Space - Tullamore Astronomical Society

catch the necessary trajectory from
Earth to its destination. The probe
should reach Venus five months
after launch. It will fire the
onboard main engine to enter orbit
around the planet for the most
comprehensive examination of the
mysterious Venusian atmosphere
and new observations of its
surface.
Venus Express will fly in a
highly elliptical orbit looping from
155 miles at its closest point to
41,000 miles at the most distant.
The EADS Astrium-built craft
carries seven instruments mostly
derived from Europe's Mars
Express and the Rosetta comet
mission. The mission, Europe's
first exploration of Venus, will last
two Venusian days or 486 Earth
days.
Editors post-script…
Just before this article was sent to
print, the following was issued
(taken from space.com):
Russian space officials Monday
set a Nov. 9 blastoff for a
European probe to explore
Venus after its earlier launch
was postponed because of a
booster rocket problem.
Engineers will be able to fix the
flaws by that date, the Federal
Space Agency said in
scheduling the launch at the
Russian-leased Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Japanese
spacecraft
ready to land on
asteroid Nov 12
Japan’s Hayabusa asteroid samplereturn
satellite is scheduled to
make the first of two landings on
its target asteroid on November
12 th following ground controllers’
conclusion that it has enough fuel
to finish its job despite the loss of
two of its three reaction wheels,
the Japanese space agency, JAXA,
announced.
Under current planning, a
second touchdown would occur
November 25 th before Hayabusa,
whose name was Muses-C before
its May 2003 launch, begins a
return flight to Earth. Since
September 12 th , the satellite has
been stationed several kilometres
from the Itokawa asteroid, which is
some 300 million kilometres from
Earth.
Hayabusa lost the use of
its first reaction wheel in July. The
second failed October 3 rd , forcing
increased reliance on the chemicalpropellant
thrusters to maintain
satellite attitude control.
JAXA said the Hayabusa
project engineers have made “a
strenuous” effort to devise a fuelconservation
plan to maintain
Hayabusa stably in position and at
the same time provide for the two
“touch-and-go” manoeuvres during
which the satellite will scoop up
asteroid samples.
JAXA will test Hayabusa
touchdown manoeuvres November
4 th with what the agency calls a
“rehearsal descent.” Several
candidate landing sites are still
being evaluated, JAXA said.
Mars rover Spirit begins descent from summit
Spirit, the robot on wheels that reached the top of a
Martian hill this summer after an epic climb, is
heading back down toward its next target for
exploration. After two months at the summit of
Husband Hill, the six-wheeled rover is descending to a
basin where the scientific instruments it carries will
examine an outcrop dubbed "home plate" because from
orbit it looks like home on a baseball field.
Spirit's yearlong climb to the peak was a major
feat for the Mars rover, which along with its twin,
Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet
in January 2004.
Last month, scientists released the first fullcolour
panoramic photo of the landscape taken by Spirit
from the 270-foot-high summit. It shows the rover's
distinct tracks in the dust, the flat plains of the
surrounding Gusev Crater region and distant plateaus on
the crater rim.
Spirit also has been studying rocks and using its
robotic arm to sift the soil to determine how the hill
formed. The leading theory is that Husband Hill became
uplifted as a result of crater impact.
Mission scientists say a comparison of the
summit rocks reveal similar geologic features to those
found on the side of the hill. In both cases, the rocks'
makeup reveals they have been altered by water.
It will take about two months for Spirit to make
it all the way down Husband Hill, which is named after
Rick Husband, the commander of the space shuttle
Columbia that broke apart as it was returning from Earth
orbit in 2003.
Meanwhile, Opportunity is in good health again
after recovering from a recent computer glitch while
surveying the Meridiani Planum region.
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Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society