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Sols 4437-4438: Coordinating our Dance Moves
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on sol 4435 — Martian day 4,435 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Jan. 27, 2025, at 02:23:35 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 27, 2025
I was Geology and Mineralogy (Geo) Science Team lead today, and my day started with a bang and a drum roll — delivered by a rare winter thunderstorm (rare here in England, at least). I did lose power for a few minutes, but thanks to laptop batteries and phone Wi-Fi, I think no one noticed … so, shhh, don’t tell the boss!
Planning was especially interesting as we had a decision to make, whether we want to align ChemCam and APXS observations with each other and focus on one target, or whether we want two different targets. As Geo Science Team lead, it is my role to facilitate this discussion, but that is always fun — and easy. Many colleagues come with well-prepared reasons for why they want to have a certain observation in today’s plan, and I always learn something new about Mars, or geology, or both when those discussions happen. Weighing all arguments carefully, we decided for the coordinated dance of contact and remote science observations on a bedrock target we named “Desert View.” APXS will start the dance, followed by ChemCam active and one RMI image on the same location. Closing out the dance will be MAHLI, by imaging the APXS target that at this point will have the laser pits.
Such a coordinated observation will allow us to see how the rock reacts to the interaction with the laser. We have done this many times, and often learnt interesting things about the mineralogy of the rock. But more than 10 years ago, there was an even more ambitious coordination exercise: On sol 687 the imaging on a target called “Nova” was timed so that Mastcam actually captured the laser spark in the image. While that’s useful for engineering purposes, as a mineralogist I want to see the effect on the rock. Here is the result of that “spark” on target Nova on sol 687.
But back to today’s planning. Apart from the coordinated observations, ChemCam also adds to the Remote Micro Imager coverage of Gould Mesa with a vertical RMI observation that is designed to cover all the nice layers in the mesa, just like a stratigraphic column. Mastcam is looking back at the Rustic Canyon crater to get a new angle. Craters are three-dimensional and looking at it from all sides will help decipher the nature of this small crater, and also make full use of the window into the underground that it offers. Mastcam has two more mosaics, “Condor Peak” and “Boulder Basin,” which are both looking at interesting features in the landscape: Condor Peak at a newly visible butte, and Boulder Basin at bedrock targets in the near-field, to ascertain the structures and textures are still the same as they have been, or document any possible changes. Mars has surprised us before, so we try to look as often as power and other resources allow, even if only to confirm that nothing has changed. You can see the blocks that we are using for this observation in the grayscale Navigation Camera image above; we especially like it when upturned blocks give us a different view, while flat lying blocks in the same image show the “regular” perspective.
After the targeted science is completed, the rover will continue its drive along the planned route, to see what Mars has to offer on the next stop. After the drive, MARDI will take its image, and ChemCam do an autonomous observation, picking its own target. Also after the drive is a set of atmospheric observations to look at dust levels and search for dust devils. Continuous observations throughout include the DAN instrument’s observation of the surface and measurements of wind and temperature.
With that, the plan is again making best use of all the power we have available… and here in England the weather has improved, inside my power is back to normal, and outside it’s all back to the proverbial rain this small island is so famous for.
Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
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Last Updated Jan 29, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
3 Min Read NASA Scientists Find New Human-Caused Shifts in Global Water Cycle
Cracked mud and salt on the valley floor in Death Valley National Park in California can become a reflective pool after rains. (File photo) Credits: NPS/Kurt Moses In a recently published paper, NASA scientists use nearly 20 years of observations to show that the global water cycle is shifting in unprecedented ways. The majority of those shifts are driven by activities such as agriculture and could have impacts on ecosystems and water management, especially in certain regions.
“We established with data assimilation that human intervention in the global water cycle is more significant than we thought,” said Sujay Kumar, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-author of the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The shifts have implications for people all over the world. Water management practices, such as designing infrastructure for floods or developing drought indicators for early warning systems, are often based on assumptions that the water cycle fluctuates only within a certain range, said Wanshu Nie, a research scientist at NASA Goddard and lead author of the paper.
“This may no longer hold true for some regions,” Nie said. “We hope that this research will serve as a guide map for improving how we assess water resources variability and plan for sustainable resource management, especially in areas where these changes are most significant.”
One example of the human impacts on the water cycle is in North China, which is experiencing an ongoing drought. But vegetation in many areas continues to thrive, partially because producers continue to irrigate their land by pumping more water from groundwater storage, Kumar said. Such interrelated human interventions often lead to complex effects on other water cycle variables, such as evapotranspiration and runoff.
Nie and her colleagues focused on three different kinds of shifts or changes in the cycle: first, a trend, such as a decrease in water in a groundwater reservoir; second, a shift in seasonality, like the typical growing season starting earlier in the year, or an earlier snowmelt; and third a change in extreme events, like “100-year floods” happening more frequently.
The scientists gathered remote sensing data from 2003 to 2020 from several different NASA satellite sources: the Global Precipitation Measurement mission satellite for precipitation data, a soil moisture dataset from the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative, and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites for terrestrial water storage data. They also used products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite instrument to provide information on vegetation health.
“This paper combines several years of our team’s effort in developing capabilities on satellite data analysis, allowing us to precisely simulate continental water fluxes and storages across the planet,” said Augusto Getirana, a research scientist at NASA Goddard and a co-author of the paper.
The study results suggest that Earth system models used to simulate the future global water cycle should evolve to integrate the ongoing effects of human activities. With more data and improved models, producers and water resource managers could understand and effectively plan for what the “new normal” of their local water situation looks like, Nie said.
By Erica McNamee
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
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Last Updated Jan 16, 2025 EditorKate D. RamsayerContactKate D. Ramsayerkate.d.ramsayer@nasa.gov Related Terms
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Artist concept highlighting the novel approach proposed by the 2025 NIAC awarded selection of the Thermo-Photo-Catalysis of Water for Crewed Mars Transit Spacecraft Oxygen Supply concept.NASA/Saurabh Vilekar Saurabh Vilekar
Precision Combustion
Precision Combustion, Inc. (PCI) proposes to develop a uniquely compact, lightweight, low-power, and durable Microlith® Thermo-Photo-Catalytic (TPC) Reactor for crewed Mars transit spacecraft O2 supply. As crewed space exploration mission destinations move from low Earth orbit to sustained lunar surface habitation toward Mars exploration, the need becomes more intense to supplant heritage physico-chemical unit operations employed for crewed spacecraft cabin CO2 removal, CO2 reduction, and O2 supply. The primary approach to date has been toward incremental improvement of the heritage, energy intensive process technologies used aboard the International Space Station (ISS), particularly for water electrolysis-based O2 generation. A major breakthrough is necessary to depose these energy intensive process technologies either partly or completely. This is achievable by considering the recent advances in photocatalysis. Applications are emerging for converting CO2 to useful commodity products and generating H2 from atmospheric water vapor. Considering these developments, a low power thermo-photo-catalytic process to replace the heritage high-power water electrolysis process is proposed for application to a Mars transit vehicle life support system (LSS) functional architecture. A key component in realizing this breakthrough is utilizing a catalyst substrate such as Microlith that affords high surface area and promotes mass transport to the catalyst surface. The proposed TPC oxygenator is expected to operate passively to continually renew the O2 content of the cabin atmosphere. The targeted mission for the proposed TPC oxygenator technology deployment is a 2039 Long Stay, Earth-Mars-Earth mission opportunity. This mission as defined by the Moon to Mars (M2M) 2024 review consists of 337.9 days outbound, 348.5 days in Mars vicinity, and 295.8 days return for a total 982.2-day mission. The proposed Microlith oxygenator technology, if successful, is envisioned to replace the OGA technology in the LSS process architecture with significant weight and power savings. In Phase I, we will demonstrate technical feasibility of Microlith TPC for O2 generation, interface requirements, and integration trade space and a clear path towards a prototype demonstration in Phase II will also be described in the final report.
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Last Updated Jan 10, 2025 EditorLoura Hall Related Terms
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5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Data from the SWOT satellite was used to calculate average water levels for lakes and reservoirs in the Ohio River Basin from July 2023 to November 2024. Yellow indicates values greater than 1,600 feet (500 meters) above sea level; dark purple represents water levels less than 330 feet (100 meters). Data from the U.S.-European Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission gives researchers a detailed look at lakes and reservoirs in a U.S. watershed.
The Ohio River Basin stretches from Pennsylvania to Illinois and contains a system of reservoirs, lakes, and rivers that drains an area almost as large as France. Researchers with the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission, a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), now have a new tool for measuring water levels not only in this area, which is home to more than 25 million people, but in other watersheds around the world as well.
Since early 2023, SWOT has been measuring the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface — including oceans, lakes, reservoirs, and rivers — covering nearly the entire globe at least once every 21 days. The SWOT satellite also measures the horizontal extent of water in freshwater bodies. Earlier this year, the mission started making validated data publicly available.
“Having these two perspectives — water extent and levels — at the same time, along with detailed, frequent coverage over large areas, is unprecedented,” said Jida Wang, a hydrologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a member of the SWOT science team. “This is a groundbreaking, exciting aspect of SWOT.”
Researchers can use the mission’s data on water level and extent to calculate how the amount of water stored in a lake or reservoir changes over time. This, in turn, can give hydrologists a more precise picture of river discharge — how much water moves through a particular stretch of river.
The visualization above uses SWOT data from July 2023 to November 2024 to show the average water level above sea level in lakes and reservoirs in the Ohio River Basin, which drains into the Mississippi River. Yellow indicates values greater than 1,600 feet (500 meters), and dark purple represents water levels less than 330 feet (100 meters). Comparing how such levels change can help hydrologists measure water availability over time in a local area or across a watershed.
Complementing a Patchwork of Data
Historically, estimating freshwater availability for communities within a river basin has been challenging. Researchers gather information from gauges installed at certain lakes and reservoirs, from airborne surveys, and from other satellites that look at either water level or extent. But for ground-based and airborne instruments, the coverage can be limited in space and time. Hydrologists can piece together some of what they need from different satellites, but the data may or may not have been taken at the same time, or the researchers might still need to augment the information with measurements from ground-based sensors.
Even then, calculating freshwater availability can be complicated. Much of the work relies on computer models. “Traditional water models often don’t work very well in highly regulated basins like the Ohio because they have trouble representing the unpredictable behavior of dam operations,” said George Allen, a freshwater researcher at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and a member of the SWOT science team.
Many river basins in the United States include dams and reservoirs managed by a patchwork of entities. While the people who manage a reservoir may know how their section of water behaves, planning for water availability down the entire length of a river can be a challenge. Since SWOT looks at both rivers and lakes, its data can help provide a more unified view.
“The data lets water managers really know what other people in these freshwater systems are doing,” said SWOT science team member Colin Gleason, a hydrologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
While SWOT researchers are excited about the possibilities that the data is opening up, there is still much to be done. The satellite’s high-resolution view of water levels and extent means there is a vast ocean of data that researchers must wade through, and it will take some time to process and analyze the measurements.
More About SWOT
The SWOT satellite was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. The Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations were provided by CNES. The KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly was provided by CSA.
To learn more about SWOT, visit:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Dec 17, 2024 Related Terms
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