The latest Planetary Post program from the Planetary Society:
Special guest host, Seth MacFarlane, is overshadowed by another special guest host, Dr. Bruce Betts, in this episode featuring the LightSail 2 Integration. Also featuring yet another special guest Dr. at the end! But Who is it?
This video animation demonstrates the LightSail 2 assembly and operation in space:
The Society’s PlanetVac project was mentioned here recently. Here is a video showing 3D printing of the PlanetVac body:
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On May 5, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch NASA’s InSight mission to Mars from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Insight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport)
will study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all rocky planets formed, including Earth and its moon. The lander’s instruments include a seismometer to detect marsquakes and a probe that will monitor the flow of heat in the planet’s subsurface.
Here is a short video about the mission, which will reach Mars in November:
And another video of a panel discussion about the mission. The panel participants included: :
• Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington
• Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL
• Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL
• Jaime Singer, InSight instrument deployment lead at JPL
Here is a NASA release about Insight:
NASA is Ready to Study the Heart of Mars
NASA is about to go on a journey to study the center of Mars.
The space agency held a news conference today at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, detailing the next mission to the Red Planet.
InSight — short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — is a stationary lander scheduled to launch as early as May 5. It will be the first mission ever dedicated to Mars’ deep interior, and the first NASA mission since the Apollo moon landings to place a seismometer on the soil of another planet.
For JPL’s Bruce Banerdt, it’s also a labor of love. Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator, has worked for more than 25 years to make the mission a reality.
“In some ways InSight is like a scientific time machine that will bring back information about the earliest stages of Mars’ formation four-and-a-half billion years ago,” Banerdt said. “It will help us learn how rocky bodies form, including Earth, its moon and even planets in other solar systems.”
Scientists hope that by detecting marsquakes and other phenomena inside the planet, InSight can better understand how Mars formed. InSight carries a suite of sensitive instruments to gather these data; unlike a rover mission, they require a spacecraft that sits still and carefully places its instruments on the Martian surface.
NASA isn’t the only agency excited about the mission. Several European partners contributed instruments, or instrument components, for the InSight mission. For example, France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) led a multinational team that built an ultra-sensitive seismometer for detecting marsquakes. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed a thermal probe that can bury itself up to 16 feet (5 meters) underground and measure heat flowing from inside the planet.
“InSight is a truly international space mission,” said Project Manager Tom Hoffman of JPL. “Our partners have delivered incredibly capable instruments that will make it possible to gather unique science after we land.”
Looking deep into Mars will let scientists understand how different its crust, mantle and core are from their counterparts on Earth. In a sense, Mars is the exoplanet next door: a nearby example of how gas, dust and heat combine and arrange themselves into a planet.
InSight is currently at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California undergoing final preparation before launch. On Wednesday, it completed what’s known as a spin test: the entire spacecraft is rotated at high speeds to confirm its center of gravity.
That’s critical for its entry, descent and landing on Mars in November, Hoffman said. In the next month, the spacecraft will be mounted to its rocket, connections between them will be checked, and the launch team will go through a final training.
“This next month will be exciting,” Banerdt said. “We’ve got some final work to do, but we’re almost ready to go to Mars.”
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the InSight Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, built and tested the spacecraft. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
For more information about InSight, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/
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The Astronomical Society of the Pacific sponsors the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, include the recent talk by Dr. Ashwin Vasavada (Project Scientist for the Curiosity Mission to Mars at JPL) on the exploration of Mars. The title of the talk was “When Mars Was Like Earth: Five Years of Exploration with the Curiosity Rover”:
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A selection of recent TMRO.tv SpacePod short reports:
** SpacePod: Artificial Intelligence Robot headed for ISS
Michael tells us about how Airbus, in cooperation with IBM, is developing CIMON (Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN), an AI-based assistant for astronauts for the German Space Administration, DLR.
** SciPod: Artsy Neanderthals
Jade explains how neanderthals may be more artistic than we first thought. Humans have long been credited with being the first real artists of the world, but this may not be the case anymore!
** SpacePod: Jupiter’s Jetstreams!
Athena explains how Jupiter’s interior might be totally different that previously thought. New data collected from the Juno mission shows epic and large cyclones happening in clusters on the poles of Jupiter, which may tell us something about Jupiter’s atmosphere!
** SpacePod: Orbital ATK reveals plan for on-orbit satellite servicing
SpaceMike explains how Orbital ATK are developing a new version of a satellite life extension vehicle intended to provide more flexibility to customers while also moving the company closer to more advanced in-space servicing.
** SciPod: A Martian’s paradise city!
Athena explains how life rebounded on the driest desert on earth and how it may be possible for the super dry Martian surface as well!
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Participate in NASA’s GLOBE Clouds program and have a great excuse to go outside on spring days and gaze at the clouds. Researchers working with the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) recently installed on the International Space Station need to calibrate what the sensors observe with what the clouds look like from the ground. You can help out as a citizen scientist by downloading the GLOBE Clouds app for your smartphone and whenever you are outside use it to capture pictures of the clouds currently in view. The program invites participants to enter up to 10 cloud observations per day from March 15, 2018 to April 15, 2018.
More details at
And here is the announcement from NASA:
Calling All Cloud Gazers: NASA Needs Your Help!
It’s almost spring, the time of year when the looming change in seasons could lead to some pretty fascinating cloud activity in the sky. NASA and the GLOBE Program are asking for your help by taking part in a citizen science cloud observation challenge.
From March 15 through April 15, citizen scientists of all ages can make up to 10 cloud observations per day using the GLOBE Observer app or one of the other data entry options (for trained GLOBE members). Challenge participants with the most observations will be congratulated by a NASA scientist in a video posted on the GLOBE Program’s website and on social media.
“The GLOBE Program is offering this challenge to show people how important it is to NASA to have citizen scientist observations; observations from the ground up,” said Marilé Colón Robles, lead for the GLOBE Clouds team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “We’re going from winter to spring, so the types of storms will change, which will also change the types of clouds.”
Researchers use, and value, this citizen science cloud data because it helps to validate data from Earth-observing instruments. Scientists at Langley work with a suite of six instruments known as the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES).
Even though CERES’ instruments use advanced technology, it is not always easy for researchers to positively identify all types of clouds in their images. For example, it can be difficult to differentiate thin, wispy cirrus clouds from snow since both are cold and bright; even more so when cirrus clouds are above a surface with patchy snow or snow cover. One solution to this problem is to look at satellite images from a particular area and compare them to data submitted by citizen scientists on the ground.
“Looking at what an observer recorded as clouds and looking at their surface observations really helps us better understand the images that were matched from the satellite,” said Colón Robles.
Citizen science observations are especially needed now because scientists are starting to verify data from a new CERES instrument. CERES FM6 launched to orbit Nov. 18, 2017 and began taking measurements Jan. 5.
You don’t have to be a cloud-gazing pro to participate. For those who want to be part of the challenge but don’t have a lot of experience identifying clouds, Colón Robles offers the following advice: “Just go outside.” The more clouds you observe, she said, the more comfortable you’ll be collecting data.