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Дата: 02 апреля 1998 (1998-04-02) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Director Ed Stone Projects A Promising Future For JPL [1/2] Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... From The "JPL Universe" March 6, 1998 Director Stone projects a promising future for JPL JPL's future has never been stronger and its variety of challenges never broader, JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone told Laboratory staff earlier this month in his annual State of the Laboratory address. The Laboratory's transition from an organization focused on one large, innovative mission a decade to one that delivers several smaller, innovative missions every year "has not been easy, and it won't be in the future," Stone acknowledged. "But if it were easy, we wouldn't be asked to do it. We are asked to do these things because they are hard. That's the reason the nation, and NASA, need a place like JPL. "That's what attracts and keeps most of us here," he added. "Most of us can work elsewhere, and perhaps earn more doing so. What keeps us here is the challenge and the opportunity to do what no one has done before--to search for life elsewhere." To help achieve success in its series of programs, the Lab must also continue its development of innovations in technology and in the implementation of new ways of doing business, he added. Stone called 1997 one of the most exciting years in the Laboratory's history. Highlights included Mars Pathfinder's July 4 landing, marking Earth's first return to Mars in 21 years; Mars Global Surveyor's September arrival at the red planet; TOPEX/Poseidon's monitoring (and continued tracking) of the development of El Niсo in the Pacific Ocean; Galileo, which finished its primary mission and began an extended study of Europa; and Cassini's October launch to Saturn "on schedule, under budget and full up in specification." Pledging that 1998 will be "no less exciting," Stone cited Voyager passing Pioneer 10 on Feb. 17 to become the most distant human-created object in the solar system. He also noted that there will be six launches of JPL missions and instruments over the next 12 months. JPL's missions are linked by the themes of searching for evidence of life outside of Earth as well as the discovery of the origins of galaxies, stars and planetary systems, Stone said. He called the search for life elsewhere "a shorthand term for one of the grand themes of what links many of our programs together." Stone emphasized that since life has been detected "anywhere there's water on Earth--whether it's at the bottom of the ocean; around vents of near-boiling water from the interior of the Earth; in Antarctica, at near freezing; or in a rock two miles down--the search for life elsewhere, in a certain sense, is a search for liquid water elsewhere in the solar system." Viking showed scientists the existence of water in Mars' past. But JPL's Mars program has already begun to step up the effort dramatically, as evidenced by its planned launches to the planet every 26 months for the next 10 years or more. The Laboratory will also aggressively pursue the origins of life elsewhere in the solar system. Under development are a half dozen missions that in the next 12 years will reeturn samples of alien worlds for scientists' analysis: Genesis, solar wind, 2003 return; Stardust, comet, 2006; the Japanese MUSES-C, asteroid, 2006; Mars Surveyor, soil and rocks, 2008 and 2010; and Champollion/Deep Space 4, comet, 2010. In addition, Stone noted that in the last few weeks NASA's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee proposed launch dates for several missions in the Outer Planets Program: a Europa orbiter mission in 2003, Pluto Kuiper Express in 2004 and a solar probe mission in 2006 or 2007. While the payoff from the Cassini mission may not be realized for another six years and more, Stone envisions a possibility of still further studies. "It's hard for me to imagine that after the success of studying Saturn and its moon Titan starting in 2004 we will not want to go back to further explore this world, which has on its surface layer upon layer of organic matter produced over millions of years, very much like our own polar caps have layer by layer records of our past climate in the layers of ice and snow." At the same time, Stone said, the Origins program will step up the search for life beyond the solar system. The series of missions, which began with Hubble Space Telescope observations, will continue preparations for the next century with the development of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and the Next Generation Space Telescope. To aid the Laboratory in carrying out its challenging Mars, Outer Planets and Origins programs now and in the future, the director pointed out that the New Millennium Program is a key element "to help us invest in, develop and demonstrate the flight technology we need to do these missions." "Technical innovations have been our forte for the last four decades; that's not new," Stone said. "What's new is that we have to be innovative in an era of faster development and lower cost." Stone said he was encouraged by four aspects of technical innovations recently implemented on Lab: * Innovative spacecraft technologies, such as X2000, which has a goal of drastically reducing the size, mass and power requirements of spacecraft avionics. "Cassini's dry mass was about 2,000 kilograms; Mars Pathfinder nearly 1,000 kilograms; the new outer planet spacecraft will be 150 kilograms--that's the challenge. And 10 years from now, we want it to be 25 kilograms, down another factor of six." * Innovative spacecraft operations, such as for Deep Space 1. "Not only does it have solar electric ion drive, which is an important step in interplanetary navigation, it will also have autonomous, or on-board navigation--clearly the next step in being able to fly a large number of missions is to have the missions be able to fly themselves. That clearly requires technical innovation." * Innovative sensor systems, including New Millennium's Deep Space 2 project onboard the Mars Polar Lander, in which probes will be embedded in Mars' surface to analyze the soil. Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 02 апреля 1998 (1998-04-02) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Director Ed Stone Projects A Promising Future For JPL [2/2] Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... In addition, Stone added, such sensor innovations are also necessary on a much larger scale. "Mass to orbit is money. This also has tremendous significance for commercial applications--if you spend $1 billion to put a system in Earth orbit, such as a radar, you have to sell an awful lot of product commercially to ever get your money back. On the other hand, if you can put a system up for $100 million, it's one-tenth the amount of product you have to sell, and suddenly the commercial possibilities become real. "So these innovations not only enable the kind of science we need to have in order to improve the quality of life here on Earth, it's also enabling us to become a more spacefaring nation." * Innovative approaches. "SIRTF in 1990 was 5,700 kilograms, a multibillion dollar program. Now it's been reduced to 900 kilograms, due to the innovative approach of putting it in orbit around the sun rather than around Earth, carrying enough liquid helium so the mission can last five years rather than three. That is the reason SIRTF is in the budget and will be launched in 2001--because of an innovative approach of going into orbit around the sun and changing the entire thermal environment in which this telescope will operate, which is at liquid helium temperatures." Stone also said that both external and internal innovations in implementation also play key roles in JPL's success. * Innovative external implementation is typified by JPL's partnership with Ball Aerospace in developing the QuikSCAT mission, which will replace the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), lost onboard Japan's ADEOS satellite last year. Ball's experience in small, Earth-orbiting spacecraft will help JPL to complete QuikSCAT in 12 months. "That's the kind of innovation in external implementation that will be critical for us to do all that we're being asked to do within finite dollar and work force resources," Stone said. He also noted that three of eight finalists for NASA's Low Award (equivalent to the Baldridge Award for corporate business) are companies that worked with JPL on Mars Pathfinder. In particular, he cited ILC Dover, which developed Pathfinder's airbags. "The problem was, we didn't know enough about airbags to write such specifications; the people who build airbags didn't know enough about space to be able to respond to any such specifications had we written them. We formed a working team that combined our expertise in space with their expertise in materials and airbag systems to create collaboratively the system that got Pathfinder on the surface of Mars last July 4. "That was a true partnership, and was not the classic way of dealing with a contractor. It's that kind of mode, of working with external expertise, that's going to allow us to tap into the entire capability of this nation to create this program." * Innovations in internal implementation. As evidence of successful innovations inside of JPL, Stone praised the efforts of the seven teams that won Process Improvement Awaards last year, citing two as examples. The Procurement Requisition Direct Entry Team, comprised of Francine Fisher and Virginia Kemp of Section 623, created a streamlined, online procurement system that saves time and about $170,000 a year for the Lab. "I asked them," Stone said, 'What is the biggest challenge you had in doing this?' The answer was breaking away from the way it was always done." The Electronic Parts Acquisition Team improved the procurement of space-qualified electronic parts. It created an online system that includes 200,000 parts that can be ordered and received in two days. It's estimated that the new system will save JPL $800,000 a year. "Ed Svendsen, the team leader, had a wonderful way of describing the challenge," Stone said. "He called it 'Shrugging off the dead hand of tradition.'" "Tradition is important where it is a key to your success," Stone offered. "But it can be an inhibitor when it's getting in the way of changes you need to make. "I often get asked 'Why can't we slow down the pace of change, put it on hold for awhile?' We've been at this internal change process for five years, but we're still not where we need to be to cope with faster, better, cheaper without burning out everyone in the process," he added. That's an indication, Stone told the audience, of how difficult innovations in implementation are. In the next six months, the Develop New Products process and New Business Solutions Project will roll out a new set of systems on Lab. "We all have to resist the dead hand of tradition so that we can remain the best in the world at what we do." Stone also said JPL has played a very important role in "setting up the circumstances" that have led to the nation's reinvestment in NASA's program. "We have made deals and have stuck to them," he said. "We do what we say we're going to do; we don't go back and ask for more. "It's not an accident that space science has grown in the last two years in the president's budget," he added. "This is a result of clear strategic planning and leadership on the part of NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and clear leadership on the part of Wes Huntress. Their leadership has made it possible for the administration to send to Congress last year the first increase in the science budget in years, and this year to send back a budget with a still larger increase in the out years for space science." In answer to an audience question, Stone said JPL is still on target for a work force in 2000 of around 5,000 people. "It's been a very painful five years in terms of the downsizing we've gone through, but fortunately the end is in sight. We should concentrate our work force on doing the really critical, innovative things--and finding our partners in universities, industry and other federal labs--to help us do the rest of the program. "We still have some downsizing left to go, but once we get there the Lab will be in very good shape. I think NASA understands that where we're going to end up in a couple of years is where we we're going to stay. That's the end of it; we've done our job." Stone recalled the recent 40th anniversary of Explorer 1--the JPL mission that launched the United States into the Space Age--and stressed that all space missions since then "have been fueled by innovations here at the Lab." "The first 40 years were extremely exciting for JPL; the next 40 can be even more so. It will be hard, will require innovation and will be unpredictable, but if anyone can do it, we can, and that's the reason we've been asked to do it." Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 02 апреля 1998 (1998-04-02) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Mars Global Surveyor Imaging Schedule Announced Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov Contact: Diane Ainsworth FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 31, 1998 GLOBAL SURVEYOR SCHEDULES IMAGING OPPORTUNITIES FOR VIKING, PATHFINDER, CYDONIA REGIONS OF MARS The Mars Global Surveyor project has resumed scientific observations of the surface of Mars and has scheduled opportunities to image four selected sites: the Viking 1 and 2 landing sites, the Mars Pathfinder landing site and the Cydonia region. Three opportunities to image each of the four sites using the spacecraft's high-resolution camera will take place over the next month, beginning on April 3 at 1:58 a.m. Pacific time, when Global Surveyor passes over the Viking 1 landing site. The spacecraft will next pass over the Viking 2 landing site at 1:37 p.m. Pacific time on April 3. On April 4, Global Surveyor will try to image the now-silent Mars Pathfinder spacecraft at 1:16 a.m. Pacific time. It will then capture a portion of the Cydonia region of Mars, location of the so-called "Face on Mars," on April 5 at 12:33 a.m. Pacific time. Attempts to rephotograph the sites will occur during two additional opportunities falling about nine days apart. A detailed schedule of the imaging attempts is listed below. Uncertainties in both the spacecraft's pointing and the knowledge of the spacecraft's ground track from its navigation data will provide only a 30- to- 50-percent chance of capturing the images of each site. All of the selected targets are located south of Global Surveyor's periapsis, or point of closest approach to the Martian surface. Shortly before the spacecraft reaches this point, the Global Surveyor spacecraft will rotate slightly so that when it nears the selected target, the camera's field-of-view will sweep across the target as the spacecraft flies south and rises away. The spacecraft will begin transmitting to Earth data stored on its onboard solid-state recorders about seven hours after the images are acquired, concluding about three hours later. Currently it takes radio signals from Mars Global Surveyor about 20 minutes to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. Data will be received at one of NASA's Deep Space Network tracking stations at Goldstone, CA, near Madrid, Spain or near Canberra, Australia, and then sent by satellite to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. There the images, along with all of the rest of Global Surveyor's science and engineering data, are placed in the project database for access by flight controllers. This process takes only seconds for each bit of data. Consequently, the image data will not be available be on the ground until about 10.5 hours after they are acquired. Data received overnight will not be retrieved until 9 a.m. Pacific time on the following workday. When image data are retrieved by camera operators, the information is assembled into "raw" images. Raw images may contain data errors or drop-outs introduced by noise in the telecommunications channel between the spacecraft and the ground, as well as very slight picture element variations inherent in the camera. This data processing takes about 30 minutes. Raw images will posted on three web sites: JPL's Mars news site at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews , the Mars Global Surveyor project home page at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov , and NASA's Planetary Photojournal site at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov . Information identifying the acquisition time, predicted center latitude and longitude of the target location, and the local solar time will accompany these images. Contrast enhancement will be performed by JPL's Multimission Image Processing Laboratory and posted on World Wide Web a few hours later. The Global Surveyor project home page also contains spacecraft orbital velocity and distance to the planet in real time. Images of the Viking and Mars Pathfinder landing sites will not be posted until image enhancement and identification of the vehicles have been completed, because the small spacecraft will be at the limits of the camera's resolution. This process will take about 24 hours. Mars Global Surveyor is part of a sustained program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program. The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, which developed and operates the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. Mars Global Surveyor Imaging Schedule First opportunity Approximate Orbit Internet Date Time (UTC/Pacific) Number Target Posting 4-3-98 09:58/1:58 a.m. 216 Viking Lander 1 April 6 4-3-98 21:37/1:37 p.m. 217 Viking Lander 2 April 7 4-4-98 09:16/1:16 a.m. 218 Mars Pathfinder April 7 4-5-98 08:33/12:33 a.m. 220 Cydonia April 6 (mid-a.m.) Second opportunity Approximate Orbit Internet Date Time (UTC/Pacific) Number Target Posting 4-12-98 15:23/ 8:23 a.m. 235 Viking Lander 1 April 14 4-13-98 03:01/ 8:01 p.m. 236 Viking Lander 2 April 15 4-13-98 14:40/ 7:40 a.m. 237 Mars Pathfinder April 15 4-14-98 13:57/ 6:57 a.m. 239 Cydonia April 14 (mid-p.m.) Third opportunity Approximate Orbit Internet Date Time (UTC/Pacific) Number Target Posting 4-21-98 20:45/1:45 p.m. 254 Viking Lander 1 April 23 4-22-98 08:23/1:23 a.m. 255 Viking Lander 2 April 24 4-22-98 20:02/1:02 p.m. 256 Mars Pathfinder April 24 4-23-98 19:18/12:18 p.m. 258 Cydonia April 24 (mid-a.m.) ##### Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 02 апреля 1998 (1998-04-02) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Announcement of the creation of Espas, the European Space Society Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Espas press release #001(uk) 1998-04-01 Announcement of the creation of Espas, the European Space Society ***************************************************************** The purpose of Espas, the European Space Society, is to further the exploration, commercialization, industrialization and colonization of outer space, the Moon, Mars and other suitable celestial bodies. The first step towards this goal is to provide information about past, current and future space activities to all citizens of Europe in the five major languages of the European Union (German, French, English, Italian, Spanish) and if requested in other languages as well. This will improve the acceptance of the idea of space exploration, commercialization, industrialization and colonization by the general public of Europe and other continents. To achieve this goal we need your support! We need short introducing essays about the different aspects of space-flight, like: - manned space projects (Mercury, Apollo, Salyut, etc.) - national space programs (USA, USSR, China, etc.) - space launch centers (KSC, Baykonur, Kourou, etc.) - space agencies (NASA, NASDA, ESA, etc.) - interplanetary exploration (Luna, Voyager, Mars Pathfinder, etc.) - communication satellites (Intelsat, Astra, Iridium, etc.) - other satellites (HST, GPS, Spot, etc.) - space launchers (Delta, Soyuz, Ariane, etc.) - technology of space-flight (Propulsion, orbital mechanics, etc.) - celestial bodies (Moon, Mars, Asteroids, etc.) - important persons (Tsiolkovsky, von Braun, Gagarin etc.) - future space missions (NEAP, Rosetta, Mars Surveyor, etc.) - disadvantages of space-flight (Plutonium, bone-loss in zero-G, etc.) - companies (Aerospatial, Dasa, Boeing, etc.) - FAQs (Shuttle to the Moon, Mars face, faked Moon landing, etc.) - future of space-flight (tourism, CATS, Manned Mars Mission, etc.) - lots of other things... If you want to write or if you have already written a short article about one of these topics, please send it to Espas. It will be translated into the different European languages (by human beings) to offer interested people, who do not understand enough English to read the already available information, a first introduction to the various aspects of space-flight. Each page will contain links to other web-pages for further reading about the topic. The information pages of Espas would also be a FAQ for the sci.space.? newsgroups. Please visit the preliminary homepage of Espas at http://espas.home.pages.de/ and take part in our survey. We are awaiting your comments and are hoping for your support for Espas. Best regards! Luca Coren, Trieste, Italy Peter Culak, Bratislava, Slovakia Jens A. Lerch, Frankfurt, Germany Juha Unkila, Tampere, Finland Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

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