of its instruments. Although the cables are much too small for direct viewing, they show up because they reflect light very well.

The higher resolution of these images is possible because of adjustments made to LRO's orbit, which is slightly oval-shaped or elliptical. "Without changing the average altitude, we made the orbit more elliptical, so the lowest part of the orbit is on the sunlit side of the moon," said Goddard's John Keller, deputy LRO project scientist. "This put LRO in a perfect position to take these new pictures of the surface."

The maneuver lowered LRO from its usual altitude of approximately 31 miles (50 kilometers) to an altitude that dipped as low as nearly 13 miles (21 kilometers) as it passed over the moon's surface. The spacecraft has remained in this orbit for 28 days, long enough for the moon to completely rotate. This allows full coverage of the surface by LROC's Wide Angle Camera. The cycle ends today when the spacecraft will be returned to its 31-mile orbit.

"These images remind us of our fantastic Apollo history and beckon us to continue to move forward in exploration of our solar system," said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

LRO was built and managed by Goddard. Initial research was funded by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. In September 2010, after a one-year successful exploration mission, the mission turned its attention from exploration objectives to scientific research in NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / ASU

NASA / Jim Grossmann

GRAIL IS ONE STEP CLOSER TO LAUNCH... The twin GRAIL spacecraft were recently enclosed by the payload fairing of the Delta II rocket that will launch them to the Moon about 2 weeks from now. The payload fairing enclosure was originally scheduled to take place tomorrow, but the looming threat of Hurricane Irene forced technicians at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to move the encapsulation up by a day. Liftoff is still scheduled for the morning of September 8.


NASA / Jim Grossmann

NASA / Jim Grossmann

THE LRO IS ABOUT TO GET MORE COMPANY... I'm referring to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, of course. Also with LRO, NASA's twin ARTEMIS spacecraft are in lunar orbit...while China's Chang'e 2 spacecraft just completed its primary mission at the Moon, and is now heading for the so-called Lagrange point on the far side of the Earth from the Sun.

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NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins are Joined to Their Booster (Press Release)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's lunar-bound GRAIL twins were mated to their Delta II launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 17 at 8:45 a.m. EDT (5:45 a.m. PDT) today. The 15-mile (25-kilometer) trip from Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., is the last move for GRAIL before it begins its journey to the moon. NASA's dynamic duo will orbit the moon to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"We are about to finish one chapter in the GRAIL story and open another," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL's principal investigator, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "Let me assure you this one is a real page-turner. GRAIL will rewrite the book on the formation of the moon and the beginning of us."

Now that the GRAIL spacecraft are atop their rocket, a final flurry of checks and tests can begin to confirm that all is go for launch. The final series of checks begins tomorrow, Aug. 19, with an on-pad functional test. The test is designed to confirm that the spacecraft is healthy after the fueling and transport operations. Next week, among all the upcoming final tests, reviews and closeout operations leading up to liftoff, the GRAIL team will install the launch vehicle fairing around the spacecraft.

GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8 and extends through Oct. 19. On each day, there are two separate instantaneous launch opportunities separated in time by approximately 39 minutes. On Sept. 8, the first launch opportunity is at 8:37 a.m. EDT (5:37 a.m. PDT). The second launch opportunity is 9:16 a.m. EDT (6:16 a.m. PDT).

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / Kim Shiflett

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.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!! Personally speaking, 2011 looks to be waaay more action-packed and exciting than last year...at least in terms of movies and space exploration. I’m looking forward to the releases of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Battle: Los Angeles, while filming for Christopher Nolan’s final flick in the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight Rises is scheduled to start by this May. With regards to space exploration, NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover is scheduled for launch to the Red Planet this November, the Juno spacecraft is set to launch towards Jupiter this August, the twin GRAIL spacecraft are set to launch to the Moon this September, The Planetary Society’s Lightsail-1 spacecraft should fly by the end of this spring, the Glory spacecraft is set to launch on its long-awaited Earth science mission next month, the space shuttle fleet will finally retire by April (if the STS-135 mission that is scheduled for June doesn’t end up receiving funding by Congress), the Dawn spacecraft will arrive at its first destination—asteroid Vesta—this July, the MESSENGER spacecraft will enter orbit around Mercury in March, SpaceX will finally be sending its Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo might be ferrying paying passengers on suborbital flights as early as the end of this year.



On a more personal level, I should be able to pay off my credit card debt and close the account by this Spring...assuming my tax refund this year is as high as I hope it to be. Um, should I have divulged this information to y'all? Oh well.




January 2011
-Partial solar eclipse over much of the Eastern Hemisphere (Jan 4)
-BCS National Championship Game in Glendale, Arizona: Auburn vs. Oregon (Jan 10)
-The Green Hornet (Jan 14)
-68th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Jan 16)
-Season 10 premiere of American Idol (Jan 19)
-Launch of Japan’s second H-2 Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station (Jan 20)



February 2011
-Mission STS-133... Space shuttle Discovery (Feb 3)
-Super Bowl XLV in Texas (Feb 6)
-53rd Annual Grammy Awards (Feb 13)
-Launch of Europe’s second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, to the International Space Station (Feb 15)
-53rd annual Daytona 500 in Florida (Feb 20)
-2011 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles, California (Feb 20)
-Launch of NASA’s Glory spacecraft into Earth orbit (Feb 23)
-83rd Academy Awards (Feb 27)



March 2011
-Apollo 18 (Mar 4)
-Rango (Mar 4)
-Battle: Los Angeles (Mar 11)
-2011 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament begins with Opening Round Game (Mar 15)
-NASA’s Messenger spacecraft enters orbit around Mercury (Mar 18)
-NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft crosses Uranus’ orbit (Mar 18)
-Conclusion of the March Madness tournament prior to the 2011 Final Four games in Texas (Mar 27)



April 2011
-Mission STS-134... Space shuttle Endeavour (Apr 1)
-2011 NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in Houston, Texas (Apr 2)
-NCAA Final Four Championship Game in Houston, Texas (Apr 4)
-Scream 4 (Apr 15)
-Fast Five (Apr 29)
-NFL Draft (TBA)



May 2011
-Thor (May 6)
-Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (May 20)
-Start of the 2011 French Open tennis tournament (May 22)
-The Hangover 2 (May 26)
-95th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (May 29)



June 2011
-Partial solar eclipse in the Arctic (Jun 1)
-X-Men: First Class (Jun 3)
-Conclusion of the 2011 French Open (Jun 5)
-Super 8 (Jun 10)
-Total lunar eclipse; viewable in Africa, India and Middle East (Jun 15)
-Cars 2 (Jun 24)
-Mission STS-135... Space shuttle Atlantis (Jun 28 - Tentative)



July 2011
-Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Jul 1)
-Partial solar eclipse off the coast of Antarctica (Jul 1)
-Start of the 2011 Tour de France (Jul 2)
-International Olympic Committee announces host city for 2018 Winter Olympics (Jul 6)
-NASA’s Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around asteroid Vesta (TBA)
-The planet Neptune completes its first full orbit since being discovered in 1846 (Jul 10)
-2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Phoenix, Arizona (Jul 12)
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (Jul 15)
-Captain America: The First Avenger (Jul 22)
-Conclusion of the Tour de France (Jul 24)
-Cowboys and Aliens (Jul 29)



August 2011
-The Smurfs (Aug 3)
-Launch of NASA’s Juno spacecraft to Jupiter (Aug 5)
-Start of the XXVI World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain (Aug 15)
-Conclusion of World Youth Day (Aug 21)
-Start of the 2011 World Rowing Championships in Slovenia (Aug 28)
-Analog TV stations in Canada required to complete transition to digital (Aug 31)



September 2011
-Conclusion of the 2011 World Rowing Championships in Slovenia (Sep 4)
-Launch of NASA’s twin GRAIL spacecraft to the Moon (Sep 8)
-Start of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand (Sep 9)



October 2011
-Real Steel (Oct 7)
-First flight of SpaceX’s Dragon ship to the International Space Station (Oct 8)
-Paranormal Activity 3 (Oct 21)
-Conclusion of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand (Oct 23)



November 2011
-The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Nov 18)
-Launch of NASA’s Curiosity rover to Mars (Nov 25)
-Partial solar eclipse in Antarctica (Nov 25)



December 2011
-The Ides of March (TBA)
-SpaceX’s Dragon ship launches cargo to the International Space Station (Dec 7)
-Total lunar eclipse; visible in Asia, Australia and Alaska (Dec 10)
-Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus freighter launches to the International Space Station (Dec 14)
-Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Dec 16)
-A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (Dec 23)
-Launch of Russia’s Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module to the International Space Station (TBA)
-All United States troops are scheduled to leave Iraq (Dec 31)