Huge Heat Shield Has Huge Task: Protecting NASA's Next Mars Rover

Credit: LM

When NASA's newest Mars rover dives into the Martian atmosphere next year, it will be cocooned in the largest "beat the heat" system ever sent to the Red Planet.

To ensure that the nuclear-powered rover — called the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), or "Curiosity" for short — survives its fiery entry and reaches a pinpointed landing spot, it will have a huge heat shield and back shell that together form a protective aeroshell.

Huge Heat Shield Has Huge Task: Protecting NASA's Next Mars Rover - Space.com

Curiosity Rover

Credit: NASA/JPL

Recently the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has been in a space-simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tests inside the 25-foot-diameter chamber (7.6-meters) put the rover through various sequences in environmental conditions resembling Martian surface conditions. After the chamber's large door was sealed, air was pumped out to near-vacuum pressure, liquid nitrogen in the walls dropped the temperature to minus 130 degrees Celsius (minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit), and a bank of powerful lamps simulated the intensity of sunshine on Mars.

Curiosity Rover

Cassini Captures Ocean-Like Spray at Saturn Moon

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered the best evidence yet for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft's direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon.

Data from Cassini's cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and predominantly low in salt far away from the moon. But closer to the moon's surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an 'ocean-like' composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt water. The findings appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Cassini Captures Ocean-Like Spray at Saturn Moon: 

ESA Portal - ESA’s high-thrust engine takes next step

Credit: ESA

The new main engine to power Europe’s successor to its Ariane 5 space launcher was brought a step closer today when ESA signed a €60 million contract with a propulsion consortium at the Paris Air & Space Show.

ESA is preparing the NGL Next-Generation Launcher to meet Europe’s institutional needs and safeguard its guaranteed access to space into the long term, ensuring it will continue to have effective and economic launchers at its disposal.

ESA Portal - ESA’s high-thrust engine takes next step

NASA Hosts Preview of Visit to Large Asteroid

Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA will host a news briefing at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, June 23, to discuss the Dawn spacecraft's year-long visit to the large asteroid Vesta. The mission is expected to go into orbit around Vesta on July 16 and begin gathering science data in early August.

The event will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington and will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv . In addition, the event will be carried live on Ustream, with a live chat available, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

Dawn's visit to Vesta will be the first prolonged encounter with a main belt asteroid and the first trip to a protoplanet, a large body that almost became a planet. Observations will help us understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history.


NASA - NASA Hosts Preview of Visit to Large Asteroid

Energia not to produce Soyuz spaceship for space tourists.

Credit: Unknown

The Energia aerospace corporation will not produce another piloted spaceship Soyuz-TMA for space tourists, the chief of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Vladimir Popovkin told reporters the 49th Paris Air Show here on Tuesday.

“New space tourists cannot be put into space onboard the Soyuz spaceship in the near future. The Energia aerospace corporation has a very intensive schedule of piloted flights. We do not see any opportunity to produce more spaceships,” Popovkin said.


ITAR-TASS : Energia not to produce Soyuz spaceship for space tourists.

ESA, NASA Discuss Joint Manned Missions

NASA

The European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA are discussing plans to build a joint U.S.-European spacecraft based on existing designs that could ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and one day carry humans beyond low Earth orbit.

Speaking at the Paris air show June 20, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said the space agencies are hashing out a plan that would combine the service module of ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) – a spacecraft built by EADS Astrium that is used to haul cargo to the orbiting complex – with NASA’s Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, a space capsule based on the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle that Lockheed Martin Space Systems has been developing for NASA over the past six years.


ESA, NASA Discuss Joint Manned Missions | AVIATION WEEK

ESA reentry vehicle on track for flight in 2013

Credit: ESA

 Europe’s ambition for a spacecraft to return autonomously from low orbit is a cornerstone for a wide range of space applications, including space transportation, exploration and robotic servicing of space infrastructure.
This goal will be achieved with IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, planned for launch in 2013.

Launched into a suborbital trajectory on ESA’s small Vega rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, IXV will return to Earth as if from a low-orbit mission, to test and qualify new European critical reentry technologies such as advanced ceramic and ablative thermal protection.

ESA Portal - ESA reentry vehicle on track for flight in 2013

MESSENGER Provides New Data about Mercury

Credit: NASA

After nearly three months in orbit about Mercury, MESSENGER's payload is providing a wealth of new information about the planet closest to the Sun, as well as a few surprises.

NASA - MESSENGER Provides New Data about Mercury

Cassini Captures Ice Queen Helene

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has successfully completed its second-closest encounter with Saturn's icy moon Helene, beaming down raw images of the small moon. At closest approach, on June 18, Cassini flew within 4,330 miles (6,968 kilometers) of Helene's surface. It was the second closest approach to Helene of the entire mission. 



Cassini Captures Ice Queen Helene - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Has NASA Decided on a Shuttle Replacement?

Sources are reporting that NASA is on the verge of selecting a replacement for the Space Shuttle.

...NASA has tentatively selected a vehicle design featuring solid-fueled, side-mounted boosters that eventually could be replaced with liquid-fueled engines, according to U.S. industry and congressional sources.

--MSNBC