Saturday, November 19, 2011

MSL launch delayed to Saturday, Nov. 26



Well now it is our turn to launch a mission to Mars.
I hope all goes well.
- LRK -

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MSL launch delayed to Saturday, Nov. 26

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:09:33 PM PST

The launch of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) has been delayed one day to allow time for the team to remove and replace a flight termination system battery. The launch is rescheduled for Saturday, Nov. 26 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The one hour and 43 minute launch window opens at 10:02 a.m. EST.

The Monday, Nov. 21 schedule of prelaunch tours and briefings will remain the same. Rollout of the Atlas V to the launch pad moves to Friday, Nov. 25. The rest of the week's briefings and events are being reevaluated and a new prelaunch schedule will be issued on Monday.

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NASA News Conferences and Events for Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Launch 

These events will be broadcast on NASA Television NASA Television and also carried on the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Ustream channel. 

Times are subject to change, so check this page for updates. 

Nov. 10, 1:15 p.m. EST (10:15 a.m. PST), at NASA Headquarters, Washington, Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Mission Preview News Conference 
› Archived news conference on Ustream 

Nov. 21, 1 p.m. EST (10 a.m. PST), at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., What Do We Know About Mars? 

Nov. 26, 8 a.m. EST (5 a.m. PST), from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Live Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity launch coverage. First launch opportunity is at 10:02 a.m. EST (7:02 a.m. PST) 

Nov. 26, approximately two to three hours after launch, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Post-Launch News Conference

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Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mission

On November 26, 2011, the Curiosity Rover will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V Rocket as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mission. Mars, the Red Planet, will be the rover's destination in August 2012.
Curiosity will spend 23 months after landing gathering samples of rocks and soil. Curiosity is equipped with equipment to drill through rocks, and instrumens to collect samples and distribute to onboard test chambers. Curiosity's goal is to assess whether Mars ever had, or does still have today, an environment capable of supporting microbial life and habitability.
The rocket launch is scheduled between 10:02 - 11:45 a.m. EST on November 26, 2011. Please check back for operating hours. 
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Mars Science Laboratory

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Scheduled to launch on Nov. 26, 2011, 7:02 a.m. PST (10:02 a.m. EST). The launch window is between Nov 25 - Dec. 18, 2011, Mars Science Laboratory is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. Mars Science Laboratory is a rover that will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet's "habitability."

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Friday, November 18, 2011

New Lunar Topological Map



Dan passed me some links about the recent notice of a new topological map of the Moon.
Let me share them with you.
- LRK -

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article on "High Resolution Global Topographic Map of Moon."

gives you an idea of why people say the moon is made of green cheese!

 is also interesting.
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Spaceref  article as well.
- LRK -

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-- New Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter High-Resolution Topographic Map of the Moon
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=35266

The science team that oversees the imaging system on board NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has released the highest resolution near-global topographic map of the Moon ever created. This new topographic map, from Arizona State University in Tempe, shows the surface shape and features over nearly the entire Moon with a pixel scale close to 100 meters (328 feet). A single measure of elevation (one pixel) is about the size of two football fields placed side-by-side.
side.

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So now let us hope the information will help in planning some lunar landings.
- LRK -



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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Saturday, November 12, 2011

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

http://www.amacad.org/default.aspx

One can find a lot of interesting publications to read on the Internet.
I thought I should share some of which keeps me occupied and hence may distract me from posting.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has a large number of publications that can be down loaded or procured.

Let me pass on a few links that pertain to the use of space.
We may have some topics worth looking into.
Hope you find something of interest.
- LRK -

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http://www.amacad.org/about.aspx

About the Academy

For over 230 years, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has been honoring excellence and providing service to the nation and the world. Through independent, nonpartisan study, its ranks of distinguished "scholar-patriots" have brought the arts and sciences into constructive interplay with the leaders of both the public and private sectors.

The Academy was founded during the American Revolution by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other leaders who contributed prominently to the establishment of the new nation, its government, and its Constitution. Its purpose was to provide a forum for a select group of scholars, members of the learned professions, and government and business leaders to work together on behalf of the democratic interests of the republic.
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Just some of the papers.
- LRK -
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http://www.amacad.org/publications/occasional.aspx#top 
Occasional Papers A series of Occasional Papers, disseminating the work of Academy projects, is available online. To order a copy of an Occasional Paper ($6.00 ea. unless otherwise noted) click here, or e-mail publications@amacad.org. To view individual publications, select from their titles.
Occasional Papers are sorted by project areas:
Education
Global Security
Humanities & Culture
Science & Technology Policy
Social Policy & American Institutions
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http://www.amacad.org/publications/occasional.aspx#security
Global Security
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A European Approach to Space Security
Xavier Pasco (2006)

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The Future of Human Spaceflight: Objectives and Policy Implications in a Global Context
David A. Mindell, Scott A. Uebelhart, Asif A. Siddiqi, and Slava Gerovitch (2009)

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The Physics of Space Security: A Reference Manual
David Wright, Laura Grego, and Lisbeth Gronlund ($15.00) (2005)

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A Place for One’s Mat: China’s Space Program, 1956–2003
Gregory Kulacki and Jeffrey G. Lewis (2009)

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Reconsidering the Rules for Space Security
Nancy Gallagher and John D. Steinbruner (2008)

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Russian and Chinese Responses to U.S. Military Plans in Space
Pavel Podvig and Hui Zhang (2008)

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United States Space Policy: Challenges and Opportunities
George Abbey and Neal Lane (2005)

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United States Space Policy: Challenges and Opportunities Gone Astray
George Abbey and Neal Lane (2009)

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The project for which the above references are part of.
- LRK -

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http://www.amacad.org/projects/space.aspx
Reconsidering the Rules of Space Societies rely increasingly on satellites for vital communication services, environmental monitoring, navigation, weather prediction, and scientific research. This largely beneficial trend is expected to intensify as more countries develop satellite technology and utilize the services derived from it.
These technological trends have also inspired the development of military capabilities in space that go far beyond the traditional intelligence and early warning missions of the Cold War period. Protecting and enhancing US military capability in space has emerged as an important focus of military planning. Recent official documents have proposed, for example, various anti-satellite and space-based weapons to protect and augment US capabilities in space. Serious public discussion of military space plans has not yet occurred in the United States, though important questions of policy, planning and budgeting loom. 

The development of space affects a range of government, commercial, and scientific interests around the world, and US leaders have yet to propose a policy framework that adequately balances these interests. The American Academy initiated the Reconsidering the Rules of Space project to examine the implications of US policy in space, and to consider the international rules and principles needed to maintain a balanced use of space over the long term. 

The project has facilitated discussions between international security experts and leading stakeholders in both commercial development and scientific advancement in space. The project has published a series of papers, intended to help inform public discussion and to induce a further examination of US official policies. These papers consider the implications of physics for space security; the interaction of military, scientific, and commercial activities in space; Chinese and Russian perspectives on US space plans; and the possible elements of a more comprehensive set of rules for space security. 

The Reconsidering the Rules of Space project is supported by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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Thanks for looking up with me.

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

List of current and future lunar missions

I thought I would see what is happening in regards to lunar missions and was pleasantly surprised at the number that are actually going on or in the works.  You might be interested in checking out this Wikipedia link

There are a lot of tables with mission information so will not copy.  Better you just take a look.
- LRK -

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List of current and future lunar missions
Currently, there are several future lunar missions scheduled or proposed by various nations or organisations.

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It would be nice to see some lunar rovers that hopefully would have live Internet presence.
- LRK -

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A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. Some rovers have been designed to transport members of a human spaceflight crew, such as the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots, such as Lunokhod 1.
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The Moon so close, but so far politically.  :-)

I may have to buy a smartphone to try out some of the lunar Apps coming out.
- LRK -

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Lunar Module 3D app

LunarModule3D is a unique lunar lander style game that mixes classic arcade action with realistic environments.  The game takes you through 5 real locations on the moon including 4 of the apollo landing sites and Tycho crater.  All of the lunar environments have been generated from actual photos of the moon using shape from shading technology.

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Thanks for looking up with me.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Monday, November 7, 2011

Russian Mars - Phobos sample mission with Chinese Orbiter and Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment - set to launch

This week's issue of The Space Review informs me that I should be watching to see if the Russian launch of the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars makes it off successfully.  It is set to launch November 9, 2011.
- LRK -

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Welcome to this week's issue of The Space Review:
http://www.thespacereview.com/

Phobos sample return launches tomorrow
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This week Russia will launch Phobos-Grunt, a mission to travel to Mars and return a sample of the Martian moon Phobos. Lou Friedman describes the mission and an unusual experiment from The Planetary Society that is onboard the spacecraft.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1966/1

Red moon around a Red Planet
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Phobos-Grunt is a very ambitious mission for any space power, let alone for a country that hasn't launched a Mars mission in 15 years. Dwayne Day writes that it may be too ambitious a mission, but if successful could have a major payoff for planetary exploration.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1965/1

Will Russia end its curse at Mars?
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Probos-Grunt is the latest in a long line of Russian/Soviet Mars missions, most of which failed. Doug Messier examines the history of that program and whether this mission can break from that history.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1964/1

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt
Fobos-Grunt (Russian: Фобос-Грунт, lit. «Phobos-Soil») is a sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Funded by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and developed by NPO Lavochkin and the Russian Space Research Institute, Fobos-Grunt is to become the first Russian interplanetary mission since the failed Mars 96. It is also set to become the first spacecraft to return a macroscopic extraterrestrial sample from a planetary body since Luna 24 in 1976.[3] Launch is scheduled for 8 November 2011 from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft is expected to reach Mars' orbit in September 2012, with landing on Phobos scheduled for February 2013. The return vehicle, carrying up to 200 g of soil from Phobos, is expected to be back on Earth in August 2014.
The Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 will be sent together with the mission, as will the Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.
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More info and pictures.
See the links on the page as well
- LRK -

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http://www.universetoday.com/90373/russia-fuels-phobos-grunt-and-sets-mars-launch-for-november-9/

Russia Fuels Phobos-Grunt and sets Mars Launch for November 9
by Ken Kremer on October 29, 2011

Russia’s Space Agency, Roscosmos, has set November 9 as the launch date for the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars and its tiny moon Phobos. Roscosmos has officially announced that the audacious mission to retrieve the first ever soil samples from the surface of Phobos will blastoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Zenit-2SB rocket at 00:26 a.m. Moscow time.
Roscosmos said that engineers have finished loading all the propellants into the Phobos-Grunt main propulsion module (cruise stage), Phobos lander and Earth return module at Facility 31 at Baikonur.

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With a successful launch we will just have a long wait to see how everything goes.  :-)
- LRK -

There have been a number of missions to Mars.
See a list here.
- LRK -
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_planetary_mars.html


Thanks for looking up with me.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Saturday, November 5, 2011

UK science says 'fly me to the Moon'


This should be interesting.  And if they should bring back a piece of regolith from the south polar region what do I hear it will sell for?  Could we have an auction please.  Who will be the highest bidder?
Any proto protozoa in those dark craters?
- LRK -

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British scientists and engineers want a piece of the Moon.
3 November 2011 Last updated at 14:43 ET
Jonathan Amos

They're keen to participate in the European Space Agency's (Esa) Lunar Lander mission which will attempt to put down on the body's southern pole later this decade.
The lander will be unmanned but it will do the kind of experiments that would help prepare for a human mission at some future date - checking the local environment for hazards and looking for possible resources in the regolith, or "soil".
Esa will soon ask member states to declare their interest in the project, and the UK will have to decide if it wants to take part and, if so, the level of financial investment it is prepared to make.
The British lunar science community and industry recently held a meeting in London to mould their position.
They know they will have to make a strong case to the UK Space Agency (UKSA), which represents Britain at Esa.
The UKSA will have a limited pot of cash to put on the table in Europe, and other interests and activities will be competing for a share.
"We're going through a process where we're allowing all the different communities to make their cases for the programmes they want to be involved in," explained Dr Sue Horne from the UKSA.
"Through December, we'll be assessing those so that over the course of the following months, we can have some hard negotiation with Esa with clear ideas of what we want," she told me.
The Lunar Lander project will be led by Germany and is expected to cost somewhere in the region of 600-700 million euros.
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Hmmm, only 600- 700 million euros.

No cold war here, just a bidding war.
I wonder who has the money?
- LRK -

Who gets the movie rights and the marketing rights for kids lunar lander toys?
How about some chemistry sets to identify soil samples so you can prepare the youngster for a job analyzing lunar samples.
Maybe an erector set that will let you build miniature digging machines that have some smart brains to teach you how to prepare a lunar lava tube for habitation.  Throw in some smart avatars that will do your bidding from your latest smart phone App.
- LRK -



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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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