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
Jane Platt 818-354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jane.platt@jpl.nasa.gov
News release: 2013-265 Aug. 29, 2013
Former JPL Director Bruce Murray Dies After a Long Illness
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-265&cid=release_2013-265
PASADENA, Calif. – Former JPL Director Bruce C. Murray died today at the age of 81 after a long illness.
Murray was at the helm of JPL from 1976 to 1982, during a very busy time for planetary exploration – when the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars, and Voyager 1 and 2 were launched and flew by Jupiter and Saturn.
After leaving JPL, Murray was a professor of planetary science and geology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which manages JPL for NASA.
As JPL director, Murray faced a rapidly shrinking budget, along with the rest of NASA.
Murray salvaged for JPL the Galileo mission to Jupiter, brought the American portion of the joint Netherlands/United Kingdom/U.S. Infrared Astronomy Satellite to JPL, and Caltech gained the project's science data center.
"He worked tirelessly to save our nation's planetary exploration capability at a tumultuous time when there was serious consideration for curtailing future missions," said current JPL Director Charles Elachi. "Long after returning to Caltech as a professor he continued to be an important voice in expressing the importance of space exploration."
During Murray's leadership, JPL launched Seasat, one of the earliest Earth-observing satellites; the Solar Mesosphere Explorer, an Earth-orbiting spacecraft that investigated the ozone in Earth's upper atmosphere; and Shuttle Imaging Radar-A, which flew aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as the first instrument to image Earth using radar pulses, rather than optical light, as illumination. He gained a substantial expansion of JPL's civil affairs program with a large solar energy research project funded by the Department of Energy.
In 1979, Murray joined with the late astronomer Carl Sagan and engineer Louis Friedman to found the Planetary Society, a membership-based nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring the solar system and expanding public advocacy for space exploration.
Even before becoming JPL director, Murray's association with JPL and Caltech was longstanding and deep-seated. He was a Caltech geologist and a key member of the Mariner 4 imaging team that captured the first close-up image of Mars in 1964. It was the first of four planetary missions in which he played a vital role as a scientist.
Murray earned a Ph.D. in geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. In 1955, Murray worked as a geologist for Standard Oil until 1958, then served two years in the U.S. Air Force. He came to Caltech in 1960, initially working in planetary astronomy, and soon became part of the imaging science team for JPL's first two missions to Mars, Mariners 3 and 4. He served a similar role on Mariners 6, 7 and 9, using their imagery to begin constructing a geologic history for Mars.
Murray published more than 130 scientific papers and authored or co-authored seven books. After he retired as director in late 1982, Murray returned to Caltech's Geological and Planetary Sciences Division, and was later named an emeritus professor at the campus.
Flags at JPL have been lowered to half staff in honor of Murray.
He is survived by his wife, Suzanne Moss, five children and grandchildren.
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Thursday, August 29, 2013
Former JPL Director Bruce Murray Dies After a Long Illness
NuSTAR Delivers the X-Ray Goods
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JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov
News release: 2013-264 Aug. 29, 2013
NuSTAR Delivers the X-Ray Goods
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-264&cid=release_2013-264
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is giving the wider astronomical community a first look at its unique X-ray images of the cosmos. The first batch of data from the black-hole hunting telescope is publicly available today, Aug. 29, via NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center, or HEASARC.
"We are pleased to present the world with NuSTAR's first look at the sky in high-energy X-rays with a true focusing telescope," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
The images, taken from July to August 2012, shortly after the spacecraft launched, comprise an assortment of extreme objects, including black holes near and far. The more distant black holes are some of the most luminous objects in the universe, radiating X-rays as they ferociously consume surrounding gas. One type of black hole in the new batch of data is a blazar, which is an active, supermassive black hole pointing a jet toward Earth. Pairs of black holes called X-ray binaries, in which one partner feeds off the other, are also in the mix, along with the remnants of stellar blasts called supernovas.
The data set only contains complete observations. Data will be released at a later date for those targets still being observed.
"Astronomers can use these data to better understand the capabilities of NuSTAR and design future observing proposals. The first opportunity will be this fall, for joint observations with XMM-Newton," said Karl Forster of Caltech, who is leading the effort to package the data for the public.
The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, like NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, complements NuSTAR. While XMM-Newton and Chandra see lower-energy X-ray light, NuSTAR is the first telescope capable of focusing high-energy X-ray light, allowing for more detailed images than were possible before.
Astronomers can compare data sets from different missions using HEASARC, which gives them a broader understanding of an object of interest. NuSTAR's high-energy observations help scientists bridge a gap that existed previously in X-ray astronomy, and will lead to new revelations about the bizarre and energetic side of our universe.
Other NASA missions with data available via HEASARC include Chandra, Fermi, Swift, Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and many more.
The HEASARC is a service of the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. HEASARC holdings include data obtained by NASA's high-energy astronomy missions observing in the extreme-ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray bands, as well as data from missions, balloons and ground-based facilities that have studied the relic cosmic microwave background. HEASARC is online at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov .
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL; the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University, New York; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.; ATK Aerospace Systems, Goleta, Calif., and with support from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) Science Data Center.
NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, with ASI providing its equatorial ground station located at Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .
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Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Register for NASA/JPL Educator Workshop on Aeronautics
Educator Workshop Aug. 28, 2013
This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.
Educator Workshop - Aeronautics, Things That Fly
Date: Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Target audience: Formal and informal educators for grades K-12
Location: NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.
Overview: Bring the fun of "Things That Fly" into your classroom! Construct aircraft models (kites, helicopters and gliders) and launch rockets! Use questioning strategies and engineer redesigns to make these activities educationally challenging links to Common Core State Standards and The Next Generation Science Standards.
To reserve your spot, please call the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center at (909) 397-4420.
For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115
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Friday, August 23, 2013
NASA's Spitzer Telescope Celebrates 10 Years in Space
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
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov
News release: 2013-258 Aug. 23, 2013
NASA's Spitzer Telescope Celebrates 10 Years in Space
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-258&cid=release_2013-258
PASADENA, Calif. -- Ten years after a Delta II rocket launched NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, lighting up the night sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., the fourth of the agency's four Great Observatories continues to illuminate the dark side of the cosmos with its infrared eyes.
The telescope studied comets and asteroids, counted stars, scrutinized planets and galaxies, and discovered soccer-ball-shaped carbon spheres in space called buckyballs. Moving into its second decade of scientific scouting from an Earth-trailing orbit, Spitzer continues to explore the cosmos near and far. One additional task is helping NASA observe potential candidates for a developing mission to capture, redirect and explore a near-Earth asteroid.
"President Obama's goal of visiting an asteroid by 2025 combines NASA's diverse talents in a unified endeavor," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington. "Using Spitzer to help us characterize asteroids and potential targets for an asteroid mission advances both science and exploration."
Spitzer's infrared vision lets it see the far, cold and dusty side of the universe. Close to home, the telescope has studied the comet dubbed Tempel 1, which was hit by NASA's Deep Impact mission in 2005. Spitzer showed the composition of Tempel 1 resembled that of solar systems beyond our own. Spitzer also surprised the world by discovering the largest of Saturn's many rings. The enormous ring, a wispy band of ice and dust particles, is very faint in visible light, but Spitzer's infrared detectors were able to pick up the glow from its heat.
Perhaps Spitzer's most astonishing finds came from beyond our solar system. The telescope was the first to detect light coming from a planet outside our solar system, a feat not in the mission's original design. With Spitzer's ongoing studies of these exotic worlds, astronomers have been able to probe their composition, dynamics and more, revolutionizing the study of exoplanet atmospheres.
Other discoveries and accomplishments of the mission include getting a complete census of forming stars in nearby clouds; making a new and improved map of the Milky Way's spiral-arm structure; and, with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, discovering that the most distant galaxies known are more massive and mature than expected.
"I always knew Spitzer would work, but I had no idea that it would be as productive, exciting and long-lived as it has been," said Spitzer project scientist Michael Werner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who helped conceive the mission. "The spectacular images that it continues to return, and its cutting-edge science, go far beyond anything we could have imagined when we started on this journey more than 30 years ago."
In October, Spitzer will attempt infrared observations of a small near-Earth asteroid named 2009 DB to better determine its size, a study that will assist NASA in understanding potential candidates for the agency's asteroid capture and redirection mission. This asteroid is one of many candidates the agency is evaluating.
Spitzer, originally called the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, was renamed after its launch in honor of the late astronomer Lyman Spitzer. Considered the father of space telescopes, Lyman Spitzer began campaigning to put telescopes in space, away from the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere, as early as the 1940s. His efforts also led to the development and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, carried to orbit by the space shuttle in 1990.
In anticipation of the Hubble launch, NASA set up the Great Observatories program to fly a total of four space telescopes designed to cover a range of wavelengths: Hubble, Spitzer, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the now-defunct Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.
"The majority of our Great Observatory fleet is still up in space, each with its unique perspective on the cosmos," said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA headquarters in Washington. "The wisdom of having space telescopes that cover all wavelengths of light has been borne out by the spectacular discoveries made by astronomers around the world using Spitzer and the other Great Observatories."
Spitzer ran out of the coolant needed to chill its longer-wavelength instruments in 2009, and entered the so-called warm mission phase. Now, after its tenth year of peeling back the hidden layers of the cosmos, its journey continues.
"I get very excited about the serendipitous discoveries in areas we never anticipated," said Dave Gallagher, Spitzer's project manager at JPL from 1999 to 2004, reminding him of a favorite quote from Marcel Proust: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .
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Wednesday, August 21, 2013
NASA Spacecraft Reactivated to Hunt for Asteroids
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
News release: 2013-257 Aug. 21, 2013
NASA Spacecraft Reactivated to Hunt for Asteroids
Probe Will Assist Agency in Search for Candidates to Explore
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-257&cid=release_2013-257
PASADENA, Calif. -- A NASA spacecraft that discovered and characterized tens of thousands of asteroids throughout the solar system before being placed in hibernation will return to service for three more years starting in September, assisting the agency in its effort to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, as well as those suitable for asteroid exploration missions.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will be revived next month with the goal of discovering and characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs), space rocks that can be found orbiting within 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) from Earth's path around the sun. NASA anticipates WISE will use its 16-inch (40-centimeter) telescope and infrared cameras to discover about 150 previously unknown NEOs and characterize the size, albedo and thermal properties of about 2,000 others -- including some which could be candidates for the agency's recently announced asteroid initiative.
"The WISE mission achieved its mission's goals and as NEOWISE extended the science even further in its survey of asteroids. NASA is now extending that record of success, which will enhance our ability to find potentially hazardous asteroids, and support the new asteroid initiative," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington. "Reactivating WISE is an excellent example of how we are leveraging existing capabilities across the agency to achieve our goal."
NASA's asteroid initiative will be the first mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid. It represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities that will help protect our home planet. The asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve President Obama's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.
Launched in December 2009 to look for the glow of celestial heat sources from asteroids, stars and galaxies, WISE made about 7,500 images every day during its primary mission, from January 2010 to February 2011. As part of a project called NEOWISE, the spacecraft made the most accurate survey to date of NEOs. NASA turned most of WISE's electronics off when it completed its primary mission.
"The data collected by NEOWISE two years ago have proven to be a gold mine for the discovery and characterization of the NEO population," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's NEOWISE program executive in Washington. "It is important that we accumulate as much of this type of data as possible while the WISE spacecraft remains a viable asset."
Because asteroids reflect but do not emit visible light, infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population. Depending on an object's reflectivity, or albedo, a small, light-colored space rock can look the same as a big, dark one. As a result, data collected with optical telescopes using visible light can be deceiving.
During 2010, NEOWISE observed about 158,000 rocky bodies out of approximately 600,000 known objects. Discoveries included 21 comets, more than 34,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 135 near-Earth objects.
The WISE prime mission was to scan the entire celestial sky in infrared light. It captured more than 2.7 million images in multiple infrared wavelengths and cataloged more than 560 million objects in space, ranging from galaxies faraway to asteroids and comets much closer to Earth.
"The team is ready and after a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "NEOWISE not only gives us a better understanding of the asteroids and comets we study directly, but it will help us refine our concepts and mission operation plans for future, space-based near-Earth object cataloging missions."
JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. The mission is part of NASA's Explorers Program, which NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft. 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 about NEOWISE is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise/ .
For more information on the asteroid initiative, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative .
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Cassini Releases Image of Earth Waving at Saturn
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov
Image advisory: 2013-256 Aug. 21, 2013
Cassini Releases Image of Earth Waving at Saturn
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-256&cid=release_2013-256
PASADENA, Calif. – People around the world shared more than 1,400 images of themselves as part of the Wave at Saturn event organized by NASA's Cassini mission on July 19 -- the day the Cassini spacecraft turned back toward Earth to take our picture. The mission has assembled a collage from those images. The collage is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/collage2013.html .
"Thanks to all of you, near and far, old and young, who joined the Cassini mission in marking the first time inhabitants of Earth had advance notice that our picture was being taken from interplanetary distances," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "While Earth is too small in the images Cassini obtained to distinguish any individual human beings, the mission has put together this collage so that we can celebrate all your waving hands, uplifted paws, smiling faces and artwork."
The images came from 40 countries and 30 U.S. states via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and email.
From its perch in the Saturn system, Cassini took a picture of Earth as part of a larger set of images it was collecting of the Saturn system. Scientists are busy putting together the color mosaic of the Saturn system, which they expect will take at least several more weeks to complete. The scientists who study Saturn's rings are poring over visible-light and infrared data obtained during that campaign.
For more information on the Wave at Saturn campaign, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the Cassini mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
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Thursday, August 15, 2013
NASA Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. PHONE 818-354-5011
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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Image advisory: 2013-253 Aug. 15, 2013
NASA Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-253&cid=release_2013-253
PASADENA, Calif. -- The larger of the two moons of Mars, Phobos, passes directly in front of the other, Deimos, in a new series of sky-watching images from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.
A video clip assembled from the images is at http://youtu.be/DaVSCmuOJwI .
Large craters on Phobos are clearly visible in these images from the surface of Mars. No previous images from missions on the surface caught one moon eclipsing the other.
The telephoto-lens camera of Curiosity's two-camera Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument recorded the images on Aug. 1. Some of the full-resolution frames were not downlinked until more than a week later, in the data-transmission queue behind higher-priority images being used for planning the rover's drives.
These observations of Phobos and Deimos help researchers make knowledge of the moons' orbits even more precise.
"The ultimate goal is to improve orbit knowledge enough that we can improve the measurement of the tides Phobos raises on the Martian solid surface, giving knowledge of the Martian interior," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station. He is a co-investigator for use of Curiosity's Mastcam. "We may also get data good enough to detect density variations within Phobos and to determine if Deimos' orbit is systematically changing."
The orbit of Phobos is very slowly getting closer to Mars. The orbit of Deimos may be slowly getting farther from the planet.
Lemmon and colleagues determined that the two moons would be visible crossing paths at a time shortly after Curiosity would be awake for transmitting data to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for relay to Earth. That made the moon observations feasible with minimal impact on the rover's energy budget.
Although Phobos has a diameter less than one percent the diameter of Earth's moon, Phobos also orbits much closer to Mars than our moon's distance from Earth. As seen from the surface of Mars, Phobos looks about half as wide as what Earth's moon looks like to viewers on Earth.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity and the rover's 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life.
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Curiosity's Mastcam. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington and built the Navigation Camera and the rover.
More information about the mission is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .
You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
For more information about the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory, see:
http://www-mipl.jpl.nasa.gov/mipex.html .
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Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Mars Rover Opportunity Working at Edge of 'Solander'
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status Report
Mars Rover Opportunity Working at Edge of 'Solander'
Aug. 14, 2013
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-250&cid=release_2013-250
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is studying the area of contact between a
rock layer formed in acidic wet conditions long ago and an even older one that may be from a
more neutral wet environment.
This geological contact line recording a change in environmental conditions billions of years ago
lies at the foot of a north-facing slope, "Solander Point," that the rover's operators chose months
ago as Opportunity's work area for the coming Martian southern hemisphere winter.
Opportunity has survived five Martian winters since it landed on Mars in January 2004. A
northern slope would tilt the rover's solar panels toward the winter sun, providing an important
boost in available power.
Three months ago, the mission began a trek of about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from an area
where Opportunity worked for nearly two years, on "Cape York," to reach Solander Point for the
winter.
"We made it," said Opportunity's project scientist, Matt Golombek of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The drives went well, and Opportunity is right next to Solander
Point. We know we could be on that north-facing slope with a one-day drive, but we don't need
to go there yet. We have time to investigate the contact between the two geological units around
the base of Solander Point. Geologists love contacts."
Both Cape York and Solander Point are raised segments of the western rim of Endeavour Crater,
which is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Between these two raised segments, the
ground surface is part of a geological unit called the Burns Formation, which also includes
virtually all the rocks Opportunity studied from its landing site in Eagle Crater until its arrival at
Cape York two years ago. The Burns Formation includes sulfate-bearing minerals that are
evidence of an ancient environment containing sulfuric acid.
The geological contact that Opportunity is now investigating is where Burns Formation rocks
border older rocks uplifted by the impact that formed Endeavour Crater. From observations by
Mars orbiters and from Opportunity's work on Cape York, researchers suspect these older rocks
may contain minerals that formed under wet conditions that were not as acidic.
The rover is also observing some loose rocks that may have rolled off Solander Point, providing
a preview of what Opportunity may find after it climbs onto that rim segment.
Based on an analysis of the amount of dust accumulated on the rover's solar panels, the team
plans to get Opportunity onto the north-facing slope before mid-December. Daily sunshine for
the rover will reach a winter minimum in February 2014. The team expects to keep the rover
mobile through the winter. Solander Point offers rock outcrops for the rover to continue studying
through the winter months.
The twin rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, Opportunity and Spirit, both
completed three-month prime missions in April 2004 and began years of bonus, extended
missions. Both found evidence of wet environments on ancient Mars. Spirit ceased operations
during its fourth Martian winter, in 2010. Opportunity shows symptoms of aging, such as loss of
motion in some joints, but continues to accomplish groundbreaking exploration and science.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars
Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. For more about Spirit and
Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can
follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and
http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .
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Watch Live Talk Online: Mars Curiosity, Year One
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
Courtney O'Connor 818-354-2274
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
oconnor@jpl.nasa.gov
Internet Advisory: 2013-249 Aug. 14, 2013
Watch Live Talk Online: Mars Curiosity, Year One
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-249&cid=release_2013-249
PASADENA, Calif. -- Are you ready for some science? No matter where you are, you
can join us online for a live public talk from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT) about the
Curiosity rover's first year on Mars. This talk will revisit the dramatic, nail-biting
landing and some of the mission's top science results.
The speaker is JPL's Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project scientist for the Mars Science
Laboratory/Curiosity mission.
Live streaming high-definition video of the event will be carried on Ustream, with
chat available, at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .
Since successfully landing on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT),
Curiosity has been refining much of what we know about the Red Planet. The car-
sized rover has already achieved its main science goal of revealing that ancient Mars
could have supported life. Curiosity is currently en route to investigate the base of 3-
mile-high (about 5 kilometers) Mount Sharp, whose exposed layers might hold
intriguing information about Mars' history.
For more information and viewing details on the lecture, visit:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures_archive.php?year=2013&month=8 .
For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl ,
http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . You can follow the
mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars
Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL
designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.
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Watch Live Talk Online: Mars Curiosity, Year One
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
Courtney O'Connor 818-354-2274
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
oconnor@jpl.nasa.gov
Internet Advisory: 2013-249 Aug. 14, 2013
Watch Live Talk Online: Mars Curiosity, Year One
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-249&cid=release_2013-249
PASADENA, Calif. -- Are you ready for some science? No matter where you are, you
can join us online for a live public talk from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT) about the
Curiosity rover's first year on Mars. This talk will revisit the dramatic, nail-biting
landing and some of the mission's top science results.
The speaker is JPL's Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project scientist for the Mars Science
Laboratory/Curiosity mission.
Live streaming high-definition video of the event will be carried on Ustream, with
chat available, at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .
Since successfully landing on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT),
Curiosity has been refining much of what we know about the Red Planet. The car-
sized rover has already achieved its main science goal of revealing that ancient Mars
could have supported life. Curiosity is currently en route to investigate the base of 3-
mile-high (about 5 kilometers) Mount Sharp, whose exposed layers might hold
intriguing information about Mars' history.
For more information and viewing details on the lecture, visit:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures_archive.php?year=2013&month=8 .
For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl ,
http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . You can follow the
mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars
Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL
designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.
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Monday, August 12, 2013
JPL, Masten Testing New Precision Landing Software
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
Leslie Williams / Alan Brown 661-276-3893 / 276-2665
Dryden Flight Research Center
leslie.a.williams@nasa.gov / alan.brown-1@nasa.gov
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
News feature: 2013-247 Aug. 12, 2013
JPL, Masten Testing New Precision Landing Software
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-247&cid=release_2013-247
A year after NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's landed on Mars, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., are testing a sophisticated flight-control algorithm that could
allow for even more precise, pinpoint landings of future Martian spacecraft.
Flight testing of the new Fuel Optimal Large Divert Guidance algorithm – G-FOLD for short –
for planetary pinpoint landing is being conducted jointly by JPL engineers in cooperation with
Masten Space Systems in Mojave, Calif., using Masten's XA-0.1B "Xombie" vertical-launch,
vertical-landing experimental rocket.
NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is facilitating the tests via its Game-Changing
Development and Flight Opportunities Programs; the latter managed at NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The two space technology programs work
together to test game-changing technologies by taking advantage of Flight Opportunities'
commercially provided suborbital platforms and flights.
"The Flight Opportunities Program supports both the development of innovative space
technology and the emerging suborbital industry by using commercial suborbital vehicles to test
concepts that could further mankind's exploration and understanding of the universe," said
Christopher Baker, a campaign manager for the program. "The collaboration between JPL and
Masten to test G-FOLD is a great example of how we hope to further the exploration of the solar
system while building up the industrial base needed to advance future space endeavors."
Current powered-descent guidance algorithms used for spacecraft landings are inherited from the
Apollo era. These algorithms do not optimize fuel usage and significantly limit how far the
landing craft can be diverted during descent. The new G-FOLD algorithm invented by JPL
autonomously generates fuel-optimal landing trajectories in real time and provides a key new
technology required for planetary pinpoint landing. Pinpoint landing capability will allow robotic
missions to access currently inaccessible science targets. For crewed missions, it will allow
increased precision with minimal fuel requirements to enable landing larger payloads in close
proximity to predetermined targets.
Masten Space Systems launched the Xombie July 30 from the company's test pad at the Mojave
Air and Space Port. JPL and Masten are planning to conduct a second flight test with a more
complicated divert profile in August, pending data analysis.
To simulate a course correction during a Martian entry in the July test, Masten's Xombie was
given a vertical descent profile to an incorrect landing point. About 90 feet into the profile, the
G-FOLD flight control software was automatically triggered to calculate a new flight profile in
real-time, and the rocket was successfully diverted to the "correct" landing point some 2,460 feet
away.
"This flight was an unprecedented free-flying demonstration of the on-board calculation of a
fuel-optimal trajectory in real time," said Martin Regehr, acting task lead for the Autonomous
Descent Ascent Powered-Flight Testbed at JPL.
Masten Space Systems is one of seven suborbital reusable launch companies contracted by
NASA's Flight Opportunities Program to fly experiments in sub-orbital space to verify new
technologies work as expected in this harsh environment.
NASA Dryden also aided development of Curiosity's "sky crane" landing system by conducting
two series of pre-launch flight tests of its landing radar, the first under a helicopter in 2010 and a
follow-on series with the radar housed in a Quick Test Experimental Pod mounted under the
wing of a Dryden F/A-18 in June 2011. The 2011 tests focused on the on-chute acquisition
portion of the Mars Science Laboratory's entry into the Martian atmosphere, when the spacecraft
was suspended from its parachute. Data collected from the flights were used to finesse the
mission's landing radar software to ensure that it was calibrated as accurately as possible prior to
Curiosity's landing.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Curiosity
project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For information about Curiosity's
accomplishments over the past year, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
For more on flight tests of Curiosity's landing radar, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/F-18_flying_msl_radar.html .
For more on NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/home/ .
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Wednesday, August 7, 2013
If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?
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
Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov
News feature: 2013-243 Aug. 7, 2013
If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-243&cid=release_2013-243
Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the mid-to-late 1990s. Even in these fleeting, paparazzi-like encounters, scientists have seen a fractured, ice-covered world with tantalizing signs of a liquid water ocean under its surface. Such an environment could potentially be a hospitable home for microbial life. But what if we got to land on Europa's surface and conduct something along the lines of a more in-depth interview? What would scientists ask? A new study in the journal Astrobiology authored by a NASA-appointed science definition team lays out their consensus on the most important questions to address.
"If one day humans send a robotic lander to the surface of Europa, we need to know what to look for and what tools it should carry," said Robert Pappalardo, the study's lead author, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "There is still a lot of preparation that is needed before we could land on Europa, but studies like these will help us focus on the technologies required to get us there, and on the data needed to help us scout out possible landing locations. Europa is the most likely place in our solar system beyond Earth to have life today, and a landed mission would be the best way to search for signs of life."
The paper was authored by scientists from a number of other NASA centers and universities, including the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.; University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Texas, Austin; and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The team found the most important questions clustered around composition: what makes up the reddish "freckles" and reddish cracks that stain the icy surface? What kind of chemistry is occurring there? Are there organic molecules, which are among the building blocks of life?
Additional priorities involved improving our images of Europa – getting a look around at features on a human scale to provide context for the compositional measurements. Also among the top priorities were questions related to geological activity and the presence of liquid water: how active is the surface? How much rumbling is there from the periodic gravitational squeezes from its planetary host, the giant planet Jupiter? What do these detections tell us about the characteristics of liquid water below the icy surface?
"Landing on the surface of Europa would be a key step in the astrobiological investigation of that world," said Chris McKay, a senior editor of the journal Astrobiology, who is based at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "This paper outlines the science that could be done on such a lander. The hope would be that surface materials, possibly near the linear crack features, include biomarkers carried up from the ocean."
This work was conducted with Europa study funds from NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
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Friday, August 2, 2013
NASA's Curiosity Nearing First Anniversary on Mars
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
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: 2013-240 Aug. 2, 2013
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Nears Turning Point
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-240&cid=release_2013-240
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Curiosity rover will mark one year on Mars next week and has already
achieved its main science goal of revealing ancient Mars could have supported life. The mobile
laboratory also is guiding designs for future planetary missions.
"Successes of our Curiosity -- that dramatic touchdown a year ago and the science findings since then --
advance us toward further exploration, including sending humans to an asteroid and Mars," said NASA
Administrator Charles Bolden. "Wheel tracks now, will lead to boot prints later."
After inspiring millions of people worldwide with its successful landing in a crater on the Red Planet on
Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT), Curiosity has provided more than 190 gigabits of data;
returned more than 36,700 full images and 35,000 thumbnail images; fired more than 75,000 laser shots
to investigate the composition of targets; collected and analyzed sample material from two rocks; and
driven more than one mile (1.6 kilometers).
Curiosity team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,will share
remembrances about the dramatic landing night and the overall mission in an event that will air on
NASA Television and the agency's website from 7:45 to 9 a.m. PDT (10:45 a.m. to noon EDT) on
Tuesday, Aug. 6. Immediately following that program, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (noon to 1:30 p.m.),
NASA TV will carry a live public event from NASA Headquarters in Washington. That event will
feature NASA officials and crew members aboard the International Space Station as they observe the
rover anniversary and discuss how its activities and other robotic projects are helping prepare for a
human mission to Mars and an asteroid. Social media followers may submit questions on Twitter and
Google+ in advance and during the event using the hashtag #askNASA.
Curiosity, which is the size of a car, traveled 764 yards (699 meters) in the past four weeks since leaving
a group of science targets where it worked for more than six months. The rover is making its way to the
base of Mount Sharp, where it will investigate lower layers of a mountain that rises three miles from the
floor of the crater.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft and its unprecedented sky crane landing system placed
Curiosity on Mars near the base of Mount Sharp. The mountain has exposed geological layers, including
ones identified by Mars orbiters as originating in a wet environment. The rover landed about one mile
(1.6 kilometers) from the center of that carefully chosen, 12-mile-long (20-kilometer-long) target area.
Scientists decided first to investigate closer outcrops where the mission quickly found signs of vigorous
ancient stream flow. These were the first streambed pebble deposits ever examined up close on Mars.
Evidence of a past environment well suited to support microbial life came within the first eight months
of the 23-month primary mission from analysis of the first sample material ever collected by drilling into
a rock on Mars.
"We now know Mars offered favorable conditions for microbial life billions of years ago," said the
mission's project scientist, John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has
been gratifying to succeed, but that has also whetted our appetites to learn more. We hope those enticing
layers at Mount Sharp will preserve a broad diversity of other environmental conditions that could have
affected habitability."
The mission measured natural radiation levels on the trip to Mars and is monitoring radiation and
weather on the surface of Mars, which will be helpful for designing future human missions to the planet.
The Curiosity mission also found evidence Mars lost most of its original atmosphere through processes
that occurred at the top of the atmosphere. NASA's next mission to Mars, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile
Evolution (MAVEN), is being prepared for launch in November to study those processes in the upper
atmosphere.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Curiosity mission and
built the rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
To follow the conversation online about Curiosity's first year on Mars, use hashtag #1YearOnMars or
follow @NASA and @MarsCuriosity on Twitter.
For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .
The events airing on Tuesday also will be carried on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .
A movie made with Hazard-Avoidance Camera images from Curiosity's first year, titled "Twelve
Months in Two Minutes," is available at http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/1yearin2mins .
For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
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Thursday, August 1, 2013
Monster Galaxies Lose Their Appetite With Age
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
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
News feature: 2013-239 Aug. 1, 2013
Monster Galaxies Lose Their Appetite With Age
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-239&cid=release_2013-239
Our universe is filled with gobs of galaxies, bound together by gravity into larger families
called clusters. Lying at the heart of most clusters is a monster galaxy thought to grow in
size by merging with neighboring galaxies, a process astronomers call galactic
cannibalism.
New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE) is showing that, contrary to previous theories, these gargantuan galaxies
appear to slow their growth over time, feeding less and less off neighboring galaxies.
"We've found that these massive galaxies may have started a diet in the last 5 billion
years, and therefore have not gained much weight lately," said Yen-Ting Lin of the
Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, lead author of a study published in the Astrophysical
Journal.
Peter Eisenhardt, a co-author from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,
said, "WISE and Spitzer are letting us see that there is a lot we do understand -- but also a
lot we don't understand -- about the mass of the most massive galaxies." Eisenhardt
identified the sample of galaxy clusters studied by Spitzer, and is the project scientist for
WISE.
The new findings will help researchers understand how galaxy clusters -- among the most
massive structures in our universe -- form and evolve.
Galaxy clusters are made up of thousands of galaxies, gathered around their biggest
member, what astronomers call the brightest cluster galaxy, or BCG. BCGs can be up to
dozens of times the mass of galaxies like our own Milky Way. They plump up in size by
cannibalizing other galaxies, as well as assimilating stars that are funneled into the
middle of a growing cluster.
To monitor how this process works, the astronomers surveyed nearly 300 galaxy clusters
spanning 9 billion years of cosmic time. The farthest cluster dates back to a time when
the universe was 4.3 billion years old, and the closest, when the universe was much older,
13 billion years old (our universe is presently 13.8 billion years old).
"You can't watch a galaxy grow, so we took a population census," said Lin. "Our new
approach allows us to connect the average properties of clusters we observe in the
relatively recent past with ones we observe further back in the history of the universe."
Spitzer and WISE are both infrared telescopes, but they have unique characteristics that
complement each other in studies like these. For instance, Spitzer can see more detail
than WISE, which enables it to capture the farthest clusters best. On the other hand,
WISE, an infrared all-sky survey, is better at capturing images of nearby clusters, thanks
to its larger field of view. Spitzer is still up and observing; WISE went into hibernation in
2011 after successfully scanning the sky twice.
The findings showed that BCG growth proceeded along rates predicted by theories until 5
billion years ago, or a time when the universe was about 8 billion years old. After that
time, it appears the galaxies, for the most part, stopped munching on other galaxies
around them.
The scientists are uncertain about the cause of BCGs' diminished appetites, but the results
suggest current models need tinkering.
"BCGs are a bit like blue whales -- both are gigantic and very rare in number. Our census
of the population of BCGs is in a way similar to measuring how the whales gain their
weight as they age. In our case, the whales aren't gaining as much weight as we thought.
Our theories aren't matching what we observed, leading us to new questions," said Lin.
Another possible explanation is that the surveys are missing large numbers of stars in the
more mature clusters. Clusters can be violent environments, where stars are stripped from
colliding galaxies and flung into space. If the recent observations are not detecting those
stars, it's possible that the enormous galaxies are, in fact, continuing to bulk up.
Future studies from Lin and others should reveal more about the feeding habits of one of
nature's largest galactic species.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center
at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared
Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech.
Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit
http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .
JPL managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Edward
Wright is the principal investigator and is at UCLA. The mission was selected
competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space
Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. in 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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