MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 7, Number 4, 31 January 2000. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, Biology and Chemistry Division, Lyon College, Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@lyon.edu Dr. Julian A. Hiscox, School of Animal and Microbial Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AJ, United Kingdom. J.A.Hiscox@reading.ac.uk 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. While we cannot copyright our mailing list, our readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing list. The editors do not condone "spamming" of our subscribers. Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editors. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either of the editors. Article 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 Adobe Acrobat PDF files suitable for printing may be obtained from the official Marsbugs web page at http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/marsbugs/marsbugs.html. 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. Astrobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may come from the most unexpected places. Subjects may include, but are not limited to: exobiology and astrobiology (life on other planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis and terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS 1) PROJECT IN HIGH ARCTIC SIMULATES LIFE ON RED PLANET; FEASIBILITY STUDIES TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO FUTURE MARS EXPLORATIONS By Janet Wong 2) GENOME OF HIGHLY RADIORESISTANT POTENTIALLY SPACE-FARING BACTERIUM SEQUENCED By Mark Pallen 3) FIRST ANNUAL ASTROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE By Lynn J. Rothschild 4) NEW FINDINGS SUPPORT PROSPECT OF LIFE ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA By Mark Shwartz 5) BEAGLE 2 TEAM ASSESSES LANDING SITES From ESA Science News 6) INCREASED PRODUCTION OF ANTIBIOTICS IN SPACE REPORTED BY CU RESEARCHERS University of Colorado-Boulder release 7) BREAST CANCER SCREENING AID CLEARED FOR DIAGNOSTIC USE By Nancy Lovato 8) NEW MARS METEORITE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA By Ron Baalke 9) THE GALILEO MISSION TO JUPITER--THE DARING RETURN TO IO: MOON OF VOLCANOES AND FIRE By John Mosley 10) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 11) NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 12) MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS JPL releases 13) STARDUST MISSION STATUS JPL releases --------------------------------------------------------------------- PROJECT IN HIGH ARCTIC SIMULATES LIFE ON RED PLANET; FEASIBILITY STUDIES TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO FUTURE MARS EXPLORATIONS By Janet Wong University of Toronto release 24 January 2000 If humans were to inhabit Mars, how would we do it? What would we need to know? How would we breathe, eat, sleep, communicate, interact and live? U of T geology graduate student Darlene Lim is among a team of scientists on the Haughton Mars Project asking, and answering, those very questions. This project, led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, will be conducted on Haughton Crater on Devon Island in the Canadian high Arctic. According to Lim, the similarity of this crater to Mars is quite remarkable. Its geography, topography and potential microbiology may be comparable to those of the Red Planet since there is evidence that Mars once had crater lakes similar to the ancient lake that once occupied Haughton Crater. "By and large, the Haughton Mars Project explores how we would explore Mars," Lim says. "We have to know what to look for to see if there ever was life on Mars. And we also have to be conscious so that our activities do not destroy what we intend to study." A two-level habitat is being built and tested in Colorado by the Mars Society (a private group committed to the exploration and settlement of Mars). This simulated Mars space station--which sleeps up to six people--will have its inaugural opening July 20 on Haughton Crater and two groups will reside there for one week each this summer. As the project progresses through the years, the plan is to have people staying in the habitat for longer periods of time, says Lim, who is also a Mars Society member. "The science and research gathered will be extremely useful--from earth sciences research to robotics testing on rough terrain, from space communication to the social aspects of living in extreme conditions," she notes. "This project is a feasibility study and will give us a lot of information on what we need to know before we can send human explorers to Mars." Janet Wong is a news services officer with the Department of Public Affairs. --------------------------------------------------------------------- GENOME OF HIGHLY RADIORESISTANT POTENTIALLY SPACE-FARING BACTERIUM SEQUENCED By Mark Pallen The Queen's University of Belfast 25 January 2000 Owen White and his co-workers at the Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR) have recently reported the complete genome sequence of the most radiation-resistant organism yet known--Deinococcus radiodurans. Exponentially growing cells of this bacterium are 200 times more resistant to ionizing radiation than Escherichia coli cells. A recent study by Harada and colleagues shows that they are able to cope with DNA damage in a microgravity environment, so they probably survive better in extra-terrestrial environments than any other organism (those interested in terraforming Mars take note). The complete genome sequence is composed of two chromosomes (2.6 mega-base-pairs and 0.4 mega-base-pairs), a megaplasmid (177 kilo- base-pairs) and a small plasmid (45 kilo-base-pairs). 3187 open- reading frames were identified in the genome. Sequence comparisons confirmed the previously suspected close phylogenetic relationship between the genera Deinococcus and Thermus. Analysis of predicted protein sequences suggests that the extreme radio-resistance of this bacterium results from an unparalleled abundance of highly redundant DNA repair mechanisms and perhaps also from the presence of multiple scattered intergenic repeats. Availability of the genome sequence of this highly transformable bacterium is likely to assist in engineering of strains useful for bioremediation in radioactive waste sites. The genome and/or associated sequences can be accessed from the TIGR web site (http://www.tigr.org/tdb/CMR/gdr/htmls/SplashPage.html), via the NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMGifs/Genomes/1299.html) or via PEDANT (http://pedant.mips.biochem.mpg.de/). White O, Eisen JA, Heidelberg JF, Hickey EK, Peterson JD, Dodson RJ, Haft DH, Gwinn ML, Nelson WC, Richardson DL, Moffat KS, Qin H, Jiang L, Pamphile W, Crosby M, Shen M, Vamathevan JJ, Lam P, McDonald L, Utterback T, Zalewski C, Makarova KS, Aravind L, Daly MJ, Fraser CM, et al. Genome sequence of the radioresistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans R1. Science 1999 Nov 19; 286(5444):1571-1577. Brim H, McFarlan SC, Fredrickson JK, Minton KW, Zhai M, Wackett LP, Daly MJ. Nature Biotechnology 2000 Jan; 18(1):85-90. Engineering Deinococcus radiodurans for metal remediation in radioactive mixed waste environments. Rothschild LJ, Cockell CS. Mutation Research 1999 Dec 6; 430(2):281- 91. Radiation: microbial evolution, ecology, and relevance to Mars missions. Harada K, Sugahara T, Ohnishi T, Ozaki Y, Obiya Y, Miki S, Miki T, Imamura M, Kobayashi Y, Watanabe H, Akashi M, Furusawa Y, Mizuma N, Yamanaka H, Ohashi E, Yamaoka C, Yajima M, Fukui M, Nakano T, Takahashi S, Amano T, Sekikawa K, Yanagawa K, Nagaoka S. International Journal of Molecular Medicine 1998 May; 1(5):817-22. Inhibition in a microgravity environment of the recovery of Escherichia coli cells damaged by heavy ion beams during the NASDA ISS phase I program of NASA Shuttle/Mir mission number 6. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST ANNUAL ASTROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE By Lynn J. Rothschild 25 January 2000 NASA will host an international conference on astrobiology science to be held this spring at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, on April 3-5, 2000. The focus of the meeting is on scientific results that illustrate the broad multidisciplinary nature of astrobiology. As such, this conference will complement other, more narrowly focused meetings that deal primarily with one or two subdisciplines of astrobiology. We hope that this conference will become an annual event and will help to develop a growing constituency for astrobiology within the international scientific community. Bruce Jakosky (U Colorado) is the Chair of the Scientific Organizing Committee, and Lynn Rothschild (NASA Ames) is the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee. Format for the conference will be single sessions (no double or split sessions), with mix of invited oral reviews, oral contributed talks, and dedicated poster sessions. Selection of oral contributed papers will be on the basis of exciting new results of interest to the whole community. Our goal will be to have good overviews of the science, broad representation of the component disciplines, and integration across disciplines. There will be no published proceedings, but a booklet of abstracts will be prepared for distribution at the meeting. Abstracts of contributed papers for the conference will be due (electronic submission) on February 11, 2000. Abstracts can be up to one page in length (nominally 400 words). Details concerning abstract requirements, logistical information, fees, and preregistration will be available on the conference web site (see astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov). Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild Ecosystem Science and Technology Branch Mail Stop 239-20 NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 USA ph: (650) 604-6525 fax: (650) 604-1088 --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW FINDINGS SUPPORT PROSPECT OF LIFE ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA By Mark Shwartz Stanford University release 26 January 2000 If alien creatures exist elsewhere in our solar system, they're most likely to be found on Europa, one of 16 moons orbiting Jupiter. There is strong evidence that beneath Europa's frozen exterior of ice lies an ocean of liquid water--one of the essential ingredients for all living organisms. Many scientists believe that this vast subterranean sea could host living microorganisms similar in size and complexity to bacteria found on Earth. Others question whether a frozen moon with a surface temperature of -260°F (-170°C) can produce sources of energy useful for the basic chemical reactions necessary for life. But a new report in the January 27 issue of the journal Nature concludes that Europa does indeed contain plenty of biological fuels, thanks to billions of charged particles that constantly rain down from neighboring Jupiter. This relentless bombardment of radiation "should produce organic and oxidant molecules sufficient to fuel a substantial Europan biosphere," writes Christopher Chyba, associate professor (research) of geological and environmental sciences. On Earth, all organisms use carbon as a basic building block of life to construct everything from cells to DNA. Many organisms obtain their energy from carbon-based molecules like sugar, and some form of energy is required to free the carbon atoms from their chemical bonds. Plants and algae use energy from sunlight to produce their own organic molecules out of carbon dioxide gas taken from the atmosphere or the ocean. The process is known as photosynthesis. According to Chyba, sunlight would not provide enough energy to sustain life on Europa since its ocean appears to lie "beneath an ice layer too thick to permit photosynthesis." A likelier source of energy, he concludes, may come from fast-moving, charged particles that pound Europa from the atmosphere of Jupiter. Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field of any planet," Chyba says, more than 10 times stronger than Earth's. When protons, electrons and other particles from space get trapped in Jupiter's magnetosphere, they are accelerated to extremely high velocities. Europa's orbital path around Jupiter lies deep within this powerful magnetic field, so it receives a continuous barrage of electrified particles or ions. According to Chyba, when these ions slam into the icy surface of the moon, chemical reactions are likely to occur, transforming frozen molecules of water and carbon dioxide into new organic compounds such as formaldehyde. It turns out that one of the most common bacteria on Earth, Hyphomicrobium, survives on formaldehyde as its sole source of carbon, and Chyba believes that similar formaldehyde-feeding microbes could be alive and swimming in Europa's subsurface ocean. In addition to creating organic fuels, radiation from Jupiter also may drive chemical reactions that produce oxidants--molecules such as oxygen and hydrogen peroxide that can be used to burn formaldehyde and other carbon-based fuels. But Chyba notes that the oxidant and organic molecules formed on Europa's frigid surface "are biologically relevant only if they reach the ocean." The problem is that, if there is a liquid ocean on Europa, it's hidden beneath an ice sheet about 50 to100 miles (80 to 170 km) thick. So if extraterrestrial creatures are going to feast on formaldehyde, there has to be a way to get that compound through the dense layer of ice and into the liquid sea below. Recent photographs taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft reveal evidence of sudden melt-throughs in the ice that could allow oceanic microbes to come into quick contact with oxidants and organic food sources. The result could be a dramatic increase in population similar to "microbial blooms" that periodically occur in the Earth's oceans. Chyba points out that Europa's surface ice appears to get naturally recycled into the ocean every 10 million years--a process that would allow a very gradual delivery of life-giving molecules to any submerged organisms. And just how many microbes might exist in Europa's sea? Chyba's conservative estimate: one per cubic centimeter--a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of organisms that occupy each cubic centimeter of water on Earth. Could life on our planet have its origins on Europa? Probably not, according to Chyba. "Europa is as old as our solar system," he says, "but it's probably too far, too deep inside Jupiter's gravity well to have inoculated Earth with life-bearing debris." Chyba emphasizes that all theories about life on Europa hinge on proof that a liquid body of water actually exists between the moon's surface and its rocky core. "The point is to go there and find out," Chyba says, noting that in three years NASA plans to launch the Europa Orbiter satellite that will use radar to detect the presence of large bodies of subsurface water. The Orbiter should reach Europa in 2008, and NASA hopes to follow that with a remote landing. "We'll know in the next 10 years if there's an ocean," Chyba predicts. "If there is, Europa will be the site of a series of new space missions." As a student, Chyba's interest in extraterrestrial life led him to the Cornell University laboratory of famed astronomer Carl Sagan, a long-time advocate of planetary exploration. Chyba received his PhD in astronomy under Sagan's guidance in 1985. Today, in addition to his post on the Stanford faculty, Chyba holds the Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA. "SETI" is the acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. From 1993 to 1995, Chyba served as a White House adviser on national security. Beginning February 1, he will become co-director of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, an organization dedicated to finding innovative solutions to worldwide security problems such as arms control and ethnic conflict. --------------------------------------------------------------------- BEAGLE 2 TEAM ASSESSES LANDING SITES From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 26 January 2000 The Beagle 2 team has selected two potential landing sites on Mars for further study. In the latest issue of the Beagle 2 Bulletin, John Bridges from the Natural History Museum, London, who is leading the landing site study, writes: "The prospective areas are within the Chryse and Tritonis Lacus regions. Both are at low elevation, which gives more opportunity for the parachutes to brake the descent of Beagle 2. The latitude of the two sites, about 19 deg N, means that the mission will begin during the Martian late spring, when there is more solar energy to charge batteries and nighttime temperatures are relatively high, making it easier to keep the spacecraft warm. "Chryse is a region of flood channels which have brought materials from the southern highlands down over the northern plains. The Maja Vallis channel area in Chryse is of particular interest because Viking and Mars Orbiter images show the presence of some layering in isolated mesas (elevated flat surfaces, like plateau). Such layers might include hard pans (crust) formed through precipitation of salts from groundwater or ephemeral lakes. "Tritonis Lacus is on the margin of the Elysium plains and consists of a more eroded landscape. This erosion has left a generally smooth surface, which would be suitable for a safe landing." Selection of the final site will be made in February 2001 based on the outcome of detailed modeling of the landing activity at both sites and after consultation with the scientific community at an international workshop. "We are reviewing all the images we can get from Mars Global Surveyor (NASA's spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars). The site must be suitable for the science we want to do and be compatible with the entry and descent of Beagle 2," says Colin Pillinger, Principal Investigator for Beagle 2. "The delivery of Beagle by Mars Express requires complicated manoeuvres which use extra fuel. So the final selection will also take into account extensive studies to make sure that the implications for the spacecraft are acceptable," adds Rudi Schmidt, Mars Express Project Manager. Useful links for this story * More about Beagle II http://sci.esa.int/marsexpress/mex-beagle2.html * Beagle II homepage http://beagle2.open.ac.uk/beagle2/ Image captions [Image 1: http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&table=ContentTab le&Storytype=22] Location diagram for the Beagle 2 landing sites. The landing ellipses are 240 km long. [Image 2: http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&ImageID=4330&tab le=ImageTable&Storytype=22] Maja Vallis area. The general pattern of flood and sediment passage towards the NE is clear from the streamlined landforms. Evidence of terracing exposed on the sides of channels is most well developed around 50-51 deg W. The N-S running ridges towards the the east of the figure may be surface expressions of underlying lava flows. A band of Noachian basement is present around 54 deg W, the Maja Vallis channel cuts through this at 18 deg N. The landing ellipse is 240 x 20 km in 16 deg WSW/ENE orientation. [Image 3: http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&ImageID=4331&tab le=ImageTable&Storytype=22] Tritonis Lacus. This shows the generally flat, even surface of the region with isolated mesas and craters. Sinusoidal projection Viking context image. The landing ellipse is 240 x 20 km in 16 deg WSW/ENE orientation. [Image 4: http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&ImageID=4350&tab le=ImageTable&Storytype=22] Model of the Beagle 2 lander. --------------------------------------------------------------------- INCREASED PRODUCTION OF ANTIBIOTICS IN SPACE REPORTED BY CU RESEARCHERS University of Colorado-Boulder release 27 January 2000 Several space shuttle experiments flown by the University of Colorado at Boulder-based BioServe Space Technologies Center in October 1998 show promise for developing new biomedical products, according to recent research results. Aerospace engineering sciences Assistant Professor David Klaus said an antibiotic production experiment involving microbes showed the production of the antibiotic actinomycin D was 75 percent higher in space than in ground-control experiments. The tests, conducted in collaboration with Bristol- Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Wallingford, CT, took place during the flight of Discovery that returned astronaut John Glenn to space. Similar experiments flown by BioServe in the past and carried out in test tubes also showed increases in antibiotic production, although relatively small quantities were produced, said Klaus, Bioserve's associate director for research and the mission manager for the flight. Actinomycin D is an anti-cancer therapeutic, but its use is still largely experimental due to relatively high toxicity levels. The modification of the apparatus containing the antibiotic experiments for the flight appears to have made a difference, said Klaus. "We added a new gas-exchange fermentation device, which appears to have stimulated the antibiotic production by 20-fold over the test tube values." "This device was designed to provide more optimal growth conditions for microorganisms, and should help researchers gain insight into the causes of increased antibiotic productivity," he said. "This represents one more incremental step in eventually being able to reproduce these beneficial responses on Earth." Headquartered in CU-Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Science, BioServe is a joint venture between NASA, CU-Boulder and Kansas State University that undertakes a variety of industry-driven, life-science experiments on shuttle flights and involves both students and faculty. In a related experiment, samples of E. coli bacteria also grew better and more efficiently during the flight than the samples in the ground-control experiment. "The bacteria essentially grew more and consumed less nutrients--in this case glucose--indicating a higher metabolic efficiency in space," Klaus said. Another BioServe experiment, involving protein crystal growth in collaboration with BioSpace International of College Park, MD, produced crystals roughly equal in size to those grown in the ground- control experiments. But the space grown crystals--which have applications for new drug design--were primarily loose and free- floating, compared to the Earthbound crystals, most of which adhered to walls and membranes and were difficult to remove. "More importantly, topographical analyses indicated that space-grown crystals were of higher perfection than the ground crystals and had more uniform, sharper diffracted images," he said. Klaus was one of about a dozen researchers from around the nation that presented new findings from the 1998 Discovery mission at a symposium held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on January 27. NASA and the National Institutes of Health sponsored the symposium. BioServe and its industry affiliates will carry out longer-duration experiments on the International Space Station beginning in 2001, said Klaus. "BioServe's primary objective is to support commercial researchers in exploring mechanisms by which space flight can be used to create a 'value-added' benefit in a biotech application." The shuttle experiments took place inside the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, a suitcase-sized device designed and built at CU-Boulder that has flown on 13 space shuttle missions, including two four-month stints on Russia's Mir Space Station. The CGBA contains hundreds of syringe-like devices for mixing fluids in space, as well as other project-specific devices. --------------------------------------------------------------------- BREAST CANCER SCREENING AID CLEARED FOR DIAGNOSTIC USE By Nancy Lovato JPL release 28 January 2000 The war against breast cancer has a new weapon, thanks to an advanced sensor developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The device, called the BioScan System, was developed by OmniCorder Technologies, Inc., Stony Brook, NY. OmniCorder received clearance to market the system from the Food and Drug Administration in December 1999. Studies have determined that cancer cells exude nitric oxide. This causes changes in blood flow in tissue surrounding cancer that can be detected by the sensor. The BioScan System is sensitive to temperature changes of less than .015 degree Celsius (.027 degree Fahrenheit) and has a speed of more than 200 frames per second. It causes no discomfort to the patient and uses no ionizing radiation. "Clearance for use of this noninvasive diagnostic tool is an important milestone for us," said OmniCorder president and CEO Mark Fauci, who noted that the device has also been cleared to be marketed for other applications. The sensor, called the Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP), was invented by Dr. Sarath Gunapala, principal engineer of JPL's Device Research and Applications Section. The digital sensor detects the infrared energy emitted from the body, thus "seeing" the minute differences associated with blood flow changes. Earlier versions of QWIP had potential applications, such as locating hot spots during fires and observing volcanoes. "It is a great pleasure to see something I invented being used for public benefit," said Gunapala, "especially in medicine and even more so in the early detection of cancer." The BioScan System also uses Dynamic Area Telethermometry, invented by Dr. Michael Anbar, founding scientist of OmniCorder. The two technologies work together to image the target area and to provide the physician with immediate diagnostic information. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW MARS METEORITE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA By Ron Baalke http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/la.html 30 January 2000 I'm very pleased to report on a new Mars meteorite find by a good friend and fellow meteorite collector, Bob Verish. The meteorite was found somewhere in the Mojave Desert in California, and consists of two stones of 452.6 & 245.4 grams. The two rocks have been classified as Mars meteorites, specifically basaltic shergottites, by analysis done at UCLA. The new meteorite's official name is the Los Angeles meteorite. Background While on a rock collecting trip somewhere in the Mojave Desert in California, Bob Verish picked up a couple of rocks that had caught his eye. The rocks were basaltic with dark exteriors on top, and were interesting enough to his discerning eye to be included in his rock collection. About 20 years would pass before Bob would look closely at the rocks again. The rocks were stored in boxes in Bob's backyard along with a large portion of his rock collection. On October 30, 1999, while clearing out his rock collection for rat nests and rodent dropping, Bob came across the rocks again. Since Bob had begun collecting meteorites about 5 years ago, he knew what meteorites looked like. He immediately noted the dark fusion crust on the rocks and suspected the two rocks to be meteorites. Bob cut off small samples of each rock (total weight of about 30 grams) which he would then take to Alan Rubin at UCLA for analysis. New Mars meteorite? On December 17, 1999, UCLA confirmed the two rocks were meteorites. They also noted that upon viewing a thin section of the rocks, they bore a remarkable similarity with the QUE 94201 meteorite, a Mars meteorite found in the Antarctic in 1994. They suspected the rocks to also be Mars meteorites, but would require additional lab analysis for confirmation. Shortly aftwards, a very excited Bob brought the rocks to me. Bob has brought many rocks to me over the years, rocks that were potential meteorite candidates, though many of them turned out be "meteorwrongs". Bob informed me of the preliminary identification of the rocks as Mars meteorites (shergotittes) by UCLA. I took several photographs of the meteorites, which are shown here on this web page (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/la.html). UCLA were busy analyzing the rocks though the Christmas break and wanted to submit papers on the meteorites for the upcoming Lunar And Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) being held in Houston in mid-March. The abstract deadline for the conference was January 12, 2000. UCLA was working hard to have confirmation of the rocks done by then, and had enlisted the help of Arizona State University. Mars meteorite confirmed By January 12, UCLA had confirmed the rocks were indeed Mars meteorites and had submitted three abstracts for the LPSC [1][2][3]. Meanwhile, Bob had reported his meteorite find to the Meteoritical Society, and the Nonmenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society approved the name of Los Angeles for the newly discovered Mars rocks. Bob has affectionately nicknamed the two Mars rocks as "Miguel" and "Gabriel". In the petrology analysis led by Alan Rubin [1], the Martian origin for the Los Angeles meteorite was indicated by the D/H ratio. Apatite grains from the meteorite contained D-enriched water that was isotopically indistinguishable from comparable minerals from other shergotites. The rocks were shocked, which was also consistent with Mars meteorites. In the geochemistry analysis led by James Greenwood [2], the Los Angeles meteorite showed characteristic Martian values for such ratios as Mn/Fe, Na/Al and Ga/Al. It was also noted that the Los Angeles in many respects was the most geochemically evolved sample yet discovered from Mars. Per Bob Verish [4], the following paragraph is a proposed draft of what is proposed to appear in the Meteoritical Bulletin 84: Final version, 2000, July, MAPS 35: Los Angeles (original find location unknown) Los Angeles County, California, USA Recognized 1999 October 30 Martian basalt (shergottite) Two stones, weighing 452.6 g and 245.4 g respectively, were found by Bob Verish in his back yard while he was cleaning out a box of rocks that was part of his rock collection. The specimens may have been collected ~20 years ago in the Mojave Desert. Classification and mineralogy (A. Rubin, P. Warren and J. Greenwood, UCLA): a basalt with a texture closely resembling that of the QUE 94201; plagioclase laths, 43.6 vol%, An41Or4 to An58Or1, have been shocked to maskelynite; Ca-pyroxene, 37.7 vol%, ranges from Fs45Wo13 to Fs45Wo37 to Fs72Wo24; other mineral modes, 4.9 vol% silica, 4.2 vol% fayalite, 2.4 vol% K-rich felsic glass, 3.5 vol% titanomagnetite, 2.7 vol% Ca phosphate (including whitlockite and chlorapatite), 0.7 vol% pyrrhotite, and 0.2 vol% ilmenite; contains a higher proportion of plagioclase than Shergotty or Zagami, and has pyroxene that is moderately more ferroan than that in QUE 94201. Specimens: main masses with finder; 30 g, UCLA. [Houston LPSC references to be added later] More Mars meteorites? I personally believe there are more unidentified Mars and lunar meteorite sitting in collections waiting to be discovered. However, finding a new Mars meteorite is not an easy feat as Mars meteorites are extremely rare. Assuming the two Mars meteorites found in the Sahara Desert are paired, and the two new Los Angeles rocks are also paired, then the number of Mars meteorites is at only 14. Compare that with the over 20,000 meteorites found on Earth. The Los Angeles meteorite is only the second Mars meteorite found in the United States. The other US find was the Lafayette meteorite found in Indiana. Like the Los Angeles meteorite, the Lafayette meteorite sat in a collection for a number of years before it was recognized as a Mars meteorite. In Lafayette's case, it was discovered in the geological collection at Purdue University, and identified as a Mars meteorite in 1931. There is a lot of work involved in identifying meteorites. Since 99% of the rocks brought in by the public turn out not to be meteorites, weeding through all of these "meteorwrongs" takes a lot of time and effort. But as the Los Angeles meteorite shows, the effort can sometimes be worth it. References [1] Rubin A. et al, "The Pretology Of Los Angeles: A New Basaltic Shergottite Find", 31st Lunar And Planetary Science Conference (http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/meetings/LPSC2000/) [2] Warren P. et. al, "Geochemistry Of Los Angeles, A Ferroan, La- and Th-Rich Basalt From Mars", 31st Lunar And Planetary Science Conference. [3] Greenwood J. et. al, "Late-Stage Crystallization Features Of Los Angeles, A New Balsatic Shergottite", 31st Lunar And Planetary Science Conference. [4] Verish, Robert, The Los Angeles Meteorite Home Page (http://members.tripod.com/~marzmeteorite/la/losangel.htm) --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GALILEO MISSION TO JUPITER--THE DARING RETURN TO IO: MOON OF VOLCANOES AND FIRE By John Mosley 31 January 2000 Speaker: Nagin Cox of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Monday, 7 February 2000, 7:30 PM at Griffith Observatory In 1492, explorers found a "New World" called America. Now, in our own time, another invincible ship is pushing at the frontiers of our knowledge. For four years, the Galileo spacecraft has been in orbit around Jupiter sending back stunning new images of this giant planet and it's incredible moons. This year Galileo completed another stage of its mission--exploring the mysterious moon Europa. Does Europa have an ocean? Galileo's data is essential to answering that question. Now from October 1999 through the start of the year 2000, Galileo is in the midst of one of its greatest challenges- returning to the volcanic moon Io--deep in the heart of Jupiter's radiation belts. Come relive the journey through the solar system, experience the excitement of arrival at Jupiter and share in the wonder of Galileo's ongoing voyage of discovery. In 1986, Nagin graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Operations Research Engineering and a BA in Psychology and was commissioned as an officer in the US Air Force. As a lieutenant, she was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and worked as a systems engineer in F-16 aircrew training. Then she attended the Air Force Institute of Technology where she received a masters degree in Space Operations Systems Engineering in 1990. As a captain, she served as an Orbital Analyst at NORAD/Space Command in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs. In 1993, after leaving the Air Force to pursue more civilian space applications, she joined JPL as a ground data system engineer. At the same time, she served for two additional years in the Air Force Reserve as a Space Operations Officer. In 1995, she transferred into JPL's Spacecraft Systems Engineering Section and she is currently working as Deputy Team Chief of the engineering spacecraft flight team for NASA/JPL's Galileo mission to Jupiter. Friends of the Observatory (FOTO) is the non-profit support group for Griffith Observatory. Currently, one of FOTO's primary goals is to support the renovation and expansion of the Observatory, so that it continues to provide the nearly 2 million visitors and 50,000 school children annually with accurate astronomical and scientific information and programs and remains the internationally recognizable icon of Los Angeles. Admission is $2 for FOTO members, $5 for non-members, tickets available at the door. For more information call FOTO at (818) 846- 3686; fotofriend@earthlink.net (Children under 5 are not admitted) --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 24-30 January 2000 Galileo flies through apojove this week as it continues to return data stored on its onboard tape recorder. Apojove occurs on Friday and is the point at which the spacecraft is farthest from Jupiter in a given orbit. Galileo acquired the data returned this week during a flyby of Jupiter's icy moon Europa on January 3, 2000. Galileo is fairly busy this week as it halts data playback several times to perform engineering and navigation activities. On Monday, the spacecraft will perform a test to determine the status of the Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) instrument. UVS has been turned off for Galileo's past two encounters to protect it from additional radiation damage. Engineers hope that the instrument's damaged electronic components will have had a chance to anneal, restoring the instrument's functionality. Annealing is the process through which heat is applied to a cooling material to relieve stresses, change properties, improve machinability, or in this case, for realignment of atoms in a distorted crystal. On Friday, the spacecraft performs a flight path adjustment, if necessary. Finally, on Saturday, the spacecraft performs standard maintenance on its onboard tape recorder. This week's playback continues last week's return of images of Europa taken by the Solid-State Imaging camera (SSI). The images were designed to capture sharp-edged ridges on Europa, a multi-ring impact feature named Callanish, and a region of mottled (or blotchy-looking) terrain. Also continuing from last week is the playback of portions of a high-resolution recording performed by the Fields and Particles instruments during the spacecraft's closest 60 minutes to Europa. The data contained in the recording will allow scientists to refine and interpret estimates of Europa's recently-detected induced magnetic field. The presence of the field indicates the presence of an electrically conducting layer of material inside Europa, yet another piece of circumstantial evidence that liquid water is present beneath Europa's surface. Next on the playback schedule is the return of images taken by SSI of three of Jupiter's smaller moons: Amalthea, Thebe, and Metis. The images will provide the best resolution views of these moons, almost a factor of two better than the best previous images in the case of Amalthea and Metis. The increased resolution should aid scientists significantly in improving the knowledge of the shape and surface conditions of these smaller moons. Toward the end of the week, the spacecraft returns two observations of Io. The first was performed by the Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) and captured a near-global observation of the hemisphere of Io that contains the volcanic region of Loki. The second observation made by SSI consists of a series of color images of the same hemisphere. For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 24 January 2000 The following new images were taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft of the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Pathfinder landing sites: Mars Polar Lander: The Search Continues MOC's Highest Resolution View of Mars Pathfinder Landing Site The images resides on the Mars Global Surveyor web site at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/index.html The image captions are appended below. Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera Mars Polar Lander: The Search Continues MGS MOC Release #MOC2-198, 24 January 2000 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/1_24_00_polarlander/i ndex.html Since mid-December 1999, the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) onboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft has been taking pictures of Mars Polar Lander's landing zone near 76°S, 195°W, in hopes of finding some evidence as to the fate of the spacecraft that went missing during its December 3, 1999, landing attempt. To take these pictures, the MGS spacecraft is pointed a few degrees off its normal, nadir-looking (straight down) path. The first phase of imaging was completed December 24, 1999, but nothing was found. A second, expanded search was requested by the Mars Surveyor Operations Project and was begun in early January 2000. The MOC operations team at Malin Space Science Systems has been busy with the Mars Polar Lander search since December 3rd--initial efforts focused on the use of MOC as a buffer or "storage space" for data relayed through the MGS Mars Relay (MR) system. It had been hoped that the Polar Lander would try to communicate to Earth using its UHF antenna to relay data through the MGS relay system. Data from the relay come through the MOC and are received at Malin Space Science Systems much in the same way that pictures from MOC are obtained. The relay effort was concluded on January 17, 2000, with no word from the Polar Lander. Meanwhile, the MOC operations team began to plan, command, retrieve, and analyze images designed to look for the Polar Lander. These pictures are taken at the highest spatial resolution possible for MOC, 1.5 meters (5 ft.) per pixel. At this resolution, the fuselage and wings of a jumbo jet can be distinguished, but a Polar Lander would only be a few pixels, at most, in size. The first illustration (A, above) shows the area being searched by MOC. All images shown here are oriented such that north is up and west is to the left, and all are illuminated by sunlight from the upper left. The ellipses indicate the regions in which the Polar Lander may have touched down. NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC) derived the larger ellipse; the Mars Polar Lander contractor, Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA), calculated the two smaller ellipses. The smallest ellipse is the target that was given to the MOC team shortly after Polar Lander recovery attempts began in mid- December 1999. All MOC images obtained through December 26, 1999, were targeted to this smaller ellipse--images were taken both on the "2:00 AM" and "2:00 PM" sides of Mars, with better sunlight conditions, of course, being available on the 2:00 PM side. After the first of the year (2000), further refinement of the entry parameters and atmospheric conditions at the time of landing allowed additional, different trajectories to be examined. LMA's revised ellipses were offset from the original ellipse, and LaRC's were much larger. The two larger ellipses shown above were given to the MOC team for targeting on the 2:00 PM side of Mars starting during the second week of January 2000. The second figure (B, above) shows (in orange) the area covered by MOC from mid-December through January 17, 2000. Gaps between and within individual images have been caused by loss of data during transmission to Earth, combined with occasional uncertainties in spacecraft predicted positions. The third picture (C, above) is a mosaic of the MOC images obtained through January 17, 2000, that cover the Mars Polar Lander landing ellipses. Available here are two views designed to fit on a page in your web browser: one in which the 1.5 meter (5 ft) per pixel images have been shrunk to 15 meters (49 ft) per pixel, the other in which they have been shrunk to 30 meters (98 ft) per pixel. The most obvious feature in the mosaic is toward the lower left--about one- half of a crater-like circular depression is seen. More than 330 square kilometers (127 square miles) of south polar terrain have been imaged at 1.5 meters per pixel for this effort. The fourth picture (D, above) shows some samples of the variety of terrains and textures present within Mars Polar Lander's landing zone. Each of the six boxes shows an area of equal size. Knobs, pits, ridges, gullies, and smooth intervening surfaces are all seen. The task of finding the lander in these images is daunting. As shown in our previous release, "Mars Polar Lander: The Search Begins," December 21, 1999, the lander is most likely to consist of only a few square pixels within one of these images. Thus, the MOC team is basically trying to distinguish one or two pixels from nearly 150 million. One team member has remarked that this is like "trying to find a specific needle in... a haystack-sized pile of needles." No trace of either the Polar Lander or its descent system (portions of its aeroshell or parachute) have been seen, although this is not surprising given the resolution of MOC and illumination conditions. Indeed, recent results show that it is very hard to distinguish a lander even if we know where it is located (which, in the case of Polar Lander, we do not) as shown by the January 16, 2000, image of the Mars Pathfinder landing site, "MOC's Highest Resolution View of Mars Pathfinder Landing Site," January 24, 2000. MOC imaging of the Mars Polar Lander ellipses shown above (Figures A and B) will continue through the end of January 2000, at which time the data rates and volumes for Mars Global Surveyor and MOC become so low as to make further imaging prohibitive. Image credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera MOC's Highest Resolution View of Mars Pathfinder Landing Site MGS MOC Release #MOC2-197, 24 January 2000 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/1_24_00_pathfinder/in dex.html This release includes 6 figures. Each pair is followed by caption material discussing the effort to find Mars Pathfinder in Mars Orbiter Camera pictures. Can Mars Global Surveyor's 1.5 meter (5 ft) per pixel camera be used to find any evidence as to the fate of the Mars Polar Lander that was lost on December 3, 1999? One way to find out is to look for one of the other Mars landers and determine what, if anything, can be seen. There have been three successful Mars lander missions: Viking 1 (July 1976), Viking 2 (September 1976), and Mars Pathfinder (July 1997). Of these, the location of Mars Pathfinder is known the best because there are several distinct landmarks visible in the lander's images that help in locating the spacecraft. The MGS MOC Operations Team at Malin Space Science Systems has been tasked since mid- December 1999 with looking for the lost Polar Lander. Part of this effort has been to test the capabilities of MOC by taking a picture of the landing site of Mars Pathfinder. An attempt to photograph the Pathfinder site was made once before, in April 1998, by turning the entire MGS spacecraft so that the camera could point at the known location of the Mars Pathfinder lander. Turning the MGS spacecraft like this is not a normal operation--it takes considerable planning, and disrupts the on-going, normal acquisition of science data. It took 3 attempts to succeed, but on April 22, 1998, MOC acquired the picture seen on the left side of Figure A, above. The three near-by major landmarks that were visible to the Pathfinder's cameras are labeled here (North Peak, Big Crater, Twin Peaks). It was known at the time that this image was not adequate to see the Pathfinder lander because the camera was not in focus and had a resolution of only 3.3 meters (11 ft) per pixel. In this and all other images shown here, north is up. All views of the 1998 MOC image are illuminated from the lower right, all views of the 2000 MOC image are illuminated from the lower left. As part of the Polar Lander search effort, the Mars Pathfinder site was targeted again in December 1999 and January 2000. Like the 1998 attempt, the spacecraft had to be pointed off of its normal, nadir (straight-down) view. Like history repeating itself, it once again took 3 tries before the Pathfinder landing site was hit. The picture on the right side of Figure A, above, shows the new image that was acquired on January 16, 2000. The white box indicates the location shown in Figure B (above, right). The 1000 m scale bar equals 0.62 miles. Figure B (above) shows a subsection of both the 1998 image (top, labeled SPO-1-25603) and the 2000 image (bottom, labeled m11-2414) projected at a scale of 3 meters (10 ft) per pixel. At this scale, the differences in camera focus and sunlight illumination angle are apparent, with the January 2000 image being both in focus and having better lighting conditions. In addition, the MGS spacecraft took the 2000 image from a lower altitude than in 1998, thus the image has better spatial resolution overall. The 500 m scale bar is equal to about 547 yards. The white box shows the location of images in Figure C, below. The third figure (C, above) again shows portions of the April 1998 image (C, left) and January 2000 image (C, right), only this time they have been enlarged to a resolution of 0.75 meters (2.5 ft) per pixel. The intrinsic resolution of the January 2000 image is 1.5 meters (5 ft), so this is a 200% expanded view of the actual M11- 02414 image. The circular features in this and the previous images are impact craters in various states of erosion. Some boulders (dark dots) can be seen near the crater in the lower left corner. The texture that runs diagonally across the scene from upper left toward lower right consists of ridges created by the giant floods that washed through the Pathfinder site from Ares and/or Tiu Vallis many hundreds of millions of years ago. These ridges and the troughs between them were also seen by the Pathfinder lander; their crests often covered with boulders and cobbles (which cannot be seen at the resolution of the MOC image). The 100 m scale bar is equal to 109 yards (which can be compared with a 100 yard U.S. football field). The Mars Pathfinder landing site is located near the center of this view. The fourth picture, Figure D (above), shows a feature that was initially thought to be the Mars Pathfinder lander by MOC investigators. This and the following figures point out just how difficult it is to find a lander on the martian surface using the MGS MOC. Figure D was prepared early in the week following receipt of the new MOC image on January 17, 2000, and for several days it was believed that the lander had been found. As the subsequent two figures will show (E, and F, below), this location appears to be in error. How the features were misidentified is discussed below. Both Figure D and Figure F, showing possible locations of the Pathfinder lander in the MOC image, are enlarged by a factor of three over the intrinsic resolution of that image (that is, to a scale of 0.5 meters or about 1 ft, 7 inch per pixel). The right picture in Figure D shows sight-lines to the large horizon features--Big Crater, Twin Peaks, and North Peak--that were derived by the MOC team by looking at the images taken by the lander in 1997. After placing these lines on the overall image, there appeared to be two features close to the intersection of the sight-lines. Based upon the consistency of the size and shape of the lander as illuminated by sunlight in this image, the northern of the two candidate features (the small "hump" at the center of both left and right pictures) was considered, at the time, to be the most likely. However... Later in the week following acquisition of the January 16, 2000, image (and over the following weekend), there was time for additional analysis to determine whether the rounded hump identified earlier in the week (Figure D, above) was, in fact, the Mars Pathfinder lander. A computer program that estimates relative topography in a MOC image from knowledge of the illumination (called "shape-from-shading" or photoclinometry) was run to determine which parts of the landing site image are depressions, which are hills, and which are flat surfaces. The picture at the left in Figure E (above) shows the photoclinometry results for the area around the Pathfinder lander. The picture at the center of Figure E shows the same photoclinometry results overlain by an inset of a topographic map of the Pathfinder landing site derived by the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Branch (Flagstaff, Arizona) from photogrammetry (parallax measurements) using images from Pathfinder's own stereo camera. By matching the features seen by MOC with those seen by the Pathfinder (the large arrows are examples of the matching), the location of the lander was refined and is now indicated in the picture on the right side of Figure E. The large, rounded hump previously identified as Pathfinder in Figure D (above), is more likely a large boulder that was seen in Pathfinder's images and named "Couch" by the Pathfinder science team in 1997. Figure F is summary of the results of this effort to find Mars Pathfinder: it shows that while the landing site of Mars Pathfinder can be identified, the lander itself cannot be seen. It is too small to be resolved in an image where each pixel aquired by the MOC covers a square of 1.5 meters (5 feet) to a side, given the contrast conditions on Mars and the MOC's ability to discriminate contrast. At this scale, Pathfinder is not much larger than two pixels, and the same is true of the lost Polar Lander. No evidence has been found in the January 2000 MOC image of the aft portion of Mars Pathfinder's aeroshell or its parachute, either. If the aeroshell is laying on its side, as interpreted from Mars Pathfinder's images, then it would be very difficult to see this from orbit. Because Pathfinder did not image the parachute, it is not known how it may be configured on the surface--it could be wrapped around the aeroshell or a boulder, for example. This effort to photograph the Mars Pathfinder lander demonstrates that it is extremely difficult to find a lander on the surface of Mars using the Mars Orbiter aboard the MGS spacecraft. This analysis suggests that it is not very likely that the December 1999 Polar Lander will be found by MOC. The 1998 MGS MOC image of the Mars Pathfinder landing site was described in more detail in two previous MOC releases. Note that the exact location of the lander has been refined with the acquisition of the new January 2000 image as compared with the April 1998 image: "Pathfinder Landing Site Observed by Mars Orbiter Camera," April 25, 1998 "Refined Landing Site Location in MOC Image 25603," July 3, 1998 The MGS MOC efforts underway at Malin Space Science Systems to find Mars Polar lander are described in two other MOC releases: "Mars Polar Lander: The Search Begins," December 21, 1999 "Mars Polar Lander: The Search Continues," January 24, 2000 Image credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS JPL releases 25 January 2000 Mission managers have decided to send another set of commands to Mars to investigate the possibility that a signal detected by a radio dish at California's Stanford University came from Mars Polar Lander. The commands were sent at 10:00 AM PST today. They will instruct the lander, if it is operating, to send a signal directly to Earth to the antenna at Stanford on Wednesday, January 26, at approximately 1:00 PM PST. The Stanford receiving station will listen again during the window on Wednesday to see if it picks up a signal that could originate from Mars. The results of this test will not be immediate and it will take the team several days to process the data. Mission managers sent commands several times in December and January instructing Polar Lander to send a radio signal to the 45-meter (150- foot) antenna at Stanford. Although no signal was detected in real- time, the team in charge of the Stanford antenna says that after additional processing of the data they may have detected a signal that could have come from Mars during tests on December 18 and January 4. Because the signal was so weak, it took several weeks for the Stanford team to process their data and reach this conclusion. "This week's test is a real long-shot, and I wouldn't want to get anyone too excited about it," said Richard Cook, Polar Lander project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "The signal that the Stanford team detected is definitely artificial, but there are any one of a number of places it could have originated on or near Earth. Still, we need to conduct this test to rule out the possibility that the signal could be coming from Polar Lander." If in fact the signal were from Polar Lander, two failures would have had to occur. First, the lander's X-band radio that it would use to transmit directly to Earth would have to be broken. Second, there would have to be a problem somewhere in the relay with Mars Global Surveyor that prevented the signal from being picked up and relayed by the orbiter. It is unlikely that a broken transmitter on the lander could be fixed, and unclear whether a problem with the relay could be resolved. Although the Stanford data from the previous tests took several weeks to process, the team expects to have results within several days now that they know what they are looking for. Even if the signal were coming from the lander, there is little hope that any science could be returned. However, it would give the team a few more clues in trying to eliminate possible failure modes. 27 January 2000 Radio scientists at California's Stanford University are continuing to process data from communications attempts made yesterday and today to determine if they have picked up a signal coming from Mars Polar Lander using their 45-meter (150-foot) antenna. There were three 30-minute communications windows yesterday and three more listening windows today. It takes about 18 hours to process the data from each window. So far, Stanford scientists have looked at one of the three data sets taken yesterday and say they have not detected anything unusual. It will take several days to complete the processing and the researchers do not expect to have confirmation of a signal until some time next week. "The signal we are looking for is very, very weak, about 1 watt of power--or like looking for a Christmas tree light on Mars," said Richard Cook, Polar Lander project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "Because of the weakness of the signal, we want to be absolutely sure we have something so we will check and double check these data before we will be willing to confirm there is a signal." The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages Mars Polar Lander for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Astronautics Inc., Denver, CO, is the agency's industrial partner for development and operation of the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. --------------------------------------------------------------------- STARDUST MISSION STATUS JPL releases 26 January 2000 NASA's Stardust spacecraft has successfully completed a three-part deep space maneuver designed to keep it on target for an Earth gravity assist in January 2001. That gravity assist will propel the spacecraft toward its 2004 rendezvous with the Comet Wild-2. The maneuver consisted of a trio of propulsion firings performed on January 18, 20 and 22 to achieve velocity changes of 58, 52, and 48 meters per second, respectively (about 130, 116 and 107 miles per hour). Each firing lasted for about 30 minutes. With these three engine burns plus a short firing of 11 meters per second (25 miles per hour) made in late December, the flight team changed the spacecraft velocity by about 171 meters per second (383 miles per hour), and put Stardust on target for next year's swingby of Earth. Stardust's mission is to collect samples of comet dust from Wild-2 for return to Earth in 2006. While en route, the spacecraft will also attempt to gather samples of interstellar dust particles for study on Earth. Engineers plan to command Stardust to extend its dust collector on February 22 in order to begin collecting interstellar dust from a stream that flows into our solar system. Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999. The principal investigator for the Stardust mission is Dr. Donald C. Brownlee of the University of Washington. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, built and operates the spacecraft. Its instruments were provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Chicago, and the Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. 28 January 2000 There were eleven Deep Space Network (DSN) passes to support the completion of Deep Space Maneuver 1 (DSM-1) and transition to All- Stellar attitude. The overall spacecraft performance for DSM-1 was outstanding. The total burn was 5884.4 seconds and used 29.3410 kg of propellant. The ending tank pressure was 157 psia, approximately 7 psia higher than expected. This means that the Comet Wild 2 encounter tank pressure has an additional 7 psia margin (a 100% increase in margin). The total spacecraft measured delta V was 159.4279 meters/second while the Navigation Team estimates a delta V of 159.013 meters/second. The power and thermal performance for all three portions of DSM-1 was also better than predicted. Transition to All-Stellar was accomplished. The actual transition was delayed one day to provide DSN support for Mars Polar Lander command activities. The All-Stellar transition had one multiple thruster firing, captured in high rate attitude telemetry that is now being analyzed. The background flight sequence, SC013 Part 4, was modified to collect high rate attitude data at selected times in order to provide additional insight into the multiple firings. The plan is to remain in All-Stellar attitude this week to collect sufficient data to determine the statistics of multiple firings. Contingency commands are available to return to Gyro Based attitude determine if necessary. Flight sequence SC013 is the active sequence. Sequence SC014 has been reviewed, and includes the aerogel deployment for the first Interstellar Collection Period. A review was completed of the science activities to obtain existing reduced earth-based Comet Wild 2 observations, taken during the 1997 apparition, project-produced comet models of dust production, particle lifetime as a function of size, and nucleus albedo and rotation properties. A Stardust-organized Wild 2 Observation and Modeling Workshop and Peer Review will be held later this year For more information on the Stardust mission--the first ever comet sample return mission--please visit the Stardust home page at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov. --------------------------------------------------------------------- End Marsbugs Volume 7, Number 4