Nasa priority
Envoi de ms le 05 Juin 2004 15:19:35:
> Jonathan's Space Report
> No. 527 2004 Jun 2, Denver,
Colorado
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>
> At the American Astronomical Society in Denver, the science highlight
> was an all-day session of the spectacular first results from the Spitzer
> Space Telescope. Warmest congratulations to my many friends involved in
> the Spitzer mission. IRAS, the US-UK-Netherlands satellite which flew
> the first significant infrared mission in 1983, wasn't very sensitive,
> even though it cataloged hundreds of thousands of infrared sources. It
> also had poor angular resolution, giving a very fuzzy image of the sky.
> ISO, Europe's follow-on mission in the 1990s, gave excellent results on
> bright sources in our Galaxy but was beset with calibration problems
> which limited its ability to study faint extragalactic objects. Spitzer
> takes far sharper and deeper images, far more sensitive spectra, and
> appears to be by far the most well calibrated infrared mission to date.
> It has shown itself able to reveal beautiful detail in nearby star
> forming regions and to detect faint and distant galaxies. After multiple
> cutbacks, redesigns and descopes, my friends used to joke that
> SIRTF/Spitzer, the last of NASA's Great Observatories program, was now
> only a 'Pretty Good Observatory' but I think we now have to apologize
> and welcome it fully into Great Observatory status together with Hubble,
> Chandra, and the deceased Compton.
>
> NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, in a speech on Jun 1 to the American
> Astronomical Society meeting in Denver, clarified NASA's new strategy by
> confirming that basic astronomy research remains part of NASA's mission
> - something that had not been entirely clear in the confusion at NASA HQ
> and elsewhere following the presidential announcement of the Exploration
> initiative and the subsequent budget revisions. He mentioned future (and
> recently delayed) research missions such as Constellation X by name -to
> audible sighs of relief from those sitting near me - and acknowledged
> the success of Explorer missions like WMAP. However, things got a bit
> murkier in a later press conference (he did not take questions from the
> astronomer audience) when he was asked whether the astronomical
> community's own assessment of science priorities remained valid. The
> Decadal Survey study is astronomy's traditional method of avoiding
> internal food fights at budget time by establishing a consensus
> beforehand - in the latest study, prioritizing the JWST and Con-X
> missions. O'Keefe implied that the science community's opinion was only
> one input among many to the priorities for the science program. He
> referred to the new priorities as `a matter of sequencing', which I take
> to be code for saying that planet-finding missions are to be given
> priority over black-hole and early-universe studies at least in the near
> term. (Perhaps he just meant that we need to do the Webb Telescope first
> and then Con-X, but that doesn't explain some of the other budget shifts
> in favor of missions like TPF.) Astronomers at the meeting seemed
> reassured that there seems to be a commitment to carry out the broad
> astrophysics program in the long run, but concerned that the new process
> of mission prioritization appears much less transparent and more
> top-down in contrast to the peer-community involvement of the past. The
> new NASA strategy is still evolving, so it's possible that a more open
> process will emerge.
>
> O'Keefe addressed another specific concern of the astrophysics community,
> the future of the Hubble Space Telescope, by announcing a request for
> proposals for a robotic HST servicing mission. This would leverage
> existing efforts such as the ASTRO/Orbital Express automated rendezvous
> mission and the Canadian SPDM 'robot hand'; in one scenario, a robot
> spacecraft would rendezvous and dock with HST, attaching itself to the
> end of the aft shroud. The basic version would contain a deorbit module
> to remove HST safely from orbit. A second, enhanced version could
> attach new batteries and gyros to the spacecraft, prolonging its life
> before deorbit. A third version would also use a robot arm to replace
> the WFPC-2 camera with the already-built WFC-3, and possibly open the
> aft shroud to install the COS spectrograph, making Hubble able to take
> spectra of objects 10 times fainter than it is now able to. We'll see
> when the proposals come in whether the third version (the one
> astronomers are interested in!) is plausible. I believe that it is all
> realistic, with the possible exception of the COS installation - the
> astronauts have had some trouble in the past reclosing the doors, and
> I'm not sure how easy it will be for a robot to do this, but maybe it's
> fine. The big issue is the funding - O'Keefe refused to speculate on the
> cost but some rumours talk of a billion-dollar class mission. He did say
> that most of the cost would come from the Exploration budget (rather
> than science) since the point is partly to develop a general capability
> for robotic servicing.
>
> ESA has completed its report on the Beagle 2 Mars lander failure, but
> the report has not been publicly released. Nevertheless, a press release
> indicates several areas identified as possible contributors to the
> failure: problems due to shocks from pyro firings in spacecraft
> separation events; problematic cross-connected wiring; possible
> collision between the lander and its jettisoned heat shield, and
> possible air bag or parachute failure.
>
> Progress M-49 (spacecraft Progress 7K-TGM No. 249) was launched from
> Baykonur on May 25. The vessel carries cargo for the Space Station,
> including spacesuit Orlan-M No. 27, and is ISS flight 14P.
> The spacecraft docked with the Zvezda module on May 27 at 1355 UTC.
>
> Kosmos-2407, launched on May 28 into a 400 km, 65 degree orbit is
> a US-PU electronic intelligence satellite for the Russian Navy.
>
> The USAF weather satellite DMSP Block 5D-2 F-11 (S-12), launched in 1991
> and retired in 1995, has exploded in orbit with debris objects
> generated. It seems likely the fragmentation was due to either a battery
> explosion or to residual fuel in the attitude control system.
>
> Table of Recent Launches
> -----------------------
>
> Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission
INTL.
>
DES.
> Apr 16 0045 Superbird 6 Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36A Comms
11A
> Apr 18 1559 Shiyan 1 ) CZ-2C Xichang Imaging
12A
> Naxing 1 ) Tech
12
> Apr 19 0319 Soyuz TMA-4 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1
Spaceship 13A
> Apr 20 1657 Gravity Probe B Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Science
14A
> Apr 26 2037 Ekspress AM-11 Proton-K/DM-01 Baykonur LC200/39 Comms
15A
> May 4 1242 DirecTV-7S Zenit-3SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms
16A
> May 19 2222 AMC-11 Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36B Comms
17A
> May 20 1747 ROCSAT-2 Taurus Vandenberg 576-E Imaging
18A
> May 25 1234 Progress M-49 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo
19A
> May 28 0600 Kosmos-2407 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90/20 Sigint
20A
>
>
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> | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176
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> | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org
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> | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu
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