And new: An experimental German companion to the CM.
Update # 149 of October 1st, 1999, at 17:45 UTC (links added Oct. 4th, 8th)
Stupidity killed the Mars Climate Orbiter!It had to happen one day: The stubbornness with which many American engineers refuse to join the rest of the civilized world in using the metric system of units has pretty directly led to the loss of the MCO. Actually it was even worse: NASA's people have switched to the scientific units years ago, other spacecraft engineers from industry haven't. According to Florida Today, Lockheed Martin engineers in Denver provided crucial information for MCO's trajectory corrections in the English measurement of pounds. But NASA controllers mistakingly believed the data was in metric units called newtons."A failure to recognize and correct [that] error in a transfer of information between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado and the mission navigation team in California led to the loss of the spacecraft," NASA investigators have concluded. "The problem here was not the error" itself, says NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science, Ed Weiler: "It was the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft." Lorelle Young, president of the U.S. Metric Association, told CNN that the loss of Climate Orbiter brings up the "untenable" position of the United States in relation to most other countries, which rely on the metric system for measurement. She was not surprised at the error that arose: "In this day and age when the metric system is the measurement language of all sophisticated science, two measurements systems should not be used." (Based on NASA News Release # 113 of Sept. 30, 1999 and other sources)
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The most embarrassing NASA News Release in the agency's history ( JPL version). News coverage from CNN, BBC, ABC, Fla. Today, Space.com, Astron. Now, Space Daily, SpaceViews. Homepage of the U.S. Metric Association, Metri(fi)cation at NASA and a politician's statement: "I'm speechless." 3 panels are investigating the MCO loss - making sure a similar problem doesn't doom the MPL: CNN. What about the Mars 2001 lander? It's now w/o a back-up for its downlink: Space.com. How JPL navigates in deep space, normally with high precision: Space Daily. New MGS images as a consolation: MSSS Release, BBC, Space.com. No evidence for ancient shorelines (and therefore real oceans) is visible on Mars in MGS images: JPL Release, and details; SpaceViews, ExploreZone, Fla. Today, CNN and BBC coverage. Can Martian life survive 1st contact? How to avoid "forward contamination" is discussed in the Space Daily. |
Chandra looks into the Crab Nebula, sees new detailsNew images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory spacecraft show that the Crab Nebula contains rings and jets of materials thrown off from the supernova remnant at its heart. The center of the nebula is surrounded by tilted rings of material that shine brightly at X-ray wavelengths, as well as jets of material expending outward perpendicular to the rings. The latter at first glance look similar to an accretion disk, but they are actually material being ejected by the nebula's pulsar to distances of more than a light-year. "The inner ring is unique," said Professor Jeff Hester of Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz. "It has never been seen before." The general structure of the Crab in X-rays had been imaged by previous X-ray satellites, though. |
MSFC News Release, picture gallery, NASA Science News. More NASA Science News with analysis of the image. News coverage by CNN, BBC, ABC, NYT, RheinZeitung, Astron. Now, Space.com, SpaceViews. Chandra's CCD problem persists, but the telescope's science agenda is not at risk: BBC story. |
Circumstellar disks disappear when stars get 400 Myr old - because planets form?Indirect evidence that almost all stars in the galaxy could be starting to make planets early in their life has come out of observations by the European infrared satellite ISO. The ISOPHOT instrument had looked at 84 nearby stars of various ages: 15 of them had dusty disks (that show up easily by their IR emission but are hard to image in the visible) - and nearly all of those stars were less than 400 million years old. 90% of stellar disks seem to disappear when a star is between 300 and 400 Myr old. And 400 Myr is about the time it took for our Sun to make the planets (evidence on this timescale comes from the craters on the Moon), then all debris was gone. Of course there is no way to tell - yet - whether every older star without a dust disk had one in the past that is now condensed into planets, but the idea is intriguing... (Habing & al., Nature of Sept. 30, 1999, p. 456-8) |
Nature Science Update. ESA Science News and many more ISO Press Releases. ABC, Space Daily stories. Related stories: How the planets formed from embryos on chaotic orbits: ExploreZone. Earth born with oceans? There's no need to invoke a later supply of cosmic water: Nature Science Update. |
Traces of missing supernova found in iceAn Antarctic ice core retrieved 20 years ago has helped to date a mysterious supernova the remnant of which had been discovered last year by X- and gamma-ray satellites but the explosion of which was not recorded. In the ice core, there are 4 distinct peaks in the nitrate levels, three corresponding in time to famous observed supernovae of 1181, 1572 and 1604. But the 4th peak of 1320 +/- 20 years had no corresponding SN observations while the time was consistent with what was known about the new SN remnant. The nitrates probably form when ionising radiation from close galactic supernovae hits the Earth's atmosphere. (New Scientist of Sept. 18, 1999, p.7) |
A paper on the discovery by C. Burgess. Story on the discovery from the "Gill Reporter". Press Release on the SNR's discovery in 1998 from the MPG. |
A final ESA visitor to Mir?The Cosmic Mirror has learned that discussions are underway between the Russian Aerospace Agency RAKA and the European space agency ESA about the possibility of sending along a European astronaut with the last Russian crew that is training for a mission to Mir in early 2000. While it is not even clear whether this mission will take place at all (apparently Russia hasn't even bought a rocket for it so far), there would be one seat left empty in the Soyuz capsule - therefore the suggestion of having an additional passenger.The task of the Russian cosmonauts would be to retrieve as much valuable hardware from the station as possible, and their ESA guest would help them to prepare the station for its controlled reentry in March or April, learning a lot about space station engineering that way. No science experiments would be conducted which were the main objective for earlier ESA visits to Mir. An ESA spokeswoman confirmed these details to the CM on Sept. 28th. |
Coverage of the CM story by SpaceViews. Homepage of ESA's manned activities (no mention of the Mir idea yet). A last ditch attempt to save Mir by U.S. activists: Space.com. Related stories: U.S. ask Russia to delay Service Module launch to late December because of their own problems: CNN, Fla. Today, Space.com, SpaceViews stories. Russia may sell ISS time to raise money to build its modules for the station: ABC story. Brazil might not meet its ISS obligations and the U.S. might be forced to intervene: Space.com. |
Does the Earth have more - minor - moons?The Moon might have a whole clutch of hidden siblings as asteroids that pass close to the Earth can become trapped in weird orbits: Nature Science Update, Phys. Rev. Focus, ExploreZone stories.Does a Kuiper Belt Object tug at Pioneer 10?A slight deviation of the trajectory of the old spacecraft has been blamed on the gravity of an unknown solar system body: BBC.SOHO gets more robust softwareThe new software will make SOHO much more reliable in case orientation problems ever happen again: ESA Science News.Sulfuric acid found on EuropaThis new Galilo NIMS discovery encourages to hunt for any possible links between the sulfur oxidants on Europa's surface, and natural fuels produced from Europa's hot interior: JPL Release, NASA Science News, CNN, SpaceViews, Space.com stories.Deuterium in Uranus and Neptune has been measured by ISO, giving clues on internal processes: ESA Science News. "Diamond showers" on Neptune and Uranus have been postulated based on lab experiments: Berkeley Press Release, NYT, Space Daily, Space.com stories.
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ESA Mercury Mission namedIt may well be another 10 years before it flies, but the ambitious ESA mission (with 3 separate spacecraft!) to the innermost planet has now a name, BepiColombo: a vague ESA Page on the project and current ESA Science News and Space Daily stories.What the Senate's budget would meanfor the future of NASA's space science has now been clarified: SpaceViews.Astronomical motives for German stampshave been selected for a special series: Announcement Page. Data from various German astronomers were used (but not always properly credited, the scientists complain) for the stamps."Pizza Hut" wanted to advertise on the Moonby burning its logo onto its surface with a laser, the CBS Evening News and other sources have reported on Sept. 30. But since that plan turned out to be too expensive, they've now simply bought ad space on the Russian Proton carrying the ISS' Service Module in December (see sidebar of Mir story above): company stuff, ABC, BBC, Space Daily, Space.com, SpaceViews stories and a Florida Today editorial.
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All other historical issues can be found in the Archive.
The U.S. site of this Cosmic Mirror has been visited
since it was issued (the German site has no counter).
Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer
(send me a mail to [email protected]!), Skyweek
