MARSBUGS: The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter Volume 5, Number 6, 10 March, 1998. Editors: David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, USA, thoma457@uidaho.edu or Marsbugs@aol.com. Julian Hiscox, Division of Molecular Biology, IAH Compton Laboratory, Berkshire, RG20 7NN, UK. Julian.Hiscox@bbsrc.ac.uk or Marsbug@msn.com MARSBUGS is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted by the number of articles and announcements. Copyright of this compilation exists with the editors, except for specific articles, in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. E- mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either of the editors. Contributions are welcome, and should be submitted to either of the two editors. Contributions should include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along with the author(s)' correspondence address. Subscribers are advised to make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, ordering goods etc. Back issues and Word97 files suitable for printing may be obtained via anonymous FTP at: ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of information for scientists, educators and other persons interested in exobiology and related fields. This newsletter is not intended to replace peer-reviewed journals, but to supplement them. We, the editors, envision MARSBUGS as a medium in which people can informally present ideas for investigation, questions about exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events. Exobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may come out of the most unexpected places. Subjects may include, but are not limited to: exobiology proper (life on other planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis/ terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. ------------------------------------------------------------------ INDEX 1) LUNAR PROSPECTOR FINDS EVIDENCE OF ICE AT MOON'S POLES NASA release 98-38 2) LUNAR ICE: PRIVATE COMPANY'S MISSION-IN-PROGRESS COULD LEAD TO RETURN OF SAMPLES JPL release 3) TAKING EUROPE TO THE MOON ESA release Nr 09-98 4) JPL RECRUITS TWO EXPERTS TO HELP HUNT FOR NEW PLANETS AND LIFE JPL release 5) NEW PLANETARY ENCYCLOPEDIA HAS DEFINITE JPL FLAVOR By Mark Whalen 6) MARS SURVEYOR 98 PROJECT STATUS REPORT by John McNamee 7) GALILEO SOLID STATE IMAGING FULL DATA RELEASES JPL release ------------------------------------------------------------------ LUNAR PROSPECTOR FINDS EVIDENCE OF ICE AT MOON'S POLES NASA release 98-38 There is a high probability that water ice exists at both the north and south poles of the Moon, according to initial scientific data returned by NASA's Lunar Prospector. The Discovery Program mission also has produced the first operational gravity map of the entire lunar surface, which should serve as a fundamental reference for all future lunar exploration missions, project scientists announced today at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. Just two months after the launch of the cylindrical spacecraft, mission scientists have solid evidence of the existence of lunar water ice, including estimates of its volume, location and distribution. "We are elated at the performance of the spacecraft and its scientific payload, as well as the resulting quality and magnitude of information about the Moon that we already have been able to extract," said Dr. Alan Binder, Lunar Prospector Principal Investigator from the Lunar Research Institute, Gilroy, CA. The presence of water ice at both lunar poles is strongly indicated by data from the spacecraft's neutron spectrometer instrument, according to mission scientists. Graphs of data ratios from the neutron spectrometer "reveal distinctive 3.4 percent and 2.2 percent dips in the relevant curves over the northern and southern polar regions, respectively," Binder said. "This is the kind of data 'signature' one would expect to find if water ice is present." However, the Moon's water ice is not concentrated in polar ice sheets, mission scientists cautioned. "While the evidence of water ice is quite strong, the water 'signal' itself is relatively weak," said Dr. William Feldman, co-investigator and spectrometer specialist at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM. "Our data are consistent with the presence of water ice in very low concentrations across a significant number of craters." Using models based on other Lunar Prospector data, Binder and Feldman predict that water ice is confined to the polar regions and exists at only a 0.3 percent to 1 percent mixing ratio in combination with the Moon's rocky soil, or regolith. How much lunar water ice has been detected? Assuming a water ice depth of about a foot and a half (0.5 meters)--the depth to which the neutron spectrometer's signal can penetrate--Binder and Feldman estimate that the data are equivalent to an overall range of 11 million to 330 million tons (10-300 million metric tons) of lunar water ice, depending upon the assumptions of the model used. This quantity is dispersed over 3,600 to 18,000 square miles (10,000-50,000 square kilometers) of water ice-bearing deposits across the northern pole, and an additional 1,800 to 7,200 square miles (5,000-20,000 square kilometers) across the southern polar region. Furthermore, twice as much of the water ice mixture was detected by Lunar Prospector at the Moon's north pole as at the south. Dr. Jim Arnold of the University of California at San Diego previously has estimated that the most water ice that could conceivably be present on the Moon as a result of meteoritic and cometary impacts and other processes is 11 billion to 110 billion tons. The amount of lunar regolith that could have been "gardened" by all impacts in the past 2 billion years extends to a depth of about 6.5 feet (2 meters), he found. On that basis, Lunar Prospector's estimate of water ice would have to be increased by a factor of up to four, to the range of 44 million to 1.3 billion tons (40 million to 1.2 billion metric tons). In actuality, Binder and Feldman caution that, due to the inadequacy of existing lunar models, their current estimates "could be off by a factor of ten in either direction." The earlier joint Defense Department-NASA Clementine mission to the Moon used a radar-based technique that detected ice deposits in permanently shadowed regions of the lunar south pole. It is not possible to directly compare the results from Lunar Prospector to Clementine because of their fundamentally different sensors, measurement "footprints," and analysis techniques. However, members of the Clementine science team concluded that its radar signal detected from 110 million to 1.1 billion tons (100 million to 1 billion metric tons) of water ice, over an upper area limit of 5,500 square miles (15,500 square kilometers) of south pole terrain. There are various ways to estimate the economic potential of the detected lunar water ice as a supporting resource for future human exploration of the Moon. One way is to estimate the cost of transporting that same volume of water ice from Earth to orbit. Currently, it costs about $10,000 to put one pound of material into orbit. NASA is conducting technology research with the goal of reducing that figure by a factor of 10, to only $1,000 per pound. Using an estimate of 33 million tons from the lower range detected by Lunar Prospector, it would cost $60 trillion to transport this volume of water to space at that rate, with unknown additional cost of transport to the Moon's surface. From another perspective, a typical person consumes an estimated 100 gallons of water per day for drinking, food preparation, bathing and washing. At that rate, the same estimate of 33 million tons of water (7.2 billion gallons) could support a community of 1,000 two-person households for well over a century on the lunar surface, without recycling. "This finding by Lunar Prospector is primarily of scientific interest at this time, with implications for the rate and importance of cometary impacts in the history and evolution of the Solar System," said Dr. Wesley Huntress, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science. "A cost-effective method to mine the water crystals from within this large volume of soil would have to be developed if it were to become a real resource for drinking water or as the basic components of rocket fuel to support any future human explorers." Before the Lunar Prospector mission, historical tracking data from various NASA Lunar Orbiter and Apollo missions had provided evidence that the lunar gravity field is not uniform. Mass concentrations caused by lava which filled the Moon's huge craters are known to be the cause of the anomalies. However, precise maps of lunar mass concentrations covering the moon's equatorial nearside region were the only ones available. Lunar Prospector has dramatically improved this situation, according to co-investigator Dr. Alex Konopliv of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Telemetry data from Lunar Prospector has been analyzed to produce a full gravity map of both the near and far side of the moon. Konopliv also has identified two new mass concentrations on the Moon's nearside that will be used to enhance geophysical modeling of the lunar interior. This work has produced the first-ever complete engineering-quality gravity map of the moon, a key to the operational safety and fuel- efficiency of future lunar missions. "This spacecraft has performed beyond all reasonable expectations," said NASA's Lunar Prospector mission manager Scott Hubbard of Ames. "The findings announced today are just the tip of the iceberg compared to the wealth of information forthcoming in the months and years ahead." Lunar Prospector is scheduled to continue its current primary data gathering mission at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) for a period of ten more months. At that time, the spacecraft will be put into an orbit as low as six miles (10 kilometers) so that its suite of science instruments can collect data at much finer resolution in support of more detailed scientific studies. In addition, surface composition and structure information developed from data returned by the spacecraft's Gamma Ray Spectrometer instrument will be a crucial aspect of additional analysis of the polar water ice finding over the coming months. The third launch in NASA's Discovery Program of lower cost, highly focused planetary science missions, Lunar Prospector is being implemented for NASA by Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, CA, with mission management by NASA Ames. The total cost to NASA of the mission is $63 million. Additional information about the Lunar Prospector mission can be found on the Internet at URL http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------ LUNAR ICE: PRIVATE COMPANY'S MISSION-IN-PROGRESS COULD LEAD TO RETURN OF SAMPLES JPL release 6 March, 1998 Applied Space Resources, Inc.'s current engineering work for a September 2000 Lunar Sample Return Mission will provide framework for polar exploration As NASA announced the Lunar Prospector's discovery of polar ice on the Moon, Applied Space Resources, Inc. (ASR) of Long Island, New York said the robotic sample return mission it is currently engineering will provide a proof of concept for low-cost commercial lunar sample retrieval missions. ASR's lunar sample return mission, the Lunar Retriever, will retrieve lunar rock and soil to sell both to research organizations and, through commercial channels, to the general public. ASR expects to launch Lunar Retriever by September 2000, the 30th anniversary of Luna 16, the first robotic sample return mission to soft land on the moon. "Based on the spacecraft designed for the Lunar Retriever mission, a follow-on mission to retrieve lunar soil and ice samples could be launched within six to twelve months after the initial mission at a cost well under $100 million," says Denise Norris, ASR's CEO. When passed, the Commercial Space Act of 1997 will specifically instruct NASA to look to private companies like ASR to develop the In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technology critical to its plans for future space exploration and colonization. And technology for using the newly-discovered lunar ice would give space exploration an immense boost. Water is critical to human life support, and can also be separated into its chemical components of hydrogen and oxygen: oxygen for breathing, and combinations of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. But the cost of lifting the thousands of gallons of water into low Earth orbit alone, much less transporting it from there to the Moon, would be prohibitive. The Lunar Prospector data suggests there is an immense amount of water on the Moon in the form of ice mixed in with lunar soil. But before space explorers can make use of the water, scientists and engineers will have to figure out how best to extract it from the lunar soil, in which it is sparsely scattered. The Lunar Prospector's investigators, Dr. Alan Binder of the Lunar Research Institute in Gilroy, California and Dr. William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, say the data suggests that water ice is confined to the polar regions and exists at only a 0.3 percent to 1 percent mixing ratio in combination with the rocky lunar soil. Jay Manifold, ASR's Vice President of Research and Development, says, "The key to ISRU development, including research on how to extract and use lunar ice, is putting samples of lunar resources in the hands of scientists on Earth. ASR's goal is to use existing technologies to deliver spacecraft to any destination with precision, and return resources and information with equal precision, for a profit. Our Lunar Retriever, for example, will use the same Lockheed-Martin Athena 2 rocket as the Lunar Prospector. A mission to collect samples of lunar polar ice, and return them in cryogenic storage, would be a logical next step for us." ASR's principals stress the importance of entrepreneurs to opening near-Earth space to the resource development that will make possible fulfilling NASA's exploration goals. ASR will make its services available to private and public concerns alike, but will take no subsidies. "Humankind will only benefit from the resources of space when they are developed by private enterprises such as ours," says Denise Norris. "We intend to use our knowledge, creativity, hard work and business vision to demonstrate the viability of market-driven space missions. We will not go to the public asking them to send us into space. We will go into space first, then come to the public with something to offer: the productive utilization of the vast resources of near-Earth space." More information about Applied Space Resources and its Lunar Retriever mission can be found at the ASR web site, http://www.appliedspace.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------ TAKING EUROPE TO THE MOON ESA release Nr 09-98 5 March, 1998 In 1994 the European Space Agency (ESA) developed a phased Lunar program leading to the long-term goal of creating an infrastructure for utilizing and developing the Moon whilst preserving Lunar assets. The first step in this ESA initiated program is a unique project called "Euromoon 2000" which is currently being studied by ESA engineers/scientists and key European Space Industries. The project is intended to celebrate Europe's entry into the New Millennium; and to promote public awareness and interest in science, technology and space exploration. Euromoon 2000 has an innovative and ambitious implementation plan. This includes a 'partnership with industry' and a financing scheme based on raising part of the mission's budget from sponsorship through a dynamic public relations strategy and marketing program. The mission begins in earnest with the small (approx. 100 kg) LunarSat orbiter satellite, to be designed and built by 50 young scientists and engineers from across Europe. Scheduled for launch in 2000 as a secondary payload on a European Ariane 5 rocket, it will then orbit the Moon, mapping the planned landing area in greater detail in preparation of the Euromoon Lander in 2001. The lander's 40 kg payload allocation will accommodate amongst others scientific instrumentation for in-situ investigation of the unique site. Elements of specific support to the publicity and fund- raising campaign will also be considered. The Lander will aim for the "Peak of Eternal Light" on the rim of the 20 km-diameter, 3 km-deep Shackleton South Pole crater--a site uniquely suited for establishing a future outpost. This location enjoys almost continuous sunlight thus missions can rely on solar power instead of bulky batteries or costly and potentially hazardous nuclear power generation. As a consequence of the undulating South Pole terrain there are also permanently shadowed areas--among the coldest in the Solar System resulting in conditions highly favorable for the formation of frozen volatiles (as suggested by the Clementine mission in 1994). Earlier this year (7 January 1998), NASA launched its Lunar Prospector satellite which is currently performing polar lunar orbits surveying areas of the moon's surface rarely documented in previous missions. The data now being received back from Prospector strongly suggests the presence of the suspected volatiles (water ice?). Understandably the presence of billions- of-years-old frozen water in proximity to Euromoon's planned landing site would provide a tremendous boost for the implementation of the Euromoon project now in its 10th month of study. The in-situ analysis of such rare substances will provide an invaluable scientific window back in time (the Moon is believed to have been formed over 3.5 billion years ago from elements of the earth's mantel). The water's constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen have also the possibility of offering an essentially free supply of rocket propellant and oxygen for exploitation during future activities. Euromoon is the only mission being studied that can investigate this ice in-situ, while the US satellite will remain in a orbit. The mission is particularly challenging because of the required landing precision (within 100 squared meters) in terrain varying between +6 km and -5 km in altitude. Achieving the required pinpoint touchdown capability would allow the future exploitation of other interesting sites. One such site is the 6 km-high Malapert Mountain, 120 km from the pole from which the Earth can always be seen thus allowing continuous communications with the home planet for any future outpost in the region. The "Peak of Eternal Light" (described above) is in direct view of Malapert, the twin peaks offer the tantalizing possibility of both of uninterrupted power and communications. Euromoon can be seen as be the initial step in founding the first extraterrestrial outpost, founding the infrastructure for a "robotic village" controlled by a "virtual community" of Earth- based operators using telescience. This would indeed mark the beginning of an expansion of the human domain beyond Earth without the risk or cost of manned space travel. This concept also forms an essential element of the fund-raising campaign, which will create an exciting media opportunity involving all levels of society. Mission costs will be minimized by using existing hardware and a rapid schedule. Industrial partners would share risk and responsibility of realizing the mission by forming the Euromoon Company. A new marketing and advertising consortium has been formed with the specific task of raising funds through diverse commercial activities. Euromoon 2000 was chosen by ESA's Long-term Space Policy Committee as the candidate for the Millennium Celebration and presented to the Agency's Council in December 1997. A progress report, as well as a program proposal will be presented to the March Council and a final decision is expected in June next. ------------------------------------------------------------------ JPL RECRUITS TWO EXPERTS TO HELP HUNT FOR NEW PLANETS AND LIFE JPL release 5 March, 1998 Two newly-arrived scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will play a key role in the search for planets around other stars and the hunt for life beyond Earth. The appointments highlight a new JPL initiative to unite scientists from various disciplines, such as biology and astronomy, to study the evolution of planets and life in the universe. Dr. Didier Queloz, a Swiss astronomer who co-discovered the first known planet around a star similar to our Sun, is a distinguished visiting scientist at JPL for the next year and a half. Dr. Kenneth Nealson has joined JPL as a senior researcher in astrobiology, a new field whose goal is to understand how planets and life co-evolve. While at JPL, Queloz will continue his search for planets and help the Lab develop sophisticated search technologies. His work will benefit NASA's Origins Program, a series of planned missions to study the formation of galaxies, stars, planets and life. The program has gained momentum from discoveries by Queloz and, subsequently, other astronomers, of several planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun. Many scientists believe this raises the odds that an Earth-like planet exists with suitable conditions for life. Queloz, a Swiss citizen, received his degree in physics in 1990 from the University of Geneva and worked on his doctoral thesis at Geneva Observatory with Professor Michel Mayor from 1991 to 1995. Using the French Elodie telescope in Haute Provence, France, they looked for signs of a Doppler shift in nearby stars. As a star moves closer and then farther away from Earth, the star's color shifts from red to blue. By detecting this motion, astronomers can infer that the star is being tugged by gravity from an orbiting planet. "Back then, these experiments were considered a bit nutty," recalled Queloz. When Queloz and Mayor first detected a Doppler shift from the star 51 Pegasus, Queloz said their first reaction was, "We'd better check our instruments." Even after they verified the instruments' accuracy, Queloz and Mayor spent several weeks monitoring 51 Pegasus to confirm the discovery. In July of 1995, they were confident enough to buy a large cake and hold a celebration party in the south of France for family and friends. Queloz and Mayor formally announced their discovery, a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting 51 Pegasus, at an October 1995 scientific meeting in Florence, Italy. Queloz has received several honors, including the Swiss Society for Physics' Balzers Award, the Bioastronomy Medal from the International Astronomical Union, Commission 51, and a Best Thesis in Science honor from a Swiss corporation, Vacheron Constantin. Queloz is continuing his hunt for new planets with the Elodie telescope and its twin, Coralie, a Swiss telescope in La Silla, Chile. But he and other astronomers face great challenges in finding new and better ways to detect planets more like Earth. Current techniques allow only for the detection of giant, Jupiter- sized planets, which are considered unlikely candidates for life. While at JPL, Queloz will share his planet-finding experience with engineers who are designing more advanced technologies. Queloz is using a testbed interferometer at Caltech's Palomar Observatory to run tests on stars and prepare for an observing program. This work will help pave the way for other Origins projects, including the W. M. Keck Observatory interferometer in Hawaii, the Space Interferometry Mission, and the Terrestrial Planet Finder, all being planned by NASA. Interferometry combines and processes light from several telescopes to simulate a much larger telescope, and holds great promise as a tool in the search for Earth-sized planets. "I'd like to play a role in future exploration by helping to define interferometry techniques," Queloz said. During his stay at JPL, Queloz is living in Pasadena with his wife and their two children. Until very recently, an astronomer like Queloz would have had little if any interaction with a biological scientist like Dr. Kenneth Nealson. But various disciplines, such as astronomy, geology, biology and chemistry, are joining forces to study the development of life on Earth and the prospects of life elsewhere. Therefore, the work of scientists like Nealson and Queloz is converging to form a broad, interdisciplinary approach. "After all," said Nealson, "life is not a simple system and no science operates in a vacuum. Younger students are studying several disciplines to gain a more comprehensive view." Nealson is part of this new wave of scientific training, as a geobiology teacher and faculty associate in Caltech's geology and planetary sciences division. At JPL, a division of Caltech, Nealson has been appointed to head a new astrobiology unit. Nealson said over the next few years, his astrobiology group will develop an understanding of the way life and planets have evolved, and will define the signatures of life. "Not many foolhardy souls have ventured into this area," Nealson said. "After all, how can you find life if you don't know what you're looking for? This is a very, very important problem to be solved because right now we're not sure how to distinguish life from non-life. Our goal is to develop tools to make that distinction clearly." In recent years, microbiologists have made startling discoveries about the hardiness of life on Earth, studying living organisms in thermal vents, acid lakes and other unlikely environments. Nealson pointed out, "This has opened the eyes of scientists to the notion that life could exist under seemingly inhospitable conditions on other planets." Astrobiologists will also study changes in Earth's chemical composition over billions of years. They will then apply this knowledge to other planets to look for "chemical signatures" that might indicate that life has existed or could exist there. Nealson said astrobiology will be useful for numerous space missions, including the Mars sample return mission, scheduled to bring back Martian rocks in the middle of the next decade. Astrobiology will also benefit the Origins Program's Terrestrial Planet Finder, which will look for Earth-like planets around other stars and hunt for signs of life-sustaining chemicals. Nealson said astrobiological studies may prove valuable in the study of Jupiter's moon, Europa, which may have liquid oceans under its frozen surface. This icy moon is currently being studied by NASA's Galileo Europa Mission, and a new Europa Orbiter has a planned launch in 2003. Originally from West Liberty, Iowa, Nealson got his bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 1965 from the University of Chicago. He earned his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Chicago and did postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. Nealson taught at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, CA, and at the Center for Great Lakes Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI. His honors include the Guggenheim Fellowship for Sabbatical Leave in 1981, and an appointment as an elected fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology, which he received in November 1993. Nealson and his wife live in South Pasadena, CA. ------------------------------------------------------------------ NEW PLANETARY ENCYCLOPEDIA HAS DEFINITE JPL FLAVOR By Mark Whalen from the "JPL Universe" 6 February, 1998 JPL scientist Jim Shirley and colleagues have completed a comprehensive reference book that is being noted among the best in its class. The volume, Encyclopedia of Planetary Sciences, is part of publisher Chapman & Hall's "Earth Science" series. It is close to 1,000 pages in length and is packed with almost 500 articles submitted by 214 contributors, bolstered by numerous maps, planetary images, charts and tables. Of note is the fact that more than 30 of those authors are current, former or retired JPL scientists, all of whom have extensive experience in authoring scientific articles for publication. "We included a diversity of viewpoints, and some difference of opinion," said Shirley, the book's co-editor, who works on Galileo's Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS). He noted that separate articles cover all major lunar and planetary missions since the days of JPL's Lunar Orbiter, Ranger and Surveyor missions of the 1960s. Although the book's manuscript was submitted for publication prior to Galileo's Jupiter orbit insertion in late 1995, there are major articles on both the Galileo and Cassini missions. According to Shirley, the difference between his work and prior encyclopedic efforts to chronicle planetary science is the large number of articles. Most other books include only a few dozen articles at most, he said. "We have limited the length of the major articles to about 5,000 words," Shirley said. "This allowed us to provide at least 10 times more content than any previous book that looks at the solar system or planetary science as a whole." He pointed to the book's comprehensive coverage of asteroids, meteorites, fields and particles; processes such as impact cratering and planetary accretion; and of techniques of remote sensing, image processing and celestial mechanics. The standard articles are about 2,000 words in length. A third category in the encyclopedia covers definitions of geological, astronomical, physical and meteorological terms that range up to about 500 words. Also in this category are nearly 100 biographical entries on pioneering scientists. Shirley, who noted with humor that the effort was a "hellishly time-consuming project," wanted to reach a wide readership, not just scientists. For example, he said, "We tried to make the book accessible for a high school student who might wonder how JPL produces such amazing images of planets." The volume has been favorably reviewed in science journals. New Scientist magazine noted that the book "provides comprehensive and concise coverage of the whole gamut of planetary science in a form that will be of great use to professionals, students and interested general readers. "When it comes to the planets, their characteristics, interrelations and environment, this is the book of the decade," declared the review's author. Although the manuscript was completed more than two years ago, Shirley is not overly concerned that the book will rapidly become out of date. "The users of encyclopedia articles need a clear summary of the basic facts, together with a good list of references for further study. The latest interpretations, on the other hand, may become stale with time. Encyclopedia articles should help move the reader rapidly up the learning curve." ------------------------------------------------------------------ MARS SURVEYOR 98 PROJECT STATUS REPORT by John McNamee, Mars Surveyor 98 Project Manager 6 March, 1998 Orbiter and lander integration and test activities are proceeding on schedule with no significant probleMs. Orbiter electromagnetic compatibility testing is in process and will be completed next week. Mechanical integration of the lander to the cruise configuration is in process. The lander vehicle will be encapsulated within the aeroshell on Mar 9. The lander spacecraft in full cruise configuration will be transported to the acoustics lab at Lockheed Martin on Mar 18. The Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) flight instrument integration is complete. Testing and calibration of the TEGA is in process at the University of Arizona. For more information on the Mars Surveyor 98 mission, please visit this website: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ GALILEO SOLID STATE IMAGING FULL DATA RELEASES JPL release All images obtained by the Galileo Solid State Imaging (SSI) system during the spacecraft's first four orbits (G1, G2, C3 and E4) of Jupiter are now validated and available. Images and data obtained by NASA/JPL's Galileo mission have been available on an ongoing basis during the spacecraft's journey through the Jovian system in order to share with the public the excitement of exploration and new discoveries being made via the NASA/JPL Galileo spacecraft. Galileo scientists have a one year period set aside for the process of calibrating and validating the data. The full digital images necessary for scientific analysis are released within one year of receipt of an orbit's last data. * Some of the BEST of the IMAGE PRODUCTS from the ongoing public releases are available now in multiple formats on the Planetary PhotoJournal web pages. G1 IMAGE PRODUCTS G2 IMAGE PRODUCTS C3 IMAGE PRODUCTS E4 IMAGE PRODUCTS http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/fulldata.html * ALL IMAGES from the first four orbits (G1, G2, C3 and E4) are merged and validated and available via the Planetary Data System. * Primary Mission (6/96 - 12/97) Release Schedule for validated data sets * ALL Galileo Cruise Phase (10/89 - 12/95) Data ALL IMAGING DATA from G1, G2, C3 and E4 is available via the Planetary Data System (PDS) Imaging Node at http://www- pdsimage.jpl.nasa.gov/PDS/ The PDS offers a simple query interface to access all available G1, G2, C3 and E4 data. It allows the user to search by various parameters such as target name, spacecraft clock, latitude/longitude, filter, phase angle, exposure, gain, and compression ratio. PDS will continue to expand and improve this interface to include queries for any label parameters and, by the end of 1997, a format to select data via a map interface. To accommodate the various needs of the scientific community, the archived files are raw data files which merge the multiple downlinks of data to provide the best final version of an image. Supporting data such as calibration files are available now and will be available through PDS within a few weeks. Such files include dark currents, radiometric calibrations, blemishes, hot pixels, etc.. Galileo Primary Mission (6/96-12/97) Solid State Imaging Orbital Data Sets Public Release Schedule Orbit 1 (G1) September 06, 1997 Orbit 2 (G2) November 04, 1997 Orbit 3 (C3) December 19, 1997 Orbit 4 (E4) February 20, 1998 Orbit 6 (E6) April 05, 1998 Orbit 7 (G7) May 07, 1998 Orbit 8 (G8) June 25, 1998 Orbit 9 (C9) September 17, 1998 Orbit 10 (C10) November 06, 1998 Orbit 11 (E11) & GEM Schedules will be posted when available. ------------------------------------------------------------------ End Marsbugs Vol. 5, No. 6.