Jet Propulsion Laboratory UNIVERSE Pasadena, California - Vol. 27, No. 2 - January 24, 1997 __________________________________________________________________ Ice volcanoes reshape Europa's chaotic surface - New Galileo images appear to enhance Jovian moon's chances for possibile life By FRANKLIN O'DONNELL Ice-spewing volcanoes and the grinding and tearing of tectonic plates have reshaped the chaotic surface of Jupiter's frozen moon Europa, images from JPL's Galileo spacecraft reveal. The images, captured when Galileo flew within just 692 kilometers (430 miles) of Europa on Dec. 19, were released at a Jan. 17 news briefing at NASA Headquarters. Although the images do not show currently active ice volcanoes or geysers, they do reveal flows of material on the surface that probably originated from them, said Galileo imaging team member Dr. Ronald Greeley of Arizona State University. "This is the first time we've seen actual ice flows on any of the moons of Jupiter," said Greeley. "These flows, as well as dark scarring on some of Europa's cracks and ridges, appear to be remnants of ice volcanoes or geysers." The new images appear to enhance Europa's prospects as one of the places in the solar system that could have hosted the development of life, said Greeley. "There are three main criteria to consider when you are looking for the possibility of life outside the Earth-the presence of water, organic compounds and adequate heat," Greeley said. "Europa obviously has substantial water ice, and organic compounds are known to be prevalent in the solar system. The big question mark has been how much heat is generated in the interior. "These new images demonstrate that there was enough heat to drive the flows on the surface. Europa thus has a high potential to meet the criteria for exobiology," Greeley added. "This doesn't prove that there is an ocean down there under the surface of Europa, but it does demonstrate that it is a scientifically exciting place," said Galileo imaging team member Dr. Robert Sullivan, also of Arizona State University. The images also reveal a remarkable diversity in the geological age of various regions of Europa's surface. Some areas appear relatively young, with smooth, crater-free terrain, while others contain large craters and numerous pits, suggesting that they are much older. The icy crust bears the signs of having been disrupted by the motion of tectonic plates. "There appear to be signs of different styles of tectonism, Greeley said. "In many areas we see that the crust was pulled apart in a spreading similar to the processes on the sea floor on Earth. This is different from the tectonic processes at work on, say, Jupiter's moon Ganymede. This suggests that Europa's interior may be different from Ganymede's." Galileo scientists will have a better chance to understand Europa's interior when the spacecraft gathers gravity data on another flyby next November. The gravity field is measured by tracking how the frequency of Galileo's radio signal changes as it flies past the moon. This was difficult during the recent flyby because Galileo's closest approach to Europa took place out of direct view of Earth. Europa is crisscrossed by an amazingly complex network of ridges, Sullivan said. "Ridges are visible at all resolutions," he explained. "Closely paired ridges are most common. With higher resolution, ridges seen previously as singular features are revealed to be double." Some of the ridges may have formed by tension in the icy crust: as two plates pull apart slightly, warmer material from below might push up and freeze to form a ridge. Other ridges may have been formed by compression: as two plates push together, the material where they meet might crumple to form the ridge. In addition to ice flows and tectonics, Greeley and Sullivan noted that some areas on Europa seem to have been modified by unknown processes that scientists are still debating. Greeley said that some areas, for example, seem to have been modified by "sublimation erosion"-the evaporation of water and other volatiles such as ammonia and methane into the vacuum of space. "Something is destroying the topography," said Greeley, "and this sublimation erosion is a good candidate for what is at work." During last month's encounter, Galileo flew more than 200 times closer to Europa than the Voyager 2 spacecraft did in 1979. After a swing past Jupiter this week in what mission engineers call a "phasing orbit," Galileo's next targeted flyby will take it again past Europa as it passes within 587 kilometers (364 miles) on Feb. 20. ### __________________________________________________________________ Tough year for staff allocations coming up By MARK WHALEN Driven by a combination of the federal government's goal of a more streamlined NASA work force and a desire to bring more space exploration work into the private sector, JPL will be expected by fiscal year 2000 to operate with a "finite, fixed work force to carry out our job," Laboratory Director Dr. Edward Stone told a meeting of managers and supervisors Jan. 10. Indeed, as Deputy Director Larry Dumas went on to point out, JPL's downsizing plan calls for a reduction of about 1,500 work-years over the next three years, from a current level of 6,300 work-years to a projected 4,782 in FY 2000-an allocation derived from NASA's zero-base review in 1995. The Lab will reduce its work force by 300 work-years from FY '96 to FY '97. But, Dumas said, the goal for FY '98 is an additional 700 work-years, to a total of 5,400. "In order to make the '98 allocations, we've got to make the most reductions in '97. This is the toughest year, both in terms of the rate of reduction and the length of time we had to get our planning in place to support this kind of reduction." The staffing levels indicate the combination of JPL employees and on- site contractors. A work-year is defined as the equivalent of a full-time employee's work over a one-year period; it could include a combination of part-time positions. Since October, JPL's Executive Council (EC) has focused attention on achieving the FY 2000 allocation through subcontracting and outsourcing. "What we needed was an understanding of the work force at equilibrium; that is, after the downsizing was complete, what would the character of the JPL work force be? And secondly, we needed some guidelines on how to get there from here." Dumas said that the EC is "almost finished" with outsourcing studies, noting that after reviewing the Lab's entire business base, five areas remain the prime candidates for outsourcing: Desktop and Network Computing Services, Instrument Services, Financial Services, Facilities, and some portions of Mission Operations. Noting that the reduction is not driven by budgetary considerations, the EC was guided in its decision-making process by "the fundamental assumption that our business base will be approximately level over the next few years," Dumas said. The council divided JPL work into 19 categories, first assessing current work force devoted to each category, then deriving allocations for each category in the year 2000. Dumas said that the following strategic themes helped guide the council in making these work force allocation decisions: - Within JPL's lead-center roles in robotic space exploration, JPL in- house work will focus on "first-of-a-kind" missions-"what no one has done before." - Keep in house the work that is unique to JPL's business and operations, or difficult to separate from internal processes, or required because of cost and/or schedule constraints. - Complete current reengineering and tools development projects and move associated personnel back into the mainstream work force. - Utilize productivity efficiencies from reengineering and continuous improvements. To achieve the target of 4,782 work-years in FY 2000, the EC separated the Lab's overall work force distribution into five categories, with the following projected increases or decreases in staffing and percentages of total JPL work force: - Conceive and conduct missions (444 work-years in FY '97, 7.3%; 449 in FY 2000, 9.4%) - Link technology with science and missions (1,197 in FY '97, 19.6%; 1,144 in FY 2000, 23.9%) - Implement flight systems (1,447 in FY '97, 23.6%; 1,345 in FY 2000, 28.1%) - Implement ground systems and mission operations (1,483 in FY '97, 24.3%; 791 in FY 2000, 16.5%) - Infrastructure (1,514 in FY '97, 25%; 842 in FY 2000, 17.6%) - Liens and opportunity for growth (15 in FY '97, 0.2%; 211 in FY 2000, 4.5%) "The fact that the burden for this transition is falling largely in operations and infrastructure doesn't mean that these folks are less important to us than others," Dumas said. "The decision to move work off- Lab is not a function of how important the work is. It's more a consideration of what the Lab does best, and what industry can do." Dumas urged the managers and supervisors not to get "mesmerized by the numbers." "The important thing," he said, "is not three-figure precision in the projections, but that this gives us a sense of where we need to go and some guidance on the key decisions we need to make as we move forward to subcontract some of our work and restructure our staff." Dumas mentioned that a series of on-Lab lectures sponsored by the Director's Office, called the JPL 2000 Programs, will focus on the status and projections for the Lab's major programs and missions at the turn of the century. The series will run from mid-February to early March; details on subjects, speakers and dates will be available in the coming weeks. Stone put the work force issue in historical perspective. In recent years, he said, NASA has required JPL to change its focus by designing missions to cost, rather than requirements. "We have gone from cost dependent on performance to performance dependent on cost. "Another resource we manage is our work force," Stone said. "In the past, the size of our work force was driven by how much work we wanted to do in house. Now our customer wants us to manage with a fixed work force, and adjust what we do in house to fit that work force. This is a different management challenge than the one we've all learned to deal with for many years." ### __________________________________________________________________ KidSat pilot program reaps wealth of new shuttle images By STEPHANIE ZELUCK Using the Space Shuttle Atlantis as a learning platform, students from the Pasadena area and around the country have once again participated in KidSat, JPL and NASA's pilot program designed to bring the benefits of space exploration into classrooms around the nation. KidSat was launched aboard STS-81 on Jan. 12, and was activated twice during the 10-day mission. Responding to requests for images sent over the Internet from 15 middle schools across the U.S. and two schools abroad, the KidSat digital camera took several hundred images of Earth, including Venice, Italy and the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean Sea near Israel. "We've gotten some incredible images this time," said Marguerite Syvertson, acting principal investigator for KidSat at JPL. Students will continue to incorporate the images into their classroom education over the next few months. Students at La Ca–ada High School spent long hours at JPL over the past 10 months preparing for KidSat's second flight, the first of which flew aboard Atlantis in March 1996. The high school students developed software to interface with the camera aboard the shuttle, developed a data system to archive and display the downloaded images, and developed what are called "explorations," which are student-initiated studies of the areas imaged by the KidSat camera. Students will learn to relate image data to historical, geographical, environmental and current events. In addition, students from 17 student mission operations centers- including 6th, 7th and 8th graders at Washington Accelerated Learning Center in Pasadena-submitted image requests to a mission operations gateway at UC San Diego. There the requests were verified for location and correctness, and then forwarded to shuttle payload operations control at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The image request data was then sent to the KidSat IBM Thinkpad notebook computer aboard the shuttle and into the modified Kodak DCS 460 digital camera mounted in the shuttle window, where the pictures were automatically taken. Although the program flourishes with the help of many teachers and JPL staffers, "KidSat belongs to the kids," Syvertson noted. "They are working long into the night, monitoring the camera, placing the data onto the Internet and analyzing images taken of Earth," she said. "The schools have thought out their requests extremely well, and both the schools and the La Ca–ada students have a lot of interesting material to work with. Several students are actually extending their shifts to continue their work." KidSat is scheduled to fly again on STS-86, scheduled for launch in September of this year. Johns Hopkins University is working with JPL and UCSD to develop the curriculum and train the teachers in the KidSat pilot program. After the completion of the pilot program, KidSat may continue on future shuttle missions as well as on the international Space Station. To view the images taken from KidSat and learn more about the program, visit the KidSat World Wide Web site at http://www.jpl.nasa. gov/kidsat. ### __________________________________________________________________ Solar system's best-outfitted spacecraft dons its thermal cloak By MARY BETH MURRILL Using tools and techniques more often associated with fine tailoring than with space engineering, JPL technicians and engineers spent part of the holiday season laboring over sewing machines to clothe the Cassini spacecraft in the protective garb it must wear to survive during its long journey to Saturn. A unique team of spacecraft shielding technicians have cut, stitched and fitted shiny gold-colored and black blankets onto the three-story-tall spacecraft in a clean room near the Laboratory's testing facilities. The work requires a unique combination of meticulous old-world skills and high- tech materials to produce the finely sewn, super-strong and extremely lightweight thermal blankets that will protect Cassini from the extreme hot and cold of deep space. Though it appears to be gold foil covering the spacecraft, the shiny gold coloring of Cassini's blankets is due to the combination of a transparent layer of amber-colored material on top of a reflective aluminized fabric. "Our blankets are built unlike any others," said Mark Duran, supervisor of the "shield shop" that provides the space survival gear for JPL's spacecraft and instruments. Using industrial sewing machines, brown butcher paper patterns and large cutting tables, Duran's team worked split shifts to finish the blankets in preparation for Cassini's move into JPL's thermal vacuum chamber Jan. 18. There, the finished spacecraft is being tested in an artificial space environment. Spacecraft blankets are built for long-term durability and high thermal requirements. "Our goal in blanketing Cassini is to keep temperatures onboard the spacecraft at room temperature," said Pamela Hoffman, a thermal requirements engineer who is managing the blanketing of Cassini. In space, temperatures on the unblanketed portions of the spacecraft will range from about -220 to +250 degrees Celsius (about -364 to +482 degrees Fahrenheit). All the fabrics used in the blankets must stand up to the extreme radiation environment of space and protect the spacecraft for the duration of Cassini's 11-year mission. The blankets also provide protection against micrometeoroids-the dust grains of rocky debris that litter space. Some of Cassini's blankets are sewn with layers of a canvas-like, carbon-coated fabric called beta cloth that is especially effective in protecting against micrometeoroids. For Cassini, the blankets consist of as many as 24 layers of different fabrics, including aluminized Kapton, mylar, Dacron and other special materials. The blankets also have to meet tough electrical standards. At both Earth and Saturn, Cassini will be traveling through environments full of charged particles that could cause an electrical arc to form across the blankets, Duran said, "so a lot of work goes into making sure every single layer of each blanket is electrically grounded." Thin, accordion-like strips of aluminum are carefully sewn in to each blanket to prevent electrical arcing. Cassini, the most sophisticated planetary spacecraft ever built, is scheduled to be launched Oct. 6, 1997, on a Titan IV-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. ### __________________________________________________________________ NASA solicits studies of new Earth-imaging radar satellite By MARY HARDIN NASA is seeking proposals from industry for design and definition studies of LightSAR, a proposed new Earth-imaging satellite that would use advanced technologies to reduce the cost and enhance the quality of radar- based information for scientific research, commercial remote-sensing and emergency management applications. The agency expects to award up to five LightSAR study contracts worth approximately $700,000 each, with selection scheduled for March 1997 and final reports due in November 1997. "Our request for proposals is aimed at exploring innovative approaches to government and industry teaming," said Dr. Steven Bard, LightSAR pre- project manager at JPL. "The results of these studies are expected to enable industry to maximize the private sector investment in LightSAR. The proposers are required to share in the cost of implementing this mission, beginning with these studies." "The results of these studies, especially as related to indications of proposed teaming and cost-sharing arrangements for the follow-on phases, will help establish an appropriate implementation approach, should NASA decide to proceed further with a LightSAR mission," said William Townsend, acting associate administrator for NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth. LightSAR's synthetic aperture radar measurements would provide high- resolution images on a nearly continuous basis, giving the project considerable capability to map changes in land cover, generate topographic maps and provide long-term mapping of natural hazards. "For example, if LightSAR were operating now, we'd be able to get one image a day of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California," said Dr. Tony Freeman, LightSAR instrument manager at JPL, referring to recent heavy flooding in those areas. "Since radar can penetrate clouds, this would provide emergency management agencies with a picture of the changing flood conditions over a large area, even while the storm is still happening." Companies selected to work on LightSAR will be asked to study business and teaming approaches, prepare a market analysis, develop applications, define technical approaches and identify potential industry cost-sharing for carrying out follow-on development activities. "We are looking forward to working with industry to define this mission and determine their needs," Freeman said. JPL is managing the pre-project development of the LightSAR mission for NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth, which leads a long-term, coordinated research enterprise designed to study the Earth as a global environmental system. ### __________________________________________________________________ News briefs Dr. Daniel McCleese, manager of the Earth and Space Sciences Division 32, has been named to the additional position of chief scientist for the Mars program. McCleese will be responsible for developing long-term science strategies for future missions within the Mars Surveyor Program. He will also provide direction to and coordinate recommendations among various Mars advisory groups and committees. ### The winners of JPL's Notable Organizational Value-Added (NOVA) Awards for December have been announced: Section 323: Ara Chutjian. Section 331: Sylvia Amrick, Samuel Dolinar Jr., David Erickson, Juliann Gibson, Anil Kantak, Laura Sakamoto, Helmut Wilck. Section 345: Larry Matthies. Section 346: Otto Orient. Section 354: Steven Bard, Angela Belcastro, Jane Cho, Gani Ganapathi, Charles Garner, Matthew Heun, Marie Levine-West, Juergen Mueller. Section 385: John Holbrook, J.C. Mahoney. Section 389: Rosana Borgen, Daniel Crichton, Dana Freeborn, Kristy Kawasaki, Martha Mancilla-Wackley, Hoshyar Sayah. Section 391: Annabel Kennedy, James McClure, Robert Springfield, Harry Woo. Section 392: Jack Brock, James Korfanta, Debora Mahoney, Thu-Ha Truong. Section 393: Rashmi Bansa, Magdi Carlton, Scott Maxwell, Robin O'Brien, Patricia Santos, Michael Tankenson, May Tran. Section 820: Satish Khanna. Section 827: Robert Somoano. ### __________________________________________________________________ 3 garner Lew Allen Award Three JPL scientists have received the 1996 Lew Allen Award for Excellence. The annual awards recognize and encourage significant individual accomplishments or leadership in scientific research or technological innovation by JPL employees during the early year of their professional careers. The recipients are Dr. Yi Chao of the Earth and Space Sciences Division 320, Dr. Alexander Konopliv of the Navigation and Flight Mechanics Section 312 and Dr. W. Thomas Pile of the Microdevices Section 346. Chao received his award in recognition of his state-of-the-art ocean circulation model and its application to in-situ and satellite observations, which will improve the understanding of general ocean circulation and its role in global climate. Konopliv was recognized for his innovative gravity data analysis techniques and creation of high-resolution gravity field models for the Moon, Mars and Venus. Pike was cited in recognition of his outstanding work in the development of a microseismometer for planetary exploration. The winners received a wall plaque and a grant of $25,000 from the Director's Research and Development Fund, which is used at JPL to enhance the professional efforts of the awardees. The award was established in 1990 in honor of Allen, who served as JPL's director from 1982-90. ### __________________________________________________________________ Universe Editor, Mark Whalen Photos, JPL Photo Lab Universe is published every other Friday by the Public Affairs Office of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109.