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Rendezvous with a CometMission Overviews for Comet, Moon, and Earth scenarios

 

1) Rendezvous with a Comet

In the not-too-distant future, teams of scientists are routinely using small, maneuverable space stations to venture out into Earth's "neighborhood" as part of a long-term study of small bodies in the Solar System. Primary targets include comets and asteroids, which scientists believe are the oldest, most primitive bodies in the Solar System and may preserve the earliest record of the material that formed Earth and its planetary neighbors.

During this mission, team members work as scientists and engineers headed to Rendezvous with a Comet as part of this continued study of our Solar System. These rendezvous missions are critical in helping scientists verify and better understand data collected by earlier small body missions occurring at the start of the new Millenium, such as STARDUST and its planned capture of cometary material from comet Wild-2 in 2004 and the return of that material to Earth in 2006. The actual samples provided by STARDUST established detailed baseline data on comets still used today. The onboard astronauts, working with their counterparts in Mission Control, are tasked with sending a probe to intercept and collect new data in a well-studied short-period comet before heading on for a continued study of the asteroid Ceres, the largest known asteroid at 623 miles (1,003 km) in diameter.

Comet Enke provides an excellent target because its short period (3.3 years) has allowed it to be observed from Earth at more apparitions (or appearances) than any other comet, including the famous Comet Halley. Encke continues to puzzle scientists because even though it has been in a short-period orbit for thousands of years, the comet continues to have a high level of activity as the Sun's heat boils off its dirty ice into gases and dust. This is the first probe to rendezvous with Encke since 2003 and the fly-by of the comet- chasing CONTOUR spacecraft.

The small, maneuverable space stations used for these rendezvous missions require lots of maintenance and care, providing plenty of challenges for the crews in space and on the ground. Navigating into the correct position for probe launches - not to mention sending a probe through the material surrounding an active comet - also requires concentration and teamwork to successfully collect vital scientific information and complete the mission.

Small bodies in the Solar System are also highly unpredictable objects and have been known to surprise scientists from time to time, so crew members will also need to be alert and ready to make quick decisions.

All About Comets

Comets are mysterious, distant travelers originating from the depths of our solar system and orbiting the sun in a highly elliptical path. Star gazers see comets as specters with luminous tails arching across the night sky for a month or two, and then disappearing from sight. Some comets never come back, with orbital periods of tens of thousands of years. Only approximately 184 of 878 known comets are calculated to have periodic orbits of less than 200 years long. For this reason, seeing comets like Halley's Comet, with its seventy-six year orbit, is often a once in a lifetime experience. Comets are scientifically valuable because they may be remnants of the material out of which the planets and moons formed. Comets may even contain clues about early life on Earth.

comet

Sometimes called "dirty snowballs" comets are small, irregularly shaped lumps of rock, dust, and ice. They originate in either the Kuiper Belt, located outside Neptune's and Pluto's orbit, or in the Oort Cloud, hundreds of times farther away from Pluto extending halfway to the nearest star. Gravitational disturbances can cause a comet to go hurling toward the Sun. As a comet enters the inner solar system, heat from the Sun vaporizes the ice, forming an enormous cloud of gas and dust around the tiny comet. The closer the comet gets to the Sun, the more gas and dust blow away forming a tail that stretches out millions of kilometers. As the comet travels away from the Sun to the outer reaches of the solar system, the tail shortens and the gas cloud disappears.

The origin of the word comet comes from the Greek word for hair. Our ancestors thought comets were new stars with what looked like long, flowing hair trailing behind them. The "hairy" star suddenly appeared and moved across the night sky only to disappear again a few weeks or months later.

Our ancestors considered comets to be Portents of evil. To thwart the curse of the comet, Emperor Nero had all possible successors executed. A comet was sighted before the Battle of Hastings which was interpreted to mean King Harold would lose his throne to William, the Duke of Normandy. This came to pass. In Peru, the sighting of the comet preceded Francisco Pisarro's conquest of the Incas.

Even in the recent past, comet panic caused terror. In Chicago people sealed windows against the poisonous tail of the comet. Others committed suicide. In Oklahoma police saved a virgin from being sacrificed by a comet cult.

 

 

2)Return to the Moon Scenario

For details on winning a Return to the Moon mission, visit the following link: www.clcmoon.wikispaces.com

Return to the Moon On July 20, 1969 American astronaut Neil Armstrong descended the ladder of his lunar lander to step on soil which no human had touched before.

It is now the year 2015 and the Moon missions continue....
This time, a permanent base will be established there. One final decision needs to be made: where is the best site for the landing and building the base?

The Scenario:

The new millennium is still young, but humans are preparing to return to the Moon, spurred on by the verification of ice water on the lunar surface by the Lunar Prospector in 1998. Composed of hydrogen and oxygen - the elements that make up water - the lunar ice provides a core resource for long-term human presence on the lunar surface.
 

Lunar Prospector was followed by a series of successful robotic missions designed to prove the concept that ice water can be harvested. Once collected, the ice water can be turned into drinking water, oxygen for life support on a lunar base, nutrients as the basis for agriculture, components needed for rocket fuel, or, when combined with lunar soil, the basics for construction materials.

Not only did those robotic missions successfully prove the concept, but since then, additional robotic staging missions have landed and begun manufacturing these essential resources. As part of the Return to the Moon mission, this crew of astronauts will - for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 - land on the surface of the Moon. This time the astronauts are there to establish a permanent base with the core goals of:

  • establishing an observation program to study the Earth and other Solar System bodies without the interference of the Earth's atmosphere
  • testing the feasibility of a self-sustaining, off-planet settlement
  • serving as a staging area for additional human exploration of our Solar System

The Return to the Moon mission begins with the spacecraft in Earth's orbit and the Mission Control team monitoring the crew's status. The crew aboard the spacecraft will leave Earth's orbit and travel to the Moon using the latest in transport technology to reduce the travel time. In addition to verifying the best site for the establishment of the lunar base during the course of the mission, the crew will build and launch a probe to the lunar surface, recover a probe that is stranded in space, and repair the damaged probe.

The Mission Teams:

Some information has been previously obtained from the potential lunar base sites. A detailed study has determined that the base site must contain soils, metals, and potentially useful resources such as helium-3. Rock and soil samples, soil composition, and seismic information have been gathered by previous missions from portions of the potential sites. Experiments on soil and rock samples from other possible sites must be performed in order to determine the best site for the lunar base. The crew will navigate their spacecraft to the Moon and plot an acceptable orbit.

Together the crew will place their spaceship into lunar orbit and make the important decision about the location of the first permanent lunar base. To gather the data needed to analyze potential lunar base sites, the crew will have to function as a team and utilize their best communications and analytical skills.

Navigation team (NAV)
Team Objectives:
  • Getting to the Moon isn't easy; it's up to the Navigation team to see that SS Phoenix lands in one of two potential sites on the Moon.
  • Complex mathematical computations must be made to keep a spacecraft on course. The US Moon program led to significant advances in computers that allowed for the precise manoeuvres needed for launch, orbit, docking and landing.
  • On board SS Phoenix the NAV team verifies the spacecraft's position by triangulation and locates Earth communications systems.
  • The final task is to locate the exact site for landing and set the computers for automatic landing.

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Data Team (DATA)
Team Objectives:
  • Scientific data is often the main goal of a space mission.
  • Ensuring that the data reach Earth is the responsibility of the DATA team.
  • There are a lot of decisions to be made in any Space Mission, so accurate information is a must.
  • The DATA team uses computers to send information between SS Phoenix and Mission Control. They are a vital link helping to ensure the success of the mission.

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Probe Team (PROBE)
Team Objectives:
  • Space probes are very complex and expensive to build and launch, so a highly dedicated team is needed to design, test and launch it.
  • During SS Phoenix's flight to the Moon, the Probe Team is in constant contact with its counterpart in Mission Control, double-checking every step to ensure a probe is constructed and launced to the Moon.
  • This probe will collect valuable data critical in choosing a landing site. It's up to the Probe team to make it happen.

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Communications Team (COM)
Team Objectives:
  • The Communication team's mission is to establish a verbal link between the spacecraft and mission control.
  • NASA Communication Officers or Capcoms are astronauts trained to give instructions to astronauts in orbit and funnel information between the spacecraft and the mission controllers, engineers and scientists on the ground.
  • At the Challenger Centre, the COM officers are just as vital, sending messages among seven other teams and controlling remote cameras.

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Life Support (LS)
Team Objectives:
  • The Life Support team makes sure that there is enough air, water and electricity to complete the mission.
  • The Life Support team makes sure that the spacecraft has enough air, water and electricity to function efficiently.
  • Life support has to take accurate readings, change oxygen filters and deal with the occasional crisis. Don't forget: you might not notice when you are breathing, but you certainly will notice when you are not.

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Remote Team (REM)
Team Objectives:
  • Lunar samples need to be tested in a self-contained environment, so the Remote team works with a glove box to provide the crew and mission control with lunar information.
  • The Remote team has several experiments to conduct, including testing soil for metal content, classifying rocks and identifying their characteristics.
  • The Remote team will be indispensible in determining the landing site on the Moon.

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Isolation Team (ISO)
Team Objectives:
  • Using robots, the Isolation team tests chemicals too dangerous to be handled directly by people. Dangerous chemicals are needed to conduct some of SS Phoenix's experiments.
  • To keep the danger to a minimum, a shield protects the cabin crew.
  • It's up to the Isolation team to handle the chemicals using remotely-controlled robots.

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Medical Team (MED)
Team Objectives:
  • The doctors on the Medical team have one very important task: to keep everyone healthy and working at top efficiency.
  • Radiation, motion sickness and circulation are very real problems in space, and are constantly being checked.
  • The MED team on board SS Phoenix checks astronaut breathing rate, skin temperature, heart rate and radiation levels.
  • If the need arises, the medical team is ready to perform any operation.

 

 3) Encounter Earth          Mission Earth


Environmental scientists collect data from all over the Earth's surface. This raw data is analyzed to obtain a global view of Earth's environment on a daily, seasonal, annual, and long-term basis. A common data collection technique is the use of Earth-based probes. Probes are placed at many different locations on Earth's surface to measure important environmental conditions such as ocean temperatures, currents, and vegetation, as well as troposphere (lower atmosphere), land vegetation, temperatures, and ground moisture.

The information collected by these probes is transmitted to a low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite. The LEO satellite then transmits the probe information to ground-based stations such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, or to a Geosynchronous Orbiting (GEO) satellite, which in turn transmits the information to the ground-based stations.

In the summer of the year 2137, the LEO satellite collecting probe data has malfunctioned and must be replaced. The elite ERS-I Emergency Response Squad composed of 8 teams trained in satellite design and environmental survey has been called in. One half of the ERS-I crew has been stationed on a LEO Spacelab and is working diligently to construct a new satellite to deploy into orbit for data collection.

Since the Earth-based probes are designed to transmit data on a regular basis to the LEO satellite, they contain very little data storage capacity. While the ERS-I Satellite Team is constructing the new satellite, the data collection teams (GEOsphere, HYDROsphere, ATMosphere, BIOsphere, and ECOsphere) must collect and transmit data from areas near the probes to Mission Control.

The other half of the ERS-I crew has been stationed on Earth in the Ops Center of Mission Control. These team members analyze the probe data and compare it to historical data in order to correlate relationships. Additionally, Mission Control, along with their Spacelab teammates, examines sensor data for environmental conditions that might pose a threat to planet Earth and its inhabitants. Transmission of data and information occurs with the aid of two teams, COM (COMmunication) and DAX (Data Acquisition and EXamination). DAX has the additional duty of conducting research to aid the investigation of the data collection teams.

Once the LEO satellite is constructed and deployed, it can resume the job of data collection and transmission. The ERS-I Emergency Response Squad can return to Earth with a greater knowledge about their home planet and a sense of accomplishment, having completed a successful mission.

Encounter Earth Teams

COM (COMmunication): Team members will be responsible for all verbal messages transferred between Mission Control and the Spacelab.

DAX (Data Acquisition and EXamination): Team members will be responsible for data that must travel between Mission Control and the Spacelab. The will also be the primary researchers for the Spacelab and Mission Control crews.

SAT (Satellite): Team members will determine the correct communication frequencies for Earth probes, satellites, and Earth laboratories. They will build and deploy a new low-Earth orbiting satellite to replace a non-functioning satellite.

GEO (Geosphere): Team members will determine whether ocean temperature and/or currents are directly related to sea level. During emergencies, team members will use robots to collect soil samples to be tested for pH and determine the effect of flooding on different land areas.

HYDRO (Hydrosphere): Team members will determine whether ocean temperatures and/or currents are directly related to ocean vegetation. During emergencies, team members will perform pH tests on the water supply and test water for total dissolved solids and chlorine.

ATM (Atmosphere): Team members will determine whether rainfall and/or temperature are directly related to cloud cover. During emergencies, team members will determine the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water and do qualitative analysis of gas using a spectroscope.

BIO (Biosphere): These team members will determine whether vegetation is directly related to the ground moisture and/or temperature. During emergencies, team members may simulate the amount of light that passes through volcanic ash and determine the effect of an oil spill in the ocean.

ECO (Ecosphere): Team members will determine whether population density is directly related to lights observed at night. During emergencies, team members will determine the effect of CO2 on plants and use a microscope to determine the portability of water.

 

Sample questions from the Encounter Earth Baseline studies log sheet

 

ATM station data log

Mark each area on the map with a • and neatly record annual averages or otals for that area next to the •.

After you have completed 3 areas, answer the questions working with your SS/MC teammates. If you need more
space, use an arrow to show where data belongs. Refer back to the RESULTS” table on screen if you need to recall data you’ve collected.

 


MC Team: Ave Annual Cloud Cover

1. Describe what you think “percent cloud cover” means.
2. What patterns might be indicated in the distribution of average cloud cover?
3. Based on what you know about that part of the world, does the data match what you know about the climate of that area?
4. What other measurements could you make in that part of the world that might correlate with what you observe?
5. Look at the data from the BIO team to see if your data correlates with their data in any way. Explain your observations.
6. How does the cloud cover change with the seasons?

 

 

SS Team: Ave Annual Temperature & Total Annual Rainfall


1. Define what you think “total annual rainfall” means.
2. What patterns might be indicated in the distribution of average precipitation?
3. Does the data match what you know about the climate of that area?
4. Do you see any similarities in patterns between precipitation and cloud cover?  Does it make sense?
5. What other measurements could you make in that part of the world that might correlate with what you observe?
6. Look at the data from the BIO team to see if your data correlates with their data in any way. Explain your observations.
7. How has the average precipitation changed with the seasons?

 

 

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