ЛОСКУТНОЕ ОДЕЯЛО

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GEMS Team Appeals NASA Cancellation Decision

WASHINGTON — Canceling the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS) X-ray telescope mission will cost NASA roughly $13 million in contract termination fees, according to briefing charts GEMS officials prepared to make their case for sparing the mission.

The GEMS team appealed the cancellation of their mission June 5 at NASA headquarters and was expecting a decision as soon as June 6, GEMS principal investigator Jean Swank said.

NASA decided last month to pull the plug on GEMS after independent cost estimates showed that the project was likely to bust a revised $135 million cost cap the agency imposed on spacecraft development in January.

NASA had spent $43.5 million on GEMS by the end of May, according to the team's June 5 briefing charts obtained by Space News. Termination liability — the money NASA pays to contractors to shut down a program — total $13 million, with spacecraft prime contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. owed close to half that amount.

Totaling $56 million, NASA's sunk cost amounts to a little more than half of what the agency originally expected to spend on the GEMS mission, not including launch costs.

NASA's sunk cost, totaling $56 million, is a little over half what the agency originally expected to spend on the GEMS mission, minus launch costs.

GEMS, a twin-telescope X-ray observatory designed to spend at least nine months in low Earth orbit studying the regions around black holes and neutron stars, was supposed to cost no more than $105 million, not including launch, when it was picked in 2009 as one of two Small Explorer-class astrophysics missions the agency hoped to launch between 2012 and 2015.

The other Small Explorer mission picked that year, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS), is slated to launch in 2013 aboard a Pegasus XL rocket under a $40 million launch services contract NASA awarded Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences two years ago. NASA expects to have spent a total of $180 million on the sun-watching IRIS mission by the time it wraps up in 2015, recent budget documents show.

Those same documents — part of the 2013 budget request NASA submitted to Congress in February — showed GEMS costing between $174 million and $230 million, depending in part on whether it launched on its nine-month mission in November 2014 or nearly a year later.

Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division, told a gathering of the agency's science advisers here June 4 that the cost and schedule growth GEMS experienced during its formulation phase was too large to permit the project to go forward.

Independent cost estimates performed by the Aerospace Corp. and the NASA Standing Review Board concluded that GEMS spacecraft development alone would likely cost $150 million or more. Although NASA never awarded a GEMS launch contract, the spacecraft was sized, like IRIS, to launch on a Pegasus XL.

A formal decision to cancel GEMS was handed down May 24 by NASA's Program Management Council.

In its clemency appeal June 5, the GEMS team challenged the accuracy of the independent estimates that forecast further cost overruns and laid out $12.1 million in cost savings it said it had identified in the past couple weeks.

The GEMS team said it could save $7.9 million on the cost of a launch, and $4.2 million on the spacecraft and instrument. Project savings would have come from headcount reductions at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., which was managing the project, and by cutting the fee paid to Orbital Sciences for the GEMS spacecraft bus. Other cost savings outlined include cutting back on spacecraft testing "descoping" the Bragg Reflection Polarimeter, a student-led experiment from the University of Iowa.

NASA plans to hold a media teleconference June 7 to discuss the GEMS project.

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/120606-gems-team-appeals-cancellation.html

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NASA To Fund Wind-monitoring Smallsat Constellation

WASHINGTON — NASA has selected a wind-monitoring microsatellite constellation as its next Earth Venture-class mission, the agency announced June 18.

The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), led by principal investigator Chris Ruf of the University of Michigan, will launch eight small satellites aboard a single launch vehicle. Other partners on the project include the Southwest Research Institute of Texas, small-satellite specialist Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. of Britain, and NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

The CYGNSS constellation will measure ocean surface winds during tropical storms and hurricanes using direct and reflected GPS signals. Mission costs are capped at $151.7 million over five years, including development, launch, operation and data analysis, NASA said in a June 18 press release.

CYGNSS is NASA's second Earth science Venture-class mission. The first was the Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface, an airplane-based mission, which was selected in 2010 and began operating in March.

NASA's next solicitation for a space-based Venture-class Earth science mission will be in 2015. Between now and then, the agency will solicit proposals for suborbital Venture-class missions, or "Earth Science Venture-class Instrument" missions that would fly as hosted payloads.

The Earth science Venture-class portfolio, a series of low-cost, quick-turnaround missions, is part of the Earth Science Pathfinder program managed by NASA's Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Va.

http://www.spacenews.com/earth_observation/120619-nasa-wind-monitoring-smallsat.html

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Over 30 years of global soil moisture observations for climate applications
 
19 June 2012

Water held in soil plays an important role in the climate system. The dataset released by ESA is the first remote-sensing soil moisture data record spanning the period 1978 to 2010 – a predecessor of the data now being provided by ESA's SMOS mission.



...................

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEME9OAXH3H_index_0.html

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http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28759.msg919479#msg919479

ESA showcases new Earth Explorer excellence
 
15 June 2012

Three new satellite concepts are vying to be chosen as ESA's seventh Earth Explorer mission. In preparation for selection next year, a series of reports has been published presenting the scientific and technical ambition of each mission.
 
Since the Biomass, CoReH2O and PREMIER mission concepts were selected for feasibility study in 2009, each candidate has been undergoing a set of rigorous activities to demonstrate their value to science and that they are technically viable.

The culmination of these efforts provides an important juncture at which to document their capabilities. Furthermore, the release of the three Reports for Mission Selection is timely in view of preparation for the ESA Ministerial Council in November, at which funding is sought to finance the development of the seventh Earth Explorer.

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMUMJ8X73H_index_0.html

Reports for mission selection SP-1324

- Biomass

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/EarthObservation/SP1324-1_BIOMASSr.pdf

- CoReH2O

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/EarthObservation/SP1324-2_CoReH2Or.pdf

- PREMIER

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/EarthObservation/SP1324-3_PREMIERr.pdf  

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NASA funds satellite mission to measure hurricane winds

NASA's decision this week to fund a University of Michigan proposal to build a small satellite constellation, the first full mission award in the agency's low-cost Venture-class Earth science program, could help forecasters predict the intensification of tropical cyclones.



Artist's concept of a spacecraft in the CYGNSS constellation. Credit: Chris Ruf/University of Michigan
 
Data from the mission will help researchers study how tropical cyclones grow stronger over warm ocean waters, and meteorologists could use real-time information to help formulate hurricane forecasts.

The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, will receive $151.7 million from NASA over the next five years. Eight microsatellites will launch together in 2017 on a single rocket, then deploy in low Earth orbit.

Cyclones are energized by warm waters, and the CYGNSS mission will observe the interaction between the atmosphere and the sea driving their intensification.

Chris Ruf, the mission's principal investigator from the University of Michigan, said the project's goal is to improve hurricane forecasting.

The eight CYGNSS satellites will be built by Southwest Research Institute of Texas. Surrey Satellite Technology of Colorado, the U.S. subsidiary of the British spacecraft-builder, will provide GPS receivers for the mission.

CYGNSS will use GPS signals to derive the roughness of the ocean surface, from which wind speed is retrieved, according to NASA.

The satellites will make measurements similar to the QuikSCAT satellite, which lost the use of its spinning radar scatterometer instrument in 2009. During its 10-year mission, QuikSCAT detected wind speed and direction over 90 percent of the Earth's surface every day.

QuikSCAT data measurably improved hurricane forecasting models and the increased the accuracy of intensity predictions, particularly for storms in the open ocean out of range of reconnaissance airplanes and terrestrial radars.



An image from QuikSCAT shows the wind speeds inside Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Credit: NOAA/NASA-JPL
 
Since QuikSCAT's loss, forecasters at NOAA's National Hurricane Center have struggled to find a suitable replacement. NOAA has not funded the construction of another QuikSCAT satellite.

Trials with a radar payload on India's Oceansat 2 spacecraft should finish soon, allowing its wind measurements to be included in the tools used by U.S. meteorologists.

Although it uses a different detection technique, the CYGNSS mission will likely be the next U.S. satellite project able to provide accurate data on winds inside tropical cyclones, but Ruf said scientists are still studying how similar the CYGNSS measurements will be to QuikSCAT's results.

CYGNSS is the first full mission selection in NASA's Earth Venture program. NASA officials receive proposals from the science community and select a winner during each Venture-class competition.

The Earth Venture initiative is designed to increase the flight rate in NASA's Earth science program, which operates a fleet of aging satellites and faces a crisis on future missions with rising launch and development costs.

The next opportunity for a full space mission competition in the Venture-class program is expected in 2015.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1206/21venture/

[Salo]

http://lenta.ru/news/2012/07/05/spacegps/

Ученые придумали "космическую GPS"[/size]
   
Ученые разработали технологию, которая позволяет определить положение космических аппаратов в пространстве, даже если они находятся за сотни миллионов километров от Земли. Сообщение об этом опубликовано на сайте финского Университета Аальто.

Авторы работали на радиотелескопе обсерватории "Метсахови", установленном в Финляндии. В рамках европейской коллаборации "JIVE" ученые получили доступ к данным радиотелескопов, установленных по всему миру. Эти телескопы предназначены для радиоинтерферометрии со сверхдлинной базой (РСДБ), и одновременно записывают радиоданные в разных уголках планеты. В дальнейшем эти данные обрабатываются так, словно они были приняты одним интерферометром размером с расстояние между самыми дальними из обсерваторий.

Авторам удалось создать программное обеспечение, которое использует для позиционирования межпланетных станций только радиосигнал от самого аппарата и контрольный сигнал от какого-либо небесного тела (звезды или планеты). На основании этих данных алгоритм определяет положение искомого аппарата с точностью до миллиардной доли расстояния объекта до Земли. Речь идет именно об определении положения аппарата на Земле, а не нахождении своего положения самим аппаратом. При наличии двустороннего канала связи пространственную информацию можно будет передать и с Земли.

Так, астрономам удалось установить положение спутника "Венера-экспресс" с погрешностью в несколько сотен метров, при том что его расстояние до Земли на момент измерения составляло 200 миллионов километров. В данном измерении были использованы данные с 10 радиотелескопов, входящих в систему РСДБ.

Новая технология может помочь контролировать траектории межпланетных станций и корректировать их в случае необходимости.[/size]

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MERLIN (Methane Remote Sensing Lidar Mission) is a joint CNES and DLR satellite mission dedicated to the measurements of the green house gas Methane (CH4). It is planned to launch the satellite in the time frame of 2016 with at least 3 years of operation in space. Germany will contribute by providing the instrument payload, a Methane Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) LIDAR. France will be the mission prime and will contribute by the enhanced version of its space-proven satellite platform Myriade and will operate the satellite. Both countries will establish a joint data processing chain to provide the science community with the mission data.

It is baselined to be launched from the Guiana Space Center in a multiple launch by a Soyuz Fregat or Vega rocket in 2016.



Nation:    Germany, France
Type / Application:    Earth sciences
Operator:    DLR, CNES
Contractors:    DLR, CNES
Equipment:    IPDA LIDAR
Configuration:    Myriade
Propulsion:    4 1-N-Thrusters; Hydrazine blowdown system
Power:    Deployable solar array, batteries
Lifetime:    3 years
Mass:    ~250 kg
Orbit:    SSO

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/merlin.htm

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http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2012/agenda.shtml

В том числе:

B612 (Marc Buie, SWRI)
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2012/presentations/TUES_1545_Buie_B612

Planetary Resources, Inc. (Chris Lewicki, PRI)
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2012/presentations/TUES_1615_Lewicki%20PRI.pdf

An asteroid retrieval mission study (John Brophy, JPL)
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2012/presentations/TUES_1645_Brophy_Asteroid_Return.pdf

Phobos/Deimos update. (Pascal Lee, SETI Institute)
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2012/presentations/WED_0900_Lee_PhobosDeimos.pdf

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3 more for Delta-II: SMAP 10/14, OCO-2 7/14 , & JPSS-1 11/16
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29455.0

CONTRACT RELEASE: C12-028

NASA SELECTS LAUNCH SERVICES CONTRACT FOR THREE MISSIONS

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC
of Englewood, Colo., to launch the Soil Moisture Active Passive
(SMAP), Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) and Joint Polar
Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) spacecraft. The spacecraft will launch in
October 2014, July 2014 and November 2016, respectively, aboard Delta
II rockets from Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.


The total value for the SMAP, OCO-2 and JPSS-1 launch services is
approximately $412 million. This estimated cost includes the
task-ordered launch service for the Delta II plus additional services
under other contracts for payload processing, launch vehicle
integration, mission-unique launch site ground support and tracking,
data and telemetry services.

SMAP will provide global measurements of soil moisture and its
freeze-thaw state. These measurements will enhance understanding of
processes that link Earth's water, energy and carbon cycles. SMAP
will extend current capabilities in weather and climate prediction.
SMAP data will be used to develop improved flood prediction and
drought monitoring capabilities. SMAP is managed by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

OCO-2 will study and make time-dependent global measurements of
atmospheric carbon dioxide. It will provide the first complete
picture of human and natural carbon dioxide sources and "sinks," the
places where the gas is pulled out of the atmosphere and stored. The
observatory's high-resolution measurements will help scientists
better understand the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon
dioxide. The OCO-2 project is managed by JPL.

JPSS-1 is the successor to the Suomi-National Polar Partnership (NPP)
spacecraft, which was launched in October 2011 as a joint mission
between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and operated by the JPSS Program. The JPSS Program is the
former National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite
System Program. The JPSS system includes the satellite's sensors and
ground system supporting civil weather, climate measurements and data
sharing with other U.S. agencies and international partners.

JPSS-1 will make afternoon observations as it orbits Earth, providing
continuity of critical data and imagery observations for accurate
weather forecasting, reliable severe storm outlooks and global
measurements of atmospheric and oceanic conditions such as sea
surface temperatures and ozone. JPSS-1 will increase the timeliness,
accuracy and cost-effectiveness of public warnings and forecasts of
weather, climate and other environmental events, reducing the
potential loss of human life and property.

NOAA is responsible for the JPSS Program and the JPSS-1 mission. NASA
is the program's procurement agent. The agency's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md., is the lead for acquisition and
implementation.

NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center is responsible
for launch vehicle program management of the SMAP, OCO-2 and JPSS-1
launch services.

For more information about NASA and its missions, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov  

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http://www.spacenews.com/launch/120716-nasa-taps-ula-spacex-for-earth-science-launches.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/16delta2/

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Researchers Develop New Amp to Study the Universe

The new amplifier consists of a superconducting material (niobium titanium nitride) coiled into a double spiral 16 millimeters in diameter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena, have developed a new type of amplifier for boosting electrical signals. The device can be used for everything from studying stars, galaxies and black holes to exploring the quantum world and developing quantum computers.

"This amplifier will redefine what it is possible to measure," said Jonas Zmuidzinas, chief technologist at JPL, who is Caltech's Merle Kingsley Professor of Physics and a member of the research team.

An amplifier is a device that increases the strength of a weak signal. "Amplifiers play a basic role in a wide range of scientific measurements and in electronics in general," said Peter Day, a principal scientist at JPL and a visiting associate in physics at Caltech. "For many tasks, current amplifiers are good enough. But for the most demanding applications, the shortcomings of the available technologies limit us."

One of the key features of the new amplifier is that it incorporates superconductors-materials that allow an electric current to flow with zero resistance when lowered to certain temperatures. For their amplifier, the researchers are using titanium nitride and niobium titanium nitride, which have just the right properties to allow the pump signal to amplify the weak signal.

Although the amplifier has a host of potential applications, the reason the researchers built the device was to help them study the universe. The team built the instrument to boost microwave signals, but the new design can be used to build amplifiers that help astronomers observe in a wide range of wavelengths, from radio waves to X-rays.

"It's hard to predict what all of the applications are going to end up being, but a nearly perfect amplifier is a pretty handy thing to have in your bag of tricks," Zmuidzinas said. And by creating their new device, the researchers have shown that it is indeed possible to build an essentially perfect amplifier. "Our instrument still has a few rough edges that need polishing before we would call it perfect, but we think our results so far show that we can get there."

The team recently described the new instrument in the journal Nature Physics.

In addition to Zmuidzinas and Day, the other authors of the paper are Byeong Ho Eom of Caltech, and Henry LeDuc of JPL. This research was supported by NASA, the Keck Institute for Space Studies, and the JPL Research and Technology Development program. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-210

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Geotail: 20 Years of Science and Still Going Strong
07.27.12

On July 24, 1992, the joint JAXA/NASA Geotail mission launched into space aboard a Delta II launch vehicle. It was the vanguard for a set of coordinated missions known as the International Solar Terrestrial Physics or ISTP project that studied the magnetic environs of Earth. Along with the Wind and Polar missions launched later, Geotail flew up into space to provide information about the way the magnetic envelope surrounding Earth, called the magnetosphere, responds to incoming material and energy from the sun.

Twenty years later, Geotail's instruments continue to function, sending back crucial information about how aurora form, how energy from the sun funnels through near-Earth space, and the ways in which magnetic field lines move and rebound creating explosive bursts that rearrange the very shape of our magnetic environment.

"Before Geotail was launched, previous missions had provided discoveries about what existed around Earth," says Don Fairfield, an emeritus space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who was NASA's first project scientist for Geotail. "So we knew basic things about what was in the magnetosphere, but we didn't completely understand them. Geotail and ISTP provided additional details on the physics of how the aurora was created and how the steady stream of particles from the sun called the solar wind interacted with Earth."

To study the magnetosphere, Geotail's orbit originally extended far out into the night side of the magnetosphere, through the long streaming lines of magnetic fields that trail away from Earth into what's called the magnetotail. This early orbit stretched over 800,000 miles away from Earth at apogee, giving it an unprecedented view of the tail.

"Other spacecraft had traveled through the distant tail," says Guan Le, a Goddard scientist who took over as NASA's project scientist for Geotail when Fairfield retired in 2008. "But Geotail was the first with a comprehensive suite of instruments that could provide unprecedented measurements of electric fields, magnetic fields, the kinds of particles, and the waves traveling through the region."

After two years, Geotail moved into a new orbit that is somewhat unusual for a spacecraft – while it is an ellipse, it is a fairly squat one, and its nearest approach to Earth doesn't comes particularly close. This orbit carries Geotail as close as 40,000 miles on one side of Earth, and out to about 120,000 miles on the other side. The orbit ensures that Geotail often crossed the borders of the magnetosphere at varying points around Earth.

By passing through so many diverse areas around Earth, Geotail has provided scientists with much information about the location of certain events that were not previously known. For one, Geotail helped determine where in Earth's environment explosive energetic bursts known as magnetic reconnection occur. These bursts, which result from fast changes in shape of magnetic field lines, are responsible, among other things, for sending particles toward the poles that cause aurora and for connecting incoming solar wind from the sun to our magnetosphere and transferring energy from one to the other. Determining the locations for where to expect magnetic reconnection, namely between 80,000 and 120,000 miles away from Earth on the night side, has helped guide decisions about orbits for future missions such as the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, due to launch in 2014, which will provide even more details on the physics behind magnetic reconnection.

Geotail also helped confirm the location and mechanisms of how aurora form, observing initial magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail that corresponded to the appearance of aurora over the poles that in turn could be observed by the Polar mission and observers on the ground. Geotail observations also showed bubbles of plasma, known as plasmoids, shooting away from these magnetic reconnection sites down the magnetotail away from Earth.

Geotail has another claim to fame: it was one of the earliest Japanese space weather missions, says Le, and many of today's well-respected Japanese space scientists performed their early research on its data.

Since 20 years of work have not dulled the capacity of Geotail's instruments, it remains a useful observatory. With missions such as THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms), Cluster and Wind currently studying the magnetosphere, and missions such as RBSP (Radiation Belt Storm Probes) and MMS soon to come, Geotail can provide a complementary set of data at a remote location to show how events seen by one spacecraft in the magnetosphere can effect different regions.

"It's always useful to have another satellite to provide observations," says Fairfield. "Geotail can be used in many different ways. When you see something happening in one part of the magnetosphere, you always want to know what's happening somewhere else, and Geotail offers that crucial information."

The GEOTAIL mission is a collaborative project undertaken by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Geotail spacecraft was designed and built by ISAS and was launched by NASA on July 24, 1992. NASA provides DSN support for the mission, which brings data down from Geotail, and performs initial data processing. The science data are processed and maintained by JAXA.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/geotail-20th.html

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NASA X-ray Concept Inspired from a Roll of Scotch® Tape

The inspiration behind NASA scientist Maxim Markevitch's quest to build a highly specialized X-ray mirror using a never-before-tried technique comes from an unusual source: a roll of Scotch® tape.

Markevitch and a team of X-ray optics experts at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have begun investigating the feasibility of fashioning a low-cost mirror from plastic tape and tightly rolling it like the sticky adhesive commonly found in most homes and offices.

"I remember looking at a roll of Scotch tape and thinking, 'was it possible to use the same design for capturing hard X-rays,'" Markevitch recalled. "I talked with a few people, and to my surprise, they didn't see any principal reasons why it couldn't be done."



http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/xray-tape.html

[nomernabis]

И как же он будет их собирать? Ничего не понятно.

[ZOOR]

ИКИ, Роскосмос и Лавочка на http://www.spaceops2012.org/ предлагают объединять усилия в научных миссиях
http://www.spaceops2012.org/proceedings/documents/id1293369-Paper-001.pdf

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Марсоход Curiosity проверил, как радиация повлияет на пилотов к Марсу[/size]

02:45 03/08/2012
МОСКВА, 3 авг - РИА Новости. Новый марсоход Curiosity еще не добрался до Марса, но уже сейчас ученые получили данные о космической радиации, которые помогут в подготовке будущих пилотируемых полетов к этой планете, заявляют специалисты НАСА.

Выступая на брифинге, который транслировался на сайте американского аэрокосмического агентства, Дон Хасслер (Don Hassler), специалист Юго-западного исследовательского института рассказал о результатах работы прибора для измерения радиации RAD (Radiation Assessment Detector) на борту марсохода, который был включен вскоре после старта аппарата с Земли в ноябре 2011 года.

Ученый продемонстрировал сходство MSL с капсулой будущего американского межпланетного корабля "Орион" и отметил, что марсоход может "играть роль" астронавта.

"Curiosity путешествует на Марс внутри оболочки перелетного аппарата, он и вместе с ним прибор RAD находятся примерно там же, где могут находиться астронавты. Этот означает, что всплески солнечной радиации воздействуют на него так же, как будут воздействовать на реальных астронавтов", - сказал Хасслер.

Он напомнил, что человек в космическом пространстве подвергается воздействию двух типов излучения - от галактических космических лучей и от заряженных частиц солнечного ветра. В периоды усиления солнечной активности на Солнце могут происходить мощные вспышки, которые значительно усиливают поток частиц.

Прибор RAD зафиксировал несколько таких вспышек. По его словам, такие вспышки в межпланетном полете "не летальны", не нанесут значительного ущерба здоровью астронавтов, но могут составить значительную долю от дозы, которую нормы НАСА считают допустимой.

При этом он подчеркнул, что оболочка аппарата сократила мощность этих доз в несколько раз.

Radiation Levels on the Way to Mars

This graphic shows the flux of radiation detected by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on the trip from Earth to Mars from December 2011 to July 2012. The spikes in radiation levels occurred in February, March and late May of 2012 because of large solar energetic particle events caused by giant flares on the sun.

The data were obtained by the Radiation Assessment Detector on Curiosity. The radiation levels are measured in units of flux or particles per square centimeter per second per steradian. The MSL spacecraft structure (which includes the backshell and heatshield) provides significant shielding from the deep space radiation environment, reducing significantly the particle flux observed by the Radiation Assessment Detector.

Zooming in on the solar energetic particle event in March, a red line shows the particle flux observed by the Solar Isotope Spectrometer instrument on NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer. ACE orbits the L1 libration point, which is a point of Earth-sun gravitational equilibrium about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth and 92.27 million miles (148.5 million kilometers) from the sun. In March, the ACE spacecraft was roughly aligned with MSL in terms of the path the solar particles took from the sun, thus providing a good estimate of the radiation levels outside of MSL's shielding. The measurements from the Solar Isotope Spectrometer are several orders of magnitude greater than those seen by MSL's Radiation Assessment Detector inside the capsule.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/hassler04a.html

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http://phys.org/news/2012-08-curiosity-daredevil-stunt.html

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Спутнику Geotail исполнилось двадцать лет

24 июля 1992 года ракета-носитель Delta II вывела на орбиту японско-американский спутник Geotail — авангард серии международных проектов, объединённых программой изучения солнечно-земной физики.

Geotail должен был предоставить информацию о магнитной оболочке нашей планеты и о том, как она отвечает на входящие факторы.



Инструменты спутника продолжают исправно работать и двадцать лет спустя, рассказывая о том, как формируется полярное сияние, как солнечная энергия проходит через околоземное пространство, как в ответ искривляются силовые линии магнитного поля Земли.

Орбита Geotail первоначально простиралась далеко в ночную сторону магнитосферы через длинный поток линий магнитного поля — где-то на 1,3 млн км в апогее. Были и другие аппараты с подобными орбитами, но на тот момент лишь Geotail обладал полным набором инструментов, способным на точное измерение электрического и магнитного полей, а также частиц и волн.

Два года спустя Geotail переместился на новую орбиту, несколько необычную для космического зонда: она по-прежнему представляет собой эллипс, но низкий и широкий; с одной стороны спутник подходит к Земле на 64 тыс. км, а с другой — удаляется на 200 тыс. Дело в том, что Geotail должен часто пересекать границу магнитосферы в разных точках.

Есть ли достижения на счету зонда? Во-первых, Geotail помог определить, где именно происходит пересоединение магнитных силовых линий. Эти всплески среди прочего несут ответственность за отправку частиц к полюсам, что приводит к характерному сиянию, а также за подключение входящего солнечного ветра к магнитосфере. Случается это на высоте 130–200 тыс. км, и эта информация помогла спроектировать орбиту других спутников, одним из которых в 2014 году станет MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale).

Кроме того, Geotail помог подтвердить местонахождение и механизм формирования полярного сияния. А ещё он показал, как пузыри плазмы выстреливаются из хвостов магнитосферы прочь от Земли.

Наконец, это был один из первых японских аппаратов, который занимался изучением космической погоды.

Geotail не потерялся на фоне более современных аппаратов THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms), Cluster и Wind, эффективно их дополняя.

http://science.compulenta.ru/697253/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/geotail-20th.html

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Серебристые облака имеют внеземное происхождение, выяснили ученые

МОСКВА, 8 авг - РИА Новости. Микроскопические частицы метеоров, или "метеорный дым", оказались ключевым компонентом красивых серебристых облаков в высоких слоях атмосферы нашей планеты, говорится в сообщении на сайте NASA Science.

Серебристые облака - самые высокие облака в атмосфере. Они образуются на высоте около 85 километров и видны только при низком солнце. При этом их оптическая плотность настолько мала, что через них могут проглядывать звезды.

Это довольно редкое явление было описано впервые в 1885 году, через два года после извержения вулкана Кракатау в Индонезии. Многие ученые считают, что именно это извержение, выбросившее сажу на 80 километров вверх, вызвало появление серебристых облаков в атмосфере.

Группа ученых под руководством Джеймса Рассел (James Russell) из университета города Хэмптон (США) пыталась найти причину формирования таких облаков, изучая атмосферу Земли при помощи спутника AIM.

Как объясняют ученые, долгое время считалось, что серебристые облака возникают при извержениях вулканов и накоплении частичек вулканической сажи и пыли в высоких слоях атмосферы. Со временем эта гипотеза была отвергнута, и ее место заняла теория о космическом происхождении таких облаков.

Так, практически вся Солнечная система заполнена микроскопическими пылинками и астероидами, и тонны этого космического "мусора" ежедневно падают на Землю и сгорают в ее атмосфере. Фрагменты сгоревших астероидов часто задерживаются в мезосфере, на высоте 70-100 километров от уровня моря. Такие частицы ученые называют "метеорным дымом".

Рассел и его коллеги проверили эту гипотезу, изучив химический состав, размеры и другие свойства твердых частиц в серебристых облаках.

"Используя инструмент SOFIE на борту AIM, мы обнаружили, что примерно 3% массы каждого кристалла льда в серебристых облаках приходятся на фрагменты метеоров", - заявил ученый.

Убедившись в справедливости общепринятой гипотезы, исследователи попытались выяснить причину появления таких облаков в умеренном климатическом поясе, где они раньше не встречались. По их словам, их формирование стало возможно в относительно теплой мезосфере умеренных широт благодаря изменению климата и увеличению концентрации метана в атмосфере.

"Когда метан поднимается в высокие слои атмоферы, он окисляется в ходе сложной серии превращений и оставляет за собой водяной пар. Дополнительная порция воды делает возможным формирование кристалликов льда в серебристых облаках", - пояснил Рассел.

Данный феномен позволяет использовать такие облака в качестве одного из индикаторов изменения климата, заключает климатолог.

http://ria.ru/science/20120808/719270521.html

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InsideKSC @InsideKSC
OP FAILURE: The @MorpheusLander has failed in its free flight test, crashed, and is now burning. Photo moments ago: http://pic.twitter.com/tjRWMjvz
9 августа 12 в 20:49

Экспериментальный посадочный зонд НАСА взорвался во время испытаний[/size]

09/08/2012 22:35
МОСКВА, 9 авг - РИА Новости. Экспериментальный ракетный летательный аппарат "Морфей" (Morpheus), предназначенный для отработки новых технологий вертикального взлета и посадки для космических кораблей, в четверг потерпел аварию во время испытательного полета в космическом центре НАСА имени Кеннеди.

 (ВИДЕО) © NASA
Аппарат "Морфей" падает и взрывается. Кадры неудачного запуска

Как говорится в сообщении на сайте центра, после взлета "Морфея" произошел сбой оборудования, из-за чего аппарат не смог перейти в стабильный полет. На видеоролике, размещенном на сайте Central Florida News 13, видно, как после взлета аппарат переворачивается и падает, горит, а затем взрывается.

"Никто не пострадал, возникший пожар был потушен пожарными центра Кеннеди. Инженеры в настоящее время изучают записанные во время испытаний данные, и агентство (НАСА) обнародует информацию (о причинах аварии), как только она будет получена", - сообщает центр Кеннеди.

Подобные аварии являются частью процесса создания любого сложного космического оборудования. "То знание, которое мы получим в результате этих испытаний, поможет нам создать лучшие возможные системы в будущем", - говорится в документе.

"Морфей" - экспериментальный аппарат, созданный Центром имени Кеннеди совместно со специалистами компании Armadillo Aerospace. Он предназначен для отработки новых двигателей на экологически чистом топливе - кислороде и метане, а также технологий автоматического взлета, маневрирования и посадки. Предполагается, что на базе "Морфея" будут создаваться новые посадочные аппараты для полетов на Луну и другие планеты.

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