The Johns Hopkins Universi t y Applied Physics Laboratory Civ i l ian Space Newslet t er

Summer 2008 • Volume 3 • Issue 2

The Executive’s NoteIt’s been a busy spring at the Applied Physics Laboratory, with several new opportunities and challenges coming to fruition.

In early May, we received authorization to proceed with developing the Solar Probe, an ambitious mission that will study the streams of charged particles the Sun hurls into space from a vantage point within the Sun’s corona. Solar Probe presents a daunting engineering challenge: at closest approach Solar Probe would zip past the Sun at 125 miles per second, protected by a carbon-composite heat shield that must withstand up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit and survive blasts of radiation and energized dust at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft.

Experts in the United States and abroad have grappled with this mission concept for more than 30 years, running into seemingly insurmountable technology and budgetary limitations. However, an APL-led team completed a Solar Probe engineering and mission design study at NASA’s request, detailing just how the robotic mission could be accomplished.

The study team used an APL-led 2005 study as its baseline but then significantly altered the concept to meet new and

NA

SA

Continued on page 2

Continued on page 3

Mini-RF Instrument to Orbit the MoonAPL recently delivered the Mini-RF instrument, a technology demonstra-tion experiment designed to survey the permanently shadowed regions on the lunar poles. This synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument will orbit the Moon on two different platforms: the Chandrayaan-1 mission to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) currently undergoing integration and testing at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Delivery of the instrument demonstrates APL’s ongoing commitment to the program. Initially, APL participation included science, operations and project management. However, as the program progressed, APL was asked to conclude the instrument’s integration and testing. The integration and testing teams at APL rose to the challenge and completed the final test and delivery.

APL engineers perform bench work on the Mini-RF instrument.

APL

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY2

Executive’s Note,continued from page 1

challenging cost and technical conditions

provided by NASA.

This challenge is as exciting as it is ambitious but we know our

engineers, scientists and program managers are cut out for this task. Nonetheless, this challenge involves getting some of the brightest aerospace professionals we know together to stretch the limits of today’s technology and resources.

Our staff has risen to many such challenges, and this past spring, many finally got some overdue recognition. Another article in this newsletter details the achievements of STEREO and TIMED, two very successful heliophysics missions. STEREO and TIMED each received NASA’s Group Achievement Award. In addition, several of our staff members have recently been recognized for their outstanding engineering achievements, including Jim McAdams, MESSENGER mission design lead engineer, and Andy Driesman, STEREO system engineer.

As you may have heard, Rob Strain has been appointed the new Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. We are disappointed to see Rob depart, but we are pleased that he will remain one of our key partners.

Similarly, I would like to welcome Andy Cheng back to APL. Andy spent a year at NASA Headquarters assisting NASA’s science mission directorate. He recently was appointed chief scientist of the Space Department, a significant achievement. Congratulations to Andy.

Finally, we know it’s summer because we have quite a few interns in our midst. Our intern program is very successful at giving real-world experience to students interested in science and engineering or related fields. If you have or know an interested college student, be sure to look into some of our internship programs.

Our interns are often asked what it’s like to work at APL, and they tend to focus on a common theme. Our culture melds academic research and interests with significant engineering talents. While our staff work very hard, they enjoy what they do and the teamwork that makes our challenging missions so successful.

Walt Faulconer Business Area Executive for Civilian Space

FUSEShedding Light on the Evolution of the Universe

After an 8-year run gathering valuable data about light we cannot see–light that has revealed new details about the evolution and composition of the universe–the FUSE (Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer) satellite signed off on Oct. 18, 2007. A NASA mission managed by The Johns Hopkins University Center for Astrophysical Sciences and operated by the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on JHU’s Homewood campus, FUSE used high-resolution spectroscopy at the far-ultraviolet end of the spectrum to acquire new information about a multitude of astrophysical objects (super-novae, quasars, and planetary nebulae, to name a few).

The spectrograph on FUSE identified a unique spectral portrait, or “fingerprint,” of incoming light by breaking it down into its compo-nent wavelengths. This fingerprint made it possible to determine the chemical composition of the object being explored, while providing relevant details about that object’s physical attributes, including temperature, gravity, and velocity.

FUSE’s scientific payoff was impressive. The satellite observed violently heated, half-a-million-degree interstellar gas forming a halo around (but at an extensive distance away from) the Milky Way, and the data obtained by FUSE seem to indicate that the gas is heated by thousands of exploding stars. FUSE also provided insight into Mars’ past when it detected molecular hydrogen (hydrogen that results from the breakup of water) in the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere. The presence of this type of hydrogen today suggests that, relative to its size, Mars may once have had more water than that found on Earth. FUSE’s notable findings go on from there.

APL

Civilian Space Newslet ter

Summer 2008

3

APL’s contributions to this satellite were significant and crucial to the mission’s success. Collaborating successfully with JHU, APL was responsible for mission system engineering, instrument mechanical engineering, procure-ment of the spacecraft bus and the Instrument Data System (IDS), and development of the IDS software. APL also provided staff and facili-ties for integration and testing. After FUSE was launched in 1999, APL, in a supporting role, helped to resolve some anomalies with the satellite’s reaction wheels and navigation, and the IDS bench test equipment was also maintained by APL after launch.

Not one to go quietly, FUSE continues to contribute to space research as astronomers make their way through the myriad of still-to-be-analyzed data. Most recently, data obtained jointly by FUSE and a spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed that the space between galaxies, also known as the intergalactic medium, is not as empty as once thought and instead contains most of the universe’s baryonic matter. Planets and moons are formed from this matter, and baryons even make up the interstellar gas and dust out of which new stars emerge.

To learn more about the FUSE mission and its many discoveries, visit http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/.

As part of the investigations behind the United States’ return to the Moon, the Mini-RF payload will examine the Moon’s polar resources. Each instrument differs slightly. The main goal of Mini-RF on Chandrayaan-1 is to conduct systematic SAR mapping for both lunar poles. The Mini-RF payload on LRO is an enhanced instrument relative to its cousin flying on Chandrayaan-1. The LRO instrument can operate in both S-band (like Chandrayaan-1) and X-band. In addition, it features a zoom mode with higher spatial resolution as well as the baseline resolution (75 meters per pixel).

Both instruments will help characterize the lunar environment and provide more information on the possibility of ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon. APL’s Ben Bussey, deputy principal investigator, says he is looking forward to seeing the data. “It’s very exciting that we are going to see parts of the Moon for the very first time! The discovery of ice deposits in the floors of permanently shadowed craters has major ramifications as a potential resource for the upcoming human outpost.”

Deputy Project Manager Helene Winters remained confident in her team despite the programmatic pressures. For the first build of Mini-RF, integration and testing were completed at the ISRO facilities in Bangalore, India. The international nature of this project has made it both more exciting and more challenging. “We’ve had many overnight telecons and lots of long flights, and have been constrained by export regulations; however, we’ve had the opportunity to interface with another space agency and have developed an excellent working relationship with our ISRO colleagues,” Winters says.

Once the missions are operational, coordination of the observations from both spacecraft will provide new information on the Moon’s surface and ice reserves. Exciting research opportunities exist with the two radars in lunar orbit at the same time; coordinated bistatic imaging by LRO and Chandrayaan-1 would provide new insight and information to help discriminate between ice and rock formations.

Chandrayann-1 is scheduled to launch this fall aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. LRO will launch from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than Nov. 24, 2008, aboard an Atlas 401.

For more information: http://www.isro.org/Chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm and http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/.

Artist’s rendering of the LRO spacecraft, scheduled to launch in fall 2008.

Mini-RF Instrument continued from page 1

NA

SA

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY4

NASA Recognizes STEREO and TIMED Mission Teams

During NASA awards ceremonies in May, two APL-led missions were presented

with Group Achievement awards, and STEREO’s system engineer with the agency’s Exceptional Public Service Medal. Ceremonies held at NASA Headquarters and a facility near Goddard Space Flight Center recognized the achievement of APL’s and other NASA programs.

NASA’s Group Achievement Award is granted to government and non-government employees “for outstanding accomplishment through the coordination of many individual efforts which has contributed substantially to the NASA mission.”

STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory)

The STEREO team was recognized for outstanding work in the design, development, test and launch of the twin observatories, which are capturing the first 3-D images of the Sun and inner heliosphere. STEREO’s mission management team was recognized for efforts related to the successful launch and operations of the twin observatories. STEREO’s outreach team was recognized for outstanding work releasing, worldwide, the mission’s first 3-D images.

Driesman Awarded Exceptional Public Service Medal

Andy Driesman, STEREO’s system engineer, received NASA’s Exceptional Public Service Medal, awarded to non-government employees for significant contributions to NASA missions. Driesman was recognized for his systems engineering leadership and management of the STEREO project.

Since launch on Oct. 25, 2006, STEREO’s twin observatories have made history, capturing the first 3-D images of a solar tsunami, a solar hurricane tearing off a comet’s tail, and solar prominences floating above the Sun’s surface. STEREO’s imagery and APL team members are featured in a 3-D, high-definition IMAX film, 3D Sun, being shown worldwide, including at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The mission was recently extended for operations and data analysis through 2010. APL designed, built and operates the twin observatories for NASA Goddard, which manages the mission, instruments and science center.

TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics)

The TIMED team was recognized for outstanding accomplish-ments in enhancing our understanding of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and changes induced by the Sun and other influences.

Since its launch on Dec. 7, 2001, TIMED’s long-term study of our middle and upper atmosphere has collected measurements showing how different layers of Earth’s atmosphere react to an array of solar activity, including a total solar eclipse. Its data have shown similarities between the atmospheres of Earth and Mars. Over the preceding seven years, TIMED not only captured an auroral display that reached as far south as Alabama but also recorded our atmosphere’s response to some of the largest geomagnetic storms ever recorded.

APL designed and built the TIMED spacecraft, leads the project’s science effort and manages the mission’s science data center. NASA Goddard manages the mission.

Awards and Achievements

Left: Andy Driesman, STEREO’s system engineer, was recognized for outstanding systems engineering leardership and management.Below: Artist’s rendering of the TIMED spacecraft.

APL

Civilian Space Newslet ter

Summer 2008

5

The Mastermind Behind MESSENGER’s Trajectory Honored for Efforts

Jim McAdams, the MESSENGER mission design lead engineer, was named the 2008 Engineer of the Year by the Baltimore Section, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

McAdams, of APL’s Space Department, “optimized the trajectory and maneuver schedule, designing one of the most challenging planetary missions in history,” said

APL’s Tom Strikwerda, who on May 28 presented the award: a plaque and a 24-inch-high trophy that McAdams will keep until passing it on to the next winner a year from now.

MESSENGER’s trajectory had to be designed to most effectively use the gravitational pull of Venus and Mercury to achieve most of the required velocity change. To make the challenging trip possible, the trajec-tory uses six gravity-assist flybys: one by Earth, two by Venus, and three by Mercury. These gravity assists, along with five large course-correction maneuvers, reduce the energy (and thus fuel) requirements but greatly prolong the trip. These maneuvers will also slow the spacecraft’s speed relative to Mercury to enable placing the probe into orbit around the planet.

Upon arrival at Mercury in March 2011, the spacecraft will enter an elliptical orbit that passes as close as 200 kilometers to Mercury’s far northern surface every 12 hours. Such an orbit will allow MESSENGER to measure solar wind and magnetic fields at a variety of distances from the planet yet still obtain close-up measurements and images of the surface.

“The implementation of this complex mission plan has been a significant challenge,” says McAdams, who also worked on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission. “It’s a privilege to join two other MESSENGER team engineers as recipients of this award,” he adds, referring to Robin Vaughan and Adrian Hill, two other engineers from the MESSENGER team who received the award in 2004 and 2006, respectively.

McAdams, who holds a master’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University, also developed several MESSENGER education and outreach products and distributed trajectory data to the science community. Last summer, he played a critical role in the creation of the Mercury Flyby Visualization Tool, which provides simulated views and actual images of Mercury from MESSENGER’s perspective. Members of MESSENGER’s Geology Discipline Group used the tool before and after the probe’s flyby in January to gain information about imaging sites on Mercury. “I look for efficient and creative ways to improve both the likelihood of mission success and the public’s perception of the project I work on,” said McAdams.

“Jim McAdams has been a critical member of the MESSENGER team,” offers MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “Jim is usually several steps ahead of the rest of us with respect to planning for mission-critical events, and we can always count on his results to high precision. The journey to orbiting Mercury is long and complex, but we have a terrific trail blazer.”

APL

Jim McAdams, MESSENGER’s orbital McMaster

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY6

After three decades, members of the Ulysses mission team have watched each others’ careers and families grow as their spacecraft has traveled nearly as long as its namesake: the hero of Homer’s The Odyssey (Ulysses is Latin for Odysseus). Ulysses the spacecraft faced a 13-year trek from proposal to launch, and now, nearly 18 years into what was to be a 5-year mission, its journey is about to end. But it won’t be coming home: the probe is moving away from the Sun after completing its third orbit over the star’s poles, and its fuel is freezing. Very soon–no one can say exactly when–Ulysses’ faint signal will be lost.

Several members of APL’s Space Department participated in this odyssey since the beginning, when they proposed the Heliosphere Instrument for Spectra, Composition, and Anisotropy at Low Energies, or HI-SCALE, to measure interplan-etary ions and electrons. “When you work together on missions, you have this excitement of discovering new things and arguing about what you are seeing,” says Tom Krimigis. “That forges the kind of lifelong relationships where you not only work with other people, but you know their families, their friendships and associations.”

“I’m sad for the end of the best mission I’ve ever been involved in,” says Rob Gold. “I was involved in writing the proposal, designing and building HI-SCALE, and operating it. So I’ve had a great emotional investment, all through these 30 years,” he says.

To reach its orbit over the poles of the Sun, Ulysses had to first swing by Jupiter for a gravity assist. “Jupiter has an enormous magnetosphere surrounding it,” says engineer Ed Hawkins. Hawkins joined the mission in 1987 and was directed toward HI-SCALE’s ground support system, which he describes as an “old rack of equipment that had 8-inch floppy disk drives. They basically told me, ‘make it work.’” And he did: he replaced a single integrated circuit and everything started to work. “Unlike missions that had gone before it, Ulysses was the first to sample the dusk side of Jupiter.”

Ulysses arrived at the Sun’s southern pole in 1994 and soon began changing our understanding of the Sun and solar physics. “We’ve learned a great deal about the structure of this interplanetary medium and its magnetic fields, throughout three dimensions of the heliosphere,” says Gold. “Ulysses is the only mission that’s given us that 3-D picture. Obviously it collaborates with other missions, but it’s the only one that’s ever traveled significantly outside of the ecliptic plane, and it’s observed the Sun through both solar maximum and minimum.”

Ulysses Ends Long Journey

“For decades we were speculating about what the solar wind and particles were doing at higher latitudes,” says Krimigis. “There were all these models, but you can never be sure about their validity measurements, and Ulysses provided them. Not only did it discover where the high-velocity solar wind was coming from [from the coronal holes on the north and south poles], but in addition it did away with one of the big theories of cosmic rays.”

The end began for Ulysses in January 2008, when the decision was made to turn off its powerful X-band transmitter to conserve energy and possibly extend the mission. But the transmitter refused to come back to life, and Ulysses declared a spacecraft emergency, bringing it the full attention of NASA’s Deep Space Network of antennas.

At that same moment, Gold, Hawkins, Krimigis and others on the MESSENGER team, along with a roomful of reporters, camera crews, and APL and NASA officials waited anxiously for images from MESSENGER’s first flyby of Mercury to come through the network.

“Many times we like to think that some of our crises end up well, but sometimes they don’t,” says Krimigis. “Another example that good things don’t last forever.”

Artist’s rendition of Ulysses gathering data on the Sun in March 1995.

NA

SA

APL Mission Events and Anniversaries Aug. 8, 2008

Launch of IBEX Mission with an APL Instrument

Oct. 6, 2008

MESSENGER’s second flyby of Mercury will yield more of the planet’s unseen surface.

Civilian Space Newslet ter

Summer 2008

7

Education and Public Outreach Update

E/PO Events Calendar Aug. 14–16, 2008 The Great Planet Debate: Science as Process Conference —Teacher Workshop, APL, Laurel, Md.

Oct. 6, 2008

MESSENGER’s second flyby of Mercury will yield more of the planet’s unseen surface.

For the sixth consecutive summer, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory hosted the Summer Center for Space Science for rising sixth and seventh grade students. This year’s group, representing nine Maryland counties, studied the current applica-tions of space technology.

Students in the program learn the basics of space science and the tools and techniques that scientists use to perform their investigations. Student teams design their own NASA mission and present it to a panel. Teacher Ron Capurso, of the Howard County Public School System, directed the camp this year along with Holly Patterson and Lori Griffiths.

“It’s amazing the progression the kids make in just nine days,” said Patterson. “Some of the students have a significant background in science, but most do not.” After some classroom lessons, going on a field trip or two, and hands-on engineering demonstrations, the campers go on to design their own Discovery-class mission to study our solar system.

The Maryland Summer Centers program is sponsored by the Maryland State Department of Education and funded by the Maryland General Assembly. The program provides Maryland’s diverse gifted and talented student population with advanced, rigorous, experi-mental learning opportunities that nurture these students’ talents and abilities within unique environments. For more information, visit: www.marylandpublicschools.org/summercenters.

Students Learn That Space Is the Place

APL

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY8

The Civilian Space Explorer is published quarterly by the Space Department’s Civilian Space Business Area

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 11100 Johns Hopkins Road • Laurel, Maryland 20723-6099 Washington (240) 228-5000 / Baltimore (443) 778-5000www.jhuapl.edu and http://civspace.jhuapl.edu

Send updates & inquiries to: margaret.simon@jhuapl.eduWalt Faulconer, Civilian Space Business Area ExecutiveCheryl Reed, Civilian Space Program Development ManagerMargaret Simon, Communications Manager and Explorer ManagerMike Buckley, Senior WriterKristi Marren, Contributing WriterJennifer Huergo, Contributing WriterPaulette Campbell, Contributing Writer Anne King, Contributing Writer and Copy EditorKerri Beisser, E/PO ManagerMurrie Burgan, Copy EditorPeggy Moore, Copy EditorMagda Saina, Design DirectorPatrice Zurvalec, LayoutEd Whitman, PhotographerBill Rogers, Photographer

APL-Led Team to Develop Space- Environment ObservatoryAPL has been awarded a major grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for an experiment that will allow, for the first time, global and real-time space-weather observations of near-Earth space.

The Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE) will use the Iridium constellation of communica-tions satellites to measure the electric currents that link Earth’s atmosphere and space. By measuring this key component of the space-weather system, AMPERE will allow 24/7 tracking of Earth’s response to supersonic blasts of plasma ejected from the Sun. AMPERE also will enable advances in theories and simulations that could transform our understanding of Earth’s space environment and improve space-weather forecasting.

“Earth’s space environment can completely reconfigure in as little as 30 minutes,” says APL’s Brian Anderson, principal investigator for AMPERE. “With this new ability to continually monitor these electric currents, we will be able to track the transformations of our planet’s space environ-ment for the first time and thereby gain a new understanding of how Earth reacts to the Sun.”

For the project, APL is collaborating with Iridium Satellite LLC and the Boeing Company to leverage the unique capabilities and orbits of the more than 70 Iridium satellites, which provide global telephone and data services. The satellites already detect the electric currents through which they pass, but software developed under the NSF grant will increase the number of measurements 100-fold, enabling a quantum advance in our ability to observe the near-Earth space environment.

More than 800 satellites orbit Earth today, forming the backbone of modern communications and navigation systems. Storms in our space environment driven by solar disturbances can damage these satellites and pose dangers to astronauts, high-altitude aircraft and electric power grids.

During geomagnetic storms, the electric currents that AMPERE will observe can exceed 10 million amperes–one million times what household wiring can handle–and deliver up to a terawatt of power to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the ionosphere and the thermo-sphere. A typical power plant is designed to deliver one-thousandth that amount, approximately 1 gigawatt of power. This energy input causes a variety of harmful effects, including atmospheric heating that changes the orbits of satellites closest to Earth; ionospheric distur-bances that disrupt radio communications and corrupt GPS navigation systems; and spacecraft charging, which damages electrical systems. In addition, down on the ground, the energy can induce currents that destroy transformers and stress generators, causing power grid disruptions and even major blackouts. The currents that AMPERE will measure also are closely linked to enhanced radiation levels in space, posing risks to astronauts and spacecraft and to plasma charging events that degrade high-altitude spacecraft.

“Presently, we do not have enough satellites making these measurements,” says Anderson. “It’s like trying to understand a hurricane with only a few weather stations measuring temperature. AMPERE will give us the first-ever global, real-time picture of what’s really happening during these dynamic space-weather storms.”

The data collected by AMPERE will complement other research efforts that seek to understand Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere, and the ionosphere and thermosphere. AMPERE will produce real-time dynamic maps of the electric currents, which will be available to researchers and the general public.

Jerr

emy

And

erso

n