Describing some of the Curiosity mission’s discoveries in the rover’s first year on Mars during a lecture commemorating its anniversary, Deputy Project Scientist Dr. Ashwin Vasavada explained that the high levels of radiation measured by the spacecraft indicate that a Mars-bound human mission would exceed NASA’s lifetime exposure limit for astronauts. “It is a problem, but NASA has to solve it,” said Vasavada. “NASA just has to design the spacecraft to shield the astronauts that much better.”

Vasavada, who spoke as part of the Von Kármán Lecture Series at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Thursday night, outlined the goals of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, better known as Curiosity (the rover’s name).  “We are not looking for life with this mission,” he said.  The goal is to answer what he described as a “more practical question,” that is “whether Mars could have ever supported life.”

Reaching Mars in the first place was half the battle.  In describing the engineering challenge of landing “this beast,” Vasavada showed a slide (below) depicting the rover hanging from its skycrane during the landing sequence with the words “NO WAY” superimposed.  He suggested that it reflects the usual reaction of anybody who learned of the complicated steps required for a successful landing – what the agency dubbed the “7 minutes of terror.”

Image credit:  Ashwin Vasavada, JPL

As captured in a now-famous video showing ecstatic engineers at JPL and captivated citizens around the country, Curiosity performed the intricate dance perfectly and, on August 5, 2012 (Pacific Daylight Time, August 6 Eastern Daylight Time), landed safely on Mars at Gale Crater.

As it moves within the crater towards Mount Sharp, its target exploration site, Curiosity is “a little way into a long journey,” said Vasavada.  Yet already the measurements and images that the rover has sent to Earth have enabled significant scientific discoveries – from the engineering feat of figuring out the movement of the rover’s arm to allow for self-portraits, to finding examples of evidence that water once flowed on Mars and the detection of clay minerals, to finding that argon – not nitrogen – is the next most-common element in the Martian atmosphere.

“It’s not life-changing,” said Vasavada of the latter discovery, “but…it is rewriting the text-books.  Someone needs to update that Wikipedia page.”

The archived webcast of the lecture is available on JPL’s website.

NASA announced today that it has abandoned efforts to restore full operational capability to its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.   Kepler’s principal investigator Bill Borucki made clear that doesn’t mean the mission is over, though.

During an afternoon press conference, a reporter referred to this being the end of Kepler and Borucki bristled, replying that the mission is far from over.  “This is NOT the end of the Kepler mission,” he exclaimed. The mission has two parts, making observations and analyzing the data from those observations.  It is only the acquisition of new exoplanet data that has come to an end, not the analysis. “The Kepler mission is no way done at this point,” he emphasized.

Kepler was launched in 2009 and acquired four years of data.  Scientists have analyzed the first two years of that data, but still have another two years of data to go.  Borucki is very optimistic that there are many discoveries yet to be found.  So far, scientists have confirmed 135 planets orbiting other stars — exoplanets.   The goal is to find an Earth-size planet orbiting a Sun-like star in that star’s “habitable zone.”  That has not been found yet.   A number of Earth-size planets have been discovered, but not within their stars’ habitable zones.   Slightly larger planets have been found within habitable zones, but the stars are cooler than our Sun.  

Borucki pointed out that Kepler finds planets by observing them as they cross (“transit”) the face of their star, so those found to date are close enough to make two or three orbits within the two years of data that have been analyzed.   Any planet in the habitable zone of a star like our Sun will, like Earth, take about a year to transit.  Several transits are required before a planet can be confirmed, so planets with one-year orbits hopefully will be revealed in the yet-to-be analyzed data.

Kepler no longer can acquire new exoplanet data, however.   It has four reaction wheels and three need to be operating to provide the requisite accuracy.   The modest life expectancy of these components is fairly well understood.   Not unexpectedly, one wheel failed last year and a second failed in May.  NASA engineers at Ames Research Center were trying to restore operations to one of the wheels, but ended those efforts last week.  Kepler completed its primary mission in November 2012.  NASA approved a 4-year extended mission hoping the reaction wheels would cooperate, but they did not.

Scientists are assessing whether Kepler can be used for other purposes, such as searching for asteroids or supernovae or for microlensing.   Ideas are being submitted and the Kepler team will make recommendations to NASA Headquarters about which, if any, are sufficiently practical to warrant funding if money is available.

That would be a bonus round.  Kepler already has demonstrated that there are many exoplanets in a variety of sizes orbiting a variety of types of stars.   Borucki said the Kepler data are “critically important to mankind’s future” because they are one step in discovering “our place in the galaxy and what life may be out there.” 

In April, NASA selected a new mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), as part of its Explorer program for launch in 2017.   Led by MIT’s George Ricker, TESS will search for exoplanets around the nearest and brightest stars.

Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden praised outgoing Deputy Administrator Lori Garver today for her dedicated service.

Garver revealed yesterday that she is leaving NASA after four years as the agency’s number two official.   Today, Bolden called her an “indispensable partner” and a “remarkable leader who has consistently shown great vision and commitment to NASA and the aerospace industry.”

Holdren, who is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), thanked her on behalf of President Obama and himself for her “leadership, dedication and work on behalf of the American people…”

Garver reportedly is joining the Air Line Pilots Association.   Her resignation from NASA is effective September 6.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver announced today that she is leaving NASA effective September 6.

In an email, Garver said that she has accepted a position in the private sector outside the space industry.   NASAWatch reports that she will be joining the Air Line Pilots Association.

Garver has spent most of her career in the space business.    After serving on the staff of former astronaut and Senator John Glenn, she joined the staff of the National Space Society, rising to the position of Executive Director.  She then joined NASA as a policy adviser to Dan Goldin.   Subsequently she worked in the private sector, including as head of her own consulting company.   She was active in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and moved over to Barack Obama’s campaign after he won the Democratic primary.   After Obama’s election as President, she headed the transition team for NASA.  Obama nominated her to be NASA’s Deputy Administrator in 2009.  She was confirmed by the Senate that July.

Former astronaut Kathy Sullivan was nominated by President Obama yesterday to become Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the new administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  She has been serving as NOAA’s acting administrator since Jane Lubchenco left in February.

Sullivan is best known in space policy circles as the first American woman to conduct a spacewalk on STS-41G in October 1984.  She flew on two other space shuttle missions in 1990 (STS-31) and 1992 (STS-45).  While an astronaut, she also served as a member of the 1985-1986 National Commission on Space that laid out a 50-year plan for the U.S. civil space program.

An oceanographer by training, she was NOAA’s Chief Scientist from 1993-1996, and returned to the agency in 2011 as its Deputy Administrator and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction.    In between, she was director of Ohio’s Center of Science and Industry and then director of the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy in the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University.  She has a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences from UC-Santa Cruz and a Ph.D. in geology from Dalhousie University in Canada.

Her nomination is subject to Senate confirmation, which will have to await Congress’s return from its August recess, which begins today.