MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 9, Number 13, 1 April 2002. 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. Information concerning the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available from the Marsbugs web page at http://welcome.to/marsbugs or http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/marsbugs/marsbugs.html. _____________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) WHEN SPACE MAKES YOU DIZZY By Tony Phillips and Doug Hullander 2) HUMAN MARS PROJECT STUDIED BY U.S. AND RUSSIA By Leonard David 3) WORKSHOP ON SCIENTIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR MITIGATION OF HAZARDOUS COMETS AND ASTEROIDS Workshop announcement 4) NASA SCIENTISTS CREATE AMINO ACIDS IN DEEP-SPACE-LIKE ENVIRONMENT NASA/ARC release 02-33AR 5) MARS ODYSSEY'S THEMIS BEGINS POSTING DAILY IMAGES Arizona State University release 6) ANTIBIOTICS FROM SPACE By Karen Miller and Tony Phillips 7) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 8) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 9) INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 10) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release _____________________________________________________________________ WHEN SPACE MAKES YOU DIZZY By Tony Phillips and Doug Hullander From NASA Science News 25 March 2002 Astronauts returning to Earth sometimes feel light-headed. It's been a problem since the earliest days of human space exploration, but now doctors may have a solution. Landing a spaceship is a terrible time to feel dizzy, yet that's what happens to some astronauts. Their legs become heavy and their heads light even as the planet below expands to fill the windshield. It's an unwelcome side-effect of returning home. Researchers have learned that the sensation is caused, in part, by orthostatic hypotension-- "in other words, a temporary drop in blood pressure," explains NASA Chief Medical Officer Rich Williams. On Earth you can feel it by standing or sitting up too fast. Gravity has much the same effect on astronauts returning from a long spell in space: blood rushes down and the space travelers become, literally, lightheaded. Susceptibility is highly individual. Some astronauts are hardly affected while others feel very dizzy. About 20% of short-duration and 83% of long-duration space travelers experience the symptoms during re-entry or after they land. "Cosmonauts who spent a long time onboard Mir commonly had to be carried away in stretchers when they came home," recalls Williams. Fortunately, their Soyuz return capsules did not require a pilot to land, so it didn't matter much. Shuttle pilots, on the other hand, must perform complex re-entry procedures. To them it matters a great deal. Orthostatic hypotension can strike Earth-dwellers for many reasons: Weak hearts might not pump enough blood, for example. Certain medications or even a hot shower can dilate blood vessels and cause blood pressure to drop. Women--especially pregnant women--are more likely to suffer from it than men [are]. "Some patients with this condition are afraid to leave home or even get out of bed," writes neurologist Phillip Low of the Mayo Clinic. Astronauts experience orthostatic hypotension because of the way human bodies respond to gravity, explains Richard Cohen of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. (Cohen leads the Cardiovascular Alterations Team at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, or "NSBRI.") On Earth, gravity pulls blood toward the lower body. But in space--either in free-fall or far from a source of gravity--blood that normally pools in the legs collects in the upper body instead. That's why astronauts have puffy-looking faces and spindly "chicken legs." Astronauts don't feel orthostatic hypotension while they're traveling through space, but they do begin to feel it during re-entry (when g- forces mimic gravity) and after landing. Blood returns to the lower body and blood pressure to the head is suddenly reduced. Hence the dizziness. (The sensation can continue for a while after landing, too.) It's a classic case of "use it or lose it." Veins in human legs contain tiny muscles that contract when the veins fill with blood. Their function is to send blood uphill toward the heart and so maintain blood pressure. But in space there is no "uphill," so those tiny muscles in the veins are less-used--a normal adaptation to weightlessness. During re-entry those muscles are needed again, but they have temporarily "forgotten" how to contract. They fail to push blood back toward the heart and brain. "This effect is more severe after prolonged space flights," notes Cohen. For many years astronauts have tried to counteract orthostatic hypotension by drinking lots of salt water, which increases the volume of bodily fluids. (There is a general loss of body fluids during space missions.) Astronauts also wear "G-suits"--rubberized full-body suits that can be inflated with air. This action squeezes the extremities and raises blood pressure. Such countermeasures are only partially effective. "Almost all returning astronauts experience changes in gait and balance," continues Williams. Nevertheless, "most are able to walk around just fine. A small number experience orthostatic changes that render them quite dizzy." An anti-dizzy pill would be helpful, but until recently there was no such thing. Enter Midodrine. Midodrine is the first drug approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration to treat orthostatic hypotension. It constricts blood vessels and so increases blood pressure. "By increasing blood pressure when patients need it, Midodrine can help people lead a more normal life," writes Low. Cohen thinks it might help astronauts, too. Cohen works with Janice Meck, head of the Cardiovascular Lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center, and Gordon Williams, a doctor at the Brigham and Womans' hospital in Boston, to study adverse effects of space flight on the human cardiovascular system. Following animal studies and computer simulations (performed by members of the NSBRI Cardiovascular Alterations Team), they conducted bed-rest testing of real humans--a situation that simulates the effect of space travel on the cardiovascular system. Astronauts, they concluded, would likely benefit from the drug. An important advantage to Midodrine, says Cohen, is that it can be administered just before re-entry or even after landing. The benefits are immediate. Astronauts wouldn't have to take it throughout their mission when it might interfere with their body's own (and welcome) adaptations to zero-g. "A flight study protocol has recently been approved to test the drug's effects on space shuttle astronauts and ISS crewmembers," says Cohen. Perhaps soon astronauts returning home from space will feel lightheaded--but only due to elation. Orthostatic hypotension will have nothing to do with it. Additional information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/25mar_dizzy.htm?list52260. _____________________________________________________________________ HUMAN MARS PROJECT STUDIED BY U.S. AND RUSSIA By Leonard David From Space.com 25 March 2002 The U.S. Department of State, NASA, American aerospace firms, European and Russian space officials have joined forces to study human planetary missions, principally to land an international expedition on Mars later this century. The U.S.-funded work is quietly underway through the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). The ISTC in an intergovernmental group created in 1992 by an agreement between the European Union, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United States. ISTC is headquartered in Moscow... ...Tagged simply as Project 2120 (a number is given to each work package), some $700,000 has been earmarked to look at the key technical means for human planetary missions. The effort is a spin- off from an earlier ISTC undertaking, Project 1172. That study ran from 1998 to 2000, resulting in a 13-volume study that blueprinted how best to send an expedition to the red planet. Details of the ISTC space work were highlighted here during the 2002 Space and Robotics Conferences, sponsored by the Aerospace Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/istc_mars_020325.ht ml. _____________________________________________________________________ WORKSHOP ON SCIENTIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR MITIGATION OF HAZARDOUS COMETS AND ASTEROIDS Workshop announcement http://www.noao.edu/meetings/mitigation/ 26 March 2002 Dates: September 3 through 6, 2002 Venue: Hyatt in Arlington, Virginia Estimated Registration Fee: $150 Background rationale and goals for the workshop One hundred years is approximately the time scale for a 10% probability of an Earth impact by a 100-meter sized near-Earth asteroid, one capable of causing substantial regional disruption or destruction of societal infrastructure. This is also the estimated time (~70 years) necessary to assure the development of an appropriate mitigation technology and learn how to apply it to an Earth threatening object (Belton et al, 2001). These time-scales are similar to the typical lifetime of a family from birth through the death of grandchildren, and can be expected to be of particular interest to contemporary society. This confluence of time-scales gives present urgency and special interest to consideration of the scientific foundations on which near-Earth object (NEO) collision avoidance and impact mitigation technologies must be based. Programs for the detection of possible impactors are well in hand, and ideas abound on how to apply the energy required to either disrupt or deflect an incoming impactor (Hazards Due to Comets & Asteroids, T. Gehrels, Ed., 1994). Yet little published work exists to address the detailed scientific and technical requirements for avoidance and mitigation technologies, and whether an adequate knowledge base exists. The need for space exploration of NEOs is widely recognized (e.g. in the Spaceguard Survey report, Morrison, 1992; Space Surveillance, Asteroids and Comets, and Space Debris, USAF Science Advisory Board report, 1997). More recently, a UK Task Force on NEOs (Atkinson, 2001) recommends that an international approach be considered that employs a coordinated set of rendezvous missions based on inexpensive micro-satellite technology. Even with the publication of such recommendations it is not clear, from what has been published, that they are offered on a secure scientific and technical basis. For example, micro-satellite spacecraft do have an important role to play in the future scientific exploration of NEOs. Yet for impact mitigation or collision avoidance technologies to succeed, a high priority must be placed on scientific investigations intimately associated with the deep interior structure and special material properties of these objects. Beyond revealing fundamental clues to the origins of planets, knowledge of the deep interior structure of asteroids and comets is a requirement if one means to apply whole-body forces to them and achieve predictable results. To measure and characterize the needed properties encompassing mass, mass distribution, material strengths, internal structure, shape, and spin state (Huebner and Greenberg, 2002), novel kinds of spacecraft investigations will be required. Locally, drilling and digging from the surface can provide some of these data, but will probably be restricted to a limited depth. Globally, radio and seismic wave experiments with active sources analogous to those used in terrestrial exploration may be necessary. This will require the development of whole new encounter technologies, and may lead to new mitigation strategies as well. This workshop will review what is known about the physics and chemistry of the interiors of small cometary nuclei and asteroids with the purpose of attaining a geophysical understanding of asteroids and comets in near-Earth space. In addition, the workshop will work towards the following specific goals: * Determination of the scientific requirements for those collision avoidance and impact mitigation technologies that are considered viable. This includes identification of measurements that are needed and the accuracy that should be attained. * Determination of what mission models and instrumentation developments are needed to make these measurements. * Construction of a mission and research roadmap for achieving an adequate level of knowledge on which to base the future development of practical and reliable collision avoidance and impact mitigation systems. References Atkinson, H., 2001. UK Task Force on Near-Earth Objects. This report is best acquired through its web page, http://www.nearearthobjects.co.uk/neo_report.cfm. Belton, M. J. S., E. Asphaug, W. Huebner, and D. Yeomans, 2001. Scientific requirements for NEO Impact Mitigation. Presented at Asteroids 2001 meeting, Palermo, Sicily. Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids, 1994. Edited by Tom Gehrels, University of Arizona Press. Huebner, W. F. and J. M. Greenberg, 2002. Erice Workshop Summary on Physical and Chemical Properties of Potential Earth Impactors, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, In Press. The Spaceguard Survey: Report of the NASA International Near-Earth- Object Detection Workshop, 1992. Edited by David Morrison. Pasadena, CA: Jet Propulsion Laboratory. USAF Scientific Advisory Board, 1997. Space Surveillance, Asteroids, and Comets, and Space Debris, Vol. 1, Space Surveillance, SAB-TR- 9604. NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The USGP represents U.S. scientific, technical, and instrumentation interests in the international community of the Gemini project. The USGP is a division of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO). Contact: Nalin Samarasinha E-mail: nalin@noao.edu _____________________________________________________________________ NASA SCIENTISTS CREATE AMINO ACIDS IN DEEP-SPACE-LIKE ENVIRONMENT NASA/ARC release 02-33AR 27 March 2002 NASA scientists today announced the creation of amino acids, critical for life, in an environment that mimics deep space. The research will be published in the March 28 issue of the journal Nature. In a laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, the team of astrobiologists shined ultraviolet light on deep- space-like "ices," simulating conditions that are commonplace in interstellar space. Deep-space ice is common water ice laced with simple molecules. The team subsequently discovered amino acids, molecules present in, and essential for, life on Earth. "This finding may shed light on the origin of life itself," said Dr. Max Bernstein, the first author and chemist at NASA Ames and the SETI Institute. "We found that amino acids can be made in the dense interstellar clouds where planetary systems and stars are made. Our experiments suggest that amino acids should be everywhere, wherever there are stars and planets." The amino acids they detected (glycine, alanine and serine) are the basic parts of proteins from which all life is made. Proteins provide the structure for, and do all the work in, living things. The amino acids produced in the NASA Ames lab are similar to those found previously in carbon-rich meteorites. Meteorites are pieces of asteroids or comets that have fallen to Earth. The chemical similarities may indicate that amino acids in meteorites were made in deep space, before the solar system formed, the scientists say. "This finding suggests that Earth may have been seeded with amino acids from space in its earliest days," said Jason Dworkin of Ames and the SETI Institute. "And, since new stars and planets are formed within the same clouds in which new amino acids are being created, this increases the odds that life also evolved in places other than Earth." "Taken in combination, these results suggest that interstellar chemistry may have played a significant part in supplying the Earth with some of the organic materials needed to jump-start life," Dworkin concluded. To conduct their experiments, the research team simulated space-like conditions by freezing mixtures of molecules (such as wood alcohol and ammonia) that are abundant in interstellar clouds. They then exposed the resulting ice to ultraviolet light. Previously, the team demonstrated that irradiating interstellar ice 'look-alikes' generated compounds called amphiphiles that can organize themselves to form membranes; and molecules called quinones that play important roles in the metabolism of all living organisms on Earth. The next step, they say, will be to tackle the issue of left- and right-handed amino acids. Both forms exist in space, but only the left-handed forms are used by life on Earth. In addition to the principals, other scientists on the team included Drs. Louis Allamandola, George Cooper and Scott Sandford, all of Ames. More detailed information about these findings is available at http://web99.arc.nasa.gov/~astrochem/aanature.html. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. NASA Ames Research Center is the location of the central offices of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and serves as the agency's lead center for astrobiology. Contact: Kathleen Burton NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Phone: 650-604-1731 or 604-9000 E-mail: kburton@mail.arc.nasa.gov Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/amino_acids_0203 27.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/28acids/ _____________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY'S THEMIS BEGINS POSTING DAILY IMAGES Arizona State University release 27 March 2002 Need to get away to someplace exotic? Mars is now open for daily sightseeing. Beginning March 27, 2002, recent images of Mars taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft will be available to the public on the Internet. A new, "uncalibrated" image taken by the visible light camera will be posted at 10:00 AM EST daily, Monday through Friday. The pictures can be viewed and downloaded at http://themis.asu.edu/latest.html. The images will show 22 kilometer-wide strips of the Martian surface at a resolution of 18 meters. Though the images will not yet be fully calibrated for scientific use, they give the public an unprecedented opportunity to get a close look at many of Mars' unusual geological features. The visible light camera's resolution is about eight to 16 times better than most of the images taken by NASA's Viking missions, which completed the first global map of the Martian surface. "We want to generate a steady flow of images so we can share some of the excitement of what we're seeing with the public," said Greg Mehall, THEMIS mission manager at Arizona State University. "We're seeing a lot of very interesting things, since much of Mars has never been viewed so closely before." Though the posted images have undergone only minimal image processing, the team wanted to share them with the public as soon as possible. "They're still pretty spectacular to look at," Mehall said. "And we want people to feel they are getting a first look at the images with us." THEMIS began mapping Mars from an orbit of 420 kilometers in mid- February, taking images in both infrared and visible light The instrument is expected to take as many as 15,000 visible light images through the course of the mission. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL. Additional information about the 2001 Mars Odyssey is available on the Internet at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/. Contact: James Hathaway Phone: 480-965-6375 E-mail: Hathaway@asu.edu An additional article on this subject is available at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/28themis/. [Depending on available space, some of the more interesting images will appear in Marsbugs each week. DJT] _____________________________________________________________________ ANTIBIOTICS FROM SPACE By Karen Miller and Tony Phillips From NASA Science News 29 March 2002 Test tubes of bacteria produce more antibiotics in space than they do on Earth. Researchers aren't sure why, but they aim to find out. Bacteria get no respect. People wash their hands with anti-bacterial soap. The most popular nickname for bacteria is "bugs." And, by the way, don't touch that doorknob! Yet, bacteria are not always a bad thing. They don't just cause sickness, they help cure it; the antibiotics prescribed for your toddler's earache, for example, were most likely harvested from the microbes themselves. Because people need antibiotics, some scientists are working hard-- not to kill but to nurture bacteria. A good place to do that, it seems, is in space. Researchers first noticed in 1968 that microbes cultured onboard NASA's Biosatellite II grew better than they did on Earth. That raised an obvious question: If microbes grow better in space, would they produce more antibiotics there, too? The answer is yes--under certain conditions. Experiments sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb in the mid-1990's revealed that microbes grown in test tubes or gas-permeable bags aboard the space shuttle produced more antibiotics than did microbes on the ground. In one case the improvement was as much as 200%. Antibiotic production is an important part of the pharmaceutical industry on Earth, so this result caught the attention of scientists and business people alike. Is it time to move antibiotic factories to space? Not yet. Sophisticated bio-reactors on Earth still yield more antibiotics than simple test tubes or bags do on orbit. The value of space--for the moment--is as a laboratory. The ongoing research is supported by BioServe Space Technologies, a NASA Commercial Space Center (CSC) at the University of Colorado, industry partner Bristol-Myers Squibb, and NASA's Space Product Development program. Their goal is simple: to find out why microbes yield more antibiotics on orbit, and apply those findings to increase yields on Earth. It's possible that the increase occurs simply because of the way microgravity alters the motions of fluids surrounding the bacteria, says BioServe associate Director David Klaus, who co-heads the study. On Earth, gravity causes the fluid--that is, the medium--to circulate. Heavier fluids fall and lighter ones rise. Within the medium, cells and the molecules they produce mix and move around. "But in a zero-g environment," points out Klaus, "there is no convection, or buoyancy, or sedimentation." Less of the mixing normally caused by such factors could change the metabolic activities of these one-celled creatures. For example, when bacteria are introduced into a new environment, they don't start multiplying immediately. First, they have to 'condition' themselves or their surroundings. That is the reason that you can leave food out for a while before it begins to spoil. Researchers speculate that bacteria produce vitamins, enzymes or other "cofactors" either inside or around the cell. Cells will begin to multiply only when enough of those substances have accumulated. In microgravity, the bacteria seem able to achieve this conditioning and begin growing sooner than they can on the ground--perhaps because of reduced mixing. If a cell excretes a certain type of molecule, those molecules stay closer, and their concentration increases faster. The same kind of change, Klaus suggests, might account for the increased production of antibiotics. In fact, no one knows exactly why microbes produce antibiotics at all. One possibility is that antibiotics are produced in response to stress. In space, says Klaus, the stress that triggers the production of antibiotics might simply result from the altered environment around the cell--like a buildup of nearby wastes. Or, the overproduction might reflect some unknown change within the cell itself. An upcoming experiment on the International Space Station (ISS) will help solve the puzzle. Engineers at BioServe have developed a system known as MOBIAS: the Multiple Orbital Bioreactor with Instrumentation and Automated Sampling. MOBIAS, explains Klaus, provides bacteria with roughly the same environment whether they are in space or on the ground. Rather than requiring gravity to mix the gases and nutrients, MOBIAS relies on diffusion. Diffusion--a mixing caused by the random thermal motions of molecules--occurs both on Earth and in space. To accomplish its purpose, MOBIAS grows microbes in long, thin gas- permeable bags. The fluid medium is kept in narrow layers--much like sandwich fillings--so that only diffusion and occasional small injections of extra fluid provide the cells the gas and nutrients they need. Of course, the space and ground systems won't be precisely alike. In 1-g, the cells will still end up on the bottom of the container. But, says Klaus, the difference should be minimal, because in this case, the bottom isn't very far from the top! And, he adds, Earth- gravity will still pull on the cells themselves. That's good because that is one effect that they are trying to isolate. MOBIAS is slated for launch on April 4, 2002, inside BioServe's Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (or CGBA for short). Space Shuttle Atlantis will carry the CGBA aloft and leave it behind on the ISS where it will remain for at least 68 days--longer than any single shuttle flight. "One of the advantages of the ISS," notes Klaus, "is that on station we can run these experiments for many weeks or months." (In earlier work, shuttle-based samples didn't always have time to reach peak production before the mission ended.) Will MOBIAS in space outperform MOBIAS on the ground? "I suspect that we will see an increase [on orbit], but we've got to run the test to find out," says Klaus. If the bacteria do overproduce, and researchers can figure out why, those factors could be mimicked in terrestrial facilities. Even a tiny increase in production efficiency, explains Klaus, would be very significant commercially: one estimate holds that each one percent increase in efficiency would save around six million dollars annually in antibiotic production costs. Such prospects have researchers paying close attention to these tiny microbes. No respect? No way. Additional information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/29mar_antibiotics.htm?list522 60. _____________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 1 April 2002 Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html L. David, 2002. Human Mars project studied by U.S. and Russia. Space.com. K. Miller and T. Phillips, 2002. Antibiotics from space. NASA Science News. T. Phillips and D. Hullander, 2002. When space makes you dizzy. NASA Science News. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html M. P. Bernstein, J. P. Dworkin, S. A. Sandford, G. W. Cooper and L. J. Allamandola. The formation of racemic amino acids by ultraviolet photolysis of interstellar ice analogs. Nature, 416:401-403. R. R. Britt, 2002. Seeds of life are everywhere, NASA researchers say. Space.com. NASA Ames Research Center, 2002. Amino acids created in deep-space- like environment. Spaceflight Now. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 21-27 March 2002 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, March 27. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. On board activities this week included a Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) High Frequency Receiver calibration, the normalization of Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) flight software, clearing of the Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) High Water Marks and an autonomous CDS Solid State Recorder memory load partition repair. The Preliminary Sequence Integration & Validation (PSIV) phase has begun for C32. Inputs have been received from all participating instrument teams and the Spacecraft Office, and the merged products have been released for review. VIMS analysis of in-flight flight software tests uncovered a software error. The new capability of inserting the observation time into the spectral data for return in telemetry is affected. The symptom is that the spectral data becomes shifted from its proper location. Ground testing did not detect the flaw because there is no Engineering Model capable of simulating this aspect of the instrument. An Incident Surprise Anomaly report will be written to document the error and testing of the flight software will continue. Final preparations were completed this week for next week's uplink of Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM) 18. The Maneuver Automation Software set has been tested and delivered for operations, the Integrated Test Laboratory (ITL) successfully tested the TCM-18 maneuver block, and the SCO has completed simulation of the health and safety check and go for the uplink process. The TCM-18 maneuver is using many of the processes, software, and personnel teams that are being developed for use during the Saturn tour. The maneuver was produced using the new Maneuver Automation Software (MAS) tool. This tool greatly reduces the time and personnel required to generate and verify a maneuver. Maneuver execution will begin and end Earth-pointed. Roll turns will be performed under reaction wheel control, while yaw turns will be performed with the reaction control system. Science data playbacks and real-time Magnetospheric and Plasma Science (MAPS) data collection will be performed before and after the maneuver. Cosmic Dust Analyzer personnel delivered an update to their instrument flight software to the program software library. A delivery coordination meeting will be held next week. The System Engineering Office hosted a meeting this week to discuss Solid State Recorder Carryover interaction with the Ground Data System, held a delivery coordination meeting for the Navigation Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) toolkit, and supported a working group focusing in on design and trades for proposed Science and Sequence Uplink Process system-level Verification and Validation (V&V) activities. The Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS) version D8 Modules were tested in the ITL. A total of 16 modules and approximately 80 test cases were run, with only one test case failure, and that one attributable to input values for the case. A revised test case has been submitted for retest in ITL. All except one MSS application has entered code hard freeze. The exception is the Pointing Design Tool, which has taken longer to finish unit testing than anticipated. PDT is scheduled to enter hard freeze next week. 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. _____________________________________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 29 March 2002 Expedition 4 astronauts Carl Walz and Dan Bursch successfully completed an exercise of the International Space Station's robotic arm today, using six of its joints and a software patch to mask the seventh, the failed wrist roll joint. The exercise consisted of the same activities that the Canadarm2 will use in installation of the S- Zero (S0) Truss on the ISS during Atlantis' STS-110 mission. While engineers on the ground will continue to study results of the exercise, it was a major step in proving redundancy in the arm, validating the backup operating string. The prime string was successfully tested on Thursday. The tests were in preparation for STS-110, to be launched on April 4. The arm will be used to lift the S0 Truss from the shuttle's payload bay and install it on the station's U.S. laboratory Destiny. Atlantis crewmembers will do four spacewalks to complete installation. Today's test of the arm completed a busy workweek for the crew, Commander Yury Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch. It began with the Sunday arrival of the unpiloted Russian Progress 7 resupply vehicle and concluded with the successful arm operations, completed ahead of schedule. Today's test was to have been done next Monday. Science activities continued. Work today involved the ARIS-ICE vibration characterization experiment, the EVA Radiation Monitor and the Advanced Astroculture experiment. Major systems aboard the ISS continue to function well as the station orbits at an average altitude of about 242 statute miles. Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, future launch dates, as well as station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth, is available on the Internet at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov. Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet site administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, at http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov. The next ISS status report will be issued as part of STS-110 status reports, beginning April 4. _____________________________________________________________________ STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 29 March 2002 There was one Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking pass in the past week, and all subsystems are normal. The Stardust spacecraft is currently 2.71 AU (405 million kilometers or 252 million miles) from the Sun. Preparations for a system level risk assessment of the Comet Wild 2 encounter began. The risk assessment approach being used is similar to the Mars Odyssey approach performed during that mission's design and operations testing phase. The Stardust Outreach team supported the National Science Teachers Association Conference in San Diego, CA, where about 7,000 people attended. Outreach led 8 workshops within the conference centered on the exploration of planetary bodies, including asteroid and comets. 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 9, Number 13.