Parker Solar Probe Set to Launch Aug 11 to Investigate Sun Outer Corona

The NASA Parker Solar Probe (PSP) is scheduled to launch during an 8-day window opening August 11 on United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy from SLC 37 Cape Canaveral AFS, Florida ~03:48 EDT. The 555-kg craft is equipped with a 11.4-cm thick reinforced carbon–carbon composite solar shield designed to withstand external temperatures reaching 1,377° C. It will come within 8.5 solar radii (6 million km) of the ‘surface’ of the Sun with its 5 major experiments to collect data on coronal magnetic field, dusty plasma, flow and acceleration of solar wind, and determine transport and acceleration of energetic particles – to potentially improve space-weather event forecasting. The US$1.5B mission plans 7 gravity assists at Venus over 7 years to incrementally decrease its orbital perihelion to achieve at least 26 passes of the Sun. PSP will achieve a velocity of up to 200 km/s as it passes around the Sun, which will temporarily make it the fastest human-made object. PSP is named after (L-R) Astrophysicist Eugene Parker for his theories on supersonic solar wind and the shape of the outer solar system solar magnetic field. The 5 Instrument Principal Investigators are Stuart Bale (UC Berkeley), David McComas (Princeton), Justin Kasper (Univ. of Michigan), Russell Howard (Naval Research Laboratory), and Marco Velli (UCLA). A memory card aboard the craft carries 1,137,202 names, photos of Eugene Parker and his 1958 solar-wind paper. (Image Credits: NASA, JHU-APL, ULA, Univ. of Chicago, Berkeley, Princeton, A. Kingsbury / WBUR, NRL, UCLA)

MONDAY

Geologists Meet to Discuss Lunar Polar Volatiles and Planetary Craters

Two meetings related to water and craters on the Moon are happening this week in USA. Lunar Polar Volatiles meeting is scheduled August 7-9 at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. About 50 oral and poster presentations by experts from NASA SSERVI and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter communities and elsewhere will discuss the state of knowledge on volatiles in the polar regions of the Moon. The meeting is organized by (L-R) Kathleen Mandt and Rachel Klima of APL, Will Farrell of NASA Goddard, and 3 others from various universities. Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics & Planetology (HIGP) professor Jeffrey Taylor is presenting on “The Lunar Interior as a Source of Polar Water”. Another University of Hawaii HIGP professor Paul Lucey and his students, including Casey Honniball and Emily Costello, will present on water ice at lunar poles and future steps for further measurements. On Aug 8-10, the Planetary Crater Consortium Meeting is being held at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. This international consortium formed in 2010 from a merger of the Lunar, Mars, and Outer Solar System Crater Consortia, respectively. About 15-20 members have participated in the past annual meetings. This 9th meeting is organized by astrophysics professor Nadine Barlow of Northern Arizona University who studies impact craters and their relations to possible subsurface water ice reservoirs. (Image Credits: JHU APL, AAS, NASA, SSERVI, LRO, GSFC)

Aug 6 —

Aug 6 — SETI Institute, Newark CA: Lecture: Planning Missions to Mars and Beyond; by Margaret Race of NASA and SETI, at Newark Library 18:00-19:00.

Aug 6-10 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA: NASA’s 30th Annual Planetary Science Summer Seminar.

Aug 6-10 — Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, AstroHackWeek organizers, Leiden, The Netherlands: Astro Hack Week 2018.

Aug 6-10 — University of Adelaide, Exter, United Kingdom: Woomera Manual on International Law and Military Space Operations.

Aug 6-12 — Stockholm University Astrobiology Centre, University of Tartu, European Astrobiology Campus, Nordic Network of Astrobiology, Tartu, Estonia: Summer school / workshop “Microsatellites in planetary and atmospheric research”.

Aug 6 — Moon: 1.1° N of Aldebaran, 09:00.

Aug 6 — Apollo Asteroid 2018 OZ: Near-Earth Flyby (0.018 AU)

Aug 6 — Aten Asteroid 2011 FQ6: Near-Earth Flyby (0.094 AU)

Continued from…

Jul 8 – Oct 9 — NAOC, National Aquatic Center “Water Cube”, Beijing, China: Lunar Exploration Technology Exhibition featuring 10-meter diameter Moon, lunar imagery, ‘moonlight’ and surround sound composition.

Jul 15 – Aug 23 — Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, NASA, Dubai, UAE: NASA Space and Rocketry Summer Camp; at Lapita Hotel Ballroom, Dubai Parks and Resorts.

Jun 25 – Aug 17 — Frontier Development Lab (FDL), NASA, Online: FDL 2018 Challenges; an AI R&D accelerator that tackles knowledge gaps useful to NASA: 2018 topics are space resources, orbital debris, NEOs, Earth observation, space weather, astrobiology.