Your Thursday Space Update

Colorado, New York, Colorado, California, Colorado...this is basically what my last month has looked like.  I'm happy to say the travel and long work days have been totally worth while, as my team successfully completed our Engineering Peer Review yesterday.  This is an exciting time for OSIRIS-REx, as we kick off our Critical Design Review season, and in a few weeks, start the 1000 day countdown to launch.  This is also an exciting time for space exploration.  Our sister project, MAVEN, is set to launch next week and begin its journey to Mars, while India's Mars Orbiter Mission is already completing orbit maneuvers around the Earth to build up enough momentum to "launch" itself toward the red planet.  To many people, these space missions seem like a "waste" of taxpayer money, but these missions increase our knowledge about the inner workings of the universe and tell us the story of the creation of our very own solar system.  Not to mention these missions can tell us a lot about our own life on Earth.

 The image you see above was released by NASA back in July.  You are looking at a real image of Saturn, taken by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft.  This image was created by sewing together thousands of tiny "thumbnail" size pictures taken over a period of 4 hours.  At the point this image was taken, Saturn was positioned right in front of the Sun, while the spacecraft was on the opposite side of the planet.  It's like a lunar eclipse, where the moon is positioned in between the Earth and the Sun, but instead Saturn is positioned in between the Sun and the spacecraft.  The importance of having Saturn backlit by the Sun means that less solar light reached Cassini's cameras and Cassini was able to capture brighter images of Saturn's rings (and otherwise faint stars and planets).  The image on the below right is a scaled-in (zoomed-in) version of the same image you see above.  You see that arrow pointing to a tiny white dot?  That tiny white dot is the Earth & Moon.  Yep, Cassini captured an image of the Earth from a distance of 100 million miles away.  The image on the right is the raw thumbnail image take by Cassini that captured the Earth and the Moon.  Pretty amazing to think what human knowledge can accomplish thanks to the Space industry.  Somewhere on that little gleam of white light you were probably busy cooking dinner, filling your gas tank, or enjoying a glass of wine.  Ever hear the saying a picture tells a thousand words??? 

Images courtesy of:  http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov  

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MSL Monday

Okay folks, time to take a break from those Olympics (as exciting as they are) to learn about the OTHER gold medal winner of the day.  Warning--If you aren't ready to completely geek-out right now, it's probably a good time for you to click back to the Track & Field events.

You may know it as Curiosity, but here in the industry it's known as the Mars Science Laboratory, or simply MSL.  MSL landed in the Gale Crater on Mars last night after what has become known as one of the most complicated space vehicle maneuvers EVER.  At a net weight of 1 ton (just a couple hundred pounds less than the weight of my hunnie's Toyota Corolla), travelling through the Martian atmosphere (which is less than 1% the density of Earth), MSL needed a variety of mechanisms to complete a safe landing Sunday night.  After passing through the thin atmosphere, MSL deployed its supersonic parachute (just like its rover predecessors).  As it descended, MSL separated from its heat shield.  The separation of the heat shield allowed the MSL instruments to begin taking readings (tracking speed, altitude...etc) which is imperative to the vehicle knowing when to start the next phase of the landing maneuver.  Remember what I said...the chute alone is not enough to slow down MSL in the Martian atmosphere.  So when the instruments detect MSL at an altitude of 1.1 miles, it ignites 8 thruster engines (imagine 8 high powered jet packs).  These thruster do just what they sound like they do--thrust the vehicle upwards (as well as left and right) to assist is slowing the vehicle further as it descends.  After the thrusters ignite, the parachute separates from MSL (because at this point it is just 100 pounds of dead weight).  Don't get too eager though, because MSL can't land yet.  The thrusters kick up so much dust as MSL descends that if it rode them all the way to the ground none of MSL's instruments would be able to function properly, as they could be fatally damaged by dust particles.  Que in the Sky Crane (I get chills just saying that out loud).  Doesn't that sound cool?  At approximately 65 feet above the ground, MSL ejected from the thruster deck and dropped towards the ground (still attached to the thruster deck by cables).  Its like the time in that one movie where that one guy hangs from they crane over the sky scraper with a conveniently located cable, waiting for the helicopter to fly by and pick him up.  Curiosity the new Tom Cruise...I think so!  As the MSL dropped down on the Sky Crane, its wheels were deployed, and after this series of maneuvers it slowed to a speed near zero and gently landed on its wheels on the surface of the Martian crater.  Pretty amazing, right?!  Engineers, scientists, astronomers, and plenty of other geeks spent the last 8 years planning this event (and thinking up preventative measures for every possible thing that could go wrong).  Please take a moment to process that you are looking at the result of all their hard work, knowledge and technological innovation...this is no movie set, it's Mars Baby! 

 I applaud you for making it through this super long post.  If your hip (hipper than me), log into that Tweeter account and look for #MSL.  So glad to be a part of this industry and that I was able to celebrate the real gold medal winner with my hunnie and co-workers at a NASA landing party last night.  It was a shining moment for America and the World. 

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Venus Transit

Tuesday's Venus Transit in front of the Sun was the highlight of my week.  Sure, I'm part of the Aerospace academic community, but an event like this, one that wont happen again for another 105 years, is pretty exciting no matter who you are.  The transit occurs when Venus aligns directly in front of the field of view of the Sun (with respect to the Earth).  In the early 18th Century, the Venus Transit was documented and used as a rudimentary way of estimating the distance from the Earth to the Sun.  I was able to witness the event at work, where some of my co-workers had set up telescopes with a variety of filters for safe viewing of the Sun.  I even had the opportunity to scope the Sun through a pair of binoculars that had visible light filters.  I feel pretty lucky to have been able to experience this event first-hand.  In case you missed it:

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