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By Daniel Fischer Every page present in Europe & the U.S.!
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The latest issue!
| A German companion! (SuW version) Current mission news: MGS (latest pictures!) + Cassini + Galileo + NEAR |
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ESA makes Mercury mission next Cornerstone, followed by big space interferometerThe SSAC (Space Science Advisory Committee) of the European Space Agency recommends that the next big space science project, Cornerstone 5 of the long-term plan, should be the Mercury mission BepiColombo, while Cornerstone 6 should be GAIA, an interferometric astrometry observatory for super-high stellar position measurements. Furthermore the space gravitational wave detector LISA should be pursued not alone but together with NASA, and ESA also should stay committed to its substantial share in NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope (both contributions would be on the level of a 'Flexi Mission' each). Also, a Solar Orbiter is recommended as a Flexi Mission after BepiColombo, and the photometry mission Eddington should become a 'reserve mission' if either NGST or LISA slip, as their schedules are outside ESA's control.The SSAC - whose recommendations ESA's politicians usually follow - notes that maintaining the purchasing power of the scientific program at the 2002 level, as recommended by SPC for planning purposes, would allow the implementation of all missions in the timeframe 2008-2013 with a launch of BepiColombo in 2009 and GAIA not later than 2012 and gives the Executive the mandate to optimise the implementation of this package. The SSAC is very concerned about the timespan required to implement this package within the present financial constraints, however, and requests the Executive to explore scenarios that could significantly accelerate the implementation and make a proposal for additional resources. |
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X-ray interferometry success in lab boosts dreams of super-sharp space imagingNASA's plans to launch X-ray telescopes into space with an angular resolution far exceeding Hubble's have gotten a great boost with a laboratory experiment that has for the first time demonstrated efficient interferometry with X-rays. Long an established technique in the radio regime and also successful with optical wavelengths, interferometry with the prospect for real applications had never been applied to wavelengths that short. Now the vision of a fleet of X-ray satellites with a combined angular resolution of better than one micro arc second is much less science fiction than it used to be.The experiments at the University of Colorado have already achieved about 50 milliarcsecond resolution (similar to Hubble's in the optical) with their X-ray interferometer, though only fringes were detected and no real images. This is a five- to 10-fold improvement over the best conventional X-ray telescopes, which achieve 500 mas resolution. A similar interferometry design is currently under study at the Goddard Space Flight Center for two proposed NASA missions. MAXIM, the Microarcsecond X-ray Imaging Mission, could achieve 100-nanoarcsecond resolution and would entail a fleet of spacecraft with separate optics flying in precise formation. The MAXIM Pathfinder would be a smaller mission with all the X-ray optics on one spacecraft, achieving 100-microarcsecond resolution. These interferometers would complement, not replace, large area X-ray telescopes also planned for the future. With 100 microarcsecond resolution, astronomers could image the coronae of nearby stars, seeing the actual disks of other stars which appear now only as points of light. With 100 nanoarcsecond resolution, astronomers could try to directly image a black hole - and find out if these "almost mythical" objects predicted by general relativity really exist and play as large a role in explaining astrophysical phenomena these days as many have come to believe. |
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Hectic STS launch pace leads to EVA suit 'cannibalism'The launch of space shuttle Discovery to the ISS is still set for October 5th, and there is virtually no margin for error in the preparations. One decision NASA had to make was to cannibalize parts from EVA spacesuits from the current Atlantis mission. Three spacesuits are on board, but only two were used during the single EVA - engineers will be standing by when Atlantis touches down, whether in Florida or California, to rush all three suits to a facility where their emergency oxygen packs will be removed and flown to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Two of the three secondary oxygen packs then will be installed in suits scheduled for use during Discovery's upcoming flight, a station assembly mission that includes four back-to-back EVAs by a quartet of astronauts; a third suit slated for use aboard Discovery has been cleared for flight as is.House OKs space station funding capThe U.S. Congress has approved $28.7 billion in spending for NASA and has also set a cap on development costs for the ISS. The bill, a compromise worked out by the House and the Senate, will now be sent to the latter for the final vote: It authorizes $14.1 b for NASA in fiscal year 2001 and $14.6 b in 2002, both figures slightly above what the administration requested. The sum includes about $4 b over the two years for the ISS, equal to the president's request, and $6.5 b for the space shuttle.
Already the construction of Progress cargo ships is on hold, due to lack of funds - but Russia is committed to launch 6 Progress and two Soyuz vehicles in 2001 alone. If the government doesn't come forward with more money, the only hope for Russia remaining an ISS partner would be contracts from NASA, with the proceeds being used for the promised ISS components - NASA and the space agency already are negotiating deals worth some $100m. In the past such deals have been a major source of income: The agency has earned about $3.5 billion for services provided to foreign companies and agencies, and the Mir-Shuttle program alone has made some $ 1 billion for Russia's space program. (Space News of Sept. 18) |
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"UK Task Force" on NEOs makes 14 recommendationsA highly publicized "Task Force" asked by the British government to assess the risk posed by Near Earth Objects (see Update # 166 story 2 sidebar) has now delivered its report and made 14 recommendations. They include calls for
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"Napster"-like data sharing planned for physics, astronomy projectsIt's called Grid Physics Network or GriPhyN (pronounced "griffin"): a computer "data grid" of unprecedented speed and power that will enable certain huge data analysis tasks for fundamental physics and astronomy - by a data sharing strategy resembling Napster. GriPhyN is funded by the largest grant in the U.S. National Science Foundation's new Information Technology Research program, which supports long-term basic research on networking and information technology. It initially aims to give scientists a tool to interpret the vast amounts of data expected to flow from the world's most ambitious physics and astronomy experiments, but it also could have applications in the business world and elsewhere.GriPhyN involves more than a dozen U.S. institutions and will pioneer a new concept called virtual data, in which the entire resources of a scientific collaboration become a single vast computing and storage system. GriPhyN could be thought of as a Napster for scientists, where the tunes being downloaded are not purloined hits but crucial insights into the nature of the Universe. Results will be computed only if and when needed, since much of the time the result you need will already have been computed by another site, and the system will know where to find it. The initiative initially will benefit four physics experiments that will explore the fundamental forces of nature and the structure of the universe, two from CERN, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Each of these experiments will produce huge amounts of data that scientists at different institutions around the world will want to search and manipulate. |
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Superoxides could prevent life on surface of MarsIntense ultraviolet radiation produces an abundance of oxygen ions, a common free radical, at the Martian surface that destroys organic molecules - laboratory simulations have now shown that the combination of UV radiation, mineral grain surfaces, atmospheric oxygen and extremely dry conditions produce superoxide ions: JPL Press Release (Spacefl. Now version), Space.com, Discovery, SPIEGEL, SpaceViews.NASA puzzled by British attack -"I don't know why Pillinger did that. Maybe because he is looking for funding": CNN. The Beagle 2 landing site: CNN. Basic issues of Mars exploration: Space Daily. Fresh crater on Centaur Asbolus?While observing the Centaur object 8405 Asbolus, an 80-kilometer chunk of ice and dust that lies between Saturn and Uranus, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope were surprised to find that one side of the object looks like it has a fresh crater less than 10 million years old, exposing underlying ice that is apparently unlike any yet seen - this shows that these mysterious objects do not have a simple homogenous surface: STScI Press Release, SpaceViews, CNN. |
Hunt for Higgs continues at CERNScientists at CERN have decided not to close down their Large Electron-Positron collider for another month - that will allow them more time to follow-up recent experiments which suggested they may have seen "shadows" of the so-called Higgs boson (see Update # 202 small items): AP, BBC. Earlier: SPIEGEL.Ariane 5 lifts off with 2 heavy satsThe European Ariane 5 space rocket has placed two large telecommunications satellites into orbit after blasting off with its heaviest ever payload: Spaceflight Now, SpaceViews, SPIEGEL, RP, BBC.ORBCOMM files for bankcruptcy protection, too ...Satellite communications company ORBCOMM has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the third such firm in 13 months to run into severe financial difficulties: SpaceViews.
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Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer
(send me a mail to [email protected]!), Skyweek
