MESSENGER Poised for Mercury Orbit Insertion

NASA - MESSENGER Mission to Mercury patch.

03.10.11

After more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft will move into orbit around Mercury on March 17, 2011. The durable spacecraft--carrying seven science instruments and fortified against the blistering environs near the sun--will be the first to orbit the innermost planet.

Artist's concept of MESSENGER in orbit around Mercury

At 8:45 p.m. EDT, MESSENGER--having pointed its largest thruster very close to the direction of travel--will fire that thruster for nearly 14 minutes, with other thrusters firing for an additional minute, slowing the spacecraft by 862 meters per second (1,929 mph) and consuming 31 percent of the propellant that the spacecraft carried at launch. Less than 9.5 percent of the usable propellant at the start of the mission will remain after completing the orbit insertion maneuver, but the spacecraft will still have plenty of propellant for future orbit correction maneuvers.

The orbit insertion will place the spacecraft into a 12-hour orbit about Mercury with a 200 kilometer (124 mile) minimum altitude. At the time of orbit insertion, MESSENGER will be 46.14 million kilometers (28.67 million miles) from the sun and 155.06 million kilometers (96.35 million miles) from Earth.

MESSENGER has been on a six-year mission to become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. The spacecraft followed a path through the inner solar system, including one flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury. This impressive journey is returning the first new spacecraft data from Mercury since the Mariner 10 mission over 30 years ago.

 

Image above: Follow these simple instructions to explore Mercury in the Google Earth interface: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/google.html

On March 7, antennas from each of the three Deep Space Network (DSN) ground stations began continuous monitoring, allowing flight control engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to observe MESSENGER on its final approach to Mercury. The spacecraft also began executing the last cruise command sequence of the mission, when the command sequence containing the orbit-insertion burn will start.

"This is a milestone event for our small, but highly experienced, operations team, marking the end of six and one half years of successfully shepherding the spacecraft through six planetary flybys, five major propulsive maneuvers, and sixteen trajectory-correction maneuvers, all while simultaneously preparing for orbit injection and primary mission operations," said MESSENGER Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan. "Whatever the future holds, this team of highly dedicated engineers (http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/moc/index.html) has done a phenomenal job methodically generating, testing, and verifying commands to the spacecraft, getting MESSENGER where it is today."

"The cruise phase of the MESSENGER mission has reached the end game," adds MESSENGER Principal investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.  "Orbit insertion is the last hurdle to a new game level, operation of the first spacecraft in orbit about the solar system's innermost planet.  The MESSENGER team is ready and eager for orbital operations to begin."

MESSENGER Poised for Mercury Orbit Insertion

Images, Video, Text, Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

CERN - LHC Report: Beams are back in the LHC

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

March 10, 2011

The LHC has shaken itself awake after the winter break, and, as the snow melts on the lower slopes, the temperature in the magnets has dropped to a chilly 1.9 K once more.

Following the cool-down, the last few weeks have seen an intense few tests of the magnets, power supplies and associated protection systems. These tests, referred to as hardware commissioning, have been completed in record time. At the same time the other accelerator systems have been put through the preparatory machine checkout.

Temperature graphic in the LHC

In parallel, the injectors (LINAC2, Booster, PS and SPS) have also come out of the technical stop in order to prepare to deliver beam to the LHC very early in the season. Of particular note here was the remarkably seamless transition to POPS, the PS's new main power supply system.

The LHC

All this work culminated in the LHC taking beam again for the first time in 2011 on Saturday, 19 February. The careful preparation paid off, with circulating beams being rapidly re-established. There then followed a programme of beam measurements and re-commissioning of the essential sub-systems such as RF, beam dumps, beam instrumentation, feedback systems, etc. Initial measurements show that the LHC is in good shape and magnetically little changed from last year.

Low intensity beams were taken back up to 3.5 TeV on Monday night and then through the squeeze. The squeeze reduces the beam size at the collision point inside the experiments and thus increases the collision rate. This year the beam sizes at the collision point are being pushed to lower values than those of 2010 and the first test of 2011 was very encouraging.

 

CERN - Stars Underground

For more information about CERN, visit: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/Welcome.html

CERN, The Bulletin: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2011/10/News%20Articles?ln=en

Images, Video, Text, Credit: CERN / CERN Bulletin.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Space Shuttle Discovery Returns Home After Final Mission

NASA - STS-133 Mission patch.

March 9, 2011

Space shuttle Discovery and its six-astronaut crew ended a 13-day journey of more than five million miles and concluded the spacecraft's illustrious 27-year career with an 11:57 a.m. EST landing Wednesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Discovery Comes Home

STS-133 was the last mission for the longest-serving veteran of NASA's space shuttle fleet. Since 1984, Discovery flew 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited Earth 5,830 times and traveled 148,221,675 miles.

"Discovery is an amazing spacecraft and she has served her country well," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "The success of this mission and those that came before it is a testament to the diligence and determination of everyone who has worked on Discovery and the Space Shuttle Program, over these many years. As we celebrate the many accomplishments of this magnificent ship, we look forward to an exciting new era of human spaceflight that lies ahead."

Steve Lindsey commanded the flight and was joined by Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Steve Bowen, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott. Discovery delivered the Pressurized Multipurpose Module, or PMM, which was converted from the Multipurpose Logistics Module, Leonardo. The PMM can host experiments in fluid physics, materials science, biology, biotechnology and other areas.

STS-133 also brought critical spare components and the Express Logistics Carrier 4 to the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, became the first human-like robot in space and a permanent resident of the station. The mission's two spacewalks assisted in outfitting the truss of the station and completed a variety of other tasks designed to upgrade station systems.

A welcome ceremony for the astronauts will be held Thursday, March 10, in Houston. The public is invited to attend the 4 p.m. CST event at Ellington Field's NASA Hangar 276. Gates to Ellington Field will open at 3:30 p.m.

Highlights from the ceremony will be broadcast on NASA Television's Video File. For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

STS-133 was the 133rd shuttle flight and the 35th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance. With Discovery and its crew safely home, the stage is set for the launch of shuttle Endeavour on its STS-134 mission, targeted to lift off on April 19.

Endeavour's flight will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the space station. AMS will use the unique environment of space to advance knowledge of the universe, leading to a better understanding of the universe's origin by searching for antimatter, dark matter and strange matter, and by measuring cosmic rays.

STS-133 Discovery landing

The AMS will be attached to the outside of the station on the starboard truss. The device is expected to remain active for 10 or more years. Endeavour also will fly the Express Logistics Carrier 3, a platform that carries a number of spare parts that will sustain space station operations after the shuttles are retired from service.

For more information about the STS-133 mission and the upcoming STS-134 flight, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

For information about the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

Images, Video,Text,  Credits: NASA / NASA TV / MCC / Jack Pfaller.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Experts to meet at space surveillance conference

ESA logo labeled.

9 March 2011

ESA will host the first European Space Surveillance Conference in Spain in June. International experts will share their latest research findings on space debris, orbital hazard detection and satellite safety.

The European Space Surveillance Conference (ESS2011) provides an opportunity for professionals working in orbital debris detection to exchange ideas, concepts and solutions to the many challenges affecting safer satellite operations in space.

Europe relies on spaceborne assets to support a wide and growing range of activities in daily life.

SSA will help detect hazards to critical space infrastructure

Any shutdown or loss of services from these systems would seriously affect an enormous range of commercial and civil activities, including land, air and sea travel, maritime navigation, telecommunications, information technology and networks, broadcasting, weather prediction, climate monitoring and agricultural survey.

Satellites are critical economic infrastructure

This space-based infrastructure is vulnerable to orbital debris. A collision with an object as small as a coin can destroy a satellite and create thousands of additional pieces of debris in the process.

Efficiently solving these problems is not easy and draws upon the skills and knowledge of a wide-range of engineers, scientists and policy-makers. Teams across the globe depend on a level of interoperability that crosses professional, regional and national borders.

The ESS2011 conference is designed to facilitate open discussions between these groups and serve as a catalyst toward cross-disciplinary connections.

Control room at ESA's Optical Ground Station, Tenerife

"The development of flexible, efficient and economic solutions to the hazards posed by space debris is a challenge that affects all of us, but we aim to find novel answers that will benefit everyone," says Emmet Fletcher, Head of the Space Surveillance Segment at ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme office.

ESA's SSA programme is developing services and infrastructure to enable Europe to detect, predict and assess the risk to life and property due to orbital debris, remnant man-made space objects, reentries, orbital explosions and release events or in-orbit collisions.

It will also provide services to monitor the effects of space weather phenomena on space- and ground-based assets and to watch for potential impacts of near-Earth objects.

ESS2011, Madrid, Spain

ESS2011 will be held 7–9 June 2011 in Madrid, Spain. The conference will be hosted by ESA and co-chaired by international experts. Delegates from ESA, NASA and the French, German, UK, Japanese and Italian space agencies, as well as the private and public sectors, are expected to attend.

EESS2011 will cover areas related to the creation of a common catalogue, such as object surveillance and tracking, orbit determination, propagation and correlation.

Topics will also include collision warning, interoperability and standards, and the overarching issues of governance, data policies and legal issues.

More information on the conference and details on the venue and registration can be found via the link at top right or via the Congrex website here: http://www.congrex.nl/11C01/

Conference calendar

Contact for further information:

Emmet Fletcher
Head, SSA-SST Segment
Email: emmet.fletcher [@] esa.int

ESA Conference Bureau
P.O. Box 299
2200 AG Noordwijk
The Netherlands
Email: esa.conference.bureau@esa.int
Fax: +31 71 565 5658

Images, Text,Credits: ESA / P. Carrill.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

ESA takes first steps towards MetOp Second Generation

ESA - EPS METOP Satellite logo.

9 March 2011

To ensure that a continuous flow of accurate and timely satellite data is available to forecast the weather and study climate change in the coming decades, ESA is looking to the future by preparing the next generation of MetOp satellites.

The current MetOp series has three identical satellites. Launched in 2006, MetOp-A is Europe's first polar-orbiting mission dedicated to operational meteorology, and will be followed by MetOp-B in 2012 and MetOp-C in 2016.

MetOp

These first three MetOp satellites guarantee the continuous delivery of high-quality data for medium- and long-term weather forecasting and for climate monitoring until at least 2020.

To ensure this supply of meteorological data from polar orbit is carried though to the decades beyond 2020, ESA has recently embarked upon the initial steps towards developing concepts for the next generation of MetOp satellites.

Europe's commitment to improving the accuracy of weather forecasts goes back almost 35 years. However, until the launch of MetOp-A, these satellites were all placed in geostationary orbit, 36 000 km above the equator.

MetOp in polar orbit

This vantage point offers a large view of part of the planet to monitor rapidly evolving weather patterns for short-term forecasting.

By orbiting Earth much closer to home and from pole to pole, MetOp can achieve global coverage in a few days.

Moreover, the impressive suite of instruments provides accurate and high-resolution data on a host of different aspects of the atmosphere for numerical weather prediction – a perfect complement to the ongoing series of geostationary Meteosat satellites.

The Meteosat and MetOp programmes are joint ventures between ESA and Eumetsat, although the operation of the satellites, once they are in orbit, lies with Eumetsat.

MSG views one quarter of Earth

The services provided by the first series of Meteosat missions have now been replaced and improved by the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), with two in orbit, renamed Meteosat-8 and Meteosat-9.

The programme is set to continue with two further MSG missions and will then be followed by the Meteosat Third Generation.

As for the geostationary Meteosat missions, it is time to develop the future for their MetOp polar partner, which serves as the space segment for the Eumetsat Polar System (EPS).

Hubert Barre, ESA's MetOp-SG Study Manager, said, "In partnership with Eumetsat, we have prepared the technical specifications for Phase-A and begun two feasibility studies. The preliminary concept reviews are planned for this summer.

"These first steps are helping to shape the future of European and worldwide meteorology for the decades of 2020–40."

MetOp orbits Earth in 100 minutes

While the three satellites in the first series are identical, the current concept for MetOp Second Generation (MetOp-SG), also known as 'Post-EPS', will comprise two different satellites orbiting as a pair. It is envisaged that each satellite will carry a different, but complementary, instrument package.

Together, these packages offer a wide range of capabilities to monitor variables such as atmospheric temperature, ozone, water vapour, trace gases, aerosols, ice in clouds, wind speed over the ocean, vegetation, snow cover, precipitation and ocean colour.

Notably, the first MetOp-SG satellite will also carry, as a guest payload, the Sentinel-5 instrument for air quality monitoring and forecasting as part of Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme.

More information:

Proposed instruments for MetOp Second Generation: http://www.esa.int/esaLP/SEM95PXTVKG_LPmetop_0.html

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab / EUMETSAT 2002.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

ESO - The Most Distant Mature Galaxy Cluster

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

9 March 2011

Young, but surprisingly grown-up

The most remote mature cluster of galaxies yet found

Astronomers have used an armada of telescopes on the ground and in space, including the Very Large Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile to discover and measure the distance to the most remote mature cluster of galaxies yet found. Although this cluster is seen when the Universe was less than one quarter of its current age it looks surprisingly similar to galaxy clusters in the current Universe.

“We have measured the distance to the most distant mature cluster of galaxies ever found”, says the lead author of the study in which the observations from ESO’s VLT have been used, Raphael Gobat (CEA, Paris). “The surprising thing is that when we look closely at this galaxy cluster it doesn’t look young — many of the galaxies have settled down and don’t resemble the usual star-forming galaxies seen in the early Universe.”

Hubble infrared image of the most remote mature cluster of galaxies yet found

Clusters of galaxies are the largest structures in the Universe that are held together by gravity. Astronomers expect these clusters to grow through time and hence that massive clusters would be rare in the early Universe. Although even more distant clusters have been seen, they appear to be young clusters in the process of formation and are not settled mature systems.

The international team of astronomers used the powerful VIMOS and FORS2 instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to measure the distances to some of the blobs in a curious patch of very faint red objects first observed with the Spitzer space telescope. This grouping, named CL J1449+0856 [1], had all the hallmarks of being a very remote cluster of galaxies [2]. The results showed that we are indeed seeing a galaxy cluster as it was when the Universe was about three billion years old — less than one quarter of its current age [3].

Wide-field view of the sky around the remote cluster CL J1449+0856

Once the team knew the distance to this very rare object they looked carefully at the component galaxies using both the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes, including the VLT. They found evidence suggesting that most of the galaxies in the cluster were not forming stars, but were composed of stars that were already about one billion years old. This makes the cluster a mature object, similar in mass to the Virgo Cluster, the nearest rich galaxy cluster to the Milky Way.

Further evidence that this is a mature cluster comes from observations of X-rays coming from CL J1449+0856 made with ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory. The cluster is giving off X-rays that must be coming from a very hot cloud of tenuous gas filling the space between the galaxies and concentrated towards the centre of the cluster. This is another sign of a mature galaxy cluster, held firmly together by its own gravity, as very young clusters have not had time to trap hot gas in this way.

Zooming in on the remote cluster CL J1449+0856

Video above: This sequence starts with a view of the constellation of Boötes (The Herdsman) and the bright star Arcturus. As we zoom in we can see many faint stars in the Milky Way and then, as we go even deeper, huge numbers of remote galaxies become visible. The final detailed view shows an image of the most remote mature galaxy cluster yet found — appearing as a scattering of faint red objects. This image was created from many long exposures in both optical and near-infrared light using exposures from both ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Subaru telescope on Hawaii.

As Gobat concludes: “These new results support the idea that mature clusters existed when the Universe was less than one quarter of its current age. Such clusters are expected to be very rare according to current theory, and we have been very lucky to spot one. But if further observations find many more then this may mean that our understanding of the early Universe needs to be revised.”

Notes:

[1] The strange name refers to the object’s position in the sky.

[2] The galaxies appear red in the picture partly because they are thought to be mainly composed of cool, red stars. In addition the expansion of the Universe since the light left these remote systems has increased the wavelength of the light further so that it is mostly seen as infrared radiation when it gets to Earth.

[3] The astronomers measured the distance to the cluster by splitting the light up into its component colours in a spectrograph. They then compared this spectrum with one of a similar object in the nearby Universe. This allowed them to measure the redshift of the remote galaxies — how much the Universe has expanded since the light left the galaxies. The redshift was found to be 2.07, which means that the cluster is seen about three billion years after the Big Bang.
More information

This research was presented in a paper, “A mature cluster with X-ray emission at z = 2.07”, by R. Gobat et al., published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The team is composed of R. Gobat (Laboratoire AIM-Paris-Saclay, France), E. Daddi (AIM-Paris), M. Onodera (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), A. Finoguenov (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik [MPE], Garching, Germany), A. Renzini (INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova), N. Arimoto (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), R. Bouwens (Lick Observatory, Santa Cruz, USA), M. Brusa (MPE), R.-R. Chary (California Institute of Technology, USA), A. Cimatti (Università di Bologna, Italy), M. Dickinson (NOAO, Tucson, USA), X. Kong (University of Science and Technology of China), and M.Mignoli (INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Italy).

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. 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 VISTA, the world’s largest survey telescope. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 42-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

    * Research paper: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1108/eso1108.pdf

    * Photos of the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/

Images, Text, Credits: ESO / NOAJ / Subaru / NASA / ESA, R. Gobat (Laboratoire AIM-Paris-Saclay, CEA / DSM-CNRS–Université Paris Diderot) / Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin / Video: ESO / R. Gobat / A. Fujii/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Music: John Dyson (from the album Moonwind).

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

STS-133 Mission, The Journey Home

NASA - STS-133 Mission patch.

03.08.11

Discovery undocked from the International Space Station at 6 a.m. CST, ending a stay of eight days, 16 hours and 46 minutes.

Space shuttle Discovery is seen after leaving the International Space Station

As the shuttle moved away, Station Commander Scott Kelly praised the cooperation among crew members of both spacecraft. Discovery Commander Steve Lindsey said the team effort had allowed them “to accomplish well over 100 percent of our objectives.”

Pilot Eric Boe flew the orbiter in a vertical circle around the station while crew members took pictures of the station to document its condition. One big change from the previous fly-around by Atlantis during STS-132 last May was the addition of the Permanent Multipurpose Module brought up by Discovery. The circle complete, Discovery did two separation burns to take it away from the station.

Lindsey later had words for Bryan Lunney, the lead STS-133 shuttle flight director working his last shift before leaving NASA. “Bryan has been a great friend, a terrific flight director and a leader. We’re going to really miss him,” the Discovery commander radioed down during a farewell gathering in Mission Control.

Image above: Space shuttle Discovery is seen after leaving the International Space Station where the combined crews of 12 astronauts and cosmonauts worked together for over a week.

Lindsey, Boe and Mission Specialist Alvin Drew devoted much of their day to the standard late inspection of the heat resistant reinforced carbon-carbon surfaces. Using the robotic arm and its 50-foot orbiter boom sensor system extension, they began the inspection just after 10 a.m. with a look at the right wing.

STS-133 Daily Mission Recap - Flight Day 12

The subsequent nose cap inspection was followed by a look at the left wing. Images and data from the survey are sent to the ground for evaluation by experts. They will make sure no damage to the thermal protection system occurred during its stay in orbit. The crew is to begin its sleep period at 6:23 p.m.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NAS TV / MCC.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch