Het Astronomie topic #4

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Op dinsdag 20 juli 2010 23:50 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
New horizons is nog onderweg naar Pluto... aankomst 2014


En volgend jaar wordt Juno gelanceerd

Key things to know about Juno Spacecraft launches in August 2011 Five-year cruise to Jupiter, arriving July 2016 One year at Jupiter will complete the mission (orbiting the planet 32 times) Juno will improve our understanding of our solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

Specifically, Juno will… Determine how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which helps determine which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed) Look deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties Map Jupiter’s magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet’s deep structure Explore and study Jupiter’s magnetosphere near the planet’s poles, especially the auroras – Jupiter’s northern and southern lights – providing new insights about how the planet’s enormous magnetic force field affects its atmosphere.

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2010 Launches
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Date: Nov. 1 +
Mission: STS-133
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Discovery
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center - Launch Pad 39A
Launch Time: 4:33 p.m. EDT
STS-133 Description: Space shuttle Discovery will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4), a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MLPM) and critical spare components to the International Space Station.

Date: Nov. 22
Mission: Glory
Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Taurus Rocket
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base - Launch Pad SLC 576-E
Launch Time: 2:09 a.m. PST/5:09 a.m. EST
Description: The Glory Mission will help increase our understanding of the Earth's energy balance by collecting data on the properties of aerosols and black carbon in the Earth's atmosphere and how the Sun's irradiance affects the Earth's climate.


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2011 Launches
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Date: Feb. 26 +
Mission: STS-134
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center - Launch Pad 39A
Launch Time: 4:19 p.m. EST
STS-134 Description: Space shuttle Endeavour will deliver an EXPRESS Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3) and an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station.

Date: **
Mission: Aquarius
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II 7320
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base - SLC 2
Description: The Aquarius mission will provide the first-ever global maps of salt concentrations in the ocean surface needed to understand heat transport and storage in the ocean.

Date: Aug. 5
Mission: Juno
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Description: The solar-powered Juno spacecraft is to orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Date: Sept. 8
Mission: GRAIL
Launch Vehicle: ULA Delta II Heavy
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Description: The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission's primary science objectives will be to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

Date: Oct. 18
Mission: NPP
Launch Vehicle: ULA Delta II
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Description: The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) mission for NASA and NOAA is to measure Earth's atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological activity and cloud and aerosol properties.

Date: Nov. 25 *
Mission: Mars Science Laboratory
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Description: The Mars Science Laboratory is a rover that will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life and to determine the planet's habitability.


http://www.nasa.gov/missions/index.html

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Op zaterdag 4 september 2010 02:27 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
Solar Probe+ to Plunge Directly into Sun's Atmosphere

Sept. 2, 2010: NASA's daring plan to visit the sun took a giant leap forward today with the selection of five key science investigations for the Solar Probe+ spacecraft.

Slated to launch no later than 2018, the smart car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the atmosphere of the sun, aiming to solve some of the biggest mysteries of solar physics. Today's announcement means that researchers can begin building sensors for unprecedented in situ measurements of the solar system's innermost frontier.

"Solar Probe+ is going where no spacecraft has gone before," says Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe+ program scientist at NASA HQ. "For the first time, we'll be able to 'touch, taste and smell' the sun."

[ afbeelding ]

Last year, NASA invited top researchers around the world to submit proposals detailing possible science investigations for the pioneering spacecraft. Thirteen proposals were received and five have been selected:

--SWEAP,
the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: The most abundant particles in the solar wind are electrons, protons and helium ions. SWEAP will count these particles and measure their properties, even "sweeping up" some of them in a special Solar Probe Cup for direct analysis. The principal investigator is Justin C. Kasper of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.


An artist's concept of Solar Probe+, heat shield up and solar panels folded. [more] --WISPR, the Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe Plus: WISPR is a telescope that will make 3D images of the sun's atmosphere similar to medical CAT scans. WISPR can actually see the solar wind, allowing it to image clouds and shock waves as they approach and pass the spacecraft. This telescope is an important complement to the spacecraft's in situ instruments, which sample the plasmas that WISPR images. The principal investigator is Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

--FIELDS,
The Fields Investigation for Solar Probe Plus: This instrument will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions, and shock waves which course through the sun's atmospheric plasma. FIELDS also turns Solar Probe Plus into a giant dust detector, registering voltage signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft’s antenna. The principal investigator is Stuart Bale of the University of California in Berkeley.

--ISIS,
Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: The ISIS EPI-Hi and EPI-Lo instruments will monitor electrons, protons and ions which are accelerated to high energies by shock waves in the sun's atmosphere. These are the very same particles that pose a threat to astronauts in space, disable satellites, and ionize Earth's upper atmosphere.

--Solar Probe+ Observatory Scientist:
This was a proposal not for an instrument, but for a person. The principal investigator, Marco Velli, becomes the mission's Observatory Scientist. In the years ahead, he will become deeply familiar with the spacecraft and its construction, helping to ensure that adjacent in situ instruments do not interfere with one another as they sample the solar environment. He will also guide the mission's "big picture" science investigations after Solar Probe+ enters the sun's atmosphere.

"The sensors we've selected to ride aboard Solar Probe+ are designed to solve some of the biggest mysteries of solar physics," says Dick Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington DC.

Solar Probe+ passes Venus en route to the sun. [animations] Why is the sun's atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface? And what propels the solar wind?

"We've been struggling with these questions for decades," says Fisher. "Solar Probe+ should finally provide some answers."

Solar Probe+ will likely discover new mysteries, too, in a realm that no other spacecraft has dared enter. At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures as high as 2000 degrees C and survive blasts of radiation that would quickly disable other missions. From these near distances inside the sun’s atmosphere, the solar disk will loom 23 times wider than it does in the skies of Earth.

"What will we find there?" wonders Guhathakurta. "This is truly unexplored territory." By design, Solar Probe's winning instruments are sufficiently versatile to investigate many different kinds of phenomena. Whatever comes along--be it electric or magnetic, high- or low-energy, wavy or turbulent--they should be able to measure it.

"The possibilities for discovery," she says, "are off the charts."


Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA