Cassini Sees Titan Cooking up Smog

NASA / ESA - Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn & Titan patch.

Feb. 4, 2013

This image shows the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan. The glint off a mirror-like surface is known as a specular reflection. This kind of glint was detected by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft on July 8, 2009. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/DLR.

A paper published this week using data from NASA's Cassini mission describes in more detail than ever before how aerosols in the highest part of the atmosphere are kick-started at Saturn's moon Titan. Scientists want to understand aerosol formation at Titan because it could help predict the behavior of smoggy aerosol layers on Earth.

Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

According to the new paper, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Titan's trademark reddish-brown smog appears to begin with solar radiation on molecules of nitrogen and methane in the ionosphere, which creates a soup of negative and positive ions. Collisions among the organic molecules and the ions help the molecules grow into bigger and more complex aerosols. Lower down in the atmosphere, these aerosols bump into each other and coagulate, and at the same time interact with other, neutral particles. Eventually, they form the heart of the physical processes that rain hydrocarbons on Titan's surface and form lakes, channels and dunes.

The paper was led by Panayotis Lavvas, a Cassini participating scientist based at the University of Reims, Champagne-Ardenne, France. The team analyzed data from three Cassini instruments -- the plasma spectrometer, the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, and the radio and plasma wave science experiment. They compared their results to those obtained by ESA's Huygens probe on its descent through the Titan atmosphere in 2005 and found they were compatible.

Image above: Cassini gazes upon Titan in the distance beyond Saturn and its dark and graceful rings (May 10, 2006). Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of Caltech. For more information on Cassini, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / ESA / JPL / Jia-Rui Cook.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Mapping Mars‏

ESA - Mars Express Mission patch.

4 February 2013

 Mapping Mars‏

Nearly 90% of Mars’ surface has been mapped by the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA’s Mars Express, which celebrates ten years since launch this June.

The mosaic comprises 2702 individual swaths of the martian surface, up to and including the spacecraft’s 10 821st orbit of the planet, which it completed on 30 June 2012.

In total, 87.8% of the surface has been mapped at any resolution, with 61.5% mapped at a resolution of 20 m per pixel or better. The map is equatorially aligned, meaning that regions at the poles appear distorted.

The map provides a record of all locations observed by the camera simultaneously in red, green, blue and nadir channels.

Images that were particularly affected by dust or atmospheric effects have not been included in the mosaic. These effects are more prevalent in the region shown in the top right of the map, as reflected by the greater number of ‘missing’ pieces there.

The subtle variation in colour tones are due partly to changes in dust content in the atmosphere, but mostly due to the change in solar elevation as the spacecraft moves around the planet, experiencing different illumination conditions.

Upon closer inspection, many well-known geological features are revealed. Towards the top left stands Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the Solar System at over 21 km high. A chain of three volcanoes making up the Tharsis Montes lies just below and to the right.

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft

Moving further right again uncovers the Solar System’s largest canyon, Valles Marineris. This giant cavern plunges 10 km deep and runs over 4000 km.

Assuming that good atmospheric conditions coincide with the appropriate orbits, Mars Express scientists hope that they might fill in the remaining gaps in the map in the coming years.

Related links:

High Resolution Stereo Camera: http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml

Behind the lens: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Behind_the_lens

Frequently asked questions: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Frequently_asked_questions

ESA Planetary Science archive (PSA): http://www.rssd.esa.int/PSA

NASA Planetary Data System: http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mars_express/hrsc.htm

HRSC data viewer: http://hrscview.fu-berlin.de/

Images, Text, Credits: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin (G. Neukum); images processed by F. Jansen (ESA).

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Sea Launch - Zenit 3SL with Intelsat 27 Launch Failure

Sea Launch AG logo.

Feb. 01, 2013

Sea Launch AG announced today that approximately 40 seconds after liftoff of the launch of the Intelsat 27 spacecraft, all telemetry was lost indicating a loss of mission. The spacecraft, built by Boeing Satellite Systems was launched on a Zenit-3SL launch vehicle from the equator on the ocean-based Odyssey launch platform, positioned at 154 degrees West longitude.

Zenit-3SL rocket at the launch-pad

A commercial Zenit 3SL rocket operated by Sea Launch fell into the equatorial Pacific Ocean moments after lifting off from a mobile platform Friday, destroying the Ukrainian booster and an Intelsat communications satellite.

Zenit 3SL with Intelsat 27 Launch Failure 06:56 UTC 01.02.13

The Zenit 3SL rocket, loaded with more than 900,000 pounds of flammable propellant, blasted off at 0656 GMT (1:56 a.m. EST) from Sea Launch's Odyssey launch platform stationed in the Pacific Ocean about 1,400 miles south of Hawaii.

But something almost immediately went wrong with the launch, and the three-stage rocket appeared to fly off course before its RD-171 main engine switched off about 25 seconds after liftoff, apparently as a safety measure.

Intelsat 27 spacecraft (destroyed today during the failed launch)

The Intelsat 27 spacecraft aboard the Zenit rocket was insured for about $400 million, according to a company official.

Sea Launch will establish a Failure Review Oversight Board to determine the root cause of the incident and will provide additional information, as it becomes available, on the Sea Launch website at: http://www.sea-launch.com.

Images, Video. Text, Credits: Sea Launch AG / Boeing / Intelsat / Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA / ESA Cassini Watches Storm Choke on Its Own Tail

ESA / NASA - Cassini Mission logo.

Jan. 31, 2013

This set of images from Cassini mission shows the evolution of a massive thunder-and-lightning storm that circled all the way around Saturn and fizzled when it ran into its own tail. The storm was first detected on Dec. 5, 2010. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University.

Call it a Saturnian version of the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent that bites its own tail. In a new paper that provides the most detail yet about the life and death of a monstrous thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn, scientists from NASA's Cassini mission describe how the massive storm churned around the planet until it encountered its own tail and sputtered out. It is the first time scientists have observed a storm consume itself in this way anywhere in the solar system.

"This Saturn storm behaved like a terrestrial hurricane - but with a twist unique to Saturn," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who is a co-author on the new paper in the journal Icarus. "Even the giant storms at Jupiter don't consume themselves like this, which goes to show that nature can play many awe-inspiring variations on a theme and surprise us again and again."

A vortex that was part of a giant storm on Saturn slowly dissipates over time in this set of false color images from Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University.

Earth's hurricanes feed off the energy of warm water and leave a cold-water wake. This storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere also feasted off warm "air" in the gas giant's atmosphere. The storm, first detected on Dec. 5, 2010, and tracked by Cassini's radio and plasma wave subsystem and imaging cameras, erupted around 33 degrees north latitude. Shortly after the bright, turbulent head of the storm emerged and started moving west, it spawned a clockwise-spinning vortex that drifted much more slowly. Within months, the storm wrapped around the planet at that latitude, stretching about 190,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) in circumference, thundering and throwing lightning along the way.

Terrestrial storms have never run into their own wakes - they encounter topographic features like mountains first and expend themselves. But Saturn has no land to stop its hurricanes. The bright, turbulent storm head was able to chomp all the way around the planet. It was only when the head of the storm ran into the vortex in June 2011 that the massive, convective storm faded away. Why the encounter would shut down the storm is still a mystery.

This image from Cassini spacecraft reveals the wind patterns within a large vortex that was spawned by a giant northern storm on Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University.

By Aug. 28, after 267 days, the Saturn storm stopped thundering for good. While Cassini's infrared detectors continue to track some lingering effects in higher layers of Saturn's atmosphere, the troposphere -- which is the weather-producing layer, lower in the atmosphere - has been quiet at that latitude.

"This thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn was a beast," said Kunio Sayanagi, the paper's lead author and a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Virginia. "The storm maintained its intensity for an unusually long time. The storm head itself thrashed for 201 days, and its updraft erupted with an intensity that would have sucked out the entire volume of Earth's atmosphere in 150 days. And it also created the largest vortex ever observed in the troposphere of Saturn, expanding up to 7,500 miles [12,000 kilometers] across."

The vortex grew to be as large as the giant storm known as Oval BA on Jupiter. But Oval BA and Jupiter's more famous storm - the Great Red Spot - are not thunder-and-lightning storms. Jupiter's storms also have a quiet center, unlike the violence at the center of Saturn's storms.

This three-frame animation from Cassini spacecraft shows the swirling clouds in a vortex spawned by a great northern storm on Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University.

"Cassini's stay in the Saturn system has enabled us to marvel at the power of this storm," said Scott Edgington, Cassini's deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We had front-row seats to a wonderful adventure movie and got to watch the whole plot from start to finish. These kinds of data help scientists compare weather patterns around our solar system and learn what sustains and extinguishes them."

This storm was the longest running of the massive storms that appear to break out in Saturn's northern hemisphere once every Saturn year (30 Earth years). The longest storm of any size ever detected on Saturn actually unfolded over 334 days in 2009 in an area known as "Storm Alley" in the southern hemisphere, but it was about 100 times smaller in area than the latest northern storm.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL 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 team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: ESA / NASA / JPL / Jia-Rui Cook.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

TDRS-K Heads for Space Aboard Atlas V

ULA - TDRS-K / Atlas V Launch poster / NASA - TDRS-K Satellite Mission patch.

Jan. 30, 2013

Image above: The Atlas V rocket with the TDRS-K spacecraft aboard at the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Photo credit: NASA.

Liftoff for TDRS-K

NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System will get an upgrade as the agency launched the first of a new generation of communications satellites at 8:48 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral.

Atlas V Rocket and TDRS-K satellite payload description

The TDRS system provides a critical communications link to Earth for the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope and many satellites.

Close-up Views of TDRS-K Launch

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite project, known as TDRS, provides follow-on and replacement spacecraft necessary to maintain and expand the NASA Space Network. TDRS-K, as the newest satellite is called, launched Jan. 30. TDRS-K is the first of three next-generation satellites designed to ensure vital operational continuity for NASA by expanding the lifespan of the fleet.

 TDRS-K Satellite System

Each of the new satellites has a higher performance solar panel design to provide more spacecraft power. This upgrade will return signal processing for the S-Band multiple access service to the ground -- the same as the first-generation TDRS spacecraft. Ground-based processing allows TDRS to service more customers with different and evolving communication requirements.

For more information about Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-K), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdrs/index.html

Images, Text, Video, Credits: NASA / ULA / NASA TV.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Herschel Finds Past-Prime Star May Be Making Planets

ESA / NASA - Herschel patch.

Jan. 30, 2013

This artist's illustration shows a planetary disk (left) that weighs the equivalent of 50 Jupiter-mass planets. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

A star thought to have passed the age at which it can form planets may, in fact, be creating new worlds. The disk of material surrounding the surprising star called TW Hydrae may be massive enough to make even more planets than we have in our own solar system.

The findings were made using the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope, a mission in which NASA is a participant.

At roughly 10 million years old and 176 light years away, TW Hydrae is relatively close to Earth by astronomical standards. Its planet-forming disk has been well studied. TW Hydrae is relatively young but, in theory, it is past the age at which giant planets already may have formed.

"We didn't expect to see so much gas around this star," said Edwin Bergin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Bergin led the new study appearing in the journal Nature. "Typically stars of this age have cleared out their surrounding material, but this star still has enough mass to make the equivalent of 50 Jupiters," Bergin said.

In addition to revealing the peculiar state of the star, the findings also demonstrate a new, more precise method for weighing planet-forming disks. Previous techniques for assessing the mass were indirect and uncertain. The new method can directly probe the gas that typically goes into making planets.

Planets are born out of material swirling around young stars, and the mass of this material is a key factor controlling their formation. Astronomers did not know before the new study whether the disk around TW Hydrae contained enough material to form new planets similar to our own.

"Before, we had to use a proxy to guess the gas quantity in the planet-forming disks," said Paul Goldsmith, the NASA project scientist for Herschel at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is another example of Herschel's versatility and sensitivity yielding important new results about star and planet formation."

This artist's concept illustrates the planet-forming disk around TW Hydrae, located about 175 light-years away in the Hydra, or Sea Serpent, constellation. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Using Herschel, scientists were able to take a fresh look at the disk with the space telescope to analyze light coming from TW Hydrae and pick out the spectral signature of a gas called hydrogen deuteride. Simple hydrogen molecules are the main gas component of planets, but they emit light at wavelengths too short to be detected by Herschel. Gas molecules containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen, emit light at longer, far-infrared wavelengths that Herschel is equipped to see. This enabled astronomers to measure the levels of hydrogen deuteride and obtain the weight of the disk with the highest precision yet.

"Knowing the mass of a planet-forming disk is crucial to understanding how and when planets take shape around other stars," said Glenn Wahlgren, Herschel program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Whether TW Hydrae's large disk will lead to an exotic planetary system with larger and more numerous planets than ours remains to be seen, but the new information helps define the range of possible planet scenarios.

"The new results are another important step in understanding the diversity of planetary systems in our universe," said Bergin. "We are now observing systems with massive Jupiters, super-Earths, and many Neptune-like worlds. By weighing systems at their birth, we gain insight into how our own solar system formed with just one of many possible planetary configurations."

Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by a consortium of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL, which contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. NASA's Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, supports the United States astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at http://www.herschel.caltech.edu , http://www.nasa.gov/herschel and http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel .

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / J.D. Harrington / JPL / Whitney Clavin.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Launch of South Korean Rocket with STSAT-2C Satellite

KARI - KSLV-1 logo.

Jan. 30, 2013

South Korea's first rocket carrier took to it's 3rd launch overall today, January 30th 2013 at 07:00 UTC from South Korea. The KSLV-1 or Naro-1 rocket is a Russian liquid fueled first stage, with a South Korean made solid fueled second stage. The first two launches of the KSLV-1 have failed. This launch appears to have been a success with a satellite being injected into orbit.

Launch of South Korean Rocket with STSAT-2C Satellite

Attempts to launch the KSLV-1 in October and November of last year both suffered from scrubs, firstly due to fuel leak between the vehicle’s first stage and the ground support equipment on the pad, before the vehicle’s upper stage put pad to the next attempt due to a steering mechanism issue.

The Science and Technology Satellite-2C (STSAT-2C) satellite was developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, 164 km south of Seoul.

STSAT-2C Satellite

The 100-kg satellite is a test spacecraft with a short lifespan of less than one year. It was designed solely to verify the country’s ability to put a satellite into orbit.

At T+7:33 into the flight, the second stage shut down, as STSAT-2C reached the correct trajectory for a stable orbit at an altitude of 300km. 90 seconds later, the STSAT-2C was separated, prior to deploying its solar arrays.

South Korea have made bold claims as to their space flight ambitions, with a goal to develop an indigenous 75 ton thrust engine by 2018 and a 300-ton launch vehicle by 2021.

For more information about Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), visit: http://www.kari.re.kr/eng/index.asp

Images, Video, Text, Credits: KARI / Korean TV / Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch