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Дата: 23 июля 1998 (1998-07-23) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: SpaceViews Update - 15 July 1998 [1/6] Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... S P A C E V I E W S U P D A T E 1998 July 15 http://www.spaceviews.com/1998/0715/ *** Top Stories *** Planet-B Launched on Mars Mission Researchers Find Evidence Against Martian Nanofossils Astronomers Discover Nearby Developing Solar System Baikonur Problems Delay Soyuz Launch *** Technology *** Japanese Satellites Test Docking Techniques AXAF Completes Environmental Tests Zenit, Sub-Based Missile Launch Satellites *** Policy *** Senate Vote Supports Space Station NASA Creates Near-Earth Object Office Movie Producers Challenged to Match NEO Grant *** Science *** Io Volcanoes Hottest in Solar System New Type of Near-Earth Asteroids Discovered European Astronomers Discover Another Extrasolar Planet *** CyberSpace *** The Space Weather Bureau Orbit-on-Web The Moon Race Homepage Wired Collections: Space Exploration *** Space Capsules *** SpaceViews Event Horizon Other News Editor's Note: We apologize for the delay mailing this issue. Problems with the mailing list software at ARI, the company that hosts the list, caused the delays. We are looking into solutions to prevent this from happening again. Please feel free to send any comments, concerns, suggestions, or question to jeff@spaceviews.com. Our next issue will be published August 1. *** Top Stories *** Planet-B Launched on Mars Mission A rocket carrying the Planet-B spacecraft, Japan's first Mars mission, lifted off early Saturday, July 4, on the first anniversary of the landing of the American Mars Pathfinder spacecraft. The M-5 rocket launched from the Kagoshima Space Center on the island of Kyushu in the predawn hours Saturday (late afternoon Friday EDT). The booster successfully placed Planet-B, renamed Nozomi ("Hope") after launch, into Earth orbit. Because the M-5 rocket is not powerful enough to place Nozomi on a direct trajectory to Mars, the spacecraft will spend the next several months in an elliptical Earth orbit. Two lunar flybys will provide the final kick needed to reach Mars. Once Nozomi arrives at Mars in October 1999, it will enter an elliptical orbit around the planet. A suite of 14 instruments from five nations, including the United States, will study the planet's upper atmosphere and ionosphere. When close to Mars, the spacecraft will carry out studies of the lower atmosphere and surface of the planet, and study the interaction of the atmosphere with the solar wind in more distant portions of its orbit. The interaction of the outer atmosphere with the solar wind is of particular interest to scientists since Mars, unlike the Earth, lacks a magnetic field to shield the atmosphere from the solar wind's charged particles. The solar wind may have played a key role in stripping gas from the Martian atmosphere, and data collected by Planet-B may provide clues to this process. The United States is contributing a neutral mass spectrometer (NMS) to the Planet-B mission. "The Neutral Mass Spectrometer will enable us to measure the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere of Mars on a global scale, which has never been done before," said Dr. Hasso B. Niemann, the NMS principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Nozomi was launched almost exactly one year after Mars Pathfinder landed on the Red Planet. Japanese officials said the launch date for Nozomi was chosen as a way of honoring the American lander's mission. Two new American missions to Mars are scheduled for launch in the next six months. The Mars Climate Orbiter will launch in December to study Martian meteorology from orbit, while the Mars Polar Lander will lift off in January to land in the unique layered terrain near the Martian south pole. Researchers Find Evidence Against Martian Nanofossils A team of scientists reported Monday, July 6 that they had found new evidence which disproves claims that worm-like features seen in the Martian meteorite ALH 84001 are tiny "nanofossils" left behind by ancient Martian life. The research, led by John Bradley of Georgia Tech, Hap McSween of the University of Tennessee, and Ralph Harvey of Case-Western Reserve University, found that the fossil-like features seen in the meteorite were formed by mineralogical processes unrelated to life and at potentially very high temperatures. The scientists found that magnetite crystals seen in the meteorite were formed in the surrounding carbonates by epitaxy, or the ordered growth of one mineral atop another. Such formation requires temperatures of at least 120 degrees Celsius (248 degrees Fahrenheit), which would all but eliminate the possibility that fossilized Martian life exists in the meteorite. The crystals seen appeared free of defects, which the scientists noted is more representative of high-temperature growth than crystals grown at lower temperatures. Their research, to be published in the July issue of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, is the third paper by the team that has addressed the issue of whether the meteorite shows evidence of Martian life, as originally claimed by a team of Johnson Space Center (JSC) and other scientists in August 1996. "These three papers in combination basically invalidate much of their (JSC's) evidence," Bradley, an adjunct professor at Georgia Tech and executive director of the microscopy firm MVA Inc., said. The first paper reported that the magnetite crystals seen inside the claimed fossils were straight whiskers, not "daisy chains" as would be expected inside fossils. A second paper claimed the fossils themselves only resemble terrestrial fossils at certain viewing angles; at other angles they resembled inorganic scales or ledges. Bradley was strongly critical of the claims of the original JSC team. "Early skepticism has evolved into international consensus among meteoriticists and planetary scientists, with the exception of the JSC team, that this rock does not contain Martian nanofossils," he said. "I do not know of a single other individual who believes it at this point." Still, he does not expect the debate about ALH 84001 to end any time soon. "Unless the JSC team concedes, the debate will never die," he said. Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 23 июля 1998 (1998-07-23) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: SpaceViews Update - 15 July 1998 [2/6] Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Astronomers Discover Nearby Developing Solar System An international team of astronomers reported Wednesday, July 8, that they had found evidence of a solar system forming around the nearby star Epsilon Eridani. The astronomers used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to find a ring of dust around the star that looks "strikingly similar" to our solar system's own Kuiper Belt of icy bodies, according to one astronomer. "What we see looks just like the comet belt on the outskirts of our Solar System, only younger," said Jane Greaves of the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hawaii. "It's the first time we've seen anything like this around a star similar to our Sun." Epsilon Eridani is a K2-class star -- slightly cooler than the Sun and one-third as bright -- located 10.7 light years away. The star is one of the closest Sun-like stars, but is believed to be much younger than the Sun. The images, obtained at submillimeter wavelengths, indicate that the solar system is in the process of forming planets. "This star system is a strong candidate for planets, but if there are planets, it's unlikely there could be life yet," Greaves said. "When the Earth was this young, it was still being very heavily bombarded by comets and other debris." Addition evidence for planet formation around the star is the existence of a bright spot in the ring of dust imaged by the astronomers. "There may be a planet stirring up the dust in the ring and causing the bright spot," said Bill Dent of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, "or it could be the remnants of a massive collision between comets." A region near the star itself that appears partially free of dust is additional evidence for planet formation, astronomers said. Planets would be expected to absorb or otherwise clear out dust in the regions where they form. The existence of a solar system forming around a nearby Sun-like star may mean solar systems are quite common. "The implication is that if there is one system similar to ours at such a close star, presumably there are many others," Benjamin Zuckerman of UCLA said. "In the search for life elsewhere in the universe, we have never known where to look before. Now, we are closing in on the right candidates in the search for life." The same astronomers discovered dust disks earlier this year around the more distant and less Sun-like stars Vega and Formalhaut. Another dust disk was seen around the star HR 4796 at around the same time. The Epsilon Eridani discovery was announced at the "Protostars and Planets" conference in Santa Barbara, California. The work has been submitted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Baikonur Problems Delay Soyuz Launch A lack of electricity and running water at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's primary launch site, will delay next month's Soyuz launch of a Mir replacement crew by at least 10 days, Russian officials reported Wednesday, July 8. A three-person crew, including a former aide to Russian president Boris Yeltsin, was scheduled to lift off August 3 in Soyuz TM-28 to dock with Mir. However, a lack of electricity and water for the last two weeks at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the Soyuz launch site, has forced officials to move the launch date back to August 13. Electricity and water were cut to Baikonur because of unpaid bills, a problem stemming from a lack of money allocated to Energia, the company that operates Mir for the Russian Space Agency, and part of Russia's larger financial woes. "People are preparing for the launch in terrible conditions, in temperatures of 37 degrees Celsius [99 degrees Fahrenheit], without light, without water, without money," said Energia president Yuri Semyonov told the Itar-Tass news agency. Power has been restored to Baikonur, Itar-Tass reported, but the two-week loss of power impacted launch preparations enough to force a launch delay. The launch cannot be delayed much longer. The Soyuz capsule currently docked to Mir, which brought current crew members Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin to the station, must return to Earth by late August as its systems are only guaranteed to function for that long. The Soyuz TM-28 will carry a relief crew of commander Gennady Padalka and engineer Sergei Avdeyev. Also flying on the Soyuz will be former presidential aide Nikolai Baturin. Baturin will investigate the status of the station and return with Budarin and Musabayev later in August. Energia threatened last month to shut down Mir as early as August if the Russian government did not pay the money it owed the corporation for operating Mir. On July 2 the Russian government agreed to provide Energia with 600 million rubles (US$100 million) to continue operating the station through mid-1999, at which time the station will be deorbited into the Pacific Ocean. *** Technology *** Japanese Satellites Test Docking Techniques A pair of Japanese satellites completed the first successful test of an unmanned, automated docking early Tuesday, July 7. The two sections of the Engineering Test Satellite VII (ETS-7) separated and moved two meters (6.6 feet) apart before docking together again at 7:30am Japanese time (6:30pm ET and 2230UT July 6). In the test, three grappling claws on the 410 kg (900 lbs.) target satellite, named Orihime, grabbed onto the 2,540 kg (5,590 lbs.) chaser satellite, named Hikoboshi. The test was the first time two unmanned spacecraft and undocked and redocked under remote control. Tests planned for later this year will try docking after the two spacecraft are separated by distances up to several kilometers. The technology is being tested with an eye for use on the International Space Station. Automated docking techniques would make it easier for unmanned cargo spacecraft to dock with the station. ETS-7 was launched last November 27, along with the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, a joint NASA/NASDA (National Space Development Agency) mission. The names of the two ETS-7 spacecraft come from an old Japanese tale, where the princess Orihime and her lover Hikoboshi were allowed to meet only once a year, on July 7th. Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 23 июля 1998 (1998-07-23) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: SpaceViews Update - 15 July 1998 [3/6] Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... AXAF Completes Environmental Tests The Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) satellite has completed all of its environmental tests, satellite builder TRW reported Wednesday, July 8, but a problem with one of the satellite's instruments was uncovered during the tests. AXAF spent a month in a thermal vacuum chamber at TRW's El Segundo, California, facility. The satellite was exposed to the vacuum of space and alternating periods of hot and cold temperatures to simulate the environment the satellite will be in after launch. Key subsystems and instruments were tested during the thermal vacuum test to ensure they worked as planned. Engineers also tested sending commands to the spacecraft from the AXAF Operations Control Center (OCC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was during those tests that a mechanical problem was noticed in one of AXAF's instruments, the AXAF CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). TRW's AXAF program manager, Craig Staresinich, said the cause of the problem and repair plans are being investigated. "We believe that the repair can be made in parallel with upcoming electrical testing of the observatory with little or no impact to the delivery schedule," he said. He added that the discovery of the problem during the tests was a success, not a failure, since AXAF's highly elliptical orbit makes any on-orbit repairs by shuttle crews impossible, unlike the Hubble Space Telescope. "Discovering a problem now is a success. Discovering a problem later, after launch, would be a failure," he said. AXAF, originally planned for an August launch, was pushed back to December after delays in the assembly of the spacecraft were reported late last year. Launch of the spacecraft is now likely to take place no earlier than January, as the first space station assembly shuttle flight is now planned for December. Zenit, Sub-Based Missile Launch Satellites An oft-delayed Zenit booster and a missile launched from a Russian submarine successfully placed satellites from several nations into orbit in early July. A Zenit 2 rocket lifted off at 2:30am EDT (0630 UT) July 10 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying five satellites, including a Russian Resurs-0 remote sensing satellite and several small satellites from other nations, including Chile, Thailand, and Israel. The launch was originally planned for June 23 but was pushed back more than two weeks because of problems with the guidance system on the booster. The booster was taken off its launch pad for over a week while repairs to the system were completed. A last-minute failure in the system delayed a launch planned for July 8. The launch is the first for the Zenit since a May 1997 launch ended in an explosion shortly after liftoff. The Zenit has experienced other launch failures in the recent past as well. An SS-N-23 ballistic missile launched the Tubsat-N satellites from the Delfin-class submarine Novomoskovsk, submerged in the Barents Sea, at 7:15am Moscow time July 7 (0315 UT, 11:15pm ET July 6). The satellite successfully reached orbit, officials reported. Tubsat-N, built at the Technical University of Berlin, consists of two small satellites, together weighing less than 11.5 kg (25.3 lbs.). The larger Tubsat-N and smaller Tubsat-N1 were launched attached and are designed to separate once in orbit. The satellites contain a number of experiments, including tests of reaction wheel and star sensor performance. They are also designed to store and forward low data rate communications. The Russian Navy, which conducted the satellite launch, said it plans future commercial launches using its nuclear submarines as a way to raise money for the cash-strapped armed service. *** Policy *** Senate Vote Supports Space Station In a final rebuke to a longtime but retiring foe of the International Space Station, the Senate voted down by a 2-to-1 margin July 7 a measure that would have cut funding to the station. By a vote of 66 to 33, the Senate rejected an amendment to a NASA appropriations bill proposed by Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-AR) that would have canceled the station and placed the funding intended for it into veteran's health and low-rent housing projects. Bumpers, a longtime opponent of the space station who is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, has introduced similar amendments for many years. All have failed in Senate votes. In support of his amendment, Bumpers cited recent studies from the GAO that claimed the total cost to build and operate the station would reach or exceed $100 billion. The annual operating cost of the station alone, he said, "will be enough to fund 6,000 researchers at NIH [National Institutes of Health] and universities across America for a year." "We are going to have six people on the space station doing what the National Research Council estimates to be 24 hours of research each day, at a cost at which we could hire 6,000 researchers on earth," he said. Supporters of the station, including Sen. John Glenn (D-OH), took issue with some of Bumpers's statements. "This $96 billion is a fictitious figure; $40 billion of that, by NASA estimates, includes shuttle costs that are going to go on anyway," Glenn said. Glenn, who, like Bumpers, is retiring after this year, said spending on programs like the station is necessary to make progress. "If we ever tried to solve all problems and to do everything we wanted to do before we made research, we would never have moved off the east coast." Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 23 июля 1998 (1998-07-23) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: SpaceViews Update - 15 July 1998 [4/6] Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... NASA Creates Near-Earth Object Office The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will host a new NASA office dedicated to detecting, tracking, and understanding potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs), NASA announced Tuesday, July 14. NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office will focus on the goal of locating at least 90 percent of the estimated 2,000 asteroids and comets that approach the Earth and are larger than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter, by the end of the next decade. "We determined that, in order to achieve our goals, we need a more formal focusing of our near-Earth object tracking efforts and related communications with the supporting research community," said Dr. B. Carl Pilcher, science director for solar system exploration at NASA headquarters. "Finding a majority of this population will require the efforts of researchers at several NASA centers, at universities and at observatories across the country, and will require the participation by the international astronomy community as well," said Dr. Donald Yeomans of JPL, an expert on asteroid and comet orbits who will head the new office. The new office will focus on coordinating efforts to detect NEOs as well as facilitating communications between astronomers and the public should a dangerous NEO be discovered. This second role for the NEO office is seen as a reaction to the fiasco surrounding the announcement in March that asteroid 1997 XF11 would pass dangerously close to the Earth in 2028. Later analyses of the data, combined with pre-discovery observations, eliminated any threat of a collision in 2028 within one day of the original announcement. In the months following the 1997 XF11 announcement, NASA has announced plans to more than double funding for NEO tracking projects, to around $3 million in 1999. NASA has also formed policy that requires NASA-funded astronomers -- most of the NEO community worldwide -- to better communicate any discoveries among themselves and NASA before going public. Movie Producers Challenged to Match NEO Grant Two private space organizations announced a $50,000 grant Wednesday, July 1, to support work to locate and track near-Earth objects (NEOs), and challenged the producers of two current Hollywood blockbusters to match the grant. The Space Frontier Founation (SFF) and the Foundation for the International Non-Governmental Development of Space (FINDS) announced the grant as a kickoff for a fundraising campaign to support NEO research and bring together top experts on the issue. The organizations alsom challenged the producers of the movies "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" -- two summer blockbusters that depict comets and asteroids on collision courses with the Earth -- to match the grant. "The film industry has done an excellent job educating people about the very real threat NEOs pose to our civilization, and is making millions of dollars at the same time," said SFF president Rick Tumlinson. ""Meanwhile, there is very little money going to support the handful of heroic people doing the actual work of finding and tracking these potential Earth killers." "There are astronomers who cannot afford to turn on their telescopes," Tumlinson noted. "Hollywood is making a lot of money playing off of the fear -- now it's time for them to ante up." The grant will go towards a program called "The Watch" whose goal is to raise $1 million a year to support NEO research worldwide. The funds will be disbursed by an advisory council headed by John Lewis of the University of Arizona. The council will meet for the first time at an SFF conference in California in October. FINDS, a $13 million endowment that funds "breakthrough projects" in space-related topics, currently supports NEO tracking projects at Canada's University of Victoria and asteroid iron extraction work at the University of Arizona. Deep Impact, a movie released in May by Dreamworks and Paramount, cost $75 million. The movie has grossed over $133 million in the United States alone by late June. Armageddon, about a giant asteroid headed towards Earth, opened in North America July 1. Its budget was estimated at well over $100 million. *** Science *** Io Volcanoes Hottest in Solar System Planetary scientists using data from the Galileo spacecraft have discovered that volcanoes on Io are the hottest planetary surfaces in the solar system, reaching temperatures of thousands of degrees. Researchers from the University of Arizona, Brown University, and other institutions, writing in the July 3 issue of the journal Science, found that at least a dozen volcanic vents on Io, the innermost of Jupiter's four largest moons, reach temperatures of at least 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,200 degrees Fahrenheit). One is as hot as 1,700 degrees C (3,100 degrees F), about three times hotter than the sunlit surface of Mercury. "The very hot lavas