NASA probe poised for launch to Jupiter

CAPE CANAVERAL: A NASA satellite was hoisted aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Wednesday in preparation for launch next week on an unprecedented mission to the heart of Jupiter. The robotic probe called Juno is scheduled to spend one year cycling inside Jupiter's deadly radiation belts, far closer than any previous orbiting spacecraft, to learn how much water the giant planet holds, what triggers its vast magnetic fields and whether a solid core lies beneath its dense, hot atmosphere. "Jupiter holds a lot of key secrets about how we formed," said lead scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Scientists believe Jupiter was the first planet to form after the birth of the sun, though exactly how that happened is unknown. One key piece of missing data is how much water is inside the giant planet, which circles the sun five times farther away than Earth. Jupiter, like the sun, is comprised primarily of hydrogen and helium, with a sprinkling of other elements, like oxygen. Scientists believe the oxygen is bound with hydrogen to form water, which can be measured by microwave sounders, one of eight science instruments on Juno. Jupiter's water content is directly tied to where - and how -- the planet formed. Some evidence points to a planet that grew in the colder nether-regions of the solar system and then migrated inward. Other computer models show Jupiter formed at about its present location by accumulating ancient icy snowballs. LARGER THAN SISTER PLANETS However it grew, Jupiter ended up with a mass more than twice all its sister planets combined, giving it the gravitational muscle to hang on to nearly all of its original building materials. "That's why it's very interesting to us if we want to go back in time and understand where we came from and how the planets were made" -- which Juno can help NASA do, Bolton said. Juno's journey to Jupiter will take five years. Upon arrival in July 2016, Juno will thread itself into a narrow region between the planet and the inner edge of its radiation belt. The solar-powered probe will then spend a year orbiting over Jupiter's poles, coming as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 km) above its cloud tops. Only an atmospheric probe released by Galileo, NASA's last Jupiter spacecraft, has come closer, though that spacecraft was able to relay data for only 58 seconds before succumbing to the planet's crushing pressure and intense heat. Juno's electronic heart is protected in a vault of titanium, but it too will fall to the harsh Jovian radiation environment after about a year. Juno's last move will be to dive into the planet's atmosphere to avoid any chance of contaminating Jupiter's potentially life-bearing moons. Juno's launch is scheduled for Aug. 5. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Colorado. The mission, the second in NASA's lower-cost, quick-turnaround New Frontiers planetary expeditions, will cost $1.1 billion. (Reuters)

With space shuttle era over, US robot set for Mars

WASHINGTON: NASA moved on to a new chapter in space exploration on Friday, a day after the end of its shuttle program, by announcing details of plans to determine if Mars has or ever had the ingredients for life. Managers at the U.S. space agency said a robotic science laboratory, being prepared for a November 25 launch, will land in August 2012 near a mountain in a crater on the planet most like Earth in the solar system. NASA announced which crater it has picked for the 2.5 billion dollar Mars rover, Curiosity, to probe for signs of life when the unmanned vehicle is lowered onto the red planet next year. The six-wheeled mechanical science lab will explore a crater called Gale, which contains a mountain and will help scientists study clay and sulfate deposits at various heights. "Scientists identified Gale as their top choice to pursue the ambitious goals of this new rover mission," said Jim Green, director for the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The site offers a visually dramatic landscape and also great potential for significant science findings." The unchosen option was a crater called Eberswalde, a clay-bearing site where a river once flowed into a lake. No one expects the rover, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), to actually find living beings there, just signs that that some microbial life may have existed in the depths of a crater that may have contained water. NASA has previously sent the Spirit and Opportunity rovers to explore Mars and has set its sights on sending humans there by 2030. The launch of Curiosity is set for later this year, with its arrival expected in August 2012. Since it is larger than previous rovers, the car-sized vehicle will be lowered onto Mars with the help of a rocket-powered sky crane. The announcement of Curiosity's exact destination came 35 years after the first spacecraft, the Viking 1, landed on Mars in July 1976.