WASHINGTON -- Two prominent aerospace industry organizations are
recognizing the contributions of NASA, especially the achievements of
the team that landed NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars in August, with
coveted awards.
The National Aeronautic Association (NAA)
will present its Robert J. Collier Trophy to the Mars Science Laboratory
(MSL) Team of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
Calif., at an event in Arlington, Va., Thursday night. At an event in
Washington on Wednesday, the team received the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Foundation Award.
AIAA
also conferred its highest recognition, the title of honorary fellow, on
William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human
exploration and operations and presented NASA's Associate Administrator
for Science, astronaut John Grunsfeld, with its AIAA National Capitol
Section Barry Goldwater Educator Award. AIAA recognized two other NASA
employees as fellows: Ray G. Clinton of NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Laurence D. Leavitt of NASA's Langley
Research Center in Hampton, Va.
"It's wonderful to see NASA's
people and their accomplishments recognized by the aerospace
community," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "In particular, the
Curiosity landing was the hardest NASA mission ever attempted in the
history of robotic planetary exploration. These prestigious awards are a
testament to the dedication and hard work of the entire worldwide
team."
The NAA established the Collier Trophy in 1911 and
presents it yearly to recognize the greatest achievement in aeronautics
or astronautics in America. The AIAA awards recognize the most
influential and inspiring individuals in aerospace, whose outstanding
contributions merit the highest accolades. Past honorees have included
Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, the team that designed the space shuttle
and the astronauts who carried out the first Hubble Space Telescope
repair mission in 1993.
The NAA's Collier citation notes the
MSL team's "extraordinary achievements of successfully landing Curiosity
on Mars, advancing the nation's technological and engineering
capabilities, and significantly improving humanity's understanding of
ancient Martian habitable environments."
More than 7,000
people in at least 33 U.S. states and 11 other countries have worked on
the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity, the laboratory's
centerpiece, carries 10 science instruments to investigate the
environmental history inside Gale Crater on Mars. In March, rover
scientists announced an analysis of a rock sample collected there shows
Mars could have supported living microbes in an ancient freshwater
environment. Curiosity's mission is expected to last at least two years.
"The prestigious Collier Trophy is a wonderful recognition
for Curiosity, a phenomenal engineering and science achievement that has
captured the hearts and minds of children and adults across America and
around the globe," said Charles Elachi, director of JPL. "It's an honor
to do missions like this one on behalf of NASA and the nation."
Two other teams from JPL that manage NASA spacecraft, the Dawn mission
to the asteroid belt and the Voyager mission to interstellar space, were
finalists for the 2012 Collier Trophy.
JPL designed, developed and assembled the rover and manages its mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the Collier Trophy, visit:
For more information about the AIAA awards, visit:
For more about the Mars Science Laboratory mission, visit:
For information on other NASA missions and programs, visit:
'Cumberland' Selected as Curiosity's Second Drilling Target
This
map shows the location of "Cumberland," the second rock-drilling target
for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, in relation to the rover's first
drilling target, "John Klein," within the southwestern lobe of a shallow
depression called "Yellowknife Bay." Cumberland, like John Klein, is a
patch of flat-lying bedrock with pale veins and bumpy surface texture.
The bumpiness is due to erosion-resistant nodules within the rock, which
have been identified as concretions resulting from the action of
mineral-laden water.
North is to the top of the map. The scale
bar is 50 meters (164 feet). Cumberland lies about nine feet (2.75
meters) west of John Klein. The base map is part of an image from the
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The mapped area is within Gale Crater and
north of the mountain called Mount Sharp in the middle of the crater.
After completion of investigations near the edge of Yellowknife Bay, the
rover's main science destination will be on the lower reaches of Mount
Sharp. For broader-context views of the area, see PIA16832, PIA16064 and
PIA16058.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA Curiosity Rover Team Selects Second Drilling Target on Mars
This map shows the location of "Cumberland," the second rock-drilling
target for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, in relation to the rover's first
drilling target, "John Klein," within the southwestern lobe of a
shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
› Full image and caption
PASADENA, Calif. -- The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has
selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will
set course to the drilling location in coming days.
This second drilling target, called "Cumberland," lies about nine feet
(2.75 meters) west of the rock where Curiosity's drill first touched
Martian stone in February. Curiosity took the first rock sample ever
collected on Mars from that rock, called "John Klein." The rover found
evidence of an ancient environment favorable for microbial life. Both
rocks are flat, with pale veins and a bumpy surface. They are embedded
in a layer of rock on the floor of a shallow depression called
"Yellowknife Bay."
This second drilling is intended to confirm results from the first
drilling, which indicated the chemistry of the first powdered sample
from John Klein was much less oxidizing than that of a soil sample the
rover scooped up before it began drilling.
"We know there is some cross-contamination from the previous sample each
time," said Dawn Sumner, a long-term planner for Curiosity's science
team at the University of California at Davis. "For the Cumberland
sample, we expect to have most of that cross-contamination come from a
similar rock, rather than from very different soil."
Although Cumberland and John Klein are very similar, Cumberland appears
to have more of the erosion-resistant granules that cause the surface
bumps. The bumps are concretions, or clumps of minerals, which formed
when water soaked the rock long ago. Analysis of a sample containing
more material from these concretions could provide information about the
variability within the rock layer that includes both John Klein and
Cumberland.
Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., recently finished upgrading Curiosity's operating software
following a four-week break. The rover continued monitoring the Martian
atmosphere during the break, but the team did not send any new commands
because Mars and the sun were positioned in such a way the sun could
have blocked or corrupted commands sent from Earth.
Curiosity is about nine months into a two-year prime mission since
landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. After the second rock
drilling in Yellowknife Bay and a few other investigations nearby, the
rover will drive toward the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall
(5-kilometers) layered mountain inside the crater.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project, of which Curiosity is the
centerpiece, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the mission,
To follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
