Sep 24 2009
From The Space Library
SpaceX announced the successful demonstration of a laser-imaging detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensor called DragonEye, a proximity sensor that had launched aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Endeavor on 15 July 2009 in Mission STS-127. With the help of NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office, SpaceX had tested DragonEye in proximity with the ISS, in preparation for future visits of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to the ISS. DragonEye would guide the Dragon craft as it approached the space station, providing three-dimensional images based on the amount of time needed for a single laser pulse from the sensor to reach a target and to bounce back. DragonEye had used flight data gathered on board Endeavour to detect the ISS successfully and to track it through various approach and departure maneuvers. Following Endeavour’s return to Earth, DragonEye had returned to SpaceX for evaluation. SpaceX’s Falcon-9 launch vehicle and Dragon were both under contract to NASA to provide cargo resupply to the ISS, following the Space Shuttle’s retirement. The contract included 12 flights between 2010 and 2015, with SpaceX representing the only COTS contender with the ability to return cargo to Earth.
Space Exploration Technologies, “SpaceX’s DragonEye Navigation Sensor Successfully Demonstrated on Space Shuttle,” SpaceX news release 25, September 2009, http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20090925 (accessed 19 September 2011); Laser Focus World, “SpaceX Successfully Tests DragonEye LIDAR on Space Shuttle,” 30 September 2009.
NASA announced that its Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), on board ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, had detected water molecules in the polar regions of the Moon. Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), on NASA’s ESA spacecraft had helped to corroborate the findings, as had data from the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on NASA’s spacecraft EPOXI—Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) and Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). M3’s spectrometer had measured light reflecting off the Moon’s surface at infrared wavelengths, splitting the spectral colors small enough to reveal a new level of detail in surface composition. The M3 science team found that the pattern of absorption of the wavelengths at the lunar surface was consistent with the absorption pattern for water molecules and hydroxyl, which is a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom. In 1999 ESA’s VIMS instrument had also collected data showing water molecules and hydroxyl, but that data had never been published. Roger N. Clark, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist in Denver who had been a member of both the VIMS and the M3 teams, remarked that the data from the two instruments closely agreed, showing as much as 1,000 water molecule parts per million in the lunar soil. To confirm the VIMS and M3 data further, scientists examined EPOXI mission data from June 2009. EPOXI data not only confirmed the findings but expanded on them. Jessica Sunshine, a member of the University of Maryland’s EPOXI team, as well as Deputy Principal Investigator and member of the M3 team, remarked that the extended spectral range and the views over the Moon’s north pole had enabled scientists to explore the distribution of both water and hydroxyl as a function of temperature, latitude, composition, and time of day. She added that the analysis unequivocally confirmed the presence of water molecules and hydroxyl on the lunar surface, revealing that the entire surface of the Moon’s north pole appeared to be hydrated during some portion of the lunar day.
NASA, “NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface,” news release 09-222, 24 September 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/sep/HQ_09-222_Moon_Water_Molecules.html (accessed 15 September 2011); Seth Borenstein for Associated Press, “It’s Not Lunacy, Probes Find Water in Moon Dirt,” 24 September 2009; Kenneth Chang, “In Surprise, Moon Shows Signs of Water,” New York Times, 24 September 2009.
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