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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A natural color view from Cassini of Saturn with its Titan moon in the foreground in August 2012. Titan’s diameter is 50% larger than Earth’s moon.Credit: NASA NASA’s ambitious Cassini mission to Saturn in the late 1990s was one of the agency’s greatest accomplishments, providing unprecedented revelations about the esoteric outer planet and its moons. The complex undertaking was also a tremendous, yet bittersweet, achievement for the Lewis Research Center (today, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland), which oversaw the rockets that propelled Cassini to Saturn. Cassini brought a close to over 35 years of Lewis’ management of NASA’s launch vehicles.
Cassini Mission: 5 Things to Know About NASA Lewis’ Last Launch
1. NASA Lewis Launched the Largest and Most Complex Deep-Space Mission to Date
In the early 1980s, NASA began planning the first-ever in-depth study of the planet Saturn. The mission would use the Cassini orbiter designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the European Space Agency’s Huygens lander. It was one of the heaviest and most complex interplanetary spacecraft ever assembled. Cassini’s plutonium power system and intricate flight path further complicated the mission.
NASA Lewis was responsible for managing the launches of government missions involving the Centaur upper stage and the Atlas and Titan boosters. Cassini’s 6-ton payload forced Lewis to use the U.S. Air Force’s three-stage Titan IV, the most powerful vehicle available, and pair it with the most advanced version of the Centaur, referred to as G-prime.
The Titan IV shroud in the Space Power Facility in October 1990. It was only the second test since the world-class facility had been brought back online after over a decade in standby conditions.Credit: NASA/Quentin Schwinn 2. Lewis Performed Hardware Testing for the Cassini Launch
One of NASA Lewis’ primary launch responsibilities was integrating the payload and upper stages with the booster. This involved balancing weight requirements, providing adequate insulation for Centaur’s cryogenic propellants, determining correct firing times for the stages, and ensuring that that the large shroud, which encapsulated both the upper stage and payload, jettisoned cleanly after launch.
By the time of Cassini, the center had been testing shrouds (including the Titan III fairing) in simulated space conditions for over 25 years. NASA’s Space Power Facility possesses the world’s largest vacuum chamber and was large enough to accommodate the Titan IV’s 86-foot-tall, 16-foot-diameter fairing. In the fall of 1990, the shroud was installed in the chamber, loaded with weights that simulated the payload, and subjected to atmospheric pressures found at an altitude of 72 miles.
The system was successfully separated in less than half a second. Using simulated Cassini and Centaur vehicles, NASA engineers also redesigned a thicker thermal blanket that would protect Cassini’s power system from acoustic vibrations during liftoff.
Members of NASA Lewis’ Launch Vehicle Directorate pose with a Centaur model in May 1979 to mark the 50th successful launch of the Atlas/Centaur.Credit: NASA/Martin Brown 3. Lewis Personnel Assisted with the Launch
In late August 1997, a group of NASA Lewis engineers traveled to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to make final preparations for the Cassini launch, working with Air Force range safety personnel at Patrick Air Force Base to ensure a safe launch under all circumstances.
After an aborted launch two days earlier, the vehicle was readied for another attempt in the evening of October 14. Lewis personnel took stations in the Launch Vehicle Data Center inside Hangar AE to monitor the launch vehicle’s temperature, pressure, speed, trajectory, and vibration during the launch. The weather was mild, and the countdown proceeded into the morning hours of October 15 without any major issues.
At 4:43 a.m. EDT, Titan’s first stage and the two massive solid rocket motors roared to life, and the vehicle rose into the dark skies over Florida. The Lewis launch team monitored the flight as the vehicle exited Earth’s atmosphere, Titan burned through its stages, and Centaur sent Cassini out of Earth orbit and on its 2-billion-mile journey to Saturn. After a successful spacecraft separation, Lewis’ responsibilities were complete. The launch had gone exceedingly well.
This illustration depicts the Cassini orbiter with the Huygens lander descending to the Titan moon (left) and Saturn in the background.Credit: NASA 4. Cassini-Huygens Brought a Close to Decades of Lewis Launch Operations
Cassini-Huygens was NASA Lewis’ 119th and final launch, and it brought to a close the center’s decades of launch operations. The center had been responsible for NASA’s upper-stage vehicles since the fall of 1962. The primary stages were the Agena, which had 28 successful launches, and Centaur, which has an even more impressive track record and remains in service today.
While Lewis continued to handle vehicle integration and other technical issues for launches of NASA payloads, in the 1980s, NASA began transferring launch responsibilities to commercial entities. In the mid-1990s, NASA underwent a major realignment that consolidated all launch vehicle responsibilities at NASA Kennedy.
So it was with mixed emotions that around 20 Lewis employees and retirees gathered at the Cleveland center in the early morning hours of Oct. 15, 1997, to watch the Cassini launch. The group held its cheers for 40 minutes after liftoff until Lewis’ responsibilities concluded for the last time with the safe separation of Cassini from Centaur. “In many ways, this is the end of an era, across the agency and, in particular, here at Lewis,” noted one engineer from the Launch Vehicle and Transportation Office.
The Titan IV/Centaur lifts off from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral on Oct. 15, 1997. NASA Lewis engineers were monitoring the launch from Hangar AE, roughly 3.5 miles to the south. Credit: NASA 5. Cassini Made Groundbreaking Discoveries That Inform Today’s NASA Missions
Cassini’s seven-year voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (twice), Earth, and Jupiter so that the planets’ gravitational forces could accelerate the spacecraft. Cassini entered Saturn’s orbit in June 2004 and began relaying data and nearly half a million images back to Earth. Huygens separated from the spacecraft and descended to the surface of the Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in January 2005. It was the first time a vehicle ever landed on a celestial body in the outer solar system.
Cassini went on to make plunges into the planet’s upper atmosphere and through Saturn’s rings. Scientific information on the mysterious planet, its moons, and rings led to the publication of nearly 4,000 technical papers. After over 13 years and nearly 300 orbits, on Sept. 15, 2017, NASA intentionally sent Cassini plummeting into the atmosphere where it burned up, ending its remarkable mission.
NASA engineers used their experiences from the Cassini mission to help design the Europa Clipper, which is intended to perform flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Europa Clipper launched on Oct. 14.
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Read the “Sending Cassini to Saturn” Series from NASA Glenn Visit NASA’s Cassini-Huygens Website Visit the European Space Agency’s Cassini-Huygens Website Watch NASA Coverage of the Cassini Launch See NASA Glenn’s Historic Centaur Rocket Display
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This mosaic from ESA’s Euclid space telescope contains 260 observations in visible and infrared light. It covers 132 square degrees, or more than 500 times the area of the full Moon, and is 208 gigapixels. This is 1% of the wide survey that Euclid will capture during its six-year mission.ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO This section of the Euclid mosaic is zoomed in 36 times, revealing the core of galaxy cluster Abell 3381, 470 million light-years from Earth. The image, made using both visible and infrared light, shows galaxies of different shapes and sizes, including elliptical, spiral, and dwarf galaxies.ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO This image shows an area of the Euclid mosaic zoomed in 150 times. The combination of visible and infrared light reveals galaxies that are interacting with each other in cluster Abell 3381, 470 million light-years away from Earth. ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO The location and actual size of the newly released Euclid mosaic is highlighted in yellow on a map of the entire sky captured by ESA’s Planck mission and a star map from ESA’s Gaia mission. ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; ESA/Gaia/DPAC; ESA and the Planck Collaboration. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO With contributions from NASA, the mission will map a third of the sky in order to study a cosmic mystery called dark energy.
ESA (the European Space Agency) has released a new, 208-gigapixel mosaic of images taken by Euclid, a mission with NASA contributions that launched in 2023 to study why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Astronomers use the term “dark energy” in reference to the unknown cause of this accelerated expansion.
The new images were released at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan on Oct. 15.
The mosaic contains 260 observations in visible and infrared light made between March 25 and April 8 of this year. In just two weeks, Euclid covered 132 square degrees of the southern sky — more than 500 times the area of the sky covered by a full Moon.
The mosaic accounts for 1% of the wide survey Euclid will conduct over six years. During this survey, the telescope observes the shapes, distances, and motions of billions of galaxies out to a distance of more than 10 billion light-years. By doing this, it will create the largest 3D cosmic map ever made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ZCsUfgLRQ Dive into a snippet of the great cosmic atlas being produced by the ESA Euclid mission. This video zooms in on a 208-gigapixel mosaic containing about 14 million galaxies and covering a portion of the southern sky more than 500 times the area of the full Moon as seen from Earth. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi; ESA/Gaia/DPAC; ESA/Planck Collaboration This first piece of the map already contains around 100 million stars and galaxies. Some 14 million of these galaxies could be used by Euclid to study the hidden influence of dark energy on the universe.
“We have already seen beautiful, high-resolution images of individual objects and groups of objects from Euclid. This new image finally gives us a taste of the enormity of the area of sky Euclid will cover, which will enable us to take detailed measurements of billions of galaxies,” said Jason Rhodes, an observational cosmologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California who is the U.S. science lead for Euclid and principal investigator for NASA’s Euclid dark energy science team.
Galaxies Galore
Even though this patch of space shows only 1% of Euclid’s total survey area, the spacecraft’s sensitive cameras captured an incredible number of objects in great detail. Enlarging the image by a factor of 600 reveals the intricate structure of a spiral galaxy in galaxy cluster Abell 3381, 470 million light-years away.
This section of the Euclid mosaic is zoomed in 600 times. A single spiral galaxy is visible in great detail within cluster Abell 3381, 470 million light-years away from us. Data from both the visible and infrared light instruments on Euclid are included. ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO “What really strikes me about these new images is the tremendous range in physical scale,” said JPL’s Mike Seiffert, project scientist for the NASA contribution to Euclid. “The images capture detail from clusters of stars near an individual galaxy to some of the largest structures in the universe. We are beginning to see the first hints of what the full Euclid data will look like when it reaches the completion of the prime survey.”
Visble as well are clouds of gas and dust located between the stars in our own galaxy. Sometimes called “galactic cirrus” because they look like cirrus clouds at Earth, these clouds can be observed by Euclid’s visible-light camera because they reflect visible light from the Milky Way.
The mosaic released today is taste of what’s to come from Euclid. The mission plans to release 53 square degrees of the Euclid survey, including a preview of the Euclid Deep Field areas, in March 2025 and to release its first year of cosmology data in 2026.
NASA’s forthcoming Nancy Grace Roman mission will also study dark energy — in ways that are complementary to Euclid. Mission planners will use Euclid’s findings to inform Roman’s dark energy work. Scheduled to launch by May 2027, Roman will study a smaller section of sky than Euclid but will provide higher-resolution images of millions of galaxies and peer deeper into the universe’s past, providing complementary information. In addition, Roman will survey nearby galaxies, find and investigate planets throughout our galaxy, study objects on the outskirts of our solar system, and more.
More About Euclid
Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium — consisting of more than 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the United States, Canada, and Japan — is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.
Three NASA-supported science teams contribute to the Euclid mission. In addition to designing and fabricating the sensor-chip electronics for Euclid’s Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) instrument, JPL led the procurement and delivery of the NISP detectors as well. Those detectors, along with the sensor chip electronics, were tested at NASA’s Detector Characterization Lab at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Euclid NASA Science Center at IPAC (ENSCI), at Caltech in Pasadena, California, will archive the science data and support U.S.-based science investigations. JPL is a division of Caltech.
For more information about Euclid go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/euclid/main/index.html
For more information about Roman, go to:
https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
ESA Media Relations
media@esa.int
2024-141
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Last Updated Oct 15, 2024 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
ESA has taken another important step on the road towards sustainability in space with its first in-orbit servicing mission RISE. A €119 million contract was signed with D-Orbit as the co-funding prime contractor.
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has selected Metis Technology Solutions Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide engineering services as well as develop and maintain software and hardware used to conduct simulations for aerospace research and development across the agency.
The Aerospace Research, Technology, and Simulations (ARTS) contract is a hybrid cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price contract with an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity component and has a maximum potential value of $177 million. The performance period begins Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024, with a one-year base period, and options to extend performance through November 2029.
Under this contract, the company will support the preparation, development, operation, and maintenance of future and existing simulators, integration laboratories, aircraft research systems, simulation work areas, and aircraft research systems. The scope of work also will include the development, testing, and validation of advanced air traffic management automation tools, including, but not limited to, advanced concepts for aviation ecosystems. Work will primarily be performed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, as well as other agency or government locations, as needed.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, Calif.
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 10, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:04:05 ESA’s Hera mission lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, on 7 October at 10:52 local time (16:52 CEST, 14:52 UTC).
Hera is ESA’s first planetary defence mission. It will fly to a unique target among the 1.3 million asteroids in our Solar System – the only body to have had its orbit shifted by human action – to solve lingering unknowns associated with its deflection.
Hera will carry out the first detailed survey of a ‘binary’ – or double-body – asteroid, 65803 Didymos, which is orbited by a smaller body, Dimorphos. Hera’s main focus will be Dimorphos, whose orbit around the main body was previously altered by NASA’s kinetic-impacting DART spacecraft.
By sharpening scientific understanding of this ‘kinetic impact’ technique of asteroid deflection, Hera should turn the experiment into a well-understood and repeatable technique for protecting Earth from an asteroid on a collision course.
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