The University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ at Boulder received a large boost from NASA last week, including $9.5 million to design and build an instrument for a mission to Mercury and $450,000 to refine a proposal to head up an unmanned Pluto mission.
Daniel Baker, director of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥'s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, was named a science team member for NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury, slated for launch in March 2004. Expected to arrive at Mercury in 2009, the $256 million Messenger mission was given the green light by NASA on June 7 to fly.
LASP Research Associate William McClintock will oversee the design and construction of a $9.5 million instrument known as the Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer for the MERÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥RY mission. The instrument will probe the planet's atmospheric features and surface composition.
Baker, an internationally known scientist specializing in the magnetospheres of planets and the effects of the solar wind, will study the interactions between Mercury's magnetic fields, atmosphere and solar particles using several of MESSENGER's seven instruments, including the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder spectrometer.
Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory will design and build the MESSENGER spacecraft and manage the mission for NASA.
A proposal spearheaded by LASP Professor Larry Esposito to head up a mission to Pluto was selected June 6 by NASA as one of two missions under consideration to visit the solar system's furthest planet and the region beyond known as the Kuiper Belt.
Although Esposito and his team received $450,000 from NASA for a three-month concept study, the mission still must receive approval and funding by Congress in order to fly.
"These announcements herald the possibility that LASP will build experiments to go to both ends of our solar system," said Esposito. He noted that McClintock also is the principal investigator for the design and construction of the ultraviolet imaging spectrometers included in the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder Pluto mission proposal.
The mission would tentatively launch between 2004 and 2006, arriving at Pluto sometime before 2020. Other members of the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-led Pluto team include NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Ball Aerospace Corp. of Boulder, Malin Space Science Systems Inc. of San Diego and the University of California, Berkeley.
The second proposal selected by NASA and under consideration for the Pluto Mission is headed by former ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder student and LASP researcher Alan Stern, now at Boulder's Southwest Research Institute. The team, which also received $450,000 from NASA for a three-month concept study, includes NASA, Ball Aerospace and several other institutions around the nation.
At the end of three months, NASA will thoroughly evaluate program content and technical, schedule and cost feasibility of both Pluto proposals.