- Email: [email protected]
Contour, launch 1 July 2002, cometary mission
other operating mission, Stardust, which is on its way to bring a sample of a comet back to Earth, and Deep Impact to be launched next year. These missions all help us find answers to the fundamental questions of how our planet may have formed and evolved, and how life may have begun on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the universe."
to obtain precise orbit determination by receiving Doppler-shifted microwave transmissions at 2.036 GHz and 401.25 MHz from several ground stations (each with three transmitting antennas on either side of the ground track), through its pair of omindirectional receiving antennas. The spacecraft's position can be determined with 1 m accuracy and its velocity at 2.5 mm/s accuracy. Finally, the tenth instrument, SCIAMACHY (SCanning Image Absorptien spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY) is intended to analyse emitted and scattered radiation from the stratosphere and troposphere. Polarization is also measured in seven of the channels.
2.6
The 8-sided solar-powered craft will fly as close as 100 km (62 miles) to each nucleus, at top speeds of about 1700 km s -1. The probe will be protected against comet dust and debris by a five-layer dust shield of heavy Nextel and Kevlar fabric. "Comets are the solar system's smallest bodies, but among its biggest mysteries" said Dr Joseph Veverka, Contout's principal investigator from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "We believe they hold the most primitive materials in the solar system and that they played a role in shaping some of the planets, but we really have more ideas about comets than facts. Contour will change that by coming closer to a comet nucleus than any spacecraft ever has before and by gathering detailed, comparative data on these dynamic objects."
Contour, launch 1 July 2002, Cometary Mission
[From NASA News, 12 June 2002: A Study of Comet Diversity] Set to visit and study at least two comets, NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour) should provide the first detailed look at the differences between these primitive building blocks of the solar system, and answer questions about how comets behave and evolve.
Contout's four scientific instruments will take pictures and measure the chemical makeup of the nuclei while analysing the surrounding gases and dust. Its main camera, the Contour Remote Imager/Spectrograph (CRISP), will take high-resolution digital images capable of showing car-sized rocks and other features on the nucleus as small as 4 m (about 13 feet) across. CRISP will also search for chemical 'fingerprints' on the surface, which would provide the first hard evidence of comet nuclei composition.
Contourwas scheduled to lift-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a threestage Boeing Delta II expendable launch vehicle during a 25-day launch window that commenced on 1 July at 0256 h EDT. The spacecraft is expected to orbit the Earth until 15 August, when it should fire its main engine and enter a comet-chasing orbit around the Sun. Contout's flexible four-year mission plan includes encounters with comets Encke on 12 November 2003 and SchwassmannWachmann 3 (SW3) on 19 June 2006. Contour will examine each comet's nucleus which current evidence suggests is a chunk of ice and rock, often just a few kilometres across and hidden from Earth-based telescopes beneath a dusty atmosphere and long tail.
The targets were selected because of their diversity and, during the time of closest encounter, relative closeness to Earth - less than 50 million km (31 million miles). Encke has been seen from Earth more often than any other comet; it's an 'old' body that gives off relatively little gas and dust, but remains more active than might be expected for a comet that has already passed close to the Sun thousands of times. Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, on the other hand, was only discovered just 70 years ago and recently split into several pieces, providing the intriguing prospect that
"The Contour mission will be NASA's second mission dedicated solely to exploring these largely unknown members of our solar system" said Dr Colleen Hartman, Director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Contour joins our 20
Contour might see fresh, unaltered surfaces and materials from inside the comet.
study the origins of our solar system, and the Integral spacecraft to study the most violent phenomena in the universe. Both spacecraft are nearing their launch dates.
"The key to the Contour mission is to visit a diverse range of comets, from an evolved comet such as Encke, to a younger comet like SW3 or even a new comet never seen in this part of the solar system:' said Mary C. Chiu, Contourproject manager at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md. "Our mission plan gives us that flexibility."
The mission goal for the Rosetta spacecraft is a rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen in 2011 after being launched in January 2003 by an Ariane-5 from Kourou, French Guiana. On its eight-year journey to the Comet Wirtanen, the spacecraft will pass close to two asteroids, before studying the nucleus of the comet and its environment in great detail for a period of nearly two years (2011-2013). The spacecraft will also carry a lander that is designed to be deployed on the comet's surface so that a study of the composition and structure of the nucleus material can be carried out in situ. It is hoped that the mission will make an unrivalled study of cometary material and reveal much about how the solar system was formed.
Contout's orbit loops around the Sun and back to the Earth for annual 'gravity swings' toward its targets; these manoeuvres refine or revise Contout's trajectory and help it reach several comets without using much fuel. Contour will cruise unattended, between comet encounters and Earth swingbys, in a spinstabilized 'hibernation' mode thereby helping reduce operations and communications costs.
ESA's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) will have the task
The $159 million Contour is the sixth mission in NASA's Discovery Program comprising lower cost, scientifically-focused exploration projects. APL manages the mission, built the spacecraft and its two cameras. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., provided Contout's neutral gas/ion mass spectrometer and von Hoerner & Sulger GmbH, Schwetzingen, Germany, built the dust analyser. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide navigation and Deep Space Network (DSN) support.
of tracking gamma radiation across the entire sky. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch on 17 October 2002, from Baikonur, on board a Russian Proton launcher. Integral will be the most sensitive gamma-ray observatory ever launched. It will detect radiation from the most violent events far away and yet, at the same time, give evidence of the processes that made the universe habitable.
2.8
Additional information about Contour is available on the web at: http://www, contour2002.org.
2.7
NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope), launch 2010, Space Telescope Facility
[From NASA News, 10 June 2002: NASA Selects Instrument and Science Team for the
Rosetta and Integral, launches in 2002 & 2003 respectively, Comet Rendezvous Mission and High Energy Astronomy Mission
Next Generation Space Telescope] NASA has selected a team led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, to provide the primary near-infrared science camera for the
Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), NASA's successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Scheduled for launch in 2010, the new
[From ESA Press Release, 7 June 2002]
telescope's primary science objective will be to look back to an extremely important period in the early history of the universe when the first stars and galaxies began to form shortly after the big bang. To achieve this goal, the NGST
Two contrasting space missions are in the final stages of preparation at ESA's Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. They are the Rosetta mission to rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen and 21
to obtain precise orbit determination by receiving Doppler-shifted microwave transmissions at 2.036 GHz and 401.25 MHz from several ground stations (each with three transmitting antennas on either side of the ground track), through its pair of omindirectional receiving antennas. The spacecraft's position can be determined with 1 m accuracy and its velocity at 2.5 mm/s accuracy. Finally, the tenth instrument, SCIAMACHY (SCanning Image Absorptien spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY) is intended to analyse emitted and scattered radiation from the stratosphere and troposphere. Polarization is also measured in seven of the channels.
2.6
The 8-sided solar-powered craft will fly as close as 100 km (62 miles) to each nucleus, at top speeds of about 1700 km s -1. The probe will be protected against comet dust and debris by a five-layer dust shield of heavy Nextel and Kevlar fabric. "Comets are the solar system's smallest bodies, but among its biggest mysteries" said Dr Joseph Veverka, Contout's principal investigator from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "We believe they hold the most primitive materials in the solar system and that they played a role in shaping some of the planets, but we really have more ideas about comets than facts. Contour will change that by coming closer to a comet nucleus than any spacecraft ever has before and by gathering detailed, comparative data on these dynamic objects."
Contour, launch 1 July 2002, Cometary Mission
[From NASA News, 12 June 2002: A Study of Comet Diversity] Set to visit and study at least two comets, NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour) should provide the first detailed look at the differences between these primitive building blocks of the solar system, and answer questions about how comets behave and evolve.
Contout's four scientific instruments will take pictures and measure the chemical makeup of the nuclei while analysing the surrounding gases and dust. Its main camera, the Contour Remote Imager/Spectrograph (CRISP), will take high-resolution digital images capable of showing car-sized rocks and other features on the nucleus as small as 4 m (about 13 feet) across. CRISP will also search for chemical 'fingerprints' on the surface, which would provide the first hard evidence of comet nuclei composition.
Contourwas scheduled to lift-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a threestage Boeing Delta II expendable launch vehicle during a 25-day launch window that commenced on 1 July at 0256 h EDT. The spacecraft is expected to orbit the Earth until 15 August, when it should fire its main engine and enter a comet-chasing orbit around the Sun. Contout's flexible four-year mission plan includes encounters with comets Encke on 12 November 2003 and SchwassmannWachmann 3 (SW3) on 19 June 2006. Contour will examine each comet's nucleus which current evidence suggests is a chunk of ice and rock, often just a few kilometres across and hidden from Earth-based telescopes beneath a dusty atmosphere and long tail.
The targets were selected because of their diversity and, during the time of closest encounter, relative closeness to Earth - less than 50 million km (31 million miles). Encke has been seen from Earth more often than any other comet; it's an 'old' body that gives off relatively little gas and dust, but remains more active than might be expected for a comet that has already passed close to the Sun thousands of times. Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, on the other hand, was only discovered just 70 years ago and recently split into several pieces, providing the intriguing prospect that
"The Contour mission will be NASA's second mission dedicated solely to exploring these largely unknown members of our solar system" said Dr Colleen Hartman, Director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Contour joins our 20
Contour might see fresh, unaltered surfaces and materials from inside the comet.
study the origins of our solar system, and the Integral spacecraft to study the most violent phenomena in the universe. Both spacecraft are nearing their launch dates.
"The key to the Contour mission is to visit a diverse range of comets, from an evolved comet such as Encke, to a younger comet like SW3 or even a new comet never seen in this part of the solar system:' said Mary C. Chiu, Contourproject manager at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md. "Our mission plan gives us that flexibility."
The mission goal for the Rosetta spacecraft is a rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen in 2011 after being launched in January 2003 by an Ariane-5 from Kourou, French Guiana. On its eight-year journey to the Comet Wirtanen, the spacecraft will pass close to two asteroids, before studying the nucleus of the comet and its environment in great detail for a period of nearly two years (2011-2013). The spacecraft will also carry a lander that is designed to be deployed on the comet's surface so that a study of the composition and structure of the nucleus material can be carried out in situ. It is hoped that the mission will make an unrivalled study of cometary material and reveal much about how the solar system was formed.
Contout's orbit loops around the Sun and back to the Earth for annual 'gravity swings' toward its targets; these manoeuvres refine or revise Contout's trajectory and help it reach several comets without using much fuel. Contour will cruise unattended, between comet encounters and Earth swingbys, in a spinstabilized 'hibernation' mode thereby helping reduce operations and communications costs.
ESA's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) will have the task
The $159 million Contour is the sixth mission in NASA's Discovery Program comprising lower cost, scientifically-focused exploration projects. APL manages the mission, built the spacecraft and its two cameras. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., provided Contout's neutral gas/ion mass spectrometer and von Hoerner & Sulger GmbH, Schwetzingen, Germany, built the dust analyser. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide navigation and Deep Space Network (DSN) support.
of tracking gamma radiation across the entire sky. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch on 17 October 2002, from Baikonur, on board a Russian Proton launcher. Integral will be the most sensitive gamma-ray observatory ever launched. It will detect radiation from the most violent events far away and yet, at the same time, give evidence of the processes that made the universe habitable.
2.8
Additional information about Contour is available on the web at: http://www, contour2002.org.
2.7
NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope), launch 2010, Space Telescope Facility
[From NASA News, 10 June 2002: NASA Selects Instrument and Science Team for the
Rosetta and Integral, launches in 2002 & 2003 respectively, Comet Rendezvous Mission and High Energy Astronomy Mission
Next Generation Space Telescope] NASA has selected a team led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, to provide the primary near-infrared science camera for the
Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), NASA's successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Scheduled for launch in 2010, the new
[From ESA Press Release, 7 June 2002]
telescope's primary science objective will be to look back to an extremely important period in the early history of the universe when the first stars and galaxies began to form shortly after the big bang. To achieve this goal, the NGST
Two contrasting space missions are in the final stages of preparation at ESA's Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. They are the Rosetta mission to rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen and 21