ESA ExoMars Landing Sites: Four Candidates selected

Four possible landing sites are being considered for the ExoMars 2018 mission. 

The sites; Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Hypanis Vallis and Aram Dorsum, are indicated in this context map. 

All four are close to the Martian equator.

The search for a suitable landing site for the ExoMars Rover began in December 2013, when the science community was asked to propose candidate sites.

Eight proposals were received and carefully considered during a scientific workshop in March of this year.

By the end of that workshop, there were four clear front-runners. Following additional review by the Landing Site Selection Working Group, the four sites have now been formally recommended for further detailed analysis.

ExoMars is a joint two-mission endeavour between ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.

The Trace Gas Orbiter and an entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, Schiaparelli, will be launched in January 2016, arriving at Mars nine months later.

The Rover and Surface Platform will depart in May 2018, with touchdown on Mars in January 2019.

Mawrth Vallis is one of four candidate landing sites under consideration for the ExoMars 2018 mission. 

It is one of the oldest outflow channels on Mars, at least 3.8 billion years old.

It hosts large exposures of finely layered clay-rich rocks, indicating that water once played a role here.

The image combines HRSC images from ESA Mars Express with MOLA topography data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor.

The landing ellipses under evaluation for this site selection are indicated, and cover an area of 170 x 19 km.

The orientation of the landing ellipse depends on when the launch takes place within a given launch window, the sites have to be compliant with launch opportunities in both 2018 and 2020, as indicated.

ESA Rosetta at Comet 67/P: 5 Philae Landing sites proposed

The target drop zone for a historic landing on a comet in deep space by a European spacecraft will be unveiled this month after weeks of scrutiny to scout out the perfect location.

Scientists with the European Space Agency will reveal the comet landing site target for Philae, a lander riding aboard the agency's Rosetta spacecraft, on Sept. 15.

If all goes well, the Philae lander will touch down on its target, the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, on Nov. 11.

The comet landing will mark the first time any space agency has attempted a soft landing on a comet, although NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft deliberately crashed a small probe into a different comet in 2005.

Rosetta has spent the past month at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, to help ESA scientists learn more about the comet's strange composition.

The comet has two distinct sides to it, and a shape that reminds some investigators of a rubber duck.

Philae candidate landing sites 

Credit: ESA

Five candidate sites were identified on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko during the Landing Site Selection Group meeting held 23–24 August 2014.

The approximate locations of the five regions are marked on these OSIRIS narrow-angle camera images taken on 16 August from a distance of about 100 km.

The comet nucleus is about 4 km across.

The sites were assigned a letter from an original pre-selection of 10 possible sites identified A through J. The lettering scheme does not signify any ranking.

Three sites (B, I and J) are located on the smaller of the two lobes of the comet and two sites (A and C) are located on the larger lobe.

ESA’s Rosetta mission will attempt to to land its Philae lander on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014.

ESA recently released their 5 top choices and on September 15th, 2014 they will announce the landing site (and its backup )

NASA LRO Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites.

Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface.

At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior.

"We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the LRO project science team.

All three images show distinct trails left in the moon's thin soil when the astronauts exited the lunar modules and explored on foot. In the Apollo 17 image, the foot trails, including the last path made on the moon by humans, are easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar rover, which remains parked east of the lander.

"The new low-altitude Narrow Angle Camera images sharpen our view of the moon's surface," said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). "A great example is the sharpness of the rover tracks at the Apollo 17 site. In previous images the rover tracks were visible, but now they are sharp parallel lines on the surface."

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html

Moon Missions Launched: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Crater Observation

NASA launched a pair of moon missions, the agency's first in more than 10 years, on Thursday. Intended to pave the way for the return of astronauts to the lunar surface, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will map the moon in 3D, focusing on 50 'high priority' locations that are thought to be prime landing sites.

A second mission called the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite will orbit Earth for about 100 days before it guides the spent upper stage of the Atlas V launch vehicle into a collision with a crater on the moon's south pole.

The blast is expected to excavate more than 350 tonnes of material and could reveal whether the polar craters contain water ice, which could be used by future lunar colonists. (Image: United Launch Alliance/Pat Corkery)