Italian Astronaut Focuses On Complex Mission

For the 11-day mission, Nespoli joins six NASA astronauts on board Space Shuttle Atlantis. His flight opportunity arises from the Memorandum of Understanding between the Italian space agency, ASI, and NASA for the supply to NASA of three pressurised Multi-Purpose Logistic Modules (MPLM).
As well as exchanging a member of the Station's permanent crew, and the challenging operation of repositioning a set of solar arrays, the STS-120 crew is responsible for the safe delivery of the Node 2 connecting module - an important step in the continued construction of the International Space Station.
The arrival of the cylindrical Node 2 module, which will be attached to the end of US Destiny laboratory, paves the way for the addition of the European Columbus laboratory and the Japanese Kibo laboratory later in the year.
The crew started mission specific training for this complex assignment in August last year. "We train together for some tasks, such as the rendezvous with the Space Station and operating the robotic arms during the spacewalks. I am also doing a lot of training with the simulators to be able to do my tasks according to the required standards," explains Nespoli. "The training is becoming more and more demanding. I normally start at 7 in the morning and finish at 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening. It's fairly intense!"
Besides carrying out a joint ESA/ASI programme of scientific experiments, PR and educational activities, in his role as Mission Specialist, Nespoli will help with maintaining and handling the on board systems of the spacecraft.
During the inspection of the Shuttle's heat resistant tiles following the launch, he will be at the controls of the robotic arm. He will also be part of the team to perform the approach and docking with the Space Station.
Nespoli will coordinate activities from inside the Shuttle during three spacewalks – he will direct the spacewalkers, coordinating both with the ground and with the Shuttle and Station robotic arm operators. As the mission draws to a close, Nespoli will take part in Shuttle undocking activities, and for the re-entry he will be sat in the Flight Deck as Mission Specialist 1.
Nespoli's mission, which will be jointly managed by ESA and ASI, will be his first visit to space. A member of the European Astronaut Corps since 1998, he naturally looks forward to finally fulfilling a dream. "I will reach a goal I have been working on for many many years, so I am looking forward to experiencing this personally," says Nespoli.
"I am also looking to contribute to the crew and to the mission. To essentially complete the tasks that have been assigned to us. I feel the responsibility of bringing Node 2 into orbit. This is a complex task and I will try to concentrate to be at my best."
STS-120 is scheduled for launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, in the autumn.
Node 2 was developed for NASA under an ESA contract with European industry, with Alcatel-Alenia Space as the prime contractor. Responsibility for Node 2 development was assigned to the Italian space agency, ASI.

This is a Report From Italian space agency..Some you have your own thougts that have been arised while you read this report..May that will be the answer for the world's query....Come On Add your Commment

Mars' South Pole Ice Deep And Wide

This new estimate comes from mapping the thickness of the ice. The Mars Express orbiter's radar instrument has made more than 300 virtual slices through layered deposits covering the pole to map the ice. The radar sees through icy layers to the lower boundary, which is as deep as 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) below the surface.
"The south polar layered deposits of Mars cover an area bigger than Texas. The amount of water they contain has been estimated before, but never with the level of confidence this radar makes possible," said Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena Calif. Plaut is co-principal investigator for the radar and lead author of a new report on these findings published in the March 15 online edition of the journal Science.
The instrument, named the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), also is mapping the thickness of similar layered deposits at the north pole of Mars.
"Our radar is doing its job extremely well," said Giovanni Picardi, a professor at the University of Rome "La Sapienza," and principal investigator for the instrument.
"MARSIS is showing itself to be a very powerful tool to probe underneath the Martian surface, and it's showing how our team's goals, such as probing the polar layered deposits, are being successfully achieved," Picardi said. "Not only is MARSIS providing us with the first-ever views of Mars subsurface at those depths, but the details we are seeing are truly amazing. We expect even greater results when we have concluded an ongoing, sophisticated fine-tuning of our data processing methods. These should enable us to understand even better the surface and subsurface composition."
Polar layered deposits hold most of the known water on modern Mars, though other areas of the planet appear to have been very wet at times in the past. Understanding the history and fate of water on Mars is a key to studying whether Mars has ever supported life, since all known life depends on liquid water.
The polar layered deposits extend beyond and beneath a polar cap of bright-white frozen carbon dioxide and water at Mars' south pole. Dust darkens many of the layers. However, the strength of the echo that the radar receives from the rocky surface underneath the layered deposits suggests the composition of the layered deposits is at least 90 percent frozen water. One area with an especially bright reflection from the base of the deposits puzzles researchers. It resembles what a thin layer of liquid water might look like to the radar instrument, but the conditions are so cold that the presence of melted water is deemed highly unlikely.
Detecting the shape of the ground surface beneath the ice deposits provides information about even deeper structures of Mars. "We didn't really know where the bottom of the deposit was," Plaut said. "Now we can see that the crust has not been depressed by the weight of the ice as it would be on the Earth. The crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer than the Earth's, probably because the interior of Mars is so much colder."
The MARSIS instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter was developed jointly by the Italian Space Agency and NASA, under the scientific supervision of the University of Rome "La Sapienza," in partnership with JPL and the University of Iowa, Iowa City. JPL manages NASA's roles in Mars Express for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

This is a Report From NASA..Some you have your own thougts that have been arised while you read this report..May that will be the answer for the world's query....Come On Add your Commment