Saturday 26 November 2011

rover aunches to Mars



Giant Nasa rover aunches to Mars




The Atlas 5 launch rocket carrying the Mars rover blasted off from Florida


    Nasa has launched the most capable machine ever built to land on Mars.
    Jonathan AmosThe near one-tonne rover, tucked inside a capsule, left Florida on an Atlas 5 rocket at 10:02 local time (15:02 GMT).
    Nicknamed CurioBy Jonathan Amos
    Science correspondent, BBC Newssity, the rover will take eight and a half months to cross the vast distance to its destination.
    If it can land safely next August, the robot will then scour Martian soils and rocks for any signs that current or past environments on the planet could have supported microbial life.
    The Atlas flight lasted almost three-quarters of an hour.

    Curiosity - Mars Science Laboratory

    MSL (Nasa)
    • Project costed at $2.5bn; will see initial surface operations lasting two Earth years
    • Onboard plutonium generators will deliver heat and electricity for at least 14 years
    • 75kg science payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier US Mars rovers
    • Equipped with tools to brush and drill into rocks, to scoop up, sort and sieve samples
    • Variety of analytical techniques to discern chemistry in rocks, soil and atmosphere
    • Will try to make first definitive identification of organic (carbon rich) compounds
    • Even carries a laser to zap rocks; beam will identify atomic elements in rocks
    By the time the encapsulated rover was ejected on a path to the Red Planet, it was moving at 10km/s (6 miles per second).
    Spectacular video taken from the upper-stage of the rocket showed it drifting off into the distance.
    "Our spacecraft is in excellent health and it's on its way to Mars," said Curiosity project manager Peter Theisinger.
    Nasa received a first communication from the cruising spacecraft about 50 minutes after lift-off through a tracking station in Canberra, Australia.
    Controllers will command a course correction manoeuvre in two weeks to refine the trajectory to the Red Planet.
    The rover - also known as the Mars Science laboratory (MSL) - is due to arrive at the Red Planet on 6 August 2012 (GMT). Then, the hard part begins - landing safely.
    One senior space agency official this week called Mars the "Death Planet" because so many missions have failed to get down in one piece.
    The Americans, though, have a good recent record and they believe a new rocket-powered descent system will be able to place the rover very precisely in one of the most exciting locations on the planet.
    Mars maps
    It is being aimed at a deep equatorial depression called Gale Crater, which contains a central mountain that rises some 5km (3 miles) above the plain below.
    The crater was chosen as the landing site because satellite imagery has suggested that surface conditions at some point in time may have been benign enough to sustain micro-organisms.
    This included pictures of sediments at the base of the peak that were clearly laid down in the presence of abundant water.
    MSL is equipped with 10 sophisticated instruments to study the rocks, soils and atmosphere in Gale Crater.
    The $2.5bn (£1.6bn) mission is funded for an initial two Earth years of operations, but MSL-Curiosity has a plutonium battery and so should have ample power to keep rolling for more than a decade.
    It is likely the mechanisms on the rover will wear out long before its energy supply.
    "The agency is ecstatic," observed Doug McCuistion, Nasa's Mars exploration programme director.
    "We have started a new era of exploration, not just technologically but scientifically as well.
    "I hope we have more work than the scientists can handle. When we get to the surface, I expect them all to be overrun with data they've never seen before. I expect the public to have images, vistas that they've never seen before either.
    "Down in the bottom of Gale Crater, those images are going to be just stunning. It will be like sitting at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I believe."
    MSL graphic
    Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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    • MSL - the biggest and best Mars mission 24 NOVEMBER 2011, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
    • Russia asked to join Mars project 14 OCTOBER 2011, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
    • Mars rover aims for deep crater 22 JULY 2011, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
    • Nasa rides 'bucking bronco' to Mars 17 FEBRUARY 2010, SCI/TECH
    • Nasa accepts defeat over Spirit 26 JANUARY 2010, SCI/TECH
    • Nasa delays its next Mars mission 04 DECEMBER 2008, SCI/TECH

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    Wednesday 23 November 2011

    Signal picked up from Mars probe


    Signal picked up from Russia's stranded Mars probe

    Russian scientists preparing Phobos-Grunt for launchPhobos-Grunt is Russia's most ambitious space venture in years

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    Contact has finally been made with Russia's troubled Mars mission, says the European Space Agency (Esa).
    The agency reports that its tracking station in Perth, Australia, picked up a signal from the Phobos-Grunt probe.
    Esa is now working with Russian engineers to see how best to maintain communications with the craft.
    Phobos-Grunt has been stuck in Earth orbit since its launch on 9 November, unable to fire the engine that would take it on to Mars.
    It raises the hope that Russian controllers can establish what is wrong with the spacecraft and fix it.
    Phobos-Grunt still has a short window in which to start its journey before a change in the alignment of the planets makes the distance to the Red Planet too big to cross.
    Low power
    The European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt, Germany, reports that the contact was made at 2025 GMT on Tuesday.
    The agency had to modify its 15m dish in Perth to get through to Phobos-Grunt. This required widening the antenna's beam to catch the probe in its uncertain orbit.
    Perth also reduced the power of the transmission to make it more like the sort of faint X-band signal the craft would expect to hear at Mars.
    "We were able to get our transmission in and the commands that were sent then allowed the transmitter on the spacecraft to be turned on; and then we saw the signal coming back into our big dish," explained Dr Klaus-Juergen Schulz, the head of the ground station systems division at Esa-Esoc.
    "We also made some radiometric measurements to derive a more precise orbit. This should make it easier to contact Phobos-Grunt in future."
    The next pass opportunity is after 2020 [GMT]. At that time, the probe will be in sight of the dish and its solar panels will also be flooded with sunlight to power onboard systems.
    All the information gathered in Tuesday night's communication, including telemetry from Phobos-Grunt, has been passed straight to the Russians.
    Exciting prospect
    The probe was built to land on the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, and scoop up rock to bring back to Earth.
    Such a venture should yield fascinating new insights into the origin of the 27km-wide object and the planet it circles.
    The mission is also notable because China's first Mars satellite, Yinghuo-1, has been launched piggy-back on the main Russian spacecraft.
    The 13-tonne mission was initially lifted into a 350km-high orbit above Earth, with the expectation that the probe's big engine would fire twice - first, to raise that orbit, and, second, to set course for Mars.
    But for some reason, those engine burns never happened, and Phobos-Grunt has continued to circle the Earth. All efforts to talk with it have failed - until now.
    Fortunately, the probe has managed to maintain itself in a stable condition. The perigee of its elliptical orbit (the closest point it comes to Earth) has actually risen slightly, and is just above 200km.
    If engineers can keep a communication line open to the craft, they can begin to diagnose its problems.
    The best scenario is that the issues are related to a software anomaly, and that engineers can then upload new commands.
    But if the fault lies in a hardware malfunction, Phobos-Grunt may still be beyond hope.
    Mars probe veers off course

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    alien worlds



    Most liveable alien worlds ranked


    Saturn's moon Titan bears many similarities to the early Earth

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    Scientists have outlined which moons and planets are most likely to harbour extra-terrestrial life.
    Titan (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona )Among the most habitable alien worlds were Saturn's moon Titan and the exoplanet Gliese 581g - thought to reside some 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.
    The international team devised two rating systems to assess the probability of hosting alien life.
    In their paper, the authors propose two different indices: an Earth Similarity Index (ESI) and a Planetary Habitability Index (PHI).

    EARTH SIMILARITY INDEX

    • Earth - 1.00
    • Gliese 581g - 0.89
    • Gliese 581d - 0.74
    • Gliese 581c - 0.70
    • Mars - 0.70
    • Mercury - 0.60
    • HD 69830 d - 0.60
    • 55 Cnc c - 0.56
    • Moon - 0.56
    • Gliese 581e - 0.53
    "The first question is whether Earth-like conditions can be found on other worlds, since we know empirically that those conditions could harbour life," said co-author Dr Dirk Schulze-Makuch from Washington State University, US.
    Gliese 581 system"The second question is whether conditions exist on exoplanets that suggest the possibility of other forms of life, whether known to us or not."
    As the name suggests, the ESI rates planets and moons on how Earth-like they are, taking into account such factors as size, density and distance from the parent star.
    The PHI looks at a different set of factors, such as whether the world has a rocky or frozen surface, whether it has an atmosphere or a magnetic field.
    It also considers the energy available to any organisms, either through light from a parent star or via a process called tidal flexing, in which gravitational interactions with another object can heat a planet or moon internally.
    And finally, the PHI takes into account chemistry - such as whether organic compounds are present - and whether liquid solvents might be available for vital chemical reactions.
    The maximum value for the Earth Similarity Index was 1.00 - for Earth, unsurprisingly. The highest scores beyond our solar system were for Gliese 581g (whose existence is doubted by some astronomers), with 0.89, and another exoplanet orbiting the same star - Gliese 581d, with an ESI value of 0.74.

    PLANET HABITABILITY INDEX

    • Titan - 0.64
    • Mars - 0.59
    • Europa - 0.49
    • Gliese 581g - 0.45
    • Gliese 581d - 0.43
    • Gliese 581c - 0.41
    • Jupiter - 0.37
    • Saturn - 0.37
    • Venus - 0.37
    • Enceladus - 0.35
    The Gliese 581 system has been well studied by astronomers and comprises four - possibly five - planets orbiting a red dwarf star.
    MarsHD 69830 d, a Neptune-sized exoplanet orbiting a different star in the constellation Puppis, also scored highly (0.60). It is thought to lie in the so-called Goldilocks Zone - the region around its parent star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for life.
    The highly rated worlds from our own solar system were Mars, with a value of 0.70, and Mercury, with 0.60.
    The Planet Habitability Index produced different results. The top finisher here was Saturn's moon Titan, which scored 0.64, followed by Mars (0.59) and Jupiter's moon Europa (0.47), which is thought to host a susbsurface water ocean heated by tidal flexing.
    The highest scoring exoplanets were, again Gliese 581g (0.49) and Gliese 581d (0.43).
    In recent years, the search for potentially habitable planets outside our solar system has stepped up several gears. Nasa's Kepler space telescope, launched into orbit in 2009, has found more than 1,000 candidate planets so far.
    Future telescopes may even be able to detect so-called biomarkers in the light emitted by distant planets, such as the presence of chlorophyll, a key pigment in plants
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    Super Puma's North Sea death crash



    Super Puma's North Sea death crash fault 'not recognised'


    All 16 helicopter crash victimsAll 14 passengers and two crew on board the Super Puma died in the crash

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    An indication of a fault that led to a North Sea helicopter crash in which 16 men died had not been recognised just a week earlier, a report has found.
    All 14 passengers and two crew lost their lives in April 2009 when the Bond Super Puma came down off Peterhead.
    The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said an indication of gear degradation had not been picked up on.
    There was a "catastrophic failure" of the main rotor gearbox as a result of a fatigue fracture, it said.
    The Super Puma helicopter had been returning from BP's Miller oil platform when it crashed about 11 miles north east of Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire.
    Eight of the victims came from the north east of Scotland, seven from Liverpool, Norfolk and Worcestershire, and one from Latvia.
    The Super Puma before it crashed [Pic: Gareth Falls]The Super Puma crashed on 1 April 2009 in the North Sea
    The report said a magnetic particle had been found on the chip detector in the gearbox of the Eurocopter Super Puma a week before the crash.
    However, it was not recognised as an indication of the degradation of a part of the gearbox known as the second stage planet gear.
    The AAIB said: "The use of verbal and email communication between the operator and manufacturer on 25 March led to a misunderstanding or miscommunication of the issue."
    It was this second stage planet gear that failed just days later as a result of a fatigue crack.
    The main rotor separated from the fuselage and the aircraft crashed into the sea as the helicopter was flying to Aberdeen from the Miller Platform.
    'Final transmission'
    The report said the captain had transmitted a mayday followed by the co-pilot.
    "One second later, one of the flight crew uttered an expletive; this was the final radio transmission," the report added.
    The report makes 17 safety recommendations.

    “Start Quote

    The findings will now be fully considered ”
    Crown Office
    Bill Munro, managing director of Bond Offshore Helicopters, said: "The manufacturer's procedures have been strengthened and Bond, along with others in the industry, implemented those changes immediately.
    "We take a rigorous approach to safety and will continue to do so as technology and best practice evolve. Our company will also implement any further actions required by the industry which are issued by the authorities and manufacturer as a result of the report.
    "Our thoughts remain with the families of those who died, and their loss is a constant driver in our commitment to the highest standards of safety in all our operations."
    Eurocopter said it remained committed to working closely with the regulatory authorities, investigators and its operators to prevent the risk of accidents.
    'Significant developments'
    A Crown Office spokesperson said: "The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) welcomes the publication of the report on this tragic incident by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, following a technically complex and challenging investigation.
    "The findings contained therein will now be fully considered by the health and safety division of COPFS.
    "The division and Grampian Police have been engaged in this investigation since the tragedy occurred and will continue to progress lines of inquiry and carry out such investigation as is necessary in order that a decision may be taken in relation to the form of any proceedings.
    "The liaison with the nearest relatives of the 16 men who lost their lives will also continue and the division will keep them advised of significant developments."
    Crew names
    The two crew who died were Captain Paul Burnham, 31, of Methlick, Aberdeenshire, and co-pilot Richard Menzies, 24, of Droitwich Spa, who worked for Bond Offshore Helicopters.
    The KCA Deutag employees killed were Brian Barkley, 30, of Aberdeen; Vernon Elrick, 41, of Aberdeen; Leslie Taylor, 41, of Kintore, Aberdeenshire; Nairn Ferrier, 40, of Dundee; Gareth Hughes, 53, of Angus; David Rae, 63, of Dumfries; Raymond Doyle, 57, of Cumbernauld; James John Edwards, 33, of Liverpool; Nolan Goble, 34, of Norwich, and Mihails Zuravskis, 39, of Latvia.
    The other victims were James Costello, 24, of Aberdeen, who was contracted to Production Services Network (PSN); Alex Dallas, 62, of Aberdeen, who worked for Sparrows Offshore Services; Warren Mitchell, 38, of Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, who worked for Weatherford UK; and Stuart Wood, 27, of Aberdeen, who worked for Expro North Sea Ltd.

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