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Reliability efforts and test facility developments summarized for Deep Space Instrumentation Facility and Surveyor, Mariner, and Voyager projects
The Surveyor Project achieved five successful lunar landings between 1966 and 1968, following an intensive five-year development effort. One of the many significant accomplishments made by Surveyor was the development and validation of the first-ever automated soft-landing system. This paper provides a historical and control aspects of the spacecraft's terminal descent system. Driving requirements and other important design considerations are described, along with the configuration and operational sequence of the actual flight system.
The Mars Microprobe Project, or Deep Space 2 (DS2), is the second of the New Millennium Program planetary missions and is designed to enable future space science network missions through flight validation of new technologies. A secondary goal is the collection of meaningful science data. Two micropenetrators will be deployed to carry out surface and subsurface science. The penetrators are being carried as a piggyback payload on the Mars Polar Lander cruise ring and will be launched in January 1999. The microprobe has no active control, attitude determination, or propulsive systems. It is a single stage from separation until landing and will passively orient itself due to its aerodynamic design. The aeroshell will be made of a nonerosive heat shield material, Silicon impregnated Reusable Ceramic Ablator(SIRCA), developed at Ames Research Center. The aeroshell shatters on impact, at which time the probe separates into an aftbody that remains at the surface and a forebody that penetrates into the subsurface. Each probe has a total mass of up to 3 kg, including the aeroshell. The impact velocity will be about 180 meters per second. The forebody will experience up to 30,000 g's and penetrate between 0.3 and 2 meters, depending on the ice content of the soil. The aftbody deceleration will be up to 80,000 g. The penetrators arrive in December 1999. The landing ellipse latitude range is 73 deg-77 deg S. The longitude will be selected by the Mars Surveyor Project to place the lander on the polar layered deposits in the range of 180 deg -230 deg W. The two micropenetrators are likely to land within 100 km of the Mars Surveyor Lander, on the polar deposits. The likely arrival date is L(sub s) = 256, late southern spring. The nominal mission lasts 2 days. A science team was selected in April 1998.
Design concept for breadboard model of geological sample and transport device for Surveyor project
Surveyor project, Mariner program, and Voyager project research activities and Deep Space Network /DSN/ operations
Mariner Mars 1969 project, Surveyor soft landing, and advanced planetary missions technology
Lunar fragmental debris layer observations from Surveyor project, examining size, shape, texture, structure, etc
Lunar elemental abundances examined by Surveyor project, discussing albedo contrasts, surface rock density, bulk composition, thermal regime and chondritic meteorites
The "Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment" (MECA) payload for Mars Surveyor Project 2001 (MSP 2001) is comprised of a multifunctional laboratory equipped to assess martian soil properties with wet chemistry, camera imagery, optical microscopy (potentially with UV fluorescence capability), atomic force microscopy (AFM; potentially with mineral-discrimination capabilities), electrometry, active & passive external materials-test panels, mineral hardness testing, and electrostatic and magnetic materials testing. Additionally, evaluation of soil chemical and physical properties as a function of depth down to -50 cm will be facilitated by the Lander/MECA robot arm on which the camera (RAC) and electrometer are mounted. MECA was designed as a NASA Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) payload for determining the properties of martian soil that may be detrimental to human exploration. It is, however, well equipped to address exobiology questions in the following areas: (1)Geochemical clues to Aqueous Mineralogy and Oxidant formation; (2) Soil structures and microfabrics as indicators of water-volatiles migration; (3) Minerals and rocks as clues to ancient hydrology; (4) Grain textures as indicators of aqueous activity and weathering. Additional information is contained in the original.
The NASA Ames' Center for Mars Exploration (CMEX) serves to coordinate Mars programmatic research at ARC in the sciences, in information technology and in aero-assist and other technologies. Most recently, CMEX has been working with the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition at the University of West Florida to develop a new kind of web browser based on the application of concept maps. These Cmaps, which are demonstrably effective in science teaching, can be used to provide a new kind of information navigation tool that can make web or CD based information more meaningful and more easily navigable. CMEX expects that its 1999 CD-ROM will have this new user interface. CMEX is also engaged with the Mars Surveyor Project Office at JPL in developing an Internet-based source of materials to support the process of selecting landing sites for the next series of Mars landers. This activity -- identifying the most promising sites from which to return samples relevant to the search for evidence of life -- is one that is expected to engage the general public as well as the science community. To make the landing site data easily accessible and meaningful to the public, CMEX is planning to use the IHMC Cmap browser as its user interface.
The PI had nineteen papers either published or in press in 1999 through early 2002. Ten of these (Thomas et al. 1999, Geisler et al. 1999, Vasavada et al. 1999, Little et al. t999, Gierasch et al. 2000, Ingersoll et al. 2000, Thomas et al. 2000, Dyudina et al. 2001, Chang et al. 2001, Wang and Ingersoll 2002) were largely supported by the Mars Global Surveyor project and the Galileo project. The other nine papers were largely supported under this grant, and are listed in boldface below. Six of the nine are research papers. Their titles and abstracts are reproduced below. The New Solar System chapter and the Meteorology at the Millennium chapter are review articles, and the World Book Encyclopedia chapter is a popular article. Their title pages and abstracts are also reproduced below.
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Proposal for utilizing Ranger project in support of Surveyor and Apollo projects
Surveyor mission operations, and systems design engineering for Mariner, Voyager, and Surveyor space probes
Utility of unmanned probes of Ranger or Surveyor class in Apollo exploration program - Lunar scientific exploration
Project activities and supporting research for space exploration programs
The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor is designed to detect, categorize and characterize Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) using infrared imaging. The project was approved to enter the preliminary design phase (Phase B) in FY21 after an extended Concept Development Phase (Phase A). The NEO Surveyor project responds to US Public Law 109-155[1], National Research Council’s report “Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys & Hazard Mitigation Strategies (2010)”[2], the U. S. National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan (June 2018)[3], and the objectives of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The goals of the NEO Surveyor project are to: (1) identify impact hazards to the Earth posed by NEOs (defined as asteroids and comets that come within 1.3 AU of the Sun) by performing a comprehensive survey of the NEO population; (2) obtain detailed physical characterization data for individual objects that are likely to pose an impact hazard; (3) characterize the entire population of potentially hazardous NEOs to inform potential mitigation strategies. The mission will make significant progress toward the George E. Brown, Jr. NEO Survey Program objective defined by the U. S. Congress of detecting, tracking, cataloging, and characterizing at least 90% of NEOs equal to or larger than 140 m in diameter. The project is a collaboration between NASA-JPL, the University of Arizona (UA) and industry, with Ball Aerospace notably providing the spacecraft and key instrument elements. This paper will describe the overall NEO Surveyor Project objectives, initial spacecraft and instrument design and development plans and mission concept.