#ExoMars mission

[kuramirocket]

Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez (1959-2021): The Mexican Astrobiologist Who Shaped Our Understanding of The Planet Mars

Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez was a talented and internationally recognized chemist and astrobiologist who worked at NASA. Navarro-Gonzalez is known for his work with other researchers to study the planet Mars. He made fundamental contributions to several fields related to Astrobiology, the origin of life, and life in extreme environments. Among his many accomplishments, he helped lead the team that identified ancient organic compounds on Mars. He was a Co-I on the SAM instrument onboard NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory and on the HABIT instrument onboard ESA’s ExoMars mission. He was also on the Curiosity Mars rover team. His research blended laboratory simulations, fieldwork, and theoretical modeling in transdisciplines in chemistry, physics, and biology. This sort of dominance is unusual and requires a dynamic and intellectual curiosity beyond normal boundaries. He identified the role of volcanic lightning in the origin of life on Earth. He has established one of the very best laboratories in Latin-America.

He has published 137 papers, 4 edited books and over 225 abstracts. Among the most significant contributions are those that deal the detection of organics in Mars-like environments from cold (Antarctica), temperate (Atacama) and hot (Mojave and Libya) deserts on Earth.

Navarro-Gonzalez was born in Mexico City on April 25, 1959. He earned a bachelor’s in biology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) where he became full professor in 2002, and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Navarro-González established the Laboratory of Plasma Chemistry and Planetary Studies of the Institute of Nuclear Science at UNAM. 

Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez was the first recipient of the Molina fellowship award. This prize recognizes outstanding scientific achievement. He was also the recipient of the 2009 Alexander von Humboldt Medal and the World Academy of Sciences Award in Earth Sciences.

He died on Jan. 28, 2021 due to Covid-19-related complications.

In honor of his service, NASA named a mountain on Mars after him. The mountain stretches 450 feet (120 meters) tall, “Rafael Navarro Mountain” is located on Mount Sharp in northwest Gale Crater.

Rafael Navarro Mountain

“Rafael was a good friend and dedicated scientist, and it has been a privilege and honor for our Mars exploration team to work with him over the years" said the principal investigator of Curiosity’s SAM experiment.

“We are truly honored to have a prominent hill named after our dad; it’s his and our dream come true to see this happen,” wrote Navarro-González’s children, Rafael and Karina Navarro Aceves, in a statement to NASA.

“Our dad was an accomplished scientist, but above all, a great human being who managed to balance work and family."

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

[spacenutspod]

Join us for SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 64, where we delve into the latest cosmic discoveries and technological advancements shaping our understanding of the universe. First, we explore new research uncovering the origins of sunspots and their formation closer to the Sun's surface than previously thought. Scientists are now examining the complex interactions of magnetic fields and plasma within the Sun, providing fresh insights into the solar dynamo that drives these phenomena. Next, we turn our attention to Mars, as NASA and ESA announce a groundbreaking joint mission set to launch in 2028. This mission will utilise the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, equipped with advanced instruments to drill deep beneath the Martian surface in search of signs of life, potentially rewriting our understanding of the Red Planet's habitability. Finally, we discuss innovative solutions in the battle against space junk. From hunter-killer satellites equipped with plasma guns to ground-based laser systems, scientists are developing new technologies to tackle the growing problem of space debris, ensuring safer orbits for future missions. 00:00">This is Spacetime series 27, episode 64, for broadcast on 27 May 2024 00:44">The spectacular solar storms may have originated closer to the sun's surface 09:18">Hundreds of disused and damaged spacecraft and bits of space debris orbiting Earth 16:09">Scientists are looking at ways to track space junk to save propellant 18:28">A new study claims Australians are following misleading health and wellness advice on TikTok 26:05">Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through various podcast providersSupport the show and access ad-free episodes at https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/. Follow our cosmic conversations on X @stuartgary, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Join us as we unravel the mysteries of the universe, one episode at a time. Sponsor Offer This episode is proudly supported by NordPass. Secure your digital journey across the cosmos with a password manager you can trust. Find your stellar security solution at https://www.bitesz.com/nordpass. Listen to SpaceTime on your favourite podcast app including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music or wherever you get your podcasts.. Support SpaceTime Become a supporter of SpaceTime: https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/  www.bitesz.com 

[mindblowingscience]

For the first time, water frost has been detected on the colossal volcanoes on Mars, which are the largest mountains in the solar system. The international team led by the University of Bern used high-resolution color images from the Bernese Mars camera, CaSSIS, onboard the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft. Understanding where water can be found, and how it is transported, is relevant for future Mars missions and possible human exploration. "ExoMars" is a program of the European Space Agency ESA: for the first time since the 1970s, active research is being conducted into life on Mars. On board the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) is the Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS), a camera system developed and built by an international team led by Professor Nicolas Thomas from the Physics Institute at the University of Bern. CaSSIS has been observing Mars since April 2018 and is delivering high-resolution color images of the surface of Mars.

Continue Reading.

[beautifulmars]

HiPOD 23 May 2023: Dune Monitoring in Mawrth Vallis

This location was a candidate landing site for the ExoMars mission. It’s a dune field that has never been imaged before by HiRISE, and we can use it as part of a monitoring series to spot ripples on the dunes and changes over time.

ID: ESP_073467_2010 date: 29 March 2022 altitude: 283 km

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter image exposes iron, magnesium and aluminum on Mars surface

Rusty in appearance and magnificent in detail, a new image of the Mawrth Vallis region on Mars reveals a world rich in iron, magnesium and aluminum.

Mars is known as the Red Planet for a reason. To the human eye, our planetary neighbor looks like a reddish dot in the night sky. The Martian surface is rich in iron oxides and minerals. The same way a bike chain sitting outside for a while gets rusty, the Martian soil and dust oxidize and turn reddish.

Cameras orbiting Mars can capture more colors than our eyes can see. The European Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) reveals a striking diversity of color.

This CaSSIS image exposes yellow layers containing iron and magnesium-rich clays, overlain by white and blue layers rich in aluminum. The area is draped by a dark, heavily eroded layer.

The metallic colors of this vibrant landscape tell a story of mineralogical diversity that started around 3.6 billion years ago. The area is located south of the dichotomy boundary—a ridge that encircles Mars, marking where the southern highlands meet the northern lowlands. Mawrth Vallis continues to intrigue scientists with its geological complexity. Liquid water did once run through this area, which was shortlisted as one of the most promising landing sites for the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. Another region, Oxia Planum, was chosen as the spot where Rosalind Franklin will hunt for signs of life.

In the meantime, TGO keeps gathering information from orbit around Mars to understand its ancient past and potential habitability. TGO's full science mission began in 2018. The spacecraft is not only returning spectacular images, but also providing the best inventory of the planet's atmospheric gases and mapping the planet's surface for water-rich locations.

For six years, CaSSIS has been observing Mars in astonishing color, capturing features from volcanic landscapes to active dust devils and colossal sand dunes.

Understanding the history of water on Mars and whether this once allowed life to flourish is at the heart of ESA's ExoMars missions.

[universalcovers]

THE LEADER UC & TS Top in Class Selection ▶ Elon Musk

Mars Vision Snapshot

A crewed mission to Mars could happen in 2029, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hints.

A tweet on Monday comparing the moon landing to a future Mars landing attached a photo of the moon landing dated 1969, on top of an image of an envisioned Mars landing, labeled "20 --." The tweet, from Space_Hub, an account that posts about space and astronomy, read "What's your guess" and tagged Musk.

Two days after the tweet, Musk replied "2029."

Musk has long seen a visit to Mars as a goal. In 2016, he said he wanted to build a rocket capable of taking people to Mars and supporting a permanent city on the planet.

"It's something we can do in our lifetimes," he told an audience of 100,000 watchers at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. "You could go."

But Musk's older predictions don't necessarily match up with his latest. In 2016, he told the Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, that getting a "meaningful number of people" on Mars was possible "in about 10 years, maybe sooner, maybe nine years."

Meanwhile, a joint Europe-Russia mission to Mars, called ExoMars, was suspended on Thursday due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. This rover mission, which is part of a two-part series, was set to launch in 2022.

The two-part mission was designed to investigate whether there is or ever was life on Mars.

"While recognising the impact on scientific exploration of space, ESA is fully aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its Member States," the intergovernmental organization said in a release.

Source: Npr/Image: Pinterest

Know Elon's Spectacle More Closely

[stevebattle]

Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover (2022), built at Airbus Defence and Space, Stevenage, UK. In 2018, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched a public campaign to choose a name for the ExoMars rover, designed to search for bio-signatures of Martian life. It was appropriately named after Rosalind Franklin, who made key discoveries in our understanding of the molecular basis of life. Following months of successful testing in Toulouse and Cannes, the ExoMars rover is flight-ready, and was transferred to an ultra-clean room at the Thales Alenia Space premises in Turin, Italy, in preparation for a September 2022 launch. It was due to fly on a Russian Proton-M rocket, and descend to the surface of Mars on a Russian Kazachok lander, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made this impossible. With the mission now grounded indefinitely, prolonged storage of the rover raises new engineering challenges, including preventing damage to the rover from Earth's stronger gravity. "The load on the wheels, the mechanisms - this is what we try to preserve. Storage over a long period of time without taking care of those difficulties could be a degrading factor for the performance of the rover." – Francois Spoto, Mars Exploration Group leader, ESA.

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up July 12, 2022

Under the cut:

The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45

At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson, in a strike attributed to recently acquired US weapons

The United States treasury announced is sending $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services” following an announcement by European foreign ministers approving €1bn

European Space Agency terminated cooperation with Russia on Mars mission

“According to the Infrastructure Ministry, 16 vessels have entered through the Danube-Black Sea Canal to load Ukrainian grain as of July 12. Other more than 90 ships are currently waiting for their turn. The ministry expects that it will be able to increase the monthly export of grain by 500,000 tons. The use of the canal opened up after Ukraine liberated Snake Island from Russian forces on June 30.”-via Ukraine Ministry of Infrastructure Facebook (Ukrainian source)

~

“The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday, according to the Kyiv Independent.

The newspaper reported that the state emergency service said it had now pulled 45 bodies out of the rubble, including a child.

Saturday’s missile attack destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city.

Nine people have been rescued, the newspaper says, and the rescue operation is ongoing.”-via The Guardian 

~

“At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson, in a strike attributed to recently acquired US weapons.

The claims of fatalities were made by the Russian-installed administration in the town and could not be immediately verified, though footage on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night, burning ammunition and towering smoke.

The explosion hit a warehouse close to a key railway line and a dam on the Dnipro River. Imaging from Nasa’s Firms global fire tracking system showed a number of secondary blazes in buildings around the initial blast site.

Kyiv said it had launched artillery barrages that a destroyed a Russian arms depot, hitting artillery, armoured vehicles “and a warehouse with ammunition”, and in addition carried out a “special operation” to free military captives in the Moscow-controlled region. Russian-backed authorities accused Ukraine of damaging civilian infrastructure.

Pro-Russia officials and some Ukrainian commentators were quick to suggest that the explosion was the result of a strike by Ukraine’s newly supplied US Himars missile system. A number of recent strikes on ammunition warehouses and Russian command centres have been attributed to Himars.”

-via The Guardian

~

“The United States treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”.

The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May.

Like the European money, the US payment is also part of a wider package, $7.5bn (£6.3bn) in aid signed off by Joe Biden in May, and brings to almost £2.5bn the amount approved in aid for Ukraine from both sides of the Atlantic in just the last 24 hours.”-via The Guardian

~

“European Space Agency is terminating cooperation with Russia on the mission to launch Europe's first planetary rover, designed to search for signs of life on Mars, the agency’s chief said on Tuesday.  

The ExoMars Rover, a collaboration between the ESA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, had been on track to leave for Mars in September this year. But the ESA said in February that Russia's invasion of Ukraine had made that "very unlikely."

Then in March, the agency suspended cooperation with Roscosmos over their joint mission on Mars in the wake of the Ukraine invasion and sanctions imposed on Russia.

“Today @ESA Council addressed the ExoMars Rover and Surface Platform mission, acknowledging that the circumstances which led to the suspension of the cooperation with Roscosmos – the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions – continue to prevail,” ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.   As a consequence, the agency’s board instructed him to officially terminate cooperation with Russia on the program, Aschbacher said.“-via CNN

[marsmissiontournament]

Meet the Contestants: Rosalind Franklin

The Rosalind Franklin test model - ExoFit - in the Atacama Desert. [ESA/Airbus]

Rosalind Franklin is the rover component of the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars programme. Originally scheduled for launch in 2020, it was moved to 2022 and is now delayed for an uncertain amount of time. The mission was originally intended to land at Oxia Planum with the Roscosmos Kazachok lander and deploy from it. Rosalind Franklin will be the first Europe-led rover on Mars.

The main purpose of Rosalind Franklin - and ExoMars in general - is to determine if life has existed on Mars. While it has not reached Mars, there’s still plenty being done on Earth. There have been models of the rover tested in the Atacama Desert, and in test facilities where the rover has been suspended to mimic the different gravity on Mars. More recently, it had a successful drill test reaching 1.7 metres into Mars-like material.

Read more on the ExoMars site.

Tune in for round 2 of the Mars Mission Tournament when Rosalind Franklin goes up against ESA orbiter Mars Express.

[netmassimo]

An article published in the journal "Nature Geoscience" reports the detection of frost on volcanoes in the Tharsis region on Mars. A team of researchers used data obtained from two ESA space probes, the ExoMars mission's TGO and Mars Express, which made it possible to discover for the first time the presence of frozen water on the Martian surface at the red planet's equator. In the calderas of the big volcanoes of Tharsis, blue deposits that can be attributed to water ice were spotted which are present only in the morning and then evaporate a few hours later.

[vitalspace]

Current Mars Missions

Mars Science Laboratory - Curiosity Rover

Launch Date: November 26, 2011

Landing Date: August 6, 2012

Mission Overview: The Curiosity Rover was designed to explore Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. It aims to investigate Mars' climate and geology and assess whether Gale Crater ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Key Findings: Curiosity has discovered evidence of ancient water flows, complex organic molecules, and a methane cycle, which may indicate past habitability.

InSight Lander

Launch Date: May 5, 2018

Landing Date: November 26, 2018

Mission Overview: InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) is a NASA mission designed to study the deep interior of Mars. Its primary goal is to understand the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets by measuring the planet's seismic activity and heat flow.

Key Findings: InSight has detected marsquakes, which provide insights into Mars' interior structure. It has also measured the heat flow from the planet’s interior and collected data on its weather.

Mars 2020 - Perseverance Rover

Launch Date: July 30, 2020

Landing Date: February 18, 2021

Mission Overview: The Perseverance Rover aims to search for signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for potential return to Earth. It carries advanced scientific instruments and the Ingenuity helicopter, which has performed the first powered flight on another planet.

Key Findings: Perseverance has collected samples that will be stored for future missions to return to Earth. It has also demonstrated the first oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.

Future Mars MissionsExoMars 2022 (Rosalind Franklin Rover)

Launch Date: Currently planned for 2028 (delayed from 2022)

Mission Overview: ExoMars is a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos. The Rosalind Franklin Rover will search for signs of past life beneath the Martian surface and drill up to two meters to collect samples.

Key Objectives: The rover will analyze the subsurface environment, focusing on the chemical, physical, and biological properties of Martian soil and rock.Mars Sample Return

Mission Launch Date: Targeted for the late 2020s to early 2030s

Mission Overview: This mission is a collaborative effort between NASA and ESA to bring back samples collected by the Perseverance Rover. The mission involves a series of steps, including launching a fetch rover to collect the samples, launching a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) to send them into Mars orbit, and capturing them with an Earth Return Orbiter.

Key Objectives: The goal is to bring back Martian samples to Earth for detailed analysis in laboratories, which will provide unprecedented insights into the planet's geology and potential biosignatures.China's Tianwen-3 Mission

Launch Date: Planned for the 2030s

Mission Overview: Building on the success of the Tianwen-1 mission, Tianwen-3 aims to conduct a sample return mission from Mars. It will involve a lander, rover, and ascent vehicle to collect and return samples.

Key Objectives: Similar to the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return, Tianwen-3 seeks to bring back Martian soil and rock samples to Earth for extensive scientific study.

Significance of Mars Missions

The exploration of Mars is crucial for several reasons:Scientific Understanding: By studying Mars' geology, climate, and potential biosignatures, we gain insights into the planet's history and the possibility of life beyond Earth.

Future Human Exploration: These missions lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars by testing new technologies, understanding the Martian environment, and identifying potential resources.International Collaboration: Mars missions often involve international partnerships, advancing global scientific cooperation and pooling resources for more ambitious endeavors.

Mars missions are a testament to human ingenuity and curiosity, pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve in space exploration. Each mission builds on the knowledge gained from previous ones, bringing us closer to understanding the Red Planet and our place in the universe.

[michaelgabrill]

NASA European Space Agency Unite to Land Europes Rover on Mars

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) announced Thursday they signed an agreement to expand NASA’s work on the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, an ESA-led mission launching in 2028 that will search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. With this memorandum of understanding, the NASA Launch Services Program will procure a U.S. commercial […] from NASA https://ift.tt/E1MwQpX

[spacenutspod]

5 Min Read Why is Methane Seeping on Mars? NASA Scientists Have New Ideas Filled with briny lakes, the Quisquiro salt flat in South America’s Altiplano region represents the kind of landscape that scientists think may have existed in Gale Crater on Mars, which NASA’s Curiosity Rover is exploring. Credits: Maksym Bocharov The most surprising revelation from NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover — that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater — has scientists scratching their heads. Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven’t found convincing signs of current or ancient life on Mars, and thus didn’t expect to find methane there. Yet, the portable chemistry lab aboard Curiosity, known as SAM, or Sample Analysis at Mars, has continually sniffed out traces of the gas near the surface of Gale Crater, the only place on the surface of Mars where methane has been detected thus far. Its likely source, scientists assume, are geological mechanisms that involve water and rocks deep underground. If that were the whole story, things would be easy. However, SAM has found that methane behaves in unexpected ways in Gale Crater. It appears at night and disappears during the day. It fluctuates seasonally, and sometimes spikes to levels 40 times higher than usual. Surprisingly, the methane also isn’t accumulating in the atmosphere: ESA’s (the European Space Agency) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, sent to Mars specifically to study the gas in the atmosphere, has detected no methane. Why do some science instruments detect methane on the Red Planet while others don’t? “It’s a story with a lot of plot twists,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads Curiosity’s mission. Methane keeps Mars scientists busy with lab work and computer modeling projects that aim to explain why the gas behaves strangely and is detected only in Gale Crater. A NASA research group recently shared an interesting proposal. Reporting in a March paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the group suggested that methane — no matter how it’s produced — could be sealed under solidified salt that might form in Martian regolith, which is “soil” made of broken rock and dust. When temperature rises during warmer seasons or times of day, weakening the seal, the methane could seep out. Led by Alexander Pavlov, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the researchers suggest the gas also can erupt in puffs when seals crack under the pressure of, say, a rover the size of a small SUV driving over it. The team’s hypothesis may help explain why methane is detected only in Gale Crater, Pavlov said, given that’s it’s one of two places on Mars where a robot is roving and drilling the surface. (The other is Jezero Crater, where NASA’s Perseverance rover is working, though that rover doesn’t have a methane-detecting instrument.) Pavlov traces the origin of this hypothesis to an unrelated experiment he led in 2017, which involved growing microorganisms in a simulated Martian permafrost (frozen soil) infused with salt, as much of Martian permafrost is. Pavlov and his colleagues tested whether bacteria known as halophiles, which live in saltwater lakes and other salt-rich environments on Earth, could thrive in similar conditions on Mars. The microbe-growing results proved inconclusive, he said, but the researchers noticed something unexpected: The top layer of soil formed a salt crust as salty ice sublimated, turning from a solid to a gas and leaving the salt behind. Permafrost on Mars and Earth “We didn’t think much of it at the moment,” Pavlov said, but he remembered the soil crust in 2019, when SAM’s tunable laser spectrometer detected a methane burst no one could explain. “That’s when it clicked in my mind,” Pavlov said. And that’s when he and a team began testing the conditions that could form and crack hardened salt seals. Pavlov’s team tested five samples of permafrost infused with varying concentrations of a salt called perchlorate that’s widespread on Mars. (There’s likely no permafrost in Gale Crater today, but the seals could have formed long ago when Gale was colder and icier.) The scientists exposed each sample to different temperatures and air pressure inside a Mars simulation chamber at NASA Goddard. Periodically, Pavlov’s team injected neon, a methane analog, underneath the soil sample and measured the gas pressure below and above it. Higher pressure beneath the sample implied the gas was trapped. Ultimately, a seal formed under Mars-like conditions within three to 13 days only in samples with 5% to 10% perchlorate concentration. This is a sample of mock Martian regolith, which is “soil” made of broken rock and dust. It’s one of five samples that scientists infused with varying concentrations of a salt called perchlorate that’s widespread on Mars. They exposed each sample to Mars-like conditions in the Mars simulation chamber at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The brittle clumps in the sample above show that a seal of salt did not form in this sample because the concentration of salt was too low. NASA/Alexander Pavlov This image is of another sample of mock Martian “soil” after it was removed from the Mars simulation chamber. The surface is sealed with a solid crust of salt. Alexander Pavlov and his team found that a seal formed after a sample spent three to 13 days under Mars-like conditions, and only if it had 5% to 10% perchlorate salt concentration. The color is lighter in the center where the sample was scratched with a metal pick. The light color indicates a drier soil underneath the top layer, which absorbed moisture from the air as soon as the sample was removed from the simulation chamber, turning brown. NASA/Alexander Pavlov That’s a much higher salt concentration than Curiosity has measured in Gale Crater. But regolith there is rich in a different type of salt minerals called sulfates, which Pavlov’s team wants to test next to see if they can also form seals. Curiosity rover has arrived at a region believed to have formed as Mars’ climate was drying. Improving our understanding of methane generation and destruction processes on Mars is a key recommendation from the 2022 NASA Planetary Mission Senior Review, and theoretical work like Pavlov’s is critical to this effort. However, scientists say they also need more consistent methane measurements. SAM sniffs for methane only several times a year because it is otherwise busy doing its primary job of drilling samples from the surface and analyzing their chemical makeup. In 2018, NASA announced that the Sample Analysis at Mars chemistry lab aboard the Curiosity Rover discovered ancient organic molecules that had been preserved in rocks for billions of years. Findings like this one help scientists understand the habitability of early Mars and pave the way for future missions to the Red Planet.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterDownload this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio “Methane experiments are resource intensive, so we have to be very strategic when we decide to do them,” said Goddard’s Charles Malespin, principal investigator for SAM. Yet, to test how often methane levels spike, for instance, would require a new generation of surface instruments that measure methane continuously from many locations across Mars, scientists say. “Some of the methane work will have to be left to future surface spacecraft that are more focused on answering these specific questions,” Vasavada said. By Lonnie ShekhtmanNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Share Details Last Updated Apr 22, 2024 Contact Lonnie Shekhtman lonnie.shekhtman@nasa.gov Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Curiosity (Rover) Goddard Space Flight Center Mars Mars Exploration Program Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Missions NASA Directorates Planetary Science Division Science Mission Directorate The Solar System

[mindblowingscience]

Europe's long-delayed ExoMars rover mission to the Red Planet just got a boost for its projected launch in 2028. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) inked a memorandum of understanding on Thursday (May 16), thereby officially joining forces on the endeavor, which will send a life-hunting rover named Rosalind Franklin to Mars. Two years ago, ESA cut ties with Russia's space agency Roscosmos, the former main partner on ExoMars, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a result, the mission missed its intended launch window and now must wait for 2028. (Mars and Earth align properly for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months.) Now ESA, its member states and European industry, along with NASA, are hammering out new synergies and partnerships.

Continue Reading.

[delectablywaywardbeard-blog]

Con ExoMars riparte l'esplorazione europea di Marte

Riparte la missione europea ExoMars 2028, progettata per cercare tracce di vita presente o passata su Marte: grazie al contratto da 522 milioni di euro siglato dall’Agenzia Spaziale Europea con Thales Alenia Space, la missione trova nuovo slancio dopo l’inattesa battuta d’arresto dovuta alla rottura della collaborazione con l’agenzia spaziale russa Roscosmos all’indomani dell’invasione…

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Hera asteroid mission's side-trip to Mars

ESA's Hera asteroid mission for planetary defense will make a swingby of Mars next March, borrowing speed to help reach its target Didymos binary asteroid system.

In the process the spacecraft will venture as near as 6,000 km from the surface of the Red Planet, closer than the orbits of the two martian moons. Its trajectory will be tweaked so that it can train its science instruments onto Mars's smaller moon Deimos from within 1,000 km away, while also observing Mars itself.

Details of the swingby are being presented at this week's Hera Science Community Workshop at ESA's ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands.

"This swingby is part of the scheduled maneuvers to get Hera to Didymos by the end of its two-year cruise phase," explains Michael Kueppers, ESA's Hera project scientist.

"By swinging through the gravitational field of Mars in its direction of movement the spacecraft gains added velocity for its onward journey. This close encounter is not part of Hera's core mission, but we will have several of our science instruments activated anyway. It gives us another chance to calibrate our instruments and potentially to make some scientific discoveries."

Flight Dynamics engineer Pablo Muñoz, part of the Mission Analysis team at ESA's European Space Operations Center in Germany, said, "It´s truly fortunate that Mars happens to be at the right location and at the right time to give Hera a hand. This enabled us to design a trajectory that uses the gravity of Mars to push Hera towards its rendezvous with Didymos, resulting in great fuel savings for the mission. Part of the excess propellant can then be spent in advancing the arrival at the binary asteroid by a few months, thus maximizing the mission's planetary defense and science return."

Hera is due for launch in October this year, headed for the mountain-sized Didymos asteroid and the Great-Pyramid-sized Dimorphos moonlet that orbits around it. On 26 September 2022 NASA's van-sized DART spacecraft impacted the Dimorphos asteroid at around 6.1 km/s. This first test of the 'kinetic impact' method of planetary defense succeeded in modifying the orbit of the target asteroid around its larger parent.

Next Hera will perform a close-up survey of Dimorphos, to gather crucial missing information on the asteroid's mass, makeup and structure that can turn DART's grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and potentially repeatable planetary defense technique.

"Hera's instruments have been designed to observe Dimorphos of course, but the potential is there to turn up interesting insights about the distinctively asteroid-like Deimos as well," notes Patrick Michel Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice and Hera's Principal Investigator.

Orbiting 23,460 km from Mars, Deimos—its name deriving from the Greek for "Fear"—is the further and smaller of the two martian moons. The lumpy body has a diameter of 12.4 km across and has a dark surface reminiscent of C-type asteroids. One theory is that both Deimos and its fellow martian moon Phobos are in fact captured asteroids from the main Asteroid belt. Their surface characteristics have features in common with the planet below them however, conversely suggesting an impact-based origin.

"Deimos has not been observed before with Hera's combination of science instruments, so hope to make some discoveries," adds Patrick Michel. "We will also be observing in synergy with the Emirates Mars Mission 'Hope Probe,' which launched in July 2020 and entered orbit around Mars in February 2021. Co-observations with ESA's own Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter missions are also under consideration.

"Additionally, the imagery and data we gather will help with planning the Japanese-led Martian Moons eXploration mission, MMX, which is due to launch in 2026. MMX will survey both moons while also landing a small French-German rover on Phobos and acquiring samples to return to Earth."

Hera will employ three of its instruments during its swingby of Mars and Deimos. Its main Asteroid Framing Camera will gather visual imagery while its HyperScout-H instrument will observe in a range of colors beyond the limits of the human eye, gathering mineralogical data in a total of 25 visible and near-infrared spectral bands.

Finally its Thermal Infrared Imager is a heat mapper, able to make out features through local night-time and measure how surface temperatures change over time to help constrain surface properties.

IMAGE....ESA’s Hera mission will be humankind's first mission to explore a binary asteroid system. The mission will perform a close-up survey of the Dimorphos asteroid, which has previously had its orbit shifted by kinetic impact with NASA's DART spacecraft. Credit: ESA-Science Office