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Spacecraft engineering - unmanned spacecraft, space probes

ACRIMSAT : Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor Satellite

The ACRIMSAT Mission was aimed at measuring Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) during its five-year mission life. The spacecraft was launched on December 20, 1999 as a secondary payload on a Taurus launch vehicle. The mission was funded by NASA through the Earth Science Programs Office at Goddard Space Flight Center. The main objective of the mission is to measure incoming solar radiation and adding measurements of ocean and atmosphere currents and temperatures, as well as surface temperatures, climatologists would be to improve their predictions of climate and global warming over the next century. This website provides an overview of the mission, description of its science goals and objectives, key publications and links to related educational sources.

AIM : Exploring Clouds at the Edge of Space

The AIM mission, scheduled to be launched in late September 2006, will explore Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), also called noctilucent clouds, to find out why they form and why they are changing. This is a collaboration project of NASA and Hampton University (HU). The website deals with the AIM mission objectives and details of scientific instruments. It also has a link to the references for the mission and other educational resources.

AIM Mission : Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere

The overall goal of the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) experiment is to resolve why Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs) form and why they vary. By measuring PMCs and the thermal, chemical and dynamical environment in which they form, the connection between these clouds and the meteorology of the polar mesosphere will be understood. This will provide the basis for study of longterm variability in the mesospheric climate and its relationship to global change. The site provides details of the project partners, the personnel, and the science.

An Application of Anti-Optimization in the Process of Validating Aerodynamic Codes

This is a Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering PhD dissertation, by Juan R. Cruz, dated April 4, 2003. The primary objectives of the work performed for this dissertation were to develop an approach using anti-optimization in the process of validating aerodynamic analyses through experiments, and to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach. Since this is an applied study, a suitable aerodynamic analysis needing validation and an appropriate corresponding experiment were selected to serve as a testbed for the approach being developed. A combination of two aerodynamic codes integrated into an analysis to predict the maximum lift coefficient of a wing and a related wind tunnel experiment were chosen to exercise and evaluate the proposed approach. An interesting flight domain for the validation of this analysis is the combination of Mach and Reynolds numbers encountered by airplanes operating within the atmosphere of Mars. Thus, secondary objectives of the dissertation were assist in the validation of an analysis in the flight regime used by airplanes designed to fly in the Martian atmosphere, and to generate an aerodynamics database in this flight regime. Bibliographic and abstract details are available in HTML format. The full text of the document is accessible online in PDF format [4.86 Mb]. This title is part of Virginia Tech’s Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection (VT ETD)

An Integrated Approach to Evaluating Risk Mitigation Measures for UAV Operational Concepts in the NAS

This paper by Roland Weibel and John Hansman was presented at AIAA’s 4th Infotech@Aerospace Conference, 26 - 29 September 2005. The paper outlines an integrated approach is to evaluate risks posed by operating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the National Airspace System. The approach supports the systematic evaluation of potential risk mitigation measures recognizing key issues in creation of regulatory and safety policy, including public perception and UAV market forces. Risk mitigation measures are examined for two example concepts of operation: High Altitude Long Endurance UAV and small, local UAV operations. Primary hazards of ground impact and midair collision are considered. The examples illustrate three major areas of risk mitigation: exposure, recovery, and effects mitigation. The different mitigation possibilities raise key issues on how to determine appropriate UAV policies to ensure that an acceptable level of safety is achieved.

AQUA

The Aqua mission is a part of the NASA-centered international Earth Observing System (EOS). Aqua was launched on May 4, 2002, and has six Earth-observing instruments on board, collecting a variety of global data sets. Aqua was the first member launched of a group of satellites termed the Afternoon Constellation, or sometimes the A-Train. The mission is focused on the multi-disciplinary study of Earth's interrelated processes (atmosphere, oceans, and land surface) and their relationship to changes in the Earth system. This website provides the details of Aqua mission including its objectives; description of scientific instruments; news updates; and references.

Aquarius

Aquarius is a collaborative mission of NASA and the Argentine space program CONAE. In all, over 17 universities and corporate and international partners will be involved in this mission. The mission aims to observe and model the processes that relate salinity variations to climatic changes in the global cycling of water and to understand how these variations influence the general ocean circulation. Scheduled to be launched in late 2010, Aquarius will begin its 3-year mission with on a Delta II rocket, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This mission website provides background and overview of the mission; its objectives; description of payload; educational links; reference publications; and image gallery.

ASPERA-3 : Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms

The ASPERA-3 device was created to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Martian atmosphere. It travelled on the ESA/NASA Mars Express mission launched in June of 2003. The ASPERA-3 was designed to study the solar wind-atmosphere interaction in the near-Mars space through ENA (energetic neutral atom) imaging and in-situ plasma measurements. This website provides information related to the ASPERA-3 including its description and science objectives; its utility on the Mars Express mission; photo gallery; and links to reference publications.

ATV GNC during Rendezvous with ISS

This paper was given at the 5th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by Martine Ganet, Isabelle Quinquis, Jerome Bourdon and Patrick Delpy. The conference took place in July 2002 at King's College, Cambridge. The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is a European cargo transfer vehicle designed to contribute to the logistic servicing of the International Space Station. This paper presents the ATV GNC design for the last meters of the rendezvous with the ISS. After a brief survey on ATV mission and ATV architecture, the architecture of the ATV GNC chain is described. According to the external and internal ATV constraints and to the rendezvous objectives, the GNC strategies are fully detailed and justified. Then we present the synthesis process of the control function based on flexible modes filtering and HĹ  method. This method is retained because of its adaptability to the frequential compromise needed between the various objectives and constraints. Finally, the achieved accuracy performances, stability and robustness margins of the ATV GNC show that the retained strategy and design are fully compliant with the requirements. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

Aura

The Aura mission is a part of the Earth Observing System (EOS), a program dedicated to monitoring the complex interactions that affect the globe using NASA satellites and data systems. This mission researches the composition, chemistry and dynamics of the Earth's atmosphere as well study the ozone, air quality and climate. The Aura spacecraft launched July 15, 2004. The design life is five years with an operational goal of six years. This website provides in-depth information about the mission including its goals and objectives; instrumentation; the spacecraft and its subsystems; FAQs; related links; and news updates.

Beagle 2 : A lander for Mars

This is the main website for the Beagle 2 lander project which was due to land on Mars in December 2003 as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express Mission. This website provides not only updates on the progress of the mission but also an introduction to the project, including a brief history of HMS Beagle which Charles Darwin was aboard. There is also information about the science and technology behind the sensors and instruments being used on Beagle 2, as well as information on the people behind the project and other resources such as photos and press releases. Beagle 2 team's internal reports were released on 24th August 2004. The reports document possible reasons for failure. No one cause has been identified but lessons have been learned.

Beagle 2 : The Lander (Mars Express)

This European Space Agency site provides information about the Beagle 2 lander which is on its way to Mars on the Mars Express, launched in June 2003. The Beagle 2 will descend to the Martian surface in December 2003 where it will probe the surface to find evidence of whether life exists or ever existed on the planet. There is information about the history of the project, the descent to the Martian surface, how it will investigate and the evidence it is looking for. There are links to news and status reports.

Capsule Aerothermodynamics

This is Research and Technology Organization (RTO) AGARD Report, AGARD-R-808, dated May 1997. The material assembled in this report was prepared under the combined sponsorship of the AGARD Fluid Dynamics Panel, the Consultant and Exchange Program of AGARD, and the von Karman Institute (VKI) for Fluid Dynamics. Aerodynamic design aspects related to planetary probe and capsule configurations are covered, as well as critical phenomena occurring during the different regimes of flight. The impact of real gas and rarefaction on capsule aerothermodynamics, and in particular on forebody and wake flow, is addressed. Bibliographic details and an abstract are available in HTML format and the full text is available in PDF format (68 Mb)from the RTO's web site.

Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan

The Cassini mission is an international venture involving NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and several separate European academic and industrial partners. The mission is managed for NASA by JPL and the spacecraft was launched in 1997 with the aim of increasing our understanding of Saturn and its principal moon, Titan. The site is regularly updated to provide current information about the mission in addition to video clips and images. There are also sections dedicated to spacecraft operations and mission safety. Details are also given regarding Cassini's Jupiter flyby scheduled for December 30, 2000; Cassini's current status; Latest from Saturn etc.

CHAMP : Challenging Mini-Satellite Payload for Geo-scientific Research and Applications Program

CHAMP is a cooperative project between US and Germany with NASA providing a GPS Blackjack Flight receiver built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The CHAMP satellite was launched with a Russian COSMOS launch vehicle on July 15, 2000 into an almost circular, near polar (i = 87?) orbit with an initial altitude of 454 km. The design lifetime of the satellite system is 5 years. CHAMP is aimed at generating simultaneously highly precise gravity and magnetic field measurements over a 5 years period. This will allow scientists to detect besides the spatial variations of both fields also their variability with time. It will perform the following three tasks: 1) Mapping of the Earth's global long to medium wavelength gravity field and temporal variations with applications in the geophysics, geodesy and oceanography; 2) Mapping of the Earth's global magnetic field and temporal variations with applications in geophysics and solar terrestrial physics; 3) Atmosphere/ionosphere sounding with applications in global climate studies, weather forecasting, disaster research and navigation. This website provides in depth information about CHAMP mission background; objectives; description of satellite and its subsystems and instruments; science results; mission, orbit and operations data; and links to reference materials and news updates.

Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. Chandra is designed to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars. This website provides a host of information resources related to the Chandra X-ray Observatory mission, which include Chandra's mission objectives and instrument details; photo gallery; news updates and publications related to the mission; and links to future X-ray missions, amongst others.

CHIPS : Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer

The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS) is a University-Class Explorer (UNEX) mission of University of California and funded by NASA. A successful launch occurred at 16:45 Pacific time on Sunday January 12, 2003. The mission is aimed at helping scientists determine the electron temperature, ionization conditions, and cooling mechanisms of the million-degree plasma believed to fill the local interstellar bubble. The website includes the latest news on the mission; science and instrument description; links to educational resources; papers and publications; and FAQs.

CINDI : Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation

The Coupled Ion-Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) is a NASA sponsored Mission of Opportunity conducted by the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). CINDI will discover the role of ion-neutral interactions in the generation of small and large-scale electric fields in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Ion-neutral interactions are a key process in controlling the dynamics of all planetary atmospheres and their understanding is important to describing the electrodynamic connections between the Sun and the Upper Atmosphere.The CINDI investigation is carried out as an enhancement to the science objectives of the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) undertaken by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Space and Missile Command Test and Evaluation Directorate (SMC/TEL). This is the CINDI project website which provides information about the mission background, objectives, science and spacecraft details. There is also access available to CINDI science data. Also available is a CINDI quick fact sheet in PDF form. Please note that some of the links may be broken.

Cluster

The aim of the ESA's Cluster mission is to study small-scale structures of the magnetosphere and its environment in three dimensions. To achieve this, Cluster is constituted of four identical spacecraft that will flight in a tetrahedral configuration. The Cluster spacecrafts were launched in July, 2000 and August, 2000 and would be operational till December 2009. The mission is currently investigating the small-scale structure (in three dimensions) of the Earth's plasma environment, such as those involved in the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetospheric plasma, in global magnetotail dynamics, in cross-tail currents, and in the formation and dynamics of the neutral line and of plasmoids. The mission website provides the summary of the mission; fact sheet; launch details; instrument description; latest updates; paper and publication and links to related resources.

Cosmos 1

Cosmos 1, the world's first solar sail spacecraft, is a project built in collaboration of the Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios with the Lavochkin Association and the Space Research Institute in Russia and will be launched on June 21, 2005. The website includes a host of resources related to the mission, which include: the basics of a solar sail; mission timeline; orbital parameters; schematic drawings showing the spacecraft and sail dimensions; testing and development information; news updates; press room; and images and animation.

Cryo Cooler Induced Micro-Vibration Disturbances to the Hubble Space Telescope

This paper was given at the 5th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by N. Jedrich, D. Zimbelman, M. Turczyn, J. Sills, C. Voorhees and B. Clapp. The conference took place in July 2002 at King's College, Cambridge. This paper presents an overview of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) Cryo Cooler (NCC) system, a description of the micro-vibration characterization testing performed, and a discussion of the simulated performance. The NCC is a reverse Brayton cycle system that employs micro turbo-machinery to provide cooling to the NICMOS instrument. Extensive testing was conducted to quantify the expected on-orbit disturbances caused by the micro turbo-machinery and provide input to a flexiblebody dynamic simulation to demonstrate compliance with the HST 7 milli-arcsecond root mean square jitter requirement. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

D-CIXS : A demonstration of planetary X-ray detection for SMART1

D-CIXS is a Demonstration of a Compact Imaging X-ray Spectrometer which will produce the first X-ray global map of the surface of the Moon as part of ESAs SMART-1 Lunar mission. D-CIXS employs radical new technology to greatly reduce the mass and volume of the instrument and will represent a new generation of x-ray instruments for planetary observation. Also onboard will be an X-ray Solar Monitor (XSM), capable of monitoring the output of the Sun so that absolute abundance measurements can be derived from the D-CIXS data. The website provides further information about the background science, XSM, D-CIXS publications as well as links to ESA and other background information and a team list.

Dawn : A Journey to the Beginning of the Solar System

Scheduled to be launched in June 2006, the mission Dawn's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest epoch by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formations. This website consists of the Dawn mission and launch details; science goals and instruments; spacecraft details; operations information; background of the mission; news updates; and images. There is also a link to Dawn mission report presented at the 2002 Asteroids, Comets and Meteors Conference in PDF format and also to the Dawn full press package.

Dawn Mission

The goal of this mission is to achieve an understanding of the conditions and processes acting at the solar system's earliest epoch. Dawn investigates the internal structure, density and homogeneity of two complementary protoplanets, 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta, that have remained intact since their formation, by measuring their mass, shape, volume and spin rate with both imagery, laser altimetry and gravity. This is the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's, Dawn mission home page. It provides to a range of information including the mission background, objectives and status. Separate sections of the site deal with the science and technology apects of the mission. The multimedia section contains an image gallery and orbit visualisation tools.

Deformation, Ecosystem structure and Dynamics of Ice (DESDynI)

This mission combines two sensors that, taken together, provide observations important for solid-Earth (surface deformation), ecosystems (terrestrial biomass structure) and climate (ice dynamics). The sensors are: 1) an L-band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) system with multiple polarization, and 2) a multiple beam lidar operating in the infrared (~ 1064 nm) with ~ 25 m spatial resolution and 1 m vertical accuracy. The mission using InSAR to meet the science measurement objectives for surface deformation, ice sheet dynamics, and ecosystem structure has been extensively studied. It requires a satellite in 700-800 km sun-synchronous orbit in order to maximize available power from the solar arrays. An eight day revisit frequency balances temporal decorrelation with required coverage. Onboard GPS achieves cm-level orbit and baseline knowledge to improve calibration. The mission should have a 5 year life time to capture time-variable processes and achieve measurement accuracy. For ecosystem structure, L-Band InSAR measurements allow estimating forest height with meters accuracy; polarimetry allows estimation of three-dimensional forest structure. The sensitivity of backscatter measurements at different wave polarizations to woody components and their density makes UHF radar sensors suitable for direct measurements of live above ground woody biomass (carbon stock) and structural attributes such as volume and basal area. The multi-beam laser altimeter (lidar) system would accurately measure the distance between the canopy top and bottom elevation, the vertical distribution of intercepted surfaces, and the size distribution of vegetation components within the vertical distribution. Multiple beams measure different size components of vegetation. Although this measurement is the most direct estimate of the height and the vertical structure of forests, the lidar measurement samples the Earth's surface at discrete points, rather than imaging the entire surface. DESDynI combines the two approaches, taking advantage of the precision and directness of the lidar to calibrate and validate the InSAR, especially in ecosystem types where field campaigns have not occurred. These two measurements do not need to be made simultaneously, but could be separated by up to a few weeks because ecosystem structure typically does not evolve significantly on shorter time scales. Whether both instruments are flown on the same platform or separate platforms should be determined by a more thorough study. For example, it might be possible to upgrade the ICESat-II mission to include multi-beam performance in order to meet the ecosystem requirements so long as the two missions are launched within the same time frame and take measurements within a few weeks. The InSAR instrument consists of an L-band (1.2 GHz) radar to minimize temporal decorrelation in regions of appreciable ground cover. Two sub-bands separated by 70 MHz allow correction of ionospheric effects. The viewable swath width must be larger than 340 km to obtain complete global access. Other parameters include ground resolution better than 35 m to characterize fault geometries, noise equivalent less than -24 dB to map radar-dark regions, electronic beam steering to minimize spacecraft interactions for acquisition and allow ScanSAR operation, and a data rate less than 140 Mbps. Multiple polarization is required for the canopy density profiles needed for ecosystem structure. As noted above, the lidar in DESDynI is a multi-beam laser ranger operating in the infrared.

Delta-Utec Space Research Consultancy

This is a Netherlands based research and consultancy company. The site describes the company's specialist areas of interest and expertise including space tethers, star sensor algorithms, and small satellite project support. There is a section of the site devoted to the Young Engineers' Satellite (YES) project, which was initiated by Delta-Utec. The site also provides access to a newsletters, downloadable staff publications and freeware, a photo gallery and contact information.

Detailed Design of the Rigidizable Inflatable Get-Away-Special Experiment

This is the full text of a Master's thesis by Captain Jeremy S. Goodwin, USAF, AFIT/GA/ENY/06-M05, which was presented to the Faculty Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Air University's Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), in March 2006. The Rigidizable Inflatable Get-Away-Special Experiment is a Space Shuttle experiment that will study the effects of the zero-gravity space environment on the deployment and modal analysis of three inflatable and rigidizable tubes using a sub-Tg rigidization technique. In 2004, RIGEX was transitioned from the Space Shuttle's Get-Away-Special (GAS) canister to its Canister for All Payload Ejections (CAPE), requiring several modifications to the design. The results of these modifications, along with further refinements made to previous efforts, combine to form the detailed design of the experiment. In addition to the design modifications, analyses were conducted to determine the containment capabilities of a shroud for the experiment, as well as to identify and implement potential improvements to the modal testing methods. [Taken from abstract]. The full text is available in PDF format on the Scientific and Technical Information Network (STINET) which is provided by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).

Dynamics Explorer Project Information

This is a NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center web site, which brings together information on the two Dynamics Explorer (DE) missions. The main purpose of these missions was to investigate interaction between the hot convective plasmas in the magnetosphere, and cooler, denser plasmas and gases in the ionosphere, upper atmosphere, and plasmasphere. The site contains information on the DE spacecrafts, and on the various investigations carried out in the course of the project. The site also enables the retrieval DE mission datasets from the Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb) and the Space Physics Catalog (SPyCAT).

Encyclopedia Astronautica

Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronautica is a personal interest web resource, which is hosted by www.astronautix.com. It brings together a wealth of space science and technology related information. There is an alphabetic arrangement of entries, as well as a series of topic headings including: programs, spacecraft by type, astronauts, propellants, a launch vehicle index, a rocket engine index, and a launch site index. The Encyclopedia also provides access to a collection of articles, references, and feature items. The site also contains a large collection of images, which can be browsed via the graphics indexes.

EO-3-GIFTS : Earth Observing-3-Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer

The New Millennium Program's (NMP) Earth Observing 3 (EO3) mission, called GIFTS, is a step towards improving the operational weather observing systems. To accomplish the GIFTS mission NASA has partnered with the US Department of Naval Research's (ONR). ONR's Indian Ocean Meteorological Imager, called IOMI, will demonstrate GIFTS concepts and technologies. The launch has been planned for 2005/06 on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. This website provides the EO-3 mission objectives; science and instrument technology descriptions; links to other educational resources; and quick facts about the mission along with news updates.

ESA Science : Rosetta

This is part of the European Space Agency's ESA Science web site. The Rosetta pages describe the ESA misssion to catch comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 and accompany it into the interior solar system. The site includes a mission overview, news announcements, and sections on the background science of asteroid encounters, information on the orbiter and lander, the launcher, and mission operations. The site also provides access to relevant publications including a factsheet, status reports, as well as an orbit view, images and video clips.The link below is the ESA website for additional details. http://sci.esa.int/home/rosetta/index.cfm

Estimation of cirrus cloud effective ice crystal shapes using visible reflectances from dual-satellite measurements

This article is written by Helene Chepfer, Patrick Minnis, David Young, Louis Nguyen and Robert F. Arduini and was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in December 2002. The study develops and examines a multiangle, multisatellite method for determining effective cloud particle shapes from reflectances observed at visible wavelengths. The technique exploits the significant differences in the various cloud particle shape phase functions near the backscatter direction to infer particle shape from a combination of views from a near-backscatter angle and a side scattering angle. Adding-doubling calculations confirm that the optimal viewing combinations include one near-backscatter angle and another between 60
and 150
. Sensitivity to shape increases with solar zenith angle. A total of 28 collocated, visible images from pairs of currently operating meteorological satellites with the desired viewing combinations were analyzed for particle shape. Matching reflectances from images with optimal viewing angles clearly separates water droplet from ice crystal clouds. Reflectance pairs from matched pixels containing ice crystals can be explained by the range of selected microphysical models. The most common retrieved shapes correspond to combinations of hexagonal compacts (aspect ratio of unity), hexagonal columns, and bullet rosettes. Although no single microphysical model can account for the observed variability, taken together, the models used for retrieving cloud particle size by the Clouds and the Earth?s Radiant Energy System and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Projects can account for most of the reflectance variability observed in this limited data set. Additional studies are needed to assess the uncertainties in retrieved shapes due to temporal and spatial mismatches, anisotropic and bright background reflectances, and calibration errors and to validate the retrieved shapes. While applicable to a limited number of dual-satellite viewing combinations for current research and operational meteorological satellites, this approach could be used most extensively to derive effective particle size, shape, and optical depth from a combination of an imaging satellite in an L1 orbit, like Triana, and any other lower Earth orbiting satellites. The report is available in PDF form.

European Space Agency (ESA) : Integral Science and Technology Homepage

The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) is the first space observatory that can simultaneously observe objects in gamma rays, X-rays, and visible light. Its principal targets are violent explosions known as gamma-ray bursts, powerful phenomena such as supernova explosions, and regions in the Universe thought to contain black holes. This ESA Science and Technology site ficusses on the science background to the mission, the science and mission operations. The site also provides links to related publications, events, images and videos.

European Space Agency (ESA) Science : Mars Express

The European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express website which has all the latest news and information about the mission. There is information about the mission, the spacecraft and lander with vital statistics. Further information about the objectives of the mission and the instruments being used. Information on progress and a new archive are available including images and video clips.

European Space Agency (ESA) Science and Technology Home Page

The European Space Agency's ESA Science web site brings together a large range of information resoruces. There are descriptions of past, present and planned missions including: Cluster II, Mars Express, SMART-1, Ulysses, Huygens, Rosetta, and SOHO. Other sections of the site bring together information on the solar system, astrophysics, fundamental physics, and payload and advanced concepts. The eduacational support area provides access to a variety of media resources including images, video clips, spacecraft 3D models, spacecraft orbits and publications.

European Space Agency : Integral

The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) is the first space observatory that can simultaneously observe objects in gamma rays, X-rays, and visible light. Its principal targets are violent explosions known as gamma-ray bursts, powerful phenomena such as supernova explosions, and regions in the Universe thought to contain black holes. Integral was launched in October 2002 and is a truly international mission with the participation of all member states of ESA plus the United States, Russia, Czech Republic and Poland. The site contains information about the mission, the spacecraft and the launch. There is a large multimedia section which contains image and video galleries and a 3D model. It also provides links to other related Integral science sites.

European Space Agency : SMART1 Mission

This website contains information about the SMART1 (Small Missions for Advanced Research and Technology) mission. A milestone of this mission will be the testing and proving of an ion drive, along with investigations for ice at the south Lunar pole. It will also test miniaturisation technology while exploring the Moon from orbit. It will be the first space probe ESA has ever sent to the Moon and it will also be the first of ESA's missions to test advanced technology needed for future scientific planetary missions. The site contains links to a fact shee, summary and objectives, news and announcements, a calendar of events and bibliography as well as background to the mission and information on the instruments.

European Space Agency : SMART1 Mission

SMART-1 is Europes first lunar mission which will use ion propulsion and sun power. This website provides information about ion drive, ion engines and minaturisation of the instruments and what they will do as well as further background information to the mission. Also included is news, a bulletin and brochure, diary and factsheet and links to multimedia images and videos of the science behind the mission.

European Space Agency : Solar Orbiter

This is the home page of the Solar Orbiter mission, due to launch in October 2013 no later that May 2015 and is confirmed in the cosmic vision programme. By approaching as close as 48 solar radii, the Solar Orbiter will view the solar atmosphere with unprecedented spatial resolution circa 100km pixel size. Over extended periods the Solar Orbiter will deliver images and data of the polar regions and the side of the Sun not visible from Earth. The site provides a lot of information including a fact sheet, technical documentation in PDF format.

ExoMars Urey Instrument

NASA-funded researchers are refining a tool that could not only check for the faintest traces of life's molecular building blocks on Mars, but could also determine whether they have been produced by anything alive. The Urey instrument: Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector, has already shown its capabilities in one of the most barren climes on Earth, the Atacama Desert in Chile. The European Space Agency has chosen this tool from the United States as part of the science payload for the ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013. Last month, NASA selected Urey for an instrument-development investment of $750,000. The European Space Agency plans for the ExoMars rover to grind samples of Martian soil to fine powder and deliver them to a suite of analytical instruments, including Urey that will search for signs of life. Each sample will be a spoonful of material dug from underground by a robotic drill.

Exploration of the Outer Heliosphere and the Local Interstellar Medium : A Workshop Report

This is a full text workshop report produced by the Committee on Solar and Space Physics, National Research Council and was produced by National Academies Press in 2004. In May 2003 the Space Studies Board's Committee on Solar and Space Physics held the Workshop on Exploration of the Outer Heliosphere to synthesize understanding of the physics of the outer heliosphere and the critical role played by the local interstellar medium (LISM)1 and to identify directions for the further exploration of this challenging environment. At the workshop, a suggestion was made that the low-energy cosmic rays showed evidence that Voyager may have crossed the termination shock completely unexpected observations illustrating the Voyagers promise for returning results with a capacity to surprise and baffle for years to come. To further the exploration of the outer heliosphere four strategic directions became clear in workshop discussions: making use of existing assets, developing new outer heliosphere missions, continuing support of theory and modeling, preparing for Interstellar Probe. Significant questions about the outer heliosphere and the LISM were also addressed. The text of the report is available in open book PDF form.

Exploring the Moon and Mars : Choices for the Nation

This report was produced by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-ISC-502, in July 1991. It is the result of an assessment of the potential for automation and robotics technology to assist in the exploration of the Moon and Mars. It raises a number of issues of relevance to the U.S. civilian space programme, and includes a discussion of how automation and robotics technologies could contribute to space exploration. The report is made available as part of the OTA Online Archive. The full text is accessible online in PDF format (2706K). Alternatively, the front matter, table of contents and individual chapters are available as separate PDF files.

Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE)

FUSE is a NASA-supported astrophysics mission that was launched on June 24, 1999, to explore the Universe using the technique of high-resolution spectroscopy in the far-ultraviolet spectral region. FUSE was developed in collaboration with the space agencies of Canada and France. FUSE looks at light in the far ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (approximately 90 to 120 nanometers), which is unobservable with other telescopes. FUSE observes these wavelengths with much greater sensitivity and resolving power than previous instruments used to study light in this wavelength range. This is a FUSE academic website and brings together basic information about the mission including the background, mission objectives, spaceraft and instruments used. The mission ended in mid-october 2007. Links are available to access the FUSE science data summaries, FAQs and publications. There is also a link to FUSE newsletter and photo file. Project website link is also present.

FAST Explorer : Fast Auroral SnapshoT Explorer

FAST, the second mission in NASA's Small Explorer Satellite Program (SMEX), is a satellite designed to study Earth's aurora. FAST's primary objective is to study the microphysics of space plasma and the accelerated particles that cause the aurora. FAST was launched on August 21, 1996 from a Pegasus rocket into a highly elliptical orbit. This website provides a background of Earth's aurora; FAST mission objectives; details of the spacecraft instruments and data; launch and orbit information; links to other educational resources; and images.

Final Development, Testing, and Flight Preparation of the Rigidizable Get-Away-Special Experiment (RIGEX)

This is the full text of a thesis written by Zachary Miller, which was presented to the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio in June 2007. The purpose of this research is to support the final development of the Rigidizable Inflatable Get-Away-Special Experiment (RIGEX). The RIGEX program is an experimental initial step in developing large-scale rigidizable inflatable structures, which can be utilized in space applications. The primary intent of RIGEX is to verify and validate ground testing of inflation and rigidization methods for inflatable space structures against a zero-gravity space environment. This is performed by designing a Canister for All Payload Ejections (CAPE) experiment to collect data on space rigidized structures for validation of ground testing methods. The results presented in this thesis provide documentation needed to meet the requirements set forth by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for launching a payload into space. This thesis establishes a process for appropriately ground testing the components of RIGEX in an environment similar to space and explains future testing required. Methods for charging and testing the performance of the onboard inflation system are also discussed. Additionally, the steps taken to replace the onboard imaging system are explained. Throughout the course of assembling the RIGEX protoflight model, several complications were encountered and the design was modified, which are presented along with an as-built final assembly drawing package. Lastly, the procedure for handling RIGEX during its future progression is illustrated. [Taken from abstract]. This is in PDF format so Adobe Acrobat software is required in order to read it.

Galileo

The Galileo mission consists of two spacecraft: an orbiter and an atmospheric probe. Launched during the STS 34 flight of the Atlantis orbiter, the two spacecraft were kicked out of Earth orbit by an inertial upper stage (IUS) rocket, sending them careening through the inner solar system. The launch date for the mission was 18th October 1989. The trajectory which the spacecraft followed was called a VEEGA (Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist), traveling first in toward the Sun for a gravity assist from Venus before encountering the Earth two times (spaced two years apart). These encounters with Venus and the Earth allowed Galileo to gain enough velocity to get it out to Jupiter. During the flybys of Venus and the Earth, Galileo scientists took the opportunity to study these two planets as well as the Moon, making some unprecedented observations as a result. In addition, following each Earth flyby, Galileo made excursions as far out in the solar system as the asteroid belt, enabling scientists to make the first close-up studies of two asteroids, Gaspra and Ida. As is this were not sufficient, Galileo scientists were fortunate to be the only ones with a direct view of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment impacts on Jupiter. All of this was prior to the primary missions of sending an atmospheric probe into Jupiter's atmosphere and studying Jupiter, its satellites, and its magnetosphere for two years with the orbiter. The flight team for Galileo ceased operations on 2003 February 28, and Galileo coasted, unattended, before transmitting a few hours of science measurements during its 2003 September 21 plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere.

Genesis Mission Home Page

This site provides detailed information about NASA's Genesis mission. It was launched in August 2001 and will collect samples of the solar wind, material flowing outward from the Sun, and return these samples to Earth. Scientists will compare the compositions of these samples with known compositions of the planets. This will help the effort to understand how the solar system and its planets formed. The site provides easily understandable information about the science and technology behind the mission, the people who are contributing, a multimedia area and an image gallery. Learning resources for students and teachers, activities for children and news and resources for media professionals are also provided.

Genesis Solar Wind Sample Return

The purpose of the Genesis mission is to observe the solar wind, entrap its particles and return them to Earth. After launch on August 2001, the spacecraft traveled to a point about 1.5 million kilometers (just under 1 million miles) from Earth where the gravities of Earth and the Sun are balanced: the Lagrange 1 point, or "L1." At this location Genesis was well outside of Earth's atmosphere and magnetic environment, allowing it to collect a pristine sample of the solar wind. Genesis' overall flight path resembles a series of loops: first curving towards the Sun and away from Earth to the L1 point, circling five times around it, then falling back for a brief loop around the opposite Lagrange point, called "L2," in order to position the spacecraft for a daylight return to Earth. The spacraft returned to Earth on September 2004.

Geotail

This is a NASA web site that brings together a range of information regarding the Geotail mission. This is a collaborative project undertaken by the institute of space and astronautical science (ISAS) and NASA. The objective is to study the dynamics of the earth magnetotail over a wide range of distance extending from extending from the near-Earth region (8 Earth radii (Re) from the Earth) to the distant tail (about 200 Re). The spacecraft was designed and manufactured by ISAS and first launched on July 24, 1992. Its mission is divided into two phases. During the initial two-year phase, the orbit apogee was kept on the night side of the Earth by using the Moon's gravity in a series of double-lunar-swing-by maneuvers that resulted in the spacecraft spending most of its time in the distant magnetotail (maximum apogee about 200 Re) with a period varying from one to four months. In February 1995, phase two was commenced as the apogee was reduced to 30 Re to study the near-Earth magneto-tail processes. The website provides an overview of the project and access to data, as well as links to principal investigators and instrumentation.

GPM : Global Precipitation Measurement

GPM is a joint mission with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and other international partners. The GPM mission is aimed at providing improvements in water resource management, agriculture, policy and planning, transportation, forestry, natural hazards assessment, hydrology, oceanography and weather forecasting. It is scheduled to be launched in 2010 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan and has a mission lifetime of 3 years. The website provides information about the mission including objectives; science and instrument description; library; image gallery; and newsletter.

Gravity Probe B : Testing Einstein's general theory of relativity

Gravity Probe B (GP-B) is the relativity gyroscope experiment developed by NASA and Stanford University to test predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. The mission was launched in April 2004 and was completed by september 2005. The mission is being controlled from Stanford University and this site describes the experiment, provides progress updates and links to other relevant sites, including a video clip of the launch and the full-text of the GP-B launch companion document. The engineering history to the mission over the last 40 years is also available with full-text technical papers available in pdf format.

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

GRACE mission is a joint partnership between the NASA in the United States and Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) in Germany. The primary goal of this mission is to accurately map variations in the Earth's gravity field over its 5-year lifetime. The GRACE twin satellites were launched in March 2002 and are currently making detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field. The key facts and mission overview, alongwith the news updates and GRACE orbit data are available from this website.

Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission was competitively selected through the Discovery Program. GRAIL would use high-quality gravity field mapping of the moon to determine the moon's interior structure. GRAIL’s primary science objectives will be to determine the structure of the lunar interior, from crust to core and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the Moon. As a secondary objective, GRAIL will extend knowledge gained from the Moon to the other terrestrial planets. Science investigations will include: • Map the structure of the crust and lithosphere • Understand the Moon’s asymmetric thermal evolution • Determine the subsurface structure of impact basins and the origin of mascons • Ascertain the temporal evolution of crustal brecciation and magmatism • Constrain deep interior structure from tides • Place limits on the size of a possible solid inner core GRAIL will fly twin spacecraft in tandem around the Moon to precisely measure and map variations in the Moon's gravitational field. This detailed information will reveal differences in density of the Moon's crust and mantle and will help answer fundamental questions about the Moon's internal structure, thermal evolution, and history of collisions with asteroids. GRAIL will carry a science payload derived from GRACE and a spacecraft derived from the Lockheed Martin Experimental Small Satellite-11 (XSS-11) launched in 2005. GRAIL will use JPL’s Lunar Gravity Ranging System instrument to map lunar gravity variations by measuring the change in distance between the spacecraft as they orbit the moon. Planned for launch in 2011, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will fly in a low-altitude, near-circular, polar lunar orbit to perform high-precision range-rate measurements between them using a Ka-band payload. Analysis of the spacecraft-to-spacecraft range-rate data will provide a direct measure of the lunar gravity.

Hinode (SOLAR-B)

The Hinode (Solar-B) project is one of the projects of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) programme. It is a Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) mission proposed as a follow-on to the Japan/US/UK Yohkoh (Solar-A) collaboration. This website includes an overview brochure and Hinode fact sheet which consist of the scientific goals of the Hinode Mission. More scientific details can be found in the Hinode Science Definition Team Report. Updates on the status of the Hinode mission are also available from the Solar-B Status Page.

HubbleSite (HST)

This is a NASA website that brings together a range of information regarding related to Hubble’s technology. HubbleSite is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach. There is a great deal of work to explain the once-unimaginable celestial phenomena which now are made visible using the Hubble’s cutting-edge technology. Therefore, this site provides information regarding the exploration of space and astronomy. There is a wealth of information aimed at the general public, teachers, learners of all ages, as well as members of the scientific and engineering community. A suite of educational resources is also provided for the use of both teachers and students along with links of galleries, discoveries, telescopes and museums.

Ice, Clouds, and Land Elevation Satellite (IceSAT)

IceSAT (Ice, Clouds, and Land Elevation Satellite) is an approved satellite mission being developed by NASA. It is part of the Earth Observing System and was launched in January 2003. The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) on ICESat will measure ice sheet elevations, changes in elevation through time, height profiles of clouds and aerosols, land elevations and vegetation cover, and approximate sea ice thickness. Future ICESat missions will extend and improve assessments from the first mission, as well as monitor ongoing changes. Together with other aspects of NASA Earth science and current and planned EOS satellites, ICESat will enable scientists to study the Earth' climate and, ultimately, predict how ice sheets and sea level will respond to future climate change.

IMAGE : Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration

The IMAGE spacecraft was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on March 25, 2000, at 20:34:43 UT. IMAGE was the first of NASA's Mid size Explorer (MIDEX) missions, and was dedicated to imaging the Earth's magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by the Earth's magnetic field and containing extremely tenuous plasmas of both solar and terrestrial origin. It is currently operating in its fifth year. The IMAGE mission details; spacecraft and instrument description; operations information; IMAGE photo gallery; and current updates are available from this site.

Influence of Hardware Selection on the Design of the CONTOUR Estimation and Control Software

This paper was given at the 5th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by Jason Christopher Bunn and Gabe Rogers. The conference took place in July 2002 at King's College, Cambridge. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory?s (APL) Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft is scheduled for launch in July 2002 and fly within 100 km of two comet nuclei to take images, make spectral maps, and analyze dust and gas. This paper will discuss how hardware selection for CONTOUR?s Guidance and Control (G&C) subsystem affected the design of the attitude estimation (AE) and control (AC) algorithms. Sensor timing and performance, data availability constraints, processor loading, and actuator latencies all drove the algorithm design. The impact of these effects will be discussed, and their influence on performance will be addressed. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

International Earth-Sun Explorer-3

The International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) program consisted of 3 satellites-- ISEE-1 and ISEE-3 were the principal US contribution to the International Magnetospheric Study, and ISEE-2 which was built and managed by ESA. ISEE-1 and -2 were launched on 22 October 1977 into almost coincident orbits. The orbital period was 57 hours, and their separation in the orbit was controlled by manuvuering ISEE-2. ISEE-3 was launched on 12 August 1978. It was inserted into a "halo" orbit about the libration point some 240 Earth radii upstream between the Earth and Sun. ISEE-3 was renamed ICE (International Cometary Explorer) when, after completing its original mission in 1982, it was gravitationally manuvuered to intercept the comet P/Giacobini-Zinner. On September 11, 1985, the veteran NASA spacecraft flew through the tail of the comet. The ISEE-3/ICE bit rate was nominally 2048 b/s during the early part of the mission and 1024 b/s during the P/Giacobini-Zinner encounter. The bit rate then dropped to 512 b/s on 9/12/85, 256 b/s on 5/1/87, 128 b/s on 1/24/89, and finally 64 b/s on 12/27/91. An extended ICE mission was approved by NASA in 1991 for the continued investigation of coronal mass ejections, continued cosmic ray studies, and coordinated observations with Ulysses. As of January 1990, the satellite was in a 355 day heliocentric orbit with an aphelion of 1.03 AU, perihelion of 0.93 AU, and inclination 0.1 degree. It will return to the vicinity of the Earth-moon system in August 2014.

International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker (IEH-3)

Seven experiments made up the IEH-3 payload on the STS-95 Space Shuttle mission. The seven hitchhiker experiments were attached to a carrier system in the bay of the Shuttle orbiter for the flight in space. The six hitchhiker experiments will be attached to a carrier in the bay of the Shuttle orbiter for the flight in space. Some experiments will be controlled from the Payload Operations Control Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., while others will run automatically with pre-programmed commands which were loaded into their operating computers before launch on october 1998.

International Lunar Network (ILN)

NASA will undertake landed lunar missions and is architecting a conceptual “global lunar network” as a backbone of its envisioned robotic surface activities. This concept, called the International Lunar Net-work (ILN), aims to provide an organizing theme for all landed science missions in the 2010s by involving each landed station as a node in a geophysical network. Ultimately, this network could be comprised of 8-10 or more nodes. Because some are desired to be located on the lunar far side, NASA will study a lunar communications relay satellite capability as part of its contribution to this potential endeavor. In the ILN concept, each node would include some number of “core” capabilities (e.g., seismic, heat flow, laser retro-reflectors) that would be extant on each station, reflecting prioritized lunar science goals articulated in the National Research Council’s study, “The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon”. Individual nodes could and likely would carry additional, unique experiments to study local or global lunar science. Such experiments might include atmospheric and dust instruments, plasma physics investigations, astronomical instruments, electromagnetic profiling of lunar regolith and crust, local geochemistry, and in situ resource utilization demonstrations.

Jason-1

Jason-1 is the first follow-on to the TOPEX/Poseidon mission that measured ocean surface topography to an accuracy of 3.3 cm. It is a joint project between NASA and France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales. Launched in December 2001, Jason-1 now begins an extended mission to continue collecting detailed sea-surface topography data. This website provides mission information and quick facts related to Jason-1 mission. It also has links to Jason's predecessor, the TOPEX/Poseidon mission. Details of OSTM mission, which will follow Jason-1 are also available.

Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Spacecraft (Prometheus I)

The primary objective of NASA's Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology mission is to develop and demonstrate that a nuclear reactor-powered spacecraft can be operated safely and reliably in deep space on long-duration missions. The first Prometheus mission proposed to take advantage of these revolutionary capabilities is the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), which would fly on the Prometheus 1 spacecraft. JIMO is an ambitious mission to orbit three planet-sized moons of Jupiter ? Callisto, Ganymede and Europa ? which may harbor vast oceans beneath their icy surfaces. JIMO would orbit each of these moons for extensive investigations of their makeup, their history and their potential for sustaining life.To allow sufficient development and ground-testing time, the mission would not launch before 2015. A heavy-lift launch vehicle would lift Prometheus 1 into high Earth orbit, and the ion-propulsion thrusters would then be used to propel the spacecraft to Jupiter. This website highlights the background information and vision of the NASA's Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology mission. Information is also available on the use of in-space use of nuclear power to meet higher power needs in future missions. There are links available to interactive sources, learning centre and other educational resources.

Keck Interferometer

The Keck Interferometer (KI) is part of NASA's overall effort to find planets and ultimately life beyond our solar system. It is a ground-based component of NASA's Origins Program. Origins addresses fundamental questions about the formation of galaxies, stars, and planetary systems, the prevalence of planetary systems around other stars, and the formation of life on Earth. The Keck Interferometer will be capable of carrying out a variety of scientific studies integral to NASA's search for new worlds. Its primary goals are the characterization of exozodiacal dust, which can obscure the infrared signature of orbiting planets; direct detection of giant planets and brown dwarfs; high-resolution imaging of protoplanetary disks; and the astrometric detection of planets. It will combine the light from the twin Keck telescopes to measure the emission from dust orbiting nearby stars, directly detect the hottest gas giant planets, image disks around young stars and other objects of astrophysical interest, and survey hundreds of stars for the presence of planets the size of Uranus or larger. This website brings together a host of information resources including the background information about the interferometer; the KI scientific goals and results; and other technical rescources. There is a section dedicated to the historical perspective of interferometry also. Information is also available on supporting internet resources. The site can be browsed by taking a virtual interactive tour which is available in QuickTime (2.3MB) or Real Player (190KB).

Kinematic Structure for Robust Mechanical Architectures in Robotic Planetary Exploration

This paper was given at the 5th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by John D. Hobbs and Joe Rooney. The conference took place in July 2002 at King's College, Cambridge. This paper describes new research into the kinematic structure of autonomous robotic systems, and into the associated design processes. The approach aims to develop novel insights and applicable tools and techniques for designing advanced mechanical architectures for planetary exploration systems. These should provide enhanced functionality for tackling complex autonomous operations, and improved levels of robustness in the face of the inevitable system faults. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

Lessons Learned from the Clementine Mission

This a full text report produced by the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications (CPSMA), Space Studies Board (SSB) and was published by National Academies Press in 1997. Clementine was a relatively low-cost, technology-demonstration mission that, as a secondary objective, was designed to survey the Moon and to fly past an asteroid. After a 22-month development phase, the spacecraft was launched in late January 1994. Clementine was the first U.S. space mission to leave Earth's vicinity that was not run by NASA. Because of Clementine's many similarities to NASA's current drive to carry out space missions that are 'smaller, cheaper, and faster', this document describes some of the mission' s operational features that differ from traditional NASA practice and that might be profitably brought into scientific spaceflights. This report first presents a preliminary assessment of Clementine's scientific return to date. Although much of the data reduction, calibration, and analysis is yet to be completed, Clementine already appears to have returned interesting and valuable scientific results, especially its identification of the lunar topography, which shows much more relief than anticipated. However, the spacecraft's limited instrument complement prevented the mission from accomplishing the highest-priority objective for lunar science, namely determination of the Moon's global geochemistry. This should not be regarded as a failure, because the mission was not motivated by the achievement of any particular scientific objective. Answers to most of the fundamental scientific questions, will come only after further exploration of the Moon by orbiters and landers.

Longitudinal Dynamics and Navigation Performance Analysis for an Unmanned Space Vehicle

This paper was given at the 6th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by U. Tancredi, D. Accardo, M. Grassi and F. Curreri. The conference took place in July 2004 in Riomaggiore, Italy. In this paper the preliminary results of the phase-A study of the guidance, navigation and control subsystem for a reduced-scale demonstrator of CIRA Suborbital Re-entry Test (SRT) mission is presented. A baseline guidance law is defined, in order to satisfy SRT mission objectives and constraints, on two candidate system configurations. A supplementary, higher performance, higher risk guidance solution is identified, providing qualitative insight on vehicle and system constraints impact on the overall attainable mission objectives. Evaluation of the performance of a commercial-off-the-shelf GPS-aided, miniature inertial navigation system over the baseline trajectories is also conducted. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

Lunar Prospector Home Page

This NASA Ames Research Center web site provides comprehensive coverage of news and supporting information on the Lunar Prospector mission. The information resources include: mission design and trajectory support; mission status report; and an overview and end of mission press kit. The site also describes the scientific results obtained from the mission, including the final impacting of the Lunar Prospector into a south polar crater.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)

LRO is the first of the NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, planned for launch by late Fall 2008 and will orbit the Moon nominally 1 year. The LRO mission emphasizes the overall objective of obtaining data that will facilitate returning men safely to the Moon where testing and preparations for an eventual manned mission to Mars will be undertaken. This website brings together information about the LRO mission, spacecraft designs, intial mission timeline and links to related educational resources.

Magellan

The Magellan spacecraft, named after the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer whose expedition first circumnavigated the Earth, was launched 4 May 1989, and arrived at Venus on 10 August 1990. Magellan collected radar images of 98 percent of the planet's surface, with resolution 10 times better than that of the earlier Soviet Venera 15 and 16 missions. Altimetry and radiometry data also measured the surface topography and electrical characteristics. The mission concluded with the spacecraf plunging into the planet's dense atmosphere on Tuesday, 11 October 1994 to gain data on the planet's atmosphere and on the performance of the spacecraft as it descended. This website provides in-depth information related to the Magellan mission objectives and spacecraft details. Latest status reports are also available alongwith news updates and press releases. Information is also available on the planet Venus and there is also a link to image and photo gallery.

Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS)

The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a Solar-Terrestrial Probe mission comprising four identically instrumented spacecraft that will use Earth's magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of magnetic reconnection, a fundamental plasma-physical process that converts magnetic energy into heat and the kinetic energy of charged particles. In addition to seeking to solve the mystery of the small-scale physics of the reconnection process, MMS will also investigate how the energy conversion that occurs in magnetic reconnection accelerates particles to high energies and what role plasma turbulence plays in reconnection events. These processes -- magnetic reconnection, particle acceleration, turbulence -- occur in all astrophysical plasma systems but can be studied in situ only in our solar system and most efficiently only in Earth's magnetosphere, where they control the dynamics of the geospace environment and play an important role in the phenomena known as "space weather." SMART, for "Solving Magnetospheric Acceleration, Reconnection, and Turbulence," is the name of the MMS science investigation. SMART will be carried out by a team headed by Principal Investigator James L. Burch of Southwest Research Institute and consisting of researchers from a number of U.S. and foreign institutions. The MMS spacecraft are being developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. GSFC is also responsible for the overall management of the MMS mission and mission operations. MMS is scheduled for launch in 2014. MMS was ranked as the highest-priority moderate-size mission in National Research Council's 2002 Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey.

Mars Exploration Program

This is a NASA web site that brings together a range of information related to Mars exploration. There is a wealth of information aimed at the general public, teachers, learners of all ages, as well as members of the scientific and engineering community. The site provides information on past, present and future Mars missions, (Mars Exploration Rover, Global Surveyor, Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Phoenix - "Scout missions"), archive data, image sources and links to related sites. A suite of educational resources is also provided for the use of both teachers and students. The site also contains an image gallery and news section.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

This site provides detailed information about the Mars Exploration Rover Mission which is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. The twin rovers were launched in 2003 in search of answers about the history of water on Mars. One of the mission's major scientific goals is to search for and characterise a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The site provides a great deal of easily understandable information about the science and technology behind the mission, informal mission news, a timeline, information about the launch vehicle and spacecraft, and a multimedia area which includes images and video.

Mars Express

This is an ESA (European Space Agency) web site that brings together a range of information related to Mars Express mission. There is a wealth of information aimed at the general public, teachers, learners of all ages, as well as members of the scientific and engineering community. The site provides information on instrumentation used, spacecraft facts, archive data, image sources and links to related sites. A suite of educational resources is also provided for the use of both teachers and students through the ESA science. The site also contains an image gallery.

Mars Global Surveyor

This Nasa/Jet Propulsion Laboratory web site brings together a range of information resources relating to the MGS mission. The site contains overviews of the mission, spacecraft, and scientific activities. There are real-time images which show the position of the spacecraft in relation to Mars as well as up to date orbit and telemetry data. The site provides access to many images of Mars that have beed recorded in the course of the mapping exercise. A link is provided to a collection of over 57,000 images contained in the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera Image Gallery.

Mars Pathfinder Mission

This Jet Propulsion Laboratory web page provides access to two versions of the Mars Pathfinder web site. One of these provides information on the mission up to the time of landing in July 1997. The other provides a compilation of information, images and data as at the end of the Mission. There is also a link to the Pathfinder Web Site CD-ROM archive which contains a list of links to all pages of the combined site.

MESSENGER Home Page

This is the home page of NASA's MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) mission. Introductory information is given, including detailed mission objectives and information on Mercury itself. Mission and spacecraft design, trajectories, planning and instrumentation are also described. Several animations are available for viewing using Quicktime.

MUSES-C

This Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), now the Space Science Research Division of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), web site brings together a range of information resources relating to the MUSES-C (HAYABUSA) mission. This is an asteroid sample return mission. The target asteroid will be (10302) 1989ML, The site contains overviews of mission objectives, scientific instruments; spacecraft propulsion, navigation and sampling techniques. There is a feature on the M-V launch system including: history, design guidelines, development, configuration, and illustrated flight sequence. Links are provided to other ISAS resources including ISAS enterprises and image library.

NASA : New Millennium Program

This is one of a number of NASA programmes which are intended to lead to the develoment of advanced technologies and mission concepts for future incorporation into NASA missions. Amongst the new technologies being explored under the New Millennium Program (NMP) are solar electric (ion) propulsion and spacecraft flying in formation. The programme web site brings together a variety of information resources including descriptions and links to individual NMP missions - Deep Space 1; Deep Space 2; Earth Observing 1; Earth Observing 3; Space Technology 5; Space Technology 6; Space Technology 7 and Space Technology 8. The site also contains descriptive overviews of the technology, the program; the science objectives; an educational outreach area; and news archive. NMP is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

NASA Apollo Mission : Apollo-1

This website provides description and review of the tragedy of Apollo-1 mission of the NASA's Apollo program, in which a flash fire occured in the command module 012 during a launch pad test of the Apollo/Saturn launch vehicle, killing all the three astronauts on-board. The site consists biographies of the crew members; accident events timeline; investigation results, conclusions and recommendations; and a gallery of images. There is also a link to related sources and bibliogrpahy.

NASA Image eXchange (NIX)

The NASA Image eXchange (NIX) provides a single point of entry to various photographic databases of six NASA centers (Langley, Lewis, Ames, Dryden, Goddard and Johnson). Search capabilities of NIX include simple searches, complex searches, and browsing. NIX returns thumbnail sized images, textual descriptions, image numbers, links to higher resolution images, links to more information, and links to the NASA Center that stores each image. NIX also provides tips to users on searching, copyright information, and a comments section. NIX is currently being expanded to include additional photos from the remaining centers.

NASA Space Mission: JUNO

The Juno mission is the next scientific investigation in the NASA New Frontiers Program. The mission's primary science goal is to significantly improve our understanding of the formation and structure of Jupiter which should advance our understanding of the origins and early evolution of our own solar system at the most fundamental level. In addition, a camera called JunoCam will be used by student participants in the Juno Education and Public Outreach program to take the first images of Jupiter's polar regions. Juno will achieve the mission science goals by sending a spinning, solar-powered spacecraft into a unique Jupiter polar orbit with close perijove. Juno is currently planned to be launched in August 2011 and after a five year journey the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter in 2016.

NASA Space Science : Missions

This web site provides links to the home pages of all of NASA's space science missions. The links take you directly to the mission home page and are organised into four categories - under study, in development, operating and past missions. There is also a link to a page which includes very preliminary mission concepts.

NASA's Structure and Evolution Programme

This is part of NASA's Space Science Initiative. The aim of this particular programme is outlined in three Quests - 'How did structure in the Universe form?', 'What are the cycles of matter and energy in the evolving Universe?' and 'What are the ultimate limits of gravity and energy in the Universe'. The site provides detailed information on these topics and provides the full text of NASA's 'roadmap' which develops a research outline to fulfill the Quests in PDF format. Visitors to the site can view information on past and planned missions as well as a resource centre which provides video footage (requiring RealPlayer to view), image libraries, full text documents and papers and presentations.

New Horizons : NASA's Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission

This is the first spacecraft designed by NASA to study Pluto, the solar systems farthest planet. It was designed and built at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and is currently in the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for its next round of pre-launch tests. This Web site provides a host of information resources related to the mission and includes the mission overview information, science objectives, mission timeline, spacecraft details, educational links, news section, a gallery of images and other related links.

NMP EO-1 : New Millenium Program Earth Observing-1

Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) is an advanced land-imaging mission and is a part of NASA's New Millenium Program (NMP). The mission objective was to demonstrate new instruments and spacecraft systems. The EO-1 spacecraft was launched on a Delta 7320 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, November 21, 2000. EO-1 had a 1-year primary mission lifetime but was designed to operate for an additional year. The mission has been successful in developing and validating a number of instrument and spacecraft bus breakthrough technologies designed to enable the development of future cost and mass efficient earth imaging observatories. This website provides the description of mission's general and extended baseline; spacecraft and instrument technologies; mission's investigation and validation reports in PDF formats; and a host of other educational resources.

NPP : NPOESS Preparatory Project

The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) is a joint mission involving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) and the NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO). The NPP mission aims at measuring the atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity, and cloud and aerosol properties. The launch is scheduled for late in 2006 on the Delta II launch vehicle at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. The website provides information on the NPP science objectives and instruments; partnering organizations; and project details.

Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)

The Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM) will be a follow-on to the TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) and Jason mission to accomplish two decades of observations and will launched into the same orbit as Jason in April of 2008. The OSTM will measure sea surface height to an accuracy of < 4 cm every ten days. The OSTM is a cooperative effort between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the space agency of France. This website consists of mission overview; technology and scientific instruments; news updates; and a gallery of images and videos. There are also links to OSTM predecessors TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) and Jason missions.

Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space

This service is provided by the United National Office of Outer Space Affairs (OOSA). It offers a fast way of finding information on satellites launched from 1957 onwards and provides links between objects and their relevant documents of registration with the United Nations. It can be searched in a number of ways including names and international designators in the public domain, launch date and place and launch vehicle. Details returned include launch date, date of decay or change and function.

Optimal Control of Electrodynamic Tethers

This is the full text of a thesis written by Robert Stevens which was presented to the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio in June 2008. Low thrust propulsion systems such as electrodynamic tethers offer a fuel-efficient means to maneuver satellites to new orbits, however they can only perform such maneuvers when they are continuously operated for a long time. Such long-term maneuvers occur over many orbits often rendering short time scale trajectory optimization methods ineffective. An approach to multi-revolution, long time scale optimal control of an electrodynamic tether is investigated for a tethered satellite system in Low Earth Orbit with atmospheric drag. Control is assumed to be periodic over several orbits since under the assumptions of a nearly circular orbit, periodic control yields the only solution that significantly contributes to secular changes in the orbital parameters. The optimal control problem is constructed in such a way as to maneuver the satellite to a new orbit while minimizing a cost function subject to the constraints of the time-averaged equations of motion by controlling current in the tether. To accurately capture the tether orbital dynamics, libration is modeled and controlled over long time scales in a similar manner to the orbital states. Libration is addressed in two parts; equilibrium and stability analysis, and control. Libration equations of motion are derived and analyzed to provide equilibrium and stability criteria that define the constraints of the design. A new libration mean square state is introduced and constrained to maintain libration within an acceptable envelope throughout a given maneuver. A multiple time scale approach is used to capture the effects of the Earth’s rotating tilted magnetic field. Optimal control solutions are achieved using a pseudospectral method to maneuver an electrodynamic tether to new orbits over long time scales while managing librational motion using only the current in the tether wire.[Taken from Abstract]. This is in PDF format, so Adobe Acrobat software is required in order to read it.

Optimal Large Reorientation Manoeuvre of a Spinning Gyrostat

This paper was given at the 6th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by Dario Izzo, Riccardo Bevilacqua and Chiara Valente. The conference took place in July 2004 at Riomaggiore, Italy. The optimal control problem of the spin axis of a gyrostat is studied and solved via a direct transcription method. Dynamical equations suitable for the problem considered are presented together with Pontryagin necessary conditions. The optimal control problem is then transcribed into a highly sparse non linear programming problem. A technique is presented to generate first guess solutions that are suitable for various objective functions. Time optimal control is then compared to a mixed minimum time minimum control effort strategy in a particular case. The technique, relevant to New Earth Object deflection strategies, is then applied to ESA Pluto Orbiter Probe concept study and optimal and sub-optimal solutions are compared. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

Orbital Sciences Corporation

Orbital Sciences Corporation is a provider of space technogy and satellite services. It produces low-cost space systems including satellites, launch vehicles, electronics and sensors, and satellite ground systems, as well as satellite-based navigation and communications products. The web site provides product descriptions including information relating to launch vehicles such as: Pegasus, Taurus, and Minotaur; advanced space programmes including NASA's X-43 (Hyper-X) and the DART Rendezvous Vehicle; missile defence systems; and satellites and space systems, notably small geosynchronous (GEO) satellites, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, and the Dawn spacecraft, which will be NASA's first purely scientific mission powered by ion propulsion. The site provides a range of corporate and investor information. The news and information section contains press releases, mission updates, an event calendar, an image library, fact sheets, brochures, newsletters, and an annual report. Orbital's "SpacePortal" provides numerous links to other web sites relating to the commercial and civil space industry. The Orbital web site also contains details of career opportunities and contact information.

Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Project (ESSP) mission designed to make precise, time-dependent global measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide from an Earth orbiting satellite. After mission launch in 2007, the OCO will provide space-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the principal human-initiated driver of climate change. This mission will use mature technologies to address NASA's highest priority carbon cycle measurement requirement.The other partnering orgainsations are the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Orbital Sciences Corporation and Hamilton Sundstrand Sensor Systems. This website provides an overview of the mission alongwith its objectives and desription of the technology and scientific instruments. There is link to reference and project publications which are available in PDF format. There is a news update sections and also link to educational resources.

Phoenix Mars Lander

The Phoenix Mars Mission, a joint mission of NASA and the University of Arizona, is scheduled for launch in August 2007 and is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Phoenix is designed to measure volatiles (especially water) and complex organic molecules in the arctic plains of Mars, where the Mars Odyssey orbiter has discovered evidence of ice-rich soil very near the surface. This website consists of the overview of the mission; its objectives and goals; description of the probe and its scientific instruments; news updates; launch timeline; calender of upcoming events; and videos and images.

Phoenix Mars Mission

This is a NASA web site that brings together a range of information regarding the Phoenix Mars mission. Phoenix is the first in NASA’s Scout program that launched in August 2007 and was designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic’s ice-rich soil. This mission is led by principal investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona supported by a science team of CO-Is, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There is also collaboration with Lockheed Martin Space Systems and other international contributions provided by Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), the University of Copenhagen, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The website contains all the relevant information about the mission, information regarding tours within the science operation centre, science instrumentation used aboard the spacecraft and finally links to education, news and photo gallery.

Planck

Planck will help provide answers to one of the most important sets of questions asked in modern science - how did the Universe begin, how did it evolve to the state we observe today, and how will it continue to evolve in the future? Planck's objective is to analyse, with the highest accuracy ever achieved, the remnants of the radiation that filled the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, which we observe today as the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Planck

The Planck is the ESA's mission which will collect and characterise radiation from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) using sensitive radio receivers operating at extremely low temperatures. An Ariane-5 launcher will carry Planck into space in July 2007. The website consists of detailed resources like the Planck's mission objectives and scientific instruments; spacecraft 3D models; launch details and information on launch vehicle and orbits/navigation; Planck's research information; news updates and publications; and images and videos.

POES : Polar Operational Environmental Satellites

The Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) Program is a cooperative effort between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United Kingdom (UK), and France. Currently, the POES mission is composed of two polar orbiting satellites known as the Advanced Television Infrared Observation Satellites (TIROS)-N (ATN). NOAA-N and NOAA-N', are the latest in this series of advanced TIROS-N (ATN) satellites. NOAA-N was successfully launched in May 2005 and NOAA-N'is scheduled to be launched in 2007. This website consists of a host of information resources related to the project history and current status; science objectives and instruments; launch information; and other related links. There are also multimedia links for the launch of NOAA-N spacecraft.

Polar Mission: Unlocking the Secrets of Earth's Magnetosphere

This is a NASA web site that brings together a range of information regarding the Polar mission. The Polar satellite, launched on February 24, 1996, is in a highly elliptical, 86 deg inclination orbit with a period of about 17.5 hours. The team responsible for this spacecraft expects to measure and learn how the solar wind plasma energy enters into the magnetosphere through the polar cusp on the dayside of the magnetosphere. They are aiming to determine the mechanisms that cause the ionospheric plasma outflow. The scientist will distinguish the importance and characteristics of the various processes that accelerate the aurora-producing particles. They will also investigate the many ways in which energy and momentum are exchanged between the collosionless plasmas and with the electromagnetic fields accessible to the Polar spacecraft. Images will be produced in order to determine the rate of energy input into the atmosphere from auroral particles and their effects on the atmosphere. The website contains an overview of the mission, links to data products and publications, information on various other orbits, archives and finally description on the instrumentation used.

Preventing the Forward Contamination of Mars

This is a full text book by the United States Committee on Preventing the Forward Contamination of Mars, National Research Council made available by the National Academies Press. Recent spacecraft and robotic probes to Mars have yielded data that are changing our understanding significantly about the possibility of existing or past life on that planet. Coupled with advances in biology and life-detection techniques, these developments place increasing importance on the need to protect Mars from contamination by Earth-borne organisms. To help with this effort, NASA requested that the NRC examine existing planetary protection measures for Mars and recommend changes and further research to improve such measures. This report discusses policies, requirements, and techniques to protect Mars from organisms originating on Earth that could interfere with scientific investigations. It provides recommendations on cleanliness and biological burden levels of Mars-bound spacecraft, methods to reach those levels, and research to reduce uncertainties in preventing forward contamination of Mars. The full text can be read online in open book format and a summary is available for downloading in PDF format.

QuikSCAT : Quick Scatterometer

QuikSCAT mission is intended to record sea-surface wind speed and direction data under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans. QuikSCAT was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a Titan II vehicle. The mission science objectives; spacecraft and instrument description; measurements; and news updates are available from this website.

Re-entry Phase of an Unmanned Lifted Vehicle : 3-D Attitude Dynamics Control with a Lyapunov Approach

This paper was given at the 6th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by A. Di Gregorio, M. Lavagna and A. E. Finzi. The conference took place in July 2004 at Riomaggiore, Italy. This paper deals with the problem of attitude control of a winged unmanned re-entry space vehicle during the descent phase towards Earth. A complete 6 DOF simulation model has been implemented with longitudinal and lateral aerodynamic databases for the clean configuration of the vehicle. A control strategy based on Lyapunov stability theory is applied getting finally an attitude control law for the aerodynamic surface deflections. Simulation results show good performances of the controller while tracking the reference signals even in presence of wind perturbations and of errors in the entry conditions in the phase discussed. The selected control strategy needs no linearization and no gain scheduling. The dynamic simulation is developed for an unmanned demonstrator of new technologies with regard to the next generation launch vehicles. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

Remembering Columbia STS-107

This website presents detailed description and investigation of the catastrophic failure of the Columbia Space Shuttle on February 1, 2003, which led to the loss of all its seven crew members approximately 15 minutes before the shuttle was scheduled to touch down at the Kennedy Space Centre. The site covers information about the Columbia Shuttle; biographies and profiles of the crew members; accident related events timeline; documents pertinent to the accident and investigation; and Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) recommendations. There is also a link to an image gallery and bibliography.

Review of NASA’s Aerospace Technology Enterprise: An Assessment of NASA’s Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program

This is a report prepared by the National Research Council's Committee for the Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology (PRT), Washington, DC, National Academy Press, 2003. Please note this is a prepublication copy which might be subject to further editorial correction. The report provides a technical assessment of the quality of the PRT program and its components and provides recommendations for improving the program. Bibliographic and abstract information is available in HTML format, access to the full text is provided online in Open Book format with printable PDF files, and an abridged reports version is also available in PDF format

RHESSI : Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager

RHESSI is a NASA Small Explorer and was launched on February 5, 2002. RHESSI's primary mission is to explore the basic physics of particle acceleration and explosive energy release in solar flares. The quick science and technical facts about the RHESSI explorer are available from this site. The website also provides news updates; instrument and spacecraft desriptions; and presentations and publications. Links are available to related resources.

Safe on Mars : Precursor Measurements Necessary to Support Human Operations on the Martian Surface

The site provides access to a report prepared by the Committee on Precursor Measurements Necessary to Support Human Operations on the Surface of Mars, published by National Academy Press, 2002. The study, commissioned by NASA, examines the role of robotic exploration missions in assessing the risks to the first human missions to Mars. Hazards arising from exposure to environmental, chemical, and biological agents on the planet are assessed. The text of the report is available in Open Book format.

SeaWiFS Project

This is a NASA web site that brings together a range of information regarding the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project. The purpose of this work is to provide quantitative data on global ocean bio-optical properties to the Earth science community. The slight changes in the ocean colour indicate various types and quantities marine phytoplankton (microscopic marine plants), the knowledge of which has both scientific and practical applications. The SeaWiFS Project will develop and operate a research data system that will process, calibrate, validate, archive and distribute data received from an Earth-orbiting ocean color sensor. A detailed description of the objectives, organization and operations as well as the current status of the SeaWiFS Project is available via the website given below: http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/

Sentinels

The primary scientific objective of the LWS Sentinels element is to discover, understand, and model the connection between solar phenomena and interplanetary disturbances, particularly those impacting geospace. The Sentinels scientific objectives provide a natural coupling between the solar and geospace segments of LWS. The Science and Technology Definition team report was published in September 2006. NASA’s Sentinels mission is a multispacecraft mission that will study (1) the acceleration and transport of solar energetic particles (SEPs) and (2) the initiation and evolution of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and interplanetary shocks in the inner heliosphere. Sentinels observations will be supplemented by observations both from other spacecraft such as the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories (STEREO), the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and Solar Orbiter and from ground-based observatories such as the proposed Advanced Technology Solar Telescope as well as existing radio and optical telescopes. Theory and modeling will play an integral role in the Sentinels mission during both the development and operations phases of the mission. Sentinels is a key component of NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) program and as such is designed to advance our knowledge and understanding of those processes and phenomena in the space environment that can adversely affect life and society. The Sentinels mission is of particular importance to efforts to characterize, understand, and eventually forecast the radiation environment that will be encountered during human expeditions to the Moon and Mars.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

This website brings together information regarding the SOHO (solar and Heliospheric Observatory) which is a project of international collaboration between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA. The objective of SOHO spacecraft is to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind. The SOHO was built in Europe by an industry team led by Matra Marconi Space (now EADS Astrium) under overall management by ESA and officially launched on December 2, 1992. There are twelve instruments on board this spacecraft which provided by European and American scientists. NASA was responsible for the launch and the mission operation which is based on Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. There were large radio dishes around the world which form NASA’s Deep Space Network are used for data downlink and commanding. The website provides useful link for publications, archives gallery and many more.

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is the first mission to be launched for NASA's Living With a Star (LWS) Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO is designed to help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. SDO's goal is to understand, driving towards a predictive capability, the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity's technological systems by determining * how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured * how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance.

Solar Probe Plus

Solar Probe Plus will be an extraordinary and historic mission, exploring what is arguably the last region of the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft, the Sun’s outer atmosphere or corona as it extends out into space. Solar Probe Plus will repeatedly sample the near-Sun environment, revolutionizing our knowledge and understanding of coronal heating and of the origin and evolution of the solar wind and answering critical questions in heliophysics that have been ranked as top priorities for decades. Moreover, by making direct, in-situ measurements of the region where some of the most hazardous solar energetic particles are energized, Solar Probe Plus will make a fundamental contribution to our ability to characterize and forecast the radiation environment in which future space explorers will work and live. Approaching as close as 9.5 solar radii* (8.5 solar radii above the Sun’s surface), Solar Probe+ will repeatedly sample the near-Sun environment, revolutionizing our knowledge and understanding of coronal heating and of the origin and evolution of the solar wind.

Sorce : Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment

SORCE is a NASA-sponsored satellite mission that is aimed at providing state-of-the-art measurements of incoming x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared, and total solar radiation. The SORCE spacecraft launched on January 25, 2003 on a Pegasus XL launch vehicle to provide NASA with precise measurements of solar radiation. This website provides an in depth information about the Sorce mission including the mission overview and background; science objectives and description of intruments; educational resources; news updates; and references.

Space Technology 6 (ST6)

This is a NASA web site part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that brings together a range of information regarding the Space Technology 6 (ST6) project. This project has developed two advanced experimental technologies for use on spacecraft of the future. The names of these technologies are Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment and the Initial Stellar Compass. Sciencecraft enables a spacecraft to decide what science observations to make, and then process and return data. Compass enables a spacecraft to continuously sense its position and recover after a temporary malfunction or power loss. Many features of these two technology systems are "firsts" that have never before been used in space. The aim is first to improve a spacecraft’s ability to make intelligent decisions on what information to gather and what to send back to the ground, and second to determine its own attitude and adjust it pointing. The website provides a detail overview of the ST6 project with links to archives, benefits, education, partners and many more.

Space Technology 6

Space Technology 6 (ST6) has developed two advanced experimental technologies for use on spacecraft of the future. These technologies are the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment and the Inertial Stellar Compass. These will improve a spacecraft's ability to make intelligent decisions on what information to gather and what to send back to the ground, and to determine its own attitude and adjust its pointing without human intervention. This mission is a NASA project based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The site provides an introduction to the mission, information about the technology behind it, benefits, quick facts and educational resources.

Space Technology 7

The Space Technology 7 (ST7) mission is managed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Astronomy and Physics Directorate manages ST7's DRS (Disturbance Reduction System) technology development, in partnership with Goddard Space Flight Center, Stanford University, and the Busek Company, Incorporated. This mission is aimed at aiding NASA scientists in their quest to detect and measure gravitational waves, and will be flight tested in late 2009 or 2010 according to NASA's New Millenium Program (NMP). This website consists of background information about the mission; detailed information about the spacecraft technology and scientific instruments; benefits of the mission; educational links; quick facts about the mission and launch information; and details of the partners. A Spanish version of the site is also available.

Spitzer

The Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly SIRTF, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility)is a space-borne, cryogenically-cooled infrared observatory capable of studying objects ranging from our Solar System to the distant reaches of the Universe. It was launched into space by a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 25 August 2003. During its 2.5-year mission, Spitzer will obtain images and spectra by detecting the infrared energy, or heat, radiated by objects in space between wavelengths of 3 and 180 microns (1 micron is one-millionth of a meter). Spitzer will be the final mission in NASA's Great Observatories Program - a family of four orbiting observatories, each observing the Universe in a different kind of light (visible, gamma rays, X-rays, and infrared). Other missions in this program include the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO), and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory(CXO). Spitzer is also a part of NASA's Astronomical Search for Origins Program, designed to provide information which will help us understand our cosmic roots, and how galaxies, stars and planets develop and form. This website provides information about the mission history, science and spacecraft technology and mission current status. There is a news gallery which consists of host of images and videos related to the spacecraft hardware, launch and collected data. Links are also available to feature articles and news updates.

SPRInT Inflatable Re-entry Study

This report has been prepared by students at Delft University as part of the final review of their Design Synthesis Exercise 2000. The object of this design exercise was to design a low-cost vehicle capable returning experiment results to Earth rapidly from the International Space Station (ISS). The report describes the design of a vehicle called SPRInT (Small Payload Re-entry Inflatable Transporter), which can carry a payload of up to 2 kilograms from the ISS back to Earth within 48 hours. The text of the report is available in PDF format.

Stardust : Bringing Cosmic History to Earth

This is the site for NASA's Discovery mission 'Stardust'. The aim of the mission is to collect particles from Comet Wild 2 using a material called aerogel. The site provides a history and overview of the mission, frequently asked questions (FAQ), information about comets themselves and factsheets and models in PDF format. In addition, there is a latest news facility and a gallery containing images relevant to the project including launch and mission photographs.

Stardust : NASA's Comet Sample Return Mission

Stardust is the first U.S. space mission dedicated solely to the exploration of a comet, and the first robotic mission designed to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the Moon. The Stardust spacecraft was launched on February 7, 1999, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida, aboard a Delta II rocket. The primary goal of Stardust is to collect dust and carbon-based samples during its closest encounter with Comet Wild 2 - pronounced "Vilt 2" after the name of its Swiss discoverer - is a rendezvous scheduled to take place in January 2004, after nearly four years of space travel. This website brings together wealth of information about the mission like mission timeline; mission current status; and spacecraft and instrument details. There is also background information available about the mission goals and science objectives. Links are available to news updates, reference publications and sites and other educational resources. There is also an image gallery which has spacecraft and mission pictures.

STARDUST-NExT

STARDUST-NExT - short for “New Exploration of Tempel-1” is a follow-on mission for STARDUST, one of the great successes of NASA's Discovery program. STARDUST returned a capsule of dust samples to Earth from an encounter with the comet Wild-2 and will now fly by comet Tempel-1 to observe the crater left over from the DEEP IMPACT mission. On July 4, 2005, DEEP IMPACT’s high-speed copper projectile slammed into the surface of Tempel-1 leaving a crater and excavating fresh material from beneath the comet’s surface. DEEP IMPACT then observed the fresh ejecta as it flew by the comet at a high rate of speed, but unfortunately, had a very limited view of the crater which was obscured by dust. STARDUST-NExT is due to reach Tempel-1 in 2011 in which time the dust cloud will have cleared, allowing scientists an unprecedented view beneath the comet’s surface. The encounter will occur very close to one “comet year” (one orbit of Tempel-1 around the sun) since the DEEP IMPACT collision and scientists will observe changes to the comet’s surface which may have resulted from solar heating, landslides or shifting of material, or impacts by other small objects. The Stardust-NExT mission will also offer a unique opportunity to compare particle analysis from two comets, Wild 2 and Tempel-1, taken with the same instruments -- and to compare two observations of a single comet, Tempel-1, taken before and after a single orbit around the sun. It will also allow the correlation between the two spacecraft’s instruments to further help refine the original data obtained by each individual spacecraft. Recycling STARDUST to perform this mission required creative thinking, planning and is a wonderful example of engineering versatility, but is also a prime example of using an existing resource for very little cost. DEEP IMPACT has also been recycled to perform the EPOXI mission to study extra-solar planets and the nucleus of comet Hartley-2. Comets and their asteroid kin are the leftover building blocks of planets, and might have contributed water and organic material to the ancient Earth, aiding the start of life. By observing comets, scientists can start to understand more about the formation and evolution of the solar system and how life came to exist on Earth.

STEREO : Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory Mission

The STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program (STP). It is a 2-year mission employing two nearly identical observatories to provide 3-D measurements of the Sun to study the nature of coronal mass ejections. This site consists of the background information of the mission; details of the spacecraft, instruments and launch schedule; news sections about the current status of the mission; learning centre; gallery of images of the mission; and links to related resources.

Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE-3) Meteor

SAGE III is a joint mission between NASA and the Russian Space Agency (RSA). The SAGE III instrument was developed and managed by NASA Langley Research Center and was built by Ball Aerospace in Boulder, CO. It is one of nine experiments on the Russian Meteor-3M (1) spacecraft. It provides accurate, long-term measurements of ozone, aerosols, water vapor and other key parameters of Earth's atmosphere. NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) consists of a series of spaceborne instruments to monitor crucial components of the Earth system, an advanced data handling system, and teams of scientists who will evaluate on-going climate change and predict future changes. SAGE III's role in the EOS program is to provide global, long-term measurements of key components of the Earth's atmosphere. In addition, SAGE III also provides unique measurements of temperature in the stratosphere and mesosphere and profiles of trace gases such as water vapor and nitrogen dioxide that play significant roles in atmospheric radiative and chemical processes. The SAGE III was successfully launched onboard a Meteor-3M spacecraft on December 10, 2001 at 17:18:57 UTC from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The satellite is in a sun-synchronous orbit with an ascending node time of about 9 AM. This website brings together information about the mission like mission, spacecraft and science details, library of reference articles and publications and a link to access satellite measured data.

Suzaku (Astro-E2)

This is a NASA web site part of the Goddard Space Flight Centre that brings together a range of information regarding the Suzaku (formerly known as Astro-E2) mission. This mission is Japan’s fifth X-ray astronomy developed at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (ISAS/JAXA), Japan, in collaboration with U.S (NASA/GSFC, MIT) and Japanese institutions. The spacecraft launched on 2005 July 10, and is the recovery mission for ASTRO-E, which did not achieve orbit during launch in February 2000. Suzaku has three major instruments that covers the energy range 0.2 – 700 keV. The instruments are X-ray micro-calorimeter (X-ray Spectrometer, or XRS), four X-ray CCDs (the X-ray Imaging Spectrometers, or XISs), and a hard X-ray detector, or HXD. However, XRS prematurely lost all its liquid helium cryogen and is no longer necessary. The spacecraft has four foil X-ray telescopes (XRTs) focusing X-rays onto each of the four XISs, along with a fifth XRT used with the XRS. The US has contributed to the XRTs, the XRS, and the XISs. The Suzaku Guest Observer Facility (GOF) is located at Goddard Space Flight Centre, Maryland, and its primary responsibility is to enable astronomers to get the best out of this mission by performing activities such as supporting the U.S. side of the Suzaku proposal selection process, distributing usable data to U.S. Guest Observers, helping Guest Observers to analyze their data, and creating the mission archive. Additionally, the website provides useful links to data processing, gallery and many more.

Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer

Although gamma ray bursts are the largest known explosions in the Universe, outshining the rest of the Universe when they explode unpredictably in distant galaxies, their underlying nature and the cause of the explosion are true mysteries of astrophysics. Swift, a US, UK and Italian collaboration project, is a three-telescope space observatory for studying the position, brightness, and physical properties of gamma ray bursts. Within seconds of detecting a burst, Swift will relay a burst's location to ground stations, allowing both ground-based and space-based telescopes around the world the opportunity to observe the burst's afterglow. Swift is part of NASA's medium explorer (MIDEX) program and was launched into a low-Earth orbit on a Delta 7320 rocket on November 20, 2004. The site provides the background information about the Swift telescope. Information is also available on Swift results and latest updates. There are links to operations and timelines; supporting information about Swift science objectives and other educational resources.

Terrestrial Planet Finder(TPF)

The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) concept, currently under study by NASA, comprises a suite of two complementary observatories that would study all aspects of planets outside our solar system: from their formation and development in disks of dust and gas around newly forming stars to the presence and features of those planets orbiting the nearest stars; from the numbers at various sizes and places to their suitability as an abode for life. By combining the high sensitivity of space telescopes with revolutionary imaging technologies, the TPF observatories will measure the size, temperature, and placement of planets as small as the Earth in the habitable zones of distant solar systems. In addition, TPF's spectroscopy will allow atmospheric chemists and biologists to use the relative amounts of gases like carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone and methane to find whether a planet someday could or even now does support life. Our understanding of the properties of terrestrial planets will be scientifically most valuable within a broader framework that includes the properties of all planetary system constituents, including both gas giant and terrestrial planets and debris disks. Some of this information, such as the properties of debris disks and the masses and orbital properties of gas giant planets, will become available with currently planned space or ground-based facilities. However, the spectral characterization of most giant planets will require observations with TPF. TPF's ability to carry out a program of comparative planet studies across a range of planetary masses and orbital locations in a large number of new solar systems is by itself an important scientific motivation for the mission. However, TPF's mission will not be limited to the detection and study of distant planets. An observatory with the power to detect an Earth orbiting a nearby star will also be able to collect important new data on many targets of general astrophysical interest.

Tethers in Space Handbook

This provides access to the third edition of the handbook, edited by M.L. Cosmo and E.C. Lorenzini, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, for NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, December 1997. This version of the text is available for downloading in PDF format, and is hosted by Tethers Unlimited, Inc (TUI).

The Cassini-Huygens Mission : Lifting the Veil of Secrecy

This is one of CSA's (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) series of Hot Topics. It was released in October 2004 and provides an overview of the Cassini-Huygens Mission, whose aim is to orbit Saturn for four years to probe its rings, its atmosphere, and its moons. Key citations, web sites and a glossary are also provided. Further information regarding the mission can be found at NASA's website: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

The Cosmos on a Shoestring : Small Spacecraft for Space and Earth Science

This provides access to a RAND study for the Office of Science and Technology (OSTP). The report was prepared by Liam Sarsfield, MR-864-OSTP, dated 1998. It presents a review of the factors which have led to the growth in small spacecraft programmes and the effects of the associated cost reduction approaches. It examines spacecraft development trends in order to highlight areas in which new strategies have proven effective in reducing cost and increasing performance. The text is available in PDF format.

The Extreme-Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE)

The Extreme-Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) was a spinning spacecraft designed to rotate about the Earth/Sun line. EUVE was a part of NASA's Explorer spacecraft series, and designed to operate in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) range of the spectrum, from 70 - 760 Angstroms. The mission was launched on June 1992. This spacecraft's objective was to carry out a full-sky survey, and subsequently, a deep-survey and pointed observations. Science objectives included discovering and studying UV sources radiating in this spectral region, and analyzing effects of the interstellar medium on the radiation from these sources. The full-sky survey was accomplished by three Wolter-Schwarzschild grazing-incidence telescopes. During the sky survey, the satellite was spun three times per orbit to image a 2 degree wide band of sky in each of four EUV passbands. The deep-survey was accomplished with a fourth Wolter-Schwarzschild grazing-incidence telescope, within a 2x180 degree region of sky. This telescope was also used for three-EUV bandpass spectroscopy of individual sources, providing ~ 1-2 Angstrom resolution spectra. The science instruments were attached to a Multi-mission Modular spacecraft (MMS). The MMS was 3-axis stabilized, with a stellar reference control system and solar arrays. The EUVE mission was extended twice, but cost and scientific merit issues led NASA to a decision to terminate the mission in 2000. EUVE satellite operations ended on January 31, 2001 when the spacecraft was placed in a safehold. Transmitters were commanded off on February 2, 2001. EUVE re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over central Egypt at approximately 11:15pm EST on January 30, 2002. The mission is considered a success since it accomplished its scientific, technological, and outreach goals.

The International Exploration of Mars : 4th Cosmic Study of the IAA

This web site provides access to an International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) cosmic study prepared by the Subcommittee on the International Exploration of Mars, dated November 1997. It examines the possibilities and implications of establishing an international robotic and human space exploration program leading to the establishment of an International Mars Base. The study contains chapters on Mars automated missions and precursors, options for human expeditions, Mars surface systems and operations, human factors and physiological aspects, and economic and resource considerations. The final report comprises four parts: The study itself, addendum I, Update Of Mars Exploration Programs - c1995; addendum II, Mars Direct: A Practical Low-Cost Approach To Near-Term Piloted Mars Missions; and addendum III, Mission Planning and Mars Architecture Trade-Offs.

The Microwave Anisotropy Probe Attitude Control System

This paper was given at the 5th Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures in Space (DCSSS) conference by F. L. Markley, S. F. Andrews, J. R. O?Donnell, Jr., D. K. Ward and A. J. Ericsson. The conference took place in July 2002 at King's College, Cambridge. The Microwave Anisotropy Probe mission is designed to produce a map of the cosmic microwave background radiation over the entire celestial sphere by executing a fast spin and a slow precession of its spin axis about the Sun line to obtain a highly interconnected set of measurements. The spacecraft attitude is sensed and controlled using two inertial reference units, two star trackers, a digital sun sensor, twelve coarse sun sensors, three reaction wheel assemblies, and a propulsion system. This paper describes the design of the attitude control system to carry out this mission and presents some early flight experience. [Taken from abstract]. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat software will be required in order to read it.

The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation whose aim is to encourage the exploration of the solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life. Its web site provides an introduction to its aims, news headlines and events, a Learning Center , and information about its special projects on solar sails, near earth objects and Mars exploration.

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP)

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission, part of NASA's Living With a Star program, will provide unprecedented insight into the physical dynamics of the radiation belts and give scientists the data they need to make predictions of changes in this critical region of space. Beginning in 2011, two spacecraft will orbit the Earth, sampling the harsh radiation belt environment where major space weather activity occurs and many spacecraft operate. The two spacecraft will measure the particles, magnetic and electric fields, and waves that fill geospace. Only with two spacecraft taking identical measurements and following the same path, can scientists begin to understand how the belts change in both space and time.

The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Mission

This is a NASA web site that brings together a range of information regarding the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) mission. This is a satellite with main objective to observe the fast moving, high energy worlds of black holes, neutron stars, X-ray pulsars and bursts of X-rays that light up the sky and then disappear forever. The satellite was lanched into low-Earth orbit on December 30, 1995 and is still operating making contributions in order to improve the understanding of cosmic objects, such as stars and galaxies. The trick to observe these objects is all in the timing i.e. an ability to observe changes in the X-ray brightness that occur in a mere thousandths of a second, or over several years. The website is part of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and contains various links to related sites, RXTE results, images, videos and tales from the world of extremes.

The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS)

SWAS is one of NASA's Small Explorer Program (SMEX) missions. The overall goal of the mission is to gain a greater understanding of star formation by determining the composition of interstellar clouds and establishing the means by which these clouds cool as they collapse to form stars and planets. It was launched into low Earth orbit on December 05, 1998. The SWAS Science Operations Center is located at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This website brings together information about the mission like spacecraft and instrument details, satellite current status, and images and photos. There is a link to reference publications and other educational resources.

TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics)

The TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics) mission is studying the influences of the Sun and humans on the least explored and understood region of Earth's atmosphere - the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere/ Ionosphere (MLTI). The MLTI region is a gateway between Earth's environment and space, where the Sun's energy is first deposited into Earth's environment. TIMED is focusing on a portion of this atmospheric region located approximately 40-110 miles (60-180 kilometers) above the surface.TIMED was launched aboard a Delta II launch vehicle on Dec. 7, 2001 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

TIMED : Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics

The TIMED mission is aimed at studying the influence of the Sun and humans on the least explored region of Earth's atmosphere- the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere/Ionosphere (MLTI). The TIMED spacecraft was launched in December, 2001, from Vanderberg Air Force Base, California aboard Delta II launch vehicle. The TIMED current mission data and news updates are available from this site. There are also links to educational resources which contain the TIMED mission details. Links to TIMED mission photos and movies are available.

Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) - Earth Probe (EP)

The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, launched in July 1996 onboard an Earth Probe Satellite (TOMS/EP), continues NASA's long-term daily mapping of the global distribution of the Earth's atmospheric ozone. The TOMS instrument has mapped in detail the global ozone distribution as well as the Antarctic "ozone hole," which forms September through November of each year. In addition to ozone, TOMS measures sulfur dioxide released in volcanic eruptions. The extremely high quality of TOMS ozone data has also helped scientists in detecting a small but steady long-term damage to the ozone layer over several parts of the globe, including most of the heavily populated areas in the northern mid-latitudes. This website brings together information on the TRMM mission, spacecraft and instrument details, and plots of measured data. There are links available to images and video, educational resources and reference publications.

Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE)

The objective of the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) is to explore the three-dimensional magnetic structures which emerge through the visible surface of the Sun -- the Photosphere -- and define both the geometry and dynamics of the upper solar atmosphere - the Transition Region and Corona. The magnetic field geometry can be seen in images of solar plasma taken in wavelengths emitted or absorbed by atoms and ions formed in different temperature ranges. The transition from the 6000 degree K Photosphere, where magnetic fields and plasma are in rough equipartition (low beta), to the multi-million degree Corona, where the magnetic fields dominate (high beta), is extremely difficult to model. Many of the physical process that occur here -- plasma confinement, reconnection, wave propagation, plasma heating -- arise throughout space physics and astrophysics. And to date, no images have ever been collected that show the required temperature range nearly simultaneously with both high spatial and temporal resolution. The TRACE data will provide quantitative observational constraints on the models and thus stimulate real advances in our understanding of the transition from low to high beta plasma. The solar atmosphere is constantly evolving because the magnetic fields which dominate the Corona are continuously being displaced by the convective motions in the outer layers of the sun just below the Photosphere. A major objective of the TRACE investigation is to explore the relation between diffusion of the surface magnetic fields and the changes in heating and structure throughout the Transition Region and Corona. The simultaneous movies of the 6000 to 10,000,000 degree K volume of the solar atmosphere will allow us to determine the rate of change of the magnetic topology and the nature of the local restructuring and reconnection processes. Occasionally new magnetic flux emerges through the solar surface and organizes into local concentrations the largest of which are sunspots. The emergence of new flux has profound effects on the overlying atmosphere and often triggers a variety of phenomena which release significant amounts of energy and which can result in major restructuring of the Corona, the interplanetary medium, and the Earth's magnetosphere. Therefore, TRACE will observe nearly continuously for an extended period to study not only the "quiet" solar atmosphere but also the more episodic active Sun.

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall. TRMM is particularly devoted to determining rainfall in the tropics and subtropics of the earth. These regions make up about two thirds of the total rainfall on Earth and are responsible for driving our weather and climate system. This website provides information on the mission details, spacecraft and instrument description, news updates and images and videos. There are also links available to educational resources and reference publications.

Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS)

The Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS) mission provides a new capability for stereoscopically imaging the magnetosphere. By imaging the charge exchange neutral atoms over a broad energy range (~1-100 keV) using two identical instruments on two widely spaced high-altitude, high-inclination spacecraft, TWINS will enable the 3-dimensional visualization and the resolution of large scale structures and dynamics within the magnetosphere for the first time. In contrast to traditional space experiments, which make measurements at only one point in space, imaging experiments provide simultaneous viewing of different regions of the magnetosphere. Stereo imaging, as done by TWINS, takes the next step of producing 3-D images, and will provide a leap ahead in our understanding of the global aspects of the terrestrial magnetosphere.

UARS : Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite

UARS is the first spacecraft launched as part of NASA's systematic, comprehensive study of the Earth system. It was launched on 12 September 1991 and deployed in a near polar orbit on 15 September 1991 from the Space Shuttle Discovery. UARS, the first satellite dedicated to studying stratospheric science, focuses on the processes that lead to ozone depletion, complementing and amplifying the measurements of total ozone made by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) onboard NASA's Nimbus-7 and the Russian Meteor-3 satellites. UARS also measures winds and temperatures in the stratosphere as well as the energy input from the Sun. In its first two weeks of operation, UARS data confirmed the polar ozone-depletion theories by providing three-dimensional maps of ozone and chlorine monoxide near the South Pole during development of the 1991 ozone hole. UARS, developed and managed by GSFC, in Greenbelt, Md., provides information that nations around the world can use to guide decisions on environmental policies, according to scientists. UARS was designed to last 18 months, but parts of it are still operational. The United Kingdom and Canada both provided instruments for this mission. This website provides a detailed description of UARS project including information about its instruments; movies and images; project's current status; data plots; orbital information; and UARS brochure and link to publications and reference material.

UCAV - The Next Generation of Air-Superiority Fighter?

This thesis was submitted by Major William K. Lewis in June 2002 to the Faculty of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies of Air University at Maxwell Airforce Base Alabama. It is available in PDF format. Air superiority is an essential military mission, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Control of the air is not an end of its own, but rather it provides the flexibility and freedom of action central to a full range of military capabilities. In the coming century the United States will confront a number of disparate and ambiguous challenges to its hegemony. The resources available to meet those challenges will undoubtedly be constrained. Extremely long lead times in the acquisition and procurement of new technologies mean that now, as the F-22 Raptor begins to replace the venerable F-15 Eagle, the next- generation air-superiority fighter is entering development. Unmanned aircraft must be considered as an alternative to manned aircraft for this critical mission. While cost has been the driving factor for advances in UCAV, technology has been the major limitation. This thesis concludes that an air-superiority UCAV should be feasible by the year 2025 and that it should provide an effective and affordable alternative to manned air-superiority fighters. [Taken from abstract].

Ulysses

Ulysses is a joint NASA and ESA mission to study the sun at all altitudes. ESA provided the spacecraft and NASA provided the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG), the launch vehicle, the payload assist module and is providing data reception via deep space network. The Shuttle Discovery launched the Ulysses spacecraft on October 6, 1990. To reach high solar latitudes, the spacecraft was aimed close to Jupiter so that Jupiter's large gravitational field would accelerate Ulysses out of the ecliptic plane to high latitudes. After more than 12 years in flight, Ulysses has returned a wealth of data that has led to a much broader understanding of the Global Structure of the Sun's environment-the heliosphere. This website brings together mission information; science and spacecraft details; and image and photo gallery. There is a link to news updates and information resources.

Uninhabited Air Vehicles : Enabling Science for Military Systems

This is the full text of a report published by the National Academy Press in 2000. The report is produced by the Committee on Materials, Structures, and Aeronautics for Advanced Uninhabited Air Vehicles, National Materials Advisory Board, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, National Research Council. It is possible to search the text of the report, or alternatively view a listing of sections and select which one to view.

Utilization of Operational Environmental Satellite Data : Ensuring Readiness for 2010 and Beyond

This a a full text book produced by the Committee on Environmental Satellite Data Utilization (CESDU), National Research Council and was published by National Academies Press in 2001. The focus of this report is the use of satellite data for civilian rather than defense or national security purposes. It is expected that as a result of expanding Earth-observing capability, novel ways of using satellite data that will have an increasing impact on citizens' daily lives will be developed. Thus satellite data providers will have to continuously evolve, revise, and in some cases radically redefine their role as well as plan for increased research, operations, and infra- structure. The high-level training required by such personnel and the continuing education of users are equally important and also must be planned and provided for. In this report, the CESDU offers findings and recommendations aimed at defining specific approaches to resolving the potential overload faced by the two agencies, NOAA and NASA, responsible for satellite data. The committee has focused on the end-to-end utilization of environmental satellite data by characterizing the links from the sources of raw data to the end requirements of various user groups, although, given its limited scope, the committee could not thoroughly examine every link in the chain. CESDU's goal is to characterize and provide sensible recommendations in three areas, namely, (1) the value of and need for environmental satellite data, (2) the distribution of environmental satellite data, and (3) data access and utilization. The committee's findings are based on its members knowledge of trends in technology; past lessons learned; users stated requirements; and other supporting information. The text is available in open book PDF form.

Voyager : the Interstellar Mission

The twin Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 and are still sending data regarding new characteristics of the effects of the sun in the distant solar wind. The site provides an overview of the mission and its history, the science behind the mission and what it aims to achieve, details about the spacecraft, and related news, images and multimedia.

Wind - Understanding interplanetary dynamics

Wind was launched on November 1, 1994 and is the first of two NASA spacecraft in the Global Geospace Science initiative and part of the ISTP Project. The science objectives of the WIND mission are: * Provide complete plasma, energetic particle, and magnetic field input for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies. * Determine the magnetospheric output to interplanetary space in the up-stream region. * Investigate basic plasma processes occurring in the near-Earth solar wind. * Provide baseline ecliptic plane observations to be used in heliospheric latitudes from ULYSSES.

Wind mission (Understanding Interplanetary Dynamics)

This is a NASA website that brings together a range of information regarding related to Wind mission. Wind was launched on November 1, 1994 and is the first of two NASA spacecraft in the Global Geospace Science initiative and part of the ISTP Project. The objectives of the mission are to provide complete plasma, energetic particle, and magnetic field input for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies. Its mission also aims to determine the magnetospheric output to interplanetary space in the up-stream region and investigate basic plasma processes occurring in the near Earth solar wind. Finally, another objective is to offer the baseline ecliptic plane observations to be used in the helliospheric latitudes from ULYSSES. The website offers useful links to data, instrumentation, educational links, orbits and many more.

WMAP : Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

WMAP is NASA Explorer mission measuring the temperature of the cosmic background radiation over the full sky with unprecedented accuracy. The WMAP mission reveals conditions as they existed in the early universe by measuring the properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation over the full sky. This microwave radiation was released approximately 380,000 years after the birth of the universe. WMAP creates a picture of the microwave radiation using temperature difference measured from opposite directions (anisotropy). WMAP was launched in June of 2001 and has made a map of the temperature fluctuations of the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) radiation with much higher resolution, sensitivity, and accuracy than NASA's earlier satellite COBE(Cosmic Background Explorer). This site provides in depth information about the mission, spacecraft and instrument details, current status and image gallery of collected data. Background information and news updates are also available.

Xeus : X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy mission

The web site brings together a range of information relating to this European Space Agency mision to establish a permanent space-borne X-ray observatory. The introduction includes an MPG format (8.7 Mb) video clip. The mission concept section presents information on the mission profile, spacecraft design, current status and design goals. There are also explanations of the science goals of the mission and the specific technologies that will be employed. A resources section provides access to other supporting material available on the web.

XMM-Newton Mission

This is an ESA (European Space Agency) web site that brings together a range of information regarding the XMM-Newton mission. XMM-Newton is ESA's second 'Cornerstone' mission. Development and construction of the spacecraft has overcome major technological hurdles. The spacecraft was first launched in December 10, 1999 and carries three very advanced X-ray telescopes. They each contain 58 high-precision concentric mirrors. These Mirror Modules allow XMM-Newton to detect millions of sources, far more than any previous X-ray mission. Main achievements were X-rays from accretion onto black holes, properties of exploding stars, nature of exotic matter, observations of GRB. The mission is still operating with an estimated completion date being March 31, 2010. There is a wealth of information aimed at the general public, teachers, learners of all ages, as well as members of the scientific and engineering community. The site provides information on instrumentation used, spacecraft facts, archive data, image sources and links to related sites. A suite of educational resources is also provided for the use of both teachers and students through the ESA science. Additonal information about this mission can be found on the ESA web page: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=23

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