[meteorite-list] NASA's MAVEN Studies Passing Comet and Its Effects

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 23:27:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201410200627.s9K6RKl4003778_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4345

NASA's MAVEN Studies Passing Comet and Its Effects
Jet Propulsion Labotary
October 19, 2014

MAVEN Mission Status Report

NASA's newest orbiter at Mars, MAVEN, took precautions to avoid harm from
a dust-spewing comet that flew near Mars today and is studying the flyby's
effects on the Red Planet's atmosphere.

The MAVEN spacecraft -- full name Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution
-- reported back to Earth in good health after about three hours of precautions
against a possible collision with high-velocity dust particles released
by comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring.

"We're glad the spacecraft came through, we're excited to complete our
observations of how the comet affects Mars, and we're eager to get to
our primary science phase," said MAVEN Principal Investigator Bruce Jakosky
of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

MAVEN began orbiting Mars on Sept. 21. The opportunity to study this rare
near-miss of a planet by a comet comes during the project's commissioning
phase. A few weeks of instrument calibration and orbit fine-tuning remain
before the start of the primary science phase. The mission will study
the upper atmosphere of Mars and its interaction with the solar wind.

Comet Siding Spring hurtled past Mars today at about 125,000 mph (56 kilometers
per second), coming within about 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of
the planet. That is equivalent to about one-third of the distance between
Earth and Earth's moon. The closest approach by the comet's nucleus came
at about 11:27 a.m. PDT (2:27 p.m. EDT). The period when dust from the
comet was most likely to reach Mars and the orbits of spacecraft around
Mars peaked about 100 minutes later.

>From about 10:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT (1:45 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. EDT) MAVEN
kept in a defensive posture to reduce its profile relative to the direction
from which the comet's high-velocity dust particles would come. In that
"hunkered down" orientation, its main antenna was not facing the right
way for transmitting to Earth, so communications were maintained at low
data rate via a secondary antenna. Also, the mission performed a maneuver
on Oct. 2 that set its orbit timing so that the spacecraft was behind
Mars, relative to the possible dust flow, from about 12:53 p.m. to 1:23
p.m. PDT (3:53 p.m. to 4:23 p.m. EDT).

Downlink of data has begun from MAVEN observations of the comet and Mars'
atmosphere. Some observations are designed to provide information about
the composition of the gases and dust being released by the comet. Others
are investigating possible interaction between material from the comet
and the atmosphere of Mars.

Three NASA Mars orbiters, two Mars rovers and other assets on Earth and
in space are studying comet Siding Spring. This comet is making its first
visit this close to the sun from the outer solar system's Oort Cloud,
so the concerted campaign of observations may yield fresh clues to our
solar system's earliest days more than 4 billion years ago.

MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado's
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The university provided
two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education
and public outreach, for the mission. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN project and provided two science
instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and
is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at
Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory also provided four science instruments
for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,
provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, as well as the Electra
telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

For more about MAVEN, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/maven

Media Contact
Nancy Jones / Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
301-286-0039 / 301-286-5017
nancy.n.jones at nasa.gov / william.a.steigerwald at nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov
Received on Mon 20 Oct 2014 02:27:20 AM PDT