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Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in La Cañada Flintridge, near Pasadena, California, USA, builds and operates unmanned spacecraft for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). JPL-run projects include the Galileo Jupiter mission and the Mars rovers, including the 1997 Mars Pathfinder and the twin 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers. To date, JPL has sent unmanned missions to every planet except Pluto. In addition, JPL has also done extensive mapping missions of the Earth. JPL also manages the world-wide Deep Space Network, with facilities in California's Mojave Desert, in Spain near Madrid and in Australia near Canberra. Almost all of the 177 acre (0.7 km²) JPL campus is actually located in the city of La Cañada Flintridge, California, but the JPL main gate and several buildings are in Pasadena, so it maintains a Pasadena address (4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109). There are approximately 5,000 full-time employees, and typically a few thousand additional contractors work there on any given day. There are also some college student interns and co-op students. The lab has an open house once a year on a Saturday in May, when the public is invited to tour the facilities and see live demonstrations of JPL science and technology. More limited private tours are also available throughout the year if scheduled well in advance. Thousands of schoolchildren from around Southern California and elsewhere visit the lab every year.

History

JPL dates back to the 1930s, when Caltech professor Theodore von Kármán began running rocket propulsion experiments on the site. JPL was co-founded with rocket scientist Jack Parsons, which has led some to affectionately refer to it as the "Jack Parsons Lab." (Despite its name, JPL had not been concerned with work on turbojets or other air-breathing jet engines: Rocket engines were often called "jets" before the mid-1940s.) During World War II, the United States Army Air Corps asked JPL to analyze the V2 rockets that were developed by Nazi Germany, as well as work on other projects for the war effort. From this study, JPL developed the Corporal rocket which was used in the Korean War. This project later evolved into the Sergeant Rocket until it was discontinued in 1958. By 1958, JPL's government affiliation was transferred to the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and JPL's current mission of unmanned planetary exploration began. JPL retained its original name after the transition, even though research into jet propulsion ceased after 1958. In 1995 JPL once again got involved in propulsion design, issuing a contract to [http://www.space-rockets.com/ Wickman Spacecraft and Propulsion Company] to develop a rocket engine and jet engine that could directly burn the Martian atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

Other works

In addition to its government work, JPL has also assisted the nearby motion picture and television industries, by advising them about scientific accuracy in their productions. Science-fiction shows advised by JPL include Babylon 5 and its sequel series Crusade. The Space Flight Operations Facility and Twenty-five-foot Space Simulator are designated National Historic Landmarks.

Missions

Listed chronologically, the following significant missions were partially sponsored by JPL. See [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/ this page] for a complete list of missions.
- Explorer program
- Mariner program
- Pioneer 3 + 4
- Viking program
- Voyager program
- Magellan probe
- Galileo probe
- Deep Space 1 + 2
- Mars Global Surveyor
- Cassini-Huygens
- Stardust
- Mars Odyssey
- Mars Pathfinder
- Mars Exploration Rover Mission
- Spitzer Space Telescope

List of Directors


- Dr. Theodore von Kármán, 1938 – 1944
- Dr. Frank Malina, 1944 – 1946
- Dr. Louis Dunn, 1946 – October 1, 1954
- Dr. William H. Pickering, October 1, 1954 – March 31, 1976
- Dr. Bruce C. Murray, April 1, 1976 – June 30, 1982
- Dr. Lew Allen, Jr., July 22, 1982 – December 31, 1990
- Dr. Edward C. Stone, January 1, 1991 – April 30, 2001
- Dr. Charles Elachi, May 1, 2001 – Present

External links


- [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ JPL's official site] Category:Big Science Category:NASA facilities Category:Pasadena, California ja:ジェット推進研究所

Caltech

The California Institute of Technology (commonly known as Caltech) is a private, coeducational university located in Pasadena, California, in the United States. One of the world's premier research universities, Caltech maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering. Caltech also owns and manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an autonomous-space-flight complex that oversees the design and operation of most of NASA's space-probes.

History

Modern Caltech grew from a vocational school founded in Pasadena in 1891 by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop. The school was known successively as Throop University, Throop Polytechnic Institute, and Throop College of Technology, before acquiring its current name in 1920. Caltech and Polytechnic School were part of the same insitution till 1907. Polytechnic School is now a private college preperatory school across the street from Caltech. The driving force behind the transformation of Caltech from a school of arts and crafts to a world-class scientific center was the vision of astronomer George Ellery Hale. Hale had joined Throop's board of trustees after coming to Pasadena in 1907 as the first director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. At a time when scientific research in the United States was still in its infancy, Hale saw an opportunity to create in Pasadena an institution for serious research and education in engineering and the natural sciences. Hale succeeded in attracting private gifts of land and money that allowed him to endow the school with well-equipped, modern laboratory facilities. He then convinced two of the leading American scientists of the time, physical chemist Arthur Amos Noyes and experimental physicist Robert Andrews Millikan, to join Caltech's faculty and contribute to the project of establishing it as a center for science and technology. In 1917 Hale hired architect Bertram Goodhue to produce a master plan for the 22 acre (89,000 m²) campus. Goodhue conceived of the overall layout of the campus and designed the Physics Building, Dabney Hall, and several other structures, in which he sought to be consistent with the local climate, the character of the school, and Hale's educational philosophy. Goodhue's designs for Caltech were also influenced by the traditional Spanish mission architecture of Southern California. mission architecture Under the leadership of Hale, Noyes, and Millikan (and aided by the booming economy of Southern California), Caltech grew very significantly in prestige in the 1920s. In 1923, Millikan was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1925 the school established a department of geology and hired William Bennett Munro, then chairman of the division of History, Government, and Economics at Harvard University, to create a division of humanities and social sciences at Caltech. In 1928 a division of biology was established under the leadership of Thomas Hunt Morgan, the most distinguished biologist in the United States and a discoverer of the chromosome. In 1926 a graduate school of aeronautics was created which eventually attracted Theodore von Kármán, who later contributed to the creation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and who established Caltech as one of the foremost centers for rocket-science. In 1928 construction began on the Palomar Observatory. Millikan served as "chairman of the executive council" (effectively Caltech's president) from 1921 to 1945, and his influence was such that the Institute was occasionally referred to as "Millikan's School." In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Caltech was known as the home of arguably the two greatest theoretical particle physicists working at the time: Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Both Gell-Mann and Feynman received Nobel Prizes for their work, which was central to the establishment of the so-called "Standard Model" of particle physics. Feynman was also widely known outside the physics community as an exceptional teacher and a colorful, unconventional character. Caltech remains, to this day, a relatively small university, with approximately 900 undergraduates, 1,200 graduate students, and 915 faculty members (including professors, permanent research faculty, and postdoctoral researchers.) It is a private institution, governed by its Board of Trustees. As of 2005, Caltech claims 31 Nobel laureates to its name. This figure includes 17 alumni, 14 non-alumni professors, and 4 professors who were also alumni (Carl D. Anderson, Linus Pauling, William A. Fowler, and Edward B. Lewis). The number of awards is 32, because Pauling received the prize in both chemistry and peace. Five faculty and alumni have received a Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, while 47 have been awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science, and 10 have received the National Medal of Technology [http://www.caltech.edu/at-a-glance/]. Other distinguished researchers have been affiliated with Caltech as postdoctoral scholars (e.g., Barbara McClintock, James D. Watson, and Sheldon Glashow) or visiting professors (e.g. Albert Einstein and Edward Witten). The movie comedy Real Genius and the CBS crime drama Numb3rs are loosely based on events at Caltech. [http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~erich/real_genius_refs.html] Caltech is ranked the seventh best university in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, and is tied for this spot with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Academics

Academics at Caltech are famously hard, and the analogy of drinking water from a firehose is often applied. Life is sometimes described by the aphorism, "Work, sleep, social life: pick two," pointing to the great amount of academic work. While Caltech is most famous for its physics department, under the leadership of David Baltimore, it has strived particularly to improve its facilities in the life sciences. Caltech is also known for interdisciplinary programs such as the Computation and Neural Systems (CNS) program.

Academic departments

Caltech is divided into six divisions, each of which offer several degree programs, as well as a number of interdisciplinary programs.
- Division of Biology
- Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
  - Chemistry
  - Chemical Engineering
- Division of Engineering and Applied Science
  - Aeronautics (GALCIT)
  - Applied & Computational Mathematics
  - Applied Mechanics
  - Civil Engineering
  - Computer Science
  - Electrical Engineering
  - Materials Science
  - Mechanical Engineering
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
  - Geology
  - Geophysics
- Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
  - Humanities
    - History
    - English
    - History and Philosophy of Science
  - Social Sciences
    - Economics
    - Business Economics and Management
    - Social science
- Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy
  - Physics
  - Mathematics
  - Astronomy
- Applied Physics
- Biochemistry
- Bioengineering
- Biophysics
- Computation & Neural Systems
- Control & Dynamical Systems
- Environmental Science & Engineering
- Geobiology & Astrobiology
- Geochemistry
- Planetary science Not all of these are offered for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Undergraduate program

Caltech is on the quarter system, meaning that students have one quarter before winter break and two quarters after. Thus, the college starts relatively late, in late September, and ends in early June rather than May like most colleges. Also, Caltech is unusual in that students normally take five classes every term rather than four as at most colleges. Finally, rather than majors and minors, Caltech has "options"; a particular option may be a minor or a major, but there cannot be a minor and major in the same subject. Students are allowed to take two options, but only in different divisions. While this technically rules out double-majoring in math and physics, such a combination is considered so exceptionally hard that those who can manage it are generally given an exception. Caltech is known for a rigorous math and science core curriculum. Students are expected to take five quarters of core math, including differential equations and probability and statistics, five quarters of core physics including quantum mechanics, special relativity, and statistical physics, two quarters of chemistry, and a quarter of biology, as well as two quarters of laboratory classes. Despite the high pressure of academics, few students fail classes or fail out of the school as a whole, although the option of transfering out is a running joke. This is due to several cushions that help students survive. First of all, the first two quarters during freshman year are on a pass/fail grading scheme, easing the transition to college. During the second quarter, "shadow grades" are given, but during the first, there are no grades at all. Second, there is little competition and collaboration on homework is encouraged in almost every class. This allows even students who are not doing as well as others to learn the material and not get behind in their studies. Undergraduates at Caltech are also encouraged to participate in research. Most students do research through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program at least once during their stay, and many continue it during the school year. Students come up with SURF proposals in collaboration with professors, and usually most of the SURF grant requests are awarded.

Student life

House system

See main article: House System at Caltech During the early 20th century, a Caltech committee visited several universities and decided to transform the undergraduate housing system from regular fraternities to a House System, similar to the residential college system of Oxford and Cambridge. Four (south) houses (or hovses, so named for the inscription on the gates thereof) were built: Blacker House, Dabney House, Fleming House, and Ricketts House. In the 1960s, three north houses were built: Lloyd House, Page House, and Ruddock House. During the 1990s, an additional house, Avery House, was built to accommodate those who feel the original seven houses were not suitable for them. Some students jocularly refer to the Undergraduate Computer Science Laboratory as another house, as a few spend most of their time there. The four south houses will be closed for renovation during the 2005–2006 school year.

Traditions

2006 There are many annual traditions at Caltech, demonstrating the weird and wonderful creativity of its inhabitants. Every Halloween there is a pumpkin drop from the top of the Millikan Library, the highest point on campus, where the pumpkin (frozen in liquid nitrogen) supposedly flashes as it hits the ground, when it reaches "the terminal velocity". Then there is the annual Ditch Day, where seniors ditch school but design elaborate tasks and traps at the doors of their rooms to prevent underclassmen from entering. This has evolved to the point where many seniors spend months designing mechanical/electrical/software obstacles in order to confound the underclassmen. The faculty has been drawn into the event as well, and cancel all classes on Ditch Day so that the underclassmen can participate in what has become a highlight of the year. Another tradition is the playing of the Ride of the Valkyries at 7 AM the morning of finals week with the largest speakers available. The playing of that piece is not allowed at any other time, and any offender is dragged off into the showers to be drenched in cold water fully dressed. The playing of the Ride is such a strong tradition that the music was used during Apollo 17 to awaken Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, the only astronaut-scientist to explore the moon.

Pranks

Harrison Schmitt Caltech students have been known for the many pranks (also known as RF's, short for Real Fun) they have pulled off in the area. The two most famous are the changing of the Hollywood sign to read Caltech, by judiciously covering up certain parts of the letters, and the changing of the Rose Bowl scoreboard to an imaginary game where Caltech soundly trounced MIT. During the 1961 Rose Bowl Game, Caltech students altered the flip-cards that were raised by the stadium attendees to display "Caltech". Recently, a group of Caltech students, during the admitted students program at MIT in 2005, pulled a [http://www.caltechvsmit.com/ string of pranks], including covering up the word Massachusetts in the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" engraving on the main building façade with a banner so that it read "That Other Institute of Technology". A group of MIT hackers retaliated by altering the banner so that the inscription read "The Only Institute of Technology".

Honor Code

Life in the Caltech community is governed by the Honor Code, which states simply: "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community." This is enforced by a Board of Control, which consists of undergraduate students[http://donut.caltech.edu/about/boc/ug_handbook.php], and by a similar body at the graduate level, called the Graduate Review Board [http://www.its.caltech.edu/~grb/]. The Honor Code, and the atmosphere of respect and trust that it promotes, allows Caltech students to enjoy privileges that make for a more relaxed atmosphere. For example, the Honor Code allows the professors to trust students sufficiently to give them take-home tests. Almost all Caltech tests are take-home, allowing students to take them on their own schedule and in their preferred environment.

Notable alumni


- Carl D. Anderson, BS 1927, PhD 1930 - Nobel laureate in physics (1936)
- Moshe Arens, MS 1953 - former Israeli defense minister and foreign minister
- Arnold Beckman, PhD 1928 - Founder of Beckman Instruments and financier of the first "silicon" company in Silicon Valley, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory.
- Sabeer Bhatia, BS 1991 - Co-founder of Hotmail
- David Brin, BS 1973 - science fiction author
- Frank Capra, BS 1918 - Filmmaker, director of such classics as It's a Wonderful Life
- Chester Carlson, BS 1930 - Inventor of the photocopier, the foundation of Xerox
- Chung-Yao Chao, PhD 1930 - The first scientist that captured positron through electron-positron annihilation. Father of atomic energy enterprise of China.
- Sidney Coleman, PhD 1962 - theoretical physicist
- Fernando J. Corbató, BS 1950 - Computer scientist, recipient of the 1990 Turing Award
- William A. Fowler, PhD 1936 - Nobel laureate in physics (1983)
- Yuan-Cheng Fung, PhD 1948 - Founder of Biomechanics
- Donald A. Glaser, PhD 1950 - Nobel laureate in physics (1960)
- Juris Hartmanis, PhD 1955 - Computer scientist, recipient of the 1993 Turing Award
- Leland H. Hartwell, BS 1961 - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (2001)
- N. Katherine Hayles, MS 1966- critical theorist
- Steingrímur Hermannsson, MS 1952 - former Prime Minister of Iceland
- David Ho, BS 1974 - AIDS researcher
- Tsien Hsue-shen, PhD 1939 - Father of China's rocket program
- Herman Kahn, graduate studies - Nuclear strategist
- Donald Knuth, PhD 1963 - Computer scientist, creator of TeX typesetting language, and author of The Art of Computer Programming, recipient of the 1974 Turing Award
- Edward B. Lewis, PhD 1942 - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1995)
- York Liao, BS 1967 - inventor of liquid crystal displays
- Alan Lightman, PhD 1974 - physicist and novelist
- William Lipscomb, PhD 1946 - Nobel laureate in chemistry (1976)
- Sandra Tsing Loh, BS 1983 - writer, performer, musician, humorist
- Paul MacCready, MS 1948, PhD 1952 - Father of Human Powered Flight, invented the Gossamer Condor and the Gossamer Albatross
- Benoît Mandelbrot, Eng 1949 - Pioneer of fractal geometry
- John McCarthy, BS 1948 - Computer scientist, inventor of the Lisp programming language and recipient of the 1971 Turing Award
- Edwin Mattison McMillan, BS 1928, MS 1929 - Nobel laureate in chemistry (1951)
- Robert C. Merton, MS 1967 - Nobel laureate in economics (1997)
- Mark M. Mills, PhD 1948 - nuclear physicist.
- Cleve Moler, BS 1961 - Inventor of MATLAB, co-founder of The MathWorks, influential in the field of numerical analysis
- Gordon E. Moore, PhD 1954 - co-founder of Intel Corp. and author of Moore's law
- Andrew Odlyzko, BS, MS 1971 - mathematician, demonstrated the Montgomery-Odlyzko Law
- Frank Oppenheimer, PhD 1939 - Manhattan Project physicist, founder of the Exploratorium
- Douglas D. Osheroff, BS 1967 - Nobel laureate in physics (1996)
- Linus Pauling, PhD 1925 - Nobel laureate in chemistry (1954) and peace (1962)
- William Luther Pierce, graduate studies - Neo-Nazi activist, founder of the white supremacist National Alliance, author of The Turner Diaries
- Kenneth Pitzer, BS 1935 - winner of the National Medal of Science, third president of Rice University, sixth president of Stanford University, Director of Research for Atomic Energy Commission (1949-1951)
- John M. Poindexter, PhD 1964 - Director of DARPA Information Awareness Office, National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan
- Leo James Rainwater, BS 1939 - Nobel laureate in physics (1975)
- Simon Ramo, PhD 1936 - co-founder of TRW and developed ICBMs
- Benjamin Rosen, BS 1954 - co-founder of Compaq
- Harrison Schmitt, BS 1957 - astronaut and US Senator, the only geologist to have ever walked on the moon
- William Shockley, BS 1932 - Nobel laureate in physics (1956)
- Edward Simmons, BS 1934, MS 1936 - inventor of the strain gauge
- Vernon L. Smith, BS 1949 - Nobel laureate in economics (2002)
- Robert Tarjan, BS 1969 - Computer scientist, recipient of the 1986 Turing Award
- Howard M. Temin, PhD 1960 - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1975)
- Charles H. Townes, PhD 1939 - Nobel laureate in physics (1964)
- Harry Turtledove, undergraduate studies - historian and fiction writer
- Kenneth G. Wilson, PhD 1961 - Nobel laureate in physics (1982)
- Robert W. Wilson, PhD 1962 - Nobel laureate in physics (1978)
- Stephen Wolfram, PhD 1979 - Creator of Mathematica

Notable faculty


- Carl D. Anderson - Nobel laureate in physics (1936)
- Don L. Anderson - Crafoord laureate in geosciences (1998)
- Michael Aschbacher - winner of the Cole Prize in Algebra (1980)
- Robert Bacher - nuclear physicist and member of the Manhattan Project
- David Baltimore - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1975), President of Caltech (departing)
- Jacqueline K. Barton - Bioinorganic chemist and MacArthur Fellow (1991)
- George Wells Beadle - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1958)
- Seymour Benzer - Crafoord laureate in biosciences (1993)
- Pamela J. Björkman - pioneering structural and cell biologist
- Colin F. Camerer - economist
- Max Delbrück - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1969)
- Renato Dulbecco - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1975)
- Richard Feynman - Nobel laureate in physics (1965)
- Murray Gell-Mann - Nobel laureate in physics (1969) and co-founder of Santa Fe Institute
- William Goddard, III - theoretical chemist, notable proponent of blue chalk
- David Goodstein - director of The Mechanical Universe, Vice-Provost of Caltech
- Harry B. Gray - Inorganic chemist, winner of National Medal of Science (1986), and founding director of the Beckman Institute
- Robert H. Grubbs - Nobel laureate in chemistry (2005)
- George Ellery Hale - astronomer
- Theodore von Kármán - expert in aeronautics and rocket-scientist
- Christof Koch - biologist
- Rudolph Marcus - Nobel laureate in chemistry (1992)
- Carver Mead - computer scientist
- Robert A. Millikan - Nobel laureate in physics (1923)
- Thomas Hunt Morgan - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1933)
- Rudolf Mössbauer - Nobel laureate in physics (1961)
- Arthur A. Noyes - chemist
- James Olds - neuroscientist
- Robert Oppenheimer - physicist
- Clair Cameron Patterson - determined the age of the Earth, exposed lead pollution
- Linus Pauling - Nobel laureate in chemistry (1954), laureate in peace (1962)
- Charles Plott - economist
- H. David Politzer - Nobel laureate in physics (2004)
- John Preskill - physicist
- Charles Francis Richter - creator of the Richter scale
- Herbert J. Ryser - mathematician, leading figure in Combinatorics
- Maarten Schmidt - discovered quasars
- John Schwarz - physicist
- Barry Simon - mathematical physicist
- Roger W. Sperry - Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine (1981)
- Charles C. Steidel - MacArthur Fellow (2002)
- Kip Thorne - physicist
- Richard C. Tolman - mathematical physicist
- Gerald J. Wasserburg - Crafoord laureate in geochemistry (1986)
- Mark B. Wise - physicist
- Ahmed H. Zewail - Nobel laureate in chemistry (1999)
- Fritz Zwicky - astronomer, produced the first evidence of dark matter

External links


- [http://www.caltech.edu/ Official site]
- [http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/goodstein/ History of Caltech] (at the official Nobel Prize website)
- [http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu Undergraduate Computer Science Laboratory]
- [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/caltech_nobel/ Caltech Nobel Laureate Biographies]
- [http://www.cripplingdepression.com/ Crippling Depression] — a satirical comic strip serialized in California Tech, the Caltech student newspaper
- [http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/pranks/rosebowl.html The Great Rose Bowl Hoax]
- [http://donut.caltech.edu/about/boc/ug_handbook.php Honor Code]
- Ditch Days: [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/ditchday/2000/ 2000], [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/ditchday/2001/ 2001], [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/ditchday/2002/ 2002], [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/ditchday/2003/ 2003], [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/ditchday/2004/ 2004], [http://pr.caltech.edu/events/ditchday/2005/ 2005]
- [http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~erich/real_genius_refs.html List of references to Caltech in the film Real Genius] Category:Los Angeles area colleges and universities Category:Universities and colleges in California Category:Association of American Universities
- Category:Pasadena, California ko:캘리포니아 공과대학교 ja:カリフォルニア工科大学

La Cañada Flintridge, California

La Cañada Flintridge is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 20,318. La Cañada is pronounced La Kinyada, rather than La Canada like the country, because it retains the Spanish language ñ.

Geography

La Cañada Flintridge is located at 34°12'22" North, 118°11'58" West (34.206047, -118.199499). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 22.4 km² (8.6 mi²). 22.4 km² (8.6 mi²) of it is land and none of it is covered by water. La Cañada Flintridge is situated in the eastern end of the Crescenta Valley. It is nestled between the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and the San Rafael Hills, below the Angeles National Forest. La Cañada is home to Descanso Gardens and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

History

During the Spanish era, the area was known as Rancho La Cañada, or the Ranch of the Gorge. The area used to be two unincorporated communities (La Cañada and Flintridge) until they incorporated in 1976, out of the unincorporated Los Angeles County land. The city name specifically does not have a hyphen in it, to illustrate unity between the communities that were once separately known as La Cañada and Flintridge.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 20,318 people, 6,823 households, and 5,690 families residing in the city. The population density is 906.9/km² (2,348.9/mi²). There are 6,989 housing units at an average density of 312.0/km² (808.0/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 74.53% White, 0.36% Black or African American, 0.18% Native American, 20.57% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 1.01% from other races, and 3.31% from two or more races. 4.80% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 6,823 households out of which 44.1% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 73.7% are married couples living together, 7.3% have a female householder with no husband present, and 16.6% are non-families. 14.4% of all households are made up of individuals and 8.0% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.95 and the average family size is 3.27. In the city the population is spread out with 29.8% under the age of 18, 5.1% from 18 to 24, 20.9% from 25 to 44, 30.2% from 45 to 64, and 14.0% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 42 years. For every 100 females there are 93.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 90.5 males. The median income for a household in the city is $109,989, and the median income for a family is $122,779. Males have a median income of $92,760 versus $57,321 for females. The per capita income for the city is $52,838. 4.3% of the population and 3.6% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 4.8% of those under the age of 18 and 5.1% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Education

The La Cañada Unified School District serves the city. The elementary schools serve grades K-6. The public high school, La Cañada High School, which also serves as a middle school (grades 7-8), is a blue-ribbon public high school. There are also several private schools in the city (Flintridge Preparatory School, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, and St. Francis High School).

Community Organizations

La Cañada has several clubs and social organizations:
- La Cañada Thursday Club
- La Cañada Flintridge Coordinating Council
- Stardusters Dance Club
- [http://www.alflintridge.org/ Assistance League of Flintridge]
- Cañada Auxiliary of Professionals of Assistance League of Flintridge
- Crescenta-Cañada Lions Club
- Delta Kappa Gamma, Alpha Upsilon Chapter
- Flintridge Guild of Children’s Hospital Friends of La Cañada Flintridge Library
- Girl Scout Assoc. Of La Cañada
- Glendale Community Foundation
- [http://www.lcfkiwanisam.org/kiwanis.htm Kiwanis Club of La Cañada]
- [http://www.lacanadaflintridge.com La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce and Community Assn]
- La Cañada Flintridge Educational Foundation La Cañada Flintridge Orthopaedic Guild
- La Canada Flintridge Tournament of Roses
- La Cañada Flintridge Trails Council
- La Cañada Flintridge Women's Club
- La Cañada High School Friends of Drama
- La Cañada High School Music Parents Association
- La Cañada Junior Women's Club
- La Cañada Newcomers Club
- La Cañada Thursday Club
- La Cañada Valley Beautiful
- La Crescenta Valley Republican Women Federation
- [http://www.lacanadaflintridge.com/comm/directory/lanterman_house.htm Lanterman Historical Museum Foundation]
- Leisure Club of La Cañada Flintridge
- Lions Club Foundation
- Los Altos Auxiliary of the Sycamores
- Roger Barkley Community Foundation
- Rotary Club of La Cañada Flintridge
- Community Scholarship Foundation of La Cañada Flintridge
- Special Children's League
- St. Bede's Parish Council of Women
- St. Bede's Church Skidettes
- Verdugo Hills Hospital Volunteers
- Wellness Community - Foothills
- Women's Council of Verdugo Hills Hospital & Foundation
- Towne Singers

External link


- [http://www.lacanadaflintridge.com/ Official city website] Category:Cities in Los Angeles County

NASA

] The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which was established in 1958, is the agency responsible for the public space program of the United States of America. It is also responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research.

Vision and mission

NASA's vision is "to improve life here, extend life to there, and to find life beyond." Its mission is "to understand and protect our home planet; to explore the Universe and search for life; and to inspire the next generation of explorers."

History

Space Race

:For additional background, please see the Space Race article Space Race launch of Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury 3 capsule Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard Jr. on the United States' first human flight into sub-orbital space. (Atlas rockets were used to launch Mercury's orbital missions.)]] Following the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first man-made satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to U.S. security and technological leadership, urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. Several months of debate produced agreement that a new federal agency was needed to conduct all nonmilitary activity in space. On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some 8,000 employees of the government's 46-year-old research agency for aeronautics, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), though the probably most important contribution actually had its roots in the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who is today regarded as the father of the United States space program. NASA's early programs were research into human spaceflight, and were conducted under the pressure of the competition between the USA and the USSR (the Space Race) that existed during the Cold War. The Mercury program, initiated in 1958, started NASA down the path of human space exploration with missions designed to discover simply if man could survive in space. Representatives from the U.S. Army (M.L. Raines, LTC, USA), Navy (P.L. Havenstein, CDR, USN) and Air Force (K.G. Lindell, COL, USAF) were selected/requested to provide assistance to the NASA Space Task Group through coordination with the existing U.S. military research and defense contracting infrastructure, and technical assistance resulting from experimental aircraft (and the associated military test pilot pool) development in the 1950s. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962 during the 5-hour flight of Friendship 7. Once the Mercury project proved that human spaceflight was possible, project Gemini was launched to conduct experiments and work out issues relating to a moon mission. The first Gemini flight with astronauts on board, Gemini III, was flown by Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John W. Young on March 23, 1965. Nine other missions followed, showing that long-duration human space flight was possible, proving that rendezvous and docking with another vehicle in space was possible, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on humans.

Apollo program

Following the success of the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Apollo program was launched to try to do interesting work in space and possibly put men around (but not on) the Moon. The direction of the Apollo program was radically altered following President John F. Kennedy's announcement on May 25, 1961 that the United States should commit itself to "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by 1970. Thus Apollo became a program to land men on the Moon. The Gemini program was started shortly thereafter to provide an interim spacecraft to prove techniques needed for the now much more complicated Apollo missions. Gemini program.]] After eight years of preliminary missions, including NASA's first loss of astronauts with the Apollo 1 launch pad fire, and the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon (Apollo 8) at the end of 1968, the Apollo program achieved its goals with Apollo 11 which landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon's surface on July 20, 1969 and returned them to Earth safely on July 24. Armstrong's first words upon stepping out of the Eagle lander captured the momentousness of the occasion: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Twelve men would set foot on the Moon by the end of the Apollo program in December 1972. NASA had won the moon race, and in some senses this left it without direction, or at the very least without the public attention and interest that was necessary to guarantee large budgets from Congress. After President Lyndon Johnson left office, NASA lost its main political supporter, and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was moved to a position lobbying in Washington. Plans for ambitious follow-on projects to construct a space station, establish a lunar base and launch a human mission to Mars by 1990 were proposed but with the end to procurement of Saturn and Apollo hardware, there was no capability to support these. The near-disaster of Apollo 13, where an oxygen tank explosion nearly doomed all three astronauts, helped to recapture national attention and concern. Although missions up to Apollo 20 were planned, Apollo 17 was the last mission to fly under the Apollo banner. The program ended because of budget cuts (in part due to the Vietnam War) and the desire to develop a reusable space vehicle.

Other early missions

Although the vast majority of NASA's budget has been spent on human spaceflight, there have been many robotic missions instigated by the space agency. In 1962 the Mariner 2 mission was launched and became the first spacecraft to make a flyby of another planet – in this case Venus. The Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter missions were essential to assessing lunar conditions before attempting Apollo landings with humans on board. Later, the two Viking probes landed on the surface of Mars and sent color images back to Earth, but perhaps more impressive were the Pioneer and particularly Voyager missions that visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune sending back scientific information and color images. Having lost the moon race, the Soviet Union had, along with the USA, changed its approach. On July 17, 1975 an Apollo craft (finding a new use after the cancelling of planned lunar flights) was docked to the Soviet Soyuz 19 spacecraft, in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Although the Cold War would last many more years, this was a critical point in NASA's history and much of the international co-operation in space exploration that exists today has its genesis with this mission. America's first space station, Skylab, occupied NASA from the end of Apollo until the late 1970s.

Shuttle era

Skylab 1981 ]] The space shuttle became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Planned to be a frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicle, four space shuttles were built by 1985. The first to launch, Columbia did so on April 12, 1981. The shuttle was not all good news for NASA – flights were much more expensive than initially projected, and even after the 1986 Challenger disaster highlighted the risks of space flight, the public again lost interest as missions appeared to become mundane. Work began on Space Station Freedom as a focus for the manned space programme but within NASA there was argument that these projects came at the expense of more inspiring unmanned missions such as the Voyager probes. The Challenger disaster aside the late 1980s marked a low point for NASA. Nonetheless, the shuttle has been used to launch milestone projects like the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST was created with a relatively small budget of $2 billion but has continued operation since 1990 and has delighted both scientists and the public. Some of the images it has returned have become near-legendary, such as the groundbreaking Hubble Deep Field images. The HST is a joint project between ESA and NASA, and its success has paved the way for greater collaboration between the agencies. In 1995 Russian-American interaction would again be achieved as the Shuttle-Mir missions began, and once more a Russian craft (this time a full-fledged space station) docked with an American vehicle. This cooperation continues to the present day, with Russia and America the two biggest partners in the largest space station ever built – the International Space Station (ISS). The strength of their cooperation on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS following the 2003 Columbia disaster, which grounded the shuttle fleet for well over two years. Costing over one hundred billion dollars, it has been difficult at times for NASA to justify the ISS. The population at large have historically been hard to impress with details of scientific experiments in space, preferring news of grand projects to exotic locations. Even now, the ISS cannot accommodate as many scientists as planned. During much of the 1990s, NASA was faced with shrinking annual budgets due to Congressional belt-tightening in Washington, DC. In response, NASA's ninth administrator, Daniel S. Goldin, pioneered the "faster, better, cheaper" approach that enabled NASA to cut costs while still delivering a wide variety of aerospace programs (Discovery Program). That method was criticized and re-evaluated following the twin losses of Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander in 1999.

NASA's future

Mars Polar Lander and the planned crew and heavy lift launch vehicles]] NASA's most publicly-inspiring mission of recent years has probably been the Mars Pathfinder mission of 1997. Newspapers around the world carried images of the lander dispatching its own rover, Sojourner, to explore the surface of Mars in a way never done before at any extra-terrestrial location. Less publicly acclaimed but performing science from 1997 to date (2005) has been the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Since 2001, the orbiting Mars Odyssey has been searching for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity on the red planet. NASA expects to continue exploring the Red Planet with more spacecraft such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will reach Mars in 2006. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, which killed the crew of six American and one Israeli astronaut, and caused a 29-month hiatus in space shuttle flights, triggered a serious re-examination of NASA's priorities. The U.S. government, various scientists, and the public all considered the future of the space program. On January 14, 2004, ten days after the landing of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, President George W. Bush announced a new plan for NASA's future, dubbed the Vision for Space Exploration. According to this plan, humankind will return to the moon by 2020, and set up outposts as a testbed and potential resource for future missions. The space shuttle will be retired in 2010 and the Crew Exploration Vehicle will replace it by 2014, capable of both docking with the ISS and leaving the Earth's orbit. The future of the ISS is somewhat uncertain – construction will be completed, but beyond that is less clear. Although the plan initially met with skepticism from Congress, in late 2004 Congress agreed to provide start-up funds for the first year's worth of the new space vision. Hoping to spur innovation from the private sector, NASA established a series of Centennial Challenges, technology prizes for non-government teams, in 2004. The Challenges include tasks that will be useful for implementing the Vision for Space Exploration, such as building more efficient astronaut gloves.

Criticisms

Some commentators, such as Mark Wade, note that NASA has suffered from a 'stop-start' approach to its human spaceflight programs. The Apollo spacecraft and Saturn family of launch vehicles were abandoned in 1970 after billions of dollars had been spent on their development. In 2004 the U.S. Government proposed eventually replacing the Shuttle with a Crew Exploration Vehicle that would allow the agency to again send astronauts to the Moon. Despite the reduction of its budget following project Apollo, NASA has maintained a top-heavy bureaucracy resulting in inflated costs and compromised hardware. Crew Exploration Vehicle on October 31, 1998.]] Currently, the ISS relies on the Shuttle fleet for all major construction shipments. The Shuttle fleet has lost two spacecraft and fourteen astronauts in two disasters in 1986 and 2003. While the 1986 loss was made up with a Shuttle built from replacement parts, NASA does not plan to build another shuttle to replace the second loss. (But see also CEV.) The ISS, which was intended to have a crew of seven as of 2005, now has a skeleton crew of two, causing many intended research projects to be delayed. Other nations that have invested heavily in the space station's construction, such as the members of the European Space Agency, are fearful that the ISS's fate will soon match the fate of Skylab. As of 2005, however, all of the European and Japanese contributions to the ISS are years behind development schedule themselves.

NASA spaceflight missions

Human spaceflight


- Mercury program
- Gemini program
- Apollo program
- Skylab
- Space Shuttle
- International Space Station (working together with ESA, Rosviakosmos and JAXA)
- Project Constellation

Robotic space missions


- Earth Observing
  - Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite
  - TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics)
- Lunar missions
  - Ranger
  - Surveyor
  - Lunar Orbiter
  - Clementine
  - Lunar Prospector
- Mercury missions
  - Mariner 10
  - MESSENGER
- Venus missions
  - Mariner 2, 5 and 10
  - Pioneer Venus
  - Magellan
- Mars missions
  - Mariner 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9
  - Viking 1 and 2
  - Mars Observer
  - Mars Pathfinder
  - Mars Climate Orbiter
  - Mars Polar Lander
  - Mars Global Surveyor
  - 2001 Mars Odyssey
  - Mars Exploration Rovers
  - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
  - Phoenix Lander (Planned for 2007)
  - Mars Science Laboratory (Planned for 2009)
- Jupiter missions
  - Pioneer 10
  - Galileo
  - Juno
- Saturn missions
  - Cassini-Huygens together with ESA
- Multi-planet missions
  - Pioneer 11 – Jupiter and Saturn
  - Mariner 10 – Venus and Mercury
  - Voyager 1 – Jupiter and Saturn
  - Voyager 2 – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
  - New Horizons (Planned for 2006) – Jupiter, Pluto and Kuiper Belt
- Asteroidal/cometary missions
  - NEAR Shoemaker
  - Deep Space 1
  - Stardust
  - Deep Impact
  - Dawn (Planned for 2006)
- Proposed or canceled planetary-asteroid missions
  - JIMO (cancelled)
  - CRAF (cancelled)
  - NetLanders (cancelled)
  - Pluto Kuiper Express (cancelled; New Horizons is replacement)
  - Titan Explorer (proposed)
  - Neptune Orbiter (proposed)
- Sun observing missions
  - SOHO – ESA partnership
  - Ulysses – ESA partnership
- Great Observatories for Space Astrophysics
  - Hubble Space Telescope – ESA partnership
  - Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
  - Chandra X-ray Observatory
  - Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, SIRTF)
- Other observatories
  - COBE
  - FUSE
  - Infrared Astronomical Satellite
  - James Webb Space Telescope – ESA partnership
  - WMAP

List of NASA administrators

# T. Keith Glennan (1958–1961) # James E. Webb (1961–1968) # Thomas O. Paine (1969–1970) # James C. Fletcher (1971–1977) # Robert A. Frosch (1977–1981) # James M. Beggs (1981–1985) # James C. Fletcher (1986–1989) # Richard H. Truly (1989–1992) # Daniel S. Goldin (1992–2001) # Sean O'Keefe (2001–2005) # Michael Griffin (2005–)

Field installations

In addition to headquarters in Washington, D.C., NASA has field installations at:
- Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
- Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
- John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, Ohio
- Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
  - Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York
  - Independent Verification and Validation Facility, Fairmont, West Virginia
  - Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, near Pasadena, California
  - Deep Space Network stations:
    - Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, Barstow, California
    - Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, Madrid, Spain
    - Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
- Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
  - White Sands Test Facility, Las Cruces, New Mexico
- John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida
- Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
- George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
  - Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, Louisiana
- John C. Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

Awards and decorations

NASA presently bestows a number of medals and decorations to astronauts and other NASA personnel. Some awards are authorized for wear on active duty military uniforms. Current NASA awards are as follows:
- Congressional Space Medal of Honor
- NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal
- NASA Distinguished Service Medal
- NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal
- NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Administrative Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Bravery Medal
- NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Service Medal
- NASA Exceptional Technological Achievement Medal
- NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal
- NASA Public Service Medal
- NASA Space Flight Medal

Related legislation


- 1958 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration PL 85-568 (passed on July 29)
- 1961 – Apollo mission funding PL 87-98 A
- 1970 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research and Development Act PL 91-119
- 1984 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 98-361
- 1988 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 100-685
- NASA Budget 1958–2005 in 1996 Constant Year Dollars

See also


- List of aerospace engineering topics
- Astronaut
- Small Aircraft Transportation System
- Space Shuttle
- Space exploration
- Space race
- Robert Gilruth, Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz (flight directors)
- KC-135 Reduced Gravity Aircraft
- Shirley Thomas
- Stewart Brand
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Vision for Space Exploration
- Asteroid 11365 NASA is named after the organization.

Other space agencies


- Canadian Space Agency
- CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales)
- China National Space Administration
- European Space Agency
- Italian Space Agency
- Indian Space Research Organisation
- Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
- National Space Agency of Ukraine
- Russian Federal Space Agency
- Soviet space program (historical)

External links

General


- [http://www.nasa.gov NASA Home Page]
- [http://www.nasawatch.com NASA Watch]
-

Further research


- [http://history.nasa.gov/series95.html NASA History Series Publications]
- [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/cover.html NASA Historical Data Books (SP-4012)]
- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/hhrhist.pdf Research in NASA History: A Guide to the NASA History Program (large PDF – over 1,012 kb)]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/ NTRS: NASA Technical Reports Server]
- [http://www.eventscope.org Eventscope] Category:Independent Agencies of the United States Government ko:미국항공우주국 ja:アメリカ航空宇宙局 simple:NASA th:องค์การนาซา

Galileo probe

mission]] Galileo was an unmanned spacecraft sent by NASA to study the planet Jupiter and its moons. Named after the astronomer and Renaissance man Galileo Galilei, it was launched on October 18, 1989 by the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-34 mission. It arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, a little more than six years later, via Venus. The Galileo spacecraft conducted the first asteroid flyby, discovered the first asteroid moon, was the first spacecraft to maintain permanent orbit around Jupiter and launched the first probe into Jupiter's atmosphere. On September 21, 2003, after 14 years in space and 8 years of service in the Jovian system, Galileos mission was terminated by sending the orbiter into Jupiter's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 50 kilometres per second to avoid any chance of it contaminating local moons with bacteria from Earth. Of particular concern was the ice-crusted moon Europa, which, thanks to Galileo, scientists now suspect harbors a salt water ocean beneath its surface.

Mission overview

Galileos launch had been significantly delayed by the hiatus in Space Shuttle launches that occurred after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. New safety protocols introduced as a result of the Challenger accident forced Galileo to use a lower-powered upper stage booster rocket, instead of a Centaur booster rocket, to send it from Earth orbit to Jupiter; several gravitational slingshots (once by Venus and twice by Earth), commonly called a "VEEGA" or Venus Earth Earth Gravity Assist maneuver, provided the additional velocity required to reach its destination. Along the way Galileo performed close observation of the asteroids 951 Gaspra (October 29, 1991) and 243 Ida, and discovered Ida's moon Dactyl. In 1994 Galileo was perfectly positioned to watch the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crash into Jupiter. Terrestrial telescopes had to wait to see the impact sites as they rotated into view. Galileos prime mission was a two-year study of the Jovian system. The spacecraft traveled around Jupiter in elongated ellipses, each orbit lasting about two months. The differing distances from Jupiter afforded by these orbits allowed Galileo to sample different parts of the planet's extensive magnetosphere. The orbits were designed for close up flybys of Jupiter's largest moons. Once Galileos prime mission was concluded, an extended mission followed starting on December 7, 1997; the spacecraft made a number of daring close flybys of Jupiter's moons Europa and Io. The closest approach was 180 km (112 mi) on October 15, 2001. The radiation environment near Io in particular was very unhealthy for Galileos systems, and so these flybys were saved for the extended mission when loss of the spacecraft would be more acceptable. Galileos cameras were deactivated on January 17, 2002 after they had sustained irrecoverable radiation damage. NASA engineers were able to recover the damaged tape recorder electronics, and once more Galileo continued to return other scientific data until it was deorbited in 2003 as described above, performing one last scientific experiment—a measurement of Amalthea's mass as Galileo swung by.

The Galileo spacecraft

Amalthea The Jet Propulsion Laboratory built the Galileo spacecraft and managed the Galileo mission for NASA. Germany supplied the propulsion module. NASA's Ames Research Center managed the probe, which was built by Hughes Aircraft Company. At launch, the orbiter and probe together had a mass of 2,564 kilograms (5,653 pounds) and was seven metres tall. One section of the spacecraft rotated at 3 rpm, keeping Galileo stable and holding six instruments that gathered data from many different directions, including the fields and particles instruments. The other section of the spacecraft held steady for cameras and the four instruments that had to point accurately while Galileo was flying through space. This was the job of the attitude control system (see below). In addition to computer programs which directly operated the spacecraft and were periodically transmitted to it, back on the ground the mission operations team used software containing 650,000 lines of programming code in the orbit sequence design process; 1,615,000 lines in the telemetry interpretation; and 550,000 lines of code in navigation. The spacecraft was controlled by a RCA 1802 Cosmac microprocessor CPU, clocked at about 1.6 MHz, and fabricated on sapphire (Silicon on Sapphire) which is a radiation-and static-hardened material ideal for spacecraft operation. This microprocessor was the first low-power CMOS processor chip, quite on a par with the 8-bit 6502 that was being built into the Apple II desktop computer at that time. Galileos attitude control system software was written in the HAL/S programming language, also used in the Space Shuttle program. The 1802 CPU had previously been used onboard the Voyager and Viking spacecraft.

Propulsion

The Propulsion Subsystem consisted of a 400 N main engine and twelve 10 N thrusters together with propellant, storage and pressurizing tanks, and associated plumbing. The fuel for the system was 925 kg of monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. Two separate tanks held another 7 kg of helium pressurant. The Propulsion Subsystem was developed and built by Daimler Benz Aero Space AG (DASA) (formerly Messerschmitt–Bolkow–Blohm) and provided by Germany, the major international partner in Project Galileo [http://www.resa.net/nasa/engineer.htm].

Galileo's power

Solar panels were not a practical solution for Galileos power needs at Jupiter's distance from the Sun (it would have needed a minimum of 65 square metres (700 ft²) of solar panels); as for batteries, they would have been prohibitively massive. The solution adopted consisted of two radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). The RTGs powered the spacecraft through the radioactive decay of plutonium-238. The heat emitted by this decay was converted into electricity for the spacecraft through the solid-state Seebeck effect. This provided a reliable and long-lasting source of electricity unaffected by the cold space environment and high radiation fields such as those encountered in Jupiter's magnetosphere. Each RTG, mounted on a 5-metre long boom, carried 7.8 kilograms (17.2 lb) of 238Pu [http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldmess/RTG.html]. Each RTG contained 18 separate heat source modules, and each module encased four pellets of plutonium dioxide, a ceramic material resistant to fracturing. The modules were designed to survive a range of hypothetical accidents: launch vehicle explosion or fire, re-entry into the atmosphere followed by land or water impact, and post-impact situations. An outer covering of graphite provided protection against the structural, thermal, and eroding environments of a potential re-entry. Additional graphite components provided impact protection, while iridium cladding of the fuel cells provided post-impact containment. The RTGs produced about 570 watts at launch. The power output initially decreased at the rate of 0.6 watts per month and was 493 watts when Galileo arrived at Jupiter. As the launch of Galileo neared, anti-nuclear groups, concerned over what they perceived as an unacceptable risk to the public safety from Galileo's RTGs, sought a court injunction prohibiting Galileo's launch. In fact, RTGs had been safely used for years before in planetary exploration. The Lincoln Experimental Satellites 8/9, launched by the U.S. Department of Defense, had 7% more plutonium on board than Galileo, and the two Voyager spacecraft each carried 80% as much plutonium as Galileo did. After the Challenger accident, a study considered additional shielding and eventually rejected it, in part because such a design significantly increased the overall risk of mission failure and only shifted the other risks around (for example, if a failure on orbit had occurred, additional shielding would have significantly increased the consequences of a ground impact) [http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldmess/RTG.html].

Instrumentation overview

Scientific instruments to measure fields and particles were mounted on the spinning section of the spacecraft, together with the main antenna, power supply, the propulsion module and most of the galileo computers and control electronics. The sixteen instruments, weighing 118 kg altogether, included magnetometer sensors mounted on an 11 m boom to minimize interference from the spacecraft; a plasma instrument for detecting low energy charged particles and a plasma wave detector to study waves generated by the particles; a high energy particle detector; and a detector of cosmic and Jovian dust. It also carried the Heavy Ion Counter, an engineering experiment added to assess the potentially hazardous charged particle environments the spacecraft flew through, and an added Extreme Ultraviolet detector associated with the UV spectrometer on the scan platform. The despun section's instruments included the camera system; the near infrared mapping spectrometer to make multi-spectral images for atmospheric and moon surface chemical analysis; ultraviolet spectrometer to study gases; and photo-polarimeter radiometer to measure radiant and reflected energy. The camera system was designed to obtain images of Jupiter's satellites at resolutions from 20 to 1,000 times better than Voyager's best, because Galileo flew closer to the planet and its inner moons and because the CCD sensor in Galileos camera was more sensitive and had a broader color detection band than the vidicons of Voyager.

Instrumentation details

The following information was taken directly from NASA's Galileo [http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/resources.cfm legacy site].

Despun section

vidicon
Solid State Imager (SSI)
The SSI is an 800 by 800 pixel solid state camera consisting of an array of silicon sensors called a "charge coupled device" (CCD). The optical portion of the camera is built as a Cassegrain telescope. Light is collected by the primary mirror and directed to a smaller secondary mirror that channels it through a hole in the center of the primary mirror and onto the CCD. The CCD sensor is shielded from radiation, a particular problem within the harsh Jovian magnetosphere. The shielding is accomplished by means of a 10 mm thick layer of tantalum surrounding the CCD except where the light enters the system. An eight position filter wheel is used to obtain images at specific wavelenghts. The images are then combined electronically on Earth to produce color images. The spectral response of the SSI ranges from about 0.4 to 1.1 micrometres. The SSI weighs 29.7 kilograms and consumes, on average, 15 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/ssi.html] SSI Imaging Team site:[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/]
Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS)
The NIMS instrument is sensitive from 0.7 to 5.2 micrometre wavelength IR light, overlapping the wavelength range of SSI. The telescope associated with NIMS is all reflective (uses mirrors and no lenses) with an aperture of 229 mm. The spectrometer of NIMS uses a grating to disperse the light collected by the telescope. The dispersed spectrum of light is focused on detectors of indium antimonide and silicon. The NIMS weighs 18 kilograms and uses 12 watts of power on average. [http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/nims.html] NIMS Team site:[http://jumpy.igpp.ucla.edu/~nims/]
Ultraviolet Spectrometer / Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS/EUV)
The Cassegrain telescope of the UVS has a 250 mm aperture and collects light from the observation target. Both the UVS and EUV instruments use a ruled grating to disperse this light for spectral analysis. This light then passes through an exit slit into photomultiplier tubes that produce pulses or "sprays" of electrons. These electron pulses are counted, and these count numbers are the data that are sent to Earth. The UVS is mounted on the scan platform and can be pointed to an object in inertial space. The EUV is mounted on the spun section of the spacecraft. As Galileo spins, the EUV observes a narrow ribbon of space perpendicular to the spin axis. The two instruments combined weigh about 9.7 kilograms and use 5.9 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/euv.html] EUV Team site:[http://lasp.colorado.edu/galileo/]
Photopolarimeter-Radiometer (PPR)
The PPR has seven radiometry bands. One of these uses no filters and observes all the radiation, both solar and thermal. Another band lets only solar radiation through. The difference between the solar- plus-thermal and the solar-only channels gives the total thermal radiation emitted. The PPR also measured in five broadband channels that span the spectral range from 17 to 110 micrometres. The radiometer provides data on the temperatures of the Jovian satellites and Jupiter's atmosphere. The design of the instrument is based on that of an instrument flown on the Pioneer Venus spacecraft. A 100 mm aperture reflecting telescope collects light, directs it to a series of filters, and, from there, measurements are performed by the detectors of the PPR. The PPR weighs 5.0 kilograms and consumes about 5 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/ppr.html] PPR Team site:[http://www.lowell.edu/users/ppr/]

Spun section

Dust Detector Subsystem (DDS)
The Dust Detector Subsystem (DDS) was used to measure the mass, electric charge, and velocity of incoming particles. The masses of dust particles that the DDS can detect go from 10-16 to 10-7 grams. The speed of these small particles can be measured over the range of 1 to 70 kilometers per second. The instrument can measure impact rates from 1 particle per 115 days (10 megaseconds) to 100 particles per second. These particles will help determine dust origin and dynamics within the magnetosphere. The DDS weighs 4.2 kilograms and uses an average of 5.4 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/dds.html] DDS Team site:[http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/galileo/galileo.html]
Energetic Particles Detector (EPD)
The energetic particles detector (EPD) is designed to measure the numbers and energies of ions and electrons whose energies exceed about 20 keV (3.2 fJ). The EPD can also measure the direction of travel of such particles and, in the case of ions, can determine their composition (whether the ion is oxygen or sulfur, for example). The EPD uses silicon solid state detectors and a time-of-flight detector system to measure changes in the energetic particle population at Jupiter as a function of position and time. These measurements will tell us how the particles get their energy and how they are transported through Jupiter's magnetosphere. The EPD weighs 10.5 kilograms and uses 10.1 watts of power on average.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/epd.html] EPD Team site:[http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/Galileo_EPD/]
Heavy Ion Counter (HIC)
The HIC is really a repackaged and updated version of some parts of the flight spare of the Voyager Cosmic Ray System. The HIC detects heavy ions using stacks of single crystal silicon wafers. The HIC can measure heavy ions with energies as low as 6 MeV (1 pJ) and as high as 200 MeV (32 pJ) per nucleon. This range includes all atomic substances between carbon and nickel. The HIC and the EUV share a communications link and, therefore, must share observing time. The HIC weighs 8 kilograms and uses an average of 2.8 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/hic.html] HIC Team site:[http://www.srl.caltech.edu/galileo/galHIC.html]
Magnetometer (MAG)
The magnetometer (MAG) uses two sets of three sensors. The three sensors allow the three orthogonal components of the magnetic field section to be measured. One set is located at the end of the magnetometer boom and, in this position, is about 11 m from the spin axis of the spacecraft. The second set, designed to detect stronger fields, is 6.7 m from the spin axis. The boom is used to remove the MAG from the immediate vicinity of the spacecraft to minimize magnetic effects from the spacecraft. However, not all these effects can be eliminated by distancing the instrument. The rotation of the spacecraft is used to separate natural magnetic fields from engineering induced fields. Another source of potential error in measurement comes from bending and twisting of the long magnetometer boom. To account for these motions, a calibration coil is mounted rigidly on the spacecraft and puts out a reference magnetic field during calibrations. The magnetic field at the surface of the Earth has a strength of about 50,000 nT. At Jupiter, the outboard (11 m) set of sensors can measure magnetic field strengths in the range from ±32 to ±512 nT while the inboard (6.7 m) set is active in the range from ±512 to ±16,384 nT. The MAG experiment weighs 7 kilograms and uses 3.9 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/mag.html] MAG Team site:[http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/galileo/]
Plasma Subsystem (PLS)
The PLS uses seven fields of view to collect charged particles for energy and mass analysis. These fields of view cover most angles from 0 to 180 degrees, fanning out from the spin axis. The rotation of the spacecraft carries each field of view through a full circle. The PLS will measure particles in the energy range from 0.9 eV to 52 keV (0.1 aJ to 8.3 fJ). The PLS weighs 13.2 kilograms and uses an average of 10.7 watts of power.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/pls.html] PLS Team site:[http://www-pi.physics.uiowa.edu/www/pls/]
Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS)
An electric dipole antenna is used to study the electric fields of plasmas, while two search coil magnetic antennas studied the magnetic fields. The electric dipole antenna is mounted at the tip of the magnetometer boom. The search coil magnetic antennas are mounted on the high-gain antenna feed. Nearly simultaneous measurements of the electric and magnetic field spectrum allowed electrostatic waves to be distinguished from electromagnetic waves. The PWS weighs 7.1 kilograms and uses an average of 9.8 watts.[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/instruments/pws.html] PWS Team site:[http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-wave/galileo/home.html] plasma

Galileo's atmospheric entry probe

The 339 kilogram atmospheric probe measured about 1.3 meters across. Inside the heat shield, the scientific instruments were protected from ferocious heat during entry. The probe had to withstand extreme heat and pressure on its high speed journey at 47.8 km/s. The probe was released from the main spacecraft in July 1995, five months before reaching Jupiter, and entered Jupiter's atmosphere with no braking beforehand. It was slowed from the probe's arrival speed of about 47 kilometers per second to subsonic speed in less than 2 minutes.heat shieldIt then deployed its 2.5-meter (8-foot) parachute, and dropped its heat shield. As the probe descended through 150 kilometers of the top layers of the atmosphere, it collected 58 minutes of data on the local weather. The data was sent to the spacecraft overhead, then transmitted back to Earth. Each of 2 L-band transmitters operated at 128 bits per second and sent nearly identical streams of scientific data to the orbiter. All the probe's electronics were powered by lithium sulfur dioxide (LiSO2) batteries which provided a nominal power output of about 580 watts with an estimated capacity of about 21 ampere-hours on arrival at Jupiter. The probe included six instruments for taking data on its plunge into Jupiter. The instruments were: an atmospheric structure instrument group measuring temperature, pressure and deceleration; a neutral mass spectrometer and a helium-abundance interferometer supporting atmospheric composition studies; a nephelometer for cloud location and cloud-particle observations; a net-flux radiometer measuring the difference in flux upward versus downward in radiant energy flux at each altitude and a lightning/radio-emission instrument with an energetic-particle detector which measured light and radio emissions associated with lightning and energetic particles in Jupiter's radiation belts. Total data returned from the probe was about 3.5 megabits. The probe stopped transmitting before the line of sight link with the orbiter was cut. The likely proximal cause of the final probe failure was overheating, which sensors indicated before signal loss. The atmosphere as the probe descended was somewhat more turbulent and hotter than expected. The probe would have been melted and vaporized after a few hours of falling, completely dissolving into Jupiter's hot, dense lower atmosphere.

Science performed by the Galileo Orbiter at Jupiter

After arriving on December 7, 1995 and completing 35 orbits around Jupiter throughout a nearly eight year mission, the Galileo Orbiter was destroyed during a controlled impact with Jupiter on September 21, 2003. During that intervening time, Galileo forever changed the way scientists saw Jupiter and provided a wealth of information on the moons orbiting the planet which will be studied for years to come.

Unique non-Jupiter related science done with Galileo

2003

Remote detection of life

The late Carl Sagan, pondering the question of whether life on earth could be easily detected from space, devised a set of experiments in the late 1980s using Galileos remote sensing instruments to determine if life indeed could be detected during the first earth flyby of the mission in December of 1990. After data acquisition and processing, Sagan et. al. published a paper in