As we approach the end of 2019, I hope that this newsletter continues to be a useful source of exploration news for you into the new year. I'm trying to grow readership in 2020, so if you've enjoyed this newsletter, please do recommend Explore and Observe to your friends and share on social media, it would really help! As a reminder, I'm also open to any comments or feedback you might have to make Explore and Observe better. Thank you for joining me on this adventure, and I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

- Evan

#01

The weekend before Santa took to the skies in 2019, there was a different sort of bird in the sky. Boeing launched an unmanned Starliner capsule on a mission to deliver goods to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, the spacecraft never reached the orbital outpost. A clock malfunction caused the spacecraft engines to burn too long after being lofted into space. By the time ground controllers identified and corrected the situation, the capsule had used too much fuel and could not rendezvous with the station. Regardless, the spacecraft still achieved a number of mission objectives while in space, and successfully landed in New Mexico. Its currently unclear how the mishap will affect Boeing's ongoing race with SpaceX to become the first company to send an astronaut to the Space Station, but what is for sure is that things just got very interesting!

#02

Are you interested in what's been going on in deep sea exploration this year? You should check out the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's Best of 2019. My personal favorite is the accidental discovery of Octopus Garden, the brooding are for over 1,000 octopuses! 

You can also read up on a recent expedition by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Research Institute to the central coast of California. The researchers explored a "rocky ridge [which] is rich with beautiful coral and sponge gardens containing centuries-old corals towering two-to-three meters tall like small oak trees, sponges one-to-two meters wide that may be even older, as well as a suite of fishes, sea stars, and other species that call these coral gardens home." Sounds lovely! 

#03

A research team from JPL just returned from Antartica where they explored the underside of an ice shelf with a bouyant rover. "BRUIE ... uses buoyancy to remain anchored against the ice and is impervious to most currents. In addition, it can safely power down, turning on only when it needs to take a measurement, so that it can spend months observing the under-ice environment." This effort is an early demonstration of how we might be able to explore the oceans under the ice of Europa, a moon of Jupiter that likely has a liquid water ocean under a miles-thick layer of ice.  

#04

NASA/JPL continues to make progress on the Mars 2020 rover mission. The nearly fully assembled rover completed its first tenuous drive across JPL's spaceflight assembly facility.  Yet another important step forward as the mission prepares for a July launch date.

Meanwhile on Mars, the maligned "mole" attached to the Insight lander appears to be making progress again after being stuck for months and even briefly moving in the wrong direction. The small probe was meant to burrow 16ft into the surface of the red planet has been stuck at the surface for months.

Insight's other instrument, a super-sensitive seismometer, has had somewhat more success. Scientists were recently able to trace two Mars-quakes back to their source, and identify the first known active fault line on Mars.

#05

Elsewhere in the solar system, NASA has selected where the Osiris-REX spacecraft will collect a sample from the asteroid Bennu. The spacecraft has been orbiting Bennu for over a year and will perform a "touch and go" maneuver to collect material from its surface. The maneuver will be performed in August 2020, and the sample will hopefully be returned to earth by the spacecraft in September 2023.

What to Read Next

Reading material that I've found worthwhile, often related to exploration, sometimes just a good book worth picking up!

With all the Mars Rover nes and progress lately, it might be time to touch up on your rover know how. And I don't think you can do any better than The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job by Emily Lakdawalla. From how the Curiosity rover was conceived, through the seven minutes of terror that got it to the surface of Mars, and the first couple years of operation on the surface, Lakdawalla shares her extensive knowledge of the project. I found the book to include a surprising number of technical details that I had never even thought about before while still bing quite readable. A great read and reference for anything Mars rover!

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This newsletter was produced as a private venture and not in the author's capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology or of Griffith Observatory. Any views and opinions expressed herein or on exploreandobserve.com are his own and not those of his employers.

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