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Home , 2001 Mars Odyssey, Emily Lakdawalla, Interstellar Express, Mars flyby, The Planetary Society

Neighbourhood Watch: Solar System Exploration during 2009 Resources

Emily Lakdawalla E-mail: [email protected]

Summary Key Words As the International Year of 2009 opens, there are nearly 20 exploring our astronomical backyard, and five more are planned Solar System Missions for launch in the coming year. Once the province of a few superpowers, Solar Public Involvement Engagement System exploration is now being conducted by countries across the world. The Planetary Society1 strongly believes that the world’s public should not only be told about the lessons learned from these missions, but also be invited to ride along for the adventure.

Spaceships in every India’s Chandrayaan-15, and 2009 will see So, to advance international cooperation the launches of NASA’s Lunar Reconnais- further, The Planetary Society is supporting corner of the Solar sance Orbiter6 and Lunar Crater Observa- the development of the Global Exploration System, from every tion and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)7. The Strategy8. Fourteen space agencies (includ- Planetary Society hopes that the Decade will ing ESA, NASA, and the agencies of Italy, corner of the world serve as a framework for cooperation among the UK, France, , Canada, Australia, the international organisations and nations Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, the There have never been so many planetary conducting lunar missions, and also that it Ukraine and ) have signed on to the missions active at once as there are today. will provide a mechanism for scientists and first Global Exploration Strategy document, In 2009, spacecraft will explore the , engineers from developing nations and other published by ESA in 2007. It presents a , , Mercury and ; many countries not directly involved in space mis- broad global consensus and concise ration- others are on their way to explore , sions to participate in science programmes ale for human exploration of the Solar Sys- , the cold worlds of the Kuiper or smaller engineering developments. tem, beginning with our nearest neighbour, belt and beyond. The year will also see the the Moon. We hope that by the end of the launches of three more spacecraft towards Many of the next steps in the exploration of International Lunar Decade, humans will Mars and two towards the Moon. The 23 our neighbourhood in the Solar System are so have returned to the Moon and be looking spacecraft that will be active in 2009 are challenging that they seem daunting without outward, to the asteroids or Mars. named and their activities summarised in the commitment and cooperation of many the following tables. (if not all) of ’s space-faring nations. Establishing a permanent presence on the Opportunities for the Clearly, more and more nations are seek- Moon; advancing the scientific study of the ing to participate in the exploration of the mini “solar systems” and of , public to participate in Solar System, and particularly of our nearest Saturn and beyond; returning scientifically planetary exploration neighbour, the Moon. Japan, China, India, useful samples of rocks from the surface of the , Germany, the United Mars; extending the presence of humans Developing expensive and technologically Kingdom and Russia are all now planning beyond Earth to the Moon, asteroids challenging planetary missions requires or operating missions on the Moon, a con- and Mars — all of these will require billions broad support by the taxpayers of space- fluence of effort that inspired the Society to of dollars and the kind of effort that only faring nations, and space agencies are declare the “International Lunar Decade”2, seems to be sustainable when departments increasingly learning that it is not enough beginning with the launch of Japan’s Kaguya of state, not just space agencies, commit to to tell the public about their successes; orbiter3 in 2007. Last year Kaguya was joined working together toward common goals. they must invite the public to, in effect, “ride at the Moon by China’s Chang’e 14 and along” with the voyages of discovery. One

Neighbourhood Watch: Solar System Exploration during 2009 CAPjournal, No. 5, January 2009 Page 5 Table 1. Planetary exploration missions active in 2009.

Inner Solar System

MESSENGER (NASA) (ESA) En route to Mercury orbit insertion in Venus Express is currently funded through 2011, MESSENGER will fly by Mercury for at least April 2009. ESA has not yet deter- the third time on September 29. Credit: mined its future after that, but the spacecraft NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied is in good health and could continue return- Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of ing data on Venus’s atmosphere. Credit: Washington. ESA (Image by AOES Medialab). The Moon

Kaguya (JAXA) Chang’e 1 (China) Kaguya finished its primary mission in Shortly after the lunar orbit insertion of October 2008, but will continue mapping Chang’e 1, Chinese officials announced that the gravity field of the Moon and capturing the fuel margin should permit them to dou- high resolution images until May ble the length of its science mission to two 2009. Later in the summer, it will impact years. Credit: CNSA. the Moon. Credit: JAXA.

Chandrayaan-1 (India) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA) Launched in October 2008, Chandrayaan- Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected 1’s lunar mapping mission will continue to launch in spring 2009 and will spend the through 2009. Credit: ISRO. rest of the year mapping the Moon; its cam- eras will be the first since ’s to be able to spot human-made artefacts on the Moon. Credit: NASA.

LCROSS (NASA) Launching with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LCROSS will impact the lunar about two months later, possibly in May. The event will be watched by Earth-based astronomers, including a worldwide ama- teur community. Credit: NASA.

Mars

2001 Mars Odyssey (NASA) (ESA) Although long past the end of its primary In orbit since 2003, Mars Express’s mission mission, shows no will likely be extended again to continue its signs of faltering and will likely still be mapping of the surface and subsurface of mapping Mars and serving as a com- Mars, as well as the surface of Mars’s moon munications relay for the Mars Exploration . Credit: ESA. Rovers. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA) Mars Exploration Rovers (NASA) Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s primary Although both and are mission ended in November 2008, and is showing signs of their advanced age, there now in its Extended Science Phase. Once is no reason to expect that they will not sur- the arrives it will vive well into 2009, when spring and summer serve as the primary Mars telecommuni- in Mars’s southern hemisphere should bring cation satellite. Credit: JPL/NASA. them warmer temperatures and more solar power than they enjoyed in 2008. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University/Maas Digital.

Phobos-Grunt (Russia) Yinghuo-1 (China) Phobos-Grunt is currently scheduled to China’s first mission beyond Earth orbit launch toward Mars in October 2009 will hitch a ride to Mars with the Phobos- to collect samples from Mars’s moon Grunt spacecraft, launching in October Phobos and return them to Earth. Credit: 2009. Credit: CNSA. Paolo Ulivi.

Neighbourhood Watch: Solar System Exploration during 2009 CAPjournal, No. 5, January 2009 Page 6 Neighbourhood Watch: Solar System Exploration during 2009 CAPjournal, No. 5, January 2009 Page 7

Table 1. Planetary exploration missions active in 2009 (Cont.).

Saturn

Cassini- (NASA/ESA/ASI) Throughout 2009 the Cassini orbiter will be in its first extended mission, continuing studies of Saturn, its rings and its moons; highlights will be three exceptionally close flybys of the geyser moon , and witnessing the arrival of Saturn’s equinox in August. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Deep Space / Cruise

Dawn (NASA) (NASA) In February 2009, will fly by Mars, As part of the EPOXI extended mission, the which will supply a to boost Deep Impact spacecraft has completed its the ion-powered spacecraft onward to its observations of extrasolar . It is now planned 2011 arrival at the . travelling towards a 2010 rendezvous with Credit: McREL. Jupiter-family 103P/Hartley 2. Credit: NASA/JPL/UMD. Credit: NASA/JPL/UMD.

Hayabusa (JAXA) International Cometary Explorer (ICE) Although seriously injured during its dra- (NASA) matic touchdown on asteroid Itokawa in After an eight-year hiatus, NASA re-estab- 2005, in its attempt to return its lished with ICE in 2008, which flew sample capsule (which may or may not through the tail of comet Giacobini-Zinner in contain a sample) to Earth in 2010. Credit: 1985. Still in good condition with most of its LiVE Company Ltd. instruments functioning, ICE is on course for a return visit to Earth in 2014, when it may be sent onward to explore another comet. Credit: NASA.

New Horizons (NASA) (ESA) will spend most of 2009 ESA’s flagship mission to a comet will fly hibernating while it travels 533.7 million by Earth for the third time on November kilometres (3.57 astronomical units) on 13, en route to its planned arrival at comet its way to . It will not reach Pluto until Churyumov-Gerasimenko in May 2014. 2015. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Credit: ESA/C. Carreau. Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI).

Stardust (NASA) and 2 (NASA) Throughout 2009, will be cruising The two long-lived spacecraft will hopefully toward a February 2011 encounter with still be returning data from the interstellar Tempel 1. Credit: NASA/JPL. medium beyond the Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL.

very simple method of helping people to feel of Mars-inspired literature, art and personal for a few dozen micron-sized grains of dust. a sense of ownership over space missions greetings from leading space visionaries of To date, only a quarter of the collection is to facilitate “Messages from Earth” oppor- our time. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter plates have been scanned, so plenty more tunities9. These allow the public to send their will be the next spacecraft to carry names work remains for 2009. names and, sometimes, good wishes along beyond Earth. with planetary missions. The oldest example There will also be two opportunities for ama- is still in orbit around Saturn: Cassini car- But members of the public can do more to teur astronomers to contribute to lunar sci- ries a DVD10 with 616 400 handwritten sig- actually contribute to the scientific results ence. On separate dates in the summer of natures from people living in 81 countries, of space missions. One such opportunity 2009, there will be two missions intentionally scanned to digital format. The advent of the is The Planetary Society’s Stardust@home crashing into the Moon: the two spacecraft internet has made collecting names easier, project13. After completing a short online of LCROSS in the early summer and Japan’s so two DVDs, each containing four million training session, members of the public can huge Kaguya orbiter in the late summer. names, were sent with the Mars Exploration help examine more than 700 000 micro- The LCROSS impact will be into a perma- Rovers11. With , a DVD was included scopic scans of the Stardust spacecraft’s nently shadowed region of one of the lunar containing “Visions of Mars”12, a collection interstellar dust collection plates, searching poles; observations of the plume raised by The year starts with Mars in early northern autumn; Saturn in late northern winter; Uranus in early northern spring; and Cassini) provide nearly instantaneous and in early northern winter. access to “raw” image data. Until recently, such data was only useable by trained Astronomical Events Spacecraft Events experts at research institutions, but the pro- liferation of digital camera use by members of the general public, in combination with January 4: Earth at perihelion 14: Stardust: Earth (en route to Tempel 11: Full Moon 1 rendezvous in 2011) increasing high speed internet access, has 24: Jupiter at conjunction resulted in the birth of a worldwide commu- 26: Annular solar eclipse nity of armchair scientists who download, process, examine, and then discuss the February 9: Full Moon 2: Cassini: Distant Rhea flyby 9: Penumbral lunar eclipse 7: Cassini: flyby images being returned by active planetary 13: Neptune at conjunction 18: Dawn: (en route to Vesta missions. The joy of discovery of new land- 20: Venus at maximum brightness rendezvous in 2011) scapes on strange worlds, once limited to the few scientists fortunate enough to be on March 8: Saturn at opposition 6: Kepler -hunting spacecraft: mission science, is now accessible to the 11: Full Moon Launch 13: Uranus at conjunction 27: Cassini: Titan flyby world’s public via the internet. The Planetary 20: Earth at equinox Society is helping this community to grow 28: Venus at conjunction by converting some planetary datasets from the arcane formats used by researchers into April 9: Full Moon Venus Express: End of extended mission more commonly used formats like JPEG 29: Venus at maximum brightness 4: Cassini: Titan flyby, first of 10 straight with 16-day orbit matching Titan’s and PNG, and providing guidance on how 20: Cassini: Titan flyby to find and process images from planetary 24: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Launch missions.

May 9: Full Moon 5: Cassini: Titan flyby We hope that the worldwide events of the 22: Mars at solstice (northern winter) 21: Cassini: Titan flyby International Year of Astronomy in 2009 will focus public attention not only on distant June 6: Full Moon 6: Cassini: Titan flyby 20: Earth at solstice 22: Cassini: Titan flyby stars and galaxies, but also on our own Solar System. Space is not just what we see July 4: Earth at aphelion 8: Cassini: Titan flyby at the other end of a telescope; we live in 7: Full Moon 11: Cassini: Distant Dione flyby 7: Penumbral lunar eclipse 24: Cassini: Titan flyby space, too, and it is as important to study 22: Total solar eclipse in Asia 26: Cassini: Distant Tethys flyby our own neighbourhood as it is to examine the Universe beyond. August 6: Full Moon 9: Cassini: Titan flyby 6: Penumbral lunar eclipse 11: Cassini: Observes Saturn at equinox! 11: Saturn at equinox (northern spring) 25: Cassini: Titan flyby, last of 10 straight Notes 15: Jupiter at opposition 18: Neptune at opposition 1 http://planetary.org 2 http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/ September 4: Full Moon 15: Mars Science Laboratory: Launch period lunar_decade/ 5: Earth crosses Saturn’s ring plane opens 3 http://www.selene.jaxa.jp/index_e.htm 17: Uranus at opposition 20: Cassini: Distant Dione flyby 4 http://planetary.org/explore/topics/chang_e_1/ 18: Saturn at conjunction 29: MESSENGER Mercury flyby #3 5 http://isro.org/Chandrayaan/index.htm 22: Earth at equinox 6 http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 7 http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/ 8 http://www.scitech.ac.uk/Resources/PDF/gesframe- October 4: Full Moon Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1: Launch 27: Mars equinox (northern spring) 12: Cassini: Titan flyby work.pdf 13-14: Cassini: Distant Rhea, Mimas, and 9 http://planetary.org/programs/projects/messages/ Tethys flybys 10 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/kids/amazing-dvd.cfm 11 http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/ 2: Full Moon 2: Cassini: Targeted Enceladus flyby red_rover_goes_to_mars/dvd.html November 12 (1 of 2 this month) http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/mes- 13: Rosetta: Earth flyby #3 (en route to sages/vom.html 13 comet rendezvous May 2014) http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ 21: Cassini: Targeted Enceladus flyby and distant Rhea flyby

December 2: Full Moon 12: Cassini: Titan flyby 21: Earth at solstice 26: Cassini: Distant Tethys flyby Biography 31: Full Moon (blue moon!) 28: Cassini: Titan flyby 31: Partial lunar eclipse Emily Lakdawalla is the Science and Tech- nology Coordinator for The Planetary Society. She received a Bachelor’s degree in the impact could confirm the presence or The world’s public can also now take sci- from Amherst College and then taught science to fifth- and sixth-grade children in Chicago. absence of water in these regions. The Plan- ence into their own hands, because many She went on to Brown University to study etary Society will be helping to organise and missions now provide relatively easy internet . Lakdawalla came to The promote a worldwide campaign by amateur access to entire catalogues of raw image Planetary Society in 2001, and she now writes astronomers to photograph the impact data being returned from spacecraft. Data for the website and weblog, records the “Q and A” segment on the weekly plume, and hopes to mobilise the same from all active Mars orbiters can be accessed show and occasionally contributes to the group to watch Kaguya’s demise. The exact via map-based interfaces after proprietary Society’s bimonthly magazine, The Planetary dates of both events will not be known until a periods have expired, while some missions Report. couple of months before they occur. (currently, the Mars Exploration Rovers

Neighbourhood Watch: Solar System Exploration during 2009 CAPjournal, No. 5, January 2009 Page 8