OPAG Presentations Posted But..

Ellen Stofan's presentation on a Discovery class Titan lake lander isn't among them. A friend has seen the presentation, so it was apparently made. Perhaps she didn't want it posted for competitive reasons. A Titan mission affordable in a Discovery budget would be a very strong competitor (assuming that the technical risk is acceptable.

You can go here to look at the presentations: http://gishbar.blogspot.com/2009/04/opag-spring-meeting-presentations.html

Or here to read Jason Perry's summary: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/march09/presentations/

Several Interesting articles

I managed to find an internet cafe in a South African national park. A quick survey of several websites found several interesting articles you may want to read.

Aviation Week has an article on the Decadal Survey. The article lists the focus groups that will prepare white papers on the current state of the science and the recommended missions to address key questions. "The survey team will consist of six panels - a steering committee headed by Squyres, and panels covering the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, the moon); Mars; the outer planets (including magnetospheres and rings), the satellites of the outer planet, and primitive bodies - asteroids, comets and the Kuiper Belt." http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/Decadal041609.xml

A quick overview of the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30316051/

NASA Watch has a summary of several articles on the budget pressures at NASA. The summary: Too many goals, not enough budget, continued problems meeting goals. http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/04/congressional_b.html

Space Politics has a similar summary plus some lively discussion. http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/04/16/cbo-costs-out-various-nasa-budget-options/

Space.com has an article on preliminary study for a possible lander for Ceres. If the Dawn mission finds strong evidence for water as is expected, then this asteroid could become a focus target for future missions. (Unfortunately, the magnetometer was dropped from the mission to save money, so we can't get direct confirmation of a buried ocean.) http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090416-am-ceres-lander.html

Good piece on Jupiter Europa Orbiter

Ted Stryk has an excellent guest blog entry on the Planetary Society's website on the Jupiter Europa Orbiter. http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001911/

Intermittent Postings for Next Month

Tomorrow I leave on a month long trip to Africa, half work, half vacation. Unfortunately this will mean that my access to the internet will be haphazard. I have several stories I'll write on plane trips and post as I can. Bruce Moomaw will keep an eye out for news and I'll post his summaries whenever I find an internet cafe.

In the meantime, you might want to keep an eye on this site (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/reports.html) to see if the presentations from the OPAG March meeting get posted.

Tidbits

Several small items today:

More Ice on Mars - The journal Science has an article about how studies of small fresh craters on the surface of Mars have revealed pure ice beneath a thin soil surface.  "Spanning northern latitudes of 43° to 56° (Phoenix landed at 68°N), five new craters were a few meters in diameter, a few decimeters deep, and floored with a bright, white material that looked like clean ice."  This discovery brings two thoughts to mind.  First, we still know so little about Mars.  A series of moderate price missions to increase our knowledge seems very sensible to me (as opposed to moving quickly to a $6-8B sample return).  Second, a Phoenix-like lander with a drill that could bring up samples from 1-2 m beneath the surface would be a great vehicle to explore this northern ice.  If the mission were powered with Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) fuel sources, it could potentially study the surface for a period of a year or two, giving it the luxury of time that Phoenix did not have.

Ice within a small crater in the northern plains of Mars

MetNet - In the comments, Ted Stryk writes, "MetNet's precursor mission did not get bumped by the Chinese orbiter - there is room for both. Finland had funding problems and couldn't get the penetration ready for 2009. The plan now is a launch of one or two penetrators as a stand-alone mission to be launched on a Volyna rocket in 20011. However, if Phobos-Grunt is indeed delayed to 2011, it may indeed carry the precursor mission."  That is good news.  You can check out http://metnet.fmi.fi/ for more information on this Finnish Mars penetrator.

Finnish MetNet Mars Penetrator

Europa Small Landers - Anonymous said [about Europa penetrators and hard landers]: "Very interesting, but I wonder why no mention of any type of lander/impactor/penetrator was made in the EJSM Joint Summary Report. The Titan mission had 3 in situ elements...I always wondered why the Jupiter team left any mention of in situ out of their reports."  

My understanding is that their were a number of ground rules for the Flagship studies.  For example, the ESA Titan in-situ craft had to be carried by the American orbiter.  Similarly, the Europa orbiter could not include any lander.

Now that the destination for the next Flagship has been selected, my understanding is that a lot of variations can be studied.  I remember reading somewhere that small landers provided by a non-American party can be considered.  These small landers should be cheap enough that an individual European nation, Japan, Russia, India could provide one.  

There are issues of technology that can survive the radiation field at Europa.  While the lander may only need to survive a few days of independent operation, it will also accumulate radiation exposure through the entire period leading up to its release.  The lander(s) could be carried in shielded tubes or boxes (essentially, vaults) but that weight might add up quickly.  

Mars 96 - Anonymous wrote, "Didn't Mars 96 have two penetrators onboard? IIRC, these were supposed to use the inflatable descent system developed by Lavochkin."  Good catch.  I had forgotten about the two small landers and penetrators carried by the ill-fated Mars 96 mission.  Wikipedia has a nice entry summarizing the mission.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_96

Mars 96 Martian penetrator from Wikipedia