How NASA’s Next Mars Spacecraft Will Greet The Red Planet On Sunday

Saturday, September 20, 2014

How NASA’s Next Mars Spacecraft Will Greet The Red Planet On Sunday

How NASA’s Next Mars Spacecraft Will Greet The Red Planet On Sunday:

An artist concept of MAVEN in orbit around Mars. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center).

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter is oh-so-close to its destination after a 10-month journey. It’s scheduled to arrive in orbit Sunday (Sept. 21) around 9:50 p.m. EDT (1:50 a.m. UTC) if all goes well, but there are a few things that need to happen, in order, first.

One big obstacle is already out of the way. MAVEN controllers had expected to do final engine burn tweaks to put it on the right trajectory, but the mission is so on-target that it won’t be needed.

“#MAVEN orbit insertion sequence has been activated on the s/c. No additional ground intervention is needed to enter #Mars’ orbit on Sunday,” the official account tweeted yesterday (Sept. 18).

So what does the sequence entail? MAVEN will need to turn on its six thruster engines for a 33-minute braking maneuver to slow it down. This will allow the gravity of Mars to “capture” the spacecraft into an elliptical or oval-shaped orbit.

Should that all go safely, MAVEN still has a lot of work to do before being ready to capture information about the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet. All spacecraft go through a commissioning phase to ensure their instruments are working correctly and that they are in the correct orbit and orientation to do observations.

As such, controllers will spend about six weeks moving MAVEN into a more circular orbit and testing out its instruments. Usually this period is done without interruption, but NASA wants to capture information when Comet Siding Spring comes whizzing by Mars Oct. 19.

Controllers are interested in learning about the comet and its effect on the upper atmosphere, so they will stop the commissioning to make those measurements. MAVEN will also be oriented in such a way that its solar panels are protected as much as possible from the dust, although scientists now believe the risk of strikes is very low.

This graphic depicts the orbit of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring as it swings around the sun in 2014. On Oct. 19, 2014 the comet will have a very close pass at Mars. Its nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

MAVEN is expected to work at Mars for a year, but investigators are hoping it will be for longer so that the atmosphere can be tracked through more of a solar cycle. The Sun’s activity is a major influencer on the atmosphere and the “stripping” of molecules from it over time, which could have thinned Mars’ atmosphere in the ancient past.

The spacecraft will also serve as a backup communications and data relay for the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers on the surface, which might be needed if some of the older NASA Mars spacecraft that fulfill that function experience technical difficulties.

Tagged as: C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, MAVEN

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Saturday, September 20, 2014