Finalist MoonBots teams down to the Wire

Twenty finalist MoonBots teams continue preparations for their "final mission challenge" in the student competition, complimentary to the Google Lunar X PRIZE contest. More than two hundred teams from sixteen nations originally completed requirements for the first phase of the MoonBots Challenge before the final twenty qualified last April. The contest was open to students between the ages of nine and eighteen.

Using LEGO bricks and MINDSTORMS components, the MoonBots contest requires the teams to create simulated lunar rovers and use them to complete a series of predetermined tasks.

As the contest comes down to the last lap, teams are very busy blogging about their experiences, writing about obstacles overcome lessons learned. Some teams are completing their live missions a bit early to prevent any clash with school schedules.

Judges mentioned being impressed with results from all entries during earlier rounds. “Teams with little or no previous experience with robotics or with CAD software are engaging in this competition on equal terms with veterans,” said Steven Canvin, marketing manager for LEGO MINDSTORMS.

Surveys of participating students reveal nearly half report significant increases in understanding of the Moon and lunar exploration and skills gained using a variety of professional software applications.

“The students are learning to combine several challenging skills and to apply them in a new way. The MoonBots Challenge has required them to get creative, to find imaginative ways to express how they’ve used science, technology, engineering and mathematics to solve problems,” Canvin said.

The twenty finalists MoonBots teams are: ARES (Texas, USA); Coastal Quarks (California, USA); Cougar LEGO Robotics Team (Ohio, USA); Crandroids (Michigan, USA); G.I.R.L.S. (Missouri, USA); got robot? (Illinois, USA); Intergalactic Bacon (Florida, USA); Just Ducky (Minnesota, USA); Landroids (New Jersey, USA); LegoAces (Ohio, USA); Lunar Horizon (California, USA); Milkyway Monsters (Massachusetts, USA); Moonwalk (New Jersey/Connecticut, USA); New Hartford RoboSpartans (New York, USA); OABB 4-H Lego Robots (California, USA); Pushing Frontiers (Lovenjoel, Belguim); Team Tater Tot (Minnesota, USA); The Shadowed Craters (California, USA); WEBstormers (Cape Town, South Africa); and Yellow Jackets (Michigan, USA).

All twenty finalist teams will receive a LEGO MINDSTORMS kit, two-year subscriptions to WIRED and all of the LEGO bricks used to build the simulated lunar surface necessary in the final phase of the competition.

Something Bradbury This Way Comes

From Lunar Pioneer Album 3 -

Then-President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush present the National Medal of Arts award to Ray Bradbury in 2004 [White House photo by Susan Sterner].

Joel Raupe

It should be interesting to see if the number or the tone of many enthusiastic birthday greetings being posted for a surviving Dean of the Golden Age of Science Fiction now become more muted over coming days. Ray Bradbury, who celebrates his 90th birthday August 22, has taken the opportunity to tell reporters we need a revolution. Since there are few American writers who are better masters of metaphor, we can safely believe he was being metaphorical.

Like Robert Heinlein (or Orson Scott Card, for that matter), Bradbury is not a fan of massive paternal government. He's also not a fan of halting work on putting a permanent manned presence on the Moon, and beyond. But because some lack confidence politically, something else Bradbury said that would otherwise be just amusing may now be used instead to ruin celebrations of his birthday.

Some more dogged fans of his writing are also strong supporters of President Obama's proposed changes in national space policy. It's likely too many will now be too quick to pick up on a malapropism from Bradbury, more specifically his having said "we have too many Internets."

That would be regrettable, however passionate one might be about space policy (or the undoubted benefits of more ready access to the Moon).

It would be foolish to mock Bradbury's age, his lack of familiarity with iPhones, or his politics, and mistake his for a slipping mind not worth listening too. Bradbury is not some kind of latter-day Ezra Pound.

This very small part of Bradbury's recent remarks in Los Angeles has already become the story in pieces originally about his coming birthday. And there are bound to be unseasoned writers, some of whom rushed already to extend tributes to Bradbury, who might now think they are required to regret their Best Wishes, perhaps fearing they might otherwise appear politically incorrect.

But consider this: That among the Lunar Pioneer posters we continue to try to stick to pieces related, at least in some way, to Earth's Moon. We're only too happy to leave to others the job of keeping us up to date on the Known Universe. So, it might be Bradbury has a point.

He has a point to the extent that some online writers feel a vain compulsion to appear comprehensive, the need to add a monologue to the Echo Chamber, adding pressure to today's firehose of opinion. While many might say this results in too high a noise level, Bradbury might instead say there are 'too many Internets.'

And, after all, the Real Story is Bradbury's birthday, the anniversary of an authentic legacy enduring across four generations of grateful readers.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Ray Bradbury is mad at President Obama, but it’s not about the economy, the war or the plan to a construct a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.

“He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon,” says the iconic author, whose 90th birthday on Aug. 22 will be marked in Los Angeles with more than week’s worth of Bradbury film and TV screenings, tributes and other events. “We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever.”

The man who wrote “Fahrenheit 451,” “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” “The Martian Chronicles,“ ”Dandelion Wine“and “The Illustrated Man” has been called one of America’s great dreamers, but his imagination takes him to some dark places when it comes to contemporary politics.

“I think our country is in need of a revolution,” Bradbury said. “There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people.”

LCROSS flight operations report

Impact Science Observations. The above diagram is a timeline of instrument data collection covering the five minutes prior to the impact of the LCROSS Shepherding Spacecraft. Label `A” shows downlink fully subscribed; `B” shows irregular ticks that reflect images dropped onboard because of downlink "over-subscription;" `C” shows the effect of a ground command sent to reduce camera sampling rates; `D” shows how a command sent to change an image exposure setting enabled imaging the Centaur crater in near-infrared (NIR).

The left image is the near-infrared spectrometers field-of-view just after the Centaur impact.

Paul D. Tompkins, et.al.
Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies
LCROSS Lead Flight Director, ARC

LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) was conceived as a low-cost means of determining the nature of hydrogen detected at the polar regions of the moon. The mission presented several inherent challenges – planning for and achieving a precise impact at a lunar pole, guiding a Centaur upper stage far beyond its operational lifetime, co-launching as a secondary payload with the LRO spacecraft, and preparing for and operating such a mission under a highly constrained budget and short development cycle. Beyond these, the flight itself presented other hurdles in the path to success, including several anomalies, one of which was nearly mission-catastrophic.

Section I (of the AIAA report) provides the reader with background on the LCROSS project and components. Section II provides an overview of the flight mission. The remaining sections describe specific challenges encountered in planning and executing the mission and how they were overcome. The paper concludes by highlighting the key factors for the mission’s success.

Managed, partially developed, and operated from NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), LCROSS was selected under the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate’s (ESMD’s) Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP) as a secondary payload manifested with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), under a $79 million cost cap.

LCROSS was designated as a Class D mission, indicating NASA’s willingness to accept greater levels of programmatic and operational risk. Rather than incur the high cost and mission complexity associated with landing at a lunar pole, LCROSS precisely guided its Centaur Earth Departure Upper Stage (EDUS) to a lunar target as a kinetic impactor to raise a plume of polar regolith from the surface. After releasing the Centaur, the guiding Shepherding Spacecraft (S-S/C) employed a suite of nine science instruments to analyze the impact flash and plume materials at close range. Earthbased and orbiting assets, including LRO and the Hubble Space Telescope, acted in a supporting role for impact observations.

The LCROSS project remained on-budget and on-schedule, despite many programmatic and technical challenges. LCROSS launched with LRO on June 18, 2009, and on October 9, 2009, after 112 days in flight, the LCROSS team successfully delivered both the Centaur and S-S/C on-target within Cabeus crater and collected extensive data from all instruments during and after the Centaur impact.

After one month of post-impact analysis, the LCROSS science team announced the positive identification of water on the floor of Cabeus.

The LCROSS mission was faced with many challenges. Late-breaking predictions of possible Centaur gas leaks forced the operations team to revise or newly develop and test broad-reaching procedures and command sequences in the weeks prior to launch. Strict impact targeting precision requirements were made more challenging under the many perturbations to the LCROSS orbit, including from the spacecraft’s own (attitude control) thruster firings and volatiles escaping from the ice-laden Centaur exterior. LCROSS experienced two challenges to propellant reserves - a persistent Centaur gas leak and a propellant-intensive response to a very brief IRU fault. The LCROSS mission operations team, only barely large enough to staff the busy first week of flight, was taxed further by a series of anomalies that, while recoverable, stretched working hours well beyond original expectations.

Read the report (pdf), HERE.

SpaceOps 2010
Huntsville, 25-30 April 2010

1POV - The “Von Braun Paradigm”

Dr. Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), appearing in an episode of Walt Disney's enormously popular television program in December 1955. (The episode would later be re-shown in public schools throughout the U.S. as "Tomorrow the Moon.") Von Braun, like all working academics in Nazi Germany (1933-1945), was a Party member. In World War II he and his team of engineers are rightly credited with the remarkable design, development and successful deployment of Germany's advanced liquid-fueled ballistic rocket program, most famously the "V-2." As prisoners-of-war his team reconstructed that program in New Mexico for the U.S. Army. Regardless, Von Braun's eventual influence over the course of the American space program would be hard to over-estimate, as a very influential popularizer, visionary, rocket engineer and as administrator of Marshall Space Flight Center.

NASA's long-term planning for human spaceflight

Michael J. Neufeld
Smithsonian Institution

In 1994, political scientist and space historian Dwayne A. Day coined the term "von Braun paradigm*" to describe what he saw as an entrenched.and counterproductive.NASA long-term strategy for human spaceflight.1 Roughly speaking, he boiled that strategy down to: space shuttle->space station->Moon->Mars. Day was responding to the ignominious failure of President George H. W. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) from 1989 to 1990, which he, like many others, blamed on the space agency's penchant for gigantomania in its human exploration program.

In response to the presidential announcement on the steps of NASM on the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11, NASA's 90-day study group advocated building, on the foundation of the Shuttle and then-projected space station, a lunar base and an ambitious spacefaring infrastructure that within 20 or 30 years would lead to a permanent human foothold on Mars. The cost turned out to be politically suicidal: several hundred billion dollars. The 90-day study reprised the Space Task Group report of 1969, which was an almost equally ignominious political failure. From that earlier proposal for a grand (or grandiose) post-Apollo space program, NASA salvaged only a scaled-back version of its first goal: a winged, reusable Space Shuttle.

Day traced this strategy back to the German-American rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, of course, specifically the series of articles the space visionary wrote or co-wrote in Collier s magazine between 1952 and 1954. These laid out his grand vision, which Day argued "had its greatest influence on how the U.S. space community envisions space. Von Braun convinced those who worked in the field that space was worthy of a concentrated, integrated human exploration effort." In fact, his vision was controversial from the start, drawing vigorous objections from many rocket engineers, but it was undeniably influential over the long run, especially on spaceflight true believers inside the movement and in the general public...

NASA's First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives
Page 325-347, (PDF) HERE.

March 5, 1969 - Newly inaugurated President Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) announces NASA acting Administrator Thomas Paine’s nomination as NASA Administrator. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (right) looks on. Agnew and Paine later pushed an ambitious Shuttle-Space Station-Moon-Mars strategy for the post-Apollo space program that Nixon and the U.S. Congress refused to support [NASA Image 69-H-225].

*Dwayne A. Day, “The Von Braun Paradigm,” Space Times (November–December 1994): 12–15; Day expanded that opinion piece in the AAS newsletter as “Paradigm Lost,” Space Policy 11 (1995): 153–159.

The impact history of the Moon

From 41st Lunar & Planetary Science Conference (2010) -

The history of the Moon is the history of Earth, and the testimony of the Moon is saturation bombardment. The history of the inner solar system is recorded there also, safe far from the dynamic lithosphere and atmospheric erosion ever-present here on Earth. Even before the preliminary glance (above) at laser altimetry from LOLA, on-board LRO, was presented, 300 impact basins were already identified on the Moon. Most are not as apparent as the familiar "basin-forming impacts" visible to the naked eye, clustered on the Moon's near side (on the left side of the projection of the Moon's eastern hemisphere above). Was a gradual fall-off in both the size and frequency of impacts on the Moon, preserved over 4.5 billion years, steady or were there peaks and valleys in that long process? If so, what caused those events, and how often? Are they cyclical? The Moon holds the answers, a convenient recording of Earth's past. Almost certainly, our companion Moon will tell us something about Earth's future, also [NASA/GSFC].

Barbara A. Cohen
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

The bombardment history of the Earth-Moon system has been debated since the first recognition that the circular features on the Moon may be impact craters. Because the lunar impact record is the only planetary impact record to be calibrated with absolute ages, it underpins our understanding of geologic ages on every other terrestrial planet.

One of the more remarkable results to come out of lunar sample analyses is the hypothesis that a large number of impact events occurred on the Moon during a narrow window in time approximately 3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago (the lunar “cataclysm”).

Subsequent work on the lunar and martian meteorite suites; remote sensing of the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and icy satellites; improved dynamical modeling; and investigation of terrestrial zircons extend the cataclysm hypothesis to the Earth, other terrestrial planets, and possibly the entire solar system. Renewed US and international interest in exploring the Moon offers new potential to constrain the Earth-Moon bombardment history.

This paper will review the lunar bombardment record, timing and mechanisms for cataclysmic bombardment, and questions that may be answered in a new age of exploration.

View the presentation (pdf), HERE.

Caldwell-Dyson & Wheelock install pump module

Less noticed perhaps than it should be has been the urgent, impressive replacement of the arrant quarter-ton ammonia pump that caused failure to half the station's cooling system, requiring the third of four spacewalks from ISS, Monday, August 16. It's the 150th EVA since the first ISS section was carried to low-Earth orbit in 1998. Above, Expedition 24 Flight Engineers Dr. Tracy Caldwell Dyson (left) and Col. Doug Wheelock work to set up the spare ammonia pump module (stored on-board since 2006) after installation on the S1 Truss [NASA TV ].

Congress as rocket designers

Creature of Congress: The Ares V heavy-lift, last seen in 2007 and as part of the Constellation program. Thrown out with the bath water in abandoning Constellation in FY2011, does the congressional consensus for NASA now call for the same vehicle, with no Altair to fly, or is Congress looking for something similar to the Saturn 1-B? [NASA]

Jeff Foust
Space Politics

While the Senate version of the NASA authorization bill, S. 3729, made it clear that the heavy-lift launch vehicle it calls for, the Space Launch System, should be developed by “extend[ing] or modify[ing] existing vehicle development and associated contracts”, it wasn’t specific beyond that in terms of vehicle design.

However, as Space News reported Friday, the report accompanying the bill goes into additional detail about their desired vehicle design.

Read the Post, HERE.

John New, 89, NASA GSFC pioneer

Matt Schudel
Washington Post

John New, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who developed a series of methods and facilities for testing satellites during the early days of space flight, died July 28 at the Renaissance Gardens assisted living facility in Silver Spring. He had pneumonia.

In 1959, Mr. New joined the recently formed Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt (Maryland) as the founding director of what became known as the Test and Evaluation Division. With meager resources, he set up a laboratory in a converted warehouse and soon expanded it to include dozens of buildings.

Much of the early equipment was borrowed or handmade, as Mr. New and his engineers developed facilities and tests to ensure that early satellites could withstand the intense sunlight, stress and gravity encountered in space.

Within two years, NASA had successfully launched three satellites, each of which had undergone rigorous testing by Mr. New's staff. The goal of the unmanned orbiting laboratories, in the words of NASA's first administrator, T. Keith Glennan, was "to expand human knowledge about space for the benefit and peaceful use of mankind."

Read the Obituary, HERE.

Model Lunar Lander Design for Emulating Space Flight and a Lunar Touchdown

"Flight Article," from Moidel's design for a lab-scale lunar landing flight simulator. (Carnegie Mellon University is an affiliate partner with the Astrobotics Google Lunar X-Prize team [Robotics Institute/Carnegie Mellon].

Justin B. Moidel
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University

Lunar landers are challenged to descend from a lunar orbit to the moon’s surface under a gravitational force of 1.62 m/s2, about one sixth the magnitude of earth gravity. The purpose of this research is to design and simulate a lunar lander model which will emulate the flight and landing of a robotic lunar spacecraft in order to test guidance, navigation and control (GNC) software.

Autonomous control will be developed for descent, soft landing and attitude control. An emulation can test lab-scale landing hardware in addition to GNC software and autonomy of a robotic lunar lander. This paper describes a design for a model lunar lander available for testing in two separate environments, one which constricts the lander models motion so a descent is not possible and another incorporates an innovative gravity offload mechanism to compensate for the lesser gravity of the Moon.

Read the (pdf) paper, HERE.

Processing LROC NAC Stereo Terrain Models

High-resolution 3D Digital Terrain Model (DTM) of a lunar crater created from a LROC NAC stereo pair. The scale bar on the left is the elevation in meters [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/Ohio State University].

Jordan Lawyer
LROC News System

To produce a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) using LROC NAC images, you need at least two images of the same area taken from different orbits with off-pointing. The two oblique views result in parallax, which we can measure and convert into elevation measurements. Presto! You have a topographic map. Of course, it is not quite that easy. First, an analyst has to calibrate the images, pick absolute elevation points from LOLA laser profiles, pick a few points matching the images together, and then the automated software does the rest; almost, but analysts check the output and correct any errors that may have crept in during the automated processing.

A stereo pair of LROC NAC images of this crater was used to derive the DTM shown in the opening image. Portion of LROC NAC M104776541R (near 36.41°N, 319.72°E, previously highlighted within the Gruithuisen Domes Constellation Region of Interest of north Oceanus Procellarum, LRO orbit 598, August 13, 2009; Alt. 159.78, Res. 1.61; field of view is 825 meters [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Jitter, which is caused by minuscule vibrations in the spacecraft, can cause the resulting DTM to show wave-like patterns (below). So far only a small set of LROC NAC images have been found to be affected by jitter and research efforts are being focused to reduce the effects of jitter on the handful of DTMs that show this effect.

DTM of Gruithuisen Domes (elevation in meters), generated using the stereo NAC image pair M104776541L/R and M104783697L/R. The wavy lines (arrows) are a result of the slight jitter of the spacecraft [OSU].

The final product, detailed topographic maps, provides scientists and engineers with a powerful tool to solve many problems. For example, when planning future human traverses at a specific site, topographic maps tell us where we can drive or walk, how much energy we will need, and what we can do at any given location. Over the next several years, LROC will collect hundreds of more stereo pairs over key exploration targets.

Proposed GLXP rule changes inspire concern

Updated September 15, 2010 1825 UT

Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP) team SELENOKHOD in Russia demonstrates a test-bed prototype of the lunar rover the group hopes will win a minimum $20 million purse. However, Russian resources now committed to a planned 2013 joint Russian & Indian lunar mission has put a strain on their timetable [Selenokhod].

Peter J. Brown
Asia Times Online

Government space agencies are taking a closer look at the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest, an international competition to safely land a rover on the moon. Several GLXP teams include space researchers and engineers in Asia on their rosters, and NASA is rolling out a program that might provide US GLXP teams with a $30 million market for their mission data. Other countries may not sit still for long in light of this development.

That is the good news. The not so good news is that as the result of a proposed GLXP rule change, the $20 million GLXP grand prize could be reduced by $5 million if a government-backed lunar mission successfully lands and deploys a rover in advance of any of the 21 GLXP teams accomplishing the same feat. All GLXP teams must be 90% privately funded.

According to the original set of GLXP rules, the grand prize would be awarded to the team that first landed a rover on the Moon and subsequently able to travel at least 500 meters while simultaneously transmitting data and a live TV signal back to Earth. The deadline has been December 31, 2012. If that objective was not achieved, however, a GLXP team could still win a reduced grand prize of $15 million if it fulfilled all requirements by December 2014.

Now, under the proposed so-called GLXP "Master Team Agreement" (MTA), revised rules, including the $5 million cut described above, are taking shape. All remaining prizes, including a $5 million second prize and several bonus prizes, would be unaffected.

Under proposed changes to contest rules, the 2012 deadline is pushed ahead three years to December 31, 2015. However, even that deadline might be extended by the California-based X Prize Foundation (XPF).

Several countries, including the European Space Agency (ESA), are planning to conduct lunar landings over the coming decade. The joint Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)-Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and rover / Luna-Resource lunar lander scheduled for 2013, appears first in line.

"Almost every space agency is talking about missions to the lunar surface these days. Putting fixed calendar dates on them is very difficult, though," said William Pomerantz, senior director of space prizes at the XPF.

"We are excited about and are following developments on other fronts, including China's Chang'e 3, Japan's SELENE-2, The Indo-Russian Luna-Resource /Chandrayaan-2, ESA's MoonNEXT, a variety of potential NASA robotic missions and possibly the UK's MoonLite, along with eventual nodes of the proposed International Lunar Network (ILN)."

"At this point, it's difficult to say with certainty which will be which," said Pomerantz

Read the full article, HERE.

NASA NEO Workshop & Downloads

Presentations from the NASA Exploration of Near-Earth Objects Objectives workshop, August 10-11, are now available online, HERE.

Though video of presenters selected from previous such events are also available, HERE, these are not yet posted for the NEO workshop.

Dr. Clive Neal, chair of the Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group (LEAG), presented Using the Moon to Facilitate exploration of Near Earth Objects, available (pdf) HERE.

Heads Up: Southside Amateur Radio Club

Volcanos in the Lake of Death

Most of the craters on the Moon formed through impact processes. However, some craters, like the one visible in this portion of the LROC Featured Image "Volcanoes in the Lake of Death," August 11, 2010, may be a volcano summit pit crater. A 923 meter-wide field f view from LROC NAC observation M131488521R, LRO orbit 4511, June 18, 2010; resolution 93 cm per pixel, incidence angle 82.28° from 44.79 km over 44.11°N, 23.94°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Lillian Ostrach

LROC News System

When most people think about volcanism on the Moon, they usually consider the vast mare basalts located primarily on the lunar near side.

However, there are many different volcanic features on the Moon! Sinuous rilles, mare domes, non-mare domes, and pyroclastic deposits are several volcanic features that the LROC NAC studies at 0.50 m/pixel. The opening image in today's Featured Image is an exciting view of what may be the pit crater at the summit of a small volcano. These features which may be similar to terrestrial cinder or scoria cones.

In contrast to lunar volcanoes, such as mare domes, this pair of volcanoes is much smaller - they are only ~1.5 km across the widest portion of their bases (very small by lunar standards!).

From "Lunar Morphology in the Lake of Death," Dec. 17, 2009: Close up on southwestern Lacus Mortis and a 700 meter wide section of 104 km-long graben Rimae Bürg near where it translates from the mare-filled "lake" into the highlands beyond its shore. LRO orbit 211, July 12, 2009; alt. 162.49 km, native res = 1.6 m [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Investigators during the Apollo years suggested that volcanic features like domes could be present in this region; with the tremendous capability of the LROC instruments, we can now take a closer look and begin to ascertain if this is indeed the case. Located at the highlands-mare boundary, these two features appear to be volcanic in origin and also isolated from other volcanic features (besides the mare) - other regions with prominent volcanoes exhibit several domes within close proximity to one another. So, why are there only two features here, which we interpret to be volcanic in origin? We can't really answer that question with just a single LROC NAC image pair and an LROC WAC monochrome context image of the immediate area. Instead, we need an LROC WAC mosaic that provides a regional view of Lacus Mortis so that any other volcanic or dome-like features can be observed.

Portion of LROC WAC mosaic, centered on the highlands-Lacus Mortis mare contact; arrow points to two probable volcanic features, each of which are roughly 1.5 km across at their widest. Northward of these features is a linear rille that can be traced into the highlands where it appears to transform into a ridge [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Additionally, when the LROC team discovers new features we can target a stereo observation and make detailed topographic maps to help scientists better understand a features origin. Once a detailed study of the presence, locations, sizes, and forms of any other similar volcanic features are identified in Lacus Mortis, we can begin to assess these geologic features and hypothesize to their origins. For example, in the immediate vicinity shown in the LROC WAC monochrome context image, there is a linear rille (or graben) cutting through the mare, transitioning into a ridge in the highlands. Maybe this tectonic feature has something to do with the volcanic feature?

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is gradually adding granularity to long-familiar lunar features, like Lacus Mortis. Above, a sampling of LROC NAC observations in southwest Lacus Mortis show how differing illumination angles and altitudes compliment each other to build up what may soon be a first, truly complete view of the lunar surface.

From the LROC WAC frame we cannot distinguish relative ages between the volcanic features and rille, so determining the relationship between these features (if any) remains a mystery (at this time). Clearly, the geology of this immediate area is complex and is a worthwhile candidate for future lunar exploration!

Explore the landscape of Lacus Mortis for yourself, HERE.

Some Relate Posts:
Not your average complex crater, July 28, 2010

Lunar Morphology in the Lake of Death, December 17, 2009
Blogger's Best for the Best, December 6, 2009
Terraced Wall of Bürg, July 31, 2009

Desert RATS pack for Arizona

Mike Miller demonstrates one of the backpacks his team designed and built for the Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert Rats) project's upcoming field test in Arizona. Miller led the team that developed the backpacks. The backpacks are equipped with GPS antennas, communications components and cameras. They are meant to show researchers what an astronaut might need to explore an alien world and give designers a look at the hardships the equipment could encounter [NASA/Frank Michaux].

Steven Siceloff
NASA Kennedy Space Center

"A team of astronauts, scientists and engineers from several NASA centers head to Arizona's desert each year to simulate the unique environment of space explorers. The effort is meant to test equipment and people to find out the best way to explore another world.

"Kennedy's engineers develop the communications, navigation and data transmission networks needed, a task that includes a semitrailer set up as a mission operations center, a command vehicle, a specialized RV, a pair of Humvees plus enough communications gear to set up a wireless network for a small crew of explorers to talk back to "Earth" like they will from other planets.

"Equipment from other centers, such as a pair of large rovers, has to work on the same communications network. The rovers, for example, relay the signals from the backpacks to the mission operations center.

"Although the area they test in is not a perfect stand-in for the moon or Mars in terms of having breathable air and normal gravity, the site does a pretty good job of isolating the participants, said Mike Miller, communications research engineer at Kennedy.

"We have to take everything to the site, just like we will to other planet surfaces," Miller said."

Read the full story, HERE.

Chandrayaan-2 rover prototype

Prototype of the ISRO Chandrayaan-II lunar rover, under development at IIT-Kanpur. The Mechanical Engineering Department there has been given the task of constructing the rover's imaging and control systems [IIT-Kanpur].

Pradeep Mohandas
Parallel Spirals

Perhaps for the first time, and hopefully not the last time, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is involving under-graduate and post-graduate students in the development of a major space mission. (I am planning to do a story on this for the Moon Miners Manifesto India Quarterly this October and will add more details, when possible.

India's Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Prithviraj Chavan, confirmed in India's Parliament ISRO engineers are developing and building Chandrayaan-II, together with Russia. India's second lunar mission will consist of an Indian orbiter and a Russian lander ferrying an Indian lunar rover, all equipped with scientific instruments.

The only constant in this chatter of news stream is that Chandrayaan-II will fly in the first quarter of 2013.

Read the article, HERE.

Moon Summit: Stellafane

Left to Right: Chuck Wood (green), Richard Evans (blue-checked shirt), Ron Doel (blue), Pete Schultz (tie), Tom Dobbins (white) and Bill Sheehan (black), Bert Willard - not pictured [Ken Spencer/LPOD].

Chuck Wood
Lunar Picture of the Day (LPOD)

With the famous Hartness Turret Telescope in the background, this scene is immediately identifiable to (Amateur Telescope Makers) as being near the Stellafane telescope gathering at Springfield, Vermont.

John Briggs and Dan Lorraine organized a one day Moon Morphology workshop the day before Stellafane officially started and drew a fantastic set of speakers (above) and a very inquisitive and knowledgeable audience.

The balance of interest and experience of the speakers fed a continuing discussion of lunar science and history. I gave an introduction about learning to read the history of the Moon from evidence visible in the eyepiece and in images, and then a second talk about how LTVT, LRO topo data and other recent technologies brought great opportunities to amateurs.

Read the article, HERE.

The earthbound face extinction - Hawking

The human race must look to outer space within the next century or it will become extinct, Professor Stephen Hawking has warned [Daily Telegraph].

Richard Alleyne
Science Correspondent
Daily Telegraph

The renowned astrophysicist said he fears mankind is in great danger and its future "must be in space" if it is to survive.

In an interview he said threats to the existence of the human race such as war, resource depletion and overpopulation meant it was at its greater risk ever.

Although a long advocate of colonising space in order to continue man's reign, this is his direst warning to date.

"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million," he told the website Big Think.

"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth but to spread out into space.

Read the article, HERE.

The impact that shattered Santa Fe

Leslie Mullen
Astrobiology Magazine

Roberta Talache picks a shatter cone out of a rubble pile from the Santa Fe impact structure [Leslie Mullen].

On a winding road near Santa Fe, New Mexico, exposed mountain walls form an intricate mosaic of brown, yellow, pink and gray rocks that stretch up toward the deep blue sky. To the untrained eye, these rocks are just a random jumble of different shapes and colors. To a geologist, however, such rock outcrops can tell a compelling story about the distant past.

One particular outcrop on this Santa Fe mountain pass whispers a thrilling tale of ancient cataclysmic violence.

Evidence suggests that a large meteorite smashed into this area long ago. The force of the impact shattered the ground and tossed broken and pulverized rocks far and wide.

Read the Astrobiology
Feature Article, HERE.

Griffin’s critique of NASA’s new direction

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin was less critical than in months past, speaking to a conference of the International Mars Society in Dayton, Ohio, Friday. The House committee plan for NASA FY2011 , he said, was better than the Senate's, and plans preliminarily approved in both chambers were superior to plans promoted by the White House [File photo: CSM, April 2009].

Jeff Foust
The Space Review

Former NASA administrators are not generally known for being outspoken about space policy after their tenures running the agency...Mike Griffin, however, is not content to remain quiet during this period of upheaval in space policy. The administrator who oversaw the formation and initial development of the Constellation architecture—most notably the Ares 1 rocket and Orion capsule—is clearly not happy to see the White House and even Congress willing to dismantle part or all it in favor of a new approach to human space exploration.

Griffin started his speech by first reviewing the administration’s proposed plan for NASA, and his take on it—which, not unexpectedly, wasn’t particularly positive. One area of concern he expressed was the plan by the White House to defer a decision on a heavy-lift vehicle (HLV) to no later than 2015. “I would ask you to note the timing,” Griffin said: a 2015 decision would come near the end of President Obama’s second and final term (assuming he wins reelection in 2012), and thus the funding decisions would be put in the lap of his successor. “By the time there was any budget year that would actually have to support the development of a real heavy-lift rocket, the president who is promising to do it will be gone,” he said.

Read the full report, HERE.

The Dust Management Project

Apollo 16 Beta Cloth Sample (69003). Surface contact sampling method. "It appears the uppermost surface is enriched in fine grains compared to the bulk soil," wrote Dr. Sarah Noble. The earliest direct lunar observations showed evidence of active micrometeor "gardening" and/or dynamic electromagnetic charging, levitation and ballistic migration [NASA/JSC/MSFC].

Mark Hyatt (NASA/Glenn) & Sharon Strake (NASA/GSFC)
AIAA, 40th International
Conference on Environmental Systems
Barcelona, 11-15 July 2010

A return to the Moon to extend human presence, pursue scientific activities, use the Moon to prepare for future human missions to Mars, and expand Earth’s economic sphere, will require investment in developing new technologies and capabilities to achieve affordable and sustainable human exploration. From the operational experience gained and lessons learned during the Apollo missions, conducting long-term operations in the lunar environment will be a particular challenge, given the difficulties presented by the unique physical properties and other characteristics of lunar regolith, including dust.

The Apollo missions and other lunar explorations have identified significant lunar dust-related problems that will challenge future mission success. Comprised of regolith particles ranging in size from tens of nanometers to microns, lunar dust is a manifestation of the complex interaction of the lunar surface with multiple mechanical, electrical, and gravitational effects. The environmental and anthropogenic factors effecting the perturbation, transport, and deposition of lunar dust must be studied in order to mitigate it’s potentially harmful effects on exploration systems and human explorers.

The Dust Management Project (DMP) is tasked with the evaluation of lunar dust effects, assessment of the resulting risks, and development of mitigation and management strategies and technologies related to Exploration Systems architectures.

Lotus Coating. Just one dust mitigation strategy examined by the Dust Management Project. An uncoated radiator sample and a Lotus coated radiator sample after contamination with JSC-1 Lunar simulant.

By pursuing an integrated approach of characterization, technology development, and application focus, the DMP has made significant progress in the first three years of implementation.

The project provides coordination and integration of dust related activities in (the NASA Exploration System Mission Directorate) ESMD, with a focus on the dust related challenges associated with long duration lunar missions.

The project has established a comprehensive body of data and experience and defined and filled key gaps in knowledge and capabilities. The project has developed specific technologies useful in the mitigation and control of dust and its effects on systems. New simulants are now becoming available to assess mitigation technologies and approaches as well as perform test and verification of components and systems.

Critical information and technology deliverables will be provided directly to Exploration flight (Lunar Precursor Robotic and Constellation) programs. Lunar dust should be viewed as integrated environmental phenomena, the study of which must employ a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach. The Dust Management Project will certainly include elements exploiting theoretical studies, earth-bound experiments, key measurements conducted by early robotic missions, and development of “best design” rules and specific engineering solutions for systems and their components affected by lunar dust.

Read the paper (pdf), HERE.