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EscaPADE
Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) is a planned spacecraft mission to Mars consisting of two spacecraft known as ''Blue'' and ''Gold''. The mission, expected to launch in August 2024, is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program. Mission EscaPADE is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Robert Lillis and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. At a cost of US$79 million (including launch vehicle), the mission will demonstrate low cost planetary space exploration. The twin spacecraft will study Mars' unique magnetosphere and how solar wind contributed to the loss of most of the planet's atmosphere over solar system history. In February 2023, Blue Origin won a contract to launch the mission in 2024. Instruments and science goals The science goals of EscaPADE are to: * understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars' hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows; * understand how energy and momentum are transported from the solar w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small Innovative Missions For Planetary Exploration
Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) is a planetary exploration program operated by NASA. The program funds small, low-cost spacecraft for stand-alone planetary exploration missions. These spacecraft are intended to launch as secondary payloads on other missions and are riskier than Discovery or New Frontiers missions. The program selects missions from multiple proposals and gives them some money to begin development. After early development they are analyzed to see if they are cost-effective and scientifically valuable during Key Decision Point-C. If they pass Key Decision Point-C then they move into full development. The missions must weigh less than 180 kg. So far only the first two missions have launched, and the remaining missions have struggled to stay within budget and find missions to launch with, and have been removed from multiple launches. Missions On August 8, 2015, the first two SIMPLEx missions were selected: Q-PACE and LunaH-Map.NASASm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missions To Mars
This is a list of the 50 spacecraft missions (including unsuccessful ones) relating to the planet Mars, such as orbiters and rovers. Missions ;Mission Type Legend: Mars landing locations There are a number of derelict orbiters around Mars whose location is not known precisely; there is a proposal to search for small moons, dust rings, and old orbiters with the Optical Navigation Camera on the ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter''. There should be 8 derelict Mars orbiters barring unforeseen events if they have not decayed as of 2016. One example is Mariner 9, which entered Mars orbit in 1971 and is expected to remain in orbit until approximately 2022, when the spacecraft is projected to enter the Martian atmosphere and either burn up or crash into the planet's surface. The Viking 1 orbiter is predicted not to decay until at least 2019. One orbiter that is confirmed to have undergone Mars atmospheric entry is Mars Climate Orbiter. Timeline Future missions In development ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Trailblazer
Lunar Trailblazer is a planned small (class D) lunar orbiter, part of NASA's SIMPLEx program, that will detect and map water on the lunar surface to determine how its form, abundance, and location relate to geology. Its mission is to aid in the understanding of lunar water and the Moon's water cycle. Lunar Trailblazer is currently slated to launch in 2023 as a secondary payload on the IM-2 mission, with the satellite scheduled to be completed in early 2023. The Principal Investigator (PI) of the mission is Bethany Ehlmann, a professor at Caltech. Mission Lunar Trailblazer was selected to be part of NASA's SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) program in 2019. The goal of the planned mission is to use a small satellite to map water on the Moon. The mission has four scientific objectives: * measure and map the amount, location and form (hydroxyl, H2O, or ice) of lunar water and determine any correlation to latitude and surface makeup * study the time-v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Dollar
The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color. The monetary policy of the United States is conducted by the Federal Reserve System, which acts as the nation's central bank. The U.S. dollar was originally defined under a bimetallic standard of (0.7735 troy ounces) fine silver or, from 1837, fine gold, or $20.67 per troy ounce. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 linked the dollar solely to gold. From 1934, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA Space Probes
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliptical Orbit
In astrodynamics or celestial mechanics, an elliptic orbit or elliptical orbit is a Kepler orbit with an eccentricity of less than 1; this includes the special case of a circular orbit, with eccentricity equal to 0. In a stricter sense, it is a Kepler orbit with the eccentricity greater than 0 and less than 1 (thus excluding the circular orbit). In a wider sense, it is a Kepler's orbit with negative energy. This includes the radial elliptic orbit, with eccentricity equal to 1. In a gravitational two-body problem with negative energy, both bodies follow similar elliptic orbits with the same orbital period around their common barycenter. Also the relative position of one body with respect to the other follows an elliptic orbit. Examples of elliptic orbits include: Hohmann transfer orbit, Molniya orbit, and tundra orbit. Velocity Under standard assumptions, no other forces acting except two spherically symmetrical bodies m1 and m2, the orbital speed (v\,) of one body travel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetic Field
A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to the magnetic field. A permanent magnet's magnetic field pulls on ferromagnetic materials such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets. In addition, a nonuniform magnetic field exerts minuscule forces on "nonmagnetic" materials by three other magnetic effects: paramagnetism, diamagnetism, and antiferromagnetism, although these forces are usually so small they can only be detected by laboratory equipment. Magnetic fields surround magnetized materials, and are created by electric currents such as those used in electromagnets, and by electric fields varying in time. Since both strength and direction of a magnetic field may vary with location, it is described mathematically by a function assigning a vector to each point of space, cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, one that measures the direction of an ambient magnetic field, in this case, the Earth's magnetic field. Other magnetometers measure the magnetic dipole moment of a magnetic material such as a ferromagnet, for example by recording the effect of this magnetic dipole on the induced current in a coil. The first magnetometer capable of measuring the absolute magnetic intensity at a point in space was invented by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1833 and notable developments in the 19th century included the Hall effect, which is still widely used. Magnetometers are widely used for measuring the Earth's magnetic field, in geophysical surveys, to detect magnetic anomalies of various types, and to determine the dipole moment of magnetic materials. In an air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atmosphere Of Mars
The atmosphere of Mars is the layer of gases surrounding Mars. It is primarily composed of carbon dioxide (95%), molecular nitrogen (2.8%), and argon (2%). It also contains trace levels of water vapor, oxygen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and noble gases. The atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than Earth's. The average surface pressure is only about which is less than 1% of the Earth's value. The currently thin Martian atmosphere prohibits the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, but many studies suggest that the Martian atmosphere was much thicker in the past. The higher density during spring and fall is reduced by 25% during the winter when carbon dioxide partly freezes at the pole caps. The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to the density found above the Earth's surface and is ≈0.020 kg/m3. The atmosphere of Mars has been losing mass to space since the planet's core slowed down, and the leakage of gases still continues today. The atmosphere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the solar wind plasma also includes a mixture of materials found in the solar plasma: trace amounts of heavy ions and atomic nuclei such as C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, and Fe. There are also rarer traces of some other nuclei and isotopes such as P, Ti, Cr, 54Fe and 56Fe, and 58Ni, 60Ni, and 62Ni. Superposed with the solar-wind plasma is the interplanetary magnetic field. The solar wind varies in density, temperature and speed over time and over solar latitude and longitude. Its particles can escape the Sun's gravity because of their high energy resulting from the high temperature of the corona, which in turn is a result of the coronal magnetic field. The boundary separating the corona from the solar wind is called the Alfvén surface. At a distance of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetosphere
In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior dynamo. In the space environment close to a planetary body, the magnetic field resembles a magnetic dipole. Farther out, field lines can be significantly distorted by the flow of electrically conducting plasma, as emitted from the Sun (i.e., the solar wind) or a nearby star. Planets having active magnetospheres, like the Earth, are capable of mitigating or blocking the effects of solar radiation or cosmic radiation, that also protects all living organisms from potentially detrimental and dangerous consequences. This is studied under the specialized scientific subjects of plasma physics, space physics and aeronomy. History Study of Earth's magnetosphere began in 1600, when William Gilbert discovered that the magnetic field on the surface ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and List of tallest mountains in the Solar System, highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The North Polar Basin (Mars), Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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