space craft Archives | Research & Innovation

91��ɫ students place second in international 2010 University Mars Rover Challenge

fmaquito — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ has a great track record in designing instruments, satellites and other devices for space exploration. This year, 91��ɫ students compeated in the fourth annual University�� Rover Challenge, which designs and builds the next generation of Mars rovers. The teams faced off in Utah's Mars Desert Research Station. Last year, 91��ɫ won the competition. covered the 2010 showdown on June 7:

91��ɫ's 2010 Rover rolls through the desert, courtesy of popsci.com

Regardless of financial resources, the time commitment for getting to the fourth annual University Rover Challenge (URC) is significant – 91��ɫ team member Jordan Bailey says their team’s captain took a reduced course load during the spring semester in order to lead the design and construction of the rover.

“He was putting in eight-hour days regularly on the rover project – some days he would sleep in a lawn chair in the room where the rover was being built,” Bailey said. 91��ɫ’s team placed second in this year’s event and was the winner of the 2009 URC. “When you get here and see the rover actually working, it’s worth all the effort – even if you don’t take first place,” said Bailey.

The dry desert heat took a toll on several teams’ rovers. Both 91��ɫ and Iowa State University had problems with drivers overheating, which cost them both time and points in competitions.

Bailey says the idea of the URC competition is to look at problems that real rovers will face on Mars and figure out new solutions. “The hardware we use on these rovers is not space-rated – everything is basically stuff you can buy off the shelf,” he said. “But the solutions are the same, whether you use earth-based or space-based hardware. So if we figure out an innovative solution to a problem NASA is looking at, they can potentially use that – but with million-dollar space hardware instead of $1,000 equipment.”

Final results of the 2010 University Rover Challenge:

Oregon State University (315 points)

91��ɫ (209 points)

Magma Team, Poland (203 points)

Read the , including a .

The winning team wins transportation, lodging and admission for five team members to the 13th Annual International Mars Society Convention in Dayton, OH this summer, and large cash prizes.

Republished courtesy of �۹󾱱��– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Snow-discovering spacecraft finally bites the Martian dust

fmaquito — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

The Phoenix is dead and this time it won’t rise again.

On May 24, NASA released photos of the Mars Phoenix lander that finally ended even the faintest hope that the 91��ɫ-designed weather instruments on board the spacecraft would come to life again. The photos show that the lander’s solar panels appear to have collapsed due to the weight of a thick layer of frost, robbing it of power it needs to communicate – if its physical components were not already cracked and broken by the extreme cold.

Left: Members of the 91��ɫ Phoenix team nervously await the first results from Mars on May 28, 2008

Although none of the Phoenix team at 91��ɫ held out much hope for Phoenix’s survival, the news from NASA made it official. The team will be toasting both the project’s success and the lander’s demise tonight at the Space Science Symposium: Reflections on Canada’s Past and Future Achievements in Space Science, being held to honour the 50-year career of Gordon Shepherd, Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering.

“We will be celebrating the accomplishment and the fact that it’s finally over,” said 91��ɫ Professor Jim Whiteway, principal investigator for the Canadian portion of the Phoenix project, which was led by the University of Arizona and NASA.

The Phoenix touched down on the Red Planet two years ago and provided the world with the stunning revelation that it snows on Mars (see YFile, Oct. 1, 2008). But the lander, whose meteorology instruments were designed by Whiteway and his team from 91��ɫ’s Centre for Research in Earth & Space Science (CRESS) in the Faculty of Science & Engineering (FSE), was never designed to withstand a Martian winter. “We stopped hoping it would respond in March,” said Whiteway. “We never did make any plans – it wasn’t designed to survive the winter.”

NASA issued a story and photos (right) taken by the Mars Odyssey orbiter (see ), which flew over the landing site 61 times during a final attempt to communicate with the lander. No transmission from the lander was detected. Phoenix also did not communicate during 150 flights in three earlier listening campaigns this year.

Since the work of the mission ended with the onset of the Martian winter in November 2008, Whiteway and his team have published 15 papers in international journals reporting new knowledge that has changed our understanding of the climate and the hydrological cycle on Mars. These results are now informing a new generation of computer models being used to study the climate on Mars. “They are simple observations and would be quite pedestrian on earth,” Whiteway said, “but they are quite something else on a different planet.”

Alan Carswell, chair of the board at Optech, professor emeritus at 91��ɫ��and developer of��the lidar technology, said it was fitting that the Space Seminar, where he is also speaking, is being held on the very day two years ago that the 91��ɫ team received the first results from Phoenix’s MET package. It was a few days later that the instrument confirmed that it snows on Mars. “That was a pure lidar observation – without it the snow wouldn’t have been detected,” Carswell said. “The fact that it was our lidar that allowed it to be seen was really quite reassuring and satisfying.”

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��A view of one of Phoenix's solar panels after the landing on Mars

With the project reports all but complete, the 91��ɫ team��is now focusing on new proposals for missions to map asteroids and moons using the lidar technology that was a key component of the Phoenix’s MET package. These projects are being led by 91��ɫ Professor Michael Daly, a former staff member at MDA Space Missions who was the chief engineer for the Phoenix MET project and then joined FSE as a professor in January.

Phoenix’s meteorological component was a collaboration led by 91��ɫ, in partnership with the University of Alberta, Dalhousie University, the University of Aarhus (Denmark), the Finnish Meteorological Institute, MDA Space Missions and Optech Inc., with $37 million in funding from the Canadian Space Agency. The mission was a of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories and the University of Arizona.

For more information on the science results of the mission and links to more stories about Phoenix, see YFile, July 6, 2009.

By David Fuller, contributing YFile writer.

Republished courtesy of YFile.

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Video: 91��ɫ astronomer speaks to CTV about Endeavour space mission

fmaquito — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Paul Delaney, senior lecturer and astronomer in the 's Department of , appeared on CTV NewsNet last Sunday to talk about the success of the space shuttle Endeavour's mission, the remaining four flights scheduled for 's space shuttle program, and the 's ongoing role in providing laboratory space.

Delaney's interview is (the video will start automatically following a short commercial). It runs for approximately four and a half minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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91��ɫ-led scientists issue Phoenix-Mars findings

fmaquito — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Key findings of the Phoenix-Mars mission’s Canadian science team, led by 91��ɫ, have been published in the journal Science. The report, published on Friday, summarizes the scientific findings of the mission, which was conducted last summer on the planet Mars.

During the five-month mission, which concluded in November 2008, the team’s laser instrument detected snow falling from Martian clouds – a first in observations from the surface of the red planet.

"We found ice clouds and precipitation that were surprisingly Earth-like – certainly more so than expected," says Professor Jim Whiteway, the lead Canadian scientist and Canada Research Chair in Space Engineering��and Atmospheric Science in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Science & Engijneering. He is also a member of the Centre for Research in Earth & Space Science.

Left: Professor Jim Whiteway. Photo courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency

In the Science article, "Mars Water-Ice Clouds and Precipitation," Whiteway and 22 co-authors conclude that, had Phoenix operated further into winter, they would have seen evidence of precipitation accumulating into a seasonal buildup of water ice on the ground.

"Before Phoenix, we did not know whether precipitation occurred on Mars. We knew that the polar ice cap advanced as far south as the Phoenix site in winter, but we didn't know how the water vapour moved from the atmosphere to ice on the ground. Now we know that it does snow, and that this is part of the hydrological cycle on Mars," explains Whiteway.

The mission obtained measurements from the surface in the Arctic region of Mars. The spacecraft landed before the summer solstice and operated throughout the midsummer peak and decline in atmospheric water vapour, making it possible to observe the processes that contribute to the water cycle.

The team used a Canadian-designed light detection and ranging (LIDAR) instrument that emitted pulses of laser light upward into the atmosphere and detected the backscatter from dust and clouds. The laser instrumentation was part of Phoenix’s meteorological station, which gathered crucial information about the climate on Mars via temperature, wind and pressure sensors.

The LIDAR observed water-ice clouds in the atmosphere of Mars that were similar to cirrus clouds on Earth. Measurements of atmospheric dust indicated that the planetary boundary layer (PBL) on Mars was well-mixed – up to heights of approximately four kilometres – by summer daytime turbulence and convection. The water-ice clouds were detected at the top of the PBL and near the ground each night in late summer after the air temperature began decreasing.

Whiteway and his colleagues interpreted that water vapour mixed upward by daytime turbulence and convection forms ice crystal clouds at night, which then precipitate back toward the surface.

He says the publication of their findings cements a new chapter of knowledge about Mars. "It was several years of difficult work with a high risk," says Whiteway. "It’s satisfying that we achieved something special."

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

Phoenix’s meteorological component was a collaboration led by 91��ɫ, in partnership with the University of Alberta, Dalhousie University, the University of Aarhus (Denmark), the Finnish Meteorological Institute, MDA Space Missions and Optech Inc., with $37 million in funding from the Canadian Space Agency. The mission was a joint project of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories and the University of Arizona.

For more on the Phoenix-Mars mission, see YFile, Nov. 12, 2008, Aug. 15, 2008 and May 30, 2008.

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