NASA WASP: Planetary scientists gain new observation platform

Scientists used the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP) to precisely point the HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science during a balloon mission in September. 

Shown here after it landed, the imager collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight-and-a-half hour flight. 

Credit: NASA

Scientists who study Earth, the sun and stars have long used high-altitude scientific balloons to carry their telescopes far into the stratosphere for a better view of their targets.

Not so much for planetary scientists. That's because they needed a highly stable, off-the-shelf-type system that could accurately point their instruments and then track planetary targets as they moved in the solar system. That device now exists.

NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., has designed a new pointing system, the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), that can point balloon-borne scientific instruments at targets with sub arc-second accuracy and stability.

A planetary scientist—interested in finding less-expensive platforms for observing Jupiter and other extraterrestrial bodies—now plans to test drive the device later this year.

David Stuchlik

"Arc-second pointing is unbelievably precise," said David Stuchlik, the WASP project manager.

"Some compare it to the ability to find and track an object that is the diameter of a dime from two miles away."

WASP is designed to be a highly flexible, standardized system capable of supporting many science payloads, Stuchlik added.

Its development frees scientists, who in the past had to develop their own pointing systems, to instead focus on instrument development.

Given the technology's potential, the WASP team has received NASA Science Mission Directorate funding to further enhance the new capability as a standard support system.

First tested in 2011 and then again in 2012, the most recent test flight occurred from Fort Sumner, N.M., in September 2013.

During that flight, a 30-story balloon lifted an engineering test unit of the HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS) to an altitude of nearly 122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth's atmosphere.

From this vantage point, WASP precisely pointed HySICS so that it could measure Earth, the sun and the moon.

Developed by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), the imager collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight-and-a-half hour flight, demonstrating improved techniques for future space-based radiance tests.

Kopp now is preparing his imager for another balloon flight this September.

Planetary Scientists Protest: NASA Budget Cuts Proposed for 2014 'Disastrous'

Supporters of planetary science are rallying against NASA's proposed 2014 budget, which they say unfairly guts funding for solar system research and exploration.

The Obama administration unveiled the budget plan April 10, requesting $17.7 billion for NASA — $50 million less than the agency got in 2012.

The budget must be approved by Congress before it becomes official. Under the budget proposal, planetary science would receive $1.217 billion in 2014.

Discounting the $50 million earmarked for producing plutonium-238, which fuels deep space vehicles (this used to be paid for by the Department of Energy), and $20 million for asteroid detection in service of a future manned asteroid mission, this represents a $268 million cut from planetary science funding levels approved by Congress for 2013, advocates said.

Carl Sagan

"The Planetary Society has deep concerns about the continued effort to defund planetary science in NASA's 2014 budget proposal," wrote officials from the society, which was founded by astronomer Carl Sagan to promote solar-system exploration, in testimony submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology April 24.

"Without immediate investment in technology and mission development — not possible under the FY14 proposal — the United States will go 'radio dark' in almost all regions of the solar system by the end of the decade."


In this still from a NASA video, a robotic spacecraft's capture bag swallows an asteroid in order to return it to Earth. 

NASA plans to retrieve an asteroid and park it near the moon by 2025, possibly even by 2021, so astronauts can explore it.

CREDIT: NASA

The proposed budget would include $105 million in funds to support an asteroid-capture mission and other asteroid studies, but eliminate Europa Clipper, a planned robotic mission to Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa, which harbours an ocean buried beneath its icy surface that may support microbial life, and current missions, such as NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn and the Messenger orbiter around Mercury, may come to premature ends.

Bill Nye

Bill Nye, chief executive officer of the Planetary Society, called the budget "shortsighted and disastrous" in a letter urging supporters to write their Congressional representatives in support of planetary science.

The organization aims to send 25,000 messages to Capitol Hill by April 28.

A group of lawmakers also joined in the campaign, penning a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden on April 19 asking that he and the Obama administration rethink their 2013 NASA budget, which is still unfinalised.

Senator Barbara Boxer

"We write to express opposition to any Fiscal Year 2013 NASA Operating Plan that disproportionately applies sequester and across-the-board cuts to the science budget," wrote Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in a letter signed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative John Culberson (R-TX).

"While we fully understand that the funding levels enumerated in the bill and report are subject to change to reflect the across the board and sequester cuts, we expect that the balance among programs will remain consistent with the structure directed by Congress."