Arianespace delivers for the Americas!

Arianespace - Flight VA223 Mission poster.


May 27, 2015

Ariane Flight VA223

Arianespace delivers for the Americas! DirecTV-15 and SKY México-1 are orbited by Ariane 5

Image above: The performance and reliability of Ariane 5 was demonstrated once again during today’s mission from French Guiana, and was recognized by the customers on this 79th mission for Arianespace’s heavy-lift workhorse.

Two direct-to-home television broadcast satellites that will provide expanded relay capacity over the Americas have been orbited on Arianespace’s latest success with its Ariane 5 launcher, performed today from the Spaceport in French Guiana at 21:16 GMT (5:16 p.m. EDT).

Liftoff of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 with DirecTV-15 and SKY México-1

Lifting off from the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch complex, the workhorse vehicle deployed its two spacecraft passengers – DirecTV-15 for DIRECTV of the U.S. and SKY México’s SKY México-1 – during a flight lasting approximately 38 minutes. This mission’s total lift performance was estimated at 9,960 kg.

While dual-payload deployments are a trademark of Ariane 5 missions, today’s flight was unique – with both passengers focusing on the same application (direct-to-home television broadcast) and scheduled to operate above the same area of the world (the Americas).

Arianespace Chairman and CEO Stéphane Israël, who commented from the Spaceport’s mission control center, put emphasis on Arianespace’s long-standing service to the Americas, and particularly the United States – orbiting commercial payloads, and contributing to various cooperation programs with the U.S. government by providing launch services for scientific satellites, cargo vehicles to the International Space Station and security payloads.

Image above: Ariane 5 is shown in the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch zone prior to its liftoff on Flight VA223 with the DirecTV-15 and SKY México-1 satellites.

Supporting Arianespace customers

As the upper passenger in Ariane 5’s payload arrangement, DirecTV-15 was deployed first in today’s flight sequence. It was produced by Airbus Defence and Space using the Eurostar E3000 platform, and is among the most powerful broadcast satellites ever built for the United States.

DirecTV-15 is to operate at five different orbital positions between 99-119 deg. West – from which it will provide capacity in the Ku-, Ka- and R-bands for DIRECTV, one of the world's leading suppliers of digital television entertainment services with more than 37 million customers in the U.S. and Latin America. This was the 111th payload from Airbus Defence and Space to be launched by Arianespace.

DirecTV-15 satellite

The second payload deployed by Ariane 5 on today’s mission – SKY México-1 – will be operated for SKY México, which is owned by Mexico’s Grupo Televisa S.A.B. and DIRECTV.

“Like the vast majority of communication satellite operators, SKY México selected the Ariane 5 launch system to orbit its first satellite, placing the emphasis on quality, reliability and availability,” said Arianespace’s Israël.

SKY México-1 is an Orbital ATK, Inc.-built satellite based the GEOStar-2™ platform, and it carries Ku- and R-band transponders deliver to services to the Mexico, Central America and Caribbean regions. With Ariane 5’s latest success, SKY México-1 became the 26th spacecraft from Orbital ATK, Inc. that Arianespace has launched.

SKY México-1 satellite

Israël said he was honored that DIRECTV entrusted Arianespace with such a “charter flight,” in which the customer was involved in both payloads, noting it was another “recognition of the outstanding reliability of the Ariane 5 launch system.”

Echoing his comments was Philip Goswitz, Senior Vice President, Video, Space & Communications at DIRECTV, who called Ariane 5 “the best and most reliable launcher in the world” during post-launch remarks delivered in French. Then speaking in English, he added: “Someone asked me how we had the confidence to go with two satellites on the same Ariane 5, and I said: ‘Well, we couldn’t figure out a way to fit the third one in!”

Salvador Rosas, SKY México Chief Technology Officer, congratulated and thanked all of those involved with today’s success – and offered special appreciation to Arianespace, saying it was a “magnificent launch.”

Continuing the launch pace in 2015

Today’s mission – designated VA223 in Arianespace’s numbering system – was the 223rd Ariane-series mission to date, as well as the 79th for Ariane 5.

It also continues Arianespace’s busy launch schedule in 2015, during which the company is targeting 11 mission in total – based on the availability of payloads – deploying its full family of the heavy-lift Ariane 5, medium-lift Soyuz and lightweight Vega launchers.

Flight VA223 was the fourth mission in 2015 using an Arianespace family launcher, following one previous mission each with Ariane 5 (Flight VA222 with THOR 7 and SICRAL 2, performed on April 26), Soyuz (VS11 with two Galileo Full Operational Capability satellites, conducted on March 27), and Vega (Flight VV04 with Europe’s IXV spaceplane, carried out on February 11).

Arianespace’s next launch – Vega Flight VV05, scheduled from the Spaceport on June 22 – will loft the Sentinel-2A payload, which is the latest in Europe’s series of Earth observation satellites for the Copernicus initiative.

Read the press release: http://www.arianespace.com/news-press-release/2015/5-27-2015-VA223-launch-success.asp

For more information, see the VA223 launch kit: http://www.arianespace.com/news-launch-kits/2015-2016-archive.asp

Stay up-to-date with Arianespace mission activity on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/arianespace

Related links:

DIRECTV website: http://www.directv.com/

SKY México website: http://www.sky.com.mx/sky

Airbus Defence and Space website: http://www.airbusdefenceandspace.com/

Orbital ATK website: http://www.orbitalatk.com/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Arianespace/Arianespace TV/Gunter Space Page/ADS/Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

XMM-Newton - Selfies with Earth

ESA - XMM-Newton Mission patch.

May 27, 2015

XMM-Newton self-portraits with planet Earth

This series of images was taken 15 years ago, a couple of months after the launch of ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory. These unique views, showing parts of the spacecraft main body and solar wings, feature a guest of honour – Earth – which crosses the field of view from left to right, as the satellite slews across our planet.

Launched on 10 December 1999, XMM-Newton is an X-ray observatory, designed to investigate some of the most violent phenomena in the Universe. Sources that emit large amounts of X-rays – radiation with very high energy – include remnants of supernova explosions and the surroundings of black holes.

Detecting this energetic radiation is a daunting endeavour, requiring techniques that are greatly different from those used in traditional telescopes. In the case of XMM-Newton, it carries a science module with three telescopes consisting each of 58 nested mirrors. These sit at one end of a 7 m-long tube, while at the other end is the focal plane with the scientific instrumentation.

In addition, the spacecraft was also equipped with two Visual Monitoring Cameras, mounted outside the instrument module and looking along the tube towards the mirror module and solar wings. The cameras, named Fuga and Iris, respectively, were used by the flight control team to check how the solar wings unfolded after launch.

XMM-Newton spacecraft

About two months later, on 16 February 2000, the two cameras were being tested, as part of the spacecraft commissioning phase. Incidentally, the spacecraft was slewing across our planet at the time, at an altitude between 45 000 km and 50 000 km.

As a result, Fuga took this fascinating series of what would now be called ‘space selfies’, depicting parts of the tube, service module and solar wings in front of a half-Earth. Interestingly, some of the views show hints of our planet’s stormy atmosphere, a barrier to highly energetic light and the very reason why X-ray observatories like XMM-Newton have to be operated in space.

At the time when these images were taken, XMM-Newton was on its 35th revolution around Earth. More than 15 years later, it has now completed over 2800 revolutions, obtaining a wealth of cutting-edge data that are being used by astronomers worldwide and have produced over 4000 scientific publications so far. One of these images was originally published in February 2000.

For more information about XMM-Newton mission, visit: http://sci.esa.int/xmm-newton/

XMM-Newton overview: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/XMM-Newton_overview

Images, Text, Credits: ESA/XMM-Newton.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

A Bubbly Cosmic Celebration

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

27 May 2015

The star forming cloud RCW 34

In the brightest region of this glowing nebula called RCW 34, gas is heated dramatically by young stars and expands through the surrounding cooler gas. Once the heated hydrogen reaches the borders of the gas cloud, it bursts outwards into the vacuum like the contents of an uncorked champagne bottle — this process is referred to as champagne flow. But the young star-forming region RCW 34 has more to offer than a few bubbles; there seem to have been multiple episodes of star formation within the same cloud.

This new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile shows a spectacular red cloud of glowing hydrogen gas behind a collection of blue foreground stars. Within RCW 34 — located in the southern constellation of Vela — a group of massive young stars hide in the brightest region of the cloud [1]. These stars have a dramatic effect on the nebula. Gas exposed to strong ultraviolet radiation — as occurs in the heart of this nebula — becomes ionised, meaning that the electrons have escaped the hydrogen atoms.

The star-forming cloud RCW 34 in the constellation of Vela

Hydrogen is treasured by cosmic photographers because it glows brightly in the characteristic red colour that distinguishes many nebulae and allows them to create beautiful images with bizarre shapes. It is also the raw material of dramatic phenomena such as champagne flow. But ionised hydrogen also has an important astronomical role: it is an indicator of star-forming regions. Stars are born from collapsing gas clouds and therefore abundant in regions with copious amounts of gas, like RCW 34. This makes the nebula particularly interesting to astronomers studying stellar birth and evolution.

Vast amounts of dust within the nebula block the view of the inner workings of the stellar nursery deeply embedded in these clouds. RCW 34 is characterised by extremely high extinction, meaning that almost all of the visible light from this region is absorbed before it reaches Earth. Despite hiding away from direct view, astronomers can use infrared telescopes, to peer through the dust and study the nest of embedded stars.

Around the star-formation region Gum 19 (RCW 34)

Looking behind the red colour reveals that there are a lot of young stars in this region with masses only a fraction of that of the Sun. These seem to clump around older, more massive stars at the centre, while only a few are distributed in the outskirts. This distribution has led astronomers to believe that there have been different episodes of star formation within the cloud. Three gigantic stars formed in the first event that then triggered the formation of the less massive stars in their vicinity [2].

Zooming in on the star forming cloud RCW 34

This image uses data from the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) instrument attached to the VLT, which were acquired as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme [3].

Close-up pan across the star forming cloud RCW 34

Notes:

[1] RCW 34 is also known as Gum 19 and is centred on the brilliant young star called V391 Velorum.

[2] The most massive very bright stars have short lives — measured in millions of years — but the less massive ones have lives longer than the current age of the Universe.

[3] The ESO Cosmic Gems programme is an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO’s science archive.

More information:

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

ESO Cosmic Gems programme: http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/gems.html

Photos of the Very Large Telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=Very%20Large%20Telescope

Photos from the Very Large Telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&facility=31

Images, Text, Credits: ESO/IAU and Sky & Telescope/Digitized Sky Survey 2/Videos: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: movetwo.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

MaterialsLab Improves How We Conduct Research On Earth and in Space

ISS - International Space Station logo.

May 26, 2015

When companies try to "build a better mousetrap," the process can involve lots of internal studies and tests on the kinds of materials to use and effective designs. It can be a time-consuming but necessary operation, which means less time for people to use the device to solve a particular problem.

NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are collaborating to help scientists and innovators build that new mousetrap by accelerating materials development and make new discoveries using data from the hundreds of investigations on the International Space Station.

Image above: Dendrite formations, as shown here, affect the process of metals casting. Results from this International Space Station investigation are an example of materials science data that would be included in the MaterialsLab database. Image Credits: Peter Voorhees/Northwestern University.

An initiative between the two government agencies has created MaterialsLab – a new approach to materials science research that will provide unprecedented worldwide collaboration. Each space station investigation provides scientists with a better understanding of the physical and chemical properties of materials, allowing insight on how they develop and behave without gravity affecting the results. The MaterialsLab approach enhances the way researchers in government, industry and academia develop investigations and share information.

"We're creating a new opportunity to develop materials experiments in space that makes it easier for scientists to conduct these investigations and share their research and data widely with the scientific community," said Marshall Porterfield, NASA's director of Space Life and Physical Sciences in the agency's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The Open Science concept allows multiple researchers around the world the ability to access data from station experiments and build on each other's work."

Image above: NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman conducts a session with the Binary Colloidal Alloy Test-C1 experiment during his mission on the International Space Station in 2014. Image Credits: NASA.

NASA and NIST recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to foster collaboration among NASA’s microgravity materials science program, the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory and the multi-agency Materials Genome Initiative.

MaterialsLab will share data from past and present space station investigations through NASA’s Physical Science Informatics system -- a resource for processing and sorting data from physical science experiments performed aboard the orbiting laboratory. The goal is to promote an open access approach to scientific data analysis and potentially guide hundreds of new, station-based scientific investigations.

With MaterialsLab, NASA is changing the way scientists conduct research by adding a slight twist. Now, space station materials research will aim to solve engineering problems that not only relate to space travel, but also target a specific outcome or attack a materials problem identified by industry.

"We want to conduct new investigations that fulfill a specific industry need or could lead to a new commercial application," said John Vickers, the manager of the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "If the automobile industry is having a problem with a specific material, we may be able to study that material on the station and get an answer that they couldn’t obtain through ground-based research. We are not only learning about the material, but also providing valuable data that immediately affects companies and consumers on Earth.”

STS-134 - International Space Station (ISS). Image Credit: NASA

Through MaterialsLab, NASA is changing the way scientists share data and even their approach to proposing experiments. "It should be easy for investigators to access current data from experiments and use it to determine if there are gaps in knowledge that can be addressed with new investigations," Porterfield said.

NASA leaders want to continue scientific experiments to learn more about the world and universe around us. They also want to change the way we conduct research by fostering a spirit of collaboration to share results from investigations on the orbiting laboratory as soon as possible.

Sharing findings from MaterialsLab in a comprehensive and open source, while building upon stored knowledge, has the potential to drive advances in materials science at a faster pace. You could see that new mousetrap on your store shelves sooner than you think.

Station Preps for Module Relocation Work

A cargo module is getting ready to be relocated from the Unity module to the Tranquility module Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, the crew also conducted science, health checks and Japanese robotics work.

Commander Terry Virts and One-Year crew member Scott Kelly prepared the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) for its relocation. The duo closed the hatch on the large storage module and configured it for detachment tomorrow morning. Watch NASA TV (http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv)Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. EDT for live coverage of the PMM relocation and installation that will prepare the International Space Station for future commercial crew vehicles.

Image above: The Permanent Multipurpose Module and a docked Soyuz spacecraft were photographed by an Expedition 26 crew member while space shuttle Discovery (STS-133) was docked with the station. Image Credit: NASA.

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti worked in Japan’s Kibo lab module maneuvering its robotic arm’s Small Fine Arm to install experiment samples on an external platform. She also photographed her work during the robotics activities.

The three cosmonauts, including One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko, worked numerous science experiments and maintenance in the Russian segment. The trio observed how a crew member’s metabolism and motion adapt to microgravity, explored how sound waves could help pinpoint micrometeoroid impacts and studied the electromagnetic environment that surrounds space station.

Related links:

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): http://www.nist.gov/

International Space Station (ISS): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/#.VVo1cflVhBc

Materials Genome Initiative: http://materialsinnovation.tms.org/genome.aspx

NASA’s Physical Science Informatics system: http://psi.nasa.gov/

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/home/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Bill Hubscher/Kristine Rainey.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Mars Rover's Laser-Zapping Instrument Gets Sharper Vision

NASA - Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) patch.

May 26, 2015

Tests on Mars have confirmed success of a repair to the autonomous focusing capability of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

This instrument provides information about the chemical composition of targets by zapping them with laser pulses and taking spectrometer readings of the induced sparks. It also takes detailed images through a telescope.

Image above: This May 15, 2015, image from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows detailed texture of a rock target called "Yellowjacket" on Mars' Mount Sharp. This was the first rock target for ChemCam after checkout of restored capability for autonomous focusing. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS.

Work by the instrument's team members at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and in France has yielded an alternative auto-focus method following loss of use of a small laser that served for focusing the instrument during Curiosity's first two years on Mars.

"Without this laser rangefinder, the ChemCam instrument was somewhat blind," said Roger Wiens, ChemCam principal investigator at Los Alamos. "The main laser that creates flashes of plasma when it analyzes rocks and soils up to 25 feet [7.6 meters] from the rover was not affected, but the laser analyses only work when the telescope projecting the laser light to the target is in focus."

For the past several months, the team has coped without auto-focusing. For each target, the instrument has taken multiple images or multiple laser analyses at different focal distances. The data were sent to Earth for selection of the in-focus image or laser analysis among the set.

The repair required sending new software to be installed on the instrument. It now takes multiple images and uses those to autonomously select the focus positions for the final images and laser analyses sent back to Earth.

Curiosity's laser ChemCam. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

"We think we will actually have better quality images and analyses with this new software than the original," said Wiens.

For more about restoring auto-focus capability to ChemCam, see: https://www.lanl.gov/discover/news-release-archive/2015/May/05.21-mars-rover-chemcam-instrument-sharper-vision.php

For developing ChemCam, Los Alamos partnered with researchers in France funded by the French national space agency, including the deputy principal investigator at the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology, in Toulouse. For more about ChemCam, visit: http://www.msl-chemcam.com

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about Curiosity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/Guy Webster/Tony Greicius.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Cassini - Rhea's Horizon

NASA - Cassini Mission to Saturn patch.

May 26, 2015

Rhea's Horizon

Gazing off toward the horizon is thought-provoking no matter what body's horizon it is. Rhea's horizon is slightly irregular and battered by craters, so thoughts inevitably turn towards the forces that shape these icy worlds.

The surface of Rhea (949 miles or 1527 kilometers across) has been sculpted largely by impact cratering, each crater a reminder of a collision sometime in the moon's history. On more geologically active worlds like Earth, the craters would be erased by erosion, volcanoes or tectonics. But on quieter worlds like Rhea, the craters remain until they are disrupted or covered up by the ejecta of a subsequent impact.

Lit terrain seen here is on the trailing hemisphere of Rhea. North on Rhea is up and rotated 12 degrees to the right. In this view, Cassini was at a subspacecraft latitude of 9 degrees North. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 10, 2015.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 35,000 miles (56,000 kilometers) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 76 degrees. Image scale is 1,100 feet (330 meters) per pixel.

Cassini spacecraft exploring the Saturnian system

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org and the ESA's Cassini-Huygens mission page at: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Images, Text, Credits: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Tony Greicius.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments

NASA patch / NASA - Galileo Mission patch.

May 26, 2015

Color image of Europa seen by Galileo spacecraft. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA has selected nine science instruments for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, to investigate whether the mysterious icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.

NASA’s Galileo mission yielded strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth’s moon, has an ocean beneath a frozen crust of unknown thickness. If proven to exist, this global ocean could have more than twice as much water as Earth. With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa could be the best place in the solar system to look for present day life beyond our home planet.

Image above: Bizarre features on Europa’s icy surface suggest a warm interior. This view of the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa was obtained by NASA's Galileo mission, and shows a color image set within a larger mosaic of low-resolution monochrome images. Galileo was able to survey only a small fraction of Europa's surface in color at high resolution; a future mission would include a high-resolution imaging capability to capture a much larger part of the moon's surface. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

“Europa has tantalized us with its enigmatic icy surface and evidence of a vast ocean, following the amazing data from 11 flybys of the Galileo spacecraft over a decade ago and recent Hubble observations suggesting plumes of water shooting out from the moon," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “We’re excited about the potential of this new mission and these instruments to unravel the mysteries of Europa in our quest to find evidence of life beyond Earth.”

NASA’s fiscal year 2016 budget request includes $30 million to formulate a mission to Europa. The mission would send a solar-powered spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around the gas giant Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of Europa over a three-year period. In total, the mission would perform 45 flybys at altitudes ranging from 16 miles to 1,700 miles (25 kilometers to 2,700 kilometers).

Image above: Artist's rendering of possible Europa mission spacecraft. This artist's rendering shows a concept for a future NASA mission to Europa in which a spacecraft would make multiple close flybys of the icy Jovian moon, thought to contain a global subsurface ocean. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The payload of selected science instruments includes cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images of Europa’s surface and determine its composition. An ice penetrating radar will determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and search for subsurface lakes similar to those beneath Antarctica. The mission also will carry a magnetometer to measure strength and direction of the moon’s magnetic field, which will allow scientists to determine the depth and salinity of its ocean.

A thermal instrument will scour Europa’s frozen surface in search of recent eruptions of warmer water, while additional instruments will search for evidence of water and tiny particles in the moon’s thin atmosphere. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observed water vapor above the south polar region of Europa in 2012, providing the first strong evidence of water plumes. If the plumes’ existence is confirmed – and they’re linked to a subsurface ocean – it will help scientists investigate the chemical makeup of Europa's potentially habitable environment while minimizing the need to drill through layers of ice.

Last year, NASA invited researchers to submit proposals for instruments to study Europa. Thirty-three were reviewed and, of those, nine were selected for a mission that will launch in the 2020s.

“This is a giant step in our search for oases that could support life in our own celestial backyard,” said Curt Niebur, Europa program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re confident that this versatile set of science instruments will produce exciting discoveries on a much-anticipated mission.”

The NASA selectees are:

Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS) -- principal investigator Dr. Joseph Westlake of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Maryland. This instrument works in conjunction with a magnetometer and is key to determining Europa's ice shell thickness, ocean depth, and salinity by correcting the magnetic induction signal for plasma currents around Europa.

Interior Characterization of Europa using Magnetometry (ICEMAG) -- principal investigator Dr. Carol Raymond of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. This magnetometer will measure the magnetic field near Europa and – in conjunction with the PIMS instrument – infer the location, thickness and salinity of Europa’s subsurface ocean using multi-frequency electromagnetic sounding.

Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) -- principal investigator Dr. Diana Blaney of JPL. This instrument will probe the composition of Europa, identifying and mapping the distributions of organics, salts, acid hydrates, water ice phases, and other materials to determine the habitability of Europa’s ocean.

Europa Imaging System (EIS) -- principal investigator Dr. Elizabeth Turtle of APL. The wide and narrow angle cameras on this instrument will map most of Europa at 50 meter (164 foot) resolution, and will provide images of areas of Europa’s surface at up to 100 times higher resolution.

Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) -- principal investigator Dr. Donald Blankenship of the University of Texas, Austin. This dual-frequency ice penetrating radar instrument is designed to characterize and sound Europa's icy crust from the near-surface to the ocean, revealing the hidden structure of Europa’s ice shell and potential water within.

Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS) -- principal investigator Dr. Philip Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe. This “heat detector” will provide high spatial resolution, multi-spectral thermal imaging of Europa to help detect active sites, such as potential vents erupting plumes of water into space.

MAss SPectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa (MASPEX) -- principal investigator Dr. Jack (Hunter) Waite of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), San Antonio. This instrument will determine the composition of the surface and subsurface ocean by measuring Europa’s extremely tenuous atmosphere and any surface material ejected into space.

Ultraviolet Spectrograph/Europa (UVS) -- principal investigator Dr. Kurt Retherford of SwRI. This instrument will adopt the same technique used by the Hubble Space Telescope to detect the likely presence of water plumes erupting from Europa’s surface. UVS will be able to detect small plumes and will provide valuable data about the composition and dynamics of the moon’s rarefied atmosphere.

SUrface Dust Mass Analyzer (SUDA) -- principal investigator Dr. Sascha Kempf of the University of Colorado, Boulder. This instrument will measure the composition of small, solid particles ejected from Europa, providing the opportunity to directly sample the surface and potential plumes on low-altitude flybys.

Separate from the selectees listed above, the SPace Environmental and Composition Investigation near the Europan Surface (SPECIES) instrument has been chosen for further technology development. Led by principal investigator Dr. Mehdi Benna at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, this combined neutral mass spectrometer and gas chromatograph will be developed for other mission opportunities.  

Europa's Jupiter-Facing Hemisphere. Image Credits: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

This 12-frame mosaic provides the highest resolution view ever obtained of the side of Jupiter's moon Europa that faces the giant planet. It was obtained on Nov. 25, 1999 by the camera onboard the Galileo spacecraft, a past NASA mission to Jupiter and its moons which ended in 2003. NASA will announce today, Tuesday, May 26, the selection of science instruments for a mission to Europa, to investigate whether it could harbor conditions suitable for life. The Europa mission would conduct repeated close flybys of the small moon during a three-year period.

Numerous linear features in the center of this mosaic and toward the poles may have formed in response to tides strong enough to fracture Europa's icy surface. Some of these features extend for over 1,500 kilometers (900 miles). Darker regions near the equator on the eastern (right) and western (left) limb may be vast areas of chaotic terrain. Bright white spots near the western limb are the ejecta blankets of young impact craters.

Image above: This artist's rendering shows the Galileo orbiter arriving at Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995. Image Credit: NASA.

North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The image, centered at 0 latitude and 10 longitude, covers an area approximately 2,500 by 3,000 kilometers. The finest details that can discerned in this picture are about 2 kilometers across (about 1,550 by 1,860 miles). The images were taken by Galileo's camera when the spacecraft was 94,000 kilometers (58,000 miles) from Europa.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system and the universe.

Related links:

The images were taken by Galileo's camera: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02528

For more information about Galileo mission, visit: http://science.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/

For more information about Europa, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/europanews

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Felicia Chou/Laurie Cantillo/Sarah Loff.

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