MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 8, Number 12, 26 March 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, the biology of terrestrial extreme environments, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS 1) 2001 MARS ODYSSEY From NASA Science News 2) SPY AGENCY MAY HAVELOCATED MARS POLAR LANDER By Leonard David 3) GOLDILOCKS AND ET From SpaceDaily 4) NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES NEW TEAMS NASA release 01-49 5) FROM MIR TO MARS: THE LESSONS OF LONG MISSIONS IN SPACE From SpaceDaily 6) FIRST STATION CREW FACES WOOZY, WOBBLY RETURN TO EARTH By Todd Halvorson 7) EVO DEVO LEARNS A LARVAL LESSON By Stephen Hart 8) JPL TEAM CHOSEN FOR NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE JPL release 9) BALLOONING ON MARS? By Julian A. Hiscox 10) MCG RESEARCHERS STUDY HORMONE THAT MAY PREVENT BONE BEING LOST IN SPACE Medical College of Georgia release 11) INSTRUMENTAL PRECISION IN ROBOTIC STUDIES OF THE MARTIAN SURFACE: THE SCIENCE POTENTIAL OF IN SITU INVESTIGATIONS AND RETURNED SAMPLE ANALYSES Meeting update 12) MARS SAMPLE RETURN—THE NEXT STEPS FOR EUROPE? By Julian A. Hiscox 13) NASA AND NIMA BEGIN JOINT REVIEW OF MARS POLAR LANDER SEARCH ANALYSIS NASA release 01-52 14) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 15) CASSINI WEEKLY STATUS REPORT JPL release 16) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 17) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2001 MARS ODYSSEY From NASA Science News 19 March 2001 When NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey launches in April to explore the fourth planet from the Sun, it will carry a suite of scientific instruments designed to tell us what makes up the Martian surface, and provide vital information about potential radiation hazards for future human explorers. “The launch of 2001 Mars Odyssey represents a milestone in our exploration of Mars—the first launch in our restructured Mars Exploration Program we announced last October,” said Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for Space Science at NASA Headquarters. “Mars continues to surprise us at every turn. We expect Odyssey to remove some of the uncertainties and help us plan where we must go with future missions.” Set for launch April 7 from Cape Canaveral, Odyssey is NASA’s first mission to Mars since the loss of two spacecraft in 1999. Other than our own Moon, Mars has attracted more spacecraft exploration attempts than any other object in the solar system, and no other planet has proved as daunting to success. Of the 30 missions sent to Mars by three countries over 40 years, fewer than one-third have been successful. The Odyssey team conducted vigorous reviews and incorporated “lessons learned” in the mission plan. “The project team has looked at the people, processes, and design to understand and reduce our mission risk,” said George Pace, 2001 Mars Odyssey project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “We haven’t been satisfied with just fixing the problems from the previous missions. We’ve been trying to anticipate and prevent other things that could jeopardize the success of this mission.” Odyssey is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a long-term robotic exploration initiative launched in 1996 with Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor. “Odyssey will help identify and ultimately target those places on Mars where future rovers and landers must visit to unravel the mysteries of the red planet,” said Jim Garvin, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. NASA’s latest explorer carries three scientific instruments to map the chemical and mineralogical makeup of Mars: a thermal-emission imaging system (THEMIS), a gamma ray spectrometer (GRS) and a Martian radiation environment experiment (MARIE). THEMIS will map the planet with high-resolution thermal images and give scientists an increased level of detail to help them understand how the mineralogy of the planet relates to the landforms they see. The part of Odyssey’s imaging system that takes pictures in visible light will see objects with a clarity that fills the gaps between the Viking orbiter cameras of the 1970s and today’s high-resolution images from Mars Global Surveyor. Like a virtual shovel digging into the surface, Odyssey’s gamma ray spectrometer (GRS) will allow scientists to peer into the upper few centimeters of Mars’s crust to measure many elements, including the amount of hydrogen that exists. Because hydrogen is most likely present in the form of water-ice, the spectrometer will be able to measure permanent ground ice and how that changes with the seasons. “For the first time at Mars, we will have a spacecraft that is equipped to find evidence for present near-surface water and to map mineral deposits from past water activity,” said Steve Saunders, 2001 Mars Odyssey project scientist at JPL. “Despite the wealth of information from previous missions, exactly what Mars is made of is not fully known, so this mission will give us a basic understanding about the chemistry and mineralogy of the surface.” The Martian radiation environment experiment, MARIE, will be the first to examine radiation levels at Mars as they relate to the potential hazards faced by future astronauts. The experiment will take data on the way to Mars and in orbit around the red planet. After completing its primary mission, the Odyssey orbiter will provide a communications relay for future American and international landers, including NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, scheduled for launch in 2003. For more information on this article, see http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast19mar_1.htm?list52260. --------------------------------------------------------------------- SPY AGENCY MAY HAVELOCATED MARS POLAR LANDER By Leonard David From Space.com 19 March 2001 The Mars Polar Lander may have been found—intact—by a top-secret spy imagery agency. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) has been quietly scanning Mars pictures, looking for the Mars Polar Lander since early December 1999. According to a source close to the NIMA effort, photographic specialists at NIMA think they’ve spotted something. But NASA officials say it’s too early to tell. The Mars Polar Lander (MPL) dove into the Martian atmosphere on December 3, 1999, heading for a soft landing on the planet’s south polar region. But contact was never reestablished after the probe was to have touched down. On January 17, 2000, after a series of efforts to communicate with the spacecraft failed, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who managed the mission, declared it a loss... ...According to a Space.com source familiar with the search underway, euphoric NIMA experts believe they have identified the Mars Polar Lander. Furthermore, the source said that the lander appears intact on the surface, sitting atop its trio of landing legs. If so, that finding calls to question a failure review board that cited a software glitch and inadequate testing procedures as a likely cause for the probe to smack into Mars’ surface at high speed. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/news/mpl_found_010319.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/science/21MARS.html http://www.space.com/news/mpl_found_010319.html http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010321/sc/mars_lander_1.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- GOLDILOCKS AND ET From SpaceDaily 19 March 2001 So far, searches for ET have come up empty-handed. No signals have been detected. But an Australian astronomer Dr. Charles Lineweaver has come up with a new way to tell us something about extra- terrestrials. By cleverly combining observations of extra-solar planets and the rate of star formation in the universe, he has found that our Earth is much younger than other Earth-like planets in the universe. In a paper recently submitted to Icarus, the leading journal of planetary science, Dr. Lineweaver reported that “three quarters of the Earth-like planets in the universe are older than the Earth and their average age is 1.8 (plus or minus 0.9) billion years older than the Earth”. Get the full story at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/extrasolar- 01c.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES NEW TEAMS NASA release 01-49 20 March 2001 NASA has selected four new teams to become part of the agency’s Astrobiology Institute (NAI), a national and international research consortium that studies the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and in the universe. After a highly competitive peer-review process, teams from Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing; the University of Rhode Island (URI), Kingston; the University of Washington (UW), Seattle; and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA, today were notified of their selection. These new teams of researchers will bring specialized expertise to the Institute, allowing its members to more deeply investigate the diversity of life inhabiting extreme environments on Earth and to develop analytical models to search for habitable planets outside our Solar System. The MSU team, led by Dr. Michael Thomashow, will examine low- temperature Earth analogs to possible life on Mars and Europa by analyzing genetic material and proteins of bacteria from the Arctic and Antarctic permafrost. Data from the gene-expression analysis will be important for understanding the biology of “hitch-hiker” microbes traveling through space on meteorites and other bodies. The University of Rhode Island Team, led by Dr. Steven D’Hondt, will examine the deep biosphere of the Earth and the “extremophile” communities that thrive in this extreme environment. This research will include developing bio-geochemical markers for life for use on future astrobiology missions. The new team based at UW will address a broad series of important areas in astrobiology, ranging from biogeochemistry of the earliest life on Earth to the formation, evolution and potential for life on planets outside our Solar System. Dr. Peter Ward leads this team. Dr. Victoria Meadows will lead the JPL team, which will conduct research on recognizing the biospheres of extrasolar planets. The results of her team’s work are expected to directly influence the development of future space missions such as Terrestrial Planet Finder, which will look for habitable planets around other “Suns.” With today’s additions, the NAI represents a partnership between NASA and 14 major national and three international research institutions to promote, conduct and lead integrated, multidisciplinary astrobiology research and to train a new generation of researchers in the discipline of astrobiology. The NASA Astrobiology Institute, with Central Offices at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, was founded in 1997. More information on NAI is available on the Internet at http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/. Contacts: Donald Savage, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547. Kathleen Burton, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Phone: 650-604-1731. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM MIR TO MARS: THE LESSONS OF LONG MISSIONS IN SPACE From SpaceDaily 20 March 2001 Mir’s long-duration missions will be invaluable for planning the first manned trip to Mars, especially the crew’s psychological profile, a space seminar here [Lyon, France] was told. Cosmonauts who flew aboard Mir suggested a good crew mix would comprise men and women of varying experience and background but all with stable personalities. About a third of the Mars crew should have experience in orbital missions while the remainder would be newcomers to space, they said. These neophytes would be team players, by nature, who would be highly motivated and intensively trained, perhaps by spending time in the Antarctic wilderness to gain exposure to a hostile environment. “A mission to Mars will last a year and a half if conditions are good, but could be much longer,” said Russian cosmonaut Alexander Poleshchuk, who spent 179 days aboard Mir in 1993. “You have to have people who are capable of coping with stress and able to calm others down as well,” he said Monday. Another essential for long-mission astronauts is “a sense of humor, but not an overly developed one,” Poleshchuk said. Get the full story at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/010320120451.dqupwbn1.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST STATION CREW FACES WOOZY, WOBBLY RETURN TO EARTH By Todd Halvorson From Space.com 20 March 2001 Weak, woozy and barely able to walk: that’s how three International Space Station pioneers are bound to feel when they return to Earth Wednesday, winding up a 141-day stay in weightlessness. “They will feel gravity as if they had never felt it before,” NASA astronaut Andy Thomas, a veteran of a five-month tour aboard Russia’s space station Mir, told SPACE.com recently. “They will be amazed that people are able to do things like walk and pick up their legs because it will be so difficult and so unnatural. And even just holding up their arms—it will surprise them how much muscle is required to do that,” he said. “So they’re in for a very interesting set of sensations. No doubt about that.” Get the full story at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/sts102_update_010320.ht ml. --------------------------------------------------------------------- EVO DEVO LEARNS A LARVAL LESSON By Stephen Hart From the NASA Astrobiology Institute 21 March 2001 In Ridley Scott’s 1979 slimy monster masterpiece, “Alien,” the extraterrestrial life form discovered by Sigourney Weaver and crew goes through two startlingly different phases after it hatches. Is such a change during the life of an animal mere SciFi license? Not really. In fact, many earthlings go through similar drastic changes in form. Think, for example, of the caterpillar and butterfly, or the tadpole and adult frog. Scientists have studied the life history of animals, part of a field called development, for many decades. Other scientists have studied how life arose and evolved on Earth. But for the first time since the early part of this century, the two fields are coming together, in a new discipline called by its practitioners “Evo Devo,” short for evolutionary developmental biology. Rudolf A. Raff, professor of biology at Indiana University and a leader in Evo Devo, says the marriage of the two fields, along with the recent explosion in genetics, could tell us something about what a real alien might be like. “Is there anything that we can learn that would allow you to make any predictions about life elsewhere? I think there is, even if the genetic systems aren’t the same. There are going to be rules that you suspect are going to apply across life in many places. Some of those are based deep in chemistry. But at the other end, you might suspect that a lot of life history features are going to be the same. I think that there may be lessons that we learn that are not strictly Earth-bound in any sense.” These lessons are painted with a broad brush, cautions Bruce Runnegar, a professor of paleontology, and the principal investigator for the University of California, Los Angeles, NASA Astrobiology Institute Lead Team. “I don’t think we’ll find out what extraterrestrial life looks like,” he says. “I don’t think you can say that we’ll have something that’ll have four legs or fur.” Instead, Runnegar says, the study of life on Earth will lay out some basics of how life might have evolved on another planet, but few specifics. Raff agrees. Understanding evolution and development won’t tell us what protects alien skin (Earth organisms use slime, scales, feathers and fur) or how many legs an extraterrestrial life form might have. There are just too many accidents of evolution on Earth. For example, terrestrial Earth mammals walk on four limbs not because it’s the perfect way to support a body, but because they inherited four limbs from their four-finned ancestors, lobe-finned fish. But the better we understand the interactions between development and evolution—how development evolves and how it constrains evolution— Raff argues, the better we will be able to know what to look for as we search for signs of life outside our biosphere. “I think that there’s just an enormous wealth of considerations, as to what you would expect an alien to be like, that we begin to learn about through these kinds of studies of evolution and development.” Raff studies sea urchins, organisms that go through a change of form as drastic as that of the monster in “Alien,” albeit much less scary. Sea urchins hatch from eggs as microscopic floating larvae. These delicate, elegant-looking creatures have two mirror-image halves, just like beetles, birds and bats. They float for weeks near the ocean’s surface fanning even tinier organisms into their mouths. Then the change occurs. A small bundle of cells inside the organism begins to grow. All of the other cells die, and the tiny bundle settles to the ocean floor to grow into something that looks like a calcified Koosh Ball™ several inches in diameter. Instead of two mirror-image halves (bilateral symmetry), the adult urchin is organized more like five equal pie slices (pentaradial symmetry), a nearly spherical version of its cousin the starfish. Adult urchins creep slowly around the ocean bottom using a five-toothed structure to scrape food from rocks. So here’s an organism that hatches from an egg as a bilaterally symmetrical larva and becomes a pentaradial adult. “It’s clear from both morphological [body shape] and particularly molecular studies that their ancestors were bilateral,” Raff says. “Here’s this big transformation of body plan. So the real question is: How did it happen?” One way to begin an attack on that evolutionary question is to study urchins with different larvae. Raff has studied two closely related Australian urchins. One species makes a normal larva, which spends six weeks floating, and therefore dispersing widely. The second urchin develops by way of a much larger larva, having 100 times the mass of the first type. It contains all the food it needs to develop into a juvenile adult without needing to feed. It doesn’t even have a complete digestive system. It also lacks the long arms that help the usual urchin larva remain in the water. And it develops into an adult in only four days. The fast-developing urchin gains a jump on its cousin because it can begin bottom feeding much sooner. But the downside is a much reduced range. “Having a feeding larva that goes off in the water for weeks helps a species disperse over a wide distance. If you’re a direct developer, and you develop fast, then you stay at home,” Raff says. And staying at home has its costs. Say conditions change in a particular part of the urchin’s environment. The widely dispersed species has many populations elsewhere. “But if it’s a direct developer with a narrow range,” Raff says, “and it becomes extinct in that location, well, that’s it. Game’s over.” Paleontologists have found fossil evidence that direct developers face a higher risk of extinction, Raff adds. In a recent publication, Raff and colleagues reported the results of experiments in which they cross-bred these two species of urchins. (When urchins reproduce, they just release sperm and eggs into the water. This makes it easy to experimentally mix sperm and eggs from two different species.) One such cross led to death of the fertilized egg. But the opposite cross produced fertilized eggs that develop into full-fledged larvae. The surprise was that these hybrid larvae resembled starfish larvae more than urchin larvae. The cross-bred urchin larvae tell Raff something about changes that led to the evolutionary branching of urchin larvae from the ancestral starfish- type larvae and to the secondary branching of the two distinctly different urchin larvae. Such understandings of the history of life on Earth-built on Evo Devo and the new genetics-is important to our search for life on other planets, says Runnegar. “I think everybody agrees that it’s a very exciting development, because for the first time we’re really beginning to understand mechanistically what goes on in development instead of just by allusion or allegory, as it was in the past. We’re actually beginning to know which genes are involved and how they work and how they interact with other genes.” What next? Raff’s crossbred-urchin experiment will allow his lab to follow exactly this trajectory, toward an understanding of which genes direct the developmental pathways in larvae of the two urchin species, he says. Raff has already launched the mission. By comparing the genomes of the two species and the hybrid larvae, Raff and his colleagues hope to home in on the particular genes or sets of genes that get switched on and off to direct the development of such different larvae. For more information on this article, see http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/index.cfm?page=evodevo. --------------------------------------------------------------------- JPL TEAM CHOSEN FOR NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE JPL release 21 March 2001 JPL researchers have been chosen by NASA to be one of four new teams that will be part of the agency’s Astrobiology Institute, a national and international research consortium that studies the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and in the universe. After a highly competitive peer-review process, teams from JPL, Michigan State University, East Lansing, the University of Rhode Island, Kingston and the University of Washington in Seattle have been notified of their selection. Dr. Victoria Meadows will lead the JPL team, which will conduct research on recognizing the biospheres of extrasolar planets. The results of her team’s work are expected to directly influence the development of future space missions such as Terrestrial Planet Finder, which will look for habitable planets around other “Suns.” Terrestrial Planet Finder is one of the missions of NASA’s Origins Program, which seeks to answer the questions: Where did we come from? Are we alone? “This work will help us determine what the signatures of life on an extrasolar planet will look like, once we have the technology to study them,” Meadows said. JPL has been active in the astrobiology field since 1997 by forming an astrobiology research element, and element lead Dr. Kenneth Nealson was a recipient of the original round of Astrobiology Institute grants in 1998 to study the co-evolution of planets and biospheres. These new teams of researchers will bring specialized expertise to the institute, allowing its members to more deeply investigate the diversity of life inhabiting extreme environments on Earth, and to develop analytical models to search for habitable planets outside our solar system. The Michigan State team, led by Dr. Michael Thomashow, will examine low-temperature Earth analogs to possible life on Mars and Europa by analyzing genetic material and proteins of bacteria from Arctic and Antarctic permafrost. Data from the gene-expression analysis will be important for understanding the biology of “hitchhiker” microbes traveling through space on meteorites and other bodies. The University of Rhode Island team, led by Dr. Steven D’Hondt, will examine the deep biosphere of the Earth and the “extremophile” communities that thrive in this extreme environment. This research will include developing bio-geochemical markers for life for use on future astrobiology missions. The University of Washington team, led by Dr. Peter Ward, will address a broad series of important areas in astrobiology, ranging from biogeochemistry of the earliest life on Earth to the formation, evolution and potential for life on planets outside our solar system. With these additions, the Astrobiology Institute now represents a partnership between NASA and 14 major national and three international research institutions to promote, conduct and lead integrated, multidisciplinary astrobiology research and to train a new generation of researchers in the discipline of astrobiology. Founded in 1997, the institute’s central offices are located at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA. More information on the NASA Astrobiology Institute is available at http://nai.arc.nasa.gov. More information on Terrestrial Planet Finder is available at http://tpf.jpl.nasa.gov. Contact: Jane Platt Phone: 818-354-0880 --------------------------------------------------------------------- BALLOONING ON MARS? By Julian A. Hiscox, University of Reading 23 March 2001 On the Earth remote sensing is best achieved using a three-stage, hierarchical exploration strategy, with each stage representing an increase in complexity and capital cost; field based mapping, airborne mapping and satellite mapping. For greatest efficiency one would start with space-based, regional scale exploration of appropriate provinces, defining areas for more detailed attention with airborne systems that might have greater capabilities or sensitivity. From targets identified from airborne surveys, ground based survey techniques can then be used. On Mars, the historical situation with respect to cost, mission complexity and success is reversed. Geological remote sensing is based on measuring the spatial and spectral characteristics of electromagnetic radiation (e.g., the sun, or radar beam or laser) as it is differentially absorbed, reflected, scattered and/or emitted by surface geological materials. Between the radiation source (say the sun) and the target (a rock surface of interest) this radiation is subject to differential scattering and adsorption by the atmosphere, which must be taken into account when interpreting what is actually sensed by air or space borne instruments. Sensing can be passive, with the sun as a source, or active, when microwave or light energy is provided by an artificial source such as a radar or laser. Three types of missions are primarily considered for the investigation of Mars: remote sensing orbiting spacecraft, a lander with a rover to examine the local area, and sample return operations. Due to the failure of the last two spacecraft sent to Mars, plans for a sample return mission have been delayed for several years. Whilst much informative data can be obtained from orbiting spacecraft, one of the problems with exploring Mars from orbit is the lack of ground truth. The remote sensing instruments on Mars Global Surveyor have a resolution of perhaps 10 meters square. The problem is relating what an orbiter measures on Mars compared to what actually occurs on the surface. Many interesting features below this resolution, such as streams and fissures, will be missed. Mars Pathfinder and accompanying rover provided a mechanism for determining a ground truth. The rover was capable of exploring the immediate vicinity around the lander. (NASA’s plans for the next Mars landings are even more ambitious and therefore more risky). The robotic exploration of Mars, when compared to the Earth, seems to have skipped a stage—that of airborne remote sensing. This can involve exploration with sensor platforms carried on either lighter- than-air vehicles (i.e., balloons) or aeroplanes. In the case of Mars, most consideration has been given to balloons. Lighter-than-air craft, whether powered or free, appear to be practical on Mars. The atmospheric density on Mars is roughly comparable to that found at an altitude of 100,000 feet above sea level on the Earth. Research balloons regularly fly at this altitude. An advantage of the carbon dioxide atmosphere is that it permits safe use of hydrogen as a lifting gas. This would slightly enhance volumetric lift compared to helium. Several NASA and Planetary Society sponsored design studies have investigated the feasibility of lighter-than-air craft on Mars. One of the crucial factors was the proper selection of a balloon envelope material. Whilst the envelope material needs to be resilient enough to withstand the harsh Martian environment, it must also be as lightweight as possible. The material has to be able to withstand large temperature extremes, prolonged exposure to UV radiation, and significant pressure induced stresses. Mylar was selected as one of the best candidate materials. Because of possible tears in the fabric resulting from particle impingement, the balloon is best deployed during the Martian northern summer to avoid the hazard of dust storms. The limiting factor in balloon lifetime maybe loss of fabric tensile strength due to prolonged exposure to UV. Laboratory studies indicated that the tensile strength of Mylar is reduced by as much as 30% during 120 hours of continuous exposure. Since a balloon would be exposed to UV approximately 12 hours a day, a balloon would have a lifetime of 5-7 days. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has plans for a balloon that would have a lifetime of some 300 days. The low atmospheric density on Mars will make any such vehicle quite large and would only be able to carry small payloads—perhaps 10 kg. Imaging systems on such a payload would provide much higher resolution imaging of selected regions than presently available from orbiters, along with direct measurement of atmospheric parameters such as pressure, temperature, wind speed and direction, water vapor and ozone. Lighter-than-aircraft may therefore offer a viable middle ground, in terms of cost and scientific returns compared to missions targeted to reach the Martian surface, and may therefore be a feasible alternative to current mission architectures. Contact: Dr. Julian A. Hiscox, School of Animal and Microbial Sciences University of Reading England, UK Phone: 0118 931 8893 Fax: 0118 931 0180 http://www.ams.rdg.ac.uk/microbiology/julian/index.htm E-mail: j.a.hiscox@reading.ac.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- MCG RESEARCHERS STUDY HORMONE THAT MAY PREVENT BONE BEING LOST IN SPACE Medical College of Georgia release 23 March 2001 The reality of long-term space travel is raising questions about how to deal with the impact of long-term weightlessness on the body. Medical College of Georgia researchers say that one of the destructive results—accelerated and significant loss of bone density— may be thwarted by a hormone secreted by the gut to help the body use food as fuel. Their research on glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide, or GIP, is funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston, but it also holds promise for the down-to-earth problem of bone loss that inevitably comes with age. Dr. Carlos M. Isales, endocrinologist, and Dr. Roni J. Bollag, developmental biologist, have developed a transgenic mouse that over-expresses GIP by about four times the normal rate; that equals the increase that occurs in the body after a meal. “We think GIP is a signal the blood sends to your bones that says, ‘We think the hormone may also act with insulin to make bones stronger,’“ Dr. Isales said. As food is eaten, GIP and insulin levels both go up, but their secretion patterns are different: GIP levels don’t return to baseline as quickly. Rather GIP hangs around longer, stimulating osteoblasts to make bone and shutting down osteoclasts that break down bone. The balance of bone loss and production is uncoupled by weightlessness and by hormonal loss that occurs with age, Dr. Isales said. “You can break down bone, but you don’t form it as well,” without the natural force of gravity. Bone loss and production are constants in life, with the average person reforming his skeleton three or four times. Most people reach peak bone mass at age 25 and begin losing bone by age 40. A young space traveler would never reach peak bone mass without some intervention to re-establish the lost synergy, he said; an astronaut of any age would soon develop porous, weak bones. But the researchers believe their transgenic mouse would fare much better in space, where they hope it will eventually land. For the time being, they are using a nearly $900,000, three-year grant to study the mice on earth, simulating periods of weightlessness in the animals that over-express GIP and measuring the impact of the loss of gravity on the bones. “We think that what will happen is that those mice who over-express GIP won’t lose bone,” Dr. Isales said. If they are right, GIP levels could be increased by injecting a synthetic version already commercially available for research, but the simplest way might be designing an optimal diet, he said. Carbohydrates, protein and fat all stimulate GIP production. The current thinking is that heavier people have denser bones because of increased gravity, but increased GIP production likely plays a role as well, Dr. Isales said. They also will look at the impact of GIP on early bone development. The researchers have a mouse that expresses GIP at 10 times the natural rate. These high levels may not only impact bone sturdiness, but also may increase bone length, he said. “We think it’s involved in bone formation in the growth plate,” Dr. Isales said, which means GIP supplements might also treat growth problems. Contact: Toni Baker Coordinator, Media Relations MCG Research and Academics Phone: 706-721-4421 E-mail: tbaker@mail.mcg.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- INSTRUMENTAL PRECISION IN ROBOTIC STUDIES OF THE MARTIAN SURFACE: THE SCIENCE POTENTIAL OF IN SITU INVESTIGATIONS AND RETURNED SAMPLE ANALYSES Meeting update 23 March 2001 The workshop is postponed. The workshop on Instrumental Precision in Robotic Studies of the Martian Surface: The Science Potential of In-Situ Investigations and Returned Sample Analyses is being postponed. The new date has not been decided upon, but may be in the coming summer. The new venue may or may not be Houston. The workshop had been scheduled for May 14-16, 2001, in Houston. However, those workshop dates immediately precede the Goldschmidt conference and the Mars Scout workshop and fall right after NASA Cosmochemistry proposals are due. We recognized that the timing was not ideal, but it was dictated by the need to have the workshop output feed into planning for the ‘07 Lander. Those activities have themselves now been delayed. We will send out a new notice shortly, providing information on the new meeting dates and place. New abstract deadlines and indication of interest deadlines will be posted on the LPI Web Site. We thank everyone for their continued interest and patience. Contacts: Ron Greeley (Chair, MEPAG) Department of Geological Sciences Box 871404 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Phone: 480-965-7045 E-mail: Greeley@asu.edu Glenn J. MacPherson (Chair, CAPTEM) Department of Mineral Sciences U.S. National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC 20560-0119 Phone: 202-357-2260 E-mail: Glenn@volcano.si.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS SAMPLE RETURN—THE NEXT STEPS FOR EUROPE? By Julian A. Hiscox, University of Reading 26 March 2001 Recently a meeting at the Royal Society was convened to discuss how Britain could participate in a European sample return mission. Dr. Julian A. Hiscox one of the conference delegates reports on the meeting. The UK and sample return missions The last sample return mission Britain was directly involved in was the Apollo 11 lunar sample program, where eighteen research groups analyzed the lunar regolith. Many of the scientists involved earned a Fellow of the Royal Society (the most prestigious honor in the UK for a scientist) off the back of this work. In the early 1970s the then Russian (Soviet) space program, using unmanned robotic sample return missions returned many grams of lunar sample. They gave two samples to the UK as a good will gesture. The total sample size was 100 mg (a tenth of gram!), yet from this; the sample was sorted out into grains, and a famous ‘boulder’ weighing only 12 mg in weight. As a result of this analysis, Colin Pillinger (of the Open University and head of Beagle 2) estimates that from one a sample it is possible to obtain an entire history of a planetary body. Whilst this might be a slightly exaggerated claim, it is certainly possible to a do a lot of science on a small sample, and that is the point of sample return! The Soviet Luna 20 returned 623 mg of Lunar regolith, part of which was a core taken from a drill, so both a surface and below ground sample was obtained, representing a record of the regolith layer. Analysis of this material resulted in 40 scientific papers, totaling 393 pages. It may seem odd that the UK is considering taking a lead in a European sample return mission, given that in the 1980s the UK was almost asked to leave ESA—because of an unjustly perceived weakness in planetary science! However, at least three programs have contributed to this turn around, the first is undoubtedly the development of Beagle 2 by Pillinger and his team. The second is the meticulous analysis of Martian meteorites by Monica Grady and her team at the Natural History Museum. And the third is the hard work of UK scientists involved in astrobiology to push the UK to the forefront of astrobiology (or at least to snap the USA’s coat tails). In addition, the UK is contributing in a major way to Cassini/Huygens and many other programs. ESA is very strongly considering where it goes from Mars Express and PPARC is currently considering future programs for the Solar System and also the International Mars Working Group. ESA recently solicited a call for ideas and received 291 proposals, of which 50 came from the UK. The UK on Mars—Beagle 2 Beagle 2 is the lander element for ESA’s Mars Express and is little larger than a bicycle wheel, but weighs 60 kg, 9 kg of which are instruments. It has one of the largest ratios of instruments to total payload mass. Beagle 2 uses solar power during the day and batteries at night. Communication with the Earth comes in two forms, the primary route via Mars Express or as backup via NASA’s Mars Odyssey. There are several instruments aboard Beagle 2 including a gas analysis package, two stereo cameras, a wind sensor, a four-color microscope, pressure, dust and UV radiation sensors and several techniques for analyzing the elements that make up the Martian surface regolith. Beagle 2 also carries a mole for exploring below the surface. However, due to weight and cost limitations there is no redundancy. So the hard part in mission planning has been where to put the scientific emphasis. With sample return you can use all the techniques you want. Sample return One of the topics considered at the meeting was what type of sample return can you get for your money. A 1994 NASA study investigated the possibility of producing propellant from the Martian atmosphere, so called in situ resource utilization (ISRU). In which only hydrogen is brought from the Earth and this is reacted with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to ultimately form methane and oxygen. Whilst the ISRU concept has been demonstrated in the laboratory it is nowhere near flight readiness, so considerable sums of money would probably be required to take the technology from the lab to the surface of Mars. The NASA study also considered the use of complex rovers to return samples from different locations, all of which added to the cost. Sample return in 2009? Mark Smith, head of the space science group at Astrium, investigated what sample return could be done for a launch in 2009 for a reasonable sum of money (which of course depends on your definition of reasonable). Different scenarios could include landers with rovers to gather samples, rendezvous in Martian orbit to return to the Earth, direct ascent from the Martian surface to Earth orbit (i.e., the ISS or space shuttle) or landing directly on the Earth. If a dedicated space shuttle mission is required to retrieve the payload then this immediately pushes up the price tag, however direct return to Earth would require a heat shield. Thus, there are various trade-offs to be considered in a mission design. Landing on the surface of Mars could be carried out using airbags (like Pathfinder) or retrorockets (like Viking). The airbag system is simple with a low mass (but subsequent low payload mass) with no precision landing (an ellipse of 400 by 100 km). The retrorocket system allows a higher degree of accuracy (an ellipse of 80 by 20 km) with the same technology being used for the ascent stage. However, the system has a high mass (has to include a landing radar and computer) and the landing rockets might generate dust, which may interfere with spacecraft systems (although Viking seemed to be OK). The actual landing site itself is governed by the need for a relatively flat area (data which can be provided by Mars Global Surveyor images and MOLA), arrival dates, and the latitude and power requirements. Sufficient pressure is required for parachutes (that both systems need) to be effective, so only low points on the Martian surface can be considered. Also, a lot more energy is required to land in Polar Regions (which is why all of the Apollo missions were targeted to equatorial latitudes). Several systems have been studied for the ascent from the Martian surface and these include electric thrust, solid rockets and a liquid propellant system. There are two ways of getting back to the Earth, a direct ascent, which involves a velocity of 7 km/s, and orbital rendezvous, which involves a velocity of 4 km/s, and is therefore cheaper in terms of what is needed on the surface. Astrium assumed a Beagle based decent system (airbags) and a canister of 1 kg (containing a payload of 100 to 300 grams of Martian regolith), which would be returned via Mars orbit rendezvous to the Earth. The ascent vehicle would have to achieve orbit despite the angle of the lander, and also a sophisticated docking mechanism would be required. A single stage, spinning solid rocket motor, with a homing system, cold gas thrusters for pitch-over and guidance system horizon sensors was chosen for the ascent vehicle. The rendezvous needs to be automatic (demonstrated with Soyuz/Mir), and to save weight such a system could be carried on the orbiting spacecraft. All the payload would have to do is essentially transmit a ‘beep beep’ signal. Astrium calculated that 200 kg would be required for a lander and an ascent stage weighing 30 kg. Mars Pathfinder put 250 kg on the surface of Mars, so the landing is doable using Pathfinder technology. The science of sample return One of the overriding questions of sample return is what type of science can be done on a sample? Colin Pillinger argued that Mars is essentially an aeolian planet; so all types of rocks should be present in a single sample, the regolith would have been moved around by wind, asteroid impacts and floods. He estimated a sample would consist mainly of fine dust less than 50 microns in diameter, with some grains being bigger than 1 mm. The actual sample might be initially screened by analysis planning teams, followed by consortiums of investigators, followed by individual PIs. Obviously non-destructive techniques would precede destructive ones. Whilst a sample of surface material would be useful, a more representative sample would include below surface layers. A drill or a mole, as developed for Beagle 2, could obtain such material. A drill is less complex than a mole, but power requirements are higher, and the length of a drill is dictated by the size of the spacecraft. A mole, is certainly more complex, but perhaps has greater versatility. However, a drill would provide a defined core, whereas this is harder to do with a mole. Final thoughts about sample return An ESA led sample return mission for 2009 would appear feasible based on current technology. However, any plan invoking Mars orbit rendezvous is necessarily complex. In addition, in the study outlined above, all of the fuel for ascent to Mars orbit and Earth return would have to be launched from the Earth. Whilst the propellant in a solid rocket motor is relatively stable, liquid fuel (required for Earth return) is not. Perhaps it would be better to bite the bullet, collaborate with NASA and other partners, and focus resources into taking in situ resource utilization from the laboratory to the Martian surface. Then a larger payload could be landed on the Martian surface, which could include a drill, and also direct ascent to Earth would be a more viable proposition. Contact: Dr. Julian A. Hiscox School of Animal and Microbial Sciences University of Reading England, UK Phone: 0118 931 8893 Fax: 0118 931 0180 http://www.ams.rdg.ac.uk/microbiology/julian/index.htm E-mail: j.a.hiscox@reading.ac.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA AND NIMA BEGIN JOINT REVIEW OF MARS POLAR LANDER SEARCH ANALYSIS NASA release 01-52 26 March 2001 NASA and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) today said researchers from the two agencies will continue a joint review of the initial results of NIMA’s search for the missing Mars Polar Lander. This analysis is extremely challenging, and has thus far produced no definitive conclusions. NIMA researchers used high-resolution imagery from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, now in orbit around the Red Planet, in their effort to locate the lander and its components, including a protective aeroshell, heat shield and parachute. One of the principal challenges in locating the missing lander using images from the orbiter is that the Mars Polar Lander is only somewhat larger—about six and a half feet across—than the smallest objects the orbiter’s camera can see on the surface of Mars. In an initial analysis, NIMA researchers reviewed and assessed features seen in several images that they believe could be indicative of the lander and its protective aeroshell. An alternative view presented by NASA is that these features could be noise introduced by the camera system, so further work between NASA and NIMA will be conducted to address differences of interpretation. Both agencies intend to continue working together on the analysis of these images and of additional images of the landing site, which will be collected later this year. The Mars Polar Lander was lost during its attempted landing on Mars, December 3, 1999. Within two weeks, NASA began obtaining high resolution images of the intended landing site using the camera onboard the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor in an attempt to locate the lander on the Martian surface. No sign of the Mars Polar Lander was found in the NASA searches. In an independent search, starting about the same time, NASA and NIMA began working together to analyze images of the planet’s surface. NIMA, a Combat Support Agency of the Department of Defense and a member of the National Intelligence Community, provides imagery intelligence and geospatial information in support of national security objectives. Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, NIMA operates major facilities in northern Virginia, Washington, DC and St. Louis, MO. Contacts: Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547 Jennifer Lafley National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Bethesda, MD Phone: 301-227-3089 --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 26 March 2001 Articles about human space exploration and the microgravity environment http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html T. Halvorson, 2001. First station crew faces woozy, wobbly return to Earth. Space.com. SpaceDaily, 2001. From Mir to Mars: the lessons of long missions in space. SpaceDaily. Articles about primordial evolution and prebiotic chemistry http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html SpaceDaily, 2001. Goldilocks and ET. SpaceDaily. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CASSINI WEEKLY STATUS REPORT JPL release 15-21 March 2001 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Canberra tracking station on Wednesday, March 21. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the “Present Position” web page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. Post Jupiter science operations concluded this week with the spacecraft alternating between Optical Remote Sensing (ORS) and Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) data collection. Additional activities included Periodic Engineering Maintenance, Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) Slow Time Memory Readout, uplink and execution of the RWA bias overlay and an RWA unload, CDS-A and CDS-B automatic SSR repairs, and a Radio Science Subsystem (RSS) Ultra-Stable Oscillator (USO) characterization. The USO characterization was performed successfully over the Goldstone complex with data recorded on both the DSP-R (DSCC Spectrum Processor, Radio Science) at X-band, and the RSR at both X-band and Ka-band. The Cassini Instrument Operations (IO) Team and the Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) have produced and delivered 26,502 ISS images—18,904 from the NAC and 7,221 from the WAC—and 5,079 Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) cubes since Jupiter observations began. In preparation for the Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE) system test to be performed beginning in May, the new Multi-Mission Radio Science Telemetry Delivery System (TDS) was installed this week with the related GIF (Ground Data System Interface), TIS (Telemetry Input System), also installed. RSR (Radio Science Receiver) SFDUs (Standard Format Data Unit) were transmitted from the Signal Processing Center at Goldstone, California, received on the RSS TDS, and read by the Radio Science Team. This data flow test is an initial validation of the RSR data formats to be used in the GWE system test and GWE. Mission Planning personnel completed development of strawman load boundaries for all of the Approach Science subphase and Tour. This design will be presented at an upcoming Mission Planning forum. Uplink Office personnel hosted a Tools Workshop where the Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) and Science Opportunity Analyzer (SOA) were demonstrated. A hands-on opportunity with the software was provided to the participants and their feedback sought on future development of these tools. Mission Support and Services Office (MSSO) personnel delivered the final “Jupiter Fly-by” network analysis report. This report will be used by Cassini’s hardware infrastructure group to determine what type of network usage and attendant problems may be expected during tour. The MSSO Infrastructure Team web pages have been redesigned, new graphics added and new task and service descriptions added. This new site will be uploaded and integrated with the Cassini “inside” web services next week. A TOST meeting was held this week focusing on Optical Remote Sensing and addressing integration issues with the first 10 Titan flybys for the period within +/-1 day of closest approach. Significant progress was made on resolving conflicts and developing agreements for this period. An all day workshop was held by the Science Planning Team on the topic of Science Planning requirements and design. The goals of the workshop included: 1) Review of the concepts and designs associated with the development of the Science Operations Plan (SOP), the Aftermarket Process, and the SOP Update Process, 2) Identification and review of the interface issues associated with the development of the SOP, and 3) Identification and review of the readiness requirements for the implementation of the SOP. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, manages the Cassini mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 19-25 March 2001 This week’s major scheduled activity is a routine maintenance of the on-board tape recorder, which occurs on Friday. On Thursday, a new set of commands will be loaded into the spacecraft computers. These commands will govern the activities of the spacecraft between March 24 (Saturday) and May 22. This week’s playback begins with the final set of observations taken by the Solid State Imaging camera (SSI) of the ring system of Jupiter. These pictures were taken on January 2, as Galileo was looking back at a receding Jupiter. From that vantage point, the Sun was behind the spacecraft, and the rings could be seen in the light that they reflected back towards the camera. When the Voyager cameras first observed the Jupiter ring system back in 1979, that spacecraft was in Jupiter’s shadow, looking back in the direction of the Sun, and the rings were seen by the light that scattered in the forward direction by the tiny ring particles. By viewing the rings from these varying geometries, scientists learn about the size and other properties of the small grains that make up Jupiter’s rings. This week also sees the beginning of playback for another portion of the 14-week-long continuous magnetospheric survey conducted by Galileo as it passed through the depths of the system in December. The survey began in late Octover of 2000 and continued through early February of this year. The Fields and Particles instruments which participated in this observation were the Dust Detector, Energetic Particle Detector, Heavy Ion Counter, Magnetometer, Plasma Detector, and Plasma Wave instrument. The intent of the investigation was to provide continuous sampling as the spacecraft passed from the solar wind, through the outer reaches of the magnetosphere, into the inner portions near Jupiter, and then back out again. Since the ground communications antennas used to receive Galileo data must be shared among many space projects, the on-board tape recorder was used to store the data collected by the instruments approximately once per day, while the antennas were busy elsewhere. The data now being played back were recorded on the outbound leg of this orbit, beginning on January 1. This survey was conducted in cooperation with the Cassini spacecraft, which was passing by Jupiter at the same time, on its way out to Saturn. This portion of the observation carried Galileo out through the magnetosheath, the bow shock, and into the solar wind, outside of the direct influence of Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field. By studying this passage, scientists hope to learn more about how the planet’s extensive and complex magnetospheric system changes with time. This type of study cannot be done from Earth, but must rely on the presence of instrumented spacecraft, such as Galileo and Cassini, which can immerse themselves in the environments that they measure. 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 21 March 2001 Launch / Days since Launch = November 7, 1996 / 1596 days Start of Mapping / Days since Start of Mapping = April 1, 1999 / 720 days Total Mapping Orbits = 9,102 Total Orbits = 10,785 Recent events The spacecraft continues to operate nominally in performing the beta- supplement daily recording and transmission of science data. The mm122 sequence executed successfully from 01-074 (3/15/01) through 01-076 (3/17/01). The mm123 sequence has performed well since it started on 01-077 (3/18/01). It terminates on 01-080 (3/21/01). The mm124 sequence, successfully uplinked on 01-079 (3/20/01), begins executing on 01-081 (3/22/01). MGS performed 10 Roll Only Targeted Observations since the last status report, bringing the total number of ROTOs to 36. Spacecraft health All subsystems report nominal health. Uplinks There have been 10 uplinks to the spacecraft during the past week, including instrument command loads, the background sequences cited above, the ROTO mini-sequence mz080, and the Relay-22 Demo mini- sequence mz081. There have been 5,200 command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch. Upcoming events The mm125 background sequence will be uplinked on 01-082 (3/23/01). ROTO mini-sequences mz082 and mz083 will be uplinked and executed this next week. On 01-082 (3/23/01), the mz081 mini-sequence will command MGS to a more fuel-efficient attitude for approximately four hours. The data collected during this demonstration will allow us to characterize the thermal, momentum buildup, fuel usage, and Starex processing profiles of the spacecraft in the new attitude. We will also gather high frequency body rate data to diagnose the health of the -Y solar array hinge. This knowledge will help us plan for future mission activities. --------------------------------------------------------------------- End Marsbugs, Volume 8, Number 12