Word: nasa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...NASA is not amused. Snaps Wesley Huntress, the agency's chief of space science: "NASA believes this mission is safe, period. Otherwise we would not be doing it." Contrary to what the critics say, the agency did consider solar power, insists Cassini engineer Richard Stoller. Because sunlight at Saturn is only 1% as strong as it is on Earth, solar cells would not have done the trick. Neither would batteries and fuel cells; they would never last through the 11-year mission...
...when one of Pathfinder's robotic littermates--the Global Surveyor--arrived at the planet and swung into orbit. Though the landers are likely to wink out within months, the Surveyor orbiter will be studying the planet's surface and atmosphere for years to come. When it's done, NASA should have a better picture than it's ever had of Mars' chemistry, meteorology and perhaps even biology. "We want to understand the evolution of water in that atmosphere," says Arden Albee, Surveyor project scientist, "and whether life could possibly have existed on Mars...
Just getting to the Red Planet was a signal accomplishment for Surveyor. Launching a spacecraft from Earth to Mars, says NASA, is like firing a baseball from California to New York and hitting a particular window in the Empire State Building. Having managed this navigational tour de force, Surveyor then had to enter Mars orbit--a maneuver that carried its own risks...
Before it could slow itself sufficiently to be captured by Mars' gravity, the ship had to pressurize its fuel lines and fire its retrorockets. The last time NASA tried to orbit Mars was in 1993, and that mission ended during pressurization when a fuel line hemorrhaged, sending the billion-dollar Mars Observer probe spinning into the void. Last Tuesday was Surveyor's turn to prime its lines, and despite some well-bitten nails in Mission Control, this time things went perfectly. "To see this event pass successfully is a great relief," said project manager Glenn Cunningham after the pressurization...
...goes well, Surveyor will operate into the year 2000. Even before then, NASA's next Mars ships--a lander and an orbiter set to launch in 1998--should have arrived and begun their own surveys. "We're here for a long visit," said Cunningham. "We're here to stay, essentially." It will be a while before Mars is lonely again...