Russia's long-delayed Zvezda ("Star") service module was successfully launched on July 12th from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan toward renedezvous with the International Space Station. The 22-ton, 43-foot-long module was lifted by a Proton rocket into an orbit that allows for a July 25th automatic docking with the ISS. Among other functions, Zvezda will provide flight control and crew quarters for the ISS. It will also serve as a hub for the attachment of other modules of the ISS in the future. Current plans call for a space shuttle flight to the ISS in September to continue construction. The first long-duration crew could occupy the ISS as early as October.
- Reference: Key module heads for rendezvous with space station CNN.COM TECH SPACE

The Zvezda Service Module will serve as the early living quarters for the first permanent residents of the ISS and will take over control and propulsion capability for the expanding station from the Zarya module which was launched in November 1999.

About 9 days after the launch of the Zvezda module, the ISS will link up with Zvezda using Zarya's jet thrusters during a series of rendezvous maneuvers.

NASA's chief Daniel Goldin, speaking at the Space Frontier Foundation Conference September 24, announced a new plan for NASA to turn operation of the Space Station over to private enterprise -- perhaps within the next decade.

After a period of five to ten years of operation, NASA would be willing to hand its portion of the station over to private industry. The move would free NASA to concentrate on exploring the solar system. NASA would retain a major presence on the station, but as a tenant. Under NASA's current plan, NASA retains control of the station while leasing up to 30 percent or more of the station to commercial ventures. - Excerpt from FRONTIER STATUS 09/24/99 - by Dale M. Gray
with permission
Frontier Status reports are weekly updates chronicling progress of the emerging space frontier. Frontier Status archives are hosted at www.cortesi.com/frontier

The International Space Station on-orbit assembly began with the successful completion of Space Shuttle Endeavour's mission to connect the first two elements of the station. Mission STS-88, also known as Assembly Flight 2A, completed its mission to connect the U.S. built "Unity" module to the Russian built "Zarya" (Sunrise) Control Module in December, 1998.

Zarya was successfully launched by the Russians on November 20, 1998, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, not far from where Yuri Gagarin became the first human to be launched into space over 37 years ago.

- by Gregory A. Smith

The Galileo spacecraft has completed its prime mission, its first extended mission and has now begun its second extended mission called the "Galileo Millennium Mission."

NASA Headquarters has agreed in principle to extend the Galileo mission past its planned January 31 finale. Details of funding and itinerary for the new extended mission, to be called the Galileo Millennium Mission, must still be resolved. A Europa encounter took place January 3, 2000, and is technically still part of the current, extended Galileo Europa Mission. Another Io flyby is planned for February 20, with flybys of Ganymede on May 20 and December 28, and joint observations of Jupiter with the Cassini spacecraft in December 2000.
- "Galileo News" - January 3, 2000

Gullies seen on martian cliffs and crater walls in a small number of high-resolution images from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) suggest that liquid water has seeped onto the surface in the geologically recent past. The gully landforms are usually found on slopes facing away from mid-day sunlight, and most occur between latitudes 30and 70in both martian hemispheres. The relationship to sunlight and latitude may indicate that ice plays a role in protecting the liquid water from evaporation until enough pressure builds for it to be released catastrophically down a slope. The relative freshness of these features might indicate that some of them are still active today--meaning that liquid water may presently exist in some areas at depths of less than 500 meters (1640 feet) beneath the surface of Mars.

The evidence for recent water activity is described in a paper by MGS MOC scientists being published in the June 30, 2000, issue of Science. The gullies are rare landforms that are too small to have been detected by the cameras of the Mariner and Viking spacecraft that examined the planet prior to MGS.
mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/june2000

Spacecraft Health:
"All subsystems report nominal health."
- MGS Mission Status Report,
Wednesday, July 12, 2000

On April 30, NEAR Shoemaker's engines fired to successfully place the spacecraft in its 50-km (31-mile) circular polar orbit of asteroid Eros. Six thruster firings have gradually reduced the size of NEAR Shoemaker's orbit since it arrived at Eros on February 14. The spacecraft has now achieved the orbit from which its Laser Rangefinder and X-Ray Gamma Ray Spectrometer instruments were designed to work best. This orbit will be maintained until the next scheduled orbit correction maneuver on July 7.

Source: Burn puts NEAR Shoemaker in Ideal Science Observation Orbit NEAR News Flash 30 April 2000

Glimpses into Eros' shadows
Near Image of the day for 14 March 2000

NEAR spacecraft renamed in honor of planetary science pioneer Dr. Eugene M. Shoemaker.

The completely successful Lunar Prospector mission ended July 31, 1999 after mapping the Moon's geochemistry from orbit and delivering the ashes of renowned planetary scientist Eugene M. Shoemaker to the surface of the Moon. The spacecraft ended its mission with a targeted impact in a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole, at -87.7 deg latitude, 42 deg longitude.

SPACE UPDATE will continue to provide links and updates regarding the ongoing scientific analysis of data garnered from the Lunar Prospector mission for one year from the end of mission.

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. The presence of a significant amount of water on the Moon could be important in 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 article "Ice on the Bone Dry Moon" by Dr. Paul D. Spudis in "Planetary Science Research Discoveries"

Also, check out the way cool Lunar Prospector "Data Viz" data visualization page.

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, 07/12. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally.
- 7/14/00:Weekly Spacecraft Events Report (JPL)

In December 2000, Cassini will fly by Jupiter on its way toward Saturn. During the upcomping Jupiter flyby the Cassini spacecraft will make coordinated measurements with the Galileo spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter.

The Cassini spacecraft will arrive 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.

The Japanese "Nozomi" Mars probe was successfully launched on July 3, 1998 from the Kagoshima space center in Japan. Unfortunately, the spacecraft used more propellant than planned in a course correction maneuver on 21 December 1998 after a 20 December Earth flyby left the craft with "insufficient acceleration". The good news is: Nozomi will reach Mars. The bad news: the arrival of Nozomi at Mars has been delayed four years from its originally scheduled rendezvous in 1999. The spacecraft will continue in a heliocentric orbit until it encounters Mars in December of 2003.

Nozomi is the first Japanese space mission to Mars. It is also the first non-U.S. or Russian space flight to another body in the solar system.

A Mars orbiting aeronomy mission, Nozomi 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.

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.

Updated: 17 March 2000 - by Gregory A. Smith

On June 21, after more than 7 months of dormancy, Deep Space 1's ion propulsion system is again powering the spacecraft on its way toward a rendevous with Comet Borrelly.

After completing its primary mission, Deep Space 1's Star Tracker failed, leaving the spacecraft unable to navigate through space. Engineers rescued the spacecraft by developing a means to navigate DS1 by using its camera rather than the faulty Star Tracker.

With DS1 is again operable, its mission has been extended to encounter Comet Borrelly in September 2001.

Deep Space One is the first deep space mission of NASA's New Millennium Program. Deep Space 1 is a New Millennium Program (NMP) demonstration project to validate advanced technologies while returning science data. Deep Space 1's mission was to test important, high-risk technologies in order to reduce the cost and risk of future science missions; "DS1 took the risks so that future missions would not have to." - Dr. Mark Raymond's Mission Log

There was one Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking pass during the past week. All subsystems onboard the spacecraft are performing normally.

STARDUST Status Report - July 14, 2000

The dust samples will be brought to Earth for analysis in January 2006.

The primary goal of the Stardust mission is to collect dust and volatile samples of Comet Wild 2, and samples of interstellar dust grains, and return the samples to Earth for analysis. The spacecraft will also send back images of the comet, counts of comet particles striking the spacecraft and conduct real-time analysis of the compositions of the particles and volatiles.

Stardust will use a unique substance called aerogel to capture and preserve the cometary and interstellar materials for return to Earth.

Stardust will be the first space mission ever to return extraterrestrial material from beyond the orbit of the Moon. Stardust is also the first U.S. mission dedicated solely to cometary research.

(29-Jun-2000) 27 months away from launch, the SMART-1 project team and its industrial partners now have their very first full-scale version of Europe's lunar satellite. The main assembly of the mock-up was completed at the facilities of the prime contractor Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) in Solna (near Stockholm) on 12 June.
- Reference: ESA Science News Archive

SMART-1 will be launched on an Ariane 5 as an "auxiliary payload" (piggybacking). Once in Earth orbit, SMART-1 will employ a stationary plasma thruster which uses xenon gas as a propellant. Electrical solar power will be used to expel the gas at very high speed, creating thrust and propelling the spacecraft on to orbit the Moon. SMART-1 will orbit around the Moon, using solar electric propulsion, for a planned six months of operations. Observations can also be carried out during the 17 month cruise phase of the mission. The mission scenario includes a phase for several months on a lunar orbit of 1000 km perilune and 10000 km apolune.

The lunar science payload consists of three instruments: a compact X-ray spectrometer (D-CIXS, provided by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK), a micro-imager (AMIE, developed in the framework of ESA's Technology Research Programme in conjunction with CSEM Switzerland) and an Infrared Spectrometer (SIR, Max-Planck-Institut for Aeronomie, Lindau, Germany).

Radio Science Investigations (RSIS) will also measure the rotational state of the Moon by combining orbit and attitude determination with accurate imaging.

Updated: 14 July 2000 - by Gregory A. Smith