Operation Ice Bridge will soon reach the end of its operational lifetime

A satellite launched by NASA in 2003 to keep an eye on the massive ice sheets that cover the Polar Regions will soon reach the end of its operational lifetime. A second satellite, dubbed ICESat-II, won’t launch until 2014 at the earliest.

That means a six-year gap for scientists who use the data collected by the satellite’s laser altimeter system to monitor such things as elevation changes in the ice. Researchers use that information to understand not only how the ice changes over time, but to help calculate the amount of sea level rise from ice lost to the ocean.But NASA has a backup plan to bridge the gap — the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice ever flown.

Operation Ice Bridge is a six-year mission to fly an instrumented airplane out of Punta Arenas, Chile, across the ice and snow of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. A modified DC-8 jetliner will crisscross ice shelves, sea ice, glaciers and the massive western ice sheet beginning this month.

Seelye Martin, chief scientist for the project from the University of Washington, said Ice Bridge is a partial replacement for ICESat, which stands for Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite. The DC-8 will carry precision instruments to map the ice topography just as ICESat did, allowing scientists to monitor elevation fluctuations in the ice sheet as well as changes in sea ice thickness.

SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS - Summary

Atlantis' mission will focus on storing spare hardware on the exterior of the International Space Station. The 11-day flight will include three spacewalks and the installation of two platforms to the station’s truss, or backbone. The platforms will hold spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired. This equipment is large and can only be transported using the unique capability of the shuttle. Atlantis also will bring back a station crew member after more than two months aboard the orbiting laboratory. This is slated to be the final space shuttle crew rotation flight for the station.
CREW:
Charlie Hobaugh (hoe-baw)
Barry E. Wilmore
Leland Melvin
Randy Bresnik
Mike Foreman
Robert “Bobby” Satcher
Nicole Stott
FACTS:

For MISSE-7 there are 700 materials samples that will be installed in holders and placed in two experiment trays, called Passive Experiment Containers 7A and 7B.
• The PECs will be mounted on the outside of the station.
• The experiments include tests of spacesuit materials for use on the lunar surface and materials for the solar arrays being designed for the Orion spacecraft.
• This installment of experiments for the MISSE program will be the first to receive power directly from the station and use its communication system to receive commands and downlink data.
• During STS-129, the two platforms that will be installed on the station are known as ExPRESS Logistics
Carriers 1 & 2. EXPRESS stands for “Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station.” Each
ELC can hold up to 9,800 pounds (total with spares, ELC 1: 13,842 lbs, ELC 2: 13,365 lbs). The ELCs hold:
• 2 spare gyroscopes that help maintain the station’s attitude in orbit
• 2 nitrogen tank assemblies used for pressurizing the station's ammonia cooling system
• 2 pump modules for pumping ammonia from a tank through cooling line in the truss
• an ammonia tank assembly. Ammonia is used to move excess heat from inside the station to the radiators located outside.
• a spare latching end effector, or hand, that allows the station's robotic arm to grapple
• a spare trailing umbilical system for the Mobile Transporter, the rail car that the arm travels on.
• a high-pressure gas tank for supplying oxygen for the airlock in support of spacewalks
• Two other ELCs will be delivered next year: one on STS-133 and one on STS-134.
• Shuttle Atlantis also will carry the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Ultra High Frequency Communication Unit. It will be integrated on the station in preparation for Space Exploration Technologies’
(SpaceX) future flights to the orbiting laboratory.
• Developed by SpaceX, in collaboration with NASA, the unit will allow for communication between the station, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, and ground-based mission control.
• STS-129 is the 2nd flight to carry two African-American astronauts. The first was STS-116, which included Robert Curbeam and Joan Higginbotham.

Antarctic meteorites help in the study of early solar system

Field researchers in Antarctica have returned with more than 17,500 meteorites over the 30-plus years that the extraterrestrial material has been collected from the frozen continent.

Yet meteorite science is still in its infancy, and the collected rocks still hold plenty of surprises that could shape our understanding of the solar system, according to scientists involved in the search and characterization of the Antarctic meteorite collection.

A paper in the journal Nature earlier this year illustrates his point. Scientists who analyzed two meteorites collected by Harvey’s team during the 2006-07 field seasons in an area called the Graves Nunatak ice field reported that the rocks are unlike anything found before. The composition of the light-colored rocks has similarities to the Earth’s crust, which has implications for how some asteroids form and evolve.

Additional work by scientists in the community may involve isotopic analysis to help “fingerprint” the sample to determine its origin. For example, scientists can identify rare Martian rocks by analyzing the nitrogen and noble gases found in glass pockets in the rocks created by impacts. That information is matched against the data collected by NASA’s Viking program about Mars’ atmosphere.

All those rocks, ranging in size from smaller than a marble to larger than a football, are bagged and boxed in Antarctica in their frozen state for shipment back to the United States.Additional work by scientists in the community may involve isotopic analysis to help “fingerprint” the sample to determine its origin. For example, scientists can identify rare Martian rocks by analyzing the nitrogen and noble gases found in glass pockets in the rocks created by impacts. That information is matched against the data collected by NASA’s Viking program about Mars’ atmosphere.