Next Stop Space

As noted by Year in Space, this coming year is going to be a busy one for planetary exploration. These missions include our own backyard with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter coming out of Goddard Space Flight Center.  I had a chance to visit this center just a few short months ago, and I was impressed with the numerous 24-7 control centers they had in operation, something we don’t get to see here at Armstrong. This project is actually a group of spacecraft who are charged with exploring the moon up close in search for hidden water deposits, and have been since 2009. Further, in a nod to ingenuity, the ARTEMIS satellites, a pair of re purposed Earth satellites continue to orbit the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 Lagrangian points collecting data on the Earth-Sun -Moon system.   The US isn’t the only operator in space. Chang’e 5, China’s first lunar sample return mission will take place later this year. Further out at Venus, JAXA’s Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki continues to survey the atmosphere and climate of one of our closest neighbors.  Mars, which is one of the biggest (by mission number) and most covered planet in our solar system after Earth certainly has more than it’s fair share of scientific instrumentation pointed in it’s direction this year. NASA’s MAVEN and India’s Mangalyaan are both still orbiting the red planet. Mars Odyssey is now starting it’s sixteenths year, claiming the title of longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Europe’s Mars Express are both also still working wonderfully monitoring the planet. Meanwhile, Europes ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter which reached orbit in October of this year. Unfortunately the lander it carried failed to arrive safely on the planet, it’s crash site later confirmed by NASA imagery. The orbiter will however continue to perform a number of aerobreaking maneuvers and hopefully begin atmospheric mapping in early 2017.  Of course, everyone’s favorite rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity are still roaming the red hills performing extended missions since their original missions completed back in 2004 and 2012 respectfully. OSIRIS-REx (which I am not ashamed to admit carried mine and many other Planetary Society members names into space) will spend the year traveling the inner solar system on it’s way to NEAR Bennu, which will be reached in 2018 in an attempted sample return mission. EXCITING!

Planet Gliese 581c Discovered: April 4th, 2007 Distance from Earth: 20.3 light-years Parent Star: Red Dwarf of spectral type M3V, 30% the mass of our Sun Orbital Period: 13 days Mass: 5.6 times the mass of the Earth Diameter: Unknown Distance from Parent Star: 11 million km

Titan: Moon of Saturn Discovered: March 25th, 1655 by Christiaan huygens Diameter: 5,152 km  Average Distance from Saturn: 1.2 million km Rotational Speed: 15.95 days Orbital period: 15.95 days Surface Temperature: -179C Composition: Rocky core surrounded by icy layers, some of which may be separated by a subsurface ocean.

Titan, the cloudy world of lakes, and the largest of Saturn's moons at twice the diameter of Pluto is the only solar system moon with a substantial atmosphere. Titan is a prime candidate for finding life in our solar system outside of the Earth. With rivers and lakes of methane, frozen mountain ranges, and potential subsurface liquid oceans, Titan is one of the most intriguing and dynamic worlds in the solar system. Source:The planetary Society

Extremophiles- Organisms that live in extreme conditions- give astrobiologists a glimpse of how life might evolve elsewhere. A living bacterium (Seen above in green) discovered in 2005 thrives despite having been thawed from ice dating back some 32,000 years, to the Pleistocene era.

1979: Active Volcanoes found on Io

2001: STS-102 Discovery Launched

2007: Orbital Express launched

2008: Furst Automated Transfer Vehicle launched

1792: John Herschel born

1837: Henry Draper born

1962: OSO-1 launched

1787: Joseph Fraunhofer born

1986: Vega 1 flies by Halley's Comet

1512: Geradus Mercator born

Landsat 3 launched

Voyager 1 flies by Jupiter

1979: Jupiter's ring discovered