MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 8, Number 21, 6 June 2001. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, 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) LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING DISCUSSED IN FRASCATI From ESA Science News 2) MICROGRAVITY AT MERIGNAC From ESA Science News 3) CRYOBOT CAMERA EXPLORES ANTARCTICA, PREPARING FOR ET HUNT By Robert Roy Britt 4) NASA PROGRAM OFFERS REAL-WORLD RESEARCH OPPORTUNITES FOR STUDENTS NASA release 01-100 5) NASA RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENT (NRA) FOR FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS IN SPACE LIFE SCIENCES AND SPACE SCIENCES NRA 01-OBPR-03 6) PREPARATION FOR MARTIAN SAMPLES QUARANTINE FACILITY MUST BEGIN SOON TO BE READY FOR FIRST MISSION National Academy of Sciences release 7) WHAT SPACE NEEDS: THE HUMAN TOUCH By Tony Phillips 8) NASA SPONSORS SUMMER EDUCATOR WORKSHOPS NASA release 01-38 9) SEX IN SPACE FORBIDDEN, SAYS RUSSIAN COSMONAUT By Interfax 10) JELLYPLANTS ON MARS By Karen Miller and Tony Phillips 11) MARS MISSION UPDATE VIA WEBCAST NASA/JPL internet advisory 12) NASA CUTS SMALLER MARS STUDIES By Steven Siceloff 13) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 14) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 15) THESE WEEKS ON GALILEO NASA/JPL releases 16) INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 17) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 18) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release _____________________________________________________________________ LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING DISCUSSED IN FRASCATI From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 28 May 2001 Three important lines of discovery have been fueling the growing belief that we are not, after all, alone in the universe. Many organic molecules have been discovered in space, suggesting that the building blocks of life are widespread; planets have been found orbiting other stars, raising the possibility that some may harbor life; and living organisms have been found alive and well in habitats on Earth so hostile that survival on Mars, or even other Solar System bodies, seems quite feasible. The first European workshop on exo/astrobiology ended last week with participants summarizing the latest findings in these three areas and outlining where and how they would like to search for extraterrestrial life. "More than 120 organic molecules have so far been detected in space and more are being detected all the time," Pascale Ehrenfreund, from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, told the workshop. There's strong agreement that a lot of this organic matter landed on the Earth, although the role it played in initiating life here remains uncertain. The discovery of exoplanets is no less dramatic than that of organic molecules. The first was discovered in 1995, but by April this year, 67 objects had been detected in orbit around other stars, 63 of them planets, according to Stephane Udry from the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland. All of these planets are large and more likely to resemble Jupiter than Earth. Nonetheless, future space missions, such as the ESA cornerstone Darwin, will have the sensitivity to search for smaller Earth-like planets and even to determine from their spectral signatures whether they could be home to alien beings. Darwin will most probably look for the spectral signature of ozone, which is unlikely to exist in any quantity for any length of time in the atmosphere of a planet that is not home to life. Darwin is unlikely to be launched before 2014 and, in the meantime, astrobiologists will have to rely on calculations to estimate the number of Earth-like planets. Such estimates, however, are prone to error! "The number of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way was put at 2.4 million this morning, but had dropped to 48 this afternoon," Malcolm Fridlund, ESA's study scientist for Darwin, told the meeting during a summing up. One factor in the calculations involves estimating the "habitable zone" around a particular star, which is the volume of space in which a planet could provide the sort of environment favorable to the type of life we have on Earth. Our concept of the "habitable zone", however, is constantly changing as life turns up in ever more extreme environments on Earth. "We are constantly being struck by the sheer breadth of environments in which microbes can live," said David Wynn-Williams of the British Antarctic Survey. Life has been found in such inhospitable places as rock inclusions in dry Antarctic valleys and around hydrothermal vents on the deep ocean bed. Hostile environments like these display temperatures, pressures, acidity, salinity or exposure to radiation previously thought to be incompatible with life. "We need to broaden our view of normality. There could be habitats on Europa or Mars that seem bizarre to us, but are perfectly normal for microbes," said Wynn-Williams. Identifying where those habitats could be was the task of a splinter session. The best candidates were thought to be on Mars, Europa, Titan, the comets or asteroids, and on interstellar dust particles. Some new sites were suggested for Mars. Among them were the north polar periphery (where ice melts and re-freezes with the seasons), permafrost in the sub-surface (permafrost on Earth has been found to be teeming with microscopic life), and at the sites of extinct hydrothermal vents. "The search should be for chemical and structural biomarkers as well as fossils," said Gerda Horneck from the DLR, Germany, during a summing up session. Chemical biomarkers could be pigments used by microbes to protect themselves from environmental stress factors, such as ultraviolet radiation. The instruments to detect these signatures could be carried on a series of minilanders, like those under discussion for ESA's new planetary exploration program, Aurora, or on larger rovers such as those planned by NASA. The exploration effort should culminate in a sample return mission. "It would be very important to obey planetary protection guidelines. Human missions could interfere with the aims of robotic missions to look for life," warned Gerda Horneck. The meeting closed and participants left in eager anticipation of the second Exo/astrobiology workshop, which will be held in Graz, Austria, in September 2002. For more information please contact the ESA Science Programme Communication Service, phone: +31 71 5653183. Useful links for this story * Europe launches into astrobiology http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=27228 [Image 1, http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=1&cid=12& oid=27243&ooid=27253] Ozone in a planet's spectrum may indicate the presence of life. Darwin will most probably look for the spectral signature of ozone, which is unlikely to exist in any quantity for any length of time in the atmosphere of a planet that is not home to life. The background image is a view of Earth seen by the Apollo 17 crew as they traveled toward the Moon. The white patch at the bottom is Antarctica. Unobscured by clouds, Africa and the Arabian Peninsula are visible at the top of this image. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. [Image 2, http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=1&cid=12& oid=27243&ooid=24457] An artist's impression of the recently observed (from ground) transit of the giant planet HD 209458 in front of the parent star. The discovery of planets orbiting other stars has fuelled the belief that we may not be alone in the universe. ESA's Eddington mission will search for planetary transits indicative of the presence of terrestrial, habitable planets, providing for the first time evidence of the existence of other "Earths". [Image 3, http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&o id=27243&ooid=18420] The Huygens probe will search for indications of habitats on Titan compatible with life. After entering Titan's atmosphere, Huygens' parachute system will be deployed for the 2 to 2 1/2 hour descent, during which most of the scientific measurements will be made. This artist's impression shows the Probe suspended from the stabilizer parachute passing through the clouds that are expected at around 20 km altitude. The descent will occur during daylight to provide the best illumination conditions for imaging the clouds and surface. _____________________________________________________________________ MICROGRAVITY AT MERIGNAC From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 28 May 2001 Fourteen European science teams have just concluded experimental sessions in a microgravity environment--without expensive trips to orbit or even rocket launches. They all took part in ESA's 30th Parabolic Flight Campaign at Bordeaux-Merignac Airport, and they flew their experiments aboard the special "Zero-G" Airbus A300 owned by Novespace. The aircraft follows a precisely-calculated flight path that almost exactly matches the parabolic curve traced out by any object falling freely--a thrown stone, for example. While it is on that parabolic trajectory, the aircraft and everything inside it--in this case, people and their experiments--are weightless. Since aeroplanes are not usually designed to behave like free-falling rocks, the whole procedure requires some very accurate flying. The pilots first bring the Airbus to near-maximum speed--more than 800 km/h--in level flight at 6,000 meters. Next, they haul the machine into a gut-churning 45-degree climb, and throttle back the engines to provide just enough power to match air resistance. Nudging the flight controls as required, the crew let their aircraft "fall" upwards for around 2,000 meters, over the top of the parabolic curve- -with airspeed down to just 390 km/h--and down again to its starting altitude. Then they put full power back on and pull the machine abruptly from its dive back into level flight. During the 20 seconds between climb and pull-out, its scientist- passengers--who may well include some trainee European astronauts (ESA's André Kuipers was on board during the May campaign)--can check out their near-weightless experiments. In the course of a single Zero-G Airbus flight, they can expect to repeat the experience up to 30 times. The mission can be very hard on stomachs, not so much from the weightless spells as from the fierce 1.8-g accelerations when the Airbus climbs into and pulls out of its parabola. (The equivalent NASA aircraft has the well-earned nickname "Vomit Comit".) But everyone on board considers the flight well worth risking the loss of a breakfast. Those brief interludes of weightlessness are invaluable preludes for much more expensive trips into microgravity--perhaps aboard the International Space Station. Thanks to their trip aboard the Airbus, scientists can be confident that the effects they want to observe really occur, and that the apparatus they have designed will work properly. The 14 experiments on this campaign--ESA's busiest ever--included eight in physical sciences and three in life sciences. There were also three student experiments that had already flown on the Zero-g Airbus. They were the most successful of 30 projects aboard the aircraft in last October's Student Parabolic Flight Campaign. Among the professional experiments were an investigation into metallic foam formation and aluminium welding in microgravity, and a very practical test of heat exchangers designed for Refrigerator- Freezer racks on the ISS. The life science experiments included a test of bone-monitoring equipment that could also one day fly aboard the ISS, where long-term bone loss is a health problem for astronauts. You can find a full list of all 14 experiments at http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/GGG7IJ8UGEC_index_0.html. The next ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign is scheduled for October 2001. Most of the experiment slots on board are already filled, but there is also a limited amount of room on the aircraft for media representatives interested in microgravity science. Journalists wishing to apply are invited to do so by sending e-mail to contactesa@esa.int. Related news * The busiest ever ESA parabolic flight campaign ready to take off http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESAQ8WLBAMC_Life_0.html * Experiments and scientists involved in the 29th ESA parabolic flight campaign http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/GGG7IJ8UGEC_index_0.html * Falling upwards: how to create microgravity http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESATRRVRXLC_Life_0.html Related links * ESA Parabolic Flights http://www.estec.esa.nl/spaceflight/parabolic * ESA Microgravity Programmes http://www.estec.esa.nl/spaceflight/index.htm [Image 1, http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESAND9PZ9NC_index_1.html] [Image 2, http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESAND9PZ9NC_index_1.html#subhead1] Microgravity at Merignac _____________________________________________________________________ CRYOBOT CAMERA EXPLORES ANTARCTICA, PREPARING FOR ET HUNT By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 29 May 2001 The search for extraterrestrial life--on Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, or anywhere--is not likely to be an easy chore. It's a pretty safe bet that there won't be any critters, or even fossils, lying around on the surface. So someone, or something, is probably going to have to do some serious digging. And in the case of frozen Europa, or even the ice caps of Mars, that digging will involve some pretty fancy technology capable of boring down through thick ice in conditions a little more harsh than wherever you are reading this article... More than 3,900 feet (1,200 meters) below the surface of the West Antarctic ice sheet, a camera designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is proving that it can handle extreme environments. The camera was dropped into a pre-melted hole. In the future it will be mounted on a so-called cryobot, which would melt that its way through the ice and then takes pictures. An early version of the real cryobot is being built, and researchers hope to test it in the Yukon later this summer. Meanwhile, the camera tests have discovered mysterious pockets and streams of water lurking below the ice. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/ice_probe_scitues_010529-1.html. _____________________________________________________________________ NASA PROGRAM OFFERS REAL-WORLD RESEARCH OPPORTUNITES FOR STUDENTS NASA release 01-100 29 May 2001 This summer, 200 high school students get to put their classroom studies to the test and get their hands on some real-world science research. NASA and the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network selected the students as participants in the 2001 NASA Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program, known as SHARP PLUS. Selected from more than 700 applicants, this year's apprentices represent 153 high schools in 32 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The SHARP PLUS Program is a major strategy for increasing, strengthening, and diversifying the country's future pool of mathematics, science, engineering and technology majors and professionals. Although SHARP PLUS apprentices have excelled in mathematics and science courses, most students have not had the opportunity to apply this knowledge in a true research environment. To provide this experience, the Program links students to professional research scientists and engineers in university and industry settings. "SHARP PLUS creates an opportunity for students to work with professional researchers and gain hands-on experience in mathematics, science, engineering and technology," said Deborah Glasco, Program Manager, NASA's Education Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "If we seek to make a contribution to the rapidly changing laboratories of tomorrow, we must support science initiatives that introduce and excite our youth today." The students participate in hands-on research projects under the guidance of professional mentors and gain a better understanding of the discipline, responsibility and enjoyment associated with scientific research. Apprentices prepare papers on their research and formally present their findings at the conclusion of the Program. This summer, from June 11 to August 3, SHARP PLUS apprentices will reside on the campuses of 10 universities that have joined in partnership with NASA and QEM to implement the Program. In addition to research, the apprentices participate in a wide variety of enrichment activities organized by the host universities. These activities range from information sessions on math, science and engineering careers, to test-taking and computer skills workshops, to an overview of college admissions and financial aid procedures. Universities that will host the 2001 NASA SHARP PLUS students are: * California State University, Los Angeles * Cornell University, Ithaca, NY * Hampton University, Hampton, VA * Jackson State University, Jackson, MS * North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC * University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI * University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM * Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN * Texas A&M University, College Station, TX * University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI "SHARP PLUS sets high expectations for academic achievement and seeks to increase the participation and success rate of talented students from groups underrepresented in challenging mathematics and science courses at the pre-college level," said Shirley McBay, President, QEM Network, and SHARP PLUS Program Director. The NASA SHARP PLUS Program is managed for NASA's Education Division by QEM Network, Washington, DC. QEM is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the education of minorities and other underrepresented groups. For more information and a complete list of students selected for the program, visit http://qemnetwork.qem.org/sharpplus.html. Contacts: Sonja Alexander Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1761 Daniel Dowds QEM Network, Washington, DC Phone: 202-659-1818 _____________________________________________________________________ NASA RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENT (NRA) FOR FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS IN SPACE LIFE SCIENCES AND SPACE SCIENCES NRA 01-OBPR-03 29 May 2001 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces a solicitation for scientific research proposals. The release date for the NRA is May 29, 2001. This solicitation is for proposals to carry out space flight experiments in Low Earth Orbit; primarily on the International Space Station. Research emphases include Fundamental Biology, Astrobiology, Biomedical Research and Countermeasures, and Human Factors. This solicitation will be available electronically via the Internet at http://peer1.idi.usra.edu/peer_review/nra/01_OBPR_03.html beginning May 29, 2001. Notices of intent due: June 28, 2001 Proposals due: August 28, 2001 Please note that NRA 01-OBPR-03 is synonymous with ILSRA-2001. Paper copies of this NRA are available to those who do not have access to the Internet by calling (202) 479-9030 ext. 277 and leaving a voice mail message. Please leave your full name and address, including zip code, telephone number with area code, and the name of the NRA you are requesting. _____________________________________________________________________ PREPARATION FOR MARTIAN SAMPLES QUARANTINE FACILITY MUST BEGIN SOON TO BE READY FOR FIRST MISSION National Academy of Sciences release 29 May 2001 Work on a quarantine facility must begin soon if it is to be ready in time for spacecraft returning to Earth with Martian rocks and soil in tow, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. Although the probability is extremely low that these samples will contain hazardous organisms, prudence dictates that all material must be rigorously quarantined at first. With current projections indicating that the first sampling mission to Mars could launch in 2011, Martian samples could reach Earth as early as 2014. A facility that isolates the samples from terrestrial organisms and chemicals--while safeguarding the Earth's environment from possible contamination--will probably take seven years or more to design, build, and test. "Building this type of quarantine facility is a project of enormous complexity," said John Wood, chair of the committee that wrote the report and staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA. "We strongly recommend that this process get under way as soon as possible." One major problem in constructing such a facility is the unprecedented need for both biological containment and clean-room conditions. Biological containment is designed to protect the Earth's environment from possible contamination by the samples. Clean-room conditions are needed to prevent terrestrial organisms, dust, or other foreign matter from getting into the samples and changing their properties. Part of the problem is that contradictory measures are traditionally employed in these two types of facilities. Biological containment facilities enclose samples at lower-than- ambient air pressures so any leakage moves air into the sample chamber and away from the external environment. Clean-room cabinets, on the other hand, are held at greater-than-ambient gas pressures so leakage is outward, protecting the enclosed samples from external contamination. Because a facility combining these features has never been built, extensive experimentation and testing will be needed to design a system of two-way protection. This must be accomplished before design work on the actual Mars quarantine facility begins. Experimentation also is needed to identify effective sterilization techniques that have a minimal impact on the physical and chemical properties of the samples. The report recommends that a continuing committee of biological and geochemical experts be assembled to oversee all aspects of planning, construction, and operation of the quarantine facility. To maximize resources and expedite the process of meeting environmental requirements, the quarantine facility should be affiliated with--and located adjacent to--an existing containment facility such as those operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, MD, or the facility projected by the medical branch of the University of Texas at Galveston. However, NASA should operate and be responsible for the quarantine facility, the report recommends. Because operations in a maximum-security containment facility are highly constrained, the report recommends that only the most basic preliminary examination necessary to document the samples and test them for biohazards should be carried out there. Once the samples are cleared for release, a broader range of examinations should be carried out elsewhere. Plans should be in place to promptly sterilize a portion of the samples after they are received so they can be safely transferred out of the facility for study in specialized university laboratories. The committee proposed specific guidelines for release of samples from the facility. If found to contain no organic matter or other evidence of life, they could be released without sterilization. If the samples contain possible evidence of life, which is the most likely case, portions that have been sterilized by heat or gamma radiation could be certified for release and study elsewhere. If the samples are found to contain unmistakable evidence of life, they should not be released at all until an expert panel of biologists is convened to rethink the situation; the establishment of a research facility dedicated to their study, far more extensive than the quarantine facility, will probably be justified. NASA sponsored this study. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides independent advice on science and technology issues under a congressional charter. The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples will be available on the World Wide Web at http://www.nap.edu. The Academies' Web site also will feature supplemental information and an extended Web treatment at http://national-academies.org/webextra/mars. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed below). Contacts: Jennifer Wenger, Media Relations Associate Mark Chesnek, Media Relations Assistant Phone: 202-334-2138, e-mail: news@nas.edu Text of the full report is available for online viewing at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309075718/html/index.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://CNN.com/2001/TECH/space/05/29/mars.sample/index.html http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/mars_quarantine_010 530.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-01f.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-01g.html _____________________________________________________________________ WHAT SPACE NEEDS: THE HUMAN TOUCH By Tony Phillips From NASA Science News 30 May 2001 NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space enterprise tackles one of the toughest and most redeeming problems of all: sending humans into space. When Apollo astronauts were traveling to the Moon, they occasionally saw flashes of light inside their eyes. It was a sign that high-energy cosmic rays were coursing through their bodies. Fortunately, the dose of such radiation during a round trip to the Moon was not enough to cause health problems. No one was harmed. But the first astronauts couldn't have known that's how it would turn out. Blasting off for the Moon was a risky venture. Why did they do it? The Moon is surely beautiful, but it's also daunting. The Moon has no air to breath or water to drink, and no atmosphere to protect its surface from scorching solar radiation. Without their bulky spacesuits, astronauts wouldn't survive on the lunar surface for more than a few seconds. Nevertheless, they went. President Kennedy made sense of it in 1962. Addressing a crowd at Rice University, he exclaimed, "We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and our skills... we do not know what benefits await us... [but] space is there and we are going to climb it." Kennedy didn't mention unmanned probes or robots. Sending machines into space was hard, he realized, but not hard enough to accomplish his purpose. "We advance when smart people try to solve tough problems, and there's no tougher problem than human exploration of space," explains John Mankins, the manager of NASA's Advanced Concepts program in Washington, DC. Conveying people safely to alien worlds through a hail of cosmic radiation and meteoroids, living in cramped quarters with limited air and water--simply walking without the familiar pull of gravity--it's difficult stuff! And exactly what President Kennedy had in mind. In return for such difficult work, space exploration has given us communications and weather satellites, miniaturized electronics, smart robots, practical photovoltaic power, technology to monitor and manage pollution on Earth... and it promises more. For example, says Mankins, "astronauts who spend much time in low gravity suffer bone loss similar to osteoporosis. We have to solve that problem for long space voyages." In the United States more than 10 million people have osteoporosis and 18 million more are at risk. Every one of them stands to benefit from a medical breakthrough for astronauts. Spinoffs aside, critics argue that sending humans into space is costly and fraught with peril. Couldn't we explore more economically using robots, they ask? For every one human that lands safely on Mars, we could afford dozens of remotely-operated Mars rovers--smart as grasshoppers and bristling with sensors. But it's just not the same, says Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the elder Jacques Cousteau. Jean-Michel, recently named an Environmental Hero by the US government, directs the Ocean Futures Society. He is an impassioned advocate for human exploration of our planet's oceans and of space. "As we explore the ocean--like we explore space--the human presence is a must," says Cousteau. "No matter how well we program a machine we cannot give it a heart. It's what makes us humans unique." "You see, exploration isn't merely about finding things, it's about being moved [spiritually and emotionally], it's about making connections between things that, to a machine, might seem to have no relation at all!" "That's why the International Space Station is so important. How many times have astronauts been up there in orbit and looked down on our planet, seeing things that were not an original part of their program? Humans see the big picture. We dream. We can make decisions that advance science faster than a machine ever could." For Cousteau, there is no true exploration without humans--only remote sensing. Kathy Clark, chief scientist for NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) enterprise, agrees: "There's no substitute for the human experience." "Imagine winning a trip to Paris. You're filled with excitement, anticipating the food, the wine, the city's ambiance. Then, just as you're packing your bags, you get this brown envelope in the mail. It's filled with pictures of mouth-watering cuisine, of people talking and lights glistening from the Eiffel Tower. This is your prize! They didn't send you to Paris. Oh no, they sent a robot with a camera instead." Is it possible to experience the City of Lights, to truly learn what Paris is, by looking at a stack of photos? "I'll skip that vacation," says Clark. In fact, says Mankins, we can learn a great deal from remote sensing and telerobotics, but humans accelerate the pace of discovery. "Consider the Pathfinder mission to Mars [in 1996]," recalls Clark. "It really pushed the envelope on several fronts--how to land a rover on Mars, how to control one from a distance... and watching Sojourner scoot around on an alien world, it was spellbinding!" "Now consider this," she continued. "Sojourner spent two weeks analyzing half a dozen Mars rocks. A human geologist could have done that same work in 30 minutes--then turned the rocks over to see what was hiding underneath." Mankins added, "One of the unexpected problems Sojourner encountered was dust and grit: the rocks were covered with it and they all looked much the same. A human would have jury-rigged something to dust them off and make the appropriate discovery." "But the real issue here isn't man vs. machine," he cautioned. "We need machines working together with humans." Imagine such a pair striding across the Red Planet. An astronaut surveying the scene, seeing connections, barking instructions to a rover that scurries off to analyze a rock or, perhaps, a curious patch of green. "Machines are important," agrees Cousteau, "but they are there to serve us. They can't replace our imagination and our innate ability to make connections. "Humans have a rare gift," he added. "Our sense of adventure. We are hunters, gatherers, adventurers by nature." And, as every parent knows, there [are] no better examples of human nature in all its forms than children. "I spend a lot of time talking to kids," says Mankins. "No 4th-grader is wildly inspired to write financial software. But if you mention humans in space or, say, writing software for robot helpers--presto, instant enthusiasm for math and science." Transforming math anxiety into math enthusiasm? That accomplishment alone makes human space flight worth the effort. It's no coincidence that President Kennedy delivered his vision for the Apollo program to a crowd of students. "We don't know what benefits await us...," he said. "But space is there and we are going to climb it!" The galvanized crowd roared their approval like a Saturn rocket. Their hearts, their minds, perhaps even their DNA agreed: space is for humans... not because it's easy, but because it's hard. More information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast30may_1.htm?list52260. _____________________________________________________________________ NASA SPONSORS SUMMER EDUCATOR WORKSHOPS NASA release 01-38 30 May 2001 What do astronauts eat in space? How does space food taste? These and other questions will be addressed in the first of three educator workshops offered by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's Education Office. The workshop "Space Food and Nutrition" will be offered Saturday, June 16 from 10:00 AM until 12:30 PM. Classroom activities include making and tasting space food. A second workshop "Lunar/Meteorite Sample Certification" will be offered Saturday, July 28 from 10:00 AM until 12:30 PM. Participants will learn geology and scale distance activities. Completion of this workshop will result in a lifetime certification permitting the use of NASA lunar and meteorite samples in the classroom. The final summer workshop is scheduled for Saturday, August 18 from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM. At the "Make 'N Take" workshop teachers will create their own glove boxes filled with classroom activities. Glove boxes are experiment containers currently onboard the International Space Station and used on space shuttle missions. They allow gloved access to experiments without risking contamination of the experiment or the astronaut. All workshops take place at the NASA Dryden Educator Resource Center (ERC), 45108 North 3rd Street East, Lancaster, CA. For further information and to make a reservation, please contact the ERC at 661- 948-7347. The Educator Resource Center also announces Saturday hours. The ERC will be open the following summer Saturdays: June 16, July 21, July 28 and August 18 from 8:00 AM until 4:30 PM. The center will be open the third Saturday of each month beginning September 15. _____________________________________________________________________ SEX IN SPACE FORBIDDEN, SAYS RUSSIAN COSMONAUT By Interfax From Space.com 1 June 2001 Cosmonauts claim that it is forbidden to have sex in space. "A lot of different commissions--moral, ethical and medical ones-- that were discussing this, finally ruled that one must not do it so far, because the consequences are unknown for those who would be born," Cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev said in an interview published in the Friday edition of Rossiiskaya Gazeta. Musabayev also gave a negative answer when asked whether anybody has ever had sex in space. "Definitely not, although there is a lot of idle talk around this," he said. "We laugh, because we just have no opportunity for this, and the Americans are a very disciplined people," he said. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/news/cosmonauts_sex_010601.html. _____________________________________________________________________ JELLYPLANTS ON MARS By Karen Miller and Tony Phillips From NASA Science News 1 June 2001 Scientists are creating a new breed of glowing plants--part mustard and part jellyfish--to help humans explore Mars. The first colonists on Mars probably won't be humans. More likely, they'll be plants. And the prototypes of these leafy pioneers are under development right now. As part of a proposed mission that could put plants on Mars as soon as 2007, University of Florida professor Rob Ferl is bioengineering tiny mustard plants. He's not altering these plants so that they can adapt more easily to Martian conditions. Instead, he's adding reporter genes: part plant, part glowing jellyfish--so that these diminutive explorers can send messages back to Earth about how they are faring on another planet. The plants can be genetically wired to glow with a soft green aura when they encounter problems. Within a garden grouping, some plants could report (by glowing) low oxygen levels, while others might signal low water or, say, the wrong mix of nutrients in the soil. "Just like humans, plants must learn how to adapt to any new environment," Ferl says. On Mars they would encounter extreme temperatures, low air pressure, exposure to harsh ultraviolet light, and generally inadequate soil. "We are using genetics to create plants that can give us data we can use to help them survive." Learning to grow plants on Mars will be an important precursor to humans living there. Future explorers will need oxygen, food, and purified water--items too costly to ferry from Earth to Mars on a regular basis. But plants can help provide those essentials inexpensively and locally as part of a self-contained "bioregenerative" life support system. Bioregenerative life support means humans, plants, and microbes working together in a renewable system. Humans consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. Plants take carbon dioxide and turn it back into breathable air. Human waste (after processing by suitable microbes in bioreactor tanks) can provide nutrients for growing plants, which will, in turn, produce food for people. Such life support systems on Mars will probably involve growing crop plants in Martian soil within specially designed greenhouses, says Andrew Schuerger, a manager of Mars projects with Dynamac Corporation at the NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Ferl, Schuerger, and Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center want to test the greenhouse concept by sending bioengineered plants to Mars on board a small NASA spacecraft--a "Mars Scout." They envision a seed-bearing lander that would scoop up a portion of Martian soil, add buffers and nutrients, then germinate the seeds to grow within a miniature greenhouse. Thriving plants won't glow at all. They'll look like normal mustard. But plants struggling to survive will emit a soft green light, a signal to researchers that something is amiss. A camera onboard the lander would record the telltale glows and then relay the signal back to Earth. No humans are required on the scene- -a big advantage for such a far away experiment. The plants' designer genes consist of two parts: a sensor side to detect stress and a reporter side to trigger the glow. The sensor side of the gene comes from the plant itself--Arabidopsis thaliana, a member of the mustard family also known as thale cress. Ferl and his colleagues picked Arabidopsis because three attributes suit it well for a Mars mission: Its maximum height is about 6 inches, so it can fit inside a small greenhouse, its life cycle is only six weeks, and its entire genome has been mapped. (For these same reasons Arabidopsis plants are already orbiting Earth on board the International Space Station as part of an independent experiment to learn how plants react to free fall.) The reporter side of the gene comes from Aequorea victoria, a jellyfish common along the Pacific coast of North America. Aequorea live about six months, grow to 5 or 10 cm, and can glow soft-green along the rim of their bell-shaped bodies. Scientists aren't sure why they glow--Aequorea victoria do not flash at each other in the dark, nor do they glow continuously. But the touch of a human hand, for example, can stimulate the jellyfish to "light up." Once the sensor and the reporter gene fragments are stitched together, Ferl uses a bacterium to move the newly-constructed gene into the plant. Because plants are sessile--that is, they can't get up and walk away from stressful situations--they can survive only by adapting to whatever their environment offers. So, they've developed an exquisite variety of sensing mechanisms to monitor their surroundings and trigger appropriate responses to stressors. By adding phosphorescent reporters to those sensors, Ferl says, "we can learn not just whether the plant is surviving, but whether it's struggling to survive, and whether it's surviving because it's mounting specific responses to the Mars environment." Ferl offers this example of an adaptive response to hard times. Here on Earth when plants are flooded by water, they have access to less oxygen. The plants respond by changing their metabolism to generate energy anaerobically (without oxygen)--a less efficient pathway, but one that is available to them. On Mars plants might adopt the same response to survive in the thin oxygen-poor atmosphere. Water on Mars will also be very scarce, and plants will need to conserve every bit. The leaves of all plants contain stomata, little holes that let gas molecules in and out. Plants have the ability to open and close stomata as conditions demand. "One can imagine plants [living on the surface of Mars in the distant future] that might adapt by means of fewer stomata in their leaves: that means fewer opportunities for water vapor to leave, and maybe that would be a positive adaptation," says Ferl. The first wave of Martian plants envisioned by Ferl and his colleagues would sprout inside a very small and protected greenhouse. We don't know exactly how big it's going to be," says Schuerger, "but we're shooting to fit a foot print of about 10 inches by 10 inches, and weighing about 15 to 20 pounds." The greenhouse, he expects, could hold as many as 20 to 30 plants. "We can grow a single plant,” he says, "in one or two grams of soil, in a tiny glass or steel or Teflon container." The plants might also be exposed to Martian light, which could be piped into the greenhouse (inside the lander) through fiber optics, and to a moisture-added, oxygen-enhanced version of the Martian atmosphere. But the project's primary goal is determining whether plants can thrive in Martian soil--an experiment best done on Mars itself! As important as it is to know whether plants can actually grow on the Red Planet, this project also has a philosophical purpose, says Chris McKay, the principal investigator of the proposed Scout mission. "It will be a symbolic step," he says, "of life from Earth, leaving Earth, and growing somewhere else." And when this little plant grows on Mars, he believes it's going to be a major awakening of our interest in our future in space. More information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast01jun_1.htm?list52260. _____________________________________________________________________ MARS MISSION UPDATE VIA WEBCAST NASA/JPL internet advisory 1 June 2001 Mars scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, will give the latest report about the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission, now en route to the mysterious red planet, in a webcast available for viewing starting June 7, 2001 at 11:00 AM Pacific Time. JPL scientist Dr. Claudia Alexander will host the webcast, which will feature answers to questions submitted in advance, along with interesting images and cool animations of Mars. Dr. Roger Gibbs, the 2001 Odyssey Mars spacecraft manager, will answer questions on the mission's progress and how the spacecraft will perform "aerobraking" in the Martian atmosphere. Dr. Jeff Plaut, the mission's deputy project scientist, will talk about the science the team hopes to accomplish while Odyssey orbits Mars. To submit questions, visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/webcast/mars_odyssey. A link to the webcast is located at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov. The Mars Odyssey mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, built the Odyssey spacecraft. Contact: Martha J. Heil, 818-354-0850 _____________________________________________________________________ NASA CUTS SMALLER MARS STUDIES By Steven Siceloff From Florida Today and Space.com 4 June 2001 Space Station Alpha, increased robotic exploration and the Space Launch Initiative all will get humans to Mars faster than relatively small studies and planning, according to NASA chief Dan Goldin. In his recent justification of why human exploration studies of the Red Planet are being shut down, Goldin said the work was minor compared to the multibillion-dollar efforts the agency has undertaken. "I think this will get us to Mars faster because when you try and do too much, you do too little," Goldin said. "And getting the space station done and getting it complete and getting the assembly done, and getting the biomedical research done is of a much higher priority than the dogs and cats of the small programs we were doing on getting ready for Mars." A cadre of engineers at Johnson Space Center and other NASA sites had been working out problems with getting to Mars when they were reassigned to the International Space Station effort in February. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/nasa_mars_cuts_0106 04.html. _____________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 4 June 2001 Articles about astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html B. E. DiGregorio, 2001. The quarantine and certification of Martian samples. SpaceDaily. K. Miller and T. Phillips, 2001. Jellyplants on Mars. NASA Space Science News. National Research Council, 2001. The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. Space.com, 2001. Future Martian samples should be quarantined, report says. Space.com. SpaceDaily, 2001. Martian cook up closer than ever. SpaceDaily. SpaceDaily, 2001. Prepare now for Martian samples warn scientists. SpaceDaily. R. Stenger, 2001. Quarantine urged for Mars sample return. CNN. Articles about the biology of extreme environments (on Earth) http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s2.html R. R. Britt, 2001. Cryobot camera explores Antarctica, preparing for ET hunt. Space.com. Articles about human space exploration and the microgravity environment http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html Interfax, 2001. Sex in space forbidden, says Russian cosmonaut. Space.com. T. Phillips, 2001. What space needs: the human touch. NASA Space Science News. S. Siceloff, 2001. NASA cuts smaller Mars studies. Space.com. Astrobiology and extreme environments book list http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology_b ooks.html National Research Council, 2001. The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 17-23 May 2001 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Sunday May 20. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Safing recovery procedures concluded this week, with all the instruments successfully turned on and the C26 sequence restarted early May 24. Information on the spacecraft's position and speed can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. The C27 Sequence Virtual Team held the Subsequence Generation/ Sequence Change Request Approval Meeting. The Huygens Recovery Task Force (HRTF) held its fifth meeting this week, with the Cassini Program hosting the meeting in the Pasadena area. For the first time, members of the Cassini orbiter science team were present along with the Huygens science team and the HRTF. The orbiter instruments were well represented and several interdisciplinary scientists were also present. The HRTF used the opportunity to brief the orbiter scientists on the various recovery options, their potential for science return and their potential impact on the Cassini/Huygens mission. The Huygens science teams presented the results of their analysis of the various data return scenarios and the effect the scenarios would have on the goals for the probe experiments. Both the low altitude and high altitude scenarios were further refined and actions were assigned for follow-on studies. The next meeting will be at European Space Research & Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, Holland at the end of the month. As part of the ongoing web consolidation effort, a new internal Cassini web portal has been established. Significant improvements have been made in the format and layout of the information. However, the portal is not meant to be static, and Cassini users have been encouraged to supply feedback so that the system can continue to evolve to meet the needs of the project. Per schedule, the Attitude Control Flight Software Development team delivered version A8.3.0 of the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem (AACS) Flight Software (FSW) to the Integrated Test Lab for further test. This is the last scheduled delivery for the AACS FSW prior to the soft freeze scheduled for July. Mission Assurance has refined and updated the Program's Anomaly Reporting Plan. The revised plan and process were presented to the Cassini Design Team (CDT) for review and approval. Changes to the existing Incident, Surprise, and Anomaly (ISA) form were also discussed. An agreed upon list of changes will be forwarded to the JPL Problem Reporting System group for assessment and implementation. A prototype web interface to the Event (E) Kernels was demonstrated at the EKernel Working Group. Positive feedback from users has been received regarding the usefulness of the tool. Revision G of the Anomaly Response Plan was released for review this week. Modifications include desirable changes identified during the Jupiter sub-phase. Cassini's Distributed Object Manager (DOM) system has proposed to migrate their data to an alternate underlying distributed file system. The Mission Support & Services Office (MSSO) and System Engineering (SE) teams have begun work with the Telecommunications and Mission Operations Directorate (TMOD)/Deep Space Mission Systems (DSMS) to determine the best solution and review impacts to the Cassini ground system. Mission Assurance conducted the first Cassini Risk Team meeting this week to begin evaluating and converging on the Significant Risk List (SRL). The forum provided a chance for free exchange of information concerning potential risks to the Mission as well as consensus on the risks, their ratings and mitigation efforts. Time only allowed for half of the items on the SRL to be covered, so a follow-on meeting will be conducted to finish this activity. Once completed, the agreed to SRL will be placed into the on-line Risk Management Tool for tracking, continuous assessment and reporting purposes. The Instrument Operations (IO) Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) personnel attended the VIMS science team meeting in Tucson, which included discussions of calibration, flight rules, interface issues, planning tools and tour planning. IO hosted a representative from Probe Operations for a week of Project training. Classes included a Security Briefing and Voice Net Operations taught by MSSO; Spacecraft, Planet, Instruments, C-matrix, and Events kernels (SPICE) overview by Navigation Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) personnel; Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) and a Sequence Virtual Team (SVT) Overview given by Uplink Operations (ULO); Multimission Ground Data System (MGDS) by TMOD; and Problem Reporting and Anomaly Response taught by SE. The SVT overview was videotaped in Von Karman Auditorium. Future distribution of this tape on an as needed basis will provide wider opportunities for training new project members. On Saturday and Sunday 19-20 May, JPL sponsored the annual "Open House," with Cassini Outreach coordinating the Cassini team effort. This year, over 65,000 people from throughout Southern California attended the events. Over 50 educator product and program requests were submitted to Cassini Education Outreach on Saturday alone. Two new 20-slide sets have been completed for the Cassini Mission. Sets are available to Project staff through the Cassini Outreach Office. Additional sets and non-Cassini staff can order sets through Finley-Holiday Films. The new sets are "Saturn System" (JPL-52) and "A Trip to Saturn" (JPL-126). The new slide sets will also be posted in the Gallery section of the Cassini web site. Additionally, the Cassini 1/37th paper scale model of the spacecraft is the featured resource on the Space Science Education Resource Directory located at http://teachspacescience.stsci.edu. 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. _____________________________________________________________________ THESE WEEKS ON GALILEO NASA/JPL releases 28 May - 2 June 2001 The excitement of the encounter week has settled down now, and activity levels drop to the quiet murmur, which is usual for the cruise portion of an orbit. On Monday, the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EUV) instrument begins a 68-day long study of the ionized hydrogen that permeates the solar system. The length of the observation allows scientists to watch changes in the emissions from this plasma for longer than two full rotations of the sun. This will show the interactions between solar activity and the interplanetary hydrogen gas, and contribute to knowledge of the long-term evolution of the distribution of this gas from solar minimum to solar maximum. Also on Monday, the spacecraft performs an orbit trim maneuver. In it, the spacecraft thrusters are fired in order to nudge Galileo in its path around Jupiter, lining it up for the next encounter with the satellite Io in early August. The maneuver is preceded by a calibration of the gyroscopes, which are used to maintain the orientation of the spacecraft while the thrusters are firing and the star scanner is shuttered to prevent contamination. On Thursday, the spacecraft is turned by 4.3 degrees to keep the communications antenna pointed more closely towards the Earth. On Sunday, routine maintenance of the spacecraft propulsion system is performed. During this encounter, the Solid State Imaging camera (SSI) experienced a re-occurrence of an anomaly which causes its pictures to appear completely overexposed. This problem also occurred during Galileo's flyby in December, 2000, affecting something less than half of the images taken at that time. In both cases, high radiation levels near Jupiter appeared to help to trigger the anomaly. Telemetry readings from the camera suggest that all of the near-Callisto images were successfully recorded, and that some earlier observations of Io and Ganymede may have been lost. Our first priority for data playback this week is to return samples of many of those images. This will give us a better indication of exactly which observations were affected. On a subsequent pass over the tape later in the orbit, we will then be able to play back larger areas of unaffected frames to reap their scientific bounty. Ah, the woes of an aging spacecraft in a hostile environment! On Sunday, the playback process is paused and the spacecraft is settled into a quiet state to ride out a period called Solar Conjunction. This roughly three-week time span is when Jupiter, with the Galileo spacecraft in tow, appears to pass behind the Sun as seen from Earth. When the line of sight between Earth and Galileo comes too close to the Sun, radio interference from the active solar atmosphere makes reliable communication impossible. 4-24 June 2001 Galileo, the spacecraft, is now settling into a 3-week-long period of extreme rest, even while Galileo, the flight team, is gearing up in planning for the next flyby in early August. On Monday, June 4, the spacecraft enters a period called solar conjunction. Each year there comes a time when Jupiter, with Galileo in orbit around it, appears to pass behind the Sun. On Monday, the angle between the Sun and Galileo with Earth at the apex shrinks to less than 7 degrees. At this point, even in the best of circumstances, the noise from the solar atmosphere interferes with the radio signal from Galileo, making reception of the science and engineering data doubtful. This year in particular, with the Sun reaching the time in its activity cycle called solar maximum, the interference is particularly bad, and some of our planned data return has already been lost in the noise. On Wednesday, June 13, the apparent separation between Galileo and the Sun as seen from Earth reaches its minimum of a third of a degree. So for now, the spacecraft systems have been battened down and prepared for the long dry spell. The routine maintenance activities are complete, the playback of data from the on-board tape recorder is paused, and the computer routines that look for regular communications from Earth have been told not to expect any messages for the duration. There is no increased risk to the spacecraft during this time, but our inability to see what's going on makes us wary of performing any activities. The sole exceptions to this enforced quiet are for the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EUV) instrument, and passive support of a radio science experiment. EUV is continuing to look for variations in the Sun's output by looking for light reflected off of interplanetary hydrogen gas. This is a simple task, however, which only involves storing the science data in buffer areas of computer memory. Radio science investigators in Germany take this opportunity to study the way the radio signal is affected by its journey through the Sun's atmosphere. This provides information about the structure, content, and dynamics of the gases streaming out from the Sun. This study relies on the primary radio signal itself, not on the correct reception of the ones and zeros that are the meat and potatoes of the remaining science telemetry. Join us again in late June, when we revive Galileo from its artificial hibernation, and resume our normal cruise activities. 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 _____________________________________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 30 May 2001 International Space Station engineers are continuing to troubleshoot problems with the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the complex after an unsuccessful attempt earlier today to solve a communications glitch with one of the crane's joints through a software modification. With more time now needed to complete an analysis of the communications problems between the arm's shoulder pitch joint in its redundant or backup mode, and the arm's backup computer unit, Shuttle and Station program managers decided to postpone the launch of Atlantis on the STS-104 mission to deliver the Joint Airlock to the ISS until no earlier than early July. The next ISS assembly flight after that, STS-105 aboard Discovery, was also delayed until no earlier than early August to accommodate the Airlock mission and to allow managers to consider a replacement of the shoulder joint on the August flight during one of two spacewalks planned by Dan Barry and Patrick Forrester. No final decision on replacing the joint has yet been made. The recently installed Canadarm2 has fully redundant computer control systems. All of the arm's joints are functioning perfectly through its primary channel, but the backup channel has run into a series of recent problems, including the unexpected activation of a switch for the arm's brakes earlier this month in the backup mode of operation during a test of the arm's wrist. That problem has not reoccurred in subsequent testing. The shoulder pitch joint problem cropped up last week during other arm checkouts when the joint experienced intermittent dropouts in communicating with the backup computer unit. It had been hoped that a software patch developed by Canadian engineers who designed the arm would clear the communications dropouts, but it did not resolve the problem, resulting in the need for further testing and analysis. Robotics experts suspect that the problem resides in the shoulder pitch joint hardware, not the software or the computers associated with its operation. Expedition Two Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms had hoped to perform a "dry run" of the Airlock installation procedures today, but that simulation was postponed. The Canadarm2 is required for the grapple of the Airlock in Atlantis' cargo bay and its installation on the starboard docking port of the Unity module of the ISS. The 12˝ ton Airlock will enable future Station spacewalks to be conducted in either U.S. or Russian spacesuits rather than from the Russian Zvezda module. The Shuttle robot arm cannot reach the Airlock installation location. In the meantime, ISS managers will decide Friday whether to ask Voss and Expedition Commander Yury Usachev to add the replacement of the arm computer unit to a previously scheduled "internal" spacewalk in the Zvezda's spherical transfer compartment on June 8. That first ISS-based spacewalk is designed to reposition a docking mechanism in preparation for the arrival of a Russian docking module later this year. If approved, the computer replacement task would involve Usachev and Voss venturing outside the Station in Russian suits for their spacewalk before reentering Zvezda's docking compartment for the mechanism repositioning work. Engineers are also assessing the performance of a motor on one of the two wings of the P6 solar array truss structure that enables the solar mast to track the sun as the ISS orbits the Earth. Although there is more than ample power being generated for all Station systems, the motor is generating higher than normal electrical currents and may need to be replaced on a subsequent Shuttle assembly flight. Meanwhile, Usachev, Voss and Helms completed the unloading of an unmanned Russian Progress resupply vehicle which arrived at the ISS last week loaded with 3100 pounds of supplies, food, clothes and spare parts. A spare computer hard drive brought to the ISS on the Progress was installed in one of three central Station computers, bringing the outpost's computers back to full functionality. Science investigations continue onboard under the guidance of the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, except for the Human Research Facility, which is monitored and controlled from the Telescience Support Center (TSC) at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. For details on ISS science, visit http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov. A status briefing on Expedition Two activities will be broadcast on NASA Television on Thursday, May 31 at 2:00 PM Central time. The briefing will include multi-center question and answer capability from NASA centers. A news conference with the Expedition Two crew for U.S. reporters is scheduled Friday at 8:00 AM Central time and will also be broadcast on NASA Television. The International Space Station is orbiting at an altitude of around 250 miles (401 km). The next ISS Status Report will be issued as mission events warrant. _____________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 30 May 2001 Launch / Days since launch = November 7, 1996 / 1666 days Start of mapping / Days since start of mapping = April 1, 1999 / 790 days Total mapping orbits = 9,957 Total orbits = 11,640 Recent events The spacecraft is operating nominally in performing the beta- supplement daily recording and transmission of science data. The mm142 sequence executed successfully from 01-144 (5/24/01) through 01-146 (5/26/01). The mm143 sequence has performed well since it started on 01-147 (5/27/01). It terminates on 01-150 (5/30/01). The mm144 sequence, successfully uplinked on 01-149 (5/29/01), begins executing on 01-151 (5/31/01). Nine more Roll Only Targeted Observations (ROTOs) were performed since the last report. MGS has completed a total of 107 ROTOs to date. Spacecraft health All subsystems report good health and status. The Sun Monitor Ephemeris fault protection continues to be disabled to prevent another C-Mode entry while the Spacecraft Team investigates the root cause of the failure. Other fault protection routines will continue to protect MGS from losing its attitude knowledge. Uplinks There have been 17 uplinks to the spacecraft during the past week, including new star catalogs and ephemeris files, instrument command loads, the background sequences cited above, and ROTO mini-sequence mz103. Three solar array position management scripts were updated to offset the commanded solar array positions by 35 degrees instead of the previous offset of 25 degrees. The update should extend the life of the Partial Shunt Assemblies by reducing the amount of excess power generated by the solar arrays. There have been 5,406 command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch. Upcoming events DOY 01-172 (6/21/01) marks the end of the beta-supplement phase and the beginning of the nominal mapping phase of the mission. Planetary and orbital geometry will allow the HGA to auto-track the Earth without impacting the HGA boom. Nominal mapping sequences will not be as command intensive as the beta-supplement sequences. Therefore, 28-day background sequences will be the norm instead of the 3- and 4- day beta-supplement sequences. Another MGS Mars Relay On-orbit UHF Test will be conducted with Stanford University between 01-177 (6/26/01) and 01-180 (6/29/01). _____________________________________________________________________ STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 1 June 2001 There was one Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking pass this week and all subsystems are performing normally. The Stardust spacecraft is out beyond the orbit of Mars and is heading toward the main asteroid belt that is between Mars and Jupiter. The Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA) instrument continues to observe the interstellar dust stream with an optimal spacecraft attitude when not in communication with Earth. The weekly navigation camera images were taken and the image quality remains excellent. There is no indication of recontamination. Commands are being prepared for the navigation camera's guide star images on June 4. A successful test was performed in the Spacecraft Test Laboratory and the results are being reviewed. The images, taken through the periscope and off the periscope, are of the two stars that will be used to locate Comet Wild 2 in the fall of 2003. For more information on the Stardust mission--the first ever comet sample return mission--please visit the Stardust home page at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov. _____________________________________________________________________ End Marsbugs, Volume 8, Number 21.