Let the Mission Begin - Curiosity and Mars

The Curiosity rover is on its way to Mars after a successful NASA launch yesterday.  In about 8 and a half months the rover will start its exploration of the Martian surface and tell us more about the origins and current state of the planet.  This is a success for NASA after the recent loss of another Mars mission, this one Russian and Chinese, which ended in low Earth orbit. 

NASA's $2.5 billion mission to Mars marks an expensive recovery from the space agency's unreadiness in 2009, which led to more than a 50 percent increase in the mission's cost.  But all of that is behind us as we watch the mission from here on Earth and learn about more than 1 billion years of Martian history once Curiosity starts crawling around Gale Crater. And while Curiosity is probing one part of Mars, the earlier rover Opportunity is continuing a separate mission elsewhere on the planet's surface.  So two U.S. rovers are crawling across the planet while we determine our future plans to send humans to the Red Planet.  This is one small step that will hopefully engage the American public (as well as the President) for such a mission.

Is the Space Program Running Out of Fuel?

I have written in the past about a lack of vision in the U.S. space program, but I did not expect to write about the potential loss of fuel for our spacecraft.  A recent NPR story, The Plutonium Problem: Who Pays For Space Fuel?, noted how the U.S. space program may face problems obtaining plutonium-238 for its spacecraft and rovers.  For instance, the new Mars rover Curiosity will use 8 pounds of plutonium-238 as part of its exploring on the martian surface.  

The article quotes Len Dudzinski, the program executive for radioisotope power systems at NASA headquarters, who stated, "Because the United States has access to plutonium-238, we are the only country that has ever sent a science mission beyond Mars."  Other spacecraft, from the Voyager missions to the more recent Cassini, are dependent upon this fuel. 

As always, the issue is resources or, more specifically, budget battles.  Who should pay for this fuel, NASA or the Department of Energy?  Of course, budget battles have become much more acrimonious in recent years, with many projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope being held hostage (though even this battle was positively resolved recently, giving me a little more hope).  

This is a tough time to find extra funds for anything, but NASA needs to push such projects and the President needs to be the Agency's advocate.  We are already stumbling about looking for the next space vehicle as well as the next place to visit, which has not been an inspiring picture to date.  But we are dangerously close to grounding all of our projects if we lack the fuel to continue. Yes, maybe new fuels will be found, but I would not walk away from anything right now until we have proven alternatives.  If we want to remain part of the space race (or even space jog), we need to have some basic items to continue.  I hope our leaders in DC realize this.

Note:  NPR reported on this very same issue in September 2009. And Space News reported that the Russians were holding on their plutonium-238 supplies back in December 2009.  This is not a new problem, but I guess Congress needs to be reeducated on a regular basis.

Russian Space Program: Good and Bad News

Well, the good news is that Russia has now had it's second International Space Station (ISS) success.  The first was noted in my earlier entry, when the Soyuz resupply mission left for the ISS.  The second successful launch was Monday, when a U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts left Kazakstan on their way to the station so that they could relieve the three existing crew members who return to earth next week. 

The bad news is that the Russian mission to Mars' moon Phobos is no more.  Phobos-Grunt failed to leave Earth orbit due to a rocket failure and now it is little more than space junk awaiting re-entry sometime next month.  This is a serious setback to the Russian space program that already had a number of problematic launches.  It also marks a setback for China, which had a Mars probe on board, as well as The Planetary Society, which had a soil experiment on the craft.  Some are talking about a possible recovery of certain parts of the spacecraft.  It would be nice if something can be salvaged.