A Night with the Stars…in a Conference Room

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin (818) 354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-167 May 31, 2011

A Night with the Stars…in a Conference Room

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-167&cid=release_2011-167

Ancient astronomers looked up at the dark skies in wonder, as the stars marched by
overhead like precision dancers. In the early 17th century, Galileo Galilei brought the
world one step closer to the heavens with his telescope, discovering, among other
celestial marvels, moons around Jupiter, and our own moon's pockmarked surface.

Nowadays, the stars are closer to us than ever, thanks to powerful telescopes in space and
on the ground. Modern astronomers don't have to step outside, because they get precise
data delivered straight to their own laptops. If Galileo could see us now, he'd probably be
thrilled by the advances -- and also a little puzzled that astronomy no longer means
gazing through telescopes at the twinkling, dark skies.

"You can access a priceless wealth of astronomy data from your couch," said Amy
Mainzer, the deputy project scientist for NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We can do almost all
of our research on our laptops."

Sometimes astronomers do take trips out to ground-based observatories. They sleep
during the day, and, instead of peering up at the night sky, they command the telescopes
from computer screens. Some telescopes can also be operated remotely from laptops.
Mainzer and a colleague, Mike Cushing, a member of the WISE team at JPL, recently
spent an evening with the stars in a conference room at NASA's Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"I guess in some sense, there is a slight loss of romance doing remote observing," said
Cushing. "But it is more than made up for by being able to sleep in your own bed!"

This particular night, Mainzer and Cushing, along with an undergraduate student, Emily
DeBaun from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., were on a hunt for brown dwarfs.
These are cool, dim stars with somewhat stunted development. They begin life like stars,
but never grow massive enough to ignite nuclear fusion and shine with sunlight, as our
sun does so brilliantly. Instead, brown dwarfs glow because of the heat leftover from their
formation. This heat makes them easy to see with infrared telescopes.

The first brown dwarf wasn't discovered until 1995, though these objects had been
predicted to exist as far back as the 1960s. More discoveries rolled in during the early
2000s with the help of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Two Micron All-
Sky Survey, an infrared all-sky mapping project sponsored by the Infrared Analysis and
Processing Center and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The WISE mission promises to find even more of these little stars, with its improved
infrared all-sky maps. In fact, WISE will likely more than double the number of known
brown dwarfs out to 25 light-years from our sun, and it may even find one that's closer to
us than our closet known star, Proximi Centauri, which is about 4 light-years away. The
WISE telescope wrapped up its all-sky survey and went into hibernation in Feb. 2011, but
astronomers are just now beginning to sift through the data.

Mainzer and Cushing had plucked a few good brown dwarf candidates out of the WISE
data. Their next step was to use the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea in
Hawaii to gather more information on the objects, and figure out if they are indeed brown
dwarfs, and not something else, such as a distant galaxy masquerading as a nearby, cool
star. That's what brought them to a quiet conference room late at night, when even the
most owlish of the astronomers usually working in the building had gone home.

"You've got Guidedog," said Cushing, talking via speaker-phone to the NASA Infrared
Telescope Facility telescope operator in Hawaii. Guidedog is the name of one of
the computers that controls the camera on the telescope. The operator took control of the
computer in order to focus the telescope.

Throughout the night, Mainzer and Cushing told the operator when they were ready to
point the telescope at a different patch of sky, while controlling the specific settings from
a software interface on their laptops. The laptop screen was projected onto a big screen in
the conference room, where they could get a better view of the software.

One task involved placing their objects of interest into thin windows, or slits, which mask
other nearby stars. Once the command was given to capture an image, an instrument on
the Infrared Telescope Facility, called a spectrometer, broke apart the object's light into
its basic components, much as a prism disperses sunlight into a rainbow. These data were
then transformed into plots, called spectra, showing the various light intensities at each
wavelength. The resulting peaks and dips revealed molecules making up the object, as
well as its temperature.

"I think we bagged another T-dwarf," said Mainzer, referring to a classification system
that organizes brown dwarfs according to their temperature. T-dwarfs are about 1,400 to
500 Kelvin (about 1,130 to 230 degrees Celsius). WISE will likely find even colder
brown dwarfs, possibly even the elusive Y-dwarfs, which some theories say could be as
cold as 200 Kelvin (minus 73 degrees Celsius). If such an object is revealed, it would be
the coldest star-like body known.

The search for brown dwarfs continued on into night. Keeping the astronomers awake
were bags of sweet-and-sour gummies and M&Ms, not to mention the thrill of
discovering new worlds.

They stayed up until about 3 a.m. that night, which was midnight in Hawaii. The
telescope was then handed off to another team of remote observers.

"We're still up late with the stars, even though we see them with electronic sensors
instead of peering through the telescope with our own eyes," said Mainzer. "But
compared to ancient astronomers, I think our sense of awe is the same, and we're
continuing the quest to understand our astonishing universe."

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Camera Duo on Mars Rover Mast Will Shoot Color Views

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-687-7708
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-166 May 31, 2011

Camera Duo on Mars Rover Mast Will Shoot Color Views

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-166&cid=release_2011-166

Two digital color cameras riding high on the mast of NASA's next Mars rover will
complement each other in showing the surface of Mars in exquisite detail.

They are the left and right eyes of the Mast Camera, or Mastcam, instrument on the
Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, launching in late 2011.

The right-eye Mastcam looks through a telephoto lens, revealing details near or far with
about three-fold better resolution than any previous landscape-viewing camera on the
surface of Mars. The left-eye Mastcam provides broader context through a medium-
angle lens. Each can acquire thousands of full-color images and store them in an eight-
gigabyte flash memory. Both cameras are also capable of recording high-definition
video at about eight frames per second. Combining information from the two eyes can
yield 3-D views of the telephoto part of the scene.

Motivation to put telephoto capability in Curiosity's main science imaging instrument
grew from experience with NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity and its studies
of an arena-size crater in 2004. The science camera on that rover's mast, which can
see details comparably to what a human eye can see at the same distance, showed
intriguing patterns in the layers of Burns Cliff inside Endurance Crater.

"We tried to get over and study it, but the rover could not negotiate the steep slope,"
recalled Mastcam Principal Investigator Michael Malin, of Malin Space Science
Systems, San Diego. "We all desperately coveted a telephoto lens." NASA selected his
Mastcam proposal later that year for the Mars Science Laboratory rover.

The telephoto Mastcam, called "Mastcam 100" for its 100-millimeter focal-length lens,
provides enough resolution to distinguish a basketball from a football at a distance of
seven football fields, or to read "ONE CENT" on a penny on the ground beside the
rover. Its images cover an area about six degrees wide by five degrees tall.

Its left-eye partner, called "Mastcam 34" for its 34-millimeter lens, catches a scene three
times wider -- about 18 degrees wide and 15 degrees tall -- with each exposure.

Researchers will use the Mastcams and nine other science instruments on Curiosity to
study past and present environments in a carefully chosen area of Mars. They will
assess whether conditions have been favorable for life and favorable for preserving
evidence about whether life has existed there. Mastcam imaging of the shapes and
colors of landscapes, rocks and soils will provide clues about the history of
environmental processes that have formed them and modified them over time. Images
and videos of the sky will document contemporary processes, such as movement of
clouds and dust.

Previous color cameras on Mars have taken a sequence of exposures through different
color filters to be combined on Earth into color views. The Mastcams record color the
same way consumer digital cameras do: They have a grid of tiny red, green and blue
squares (a "Bayer pattern" filter) fitted over the electronic light detector (the charge-
coupled device, or CCD). This allows the Mastcams to get the three color components
over the entire scene in a single exposure.

Mastcam's color-calibration target on the rover deck includes magnets to keep the
highly magnetic Martian dust from accumulating on portions of color chips and white-
gray-balance reference chips. Natural lighting on Mars tends to be redder than on Earth
due to dust in Mars' atmosphere. "True color" images can be produced that incorporate
that lighting effect -- comparable to the greenish look of color-film images taken under
fluorescent lights on Earth without a white-balancing adjustment. A white-balance
calculation can yield a more natural look by adjusting for the tint of the lighting, as the
human eye tends to do and digital cameras can do. The Mastcams are capable of
producing both true-color and white-balanced images.

Besides the affixed red-green-blue filter grid, the Mastcams have wheels of other filters
that can be rotated into place between the lens and the CCD. These include science
spectral filters for examining the ground or sky in narrow bands of visible-light or near-
infrared wavelengths. One filter on each camera allows it to look directly at the sun to
measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere, a key part of Mars' weather.

"Something we're likely to do frequently is to look at rocks and features with the
Mastcam 34 red-green-blue filter, and if we see something of interest, follow that up with
the Mastcam 34 and Mastcam 100 science spectral filters," Malin said. "We can use the
red-green-blue data for quick reconnaissance and the science filters for target
selection."

When Curiosity drives to a new location, Mastcam 34 can record a full-color, full-circle
panorama about 60 degrees tall by taking 150 images in about 25 minutes. Using
Mastcam 100, the team will be able to broaden the swath of terrain evaluated on either
side of the path Curiosity drives, compared to what has been possible with earlier Mars
rovers. That will help with selection of the most interesting targets to approach for
analysis by Curiosity's other instruments and will provide additional geological context
for interpreting data about the chosen targets.

The Mastcams will provide still images and video to study motions of the rover -- both
for science, such as seeing how soils interact with wheels, and for engineering, such as
aiding in use of the robotic arm. In other videos, the team may use cinematic techniques
such as panning across a scene and using the rover's movement for "dolly" shots.

Each of the two-megapixel Mastcams can take and store thousands of images, though
the amount received on Earth each day will depend on how the science team chooses
priorities for the day's available data-transmission volume. Malin anticipates frequent
use of Mastcam "thumbnail" frames -- compressed roughly 150-by-150-pixel versions of
each image -- as an index of the full-scale images held in the onboard memory.

Malin Space Science Systems built the Mastcam instrument and will operate it. The
company's founder, Michael Malin, participated in NASA's Viking missions to Mars in
the 1970s, provided the Mars Orbiter Camera for NASA's Mars Global Surveyor
mission, and is the principal investigator for both the Context Camera and the Mars
Color Imager on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The science team for Mastcam and two other instruments the same company provided
for Curiosity includes the lead scientist for the mast-mounted science cameras on Mars
rovers Spirit and Opportunity (James Bell of Arizona State University); the lead scientist
for the mast camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander (Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M
University); James Cameron, director of such popular movies as "Titanic" and "Avatar";
and 17 others with expertise in geology, soils, frost, atmosphere, imaging and other
topics.

Mastcam 100 and Mastcam 34 were installed onto Curiosity in 2010. Until March 2011,
a possibility remained open that they might be replaced with a different design: two
identical zoom cameras. A zoom camera has adjustable focal length, to change from
wider-angle to telephoto or vice-versa. That design had been Malin's original proposal.
NASA changed the plan to two different fixed-focal-length cameras in 2007 as a cost-
cutting measure that preserves the capability for meeting the science goals of the
mission and the instrument. The agency funded a renewed possibility for using the
zoom-camera design in 2010, but the zoom development presented challenges that
could not be fully overcome with enough time for required testing on the rover.

Mastcam 34 took images for a mosaic showing Curiosity's upper deck during tests in
March 2011 inside a chamber simulating Mars surface temperature and air pressure.
Testing of the rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will wrap up
in time for shipping the rover to NASA Kennedy Space Center in June. Testing and
other launch preparations will continue there. The launch period for the Mars Science
Laboratory is Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011, with landing on Mars in August 2012.

The Mars Science Laboratory is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of
Techology in Pasadena. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl . You can
follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity and on
Twitter @marscuriosity . A full listing of JPL social media accounts is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/social .

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New NASA Map Reveals Tropical Forest Carbon Storage

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-165 May 31, 2011

New NASA Map Reveals Tropical Forest Carbon Storage

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-165&cid=release_2011-165

PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA-led research team has used a variety of NASA satellite data to create
the most precise map ever produced depicting the amount and location of carbon stored in Earth's
tropical forests. The data are expected to provide a baseline for ongoing carbon monitoring and
research and serve as a useful resource for managing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

The new map, created from ground- and space-based data, shows, for the first time, the distribution
of carbon stored in forests across more than 75 tropical countries. Most of that carbon is stored in the
extensive forests of Latin America.

"This is a benchmark map that can be used as a basis for comparison in the future when the forest
cover and its carbon stock change," said Sassan Saatchi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., who led the research. "The map shows not only the amount of carbon stored in the
forest, but also the accuracy of the estimate." The study was published May 30 in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.

Deforestation and forest degradation contribute 15 to 20 percent of global carbon emissions, and most
of that contribution comes from tropical regions. Tropical forests store large amounts of carbon in the
wood and roots of their trees. When the trees are cut and decompose or are burned, the carbon is
released to the atmosphere.

Previous studies had estimated the carbon stored in forests on local and large scales within a single
continent, but there existed no systematic way of looking at all tropical forests. To measure the size
of the trees, scientists typically use a ground-based technique, which gives a good estimate of how
much carbon they contain. But this technique is limited because the structure of the forest is
extremely variable, and the number of ground sites is very limited.

To arrive at a carbon map that spans three continents, the team used data from the Geoscience Laser
Altimeter System lidar on NASA's ICESat satellite. The researchers looked at information on the
height of treetops from more than 3 million measurements. With the help of corresponding ground
data, they calculated the amount of above-ground biomass and thus, the amount of carbon it
contained.

The team then extrapolated these data over the varying landscape to produce a seamless map, using
NASA imagery from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on
NASA's Terra spacecraft, the QuikScat scatterometer satellite and the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission.

The map reveals that in the early 2000s, forests in the 75 tropical countries studied contained 247
billion tons of carbon. For perspective, about 10 billion tons of carbon is released annually to the
atmosphere from combined fossil fuel burning and land use changes.

The researchers found that forests in Latin America hold 49 percent of the carbon in the world's
tropical forests. For example, Brazil's carbon stock alone, at 61 billion tons, almost equals all of the
carbon stock in sub-Saharan Africa, at 62 billion tons.

"These patterns of carbon storage, which we really didn't know before, depend on climate, soil,
topography and the history of human or natural disturbance of the forests," Saatchi said. "Areas often
impacted by disturbance, human or natural, have lower carbon storage."

The carbon numbers, along with information about the uncertainty of the measurements, are
important for countries planning to participate in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Degradation (REDD+) program. REDD+ is an international effort to create a financial value for the
carbon stored in forests. It offers incentives for countries to preserve their forestland in the interest of
reducing carbon emissions and investing in low-carbon paths of development.

The map also provides a better indication of the health and longevity of forests and how they
contribute to the global carbon cycle and overall functioning of the Earth system. The next step in
Saatchi's research is to compare the carbon map with satellite observations of deforestation to identify
source locations of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere.

For more information on NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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JPL-Developed Clean Energy Technology Moves Forward

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Priscilla.r.vega@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-163 May 26, 2011

JPL-Developed Clean Energy Technology Moves Forward

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-163&cid=release_2011-163

A team of scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in partnership with
the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, developed a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell
technology for future Department of Defense and commercial applications. Recently, USC and
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which manages JPL for NASA, awarded a
license to SFC Energy, Inc., the U.S. affiliate of SFC Energy AG. The non-exclusive license for
the technology will facilitate the expansion of the company's methanol fuel cell products into the
U.S. market.

This novel fuel cell technology uses liquid methanol as a fuel to produce electrical energy, and
does not require any fuel processing. Pure water and carbon dioxide are the only byproducts of
the fuel cell, and no pollutants are emitted. Direct Methanol Fuel Cells offer several advantages
over other current fuel cell systems, especially with regard to simplicity of design and higher
energy density. Current systems rely on hydrogen gas, a substance that is more difficult to
transport and store.

"JPL invented the Direct Methanol Fuel Cell concept and also made significant contributions to
all the facets of the technology. These contributions include: development of advanced catalyst
materials, high-performance fuel cell membrane electrode assemblies, compact fuel cell stacks,
and system designs," said JPL Power Technology Program Manager Rao Surampudi. He
explained that USC worked with JPL in the development and advancement of this technology
for defense and commercial applications.

Over the years, those applications have expanded from the original defense applications to
include such uses as battery chargers for consumer electronics, electric vehicles, stand-alone
power systems, and uninterrupted/emergency power supplies.

"We are looking forward to working closely with the fuel cell industry to further develop this
technology to meet future market needs," said Erik Brandon, current Electrochemical
Technologies group supervisor at JPL.

From 1989 to 1998, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded JPL
and USC to develop direct methanol fuel cells for future defense applications. Inventors on the
JPL team include Surampudi, Sri. R. Narayanan, Harvey Frank, Thomas Valdez, Andrew
Kindler, Eugene Vamos and Gerald Halpert. The USC inventor team includes G.K. Surya
Prakash, Marshall Smart and Nobel Laureate George Olah.

"This fuel cell may well become the power source of choice for energy-efficient, non-polluting
military and consumer applications," said Gerald Halpert, former Electrochemical Technologies
group supervisor at JPL.

More detailed information on the technology is online at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/releases/97/fuelcel3.html .

The Caltech and NASA technology transfer programs are designed to help U.S. companies
improve their competitive positions in the global economy by transferring JPL technology into
the marketplace.

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Spitzer Sees Crystal 'Rain' in Outer Clouds of Infant Star

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-161 May 26, 2011

Spitzer Sees Crystal 'Rain' in Outer Clouds of Infant Star

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-161&cid=release_2011-161

PASADENA, Calif. -- Tiny crystals of a green mineral called olivine are falling down like rain
on a burgeoning star, according to observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

This is the first time such crystals have been observed in the dusty clouds of gas that collapse
around forming stars. Astronomers are still debating how the crystals got there, but the most
likely culprits are jets of gas blasting away from the embryonic star.

"You need temperatures as hot as lava to make these crystals," said Tom Megeath of the
University of Toledo in Ohio. He is the principal investigator of the research and the second
author of a new study appearing in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "We propose that the crystals
were cooked up near the surface of the forming star, then carried up into the surrounding cloud
where temperatures are much colder, and ultimately fell down again like glitter."

Spitzer's infrared detectors spotted the crystal rain around a distant, sun-like embryonic star, or
protostar, referred to as HOPS-68, in the constellation Orion.

The crystals are in the form of forsterite. They belong to the olivine family of silicate minerals
and can be found everywhere from a periodot gemstone to the green sand beaches of Hawaii to
remote galaxies. NASA's Stardust and Deep Impact missions both detected the crystals in their
close-up studies of comets.

"If you could somehow transport yourself inside this protostar's collapsing gas cloud, it would be
very dark," said Charles Poteet, lead author of the new study, also from the University of Toledo.
"But the tiny crystals might catch whatever light is present, resulting in a green sparkle against a
black, dusty backdrop."

Forsterite crystals were spotted before in the swirling, planet-forming disks that surround young
stars. The discovery of the crystals in the outer collapsing cloud of a proto-star is surprising
because of the cloud's colder temperatures, about minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 170
degrees Celsius). This led the team of astronomers to speculate the jets may in fact be
transporting the cooked-up crystals to the chilly outer cloud.

The findings might also explain why comets, which form in the frigid outskirts of our solar
system, contain the same type of crystals. Comets are born in regions where water is frozen,
much colder than the searing temperatures needed to form the crystals, approximately 1,300
degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Celsius). The leading theory on how comets acquired the
crystals is that materials in our young solar system mingled together in a planet-forming disk. In
this scenario, materials that formed near the sun, such as the crystals, eventually migrated out to
the outer, cooler regions of the solar system.

Poteet and his colleagues say this scenario could still be true but speculate that jets might have
lifted crystals into the collapsing cloud of gas surrounding our early sun before raining onto the
outer regions of our forming solar system. Eventually, the crystals would have been frozen into
comets.
The Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA
contributions, also participated in the study by characterizing the forming star.

"Infrared telescopes such as Spitzer and now Herschel are providing an exciting picture of how
all the ingredients of the cosmic stew that makes planetary systems are blended together," said
Bill Danchi, senior astrophysicist and program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The Spitzer observations were made before it used up its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began
its warm mission.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope
mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are
conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer and
http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ .

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NASA's Spirit Rover Completes Mission on Mars

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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Feature: 2011-160 May 25, 2011

NASA's Spirit Rover Completes Mission on Mars

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-160&cid=release_2011-160

NASA has ended operational planning activities for the Mars rover Spirit and
transitioned the Mars Exploration Rover Project to a single-rover operation focused on
Spirit's still-active twin, Opportunity.

This marks the completion of one of the most successful missions of interplanetary
exploration ever launched.

Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the
rover's solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after
landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. NASA
checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy
available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact
attempts ended today, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable
conditions.

"Our job was to wear these rovers out exploring, to leave no unutilized capability on the
surface of Mars, and for Spirit, we have done that," said Mars Exploration Rover Project
Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Spirit drove 4.8 miles (7.73 kilometers), more than 12 times the goal set for the mission. The drives crossed a plain to reach a distant range of hills that appeared as mere bumps on the horizon from the landing site; climbed slopes up to 30 degrees as Spirit became the first robot to summit a hill on another planet; and covered more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) after Spirit's right-front wheel became immobile in 2006. The rover returned more than 124,000 images. It ground the surfaces off 15 rock targets and scoured 92 targets with a brush to prepare the targets for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager.

"What's really important is not only how long Spirit worked or how far Spirit drove, but
also how much exploration and scientific discovery Spirit accomplished," Callas said.

One major finding came, ironically, from dragging the inoperable right-front wheel as
the rover was driving backwards in 2007. That wheel plowed up bright white soil.
Spirit's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer and Miniature Thermal Emission
Spectrometer revealed that the bright material was nearly pure silica.

"Spirit's unexpected discovery of concentrated silica deposits was one of the most
important findings by either rover," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca,
N.Y., principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity. "It showed that there were once
hot springs or steam vents at the Spirit site, which could have provided favorable
conditions for microbial life."

The silica-rich soil neighbors a low plateau called Home Plate, which was Spirit's main
destination after the historic climb up Husband Hill. "What Spirit showed us at Home
Plate was that early Mars could be a violent place, with water and hot rock interacting to
make what must have been spectacular volcanic explosions. It was a dramatically
different world than the cold, dry Mars of today," said Squyres.

The trove of data from Spirit could still yield future science revelations. Years of
analysis of some 2005 observations by the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer,
Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer and Moessbauer Spectrometer produced a
report last year that an outcrop on Husband Hill bears a high concentration of
carbonate. This is evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have
been favorable for microbial life.

"What's most remarkable to me about Spirit's mission is just how extensive her
accomplishments became," said Squyres. "What we initially conceived as a fairly
simple geologic experiment on Mars ultimately turned into humanity's first real
overland expedition across another planet. Spirit explored just as we would have,
seeing a distant hill, climbing it, and showing us the vista from the summit. And she
did it in a way that allowed everyone on Earth to be part of the adventure."

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Mars Exploration Rovers Opportunity and Spirit for the NASA Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. For more about the rovers, see: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers
and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

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NASA's WISE Mission Offers a Taste of Galaxies to Come

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Image advisory: 2011-158 May 25, 2011

NASA's WISE Mission Offers a Taste of Galaxies to Come

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-158&cid=release_2011-158

PASADENA, Calif. -- An assorted mix of colorful galaxies is being released today by
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, or WISE. The nine galaxies are a
taste of what's to come. The mission plans to release similar images for the 1,000 largest
galaxies that appear in our sky, and possibly more.

"Galaxies come in all sorts of delicious flavors," said Tom Jarrett, a WISE team member
at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, in
Pasadena, who studies our Milky Way's neighboring galaxies. "Our first sample shows
what WISE is capable of. We can produce spectacular high-resolution images of the
largest galaxies."

The new collage showcases galaxies of varying types -- everything from "grand design
spirals," with their elegant cinnamon bun-like swirling arms, to so-called "flocculent"
galaxies, which have a more patchy appearance. They are close enough to us that WISE
can see details of their structure, for example their sinuous arms and central bulges.
Because WISE can study so many types of nearby galaxies, its observations will provide
a better understanding of how these complex objects form and evolve.

WISE, which launched into space in Dec. 2009, scanned the whole sky one-and-a-half
times in infrared light. It captured images of asteroids in our own solar system, distant
galaxies billions of light-years away, and everything in between. The mission's first batch
of data, which does not include all of the galaxies in the new collage, was released to the
public in April of this year. The complete WISE catalog will follow a year later, in the
spring of 2012.

"We can learn about a galaxy's stars -- where are they forming and how fast?" said
Jarrett. "There's so much diversity in galaxies to explore."

The new collection of nine galaxies shows off this diversity, with members of different
sizes, colors and shapes. Infrared light from the galaxies, which we can't see with our
eyes, has been translated into visible-light colors that we can see. Blue colors show older
populations of stars, while yellow indicates dusty areas where stars are forming.

Some of the galaxies are oriented toward us nearly face-on, such as Messier 83, and
others are partly angled away from us, for example Messier 81. One galaxy, NGC 5907,
is oriented completely edge-on, so that all we can see is its profile. The edge of its main
galaxy disk appears pencil-thin, and its halo of surrounding stars is barely visible as a
green glow above and below the disk.

The arms of the galaxies come in different shapes too. Messier 51 has arms that look like
a spiral lollipop, while the arms of the flocculent galaxy NGC 2403 look choppy, perhaps
more like layered frosting. Astronomers think that gravitational interactions with
companion galaxies may lead to more well-defined spiral arms. One such companion can
be seen near Messier 51 in blue. Some of the galaxies also have spokes, or spurs, that join
the arms together, such as those in IC 342.

Read about the other galaxies in the new collage at
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/gallery_menagerie.html

JPL manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at
UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program
managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument
was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built
by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data
processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu
and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

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For Aquarius, Sampling Seas No 'Grain of Salt' Task

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-157 May 25, 2011

For Aquarius, Sampling Seas No 'Grain of Salt' Task

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-157&cid=release_2011-157

The breakthrough moment for oceanographer Gary Lagerloef, the principal investigator
for NASA's new Aquarius mission, came in 1991. That's when he knew it would be
possible to make precise measurements of ocean salinity from space. It has taken
nearly two decades to turn that possibility into a reality.

Lagerloef was looking at data collected by a NASA aircraft flying over the ocean off the
coast of Maryland. It was testing a new radiometer, an instrument that can sense
thermal signals emitted by land, clouds and the ocean surface. The instrument not only
captured the unique signature of dissolved salt in the surface water below, it showed
how the water's salt content varied from one side of the Gulf Stream to the other.

"That flight was a turning point," said Lagerloef, a senior scientist at Earth & Space
Research, Seattle. "We could clearly see the range that we needed to study salinity
from its lowest levels in the North Pacific to the highest salinity levels in the North
Atlantic."

Salinity, or saltiness, plays a critical role in ocean circulation and is a key tracer for
understanding the ocean's role in Earth's global water cycle. While satellites routinely
provide information on sea surface temperature, sea level, ocean color and ocean
winds, historically, no global view of ocean surface salinity had been available. Salinity
measurements were limited to those by ships, buoys and floats until recently — and are
still few and far between.

Measuring salinity from space is extremely challenging and has been one of the last
frontiers for ocean remote sensing. The European Space Agency launched a mission to
measure soil moisture and ocean salinity in 2009. And now the Aquarius/SAC-D
mission developed by NASA and Argentina's space agency, the Comisión Nacional de
Actividades Espaciales, is being readied for launch on June 9. The two missions are
complementary, but differ in focus and technology. One important difference is that
Aquarius uses both a passive radiometer to detect ocean salinity and an active
scatterometer radar to correct the radiometer's salinity measurements for wind
roughness (waves) at the sea surface. This is the first combination of this kind used in
space for Earth observations, whereas the European Space Agency mission uses only
a passive radiometer.

Aquarius is dedicated to making precise measurements of ocean salinity over months
and years, providing important new information for climate studies. It will produce
monthly maps of the surface salinity of the global ocean with a 93-mile (150-kilometer)
resolution and an accuracy of 0.2 practical salinity units, which is equal to about one-
eighth teaspoon of salt in a gallon of water. (Practical salinity is a scale used to describe
the concentration of dissolved salts in seawater, nearly equivalent to parts per
thousand.) The mission is to make these measurements continuously for at least three
years.

"This is a level of accuracy and stability that has never been achieved in space before,"
said Aquarius Instrument Scientist Simon Yueh, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., which is managing the mission for NASA through its commissioning
phase.

"The first challenge is that the signal we are measuring is very small," said Aquarius
Deputy Principal Investigator David Le Vine, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md. "It is a very tiny signal in a noisy environment. In addition, the dynamic
range — the difference in the signal that comes from water with low salinity and water
with high salinity — is also small."

The Aquarius instrument has three separate radiometers aimed at the ocean below.
The radiometers are designed to detect and measure a particular wavelength of
microwave energy being emitted by the ocean.

"Everything radiates energy," explained Le Vine. "When you see the glow of an electric
stove, you're seeing thermal radiation. It is in a range that our eyes can see. Night-
vision goggles let you see radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum. For Aquarius,
we're measuring radiation at microwave frequencies."

The radiometers on Aquarius measure the microwave emissions from the sea surface
at 1.4 gigahertz in the L-band portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This energy,
which is measured as an equivalent temperature called the "brightness temperature" in
Kelvin, has a direct correlation to surface salinity.

"Lots of things interfere with the salinity signal Aquarius is measuring, such as land and
atmospheric effects," said Le Vine. "Ocean waves are a particularly significant source of
'noise' that can confuse the signal from salinity. That's why we have an additional
instrument, a scatterometer, on board to help correct for this." The scatterometer sends
a radar pulse to the ocean surface that is reflected back to the spacecraft, providing
information about the ocean surface.

Because of its importance, the 1.4 gigahertz band is protected for scientific use.
Nevertheless, says Aquarius Science Team Member Frank Wentz, director of Remote
Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, Calif., stray signals from radar, telephone and radio
occasionally cause problems. Aquarius' radiometers are designed to detect much of this
interference and eliminate contaminated measurements.

Wentz is part of the team creating the complicated mathematical formula — called a
retrieval algorithm — that Aquarius will use to translate brightness temperature into
measurements of salinity. "It's basically a big subtraction process," he said. "We figure
out all the things that interfere with the signal we want and eliminate their effect on our
measurement. This would be challenging enough to do even if the ocean were perfectly
flat like a mirror. Instead, because of waves, it's more like a funhouse mirror that distorts
everything."

Aquarius' primary focus is to see how salinity varies from place to place and changes
with time. This task would be easier if there were a greater difference in the signal
between the regions with low salinity and those with high salinity.

Over the open ocean, salinity is relatively constant. It ranges from about 32 to 37 parts
per thousand. The corresponding change in brightness temperature -- what Aquarius
measures -- is very small. Aquarius has been designed to detect changes in salinity as
small as about two parts per 10,000, which corresponds to about 0.1 Kelvin. "This will
be about 10 times more accurate than previous spaceborne radiometer observations of
other sea surface characteristics," said Yueh.

Aquarius has to be extremely stable as well as sensitive. "If we want to see small things
over long periods of time, we have to make sure that the instrument itself doesn't
change. We need to know that any variations we observe are real and not caused by
the instrument itself," said Yueh. Making this happen required special engineering
attention to temperature control and calibration.

Controlling the temperature, critical for maintaining precision and stability, within a large
instrument is difficult. JPL engineers had to design special computer models to
understand the system's thermal behavior and its electronics. "This had never been
done before for an instrument of this size operating over months and years," said Yueh.

All microwave radiometers, including Aquarius, require a calibration reference point.
Most operational spacecraft radiometers continuously turn to look at cold space in order
to calibrate their instruments. Aquarius, however, uses internal calibration to help retain
its stability. "We have a big antenna and a large instrument," said Yueh. "No one wants
to spin this instrument around frequently to look at an external reference."

While Aquarius benefits from advanced technologies such as internal calibration and
sophisticated radiometers, its ability to measure global ocean surface salinity with
unprecedented accuracy is the result of years of research and planning.

The key to making this challenging measurement, say Aquarius science team members,
is in the details. And from the tiny, detailed measurements of salinity that Aquarius
makes, a new "big" picture of Earth's ocean will emerge.

For more information on Aquarius, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius .

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NASA Concludes Attempts to Contact Mars Rover Spirit

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-156 May 24, 2011

NASA Concludes Attempts to Contact Mars Rover Spirit

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-156&cid=release_2011-156

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA is ending attempts to regain contact with the long-lived Mars
Exploration Rover Spirit, which last communicated on March 22, 2010.

A transmission that will end on Wednesday, May 25, will be the last in a series of attempts. Extensive
communications activities during the past 10 months also have explored the possibility that Spirit
might reawaken as the solar energy available to it increased after a stressful Martian winter without
much sunlight. With inadequate energy to run its survival heaters, the rover likely experienced colder
internal temperatures last year than in any of its prior six years on Mars. Many critical components and
connections would have been susceptible to damage from the cold.

Engineers' assessments in recent months have shown a very low probability for recovering
communications with Spirit. Communications assets that have been used by the Spirit mission in the
past, including NASA's Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth, plus two NASA Mars orbiters
that can relay communications, now are needed to prepare for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory
mission. MSL is scheduled to launch later this year.

"We're now transitioning assets to support the November launch of our next generation Mars rover,
Curiosity," said Dave Lavery, NASA's program executive for solar system exploration. "However,
while we no longer believe there is a realistic probability of hearing from Spirit, the Deep Space
Network may occasionally listen for any faint signals when the schedule permits."

Spirit landed on Mars on Jan. 3, 2004, for a mission designed to last three months. After
accomplishing its prime-mission goals, Spirit worked to accomplish additional objectives. Its twin,
Opportunity, continues active exploration of Mars.

For more information on the Mars rovers, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers or
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html . NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project and
Mars Science Laboratory for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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NASA's Twin Craft Arrive in Florida for Moon Mission

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

George Diller 321-867-2468
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
george.h.diller@nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-153 May 23, 2011

NASA's Twin Craft Arrive in Florida for Moon Mission

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-153&cid=release_2011-153

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's twin lunar probes have arrived in Florida to begin final
preparations for a launch in late summer. The two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory
spacecraft (Grail) were shipped from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, to the Astrotech
payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla., Friday, May 20. NASA's dynamic duo will orbit
the moon to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and to advance
understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"NASA's lunar twins have arrived at Cape Canaveral," said Maria Zuber, Grail's principal
investigator, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge. "We're only a
few full moons away from a mission that will reveal clues not only into the history of the moon
and Earth, but will provide important data for future lunar exploration."

The Grail twins, known as Grail-A and Grail-B, were removed from their shipping containers
Monday, May 23. Later this week, they will begin functional testing to verify their state of health
after their ride on an Air Force transport jet from Colorado. Over the next four months at the
Astrotech facility, the spacecraft will undergo final testing, fueling and packaging in the shroud
that will protect them as the Delta II launch vehicle lifts them into space. The spacecraft will then
be transported to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for installation atop the rocket that will
carry them toward the moon.

Grail will be carried into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy rocket lifting off
from Launch Complex-19 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch period
opens Sept. 8, 2011, and extends through Oct. 19. For a Sept. 8 liftoff, the launch window opens
at 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT) and remains open through 6:16 a.m. PDT (9:16 a.m. EDT).

Grail-A and Grail-B will fly in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its
gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission will also answer longstanding questions about
Earth's moon, and provide scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets
in the solar system formed.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Grail mission. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, is home to the mission's principal
investigator, Maria Zuber. The Grail mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's
Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about Grail is online at: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/grail

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Cassini and Telescope See Violent Saturn Storm

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2011-150 May 19, 2011

Cassini and Telescope See Violent Saturn Storm

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-150&cid=release_2011-150

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft and a European Southern Observatory ground-
based telescope tracked the growth of a giant early-spring storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere that
is so powerful it stretches around the entire planet. The rare storm has been wreaking havoc for
months and shooting plumes of gas high into the planet's atmosphere.

Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument first detected the large disturbance, and amateur
astronomers tracked its emergence in December 2010. As it rapidly expanded, its core developed into
a giant, powerful thunderstorm. The storm produced a 3,000-mile-wide (5,000-kilometer-wide) dark
vortex, possibly similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, within the turbulent atmosphere.

The dramatic effects of the deep plumes disturbed areas high up in Saturn's usually stable
stratosphere, generating regions of warm air that shone like bright "beacons" in the infrared. Details
are published in this week's edition of Science Magazine.

"Nothing on Earth comes close to this powerful storm," says Leigh Fletcher, the study's lead author
and a Cassini team scientist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "A storm like this is
rare. This is only the sixth one to be recorded since 1876, and the last was way back in 1990."

This is the first major storm on Saturn observed by an orbiting spacecraft and studied at thermal
infrared wavelengths, where Saturn's heat energy reveals atmospheric temperatures, winds and
composition within the disturbance.

Temperature data were provided by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile and
Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS), operated by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Md.

"Our new observations show that the storm had a major effect on the atmosphere, transporting energy
and material over great distances, modifying the atmospheric winds -- creating meandering jet
streams and forming giant vortices -- and disrupting Saturn's slow seasonal evolution," said Glenn
Orton, a paper co-author, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The violence of the storm -- the strongest disturbances ever detected in Saturn's stratosphere -- took
researchers by surprise. What started as an ordinary disturbance deep in Saturn's atmosphere punched
through the planet's serene cloud cover to roil the high layer known as the stratosphere.

"On Earth, the lower stratosphere is where commercial airplanes generally fly to avoid storms which
can cause turbulence," says Brigette Hesman, a scientist at the University of Maryland in College
Park who works on the CIRS team at Goddard and is the second author on the paper. "If you were
flying in an airplane on Saturn, this storm would reach so high up, it would probably be impossible to
avoid it."

Other indications of the storm's strength are the changes in the composition of the atmosphere
brought on by the mixing of air from different layers. CIRS found evidence of such changes by
looking at the amounts of acetylene and phosphine, both considered to be tracers of atmospheric
motion. A separate analysis using Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, led by Kevin
Baines of JPL, confirmed the storm is very violent, dredging up larger atmospheric particles and
churning up ammonia from deep in the atmosphere in volumes several times larger than previous
storms. Other Cassini scientists are studying the evolving storm, and a more extensive picture will
emerge soon.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany operates the VLT in Chile.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For information about Cassini, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne C. Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Nancy Neal-Jones/Elizabeth Zubritsky 301-286-0039/301-614-5438
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov/elizabeth.a.zubritsky@nasa.gov

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NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer Helps Confirm Nature of Dark Energy

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2011-149 May 19, 2011

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer Helps Confirm Nature of Dark Energy

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-149&cid=release_2011-149

PASADENA, Calif. -- A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion
years in cosmic time, has led to one of the best independent confirmations that dark energy is
driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds. The survey used data from NASA's space-
based Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope on Siding Spring
Mountain in Australia.

The findings offer new support for the favored theory of how dark energy works -- as a constant
force, uniformly affecting the universe and propelling its runaway expansion. They contradict an
alternate theory, where gravity, not dark energy, is the force pushing space apart. According to
this alternate theory, with which the new survey results are not consistent, Albert Einstein's
concept of gravity is wrong, and gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive when acting at
great distances.

"The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into
the sky faster and faster," said Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in
Melbourne, Australia. Blake is lead author of two papers describing the results that appeared in
recent issues of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "The results tell us that
dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed. If gravity were the culprit, then we
wouldn't be seeing these constant effects of dark energy throughout time."

Dark energy is thought to dominate our universe, making up about 74 percent of it. Dark matter,
a slightly less mysterious substance, accounts for 22 percent. So-called normal matter, anything
with atoms, or the stuff that makes up living creatures, planets and stars, is only approximately
four percent of the cosmos.

The idea of dark energy was proposed during the previous decade, based on studies of distant
exploding stars called supernovae. Supernovae emit constant, measurable light, making them so-
called "standard candles," which allows calculation of their distance from Earth. Observations
revealed dark energy was flinging the objects out at accelerating speeds.

Dark energy is in a tug-of-war contest with gravity. In the early universe, gravity took the lead,
dominating dark energy. At about 8 billion years after the Big Bang, as space expanded and
matter became diluted, gravitational attractions weakened and dark energy gained the upper
hand. Billions of years from now, dark energy will be even more dominant. Astronomers predict
our universe will be a cosmic wasteland, with galaxies spread apart so far that any intelligent
beings living inside them wouldn't be able to see other galaxies.

The new survey provides two separate methods for independently checking the supernovae
results. This is the first time astronomers performed these checks across the whole cosmic
timespan dominated by dark energy. The team began by assembling the largest three-
dimensional map of galaxies in the distant universe, spotted by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.
The ultraviolet-sensing telescope has scanned about three-quarters of the sky, observing
hundreds of millions of galaxies.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer helped identify bright, young galaxies, which are ideal for this
type of study," said Christopher Martin, principal investigator for the mission at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It provided the scaffolding for this enormous 3-D map."

The astronomers acquired detailed information about the light for each galaxy using the Anglo-
Australian Telescope and studied the pattern of distance between them. Sound waves from the
very early universe left imprints in the patterns of galaxies, causing pairs of galaxies to be
separated by approximately 500 million light-years.

This "standard ruler" was used to determine the distance from the galaxy pairs to Earth -- the
closer a galaxy pair is to us, the farther apart the galaxies will appear from each other on the sky.
As with the supernovae studies, this distance data were combined with information about the
speeds at which the pairs are moving away from us, revealing, yet again, the fabric of space is
stretching apart faster and faster.

The team also used the galaxy map to study how clusters of galaxies grow over time like cities,
eventually containing many thousands of galaxies. The clusters attract new galaxies through
gravity, but dark energy tugs the clusters apart. It slows down the process, allowing scientists to
measure dark energy's repulsive force.

"Observations by astronomers over the last 15 years have produced one of the most startling
discoveries in physical science; the expansion of the universe, triggered by the Big Bang, is
speeding up," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in
Washington. "Using entirely independent methods, data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer
have helped increase our confidence in the existence of dark energy."

Caltech leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations
and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, manages the mission and built
the science instrument. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed
by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei
University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France
collaborated on this mission. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Graphics and additional information about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer are online at
http://www.nasa.gov/galex/ and http://www.galex.caltech.edu .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

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Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2011-147 May 18, 2011

Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-147&cid=release_2011-147

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered
a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a
star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary
systems.

The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky
Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly
the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had
gone undetected until now. The newfound planets are located at an average approximate
distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light-years from Earth.

"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected, holding
major implications for planetary formation and evolution models," said Mario Perez, exoplanet
program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

"Our survey is like a population census," said David Bennett, a NASA and National Science
Foundation-funded co-author of the study from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend,
Ind. "We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these data, can estimate overall numbers
in the galaxy."

The study, led by Takahiro Sumi from Osaka University in Japan, appears in the May 19 issue of
the journal Nature.

The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-
mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more often. As a result, they are
thought to be more common than free-floating Jupiters.

Previous observations spotted a handful of free-floating, planet-like objects within star-forming
clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form
more like stars than planets. These small, dim orbs, called brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing
balls of gas and dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and shine with starlight. It is
thought the smallest brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large planets.

On the other hand, it is likely that some planets are ejected from their early, turbulent solar
systems, due to close gravitational encounters with other planets or stars. Without a star to circle,
these planets would move through the galaxy as our sun and other stars do, in stable orbits
around the galaxy's center. The discovery of 10 free-floating Jupiters supports the ejection
scenario, though it's possible both mechanisms are at play.

"If free-floating planets formed like stars, then we would have expected to see only one or two
of them in our survey instead of 10," Bennett said. "Our results suggest that planetary systems
often become unstable, with planets being kicked out from their places of birth."

The observations cannot rule out the possibility that some of these planets may have very distant
orbits around stars, but other research indicates Jupiter-mass planets in such distant orbits are
rare.

The survey, the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), is named in part after a giant
wingless, extinct bird family from New Zealand called the moa. A 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope
at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand is used to regularly scan the copious stars
at the center of our galaxy for gravitational microlensing events. These occur when something,
such as a star or planet, passes in front of another, more distant star. The passing body's gravity
warps the light of the background star, causing it to magnify and brighten. Heftier passing
bodies, like massive stars, will warp the light of the background star to a greater extent, resulting
in brightening events that can last weeks. Small planet-size bodies will cause less of a distortion,
and brighten a star for only a few days or less.

A second microlensing survey group, the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE),
contributed to this discovery using a 4.2-foot (1.3 meter) telescope in Chile. The OGLE group
also observed many of the same events, and their observations independently confirmed the
analysis of the MOA group.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,Calif., manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration
program office. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

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NASA Mission Will Observe Earth's Salty Seas

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

News Release: 2011-146 May 17, 2011

NASA Mission Will Observe Earth's Salty Seas

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-146&cid=release_2011-146

PASADENA, Calif. – Final preparations are under way for the June 9 launch of the international
Aquarius/SAC-D observatory. The mission's primary instrument, Aquarius, will study interactions
between ocean circulation, the water cycle and climate by measuring ocean surface salinity.

Engineers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are performing final tests before mating
Aquarius/SAC-D to its Delta II rocket. The mission is a collaboration between NASA and
Argentina's space agency, Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with
participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. SAC stands for Satelite de Applicaciones
Cientificas. Aquarius was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the
agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In addition to Aquarius, the observatory carries seven other instruments that will collect
environmental data for a wide range of applications, including studies of natural hazards, air quality,
land processes and epidemiology.

The mission will make NASA's first space observations of the concentration of dissolved salt at the
ocean surface. Aquarius' observations will reveal how salinity variations influence ocean circulation,
trace the path of freshwater around our planet, and help drive Earth's climate. The ocean surface
constantly exchanges water and heat with Earth's atmosphere. Approximately 80 percent of the global
water cycle that moves freshwater from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the
ocean happens over the ocean.

Salinity plays a key role in these exchanges. By tracking changes in ocean surface salinity, Aquarius
will monitor variations in the water cycle caused by evaporation and precipitation over the ocean,
river runoff, and the freezing and melting of sea ice.

Salinity also makes seawater denser, causing it to sink, where it becomes part of deep, interconnected
ocean currents. This deep ocean "conveyor belt" moves water masses and heat from the tropics to the
polar regions, helping to regulate Earth's climate.

"Salinity is the glue that bonds two major components of Earth's complex climate system: ocean
circulation and the global water cycle," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth
& Space Research in Seattle. "Aquarius will map global variations in salinity in unprecedented detail,
leading to new discoveries that will improve our ability to predict future climate."

Aquarius will measure salinity by sensing microwave emissions from the water's surface with a radiometer instrument. These emissions can be used to indicate the saltiness of the surface water, after accounting for other environmental factors. Salinity levels in the open ocean vary by only about five parts per thousand, and small changes are important. Aquarius uses advanced technologies to detect changes in salinity as small as about two parts per 10,000, equivalent to a pinch (about one-eighth of a teaspoon) of salt in a gallon of water.

Aquarius will map the entire open ocean every seven days for at least three years from 408 miles (657 kilometers) above Earth. Its measurements will produce monthly estimates of ocean surface salinity with a spatial resolution of 93 miles (150 kilometers). The data will reveal how salinity changes over time and from one part of the ocean to another.

The Aquarius/SAC-D mission continues NASA and CONAE's 17-year partnership. NASA provided
launch vehicles and operations for three SAC satellite missions and science instruments for two.

JPL will manage Aquarius through its commissioning phase and archive mission data. Goddard will
manage Aquarius mission operations and process science data. NASA's Launch Services Program at
the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is managing the launch.

CONAE is providing the SAC-D spacecraft, an optical camera, a thermal camera in collaboration
with Canada, a microwave radiometer,; sensors from various Argentine institutions and the mission
operations center there. France and Italy are contributing instruments.

For more information about Aquarius/SAC-D, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius and
http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

-end-

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

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Mars Mission Components Delivered to Florida

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-143 May 13, 2011

Mars Mission Components Delivered to Florida

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-143&cid=release_2011-143

An Air Force C-17 transport plane delivered the heat shield, back shell and cruise
stage of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center,
Fla., on May 12, 2011. The heat shield and back shell together form the aeroshell,
which will encapsulate the mission's rover and descent stage. The cruise stage will
perform critical communication and navigation functions during the flight from Earth to
Mars.

The mission will launch in late 2011 and deliver its rover, Curiosity, to the surface of
Mars in August 2012. For more information about this week's delivery of flight system
components, see
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2011/0513_ss_msl.html .

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the Mars Science Laboratory
is available online at http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

A live feed of Curiosity being built and tested in a clean room at JPL, with a chat
feature available most days, is online at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl . You can also
follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity and Twitter
@MarsCuriosity .

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NASA Announces News Briefing on Aquarius/Sac-D Mission

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

Event advisory: 2011-140b May 12, 2011

NASA Announces News Briefing on Aquarius/Sac-D Mission

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-140b&cid=release_2011-140b

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will hold a news briefing on Tuesday, May 17, at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m.
EDT), on the agency's next Earth-observing satellite mission, Aquarius/SAC-D, scheduled to launch
on June 9.

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 box available, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

Local reporters are invited to watch the briefing via satellite, with two-way question-and-answer
capability, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Reporters who would like
to come to JPL must RSVP to the Media Relations Office in advance at 818-354-5011. Valid
media credentials are required, and non-U.S. citizens must also bring a passport.

Panelists will discuss the international spacecraft mission, a collaboration between NASA and
Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with
participation by Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. CONAE provided the SAC-D spacecraft.

The mission's primary instrument, NASA's Aquarius, will make the agency's first space-based global
measurements of the salinity of the ocean surface. Salinity measurements, a key missing variable in
satellite observations of Earth, link ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate.
Seven other SAC-D instruments, contributed by Argentina, Canada, France and Italy, will collect
environmental data for a wide range of applications, including studies of natural hazards, air quality,
land processes and epidemiology. JPL jointly built the Aquarius instrument with NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and will manage Aquarius through the mission's commissioning
phase and archive mission data.

The panelists are:

- Eric Lindstrom, Aquarius program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Eric Ianson, Aquarius program executive, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Gary Lagerloef, Aquarius principal investigator, Earth & Space Research, Seattle
- Amit Sen, Aquarius project manager, JPL
- Daniel Caruso, Aquarius/SAC-D project manager, CONAE, Buenos Aires

The briefing will be held in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Reporters unable to attend in person may ask questions from participating NASA centers, in addition
to JPL, or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at 202-358-
1726 or dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by 6 a.m. PDT (9 a.m. EDT) on May 17.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

For more information about Aquarius/SAC-D, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius and
http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html .
JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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JPL Facility has Built Famed Spacecraft for 50 Years

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-142 May 12, 2011

JPL Facility has Built Famed Spacecraft for 50 Years
See it at JPL Open House May 14 and 15

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-142&cid=release_2011-142

The Spacecraft Assembly Facility of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., was constructed in 1961 to support NASA's Ranger and Mariner missions to the
moon, Venus and Mars.

America had entered the Space Age just three years earlier, with the launch of the
JPL-built Explorer 1 spacecraft.

The Spacecraft Assembly Facility, also known as JPL Building 179, originally had just
one high bay, the large chamber now named High Bay 1. It is about 80 feet by 120 feet
(about 24 by 36 meters). In contrast to the cleanliness standards for spacecraft
assembly today, in the early days of the facility, personnel were even permitted to
smoke inside this high bay.

All JPL-built spacecraft through the Viking Orbiters (launched to Mars in 1975) were
built in High Bay 1. At times during the 1960s, as many as five different spacecraft
were being assembled at the same time in the facility.

After the original construction of the high bay, the System Test Complex on the south
side of the high bay's windows was added. A second high bay, about 70 feet by 70 feet
(21 meters by 21 meters) was finished in 1976 to support the Voyager Project.
Spacecraft assembled in High Bay 2 have included Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo and
Cassini.

The project being assembled and tested in High Bay 1 in spring 2011 is the Mars
Science Laboratory, including its rover, Curiosity. The mission is scheduled for launch
in November 2011. Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were also built in High Bay 1.

Emblems on the wall of High Bay 1 represent all the missions (spacecraft and
instruments) that were assembled in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, regardless of
which high bay was used. These include the first successful missions to Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as Earth's moon. The facility has also
built Earth-science instruments, plus Wide Field and Planetary Cameras that flew on
the Hubble Space Telescope.

Both of the high bays are certified to a cleanliness level of Class 10,000, which means
that there are less than 10,000 particles of 0.5 micron (half a millionth of a meter or
yard) or larger in size per cubic foot of air volume. It is a great place to work if you have
allergies. The filtration systems in the high bays are effective in reducing both
particulates as well as hydrocarbons. The system maintained acceptable levels even
when a brush fire raged near JPL in 2009.

Personnel working in the high bay wear protective clothing to minimize particles and
bacteria reaching the spacecraft and the facility. All the equipment that enters the high
bay is cleaned first with approved solvents (usually isopropyl alcohol). Both high bays
are equipped with continuous remote monitoring for environmental conditions and
cleanliness levels to ensure system safety and quick response to anomalous
conditions.

More information about JPL is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov . Follow us via social
media, including Facebook and Twitter. Details are at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/social .
A live feed of Curiosity being built and tested in High Bay 1, with a chat feature
available most days, is online at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

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