While NASA's human space flight remains mired in controversy and uncertainty, robotic space exploration proceeds apace. In a number of current and future missions, NASA is endeavoring to explore the moon, Mars and Jupiter.
The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecrafts are slated for launch on Sept. 8. The two GRAIL spacecraft will orbit the moon, flying in tandem, and examine the moon's interior "from crust to core" and will measure the unique gravity field of Earth's nearest neighbor for the first time.
GRAIL will do the latter by precisely measuring the distance between the two spacecraft as variations of the moon's gravity, caused by masses of material buried beneath the moon's mare termed "mascons." The variation of the Moon's gravity has been so pronounced that it would be measurable to an astronaut on the lunar surface. GRAIL will provide the ability to navigate around and land on the moon with greater precision.
Mars Science Laboratory, NASA's next and largest Mars rover, is scheduled to launch on Nov. 25. It will land on Mars in August 2012. The rover, dubbed Curiosity, will land at the Gale Crater on Mars through the use of a parachute, retrorockets and a kind of sky crane that will lower the probe to the Martian surface via a tether. Curiosity is the size of a small SUV, about 10 feet long by 9 feet wide by 7 feet tall. It has a remote arm with a reach of 7 feet.
Curiosity has a suite of cameras and scientific instruments designed to search for "life, and conditions capable of preserving a record of life." It has a geology lab, a rock vaporizing laser, as well as spectrometers, radiation detectors, X-ray instruments and other sensors. It has autonomous obstacle avoidance systems that will obviate the need to constantly control the rover remotely from Earth. Finally, Curiosity will gather rock and soil samples for a Mars sample return mission at a later time.
Finally, Juno was launched for Jupiter on Friday, scheduled to arrive in orbit around the largest planet of our solar system in July 2016. Juno will orbit Jupiter for one year, studying its atmosphere, its magnetic and gravity fields, and the magnetosphere near the planet's poles. Thus it is hoped that a better understanding of the origin and development of Jupiter will have been achieved.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly.
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