MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 7, Number 6, 14 February 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) EROS OR BUST By Tony Phillips 2) NASA'S SPACE PLACE WELCOMES ITS 100TH PARTNER JPL release 3) HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY FROM MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR JPL image advisory 4) FIRST ORBIT AROUND AN ASTEROID Johns Hopkins University release 5) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 6) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release 7) NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 8) MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS JPL release 9) STARDUST STATUS REPORT JPL release --------------------------------------------------------------------- EROS OR BUST By Tony Phillips 8 February 2000 NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Mission is nearing Eros. It is scheduled to go into orbit around the space rock on Valentines Day, 2000. If all goes well on Valentines Day, 2000, NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft will go into orbit around asteroid 433 Eros. Thruster firings on February 3 slowed NEAR to a leisurely 18 mph and it is now less than 3000 miles from the asteroid. When NEAR enters orbit around Eros on February 14, it will become the first spacecraft to circle an asteroid. NEAR will use its instruments to scrutinize the potato-shaped space rock, which is about twice the size of Manhattan Island, for an entire year. Most asteroids are concentrated in a vast doughnut-shaped ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. These diminutive space rocks orbit the Sun like planets, but they have no atmosphere and very little gravity. It's likely that asteroids are leftover pieces of a planet that tried to form 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was young, but couldn't because of nearby Jupiter. The giant planet's powerful gravity prevented the "planetesimals" from accreting into a planetary body. If you put all the asteroids together, they would form a body about 1500 km (580 miles) in diameter, roughly half the size of Earth's moon. Not all asteroids are far away in the asteroid belt. Some, called Near Earth Asteroids (or NEAs), have orbits that bring them very close to Earth. 433 Eros is one of these. NEAs are thought to be fragments ejected from the main asteroid belt by asteroid-asteroid collisions or by gravitational perturbations from Jupiter. Some NEAs might also be the nuclei of dead, short period comets. As any dinosaur can tell you, it's important to keep an eye on Near Earth Asteroids. Many NEAs have struck Earth and its moon in the past. One widely accepted theory blames the impact 65 million years ago of an asteroid or comet at least 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter for mass extinctions among many life forms, including the dinosaurs. Other theories suggest that the chemical building blocks of life and much of Earth's water arrived on asteroids or comets that bombarded the planet in its youth. On June 30, 1908, a small asteroid 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter exploded over the remote region of Tunguska in Siberia, devastating more than half a million acres of forest. One of the most recent close calls occurred on March 23, 1989, when an asteroid 0.25 mile (0.4 kilometer) wide came within 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) of Earth. Surprised scientists estimated that Earth and the asteroid--weighing 50 million tons and traveling at 46,000 mph (74,000 kilometers per hour)--had passed the same point in space just six hours apart! Approximately 800 NEAs have been found to date-- probably only a small percentage of their total population. The largest presently known is 1036 Ganymed, with an approximate diameter of 25.5 miles (41 kilometers). Estimates suggest that at least 700 NEAs may be large enough--0.6 mile (1 kilometer) or more in diameter--to threaten civilization if they were to strike the Earth. Although we've known about asteroids for nearly 200 years, many of their basic properties remain shrouded in mystery. What exactly are they made of? What is their relationship to meteorites found on Earth? How were asteroids formed? If you wanted to destroy one before it hit the Earth, how large should the missile be? Some of these questions are not solely academic, and scientists need a close- up look at an asteroid to answer them. The target of the NEAR mission, 433 Eros, was the first near-Earth asteroid to be discovered and is the second largest known. It is one of only three known NEAs with diameters of more than 6 miles (10 kilometers). With dimensions 21 by 8 by 8 miles (33 by 13 by 13 kilometers), Eros is one of the most elongated asteroids. Into orbit On February 14, at 10:33 AM EST, when NEAR is 207 miles (333 kilometers) from the center of Eros, it will fire its hydrazine engines to slow it enough to be captured by the asteroid's weak gravitational pull. Confirmation of a successful orbit is expected to come at about 11:30 AM EST to waiting team members in the Mission Operations Center on the Applied Physics Laboratory campus of Johns Hopkins University. That these critical events will happen on Valentine's day is appropriate because Eros is named for the Greek god of love. During the first few weeks after achieving orbit the spacecraft will slowly descend toward the asteroid. Because it is irregularly shaped and rotating, this early stage of the mission can be very tricky. "No one has ever orbited a small body in space," says Dr. Robert Farquhar, NEAR mission director. "The orbital stability is rather tenuous, and as we travel around Eros our navigation maneuvers must be perfect to keep us from crashing into it." "Soon after we go into orbit we should know the asteroid's mass and therefore its density to within 5 percent," says Dr. Andrew Cheng, mission scientist. The onboard magnetometer will determine the strength of the asteroid's magnetic field--if there is one. "This will give the scientific community the first definitive measurement of an asteroid's magnetism, which contains clues to its thermal and geologic history," Dr. Cheng says. "The results of these measurements and others that we will take over the next year will help us to determine the origin of the asteroid and give us an unprecedented understanding of asteroids in general." For the first two months NEAR will slowly descend to within 31 miles (50 kilometers) from Eros. During this low-orbit phase scientists will use the x-ray/gamma-ray spectrometer to measure the abundance of various elements that make up Eros. X-rays from the sun striking the asteroid can produce significant count rates of fluorescence X-rays from surface elements such as magnesium, aluminum, and silicon. The elements sulfur, calcium, titanium, and iron are also present in asteroids, but count rates will be lower and data will take longer to accumulate. Similarly, cosmic ray protons (and energetic particles associated with solar flares) can interact with the asteroid surface to produce gamma rays characteristic of the nuclear energy levels of a given element. Gamma rays also can be spontaneously emitted by naturally occurring radioactive elements such as potassium, uranium, and thorium. In late August the spacecraft will begin to climb from 31 to 311 miles (50 to 500 kilometers) above the center of Eros. During this ascent the spacecraft's camera will continue to snap pictures of the asteroid's surface that will be compiled into a complete map. In December NEAR will descend, possibly to less than a mile, from the surface of the asteroid. From that vantage point the near- infrared spectrometer can collect extremely high resolution data of the asteroid's surface, making it possible to distinguish the composition of rocks as small as a grapefruit. Final events of the mission, which will end in February 2001, will be determined sometime this summer. NEAR was launched February 17, 1996, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, FL. Its original rendezvous date of January 10, 1999, was postponed when a firing of the spacecraft's bipropellant engine, designed to put the spacecraft on target for the rendezvous, exceeded preset acceleration limits and caused the spacecraft to retreat into safe mode. But valuable information about the asteroid was collected by a hastily programmed flyby of Eros on December 23, 1998. Early images can be found on the Internet at http://near.jhuapl.edu. The NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) mission, a NASA Discovery Program being conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, is the first mission to orbit an asteroid. [For more information on this article, see http://www.spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast08feb_1.htm] --------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA'S SPACE PLACE WELCOMES ITS 100TH PARTNER JPL release 9 February 2000 NASA's "Space Place"--an educational program and Web site designed for young students--has recently welcomed its 100th partner and first aquarium, the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY. Space Place, developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's New Millennium Program, provides display materials and hands-on activities to its partner museums and libraries--and now an aquarium--in 43 states. The program has been targeted to include small- and mid-sized cities that do not have major space exhibits. "Space Place takes NASA to the heartland," said Nancy Leon, outreach coordinator and producer of Space Place's web site. "We want to encourage the natural curiosity that children have for learning and developing new interests." The web site features a map and list of all the Space Place partners, in addition to hands-on experiments. "Dr. Marc's Amazing Facts," a set of space science questions with detailed explanations geared towards students written by Dr. Marc Rayman, JPL's Deep Space 1 chief mission engineer, is another highlight of the site. Partners set up bulletin boards in their display areas with space-themed items such as press clippings and children's drawings. Started last year, the Space Place's award-winning web site is located at http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov Materials provided to Space Place partners include the latest NASA mission posters, lithographs and postcards, in addition to information and activities that can be printed from the Web site. Space Place is designed to interest and involve students in science and space exploration. The Web site offers learning activities such as a recipe for "El Niño Pudding," along with an explanation, with graphics, of the climate condition called El Niño. A downloadable board game offers an imaginary intergalactic adventure to a black hole in "Spacey Things to Do." "Space Science in Action" offers experiments such as launching "rockets" and solving extraterrestrial riddles. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. --------------------------------------------------------------------- HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY FROM MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR JPL image advisory 11 February 2000 NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has captured a lovely view of a bright, heart-shaped mesa in the south polar region of the red planet. The heart-shaped feature is about 255 meters (837 feet) across. According to Mars Global Surveyor scientists, the presence of this mesa indicates that the darker, rough terrain that surrounds it was once covered by a layer of the bright material. The image, taken on November 26, 1999, is being released today on the web at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.msss.com Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST ORBIT AROUND AN ASTEROID Johns Hopkins University release 14 February 2000 At 11:00 AM Eastern time, navigation data from the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft indicates NEAR has achieved orbit around asteroid 433 Eros. At 10:33 AM, with Eros about 203 miles (327 kilometers) below, NEAR's small hydrazine thrusters fired for 57 seconds, slowing the spacecraft's approach to walking speed and easing it into the asteroid's weak gravitational pull. The rendezvous took place about 160 million miles (256 million kilometers) from Earth. "NEAR is now the first spacecraft to successfully lock into orbit around an asteroid," says Mission Director Dr. Robert Farquhar, from the NEAR Mission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. "We're making history here today." Over the next 24 hours, instrument data and pictures of the asteroid taken after the orbit insertion burn will provide more details about NEAR's precise position around Eros. The first orbit images from NEAR are expected this afternoon. [For more information on this story, see http://www.spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast14feb_1.htm or http://near.jhuapl.edu/] --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 7-12 February 2000 The time remaining to play back data stored on Galileo's tape recorder is steadily diminishing as only two weeks remain before the spacecraft returns to inner regions of the Jupiter system and its next satellite encounter. The data returned this week were stored on the onboard tape recorder during Galileo's previous two satellite encounters--Io in late November 1999, and Europa in January 2000. Data playback is interrupted once this week, on Monday, when the spacecraft performs a standard test that allows flight engineers to keep track of the performance of the attitude control system's gyroscopes. Portions of six observations are returned to Earth this week. During data playback, the spacecraft computer retrieves data stored on the tape recorder, processes and packages the data, and subsequently transmits the data to Earth. This week's observations were made by the Solid-State Imaging camera (SSI), the Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS), and the Fields and Particles instruments. The first four observations of the playback schedule were acquired during Galileo's November 1999 encounter with the Jupiter system. SSI is first up with the return of a 12-frame global mosaic of icy Europa. Although the November encounter featured Io, the spacecraft's trajectory also offered a good view of Europa. NIMS follows on the schedule with the return of two spectral scans of Europa's surface. One of the scans captures an equatorial region of Europa, while the other is global in scale. The final observation from the November observation set is returned by the Fields and Particles instruments. They return parts of a 3-hour high-resolution recording of the Io plasma torus. These measurements will be used to understand the structure and dynamics of plasma, dust, and electric and magnetic fields in the torus. The measurements contained in this recording will also be important for understanding the overall dynamics of the Jovian magnetosphere. The remaining two observations of this week's playback schedule were acquired during Galileo's January 2000 encounter with the Jupiter system. The Fields and Particles instruments start off with the return of a portions of a 60-minute high resolution recording of the region surrounding the spacecraft's closest approach to Europa. The data contained in this recording will allow scientists to further refine and interpret estimates of Europa's induced magnetic field. The presence of this field was detected shortly after the Europa flyby in real time data received from Galileo during the actual flyby. The field signature is the best evidence yet that supports the existence of a conducting layer, possibly liquid water, below Europa's surface. SSI returns the final observation of this week. In it, the camera captured sharp-edged ridges, a multi-ring impact feature named Callanish, and blotchy-looking, or mottled, terrain on Europa. 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release 9 February 2000 Launch / Days since Launch = Nov 7, 1996 / 1190 days Start of Mapping / Days since Start of Mapping = April 1, 1999 / 314 days Total Mapping Orbits = 4134 Total Orbits = 5816 Recent events The mz041 mini-sequence, containing the "full-up" Beta Supplement HGA motion verification test, executed on Thursday Feb 3 at ~11:00 GMT. The test successfully moved the azimuth gimbal to 140°, then performed a "simulated orbit" on the elevation gimbal, incorporating a 3-part boom interference rewind and a 3-part range-of-motion rewind, and executed the full elevation range of motion from -157° to +155°. Based upon the success of the test, the first beta supplement mapping sequence, mm012, was radiated to the spacecraft and began executing Saturday Feb 4 at 00:00 GMT. The first beta supplement orbit executed on Monday Feb 7 at 10:00 GMT and all operations on the spacecraft and with the DSN station were completely nominal. Twenty- five orbits have been successfully executed as of the writing of this report. Spacecraft health All subsystems are reporting nominal health. Uplinks There have been 25 uplinks to the spacecraft during the last week, including new star catalogs and ephemeris files, instrument command loads, and the mm012 sequence. Total command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch is 4415. Upcoming events Uplink of the second beta supplement sequence, mm013, is scheduled for Thursday February 10. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 7 February 2000 The following new images were taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft: Wind Streaks of Daedalia, Mars, and Amboy, California The Dark Surfaces of Mars: Mantles and Sand Sheets 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 was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera Wind Streaks of Daedalia, Mars, and Amboy, California MGS MOC Release #MOC2-206, 7 February 2000 These pictures compare an image of wind features on a lava field on Mars with similar features on a lava field in southern California. The first picture (above, left) shows that the martian example occurs in western Daedalia Planum, a region covered by long, dark-toned lava flows southwest of Arsia Mons, the southernmost of the three large Tharsis Montes. The second picture (above, center) is Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image no. AB1-10905. It was acquired on January 29, 1998. What struck the MOC Science Team as most exciting about this image was that the relationship between lava flows, bright windblown sediment, and dark wind tails behind craters in AB1-10905 reminded them of a similar scene near Amboy, Calfornia, in the Mojave Desert (above, right). Based upon observations of Daedalia Planum from the Viking orbiters in the late 1970s, it has been assumed for 20 years that most of Daedalia Planum is a lava flow field that is mantled by bright dust. However, the similarity to the Amboy lava field in California has caused some scientists to re-think the situation on Mars. Instead of bright dust, it now appears that bright sand might be present in this portion of Daedalia Planum. What's the difference between dust and sand? Observations from the Viking and Mars Pathfinder landers have suggested that martian dust consists of very, very tiny particles of less than 10 micrometers (less than 1/10th the width of a human hair). Sand, on the other hand, is defined by sedimentologists as consisting of particles with sizes in the range 62.5 to 2000 micrometers (2000 micrometers is 2 millimeters, or about 8-hundredths of an inch). In the martian environment, sand moves close to the ground by bouncing and hopping when strong enough gusts of wind come along, this is called saltation. Dust, on the other hand, gets picked up by the wind and travels by being suspended in the air. When dust settles back to the ground, it forms a coating that blankets surfaces in a fairly uniform manner, whereas sand makes drifts, tails, and streaks as it interacts with obstacles such as craters, hills, and the lumpy surfaces of lava flows. At the Amboy lava field in California, bright sand is being blown across the dark lava from adjacent dry streambeds. When this sand encounters a volcanic cinder cone that rises above the lava field (pictures "B" and "D" in the above, right figure), the sand is deflected around the cone and leaves a dark "shadow" in which very little bright sand gets deposited. A similar situation is seen with respect to craters formed by meteor impact in the Daedalia Planum image AB1-10905 (pictures "A" and "C" in the above, right figure). The spectacular Amboy wind streak, lava flows, and cinder cone can often be seen from an airplane by passengers flying into or out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) from points east such as Denver, Colorado. MOC image AB1-10905 is illuminated from the left. The Amboy lava flows and cinder cone volcano are illuminated from the lower right. The Amboy photographs were taken from an airplane and are from the U.S. Geological Survey. Wind has blown material from right to left in the MOC image, and from upper left toward lower right in the Amboy pictures. North is up in all figures. Image credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera The Dark Surfaces of Mars: Mantles and Sand Sheets MGS MOC Release #MOC2-205, 7 February 2000 When seen through a telescope from Earth, Mars reveals a pattern of bright and dark regions. Early astronomers speculated that the dark regions were seas. Later astronomers suggested that the dark regions were vast tracts of vegetation. As recently as the early 1960s, it still seemed possible to a few astronomers that the dark regions had some kind of plant life because they seemed to darken each summer as if plants were growing in response to sunlight. Since the Mariner missions to Mars (1965-1972), purely geological explanations have been proposed to explain the dark regions and the changes we see in them. In particular, dust storms have been observed on Mars. Thus wind and dust storms are the suspected culprits that created the 19th Century illusion that something was growing and changing with each martian season. Just as there are "hurricane seasons" and "monsoon seasons" on Earth, there may be "dust storm seasons" on Mars. The dark regions of Mars are now being seen in greater detail than ever before by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). As expected, none of these areas are covered by vegetation! But what has been a surprise is the great variety of dark surfaces seen. Before MGS, most had been thinking that these areas are sandy because all of the large martian sand dunes are are dark, too. But in many cases, dark dunes and sand are not found in the MOC images--- such areas instead are thickly blanketed by a cracked, crusty covering of what may be fine silt instead of sand. Other areas---in particular the floor of Ganges Chasma in the Valles Marineris region- --show thick accumulations of windblown sand. The first two pictures presented here (A and B, above) show dark, blanketed or mantled surfaces in the Sinus Sabaeus region (310°-350° W longitude and 5°-12°S latitude) of Mars. This dark material in some places has bright dunes on top of it (top, left picture), and in other places appears to have narrow cracks running through it (top, right picture). If the dark material consisted of sand, it would show drifts and tails formed around and behind obstacles as are seen in the thick sand sheets of Ganges Chasma (C and D, above). Because wind transports sand close to the ground, it interacts with obstacles such as the bright mounds in Figure C (above) to make drifts and tails. The top left picture is MOC image AB1-11105 located in Sinus Sabaeus near 7.0°S, 343.4°W. The top right picture is also in Sinus Sabaeus and is MOC image M00-01078 near 10.0°S, 329.1°W. The bottom left pair of images show a thick sheet of dark sand in Ganges Chasma. The bottom right picture is a stereo anaglyph (use 3-d red/blue glasses) MOC wide angle view showing the locations of the two Ganges Chasma images. Ganges Chasma is around 7°S, 50°W. All pictures are illuminated from the left. The AB1 images were taken in January 1998, the M00 images are from April 1999. Image credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS JPL release 7 February 2000 Radio telescopes in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and at Stanford University in California are preparing for a second set of observations on Tuesday, February 8, to continue to listen for a possible signal from Mars Polar Lander. "We have received tremendous support from the observatories at Westerbork, Jodrell Bank and Stanford. They have been working around the clock to help us and we are grateful for their efforts," said Richard Cook, project manager for Mars Polar Lander at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. A second round of observations is required in order to eliminate remaining uncertainty about the operational status of the batteries on the lander. The operations Tuesday will consist of two 30-minute listening windows with a two-hour "cooling down" period in between. JPL will send a new set of commands to the spacecraft Monday night through the Deep Space Network. An additional antenna near Bologna, Italy, will also be used to listen on Tuesday. Mission managers at JPL theorize that the lander may be in a different configuration than expected, and as a result the spacecraft might not have executed or received the commands that were sent last week. Results from the listening windows on Friday, February 4, have not been conclusive. Both radio telescopes at Westerbork in the Netherlands and Jodrell Bank in the United Kingdom have operated optimally throughout the experiments. Observational data from both telescopes have been analyzed extensively, but nothing has been found in the data to suggest transmissions from Polar Lander. The two telescopes have a similar sensitivity for detecting signals from the lander, and thus far all signals they have detected are thought to be of terrestrial origin. Analysis of the data from Stanford has also not yielded any conclusive results, and scientists there are still continuing to review that data. Exhaustive analysis of the new data taken on Tuesday will take at least until the end of this week. The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope is operated by Astron, the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy, and is financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory is operated by the University of Manchester's Department of Physics and Astronomy. 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 STATUS REPORT JPL release 11 February 2000 There were three Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes during the past week. All subsystems on board the spacecraft are performing normally. The spacecraft is in All-Stellar mode though multiple small firings of the thrusters are occurring. The fuel usage has decreased to less than 3 grams/day. Analysis of the high rate attitude telemetry is still in progress. The only commanding during this period has been to reset the Command Loss Timer. The last DSN contact was when the spacecraft was less than 2 degrees from the Sun. All commands sent to the spacecraft were received although the signal was noisier than normal due interference with the Sun. Solar conjunction occurs on Thursday February 10 when the angle between the spacecraft and the Sun, as seen from Earth, will be 0.16 degrees. After the conjunction Stardust will start its return to Earth that will culminate in an Earth flyby on January 15, 2001. The flyby marks the completion of the first of three orbits around the Sun. The Peer Review of the upcoming Sample Return Capsule (SRC) deployment was held. During the review the SRC mechanisms (latches, hinge, shoulder and wrist) were described and the commands for deployment discussed. The review board was positive in its comments. One of the board recommendations was to start the SRC motors warm-up the day before to ensure the motors were at operating temperatures at the start of their movement. The motor temperatures are approximately -65°C. The operating temperature is -40°C. 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 6