MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 8, Number 40, 22 October 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) IS THERE LIFE ON MARS? University of Bradford release 2) EIGHT NEW PLANETS SPOTTED, TWO WITH LIFE-FRIENDLY CIRCULAR ORBITS From SpaceDaily 3) TRANSLIFE MISSION UPDATE: MICE BORN AT 25 RPM Mars Society release 4) NASA SEEKS VOLUNTEERS FOR MONTH-LONG BED REST STUDY From SpaceDaily 5) PHOTOSYNTHESIS: TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT By Stephen Hart 6) STUDYING LIFE'S ORIGINS BY RECREATING THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM By Edna DeVore 7) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 8) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 9) TODAY ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 10) GALILEO MILLENNIUM MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 11) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 12) INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 13) NASA'S 2001 MARS ODYSSEY SPACECRAFT POISED TO ARRIVE AT MARS NASA release 01-201 14) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release _____________________________________________________________________ IS THERE LIFE ON MARS? University of Bradford release 10 October 2001 University of Bradford PhD student Emma Newton is playing a part in helping NASA's planned exploration of Mars in 2005, a trip which many people hope will lead to discovering life on the planet. Emma works in the Department of Chemical and Forensic Sciences studying lichens and cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) for the purpose of understanding the survival strategies adopted by life in the Antarctic. Scientists at NASA hope this type of work will provide a basis for studying any life forms on Mars, as the Antarctic provides one of the nearest Earth analogues to Mars. Mars is a barren, rocky planet, unprotected from ultraviolet rays, freezing temperatures and sandstorms. Ice caps cover the poles, towering volcanoes and river-like channels and craters litter its surface. But, scientists believe that Mars did once have an atmosphere similar to that of Earth. Although Emma is at the cutting edge of science, she has her feet planted firmly on the ground. She said, "Following the excitement created in the 1970s by the Viking Lander team, people have been interested in how life adapts to harsh climates. Scientists are therefore trying to figure out what kind of survival strategies microorganisms like lichens and cyanobacteria have developed in extreme climates like the Antarctic." "We know that Mars used to be much warmer than it is now and had vast oceans but the water was then lost, leaving the surface extremely dry. The Antarctic has a similar environment to that proposed for early Mars and microorganisms similar to those we see in Antarctica may have had time to develop on Mars. Of course, this is a controversial idea, because many people do not agree that there was sufficient time for life to develop there. It is possible though, that signs of such life (biosignatures) could be preserved in sediments like those found at the bottom of Antarctic lakes." The University is currently working with the University of Montana, Detection Limit and Dr David Wynn-Williams of British Antarctic Survey (BAS) on a project to send a miniature version of an FT-Raman spectrometer to Mars. Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive laser technique, which allows scientists to look at molecular vibration of materials and so investigate living systems without damaging the surrounding environment. NASA has contracted the project out to several groups but only the most successful ideas will be chosen for the trip, planned for 2005. The teams are faced with a tremendous challenge--the ambitious plans involve decreasing the weight of the equipment from a laboratory system of several kilos to just a few grams. Scientists at NASA plan to include the Raman spectrometer on a Martian lander, which will seek to obtain information from beneath the surface. If all goes to plan, they hope this will reveal whether life existed on Mars. When asked how she would feel to be involved in a project picked to go to Mars, she said, "It would be amazing to know I was there at the start of it all. Obviously the bigger picture is very exciting, but when you are involved in your research it is sometimes difficult to see how far it can be taken." Emma is currently continuing the work of two Bradford PhD students, Nicola Russell and Jacci Holder, who previously used Raman spectroscopy to investigate different types of lichens from Antarctica. Emma works with her supervisor, Professor Howell Edwards, and Dr. David Wynn-Williams of the BAS, based in Cambridge, who is able to provide samples from the cold climate of the Antarctic for her to study. Both the University and BAS are interested in finding out how these two microorganisms survive in such a harsh environment; where extreme winds take out the moisture in the air and high levels of UV radiation penetrate the ozone-depleted atmosphere. Emma said, "Whereas some microbial communities live on the rock surface and use sunscreen pigments to protect themselves, others can live within the rocks themselves. These are known as endolithic and it can be pretty difficult to get a look at them. Raman spectroscopy makes it possible for us to examine these communities without damaging either the microbes or their habitat". Over the last three years, Emma has advanced the studies of Russell and Holder and expanded the research to include cyanobacteria. She is obviously passionate about her work. She said, "It is really enjoyable. I've been lucky enough to be able to work within the fairly new field of astrobiology, which is very varied and involves many disciplines. Being involved in research and seeing new discoveries is certainly fulfilling and I am looking forward to seeing what emerges over the next few decades." Additional information on this article is available at http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/pr/pressreleases/2002/mars.htm. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-01i.html. _____________________________________________________________________ EIGHT NEW PLANETS SPOTTED, TWO WITH LIFE-FRIENDLY CIRCULAR ORBITS From SpaceDaily 15 October 2001 Astronomers have discovered eight new planets, including two with circular orbits comparable to those found in our own solar system, NASA and the National Science Foundation announced Monday. The circular orbits make the discovery important because elliptical orbits produce temperatures so extreme that such planets cannot sustain life. Most of the 80 planets discovered thus far in other solar systems follow elliptical orbits. "This result is very exciting," said Anne Kinney, director of Astronomy and Physics Division at NASA headquarters in Washington. These recent discoveries "mark the beginning of an avalanche of data, which will help to provide the answers" about the formation and evolution of planets and planetary systems, she said. The planets, recently spotted by a team of astronomers from the United States, Australia, Belgium and Britain, have masses ranging from 0.8 times to 10 times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in Earth's solar system. They orbit their stars at distances ranging from 0.07 astronomical units--one astronomical unit roughly equals 149.5 million kilometers, the distance from Sun to Earth--to three astronomical units. Get the full story at http://spacedaily.com/news/011015185518.ksct2qur.html. _____________________________________________________________________ TRANSLIFE MISSION UPDATE: MICE BORN AT 25 RPM Mars Society release 15 October 2001 It is with great pleasure that the Mars Society announces that Minnie, the female participant in the Mars Society's Translife Mission Coriolis force experiment, has given birth of a litter of approximately 6 healthy baby mice. The birth apparently took place over the weekend, with the youngsters first observed on the morning of October 15, 2001. The Translife Mission is a Mars Society program to determine whether mammals from Earth can live, give birth, and develop properly in Martian gravity. Flying a capsule equipped with a life support system and a crew of mice in low Earth orbit for approximately 50 days will do this. The capsule will spin, providing Mars-level gravity to its in habitants. During the 50-day flight, the mice will be allowed to reproduce, and the youngsters will grow to maturity in Mars gravity, after which they will be recovered for study. The results are fundamental to both issues of near-term human Mars mission design, as well as the long-term question of whether higher terrestrial life will ever be able to actually colonize Mars. In order to keep the system small, however, a spin rate of 25 rpm will be required. This has raised concerns that the Coriolis forces associated with such a high spin rate would disorient the mice, making a successful experiment impossible. To resolve these concerns, the Mars Society built a simple experiment at the Pioneer Astronautics lab in Lakewood Colorado. The experiment consists of a rotating 1 m diameter turntable spinning at 25 rpm. This provides the mouse habitat is positioned near the edge with 0.38 g of radial acceleration. Since there is also ordinary Earth gravity present as well, the gravity the mice experience is quite different from that which they will experience on orbit. However, the Coriolis force is the same. The experiment went into operation in late August. It was found that within a few minutes of turntable start up that the behavior of the mice was perfectly normal. Over the past 7 weeks, the mice have lived at 25 rpm, and have been observed to eat, drink, forage, play, and construct nests. Now, apparently after an appropriate courtship, a family has been born. It would appear that Coriolis forces will not be an obstacle to the successful operation of a compact Translife mission experiment. Congratulations Minnie! To find out more about the Mars Society, visit our web site at www.marssociety.org. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-base-01f.html. _____________________________________________________________________ NASA SEEKS VOLUNTEERS FOR MONTH-LONG BED REST STUDY From SpaceDaily 17 October 2001 NASA is looking for people willing to spend a month in bed, as part of a study of how long-term space flight affects the human body. The upcoming study, which will begin in January 2002, will require that volunteers lie in beds tilted head-down at a six-degree angle for 30 days, 24 hours a day. Bed rest in the six-degree head-down tilt position is considered the best Earth model to simulate the effects of prolonged microgravity on the human body. "Head-down bed rest simulates weightlessness and induces many of the physiological changes similar to those seen with space flight," said Fritz Moore, Ames' project manager for the Countermeasures Evaluation and Validation Project (CEVP). "These effects include cardiovascular deconditioning, muscle atrophy, decreased bone strength, and shifts in fluid and electrolyte balance." Get the full story at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iss-01zf.html. _____________________________________________________________________ PHOTOSYNTHESIS: TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT By Stephen Hart From the NASA Astrobiology Institute 17 October 2001 A serendipitous examination of ocean waters last year brought a big surprise for a team of US and Canadian scientists, a surprise that’s causing marine ecologists to rethink the details of how ocean ecosystems function. The supposition Cindy L. VanDover, a biologist and hydrothermal vent expert at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA wondered if photosynthetic bacteria might live near hydrothermal vents. This was a striking speculation, considering that such vent systems lie thousands of feet deep in the ocean, well below the depth to which sunlight penetrates. The ecosystems surrounding such vents survive because of bacteria that garner energy from hydrogen sulfide, not from light. But water emerges from hydrothermal vents at hundreds of degrees, kept from boiling only by the intense pressure. The hot water, and perhaps hot rocks, VanDover speculated, would emit infrared radiation. And some bacteria might absorb the radiation just the way algae and land plants absorb sunlight. At a meeting, she presented the idea to Paul G. Falkowski and Zbigniew S. Kolber, oceanographers at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Falkowski and members of his laboratory had developed a successful method of detecting photosynthesis from changes in the fluorescence of chlorophyll in the photosynthetic apparatus of marine phytoplankton. The team hits the cells with pulses of light, effectively charging up the chlorophyll. After it’s absorbed enough pulses, chlorophyll reemits the light as fluorescence. Different types of chlorophyll fluoresce at different wavelengths. Falkowski and Kolber call the patented device a Fast Rate Repetition (FRR) fluorometer. Intrigued, Falkowski and Kolber tuned their detector to the infrared spectrum. "If there are photosynthetic bacteria in vents," Falkowski says, "they’re probably going to be fluorescing in the infrared." After checking and calibrating the detector in the lab on known bacteria, they headed to sea with the deep-sea submersible Alvin. The reality check "We went out to sea, and 18 dives later, on Alvin, it was very clear that there were no detectable photosynthetic bacteria in deep-sea vents," Falkowski says. The surprise "But seeing as you’re sitting around in the ocean for days on end, what we did was to just look around at water samples from the surface," Falkowski continues. "And lo and behold, in the upper ocean, there are tons of photosynthetic bacteria that had never been seen before because nobody had made a detector out in the infrared. Nobody looked there." On ten later dives in Alvin, Falkowski and Kolber found a photosynthetic bacterial count of nearly zero throughout most of the water column, except in the surface waters, Falkowski says. "And then what you see is that ten percent of the bacteria, of all bacteria, in the upper ocean are actually these photosynthetic bacteria." The team’s research appeared in the June 29, 2001, issue of the journal Science. Photosynthetic microbes in the open ocean have been well known for decades. But marine biologists assumed these were mostly cyanobacteria, the organisms that make the bubbly greenish slime on the edges of stagnant ponds. Cyanobacteria contain garden-variety chlorophyll, similar to that of plants. And like plants, they make all of their own food, absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen- -hence the bubbles. These are autotrophs. Other bacteria in the surface waters appeared to live by absorbing food molecules (organic carbon) produced by the photsynthesizers. That is, they were heterotrophs. But the new bacteria were not cyanobacteria. Instead of chlorophyll, they used bacteriochlorophyll, which fluoresces in the infrared. "So you could easily distinguish between these and the normal phytoplankton in the background," Falkowski says. Although they do absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide and form food molecules using the sun’s energy, they don’t produce oxygen like most photosynthetic organisms do. An even bigger surprise came when Falkowski’s team grew these bacteria in the lab. It turns out they can turn photosynthesis on and off. They don’t make all of their own food. They just use photosynthesis to supplement their normal bacterial diet of dissolved organic molecules. "It’s a very strange metabolism," Falkowski says. "In effect, they have a very strong competitive advantage over the normal heterotrophic bacteria, in that their growth rate can be very, very high because they’re using light energy to help them refix carbon... They are obligate photoheterotrophs. In other words, they cannot live without organic carbon, as far as we know." Falkowski and Kolber call the bacteria AAPs, aerobic anoxygenic photoheterotrophs. The other surprise In an independent discovery coincidentally also published in June 2001, Edward F. DeLong, Oded Beja and colleagues at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the University of Texas Medical School in Houston discovered an entirely different group of bacteria that also make a living by absorption of light. Instead of culturing the bacteria in the lab, they used a technique called ecogenomics to search for genes in seawater samples containing many species. The carbon cycle Neither research group claims that the new bacteria will change the overall view of the carbon flow between the atmosphere and the ocean. Both kinds of bacteria would have shown up in experiments using radioactively labeled carbon to detect biomass in surface waters, Falkowski says. "But they would have been misassigned to phytoplankton... They are obviously part of a cycle, part of a heretofore unassessed bacterial carbon-fixation mechanism." And they’re a big part, in numbers at least. Each research group estimates that its bacteria make up some 10 percent of the total bacterial population in the open ocean, DeLong points out. "If we take the higher numbers, that’s 20 percent of the total number of cells in marine surface waters." Even at 15 to 20 percent of the total bacterial population, Falkowski says, the numbers of cells is truly astronomical. "We found them in every water body we have sampled, from the Southern Ocean to the tropics," he says. "There are approximately 10^24 [that’s a 1 with 24 zeros after it] bacterial cells in the ocean, which is about two orders of magnitude more than there are stars in the known universe." What’s next? "We’ve known for a long time that microorganisms, particularly bacteria, are really quite abundant in seawater, but what we really haven’t known is the identity of those microorganisms and what their functions are out in the environment," DeLong says. DeLong hopes to apply his genomics techniques in further research, he says. "Taking it back to the environment to understand the dynamics of these organisms in their natural environment is kind of a next step. One question in my mind is, ‘How much more can we learn--how many more surprises are there--by applying some of these new genomic technologies?’" Falkowski and his colleagues are also looking at the ecology of the new bacteria. He hopes to find where, exactly, the bacteria fit into the open-ocean ecosystem. Furthermore, he hopes to nail down some outstanding questions of how their odd metabolism works and more about how they absorb carbon. Can they use atmospheric nitrogen like some soil bacteria closely associated with the roots of certain land plants do? Finally, Falkowski wants to know how many species of AAPs populate the ocean, and how diverse their genomes are. More information on this article is available at: http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/index.cfm?page=carbon http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/viewArticle.phtml?ArticleID=1440 http://www.mbari.org/news/media_coverage/delong_science0900.html _____________________________________________________________________ STUDYING LIFE'S ORIGINS BY RECREATING THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM By Edna DeVore From Space.com 17 October 2001 In research about life on Earth, scientists seek sources for the building blocks of life, the carbon-based chemistry that makes up every living thing. Today, we find the ingredients for life (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and so forth) everywhere on our planet. All the basic elements that make up trees, flowers, birds, bacteria and us are abundantly available on the surface of the Earth. But where did the organic compounds that are the basis of life arise? Were they part of the original planet? Did they form slowly in shallow pools and oceans as the Earth cooled? Did they arrive from space? These questions have occupied scientists seriously for more than 50 years. Today, there is strong evidence that comets delivered these molecules after the Earth had formed. Can we obtain samples of these early materials? You might not think so, as the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago. But each time a comet swings by the Sun, we are seeing a miles-wide sample of that nebula. Using that data, some researchers are trying to simulate the early Solar System in the lab. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_compounds_011018.html. _____________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 22 October 2001 Articles about astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html SpaceDaily, 2001. Eight new planets spotted, two with life-friendly circular orbits. SpaceDaily. SpaceDaily, 2001. Search for Martian life will need good vibrations. SpaceDaily. Articles about human space exploration and the microgravity environment http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html SpaceDaily, 2001. NASA seeks volunteers for month-long bed rest study. SpaceDaily. SpaceDaily, 2001. Translife mission experiment sees mice born at 25 RPM. SpaceDaily. Articles about evolutionary biology and chemistry http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html E. DeVore, 2001. Studying life's origins by recreating the early solar system. Space.com. Astrobiology and extreme environments book list http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology_b ooks.html L. Bergreen, 2001. Voyage to Mars: NASA's Search for Life Beyond the Earth. Riverhead Books, New York. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 11-17 October 2001 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Sunday, October 14. 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 instrument activities include a Cosmic Dust Analyzer Flight Software normalization, an Instrument Expanded Block load for the beginning of an eight-day decontamination sequence for the Imaging Science Subsystem, and two Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver calibrations. Engineering activities taking place onboard the spacecraft this week include an autonomous Command & Data Subsystem Solid State Recorder Memory Load Partition Repair and the final in a series of Attitude Control Subsystem deadband tests. A real-time command was uplinked to the spacecraft to turn on the Ka- Band Exciter and Ka-Band Traveling Wave Tube Assembly for testing as part of an upcoming Radio Science Data Flow test. A Project Science Group meeting was held at JPL last week, which included members of the distributed science operations teams in addition to the JPL Cassini personnel. The Target Working Teams (TWTs) met all day Monday to continue the integration of their respective tour segments. Tuesday's plenary session focused on Project reports, ring dust models, and the Science Operations Plan implementation schedule. On Wednesday, the Discipline Working Groups (DWGs) held meetings to review the plans developed by the TWTs, Satellite Orbiter Science Team (SOST), and Titan Orbiter Science Team (TOST). During Thursday's plenary session, the DWGs, TOST, SOST, and the TWTs gave status reports on their progress, and the Principal Investigators and Team Leaders also made Instrument Team status reports. On Friday both the TOST and SOST met. TOST focused their discussion of finalizing the allocation of the period +/-30 minutes around Titan closest approach for Titan encounters A through 44. SOST discussed the results from the Surface Working Group meeting held Wednesday and preparation of the flybys needed to support the Science and Uplink Verification (SUPV) activity. Finally, after the last session on Friday, the Cassini project gathered to celebrate Cassini's fourth year in space. The Mission Planning team led a review of the need to plan and model data carry-over on the Solid State Recorder (SSR) during tour, and the possible strategies for providing additional playbacks of certain science data sets. The discussion focused on impacts to the ongoing tour development process and the new SSR Management Tool (SMT). The decision was made to design the SMT to support data carry-over, since the science teams feel there can be significant science gains by allowing more flexibility in data play-back. 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. _____________________________________________________________________ TODAY ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 16 October 2001 The hectic pace of the Io closest approach and its jam-packed observing sequence is now fully five hours behind us. Galileo has sped on to a distance of 160,000 kilometers (99,440 miles) from Io. But there are still good science observing opportunities to be taken advantage of. And take advantage of them we do! At 12:10 AM PDT [See Note 1] the Photopolarimeter Radiometer instrument (PPR) turns its focus on Jupiter. The observation scans the instrument back and forth across the limb of the giant planet, mapping the temperatures of the different layers of the atmosphere. At 12:44 AM the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) collects a thermal map of the entire visible disk of Io, looking for volcanos and other hot spots. At 1:41 AM PPR maps the temperatures on the dark side of Europa. This is the only observation made of this icy moon on this orbit. Europa was the central focus of a series of nine orbits earlier in the Galileo mission (the orbits labelled E11 though E19). At that time, we steered the spacecraft to within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of the surface of that satellite. During this orbit, we only close to within 340,000 kilometers (211,000 miles), at 2:27 AM, but that is still close enough to detect temperature variations across the surface features. At this point we are finally able to take a breather, and the next observation doesn't come along until 6:58 AM, when the Solid State Imaging camera (SSI) snaps a global color image of Io, which now fits within a single SSI frame. This view includes the volcanos Pele, Zamama, and Isum, with the Prometheus volcano appearing near the limb. At 8:54 AM PPR again views Jupiter, scanning again the same patch of real estate that it viewed just after midnight. By now, that portion of the planet has rotated around so that it appears in the center of the visible disk of the planet. By 12:29 PM the spacecraft has receded far enough from Jupiter (out to 15 Jupiter radii, over 1 million kilometers or 666,000 miles) that the radiation environment has cooled down considerably. At this point, the electronic noise induced in the circuitry and sensors of the star scanner detector has faded, and the control software is again instructed to look for three stars to guide it, instead of the single bright star it has relied upon for the past 47 hours. At 12:58 PM SSI again images Io in color, this time with the satellite filling only a quarter of the field of view. This vista will include the volcano Loki near the terminator, or day-night boundary on the dynamic body. At 2:31 PM SSI snaps another picture of the small inner satellite Amalthea. This view will also include several background stars, and will be used by the Navigation Team to help refine our knowledge of the orbit of that body. This will help us fine-tune the trajectory of the spacecraft to achieve the desired fly-by of Amalthea in November 2002. At 2:53 PM, and again at 8:27 PM, NIMS acquires temperature maps of the entire visible hemisphere of Jupiter. With these two views, the scientists will be able to study the dynamics of the turbulent region in the wake of the Great Red Spot, and will have a view of both the north and south auroral regions of the planet. Finally, at 10:21 PM, a performance test of the spacecraft gyroscopes is executed. The electronics in the gyroscope system have proven to be very sensitive to the radiation environment sensed by the spacecraft as it flies close to Jupiter. This test will determine the extent of the degradation in the circuitry due to this most recent pass, in preparation for the planning of a spacecraft maneuver coming up on Friday. As you can see, the pace has slacked off quite a bit now, but we're still going strong, and there's more to come! Note 1. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) is 7 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The time when an event occurs at the spacecraft is known as Spacecraft Event Time (SCET). The time at which radio signals reach Earth indicating that an event has occurred is known as Earth Received Time (ERT). Currently, it takes Galileo's radio signals 41 minutes to travel between the spacecraft and Earth. All times quoted above are in Earth Received Time. 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 _____________________________________________________________________ GALILEO MILLENNIUM MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 16 October 2001 NASA's Galileo spacecraft successfully completed a close flyby to study Jupiter's moon Io at 0123 Universal Time today (6:23 PM October 15, Pacific Daylight Time), during the long-lived spacecraft's 32nd orbit around Jupiter. Galileo passed closer to Io than ever before, within about 181 kilometers (112 miles) of ground level near Io's south pole. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, said that signals confirming the spacecraft's basic health arrived within an hour after the flyby. The signals were received via JPL's Deep Space Network antenna facility near Madrid, Spain. "Jupiter's radiation belts make flying near Io risky, but Galileo has come through for us again," said JPL's Dr. Eilene Theilig, Galileo project manager. Galileo has been orbiting Jupiter since 1995. It has already endured more than three times as much radiation as it was designed to tolerate. NASA has extended Galileo's original two-year orbital mission three times to take advantage of the spacecraft's continuing ability to make scientific discoveries. As of 1500 UT (8:00 AM PDT) today, the spacecraft had recorded about 70 percent of the scientific data that its instruments had been programmed to collect during this swing through the inner portion of the Jovian system. The encounter period that began October 13 includes more-distant observations of Jupiter and the moon Europa, as well as the close-up examination of Io. The images and other scientific data from the encounter will be transmitted to Deep Space Network antennas in Spain, Australia and California over the next three months. Engineering data already received, such as voltage readings, suggest that Galileo's solid-state camera functioned properly during the flyby. However, the camera's performance won't be known for sure until transmission of the pictures, which is due to begin in late October. The camera has malfunctioned intermittently in the past year because radiation has degraded its electronics. Galileo engineers sent new software to the camera two weeks ago designed to minimize chances for recurrence of the problem. Among the high-priority science observations for the flyby are magnetic-field measurements near Io's south pole, useful for understanding the moon's interior and interactive processes within Jupiter's large magnetic environment. Other instruments were scheduled to observe details and changes in several volcanic areas on Io's surface, including a new hot spot and plume eruption discovered on the most recent flyby, in August. Io is the most volcanically active world known. It orbits closest to Jupiter of the planet's four major moons. Tidal stress from the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the outlying moons heats Io's interior and sustains the volcanism. Additional information about Galileo and the discoveries it has made since it was launched from NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1989 is available at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. _____________________________________________________________________ THIS WEEK ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 17-21 October 2001 The pace is much slower now, but a handful of observations still remain on Galileo's plate for the remainder of the week. Wednesday morning at 2:40 AM PDT [See Note 1] the Energetic Particle Detector instrument cycles its power off and on and reloads its computer memory. The high radiation environment near Jupiter has caused upsets in the instrument's computer memory in past orbits, and this pre-emptive reload is to guarantee that the instrument is in the correct configuration for the long haul. At 10:00 AM the Photopolarimeter Radiometer performs a second calibration sequence, the same as was done early Monday morning when the instrument was first powered on for the encounter. By measuring the same calibration target before and after immersion in the harsh environment near Jupiter, any changes that appear in the response of the instrument can be factored into the understanding of the science observations acquired. At 3:00 PM the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer shuts down operations for this flyby, resting peacefully until it awakens briefly in early December for a calibration activity. On Thursday, starting at 10:00 AM the Solid State Imaging camera (SSI) spends 2.5 hours viewing Jupiter. This set of observations looks at a hot spot in the atmosphere of the gas giant. Such regions are similar to one into which the Galileo atmospheric probe was dropped in December 1995, when Galileo first arrived at the Jupiter system. These images will help scientists measure wind speeds in great detail near the hot spot, and help determine whether the low water abundance seen by the atmospheric probe is the result of simply local weather conditions, or whether it represents a planet-wide dehydration. Such dehydration would send the atmospheric theoreticians back to the drawing boards to change their models of why Jupiter is the way it is. At 8:40 PM on Thursday, SSI snaps a picture of a portion of the Jupiter ring system known as the Gossamer Ring. This ring extends out beyond the orbit of the small inner satellite Thebe, which circles Jupiter at a distance of 150,400 kilometers (93,500 miles) above the cloud tops. This span puzzles scientists, since we believe that Thebe is the source of the material in the ring, and that the particles should pass inwards towards the planet as their orbits evolve. Starting at 12:50 PM on Friday a spacecraft maneuver is planned. This pulsing of the rocket thrusters alters the spacecraft trajectory, correcting the flight path for small differences between the planned and actual position of the spacecraft as it swung by Io and targeting for our next Io flyby in January. Prior to this maneuver, the spacecraft performs an on-board test of the gyroscopes that are used to maintain the attitude of the spacecraft during the burn. This test will automatically update software parameters that describe the current performance of the gyroscopes after their recent bath in the radiation at Jupiter. During this entire time period, the suite of instruments that measure the energetic particles and the electromagnetic fields and plasmas surrounding Jupiter have been quietly and continuously collecting real-time data about the local environment of the spacecraft. This data collection is independent of the recorded data collection talked about over the past few days. The continuous survey of the Jupiter system began on October 15 and will continue for about another week, until our attention turns to playing back the recorded data. Note 1. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) is 7 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The time when an event occurs at the spacecraft is known as Spacecraft Event Time (SCET). The time at which radio signals reach Earth indicating that an event has occurred is known as Earth Received Time (ERT). Currently, it takes Galileo's radio signals 41 minutes to travel between the spacecraft and Earth. All times quoted above are in Earth Received Time. 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 21 October 2001 Two Russian taxi cosmonauts and a French researcher blasted off this morning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a two-day flight to bring a fresh Soyuz return vehicle to the International Space Station (ISS). Russian crew Commander Victor Afanasyev, rookie Flight Engineer Konstantin Kozeev and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Claudie Haignere began their trip to the ISS at 3:59:34 AM CDT (8:59:34 GMT) as their Soyuz rocket climbed away from their cloudy desert launch site in Central Asia. At the time of launch, the Expedition Three crew aboard the ISS, Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin were asleep, flying over the border of Cameroon and Sudan in Africa. Less than nine minutes after launch, the new Soyuz TM-33 craft was in orbit and its solar arrays were deployed, heading for a linkup with the ISS on Tuesday morning. Afanasyev, making his fourth flight into space, and Haignere, who is in her second flight, are veterans of previous flights on the Mir Space Station. Haignere is flying for ESA, but representing CNES, the French Space Agency, under a commercial contract with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. In addition to helping deliver the new Soyuz to Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin, she will be conducting a host of scientific experiments while she and her crewmates spend eight days aboard the ISS. The crew is scheduled to dock to the Zarya module's nadir docking port on Tuesday at 5:41 AM CDT (10:41 GMT), with hatches scheduled to be opened about 90 minutes later to enable the two crews to greet each other. Afanasyev and his crew will depart in the Soyuz return craft, currently docked to the new Pirs Docking Compartment, early in the morning of October 31 for a landing two hours later in Kazakhstan. The Expedition Three crew aboard the ISS is scheduled to return to Earth in December after their Expedition Four replacements arrive on board during the STS-108 mission aboard the Shuttle Endeavour. With systems operating normally, the station is orbiting at an average altitude of 247 statute miles (395 km). For additional information, including sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth, visit http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/. The Expedition Three crew will continue its scientific investigations this coming week in concert with the work being performed on board the ISS by the taxi crew. Oversight of science investigations on the station from the ground is by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. Johnson Space Center manages the Human Research Facility. Details on ISS science operations can be found at http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov. The next ISS status report will be issued on Tuesday, October 23, after the Soyuz taxi crew arrives at the station, or earlier, if events warrant. _____________________________________________________________________ NASA'S 2001 MARS ODYSSEY SPACECRAFT POISED TO ARRIVE AT MARS NASA release 01-201 18 October 2001 After traveling 200 days and logging more than 460 million kilometers (about 285 million miles), NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft will fire its main engine for the only time October 23 and put itself into orbit around the Red Planet. Odyssey was launched April 7 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. Other than our Moon, Mars has attracted more spacecraft than any other object in the Solar System, and no other planet has proved as daunting to success. Of the 30 missions sent to Mars by three countries over 40 years, less than one-third have been successful. "The spacecraft, ground system and flight team are ready for Mars orbit insertion," said Matthew Landano, Odyssey project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "We uplinked the sequence of commands that control the orbit insertion on October 15. Now we will closely monitor the spacecraft's progress as it approaches Mars and executes the orbit insertion burn." To enter orbit, Odyssey's propellant tanks, the size of big beach balls, must first be pressurized, plumbing lines heated, and the system primed before 262.8 kilograms (579.4 pounds) of propellant is burned in exactly the right direction for just under 20 minutes. Flight controllers at JPL will see the main engine burn begin a few seconds after 10:26 PM EDT on October 23. The spacecraft will pass behind the planet 10 minutes later and will be out of contact for about 20 minutes. The burn is expected to end at 10:46 PM EDT, but controllers will not receive confirmation until the spacecraft comes out from behind Mars and reestablishes contact with Earth at about 11:00 PM. The firing of the main engine will brake the spacecraft, slowing and curving its trajectory into an egg-shaped orbit around the planet. In the weeks and months ahead, the spacecraft will repeatedly brush against the top of the atmosphere in a process called aerobraking to reduce the long, 19-hour elliptical orbit into a shorter, 2-hour circular orbit of approximately 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) altitude desired for the mission's science data collection. NASA's latest explorer carries several scientific instruments to map the chemical and mineralogical makeup of Mars: a gamma ray spectrometer that includes a neutron spectrometer and a high-energy neutron detector; a thermal-emission imaging system; and a Martian radiation environment experiment. The 2001 Mars Odyssey Arrival press kit is available online at available online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/odysseyarrival.pdf JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston operate the science instruments. Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, the prime contractor for the project, developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA, will provide aerobraking support to JPL's navigation team during mission operations. Contacts: Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547 Mary Hardin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-0344 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1608000/1608455.stm http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/10/18/mars.odyssey/index.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/636963.asp http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18oct_1.htm?list52260 http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-odyssey-01j.html _____________________________________________________________________ STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 19 October 2001 Stardust gets an "A" in command performance. There was one Deep Space Network communications session this past week and all subsystems are performing normally. The spacecraft is 2.4 AU from the Sun. Though it is so far out, it has not required using the battery yet to support communications with Earth, since the solar arrays continue to produce more than enough power. A review of command history performance over the entire 2.7-year flight mission was held and command success has been 99.5 percent. Procedures have been implemented to increase this success rate. 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 40.