Feb 27 2008
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it had exhibited a new robot rover that would be able to drill into the lunar surface to find water and oxygen-dense soil. The rover, Scarab, would not travel to the Moon itself. Instead, NASA had designed Scarab as a research rover, to give scientists an opportunity to study drilling technologies that they could use in the difficult environment of the Moon, noted for its continuous darkness, minimal gravity, and extremely abrasive and dense soil. The rover was a joint effort among many institutions. NASA’s ARC had built Scarab’s navigation system, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) had funded a camera; NASA’s GRC had been responsible for its power-management system; the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology had built its drill; and Carnegie Mellon University had overseen the rover’s design and testing. The Human Robotic Systems and In-Situ Resource Utilization projects at NASA’s JSC, part of the Exploration Technology Development Programs that LaRC managed, had collaborated on the project.
NASA, “NASA Demonstrates Robot Technology for Moon Exploration,” news release 08-067, 27 February 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/feb/HQ_08067_lunar_robot.html (accessed 28 December 2010); CBC News, “NASA Shows Off Rover Armed with Canadian-Made Drill,” 27 February 2008, http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/27/tech-rover-drill.html (accessed 5 January 2011).
NASA announced that it had generated the highest-resolution topographical data of the lunar south pole to date, using the Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR) in the Mojave Desert in California. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had generated the data over six months during 2006, when the Moon’s axis was tilted at a relatively rare alignment, allowing for a good view of the pole. The GSSR had gathered the data using its 70-meter (230-foot) radar dish, which bounced 500-kilowatt radar signals, at 90-minute intervals, off an area of the lunar surface measuring 400 miles by 250 miles (644 kilometers by 402 kilometers). The resulting images showed a resolution of up to 20 meters (66 feet) per pixel, close enough to identify a feature the size of a house. They revealed that the topography of the area, located near Shackleton Crater, was extremely rugged, with craters 2.5-miles deep (4-kilometers deep) and mountains as high as Mt. McKinley. NASA scientists claimed that the newest data had more than 3 times the resolution and 10 times the vertical accuracy of the best mapping data acquired previously—data that the GSSR had captured during a 1997 study.
NASA, “NASA Views Landing Site Through Eyes of Future Moon Crew,” news release 08-071, 27 February 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/feb/HQ_08071_goldstone_radar.html (accessed 28 December 2010); Kenneth Chang, “The Moon’s Craggiest Stretch Comes into Focus,” New York Times, 28 February 2008.
NASA announced that it had awarded a contract for program planning and support services for the Constellation Program to Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies (SGT) of Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA expected SGT to contribute to the program’s business management, schedule management, configuration and data management, requirements analysis and integration, and integration and technology protection. SGT would perform the majority of the work at NASA’s JSC and possible additional work at NASA’s KSC , LaRC, and MFSC. The contract stipulated an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-award fee base of US$60 million for three years, beginning on 11 April 2008, as well as two optional one-year extensions, which could bring the contract’s total value to US$100 million. The Constellation fleet included the Altair human lunar lander, the Ares-I launch vehicle, the Ares-V launch vehicle, and the Orion crew exploration vehicle (CEV).
NASA, “NASA Awards Constellation Program Support Contract,” news release C08-007, 27 February 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/feb/HQ_C08007_constellation_contract.html (accessed 28 December 2010).
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