1

Grade 10 STE
LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET

TLE: Creative Technologies

Q2-Lesson 1: Robotics in Space Exploration

Learning Tasks
1. Activity 1: Identify Me! – page 2-3
2. Activity 2: Twin Win! – page 7
3. Activity 3: The Humble Hubble! – page 10
4. Activity 4: The Cassin-Huygens – page 13
5. Activity 5: Kepler Planets – page 36
5. Summative Test – page 36
6. Performance Task – page 37-38

Prepared by:
Gabriel T. Baldemor
TLE – 10 Teacher
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Robots are Key to Future Space Exploration

On the plus side, humans in space provide operational flexibility, inspiration and native intelligence. On the
minus side, that flexibility comes at a steep price. Humans are heavy, fragile, dirty, vulnerable, picky about their
environment, and have a low tolerance for the space environment (i.e., high energy radiation, extreme heat and cold,
etc.). The fragility of humans, our aversion for risking human life, and the all-too-human need for consumables (food,
water, and oxygen) require vast amounts of money to pay for the extra engineering and multiple redundant systems we
demand to reduce risk to astronauts, as well as for the vastly larger support crews needed to baby-sit every aspect of
daily life during a manned space mission.

For crewed spacecraft, Venus and Mercury are impossibly hot, and the asteroid belt and Jupiter are impossibly
cold. The longer travel times to these worlds would be a death sentence from radiation exposure, not to mention bone
loss and muscle atrophy. Once at an exploration target, humans can be a mixed blessing. Imagine trying to search for
life on Mars with human explorers who are shedding pollutants and terrestrial contamination with literally every step
and breath.

Fundamentally there is no real choice between robotic and human exploration of space, however. Both are
synergistic and mutually dependent. Robotic exploration is necessary to enable human exploration by setting the
context, providing critical information, and reducing the risk to humans. Imagine how the Apollo program would have
functioned without its robotic precursors — Lunar Orbiter to map the moon’s surface, Ranger to get close-up views of
areas that helped perfect NASA’s navigation skills (remember that NASA missed the moon with two of the first three
Rangers to get that far), and Surveyor to explore the surface, determine its composition and practice soft landings.
Without these robotic precursors it would’ve been impossible to know where to go on the moon, to design the landing
hardware, or to have any real idea of what to do once we got there — other than plant the flag.

Is there a choice between human and robotic exploration? Not really. Considering the current limited range of
human exploration, robotic exploration is essential to enable manned missions. For the rest of the solar system, robotic
exploration is the only realistic game in town.

Activity 1. Identify Me!

Direction: Identify robotic space mission as shown in the picture.

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.
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7. 8. 9.

Robots Used in Space Exploration

1. Dextre
The International Space Station's Canadarm2 and Dextre,
also known as the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator
(SPDM), carry the Rapidscat instrument assembly after
removing it from the trunk of the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship.

The Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM),

also known as Dextre, performs routine maintenance on the
ISS. Equipped with lights, video equipment, a tool platform,
and four tool holders, Dextre’s dual-arm design and precise
handling capabilities reduces the need for spacewalks.

Dextre is a space handyman with a mission: keep the

International Space Station (ISS) ship-shape. Dextre’s role is
to perform maintenance work and repairs like changing
batteries and replacing cameras outside the ISS. Having
Dextre on call will reduce the amount of risky spacewalks to
do routine chores, thus giving astronauts more time for
science, the main goal of the ISS. Dextre’s special skills and Dextre
awesome location also offer a unique and opportune testing
ground for new robotics concepts like servicing satellites in space. Dextre can ride on the end of Canadarm2 to move
from worksite to worksite, or simply hitch a ride on the Mobile Base System.

Dextre was originally designed to be operated by astronauts from inside the International Space Station (ISS).
The Canadian Space Agency revised Dextre's software and worked with NASA to come up with a series of tests
(called On-Orbit Checkout Requirements) that would ensure that Dextre could be safely operated from the ground.
Today, Dextre is programmed by Canadian robotics planners at the Canadian Space Agency's headquarters in Saint-
Hubert, Quebec, who prepare all the robotic handyman's activities and the software he needs to get the job done.
Dextre is operated by robotics controllers both at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and from the Canadian
Space Agency's headquarters in Saint-Hubert.

• Height: 12 feet
• Width: 7.7 feet (across shoulders)
• Arm Length: 11.48 feet linear stroke
• Mass (approx.): 3,664 pounds
• Mass Handling/Transportation Capacity: 1,322.77 pounds
• Degrees of Freedom: 15
• Peak Power (operational): 2,000 W
• Avg. Power (keep alive): 600 W
• Applied Tip Load Range: 0-111 N
• Stopping Distance (under max. load): 5.9 inches
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2. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2

Current Status: Active

The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring

where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing
their more-than-40-year journey since their 1977 launches,
they each are much farther away from Earth and the sun
than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic
entry into interstellar space, the region between stars, filled
with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions
of years ago. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space on
November 5, 2018 and scientists hope to learn more about
this region. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific
information about their surroundings through the Deep
Space Network, or DSN.

The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Voyager

Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there — such as
active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io and intricacies of Saturn's rings — the mission was extended. Voyager 2 went
on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The adventurers'
current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain. And
beyond.

Mission Objective

The mission objective of the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) is to extend the NASA exploration of the solar
system beyond the neighborhood of the outer planets to the outer limits of the Sun's sphere of influence, and possibly
beyond. This extended mission is continuing to characterize the outer solar system environment and search for the
heliopause boundary, the outer limits of the Sun's magnetic field and outward flow of the solar wind. Penetration of
the heliopause boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar medium will allow measurements to be made of
the interstellar fields, particles and waves unaffected by the solar wind.

Mission Characteristic

The VIM is an extension of the Voyager primary mission that was completed in 1989 with the close flyby of
Neptune by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Neptune was the final outer planet visited by a Voyager spacecraft. Voyager 1
completed its planned close flybys of the Jupiter and Saturn planetary systems while Voyager 2, in addition to its own
close flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, completed close flybys of the remaining two gas giants, Uranus and Neptune.
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Voyager 1

No spacecraft has gone farther than NASA's

Voyager 1. Launched in 1977 to fly by Jupiter and
Saturn, Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in
August 2012 and continues to collect data.

• Voyager 1 and its sister ship Voyager 2 have

been flying longer than any other spacecraft
in history.
• Not only are the Voyager missions
providing humanity with observations of
truly uncharted territory, but they are also
helping scientists understand the very nature
of energy and radiation in space—key
information for protecting future missions
The “Golden Record”
and astronauts.
• Voyager 1 carries a copy of the Golden Record—a
message from humanity to the cosmos that includes greetings in 55 languages, pictures of people and places
on Earth and music ranging from Beethoven to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."

Firsts

• Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft to cross the

heliosphere, the boundary where the
influences outside our solar system are
stronger than those from our Sun.
• Voyager 1 is the first human-made object to
venture into interstellar space.
• Voyager 1 discovered a thin ring around
Jupiter and two new Jovian moons: Thebe and
Metis.
• At Saturn, Voyager 1 found five new moons
and a new ring called the G-ring.
Color-enhanced photo of Saturn taken by Voyager 1 on
October 18, 1980

Voyager 2

NASA's Voyager 2 is the second spacecraft to enter interstellar space. On Dec. 10, 2018, the spacecraft joined its
twin—Voyager 1—as the only human-made objects to enter the space between the stars.

• Voyager 1 and 2 were designed to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment to study the outer solar system
up close. Voyager 2 targeted Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
• Like its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2 also was designed to find and study the edge of our solar system.

Firsts

• Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system's giant planets at close range.
• Voyager 2 discovered a 14th moon at Jupiter.
• Voyager 2 was the first human-made object to fly past Uranus.
• At Uranus, Voyager 2 discovered 10 new moons and two new rings.
• Voyager 2 was the first human-made object to fly by Neptune.
• At Neptune, Voyager 2 discovered five moons, four rings, and a "Great Dark Spot."
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At the start of the VIM, the two Voyager spacecraft had been in flight for over 12 years having been launched in
August (Voyager 2) and September (Voyager 1), 1977. Voyager 1 was at a distance of approximately 40 AU
(Astronomical Unit - mean distance of Earth from the Sun, 150 million kilometers) from the Sun, and Voyager 2 was
at a distance of approximately 31 AU.

It is appropriate to consider the VIM as three distinct phases: the termination shock, heliosheath exploration, and
interstellar exploration phases. The two Voyager spacecraft began the VIM operating in an environment controlled by
the Sun's magnetic field with the plasma particles being dominated by those contained in the expanding supersonic
solar wind. This is the characteristic environment of the termination shock phase. At some distance from the Sun, the
supersonic solar wind is held back from further expansion by the interstellar wind. The first feature encountered by a
spacecraft as a result of this interstellar wind/solar wind interaction was the termination shock where the solar wind
slows from supersonic to subsonic speed and large changes in plasma flow direction and magnetic field orientation
occur.

Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.6 AU per year, 35 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to
the north, in the general direction of the Solar Apex (the direction of the Sun's motion relative to nearby stars).
Voyager 2 is also escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.3 AU per year, 48 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to
the south.

Passage through the termination shock ended the termination shock phase and began the heliosheath exploration
phase. The heliosheath is the outer layer of the bubble the sun blows around itself (the heliosphere). It is still
dominated by the Sun’s magnetic field and particles contained in the solar wind. Voyager 1 crossed the termination
shock at 94 AU in December 2004 and Voyager 2 crossed at 84 AU in August 2007. After passage through the
termination shock, the Voyager team eagerly awaited each spacecraft's passage through the heliopause. which is the
outer extent of the Sun's magnetic field and solar wind.

In this region, the Sun's influence wanes and the beginning of interstellar space can be sensed. It is where the
million-mile-per-hour solar winds slows to about 250,000 miles per hour—the first indication that the wind is nearing
the heliopause.

On Aug. 25, 2012, Voyager 1 flew beyond the heliopause and entered interstellar space, making it the first human-
made object to explore this new territory. At the time, it was at a distance of about 122 AU, or about 11 billion miles
(18 billion kilometers) from the sun. This kind of interstellar exploration is the ultimate goal of the Voyager
Interstellar Mission. Voyager 2, which is traveling in a different direction from Voyager 1, crossed the heliopause into
interstellar space on November 5, 2018.

The Voyagers have enough electrical power and thruster fuel to keep its current suite of science instruments on
until at least 2025. By that time, Voyager 1 will be about 13.8 billion miles (22.1 billion kilometers) from the Sun and
Voyager 2 will be 11.4 billion miles (18.4 billion kilometers) away. Eventually, the Voyagers will pass other stars. In
about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will drift within 1.6 light-years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79 3888, a star in the
constellation of Camelopardalis which is heading toward the constellation Ophiuchus. In about 40,000 years, Voyager
2 will pass 1.7 light-years (9.7 trillion miles) from the star Ross 248 and in about 296,000 years, it will pass 4.3 light-
years (25 trillion miles) from Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. The Voyagers are destined—perhaps eternally—to
wander the Milky Way.

The Voyager Interstellar Mission has the potential for obtaining useful interplanetary, and possibly interstellar,
fields, particles, and waves science data until around the year 2025 when the spacecraft's ability to generate adequate
electrical power for continued science instrument operation will come to an end.

Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket. On
September 5, Voyager 1 launched, also from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket.
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Activity 2. Twin Win!

1. Identify five notable contributions of Voyager 1

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2. Identify five notable contributions of Voyager 2
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3. Which of the two voyagers do you think is more successful? Defend your answer. (5 pts.)
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3. Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope

(often referred to as HST or Hubble) is
a space telescope that was launched into
low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in
operation. It was not the first space
telescope, but it is one of the largest and
most versatile, renowned both as a vital
research tool and as a public relations
boon for astronomy. The Hubble
telescope is one of NASA's Great
Observatories, along with the Compton
Gamma Ray Observatory (1991–2000),
the Chandra X-ray Observatory (1999–
present), and the Spitzer Space
Telescope (2003–2020). The Space
Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
selects Hubble's targets and processes
the resulting data, while the Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC) controls the
Hubble Space Telescope spacecraft.
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The Hubble Space Telescope was named after astronomer

Edwin Powell Hubble (1889–1953), who made some of the most
important discoveries in modern astronomy. In the 1920s, making
use of relationships established by Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Dr.
Hubble showed that some of the numerous distant, faint clouds of
light in the universe were actually entire galaxies — much like our
own Milky Way. The realization that the Milky Way is only one of
many galaxies forever changed the way humanity views our place
in the universe. But perhaps his greatest discovery came in 1929,
when Hubble determined that the farther a galaxy is from Earth, the
faster it appears to move away. This notion of an expanding
universe formed the basis of the big bang theory, which states that
the universe began with an intense burst of energy at a single
moment in time and has been expanding ever since.

Hubble features a 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) mirror, and its five main

instruments observe in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared Edwin Hubble
regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hubble's orbit outside the
distortion of atmosphere of Earth allows it to capture extremely high-resolution images with substantially lower
background light than ground-based telescopes. It has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images,
allowing a deep view into space. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as
determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923. Hubble was funded in the 1970s and built by the United States
space agency NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency. Its intended launch was 1983, but the
project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the 1986 Challenger disaster. Hubble was finally
launched in 1990, but its main mirror had been ground incorrectly, resulting in spherical aberration that compromised
the telescope's capabilities. The optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993.

Hubble is the only telescope designed to be maintained in space by astronauts. Five Space Shuttle missions have
repaired, upgraded, and replaced systems on the telescope, including all five of the main instruments. The fifth
mission was initially canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster (2003), but after NASA
administrator Michael D. Griffin approved it, it was completed in 2009. The telescope completed 30 years of
operation in April 2020 and is predicted to last until 2030–2040. One successor to the Hubble telescope is the James
Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched on December 25, 2021.

There are no natural color cameras aboard Hubble and there never have been. The optical cameras on board
have all been digital CCD cameras, which take images as grayscale pixels but use colored filters to isolate different
colors in each image.

Sometimes the color in the images is as natural as possible. However, the color given to the images is not just
artistic embellishment. The images are, indeed, downloaded as black and white, and color is added for a number of
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different reasons — for example, to show the location of

chemical elements and highlight features so subdued that
the human eye cannot see them.

Hubble cannot take photos of the Apollo landing

sites. An object on the Moon, even the size of a large house,
is too small to resolve. So, anything we left on the Moon
cannot be resolved in any Hubble image. It would just
appear as a dot blended with its surroundings.

The surface of the Earth is whizzing by as Hubble

orbits, and the pointing system, designed to track the distant
stars, cannot track an object on the Earth. The shortest
exposure time on any of the Hubble instruments is 0.1
seconds, and in this time, Hubble moves almost half a mile,
about 700 meters. A picture Hubble took of Earth would be
completely streaked.
Picture of the Moon Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

The images that Hubble takes are digital pictures and

spectra that are generally released to the public after six months (to
allow the investigators time to do their research). The data, which
are transmitted from the telescope in digital form, need to be
converted from this digitized information by computers into black-
and-white photos. These are then enhanced to discern details in the
images.

The Hubble Space Telescope was named after astronomer

Edwin Powell Hubble (1889–1953), who made some of the most
important discoveries in modern astronomy. In the 1920s, making
use of relationships established by Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Dr.
Hubble showed that some of the numerous distant, faint clouds of
light in the universe were entire galaxies — much like our own
Milky Way. The realization that the Milky Way is only one of
many galaxies forever changed the way humanity views our place
Image of Globular Cluster in the universe. But perhaps his greatest discovery came in 1929,
when Hubble determined that the farther a galaxy is from Earth, the faster
it appears to move away. This notion of an expanding universe formed the basis of the big bang theory, which states
that the universe began with an intense burst of energy at a single moment in time and has been expanding ever since.

Hubble was launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery

(STS-31) on April 24, 1990. It was deployed into orbit the following
day, April 25, 1990.

Hubble orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 340 miles (547

kilometers), inclined 28.5 degrees to the equator. This vantage point
is above the negative effects of Earth’s atmosphere. Traveling at a
speed of about 17,000 miles per hour (27,300 kilometers per hour),
Hubble takes about 95 minutes to complete one orbit around Earth.

Shifting pockets of air in Earth’s atmosphere distort light

from space — that’s why stars seem to twinkle when viewed from
the ground. The atmosphere also blocks some wavelengths of light
partially or entirely, particularly ultraviolet light. This makes space
the only place where a telescope can get a truly clear and
comprehensive view of the universe. Although Hubble also sees
Image of Crab Nebula
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visible and infrared light, it is the telescope’s capability in the

ultraviolet that will not be matched or replaced in the near future.

Hubble is a Cassegrain telescope — a type of reflecting

telescope. Light enters the telescope and strikes the large primary,
or main, mirror. The light is then reflected from the primary
mirror onto the secondary mirror, which then focuses the light
back through a hole in the primary mirror to a point behind that
mirror, where the science instruments are located. Hubble’s
primary mirror is 94.5 inches (2.4 meters) in diameter.

Hubble collects light from celestial objects and directs it

to the telescope’s science instruments. Hubble’s current suite of Image of Pillars and Jets HH 901/902
instruments includes the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), Cosmic Origins
Spectrograph (COS), Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), and Fine
Guidance Sensors (FGS).

These are not the only instruments that have flown aboard Hubble. The telescope was designed to be visited
periodically by astronauts, who brought new instruments and technology, and made repairs, from December 1993 to
May 2009.

Hubble Space Telescope major contributions to science:

• Helped pin down the age for the universe now known to
be 13.8 billion years, roughly three times the age of
Earth.
• Discovered two moons of Pluto, Nix and Hydra.
• Helped determine the rate at which the universe is
expanding.
• Discovered that nearly every major galaxy is anchored by
a black hole at the center.
• Created a 3-D map of dark matter.

Image of embryonic stars emerged from Interstellar Eggs

Activity 3. The Humble Hubble!

1. Why Hubble space telescope was placed into orbit around the Earth? (5 pts.)
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2. Explain how scientists can produce colored image from the Hubble Space telescope if it doesn’t have any natural
color in its camera. (5 pts.)
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________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Give at least 5 notable contributions of the Hubble space Telescope.
1._______________________________________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________________________________
3._______________________________________________________________________________________
4_______________________________________________________________________________________
5._______________________________________________________________________________________
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4. Cassini-Huygens

Cassini-Huygens was one of the most ambitious

missions ever launched into space. Loaded with an array
of powerful instruments and cameras, the spacecraft was
capable of taking accurate measurements and detailed
images in a variety of atmospheric conditions and light
spectra.

The spacecraft was launched with two elements: the

Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe. Cassini-Huygens
reached Saturn and its moons in July 2004, beaming home
valuable data that transformed our understanding of the
Saturnian system. Huygens entered the murky atmosphere
of Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, and descended via
parachute onto its surface - the most distant spacecraft
landing to date.

Cassini-Huygens was a three-axis stabilized

spacecraft equipped for 27 diverse science The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft during vibration and thermal testing in 1996.
investigations. The Cassini orbiter had 12
instruments and the Huygens probe had six.
Equipped to thoroughly investigate all the important elements that the Saturn system may uncover, many of the
instruments had multiple functions. The spacecraft communicated through one high-gain and two-low gain antennas.
It was only in the event of a power failure or other such emergency, however, that the spacecraft communicated
through one of its low-gain antennas.

Three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators – commonly referred to as RTGs – provided power for the
spacecraft, including the instruments, computers, and radio transmitters on board, attitude thrusters, and reaction
wheels.

In some ways, the Cassini spacecraft had senses better than our own. For example, Cassini could "see" in
wavelengths of light and energy that the human eye cannot. The instruments on the spacecraft could "feel" things
about magnetic fields and tiny dust particles that no human hand could detect.

The science instruments can be classified in a way that can be compared to how human senses operate. Your eyes
and ears are "remote sensing" devices because you can receive
information from remote objects without being in direct contact
with them. Your senses of touch and taste are "direct sensing"
devices. Your nose can be construed as either a remote or direct
sensing device. You can certainly smell the apple pie across the
room without having your nose in direct contact with it, but the
molecules carrying the scent do have to make direct contact with
your sinuses. Cassini's instruments can be classified as remote and
microwave remote sensing instruments, and fields and particles
instruments – these were all designed to record significant data and
take a variety of close-up measurements.

The remote sensing instruments on the Cassini Spacecraft

calculated measurements from a great distance. This set included
both optical and microwave sensing instruments including
cameras, spectrometers, radar and radio.

The fields and particles instruments took "in situ" (on site) Ligeia Mareis the second largest known body of liquid
direct sensing measurements of the environment around the on Saturn’s moon Titan made of ethane and methane
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spacecraft. These instruments measured magnetic fields, mass, electrical charges, and densities of atomic particles.
They also measured the quantity and composition of dust particles, the strengths of plasma (electrically charged gas),
and radio waves.

Top 10 Discoveries of Cassini

1. The Huygens probe makes first landing

on a moon in the outer solar system
(Titan)
2. Discovery of active, icy plumes on the
Saturnian moon Enceladus
3. Saturn’s rings revealed as active and
dynamic -- a laboratory for how planets
form
4. Titan revealed as Earth-like world with
rain, rivers, lakes and seas
5. Studies of the great northern storm of
2010-2011 Surface of Titan, image taken by
6. Radio-wave patterns shown not to be tied to Saturn’s interior rotation as the Huygens probe
previously thought
7. Vertical structures in the rings imaged for the first time
8. Study of prebiotic chemistry on Titan
9. Mystery of the dual bright-dark surface of Iapetus solved
10. First complete view of the north polar hexagon and discovery of giant hurricanes at both of Saturn’s poles

Cassini Orbiter Instruments

They surveyed and sniffed, analyzed, and scrutinized. They took stunning images in various visible spectra.
Cassini's 12 science instruments were designed to carry out sophisticated scientific studies of Saturn, from collecting
data in multiple regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, to studying dust particles, to characterizing Saturn's plasma
environment and magnetosphere.

Optical Remote Sensing

Mounted on the remote sensing pallet, these instruments studied Saturn and its rings and moons in the electromagnetic
spectrum.

• Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS)

• Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
• Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS)
• Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS)

Fields, Particles and Waves

These instruments studied the dust, plasma, and magnetic fields around Saturn. While most didn't produce actual
"pictures," the information they collected is critical to scientists' understanding of this rich environment.

• Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS)

• Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA)
• Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS)
• Magnetometer (MAG)
• Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI)
• Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS)
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Microwave Remote Sensing

Using radio waves, these instruments mapped atmospheres, determined the mass of moons, collected data on ring
particle size, and unveiled the surface of Titan.

Activity 4. The Cassini-Huygens

1. Where does the name Cassini-Huygens came from? (5pts.)

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2. Give at least five objectives of the Cassini-Huygens mission.
1._______________________________________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________________________________
3._______________________________________________________________________________________
4_______________________________________________________________________________________
5._______________________________________________________________________________________
3. Why there is a need to study the Saturn’s moon Titan? (5 pts.)
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________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Rosetta

Rosetta was a space probe built by the European

Space Agency launched on 2 March 2004. Along
with Philae, its lander module, Rosetta performed a
detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov–
Gerasimenko (67P). During its journey to the comet,
the spacecraft performed flybys of Earth, Mars, and
the asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Šteins.[10][11][12] It
was launched as the third cornerstone mission of the
ESA's Horizon 2000 programme, after SOHO /
Cluster and XMM-Newton.

On 6 August 2014, the spacecraft reached the

comet and performed a series of manoeuvres to
eventually orbit the comet at distances of 30 to 10
kilometres (19 to 6 mi). On 12 November, its lander
module Philae performed the first successful landing on a comet, though its battery power ran out two days later.
Communications with Philae were briefly restored in June and July 2015, but due to diminishing solar power,
Rosetta's communications module with the lander was turned off on 27 July 2016. On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta
spacecraft ended its mission by hard-landing on the comet in its Ma'at region.

The probe was named after the Rosetta Stone, a stele of Egyptian origin featuring a decree in three scripts. The lander
was named after the Philae obelisk, which bears a bilingual Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription.

Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004 from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on an
Ariane 5 rocket and reached Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 7 May 2014. It performed a series of manoeuvres to
enter orbit between then and 6 August 2014, when it became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet. (Previous missions
 14

had conducted successful flybys of seven other comets.) It was one of ESA's Horizon 2000 cornerstone missions. The
spacecraft consisted of the Rosetta orbiter, which featured 12 instruments, and the Philae lander, with nine additional
instruments. The Rosetta mission orbited Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko for 17 months and was designed to
complete the most detailed study of a comet ever attempted. The spacecraft was controlled from the European Space
Operations Centre (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany. The planning for the operation of the scientific payload, together
with the data retrieval, calibration, archiving and distribution, was performed from the European Space Astronomy
Centre (ESAC), in Villanueva de la Cañada, near Madrid, Spain. It has been estimated that in the decade preceding
2014, some 2,000 people assisted in the mission in some capacity.

In 2007, Rosetta made a Mars gravity assist (flyby) on its way to Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The
spacecraft also performed two asteroid flybys. The craft completed its flyby of asteroid 2867 Šteins in September
2008 and of 21 Lutetia in July 2010. Later, on 20 January 2014, Rosetta was taken out of a 31-month hibernation
mode as it approached Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Rosetta's Philae lander successfully made the first soft landing on a comet nucleus when it touched down on
Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014. On 5 September 2016, ESA announced that the lander was
discovered by the narrow-angle camera aboard Rosetta as the orbiter made a low, 2.7 km (1.7 mi) pass over the comet.
The lander sits on its side wedged into a dark crevice of the comet, explaining the lack of electrical power to establish
proper communication with the orbiter.

Background

During the 1986 approach of Halley's Comet, international space probes were sent to explore the comet, most
prominent among them being ESA's Giotto. After the probes returned valuable scientific information, it became
obvious that follow-ons were needed that would shed more light on cometary composition and answer new
questions.[39]

Both ESA and NASA started cooperatively developing new probes. The NASA project was the Comet
Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission. The ESA project was the follow-on Comet Nucleus Sample Return
(CNSR) mission. Both missions were to share the Mariner Mark II spacecraft design, thus minimizing costs. In 1992,
after NASA cancelled CRAF due to budgetary limitations, ESA decided to develop a CRAF-style project on its own.
By 1993 it was evident that the ambitious sample return mission was infeasible with the existing ESA budget, so the
mission was redesigned and subsequently approved by the ESA, with the final flight plan resembling the cancelled
CRAF mission: an asteroid flyby followed by a comet rendezvous with in-situ examination, including a lander. After
the spacecraft launch, Gerhard Schwehm was named mission manager; he retired in March 2014.

The Rosetta mission included generational team management; this allowed mission continuity over the long
period of the mission and for special knowledge to be maintained and passed on to future team members. In particular,
several younger scientists were brought on as principal science investigators, and regular training sessions were
conducted.

Naming

The probe was named after the Rosetta Stone, a stele of Egyptian origin featuring a decree in three scripts.
The lander was named after the Philae obelisk, which bears a bilingual Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription. A
comparison of its hieroglyphs with those on the Rosetta Stone catalysed the deciphering of the Egyptian writing
system. Similarly, it was hoped that these spacecraft would result in better understanding of comets and the early Solar
System. In a more direct analogy to its namesake, the Rosetta spacecraft also carried a micro-etched pure nickel
prototype of the Rosetta disc donated by the Long Now Foundation. The disc was inscribed with 6,500 pages of
language translations.
 15

Mission Firsts

The Rosetta mission achieved many

historic firsts.

1. On its way to comet 67P, Rosetta

passed through the main asteroid
belt, and made the first European
close encounter with several of these
primitive objects.
2. Rosetta was the first spacecraft to
fly close to Jupiter's orbit using solar
cells as its main power source.
3. Rosetta was the first spacecraft to
orbit a comet nucleus, and was the
first spacecraft to fly alongside a
comet as it headed towards the inner
Illustration of Rosetta and Philae at the comet
Solar System.
4. It became the first spacecraft to
examine at close proximity the activity of a frozen comet as it is warmed by the Sun.
5. Shortly after its arrival at 67P, the Rosetta orbiter dispatched the Philae lander for the first controlled touchdown on
a comet nucleus.
6. The robotic lander's instruments obtained the first images from a comet's surface and made the first in situ analysis
of its composition.

Design and Construction

The Rosetta bus was a 2.8 × 2.1 × 2.0 m (9.2 × 6.9 × 6.6 ft) central frame and aluminium honeycomb
platform. Its total mass was approximately 3,000 kg (6,600 lb), which included the 100 kg (220 lb) Philae lander and
165 kg (364 lb) of science instruments. The Payload Support Module was mounted on top of the spacecraft and
housed the scientific instruments, while the Bus Support Module was on the bottom and contained spacecraft support
subsystems. Heaters placed around the spacecraft kept its systems warm while it was distant from the Sun. Rosetta's
communications suite included a 2.2 m (7.2 ft) steerable high-gain parabolic dish antenna, a 0.8 m (2.6 ft) fixed-
position medium-gain antenna, and two omnidirectional low-gain antennas.

Electrical power for the spacecraft came from two solar arrays totalling 64 square metres (690 sq ft). Each
solar array was subdivided into five solar panels, with each panel being 2.25 × 2.736 m (7.38 × 8.98 ft). The
individual solar cells were made of silicon, 200 μm thick, and 61.95 × 37.75 mm (2.44 × 1.49 in). The solar arrays
generated a maximum of approximately 1,500 watts at perihelion, a minimum of 400 watts in hibernation mode at 5.2
AU, and 850 watts when comet oper ations begin at 3.4 AU. Spacecraft power was controlled by a redundant Terma
power module also used in the Mars Express spacecraft, and was stored in four 10-A·h [Li-ion] batteries supplying 28
volts to the bus.

Main propulsion comprised 24 paired bipropellant 10 N thrusters, with four pairs of thrusters being used for
delta-v burns. The spacecraft carried 1,719.1 kg (3,790 lb) of propellant at launch: 659.6 kg (1,454 lb) of
monomethylhydrazine fuel and 1,059.5 kg (2,336 lb) of dinitrogen tetroxide oxidiser, contained in two 1,108-litre
(244 imp gal; 293 US gal) grade 5 titanium alloy tanks and providing delta-v of at least 2,300 metres per second
(7,500 ft/s) over the course of the mission. Propellant pressurisation was provided by two 68-litre (15 imp gal;
18 US gal) high-pressure helium tanks.

Rosetta was built in a clean room according to COSPAR rules, but "sterilisation [was] generally not crucial
since comets are usually regarded as objects where you can find prebiotic molecules, that is, molecules that are
precursors of life, but not living microorganisms", according to Gerhard Schwehm, Rosetta's project scientist. The
total cost of the mission was about €1.3 billion (US$1.8 billion).

Rosetta was set to be launched on 12 January 2003 to rendezvous with the comet 46P/Wirtanen in 2011. This
plan was abandoned after the failure of an Ariane 5 ECA carrier rocket during Hot Bird 7's launch on 11 December
 16

2002, grounding it until the cause of the failure could be determined. In May 2003, a new plan was formed to target
the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, with a revised launch date of 26 February 2004 and comet rendezvous in
2014. The larger mass and the resulting increased impact velocity made modification of the landing gear necessary.

After two scrubbed launch attempts, Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004 at 07:17 UTC from the Guiana
Space Centre in French Guiana, using Ariane 5 G+ carrier rocket. Aside from the changes made to launch time and
target, the mission profile remained almost identical. Both co-discoverers of the comet, Klim Churyumov and
Svetlana Gerasimenko, were present at the spaceport during the launch.

Deep Space Maneuvers

To achieve the required velocity to rendezvous with 67P, Rosetta used gravity assist maneuvers to accelerate
throughout the inner Solar System. The comet's orbit was known before Rosetta's launch, from ground-based
measurements, to an accuracy of approximately 100 km (62 mi). Information gathered by the onboard cameras
beginning at a distance of 24 million kilometers (15,000,000 mi) were processed at ESA's Operation Centre to refine
the position of the comet in its orbit to a few kilometers.

The first Earth flyby was on 4 March 2005.

On 25 February 2007, the craft was scheduled for a low-altitude flyby of Mars, to correct the trajectory. This
was not without risk, as the estimated altitude of the flyby was a mere 250 kilometers (160 mi). During that encounter,
the solar panels could not be used since the craft was in the planet's shadow, where it would not receive any solar light
for 15 minutes, causing a dangerous shortage of power. The craft was therefore put into standby mode, with no
possibility to communicate, flying on batteries that were originally not designed for this task. This Mars maneuver
was therefore nicknamed "The Billion Euro Gamble". The flyby was successful, with Rosetta even returning detailed
images of the surface and atmosphere of the planet, and the mission continued as planned.

The second Earth flyby was on 13 November 2007 at a distance of 5,700 km (3,500 mi). In observations made
on 7 and 8 November, Rosetta was briefly mistaken for a near-Earth asteroid about 20 m (66 ft) in diameter by an
astronomer of the Catalina Sky Survey and was given the provisional designation 2007 VN84. Calculations showed
that it would pass very close to Earth, which led to speculation that it could impact Earth. However, astronomer Denis
Denisenko recognized that the trajectory matched that of Rosetta, which the Minor Planet Center confirmed in an
editorial release on 9 November.

The spacecraft performed a close flyby of asteroid 2867 Šteins on 5 September 2008. Its onboard cameras
were used to fine-tune the trajectory, achieving a minimum separation of less than 800 km (500 mi). Onboard
instruments measured the asteroid from 4 August to 10 September. Maximum relative speed between the two objects
during the flyby was 8.6 km/s (19,000 mph; 31,000 km/h).

Rosetta's third and final flyby of Earth happened on 12 November 2009 at a distance of 2,481 km (1,542 mi).

On 10 July 2010, Rosetta flew by 21 Lutetia, a large main-belt asteroid, at a minimum distance of
3,168±7.5 km (1,969±4.7 mi) at a velocity of 15 kilometers per second (9.3 mi/s). The flyby provided images of up to
60 meters (200 ft) per pixel resolution and covered about 50% of the surface, mostly in the northern hemisphere. The
462 images were obtained in 21 narrow- and broad-band filters extending from 0.24 to 1 μm. Lutetia was also
observed by the visible–near-infrared imaging spectrometer VIRTIS, and measurements of the magnetic field and
plasma environment were taken as well.
 17

After leaving its hibernation mode in January 2014 and getting closer to the comet, Rosetta began a series of
eight burns in May 2014. These reduced the relative velocity between the spacecraft and 67P from 775 m/s (2,540 ft/s)
to 7.9 m/s (26 ft/s).

Rosetta, comet-chaser initiates “big burn”

Reaction Control System Problems

In 2006, Rosetta suffered a leak in its reaction control system (RCS). The system, which consists of 24
bipropellant 10-newton thrusters, was responsible for fine tuning the trajectory of Rosetta throughout its journey. The
RCS operated at a lower pressure than designed due to the leak. While this may have caused the propellants to mix
incompletely and burn 'dirtier' and less efficiently, ESA engineers were confident that the spacecraft would have
sufficient fuel reserves to allow for the successful completion of the mission.

Prior to Rosetta's deep space hibernation period, two of the

spacecraft's four reaction wheels began exhibiting increased levels of
"bearing friction noise". Increased friction levels in Reaction Wheel
Assembly (RWA) B were noted after its September 2008 encounter
with asteroid Šteins. Two attempts were made to relubricate the
RWA using an on-board oil reservoir, but in each case noise levels
were only temporarily lowered, and the RWA was turned off in mid-
2010 after the flyby of asteroid Lutetia to avoid possible failure.
Shortly after this, RWA C also began showing evidence of elevated
friction. Relubrication was also performed on this RWA, but methods
were found to temporarily increase its operating temperature to better
improve the transfer of oil from its reservoir. In addition, the reaction
wheel's speed range was decreased to limit lifetime accumulated
rotations. These changes resulted in RWA C's performance
stabilizing.
Earth from Rosetta during final flyby
During the spacecraft's Deep Space Hibernation flight phase,
engineers performed ground testing on a flight spare RWA at the European Space Operations Centre. After Rosetta
exited hibernation in January 2014, lessons learned from the ground testing were applied to all four RWAs, such as
increasing their operating temperatures and limiting their wheel speeds to below 1000 rpm. After these fixes, the
RWAs showed nearly identical performance data. Three RWAs were kept operational, while one of the
malfunctioning RWAs was held in reserve. Additionally, new on-board software was developed to allow Rosetta to
operate with only two active RWAs if necessary. These changes allowed the four RWAs to operate throughout
Rosetta's mission at 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko despite occasional anomalies in their friction plots and a heavy
workload

In August 2014, Rosetta rendezvoused with the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P) and commenced a
series of maneuvers that took it on two successive triangular paths, averaging 100 and 50 kilometers (62 and 31 mi)
 18

from the nucleus, whose segments are hyperbolic escape trajectories alternating with thruster burns. After closing to
within about 30 km (19 mi) from the comet on 10 September, the spacecraft entered actual orbit about it.

The surface layout of 67P was unknown before Rosetta's arrival. The orbiter mapped the comet in anticipation
of detaching its lander. By 25 August 2014, five potential landing sites had been determined. On 15 September 2014,
ESA announced Site J, named Agilkia in honour of Agilkia Island by an ESA public contest and located on the "head"
of the comet, as the lander's destination.

Rosetta and Philae

Philae detached from Rosetta on 12

November 2014 at 08:35 UTC, and approached 67P
at a relative speed of about 1 m/s (3.6 km/h;
2.2 mph). It initially landed on 67P at 15:33 UTC,
but bounced twice, coming to rest at 17:33 UTC.
Confirmation of contact with 67P reached Earth at
16:03 UTC.

On contact with the surface, two harpoons

were to be fired into the comet to prevent the lander
from bouncing off, as the comet's escape velocity is
only around 1 m/s (3.6 km/h; 2.2 mph). Analysis of
telemetry indicated that the surface at the initial
touchdown site is relatively soft, covered with a Rosetta and Philae
layer of granular material about 0.82 feet

(0.25 meters) deep, and that the harpoons had not fired upon landing. After landing on the comet, Philae had been
scheduled to commence its science mission, which included:

• Characterization of the nucleus

• Determination of the chemical compounds present, including amino acid enantiomers
• Study of comet activities and developments over time

After bouncing, Philae settled in the shadow of a cliff, canted at an angle of around 30 degrees. This made it unable to
adequately collect solar power, and it lost contact with Rosetta when its batteries ran out after two days, well before
much of the planned science objectives could be attempted. Contact was briefly and intermittently reestablished
several months later at various times between 13 June and 9 July, before contact was lost once again. There was no
communication afterwards, and the transmitter to communicate with Philae was switched off in July 2016 to reduce
power consumption of the probe. The precise location of the lander was discovered in September 2016 when Rosetta
came closer to the comet and took high-resolution pictures of its surface. Knowing its exact location provides
information needed to put Philae's two days of science into proper context.
 19

Notable Results

Researchers expect the study of data

gathered will continue for decades to come. One
of the first discoveries was that the magnetic
field of 67P oscillated at 40–50 millihertz. A
German composer and sound designer created an
artistic rendition from the measured data to make
it audible. Although it is a natural phenomenon,
it has been described as a "song" and has been
compared to Continuum for harpsichord by
György Ligeti. However, results from Philae's
landing show that the comet's nucleus has no
magnetic field, and that the field originally
detected by Rosetta is likely caused by the solar
wind.

The comet in January 2015 as seen by Rosetta's NAVCAM The isotopic signature of water vapor from comet
67P, as determined by the Rosetta spacecraft, is
substantially different from that found on Earth. That is, the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the water from the
comet was determined to be three times that found for terrestrial water. This makes it very unlikely that water found
on Earth came from comets

such as comet 67P, according to the scientists.

On 22 January 2015, NASA reported that,
between June and August 2014, the rate at which
water vapor was released by the comet increased
up to tenfold.

On 2 June 2015, NASA reported that the Alice

spectrograph on Rosetta determined that
electrons within 1 km (0.6 mi) above the comet
nucleus — produced from photoionization of
water molecules by solar radiation, and not
photons from the Sun as thought earlier — are
responsible for the degradation of water and
carbon dioxide molecules released from the
comet nucleus into its coma.
Worlds first picture of a comet’s surface taken by Rosetta

End of mission

As the orbit of comet 67P took it farther from the Sun, the amount of sunlight reaching Rosetta's solar panels
decreased. While it would have been possible to put Rosetta into a second hibernation phase during the comet's
aphelion, there was no assurance that enough power would be available to run the spacecraft's heaters to keep it from
freezing. To guarantee a maximum science return, mission managers made the decision to instead guide Rosetta down
to the comet's surface and end the mission on impact, gathering photographs and instrument readings along the way.
On 23 June 2015, at the same time as a mission extension was confirmed, ESA announced that end of mission would
occur at the end of September 2016 after two years of operations at the comet.

All stations and the briefing room, we've just had loss of signal at the expected time. This is another
outstanding performance by flight dynamics. So we'll be listening for the signal from Rosetta for another 24 hours, but
we don't expect any. This is the end of the Rosetta mission. Thank you, and goodbye.
—Sylvain Lodiot, Rosetta Spacecraft Operations Manager, European Space Operations Centre
 20

Rosetta began a 19 km
(12 mi) descent with a 208-second
thruster burn executed on 29
September 2016 at approximately
20:50 UTC. Its trajectory targeted a
site in the Ma'at region near an area
of dust- and gas-producing active
pits.

Impact on the comet's

surface occurred 14.5 hours after its
descent maneuver; the final data
packet from Rosetta was transmitted
at 10:39:28.895 UTC (SCET) by the
OSIRIS instrument and was
received at the European Space
Operations Centre in Darmstadt,
Germany, at 11:19:36.541 UTC.
The spacecraft's estimated speed at Rosetta gets up close with comet 67P
the time of impact was 3.2 km/h
(2.0 mph; 89 cm/s), and its touchdown location, named Sais by the operations team after the Rosetta Stone's original
temple home, is believed to be only 40 m (130 ft) off-target. The final complete image transmitted by the spacecraft of
the comet was taken by its OSIRIS instrument at an altitude of 23.3–26.2 m (76–86 ft) about 10 seconds before
impact, showing an area 0.96 m (3.1 ft) across. Rosetta's computer included commands to send it into safe mode upon
detecting that it had hit the comet's surface, turning off its
radio transmitter and rendering it inert in accordance with
International Telecommunication Union rules.

On 28 September 2017, a previously unrecovered

image taken by the spacecraft was reported. This image
was recovered from three data packets discovered on a
server after completion of the mission. While blurry due to
data loss, it shows an area of the comet's surface
approximately one square meter in size taken from an
altitude of 17.9–21.0 m (58.7–68.9 ft), and represents
Rosetta's closest image of the surface.

Search for Organic Compounds

Previous observations have shown that comets

contain complex organic compounds. These are the
elements that make up nucleic acids and amino acids,
essential ingredients for life as we know it. Comets are
thought to have delivered a vast quantity of water to Earth,
and they may have also seeded Earth with organic Comet 67P seen from 10 km (6 mi) just before impact
molecules. Rosetta and Philae also searched for organic
molecules, nucleic acids (the building blocks of DNA and RNA) and amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) by
sampling and analyzing the comet's nucleus and coma cloud of gas and dust, helping assess the contribution comets
made to the beginnings of life on Earth. Before succumbing to falling power levels, Philae's COSAC instrument was
able to detect organic molecules in the comet's atmosphere.
 21

Two enantiomers of a generic amino acid. The mission will study why
one chirality of some amino acids seems to be dominant in the
universe.
Amino acids

Upon landing on the comet, Philae should have also tested some
hypotheses as to why essential amino acids are almost all "left-handed",
which refers to how the atoms arrange in orientation in relation to the
carbon core of the molecule. Most asymmetrical molecules are oriented in
approximately equal numbers of left- and right-handed configurations (chirality), and the primarily left-handed
structure of essential amino acids used by living organisms is unique. One hypothesis that will be tested was proposed
in 1983 by William A. Bonner and Edward Rubenstein, Stanford University professors emeritus of chemistry and
medicine respectively. They conjectured that when spiraling radiation is generated from a supernova, the circular
polarization of that radiation could then destroy one type of "handed" molecules. The supernova could wipe out one
type of molecules while also flinging the other surviving molecules into space, where they could eventually end up on
a planet.

Preliminary Results
Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

The mission has yielded a significant science return, collecting a wealth of data from the nucleus and its
environment at various levels of cometary activity. The VIRTIS spectrometer on board the Rosetta spacecraft has
provided evidence of nonvolatile organic macromolecular compounds everywhere on the surface of comet 67P with
little to no water ice visible. Preliminary analyses strongly suggest the carbon is present as polyaromatic organic solids
mixed with sulfides and iron-nickel alloys.

Solid organic compounds were also found in the dust particles emitted by the comet; the carbon in this organic
material is bound in "very large macromolecular compounds", analogous to those found in carbonaceous chondrite
meteorites. However, no hydrated minerals were detected, suggesting no link with carbonaceous chondrites.

In turn, the Philae lander's COSAC instrument detected organic molecules in the comet's atmosphere as it
descended to its surface. Measurements by the COSAC and Ptolemy instruments on the Philae's lander revealed
sixteen organic compounds, four of which were seen for the first time on a comet, including acetamide, acetone,
methyl isocyanate and propionaldehyde. The only amino acid detected thus far on the comet is glycine, along with the
precursor molecules methylamine and ethylamine.

One of the most outstanding discoveries of the mission was the detection of large amounts of free molecular oxygen
(O2) gas surrounding the comet. A local abundance of oxygen was reported to be in range from 1% to 10% relative to
H2O.

Timeline of major events and discoveries

2004

• 2 March – Rosetta was successfully launched at 07:17 UTC (04:17 local time) from Kourou, French Guiana.

2005

• 4 March – Rosetta executed its first planned close swing-by (gravity assist passage) of Earth. The Moon and
the Earth's magnetic field were used to test and calibrate the instruments on board of the spacecraft. The
minimum altitude above the Earth's surface was 1,954.7 km (1,214.6 mi).
 22

• 4 July – Imaging instruments on board observed the collision between the comet Tempel 1 and the impactor
of the Deep Impact mission.

2007

• 25 February – Mars flyby.

• 8 November – Catalina Sky Survey briefly misidentified the
Rosetta spacecraft, approaching for its second Earth flyby, as a
newly discovered asteroid.
• 13 November – Second Earth swing-by at a minimum altitude
of 5,295 km (3,290 mi), travelling at 45,000 km/h
(28,000 mph).

Rosetta’s selfie at Mars flyby

2008

• 5 September – Flyby of asteroid 2867 Šteins. The spacecraft passed the main-belt asteroid at a distance of
800 km (500 mi) and the relatively slow speed of 8.6 km/s
(31,000 km/h; 19,000 mph). 2009

• 13 November – Third and final swing-by of Earth at

48,024 km/h (29,841 mph).

2010

• 16 March – Observation of the dust tail of asteroid P/2010 A2.

Together with observations by Hubble Space Telescope it
could be confirmed that P/2010 A2 is not a comet, but an
asteroid, and that the tail most likely consists of particles from
an impact by a smaller asteroid.[157]
• 10 July – Flew by and photographed the asteroid 21 Lutetia.

2014 Enhanced image of asteroid Lutetia

• May to July – Starting on 7 May, Rosetta began orbital

correction manoeuvres to bring itself into orbit around 67P. At the time of the first deceleration burn Rosetta
was approximately 2,000,000 km (1,200,000 mi) away from 67P and had a relative velocity of +775 m/s
(2,540 ft/s); by the end of the last burn, which occurred on 23 July, the distance had been reduced to just over
4,000 km (2,500 mi) with a relative velocity of +7.9 m/s (18 mph). In total eight burns were used to align the
trajectories of Rosetta 67P with the majority of the deceleration occurring during three burns: Delta-v's of
291 m/s (650 mph) on 21 May, 271 m/s (610 mph) on 4 June, and 91 m/s (200 mph) on 18 June.
• 14 July – The OSIRIS on-board imaging system returned images of comet 67P which confirmed the irregular
shape of the comet.
• 6 August – Rosetta arrives at 67P, approaching to 100 km (62 mi) and carrying out a thruster burn that reduces
its relative velocity to 1 m/s (3.3 ft/s). Commences comet mapping and characterisation to determine a stable
orbit and viable landing location for Philae.
• 4 September – The first science data from Rosetta's Alice instrument was reported, showing that the comet is
unusually dark in ultraviolet wavelengths, hydrogen and oxygen are present in the coma, and no significant
areas of water-ice have been found on the comet's surface. Water-ice was expected to be found as the comet is
too far from the Sun to turn water into vapor.
• 10 September 2014 – Rosetta enters the Global Mapping Phase, orbiting 67P at an altitude of 29 km (18 mi).
• 12 November 2014 – Philae lands on the surface of 67P.
 23

• 10 December 2014 – Data from the ROSINA mass spectrometers show that the ratio of heavy water to normal
water on comet 67P is more than three times that on Earth. The ratio is regarded as a distinctive signature, and
the discovery means that Earth's water is unlikely to have originated from comets like 67P.

2015

• 14 April 2015 – Scientists report that the comet's nucleus has no magnetic field of its own.
• 2 July 2015 – Scientists report that active pits, related to sinkhole collapses and possibly associated with
outbursts, have been found on the comet.

Outbursting of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12

September, 2015 one of the most dramatic cliff collapses captured
during the Rosetta mission.

• 11 August 2015 – Scientists release images of a comet

outburst that occurred on 29 July 2015.
• 28 October 2015 – Scientists publish an article in Nature
reporting high levels of molecular oxygen around 67P.
• November 2014 to December 2015 – Rosetta escorted the
comet around the Sun and performed riskier investigations.

2016

• 27 July 2016 – ESA switched off the Electrical Support

System Processor Unit (ESS) aboard Rosetta, disabling any Out bursting of comet 67P
possibility of further communications with the Philae
lander.
• 2 September 2016 - Rosetta photographs the Philae lander for the first time after its landing, finding it wedged
against a large overhang.
• 30 September 2016 - Mission ended in an attempt to slow land on the comet's surface near a 130 m (425 ft)
wide pit called Deir el-Medina. The walls of the pit contain 0.91 m (3 ft) wide so-called "goose bumps",
believed to represent the building blocks of the comet. Although Philae sent back some data during its
descent, Rosetta has more powerful and more varied sensors and instruments, offering the opportunity to get
some very close-in science to complement the more distant remote sensing it has been doing. The orbiter
descended more slowly than Philae did.
 24

6. Robonaut 2

The Robonaut project has been

conducting research in robotics technology
on board the International Space Station
(ISS) since 2012 . Recently, the original
upper body humanoid robot was upgraded by
the addition of two climbing manipulators
("legs"), more capable processors, and new
sensors. While Robonaut 2 (R2) has been
working through checkout exercises on orbit
following the upgrade, technology
development on the ground has continued to
advance. Through the Active Reduced
Gravity Offload System (ARGOS), the
Robonaut team has been able to develop
technologies that will enable full operation of
the robotic testbed on orbit using similar
robots located at the Johnson Space Center.
Once these technologies have been vetted in
this way, they will be implemented and
tested on the R2 unit on board the ISS. The goal of this work is to create a fully-featured robotics research platform on
board the ISS to increase the technology readiness level of technologies that will aid in future exploration missions.

One advantage of a humanoid design is that Robonaut can take over simple, repetitive, or especially dangerous tasks
on places such as the International Space Station. Because R2 is approaching human dexterity, tasks such as changing
out an air filter can be performed without modifications to the existing design.

Another way this might be beneficial is during a robotic precursor mission. R2 would bring one set of tools for the
precursor mission, such as setup and geologic investigation. Not only does this improve efficiency in the types of
tools, but also removes the need for specialized robotic connectors. Future missions could then supply a new set of
tools and use the existing tools already on location.

Development

R2 was designed and developed by NASA and General Motors with assistance from Oceaneering Space Systems
engineers to accelerate development of the next generation of robots and related technologies for use in the automotive
and aerospace industries. R2 is a state of the art highly dexterous anthropomorphic robot. Like its predecessor
Robonaut 1 (R1), R2 is capable of handling a wide range of EVA tools and interfaces, but R2 is a significant
advancement over its predecessor. R2 is capable of speeds more than four times faster than R1, is more compact, is
more dexterous, and includes a deeper and wider range of sensing. Advanced technology spans the entire R2 system
and includes: optimized overlapping dual arm dexterous workspace, series elastic joint technology, extended finger
and thumb travel, miniaturized 6-axis load cells, redundant force sensing, ultra-high speed joint controllers, extreme
neck travel, and high resolution camera and IR systems

A robonaut is a humanoid robot, part of a development project conducted by the Dexterous Robotics
Laboratory at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Robonaut differs from other current
space-faring robots in that, while most current space robotic systems (such as robotic arms, cranes and exploration
rovers) are designed to move large objects, Robonaut's tasks require more dexterity.

The core idea behind the Robonaut series is to have a humanoid machine work alongside astronauts. Its form
factor and dexterity are designed such that Robonaut can use space tools and work in similar environments suited to
astronauts.

The latest Robonaut version, R2, was delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) by STS-133 in
February 2011. The first US-built robot on the ISS, R2 is a robotic torso designed to assist with crew EVAs and can
hold tools used by the crew. However, Robonaut 2 does not have adequate protection needed to exist outside the space
 25

station and enhancements and modifications would be required to allow it to move around the station's interior. NASA
states "Robonauts are essential to NASA's future as we go beyond low Earth orbit", and R2

Robonaut 1 (R1) was the first model. The two Robonaut versions (R1A and R1B) had many partners
including DARPA. None were flown to space. Other designs for Robonaut propose uses for teleoperation on planetary
surfaces, where Robonaut could explore a planetary surface while receiving instructions from orbiting astronauts
above. Robonaut B was introduced in 2002, R1B is a portable version of R1. R1 had several lower bodies. One of
these was the Zero-G Leg, which if Robonaut was working on the space station he would climb using the external
handrails and then use his zero-g leg to latch onto the station using a WIF socket. Another was the Robotic Mobility
Platform (RMP), developed in 2003, it is a base with two wheels using a Segway PT. And the four wheeled Centaur 1,
which was developed in 2006. Robonaut has participated in NASA's Desert Research and Technology Studies field
trials in the Arizona desert.

In 2006, the automotive company General Motors expressed interest in the project and proposed to team up with
NASA. In 2007 a Space Act Agreement was signed that allowed GM and NASA to work together on the next
generation of Robonaut.

R2 moves for the first time aboard the ISS

In February 2010, Robonaut 2 (R2) was

revealed to the public. R2 is capable of
speeds more than four times faster than
R1, is more compact, more dexterous, and
includes a deeper and wider range of
sensing. It can move its arms up to 2 m/s,
has a 40 lb payload capacity and its hands
have a grasping force of roughly 5 lbs. per
finger. There are over 350 sensors and 38
PowerPC processors in the robot.

Station crew members will be

able to operate R2, as will controllers on Robonaut 2 in action
the ground; both will do so using
telepresence. One of the improvements over the previous Robonaut generation is that R2 does not need constant
supervision. In anticipation of a future destination in which distance and time delays would make continuous
management problematic, R2 was designed to be set to tasks and then carry them through autonomously with periodic
status checks. While not all human range of motion and sensitivity has been duplicated, the robot's hand has 12
degrees of freedom as well as 2 degrees of freedom in wrist. The R2 model also uses touch sensors at the tips of its
fingers.

R2 was designed as a prototype to be used on Earth but mission managers were impressed by R2 and chose to send it
to the ISS. Various upgrades were made to qualify it for use inside the station. The outer skin materials were
exchanged to meet the station's flammability requirements, shielding was added to reduce electromagnetic
interference, processors were upgraded to increase the robot's radiation tolerance, the original fans were replaced with
 26

quieter ones to accommodate the station's noise requirements, and the power system was rewired to run on the
station's direct current system rather than the alternating current used on the ground.

Robonaut being upgraded on-orbit

Robonaut 2 was launched on STS-133 on

February 24, 2011, and delivered to the ISS. On
August 22, R2 was powered up for the first time
while in low earth orbit. This was called a
"power soak" which is a power system test only
with no movement. On October 13, R2 moved
for the first time while in space. The conditions
aboard the space station provide a proving
ground for robots to work shoulder to shoulder
with people in microgravity. Once this has been
demonstrated inside the station, software
upgrades and lower bodies may be added,
allowing R2 to move around the interior of the
station and perform maintenance tasks, such as Robonaut 2 being upgraded at the International Space Station
vacuuming or cleaning filters. A pair of legs
were delivered to the ISS on SpX-3 in April 2014. The battery backpack was planned to be launched on a later flight
in Summer/Fall 2014. In the design of the R2 robot, a 3D time of flight imager will be used in conjunction with a
stereo camera pair to provide depth information and visible stereo images to the system. This allows the R2 to "see",
which is one of the basic preconditions to fulfill its tasks. To integrate the various sensor data types in a single
development environment the image processing software Halcon 9.0 from MVTec Software (Munich, Germany) is
used.

Further upgrades could be added to allow R2 to work outside in the vacuum of space, where R2 could help space
walkers perform repairs, make additions to the station or conduct scientific experiments. While there were initially no
plans to return the launched R2 back to earth, NASA announced on 1 April 2018 that R2 would return to Earth in May
2018 with CRS-14 Dragon for repair and eventual relaunch in about a year's time. NASA's experience with R2 on the
station will help them understand its capabilities for possible deep space missions.
 27

7. Dawn

Dawn launched in 2007 on a journey that put about 4.3 billion miles (6.9
billion kilometers) on its odometer. Propelled by ion engines, the spacecraft
achieved many firsts until its extended mission concluded on Oct. 31, 2018.

In 2011, when Dawn arrived at Vesta, the second-largest world in the

main asteroid belt, the spacecraft became the first to orbit a body in the region
between Mars and Jupiter.

In 2015, when Dawn went into orbit around Ceres, a dwarf planet that is
also the largest world in the asteroid belt, the mission became the first to visit
a dwarf planet and go into orbit around two destinations beyond Earth.

Among its accomplishments, Dawn showed how important location was

to the way objects in the early solar system formed and evolved.

Dawn also reinforced the idea that dwarf planets could have hosted
oceans over a significant part of their history – and potentially still do. Dawn prior to encapsulation at its launch pad on July 1, 2007

The data Dawn beamed back to Earth from its four science experiments enabled scientists to compare two planet-
like worlds that evolved very differently.

Major Engineering Achievements

• First space mission to orbit two destinations

• Record-breaking use of solar-electric propulsion: 25,700 mph, 2.7x any prior spacecraft, and nearly equal to
the velocity provided by Dawn’s Delta launch vehicle
• Active powered flight: 5.9 years (54% of the time in space as of Sep. 7, 2018)

Key Mission Findings

Dawn orbited Vesta for more than a year, from July 2011 to September 2012. Its investigation confirmed that
Vesta is the parent of the HED (howardites, eucrites, and diogenites) meteorites, which Dawn connected to Vesta’s
large south polar basin, a priceless cosmic connection between samples in hand and a singular event on a small planet.

Vesta is small enough (about the same

size as Saturn's moon Enceladus) to have been
deeply scarred by the Rheasilvia impact that
launched the HEDs, but large enough to have
differentiated into an iron core, silicate mantle,
and igneous crust. Dawn also found hydrated and
carbon-rich material on its surface supplied by
impactors, a result that was unexpected based on
pre-Dawn telescopic observations.

After its escape from Vesta and its

journey onward, Dawn entered orbit around
Ceres in March 2015. Dawn discovered that the Up close photo of Vesta taken by Dawn
inner solar system’s only dwarf planet was an ocean world where water and ammonia reacted with silicate rocks. As
the ocean froze, salts and other telltale minerals concentrated into deposits that are now exposed in many locations
across the surface. Dawn also found organics in several locations on Ceres’ surface.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured pictures of dwarf planet Ceres in visible and infrared wavelengths and those
images were combined to create this false-color view of Occator Crater. Brine – or salty liquids – in the center of the
crater was pushed up from a deep reservoir below Ceres' crust. In this view, the brine appears reddish.
 28

Key Mission Events

2007 — Launch (September)

2009 — Mars Gravity Assist (February)

2011 — Vesta Arrival (July)

2012 — Vesta Departure (September)

2015 — Ceres Arrival (March)

2016 — End of prime mission (June)

2016 — Start of first extension (July)

2017 — Start of second extension (November) Surface of the Ceres captured by Dawn

2018 — End of mission (October)

Dawn is a space probe launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three
known protoplanets of the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres. It is currently in orbit about its second target, the dwarf
planet Ceres. Dawn is the first spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial bodies, the first spacecraft to visit either Vesta or
Ceres, and also the first to visit a dwarf planet, arriving at Ceres in March 2015, a few months before New Horizons
flew by Pluto in July 2015.

Dawn entered Vesta orbit on July 16, 2011, and completed a 14-month survey mission before leaving for
Ceres in late 2012. Dawn entered Ceres orbit on March 6, 2015, and while originally predicted to remain in orbit
perpetually after the conclusion of its mission, NASA is now considering a third target.

The Dawn mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with spacecraft components contributed
by European partners from the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. It is the first NASA exploratory mission to use ion
propulsion, which enabled it to enter and leave the orbit of multiple celestial bodies. Previous multi-target missions
using conventional drives, such as the Voyager program, were restricted to flybys.

Technological background

SERT-1: first ion engine NASA spacecraft; launched on

July 20, 1964.

The first working ion thruster was built by Harold R.

Kaufman in 1959 at NASA's Glenn Research Center in
Ohio. The thruster was similar to the general design of a
gridded electrostatic ion thruster with mercury as its fuel.
Suborbital tests of the engine followed during the 1960s,
and in 1964 the engine was tested on a suborbital flight
aboard the Space Electric Rocket Test 1 (SERT 1). It
successfully operated for the planned 31 minutes before
falling back to Earth. This test was followed by an orbital
test, SERT-2, in 1970. Deep Space 1 (DS1), which NASA
launched in 1998, demonstrated the long-duration use of an Space Electric Rocket Test (SERT-1)
ion thruster on a science mission, and validated a number of technologies, including the NSTAR electrostatic ion
thruster, as well as performing a flyby of an asteroid and a comet. Among the other technologies validated by the DS1
was the Small Deep Space Transponder, which is used on Dawn for long-range communication.

Initial cancellations
 29

The status of the Dawn mission changed several times. The project was cancelled in December 2003, and then
reinstated in February 2004. In October 2005, work on Dawn was placed in "stand down" mode, and in January 2006,
the mission was discussed in the press as "indefinitely postponed", even though NASA had made no new
announcements regarding its status. On March 2, 2006, Dawn was again cancelled by NASA.

Reinstatement

The spacecraft's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corporation, appealed NASA's decision, offering to build the
spacecraft at cost, forgoing any profit in order to gain experience in a new market field. NASA then put the
cancellation under review, and on March 27,
2006, it was announced that the mission would
not be cancelled after all. In the last week of
September 2006, the Dawn mission's
instrument payload integration reached full
functionality. Although originally projected to
cost US$373 million, cost overruns inflated the
final cost of the mission to US$446 million in
2007. Christopher T. Russell was chosen to
lead the Dawn mission team.

Scientific background

The Dawn mission was designed to study two

large bodies in the asteroid belt in

order to answer questions about the formation

of the Solar System, as well as to test the
Scale comparison of Vesta, Ceres, and Earth's moon
performance of its ion drive in deep space.
Ceres and Vesta were chosen as two contrasting protoplanets, the first one apparently "wet" (i.e. icy and cold) and the
other "dry" (i.e. rocky), whose accretion was terminated by the formation of Jupiter. The two bodies provide a bridge
in scientific understanding between the formation of rocky planets and the icy bodies of the Solar System, and under
what conditions a rocky planet can hold water.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted a new definition of planet on August 24, 2006, which
introduced the term "dwarf planet" for ellipsoidal worlds that were too small to qualify for planetary status by
"clearing their orbital neighborhood" of other orbiting matter. Dawn is the first mission to study a dwarf planet,
arriving at Ceres a few months before the arrival of the New Horizons probe at Pluto in July 2015.

Ceres comprises a third of the total mass of the asteroid belt. Its spectral characteristics suggest a composition similar
to that of a water-rich carbonaceous chondrite. Vesta, a smaller, water-
poor achondritic asteroid comprising a tenth of the mass of the asteroid
belt, has experienced significant heating and differentiation. It shows
signs of a metallic core, a Mars-like density and lunar-like basaltic flows.

Available evidence indicates that both bodies formed very early in the
history of the Solar System, thereby retaining a record of events and
processes from the time of the formation of the terrestrial planets.
Radionuclide dating of pieces of meteorites thought to come from Vesta
suggests that Vesta differentiated quickly, in three

million years or less. Thermal evolution studies suggest that Ceres must
have formed some time later, more than three million years after the
formation of CAIs (the oldest known objects of Solar System origin). Dawn image of Ceres from 13,600 km, 4 May 2015

Moreover, Vesta appears to be the source of many smaller objects in the Solar System. Most (but not all) V-type near-
Earth asteroids, and some outer main-belt asteroids, have spectra similar to Vesta, and are thus known as vestoids.
 30

Five percent of the meteoritic samples found on Earth, the howardite–eucrite–diogenite (HED) meteorites, are thought
to be the result of a collision or collisions with Vesta.

It is thought that Ceres may have a differentiated interior; its oblateness appears too small for an undifferentiated
body, which indicates that it consists of a rocky core overlain with an icy mantle. There is a large collection of
potential samples from Vesta accessible to scientists, in the form of over 1,400 HED meteorites, giving insight into
Vesta geologic history and structure. Vesta is thought to consist of a metallic iron–nickel core, an overlying rocky
olivine mantle and crust.

Dawn's approximate flight trajectory

The Dawn mission's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the
Solar System's earliest eon by investigating in detail two of the largest
protoplanets remaining intact since their formation. The primary question that
the mission addresses is the role of size and water in determining the evolution
of the planets. Ceres and Vesta are highly suitable bodies with which to address
this question, as they are two of the most massive of the
Dawn's approximate flight trajectory
protoplanets. Ceres is geologically very primitive and icy, while Vesta is evolved and rocky. Their contrasting
characteristics are thought to have resulted from them forming in two different regions of the early Solar System.

There are three principal scientific drivers for the mission. First, the Dawn mission can capture the earliest moments in
the origin of the Solar System, granting an insight into the conditions under which these objects formed. Second,
Dawn determines the nature of the building blocks from which the terrestrial planets formed, improving scientific
understanding of this formation. Finally, it contrasts the formation and evolution of two small planets that followed
very different evolutionary paths, allowing scientists to determine what factors control that evolution.

Launch

Dawn launching on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral

Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 17 on September
27, 2007

The launch of Dawn was rescheduled for September 26,

2007, then September 27, due to bad weather delaying
fueling of the second stage, the same problem that delayed
the July 7 launch attempt. The launch window extended
from 07:20–07:49 EDT (11:20–11:49 GMT). During the
final built-in hold at T−4 minutes, a ship entered the
exclusion area offshore, the strip of ocean where the rocket
boosters were likely to fall after separation. After
commanding the ship to leave the area, the launch was
required to wait for the end of a collision avoidance
window with the International Space Station. Dawn finally
launched from pad 17-B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station on a Delta 7925-H rocket at 07:34 EDT, reaching
escape velocity with the help of a spin-stabilized solid-
Dawn's Launch fueled third stage. Thereafter, Dawn's ion thrusters took
over.

Transit (Earth to Vesta)

After initial testing, during which the ion thrusters accumulated more than 11 days 14 hours of thrust, Dawn began
long-term cruise propulsion on December 17, 2007. On October 31, 2008, Dawn completed its first thrusting phase to
send it on to Mars for a gravity assist flyby in February 2009. During this first interplanetary cruise phase, Dawn spent
 31

270 days, or 85% of this phase, using its thrusters. It expended less than 72 kilograms of xenon propellant for a total
change in velocity of 1.81 kilometers per second. On November 20, 2008, Dawn performed its first trajectory
correction maneuver (TCM1), firing its number 1 thruster for 2 hours, 11 minutes.

Dawn made its closest approach (549 km) to Mars on February 17, 2009 during a successful gravity assist. This flyby
slowed Mars' orbital speed by about 2.3 cm over 180 million years.[1] On this day, the spacecraft placed itself in safe
mode, resulting in some data acquisition loss. The spacecraft was reported to be back in full operation two days later,
with no impact on the subsequent mission identified. The root cause of the event was reported to be a software
programming error.

To cruise from Earth to its targets, Dawn traveled in an elongated outward spiral trajectory. NASA posts and
continually updates the current location and status of Dawn online. The actual Vesta chronology and estimated Ceres
chronology are as follows:

• September 27, 2007: launch

• February 17, 2009: Mars gravity assist
• July 16, 2011: Vesta arrival and capture
• August 11–31, 2011: Vesta survey orbit
• September 29, 2011 – November 2, 2011: Vesta first high altitude orbit
• December 12, 2011 – May 1, 2012: Vesta low altitude orbit
• June 15, 2012 – July 25, 2012: Vesta second high altitude orbit
• September 5, 2012: Vesta departure
• March 6, 2015: Ceres arrival
• Early 2016: End of primary Ceres operations

Mission conclusion

It is expected that Dawn will become a perpetual satellite of Ceres when the mission is over, due to its highly stable
orbit. A flyby of the asteroid 2 Pallas after the completion of the Ceres mission was suggested but never formally
considered; orbiting Pallas would not have been possible for Dawn, due to the high inclination of Pallas' orbit relative
to Ceres.

On April 20, 2016, New Scientist announced that the Dawn team had sent NASA a proposal for an extended mission.
According to the report, the spacecraft retains enough xenon fuel to break Ceres orbit and reach a third asteroid. The
mission team has not yet revealed the proposed destination.

8. Mars Express

NASA is participating in a
mission of the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space
Agency called Mars Express,
which has been exploring the
atmosphere and surface of Mars
from polar orbit since arriving at
the red planet in 2003. The
spacecraft carries a science
payload derived in part from
European instruments lost on the
ill-fated Russian Mars '96
mission, as well as a
communications relay to support
lander missions.

Mars Express Orbiter

 32

The mission's main objective is to search for sub-surface water from orbit. Seven scientific instruments on the
orbiting spacecraft have conducted rigorous investigations to help answer fundamental questions about the geology,
atmosphere, surface environment, history of water, and potential for life on Mars. Examples of discoveries - still
debated by scientists -- by Mars Express are evidence of recent glacial activity, explosive volcanism, and methane gas.

Initially, Mars Express also carried a small lander called Beagle 2, named for the ship in which Charles Darwin set
sail to explore unchartered areas of the Earth in 1831. The lander
was lost on arrival in December, 2003.

NASA's involvement with the mission includes joint

development of a radar instrument called MARSIS - short for the
Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding -
with the Italian Space Agency. MARSIS has already provided
information about features beneath the Martian surface, including
buried impact craters, layered deposits, and hints of deep
underground water ice.

NASA's involvement also includes coordination of radio relay

systems to make sure that different spacecraft operate together; a
hardware contribution to the energetic neutral atoms analyzer
instrument; and backup tracking support from NASA's Deep Space
Network during critical mission phases.

Water (ice) filled Korolev’s crater taken by Mars Express

9. Kepler Space Telescope

The Kepler Space Telescope is a retired space

telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-size
planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes
Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing
heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J.
Borucki. After nine and a half years of operation, the
telescope's reaction control system fuel was depleted, and
NASA announced its retirement on October 30, 2018.

Designed to survey a portion of Earth's region of the

Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near
habitable zones and estimate how many of the billions of stars
in the Milky Way have such planets, Kepler's sole scientific
instrument is a photometer that continually monitored the
brightness of approximately 150,000 main sequence stars in a
fixed field of view. These data were transmitted to Earth, then
Kepler Space Telescope
analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that
cross in front of their host star. Only planets whose orbits are seen edge-on from Earth could be detected. Kepler
observed 530,506 stars and detected 2,662 planets.

Kepler Science

The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems. This is
achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to:
 33

• Determine the percentage of terrestrial and larger planets that are in or near the habitable zone of a wide
variety of stars
• Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes Kepler-452b
of the orbits of these planets
• Estimate how many planets there are in
multiple-star systems
• Determine the variety of orbit sizes and
planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities
of short-period giant planets
• Identify additional members of each discovered
planetary system using other techniques
• Determine the properties of those stars that
harbor planetary systems.
An artist's impression compares Kepler 452b with Earth.
The Transit Method of Detecting Extrasolar Planets (Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)

When a planet passes in front of a star as viewed This world, whose discovery was announced in 2015,
from Earth, the event is called a “transit”. On Earth, we can is the first near-Earth-size planet that orbits around a star the
observe an occasional Venus or Mercury transit. These size of the sun, according to NASA. Kepler-452b is 60 percent
larger than Earth and its parent star (Kepler-452) is 10 percent
events are seen as a small black dot creeping across the larger than the sun. Kepler-452 is very similar to our sun, and
Sun—Venus or Mercury blocks sunlight as the planet the exoplanet orbits in the habitable zone.
moves between the Sun and us. Kepler finds planets by
looking for tiny dips in the brightness of a star when a At 1.6 times the size of Earth, Kepler-452b has a
planet crosses in front of it—we say the planet transits the "better than even chance" of being rocky, its discoverers have
star. said. Kepler-452b resides 1,400 light-years from Earth. It takes
Kepler-452b just 20 days longer to orbit its star than Earth does.

Once detected, the planet's orbital size can be

calculated from the period (how long it takes the planet to orbit once around the star) and the mass of the star using
Kepler's Third Law of planetary motion. The size of the planet is found from the depth of the transit (how much the
brightness of the star drops) and the size of the star. From the orbital size and the temperature of the star, the planet's
characteristic temperature can be calculated. From this the question of whether or not the planet is habitable (not
necessarily inhabited) can be answered.

Activity 5. Kepler Planets

1. Write at least five exoplanets discovered by Kepler Space Telescope

1. ________________
2.________________
3. ________________
4. ________________
5. ________________

2. Is there a need to study other possible habitable planets? Why or why not (5 pts.)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
 34

10. Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe is a NASA

space probe launched in 2018 with the
mission of making observations of the
outer corona of the Sun. It will
approach to within 9.86 solar radii (6.9
million km or 4.3 million miles) from
the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will
travel, at closest approach, as fast as
690,000 km/h (430,000 mph), or
0.064% the speed of light.

The goals of the mission are:

• Trace the flow of energy that Parker Solar Probe before its Launch
heats the corona and
accelerates the solar wind.
• Determine the structure and dynamics of the magnetic fields at the sources of solar wind.
• Determine what mechanisms accelerate and transport energetic particles.
• help solve the mystery of why the corona is about 300 times as hot as the sun’s surface

The project was announced in the fiscal 2009 budget year. The cost of the project is US$1.5 billion. Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory designed and built the spacecraft, which was launched on 12 August
2018. It became the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person, honoring nonagenarian physicist Eugene
Newman Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.

A memory card containing the names of

over 1.1 million people was mounted on a
plaque and installed below the spacecraft's high-
gain antenna on 18 May 2018. The card also
contains photos of Parker and a copy of his
1958 scientific paper predicting important
aspects of solar physics.

On 29 October 2018, at about 18:04 UTC,

the spacecraft became the closest ever artificial
object to the Sun. The previous record,
42.73 million kilometres (26.55 million miles)
from the Sun's surface, was set by the Helios 2 Artist’s illustration of the Parker Solar Probe at the Sun’s corona
spacecraft in April 1976. As of its perihelion 21
November 2021, the Parker Solar Probe's closest approach is 8.5 million kilometers (5.3 million miles). This will be
surpassed after each of the two remaining flybys of Venus.

The Parker Solar Probe concept originates in the 1958 report by the Fields and Particles Group (Committee 8 of
the National Academy of Sciences' Space Science Board) which proposed several space missions including "a solar
probe to pass inside the orbit of Mercury to study the particles and fields in the vicinity of the Sun". Studies in the
1970s and 1980s reaffirmed its importance, but it was always postponed due to cost. A cost-reduced Solar Orbiter
mission was studied in the 1990s, and a more capable Solar Probe mission served as one of the centerpieces of the
eponymous Outer Planet/Solar Probe (OPSP) program formulated by NASA in the late 1990s. The first three missions
of the program were planned to be: the Solar Orbiter, the Pluto and Kuiper belt reconnaissance Pluto Kuiper Express
mission, and the Europa Orbiter astrobiology mission focused on Europa.
 35

The original Solar Probe design used a gravity assist from Jupiter to enter a polar orbit which dropped almost
directly toward the Sun. While this explored the important solar poles and came even closer to the surface (3 R☉, a
perihelion of 4 R☉), the extreme variation in
solar irradiance made for an expensive mission
and required a radioisotope thermal generator
for power. The trip to Jupiter also made for a
long mission (3+1⁄2 years to first solar
perihelion, 8 years to second).

Following the appointment of Sean

O'Keefe as Administrator of NASA, the
entirety of the OPSP program was canceled as
part of President George W. Bush's request for
the 2003 United States federal budget.[25]
Administrator O'Keefe cited a need for a
One of the first images took by Parker Solar Probe during its close encounter with the Sun
restructuring of NASA and its projects, falling
in line with the Bush Administration's wish for NASA to refocus on "research and development, and addressing
management shortcomings".

The cancellation of the program also resulted in the initial cancellation of New Horizons, the mission that
eventually won the competition to replace the Pluto Kuiper Express in the former OPSP program. That mission, which
would eventually be launched as the first mission of the New Frontiers program, a conceptual successor to the OPSP
program, would undergo a lengthy political battle to secure funding for its launch, which occurred in 2006.

In the early 2010s, plans for the Solar Probe mission were incorporated into a lower-cost Solar Probe Plus. The
redesigned mission uses multiple Venus gravity assists for a more direct flight path, which can be powered by solar
panels. It also has a higher perihelion, reducing the demands on the thermal protection system.

In May 2017, the spacecraft was renamed the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Newman
Parker, who coined the term "solar wind". The solar probe cost NASA US$1.5 billion. The launch rocket bore a
dedication in memory of APL engineer Andrew A. Dantzler who had worked on the project.

The Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to fly into the low solar corona. It will assess the structure and
dynamics of the Sun's coronal plasma and magnetic field, the energy flow that heats the solar corona and impels the
solar wind, and the mechanisms that accelerate energetic particles.

The spacecraft's systems are protected from the extreme heat and radiation near the Sun by a solar shield. Incident
solar radiation at perihelion is approximately 650 kW/m2, or 475 times the intensity at Earth orbit. The solar shield is
hexagonal, mounted on the Sun-facing side of the spacecraft, 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) in diameter, 11.4 cm (4.5 in) thick, and
is made of reinforced carbon–carbon composite, which is designed to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft of
about 1,370 °C (2,500 °F).

A white reflective alumina surface layer minimizes absorption. The spacecraft systems and scientific instruments
are located in the central portion of the shield's shadow, where direct radiation from the Sun is fully blocked. If the
shield were not between the spacecraft and the Sun, the probe would be damaged and become inoperative within tens
of seconds. As radio communication with Earth will take about eight minutes in each direction, the Parker Solar Probe
will have to act autonomously and rapidly to protect itself. This will be done using four light sensors to detect the first
traces of direct sunlight coming from the shield limits and engaging movements from reaction wheels to reposition the
spacecraft within the shadow again. According to project scientist Nicky Fox, the team describe it as "the most
autonomous spacecraft that has ever flown".

The primary power for the mission is a dual system of solar panels (photovoltaic arrays). A primary photovoltaic
array, used for the portion of the mission outside 0.25 au, is retracted behind the shadow shield during the close
approach to the Sun, and a much smaller secondary array powers the spacecraft through closest approach. This
secondary array uses pumped-fluid cooling to maintain operating temperature of the solar panels and
instrumentation.
 36

Summative Test

Multiple Choice

Read and understand each statement. Write the letter of the correct answer.

1. What is the first NASA mission named after a living person?

A. Cassini Huygens C. Hubble Space Telescope
B. Parker Space Probe D. James Webb Space Telescope
2. Where does the James Webb Telescope put into orbit?
A. L1 B. L2 C. L3 D. L4
3. At a speed of 532,00 Km/hr., what is the current fastest object ever created by man?
A. Dawn C. Parker Space Probe
B. Voyager 1 D. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat
4. What is the first human-made object to fly-past Uranus and Neptune?
A. Rosetta C. Voyager 2
B. Voyager 1 D. Cassini-Huygens
5. The purpose of this space probe is to study two of the earliest discovered and most massive asteroids in our solar
system.
A. Dawn B. Dextre C. Rosetta D. Voyager
6. The main objective of mission is to search for sub-surface water of Mars from orbit
A. Dextre B. Voyager 1 C. Cassini-Huygens D. Mars Express
7. It was the first spacecraft to orbit a comet nucleus, and was the first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it headed
towards the inner Solar System
A. Dawn B. Dextre C. Rosetta D. Voyager
8. What part of the Sun the Parker Space Probe mainly study?
A. corona B. photosphere C. chromosphere D. convective zone
9. Which of the following discovered the Nix and Hydra, the two small moons of Pluto.
A. Voyager 2 B. New Horizon C. Cassini-Huygens D. Hubble Space Telescope
10. At roughly 156 astronomical unit or more than 23 billion km from Earth and still moving, it is the most distant
human created object in space.
A. Rosetta B. Voyager 1 C. Voyager 2 D. both B and C
11. What is the main goal of Kepler Space Telescope?
A. to discover new galaxies
B. to observe and discover new planets in the solar system
C. to determine the age and expansion rate of the universe
D. to find planets outside our solar system especially those resembles Earth
12. The following are the reason why robots are used in space instead humans EXCEPT:
A. they need a return trip
B. they can survive in space for many years
C. they can do things that could be too risky
D. sending a robot in space is cheaper than sending human
13. What is the closest exoplanet?
A. Proxima A B. Proxima B C. Proxima C D. Proxima D
14. Why Parker Space Probe needs to study the solar wind?
A. solar wind penetrates the atmosphere and cause skin cancer
B. solar wind disrupts our satellites and technology
C. solar wind protects us from stray cosmic rays
D. solar wind causes auroras
15. Which of the following robots is/are used in the International Space Station to assist crew members?
A. Dextre B. Robonaut 1 C. Robonaut 2 D. A and C
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Performance Task

The James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space

telescope and an international collaboration among NASA,
the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space
Agency (CSA). The telescope is named after James E.
Webb, who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to
1968 and played an integral role in the Apollo program. It
is intended to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as
NASA's flagship mission in astrophysics. JWST was
launched on 25 December 2021 on Ariane flight VA256. It
is one of the most expensive astronomical observatories
ever made with an estimated cost of 10 billion dollars.

Research about JWST and answer the following The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

questions:

1. What are the objectives for the James Webb Space Telescope? (5 pts.)
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2. Why is it called a time machine? (5 pts.)
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3. In contrast to the Hubble Space telescope, the JWST will be utilizing infra-red radiation instead of ultra-violet
radiation to observe distant objects. Why? (5 pts.)
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4. Why the JWST operating temperature should be extremely cold about -233 0C? What did the scientists
designed to keep the instrument at this working temperature? (10 pts.)
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5. Why astronomers will make the JWST orbit around the Sun and not the Earth? (5 pts.)
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 38

6. Create a Venn Diagram about the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope.

Hubble Space Telescope Common James Webb Space Telescope