MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 8, Number 2, 15 January 2001. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, Math and Science 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://welcome.to/marsbugs. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of information for scientists, educators and other persons interested in exobiology and related fields. This newsletter is not intended to replace peer- reviewed journals, but to supplement them. We, the editors, envision Marsbugs as a medium in which people can informally present ideas for investigation, questions about exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events. 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) ASTEROID SAMPLE RETURN OBJECT OF SPACE MISSION PROPOSED BY UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS RESEARCHER By Melissa Blouin 2) NASA AMES KEPLER MISSION SELECTED FOR DISCOVERY PROGRAM NASA/ARC release 01-01AR 3) EARLIER WATER ON EARTH? OLDEST ROCK SUGGESTS HOSPITABLE YOUNG PLANET National Science Foundation release 01-02 4) STARDUST CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW-JUST BEFORE EARTH FLYBY NASA release 01-06 5) OUR HOME PLANET MAY PROVE TO BE WET BEHIND THE EARS By Marcus Chown 6) DRILLING FOR MARTIANS-NASA PLANS TO BURN HOLES IN THE RED PLANET By Ian Sample 7) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 8) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 9) ISS STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 10) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release 11) NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES JPL release --------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTEROID SAMPLE RETURN OBJECT OF SPACE MISSION PROPOSED BY UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS RESEARCHER By Melissa Blouin University of Arkansas, Fayetteville release 21 December 2000 In the wake of NASA's successful Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous space mission, a University of Arkansas researcher is putting together a team of scientists to take asteroid research to the next level- bringing asteroid samples back to Earth. Derek Sears, professor of chemistry and director of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, has proposed a mission called Hera that will visit three near-Earth asteroids, obtain samples from them and return the samples to Earth. The project is named for Hera, a Greek goddess and mother of the three graces, joyfulness, bloom and brightness. The Arkansas-Oklahoma center will provide the infrastructure and support required to produce the mission. Such a mission has only recently become possible, according to Sears. But with the advent of new engines for driving interplanetary spacecraft, the NEAR spacecraft completing a successful mission, and the discovery of 1,000 or more near-Earth asteroids in the past two years, the mission has become feasible. "We have the right engines, another space craft doing a dry run, and we have plenty of targets," Sears said. According to current plans, the spacecraft will feature a touch-and- go sampler designed by Steven Gorevan and Shaheed Rafeek of Honeybee Robotics, Inc. The sampler will hover above the asteroids and extend a high-speed drill into the surface. The probe will capture fragments from the drilling and store them in containers aboard the spacecraft. The craft will also contain cameras, spectrometers and other scientific equipment that will record information about the asteroids. Sears and his colleagues recently gathered at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston to discuss various aspects of the mission. They talked about the scientific case for sample return, spacecraft maneuvers in the vicinity of small asteroids, sample collection devices and planetary protection issues, and the implications for resource utilization, impact hazard mitigation and human exploration and development of space. The mission will address some of the most fundamental questions in science as defined by NASA's Space Science Enterprise Plan in 1997. Hera addresses seven of the 11 goals set by NASA in the plan, including: 1) Information on the formation of the solar system. 2) Stellar evolution and the relationship between stars and planet formation. 3) The origin of molecules necessary for life on Earth. 4) The possibilities of life on other planets. 5) A record of solar activity. 6) Prediction and possible deflection of Earth-bound objects. 7) A precursor to human exploration and colonization of space. Researchers at NASA's Glenn Research Center determined the mission trajectory. Hera would launch in January 2006, reaching the first asteroid, 1999 AO10, after eight months. It would spend about 99 days at the first two asteroids, AO10 and 2000AG6, and 205 days at the third, 1989 UQ, returning to earth in November 2010. The current team of researchers planning project Hera includes: Sears, Don Brownlee of the University of Washington, Carle Pieters of Brown University, M. Lindstrom of the University of Tennessee, D. Britt of Johnson Space Center, B. C. Clark of Lockheed Martin Astronautics, L. Gefert of Glenn Research Center, S. Gorevan of Honeybee Robotics and J. C. Preble of SpaceWorks, Inc. For more information see http://www.uark.edu/hera. Contacts: Derek Sears, professor, chemistry, Director, Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, (501) 575-5204, dsears@uark.edu Melissa Blouin, science and research communications manager, (501) 575-5555, blouin@uark.edu An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/asteroid-01a.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA AMES KEPLER MISSION SELECTED FOR DISCOVERY PROGRAM NASA/ARC release 01-01AR 7 January 2001 NASA has selected for further study a proposal from Ames Research Center to search for Earth-size planets around stars beyond our solar system. The Kepler mission, which will use a space telescope specifically designed to search for habitable planets, is one of three candidates for NASA's next Discovery Program mission. If selected, Kepler will be launched in 2005. "The Kepler mission will, for the first time, enable humans to search our galaxy for Earth-size or even smaller planets," said principal investigator William Borucki of Ames. The mission could find habitable planets in Earth-like orbits within 4 years of launch, he said. To date, about 50 extra-solar planets have been discovered. However, these are all giant planets similar to Jupiter, which are probably composed of hydrogen and helium. None is likely to be habitable. So far, none of the planet detection methods used has the capability of finding Earth-size habitable planets-those that are 30 to 600 times less massive than Jupiter and have liquid water on their surface. The Kepler method is different; it will look for "transits" of planets. A transit occurs each time a planet crosses the line of sight between the observer and the planet's parent star. When this happens, the planet blocks some of the starlight, resulting in periodic dimming, which is used to detect the planet and determine its size. Three transits of the star, all with a consistent period, brightness change and duration, will provide a rigorous method of detection and planet confirmation. And three values-orbit, temperature and size-will be used to determine if a planet is habitable. To measure small changes in brightness, the Kepler mission will hunt for planets using a specialized one-meter diameter telescope called a photometer that will be launched into orbit around the sun, away from the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere. The light meter in a camera is another form of a photometer. The key technology at the heart of the photometer is a set of charged coupled devices (CCDs) that measures the brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars at the same time. CCDs are the silicon light-sensitive chips that are used in every TV camera, camcorder and digital camera today. Kepler will monitor many thousands of stars simultaneously, since the chance of any one planet being aligned along the line of sight is only about one-half of one percent. "From monitoring 100,000 stars similar to our sun for 4 years, the Kepler mission team expects to find about 640 terrestrial planets," said David Koch of NASA Ames, the mission's deputy principal investigator. "If many planets are found, then life could be widespread in our galaxy. If few or none are found, then life must be rare, or we might be alone." The Kepler mission will view an amount of sky about equal to the size of a human hand held at arm's length, or about equal in area to two "scoops" of the sky made with the Big Dipper constellation. The Kepler mission team also includes researchers from 15 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. The industrial partner for development of the hardware is Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation. NASA's Discovery Program is designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space for planetary missions and missions to search for planets around other stars. The selected science missions must be ready for launch before September 30, 2006, within the Discovery Program's cap on each mission's cost to NASA of $299 million. More information about the Discovery Program is available at http://discovery.nasa.gov/. Details about the Kepler mission are at http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov. Contact: Kathleen Burton Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Phone: 650-604-1731 or 650-604-9000 kburton@mail.arc.nasa.gov --------------------------------------------------------------------- EARLIER WATER ON EARTH? OLDEST ROCK SUGGESTS HOSPITABLE YOUNG PLANET National Science Foundation release 01-02 10 January 2000 Geological evidence suggests that Earth may have had surface water- and thus conditions to support life-billions of years earlier than previously thought. Scientists reconstructed the portrait of early Earth by reading the telltale chemical composition of the oldest known terrestrial rock. The 4.4-billion-year-old mineral sample suggests that early Earth was not a roiling ocean of magma, but instead was cool enough for water, continents, and conditions that could have supported life. The age of the sample may also undermine accepted current views on how and when the moon was formed. The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and is published in this week's issue of the journal Nature. "This appears to be evidence of the earliest existence of liquid water on our planet," says Margaret Leinen, assistant director of NSF for geosciences. "If water occurred this early in the evolution of earth, it is possible that primitive life, too, occurred at this time." By probing a tiny grain of zircon, a mineral commonly used to determine the geological age of rocks, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Colgate University, Curtin University in Australia and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland have found evidence that 4.4 billion years ago, temperatures had cooled to the 100-degree Centigrade range, a discovery that suggests an early Earth far different from the one previously imagined. "This is an astounding thing to find for 4.4 billion years ago," says John Valley, a geologist at UW-Madison. "At that time, the Earth's surface should have been a magma ocean. Conventional wisdom would not have predicted a low-temperature environment. These results may indicate that the Earth cooled faster than anyone thought." Previously, the oldest evidence for liquid water on Earth, a precondition and catalyst for life, was from a rock estimated to be 3.8 billion years old. The accepted view on an infant Earth is that shortly after it first formed 4.5 to 4.6 billion years ago, the planet became little more than a swirling ball of molten metal and rock. Scientists believed it took a long time, perhaps 700 million years, for the Earth to cool to the point that oceans could condense from a thick, Venus-like atmosphere. For 500 million to 600 million years after the Earth was formed, the young planet was pummeled by intense meteorite bombardment. About 4.45 billion years ago, a Mars-size object is believed to have slammed into the Earth, creating the moon by blasting pieces of the infant planet into space. The new picture of the earliest Earth is based on a single, tiny grain of zircon from western Australia found and dated by Simon Wilde, of the School of Applied Geology at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. Valley worked with William Peck, a geologist at Colgate University, to analyze oxygen isotope ratios, measure rare earth elements, and determine element composition in a grain of zircon that measured little more than the diameter of two human hairs. Colin Graham's laboratory analyzed the zircon to obtain the oxygen isotope ratios. Graham is a contributor to the paper and geochemist at the University of Edinburgh. "What the oxygen isotopes and rare earth analysis show us is a high oxygen isotope ratio that is not common in other such minerals from the first half of the Earth's history," Peck says. In other words, the chemistry of the mineral and the rock in which it developed could only have formed from material in a low-temperature environment at Earth's surface. "This is the first evidence of crust as old as 4.4 billion years, and indicates the development of continental-type crust during intense meteorite bombardment of the early Earth," Valley says. "It is possible that the water-rock interaction (as represented in the ancient zircon sample) could have occurred during this bombardment, but between cataclysmic events." Scientists have been searching diligently to find samples of the Earth's oldest rocks. Valley and Peck say such ancient samples are extremely rare because rock is constantly recycled or sinks to the hot mantle of the Earth. Over the great spans of geologic time, there is little surface material that has not been recycled and reprocessed in this way. The tiny grain of zirconium silicate or zircon found by Wilde in western Australia was embedded in a larger sample containing fragments of material from many different rocks, Valley says. Zircons dated at 4.3 billion years were reported from the same site a decade ago, but the new-found zircon grain is more than 100 million years older than any other known sample, giving scientists a rare window to the earliest period of the Earth. "This early age restricts theories for the formation of the moon," Valley says. "Perhaps the moon formed earlier than we thought, or by a different process." Another intriguing question is whether or not life may have arisen at that early time. Low temperatures and water are preconditions for life. The earliest known biochemical evidence for life and for a hydrosphere is estimated at 3.85 billion years ago, and the oldest microfossils are 3.5 billion years old. "It may have been that life evolved and was completely extinguished several times" in catastrophic, meteorite-triggered extinction events well before that, Valley says. The research conducted by Valley, Peck, Graham and Wilde was also supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council and a Dean Morgridge Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. For images of the rock and crystal, see http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0102.htm A high-resolution image is available for downloading at http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/zircon.html. Time line graphic at http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/oldrock.html Image captions [Image 1] http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/zircon.html Cathodoluminescence image of the oldest known material from the Earth, a single crystal of zircon from the Jack Hills metaconglomerate, Western Australia. Concentric, magmatic growth zoning is shown about the crystal core. The crystallization age of 4.40 Ga (4004 +/- 4 Ma) was determined from the circled area by ion microprobe. The arrow points to an inclusion of quartz. The high oxygen isotope ratio from this sample suggests that low temperature surficial processes including liquid water were important for the formation of protoliths to this magma. [Image 2] http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0102.htm False color backscattered electron image of the 4.40 Ga zircon. Ion microprobe pits are visible as are 3 inclusions of quartz (black spots, 10-20 microns in diameter). [Image 3] http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0102.htm False color cathodoluminescence image of the 4.40 Ga zircon showing concentric, magmatic growth zoning. Media contact: Cheryl Dybas, 703-292-8070, cdybas@nsf.gov Program contact: Sonia Esperanca, 703-292-8554, sesperan@nsf.gov Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/early_earth_010110. html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01a.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- STARDUST CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW-JUST BEFORE EARTH FLYBY NASA release 01-06 11 January 2000 After a few months of foggy vision, NASA's Stardust mission team has improved the spacecraft's navigation-camera resolution to nearly normal, just as Stardust is preparing to make a close flyby of the Earth on Monday. By heating the camera's optical path, the Stardust team was able to help its nearsighted spacecraft boil away contaminants that had been deposited on optical surfaces. One year ago, the imaging team took pictures of a small lamp inside the optical path of the camera. The camera will be used to navigate Stardust to its 2004 encounter with Comet Wild 2 (pronounced "vilt- 2"). Apparent contamination of the navigation-camera prevented a clear test-image of the squiggly line of the lamp's filament, and the lens seemed to be covered with a veil of light-scattering material that produced a blurry image. The team concluded that the contamination might have been released with gases escaping from the spacecraft after its launch, and that heating the optical path of the camera might evaporate the contaminant covering the camera lens. After a series of heating cycles, they re-tested the camera by taking more pictures of the lamp. Pictures taken after the heating revealed that the zigzag line of the lamp's filament was visible again. Images of stars taken by the camera are also clearer. The team estimates the camera can now photograph stars two magnitudes (celestial degrees of brightness) better. The navigation camera has detected stars as faint as 9th magnitude, which should allow the spacecraft to perform its final navigation maneuvers during approach to the comet nearly at the time originally planned. Now Stardust, on its journey to collect comet dust, is getting ready to springboard from Earth-in a maneuver called a "gravity-assist"- when the spacecraft passes closest to Earth on January 15, 2001. Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999, into its first loop around the Sun. When Stardust passes by Earth at about 22,400 miles per hour (or 10 kilometers per second), it will go into a slightly wider orbit that will allow it to reach the comet on January 2, 2004. On Monday, January 15, Stardust will fly by a point just southeast of the southern tip of Africa, slightly more than 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) from the surface at about 5:15 AM EST (3:15 AM PST). Stardust may be visible to observers using sophisticated telescopes with charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors from the Pacific Ocean and the Western United States just after the spacecraft flies by Earth. Stardust will not be visible using binoculars. A gravity-assist works like this: when a spacecraft closely approaches a planet, the planet's gravitational pull accelerates the spacecraft and bends the flight path. Mission designers account for this extra pull and use it to their advantage to boost spacecraft speed and direct interplanetary spacecraft to their targets. Like a windup before the pitch, the Earth gravity-assist will sling Stardust into the right path to meet Comet Wild 2. About 15 hours after its closest approach to Earth, the spacecraft will pass about 61,000 miles (98,000 kilometers) from the Moon. Because of the greater distance, the Moon's gravity will have essentially no influence on the spacecraft's flight path. Stardust, a part of NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, highly focused science missions, is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. More information on the Stardust mission is available at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html. Contacts: Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547 Martha J. Heil Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-0850 --------------------------------------------------------------------- OUR HOME PLANET MAY PROVE TO BE WET BEHIND THE EARS By Marcus Chown From New Scientist 13 January 2000 Earth is probably a youngster among planets of its kind, says an astronomer in Australia. This may mean that any intelligent beings that have evolved on other Earth-like planets will be so highly advanced that to them we seem little better than bacteria. No wonder they haven't been in touch yet. Charles Lineweaver of the University of New South Wales in Sydney says that Earth-like planets orbiting other stars will be on average about 1.8 billion years older than Earth. He deduced this figure by cleverly combining a host of factors that determine the formation and destruction of terrestrial planets. One such factor is the way in which heavy atoms such as iron have become more plentiful since the big bang. The early universe contained only the lightweight elements hydrogen and helium. All other atoms were made in the thermonuclear furnaces of stars, and elements heavier than iron are only released into interstellar space when old, massive stars explode as supernovas. Rocky planets cannot form around a star unless there are enough heavy atoms in the dust it is made of, so there were none when the Universe was young. However, a brew too rich in heavy elements would lead to "hot Jupiters"-giant planets orbiting so close to their parent stars that they destroy newborn earths. In a paper submitted to the journal Icarus, Lineweaver concludes that three-quarters of all Earth-like planets must have been around longer than the Earth and that the average age is 6.4 billion years, compared with Earth's 4.6 billion years. "This analysis gives us an age distribution for life on such planets and a rare clue about how we compare to other life which may inhabit the Universe," he says. But neither Lineweaver nor anyone else will commit themselves on what this tells us about the prospects of finding ETs. "The odds against simple life are still completely uncertain," says Martin Rees of the University of Cambridge. "We don't know the chance of any extraterrestrial intelligence evolving anywhere, nor what variety of evolutionary tracks are possible." However, Lineweaver's calculations could offer a hint about why we haven't picked up any radio signals from alien beings. Intelligent life on older planets may have advanced as far beyond us as we are beyond bacteria, and such beings would be unlikely to communicate via a medium as primitive as radio waves. "Certainly this can be a way of explaining the 'Great Silence'," says ET hunter Paul Schuch, executive director of the SETI League in New Jersey. "But I rather think our lack of success is more related to the fact that, on the cosmic clock, we just started looking yesterday. These things take time, and require great patience." New Scientist issue: 13 January 2001, http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227327 UK Contact: Claire Bowles, claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk, 44-207-331-2751 US Contact: New Scientist Washington office, Tel: 202-452-1178, newscidc@idt.net A reprint of the Icarus manuscript is available at http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/?0012399. --------------------------------------------------------------------- DRILLING FOR MARTIANS-NASA PLANS TO BURN HOLES IN THE RED PLANET By Ian Sample From New Scientist 13 January 2000 Engineers have developed a new tool to help them hunt for signs of life on Mars. Their meter-long, white-hot spear can melt its way through soil and rocks to depths where evidence of past life may be lurking. If life ever existed on Mars, harsh conditions on the surface could mean the only remaining traces may be buried more than a kilometer down. But conventional drilling is unlikely to unearth them. "The soil is a mixture of sand, dust and rocks cemented together with salt minerals," says John Bridges, who studies martian geology at London's Natural History Museum. "For the most part, it'll be like digging in a sandpit." Holes bored in the ground are likely to collapse, says Geoff Briggs, scientific director of NASA's Center for Mars Exploration at the Ames Research Center in California. So Briggs and his colleagues developed a drill bit that reinforces the holes as it goes. Its tip heats up to 1500°C, while the shaft of the drill is cooled by pumping gas from the cold martian atmosphere into the rear of the spear. "The tip melts pretty much any type of rock," says Briggs. As it pushes through the ground, it forces molten rock into the surrounding porous soil where it turns to glass, locking the surrounding soil in place. "The main advantage of this system is that it produces a self-supporting hole," says Briggs. His drill bit is not heavy enough to sink through molten soil, so it is connected to a reel of metal tubing on the surface. Unwinding the tubing-which carries the drill's power and coolant cables-pushes the drill bit through the soil. In tests at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the drill went through 30 meters of basalt with no difficulty. Bridges points out that heat from the drill bit would be likely to destroy any traces of life it encounters. "If you were going to look for enrichment of carbon-12 that might have been caused by life, you'd have problems at this temperature," he says. But Briggs points out that after the hole has been bored, other tools can be lowered into it to dig around the bottom and retrieve soil samples unaffected by the heat. However, great care will be needed. Colin Pillinger of the Open University in Milton Keynes, who is leading the Beagle 2 Mars lander program scheduled for 2003, warns: "If organic residues produced by organisms are brought up to the surface, they'll be converted to carbon dioxide immediately." New Scientist issue: 13 January 2001, http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227323 UK Contact: Claire Bowles, claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk, 44-207-331-2751 US Contact: New Scientist Washington office, Tel: 202-452-1178, newscidc@idt.net An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-01a.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 15 January 2000 Articles about astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html I. Sample, 2001. Drilling for martians. SpaceDaily. I. Sample, 2001. Drilling for martians-NASA plans to burn holes in the red planet. New Scientist. SpaceDaily, 2001. U. Arkansas targets asteroid sample return mission. SpaceDaily. Articles about primordial evolution and prebiotic chemistry http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html M. Chown, 2001. Our home planet may prove to be wet behind the ears. New Scientist. Space.com, 2001. Life on Earth came earlier, crystal evidence suggests. Space.com. SpaceDaily, 2001. Watery evidence suggests hospitable young planet. SpaceDaily. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 8-14 January 2001 The second week of the new millennium finds Galileo completing week 11 of a 14-week-long survey of the Jovian magnetosphere. Playback of data stored during the spaceraft's December, 2000 passage through the Jupiter system is not scheduled to start until early next month. Galileo performs one engineering activity this week. On Monday, the spacecraft performs standard maintenance on its propulsion systems. Galileo's Fields and Particles instruments are performing the survey of the Jovian magnetosphere. The Fields and Particles instruments are comprised of the Dust Detector, Energetic Particle Detector, Heavy Ion Counter, Magnetometer, Plasma Detector, and Plasma Wave instrument. The survey was initiated in late October, 2000 in conjunction with instruments on the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini flew past Jupiter on December 30. Although Cassini was generally expected to remain outside the magnetosphere until after the flyby, measurements indicate that it entered the bow shock region on December 27. In combination with Galileo measurements, this event may provide new information on the behavior of the magnetosphere. Galileo, on the other hand, has flown from the solar wind, into the Jovian magnetosphere, and is now flying back out into the solar wind. These joint studies with the Cassini spacecraft will yield information on the interaction between the solar wind and Jupiter's magnetosphere. Galileo's survey data are recorded by its onboard tape recorder six times this week. Typically, these data are almost immediately packaged and transmitted to Earth. However, radio antennas of the Deep Space Network (DSN) are scheduled to listen to Galileo for only about 106 hours this week (out of a total 168 hours possible). In its place, the spacecraft makes use of a data buffer (a section of computer memory) to store up to seven hours of survey data at one time. When the buffer is full, and the DSN is not listening, the data are recorded by the tape recorder to prevent data loss. 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- ISS STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 11 January 2001 Expedition One crewmembers are busily preparing the International Space Station for its next visitors-the five astronauts of the STS-98 mission of Atlantis-set to launch at 2:11 AM EST on January 19 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis' precious cargo is the U.S. Laboratory Destiny, which will provide the orbiting outpost with its first science facility. STS-98 marks the seventh shuttle mission to the station and twelfth overall devoted to the assembly of the ever-growing international outpost in low Earth orbit. Shuttle and station managers selected the target launch date following Wednesday's traditional Flight Readiness Review to assess the readiness of the shuttle, station, crew, payloads and flight control teams. Based on a Friday early morning launch, Atlantis is scheduled to dock to the ISS just before 9:00 PM Eastern on January 20. In preparation for the shuttle's arrival, Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd, Pilot Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev conducted a thorough inventory of items onboard and began stowing equipment and supplies to clear passageways that will be used by the two crews throughout the seven days of joint operations. Remaining work for the Expedition One crew in preparing for Atlantis' arrival includes reviewing documentation for the laboratory's activation, conferences with various technical specialists and the STS-98 crew, and a mid-tour debrief with flight controllers. Destiny's attachment and activation is the highlight of the 11-day mission along with the relocation of a shuttle docking port and three spacewalks designed to complete final connections between the laboratory, docking port and the station. The third spacewalk will mark the 100th in U.S. spacewalk history and the 60th based out of the shuttle. In preparation for the relocation of the shuttle docking port, known as Pressurized Mating Adapter 2, flight controllers in Houston attempted to cycle four latches on the Common Berthing Mechanism to which the PMA currently is attached. The first latch cycled properly, but the second apparently was obstructed by a piece of the air ducting used to circulate air throughout the station while a shuttle is docked. Shepherd visibly detected the obstruction and a plan is in place to pressurize the volume of the PMA so that he can float in, move the vent, and watch as flight controllers cycle the latch once again. This procedure sets the stage for the removal of the PMA to free the location for Destiny's installation. The only technical issue on the station at present is an apparent faulty current converter unit on one of eight batteries inside the Zvezda module. It has no impact on the station's electrical generation capability, especially in light of the ample power available from the solar arrays installed on the STS-97 mission of Discovery in December. All station life support systems are working fine. Atlantis' five astronauts, Commander Ken Cockrell, Pilot Mark Polansky and Mission Specialists Bob Curbeam, Marsha Ivins and Tom Jones conducted a countdown dress rehearsal last weekend as technicians were installing the Destiny lab in its payload bay at Launch Complex 39B. The International Space Station continues to operate in excellent shape as it orbits the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of 230 statute miles. The next Expedition One status report will be issued on Wednesday, January 17, or sooner, if developments warrant. --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release 10 January 2001 Launch / Days since Launch = November 7, 1996 / 1526 days Start of Mapping / Days since Start of Mapping = April 1, 1999 / 650 days Total Mapping Orbits = 8,245 Total Orbits = 9,848 Recent events The spacecraft continues to operate nominally in performing the beta- supplement daily recording and transmission of science data. The mm102 sequence executed successfully from 01-004 (1/4/00) through 01- 006 (1/6/01). The mm103 sequence has performed well since it started on 01-007 (1/7/01). It terminates on 01-010 (1/10/01). The mm104 sequence, successfully uplinked on 01-009 (1/9/01), begins executing on 01-011 (1/11/01). Two Delta Differential One-Way Range (DDOR) experiments were conducted on 01-009 (1/9/01). Data from these DDOR experiments are being analyzed and should assist the Mars Odyssey Program in calibrating the interplanetary navigation system. Spacecraft health All subsystems report nominal health. Uplinks There have been 16 uplinks to the spacecraft during the last two weeks, including new star catalogs and ephemeris files, instrument command loads, the background sequences cited above, and the mz068 and mz069 mini-sequences. There have been 5,065 command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch. Upcoming events The mm105 background sequence will be uplinked on 01-012 (1/12/01). Radio Science Occultation Egress Scans, scheduled for 01-010 (1/10/01) through 01-011 (01/11/01), will be commanded by the,mz068, & mz069 mini-sequences. Another DDOR experiment will be conducted on 01-013 (1/13/01). MOLA Polar Scans are scheduled for 01-018 (1/18/01) through 01-022 (1/22/01). On 01-025 (1/25/01), a Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) demonstration will be conducted on the spacecraft. It will verify our readiness to conduct these observations during the extended mission. Two more DDOR experiments are scheduled for 01-024 (1/24/01) and 01-027 (1/27/01). 01-031 (1/31/01) will mark the end of the MGS primary mission and 01-032 (2/1/01) will mark our entry into the extended mission. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES JPL release 10 January 2001 The following new images were taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft: The Beagle 2 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 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 The Beagle 2 Landing Site: Part 1 - Low Resolution Views MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-267, 10 January 2001 MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-268, 10 January 2001 On 20 December 2000, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the selection of a landing site for the British Mars lander, Beagle 2, that will be carried to the red planet aboard ESA's Mars Express orbiter in 2003. The landing is currently scheduled for 26 December 2003. The landing site is centered near 11°N, 270°W, in eastern Isidis Planitia. The name, Isidis Planitia, refers to the broad, relatively flat plain that covers the floor of an extremely ancient, large basin formed by an asteroid or comet impact perhaps more than 4 billion years ago. The floor of this basin exhibits chains of pitted ridges, numerous smaller meteor impact craters, and a variety of light-toned ripples and small dunes. In this two-part Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) data release, the MOC Team at Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) presents all available MOC image products as well as MGS Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) shaded relief maps and Viking Orbiter views of the Beagle 2 landing site. These products are being used by the MOC Team to help determine where new MOC narrow angle images need to be acquired during the MGS Extended Mission phase that will run from February 2001 to April 2002. Part 1 of the release exhibits low-spatial resolution products including MOC wide-angle views, MOLA maps, and Viking Orbiter image mosaics of the landing site region. The colored ellipses present the areas in which Beagle 2 may land. Part 2 of the release includes all MOC narrow angle views of the Beagle 2 landing site region. These include all of the MOC high- resolution images obtained as of 1 January 2001. Image Credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems --------------------------------------------------------------------- End Marsbugs, Volume 8, Number 2.