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Yup. Obama has been trying to kill planetary missions at NASA: The Obama Administration tried to cut 300 million from planetary science at NASA last year effectively killing exploration: http://www.planetary.org/blogs... [planetary.org] "White house proposes ~$300 million of cuts to Planetary Science in 2013."

Here is a link: The Obama Administration tried to cut 300 million from planetary science at NASA last year effectively killing exploration: http://www.planetary.org/blogs... "White house proposes ~$300 million of cuts to Planetary Science in 2013."

Wrong about Obama, mostly wrong about Congress. The Obama Administration tried to cut 300 million from planetary science at NASA last year effectively killing exploration: http://www.planetary.org/blogs... "White house proposes ~$300 million of cuts to Planetary Science in 2013."

Spacecraft don't use a lot of state-of-the-art electronics and components for the same reason cars don't. These things need to be reliable, and that often means older, larger, more stable electronics. This is an area where engineers still use hand-tied knots for cable fastening--even ancient knots.

The original comet rendezvous-er is coming back to Earth 35 years later. I hope we do more than just wave as it goes by.

The Planetary Society is doing an optical SETI search for laser signals. http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/seti/optical-seti.html/ Is it pointless? Well, you don't know until you look, and even then it could take a very very long time. Problem with a laser is you have to point it somewhere

And, Chang'E 2 then went on and flew by Asteroid (4179) Toutatis, as a bonus, for a tiny fraction of the cost of a new spacecraft launch.

Scheduling that a few months in advance with a spacecraft that was not intended for deep space puts China up in the first ranks of spacefaring nations IMHO.

For all of the dozens of redundant posts below complaining about image quality, these are the system management cameras. Science cameras are supposed to be deployed today.

Planetary Society's coverage of Chang'e.

Well, guess this explains it: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2010/2471.html

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2010/2471.html

Umm..the last controlled landing was when Luna 24 actually landed. The landing was August 18th 1976.

I suggest you listen to Planetary Radio, a fine source of ~~Random Space Facts!!~~

Fortuitously, this mission will let LADEE, NASA's recently-launched Lunar atmosphere mission, collect more data:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/11262206-change-3.html

The coincidence of Chang'e 3 arriving at the Moon after LADEE has begun observations has developed into a serendipitous occurrence for lunar science. Because we don't understand very well how exospheric gases are added to and removed from the Moon, what has landed in our laps is an unplanned (but controlled) experiment. A known quantity of gases - of known composition - will be added to the lunar atmosphere at a precisely known time, in a precisely known place. One could have not designed a better experiment to measure how this addition of material is distributed, how its distribution evolves over time, and how these expelled gases dissipate into cislunar space. Even better, LADEE will have almost a full month to monitor and characterize the lunar atmosphere before Chang'e arrives, thus allowing us to first observe the "natural" Moon and then the "contaminated" Moon and how the lunar atmosphere recovers from its defilement.

        None of this was prearranged - the Chinese schedule their missions on the basis of their own time-table and programmatic needs (just as NASA's lunar goals have changed over the last 5 years). But because of a fortuitous alignment of schedules, we have a unique opportunity to observe in real time how the Moon works. Hopefully, the Chinese will provide us with detailed mass numbers of their spacecraft and exactly what variety of fuel it carries, but even if they don't, physics dictates a certain mass and volume of the exhaust gas and its composition will be measured by LADEE (allowing us to know the type of fuel used). China's December lander mission to the Moon will provide our U.S. mission with a welcome bit of "traffic exhaust," giving scientists the opportunity to learn more from LADEE than we'd originally envisioned.

I didn't put in the link for the Mike Martinez comment.

The problem is that the Dept. of Energy, although hugely wasteful, cannot "afford" to make plutonium for NASA/JPL. Yet another way this and previous admin is trying to gut planetary science: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2013/20130913-the-doe-is-full-of-wasteful-spending-but-forbidden-to-help-nasa-make-plutonium-for-space-missions.html

Again nice story but please explain this. Notice they also simulated the increased UV and the atmosphere, thin as it is, shields enough radiation to allow humans to function for hours, unshielded, on the surface each day so it is not that high. Yes life on Mars is tough but if a similar disaster befell the Earth and we converted to Mars-like conditions we would still have some life left covering the surface. So why not Mars?

That doesn't presume that those organisms would thrive or last for thousands or years or more,

There are several species of lichen and cyanobacteria which can survive and function in simulated martian conditions on Earth. This includes the elevated UV radiation.

In addition the thin atmosphere does provide enough radiation protection for hours of activity per day from human astronauts. If it did not there would be zero point in going to Mars since you would never be able to walk on the surface. The lack of B-field means that the atmosphere is stripped away but what atmosphere there is still provides plenty of shielding. Indeed the reason you do not suffer massive radiation on Earth at the magnetic poles (where the field offers no protection because the field lines are vertical) is because the atmosphere shields you. Mars' atmosphere is a lot, lot thinner but even that is enough to provide a reasonable amount of shielding.

Regarding the time difference this is meaningless if you have a reproducing organism. The organism on Mars is not sitting around dormant waiting a billion years for who-knows-what to happen. It is busily replicating and growing new copies of itself. Even if you have the occasional CME it may kill a lot of life on the surface but that which is sheltered by rocks or cliffs or on the other side of the planet at the time it hits should then recover and grow back.

Old military electronics always had wires laced (maybe they still do this, haven't been into any new equipment).

It's laced with a heavy waxed cloth, similar to extra wide tooth floss.

It's not just the military, and it's not dead. NASA still secure much/ most of the cabling on spacecraft using "lacing" (as our ITs call it on this side of the pond). Hmmm ; searching for the pages I saw not-long ago ... the knots (this article has been re-used several times, including by the Planetary Society, who at least cite their sources), there is a detailed NASA standard available here.

Different ITs (instrumentation technicians) I've worked with have had different styles. Some would lace ; some would use hundreds of (sefl-extinguishing) plastic tie-wraps. Generally I found that the lacing was neater, and more flexible. But most ITs didn't have the skill or training to use it (I'd struggle to follow that NASA spec ; but I'm not an IT.)

Someone mentioned aircraft mechanics damaging wiring that should be laced, by using tie-wraps. The NASA spec covers this : "9.6.2 Plastic straps are usually installed by tooling. Tooling shall be tension-controlled to meet the strap-tightening requirements previously stated (Requirement)." Which is exactly what my better ITs (not coincidentally, the lacing ones) have always specified too. Not that most of our staff paid the slightest attention, and since a tie-wrap torque-setting tool could cost several days pay, few of our managers would wear the cost of the tools for the field staff.

Your post reads like "How do they know some stars are planets anyways? What makes one sparkly thing in the sky different from all the rest? Unpossible to differentiate."

Or we, being libertarian, could consider private side approaches. While space-based private exploration and science is in its infancy, it's worth noting that it is done.

For example, the Planetary Society has several projects cooking. I don't agree with the ideological baggage that comes attached (they're uncritical boosters of NASA's unmanned science program), but at least they practice what they preach. One could do worse than send them some money.

There's also a large number of non profits developing launch prototypes all over the world. I think that's a bit oversaturated, but I do volunteer on occasion for JP Aerospace, who does high altitude balloons and the occasional balloon-launched rocket.

And of course, there are actual start ups to invest in. I have an non-business interest in Altius Space Machines because I'm acquainted with the founder, Jon Goff who is one of the more insightful bloggers out there on space development topics.

The radar images are great, but they're definitely not conventional photos - the viewpoint-from-Earth is actually from the 'top' of the image, looking down. They're constructed from a combination of distance measurements and Doppler shifts, the latter thanks to the rotation of the asteroid.

So basically it means a single transmitter and single receiver can figure out a two-dimensional image from a vast distance - and it's nice that these images quite closely match the conventional, optical images taken by the Chang'e probe!

There will be a human-made satellite that will engage in a fly-by to asteroid 4179 Toutatis

The satellite is China's Chang'e 2 and it will rendezvous with 4179 Toutatis.

There are two conflicting reports of the rendezvous date -

According to wikipedia the rendezvous date will be 13th December 2012 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis

According to another source - http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/20120614-change-2-toutatis.html - the rendezvous date will fall on 6th, January, 2013.

I found it covered most of the main points:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/10221238-uranus-keck-photos.html

So you're looking to repeatedly put CO2 into the soil then release it abruptly.

One such mechanism is the season cycle. CO2 freezes into the ground in winter and gets released in early spring whenever a drop in pressure occurs. Again, you're thinking about this in terrestrial terms.

Keep in mind that Mars is currently just past fall equinox (September 29 according to the Planetary Society). Curiosity has yet to see any early spring phenomena.

There is a much more comprehensive list of viewing parties organized by the Planetary Society at http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/events/planetfest-2012/worldwide.html

Or rather a confirmation of some preliminary work done years agor (2008) http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001400/

Kepler observes transits of planets. For simplicity's sake, let's just talk about one planet. As the planet passes in front of the star, the shape of the light curve tells you the ratio of the radii of the planet and the star, and some good constraints on the inclination of the system; that's it. If you make some assumptions about the underlying star, you can make a good estimate for the radius of the star and then get the radius of the planet. As AC points out, if you assume a density, you can get a "mass" measurement. That's like asking someone on the internet how tall they are and guessing their weight from it; it can get you an ok answer, but the real range of variation is tremendous and interesting.

In order to then get a real, measured mass of the planet, you need radial velocity measurements which tells you the ratio of the mass of the planet and the star. Again, if you know some things about the star, you can then make a good estimate for it's mass and then get the mass of the planet. NASA buys a share of time from the Keck telescopes, and the vast majority of time has been eaten up by followup observations of Kepler candidates ever since it launched. For the smallest planets, you need precision on a scale that most observatories can not provide at this time; for an Earth-like planet around an Earth-like star the radial velocity precision required is on the order of cm/s, which is fantastically hard to do. I'm not actually sure anyone has produced anything real along those lines, though there are plenty of ideas and plans.

If you're technically minded, there's a decent review from a few years ago available. If you're looking for something simpler, try this.

As Teancum points out, you can detect and infer some other stuff by looking at the variations of the transit times and see if there is something else tugging on the system; that's a whole different ballgame, and David Kipping is the most prominent person I can think of leading that charge.

BREAKING: The Judges for the 20th International Obfuscated C Code Contest decided to award an honorary mention to the Phobos-Grunt programming team.

BREAKING BREAKING: IOCCC Judges retract honorary mention after reading TFA; particularly

Thankfully, this obfuscation turned out to be noise, and the actual failure report issued last week by the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) makes it clear that the fault lies at home -- due to non-space qualified parts being used in some of the electronics circuits.

According to this illustration, it seems every single probe they send to mars is an utter failiure.

http://www.planetary.org/image/mars-exploration-family-portrait.jpg

Or you could try the next best thing.

Because Slashot is edited and populated by a bunch of ignorant know-it-alls, there are already a bunch of stunningly ignorant posts claiming skepticism about that "image".

If you'd all shut up and learn a little before vomiting your ignorance all over the site, you might have found this site:

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002462/

Hint: it's not a "photo".

They do.

Listen to the sounds of titan, recorded by Hyugens probe (fine, that was european, but piggybacked on Cassini).

Mars Polar Lander also had one (although it crashed).

"Citizens, the last of the two mechanical invaders that first touched down on our red soil, has reached its ultimate destination. Intelligence reports from the blue world confirm that the alien fiend will likely peer over the rim of its ultimate destination this week, the huge End-Devaur crater."

K'Breel confirmed that the source of this intelligence leak was a communications node of the blue world's so-called "Planetary Society" has been neutralized. Its data flows as sluggishly as the brine that oozes forth from beneath the summer soil. Soon, the invading force whose activities it purports to document, shall be neutralized along with it! ONWARD TO VICTORY!

When a junior reporter speculated that the reason for the temporary downtime of the communications node might be related to a surge of network traffic from blue-worlders whose only interest was peaceful exploration, K'Breel had the junior reporter's gelsacs effectively slashed .

The Pioneers were spin-stablizied (like tops), whereas Voyager was 3-axis stabilized (with thrusters).

The first probes fired at the moon were also spin-stabilized. Both the US probes and the Soviet probes missed, by large margins. The Russians were the first to hit the moon - I guess they loaded extra propellant to perform course corrections.

The proper thing to do is launch another spin-stabilized probe on an extragalactic trajectory. I wonder how much that would cost.

What is the "Pioneer Anomaly"... <snip>
Is the same effect seen with the Voyager spacecraft?
The Pioneers are spin-stabilized spacecraft. The Voyagers are three-axis stabilized craft that fire thrusters to maintain their orientation in space or to slew around and point their instruments. Those thruster firings would introduce uncertainties in the tracking data that would overwhelm any effect as small as that occurring with Pioneer.

This difference in the way the spacecraft are stabilized actually is one of the reasons the Pioneer data are so important and unique. Most current spacecraft are three-axis stabilized, not spin stabilized.

- http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/innovative_technologies/pioneer_anomaly/update_20050720.html

How many active space exploration missions are there? One or two? Over a dozen. Studying Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Vesta, and on the way to Pluto.
Here's a map of them all.

Those went up on this flight, too, as part of prep work for a Mars mission from the Planetary Society.

... from Slava Turyshev which describes what they did to model the craft and show that heat could be the culprit.

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/pioneer_anomaly/update_20080519.html

There's some commentary over at the Planetary Society that suggests (among other things) that the two bodies may not be joined, just gravitationally bound, and that the material in the middle is probably loose.

What I think we are seeing here is a contact binary, two main bodies that orbit each other so closely that they are touching. Gravel and dust has flowed into the weird gravitational region between the two lobes, filling it almost as though it were a liquid. I'll bet that smooth neck traces out an equipotential surface.

This seems to be almost exactly the same as the Planetary Society's LightSail project, http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/

And I think that LightSail was started because NASA gave up on the NanoSail-D project. So what gives? Did NASA change their mind about this and what about the LightSail project?

I've always wondered why the rovers aren't designed with bigger wheels and bubble-ish tires

Have you seen the pictures of this rover? The wheels are about knee high and about the same wide. They are on a rocker-bogey system that can scale objects twice the wheel height.

Every time we read that one of the existing rovers got stuck and the folks at JPL were working on getting it unstuck, I'd think the same thing.

The rover is not stuck because of the wheels. It is stuck because the body is hung up on a rock. They could try lifting the body off of the rock using the sensor/sampling arm, but that might damage the arm. Also, the arm might not give them enough clearance to get off the rock. Add to that the fact that it's winter there, so the available power is low, and you've got a rover that's stuck until Martian summer. (Actually, the rover has been incommunicado since March. It has likely gone into hibernation until there is enough solar power to wake it.)

The other rover has wheels that won't turn because its motor has seized. Again, nothing to do with the wheel size/shape. If you want m

I've always wondered why the rovers aren't designed with bigger wheels and bubble-ish tires

Have you seen the pictures of this rover? The wheels are about knee high and about the same wide. They are on a rocker-bogey system that can scale objects twice the wheel height.

Every time we read that one of the existing rovers got stuck and the folks at JPL were working on getting it unstuck, I'd think the same thing.

The rover is not stuck because of the wheels. It is stuck because the body is hung up on a rock. They could try lifting the body off of the rock using the sensor/sampling arm, but that might damage the arm. Also, the arm might not give them enough clearance to get off the rock. Add to that the fact that it's winter there, so the available power is low, and you've got a rover that's stuck until Martian summer. (Actually, the rover has been incommunicado since March. It has likely gone into hibernation until there is enough solar power to wake it.)

The other rover has wheels that won't turn because its motor has seized. Again, nothing to do with the wheel size/shape. If you want m

No offense, but I'd think it is pretty obvious that this is a proof-of-concept and any interpretation that this is in any way billed as "ready for prime time" shows a complete lack of understanding of the real accomplishment here. It also devalues what's been accomplished.

This is a MAJOR accomplishment. Like many other early stage technologies it might not be practical but will most certainly pave the way for very practical applications. You do realize that this essentially represents free energy for both powering AND maneuvering space craft, right? About the only thing you'd need with a spacecraft built using this kind of technology is thrusting mass for maneuvering in gravity wells and/or takeoff/landing from the surface of a body (looking much further out).

Certainly a number of overall technologies will need to come together for this to be applicable for anything beyond use for satellite positioning. The use of this for a space faring craft will be faced with a laundry list of other techology hurdles, such as:

1. Mass/scale engineering. What would it take to build a sail large enough to provide inertia but can remain rigid enough to actually move a spacecraft module.
2. What are the affects of long term solar radiation on the solar/lcd panels? Will they survive the hard radiation of the "solar winds" long enough to make travel worthwhile?

Another question concerns the math around the acceleration of the object. I don't have a clue myself (but it would be interesting to look into). Remembering that the solar radiation used by the sails is travelling at the speed of light we need to calculate the acceleration of the body over time. I think we'll find that even though acceleration is slow it is also continuous, so you can reach EXTREMELY high speeds over time. Here's a quote I pulled from http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/facts.html:

"The real advantage of solar sailing is that, unlike a chemical rocket that applies a lot of thrust for a very short time, sunlight hitting the sail applies thrust continuously. In 100 days, a sail-propelled craft could reach 14,000 kilometers per hour. In just three years, a solar sail could reach over 150,000 miles per hour. At that speed, you could reach Pluto in less than five years."

Pretty awesome stuff.

Obviously, this was an attempt by the Chela at Optical SETI.

It's not their fault we have a different definition of "optical"....

On a related note, there's a bill in the Senate which will be voted on tomorrow (Thursday) morning which threatens to reduce the proposed funding for robotic missions (like the one described in the summary), commercial crew, and space technology in favor of building a government-designed heavy-lift rocket instead. The Planetary Society has an update describing the situation and is urging people who care about space exploration to call their Senators immediately:

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002584/

More background info on the bill: http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/07/14/a-quick-review-of-the-senate-nasa-authorization-bill/

For the curious, Bill Nye the Science Guy (the new director of the Planetary Society) and Louis Friedman are hosting a webcast/discussion at 5pm ET today about the future direction of NASA:

http://planetary.org/about/press/releases/2010/0712_Where_Should_We_Go_in_Space_Tell_Bill.html

On a related note, there's a bill in the Senate which will be voted on tomorrow (Thursday) morning which threatens to reduce the proposed funding for robotic missions (like the one described in the summary), commercial crew, and space technology in favor of building a government-designed heavy-lift rocket instead. The Planetary Society has an update describing the situation and is urging people who care about space exploration to call their Senators immediately:

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002584/

More background info on the bill: http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/07/14/a-quick-review-of-the-senate-nasa-authorization-bill/

For the curious, Bill Nye the Science Guy (the new director of the Planetary Society) and Louis Friedman are hosting a webcast/discussion at 5pm ET today about the future direction of NASA:

http://planetary.org/about/press/releases/2010/0712_Where_Should_We_Go_in_Space_Tell_Bill.html

It is probably more accurate to say that Hayabusa was parked next to the asteroid, which in itself is quite an accomplishment.

That was the plan, but oops, MINERVA, the detachable mini-lander, missed, and went sailing off into deep space.

For the sampling mission, the plan was to make brief contact with the sample-grabbing-gadget, but the probe actually sat there for 30 minutes. Then it popped back up, and tried again a few days later.

Maybe it had a weight of a tenth of a gram in the feeble gravity of a 500-meter rubble pile, but it's technically correct (the best kind of correct!) to say that not only did Hayabusa land on an asteroid, it landed twice on the asteroid.

Kudos to JAXA for a job well-done, and the image of Earth on final approach was just sweet. Totally unnecessary to verify that the probe was on target, but taken just because after 7 years of mission-threatening failures, it was good to be home. (Even if its last thoughts were "I wonder if it'll be friends with me?" in reference to the wind, not the ground :)

This article is a great background article on the trials Hayabusa endured on it's way, while it was there and on its return to Earth. Read the article and be amazed that the probe made it home at all.

Reminded me of Apollo 13's problems and the hacks necessary to deal with them.

If you want to hear more stories about space missions, particularly cutting edge ones, check out some of the following sites:

Spaceflightnow.com
Space.com
The Space Fellowship
The Planetary Society

and, of course,

JAXA
NASA
JPL

There are other sites, but those are some of my favorite.

I also came here to complain about the poor article. Good coverage comes from the blog of the Planetary Society, which is working on its own solar sail and actually has people visiting JAXA.

Did anyone else read "flagship technology" and picture a ship with solar sails? Well, if you did, you'll be disappointed.

You mean like the one that Japan launched yesterday?

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002503/
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=12588

Today the Council of Elders confirmed the rumours that the sinister blue planet third from our star has waved the white flag of surrender regarding one of its mechanical invaders. K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, reported the leak of an intelligence report from the blue world:

http://planetary.org/news/2010/1231_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html

Continuing his pronouncement, K'Breel continued: "The trap which we laid for the robotic invader has proven successful; the monstrosity from the blue world now lies half-buried in a Snarpat pit, impaled upon a spire of rock."

"Rejoice, podmates, one invader has been immobilized, and even as I speak to you, our teams are dutifully hunting down the second. It is of identical design as to the first, and we anticipate that it will succumb long before it reaches its destination!"

When a junior analyst suggested that both invaders had already exceeded their designed lifetimes by a factor of ten, and that even the immobilized one was one gust of wind away from being able to return operationally-useful scientific data from its current position for years to come, K'Breel had the analyst's gelsacs placed between the invader's slowly-spinning wheel and the crusty sulfates of Scamander Crater.