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Old 31-01-2004, 00:05   #1
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[Space] News

Thread dedicato alle notizie più importanti riguardanti l'astronomia e i programmi spaziali internazionali.


LINK MISSIONI SCIENTIFICHE - Science and Deep Space Missions (Aggiornato: 12 Febbraio 2004)

- ESA - Mars Express

- ESA - Rosetta

- NASA - Mars Exploration Rover - MER-A 'Spirit

- NASA - Mars Exploration Rover - MER-B 'Opportunity

- NASA - Deep Impact

- NASA-ESA - Cassini-Huygens

- NASA-ESA - Hubble Space Telescope

- SpaceShipOne - First Piloted Private Flight


LINK MISSIONI UMANE - Human Space Flight (Aggiornato: 12 Febbraio 2004)

- International - Internation Space Station

- ESA - Automated Transfer Vehicle


#####


ESA - European Space Agency:

Envisat completes its ten thousandth orbit around Earth

30 January 2004

Around 7pm CET on 28 January 2004, ESA's Envisat spacecraft completed its ten thousandth orbit of the Earth – travelling a distance of 450 million kilometres since launch, equivalent to taking a trip to Mars.

Envisat orbits our planet every hundred minutes, moving at a velocity of more than seven kilometres per second.

This lorry-sized spacecraft is the most complex environmental satellite ever launched, with ten different instruments mounted on its hull to study Earth's land, oceans and atmosphere.

These instruments were developed and built by scientists and industrial teams from all across Europe.
They include the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) that sees through clouds and darkness to continuously return radar pictures and the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) imaging ocean colour and land cover.

Envisat's Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) records global ground and sea surface temperature, while the Radar Altimeter-2 (RA-2) measuring surface height to an accuracy of a few centimetres. A trio of atmospheric instruments map trace gases and pollutants.

Envisat completed its latest milestone as it passed over the equator 800 km above the middle of the Indian Ocean.

During its ten thousandth orbit, as for any of its 14 daily orbits, Envisat was using all of its ten instruments to gather information about the world below it, and the satellite ground segment generated about ten gigabytes of data products.

Next month Envisat will have spent two years in orbit: it was launched on 28 February 2002 by Ariane-5 rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
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Old 31-01-2004, 00:11   #2
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Arianespace :

Flight 158
January 29: Topping off Rosetta


The countdown for liftoff of Flight 158 reached another milestone this week with the fueling of Europe's Rosetta comet-intercept spacecraft. This activity is taking place in the S3B clean-room facility at the Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. At the same time, final integration of Ariane 5 vehicle for Flight 158 is proceeding in the Spaceport's launcher integration building.

Rosetta's main scientific objective is to rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in order to study the comet's nucleus and environment in great detail for a period of nearly two years, during which a lander will be released to the comet's surface.

Fueling of the European Space Agency's Rosetta deep space probe is performed by specially trained launch team members. Rosetta uses a 2.8 x 2.1 x 2.0-meter square spacecraft bus, on which all subsystems and payload equipment are mounted. The payload of scientific instruments are accommodated on one side of the spacecraft, which will permanently face the comet during the operational phase of the mission.

During activity earlier this month at the Spaceport, the Ariane 5's EPS upper stage is raised inside the Launcher Integration Building for integration atop the vehicle. The Ariane 5 is partially visible through the open doors behind the EPS upper stage.

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Old 31-01-2004, 02:56   #3
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non so tanto bene l'inglese si puo avere una breve traduzione
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Old 31-01-2004, 11:43   #4
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Quote:
Originariamente inviato da Luca Rox
non so tanto bene l'inglese si puo avere una breve traduzione
di tutto?

uff, studiate gente, studiate... anzi basta leggere siti in inglese che si impara dopo un pò...
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Old 31-01-2004, 11:56   #5
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Grazie per le info Gio

Io non ho mai studiato l'inglese ma aiutandomi con Babylon imparo,spesso adesso non lo uso neanche.D'altronde il 99% di internet è in inglese
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Old 31-01-2004, 12:09   #6
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Quote:
Originariamente inviato da Teox82
Grazie per le info Gio

Io non ho mai studiato l'inglese ma aiutandomi con Babylon imparo,spesso adesso non lo uso neanche.D'altronde il 99% di internet è in inglese
E quello che dico sempre, vabbè che essendo ing. informatico l'inglese lo devo sapere bene, ma d'altra parte praticamente l'ho imparato da me con Internet e film in lingua originale...
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Old 03-02-2004, 20:31   #7
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NASA gets new funds for space shuttles and moon mission

WASHINGTON (AFP) Feb 02, 2004

The new US public budget unveiled Monday gives a big boost to spending on efforts to get the US shuttle back in space and to start moves to get manned missions to the moon and Mars.
Funding for the National Aeronautic and Space Administrtion (NASA) in fiscal 2005 will rise by 5.6 percent to 16.2 billion dollars.

The 866 million dollar increase for the year starting October 1 comes after a decade of stagnation for the space program. Most other government departments saw funding fall. NASA's boost almost rivals defense spending -- the other priority of President George W. Bush -- which was scheduled to rise by seven percent.

Bush's budget presented to Congress would help fund the return to space of the US space shuttle program, which was grounded after the explosion of the Columbia shuttle on February 1, 2003.

Spending on space flight programs was to rise to 6.674 billion dollars compared to 5.875 dollars in 2004, a 13.6 percent increase.

The budget for human space exploration was to reach 8.5 billion dollars, an increase of 13.3 percent over the current 7.5 billion dollars.

Bush last month announced the retirement of the shuttle program in 2010, as he unveiled a far more ambitious program, to include new manned flights to the moon from about 2015. This would be a launchpad for manned missions to Mars further down the road.

NASA is to resume a full program of shuttle launches later this year.

The administration wants construction of the orbiting International Space Station finished by 2010 when the United States will withdraw from the project.

To accomplish that, the remaining shuttles -- Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor- - will often be on standby simultaneously, with a total of five missions per year before they are consigned to a museum.

NASA will also have to finance the launch of research into the replacement for the shuttle.

"NASA will invest in new space transportation systems that will enable travel to the moon and beyond," said the budget.

The agency will "also engage in research on long duration space flight's impact on human physiology and will develop ways to increase the sustainability of humans in space."

The budget also allows funds for "demonstrations of space nuclear power and advanced propulsion technologies and other breakthrough exploration systems".

Exploration systems will get 1.85 billion dollars in 2005, up from 1.6 billion dollars in 2004.

The total amount to be spent on human exploration of space will rise from 7.5 billion dollars in 2004 to 8.5 billion dollars.

NASA's scientific research, particularly on Earth, is the main loser in the new budget. Its allocation falls to 7.69 billion dollars from 7.83 billion dollars in 2004.
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Old 04-02-2004, 13:32   #8
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Europe Plans Human Missions to Moon and Mars

By Jane Wardell
Associated Press
posted: 05:10 pm ET
03 February 2004

LONDON (AP) European scientists set out a route map Tuesday for manned missions to Mars that aims to land astronauts on the Red Planet in less than 30 years.

Like U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed mission to Mars, the plan put forward by the European Space Agency involves a "stepping stone'' approach, which includes robotic missions and a manned trip to the Moon first.


"We need to go back to the Moon before we go to Mars. We need to walk before we run,'' said Dr. Franco Ongaro, who heads the ESA's Aurora program for long-term exploration of the solar system, at a meeting of Aurora scientists in London. "These are our stones. They will pave the way for our human explorers.''

The ESA has planned two flagship missions to Mars _ ExoMars would land a rover on the planet in 2009, and Mars Sample Return would bring back a sample of the Martian surface in 2011-14.

Other test missions will include a non-manned version of the flight that would eventually carry astronauts to Mars to demonstrate aerobraking, solar electric propulsion and soft landing technologies.

A human mission to the Moon, proposed for 2024, would demonstrate key life-support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation to long-distance space flight.

The program is expected to cost about 900 million euros (US$1.13 billion) over the next five years.

Professor Colin Pillinger, the British scientist behind the recent ill-fated Beagle 2 expedition, said it was important to determine whether life existed on Mars before pressing ahead with a manned mission.

"Would it be right for us to tamper with the ecology on another body?'' he asked. "My opinion is that it probably wouldn't.''

The ExoMars rover would use solar arrays to generate electricity and travel several kilometers (miles) across the surface of Mars.

It would have on-board software enabling it to operate autonomously, and, like Beagle 2, a set of scientific instruments designed to search for signs of past or present life.

Mars Sample Return would be a more complex mission requiring five spacecraft _ an interplanetary transfer stage, a Mars orbiter, a descent module, an ascent module and an Earth re-entry vehicle.

The module would contain a drill to collect soil samples and was expected to send back around half a kilogram (one pound) of Martian soil.

Scientists hope the expedition has a better outcome than the Beagle 2 trip. The British built lander, which was due to land on Mars on Christmas Day, has not been heard from since it separated from the ESA's mother ship, Mars Express, in mid-December, despite several efforts to contact it.

Mars Express itself has functioned as intended, orbiting the planet. ESA scientists said last month that it had found the most direct evidence yet of water in the form of ice on Mars, detecting molecules vaporizing from the Red Planet's south pole.

By contrast, NASA's twin rovers are reaching out to scoop and analyze the Martian surface some 6,600 miles (10,560 kilometers) apart, both machines using their robotic arms as intended following a software glitch.

President Bush last month sought to chart a new course for NASA, focusing on a return to the Moon by 2020 in preparation for manned missions to Mars and beyond.
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Old 05-02-2004, 13:28   #9
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NASA's Moon-Mars Plans Take Shape

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 06:30 am ET
05 February 2004

Planning for NASA's return to the Moon is now in full swing and officials expect to meet the tight timetable of putting a robot there by 2008. Meanwhile, the focus of robotic Mars missions will soon shift to further prepare for human exploration.

As analysts had expected, a stark financial and resource refocusing is underway at NASA in which robotic efforts will be planned less for pure science and more for supporting future human spaceflight.


The first mission to the Moon will likely be an orbiter that generates NASA's first digital map of the pockmarked world, officials said Wednesday. It will be a reconnaissance craft designed to help prepare for a return of astronauts as early as 2015, as envisioned last month by President George W. Bush.

The second new lunar foray, in 2009, will be with a robotic lander whose goals are not yet clear.

"These missions will not be driven by science," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the NASA’s Office of Space Science. "They will be driven by preparations for human landings."

The initial robotic journey back to the Moon will nonetheless yield "a lot of science," Weiler said, but "we are going to the Moon to prepare to go to Mars, where we will do the real science."

Paying for the vision

Some geologists are eager for human exploration of Mars in order to conduct an investigation more thorough than what can be accomplished with robots. Some say only humans will be able to determine whether Mars does or ever did harbor life, and only humans can turn all the pages of the complex book of geology written in Martian rocks.

Critics argue you can send dozens of robots for the price of one manned mission.

Weiler and his colleagues spoke to reporters Wednesday in a conference call, explaining details of the President's 2005 budget request that has just been sent to Congress.

In that request is additional funding for NASA, lifting the agency's budget from $15.38 billion to $16.24 billion. It also details how existing funds will be redirected to support the White House goal of returning astronauts to the Moon and eventually putting people on Mars.

Astronomers and planetary scientists have worried that the president's new vision might cause casualties in robotic and telescopic programs.

"Space science is alive and well," Weiler declared. "We have healthy budget increases. In comparison to the rest of the government we obviously have nothing to complain about."

However, NASA remains firm, he said, on a decision not to service the Hubble Space Telescope. That conclusion was reached based on concern for astronaut safety, not budget issues, the agency maintains. Hubble could last into 2008 but almost surely not beyond.

Back to the Moon

The 2005 NASA spending request -- less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget -- must be approved by Congress and could be picked apart. Space policy analysts say Bush and NASA must convince lawmakers and the public that the added cost of sending people beyond low-Earth orbit is worthwhile.

Space science would get $4.07 billion, up from $3.97 billion in 2004. Earth science would drop from $1.61 billion to $1.49 billion. Biological science research would rise from $985 million to $1.05 billion.

The remainder of the budget would be spent mostly on human spaceflight efforts, including the shuttle program, the space station, and research into a new vehicle capable of flying astronauts to the Moon. Bush has called for a phase-out of the shuttles after space station construction is completed. Then money from both those projects would be diverted to the new vision.

In the new NASA, robotic missions must more closely relate to the overall effort to put people on other worlds.

Weiler pointed out that prior to the Apollo missions, robots photographed the Moon from above and landers explored the surface. A similar but more expedited robotic campaign will be carried out this time.

NASA often plans robotic missions over the course of a decade or so. Now scheduling is on a comparative fast track.

"We've got a pretty good idea of what we want to do with the first Moon mission," Weiler said, adding that he's confident the orbiter can be ready in four years.

"This will be the first digital recon mission of the Moon," he said. In addition to high-resolution photographs, the orbiter will likely work to map lunar resources, such as water ice that is suspected of hiding in permanently shadowed craters. Frozen water would be a key resource for any future Moon base, providing drinking water and, when broken down into hydrogen, fuel for return flights or missions beyond the Moon.

The initial lunar craft might also include a radiation detector. Ironically, NASA knows more about the potentially harmful radiation environment at Mars than it does with the Moon. A follow-up lander mission, in 2009, may or may not include a rover, Weiler said.

New focus at Mars

Mars missions will begin shifting focus early in the next decade, said Orlando Figueroa, one of Weiler's top lieutenants and the NASA official in charge of exploring the Moon and planets.

So far, Mars missions have been geared toward the search for water, as well as understanding the climate, atmosphere and environment as a whole. The new budget provides more money to examine safety issues at the red planet, "so we can begin preparing in a more focused way" for sending humans, Figueroa said.

He added that in 2011, the focus starts to shift from looking for water to looking for organic compounds, signs of life or signatures of the seeds of life.

Money has also now been set aside to prepare for a sample return mission to Mars. That effort, on the drawing boards for some time and once scheduled for launch as early as 2003, had not been adequately funded in terms of dealing with analysis of whatever is brought back. Funding to develop new technology for that effort is now written into the 2005 budget request.

Figueroa said a Mars sample return would launch in 2013 at the earliest. He said it would likely involve a static lander and not a roving craft.

These missions, as well as the current rovers on Mars, will all generate a picture of the red planet that will help officials decide where to send humans, how they will survive, and what they'll need to take with them.

No timetable has been set for putting astronauts on Mars, though. The president called for continual reevaluation of short-term spaceflight goals as technology improves and funding is secured in the years to come.

The White House vision was, at least in part, designed to get a flailing space agency back on track after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Many space policy experts have long said NASA has been largely directionless for three decades and that money was being wasted running circles around Earth.

Robotic failures also plagued the agency in the late 1990s.

Weiler said NASA's back-to-back failures in 1999, of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, were blessings in disguise.

Had those missions succeeded, NASA would not have had the funding necessary to proceed with other missions on the ambitious red planet schedule that had been in place, he said. The failure led to a restructuring of the entire Mars program, with which he is now pleased.

"Sometimes failures are good things," Weiler said.
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Old 05-02-2004, 20:35   #10
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Europe To Pay Russia To Build
Soyuz Pad At Kourou: Russia


Moscow (AFP) Feb 5, 2004

The European Union will pay Russian space companies 121 million euros (152 million dollars) to fund the launch of Russian Soyuz vessels from the European Space Agency (ESA) launch complex in French Guiana, a Russian space official said late Wednesday.
The first tranche of the payment has already been transferred to Russia, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted the unidentified official as saying.

"The first tranche has already arrived (in Russia), the money has been distributed," said the official with Russia's space agency Rosaviakosmos, although he failed to specify the amount of that first tranche.

Part of the 121 million euros will be used to modernize the Soyuz launchers, under the denomination Soyuz-ST, the official said.

France and Russia signed last November an agreement opening up Russian access to the ESA launch complex at Kourou from 2006.

The agreement gave the legal green light to using the French overseas territory for ESA-Russian cooperation.

ESA ministers agreed to the scheme in May last year. It provides for the building of a new pad at Kourou, at a cost of 314 million euros (361 million dollars), from which to launch the veteran Soyuz rocket.

France has agreed to contribute half of the costs, with other ESA member states to pick up the rest of the tab.

Arianespace, which operates ESA's launchers, will tie up with Russia's Starsem company to use the Soviet-era Soyuz for launching medium-sized payloads to help meet a gap in its own marketing range.

The Soyuz -- the workhorse of space, having been used on some 1,700 satellite launches or manned space missions -- is expected to substitute for the Ariane-4 rocket, which was phased out last year.

All rights reserved. © 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
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Old 06-02-2004, 19:31   #11
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Moon Viewed by Europe's SMART-1

Now en route to the Moon, Europe's Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (SMART-1) spacecraft snapped images of its destination.

Late last month, SMART-1's Asteroid-Moon Micro-Imager Experiment (AMIE) used several filters to picture the Moon.

The image reveals, clockwise from the top: Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Fecunditatis and Mare Nectaris, with Mare Crisium also visible near the limb.

SMART-1 was launched by the European Space Agency in September 2003. It is being nudged moonward by its electric propulsion engine. That hardware was switched off late last month after four months of traveling through the Earth's radiation belts.

The engine will remain dormant for three weeks, giving science teams time to evaluate their instruments.

Following 15 months of cruise, SMART-1 will arrive at the Moon. Onboard the probe are six experiments -- including three remote sensing instruments -- that will be used during the mission's nominal six months in lunar orbit.

It is the first time that Europe has sent a spacecraft to the Moon.

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Old 06-02-2004, 19:35   #12
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Unlocking the secrets of the universe: Rosetta lander named Philae

5 February 2004

ESA PR 08-2004. With just 21 days to the launch of the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet mission, the spacecraft's lander has been named "Philae". Rosetta embarks on a 10-year journey to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Kourou, French Guiana, on 26 February.

Philae is the island in the river Nile on which an obelisk was found that had a bilingual inscription including the names of Cleopatra and Ptolemy in Egyptian hieroglyphs. This provided the French historian Jean-François Champollion with the final clues that enabled him to decipher the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone and unlock the secrets of the civilisation of ancient Egypt.
Just as the Philae Obelisk and the Rosetta Stone provided the keys to an ancient civilisation, the Philae lander and the Rosetta orbiter aim to unlock the mysteries of the oldest building blocks of our Solar System - comets.

Germany, France, Italy and Hungary are the main contributors to the lander, working together with Austria, Finland, Ireland and the UK. The main contributors held national competitions to select the most appropriate name. Philae was proposed by 15-year-old Serena Olga Vismara from Arluno near Milan, Italy. Her hobbies are reading and surfing the internet, where she got the idea of naming the lander Philae. Her prize will be a visit to Kourou to attend the Rosetta launch.

Study of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko will allow scientists to look back 4600 million years to an epoch when no planets existed and only a vast swarm of asteroids and comets surrounded the Sun. On arrival at the comet in 2014, Philae will be commanded to self-eject from the orbiter and unfold its three legs, ready for a gentle touchdown. Immediately after touchdown, a harpoon will be fired to anchor Philae to the ground and prevent it escaping from the comet's extremely weak gravity. The legs can rotate, lift or tilt to return Philae to an upright position.

Philae will determine the physical properties of the comet's surface and subsurface and their chemical, mineralogical and isotopic composition. This will complement the orbiter's studies of the overall characterisation of the comet's dynamic properties and surface morphology. Philae may provide the final clues enabling the Rosetta mission to unlock the secrets of how life began on Earth.

“Whilst Rosetta’s lander now has a name of its own, it is still only a part of the overall Rosetta mission. Let us look forward to seeing the Philae lander, Osiris, Midas and all the other instruments on board Rosetta start off on their great journey this month,” said Professor David Southwood, ESA Director of Science.
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Old 11-02-2004, 12:07   #13
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Reactor research to power journey to Jupiter's moons

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY NEWS RELEASE
Posted: February 8, 2004

A planned U.S. mission to investigate three ice-covered moons of Jupiter will demand fast-paced research, fabrication and realistic non-nuclear testing of a prototype nuclear reactor within two years, says a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist.


An artist's concept of Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL

The roots of this build and test effort have been under way at Los Alamos since the mid-1990s, said David Poston, leader of the Space Fission Power Team in Los Alamos' Nuclear Design and Risk Analysis Group.

NASA proposes using use electrical ion propulsion powered by a nuclear reactor for its Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, an element of Project Prometheus, which is scheduled for launch after 2011. However, the United States hasn't flown a space fission system since 1965.

Poston discussed technical requirements for such a fission reactor in two presentations Monday at the Space Technology and Applications International Forum in Albuquerque. Los Alamos is a co-sponsor of the forum. Poston discussed "The Impact of Core Cooling Technology Options on JIMO Reactor Designs" and "The Impact of Power and Lifetime Requirements on JIMO Reactor Designs."

Los Alamos is leading reactor design for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission, which would orbit Callisto, Ganymede and Europa to study their makeup, possible vast oceans beneath the ice, their history and potential for sustaining life. Los Alamos is responsible for such key reactor technologies as nuclear fuel, beryllium components, heat pipes and diagnostic instruments, as well as nuclear criticality testing of development and flight reactors.

"Nuclear power has long been recognized as an enabling technology for exploring and expanding into space, and fission reactors offer essentially limitless power and propulsion capabilities," Poston said.

The JIMO mission demands a safe, low-mass, high-temperature reactor that can be developed and qualified quickly, can operate reliably in the harsh environment of space for more than a decade, and can meet a wide range of mission and spacecraft requirements, he said.

A science mission to explore the icy Jovian moons will require kilowatts of electrical power for the scientific payloads and up to 100 kilowatts of electricity for ion propulsion to propel the spacecraft to Jupiter, maneuver within the Jovian system and allow rendezvous with the moons. The reactor also must power advanced science experiments and systems to send data to Earth at high rates.

Despite the lack of U.S. space reactor research in recent decades, Los Alamos has continued to examine technologies and concepts for a rapid and affordable development program. Working with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Los Alamos has resolved many hardware issues at the component and system level.

Los Alamos and NASA-Marshall researchers, working with colleagues from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, have built successively more powerful nuclear electric propulsion reactor components, including a 30-kilowatt reactor core, one-third of a 100-kilowatt system (core plus heat exchanger) and a single module suitable for a 500-kilowatt reactor core. Extensive non-nuclear testing of these and other components continues.

Most researchers have agreed on the best fuels and reactor construction materials for the proposed fast-spectrum, externally controlled JIMO reactor. The major design choice that remains is how best to transport power from the reactor core to the power conversion system.

Los Alamos and NASA are examining three primary options for core cooling: pumped liquid-metal sodium or lithium; sodium or lithium liquid metal heat pipes; and inert helium or helium-xenon gas. Many of these options have been tested for decades for terrestrial reactors, but the reactor for JIMO will be unique, Poston said.

"The power and lifetime potential of space fission reactors is almost limitless when compared to the requirements of future NASA missions," Poston said. "However, it is clear that reactor performance and technical risks are tightly coupled to power and lifetime requirements, so we must thoroughly understand these technical risks before developing the first system. For example, there are fewer technical and development challenges for a 500-kilowatt-thermal reactor than a 1,000-kilowatt-thermal reactor.

"The first step needs to be small enough to ensure success and to put into place the experience, expertise and infrastructure necessary for more advanced systems," Poston concluded. "After that, we can move on to the systems needed for truly ambitious space exploration, such as multi-megawatt nuclear electric propulsion or nuclear thermal rockets. Our near-term efforts must be focused on making the first mission succeed."

Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the U.S. Department of Energy and works in partnership with NNSA's Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories to support NNSA in its mission.

Los Alamos develops and applies science and technology to ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent; reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction, proliferation and terrorism; and solve national problems in defense, energy, environment and infrastructure.
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Old 11-02-2004, 17:01   #14
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Lander successfully completes on-ground check-out

ESA press release:

10 Feb 2004 09:10

January 2004 saw the completion of the on-ground check-out activities of the Rosetta Lander at CSG, Kourou, French Guiana.

The check-out team took the Lander through a flawless "Cruise Abbreviated Functional Test". This test successfully demonstrated that all Lander subsystem and payload units were as alive and well as expected. To round off the test series, the electrical configuration was finalized for launch, the primary battery was checked out, and the secondary battery was fully charged. Finally, the harpoons, which in 10.5 years' time will secure the Lander to the comet surface, were mounted.

By now, only a few protective covers and other "remove-before-flight" items still have to be removed (including tip protectors of the harpoons, still present on the picture you see here), and the plug that sets the Lander to the Arm status will be installed late February, when Rosetta is atop its Launch Vehicle.

In addition, the Lander staff graduated from their refresher Safety Training to be cleared for work at the BAF (Ariane 5 Final Assembly Building), where that last "remove-before-flight" and arming task will be performed. No small feat!

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Old 11-02-2004, 17:01   #15
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Old 11-02-2004, 17:10   #16
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interessanti le notizie che posti,nn sn appassionato di astronomia però leggo sempre con interesse le notizie che posti.Grazie x il contributo che dai.
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Old 11-02-2004, 17:20   #17
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Domanda riguardo alle ipotesi sulla missione verso Giove: ma con la fascia degli asteroidi come pensano di fare?
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Old 11-02-2004, 17:24   #18
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Originariamente inviato da gpc
Domanda riguardo alle ipotesi sulla missione verso Giove: ma con la fascia degli asteroidi come pensano di fare?
vogliono fare una missione su giove?????!! caspita che figata...
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Old 11-02-2004, 17:33   #19
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Originariamente inviato da Ser21
vogliono fare una missione su giove?????!! caspita che figata...
Ehm... cinque post più su...
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Old 11-02-2004, 18:45   #20
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Originariamente inviato da Ser21
interessanti le notizie che posti,nn sn appassionato di astronomia però leggo sempre con interesse le notizie che posti.Grazie x il contributo che dai.
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