The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

Reports by NASA advisory and review committees raising warnings about the shuttle fleet’s age and continued safety were cited by many members. O’Keefe stated that the concerns raised were all in reference to future safety, but there had been no indications that the current safety of the shuttle program was compromised. Another issue raised repeatedly was the budget cuts made over the past decade to planned shuttle upgrades. O’Keefe explained that, in his understanding of the shuttle’s budget history, quality assurance procedures and other program management approaches had yielded efficiencies and cost reductions, while at the same time, indicators showed safety improvements and a decrease in safety incidents both before and on orbit.

Addressing questions about the justification of manned space exploration versus robotic, O’Keefe said it was “not an issue of either/or” NASA’s approach, as it was doing with the Mars mission – to use robotic capabilities to understand the risks of human involvement and learn what would be necessary to support an eventual human mission “if it is deemed appropriate.” He mentioned the Hubble Space Telescope as an example of how unmanned exploration capabilities and human involvement worked in a complementary way to achieve outstanding science.

“This is not the beginning of the end; it is the end of the beginning,” Boehlert said in conclusion. He praised the openness and cooperation of O’Keefe and Admiral Gehman, and “the total commitment I find on the part of every person involved… to get the facts and let us be guided by the facts.”

Chapter 5 New Horizons – The Ongoing Quest

Life on Mars

When in 2003 the orbits of Mars and Earth brought them the closest together they had been for 60,000 years, both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) sent robotic missions to Mars. The ESA mission was named Mars Express; the NASA mission was named Mars Exploration Rover (MER). NASA already had a satellite, Mars Odyssey, in orbit around Mars. The missions were intended to find evidence of life on Mars, either in the past or the present.

Mars Express was an international collaboration, originally consisting of two orbiters and a lander. The orbiters were ESA’s Mars Express itself and the Japanese spacecraft Nozomi; Beagle 2 was the lander.

Mars Express was launched by a Russian four-stage Soyuz/Fregat launcher, with the Fregat upper stage separating from the spacecraft after placing it on a Mars-bound trajectory. Mars Express was mounted on the Fregat upper stage.

The spacecraft used its on-board means of propulsion solely for orbit corrections and to slow the spacecraft down for Mars orbit insertion. Electrical power was provided by the spacecraft’s solar panels which were deployed shortly after launch. When Mars was at its maximum distance from the sun (aphelion), the solar panels would still be capable of delivering 650 watts which was more than enough to meet the mission’s maximum requirement of 500 watts, equivalent to just five ordinary 100 watt light bulbs!

When the spacecraft’s view of the sun was obscured by Mars during a solar eclipse, a lithium-ion battery (67.5 amp hours), previously charged up by the solar panels, took over the power supply.