Robotske misije

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To se poklapa sa onim gore, samo nisu toliko išli u detalje. btw. ovih dana treba da ide još jedna kartografska misija na mesec

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Čisto da se vide neke razmere, Jupiteri veličina zemlje u odnosu na crvenu tačkuKasini je slikao vulkanski mesec Io i JupiterSaturn i njegov mesec Mimas, kao i gornju, i ovu fotografiju je uslikao Kasini

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Prilikom prolaska Vojadžera pored Saturna, uočena je jedna neobična pojavahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzL194jiTyY&feature=player_embeddedIstu stvar je uslikao i Kasini, par decenija kasnije. Svemirski brod koji se srušio na Saturn? Neka gigantska građevina?

Ne, u pitanju je retka meteorološka pojava koja se ponekad može videti i na zemlji

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sličica koju je uslikao Hajgens spuštajući se na Titan, na nekih 25km visineInteresantno je da kako na zemlji postoji ciklus vode, na Titanu je izgleda u pitanju ciklus metana.

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Nuclear power to the stars KEITH COOPERASTRONOMY NOWPosted: 01 October 2011 To send spacecraft to other stars in the space of a human lifetime, new methods of propulsion are going to be needed to provide the necessary ‘oomph’ to break free of our Solar System. Currently the best bet is nuclear fusion power, but there’s a problem – it hasn’t even been shown to be a commercially viable source of energy on Earth yet. ‘Splitting the atom’ in the 1930s paved the way for modern day nuclear fission reactors, but nuclear fusion is a different and altogether far cleaner process. Rather than releasing binding energy of atoms energy by splitting them apart into lighter nuclei, fusion melds atomic nuclei together, but to so it is necessary to break though the electrostatic force, a fundamental repulsive force between two charged particles. To breach the electrostatic barrier high temperatures and pressures are required. The Sun’s core has a temperature of over 15 million degrees Celsius to generate energy by fusing hydrogen nuclei into helium. Nuclear fusion reactors on Earth basically have to match these conditions and, suffice to say, that isn’t easy. This is the challenge being faced not only by nuclear scientists worldwide, but also by those researchers of advanced spacecraft propulsion attending the 100 Year Starship Symposium in Orlando, Florida, this weekend. A plasma contained inside a tokamak. Image: CCFE.There are some ingenious solutions, however. In the picturesque Oxfordshire countryside, nestling on the bank of the River Thames, one would least expect a revolution in energy production to be taking place. Yet, here at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, nuclear scientists are attempting to create the future by operating the largest fusion reactor in Europe, the Joint European Torus (JET). Here they use a giant doughnut-shaped apparatus known as a tokamak – jargon for to(roidal) ka (chamber) mak (machine) – where powerful magnetic fields of at least one tesla (about 20,000 times Earth’s magnetic field) confine a plasma of deuterium and tritium nuclei through which an electric field is sent, heating the plasma to millions of degrees Celsius. This is termed a Magnetic Confinement Reactor (MRC), and the confinement is essential because were the plasma to touch the walls of the tokamak, not only would the plasma cool (‘quenching’ the reaction) it would also damage the reactor. The problem at the moment for nuclear fusion research is developing methods that produce more energy than is put into the system. The best the tokamak at JET has achieved is 16 megawatts of fusion power for two seconds, with an input of 25 megawatts (JET consumes so much electricity that permission has to be sought from the National Grid before switching it on). This energy deficit has to be reversed for fusion power to become viable, but there is new hope for the future: a 15 billion euro plan to build ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor near Marseille in France. A cutaway of the ITER tokamak. Image: ITER.“The next big step is ITER,” says Dr Tim Hender, the Fusion Programme Manager at Culham. “It will be the first industrial scale tokamak experiment, with a 500 megawatt power output, and a net energy gain of ten.” If all goes well, ITER will show that commercially viable fusion reactors are possible. “We can expect to see fusion power from magnetic confinement on the National Grid by the middle of this century,” says Hender. “Because the fuels used in fusion are so plentiful – they are found in seawater and the Earth’s crust – once fusion is established it will give us a carbon-free energy source for many thousands of years.” Great, you might think. For starship enthusiasts, however, there’s a problem. A 7,000 tonne problem, actually. That’s the estimate for the mass of an interstellar spacecraft using a tokamak-based propulsion system. Considering that the International Space Station is just 417 tonnes, this weighty problem looks insurmountable. There’s an alternative though, one that you can find in your own home. Laser power Lasers hit their half century last year, after Theodore Maiman developed the first ‘ruby’ laser in 1960. They’ve come a long way since then. We use them everywhere in our everyday lives, from CD and Blu-Ray players to scanning barcodes at the supermarket, they beam television and the Internet down fibre optic cables, and they’re used in medical applications amongst other things. At the National Ignition Facility, part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in California, however, they have a laser to dwarf all others, one capable of delivering petawatts (1015 watts) of energy in brief nanosecond pulses. These pulses are capable of creating, for scant moments, the temperatures and pressures needed for nuclear fusion in small pellets of deuterium–tritium fuel. A laser pulse first ablates, or sublimates, the outer layer of the pellet. The sublimated gas is so hot it ionises, becoming a plasma. The plasma then absorbs the rest of the laser energy, and free electrons in the plasma transfer that energy inwards causing the plasma to compress onto the pellet at pressures of 10,000 atmospheres. The fuel pellet implodes to the point of fusion ignition. A stream of pellets is required to maintain the reaction, leading to a pulsed series of mini nuclear explosions. Technicians inside the target chamber at the National Ignition Facility. The pencil-like structure on the right holds the target. Image: Lawrence LIvermore National Laboratory.The advantage of laser driven fusion, also called Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), is that the reactor constitutes only has a small chamber and the laser system. It does not need the huge mass of a tokamak. Estimates suggest an ICF-based spacecraft for interstellar travel would have a mass less than 500 tonnes, including fuel. That’s still a tremendously large mass, but isn’t quite as insurmountable. In fact, ICF was recommended in the design of the British Interplanetary Society’s Daedalus project in 1977, and it is still in the hot seat for Daedalus’ follow-up, Project Icarus, says the University of Warwick’s Kelvin Long. Long is studying a PhD in ICF and laser plasma interactions, and is one of the leading lights behind Icarus, which is a joint five-year study between the British Interplanetary Society and the Tau Zero Foundation. Icarus is not an attempt to really build a starship, but rather a design study to show that interstellar travel could be possible, one day, and one of the obstacles that Icarus must overcome is the problem of mass. Long, however, is confident. An inertial confinement laser known as OMEGA at the University of Rochester is used to test concepts for nuclear fusion. Image: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “Look at the first computers that were the size of a huge room, and now I’m speaking to you on my Blackberry phone,” he says. “The history of technology shows that once something has been designed, we find better ways of doing it, we miniaturise the technology, and I’m personally confident that we can do the same with fusion within decades.” It may also be easier to miniaturise an ICF system than a tokamak. “To get the same power out of a smaller plasma will probably require active control of plasma instabilities, which is already partly being done, and ways to reduce the small scale turbulence in the plasma that causes heat to be lost,” says Hender. “Also, a more compact device will require structural materials that can withstand the higher loads from the high-energy fusion neutrons leaving the plasma. Even then an MCR fusion reactor including all the ancillary plant will be quite big.” To counter the mass problem, Daedalus had a two-stage engine design that improves the mass ratio. Just like the Saturn V rockets that took Apollo astronauts to the Moon had stages that dropped off, Daedalus’ first stage would exhaust its fuel before being jettisoned. This would lower the mass of the starship, so that the second stage would be fighting against less mass and be capable of reaching higher velocities. How fast can it go? So it seems that ICF is winning the race for space propulsion at least. Supposing the technology proves to be a valid one, what will it be able to do for our adventurous starship? The velocities achieved may sound quite disappointing for science fiction aficionados used to faster than light travel. Overall, thrusts of tens or hundreds of thousands of Newtons, with ‘specific impulses’ of hundreds of millions of seconds, can be expected, leading to velocities of tens of thousands of kilometres per second. That’s fast, but the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is around 40 trillion kilometres distant. It’s still going to take a long time to get there. "Specific impulse is a way of measuring performance," says Long. It is defined as the engine's thrust divided by the rate of propellant mass flowing through the engine (which results in units of seconds), and the higher the specific impulse, the greater the thrust generated by the engine using a specific amount of propellant. This means that the higher the specific impulse, the higher the exhaust velocity. "For interstellar journeys you need specific impulses of millions of seconds. Anything less than that is going to take over a century in terms of duration." By comparison, the maximum theoretical specific impulse that you can get from chemical engines is about 500 seconds, while ion engines have specific impulses of thousands of seconds. An artist’s impression of a laser beam heating and compressing a deuterium-tritium pellet to ignite nuclear fusion. Image: Lawrence LIvermore National Laboratory. Another factor in ICF propulsion systems is the rate at which pellets are fed into the reactor. “Daedalus had 250 implosions per second, which to me is crazy,” says Long. Such rapid reactions would increase the amount of fuel that needs to be carried onboard to 30 billion pellets, increasing the mass of the starship and creating other problems. “When you have that many detonations it generates a lot of heat, energy and radioactive neutrons, which means you need larger shields and larger structures to contain it. The next generation of commercial reactors are talking about ten pellet detonations per second, and with Icarus we’re looking at 10–50 per second at most, which is much more credible.” Earth-based reactors use a deuterium–tritium fuel mixture. Fusion of tritium produces a lot of neutrons that make the reactor radioactive (but, unlike nuclear fission in today’s power stations, there is no waste product and in an emergency such as the one experienced in Japan earlier this year, a fusion station will simply shut off rather than go into meltdown). Because they’re not electrically charged, these neutrons cannot be channelled by magnetic fields into a starship’s exhaust vent to provide additional thrust. An alternative is a reaction between deuterium and an isotope of helium known as helium-3, which is more efficient, produces more energy and less neutrons. Instead this reaction is a copious source of protons, which can be directed by magnetic fields through the exhaust, reducing the radiation in the reactor and increasing the thrust. Unfortunately, helium-3 can only be utilised by a space-faring civilisation because it isn’t produced naturally on Earth. However, it is found in the atmospheres of all the gas giants, and also on the surface of the Moon, deposited there by the solar wind. It all sounds perfect, but a lot of money has to be spent, a lot of work put in, and a lot of technical obstacles have to be overcome before nuclear fusion can be used in space. This is why the 100 Year Starship Symposium is an important step towards figuring out how we get from the present to a future wherein we are exploring the nearby stars. “The first and most obvious advance is that the National Ignition Facility has to achieve ignition,” says Long. The NIF aims to have fusion ignition within the next two years, and Long is confident they will get there, for Icarus’ sake. “It’s what I would call something on the critical path to our solution. We very much depend on it. It would reduce our credibility if our design is based on an ignition scheme that is shown not to work.” A nuclear fusion propulsion system could take us to the star in 100 years time. Image: NASA.However, as the saying goes, if there is a will there’s a way. The trouble is, those that hold the key to nuclear fusion are governments and multinational companies that can finance its development, and it is still an open question as to whether they have the will. “With the current economic climate and the world’s generally poor regard for financial input into research, spending continues to be the bottleneck for progress,” says David Homfray, a physicist and engineer at Culham. “For instance, if an Apollo-styled project was set-up and funded fusion it would become a near-future technology and not 40-odd years away.” Perhaps successful ignition at NIF, or commercial viability at ITER, coupled with rising oil prices and concerns for the environment will help speed things along. In a few decades when we switch on the light the electricity may be derived from a fusion reaction; in a century that same power source could be taken us to the stars.http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1110/01Starship/Sa današnjimtehnologijama imamo misije koje do svoje ciljen planete putuju i više od deset godina. Sa ovim, za isto vreme možemo da pošaljemo sondu do Alfa Kentaure.

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NASA extends MESSENGER mission to MercuryNASA RELEASEPosted: November 17, 2011 Artist's impression of the MESSENGER probe at Mercury. Credit: NASA NASA has announced that it will extend the MESSENGER mission for an additional year of orbital operations at Mercury beyond the planned end of the primary mission on March 17, 2012. The MESSENGER probe became the first spacecraft to orbit the innermost planet on March 18, 2011. "We are still ironing out the funding details, but we are pleased to be able to support the continued exploration of Mercury," said NASA MESSENGER Program Scientist Ed Grayzeck, who made the announcement on November 9 at the 24th meeting of the MESSENGER Science Team in Annapolis, Md. The spacecraft's unprecedented orbital science campaign is providing the first global close-up of Mercury and has revolutionized scientific perceptions of that planet. The extended mission will allow scientists to learn even more about the planet closest to the Sun, says MESSENGER Principal investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "During the extended mission we will spend more time close to the planet than during the primary mission, we'll have a broader range of scientific objectives, and we'll be able to make many more targeted observations with our imaging system and other instruments," says Solomon. "MESSENGER will also be able to view the innermost planet as solar activity continues to increase toward the next maximum in the solar cycle. Mercury's responses to the changes in its environment over that period promise to yield new surprises." The extended mission has been designed to answer six scientific questions, each of which has arisen only recently as a result of discoveries made from orbit: What are the sources of surface volatiles on Mercury? How late into Mercury's history did volcanism persist? How did Mercury's long-wavelength topography change with time? What is the origin of localized regions of enhanced exospheric density at Mercury? How does the solar cycle affect Mercury's exosphere and volatile transport? What is the origin of Mercury's energetic electrons? "Advancements in science have at their core the evaluation of hypotheses in the light of new knowledge, sometimes resulting in slight changes in course, and other times resulting in paradigm shifts, opening up entirely new vistas of thought and perception," says MESSENGER Project Scientist Ralph McNutt, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "With the early orbital observations at Mercury we are already seeing the beginnings of such advancements. The extended mission guarantees that the best is indeed 'yet to be' on the MESSENGER mission, as this old-world Mercury, seen in a very new light, continues to give up its secrets."http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1111/17messenger/

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ESA says BepiColombo will stay on budget despite delayBY STEPHEN CLARKSPACEFLIGHT NOWPosted: March 5, 2012 Technicial difficulties with BepiColombo, a joint project between Europe and Japan, will push back its launch to Mercury by 13 months until August 2015, but officials do not expect the postponement to trigger another increase in the mission's budget. Artist's concept of the BepiColombo spacecraft at Mercury. Credit: ESA/JAXA Launch was set for July 2014, but development and testing of the mission's electric propulsion thrusters, solar arrays, antennas and thermal control system is taking longer than expected, according to Jan van Casteren, Europe's BepiColombo project manager. "Much of the equipment is specially developed for this mission and is critical in view of its intended operation at high solar intensity and high temperatures," van Casteran said in an email to Spaceflight Now. The challenges forced European officials to push back the mission's departure to the next launch opportunity, when the planets in the inner solar system are positioned to permit BepiColombo's circuitous route to Mercury. The new schedule calls for launch around Aug. 15, 2015. BepiColombo will fly by Earth a year later, followed by two closes passes near Venus and four approaches of Mercury. The flybys will use each planet's gravity to slingshot the spacecraft closer to the sun, eventually allowing BepiColombo to enter orbit around Mercury in January 2022. BepiColombo's previous arrival date at Mercury was in November 2020. The mission consists of two orbiters, which will blast off together on an Ariane 5 rocket. A planetary orbiter provided by the European Space Agency and a Mercury magnetospheric probe built in Japan will cruise to the solar system's mysterious innermost planet with a sunshield and a solar electric propulsion module, which will be jettisoned after the craft enters orbit. Diagram of BepiColombo's components in cruise configuration. Credit: ESA/JAXA The European and Japanese satellites will separate to study Mercury from different orbits, observing the planet's cratered surface, investigating its origin, probing its interior, examining its tenuous atmosphere, studying its magnetic field, and timing Mercury's orbit around the sun to test Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The BepiColombo mission, which narrowly escaped a cancellation vote in 2008, has an ESA budget of 970 million euros, or nearly $1.3 billion. Other European institutions are developing instruments for BepiColombo's planetary orbiter, a contribution worth more than 200 million euros. Coupled with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's investment, which approaches $200 million, the mission's total cost is more than $1.7 billion. ESA's budget included a contingency to cover a launch delay, van Casteran said, meaning BepiColombo should not need additional funds to account for the 13-month slip. BepiColombo's cost has grown 50 percent since the mission was first approved, mostly because European officials misjudged the mission's stringent test requirements and mass. The mission's mass grew too large for the spacecraft to be lifted into space by a Russian Soyuz rocket, compelling managers to select a larger, more expensive Ariane 5 launcher to dispatch the 9,000-pound dual-satellite mission. Structural models of BepiColombo's propulsion module, planetary orbiter, magnetospheric orbiter, and sunshield will be assembled and tested in the Netherlands later this year. Credit: ESA During its mission, BepiColombo will endure temperatures greater than 660 degrees Fahrenheit. Structural models of BepiColombo's European-built planetary orbiter, Japanese magnetospheric probe and a sunshield were subjected to intense thermal testing and blasts of ultraviolet light to ensure they will survive in orbit around the solar system's scorching innermost world. According to van Casteran, BepiColombo's solar arrays, antennas and thermal control system are fully exposed to heat and solar radiation at Mercury, which is about 10 times the solar constant at Earth. A space simulation chamber at ESA's space research and technology center, or ESTEC, in the Netherlands was modified to test the BepiColombo spacecraft in such extreme conditions. Engineers must run UV lamps at full power and focus their light on the spacecraft with mirrors to mimic conditions at Mercury. A model of BepiColombo's combined configuration, in which it will fly to Mercury, will enter vibration and acoustic testing this spring, and officials hope to complete the environmental testing by July. BepiColombo would mark the first European and Japanese probes to Mercury, and the mission would be the second to orbit the planet after NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which entered Mercury orbit in 2011.http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1203/05bepicolombo/

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Spisak projekata koji su i dalje na čekanju. Meni je od svih nabrojanih (uključujući i pobednika) ipak najbolji projekat slanja sonde u obliku broda koja bi istraživala metanska/etanska mora na TitanuNASA's Rejected Missions and New HopefulsOf the three missions selected for the 2011 NASA Discovery program, two failed to make the cut. We take a look at those missions, as well as three more waiting in the wings.http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/301923/nasa-s-rejected-missions-and-new-hopefuls

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PhoneSat Flight DemonstrationsNASA's PhoneSat project will demonstrate the ability to launch the lowest-cost and easiest to build satellites ever flown in space – capabilities enabled by using off-the-shelf consumer smartphones to build spacecraft.A small team of engineers working on NASA's PhoneSat at the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., aim to rapidly evolve satellite architecture and incorporate the Silicon Valley approach of "release early, release often" to small spacecraft.To achieve this, NASA's PhoneSat design makes extensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf components, including an unmodified, consumer-grade smartphone. Out of the box smartphones already offer a wealth of capabilities needed for satellite systems, including fast processors, versatile operating systems, multiple miniature sensors, high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers, and several radios.NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components to build each of the three prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project to $3,500 by using only commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and keeping the design and mission objectives to a minimum for the first flight.NASA PhoneSat engineers also are changing the way missions are designed by rapidly prototyping and incorporating existing commercial technologies and hardware. This approach allows engineers to see what capabilities commercial technologies can provide, rather than trying to custom-design technology solutions to meet set requirements. Engineers can rapidly upgrade the entire satellite's capabilities and add new features for each future generation of PhoneSats.Each NASA PhoneSat nanosatellite is one standard CubeSat unit in size and weighs less than four pounds. A CubeSat is a miniaturized satellite in the shape of a cube that measures approximately 4 inches (10 cm).PhoneSat 1.0Flies low-cost consumer electronics in spaceNASA's prototype smartphone satellite, known as PhoneSat 1.0, is built around the Nexus One smartphone made by HTC Corp., running Google's Android operating system. The Nexus One acts as the spacecraft onboard computer. Sensors determine the orientation of the spacecraft while the smartphone's camera can be used for Earth observations. Commercial-off-the-shelf parts include a watchdog circuit that monitors the systems and reboots the phone if it stops sending radio signals.NASA's PhoneSat 1.0 satellite has a basic mission goal–to stay alive in space for a short period of time, sending back digital imagery of Earth and space via its camera, while also sending back information about the satellite's health.To prepare for such a mission, NASA has successfully tested PhoneSat 1.0 in various extreme environments, including thermal-vacuum chambers, vibration and shock tables, sub-orbital rocket flights and high-altitude balloons.PhoneSat 2.0Additional features, more capabilitiesNASA's PhoneSat 2.0 will equip a newer Nexus S smartphone made by Samsung Electronics running Google's Android operating system to provide a faster core processor, avionics and gyroscopes.PhoneSat 2.0 also will supplement the capabilities of PhoneSat 1.0 by adding a two-way S-band radio to allow engineers to command the satellite from Earth, solar panels to enable longer-duration missions, and a GPS receiver. In addition, PhoneSat 2.0 will add magnetorquer coils – electro-magnets that interact with Earth's magnetic field – and reaction wheels to actively control the satellite's orientation in space.The Future of PhoneSatNASA's PhoneSat 2.0 will lay the foundation for new capabilities for small-sized satellites while advancing breakthrough technologies and decreasing costs of future small spacecraft.By building on NASA's PhoneSat 2.0 architecture, mission designers could more affordably accomplish the following kinds of future missions:Using distributed sensors to conduct Heliophysics missions.Expected to launch in 2013, NASA's upcoming Edison Demonstration of Small Satellite Networks mission-part of the Small Spacecraft Technology Program-will demonstrate the possibility of conducting heliophysics measurements using small spacecraft.Qualifying new technologies and components for space flightConducting low-cost Earth observationsExploring the moon and beyondThree NASA PhoneSats systems (two PhoneSat 1.0's and one PhoneSat 2.0) are scheduled to launch aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Va., later this year.The PhoneSat project is a small spacecraft technology demonstration mission funded by NASA's Space Technology Program which is managed by the Office of the Chief Technologist. The Space Technology Program develops and matures broadly applicable technology essential for scientific, robotic, and human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, ensures the agency’s technology portfolio contains both the near-term mission-driven and long-range transformative technology required to meet our nation’s exploration and science goals, and advances revolutionary concepts and capabilities, lowering development costs and reducing risk for NASA missions by engaging NASA Centers, small businesses, academia, industry, other Government agencies and international partners.http://www.nasa.gov/...n/phonesat.html

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Da bi poslali sondu koja bi stigla do Proksima Kentaure u nekom razumnom vremenskom roku (6-7 godina) trebaće nam fotonski motor, koji može da razvije bar 0,7C. Pojednostavljen teoretski prikaz toga:

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European states accept Russia as ExoMars partnerBY STEPHEN CLARKSPACEFLIGHT NOWPosted: November 21, 2012One year after NASA pulled out of the project, European governments have agreed to a partnership with Russia on the ExoMars mission, which aims to send the next rover to Mars in 2018, according to European Space Agency officials. Artist's concept of the ExoMars rover, which will be equipped with a drill to collect the first samples from the subsurface of Mars. Credit: ESABefore a two-day conference in Naples, Italy, European government ministers approved a draft agreement between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos - the Russian space agency - on a joint robotic Mars exploration campaign."I can say this agreement is now in force," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's director general.The final agreement between ESA and Roscosmos is yet to be signed, but it could come before the end of the year or in early 2013.The dual-mission ExoMars project includes a Mars orbiter and small stationary lander set to launch in January 2016, and a rover scheduled for liftoff in April 2018. Russian Proton launchers will give a lift to both missions.ESA turned to Russia after NASA retreated from a partnership at the beginning of 2012, citing budget concerns. NASA spent the year evaluating its options for future Mars exploration, pursuing less expensive objectives and closer synergies between robotic and future human missions to the red planet.NASA is still providing limited equipment to the ExoMars program, including a telecommunications payload for the orbiter, which can relay data and commands between Mars landers and Earth.In early November, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden gave Dordain a formal commitment the United States would finance a significant instrument on the ExoMars rover, according to John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science directorate.The joint U.S.-European instrument - named the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer, or MOMA - will heat Martian soil with ovens, allowing sensors to look for markers of organic molecules."It shows that NASA is really interested in continuing the development of this next-generation instrument and flying it in ExoMars," said Jorge Vago, ESA's ExoMars project scientist. "We are convinced that the new capabilities of MOMA, paired with the subsurface drill, will provide exciting new science results on the presence and distribution of organics on Mars."NASA may also provide software, expert advice and navigation support for the entry, descent and landing system on the rover, which will be comprised of mostly Russian parts. Europe is responsible for the computers and guidance system on the parachute- and rocket-assisted descent apparatus. File photo of a Proton rocket on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: RoscosmosBesides the Proton launchers, Russia has agreed to build a descent stage for the European rover and provide scientific instruments to the lander and orbiter components of ExoMars.The approval of ESA's agreement with Russia is an endorsement of the ExoMars project from the agency's 20 member states, but the Europe has not secured enough funding for the dual missions. Although comprising two launches, the missions are bound together under the umbrella of a single program expected to cost ESA around 1.2 billion euros, or about $1.5 billion.Enrico Saggese, president of the Italian Space Agency, said there is still money missing from the ExoMars budget. European nations have so far only committed 850 million euros, or about $1.1 billion, to the ExoMars project.Italy is the largest European contributor to the ExoMars program. In an interview with Spaceflight Now, Saggese said Italy's financial commitment to ExoMars accounted for about 35 percent of Europe's overall ExoMars budget.Thales Alenia Space of Italy is the prime ExoMars contractor and lead manufacturer for the 2016 orbiter, which will seek out signs of methane and other constituents in the Martian atmosphere. Astrium in the UK will construct the rover for the 2018 mission, which is designed to drill into the planet's frosty subsurface and extract samples in search of organic and life-supporting chemistry.Saggese said he believes enough funding has been secured for the ExoMars launch in 2016, and the shortfall is mostly for the rover.A meeting of ESA's science program advisory body in early 2013 will decide whether to release funds to continue the ExoMars program.Europe has spent 400 million euros, or about $510 million, since it was initially approved by member states in 2005.http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1211/21exomars/

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Vger se sprema da okuša interstelarni vakuumVoyager 1 cruising along magnetic highwayBY STEPHEN CLARKSPACEFLIGHT NOWPosted: December 3, 2012The Voyager 1 spacecraft, sailing through the unexplored frontier of the solar system, has detected a new region of space at the enigmatic boundary between the sun's sphere of influence and the interstellar medium, scientists said Monday.Artist's concept depicting the Voyager 1 spacecraft exploring a new region at the edge of the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechMore than 35 years since launching from Earth, the plutonium-powered Voyager 1 probe has flown past Jupiter and Saturn and is now pioneering science at the edge of the heliosphere, a teardrop-shaped bubble blown out by the solar wind.Beyond the heliosphere lies a vacuous expanse known as interstellar space, where the solar wind stops and material expelled from exploding stars hold reign.Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object, is the first spacecraft to explore the boundary region.In July and August, scientists noticed intriguing data coming from Voyager 1's particle counters as the craft flew more than 11 billion miles from Earth."Voyager has discovered a new region of the heliosphere that we had not realized was there," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.The instruments registered dramatic, temporary changes in the levels of cosmic rays and low-energy particles two times in late July and mid-August.On Aug. 25, Voyager 1 detector sensed a permanent rise in high-energy cosmic rays, just as the probe's telescopes a sharp drop in low-energy particles coming from inside the heliosphere.Scientists believed cosmic rays, which originate from outside the solar system, would not penetrate the heliopause, the border where the heliosphere and interstellar space meet. And researchers thought low-energy particles from the solar system would be constrained inside the heliosphere."If we had only looked at particle data alone, we would have said we're out. Goodbye, solar system," said Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator of the low-energy charged particle instrument, based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.But scientists instituted a third test to check whether Voyager 1 had crossed the heliopause and left the solar system.Inside the heliosphere, the magnetic field is oriented in an east-west direction due to the spinning of the sun. Outside, scientists say, evidence points to the magnetic field being in a north-south direction.So far, Voyager 1 has not recorded a change in magnetic field direction, according to Leonard Burlaga, a Voyager magnetometer team member based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.This artist's concept shows how NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is bathed in solar wind from the southern hemisphere flowing northward. It also depicts Voyager 1's location relative to the heliosphere and interstellar space. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechBut Burlaga said Voyager 1's magnetometer indicates the craft is in a much more intense magnetic environment than before the summer."We are in a magnetic region unlike any we've been in before - about 10 times more intense than before the termination shock - but the magnetic field data show no indication we're in interstellar space," Burlaga said. "The magnetic field data turned out to be the key to pinpointing when we crossed the termination shock. And we expect these data will tell us when we first reach interstellar space."Voyager 1 passed the termination shock in December 2004, entering a region called the heliosheath, in which the million-mile-per-hour solar wind slowed and became turbulent. From December 2004 until the summer of 2012, the environment around Voyager 1 was consistent.Researchers say Voyager 1 is now in a region where the sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines. The connection creates an avenue between the solar system and the space outside, allowing low-energy particles from inside the heliosphere to stream out and allows cosmic rays from interstellar space to pass inside.Scientists call the connection a magnetic highway because the magnetic field lines allow particles to freely flow in and out of the heliosphere.Stone said it is impossible to predict exactly when Voyager 1 will leave the solar system."It could take several more months or take several more years, but we believe this may be the very last layer between us and interstellar space," Stone said.Voyager 1, along with a twin craft named Voyager 2, launched in 1977 to tour the solar system's outer planets. Both probes are now on trajectories leaving the solar system.Voyager 2, flying in a different direction than its sister craft, is now about 9 billion miles away and will reach interstellar space several years after Voyager 1."In 1977, no one knew how large the heliosphere was, and no one knew how long the spacecraft would last," Stone said. "We're very lucky that there seems to be a compatibility between our mission lifetime and the size of the heliosphere."Suzanne Dodd, Voyager's project manager, said about 12 engineers and support personnel work on the mission full-time at JPL. Another dozen researchers are on the Voyager science team.The Voyager probes are powered by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238. A power generator converts heat from the plutonium's decay into electricity.The power source will be sufficient to operate all of spacecraft's science instruments until around 2020, then controllers will begin to switch off the sensors one-by-one. By 2025, there be no electricity for any of Voyager's instruments, according to Stone, who has been with the project since launch.But scientists are confident the Voyager probes will last long enough to leave the heliosphere and taste interstellar space."We could well be quite surprised once we get outside the bubble," Stone said.http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1212/03voyager/

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