Space Sciences

The Planetary Science Institute is a nonprofit science research institute focusing on the exploration of the solar system. Our scientists are distributed in 15 states, the UK, Switzerland, Russia, and Australia. We are headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, where PSI was founded in 1972. We are involved in numerous NASA missions, the study of Mars, asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, impact physics, the origin of the solar system, planet formation about other stars, dynamics, the rise of life, and other subjects.

Launched in August of 2005, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) is flying onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission. HiRISE will investigate deposits and landforms resulting from geologic and climatic processes and assist in the evaluation of candidate landing sites. By combining very high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio with a large swath width, it is possible to image on a variety of scales down to 1 meter, a scale currently afforded only in glimpses by landers. HiRISE will offer such views over any selected region of Mars, providing a bridge between orbital remote sensing and landed missions. Stereo image pairs will be acquired over the highest-priority locations with a vertical precision of better than 25 cm per pixel.

The Cassini Imaging Science System was specifically designed for exploring the Saturn system, and includes spectral filters and imaging capabilities for a multitude of scientific objectives, including capturing lightning, investigating the three dimensional cloud structure and meteorology of the Saturn and Titan atmospheres, imaging the surfaces of its many icy satellites, determining the composition and structure of its enormous ring system, and peering through the hazy Titan atmosphere down its still unexplored surface. Find the latest information about the research here, including maps, images, and science blogs.

NOAO's purpose is to provide the best ground-based astronomical telescopes to the nation's astronomers, to promote public understanding and support of science, and to help advance all aspects of US astronomy. As a national facility, NOAO telescopes are open to all astronomers regardless of institutional affiliation. The National Optical Astronomy Observatory was formed in 1982 to consolidate all AURA-managed ground-based astronomical observatories (Kitt Peak National Observatory, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and the National Solar Observatory with facilities at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico and Kitt Peak, Arizona) under a single Director. Today, the National Solar Observatory has its own director. NOAO also represents the US astronomical community in the International Gemini Project through its new NOAO Gemini Science Center.

The University of California Observatories (UCO) is a Multi-Campus Research Unit of the University of California, with headquarters at the UC Santa Cruz campus. UCO operates on behalf of the astronomers at all ten UC campuses and is comprised of extensive technical facilities, a business office, telescope and support facilities at the Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton and a staff of astronomers.

The Berkeley Cosmology Group is comprised of instrument builders, experimentalists, observers and theorists from the Departments of Physics and Astronomy at UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Lab and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. We bring together a wide array of talents and techniques to address topics ranging from cosmological probes of fundamental physics to the formation and evolution of galaxies and large scale structure.

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission is the first launch in the Discovery Program, a NASA initiative for small planetary missions, with a maximum 3-year development cycle and a cost capped at $150 million in FY 1992 dollars. The NEAR mission is managed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, MD. As the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, the NEAR mission promises to answer fundamental questions about the nature and origin of near-Earth objects, such as the numerous asteroids and comets in the vicinity of Earth's orbit. On Monday, 12 February 2001, the NEAR spacecraft touched down on asteroid Eros, after transmitting 69 close-up images of the surface during its final descent.

FUSE is a NASA-supported astrophysics mission that was launched on June 24, 1999, to explore the Universe using the technique of high-resolution spectroscopy in the far-ultraviolet spectral region. The Johns Hopkins University has the lead role in developing and now operating the mission, in collaboration with The University of Colorado at Boulder, The University of California at Berkeley, international partners the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the French Space Agency (CNES), and corporate partners. FUSE is part of NASA's Origins Program under the auspices of NASA's Office of Space Science.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute is a focus for academic participation in studies of the current state, evolution, and formation of the solar system. The Institute is housed in the Universities Space Research Association Center for Advanced Space Studies (CASS) in Houston, Texas.

The Space Environment Center (SEC) is one of the nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction and provides real-time monitoring and forecasting of solar and geophysical events, conducts research in solar-terrestrial physics, and develops techniques for forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances. The SEC Forecast Center is jointly operated by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force and is the national and world warning center for disturbances that can affect people and equipment working in the space environment.

Malin Space Science Systems designs, develops, operates, and conducts scientific research with instruments that fly on robotic spacecraft. MSSS developed, built and now operates the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor. MSSS built the cameras for the Mars Surveyor '98 Missions (Mars Climate Orbiter MARCI and Mars Polar Lander MARDI) and also built cameras for the 2001 Mars missions. We recently delievered 2 cameras for the 2005 Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, and we are responsible for the Mars Descent Imager on the 2007 Phoenix Mars lander. MSSS has also been selected to provide 3 camera systems for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory rover and a high resolution camera for the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In addition, MSSS is involved with science and/or software support for other missions (including the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity), and is funded by NASA to investigate Mars rover autonomous operations activities.

The NASA Deep Space Network - or DSN - is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. The DSN currently consists of three deep-space communications facilities placed approximately 120 degrees apart around the world: at Goldstone, in California's Mojave Desert; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia. This strategic placement permits constant observation of spacecraft as the Earth rotates, and helps to make the DSN the largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications system in the world.

The Lyot Project, involving scientists from around the United States with varied backgrounds, is an attempt to build an instrument that can remove more of the starlight from images of nearby solar systems than has ever before been possible. We intend to map regions comparable to the size of our own solar system around the nearest and brightest stars. Our work will also help to understand and break the barrier that has prevented the direct imaging of planets in orbit about other stars. We also hope to see nascent planetary systems, which may reveal precious clues about how planets and solar systems form.

The Department of Astrophysics is located in the Rose Center for Earth and Space on the grounds of the American Museum of Natural History. The newest academic research department in the Museum, the department was formed to support the astronomy education activities of the Museum and to conduct research into astronomy and astrophysics. Additionally, the department provides scientific support for the exhibits of the Rose Center and Hayden Planetarium.

If water once flowed on Mars, did it leave any clues? In 2005, aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument joins NASA's set of high-tech detectives seeking traces of past water on the Martian surface. CRISM's mission: Find the spectral fingerprints of aqueous and hydrothermal deposits and map the geology, composition and stratigraphy of surface features. The instrument will also watch the seasonal variations in Martian dust and ice aerosols, and water content in surface materials - leading to new understanding of the climate. Led by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the CRISM team includes expertise from universities, government agencies and small business in the United States and abroad.

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Supernova Program aims primarily at measuring the equation of state of Dark Energy. It is designed to precisely measure several hundred high-redshift supernovae.

Steward Observatory was officially established in 1916 through the foresight and perseverance of its first director, Andrew Ellicott Douglass, and a generous bequest made by Mrs. Lavinia Steward in memory of her late husband, Henry B. Steward. Astronomers here are among the national and international leaders in observational and theoretical research in astronomy. At the same time, they are making breakthroughs in related technology development -- from new light detectors to giant telescope mirrors -- that promise to be a catalyst for a renaissance in optical and infrared astronomy.

This GLAST Mission is part of NASA's Office of Space and Science Strategic Plan, with launch anticipated in 2006. GLAST is a next generation high-energy gamma-ray observatory designed for making observations of celestial gamma-ray sources in the energy band extending from 10 MeV to more than 100 GeV. This provides a first point of contact for the GLAST Large Area Telescope (LAT), the high-energy gamma-ray instrument on GLAST. From here it is possible to reach public information sites, project management information, and web pages of the LAT subsystems. The GLAST project is funded in the United States by NASA and the Department of Energy and by government agencies in France, Italy, Japan, and Sweden.

The NSSTC is a collaborative research and education initiative focused on selected key scientific disciplines. It consists of researchers and resources from government, academia, and industry collaborating in an environment that enables cutting edge basic and applied research and fosters education of the next generation of scientists and engineers.

LOFAR is the first telescope using an array of simple omni-directional antennas instead of mechanical signal processing with a dish antenna. The electronic signals from the antennas are digitised, transported to a central digital processor, and combined in software to emulate a conventional antenna. The cost is dominated by the cost of electronics and will follow Moore's law, becoming cheaper with time and allowing increasingly large telescopes to be built. So LOFAR is an IT-telescope. The antennas are simple enough but there are a lot of them - 25000 in the full LOFAR design. To make radio pictures of the sky with adequate sharpness, these antennas are to be arranged in clusters that are spread out over an area of ultimately 350 km in diameter. (In phase 1 that is currently funded 15000 antenna's and maximum baselines of 100 km will be built). Data transport requirements are in the range of many Tera-bits/sec and the processing power needed is tens of Tera-FLOPS.