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NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy.
By Joel Achenbach, Published: June 4
The announcement Monday raised the obvious question of why the
intelligence agency would no longer want, or need, two Hubble-class
telescopes. A spokeswoman, Loretta DeSio, provided information
sparingly.
“They no longer possessed intelligence-collection uses,” she said of
the telescopes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ … story.html
Blog post on using the new telescopes for planetary defense, asteroid prospecting, and Mars orbiter satellites:
Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/0 … tions.html
Bob Clark
Last edited by RGClark (2012-06-10 15:38:20)
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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Blog post on using the new telescopes for planetary defense, asteroid prospecting, and Mars orbiter satellites:
Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/0 … tions.htmlBob Clark
Follow-up blog posts:
1.)Discussion of using the new Hubble-class scopes to search for nomad planets
and hypothesized large planets at the extreme fringe of the Solar System:
Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes, Page 2.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/0 … ns_12.html
and:
2.)Discussion of using distributed computing to allow the public to take part
in the asteroid, new planet, and brown dwarf search:
Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes, Page 3.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/0 … ns_13.html
Bob Clark
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
Offline
Follow-up blog posts:
1.)Discussion of using the new Hubble-class scopes to search for nomad planets
and hypothesized large planets at the extreme fringe of the Solar System:Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes, Page 2.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/0 … ns_12.htmland:
2.)Discussion of using distributed computing to allow the public to take part
in the asteroid, new planet, and brown dwarf search:Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes, Page 3.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/0 … ns_13.html
Planetary Resources, Inc. has asked for suggestions for getting
public involvement in their asteroid mining venture on their web site:
http://www.planetaryresources.com/2012/ … ckstarter/
The most common suggestions have been to use distributed computing or
crowd sourcing to find valuable asteroid targets.
Bob Clark
Last edited by RGClark (2012-06-27 06:25:07)
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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Excellent news:
NASA May Launch Donated Spy Satellite Telescope to Mars.
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior WriterDate: 15 May 2013 Time: 04:30 AM ET
The NRO's gift to NASA of unused spy satellites could enable a new project termed MOST, or Mars-Orbiting Space Telescope.
...
As it's currently envisioned, MOST would have three main science instruments — an imaging spectral mapper, a high-resolution imager and an ultraviolet spectrometer — allowing it to make a broad range of detailed observations.
The mapper would have a spatial resolution of 0.7 feet (0.21 m) per pixel at an orbiting altitude of 250 miles (400 kilometers), McEwen said. That's about 100 times better than the resolution achieved by a similar instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been circling the Red Planet since 2006.
...
MOST's imaging instrument would be able to photograph small areas with a resolution of 3.1 inches (8 centimeters) per pixel — about four times better than MRO's HiRise instrument (which McEwen leads as principal investigator).
...
Looking beyond Mars
MOST would also be built to look up and out, beyond the Red Planet and its two tiny moons.
The telescope's UV spectrometer is envisioned to be similar to that of the Hubble Space Telescope. But MOST likely wouldn't be able to study extremely distant objects as well as the famous HST, because installing a Hubble-like guidance and navigation system that allows a prolonged lock on such faint targets would raise the price tag significantly, McEwen said.
Instead, MOST may be optimized to view planets and moons in the outer solar system.
"We decided to emphasize bright targets, so mostly solar system targets — monitoring Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune atmospheres, monitoring volcanism on [Jupiter's moon] Io and cloud patterns on [Saturn's moon] Titan," McEwen said. "There's an interesting variety of things you could do in planetary science with it."
http://www.space.com/21064-nasa-donated … -mars.html
Here is the report by McEwen at the "Study on Applications of Large Space Optics" (SALSO) workshop:
The Mars Orbiting Space Telescope (MOST).
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/119Mcewen.pdf
The NRO scopes were reported to be lighter than Hubble, but I was surprised how much lighter. The study by McEwen uses a mass of only 2,000 kg for the telescope and instruments. This is compared to a mass of 11,000 kg for the Hubble. In that case it's surprising it's felt solar electric propulsion would be needed to put it in Mars orbit, not even to land. Quite likely a Delta IV Heavy could do it, certainly a Falcon Heavy could.
Other proposed uses for the NRO scopes discussed at the SALSO workshop available here:
SALSO Abstract Library.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/
Bob Clark
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
Offline