Politics & Government
JPL's New Mission to the Moon Seeks Answers
This week's JPL roundup: NASA sends orbiters to the moon, scientists use satellite images to map glaciers at the South Pole, and JPL's deep space atomic clock gets thumbs up from NASA.
News Conference for Moon Orbiters’ Mission
NASA hosts a news conference Thursday at 8 a.m. PDT for the upcoming -managed GRAIL mission, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, whose twin orbiters are expected to launch Sept. 8 from Cape Canaveral.
The GRAIL mission will help answer questions about Earth's moon and provide a clearer understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in our solar system formed.
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The mission will position two spacecraft into the same orbit around the Moon. As these orbiters fly over the lunar surface they will measure velocity as affected by the Moon’s gravity and landscape. According to NASA, scientists will create a “high-resolution map of the Moon’s gravitational field” using these measurements.
According to NASA, GRAIL’s “gravity measuring technique is essentially the same as those of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) which has been mapping Earth’s gravity since 2002.”
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Each orbiter will also carry cameras as part of the education and public outreach project MoonKAM.
Visit the GRAIL and MoonKAM websites for more information. The press conference will stream live on NASATV.
Antarctic Ice Flow Mapped
“This is like seeing a map of all the oceans’ currents for the first time. It’s a game changer for glaciology,” Eric Rignot of JPL and UC Irvine said of the newly completed mapping of the Antarctic Ice flow. The map, created with data collected by NASA-funded researchers relying on a consortium of international satellites, shows the continent’s glaciers flowing from interior to coast, information critical for tracking sea level rises due to climate change.
A video animation of the Antarctic map is available online.
JPL’s Deep Space Atomic Clock Selected by NASA
NASA has selected JPL’s Deep Space Atomic Clock as one of three proposals for Technology Demonstration Missions aimed at transforming space communications, navigation in deep space, and in-space propulsion capabilities.
The clock mission will demonstrate ultra-precise timing in space by utilizing a miniaturized mercury-ion clock ten times more accurate that what is used today. The project aims to validate the clock’s ability and benefits for one-way radio navigation, critical to the performance of a vast range of deep space exploration missions.
The clock will be flight-ready in three years. Launch is anticipated for 2015 or 2016.
Learn more about the Technology Demonstration Missions by visiting NASA’s website.
