Sep 15 2008
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it had selected a proposal for a robotic mission to Mars, a mission that would study the planet’s atmosphere, climate history, and potential habitability. Out of 20 proposals submitted, NASA had accepted the proposal of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder to build the US$485 million Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. According to the proposal, MAVEN would begin orbiting Mars in the fall of 2014. Over the course of one Earth year, the craft would use its eight instruments to gather data, including a study of the upper atmosphere 80 miles (128.75 kilometers) above the Martian surface. Scientists would also be able to use MAVEN to relay support for robotic missions on the ground on Mars. NASA would provide the University of Colorado with US$6 million for mission planning and technology development, and Lockheed Martin would build the spacecraft. NASA’s GSFC would manage the MAVEN mission. MAVEN would be the second mission conducted by the Mars Scout Program—NASA’s series of small, low-cost, principal investigator-led missions to Mars.
NASA “NASA Selects Mission To Study Mars Atmosphere,” news release 08-233, 15 September 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/sep/HQ_08-233_MAVEN_Mars_mission.html (accessed 26 July 2011).
NASA announced that, for the first time, it had used commercially owned aircraft to test hardware and technologies in microgravity research flights. NASA had flown the aircraft out of Ellington Field in Houston on 9 and 10 September 2008, performing the first tests in NASA’s program, Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training (FAST). Zero Gravity of Las Vegas, which had conducted the flights under a contract with NASA’s GRC, had achieved microgravity conditions by flying an airplane on a parabolic trajectory. Each of the typical 2-hour flights had consisted of 50 parabolas, yielding up to 25 seconds of microgravity. NASA had originally scheduled the flights for 11 and 12 September but had suspended the tests because of the approach of Hurricane Ike. Five private companies had flown experiments on the airplanes alongside NASA’s experiments, as part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
NASA, “NASA Uses Commercial Microgravity Flight Services for First Time,” news release 08-232, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/sep/HQ_08232_Commercial_Zero_G.html (accessed 26 July 2011).
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