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Spotlight: An Exploration Extravaganza
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 19, 2003

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif. are ramping up for an era of unprecedented space exploration.
The Lab is poised to launch and direct a fleet of space probes that
will, among many other things, crash into the heart of a distant
comet, snatch particles of the solar wind, rove across Mars to search
for evidence of liquid water, and descend through the atmosphere of
Saturn's moon Titan to explore what reminds many scientists of an
early Earth. 

"The world will have a front-row seat to one of the most exciting
periods of solar system exploration in history," says Dr. Charles
Elachi, JPL director.  "Never before have so many exciting and
challenging missions to study so many different parts of the solar
system and beyond converged within such a short time frame. It's an
exciting time for NASA, JPL, the nation and the world."

This summer's launch of two identical rovers to Mars within days of
each other will have everyone seeing double on the red planet. In
January of 2004, the two Mars Exploration Rovers will attempt to land
on opposite sides of the planet and explore diverse, though equally
intriguing sites for evidence of past and present liquid water - an
ingredient thought vital to any life processes.

Among the advancing JPL fleet is the Space Infrared Telescope
Facility, slated to launch at the end of this summer. This new space
observatory will pierce the thick dust that blankets much of the
universe and then provide spectacular views of some of the earliest
galaxies and stars in cosmic history. The telescope's super-sensitive
infrared vision will also look around nearby stars for swirling
debris discs that may represent planetary systems in the making.

The veteran Galileo mission will come to a grand finale this fall
when engineers deliberately plunge the spacecraft into Jupiter's
vaporizing atmosphere in September. They're doing this to avoid any
possibility of future contamination of Jupiter's scientifically
interesting moon Europa. 

In January of 2004, the Stardust space probe will encounter comet
Wild 2 and snatch comet dust from this celestial wanderer for return
to Earth in 2006. Scientists hope to learn more about the early
history of our solar system from this cometary sample return.

Then in July of 2004, after a seven-year journey across the solar
system, the Cassini spacecraft will be the first space probe to orbit
the ringed planet Saturn. Just six months later, Cassini's Huygens
probe will descend through the rich atmosphere of Saturn's biggest
moon, Titan, a world with possible oceans of liquid methane and some
conditions similar to primordial Earth.

The Genesis spacecraft is currently soaring beyond Earth's orbit,
collecting particles of the solar wind. Such pristine samples from
our Sun should help scientists understand more about its chemistry
and how the material it ejects may affect us here on Earth. These
solar samples will return to Earth in September 2004 with a dramatic
mid-air scoop of the spacecraft's sample return capsule by
helicopters over the Utah Test and Training Range. This is NASA's
first sample return mission since the Apollo Moon landings wrapped in
the early seventies.

Don't miss the extraterrestrial fireworks show on July 4, 2005, when
the Deep Impact spacecraft will send a small probe to literally crash
into the heart of Comet Tempel 1. The main spacecraft will observe
this cosmic collision from a distance, then analyze the ejected
material. 

In their series of encounters, JPL's robotic space probes may lead us
to a string of scientific discoveries, some of which may forever
change our views of the universe and our place in it.

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