Dec 4 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-418 NASA OPPORTUNITY ROVER FINISHES WALKABOUT ON MARS CRATER RIM

SAN FRANCISCO -- The latest work assignment for NASA's long-lived Mars rover Opportunity is a further examination of an area where the robot just completed a walkabout. "If you are a geologist studying a site like this, one of the first things you do is walk the outcrop, and that's what we've done with Opportunity," said Steve Squyres, the mission's principal investigator at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Coming up on its ninth anniversary, Opportunity still is a capable robotic explorer. It has been investigating a crater-rim site where observations from orbiting Mars spacecraft detected traces of clay minerals, which form under wet, non-acidic conditions that can be favorable for life. The rover's current activities were presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The rover team chose this site as a driving destination years earlier. The site is named Matijevic Hill in honor of the late Jacob Matijevic, who led the engineering team for the twin Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity for several years. Opportunity drove about 1,160 feet (354 meters) in a counterclockwise circuit around Matijevic Hill in October and November, bringing the total miles driven on the mission to 22 miles (35.4 kilometers). Researchers used the rover to survey the extent of Matijevic Hill outcrops and identify the best places to investigate further. "We've got a list of questions posed by the observations so far," Squyres said. "We did this walkabout to determine the most efficient use of time to answer the questions. Now we have a good idea what we're dealing with, and we're ready to start the detailed work." The hill is on the western rim of Endeavour Crater, a bowl 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. An impact from a celestial object dug this crater more than 3 billion years ago, pushing rocks onto the rim from a greater depth than Opportunity reached during its first several years on Mars. Since the impact, those rocks may have been altered by environmental conditions. Sorting out the relative ages of local outcrops is a key to understanding the area's environmental history. "Almost nine years into a mission planned to last for three months, Opportunity is fit and ready for driving, robotic-arm operations and communication with Earth," said the mission's deputy project scientist, Diana Blaney, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. Two outcrops of high interest on Matijevic Hill are "Whitewater Lake" and "Kirkwood." Whitewater Lake is light-toned material that science team members believe may contain clay. Kirkwood contains small spheres with composition, structure and distribution that differ from other iron-rich spherules, nicknamed blueberries, that Opportunity found at its landing site and throughout the Meridiani Planum area it has explored. Squyres calls the Kirkwood spheres "newberries." "We don't know yet whether Whitewood Lake and Kirkland are from before or after the crater formed," he said. "One of the most important things to work out is the order and position of the rock layers to tell us the relative ages. We also need more work on the composition of Whitewater and debris shed by Whitewater to understand the clay signature seen from orbit, and on the composition of the newberries to understand how they formed." NASA launched Spirit and Opportunity in 2003. Both completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004 with Spirit ceasing operations in 2010. The mission's goal is to learn about the history of wet environments on ancient Mars. JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

RELEASE: 12-414 2012 AWARDS PRESENTED FOR ACHIEVEMENTS IN EARTH REMOTE SENSING

WASHINGTON -- NASA and the Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) presented the 2012 William T. Pecora awards for achievement in earth remote sensing to Gilberto Camara of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research and Leung Tsang of the University of Washington in Seattle. Camara was recognized for his contributions to remote-sensing leadership as a scientist, program director, manager and agency head. Tsang is one of the world's leading experts on the theory of microwave remote sensing for geophysical environments. Camara received his award at a meeting of the Group on Earth Observations in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, on Nov. 22. Tsang received his award Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. "Along with the immensely successful Landsat program, the Pecora awards are a testament to the very high value both the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA place in Earth remote sensing," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "As our planet's water, soil, and ecosystems continue to be stressed by a growing population and changing climate, it is essential we continue into a fifth decade of Earth observation time series and recognize the excellence of remote-sensing experts." NASA and the Department of the Interior present individual and group Pecora Awards to honor outstanding contributions in the field of remote sensing and its application to understanding Earth. The award was established in 1974 to honor the memory of William T. Pecora, former USGS director and undersecretary of the Department of the Interior. Pecora was influential in the establishment of the Landsat satellite program, which created a continuous, 40-year record of Earth's land areas. "I am sure Dr. Pecora would be pleased if he were here with us today and could see how his vision for innovative remote-sensing technology has been realized in the work of the individuals we are recognizing this year," said astronaut John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. As the former director general of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, Camara championed broad, open data-sharing policies and practices within the institute that have significantly influenced other domestic and international organizations to emulate this approach. Camara has advanced the linkages between and among remote-sensing technologies and Geographic Information System technologies and applications. Camara also supported programs within the institute to link moderate-resolution imagery from the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite, Landsat, and other Earth observation missions with the policy needs of the Brazilian government, most notably polices on forestation and deforestation in the Amazon. Tsang's contributions to microwave remote sensing have laid the groundwork for improved data analysis and designs of new measurements and satellite observational systems. His work has resulted in numerous societal benefits, including monitoring climate change and improving management of water and agricultural resources. His original and pioneering discoveries have resulted in the publication of more than 260 journal articles and four books. Tsang also made major advances in rough surface scattering theory and applications to microwave remote sensing of soil and vegetated surfaces. He developed an improved modeling framework for rough surface and vegetation scattering with fast computational methods that can be directly applied to both active and passive microwave remote sensing of soil moisture.

RELEASE: 12-419 CLIMATE MODELS PROJECT INCREASE IN U.S. WILDFIRE RISK

WASHINGTON -- Scientists using NASA satellite data and climate models have projected drier conditions likely will cause increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades. Other findings about U.S. wildfires, including their amount of carbon emissions and how the length and strength of fire seasons are expected to change under future climate conditions, were also presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Doug Morton of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., presented the new analysis of future U.S. fire activity. The analysis was based on current fire trends and predicted greenhouse gas emissions. "Climate models project an increase in fire risk across the U.S. by 2050, based on a trend toward drier conditions that favor fire activity and an increase in the frequency of extreme events," Morton said. The analysis by Morton and colleagues used climate projections, prepared for the Fifth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to examine how dryness, and therefore fire activity, is expected to change. The researchers calculated results for low and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. In both cases, results suggest more fire seasons that are longer and stronger across all regions of the U.S. in the next 30-50 years. Specifically, high fire years like 2012 would likely occur two to four times per decade by mid-century, instead of once per decade under current climate conditions. Through August of this year, the U.S. burned area topped 2.5 million hectares (6.17 million acres), according to a fire emissions database that incorporates burned area estimates produced from observations by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instruments on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. That is short of the record 3.2 million hectares (7.90 million acres) burned in 2011, but exceeds the area burned during 12 of the 15 years since record keeping began in 1997. This and other satellite records, along with more refined climate and emissions models, are allowing scientists to tease out new information about fire trends. "Fire is an inherently global phenomenon, and the only practical way to track large-scale patterns and changes in fire activity is with satellites," says Louis Giglio of the University of Maryland at College Park and Goddard. As the U.S. land area burned by fire each year has increased significantly in the past 25 years, so too have the emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires in the western U.S. have more than doubled since the 1980s, according to Chris Williams of Clark University in Worcester, Mass. The satellite-based view allowed Williams and his colleagues to quantify how much carbon has been released from fires in the U.S. West. The team used data on fire extent and severity derived from Landsat satellites to calculate how much biomass is burned and killed, and how quickly the associated carbon was released to the atmosphere. The team found carbon emissions from fires have grown from an average of 8 teragrams (8.8 million tons) per year from 1984 to 1995 to an average of 20 teragrams (22 million tons) per year from 1996 to 2008, increasing 2.4 times in the latter period. "With the climate change forecast for the region, this trend likely will continue as the western U.S. gets warmer and drier on average," Williams said. "If this comes to pass, we can anticipate increased fire severity and an even greater area burned annually, causing a further rise in the release of carbon dioxide." Researchers expect a drier and more wildfire-prone U.S. in future decades. Previous research confirmed the connection between the measure of an environment's potential evaporation, or dryness, and fire activity. From a fire and emissions management perspective, wildfires are not the entire U.S. fire story, according to research by Hsiao-Wen Lin of the University of California at Irvine. Satellite data show agricultural and prescribed fires are a significant factor and account for 70 percent of the total number of active fires in the continental U.S. Agricultural fires have increased 30 percent in the last decade. In contrast with wildfires, agricultural and prescribed fires are less affected by climate, especially drought, during the fire season. "That means there is greater potential to manage fire emissions, even in a future, drier climate with more wildfires. We need to use cost-benefit analysis to assess whether reductions in agricultural fire emissions -- which would benefit public health -- would significantly impact crop yields or other ecosystem services," Lin said.

RELEASE: 12-420 NASA ANNOUNCES ROBUST MULTI-YEAR MARS PROGRAM; NEW ROVER TO CLOSE OUT DECADE OF NEW MISSIONS

WASHINGTON -- Building on the success of Curiosity's Red Planet landing, NASA has announced plans for a robust multi-year Mars program, including a new robotic science rover set to launch in 2020. This announcement affirms the agency's commitment to a bold exploration program that meets our nation's scientific and human exploration objectives. "The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s." The planned portfolio includes the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers; two NASA spacecraft and contributions to one European spacecraft currently orbiting Mars; the 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere; the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars; and participation in ESA's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 mission and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover. The plan to design and build a new Mars robotic science rover with a launch in 2020 comes only months after the agency announced InSight, which will launch in 2016, bringing a total of seven NASA missions operating or being planned to study and explore our Earth-like neighbor. The 2020 mission will constitute another step toward being responsive to high-priority science goals and the president's challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in the 2030s. The future rover development and design will be based on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) architecture that successfully carried the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface this summer. This will ensure mission costs and risks are as low as possible, while still delivering a highly capable rover with a proven landing system. The mission will constitute a vital component of a broad portfolio of Mars exploration missions in development for the coming decade. The mission will advance the science priorities of the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey and responds to the findings of the Mars Program Planning Group established earlier this year to assist NASA in restructuring its Mars Exploration Program. "The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation," NASA's associate administrator for science, and astronaut John Grunsfeld said. "This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity." The specific payload and science instruments for the 2020 mission will be openly competed, following the Science Mission Directorate's established processes for instrument selection. This process will begin with the establishment of a science definition team that will be tasked to outline the scientific objectives for the mission. This mission fits within the five-year budget plan in the president's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, and is contingent on future appropriations. Plans also will include opportunities for infusing new capabilities developed through investments by NASA's Space Technology Program, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and contributions from international partners.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-234 NASA'S JOHN GRUNSFELD SPEAKS WITH MEDIA ABOUT NEW MARS MISSION

WASHINGTON -- NASA's associate administrator for science, astronaut John Grunsfeld, today announced plans for a robust multi-year Mars program, including a new robotic science rover to launch in 2020. Grunsfeld will host a media briefing on these plans at 7 p.m. EST (4 p.m. PST) today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The briefing will be held in the Moscone Convention Center West, 747 Howard St., Room 3000.