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News • Mission Update
Space Shorts
SpaceX in Europe
SpaceX, the commercial rocket
developer, has won its first
contract in Europe, to launch
radar reconnaissance satellites
for the German Ministry of
Defence’s SARah constellation.
The satellites, provided by OHB
System AG and Astrium GmbH,
will be launched by Falcon 9
rockets in 2018 and 2019. OHB
will build two passive-antenna
synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
satellites, and Astrium GmbH
will build a larger, phased-arrayantenna satellite under contract
for OHB. The three-satellite
constellation will replace the
current OHB-built five-satellite
SAR-Lupe constellation.
http://www.spacex.com
Japan’s new rockets
The Japanese Space Agency
(JAXA) has successfully
launched H-IIB Launch
Vehicle No. 4 with cargo for the
International Space Station,
onboard. It lifted off from the
Tanegashima Space Center
on 4 August. However, the
launch of Epsilon-1, a rocket
intended to provide frequent
launches, was stopped by an
automatic alarm 19 seconds
before lift-off. Epsilon-1 was
intended to carry Japan’s
SPRINT-A (Spectroscopic Planet
Observatory for Recognition
of Interaction of Atmosphere),
a space observatory intended
for research on planetary
atmospheres.
http://www.jaxa.jp
Comet looks lively
Comet ChuryumovGerasimenko, the target of
ESA’s comet-chasing mission
Rosetta, is likely to become
active earlier than anticipated,
according to models of its
behaviour based on data
from its previous three orbits.
According to Colin Snodgrass
of the Max Plank Institute for
Solar System Research, lead
author of the study, “ChuryumovGerasimenko could be active
by March of next year”. Rosetta,
currently in deep-space
hibernation, will be reactivated
in January 2014, approach the
comet in spring, land on it in
the autumn and stay with the
comet as it approaches the
Sun. The results of the study
are published in Astronomy and
Astrophysics.
http://sci.esa.int/rosetta
5.8
Mission update
WISE wakes up
NASA’s asteroid initiative, to achieve
President Obama’s goal of sending
humans to an asteroid by 2025, has
resulted in a new lease of life for a
venerable spacecraft. The Wide-field
Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is
to be reactivated in September in
order to find and characterize nearEarth objects (NEOs) within 45 million km of Earth’s orbit around the
Sun. NASA anticipates that WISE
will discover about 150 previously
unknown NEOs and characterize the
size, albedo and thermal properties
of about 2000 others, using its 40 cm
telescope and infrared cameras.
The WISE mission, from January
2010 to February 2011, was to scan
the entire celestial sky in infrared
light. It captured more than 2.7 million images in multiple infrared
wavelengths and catalogued more
than 560 million objects in space,
ranging from galaxies to asteroids
and comets, including the most
accurate survey to date of NEOs,
NEOWISE. Discoveries included 21
comets, more than 34 000 asteroids
in the main belt between Mars and
Jupiter, and 135 NEOs.
“The WISE mission achieved its
mission’s goals and, as NEOWISE,
extended the science even further in
its survey of asteroids. NASA is now
extending that record of success,
which will enhance our ability to
find potentially hazardous asteroids,
and support the new asteroid initiative,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s
associate administrator for science
in Washington. “Reactivating WISE
is an excellent example of how we are
leveraging existing capabilities across
the agency to achieve our goal.”
http://1.usa.gov/17qPGTY
New directions
for Kepler
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope team
has stopped trying to restore the
spacecraft to full working order, and
is instead investigating what investigations the spacecraft can carry out
in its current state.
Two of the original four sets of
reaction wheels and thrusters used
to orient the Kepler spacecraft have
stopped working, the first in July
2012, the second in May of this year.
The spacecraft is now in a stable configuration and able to use thrusters
to maintain this, but without three
1: Annular eclipse of the Sun by Phobos, as seen by Curiosity from the
martian surface. The images are three seconds apart. (NASA/JPLCaltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.)
A year on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover has
now spent more than a year on
Mars and has already found
evidence of flowing surface water
and favourable conditions for
microbial life in the early history
of the planet. In addition, the
mast cameras (Mastcam) on the
rover recorded one of Mars’s
moons passing in front of the
other on 1 August this year.
Phobos, the larger moon, passed
in front of Deimos, from the point
of view of the rover’s cameras, the
first time this has been recorded.
Mars Science Laboratory
researchers compiled a series of
still images into a video, and will
be using the event to study the
orbits of the moons.
Later in the month, Curiosity
also took images of Phobos in
an annular eclipse of the Sun.
Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M
University, College Station, a
co-investigator for the use of
working reaction wheel systems cannot point precisely enough to detect
further exoplanets. The mission
team announced a call for proposals
for a two-wheel Kepler mission on 2
August this year.
Kepler was launched to investigate
the abundance of planets around
other stars and its four years of data
has so far produced 135 confirmed
discoveries and 3500 candidates.
More are expected, including Earthlike planets orbiting in the habitable
zones of their stars.
http://1.usa.gov/194B6m9
Close exoplanet
is hot stuff
An Earth-sized exoplanet discovered
by the Kepler mission – Kepler 78b –
has been characterized by researchers from MIT who found that it has
Mastcam, was part of the team
using data from the moons’ orbits
to better understand martian
solid tides and the internal
structure of the planet.
Meanwhile, the Mars Science
Laboratory mission continues
with the rover starting to test its
autonomous navigation system on
unknown ground. Curiosity uses
stereo images of the ground ahead
to plan a route, a method adapted
from the Mars Exploration Rover
Opportunity. The rover had used
the navigation system before, but
on terrain identified as safe from
Earth; this was the first drive into
the unknown. Around 10 m of the
total of 43 m driven – a section
hidden by a dip in the ground
– was navigated autonomously.
The rover is now on its way to
Mt Sharp, where layered rocks
indicate a likely place to explore
the ancient environment of Mars.
http://mars.nasa.gov/msl
one of the shortest orbital periods
ever detected: 8.5 hours. The planet
is extremely close to its star, with an
orbital radius only about three times
the radius of the star – about 40 times
closer to its star than Mercury is to
the Sun. As a result, its surface temperatures could reach 3000 K and its
surface is probably entirely molten,
a massive, roiling ocean of lava. The
MIT team was able to detect light
emitted by the planet – a first for such
a small exoplanet – which may in
future provide detailed information
about the planet’s surface composition and reflective properties.
Kepler 78b is so close to its star that
scientists hope to measure its gravitational influence on the star. Such
information may be used to measure the planet’s mass, which could
make Kepler 78b the first Earth-sized
planet outside our own solar system
whose mass is known. The paper was
A&G • October 2013 • Vol. 54