Phoenix Beats Dust Storm

It's not enough that the brutal Martian arctic winter is slowly tightening its grip on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. Last weekend, a dust storm whipped over the Lander, cutting the sunlight that could reach Lander's solar collectors, and coating the collectors in dust.

The storm caused a substantial drop in power, which forced delay or cancellation of some experiments. After the storm passed, power generation went back up, but that's only a temporary reprieve. The long night of arctic winter will soon steal over the Lander's location, depriving it of an energy source.

Dust storms in the Martian arctic are common in the fall and winter, so the Phoenix Mars Lander could still suffer an earlier demise, ending a remarkable scientific project.

Cyclones On Saturn

In addition to studying the rings and moons of the planet, the Cassini mission to Saturn obviously investigates the huge sixth planet from the Sun itself. Despite its distance from the Sun, Saturn is a wild and woolly place. Well, not woolly.

Recent images from Cassini confirm huge, long-lasting cyclones whip around each pole of Saturn. The storms are hundreds of times more powerful than the largest hurricanes on Earth. Those Earthly storms develop over warm ocean water and take advantage of energy from the Sun. There are no oceans on Saturn, and solar energy is not a real factor. The cyclones are fueled by energy coming from Saturn itself.

One more extremely odd thing-- at one pole, these huge cyclones seem to be boxed in by a giant hexagonal structure within the atmosphere. No such structure appears at the other pole. What kind of atmospheric condition could create straight lines and definite angles and maintain a hexagon over an extended period of time is baffling.

Hubble and Aries

The law of unintended consequences governs NASA just as it does other areas of human activity.

The biggest goal for NASA's manned space program in the short term is to narrow the gap between the last shuttle flight and the first flight under the new Constellation program. NASA had been pushing for the first launch of an early version of the new Aries launcher to go next April. Because if the delay of the final repair mission to Hubble until next spring, the Aries test will be delayed. It seems the shuttle needs the launchpad NASA plans to modify to accomodate Aries.

There should be no overall delay in the Constellation program, but there is irony. After Columbia, NASA decided another repair mission to Hubble would be too dangerous. Public opinion and the science community got that decision reversed. Now, that mission will delay at least the first test of the flight hardware intended to carry NASA into the future.

MSL A Go

As reported recently in this blog, NASA was considering delaying or canceling the Mars Science Laboratory project due to technical problems and cost overruns. The agency announced Friday, however, that it is sticking to a planned October, 2009, launch of the mission.

NASA chief Mike Griffin met with MSL managers Friday and determined to go ahead as planned. Another meeting is scheduled with Griffin in January to look at the mission again, but MSL leaders are confident they can have the technical problems under control by then.

NASA says it is unlikely MSL will be canceled now.

Richard Garriott To ISS

Space Adventures announced in a press release today that private space traveler Richard Garriott has been succcessfully launched aboard a Soyuz.

During his stay at ISS, Garriott will be busy pursuing various educational and scientific projects. He hopes to use his flight ro further the case for private enterprise in space.

Richard is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott. He therefore becomes the first second generation space flier.

Two More Google Lunar Teams

Two more teams recenty announced they are competing in the Google Lunar X-Prize Challenge. One of the new teams is from Malaysia, while the other is based at the University of Central Florida. They bring to 14 the number of teams competing to land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, drive a rover across the lunar surface, and send back data and video.

For all of Florida's long and intimate connection with the American space program, the UCF team is the first from Florida in the competition. Malaysia, on the other hand, now has two teams competing. Perhaps the U. S. should take note. If Americans want to continue to lead humanity into space, resting on past glories won't do it.

Cassini at Enceladus

As I'm writing this, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is having a close encounter with Saturn's moon, Enceladus. At its closest approach, Cassini will skim just 16 miles above the moon's icy surface.

Enceladus has become an important focus of the mission. Before Cassini, most astronomers would have said Titan was the best bet as the home of life in the system of Saturn. Life on Titan is still possible, but Enceladus, with a huge ocean of liquid water under its icy surface as well as organic molecules in that ocean, has become another possible abole of life.

Today is the first of two close encounters Cassini will have with Encel;adus this month. The second will be on October 31.