Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Europe's SMART-1 Reaches the Moon!

Episode Date: November 22, 2004

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Music Slow, steady and smart makes it to the moon this week on Planetary Radio. Music Hello again everyone and welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan. The European Space Agency is celebrating. After more than a year of gentle spaceflight pushed along by a state-of-the-art

ion engine, Smart One has arrived in lunar orbit. We'll talk with Bernard Foying, the ESA's chief scientist and project scientist for this mission. Emily Lakdawalla will hold up a mirror to our own galaxy, the Milky Way,

and Bruce Betts gives you a chance to serve NASA in this week's trivia contest that, well, isn't a trivia contest. All that begins right after this review of the top space headlines. The case for methane on Mars grows stronger as two teams present more evidence. Not all the results agree, with one group finding a higher incidence of natural gas, where there is also water vapor. Both teams acknowledge that so-called methanogenic bacteria under the surface could be the source. But no one is anywhere near a conclusive statement about life on the red planet.

All the details are at planetary.org on the web. They are the biggest explosions in the universe, making a supernova look like no more than a wet firecracker. Scientists now hope to learn much more about gamma-ray bursts with the successful launch of Swift from Cape Canaveral. The 20-foot spacecraft will conduct its search from Earth orbit for at least two years and may examine well over 100 of these large, not to say big, bangs. And Time Magazine has named Spaceship One as the year's greatest invention, with special kudos for its

safe and relatively cool feathered re-entry, dreamed up by Bert Rutan late one night in his bed. Congratulations, Bert, again. I'll be back with Bernard Foying of the European Space Agency right after Emily takes her snapshot of the Milky Way. Say cheese, everyone. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, I've seen photos of the Milky Way that make me wonder,

how have we been able to photograph our galaxy if we've never traveled outside it? The answer is that we are actually outside most of the Milky Way. The Milky Way galaxy is a flat disk of stars with gas and dust in the wide spaces between those stars. a flat disk of stars with gas and dust in the wide spaces between those stars. Also, there's a roughly spherical bulge of stars in the middle of the disk in the galaxy's center. Most of the Milky Way galaxy's stars lie within about 30,000 light-years of the galaxy's center. Our own star is located about 25,000 light-years from the center, lying in the outskirts of the Milky Way, but still on that disk of stars. So when we cast our the outskirts of the Milky Way, but still on that disk of stars. So when we cast our eyes along the plane of the Milky Way's disk,

we see the other stars in our galaxy as a bright band across the sky. But we don't see the bulge at the center of the galaxy. Why not? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. We last talked with Bernard Foying just moments after the launch of SmartOne. That was in September of 2003. Now, well over a year later,

the little spacecraft has reached the moon. Anyone who remembers that the Apollo astronauts got there in a couple of days might be asking, what took so long? The answer is just part of the success story, as I heard from Bernard in our recent conversation. Dr. Foying, welcome back to Planetary Radio and congratulations on having reached the moon. Yes, welcome from the moon. We are so excited that we are now on our first lunar orbit. We just arrived on Monday, 15 November, for a four-day first orbit.

We have tested the technology before, the ion engine, to bring us there, and also some of the instruments on board, and everything seems nominal. At the moment, we are still busy driving around the moon to get closer. One of the statistics that I find the most entertaining, that if your little spacecraft was an automobile, you would have gotten about 2 million kilometers per liter of gas or 5 million miles per gallon. Yeah, that's right. That's a next generation vehicle, 5 million miles per gallon. In fact, we have spent 60 liters of fuel

to cover the distance to the moon. We didn't go straight to the moon. In fact, we started from an orbit after an Ariane 5 rocket left us in an orbit around the Earth, so-called geostationary transfer orbit, which are the orbits which are used to send telecom satellites there. From there, we use the ion engine alone to spiral out of the Earth and then bring us to the Moon. And while this is not the first ion engine used in space, it is the first one,

well, certainly the first one that has gotten anybody to the Moon, but is of a particularly advanced design. anybody to the moon, but is of a particularly advanced design. Yes, it's based on some technology which is used on some satellite, geostationary satellite, to reposition them. We use it for a very long duration, for 4,000 hours of thrust with this engine, so it was a record. But also it's the first time we leave the Earth using this engine. Even if there have been some missions like Deep Space One using ion propulsion,

they use a chemical rocket to leave the Earth's gravity. And then they made full use of the ion propulsion for interplanetary travel. In fact, even if we started from the Earth, we have covered a total distance already of 80 million kilometers, which is thought to be like interplanetary distance, except that most of it was covered around the Earth at the beginning. So it's a good proof of concept that this technology could allow us to reach someplace like Mars. Yes, we could reach Mars, and with this efficiency, we could bring more cargo, if you are a bit

patient. But also, we can reach inner solar system destination. We have a mission called BepiColombo, which is to go to Mercury in 2012, and another one which is to go near the sun called Solar Orbiter. And in fact, for the mission to Mercury, using solar electric propulsion, we will even cut time. We will be able to go in three years instead of six years. So not only we get more payload ability because we save mass by this more efficient fuel,

but also we could arrive faster at some of the far destinations. Is it safe to say that as much as collecting science was the goal of SMART-1, at least as much was the goal of trying out these new technologies, which will go way beyond this ion engine. Yes, we were trying to test its ion proportion, trying also to test new ways of doing business, faster, low cost, and harder, and I hope better at the end, where we developed a spacecraft only in a three years time scale and we tested it

but also we wanted to demonstrate new technologies and the smart one spacecraft is packed with some very miniaturized technologies we have sensors so we call them the eyes of smart one we have a visible eye which is about the size of a human eye, actually. It's a camera, which is very miniaturized, using electronic components, which are just packed in a cube of two centimeters. Wow. But we have also an infrared spectrometer. These are infrared eyes on board smart one. And this spectrometer is only two kilograms, 10 times lighter than the current generation of spectrometers around other planets. And we have X-ray eyes.

This is an experiment, only five kilograms, which is measuring the X-ray from the moon, but also has looked at the Earth and at cosmic sources during the cruise from the Earth to the moon. And Smart One, so it has at least three eyes. I've heard it has a couple of noses as well. Yeah, in fact, we have three noses. Two are quite long, like Pinocchio noses, about 60 centimeters long. They are on top of a boom so that you can smell the particles which are surrounding the

spacecraft. Those particles which are created by the ion engine itself, but also when we switch off the engine, we can smell or measure the particle in the natural, electric environment from the Earth to the Moon. And we have also a nose, really, on the spacecraft itself. We can also listen. We have two types of antennae. They look like very special ears on our baby, actually. And they are measuring microwaves to communicate with Earth, microwaves at very high frequency. This allows to have communication in deep space with very high bandwidth.

It's a precursor technology for future interplanetary communications, or even communication between Earth and low Earth orbit application satellites with very high bandwidth. The name of the spacecraft, SMART-1, does that denote or suggest that it is a smarter, a more intelligent spacecraft than many that have gone before? Yes, SMART is in fact an acronym, and actually it was invented by Professor Roger Bonnet. He was the director of science at ESA. And the acronym stands for Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology. It's a series of missions that we use to demonstrate technology in space

to prepare for future ambitious strategic missions. For instance, these missions that are going to visit Mercury, BepiColombo, or Solar Orbiter. Or we have even astronomical observatories, which we would want to place at the Lagrangian point of the Earth's moon. L5 and the other Lagrange points. It's a point which is beyond the Earth compared to the Sun, which is very stable and where we could have a huge observatory in the future. But we are also considering using this in proportion to put this big infrastructure there. And as well, we are looking at possibilities for the future, having a mission to Mars or even a big cargo to the moon. Which suggests that Europe has big plans or big hopes for space exploration.

I hope we can get to that when we come back for the second half of our conversation. But first, when we return, let's talk about the science that is now going to be done now that Smart One has reached the moon. Our guest on Planetary Radio is Bernard Foying. He is the chief scientist for the European Space Agency, but also the project scientist for SmartART-1, which has just arrived in lunar orbit. We'll be right back after this. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why

I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds. And we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in the Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS.

That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. This week on Planetary Radio, we are spending some time with Bernard Foying, who is celebrating, along with the rest of his team at the European Space Agency, the arrival in lunar orbit of SMART-1, Europe's mission to the moon, that has been, so far far such an incredibly successful testbed

for a lot of technologies, including its ion engine. But, Dr. Foying, you are a scientist. You must be happy now to be arriving at the moon, and you can start doing some lunar science. Yes, indeed. There are many fundamental questions, which are mysteries about the moon. And we try using these new technologies, these eyes in the visible infrared and X-ray and other instruments, to study the moon. One question is, where does the moon come from? What are the origins?

We believe now that the moon is the daughter of the Earth, that it has been formed 4.5 billion years ago, daughter of the Earth, that it has been formed 4.5 billion years ago, when a planetary embryo about half the size of Mars impacted the Earth and put some debris of the Earth and of this impactor together that later recondensed to form the Moon. Also, we tried to observe on the Moon the historical record of the giant bombardment that took place after this time, the first 500 million years of the solar system history. So that's about a journey to our origins. Even more, we try to study on the moon how a planet, a rocky planet, works, even a planet which is a bit smaller than the Earth, to understand better how our own Earth is working.

And you've been doing some science, even on the way to the moon. I saw an image, I think it was of the Moon's North Pole? Yes, this was a historical achievement because for the first time, as we were approaching a bit from the north direction, a Western European spacecraft could see the North Pole of the Moon, but even part of the far side, which in this configuration was illuminated and was not visible from the Earth. So we have also done some studies during a lunar eclipse on 28th of October, and for the first time we could take a family portrait of the Earth and moon together while the moon

was being eclipsed. And I think it was a quite emotional moment when you obtained that. I'll have to look for that image on the website for the Smart One mission. A link to that site will be on the Planetary Society website at planetary.org, right where people can and maybe are listening to this radio program. I wonder if Smart One is going to investigate further this question of water ice at the poles on the moon. Yes, indeed. It's one of our objectives as well. So we have designed the camera

to be able to observe craters in the polar regions of the moon which are in permanent shadow from the sun. And in this crater, the temperature is so low, it's minus 200 degrees Celsius, so that water could stay trapped forever. And we believe that the water coming from comets impacts on the moon or also water-rich asteroids degrees Celsius so that water could stay trapped forever. And we believe that the water coming from comets impact on the moon or also water-rich asteroids, which is wandering around on the lunar surface until it's being trapped in

these places and then would stay forever. And there have been some measurements earlier that there is some enhancement of hydrogen in the poles. What we want to do with SMART-1 is make some deep images in this area with a camera, but also we have an infrared spectrometer that could search for the fingerprint, spectral fingerprint of water ice. And then we would be able, we need to say, this hydrogen that has been detected there is due to water. So hydrogen combined into H2O as water. SmartOne currently in this first orbit around the Moon,

it's a pretty elongated orbit, but that's one that's going to settle down, I know. About how far from the Moon will Smart One orbit once it's fully in place? At the moment, our first lunar orbit, we are at a distance of 5,000 kilometers at the closest and 50,000 kilometers at the fastest. Wow. 5,000 kilometers at the closest and 50,000 kilometers at the fastest. Wow. But we are now continuing to decelerate using our ion engine to spiral down closer to the moon. In two months, we will reach an orbit which will be 300 kilometers at the closest to 3,000 kilometers.

From this orbit, we will have the ability to make images at high resolution, From this orbit, we will have the ability to make images at high resolution, but we will also be able to have a view both of the South Pole, first priority, but also have some global views of the North Polar region and the rest of the planet. So obviously there is much more to look forward to. Yes, we are looking for generating this measurement, also looking with our infrared spectrometer and camera at the minerals which are on the surface of the moon looking at the resources for the future and even looking at high resolution at possible landing sites for the next set of emissions at the moment well europe is

just alone around the moon so we are looking for the next ships from the lunar fleet to come. So there are some Japanese, Indian, Chinese, and U.S. missions that are due to come before the decade. And so we try to make also observations that could help to prepare with our international partners this next step of international lunar exploration. We are also going to map in detail some places, for instance, from the far side, where there is a giant impact basin 2,500 kilometers wide

where you could get some samples even from the interior of the moon which have been injected during this impact. And there is one U.S. mission which is planning to return some of those samples. So we try to make some maps to help in the preparation of this moonrise, the South Pole Alken Basin sample return mission. So very ambitious plans, really globally, and

ambitious plans, apparently, at least on the part of some, for the European Space Agency. David Southwood, the Director of Science for the ESA, has been heard on this program talking about Europe's role in space exploration or what he would like to see. Where would you like Europe to be as a space-faring agency? Yeah, as a space-faring agency, we have demonstrated that, okay, progressively we have built an expertise, some technology where we have access to space. We can also build robotic missions which are smart and cost-effective and fully deliver the science.

But we want also to build on this expertise to go to the next step, which will be exploration. So not only for knowledge and for science, but also supporting global goals of the society, goals which we have at the European level of fostering technology, innovation, but also at a global level. Goals of international collaboration towards a peaceful project, towards some accomplishments which really have benefits on Earth and where we can, for instance, put together elements from the different regional space powers. For instance, a step would be to put a series of landers on the moon, and some agencies could take care of different landers and put that in an international robotic village.

We would have just to discuss together the standards of communication, how to exploit resources, energy together, together the standards of communication, how to exploit resources, energy together, and build up this project together before the following step, which could be in placing a human lunar base, international, and eventually with, this time, a permanent presence on the moon. Ambitious plans indeed, and we will wish you luck there at the ESA. We are out of time for our conversation today. I just want to congratulate you one more time on this very impressive arrival of SMART-1 in lunar orbit. And while we're at it, since you were involved overall with the ESA's work in science, science research in space,

congratulations as well on Mars Express, which is continuing to return beautiful photos and other data from Mars. Yeah, these are our first steps into planetary science and exploration. And we have the data to explore it, and we'll be using that with the community. But also we would prepare for the future missions. Bernard Foying, thanks again for joining us on Planetary Radio. And I hope we'll be able to have you back on, maybe talk about further results as SMART-1 spirals down into that close orbit around the moon. Yes, thank you very much, and all the best to the planetary explorers. Thank you.

And we will be back with more Planetary Radio, specifically What's Up with Bruce Betts, right after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. How come you can't look up and see the central bulge of the Milky Way galaxy, even though you can see the other stars around us? In the 25,000 light-years of space between us and the galactic center, there is a lot of dust. Visible light, light that has wavelengths that the human eye can detect,

is absorbed by space dust, so almost none of the visible light from the stars far away at the center of the galaxy can reach our eyes. Fortunately, we can build cameras and detectors that can see in wavelengths that the human eye cannot. Infrared light, which has a longer wavelength than visible light, is not absorbed by space dust as strongly. So images taken in infrared light can reveal the bright bulge of the galactic center. Images such as these have provided evidence that the Milky Way may not be a simple spiral, like our neighbor Andromeda,

but actually a less common type called a barred spiral. Astronomers are still at work to figure out which one it is. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. It's time for What's Up on Planetary Radio, and we're doing something we haven't done in a long time. We've got Bruce on the phone. Why? Because he's been under the weather again.

You know, you're getting all kinds of good wishes from listeners out there, and I thought you were fully recovered, only to find out that you have not been well. This is true. Thank you to all those listeners, and yeah. I found a new exciting disease. It it's a fun thing but you're feeling better uh you told me yes i'm feeling nearly hunky-dory swell now well we're glad to hear it are you up to doing what's up oh always well then go for it up in the uh that that sky of ours if you're really really tricky you can see all five night naked eye planets right now but you do have to be up in the evening up in the morning and looking just after sunset for If you're really, really tricky, you can see all five naked-eye planets right now,

but you do have to be up in the evening, up in the morning, and looking just after sunset for Mercury, because it's the tough one. It is low in the glow of sunset. Look on the southwest horizon just like half an hour after sunset. Binoculars help, you may or may not be able to see it. You can see Saturn rising in the evening, around 9 or so in the east, and it is to the lower right of Castor and Pollux, the two bright stars of Gemini. It is brighter than both. Don't confuse Saturn with airplanes going by.

The airplanes are blinking. Saturn is not. In the pre-dawn sky, you can see the brightest object up there, still Venus, looking like an extremely bright star in the east at dawn. Can't miss it. And if you look to the upper right of Venus, the other really bright looking star is Jupiter. And to the lower, lower,

lower, lower, just, you know, the lower of Venus, you can look for Mars, which is much dimmer, but is up there in that pre-dawn sky. And on November 30th, look for the moon hanging out near Saturn. Hmm. Okay, plenty to see. On to this week in space history. On November 28th, 1964, that's 40 years ago, I think,

Mariner 4 was launched, which was the first successful Mars flyby. Which, of course course leads us to RANDOM SPACE BUS! Gamma ray bursts, or GRBs, are the most distant and powerful explosions known. They're likely formed

when black holes form. But that's still what people are looking into and they're just a ton of satellites starting to fly around the Earth and try to check these things out and figure them out. Yeah, one of them just got launched a few days ago after some delays. We mentioned that at the top of the show, as a matter of fact, and so maybe we'll find out a little bit more about these things that I have read have the power of a billion, billion suns. Wow. Yeah, I hope they figure out something swiftly. Little pun. You had to be

around for the beginning of the show, folks. Okay, on to trivia. We asked you, what is the only large, that's large moon in the solar system, that orbits retrograde? One of my favorite words in the planetary world, meaning the opposite direction, in this case, meaning the opposite direction that the planet rotates. How'd we do, Matt? Carl Zander. Carl Zander of Eureka, California. That is a beautiful place up there.

I've only been there once. But there is a college campus up there I had to go to, and boy, is it pretty. Anyway... I actually have tried to find it, but I've never succeeded. Well, you've got to drive a long ways, unless you fly, which is what I did. And he has picked something a long ways off. It's the correct answer, Triton.

Triton, the moon of Neptune, is the biggest one, I guess, that flies around the planet retrograde in the wrong direction. Did he get that right? He did indeed. Triton is it. And in fact, it makes people suspicious that Triton is actually a captured body. What do you have for us next week? I've got something fun to address one of my pet peeves in the space community.

It's been quite a long time since we have challenged the listeners, and as a result, we've been getting lots of great trivia answers. Thank you, everyone. Not because we didn't challenge you, but we want to challenge you to make us laugh again. Come up with something funny, and here's what it is. And the funniest answer is judged by our esteemed committee, which is Matt and me. Pretty much. We'll win a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Now, the head official of NASA, the world's largest space agency, the top person, that person's title is administrator. The NASA administrator.

It just never seemed like a title befitting the stature of the job. It's not sexy. Definitely not sexy. What we're asking you out there is, what should the top official at NASA's title be? Tell us, please. Please, oh, please tell us what it should be. We will, of course, forward your comments,

and I'm sure they will be given due consideration by NASA. And I'm sure Sean O'Keefe, the head of NASA, is looking for a new title. I'm sure he's going to be extremely appreciative. Once he listens to the show, he will be. You know what's really great, and a lot of people don't realize this except in the space community, is that all the other big title people get modified off of that. So you have the associate administrators, or the head of things like space science and flight. And then you have assistant associate administrators. I kid you not, AAAs.

Deputy associate administrators. Cool, huh? Yeah. They need our help. How do they enter, Bruce? Go to planetary.org slash radio and give us your answer. Email it to us and we will talk about it in a couple weeks. And you've got until Monday, November 29, noon Pacific time.

Monday, November 29. Get yours in. We will pick randomly from all the correct answers. And if you're the lucky person, you might be like Carl Zander, pretty soon after receiving a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Bruce, we're out of time. All right, everyone, go out there, look up the night sky, think about bowling and what it has to do with planetary science.

Thank you, and good night. Bruce Betts, and he never strikes out on What's Up. When he joins us every week here at the end of Planetary Radio, Bruce, you take care of yourself. Hey, thanks. Don't worry, I've got energy and diseases to spare. And he'll be back next week, we think. diseases to spare. And he'll be back next week, we think.

Next time, we'll take a look back at two of the most successful and controversial interplanetary explorers of all time, naked people and all, as we talk with the author of a new book about Pioneers 10 and 11. I hope you'll join us again. Have a great week everyone