MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 8, Number 33, 3 August 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 monthly 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) MARS EXPLORERS CALL FOR OPENING THE 'NEW WORLD' By Leonard David 2) SETI@HOME: SIGNAL CRUNCHING YIELDS LITTLE SO FAR By Leonard David 3) SAFETY ON MARS: SPACESUITS OF THE FUTURE By Robert Roy Britt 4) PERMIAN IMPACT CAUSED LARGEST MASS EXTINCTION ON EARTH By Kara LeBeau 5) EARTH'S LIGHT SHOW IS A CLUE TO FINDING HABITABLE NEIGHBORS Princeton University release 6) NASA MARSPORT ENGINEERING DESIGN STUDENT COMPETITION 2002 University of Texas at Austin release 7) THREE MONTHS IN BED TO SIMULATE EFFECTS OF LONG-DURATION SPACE STATION MISSIONS ESA release 46-2001 8) BREAKING THE PROTEIN CODE WITH THE SPACE STATION From ESA News 9) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 10) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 11) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 12) ISS STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 13) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release _____________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORERS CALL FOR OPENING THE 'NEW WORLD' By Leonard David From Space.com 24 August 2001 The way to kick-start a humans-to-Mars program is to take a do-it- yourself approach and focus on research needed to open the Red Planet to explorers and eventually settlers, a guru for Mars exploration says. Private monies are being spent to study how to combat the long-duration effects--on mice and humans--of microgravity en route to Mars, and to better assess the skills required of people that voyage that great distance to open up the next "New World" for humankind, says Mars Society President, Robert Zubrin. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/mars_stanford_01082 4.html. _____________________________________________________________________ SETI@HOME: SIGNAL CRUNCHING YIELDS LITTLE SO FAR By Leonard David From Space.com 27 August 2001 More than a dozen candidate signals have been snagged by a global network of volunteers in a search for extraterrestrial intelligence called SETI@home. But one by one, the prospective SETI hits have been downgraded to misses and tagged as radio interference. The SETI@home project has been under way since May 1999. Using data collected by the world's largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, some 3 million volunteers around the globe have attempted to tease out from the telescope's star sweeping any signs of radio chatter eking from distant, inhabited worlds. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/setihome_numbers_010827-1.html. _____________________________________________________________________ SAFETY ON MARS: SPACESUITS OF THE FUTURE By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 27 August 2001 New miniature sensors designed to warn of chemical dangers here on Earth might one day be worn like badges on space suits to alert astronauts or Martian colonists to dangerous chemicals or elevated radiation levels. Mars is a wild frontier, with potential dangers that scientists know little about. The Red Planet lacks an ozone layer, which on Earth blocks out lethal doses of solar ultraviolet radiation. This and other forms of radiation change daily and seasonally, but researchers do not yet know how significant or dangerous the problem is. And there are also likely unknown chemicals in Martian soil, NASA scientists say. Future missions to Mars are geared toward learning more about these hazards... Future spacesuits will be designed to protect humans against the various risks. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/spacesuit_sensors_ 010827-1.html. _____________________________________________________________________ PERMIAN IMPACT CAUSED LARGEST MASS EXTINCTION ON EARTH By Kara LeBeau From SpaceDaily 30 August 2001 What actually ended the Permian Period some 251 million years ago? Most Earth scientists think gradual sea fall, climate change, oceanic anoxia, and volcanism were the causes. But that's not so. A group of geologists working in southern China found evidence that it was an asteroid or a comet that smacked our planet, exploded, and then caused the most severe biotic crisis in the history of life on Earth. In the September issue of Geology, Kunio Kaiho from Tohoku University reports their findings of a remarkable sulfur and strontium isotope excursion at the end of the Permian, along with a coincident concentration of impact--metamorphosed grains and kaolinite and a significant decrease in manganese, phosphorous, calcium, and microfossils (foraminifera). Get the full story at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01ze.html. _____________________________________________________________________ EARTH'S LIGHT SHOW IS A CLUE TO FINDING HABITABLE NEIGHBORS Princeton University release 29 August 2001 Viewed from a star in some other corner of the galaxy, Earth would be a speck, a faint blue dot hidden in the blazing light of our sun. Would there be any hint of that speck's amazing diversity of life? According to a paper in the August 30 issue of Nature, a savvy alien would find at least one important clue: an interesting flicker in the pale blue light. While our neighbors Venus and Mars would reflect a fairly even glow, Earth would put on a little show. Earth's light would brighten and dim as it spins, because oceans, deserts, forests and clouds--which are all too small to be seen from such a distance--reflect varying amounts of sunlight. The variations, it turns out, are so strong and distinctive that a surprising amount of information could be taken from a simple ebb and flow of light. Scientists at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study conducted a detailed study of Earth's reflections not for insights into an alien's view of our home planet, but as a way for human scientists to learn about distant planets that may be like our own. They are participating in the early planning for a NASA mission known as the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a space probe that will scan the skies for planets hospitable to life. "If you looked at our solar system from far away, and you looked at the terrestrial planets--Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars--one of the quickest ways to see that Earth is unique is by looking at the light curve," said Ed Turner, professor of astrophysics and a co-author of the study. "Earth has by far the most complicated light curve." Eric Ford, a graduate student, and Sara Seager, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, developed the idea in collaboration with Turner. The standard thinking in the field had been that most of the information about an Earth-like planet would come from spectral analysis, a static reading of the relative component of different colors within the light, rather than a reading of changes over time. Spectral analysis would reveal the presence of gasses such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and oxygen, in the planet's atmosphere. Looking at the change in light over time does not replace spectral analysis, but it could greatly increase the amount of information scientists could learn, said Turner. It may indicate, for example, the presence of weather, oceans, ice or even plant life. "It's just one more tool, one more approach to a very tough problem," said Turner. Although the idea that a planet's light would vary seems straightforward, the three scientists had no idea whether that variation would be large or small or what it would look like. After all, there are precious few opportunities to look at Earth from afar, noted Turner. He and colleagues reached their conclusions by studying existing research on the light-scattering properties of everything from cornfields to ocean waves. They then invented computer models of Earth that incorporated the data. The results showed variations in light of up to 150 percent over the course of a day, with characteristic signatures for different terrestrial features such as deserts, forests and oceans. Turner said he and colleagues will continue to refine the idea. One possible way to test their conclusions is to measure changes in how much light from Earth is reflected off the moon, a phenomenon known as earthshine. But the real test will be if and when someone finds the first Earth-like planet. That moment could come in the next decade or so. NASA is exploring several alternatives for a planet- finding mission that would launch in 2012 or beyond, and also is seeking plans for smaller projects that could be launched in just a few years. With characteristic understatement, Turner noted that if Earth-like planets were found "they would presumably be objects of tremendous interest." An additional article on this subject is available at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0109/01exoweather/. _____________________________________________________________________ NASA MARSPORT ENGINEERING DESIGN STUDENT COMPETITION 2002 University of Texas at Austin release 30 August 2001 We are pleased to announce the NASA MarsPort Engineering Design Student Competition 2002. Design topic: Deployable greenhouse for Mars Dates: Fall 2001 Semester (all teams) 10/19/01 - Deadline for submission of letters of intent to compete 11/16/01 - Deadline for submission of proposals 12/14/01 - Announcement of 6 finalist teams Spring 2002 Semester (finalist teams) 3/29/02 - Deadline for preliminary design report Week of 4/8/02 - Midpoint videoconferences 5/6/02 - Deadline for detailed design report 5/14-15/02 - NASA MarsPort design conference (Kennedy Space Center, FL) Eligibility: A student team may include any number of graduate and undergraduate students, but the number of graduate students must not exceed half of the team's membership. Each team must include a Supervising Faculty Member. A team may also involve advisory and support personnel, who can include, for example, high school students, business professionals, and community leaders. Each team must designate a Team Leader, who must be a student. Only proposals from teams of students enrolled in accredited American institutions of higher education will be considered. Team members do not need to be citizens of the United States. Awards: $500 per team - Upon selection as a finalist team $500 per team - Upon receipt of satisfactory preliminary design report $500 per team - Upon receipt of satisfactory detailed design report $500 - Optional: for recognition of exemplary performance Grand Prize - To the team with the best overall performance, based on criteria to be published in the competition guidelines Competition Guidelines are posted at http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/marsport/. NASA MarsPort 2002 is sponsored by NASA and Science Applications International Corporation and is administered by the Florida Space Grant Consortium and the Texas Space Grant Consortium. Contact: Burke O. Fort Center for Space Research The University of Texas at Austin Texas Space Grant Consortium Phone: 512-471-7225; Fax: 512-471-3585 E-mail: fort@mail.utexas.edu _____________________________________________________________________ THREE MONTHS IN BED TO SIMULATE EFFECTS OF LONG-DURATION SPACE STATION MISSIONS ESA release 46-2001 31 August 2001 Spending a long time in a weightless environment has an impact on the human body, and evidence exists of changes to the bone and muscles of astronauts who have participated in long-duration missions in space. To cope with the requirements of long-stay missions aboard the International Space Station, the European Space Agency, together with the French space agency CNES and the Japanese space agency NASDA, are validating countermeasures through a preventive-medicine ground-based simulation that makes use of the bed rest model. The study runs over two periods of four months, one starting in August this year, the other in March next years. Each time, fourteen test subjects will lie in bed for a period of three months, to produce sufficient scientific data. The total duration of each campaign is 120 days: 90 days in strict -6ĝ head down tilt, with a preparatory period of 15 days beforehand and a 15-day recovery phase after. Previous studies, where the inclination varied from 0 to - 15ĝ, have shown that the -6ĝ position is the best for simulating the effects of the weightless environment of space. This is the first ever long-term bed rest study of such complexity and duration to be carried out in Europe. The main objective is to assess the changes to muscles and bone typically arising on long- duration space flight and evaluate methods of counteracting such changes. Additional experiments will also investigate the cardiovascular system and neuro-endocrine regulation of urine production, psychological behavior and changes in the sleep-wake cycle. The study is also aimed at improving the medical aspects of healthcare for people afflicted with muscle and bone-wasting diseases. The experiments have been proposed by European scientists in answer to an ESA announcement of opportunity, and by NASDA scientists for the research into bone physiology. A dozen scientific groups representing about eighty researchers are involved. Throughout the study, the subjects will have to undergo many investigations such as tests during exercise, osteodensitometry (measurement of bone- density) and magnetic resonance imaging. Analysis of muscle biopsies and extensive biochemical analysis of biological samples will be performed. In their spare time, the test subjects will be able to read, play games, watch TV and use computers. Meals will be served in bed, but the test subjects will not be allowed to sit. They will be able to make calls to their families, but during the three months they will have only very limited opportunity to make contact with the outside world. Progress will be reported via a dedicated web site at http://www.medes.fr. At the end of the study, the test subjects will be followed up with specialized medical check-ups at forty-five days, three months, six months and one year with a follow-up questionnaire after three years. A team of medical and psychological experts from the MEDES Institute for Space Medicine and Physiology selected the candidates during the first half of the year and is in charge of the implementation of the study. The Toulouse-based institute has over ten years of experience of conducting bed rest simulation experiments. Since 1996 personnel from the "space clinic" have participated in six different bed rest studies. Since the study has to be as homogeneous as possible, only male candidates aged between 25-45 have been selected. The fourteen test subjects selected out of a total of 450 applicants are between 29 and 41 and are all French nationals. Their occupations range from history and geography teachers to builders, from psychiatrists to postmen and from gardeners to accountants. Contact: Benny Elmann-Larsen ESA Physiology co-ordinator and Project Manager for the Bed Rest Study Phone: +31 71 565 3322 Fax: +31 71 565 3661 E-mail: benny.elmann-larsen@esa.int CNES Press Office Eliane Moreaux Phone: +33(0)5.61.27.33.44 E-mail: eliane.moreaux @cnes.fr Sandra Laly Phone: +33(0)1.44.76.77.32 E-mail: sandra.laly@cnes.fr More information on this article is available at http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESAXG12VMOC_index_0.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0109/03bedrest/. _____________________________________________________________________ BREAKING THE PROTEIN CODE WITH THE SPACE STATION From ESA News http://www.esa.int 31 August 2001 When a Russian Progress craft docked with the ISS on 23 August, it brought Europe's second scientific experiment to the space station. The Granada Crystal Box Experiment does not look very impressive from the outside: as its name suggests, it is a box, and quite a small one--just 13 cm by 13 by 8. On Earth, it weighs about a kilogram. On the ISS, of course, it weighs nothing: which is precisely why it is there, and why it may help European scientists to make a few strides forward in molecular biology and drug design. Financed by ESA, the Crystallisation Box Experiment was designed and built by scientists at the Laboratorio de Estudios Cristalogr ficos of the University of Granada in Spain, and like the Advanced Protein Crystallisation Facility--brought to the station by shuttle mission STS-105 on 10 August--the equipment is designed to help unravel the structure of protein molecules. These complex chemicals are the building blocks of life. Essentially, proteins are long chains and coils of amino acids, themselves relatively simple substances. Scientists can fairly easily establish a protein's chemical make-up. But proteins owe their extraordinary biological abilities less to their content than to their shape. Their folds and convolutions provide receptor areas in the molecule that allow them to mediate with enormous precision in the billions of chemical reactions that keep living things alive. To discover a protein's structure--which could be the key to new drug treatments--scientists use a technique called X-ray crystallography. And for that, they need protein crystals--the bigger and more perfect the better. That's where the ISS comes in. The weightless environment allows crystals to form without any interference from gravity-induced convection currents. Protein crystallization experiments have been performed in space for many years, with varying degrees of success: even in microgravity, the huge molecules are reluctant to grow crystals large enough for X- ray work back on Earth. But the scientific team in Granada are hopeful that their device will succeed where others have failed: the CBE uses a different crystallization technique. The saturated solutions of salts and the protein macromolecules are contained in capillary tubes--a method impossible on Earth where convection currents prevent crystals growing big enough for good X-ray results. In space, though, things should be different. The CBE team will not have too long to wait for their first results. Right now, their experiment is nestling in a quiet corner of the ISS: it needs neither power nor attention from the crew. All being well, it will be returned to Earth on 31 October. And its capillary tubes --which can be directly X-rayed, without removing their fragile contents--may have some secrets to reveal. Related news and links * First European experiment facility up and running on the ISS http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESA43I1VMOC_Benefits_0.html * Granada Crystallisation Box Experiment http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/users/file.cfm?filename=fac-iss-gcb * Laboratory for Crystallographic Studies (University of Granada) http://lec.ugr.es/ * Human Spaceflight web site http://www.esa.int/spaceflight * ESA's Spaceflight users web site http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/users/index.cfm * ISS (NASA pages) http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html Image captions [Image 1: http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESA4P02VMOC_index_1.html] Europe's second scientific experiment on the ISS, delivered to by a Russian Progress craft on 23 August, is designed to help unravel the structure of protein crystals. Financed by ESA, the Crystallisation Box Experiment was designed and built at the University of Granada's Laboratorio de Estudios Cristalograficos. [Image 2: http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESA4P02VMOC_index_1.html#subhead2] Europe's second scientific experiment on the ISS, delivered to by a Russian Progress craft on 23 August, is designed to help unravel the structure of protein crystals. Financed by ESA, the Crystallisation Box Experiment was designed and built at the University of Granada's Laboratorio de Estudios Cristalograficos. Granada team hope to succeed where others have failed using a different crystallisation technique. The saturated solutions of salts and protein macromolecules are contained in capillary tubes--impossible on Earth because convection currents prevent the growth of large enough crystals for X-ray crystallography. [Image 3: http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESA4P02VMOC_index_1.html#subhead3] This artist's impression depicts the configuration of the International Space Station at the beginning of scientific utilisation, with from left to right: US Laboratory - Node 1 - FGB - Russian Service Module. More information on this article is available at http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ESA4P02VMOC_index_0.html. _____________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 3 September 2001 Articles about astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html Princeton University, 2001. Earth's light show is a clue to finding habitable neighbors. Spaceflight Now. Articles about the biology of extreme environments (on Earth) http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s2.html U. Nbel, M. M. Bateson, M. T. Madigan, M. Khl and D. M. Ward, 2001. Diversity and distribution in hypersaline microbial mats of bacteria related to Chloroflexus spp. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 67(9):4365-4371. Articles about human space exploration and the microgravity environment http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html R. R. Britt, 2001. Safety on Mars: spacesuits of the future. Space.com L. David, 2001. Mars explorers call for opening the "new world". Space.com. ESA, 2001. Simulating space station missions with months in bed. Spaceflight Now. Articles about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s4.html L. David, 2001. SETI@home: signal crunching yields little so far. Space.com. Articles about evolutionary biology and chemistry http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html K. LeBeau, 2001. Permian impact caused largest mass extinction on earth. SpaceDaily. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 23-29 August 2001 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, August 29. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. 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/. Recent spacecraft activities include the conclusion of the second Radio Science Subsystem Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE) system test, an Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer Interplanetary Hydrogen Survey, a Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) High Frequency Receiver calibration, and a Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) Arcturus observation. Real-time commands were uplinked to the spacecraft as planned to perform two clearings of the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem high water marks, test an RPWS trigger command, perform a checkout of the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), set the VIMS Solid State Recorder equivalency bit to non- equivalent, and de-register the on-board Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS) D7.2 modules. The RADAR instrument collected radiometry calibration data in raster scans over the Sun, Jupiter, and five microwave sources. The measurement of the Sun provides the critical data needed to fully calibrate the side lobes of the antenna beam pattern, while the measurements of Jupiter and the microwave sources will complete the RADAR team's original instrument checkout plan, an important part of calibrating the RADAR's radiometer. In addition to the calibration data, the operation provided valuable thermal data to understand how the instrument will perform under various thermal loads, which will help with tour planning. The Science Planning Team began the tour Science UPlink Verification (SUPV) activity. This activity will take the integrated plans from the Titan and Satellite Orbiter Science Teams and the Target Working Teams (TWTs) to the next level of design detail to understand better how to build these tour sequences. For the first SUPV activity the group is developing the detailed pointing designs and power mode transitions for the Titan-3, Titan-5, and Titan-6 flybys. The TWTs have also begun to integrate the science and engineering requests associated with tour orbits 4 through 14 based on the Cassini Information Management System inputs from the Science Teams and the Project. The Navigation team has delivered a high precision reference trajectory for the first few orbits of the Cassini Tour. This trajectory includes all of the changes made to the original baseline for the new Huygens probe mission including a slightly larger orbit insertion burn, the Titan-a, Titan-b, and Titan-c encounters, and a probe flyby altitude of 65,000 km with an orbit delay time of 2.1 hours. Some parts of this trajectory are still subject to change as the final details of the revised probe mission are worked out. The Deep Space Mission System (DSMS) held a delivery review for the DSS-25 Cassini Upgrade Task. This task designed and implemented improvements at DSS-25 in support of the GWE, including improved frequency stability, a Ka-band uplink capability, improved pointing, a state-of-the-art media calibration system, and new open-loop receivers. The Review Board commended the group for the dramatic progress. Program training began this week for new Uplink Operations, Science Planning, and Mission Support and Services Office personnel. Classes included an overview of the Sequence Virtual Team Uplink Process, services available from the Cassini Solution Oriented Services help desk, and the "Helpful Stuff" presentation that provides new Program members with information on where to go for Cassini documents, forms, schedules, and general information. A Software Review Certification Requirement (SRCR) meeting was conducted by the System Engineering Office to review VIMS Flight Software (FSW) version 4.2. Test procedures were discussed and the FSW was approved for check-out in the Integrated Test Laboratory (ITL), with the uplink date of the software still to be decided. The Instrument Operations (IO)/RADAR team held a requirements and design review. Topics included operations processes for uplink; downlink; and instrument pointing, health and safety; as well as development activities for the instrument testbed, sequencing software, instrument flight software, and data processing software. This review completed a series of reviews of the four facility instruments. A Mission Assurance web site has been established which facilitates mission assurance awareness, information, and requirements in addition to providing direct links to both the On-Line Risk Management Tool and the Problem/Failure Reporting System. The new Risk Management Tool has recently been filled with data that assigns risks to personnel who are then responsible for disposition of the risks. 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 NASA/JPL release 27 August - 2 September 2001 This is a relatively busy week for Galileo, considering that we are in the cruise portion of our 31st orbit of Jupiter. On Monday, the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) performs a calibration. The instrument, which can measure the temperatures of the features it looks at, will direct its gaze towards a target plate mounted on the spacecraft that has been heated to a known temperature. Measuring the signal the instrument generates will allow scientists to accurately gauge the true temperatures of the atmospheric and surface scenes that were captured by NIMS during the August 5 flyby of Jupiter and Io. On Thursday, routine maintenance of the on-board tape recorder is performed. At least once every 30 days, the tape is wound at high speed from one end to the other and back again to help reduce the mechanical stickiness, which has plagued the operation of the recorder in the past. Normal playback operations consist of many small low-speed motions back and forth, as small amounts of data are read into the spacecraft computer memory, processed, and packaged for transmission to Earth at rates of 20 to 160 bits per second. When you compare this to a typical computer modem, which can communicate at 56,000 bits per second, you can begin to see why it takes a month or two for Galileo to completely read out a full tape, which can contain nearly a gigabit (1,000,000,000 bits) of data. At the modem speed, this amount of data could be transmitted in approximately 5 hours. On Saturday, Galileo reaches a milestone as it performs the 100th scheduled orbit trim maneuver since entering orbit around Jupiter in December of 1995. This engine burn will fine-tune the trajectory of the spacecraft, directing its path to the next flyby of Io in October. The maneuver, which could last as long as 9 hours, is preceded by an automatic drift rate calibration of the gyroscopes, which are used to maintain the attitude of the spacecraft as the thrusters fire. On Sunday, routine maintenance of the propulsion system is performed, followed by a 4 degree turn of the spacecraft to keep the communications antenna pointed towards Earth. Io flyby data scheduled for tape playback this week are two NIMS observations and one from the Photopolarimeter Radiometer instrument (PPR). The NIMS observations are of the Gish Bar and Amirani hot spots on Io, measuring temperatures and sulfur dioxide distribution in those areas. The PPR measurement is a temperature map of Io along a single strip that runs from the north to the south pole, along a line representing roughly noon relative to the 42-hour "day" of the satellite. These observations were taken an hour to an hour and a half after the closest approach to Io on August 5. For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo _____________________________________________________________________ ISS STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 29 August 2001 Well into their four-month stay on board the International Space Station (ISS), the Expedition Three crew continues to unpack and stow equipment from the Russian Progress cargo ship that arrived at the outpost nearly a week ago. Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin have almost completely emptied the Progress 5 craft, stowing new supplies inside the ISS. The arrival of the Progress vehicle at the Station sets the stage for the launch of the next module for the outpost next month--the Russian Docking Compartment named Pirs, the Russian word for pier. The Docking Compartment will automatically link up to the nadir, or earthward facing docking port of Zvezda two days after launch, providing an additional docking port for future Russian vehicles arriving at the ISS. A Progress-style instrumentation and propulsion stage attached to Pirs, which will provide the new module with its thruster capability to reach the ISS, will be jettisoned shortly after the new component docks to Zvezda. The crewmembers are also working on unpacking equipment recently delivered on the STS-105 shuttle mission. They installed the Volatile Organic Analyzer (VOA) this week and will activate it later this week. The VOA is designed to sample the air inside the ISS, detecting and identifying any possible contaminants. Flight controllers at Mission Control, Houston will command the VOA to take daily local samples of the air. The Expedition Three Crew can also take remote air samples from anywhere in the ISS. One of the voltage converter units in the Zvezda associated with one of eight power-producing batteries for the Service Module was successfully replaced this week after it recently experienced a problem. All of Zvezda's systems are functioning normally. In addition to attending to the new supplies, the Expedition Three crew continues to oversee a variety of science investigations. Oversight from the ground is handled by 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. The International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting at an altitude averaging 240 miles (385 km). Sighting opportunities from the ground for many cities around the world can be viewed at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/. The next ISS status report will be issued next Wednesday, September 5, or earlier, if events warrant. _____________________________________________________________________ STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 31 August 2001 There was a single two-station overlapping Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking pass in the past week, on Wednesday, August 29. Four star camera and two Navigation Camera images were taken. The star camera images are taken periodically to monitor the image quality, and images taken so far have shown no degradation in quality. The two Navigation Camera images were also for quality and performance checks. The second half of the track was over Deep Space Station 43 in Canberra, Australia, allowing a higher downlink rate. All the images have been transmitted to the ground and await analysis. A flight software patch was also uplinked during Wednesday's track, to correct a potential (but very remote) star camera software array out- of-bounds concern. This patch will ensure that if the star camera requires more than ten stars to determine a solution, the software code will handle it properly. 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 33.