JPL News - Day in Review

DAY IN REVIEW Technology Innovations Spin NASA's SMAP into Space It's active. It's passive. And it's got a big, spinning lasso. Scheduled for launch on Jan. 29, 2015, NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) instrument will measure the moisture lodged in Earth's soils with an unprecedented accuracy and resolution. The instrument's three main parts are a radar, a radiometer and the largest rotating mesh antenna ever deployed in space. Remote sensing instruments are called "active" when they emit their own signals and "passive" when they record signals that already exist. The mission's science instrument ropes together a sensor of each type to corral the highest-resolution, most accurate measurements ever made of soil moisture -- a tiny fraction of Earth's water that has a disproportionately large effect on weather and agriculture. To enable the mission to meet its accuracy needs while covering the globe every three days or less, SMAP engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, designed and built the largest rotating antenna that could be stowed into a space of only one foot by four feet (30 by 120 centimeters) for launch. The dish is 19.7 feet (6 meters) in diameter. "We call it the spinning lasso," said Wendy Edelstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, the SMAP instrument manager. Like the cowboy's lariat, the antenna is attached on one side to an arm with a crook in its elbow. It spins around the arm at about 14 revolutions per minute (one complete rotation every four seconds). The antenna dish was provided by Northrop Grumman Astro Aerospace in Carpinteria, California. The motor that spins the antenna was provided by the Boeing Company in El Segundo, California. "The antenna caused us a lot of angst, no doubt about it," Edelstein noted. Although the antenna must fit during launch into a space not much bigger than a tall kitchen trash can, it must unfold so precisely that the surface shape of the mesh is accurate within about an eighth of an inch (a few millimeters). The mesh dish is edged with a ring of lightweight graphite supports that stretch apart like a baby gate when a single cable is pulled, drawing the mesh outward. "Making sure we don't have snags, that the mesh doesn't hang up on the supports and tear when it's deploying -- all of that requires very careful engineering," Edelstein said. "We test, and we test, and we test some more. We have a very stable and robust system now." SMAP's radar, developed and built at JPL, uses the antenna to transmit microwaves toward Earth and receive the signals that bounce back, called backscatter. The microwaves penetrate a few inches or more into the soil before they rebound. Changes in the electrical properties of the returning microwaves indicate changes in soil moisture, and also tell whether or not the soil is frozen. Using a complex technique called synthetic aperture radar processing, the radar can produce ultra-sharp images with a resolution of about half a mile to a mile and a half (one to three kilometers). SMAP's radiometer detects differences in Earth's natural emissions of microwaves that are caused by water in soil. To address a problem that has seriously hampered earlier missions using this kind of instrument to study soil moisture, the radiometer designers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, developed and built one of the most sophisticated signal-processing systems ever created for such a scientific instrument. The problem is radio frequency interference. The microwave wavelengths that SMAP uses are officially reserved for scientific use, but signals at nearby wavelengths that are used for air traffic control, cell phones and other purposes spill over into SMAP's wavelengths unpredictably. Conventional signal processing averages data over a long time period, which means that even a short burst of interference skews the record for that whole period. The Goddard engineers devised a new way to delete only the small segments of actual interference, leaving much more of the observations untouched. Combining the radar and radiometer signals allows scientists to take advantage of the strengths of both technologies while working around their weaknesses. "The radiometer provides more accurate soil moisture but a coarse resolution of about 40 kilometers [25 miles] across," said JPL's Eni Njoku, a research scientist with SMAP. "With the radar, you can create very high resolution, but it's less accurate. To get both an accurate and a high-resolution measurement, we process the two signals together." SMAP will be the fifth NASA Earth science mission launched within the last 12 months. For more about the SMAP mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/smap/ NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from space, air and land with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet. For more information about NASA's Earth science activities this year, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Dawn Spacecraft Begins Approach to Dwarf Planet Ceres NASA's Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled to enter Ceres orbit in March 2015. Read the full story NASA Finds Good News on Forests and Carbon Dioxide A new NASA-led study shows that tropical forests may be absorbing far more carbon dioxide than many scientists thought, in response to rising atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas. Read the full story

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

DAY IN REVIEW Sun Sizzles in High-Energy X-Rays X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). This is the first picture of the sun taken by NuSTAR. The field of view covers the west limb of the sun. The NuSTAR data, seen in green and blue, reveal solar high-energy emission (green shows energies between 2 and 3 kiloelectron volts, and blue shows energies between 3 and 5 kiloelectron volts). The high-energy X-rays come from gas heated to above 3 million degrees. The red channel represents ultraviolet light captured by SDO at wavelengths of 171 angstroms, and shows the presence of lower-temperature material in the solar atmosphere at 1 million degrees. This image shows that some of the hotter emission tracked by NuSTAR is coming from different locations in the active regions and the coronal loops than the cooler emission shown in the SDO image. NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Virginia. 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, Maryland; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; ATK Aerospace Systems, Goleta, California, and with support from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) Science Data Center. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, with the ASI providing its equatorial ground station located at Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. 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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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA's Kepler Reborn, Makes First Exoplanet Find of New Mission NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft makes a comeback with the discovery of the first exoplanet found using its new mission -- K2. Read the full story Signs of Europa Plumes Remain Elusive in Search of Cassini Data A new study suggests that the thin, hot gas around Jupiter's moon Europa does not show evidence of plume activity occurring in 2001, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft flew past. Read the full story NASA's Spaceborne Carbon Counter Maps New Details The first global maps of atmospheric carbon dioxide from NASA's new Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission demonstrate its performance and promise. Read the full story

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill. Read more NASA Data Underscore Severity of California Drought It will take about 1.5 times the maximum volume of the largest U.S. reservoir to recover from California's continuing drought, according to a new analysis of NASA satellite data. Read more

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

DAY IN REVIEW NASA Voyager: 'Tsunami Wave' Still Flies Through Interstellar Space • The Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced three shock waves • The most recent shock wave, first observed in February 2014, still appears to be going on • One wave, previously reported, helped researchers determine that Voyager 1 had entered interstellar space The "tsunami wave" that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft began experiencing earlier this year is still propagating outward, according to new results. It is the longest-lasting shock wave that researchers have seen in interstellar space. "Most people would have thought the interstellar medium would have been smooth and quiet. But these shock waves seem to be more common than we thought," said Don Gurnett, professor of physics at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Gurnett presented the new data Monday, Dec. 15 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. A "tsunami wave" occurs when the sun emits a coronal mass ejection, throwing out a magnetic cloud of plasma from its surface. This generates a wave of pressure. When the wave runs into the interstellar plasma -- the charged particles found in the space between the stars -- a shock wave results that perturbs the plasma. "The tsunami causes the ionized gas that is out there to resonate -- "sing" or vibrate like a bell," said Ed Stone, project scientist for the Voyager mission based at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. An audio clip with a graphical representation is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1347 This is the third shock wave that Voyager 1 has experienced. The first event was in October to November of 2012, and the second wave in April to May of 2013 revealed an even higher plasma density. Voyager 1 detected the most recent event in February, and it is still going on as of November data. The spacecraft has moved outward 250 million miles (400 million kilometers) during the third event. "This remarkable event raises questions that will stimulate new studies of the nature of shocks in the interstellar medium," said Leonard Burlaga, astrophysicist emeritus at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who analyzed the magnetic field data that were key to these results. It is unclear to researchers what the unusual longevity of this particular wave may mean. They are also uncertain as to how fast the wave is moving or how broad a region it covers. The second tsunami wave helped researchers determine in 2013 that Voyager 1 had left the heliosphere, the bubble created by the solar wind encompassing the sun and the planets in our solar system. Denser plasma "rings" at a higher frequency, and the medium that Voyager flew through, was 40 times denser than what had been previously measured. This was key to the conclusion that Voyager had entered a frontier where no spacecraft had gone before: interstellar space. "The density of the plasma is higher the farther Voyager goes," Stone said. "Is that because the interstellar medium is denser as Voyager moves away from the heliosphere, or is it from the shock wave itself? We don't know yet." Gurnett, principal investigator of the plasma wave instrument on Voyager, expects that such shock waves propagate far out into space, perhaps even to twice the distance between the sun and where the spacecraft is right now. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2, launched before Voyager 1, is the longest continuously operated spacecraft and is expected to enter interstellar space in a few years. JPL, a division of Caltech, built the twin Voyager spacecraft and operates them for the Heliophysics Division within NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information on the Voyager mission, visit: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

DAY IN REVIEW Rosetta Instrument Reignites Debate on Earth's Oceans A Rosetta spacecraft instrument has found that the composition of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's water vapor is significantly different from that found on Earth. › Read more

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Saturn's Moons: What a Difference a Decade Makes New color maps of Saturn's major icy moons demonstrate how much NASA's Cassini mission has changed our view of the Saturn system since the Voyager era. Read more OPALS: Light Beams Let Data Rates Soar You may know opals as fiery gemstones, but something special called OPALS is floating above us in space. Read more Two Robots, One Challenge, Endless Possibility An innovative robot developed at JPL will perform several disaster-relief tasks in next year's DARPA Robotics Challenge finals. Read more

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

DAY IN REVIEW NASA Rover Finds Clues to Ancient Lake at Current Mountain Observations by NASA's Curiosity Rover indicate Mars' Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years. › Read more

 

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Upcoming Educator Workshop: Our Solar System and the Periodic Table of Elements

 

JPL EDUCATION / WORKSHOPS City of Downey Columbia Memorial Space Center Presents: Our Solar System and the Periodic Table of Elements Date: Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., plus Challenger Learning Center Mission Simulation: "Return to the Moon" from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Target Audience: Pre-service and credentialed teachers Location: Columbia Memorial Space Center, Downey, California Overview: Learn about our solar system and how it relates to the periodic table of elements. Take a trip beginning at the center and reach out to the outer boundaries of our solar system. This California standards-based workshop will teach you basic principles of what the table represents by using our solar system as an exciting basis for understanding.  Reserve your spot by calling (562) 231-1200 or registering via the City of Downey's ActiveNet portal. Pre-registration is required. Participants must bring their teacher or student ID. Lunch is provided. Throughout 2014 and into 2015, the City of Downey Columbia Memorial Space Center is inviting fully credentialed and pre-service teachers to learn and explore by joining its informative and innovative workshops. The workshops are free to pre-service and fully credentialed teachers and are taught by instructors from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Texas Instruments as well as science consultants. Visit the Columbia Memorial Space Center's monthly calendar for a full listing of upcoming teacher workshops. For a listing of educator workshops from NASA/JPL, visit the JPL Education website, at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=387

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Warm Gas Pours 'Cold Water' on Galaxy's Star-Making One galaxy devoured remnants of another galaxy, quenching the formation of new stars. Read more Dawn Snaps Its Best-Yet Image of Dwarf Planet Ceres The Dawn spacecraft has delivered a glimpse of Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, in a new image taken 740,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from the dwarf planet. Read more

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

DAY IN REVIEW NASA to Hold Dec. 8 Media Telecon on Mars Rover Curiosity NASA will host a media teleconference at 9 a.m. PST (noon EST) Monday, Dec. 8, to discuss geological observations made by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. › Read more

 

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