(Press-News.org) The six science instruments that comprise the Particles and Fields Package that will characterize the solar wind and ionosphere of Mars have been integrated aboard NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. The spacecraft is on track for launch later this year.
The Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA) was the last of the six instruments to be delivered, and was integrated late last week at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colo. SWEA measures the properties of electrons at Mars, one electron at a time, and can process up to one million events per second.
The other instruments in the package had been delivered earlier. In addition to the SWEA instrument, the package includes the Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA), Suprathermal and Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC), Solar Energetic Particle (SEP), Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW), Magnetometer (MAG), and a data-processing unit.
"The Particles and Fields Package is designed to study the solar wind interaction with Mars and the structure and dynamics of Mars' ionosphere, including the influence of Mars' strongly magnetized crust," said David L. Mitchell, SWEA instrument lead and coordinator for the full package, from the University of California, Berkeley/Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL). "The package measures solar ultraviolet flux, solar wind properties, and energetic particles produced in solar storms to help us understand how the Sun influences the upper atmosphere and drives atmospheric escape."
The package was built by the University of California, Berkeley/Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) with support from the University of Colorado Boulder/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP) and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
"The final components of the science payload are coming together, so we're getting closer to being ready for launch," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from CU/LASP. "I look forward to the exciting and diverse science results that the Particles and Fields Package instruments will provide."
The MAVEN spacecraft will carry two other instrument suites. The Remote Sensing Package, built by CU/LASP, will determine global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, provided by NASA Goddard, will measure the composition and isotopes of neutral ions.
"We're in the home stretch now of completing the assembly and test of the spacecraft. With the full complement of Particles and Fields Package instruments now onboard the spacecraft, we are in a very good position for delivering the spacecraft to the launch site on schedule in August", said David F. Mitchell, MAVEN project manager from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
MAVEN is scheduled for launch in November, 2013. It is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and better understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. MAVEN will investigate the role that loss of Mars' atmosphere to space played in determining the history of water on the surface.
MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The university provides science instruments and leads science operations, and Education and Public Outreach. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the project and provides two of the science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory provides science instruments for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.
INFORMATION:
Particles and fields package integrated on upcoming Mars-bound spacecraft
2013-03-14
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
NASA sees Cyclone Tim develop in the Coral Sea
2013-03-14
System 96P has been moving through the Coral Sea near northeastern Australia over the last couple of days, and today, March 14, NASA's Aqua satellite captured the storm as it matured into Tropical Storm Tim.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Tim in the Coral Sea on March 13, 2013 at 04:05 UTC (12:05 a.m. EDT). The MODIS image showed a large band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center of circulation from the south and east. Cyclone Tim's northeastern quadrant ...
Witnessing starbursts in young galaxies
2013-03-14
On March 13, it was announced the most vigorous bursts of star birth in the cosmos took place much earlier than previously thought - results now published in a set of papers in Nature and the Astrophysical Journal.
As these findings are published, three of the scientists at the forefront of this research - including the lead researcher of the latest findings – offered their insights about what this reveals about the history of our universe, and how the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is providing a "zoom lens" into the early universe. This includes ...
People with peanut/tree nut allergies can minimize risk of reactions on airplane flights
2013-03-14
Ann Arbor, Mich. — Few situations can provoke more anxiety for people with peanut or tree-nut allergies than having an allergic reaction while flying on an airplane and being unable to get help.
But in a new study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology-In Practice, researchers found passengers who engaged in eight mitigating factors were less likely to report an allergic reaction.
This is the first study to show that in-flight peanut and tree nut allergy is an international problem, says lead author and pediatrician Matthew Greenhawt, M.D., M.B.A., ...
Predicting hotspots for future flu outbreaks
2013-03-14
This year's unusually long and rocky flu season would be nothing compared to the pandemic that could occur if bird flu became highly contagious among humans, which is why UCLA researchers and their colleagues are creating new ways to predict where an outbreak could emerge.
"Using surveillance of influenza cases in humans and birds, we've come up with a technique to predict sites where these viruses could mix and generate a future pandemic," said lead author Trevon Fuller, a UCLA postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center ...
UF researcher describes new 5-million-year-old saber-toothed cat from Florida
2013-03-14
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A University of Florida researcher has described a new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat from Polk County, Fla., based on additional fossil acquisitions of the animal over the last 25 years.
The 5-million-year-old fossils belong to the same lineage as the famous Smilodon fatalis from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a large, carnivorous apex predator with elongated upper canine teeth. Previous research suggested the group of saber-toothed cats known as Smilodontini originated in the Old World and then migrated to North America, but ...
Autism Speaks trailblazer study -- Blocking cell distress signals can ease autism symptoms
2013-03-14
New York, N.Y. (March 14, 2013) – Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization, today announced a study supported by one of Autism Speaks' first Suzanne and Bob Wright Trailblazer Awards, presents a new theory that autism may result from chronic danger signaling by mitochondria, cell structures that supply our cells with energy. This study by Trailblazer researcher and mitochondrial medicine specialist Robert Naviaux, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego published in the journal PLOS-ONE supports a novel theory about the ...
Playing action videogames improves visual search
2013-03-14
Researchers at the University of Toronto have shown that playing shooting or driving videogames, even for a relatively short time, improves the ability to search for a target hidden among irrelevant distractions in complex scenes.
"Recent studies in different labs, including here at the University of Toronto, have shown that playing first-person shooter videogames can enhance other aspects of visual attention," says psychology professor Ian Spence. "But no one has previously demonstrated that visual search is also improved."
Searching efficiently and accurately is ...
AAN: Doctors caution against prescribing attention-boosting drugs for healthy kids
2013-03-14
MINNEAPOLIS – The American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the world's largest professional association of neurologists, is releasing a position paper on how the practice of prescribing drugs to boost cognitive function, or memory and thinking abilities, in healthy children and teens is misguided. The statement is published in the March 13, 2013, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
This growing trend, in which teens use "study drugs" before tests and parents request ADHD drugs for kids who don't meet the criteria for the disorder, ...
Whale's streaming baleen tangles to trap food
2013-03-14
Diving and plunging through the waves to feed, some whales throw their jaws wide and engulf colossal mouthfuls of fish-laden water while other species simply coast along with their mouths agape (ram or skim feeding), yet both feeding styles rely on a remarkable substance in the whales' mouths to filter nutrition from the ocean: baleen. Alexander Werth from Hampden-Sydney College, USA, explains that no one knew how the hairy substance actually traps morsels of food. 'The standard view was that baleen is just a static material and people had never thought of it moving or ...
Goats' milk with antimicrobial lysozyme speeds recovery from diarrhea
2013-03-14
Milk from goats that were genetically modified to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proved effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs, demonstrating the potential for food products from transgenic animals to one day also benefit human health, report researchers at the University of California, Davis.
The study is the first on record to show that goats' milk carrying elevated levels of the antimicrobial lysozyme, a protein found in human breast milk, can successfully treat diarrhea caused by bacterial infection in the gastrointestinal tract.
The ...