Ruimtevaart, foto's en missies

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Op vrijdag 3 maart 2006 21:25 schreef Frutsel het volgende:
Asteroid Mission Cancelled

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- NASA on Thursday canceled a mission to visit two asteroids, five months after the program was put on hold because of cost overruns and technical problems.

The cancellation is the latest setback for NASA, which has been forced to delay science missions to focus on developing a new manned spacecraft to return to the moon in the next decade.

The project was capped at around $371 million, project scientists said previously. But scientists asked for an additional $40 million last year.

The Dawn spacecraft was supposed to lift off in June on a nine-year voyage to two of the solar system's largest asteroids, Ceres and Vesta, which reside in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Asteroids are believed to be remnants from the solar system's formation about 4.5 billion years ago, and studying them could provide clues into how the sun and planets formed.

Dawn would have been the first spacecraft to orbit the two asteroids, which scientists believe formed in different parts of the solar system and had different evolutionary processes.

Dawn was part of a NASA program called Discovery that aims to explore the solar system on what the space agency considers to be a shoestring budget. The program includes the Stardust mission, which returned to Earth in January with samples of comet dust.

The Dawn mission was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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Best wel balen. NASA heeft al veel tegenslagen gehad. Nog even en alles wordt stopgezet.

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Spacecraft to Slam into the Moon

^{By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 07 March 2006 06:32 am ET}



Scientists are plotting out a “crash course” in learning what happens when a European lunar probe slams into the Moon.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) SMART-1 spacecraft—now circling the Moon—is headed for a planned early September impact with Earth’s celestial neighbor.

The ESA probe would plow into the lunar surface, giving it a glancing blow as it speeds in at nearly 5,000 miles per hour (2 kilometers per second).

SMART-1 is Europe’s first robotic lunar mission. The name SMART stands for Small Mission for Advanced Research in Technology

The spacecraft was launched on September 27, 2003. Making use of its ion-propulsion engine to slowly nudge it outward from Earth, the probe powered its way into lunar orbit on November 15, 2004.

Outfitted with miniaturized instruments, SMART-1’s goal has been to gauge key chemical elements in the lunar surface, as well as look into the theory that the Moon was formed following the violent collision of a smaller planet with Earth long ago.

ESA’s lunar probe completes a loop around the Moon every five hours—but that’s about to end later this year.

Rehearsal mode

Engineers and scientists are now targeting SMART-1 for possible impact on the Moon around September 1-2. The current uncertainty range for the exact time of impact is 15 hours.

At the end of June, SMART-1 is slated to carry out two maneuvers. These will fine-tune the exact time of impact. Those slight thrust firings will lead to the spacecraft flying over the Moon at its lowest point at below186 miles (300 kilometers) in altitude.

In early July, the plan calls for assessing the success of the maneuver and determining the spacecraft’s orbit and expected impact time. Later that month, the probe will zip as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers) from the barren lunar landscape.

In early August, SMART-1 will make an overflight of its eventual impact site, racing over that area at just 75 miles (120 kilometers) height in what’s termed as “rehearsal” mode for the early September run-in with the Moon.

According to Bernard Foing, ESA SMART-1 project scientist, an inventory is being made of the composition and mechanical properties of the spacecraft—including aluminum, copper, titanium, and other materials, as well as the probe’s remaining hydrazine fuel.

That data will be used to support observations of what is kicked up from the Moon itself on impact, contrasted to bits, pieces, and fuel tossed into the mix due to SMART-1’s high-speed slap.

Boom and bust finale

Here on Earth, sky watchers worldwide are getting ready for the projected September 1-2 lunar boom and bust finale of SMART-1.

Foing told SPACE.com that he is now engaged in assembling a “coordinated campaign” of ground-based observations. This activity would support SMART-1 measurements and monitor the artificial crash that mimics in a small way, an asteroid or comet hit on the Moon.

Numbers of observatories around the world have indicated interest in watching the outcome from SMART-1’s collision with the Moon, Foing has reported.

At impact, the ESA spacecraft will weigh a little over 628 pounds (285 kilograms), punching the Moon at a grazing incidence near 37 degrees south latitude. The near-side impact is timed so that it will be illuminated to assist in observations from Earth.

A current orbit simulation of the SMART-1 impact for September 2 is at lunar longitude 44.54 degrees West and 36.22 South in Lacus Excellentiae, 10 degrees south of Mare Humorum. A far more refined target point will come as the event draws closer.

Crater-making crash

Back on July 31, 1999, the Moon was on the receiving end of NASA’s Lunar Prospector.

That farewell fall of space hardware struck within a crater near the lunar south pole—in an attempt to detect water ice stirred up by the wallop. No visible debris plume was reported.

According to Foing, the hope is that those Earth-based observers intending to take part in September’s thump of the Moon can make pre-hit predictions of SMART-1’s impact magnitude, cloud ejecta dynamics, exospheric effects and other observable manifestations brought about by the crash.

Coordinated measurements by observers here on Earth are high on the priority list, Foing noted. Impact observations would include: Infrared imaging of thermal flash; visible/infrared imaging of ejected clouds; hydrazine flame detection; post-characterization of ejecta; as well as exospheric effects if lunar material is blasted high off the Moon’s surface.

In addition, Foing said, there is also intent to conduct follow up searches for the crater produced by SMART-1’s crash into the Moon via the sensor eyes of future, follow-on lunar orbiters.

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Op woensdag 8 maart 2006 22:25 schreef Frutsel het volgende:
WASHINGTON - Na een reis van zeven maanden bereikt een onbemande sonde van de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA vrijdag de planeet Mars. De Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) moet vanuit een baan om Mars onder meer gaan uitzoeken of er lang genoeg water op de rode planeet is geweest om leven mogelijk te maken.

Het contact met het controlecentrum in de Verenigde Staten is vrijdag een half uur lang verbroken als de sonde de achterkant van de planeet passeert. Daarna wordt duidelijk of de MRO in de juiste baan om Mars is gekomen of dat het ruimteschip verder door het heelal vliegt.


Gelijkenis

De MRO heeft na de lancering in augustus vorig jaar een afstand van ongeveer 500 miljoen kilometer afgelegd. Mars is een gewild onderzoeksobject van de NASA en de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA vanwege de gelijkenis met de planeet aarde.

In de afgelopen decennia zijn tientallen onbemande ruimtevaartuigen naar Mars gestuurd. De meeste daarvan waren bedoeld om vanuit een baan rond de planeet onderzoek te verrichten.

Enkele ruimtevaartuigen zijn op Mars geland. De VS hebben plannen voor een bemande ruimtevlucht naar Mars rond 2020.

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Op donderdag 9 maart 2006 15:03 schreef Marvin-THE-MARTiAN het volgende:

[..]

dan moet je eens onder mijn posts kijken

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Op donderdag 9 maart 2006 23:20 schreef speknek het volgende:
Zou dat echt zo zijn? Ik zou zeggen dat je beter niet kan hebben dat die geisers aan het oppervlak komen, spuw je zo alle microben de ruimte in . Maar het is in ieder geval een aardige indicatie dat er hete lavabronnen in het water zitten, ook op andere planeten/manen. Dat was natuurlijk al zo goed als zeker, maar toch.

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Op zaterdag 11 maart 2006 14:02 schreef speknek het volgende:
Hebben niet alle stenen planetoiden een kern van lava?
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/captions/saturn/encelads.htm

edit, met een vorm van getijdewerking om de verhitting draaiend te houden tenminste.