The Suit Magazine

Thinking back to the John F. Kennedy years, circa 1960’s, NASA would feature missions televised on old black-and-white TV’s, the whole country glued to their screens for the monumental man-on-the-moon landing in 1969. On the other hand, in recent years, tightening budget constraints in a tough economy have dimmed the fuel for rocket time. The government’s dwindling interest in space exploration notwithstanding, the scheduled lift-offs are encouraging.

NASA will embark on three separate missions: the STS-133, the STS-134 and Glory. The STS-133, involving the space shuttle Discovery, launches from pad 39A on November 1st at 4:40 pm. The Discovery will be in orbit for a total of eleven days. The crew is composed of veteran space travelers – Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe, and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Tim Kopra and Nicole Stott. The mission will be Commander Lindsey’s fifth flight and the second flight for Boe, Drew, Barratt, Kopra, and Stott. Its purpose is to deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 4, a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, to the International Space Station, along with critical spare components.

This is NASA’s 35th shuttle mission. According to Joshua Buck, NASA Public Affairs Officer for Space Operations, “The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (a/k/a ‘Leonardo’) will be transformed into the space station’s Permanent Multi-Purpose Module… and will be used to deliver hardware and supplies to the station. [With additional space], the module will enable efficient positioning of experiments throughout the station complex. Inside the [module], experiments in fluid physics, materials science, biology, biotechnology and other microgravity experiments may be conducted.”

It will pave the way for an important new piece of technology, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), scheduled for delivery to the space station by the space shuttle Endeavor as part of mission STS-134, a 12-day mission launching slated for February 26, 2011. Buck said, “The AMS will use the unique environment of space to advance [our] knowledge of the universe. This will lead to a better understanding of the universe's origin by searching for antimatter, dark matter, strange matter, and [to measure] cosmic rays. Whether or not there is antimatter in the universe is a fundamental question of the origin and nature of the universe.”
 
He further explained that, “Dark matter has been known for decades to affect the motions of stars in our galaxy and other galaxies, yet its exact composition is unknown. AMS will search to identify what dark matter might consist of. Strange matter is theorized to consist of strange quarks, a form of subatomic matter not found naturally in our Solar System, but might exist elsewhere in the Universe. AMS can also distinguish between normal matter and strange matter. This experiment will… remain active for ten or more years [in order] to discover the properties and capabilities of dark matter.”
Unfortunately, the 2011 fiscal year budget proposal calls for the safe retirement of the Space Shuttle Program after completion of the STS-134. The space station and its need for supplies are expected to be addressed through private enterprise launches. 

The other mission, Glory, is set to launch on November 22, 2010, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base at 2:09 A.M., and does not involve the shuttle program. Its purpose is to release a satellite that will study how the sun and airborne particles called aerosols affect Earth’s climate.  Currently, scientists do not fully understand what are known as the sun’s “total solar irradiance” (TSI) and the “atmospheric aerosol particles.” The Glory satellite contains two key scientific instruments that will improve the understanding of both concepts.

One of these instruments, the Aerosol Polarimetery Sensor (APS), will offer scientists new measurements of aerosols that can affect our climate by either absorbing or reflecting light, depending on their type. This unique instrument measures polarized light in order to make aerosol measurements and should help scientists distinguish between aerosol types, such as dust and black carbon. The other instrument, the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM), will continue to study a long-running record of the sun's brightness much more accurately than before.

Results from both instruments will be used to fine-tune global climate models and to help scientists predict how climate change will impact different regions of the planet. Glory will join a fleet of other Earth-observing satellites known as “The A-Train”.

Michael Mishchenko, Senior Scientist of the  NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Project Scientist for the Glory mission, offered a more technical description of what this means. The results of this mission, he explained, “will improve the quantification of the effect of solar variability on the Earth’s climate by continuing the uninterrupted 31-year satellite measurement record of TSI, facilitate the quantification of the aerosol direct and indirect effects on climate (and their anthropogenic components) by determining the global distribution of the optical thickness and microphysical properties of natural and anthropogenic aerosols and clouds with unprecedented accuracy, provide better aerosol representations for use in various remote-sensing retrievals, allowing improvements in aerosol assessments by other operational satellite instruments and an improved framework for the formulation of future comprehensive satellite missions for aerosol, cloud, and ocean color research.”
 
All of these missions are important. Understanding dark matter and the fundamental nature of our universe, being able to accurately understand the effects of the sun on our atmosphere and weather patterns are crucial issues for earth’s future. Hopefully, these missions will be brought to the public’s attention in a way that revitalizes our space program. 

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