Posts by Yang Liwei Rocket

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

SMART-1 will set the way for a joint Euro / Indian exploration of the Moon ?

Agreement between ESA and the Indian Space Research Organisation for India’s first moon mission
Quote:
ESA Council give go-ahead to Europe's cooperation with India in a lunar exploration mission

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMRXIRMD6E_in … dex_1.html

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

more information

http://www.esa.int/images/180-170305-04 … n-01_L.jpg
Quote:
3D view of this unusual structure with traces of a glacier, located in Promethei Terra at the eastern rim of the Hellas Basin, at about latitude 38º South and longitude 104º East.

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/mar … ...ass.jpe
Hour glass crater on Mars

very good

Warning that last one is a very big file !! :up:

Yang Liwei Rocket · Not So Free Chat

Suckered in by Osama, into occupying Iraq, US is on the decline; a new president might have realized that another Vietnam is in the making, and gotten out quickly.
Ban on stem cell research and "gay" marriages reminds me of authoratian religious regimes that the US wants to change in the Middle East.
Religion USA versus Religion Islam ?

I don't know if things are so bad, but here's more news

Bush wants
Regime change at the World Bank
There has been a cool response to President Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be the next head of the World Bank, a key development agency.
Mr Wolfowitz, 61, currently US Deputy Defence Secretary, has a reputation as a "neo-conservative" hawk and was a key architect of the Iraq war.
News of his candidacy brought criticism from aid agencies and faint praise from several European government ministers.
Mr Bush described Mr Wolfowitz as a "compassionate, decent man".
French and German ministers were guarded in their reaction, while Sweden's foreign minister said she was sceptical about the nomination.

Aid agencies and development experts lined up to criticise the nomination.

A British-based campaign group, the World Development Movement, described the nomination as a "truly terrifying appointment".
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner and a former World Bank chief economist, said: "Choosing the right general in the war against poverty will not assure victory, but choosing the wrong one surely increases the chances of failure."
Greenpeace, ActionAid, and Oxfam were among other critics.

Bogus News from Bush reminds some of communist propaganda
administration officials say new Pentagon office should not be allowed to tell lies to promote American views overseas; office has come under criticism, the military is thinking of planting propaganda and misleading stories in the international media. A new department has been set up inside the Pentagon with the Orwellian title of the Office of Strategic Influence
propaganda efforts come under increased scrutiny
Media Matters noted a Sebastian Mallaby column in The Washington Post that relied heavily on a deeply flawed study to make the case for "tort reform."

The New York Times joined the fray on January 12, offering an article about efforts at the state level to limit civil litigation. Unfortunately, in reporter James Dao's 1,100-plus word article, only three sentences detailed the reasons to oppose such efforts. That imbalance was unfortunately representative of the whole article. While the article contained quotes from three advocates of lawsuit limits, it contained a quote from only one opponent -- and that was in the last sentence. On several occasions, the article repeated as fact claims from those who support limiting lawsuits -- but failed to provide specifics.

George W. Bush said the U.S. government's practice of sending packaged news stories to local television stations was fine and he had no plans to stop it.
His defense of the packages, which are designed to look like television news segments, came after they were deemed a form of covert propaganda by the Government Accountability Office watchdog agency.

Among the packages the GAO looked at was one produced by the Health and Human Services Department to promote the Medicare prescription drug law. The story included a paid actor who narrated the piece in a similar style to the way a television reporter would.

"The entire story package was developed with appropriated funds but appears to be an independent news story," the agency said.

It added that some stations were airing such pieces without a disclaimer saying they were produced by the government.

Bush said government agencies, such as the Agriculture Department and the Department of Defense, had been producing such videos for a long time and he said it was appropriate so long as they were "based upon a factual report."

He said it was up to the local news stations to disclose that the segments were produced by the government.

It was not the first time the Bush administration has been criticized for blurring the line between media and government. Earlier this year, the Education Department acknowledged that it paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.

CREW has now filed FOIAs with 22 agencies requesting copies of all contracts with public relation firms, including Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard. Both firms have contracted with the government resulting in similar controversies, and in violation of the Publicity and Propaganda clause. The Williams case is the fourth that has become public. Previously, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for having Ketchum create fake news footage in support of the new Medicare Bill. GAO is also investigating another contract between Ketchum and DOE and a contract between the Office of National Drug Control Policy and Fleischman-Hillard [sic].
"This type of covert propaganda, [sic] has no place in a healthy democracy," Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said
"It is particularly outrageous that the government continues to engage in this sort of illegal activity despite the fact that the GAO has said that it is illegal."

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

The recent Express image made picture on the day on the 15th of March for APOD

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0503 … 50315.html

Methane surprise on Mars

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.ph … ...thold=0

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

great image, I almost missed this one

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=16407]NASA Cassini Finds an Atmosphere on Saturn's Moon Enceladus
Who would have thought such a small moon would have an atmosphere?

An atmosphere, great discovery

Here is some more Saturn info and pics of Enceladus

As if drawn by an artist, this sublime scene speaks of the powerful beauty in the outer solar system: the domain of giant planets encircled by rings and orbited by small cratered moons of ice. In this view, Dione (1,118 kilometers, 695 miles across, at left) and Enceladus (505 kilometers, 314 miles across, at right) orbit the mighty ringed planet, while two bright storms swirl in the atmosphere below.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/dr … 2012_1.jpg

surface of Enceladus is as white as fresh snow. Still, an impressive variety of terrain is revealed in this contrast enhanced image. At a resolution of about 30 meters per pixel, the close-up view spans over 20 kilometers - recorded during the touring Cassini spacecraft's March flyby of the icy Saturnian moon.
Astronomy Picture of the Day

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0503 … 50317.html

Extending through the center of this image, a system of 3-kilometer (2-mile) wide rifts and 20-kilometer (12-mile) wide lanes of grooved terrain separate two distinct geological provinces on Enceladus.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/dr … 2066_1.jpg

Cratered terrain dominates most of the scene. The relatively dense accumulation of impact craters implies that this terrain is among the oldest on the moon’s surface. Near the bottom of the picture is a 20-kilometer (12-mile) wide crater with a prominent dome-shaped structure in its center.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/dr … 2070_1.jpg

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

Some info on the Saturn satellites

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huy … ZTD_0.html

Epimetheus (116 kilometers, 72 miles across) was captured by Cassini in this view.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/dr … ...239fa4c

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

will the Euros support the USA's Europa mission in Space ?
next big cooperative European-US space mission will be to Europa, the ice-crusted moon of Jupiter ?

See the BBC news

A joint working team is being set up to consider what sort of spacecraft would be needed and what each side could do.

Officials in Washington and Paris are keen to follow up the spectacular success of Cassini-Huygens at Saturn.

"It was a beautiful marriage and we really are looking to do a repeat," said Professor David Southwood, from the European Space Agency (Esa).

Another joint co-operative mission like Ulysses, the Hubble and Cassini-Huygens ?

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

Let's send a probe and rover to Titan's southern polar region!

great idea, I wonder what this mission would be like ?

some info at Saturntoday
http://www.saturntoday.com/news/viewsr. … ?pid=15748

image was taken on March 09, 2005 and received on Earth March 09, 2005. The camera was pointing toward ENCELADUS at approximately 28,987 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and GRN filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated. A validated/calibrated image will be archived with the NASA Planetary Data System in 2005.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ...055.jpg

N00030192.jpg was taken on March 09, 2005 and received on Earth March 10, 2005. The camera was pointing toward TETHYS at approximately 196,659 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and IR3 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ...192.jpg
camera was pointing toward TETHYS at approximately 206,481 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the RED and CL2 filters.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ...228.jpg

camera was pointing toward ENCELADUS at approximately 14,462 kilometers away

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ...091.jpg

The irregularly shaped moon Janus (181 kilometers, 113 miles across) and the small ring moon Atlas (32 kilometers, 20 miles across) had just emerged from the darkness of Saturn's shadow when Cassini caught this view of the two moons.
The bright A ring is largely overexposed in this view, but several other ring details are nicely visible. The image shows two bright regions within the B ring (at right), ringlets of material within the dark, narrow Encke Gap and kinks in the F ring.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/dr … 1692_1.jpg

Yang Liwei Rocket · Human missions

Reasons for why we must make better use of the ISS,
closed loop recycling of water ,waste and air as well as
studing the effects of no gravity on the human body for long duration.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=200 … 207-7332r] Going to Mars in Earth orbit
Many will agree to disagree on this one statement but read further as to why we must use the station to its fullest.
The debate over the station's relevance has hovered over its history from the very beginning, with many calling it a white elephant, sucking up funding that could be better used elsewhere.
See into the future from the vantage point of one that help shape the US presence in space:
As Wernher von Braun wrote in 1954, "No expedition (to the moon or planets) can be made until after at least a temporary manned space station has been put together in an orbit around the Earth, for the space station is, in a manner of speaking, the springboard for longer trips."

yes, and space daily has also posted news on this one ( if you can avoid Jeff Bell's rants )

to quote them

Many Americans have questioned repeatedly the usefulness of the International Space Station, but it stands as NASA's only gateway at the moment to the rest of the solar system. Without the station - or something comparable - it will be difficult if not impossible for U.S. engineers and scientists to do the research necessary to make interplanetary travel possible....
....What critics may not realize, however, is the human exploration of the solar system - as proposed by President Bush in a speech Jan. 14, 2004, on his ambitious new space initiative - cannot embark without the extensive long-term engineering and medical research that can only be conducted in low-Earth orbit. The only vehicle available for such activity at the moment is the space station.
As Wernher von Braun wrote in 1954, "No expedition (to the moon or planets) can be made until after at least a temporary manned space station has been put together in an orbit around the Earth, for the space station is, in a manner of speaking, the springboard for longer trips."
Or, to put it another way, you cannot learn the consequences of spending several years in space until you have spent several years in space. Before the first pioneers can board a spaceborne fleet heading out across the vast black ocean between the planets, their precursors must spend decades in low-Earth orbit, with the blue-white glittering home planet never more than a few hundred miles away.

they have just repeated much of the info in SpaceNut's link

Yang Liwei Rocket · Human missions

there was bad news before on budgets

now there is questions on NASA's management, the rising US debts and the cutbacks on missions like Voyager

now there is some pressure on Mars

from space.com

NASA Mars Program Under Scrutiny
By Leonard David

NASA’s Mars program could undergo major alternation, driven by budgetary and technical issues, as well as science goals.

“We’ve been getting inputs, advice, actions items…from the road mapping teams,” said Doug McCuistion, Mars Exploration Program Director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Nothing is finalized at this point. There have been no final decisions made or, frankly, any interim decisions made as yet.”

A scenario now under active discussion is slipping the mobile Mars Science Laboratory from 2009 to 2011 – a move that could see the building of two rovers to double-up the science that can be gleaned from the red planet, as well as reduce program risk.

NASA is engaged in an extensive campaign of “roadmaps” – a way to flesh out the details of a multi-year Mars effort that could lead to a humans-to-Mars effort by 2030, as listed on some NASA planning charts.

McCuistion said the potential to slip the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) to 2011 is on the table, but it is not confirmed.

“The MSL discussions are swirling around a couple of things,” McCuistion said. “One of them is robustness of the science and the technology.”

Bigger than either of the now on-duty Mars Exploration Rovers – Spirit and Opportunity – the MSL is a “huge leap forward” from those smaller machines, McCuistion noted, being larger in mass and able to carry 10 times the payload mass.

Risky business: science eggs in one basket

Getting a much larger MSL safely down onto Mars means use of new technology, not air bags as utilized in the last three successful NASA Mars lander missions. “So there’s technology risk trying to get to the surface of another planet,” McCuistion added.

Another issue flagged by Mars road mapping officials regarding MSL is science risk. Plopping down in an uninteresting area of martian real estate is one concern. So too is the potential for a failure. Putting all the science eggs in one basket – in one large and costly lander – is risky business.

Yang Liwei Rocket · Human missions

Fred Gregory was the other guy, I think he had flown shuttle missions like Challenger & Atlantis, and had his own ideas on Shuttle/Hubble that might not have went well with the politics at NASA
Perhaps this guy Griffin might take up this problem about budget cuts on NASA projects ?

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

Stunning.
Will fly past Mars in February 2007, and two more Earth flybys: November 2007 and November 2009.
--Cindy

there's some info here also

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMUHOD3M5E_Ex … ing_0.html
views include view includes Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, East coast USA , Norfolk VA and Appalachian Mountains

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMV5LD3M5E_Ex … ing_0.html
series of black and white images - view of Earth.

images were recorded by Navigation Camera 1 between 12:47 and 13:08 UTC, 5 March, with an integration time of between 0.01 and 0.05 seconds.

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

some recent bad news on this one, NASA officials told seven mission managers (Voyager, Ulysses, Polar, Wind, Geotail, FAST (Fast Auroral SnapshoT) and TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer)) that there is now no money to keep their projects operating
lucky for NASA that Ulysses is a joint mission with Europeans so perhaps those other ESA people might be able to bail NASA out with their Euros, but if NASA continues to do bad management and run-up debts I fear it will cause its own failures

:down:

perhaps the USA will move away from doing robotic spacecraft and unmanned landers, they will then outsource all these missions to other nations and keep their manned missions at home with astronauts and shuttle ?? How else could one explain this ?
but outsourcing unmanned craft and robotic-designs will be giving the science away to other nations and it could cost the US in technology, space science and cost the scientific spin-offs and tech for the economy

Europeans don't seem to have strong leadership and big goals, but when they do Space missions they are very smart with their smaller budgets and clever with science benefits from missions
I doubt Europe will allow Ulysses to die, like NASA is trying to do to the mission

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

Indeed, I've been reading about some of these big cutbacks

LtlPhyscis posted a bit of info
Quote
"The President's speech a year ago that set us on this vaguely defined drive to go to the Moon again, and to Mars after that, basically upset the entire funding structure within NASA. The Exploration Directorate was founded as the result of a massive internal reorganization. Suddenly if you wanted your research to survive, you had to compete for funding with the rest of NASA and the academic community - ALL of it; not just your specialty - and make it relevant to manned space flight. Most of us in the computer research field had been aiming more towards the robotic planetary missions prior to that.
Everyone in my division spent most of last year in a panic writing proposals for funding. The work we already had funding for was neglected while we tried to figure out what the new management wanted to hear.
At the same time, existing programs that were funding ongoing research got cut to shreds. Their funds essentially got shoveled into the Return To Flight drive (get shuttle and station back on their feet).
The upshot is we're sacrificing NASA's long-term future work to fund the completion of the ISS. Note that the article mentions 4 NASA research centers as having to cut staff - Ames (ARC), Dryden (DFRC), Glenn (GRC) and Langley (LARC). These are the places where basic research and advanced development are done. "

and then there was the sad new of other possible cuts, the need to quickly push shuttle to fly back and forth over 20 times to do cargo runs for the ISS and then the chop down on JIMO funding

Space daily has some news on the recent happenings ( watch out for Jeff Bell )
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/voyager1 … 1-05a.html

How long would it take to get other spacecraft to the place where the Voyagers are now ?
They give the axe to Voyager but its costs over 40 times as much to fly a single shuttle mission, and shuttle doesn't have a good record.

the space dialy spacetravel news item says

The decision - which NASA officials say is not yet final - has angered space scientists, who are calling calling the moves penny-wise and pound-foolish, and that it is being done without a usual formal science review.
Lennard Fisk, a University of Michigan space scientist who chairs the National Academy of Sciences Space Studies Board and is a former head of NASA space science, as saying the cuts were "an extremely foolish thing to do".

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … 19]Closest flyby of Enceladus
Will happen tomorrow, March 9. At closest approach will be only 310 miles above the surface. Includes map.
--Cindy

some info on Encleadus, during Cassini's closest-ever approach to Enceladus on 9th of March 2005.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/ir … 2049_1.jpg

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/ir … 2044_1.jpg

Titan images of Cassini's fly by of were the Cassini-Hujygens has already landed

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/ir … 1928_0.jpg

close-up views illustrate that a variety of processes have shaped the surface of Titan, just as diverse geologic processes are responsible for what we see on Earth's surface.
Image (a) shows a prominent bright-dark boundary near the western edge of the Xanadu region which exhibits a sharp, angular edge between the materials. Three bright, discontinuous circles can be seen (two near the top of the image and another near the lower left). These may be large impact craters; the upper two are approximately 30 kilometers (30 miles) in diameter and the lower one is approximately 50 kilometers (20 miles) in diameter. Titan's thick atmosphere will screen out small projectiles, but if the surface were as old as Titan itself, it should have many more craters of these sizes. Therefore, Cassini scientists think that, like Earth's surface, Titan's surface has been modified more recently by other geologic processes.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/ir … 1925_0.jpg

Yang Liwei Rocket · Human missions

I am going to throw flags on the field... There is no way Japan could afford this, they have a shrinking population, an economy that pretty much hasnt grown in 15 years, and government deficits and debts larger than the USA despite being 2/5ths our size....

I had a quick scan around on this one, in places like mainichi, thespacesite, thejapantimes, japantoday, badastronomy, asahi, space.com and universetoday. It seems many posters look at this Japan move with skepticism, its not that the Japanese can't do it they have the tech, but they are crippled by banking corruption and bad politics.

Many people say stuff like ' Japanese are going to have to buckle down and build a bigger rocket if they are serious' and to quote others ' Japan faces cash cuts ....you thought the US Economy and NASA had trouble , Japanese Space faces many worse things.' In Japan Space there have 'been six major failures in the past 6-7 years, last year it launch of spy satellites turned into an expensive H-2 fireball, million of dollars down the drain'. Years earlier a bad motor sent the communication satellite to be burnt in the radiation belts, Nozomi the Mars craft went Kaput, in 98 the H 2 second-stage went sayonara, then during a second attempt the first-stage H2 engine failed more billions of yen blown up, later a faulty turbine caused their main rocket to explode and Japan was exploring the bottom of the Pacific with its rockets instead of going to Space. Recently they have failed to launch spy satellites over N Korea, and in Feb of this year the country went back into another recession. .

Another reason they might have stuff with a space management that has seen six major failures is that Japan might have been trying to send more military applications into space, going to an outsider like the USA and Europe could be a problem for them.

It would be nice to see Japan get its space industry back on track, but with economic stagnation for the past 15 yrs this may not happen

Another error often posted by news sources is to call Japan the 2nd largest economy, it had that place in the early 90s but has since fallen

Today the Chinese and EU and USA Economy have gone far beyond Japan

Japanese are ranked 4th, they have rising homless problems and might soon be passed by Russia or India if the Japan Banking debts continue to rise, this will have a negative effect on their space industry. It would be good if there was maybe a Economic, Space and trade race in Asia with Chinese, S.Koreans, Indians and Japanese. But so far it seems the Japanese have already lost this one.

Much of the Japan plans for the Moon is just talk
and talk is cheap

Yang Liwei Rocket · Not So Free Chat

crazy happenings, sometimes I can't understand this American mentality

be careful what you wish for with this restructure and downsizing, what next

Will US outsource Congress and Whitehouse jobs to India and China ???
:down: they done bad before , just like this move, when they kicked out some of the older, experienced NASA workers who worked on fantastic past projects on Space
thumbs down to the USA for this NASA move
So there is much news from this idea on the dailypress, spaceref, nbc4i.com and others, a huge number of cut backs such as TRMM, Hubble and JIMO and then thousands of people 7,900 + getting sent home, the people at spaceref, spacedaily and spaceflightnow have talked on this before. They looked at the buyouts and internal transfers and examined the new movements of NASA and how they have been applied and then future results estimated. We will see a workforce lay-off of about 7,900 + job cuts, udget cuts and the United States losing aeronautics business to Europe, the European consortium is the preferred bidder for the deal to build aircraft to refuel military jets in mid-air and now the latest Airbus plane has left the US aircraft industry behind. The Bush proposed 2006 budget is said to be made through a combination of layoffs, buyouts, retirements one of the top USA Project managers Paul Senick is syaing that layoffs at the 10 federal space labs, including NASA Glenn, are premature. "The people on the chopping block live in our community," Patton said. "We do not want them on the unemployment line." This is a silly move by the USA, because the Chinese, Europe and India will be laughing at you and how you have shot yourself in the leg before any race or project has begun.

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

*Images of the Rosetta flyby are rolling in and spaceweather.com is hosting them.

Good on those people from Italy for doing such good images

Here's 2 from the craft looking back at us
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/ros … ...7_H.jpg
http://www.esa.int/images/rosetta_CAM1_ … 47_2_L.jpg

I almost couldn't identify our own Planet because there is so much cloud swirling around, but you can just see the shapes of Antarctica and South America sticking out through the clouds on Earth

Info on the comet
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/ESA … 08D_0.html
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a large dirty snowball that orbits the Sun once every 6.6 years. Discovered by K. Churyumov, University of Kiev, Ukraine
& S. Gerasimenko, Institute of Astrophysics, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

During this time, it commutes between the orbits of Jupiter and the Earth. However, little is known about it, despite its regular visits to the inner Solar System.

Yang Liwei Rocket · Human missions

A human mission to the Moon, proposed for 2024, *** 20 years just to get to the moon! What's the rush??? *** would demonstrate key life-support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation to long-distance space flight.
Even in Europe the minds are corrupted.
Life support and habitation technologies : the moon is radiations, vacuum, and little gravity. The same as the ISS. Why not using the ISS for that then ? implicitement everybody recogneise that ISS is useless. What a waste.
crew performance : what does it mean more precisely ?
Long space flight : sure, the moon is 3 days from earth.
If they want to go to Mars, they should use every possible Euros to focuse on Mars. The moon will suck their money and just postpone the 'Grand Oeuvre' that has been designed to find the 'philosophical stone' on Mars.

some more information
First Habitat Design Workshop: Call for applicants
http://www.esa.int/images/exomars-2_L.j … rs-2_L.jpg

ESA’s Directorate of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration, responsible for the Aurora Exploration Programme, and the Science Directorate invite graduates and post-graduates to participate in this exciting nine-day programme of activities, organised by the Moon-Mars Working Group in cooperation with ESA.
The exploration programmes of many nations, including ESA’s Aurora Exploration Programme and the US Vision for Exploration on the robotic and human exploration and settlement of the Moon, Mars and beyond, are showing the way forward. Current plans for Lunar/Martian base development and expanded human exploration of space are expected to come to fruition within the next 20 to 40 years. This means that those who will be involved in this next stage of space exploration are just beginning their careers in the space sector or still studying at school or university.
The Moon-Mars Working Group (MMW) aims to bring together experts in the field of Moon-Mars exploration with the next generation of programme managers, engineers, physicists, biologists, architects etc., who will be working on the human and robotic exploration of the solar system. MMW also acts as a forum and showcase for their visions and concerns. Habitat Design Workshop 2005 is one of the first steps towards this goal.

workshop will take place from 2-9 April at ESTEC’s Erasmus User Centre and will consist of lectures by experts in the many disciplines involved in the design and development of the human aspect of space missions. The organisation team, ranging from experts in space science to industrial design to architecture, will guide participants through a programme of preparatory work, lectures, discussion sessions and design exercises with the goal of creating design concepts for habitats to be included in human missions to the Moon, Mars and Phobos.

The challenge

The workshop will challenge participants to develop concepts and designs for hybrid and inflatable habitats for the exploration, use and settlement of the solar system. Those selected to take part in the workshop will work in teams, together with other graduates and post-graduates, to learn about habitat design, systems engineering and the space environment for one of the three missions.

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

There's more info on the web
http://www.esa.int/images/euronews_smar … 1_03_L.jpg
Quote:
Bernard Foing

Water-ice may be present at the bottom of some lunar craters

http://www.euronews.net/create_html.php … &langue=en
Video :
Destination Moon - European Space Agency's Smart One satellite spiralling into position above the moon's south pole. Mapping the area and preparing for a possible lunar colonisation
they also have info on Soyuz in Kourou and NASA's Cassini-Huygens on that Euronews site

"In the region of the south pole, there are many craters," says Bernard Foing displaying a large model of the lunar surface. "Some craters are very special in that the Sun's rays never reach their bottom. Temperatures there can be the coldest in the solar system, at minus 200 C, so cold as to permanently trap any water-ice. But along the crater perimeters, there are peaks that are constantly illuminated by the Sun."

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

Keep going Messenger, We are all waiting for our first glimpse of the planet Mercury.
Actually, there are lots of first glimpses already available, courtesy of Mariner 10 in the 1970's. Have fun and take a look!
http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/M10/i … chive.html

nice info on that site :;):

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

The Saturn data has been fantastic, great pictures

3 of Saturn's ring moons in a single view. From left to right, the moons seen in this view are Pandora (84 kilometers, 52 miles across), Janus (181 kilometers, 113 miles across) and Prometheus (102 kilometers, 63 miles across).

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media/dr … 1707_1.jpg

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

wonderful pictures of the polar details very unique images

deployment of Express radar in the future should be very good

Yang Liwei Rocket · Unmanned probes

USAToday had a quick mention of the craft the other day

'the first orbiter of our closest planetary neighbor in more than a decade.'

http://sci.esa.int/science-e-media/img/ … ...een.JPG
installation of the High Gain Antenna 1 during final prepartions

Venus Express will study the Venusian atmosphere and clouds in unprecedented detail and accuracy.

Instruments and Measurements

VMC
objective Ultraviolet and visible imaging
heritage
Mars Express (HRSC/SRC) and Rosetta (OSIRIS)
The VMC camera consists of one unit that houses the optics, CCD and readout electronics (CRE), digital processing unit (DPU), and power converter (POC). The camera has four separate objective lens systems....
MAG
Objective
Magnetic field measurements
Heritage
Rosetta Lander (ROMAP)
MAG, the magnetometer instrument, is designed to make measurements of magnetic field strength and direction.

VeRa
objective Radio sounding of atmosphere
heritage Rosetta (RSI)
The Venus Radio Science experiment (VeRa) will perform the following experiments:
Radio sounding of the neutral Venus atmosphere (occultation experiment) to derive vertical density, pressure and temperature profiles as a function of height, with a height resolution better than 100 metres
Radio sounding of the ionosphere of Venus (occultation experiment) to derive vertical ionospheric electron density profiles and to derive a description of the global behaviour of the ionosphere through its diurnal and seasonal variations and its dependence on solar wind conditions
Determination of the dielectric and scattering properties of the surface of Venus in specific target areas using a bistatic radar experiment
Radio sounding of the solar corona during the inferior and superior conjunctions of Venus
The radio links of the spacecraft communications system will be used for these investigations. A simultaneous and coherent dual-frequency downlink at X-band and S-band via the High Gain Antenna is required to separate the effects of the classical Doppler shift due to the motion of the spacecraft relative to the Earth and the effects caused by the propagation of the signals through the various dispersive media in the signal path.

PFS
objective . Atmospheric vertical sounding by infrared Fourier spectroscopy
heritage Mars Express (PFS)
The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) is an infrared spectrometer optimised for atmospheric studies and covering the wavelength range 0.9 to 45 microns in two channels with a boundary at 5 microns. The spectral resolution of the instrument is better than 2 cm-1 . The instrument field of view FOV is about 1.6 degrees FWHM for the Short Wavelength (SW) channel and 2.8 degrees for the Long Wavelength (LW) channel. These fields of view correspond to a spatial resolution of seven kilometres for the SW channel and 13 kilometres for the LW channel when Venus is observed from a height of 250 kilometres (nominal height of the pericentre).
PFS is equipped with a pointing device, which enables it to receive incoming radiation from the surface of Venus or to perform calibration measurements by pointing to a reference black body of known temperature or to deep space.

ASPERA-4 .
objective
Neutral and ionised plasma analysis
Heritage
Mars Express (ASPERA-3)
VIRTIS
Objective
Spectrographic mapping of atmosphere and surface
Heritage
Rosetta (VIRTIS)
VIRTIS is an imaging spectrometer that combines three observing channels in one instrument. Two of the channels are devoted to spectral mapping (mapper optical subsystem), while the third channel is devoted to spectroscopy (high resolution optical subsystem)....

SPICAV
objective
Atmospheric spectrometry by star or Sun occultation
heritage Mars Express (SPICAM)

http://pfsweb.ifsi.rm.cnr.it/Venus.html … Venus.html
http://www.linmpi.mpg.de/english/projek … press/vmc/
http://www.rm.iasf.cnr.it/ias-home/Venu … xpress.htm
http://www.iwf.oeaw.ac.at/english/resea … ..._e.html

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#601 Re: Unmanned probes » SMART-1 - ESA lunar orbiter » 2005-03-21 03:26:14

#602 Re: Unmanned probes » Mars Express (MEX) - ESA orbiter » 2005-03-21 03:22:57

#603 Re: Not So Free Chat » Bush next four years agenda - Can he achieve his goals » 2005-03-17 04:44:09

#604 Re: Unmanned probes » Mars Express (MEX) - ESA orbiter » 2005-03-17 04:06:58

#605 Re: Unmanned probes » Martian Sunset - (...old Pathfinder-Sojourner image) » 2005-03-17 04:02:32

#606 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens III - Continued from previous » 2005-03-17 03:59:55

#607 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens III - Continued from previous » 2005-03-16 01:15:04

#608 Re: Unmanned probes » Europa » 2005-03-15 02:32:23

#609 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens III - Continued from previous » 2005-03-11 22:10:57

#610 Re: Human missions » ISS Woes & To-Mars » 2005-03-11 21:56:42

#611 Re: Human missions » The Case Against Mars - Why Mars is not a good target! » 2005-03-11 21:51:12

#612 Re: Human missions » Griffin nominated for NASA post - SpaceRef link to testimony » 2005-03-11 17:23:55

#613 Re: Unmanned probes » Rosetta - ESA comet orbiter and lander » 2005-03-10 18:18:20

#614 Re: Unmanned probes » Ulysses - ESA/NASA solar polar orbiter via Jupiter » 2005-03-10 11:50:52

#615 Re: Unmanned probes » Voyager - Interstellar mission » 2005-03-10 11:21:59

#616 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens III - Continued from previous » 2005-03-09 18:50:10

#617 Re: Human missions » Japan Eyes Future Manned Moon Base, Space Shuttle » 2005-03-08 21:03:37

#618 Re: Not So Free Chat » NASA shrinks - eight grand to go » 2005-03-08 16:43:27

#619 Re: Unmanned probes » Rosetta - ESA comet orbiter and lander » 2005-03-08 09:30:19

#620 Re: Human missions » Europe goes to the moon and Mars! - Human space flight.... » 2005-03-01 13:37:02

#621 Re: Unmanned probes » SMART-1 - ESA lunar orbiter » 2005-03-01 08:50:48

#622 Re: Unmanned probes » MESSENGER - Mercury Orbiter » 2005-03-01 08:49:13

#623 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens III - Continued from previous » 2005-03-01 08:48:08

#624 Re: Unmanned probes » Mars Express (MEX) - ESA orbiter » 2005-03-01 08:43:19

#625 Re: Unmanned probes » Venus Express - ESA orbiter » 2005-02-27 03:05:41

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