CalTech Proposes Cubesats and Chipsat Space Probes

Last month, the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) at the California Institute of Technology released a report titled, “Small Satellites: A Revolution in Space Science,” which examines the sorts of missions types of missions that could be with rapidly evolving small satellites. The potential missions described in the report cover planetary science (moons, asteroids, etc.), astrophysics and heliophysics.

The planetary science missions include the use of mother ships that would deploy CubeSats and impactors to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa, tens of thousands of ChipSats to characterize Saturn’s rings, landing vehicles to explore asteroids, and small spacecraft that would map the moon’s interior and search for volatiles and organics.

The report says that a number of the missions are years away because new technologies for small satellites will need to be developed first. The document includes five recommendations for how NASA can go forward on developing the technologies and pursuing the missions.

NASA is already pursuing deep-space CubeSat missions, including a series that will be launched as secondary payloads in the first flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) in 2007. In May, the space agency also announced the selection of nine Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I awards to fund deep-space CubeSat technologies. NASA also has funded Draper Laboratory to develop a satellite to deploy ChipSats to explore surface of Europa.

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JPL's Contribution to the Robopocalypse: A Planet of the Apes Twist

More Evidence for a Martian Polar Ocean

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered evidence for an ancient delta on Mars where a river might once have emptied into a vast ocean.

This ocean, if it existed, could have covered much of Mars's northern hemisphere—stretching over as much as a third of the planet.

"Scientists have long hypothesized that the northern lowlands of Mars are a dried-up ocean bottom, but no one yet has found the smoking gun," says Mike Lamb, an assistant professor of geology at Caltech and a coauthor of the paper describing the results. The paper was published online in the July 12 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Although the new findings are far from proof of the existence of an ancient ocean, they provide some of the strongest support yet, says Roman DiBiase, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech and lead author of the paper.

UC, Caltech, Canada, Japan Talking to China about 30m Hawaiian Telescope

Astronomers from China and the United States may cooperate on building the world's largest telescope aimed at providing deeper insight into the very early stages of the universe, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

The Thirty-Meter-Telescope (TMT), conceived and headed by the University of California and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is expected to be completed in 2019, the official Chinese news agency said.

"It is a big undertaking and it will define the future of astronomy and astrophysics for about 60 or 70 years, so it will automatically involve a large international community," said Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau in an interview with Xinhua.

Xinhua said the university and Caltech are talking to Chinese astronomers and scientists about cooperation on funding and technology, although no final decision has been made.

Canada and Japan have signed up to the project, which needs total financing of $1 billion, it said.

The telescope, with a mirror 30 meters in diameter, will have the sharpest view possible of the universe and will pick up images of galaxies and stars forming 13 billion light years away. It will be located on top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

100 ft. BIG. No time to talk.