JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Next Mars Rover Will Have 23 'Eyes' Over the last 20 years, rover cameras have become smaller, less costly and more numerous. › Read the full story NASA Estimates the Global Reach of Atmospheric Rivers A recent study estimates the global impact of atmospheric rivers on floods and droughts, as well as the number of people affected by these atmospheric phenomena. › Read the full story

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW NuSTAR Probes Black Hole Jet Mystery Black holes are famous for being ravenous eaters, but they do not eat everything that falls toward them. A small portion of material gets shot back out in powerful jets of hot gas, called plasma, that can wreak havoc on their surroundings. Along the way, this plasma somehow gets energized enough to strongly radiate light, forming two bright columns along the black hole's axis of rotation. Scientists have long debated where and how this happens in the jet. Astronomers have new clues to this mystery. Using NASA's NuSTAR space telescope and a fast camera called ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Observatory in La Palma, Spain, scientists have been able to measure the distance that particles in jets travel before they "turn on" and become bright sources of light. This distance is called the "acceleration zone." The study is published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Scientists looked at two systems in the Milky Way called "X-ray binaries," each consisting of a black hole feeding off of a normal star. They studied these systems at different points during periods of outburst -- which is when the accretion disk -- a flat structure of material orbiting the black hole -- brightens because of material falling in. One system, called V404 Cygni, had reached nearly peak brightness when scientists observed it in June 2015. At that time, it experienced the brightest outburst from an X-ray binary seen in the 21st century. The other, called GX 339-4,was less than 1 percent of its maximum expected brightness when it was observed. The star and black hole of GX 339-4 are much closer together than in the V404 Cygni system. Despite their differences, the systems showed similar time delays - about one-tenth of a second -- between when NuSTAR first detected X-ray light and ULTRACAM detected flares in visible light slightly later. That delay is less than the blink of an eye, but significant for the physics of black hole jets. "One possibility is that the physics of the jet is not determined by the size of the disc, but instead by the speed, temperature and other properties of particles at the jet's base," said Poshak Gandhi, lead author of the study and astronomer at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. The best theory scientists have to explain these results is that the X-ray light originates from material very close to the black hole. Strong magnetic fields propel some of this material to high speeds along the jet. This results in particles colliding near light-speed, energizing the plasma until it begins to emit the stream of optical radiation caught by ULTRACAM. Where in the jet does this occur? The measured delay between optical and X-ray light explains this. By multiplying this amount of time by the speed of the particles, which is nearly the speed of light, scientists determine the maximum distance traveled. This expanse of about 19,000 miles (30,000 kilometers) represents the inner acceleration zone in the jet, where plasma feels the strongest acceleration and "turns on" by emitting light. That's just under three times the diameter of Earth, but tiny in cosmic terms, especially considering the black hole in V404 Cygni weighs as much as 3 million Earths put together. "Astronomers hope to refine models for jet powering mechanisms using the results of this study," said Daniel Stern, study co-author and astronomer based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Making these measurements wasn't easy. X-ray telescopes in space and optical telescopes on the ground have to look at the X-ray binaries at exactly the same time during outbursts for scientists to calculate the tiny delay between the telescopes' detections. Such coordination requires complex planning between the observatory teams. In fact, coordination between NuSTAR and ULTRACAM was only possible for about an hour during the 2015 outburst, but that was enough to calculate the groundbreaking results about the acceleration zone. The results also appear to connect with scientists' understanding of supermassive black holes, much bigger than the ones in this study. In one supermassive system called BL Lacertae, weighing 200 million times the mass of our Sun, scientists have inferred time delays millions of times greater than what this study found. That means the size of the acceleration area of the jets is likely related to the mass of the black hole. "We are excited because it looks as though we have found a characteristic yardstick related to the inner workings of jets, not only in stellar-mass black holes like V404 Cygni, but also in monster supermassive ones," Gandhi said. The next steps are to confirm this measured delay in observations of other X-ray binaries, and to develop a theory that can tie together jets in black holes of all sizes. "Global ground and space telescopes working together were key to this discovery. But this is only a peek, and much remains to be learned. The future is really bright for understanding the extreme physics of black holes," said Fiona Harrison, principal investigator of NuSTAR and professor of astronomy at Caltech in Pasadena. NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission's ground station and a mirror archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information on NuSTAR, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/nustar http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Prolific Earth Gravity Satellites End Science Mission After more than 15 productive years in orbit, the U.S./German GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite mission has ended science operations. During their mission, the twin GRACE satellites have provided unprecedented insights into how our planet is changing by tracking the continuous movement of liquid water, ice and the solid Earth. GRACE made science measurements by precisely measuring the distance between its twin satellites, GRACE-1 and GRACE-2, which required that both spacecraft and their instruments be fully functional. Following an age-related battery issue on GRACE-2 in September, it became apparent by mid-October that GRACE-2's remaining battery capacity would not be sufficient to operate its science instruments and telemetry transmitter. Consequently, the decision was made to decommission the GRACE-2 satellite and end GRACE's science mission. GRACE, a mission led by Principal Investigator Byron Tapley at the University of Texas at Austin, launched in March 2002 on a planned five-year mission to precisely map our planet's ever-changing gravity field. It has revealed how water, ice and solid Earth mass move on or near Earth's surface due to Earth's changing seasons, weather and climate processes, earthquakes and even human activities, such as from the depletion of large aquifers. It did thisby sensing minute changes in the gravitational pull caused by local changes in Earth's mass, which are due mostly to changes in how water is constantly being redistributed around our planet. "GRACE has provided paradigm-shifting insights into the interactions of our planet's ocean, atmosphere and solid Earth components," said Tapley. "It has advanced our understanding of the contribution of polar ice melt to global sea level rise and the amount of atmospheric heat absorbed by the ocean. Recent applications include monitoring and managing global water resources used for consumption, agriculture and industry; and assessing flood and earthquake hazards." GRACE used a microwave ranging system to measure the change in distance between the twin satellites to within a fraction of the diameter of a human hair over 137 miles (220 kilometers). The ranging data were combined with GPS tracking for timing, star trackers for attitude information, and an accelerometer to account for non-gravitational effects, such as atmospheric drag and solar radiation. From these data, scientists calculated the planet's gravity field monthly and monitored its changes over time. "GRACE was an excellent example of a research satellite mission that advanced science and also provided near-term societal benefits," said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Using cutting-edge technology to make exquisitely precise distance measurements, GRACE improved our scientific understanding of our complex home planet, while at the same time providing information -- such as measurements related to groundwater, drought and aquifer water storage changes worldwide -- that was used in the U.S. and internationally to improve the accuracy of environmental monitoring and forecasts." GRACE established that measuring the redistribution of mass around Earth is an essential observation for understanding the Earth system. GRACE's monthly maps of regional gravity variations have given scientists new insights into Earth system processes. Among its innovations, GRACE has monitored the loss of ice mass from Earth's ice sheets, improved understanding of the processes responsible for sea level rise and ocean circulation, provided insights into where global groundwater resources may be shrinking or growing and where dry soils are contributing to drought, and monitored changes in the solid Earth. Users in more than 100 countries routinely download GRACE data for analyses. For more on GRACE's science accomplishments, see: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6777 "GRACE was a pioneering mission that advanced our understanding across the Earth system -- land, ocean and ice," said Michael Watkins, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the mission's original project scientist. "The entire mission team was creative and successful in its truly heroic efforts over the last few years, extending the science return of the mission to help minimize the gap between GRACE and its successor mission, GRACE Follow-On, scheduled to launch in early 2018." Despite the loss of one of the twin GRACE satellites, the other satellite, GRACE-1, will continue operating through the end of 2017. "GRACE-1's remaining fuel will be used to complete previously planned maneuvers to calibrate and characterize its accelerometer to improve the final scientific return and insights from the 15-year GRACE record," said GRACE Project Scientist Carmen Boening of JPL. Currently, GRACE-2's remaining fuel is being expended and the satellite has begun to slowly deorbit. Atmospheric reentry of GRACE-2 is expected sometime in December or January. Decommissioning and atmospheric reentry of GRACE-1 are expected in early 2018. NASA and the German Space Operations Center will jointly monitor the deorbit and reentry of both satellites. GRACE Follow-On, a joint NASA/Helmholtz Centre Potsdam German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) mission, will continue GRACE's legacy. It will also test a new laser-ranging interferometer developed by a joint German/U.S. collaboration for use in future generations of gravitational research satellites. GRACE is a joint NASA/Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR, the German Aerospace Center) mission led by Tapley and Co-principal Investigator Frank Flechtner at GFZ. GRACE ground segment operations are co-funded by GFZ, DLR and the European Space Agency.JPL manages GRACE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. GRACE was the first mission launched under NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program, designed to develop new measurement technologies for studying the Earth system. For more information on GRACE, visit: http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace   and https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Dawn Finds Possible Ancient Ocean Remnants at Ceres Ceres' crust as we see it today, with its mixture of ice, salts and hydrated materials, represents most of the dwarf planet's ancient ocean, scientists say. › Read the full story Small Asteroid or Comet 'Visits' from Beyond the Solar System A small, recently discovered asteroid -- or perhaps a comet -- appears to have originated from outside the solar system, coming from somewhere else in our galaxy. › Read the full story NASA Center Directors Launch World Series Bragging Rights Duel The World Series has launched a friendly competition between JPL support of their home team, the L.A. Dodgers, and NASA's Johnson Space Center cheering for the Houston Astros. › Read the full story

 

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Create a Halloween Pumpkin Like a NASA Engineer and More Spooky Space Activities from NASA/JPL Edu

Space Out with NASA/JPL Edu This Halloween When Halloween rolls around at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we really let our nerd flags fly. Pumpkin carving contests turn into serious engineering design challenges and costume inspiration runs the gamut from real science to science fiction. This year, join us in all our geekdom with these spooky (and educational!) space activities from the Education Office at NASA/JPL: DIY Project: Create a Pumpkin Like a NASA Engineer – Get tips and inspiration for creating a stellar pumpkin from the same people who send spacecraft to other planets! Learn how Slideshow: Mysteries of the Solar System and Beyond – Strange things are happening all around the solar system. See if you can solve these space mysteries before finding out how scientists did it. Check it out

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Mars Rover Mission Progresses Toward Resumed Drilling NASA's Mars rover Curiosity team is working to restore Curiosity's sample-drilling capability using new techniques. The latest development is a preparatory test on Mars. The five-year-old mission is still several months from the soonest possible resumption of drilling into Martian rocks. Managers are enthusiastic about successful Earth-based tests of techniques to work around a mechanical problem that appeared late last year and suspended use of the rover's drill. "We're steadily proceeding with due caution to develop and test ways of using the rover differently from ever before, and Curiosity is continuing productive investigations that don't require drilling," said Deputy Project Manager Steve Lee, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Curiosity touched its drill to the ground Oct. 17 for the first time in 10 months. It pressed the drill bit downward, and then applied smaller sideways forces while taking measurements with a force sensor. "This is the first time we've ever placed the drill bit directly on a Martian rock without stabilizers," said JPL's Douglas Klein, chief engineer for the mission's return-to-drilling development. "The test is to gain better understanding of how the force/torque sensor on the arm provides information about side forces." This sensor gives the arm a sense of touch about how hard it is pressing down or sideways. Avoiding too much side force in drilling into a rock and extracting the bit from the rock is crucial to avoid having the bit get stuck in the rock. Curiosity has used its drill to acquire sample material from Martian rocks 15 times so far, from 2013 to 2016. It collected powdered rock samples that were delivered to laboratory instruments inside the rover. On each of those occasions, two contact posts -- the stabilizers on either side of the bit -- were placed on the target rock while the bit was in a withdrawn position. Then a motorized feed mechanism within the drill extended the bit forward, and the bit's rotation and percussion actions penetrated the rock. The drill's feed mechanism stopped working reliably in December 2016. After exploring possibilities of restoring the feed mechanism's reliability or using it despite unreliability, the project set a priority to develop an alternative method of drilling without use of the feed mechanism. The promising alternative uses motion of the robotic arm to directly advance the extended bit into a rock. "We're replacing the one-axis motion of the feed mechanism with an arm that has five degrees of freedom of motion," Klein said. "That's not simple. It's fortunate the arm has the force/torque sensor." The sensor's main use until now has been to monitor for a force so excessive of expectations that it would automatically halt all arm motion for the day. The new "feed-extended" drilling uses it to compensate for side loads. This test will help engineers determine how data from the sensor can be used most effectively. Using this method, a near-twin of Curiosity at JPL has collected drilled samples from Earth rocks. The team has also developed methods to deliver drilled samples to the laboratory-instrument inlets on the test rover's deck without use of the drill's feed mechanism. Development of this alternative sample-transfer technique is needed because the process used previously depended on having the bit in a withdrawn, rather than extended, position. "The development work and testing here at JPL has been promising," Lee said. "The next step is to assess the force/torque sensor on Mars. We've made tremendous progress in developing feed-extended drilling, using the rover's versatile capabilities beyond the original design concepts. While there are still uncertainties that may complicate attempts to drill on Mars again, we are optimistic." The rover's current location is on "Vera Rubin Ridge" on lower Mount Sharp. Curiosity is nearing the top of the 20-story-tall ridge. It has been studying the extent and distribution of the iron-oxide mineral hematite in the rocks that make up the erosion-resistant ridge. During the first year after Curiosity's landing near Mount Sharp, the mission accomplished a major goal by determining that, billions of years ago, a Martian lake offered conditions that would have been favorable for microbial life. Curiosity has since traversed through a diversity of environments where both water and wind have left their imprint. Vera Rubin Ridge and layers above it that contain clay and sulfate minerals provide tempting opportunities to learn even more about the history and habitability of ancient Mars. For more about Curiosity, visit: https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

 

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Von Karman Lecture Series - October

 

Von Karman Lecture Series – October Sink or Swim? Using Radar to Protect California's Water Supply Among the U.S. states, California is atypical in that it has both highly variable annual precipitation, leading to major droughts and floods; as well as a great disparity between where and when the precipitation falls, where people live, and where crops are grown. To deal with these issues, California has a vast array of infrastructure in place to store, channel and convey water throughout the state, much of which also serves to protect against floods. Monitoring and maintaining the infrastructure that carries our water where we need it is both critical and an enormous undertaking, involving local, state, and federal resources. Even today, most of the monitoring is done through visual inspection from motor vehicles or on foot, a formidable task that affords neither frequent nor comprehensive measurements. Researchers at JPL are working to change that, using techniques developed for Earth science to measure Earth surface deformation using airborne radar. This game-changing technology has been applied to detect subsidence (sinking) of sections of the California Aqueduct during the recent drought and to identify levees that are subsiding in the Sacramento delta. In this lecture, Jones will describe how NASA uses a high-resolution, airborne radar to identify these hazards before they can become disasters. Speaker: Dr. Cathleen E. Jones - Signals Analysis Engineer, JPL

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Take a Walk on Mars -- in Your Own Living Room JPL and Google have collaborated on a free VR experience that lets people "walk" on Mars. › Read the full story Dawn Mission Extended at Ceres NASA has authorized a second extension of the Dawn mission at Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. › Read the full story

 

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JPL News - Day in Review

 

DAY IN REVIEW Deep Space Communications via Faraway Photons A spacecraft destined to explore a unique asteroid will also test new communication hardware that uses lasers instead of radio waves. The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package aboard NASA's Psyche mission utilizes photons -- the fundamental particle of visible light -- to transmit more data in a given amount of time. The DSOC goal is to increase spacecraft communications performance and efficiency by 10 to 100 times over conventional means, all without increasing the mission burden in mass, volume, power and/or spectrum. Tapping the advantages offered by laser communications is expected to revolutionize future space endeavors - a major objective of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). The DSOC project is developing key technologies that are being integrated into a deep space-worthy Flight Laser Transceiver (FLT), high-tech work that will advance this mode of communications to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6. Reaching a TRL 6 level equates to having technology that is a fully functional prototype or representational model. As a "game changing" technology demonstration, DSOC is exactly that. NASA STMD's Game Changing Development Program funded the technology development phase of DSOC. The flight demonstration is jointly funded by STMD, the Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM) Program and NASA/ HEOMD/Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN). Work on the laser package is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Things are shaping up reasonably and we have a considerable amount of test activity going on," says Abhijit Biswas, DSOC Project Technologist in Flight Communications Systems at JPL. Delivery of DSOC for integration within the Psyche mission is expected in 2021 with the spacecraft launch to occur in the summer of 2022, he explains. "Think of the DSOC flight laser transceiver onboard Psyche as a telescope," Biswas explains, able to receive and transmit laser light in precisely timed photon bursts. DSOC architecture is based on transmitting a laser beacon from Earth to assist line­of­sight stabilization to make possible the pointing back of a downlink laser beam. The laser onboard the Psyche spacecraft, Biswas says, is based on a master-oscillator power amplifier that uses optical fibers. The laser beacon to DSOC will be transmitted from JPL's Table Mountain Facility located near the town of Wrightwood, California, in the Angeles National Forest. DSOC's beaming of data from space will be received at a large aperture ground telescope at Palomar Mountain Observatory in California, near San Diego. Biswas anticipates operating DSOC perhaps 60 days after launch, given checkout of the Psyche spacecraft post-liftoff. The test-runs of the laser equipment will occur over distances of 0.1 to 2.5 astronomical units (AU) on the outward-bound probe. One AU is approximately 150 million kilometers-or the distance between the Earth and Sun. "I am very excited to be on the mission," says Biswas, who has been working on the laser communications technology since the late 1990s. "It's a unique privilege to be working on DSOC." The Psyche mission was selected for flight in early 2017 under NASA's Discovery Program, a series of lower-cost, highly focused robotic space missions that are exploring the solar system. The spacecraft will be launched in the summer of 2022 to 16 Psyche, a distinctive metal asteroid about three times farther away from the sun than Earth. The planned arrival of the probe at the main belt asteroid will take place in 2026. Lindy Elkins-Tanton is Director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University in Tempe. She is the principal investigator for the Psyche mission. "I am thrilled that Psyche is getting to fly the Deep Space Optical Communications package," Elkins-Tanton says. "First of all, the technology is mind-blowing and it brings out all my inner geek. Who doesn't want to communicate using lasers, and multiply the amount of data we can send back and forth?" Elkins-Tanton adds that bringing robotic and human spaceflight closer together is critical for humankind's space future. "Having our robotic mission test technology that we hope will help us eventually communicate with people in deep space is excellent integration of NASA missions and all of our goals," she says. In designing a simple, high-heritage spacecraft to do the exciting exploration of the metal world Psyche, "I find both the solar electric propulsion and the Deep Space Optical Communications to feel futuristic in the extreme. I'm proud of NASA and of our technical community for making this possible," Elkins-Tanton concludes. Biswas explains that DSOC is a pathfinder experiment. The future is indeed bright for the technology, he suggests, such as setting up capable telecommunications infrastructure around Mars. "Doing so would allow the support of astronauts going to and eventually landing on Mars," Biswas said. "Laser communications will augment that capability tremendously. The ability to send back from Mars to Earth lots of information, including the streaming of high definition imagery, is going to be very enabling." As a "game changing" technology demonstration, DSOC is exactly that. NASA STMD's Game Changing Development program funded the technology development phase of DSOC. The flight demonstration is jointly funded by STMD, the Technology Demonstration Missions (TDM) program and NASA/ HEOMD/Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN). Work on the laser package is based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. For more information about NASA's Technology Demonstration Missions program, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/main/index.html For more information about NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

 

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