NASA Launches JPL-Built Earth Science Experiment
October 31, 2011
Written by Alan Buis
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA – An experiment developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, to test technology for future NASA Earth science missions was aboard one of five small “CubeSat” research satellites that hitched a ride to orbit October 28th with NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP.
NPP, which successfully launched aboard a Delta II rocket from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, will provide critical data to help scientists understand the dynamics of long-term climate patterns and help meteorologists improve short-term weather forecasts. A little more than an hour and a half after launch, the Delta II deployed the five auxiliary CubeSat payloads, which are the third installment of a series of NASA Educational Launch of Nanosatellite missions, also known as ELaNa III.
Delta II Lifts Off Carrying NPP, JPL CubeSat Experiment At Vandenberg Air Force Base's Space Launch Complex-2 in California, a United Launch Alliance Delta II lifts off carrying NASA's National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft and five small CubeSat research satellites, including M-Cubed, with features JPL's COVE Earth science technology experiment. (Image credit: NASA/ULA)
GRAIL and the Mystery of the Missing Moon
September 8, 2011
Written by Dauna Coulter
Science@NASA
Pasadena, CA – As early as September 8th, NASA’s GRAIL mission will blast off to uncover some of the mysteries beneath the surface of the Moon. That cratered gray exterior hides some tantalizing things – even, perhaps, a long-lost companion.
The “Big Splat.” Four snapshots from a computer simulation of a collision between the Moon and a smaller companion show how the splattered companion moon forms a mountainous region on one side of the Moon. Credit: M. Jutzi and E. Asphaug, Nature. [more] If a paper published recently in the journal Nature* is right, two moons once graced our night skies. The proposition has not been proven, but has drawn widespread attention.
Flying in formation around the Moon, NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft will make precise measurements of the lunar gravitational field.
