MGS completes 500th Mars orbit, snaps Phobos A major milestone was reached on August 18th as the flight team of the Mars Global Surveyor celebrated the orbiter's 500th orbit around Mars. The MGS continues to transmit nearly 500 megabits of science data per day back to the Earth. Since the beginning of the summer-long science collection period at the end of May, nearly 200 orbits worth of data have been collected by Surveyor's instruments. August's science activities were highlighted by the successful observation of the Martian moon Phobos on two separate attempts. This tiny satellite orbits the red planet once every 7.7 hours and is a potato-shaped rock about the size of Manhattan. During close approaches just after the low points on orbits #476 and #501, the spacecraft was commanded to slew its science instruments across the moon in order to obtain detailed images. The results will be published on September 10th! (Adapted from MGS Flight Status Report Aug. 28)

The latest MGS picture releases appear here! A BBC story on Mars' volcanoes. Phobos pictures from Viking 1

Delta III explodes on maiden flight Just two weeks after the loss of the last Titan 4A (see Update #96) the first Delta III has also exploded less than two minutes after launch. Again the ascending rocket veered out of control, this time 55 seconds after liftoff at 1:18 UTC on Aug. 27th. For the next 10 seconds, the rocket tried to compensate, then it lost the battle and broke up, 72 seconds after leaving the launch pad. A destruct command from range safety made sure that no debris continued to fly on (although eyewitnesses claim to have seen exactly that). The explosion occured at an altitude of approx. 16 km, and 10 km off-shore: No debris hit solid ground. The investigation is focusing on a loss of the rocket's guidance control, though other factors haven't been excluded yet. The consequences for further launches of the proven Delta 2 are unclear because it shares several systems with the Delta III. NASA is hoping to get the Deep Space 1 spacecraft off the ground on Oct. 15, however - as well as the next two Mars spacecraft in Dec. and Jan. (Florida Today Aug. 26 to 28, 1998)

Stories by CNN, BBC, ABC and SpaceViews, plus special sections by Fla. Today and A.N. Delta III Homepage at Boeing

Not enough energy for life on Mars? After countless press releases (and scientific papers) have told us during the last two years that when there's water, warmth and the right chemistry, there will be life, here's a different story. The potential amount of life that could have existed on Mars is tiny compared to the biomass early in Earth's history, say two experts from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Washington University in St. Louis. Bruce Jakosky and Everett Shock estimated the amount of chemical energy available on Mars. The researchers assumed life requires water, access to elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur to build complex molecules, and a source of energy. The source can be either natural chemical reactions or photosynthesis, and provide energy that organisms can use for metabolism.

Earth can produce about 20 grams of organisms per square centimeter of land every 1,000 years because of the powerful forces of photosynthesis - but it would take Mars four billion years to produce that same 20 grams, assuming the organisms were using chemical energy. This massive difference in the possible biomass produced on Earth relative to Mars is due almost entirely to the occurrence of photosynthesis on Earth, which Mars doesn't have. Jakosky and Shock also estimated the amount of geochemical energy that has been available through time on Mars from evidence involving volcanism, the circulation of water on Mars that once flowed through its hydrothermal systems, and the weathering on the planet's surface and crust. It appears the amount of volcanic rock that has erupted on Mars over its lifetime is several hundred times less than that on early Earth. Therefore, the global amount of energy accessible through hydrothermal vents would likely have been proportionately less on Mars as well. (Adapted from a Press Release embargoed for Aug. 25th)

The Press Release Here is a long report from the Wash. Post about the foundation meeting of the Mars Society - hurry up, these stories 'live' only a few weeks!

Asteroid Nereus selected as NEAP target SpaceDev, the world's first commercial space exploration and development company, announced that it has selected the near Earth asteroid ``Nereus'' for its first mission. The destination was chosen as a result of a study conducted for SpaceDev by Tony Spear, Mars Pathfinder project manager. Nereus appears to present several better and important science opportunities including the potential of finding water and carbon compounds on the asteroid. Originally NEAP was to go after an asteroid rich in valuable metals; now science will dominate the mission. Nereus, an Apollo-type near Earth asteroid, will pass within about 4 million km of Earth in January of 2002, which is close enough for ground-based radar installations and telescopes to gather detailed information prior to NEAP's planned arrival about four months later. To reach Nereus, NEAP launch is planned for April 3, 2001 and will remain in the Earth-moon system until January 12, 2002, when it should escape Earth's gravity to encounter Nereus on about May 12, 2002. NEAP should complete its primary mission by mid-June, 2002. (Adapted from a Space Dev Press Release of Aug. 25, 1998)

SpaceDev homepage for NEAP SpaceViews story, also mentioning that Japan's Muses-C will as well go to Nereus. Here is that mission's homepage Another SpaceDev web site For links regarding SpaceDev's legal troubles see Update #95!

Next solar maximum already in 1999? An new method to forecast the solar cycle - based on structures sighted in the corona - sees the next maximum already some time next year (and not 2000 to 2001 as most other techniques)! Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) scientists say that they have identified a reliable precursor to the maximum of solar activity. A study of the sun's long-term variation of emission features seen in Fe XIV, an ion that is found throughout the solar corona, has shown that, prior to Solar Maximum, emission features appear near 55 degrees latitude in both hemispheres and begin to move toward the poles at a rate of 9 to 12 degrees of latitude per year.

This motion is maintained for a period of 3 or 4 years, at which time the emission features disappear at the poles. This phenomenon, which represents the fastest global motion of any kind on the sun that is sustained for such an interval, has been referred to as the "Rush to the Poles." Looking at these measurements, the maximum of solar activity occurs approximately 14 months before the features reach the poles. In early 1997, emission features appeared near 55 degrees latitude, and subsequent observations have shown that these features are moving toward the poles. This then is the Rush to the Poles that heralds the next Solar Maximum. Based on previous observations, these features will reach the poles sometime between March 2000 and January 2001, which results in a prediction for Solar Maximum of between January and November 1999, substantially earlier than some other predictions. (Adapted from AFRL VS Release # 21 of June 25, 1998, recently quoted in Space News and kindly provided by PI Dr. Richard Altrock.)

Altrock's homepage an abstract from him The Sun's Homepage (kind of) / The Solar Cycle - a simple introduction / Statistics about the Sun "Sunspotcycle.com" and the current predictions from others ( a related press release)

Greenland expedition ends: Sorry, no meteorite They had spent four weeks under often adverse conditions in the middle of nowhere, trying to find any remains of the big meteorite that exploded of Greenland on Dec. 9th, 1997 - but beyond some meteoritic dust nothing was found. New evaluations of the trajectory of the cosmic bullet, however, have raised the possibility that it was a very rare interstellar object, i.e. that it didn't come from the solar system. If that can be confirmed, even the meteoritic dust samples would be of considerable value. The samples brought back by the expedition are now being analyzed in laboratories in Copenhagen.	Read all the daily reports from the expedition! The Tycho Brahe expedition page Holger's Updates
Big galaxy cluster - low density Universe The number of big galaxy clusters in the distant = young Universe is a sensitive indicator of its overall density - see the first story in Update #68. And the accidental discovery of a particularly big one, MS1054-0321, a hefty galaxy cluster containing thousands of galaxies, all but proves that the density of the Universe is far below the critical one. This is yet another - independent - result confirming that the Universe will expand forever. If clusters had been growing all along, as would be the case in a high-density Universe, we're looking back to a time where there shouldn't have been any massive clusters at all, and we're finding some. The conclusion is that clusters of galaxies have slowed their growth rate significantly over the last 5 billion years or so, and that slower growth rate implies that the universe isn't dense enough to stop expanding. The odds of finding such a massive cluster so far in the past would have been 1:100 000 in a high-density scenario.	STScI News Release # 26 of Aug. 19, 1998
SOHO under full control this week? Communications sessions up to 100 minutes long have been accomplished with the errant SOHO satellite: The batteries seem to be fully functional again. This week now attempts will be made to work the thrusters again, after slowly defrosting the hydrazine fuel; on Aug. 12th the heaters had been turned on. Even after reestablishing full control of the satellite, though, it will take two months to check out the spacecraft and the scientific instruments - and no one knows how they will have coped with the unexpected cold weeks. (AW&ST Aug. 17, p. 32)	What's new?

Titan 4A explodes at Cape Canaveral Titan 4A-20 exploded 42 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral on Aug 12. The vehicle was a Lockheed Martin Titan 4A-Centaur model, the last 4A and the last with the UTC/CSD solid rocket boosters to be launched; all future Titan 4s will be Titan 4Bs. The payload is thought to have been a signals intelligence satellite, one of the follow-ons to the VORTEX series. The Titan 4 seems to have pitched over 40s after launch, implying a probable guidance failure. The vehicle would then have exploded due to structural failure, as it is not designed to survive flying sideways; in addition the self-destruct mechanism was activated. The cause of the accident is still unclear at this moment, however: The two leading potential scenarios discussed now are a failure of the rocket's guidance system (like with the first Ariane 5 in 1996) and a failure in one of the Titan's two strap-on solid rocket boosters (they had caused the Titan 4's first flight to fail in 1989). An open investigation into the accident has been announced this time - after a Delta 2 exploded over Cape Canaveral in 1997 (see Update #31 ff), the military had been tight-lipped about the causes, a move widely criticized in the space industry. (Adapted from Jonathan's Space Report # 368 of Aug. 12, 1998, and other sources)	All about the accident from Florida Today Stories by SpaceViews, CNN, BBC, ABC Better days for the Titan 4... / the Delta explosion / Jonathan's Space Report
The final(?) man on Mir is on his way Not much is certain during the final months of the Mir space station, but it is likely that Sergei Avdeyev who joined Gennady Padalka and former Yelzin aide Nikolai Baturin on today's Soyuz TM-28 launch will stay on-board until the very end. Baturin will return with the current Mir crew of Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin on Aug. 25th, and then only one more manned launch to Mir is planned, for February, 1999. A French and a Slovak cosmonaut - the last two paying vistors - will stay for a few weeks or months, before the final steps to deorbit Mir are initiated. Their commander is will probably be Viktor Afanasyev, and it is well possible that he and Avdeyev (and perhaps the French guest as well) will stay on-board, waiting for the final Progress ship (a special version) to dock that will kick Mir out of orbit on early June, 1999.	Stories by SpaceViews, CNN, BBC Mir News from NL and Russia
SOHO sends telemetry: I might make it! Six days after receiving the first signal from the dormant SOHO Spacecraft, several blocks of telemetry data giving the spacecraft's on-board status were acquired late Saturday night, 8 August, at 23:15 hrs GMT. Further data acquisitions took place on Sunday 9 August and will continue in the following days. Following analysis of the expected on-board conditions a series of command sequences was up-linked through the NASA Deep Space Network. These sequences were designed to divert the available solar array power into a partial charging of one of the on-board batteries. After 10 hours of battery charging, the telemetry was commanded on and seven full sets of data of the on-board status were received; further details on the on-board conditions were obtained on further occasions. The data gathered included information on temperature and voltages for payload instruments: Conditions on-board are as good as could be expected. Now the next series of commands is being prepared, aimed at thawing the on-board hydrazine fuel, to enable attitude control of the spacecraft to be re-established. (Adapted from a Press Release of Aug. 11)	How SOHO lost its attitude on June 25th Press Release of Aug. 11 Stories by SpaceViews, CNN, ABC

Space Troubles galore ... The 2nd ETS-VII docking experiment failed on Aug. 7th, and the two parts of the satellite are now in a parking position while flight controllers weigh their options: a SpaceViews report, the original plan and the recovery timeline. Work interrupted for SeaLaunch: Because of a current technology transfer paranoia, er, scare in the U.S., the government has stopped work at of the American-Russian-Ukrainian joint venture that wants to launch Western payloads on Eastern rockets from an oil platform in the Pacific - story & links from SpaceViews. Near Earth Asteroid Prospector under investigation: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is claiming that the company behind the innovative asteroid mission made "false and misleading" statements to the public. SpaceDev, which has in the past been supported by NASA, denies the accusations: story by SpaceViews, the SEC claim and the NEAP home page.

Another delay looming for the ISS? At a hearing on Aug. 5 NASA has declared that it will take over most of the Russian tasks of keeping ISS in orbit - while rumors have the launch of the first elements delayed way into 1999: a long summary of the hearing, Goldin's statement and a story from SpaceViews. In other news: The cult surrounding John Glenn's 2nd spaceflight grows: Now he's the cover boy of Time Magazine! The Perseids are coming and making more headlines than they deserve this year: The nearly full Moon will wash out most of the meteors. A NASA story and the current IMO Meteor Calendar - and don't forget the Leonids!

Carrier, but no telemetry yet, coming from SOHO! SOHO is talking to Earth again - but the errant solar satellite hasn't 'said' anything useful yet. On Aug. 3rd at 22:51 UTC commands sent from the DSN station at Canberra were answered for the first time, in the form of bursts lasting from 2 to 10 seconds. Since then controllers at NASA's GSFC in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA have continued to coax information from the spacecraft concerning its on-board status. But the spacecraft has responded so far to the attempts to activate the on-board telemetry data system only by sending a simple carrier signal with bursts of 10 second duration. This signal has been tracked consistently, but the bursts of carrier signal are too short to allow the sensitive ground station receivers to 'lock-on' to the signal The intermittent nature of the signal is caused by the cyclic variation of the on-board power supply as the solar arrays are shadowed due to the spacecraft's unintentional spin motion. Attempts will be made to charge the on-board batteries sufficiently to ensure that more continuous power availability to the spacecraft transmitter system. (Based on two ESA Press Releases)

ESA Press Releases from Aug. 6th and Aug. 4th ESA's science news Reports by CNN, BBC and ABC

Excitement builds for possible Leonids meteor storm There is no certainty in the predictions of meteor showers, let alone storms when more than 1000 meteors can be seen by one observer in one hour. Only 12 meteor storms have been observed in the last 2 centuries and not one with modern astronomical equipment. But that could change this November: The Leonids are back, and most studies agree that they will reach storm level this year and perhaps next year, too. More specifically, the predictions are for rates above 1000 meteors per hour from 19 to 21 hours UTC on November 17: This strongly favors Eastern Asia, because you want the radiant high above the horizon, and Leo, being a spring constellation, rises only well after midnight local time. For that reason several professional and amateur expeditions from Canada, Europe and the U.S. will go to Mongolia and China, and airborne observations are planned as well. In 1999, the viewing conditions will be best in Europa, simplifying the logistics but making it harder to find sites with good weather statistics. What happens after that is totally unclear: Some studies suggest a chance for another meteor storm in 2000, others predict a sharp decline in Leonid activity. And what for the maximum rate in 1998 and 1999? It only seems certain that the record values of the 1966 storm (40 meteors per second) won't be repeated, but 1 to 3 per second sounds reasonable. (Based on various papers in the literature and online)	NASA Leonid Storm homepage (European mirror) Hints for Observers A Dutch Expedition provides many details and links; info on German plans S&T's Meteors Page, Leonids article; Kronk's Page The Leonids and their implications for the safety of satellites: a special website on the topic, a risk assessment and upcoming flux estimates
The chirality of life: all from the stars? Astronomers have found a possible explanation for why life on earth almost exclusively uses left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars as the building blocks of proteins and nucleic acids: It seems that the asymmetry was imprinted in organic molecules in interstellar space before the formation of the Solar System. This hypothesis is not new - but finally there is a plausible mechanism for the molecular 'selection' in space. Australian IR studies have now found polarized light in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1, caused by dust scattering processes. One can extrapolate that polarized UV light is present as well - powerful enough to imprint a preferred handedness on any organic molecules in the region, including those in a cloud beginning to collapse to form a star and its planets. Many scientists believe that a preferred handedness in molecules must have been present in order for the origin of life to be possible. (Adapted from an AAO Press Release of July 31st, 1998)	AAO Press Release (parallel British version) What is chirality? & chirality of aminoacids There is even a journal about it! Another piece of the puzzle of the origin of life: How the first proteins were made from amino acids - perhaps in undersea volcanic vents.
Mysteries still surround SOHO loss While the basic errors leading to the loss of SOHO have been determined quickly (see Update #90), more and more contributing problems are found - but the reason for the controllers' fatal decision to kill the spacecraft's attitude control is still not known. There were clearly established procedures about what to do when SOHO goes into a safe mode: As even the word implies, there's no need to hurry because the s/c is safe for a while. But on that fateful June 25th the controllers, for an unknown reason, decided to act quickly and turned off a supposedly faulty gyroscope - which was, in fact, the only one operating at the time. As it seems now they were in a hurry because of a 3rd software problem connected to a recent change in control rooms. And finally there was also an unnoticed failure on SOHO itself: 3 of its 4 batteries didn't work, so the satellite's power levels dropped very quickly when the sun-pointing was lost. (Science July 24, 1998, p. 499)	In other Solar System news: The future Mars oribiter Nozomi (which now has something like a Homepage) has taken a picture of the Earth & the Moon with its camera. New MGS images have become available.

Radar echoes from SOHO detected! It could be a first step to recover the lost solar satellite: The Arecibo radio telescope has sent radar pulses to the location in space where SOHO was last seen - and it got echoes back. This means a) that the spacecraft is still where it's supposed to be and b) that it is spinning about once per minute. The latter information (which can be retrieved from the shape of the echo) will help in predicting the further behavior of the satellite and aid in recovery measures.	Press Releases by ESA and NASA Stories by SpaceViews, CNN, BBC and ABC SOHO - What's New?
No MACHOs in the galaxy's halo after all? It's becoming less and less likely that 'Massive Compact Halo Objects' or MACHOs are making up a significant fraction of the Dark Matter in the halo of the Milky Way: The main evidence, microlensing events of distant stars, doesn't seem to hold up. In the past 5 years about 20 events have been observed when stars in the Magellanic Clouds - small neighboring galaxies - became brighter and fainter again in a characteristic fashion: They had been gravitationally 'lensed' by compact yet invisible foreground objects. The initial interpretation had been that those invisible compact objects were located in our galaxy's halo, perhaps White Dwarfs of 0.3 to 0.8 solar masses, and in 1996 it had seemed that those 'MACHOs' could account for some to most of the halo's Dark Matter. But in all but three microlensing cases there was no direct evidence for the compact objects being in our galaxy and not in the Magellanic clouds - and in the three cases where they could be located (by studying details of the lensed stars' lightcurves), they always were clearly in the other galaxies. The last event, observed by several teams this June, was particularly important: The lensing object was binary in nature - and the probability of it having been in the SMC is greater than 99%. Now astrophysicists are puzzled: If all three lensing events where information on the geometry is available were caused by normal stars in the distant galaxies themselves, doesn't that tell us that all observed events take place there - and that there are no MACHOs in our halo after all? But are there enough stars in the Magellanic Clouds themselves to account for the number of observed lensing events? (Science July 17, 1998, p. 332-333)	What is a MACHO? The MACHO Project Homepage the EROS experiment (an introduction) the PLANET homepage PLANET information on the crucial SMC-98-1 event and an EROS paper on it as well as one from PLANET. Also the Alert about the event. Microlensing Alerts
The wonderful world of small satellites No fewer than six satellites were onboard a Russian-Ukrainian Zenit rocket launched on July 10th - the first successful launch of this rocket in over a year - and slowly we are learning about their tasks. The primary payload was a Resurs-O1 No.4 earth observing satellite - and this were the small satellites that shared the ride: FASat Bravo, built by Surrey Sat. Technology and the Chilean airforce but said to be 100% civilian: an ozone explorer and an educational experience as well as a 'store & forward' e-mail delivery system. TMSat, built by Surrey and a university in Bangkok: Earth observing cameras plus store & forward - but this time on amateur radio frequencies and open, in principle, for everyone. WESTPAC, a passive laser-reflecting geodesy satellite from Australia, using novel corner reflectors for increased precision via an untested optical principle. SAFIR-2, from Germany: an autonomous free flying satellite for global, bi-directional communication on full digital basis. The objective of the SAFIR service is the data/messages exchange between mobile and stationary objects equipped with small inexpensive user groundstations. Gurwin-II Techsat, from Israel, is full of experiments: a UV spectro-radiometer for Earth ozone measurements, a charged particles detector, a superconductivity experiment, astronomical (!) X-ray detectors, an Earth camera, retroreflectors for laser ranging and a store & forward system.	Small Satellite Home Page and a Press Release on FASat & TMSat FASat Bravo: Homepage in Chile (short English version) and a press release on the contract TMSat: Homepage WESTPAC: Homepage SAFIR-2: Press Release on launch Techsat: the somewhat overdesigned but informative Homepage and specifically the astronomy experiment; FAS on Techsat 1 The Zenit rocket

First U.S. citizen in space dead at 74 First there had been 508 candidates, then there were 7 - but only one could become the first U.S. citizen to fly into space. At the time the other six were mighty envious of Alan "Al" Shepard whose 15 minute suborbital Mercury flight on May 5th, 1961, put the U.S. back into the space race; later they all became good friends. Only 4 of the "Mercury 7" are still with us today (including John Glenn, the one with the 2nd ticket for this October): Gus Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, Deke Slayton in 1993 - and Al Shepard on July 21st, 1998. "The entire NASA family is deeply saddened by the passing of Alan Shepard. NASA has lost one of its greatest pioneers America has lost a shining star," said NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin. "Alan Shepard will be remembered, always, for his accomplishments of the past being one of the original Mercury astronauts, for being the first American to fly in space, and for being one of only 12 Americans ever to step on the Moon. He should also be remembered as someone who, even in his final days, never lost sight of the future," Goldin added.	News about Shepard's passing from SpaceViews, BBC, Philadelphia Inquirer, NY Post and ABC A NASA Special Page and Fla. Today's Tributes Shepard's flights on Freedom 7 and Apollo 14; Shepard links at ARC A CNN interview and obituary; an ABC obituary - and new information about JFK's thoughts about Shepard's flight The Moon Race page
Safe Mode! Galileo sleeps through Europa encounter The Jupiter orbiter has recorded almost no scientific data during its latest encounter with Europa on July 21st: Just prior to it, a problem was detected by one of the spacecraft's two command and data subsystems, which receive commands from Earth and send back telemetry, or data from the spacecraft. Because of this, a built-in, fault-protection routine was activated, which put the spacecraft in a "safe" mode. Control was turned over to the identical, second command and data subsystem, which also detected a problem. But it is programmed to remain active as long as the first subsystem is not functioning normally. At 11:14 a.m. Pacific time on Monday, July 20, the problem was reported to ground controllers, and telemetry was initially lost. By 11:35 p.m. Pacific time, engineering telemetry from the spacecraft had been restored and communications are continuing; within a day both command and data subsystems were working again. Because of the anomaly, however, nearly all the data from the Europa flyby were lost and no science data will be gathered until the anomaly is corrected fully in about a week. Galileo project engineers believe the anomaly was triggered when debris shorted a signal line, causing multiple resets. Although these resets have occurred individually at some point during Galileo's mission, it was a fluke that several occurred at about the same time. (adapted from Galileo Europa Mission Status July 22+23, 1998)	Galileo Mission Status Reports for July 21 and July 23 Story by SpaceViews Quick Look facts on the mission's past and future Wanna read a book about the Galileo mission? It's in German, its brand-new (current with the news up to this March) - and it's from me! :-)
SOHO spare instruments for Triana? While there is still moderate hope for saving the SOHO spacecraft (see Update #90), several of its delicate science instruments have probably already been damaged by the cold. So NASA has started thinking about ways to recover some of the capabilities of the satellite for the upcoming solar maximum: Some spare instruments are available - and could be converted (for several million dollars each) to fly on another spacecraft. ESA hasn't commented on that possibility so far. The best candidate happens to be Triana alias "Gore-Sat", the strange project by U.S. VP Al Gore of a TV camera-carrying small satellite at the same L1 Lagrangian point between Earth and Sun that SOHO is located at. Triana, due to be launched in 2000 (in time for Gore's expected presidential campaign...), hasn't fared well in Congress because of its lack of scientific justification. But if it could carry some SOHO instruments, in addition to its Earth camera, the chances could increase and everyone would win. (Nature July 16 p. 213 + Space News July 20 + SOHO News July 21, 1998)	The Triana option (official NASA Announcement of Opportunity) Other uses of Triana that scientists have come up with so far NASA's initial Triana homepage A SpaceViews article and an MIT Tech Talk story