***Researchers from The University of Arizona in Tucson are lead contacts on a number of major stories in astronomy and planetary sciences coming up in the next 20 weeks. This advisory lists contacts and resources on four such stories, listed in calendar order.***
*28th Annual Meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences, Oct. 23 - 26, 1996--
Giant murals of the scanning electron microscope images that some scientists believe show early
forms
of life on Mars, a full-scale model of the Mars Pathfinder and the UA's backup Imager for Mars
Pathfinder (IMP) camera operating from a miniature plot of Mars-like surface are among exhibits
for the 28th annual Division of Planetary Sciences meeting at the Tucson Convention Center Oct.
23 -
26.
The UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Steward Observatory are conference hosts.
For the first time ever, the DPS, a division of the American Astronomical Society, is sponsoring an exhibition on solar system exploration which will be free and open to the general public.
Other exhibits will feature a Martian meteorite, how Earth observations are made from space, several ongoing and future space missions, and works by masters of space art.
UA conference planners also are organizing an extensive outreach program involving local schools.
More than 600 planetary scientists and astronomers are expected to attend. Technical sessions and press conferences will cover the latest results from the Galileo mission at Jupiter, new discoveries of other planetary systems, updates on the Martian meteorites, new results from Hubble Space Telescope observations of the solar system, results from studies of Comet Hyakutake and expectations for Comet Hale-Bopp. Sessions also include discussions of the NASA "Road Map" (plans to explore neighboring planetary systems) and future searches for life.
The meeting format will be unconventional: All contributed talks will be given in a special, modular poster facility designed to stimulate scientific exchange and ensure participants' comfort.
Contacts: Stephen M. Larson of the LPL, local organizing committee chairman, 621-4973; Mark V. Sykes of Steward Observatory, program committee chairman, 621-5381.
Media badges, pre-conference media packets: For media badges, pre-conference media packets available in early October, news releases, a schedule of press conferences and updates, contact Nadine Barlow, DPS press officer, 407-823-0251; fax 407-823-5112. Another contact: Lori Stiles, UA News Services, 520-626-4402; fax 520-626-4121.
Newsroom: Provides telephone access for electronic filing of news stories.
Web address: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/dps96/ Comprehensive information on this meeting and related events.
* Launch of UA camera called 'IMP,' Imager for Mars
Pathfinder, Dec. 2 , 1996--
A kid-tall camera with two color-sensitive, stereoscopic "eyes" will be launched on a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral to Mars in December. Peter H. Smith of the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab, principal investigator on the multi-national science team that developed the camera, the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP), hopes the launch will be as scheduled, Dec. 2 -- his birthday. But whatever day from Dec. 2 - 27 the launch comes off, IMP and the rest of the Mars Pathfinder payload should land on an ancient Martian floodplain called Ares Vallis on July 4, 1997.
The Mars Pathfinder mission tests the feasibility of NASA's concept of "Discovery" missions: Develop a space science payload within three years and at a cost of under $150 million. At 1/15 the cost of the Viking missions of 20 years ago, Mars Pathfinder is to test atmospheric entry science, long-range and close-up surface imaging, the mobility and usefulness of a microrover on the surface of Mars, and to characterize the Martian environment for future exploration.
IMP's first all-important task for the engineering mission is to beam back a full 360-degree panoramic view after landing. This will show the lander configuration and which of two ramps the microrover should use to exit the lander. Once this is accomplished, a small explosive device retracts a bolt that holds IMP in its stowed position, and the camera pops up on its 3-foot mast to take another 360-degree panoramic view, this one in color and in stereo. This will help team scientists locate the most interesting land features for detailed study. In addition to surface morphology and geology, IMP will be used to make direct measurements of atmospheric water vapor, dust, wind speed and direction, and any interesting clouds. IMP also will take images of rover wheel tracks, holes dug by rover wheels, and any surface disruptions caused by lander airbag bounces or retractions as part of its tasks.
UA scientists maintain a "Mars Garden" they carefully constructed outside the Kuiper Space Sciences Building on the UA campus. It is an outdoor laboratory that replicates features at the Mars Pathfinder landing site. It was useful to the science team in pre-launch testing of IMP, and plans are to possibly use it for more science tests during the lander mission.
Contacts: Peter H. Smith, principal investigator, IMP,
520-621-2725;
Daniel T. Britt, project manager, 520-621-1336
News Services: Black-and-white and color photos of the IMP during tests at the Mars Garden, during pre-flight tests at Hughes Missile Systems Co. and at the LPL are available. News Services also has some broadcast quality video from the Mars Garden.
Photo opportunity: The backup IMP camera will be operating next to a full-scale model of the Mars Pathfinder lander on a plot of Mars-like surface Oct. 23 - 26. The camera, lander model and mini "Mars Garden" will be a special public exhibit at the Tucson Convention Center for the 28th annual meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences.
Web addresses:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/imp/imp.html
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mpf/
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mes ur.html
http://www.ksc.nasa.g ov/payloads/missions/pathfinder/video.html
*Spin-casting the LBT 1: World's Largest Single-Piece
Telescope Mirror, Dec. 1996 --
Just before or after Christmas,
the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory will cast the largest
one-piece, stiff telescope mirror ever made. It will be a 17-ton
honeycomb mirror of borosilicate glass 8.4-meters in diameter
(27.6 feet, or 331 inches).
This mirror will be the first of twin mirrors planned for the Large Binocular Telescope, the world's single largest telescope, to be constructed on Mount Graham in eastern Arizona. Twin mirrors on a common mount will give the LBT the light-collecting power of a single 11.8-meter instrument and the high resolution of a 22.8-meter telescope. The $60 million telescope (1989 dollars) is primarily a project of the UA, Arcetri Observatory on behalf of the Italian astronomical community, and the Research Corp. of Tucson. LBT science will be a bargain, its scientists say: Per square meter of collecting area, the LBT will do more science at between a half to a fourth the cost of other current and planned telescopes in the 8-meter to 10-meter class.
The Mirror Lab casting team this week is installing the last of 1, 662 ceramic cores that give the glass its stiff yet lightweight "honeycomb" structure. (Seventeen tons is considered lightweight, considering this thing would weigh five times as much cast as solid glass.) The team next begins a 3-week phase of mirror mold cleaning and inspection, then a 4-week prefiring sequence, followed by 2 more weeks of cleaning and inspecting the mold.
In late December, the crew will inspect and load 38,000 pounds of E6 borosilicate glass supplied by Ohara of Japan into the great mold. The Lab's 22-foot tall, 39-foot diameter furnace will spin at 6.8 rpm to create the fast focal-length (f/1.14) mirror. Peak temperatures reach 1,000 degrees Centigrade (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). Start of heating to final, cooled mirror will be an 11-week to 12-week process.
Contacts: John M. Hill, project director, Large Binocular Telescope Project, 520-621-3940; J. Roger P. Angel, director, Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory, 520-621-6542.
News Services: For broadcast-quality Beta video of steps in the mirror-making process, contact Vern Lamplot, 621-1879; Julieta Gonzalez, 626-4336; Lori Stiles, 626-4402.
For black-and-white photos or 35mm color transparencies of steps in the mirror-making process, contact John Florence, 626-4362, or Lori Stiles, 626-4402.
For detailed, but non-technical background on the Mirror Lab's unique casting, polishing and testing techniques, contact Lori Stiles, 626-4402 or Julieta Gonzalez, 626-4336.
Photo opportunity: Spin-casting is an impressive-looking process. News Services is documenting steps in the making of the 8.4-meter mirror. Media requests for access to the Mirror Lab should be directed to Roger Angel or John Hill, or to the astronomers through Stiles or Gonzalez at News Services.
Web addresses:
http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/mlab/mlab.ht ml -- The Mirror Lab
http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/lbtwww/lb tsc.html -- LBT science
* 2nd Servicing Mission to Hubble Space Telescope:
NICMOS shuttle launch, Feb. 13, 1997--
Until now, the Hubble Space
Telescope has been infrared blind.
As a result, some of the most tantalizing objects in the Universe -- the most distant and the most dust-obscured -- have remained largely unexplored. Astronomers need to study the nature and existence of very distant objects to discover the true shape, size, structure and future of the Universe. They need views through dark masses of dust and gas to witness the birth of galaxies, stars and planets. They need views through the dusty centers of galaxies to understand the nature of quasars and black holes.
Early next year, a space shuttle Discovery crew of seven on a 9 day, 22-hour mission will give the Hubble Space Telescope its first infrared "eyes." Space-walking astronauts will install an instrument called NICMOS, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. A University of Arizona-led science team developed the $100 million system. It will both measure the Universe and observe celestial objects at their creation.
NICMOS will operate its sensitive, cryogenically-cooled "eyes," which are three separate 256 x 256 detector arrays, at infrared wavelengths longer than the human eye can see, at between eight-tenths of a micron and 2.5 microns. NICMOS has three cameras of different magnifications plus filters, polarizers, prisms for spectroscopy and coronagraphic masks. In space, it will observe unimpeded by Earth's atmosphere, a chaotic ocean of air filled with infrared-light absorbing water vapor and its own natural sources of infrared light pollution.
When asked to describe NICMOS in a single word, UA astronomy professor Rodger I. Thompson, principal investigator for the project, said, "Fantastic!"
Contacts: Rodger I. Thompson, principal investigator, 520-621-6527; Marcia J. Rieke, deputy principal investigator, 520-621-2731; Frank J. Low, 520-621-2727; Donald W. McCarthy, 520-621-4079; Erick T. Young, 520-621-4119; and John M. Hill, 520-621-3940 are UA astronomers on the NICMOS science team.
Also on the team: Eric Becklin, University of California - Los Angeles; John Black, Chalmers University, Sweden; Harland Epps, University of California - Santa Cruz; Edwin Erickson, NASA Ames Research Center; Donald Hall, University of Hawaii; John McGraw, University of New Mexico; Nicholas Scoville, California Institute of Technology; Bradford Smith, Hawaii; Hyron Spinrad, University of California - Berkeley; Richard Terrile, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Ray Weymann, Carnegie Institutions of Washington.
News Services: UA News Services will have a 30-minute resource Beta video ready for release to broadcast media after mid-October. It includes footage from an interview with NICMOS science team leader Rodger Thompson, footage from a recent NICMOS science team meeting, and color stills taken of NICMOS during assembly at Ball Aerospace in Boulder. For video and other background on NICMOS, contact Lori Stiles, 520-626-4402, or Julieta Gonzalez, 520-626-4336.
For photos taken of NICMOS during assembly at Ball, and for Ball Aerospace artist Scott Kahler's illustrations of astronauts installing NICMOS in the HST, contact David Aguilar or Ken Hutchinson of Ball Aerospace & Technologies, Public Affairs office, 303-460-2247.
Photo opportunity: NICMOS will be shipped from Ball Aerospace Corp. in Boulder, Colo., where it was manufactured and is undergoing final tests, to the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) at Greenbelt, Md., early next month. NICMOS will be at Goddard about two months, where technicians and scientists will test it together with other instruments to be installed on the space telescope. Also at Goddard, the astronaut crew will practice installing NICMOS into a simulated space telescope. Around Thanksgiving, the instrument will be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and be readied for launch.
NASA information: NASA Headquarters Public Affairs coordinates a team of public affairs officers involved in the 2nd HST Servicing Mission. They are from NASA centers, from the European Space Agency, from HST contractors in industry, and from the UA (News Services - Lori Stiles, 520-626-4402, and Julieta Gonzalez, 520-626-4336.) Media packets, video and other resources about this mission are scheduled for release beginning about three months before launch. Contact: Don Savage, NASA Headquarters Public Affairs Officer, 202-358-1727.
During the 2nd HST Servicing Mission, news operations will be centered at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and Johnson Space Center at Houston. After the mission, NASA news and updates on the Space Telescope and its newly installed instruments will be issued from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Web addresses:
http://www.as.arizona.edu/ti m/spaceResearch.html#nicmos
http://www.ball.com/aerospace/nicmos.htm l
http://fpd-b8-000l.gsfc.nasa.gov/440/ 440miss.htm