This is a training module designed primarily to help JPL operations people
identify the range of concepts associated with deep space missions and grasp the
relationships these concepts exhibit for space flight.
Slated to launch July 1, 2002, this spacecraft will encounter
Comet Encke in November 2003 and Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in June 2006
as close as 100 miles (160 kilometers), taking high-resolution photos
of the comet nucleus, mapping the types of rock and ice on the nucleus,
and analyzing the composition of the surrounding gas and dust.
All 675 plates contained in the original 1971 work have been digitized by
the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI),
which considers it "the definitive reference manual to the global photographic
coverage of the Moon."
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,
scheduled for launch August 10-30, 2005,
is on a search for evidence that water persisted on the surface of Mars for a
long period of time.
Its instruments will zoom in for extreme close-up photography of the
martian surface, analyze minerals, look for subsurface water, trace how
much dust and water are distributed in the atmosphere, and monitor daily
global weather.
Dubbed the "Humble Space Telescope" because it's just the mass and
size of a suitcase, this Canadian Space Agency satellite is designed to
detect tiny variations in starlight and reflected light from planets
outside the Solar System to probe both the deep interiors of stars
and the outer atmospheres of extrasolar planets.
Formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), this infrared
telescope in space is the last of NASA's Great Observatories.
Data can be found at the
Spitzer Science Center (SSC).