"Scientists involved with NASA's Mars Pathfinder will present their latest interpretations of results from the mission almost a year after the spacecraftsssssssss July 4, 1997, landing during a NASA Television live briefing at 1 p.m. EDT on Monday, June 29. The briefing will originate from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, CA."
Reference: NASA NOTE TO EDITORS: N98-43

See the Directory of Pathfinder Images for the newly organized images from the Mars Pathfinder mission.

Analysis of Mars Pathfinder data continues, science results are available on-line. See: The Overview of the Mars Pathfinder Mission and Assessment of Landing Site Predictions - Science Online, and a link list of additional articles recently made available is at: http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mpf/papers.html

...Since its landing on July 4, 1997, Mars Pathfinder has returned 2.6 billion bits of information, including more than 16,000 images from the lander and 550 images from the rover, as well as more than 15 chemical analyses of rocks and extensive data on winds and other weather factors."
Reference: the November 4, 1997 Jet Propulsion Laboratory Press Release announcing the winding down of the highly successful Mars Pathfinder mission.

Mars Pathfinder is the first mission to land on Mars since two "Viking" spacecraft touched down there in 1976.

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"The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft continues in good health as it completes its 388th orbit of Mars in an 11.6 hour period elliptical orbit."
Reference: Mars Global Surveyor Update - June 26, 1998, posted to alt.sci.planetary by baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke), Jet Propulsion Laboratory

On May 27, 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft emerged from behind the sun after a month long period known as a "solar conjunction." Near the sun, solar electromagnetic noise interfered with the radio signals sent to and from the spacecraft. During the middle of this conjunction, the Sun actually eclipsed Mars and blocked radio communications with the spacecraft.

Science operations temporarily suspended through the solar conjunction were resumed by the end of May. These will continue through a "Science Phasing" period until November 1998. Another period of aerobraking will restart on September 11th and continue through March 1999.

Aerobraking will lower the Mars Global Surveyor's current highly elliptical, 11.6-hour orbit around Mars to a low, circular, two-hour mapping orbit by April 1999 with a high point of 450km. MGS CURRENT ORBIT page for a cool real-time display of the MGS spacecraft position in Mars orbit.

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"NEAR spacecraft state is nominal. All instruments are off" - NEAR Weekly Report - June 26, 1998

The NEAR team plans to image Eros on August 13, 1998; exactly 100 years after its discovery.

NEAR's study of Eros will be the first in-depth examination of a near-Earth asteroid and is expected to yield information that will help scientists better understand the evolution of our solar system. NEAR is the first mission of NASA's "Discovery" series.

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"The Lunar Prospector spacecraft continues to perform very well."
- June 5, 1998 Lunar Prospector Status Report

On March 5th, 1998 Lunar Prospector project scientist announced that the Lunar Prospector had returned data that indicates that there is a high probability of water ice existing at both the north and south poles of the Moon.

It is possible that the presence of a significant amount of water on the Moon will aid the establishment of human communities beyond Earth.

See the CNN SCI-TECH article on Lunar Prospector's ice discovery at: CNN SCI-TECH Space - 05 March 1998 - Scientist: There is ice on the moon

For more information about ice on the Moon, check out the "Planetary Science Research Discoveries" article "Ice on the Bone Dry Moon" by Dr. Paul D. Spudis.

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"The most recent Spacecraft status is from the DSN tracking pass on Wednesday, 06/24, over Goldstone. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health..."
Reference: Cassini Update - June 26, 1998, posted to alt.sci.planetary by baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke), Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Cassini spacecraft, on its way to Saturn, successfully flew by Venus on April 26th; on time and on target at 284 kilometers (176 miles) above the Venusian surface. Venus' gravity gave the Cassini spacecraft a boost in speed of about 7 kilometers per second (about 4 miles per second) to help the spacecraft reach Saturn in July 2004. Science instruments on the spacecraft searched for lightning in Venus' atmosphere during the flyby, and the radar instrument onboard was activated to test bouncing a signal off Venus' surface.

The Venus flyby is the latest of dozens of similar "gravity-assist" flybys of planets and moons performed by JPL-controlled spacecraft over the past three decades. Cassini will perform three more similar gravity-assist flybys: Venus again in June of 1999, Earth in August of 1999, and Jupiter in December 2000. All the flybys use the gravitational pull of the target planets to impart more speed to the spacecraft to help it reach Saturn. The Venusian flyby was the lowest-altitude gravity-assist planetary pass Cassini will make - Reference: Cassini Mission Status Report, April 29, 1998

Arriving on orbit around Saturn in 2004, Cassini will study the great ringed planet, its moons and ring system for at least four years. It will also deliver a scientific probe called Huygens which will parachute to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

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The Planet-B Mars probe was successfully launched on July 3, 1998. The launch took off from the Kagoshima space center in Japan and placed the Planet-B spacecraft in parking orbit around earth.

Planet-B is the first Japanese space mission to Mars. Planet-B is the first Japanese space mission to Mars. But it is also historic because it is the first non-U.S. or Russian space flight to another body in the solar system.

A Mars orbiting aeronomy mission, Planet-B is designed to study the martian upper atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. Instruments on the spacecraft will measure the structure, composition and dynamics of the ionosphere, aeronomy effects of the solar wind, the escape of atmospheric constituents, the structure of the magnetosphere, and dust in the upper atmosphere and in orbit around Mars. The mission will also be returning images of Mars' surface and the martian moons Phobos and Deimos.

NASA announced on July 1,1998 that two U.S. instruments will fly aboard PLanet-B. A neutral mass spectrometer (NMS) will allow chemical analysis of the upper atmosphere on a planet wide scale. An Ultra Stable Oscillator is part of a radio science experiment and will help guide the craft through its super accurate clock.

Following the launch July 3,1998 on Japan's new 4 stage rocket, the M-5, from Kagoshima in southern Japan, the $80 million Planet-B probe will initially be put into an elliptical parking orbit around the moon. After 2 swingbys of the Earth to gain gravitaional energy the spacecraft will slingshot to Mars for a 10 month voyage.

In October 1999, Planet-B will be inserted into a highly eccentric Mars orbit 300 km x 47,500 km with an inclination of 138 degrees and a period of just over 38 hours.

The nominal mission is planned for one Martian year (approximately two Earth years). An extended mission may allow operation of the mission well beyond the original two years.

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The Deep Space 1 launch delay required a change in targets and encounter dates.

According to "Space News," June 8-14, 1998, Deep Space 1 is now targeted to encounter near-Earth asteroid "1992 KD."

Previous plans included the following flyby/encounter schedule: Asteroid McAuliffe Flyby: January 1999, Mars Flyby: April 2000, Comet West-Kohoutek-Ikemura Encounter: June 2000.

Deep Space One is the first deep space mission of NASA's New Millennium Program. The New Millennium Program (NMP) is an agressive technology demonstration established to validate advanced technologies while returning science data.

"The goal is at least one flight each month" - Kane Casani, manager of the New Millennium Program. Reference: NMP press release - February 10, 1995 (One flight each month will make keeping SPACEUPDATE up-to-date a much more demanding job!)

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