Jet Propulsion Laboratory UNIVERSE Pasadena, California - Vol. 23, No. 1 - January 15, 1993 _________________________________________________________________ Earth-approaching asteroid captured by radar images By Mary Hardin Using a large radar antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in the Mojave desert, JPL astronomers have obtained the sharpest images yet of an Earth-approaching asteroid, 4179 Toutatis, as it passed extremely close to Earth last month. "This is our first clear look at one of the many thousands of asteroids whose orbits can intersect Earth's orbit," said Dr. Steven Ostro of the Geology and Planetary Section 326 and leader of the radar team. The radar images reveal Toutatis to be a "contact binary" asteroid, consisting of two irregularly shaped, cratered objects about 4 and 2.5 kilometers (2.5 and 1.6 miles) in average diameter and rotating with a period between 10 and 11 days. Toutatis passed 4 million kilometers (2.5 million miles) from Earth on Dec. 8 -- less than 10 times farther away than the Moon. Discovered by French astronomers on Jan. 4, 1989, almost nothing was known about Toutatis before the radar images were taken. The asteroid has now been shown to have a jagged, cratered surface which indicates a complex history of collisions. "The binary nature of Toutatis is the most important single result of this radar experiment," Ostro said. Previous radar images taken by Ostro and his colleagues of another Earth-approaching asteroid, 4769 Castalia (1989 PB), were too crude to reveal surface details but did show the object to be bifurcated into two 1-kilometer (0.6 mile) lobes. Radar echoes bounced off of other asteroids have also contained hints of contact-binary configurations. "Three years ago we were startled by the initial evidence for contact-binary asteroids," Ostro said. "Now it seems that double bodies might be very common in the Earth-approaching asteroid population. If so, then their abundance has important implications for theories of the origin and evolution of asteroids and meteorite source bodies. "For example, sub-catastrophic collisions might play an important role in delivering asteroidal bodies into the inner solar system from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter," he said. The two components of Toutatis probably joined in a relatively gentle collision, but their origins and the times and circumstances of events leading up to the asteroid's current configuration are unknown, Ostro continued. "Toutatis may be two pieces of a much larger asteroid that once orbited in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, but was disrupted in a catastrophic collision with another large object," Ostro speculated. Another possible scenario is that Toutatis was split into two parts by a collision not quite energetic enough to completely pulverize it. The best way to study the history of Toutatis would be through the analysis of samples returned from both Toutatis components. While there are no plans yet to rendezvous with Toutatis, Ostro said it and dozens of other near-Earth asteroids are leading candidates for robotic flyby, rendezvous and sample- return missions because of the asteroids' small gravitational fields and because of the ease of maneuvering spacecraft between the orbits of Earth and the asteroids. For most of the radar observations, a 400,000-watt coded radio transmission was beamed at Toutatis from Goldstone's main 70-meter (230-foot) antenna. The echoes, which took as little as 24 seconds to travel to Toutatis and back, were received by the new 34-meter (112-foot) antenna and relayed back to the 70-meter station where they were decoded and processed into images. Full processing of the Toutatis radar data over the next few months is expected to reveal details of surface features less than 100 meters (330 feet) across. Eventually a detailed three- dimensional computer model of the object will be constructed from the data, Ostro said.In addition to Ostro, members of the JPL radar team include Dr. Raymond Jurgens, Keith Rosema, Ron Winkler, Denise Howard, Randy Rose, Dr. Martin Slade and Dr. Donald Yeomans. ### _________________________________________________________________ MACS -- another quality success story By E.K. Davis When Division 37 speaks of MACS, they don't mean fast food. What they're talking about is the Mission and Computing Support (MACS) contract, which was designed to do much more than just replace the former Mission Computing and Control Center operations and maintenance contract which was re-bid in 1988. The new agreement was to provide for potential support to the full spectrum of mission, computing and communications activities throughout the development, operations and maintenance life cycle. Of particular concern was having a contractual vehicle to help accommodate the mission operations "bulge" of the 1990s, when Ulysses, Galileo, Magellan, TOPEX/Poseidon, Mars Observer and Cassini support were added to the ongoing Voyager missions. MACS was a means to readily accommodate the planned growth in space missions within the JPL work force ceilings. The MACS contract also was designed to provide for a long- term, stable association through a contract term of five years plus five one-year options -- given satisfactory performance -- for a possible total of 10 years without re-bid. Three of the one-year options have now been added to the contract. The MACS contractor is OAO Corp., which operates a fully autonomous Contract Management Office near JPL to manage and support their work force of more than 420 people. The MACS contract can support any organization at JPL that has work falling within the scope of the MACS contract. So, what does this have to do with a quality success story? The incentives for MACS were unique, with two award fees: one was of the standard performance award fee variety, but the second was an award fee to encourage productivity improvement and quality enhancement (PIQE). The PIQE award fee recognizes good ideas, their successful implementation, and achievement of desired results -- which lead to improved quality and lower cost of operations. The past four and a half years have seen substantial improvements in customer satisfaction, process efficiencies and quality, as measured by customer surveys and internal metrics. And, cost reductions of more than $4 million have been validated! These cost savings -- when extended through the full term of the contract --amount to more than $9 million as of September 1992, and are still growing. Some examples of the improvements made to achieve these savings include: -- Solving an AMMOS (Advanced Multi Mission Operating System) interface problem, resulting in a $400,000 cost avoidance for new equipment; -- Reducing the cost of implementing a magnetic tape storage facility by finding a source of reconditioned, used racks at about one-quarter the cost of new racks; -- Adapting several PC-based programs to automate scheduling functions, reducing required labor from 12 hours per week to one hour per week; -- Consolidating maintenance of several computer types on Lab to substantially reduce over maintenance costs to JPL. These are only a few of the 100 or so suggestions which have been approved, implemented and verified since OAO began their quality program. The MACS contract is one of JPL's largest, making customer- supplier alignment an important factor in the achievement of our goals. OAO has now aligned their four-year PIQE/TQM quality program with Dr. Stone's four attitudes of quality: customer focus, strategic planning, employee empowerment and continuous improvement. For more information, call MACS Contract Technical Manager Chuck Koscielski at ext. 4-0117. ### E.K. Davis is manager of JPL's Institutional Computing and Mission Operations Section 370. _________________________________________________________________ News briefs Dr. Yvonne Freeman, director of JPL's Minority Science and Engineering Initiatives Office, has taken a position as NASA's assistant administrator for Equal Opportunity Programs. The announcement was made by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. "Dr. Freeman has an excellent background in equal opportunity programs, particularly in the education area," said Goldin. "She knows NASA, and it will be great to have her back at headquarters. She shares my deep commitment to developing a NASA work force that reflects the diversity of our society." Freeman will return to NASA Headquarters, where she served as manager of the Minority University Program from 1987-90. "Dr. Freeman has been instrumental in the advancement of minority programs and activities at JPL," said Dr. Harry Ashkenas, manager of JPL's University Affairs Office. "She will be sorely missed." Ashkenas said a replacement has not yet been named. Dr. David Halpern, an oceanographer and senior research scientist in JPL's Earth and Space Sciences Division Section 320, will become a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) at the society's Jan. 17 opening ceremony in Anaheim. Halpern specializes in measurements of surface wind over the global ocean and the associated oceanographic changes of current, sea-surface topography, temperature and phytoplankton. His studies draw on observations from Earth-orbiting satellites, including JPL's TOPEX/Poseidon spacecraft, and from numerical models of ocean-atmosphere circulation. Halpern also serves as manager of the Multidisciplinary Studies Program in JPL's Office of Space Science and Instruments. He is co-investigator of two JPL instruments under development -- the NASA Scatterometer and the Stick Scatterometer -- to measure surface winds during NASA's forthcoming Mission to Planet Earth. He is among 19 scientists in the international community this year to be named fellows of AMS, a 13,000-member association dedicated to oceanography and atmospheric studies. A kickoff meeting to discuss plans for JPL's American Heritage Week will take place on Jan. 19. JPL employees and contractors who are interested in getting involved are invited to attend the meeting at noon in Building 171, conference room 246. Committees will be formed at that time. Call Nerissa Parmelee at ext. 4-8669 for information. JPL will host the fifth NASA Engineering Symposium Jan. 26- 27. The symposium's focus will be on integrated tools for performing systems engineering functions. The first day is devoted to new ideas in systems engineering and their applications to NASA programs; on the second day, commercial vendors will discuss and demonstrate their systems engineering software products. There is no registration fee for the symposium, which will be held in Building 180-101. All employees are welcomed. Call Dr. Robert Shishko at ext. 4-1282 for information. A course covering the hardware and software design of microprocessor systems and taught by Phil Salomon, a technical staff member in the Guidance and Control Section 343, will begin Feb. 8 at Pasadena City College. The class meets Monday and Wednesday evenings from 7-10 p.m., and offers particular emphasis on 8085 and 8086 processors. Early enrollment is advised because of class size limitations. Call Salomon at ext. 4-6214 or PCC Admissions at (818) 585-7123 for information. An all-day seminar series on FORTRAN 90 will be presented in von Karman Auditorium Jan. 27. The presentation will begin with a one-hour overview at 8:30 a.m., followed by three 90-minute sessions with more in-depth discussion of specific topics. The seminar series is cosponsored by the JPL Supercomputing Project, SSORCE; the Supercomputing and Computational Mathematics Support Group in Section 372; and the Navigation Software Development Group in Section 314. Event organizer Dr. Charles Lawson said those responsible for choosing programming languages for JPL projects are particularly encouraged to attend, but the series is open to all JPL personnel. Call Lawson at ext. 4-4266 for information. ### _________________________________________________________________ 1992 was a year to remember for JPL By Mark Whalen 1992 may have been the busiest and most satisfying year in JPL's history. As deep-space missions were launched from Earth, others continued forward toward their goals after leaving our planet in earlier years. The Lab's technological, engineering and scientific wizardry allowed us to gaze at passing asteroids and far off galaxies alike, and excited us with close-up views of our own planet and others. New and challenging missions were proposed, helping us look toward the next century with excitement and anticipation. And 1992 also showed the great diversity that is JPL, as much of the Lab's efforts and discoveries attest to the fact that Earth is indeed the most important planet for us to observe from above. Some highlights: January Magellan, which was launched in May 1989, began its third mapping cycle of Venus and focused on stereo mapping of selected targets and areas not mapped earlier. ... A nine-member delegation of Russian scientists and engineers spent a week at the Lab, meeting with staff members of JPL's Navigation Ancillary Information Facility to study a NASA information system they are adopting for data distribution during their mission to Mars in 1994. They also met with scientists and engineers from the Mars Observer mission and the Space Flight Operations Center. February Spaceborne radar and enhanced satellite images helped JPL geologists locate the lost city of Ubar in southern Oman, a civilization dating back 5,000 years. ... On its way to the poles of the sun, the Ulysses spacecraft sailed past Jupiter at closest approach of about 172,000 kilometers (277,474 miles) from the planet's center on Feb. 8. The spacecraft found a magnetosphere that is more extended and thinner than that encountered by Voyager. The Ulysses project also announced that the spacecraft was able to study charged particles around Jupiter at higher latitudes than its predecessors. ... JPL's Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) team announced discovery of exceptionally high levels of ozone-destroying chlorine monoxide at Earth's northern latitudes. MLS is aboard NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). "The findings show that the ozone layer is in significantly more danger than previously thought," said Dr. Joe Waters, MLS' team leader. ... The All Source Analysis System (ASAS), a computerized battlefield intelligence system developed by JPL for the Army which saw limited action in the Persian Gulf war, was accredited by the Defense Intelligence Agency, meaning that ASAS can now be deployed for use on battlefields as the Army chooses. ... JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone announced Lab-wide implementation of the Total Quality Management (TQM) initiative, focusing on customer satisfaction and continuous improvement of work processes. March The Mars Observer spacecraft passed its last major test before shipment to Cape Canaveral -- a 12-day thermal environmental test to simulate the vacuum and temperature of space. ... A new business ethics program is launched at the Lab. April Andrew Thomas, a JPL mechanical engineer, was chosen as an astronaut for NASA's space shuttle program. ... JPL's Employee Recreation Club celebrated its 40-year anniversary. ... Organizational Dynamics Inc., JPL's TQM consultant, found in a random Lab survey that employees believe that existing policies and procedures "interfere with their ability to perform excellent work." The survey also found that employees believe that "many policies and practices are outdated and get in the way of serving customers." ... JPL and the Pasadena Unified School District dedicated the district's new Saturday Science Academy program, which was partially funded through a $50,000 contribution from JPL. May Oceanographer Mark Drinkwater, JPL's principal investigator for the Weddell Sea Project, began research in the Antarctic on that region's interaction of the ocean, ice cover and atmosphere. ... Newly appointed NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin made his first visit to JPL on May 28, urging Lab employees to be bold and innovative, and to try to cut through NASA's bureaucracy to restore the agency's technical and managerial excellence. ... JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone told the first-ever "Briefing for Industry" conference in Pasadena that the Lab wants to build a stronger relationship with industry. "We see industry more in partnership. But this also means that industry should assign its very best people to projects and provide sufficient oversight."Magellan project scientists identified large landslides on Venus which are similar to slides on Earth and Mars, the largest of which spread 30 km (18 miles) across the surface. Project Scientist Steve Saunders said the most dramatic landslides on Venus may have formed much like the Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington in 1980. ... NASA approved JPL's redesign of the Cassini mission to Saturn, set for 1997. Under the plan, the spacecraft's weight will be cut by about 20 percent to 5,050 kilograms (11,130 pounds); overall cost is projected to drop by about $250 million. June The Galileo mission released detailed photographs of the asteroid Gaspra, which were taken in October 1991. The spacecraft visited Gaspra on its first swing through the main asteroid belt, between gravity-assist flyby encounters with Earth. Images were played back indirectly from the spacecraft tape recorder through the low-gain antenna at distances of up to 430 million kilometers (266 million miles). ... In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Surveyor rover missions to the moon, JPL revealed "Rocky IV," a prototype for a small rover that will be part of the Mars Environmental Survey (MESUR) Pathfinder mission, which would send a single lander and instrumented rover to Mars beforehand to photograph the surface and look for hydrogen, a possible sign of water. The remote-controlled, 16 1/2-pound vehicle is designed as a precursor to a sample-return mission. ... Citing the fact that "A classic never goes out of style," Goldin announced that the agency's original 1959 "meatball" insignia would return to replace the newer, tubular "worm" logo. ... JPL research physicist Eugene Trinh served as a payload specialist on STS-50 (Space Shuttle Columbia), the U.S. Microgravity Laboratory-1. During the 14-day mission, the longest ever for shuttle flights, Trinh conducted experiments on the Drop Physics Module, a microgravity instrument supporting various experiments on the dynamics of fluids and gases in space. July Dr. Peter Lyman, Deputy Director of the Lab for five years, announced his retirement; Larry Dumas, formerly assistant laboratory director for the Office of Telecommunications and Data Acquisition, was named Deputy Director. August TOPEX/Poseidon, a joint U.S./French mission managed by JPL to study ocean surfaces in unprecedented detail, took off from Kourou, French Guiana on Aug. 10. The three-to-five-year mission, which will utilize a dual-frequency radar altimeter and high- accuracy satellite orbit determination systems, will enable oceanographers to map the large-scale movement of ocean water and understand how the ocean changes with time. The satellite's orbit will take it over the entire Earth's surface every 10 days. ... The Deep Space Network successfully tracked the European spacecraft Giotto as it flew within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of the comet Grigg-Skjellerup, the closest encounter ever performed by a spacecraft. ... Robert Staehle of JPL's Systems Analysis Section described the feasibility of a fast flyby mission to Pluto, which could be launched before the end of the decade. ... Launch of the Mars Observer spacecraft was delayed for several weeks because of contamination in the nose fairing, discovered during a routine payload inspection. ... Norman Haynes, who had served as deputy assistant laboratory director for the Flight Projects Office, was named to replace Dumas as ALD for the Office of Telecommunications and Data Acquisition. ... The U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring JPL founder Dr. Theodore von Karman. September Ulysses Project Scientist Edward Smith reported that data acquired by the spacecraft show that the solar wind exerts a much stronger influence on Jupiter's magnetic field than previously thought. ... The Mars Observer spacecraft lifted off on Sept. 25. The mission, which will play a critical pathfinding role for future missions to Mars, will study the planet's geology, geophysics and climate. Objectives include identifying and mapping surface elements and minerals, measuring the height of surface features, defining the gravitational field and searching for a planetary magnetic field. The spacecraft will reach Mars in August 1993 and will spend a full Martian year -- 687 days -- mapping the planet. October Space Shuttle Columbia carried in its cargo bay JPL's Lambda Point Experiment, which used cryogenics technology developed by the Lab's Low Temperature Research facility to study changes in properties of materials during phase transitions. The environment of space allowed testing of a Nobel Prize-winning physics theory to an accuracy 100 times greater than that possible on Earth. ... Five hundred years after Columbus landed in America, JPL's High Resolution Microwave Survey -- the most powerful search ever for extraterrestrial intelligence -- began its sky survey at the Deep Space Network's Goldstone station, NASA's Ames Research Center and at the Aricebo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico. DSN antennas in California and Australia will scan the entire sky across millions of frequencies in the microwave band. ... JPL geologists, working with colleagues from Louisiana State University, discovered previously unknown earthquake faults in the Mojave Desert by analyzing remote sensing images at optical, infrared and radar wavelengths. ... The SIR-C/X-SAR Project received delivery of the X-band hardware from its German and Italian manufacturers, making way for testing and integration in 1993. When completed, the antenna -- which will perform a series of environmental experiments from Space Shuttle Endeavour -- will be the most massive piece of flight hardware ever assembled at JPL. November JPL astronomer Peter Eisenhardt reported findings that a distant radio galaxy previously thought to contain old stars -- older than some estimates of the age of the universe -- may instead be a very young system caught in the act of formation. ... The Lab announced it has entered into a collaboration with Cray Research Inc. to conduct joint research and development with a new massively parallel supercomputer developed by Cray. JPL will take delivery of one of the first models this fall. ... The Miniature Seeker Technology Integration (MSTI) spacecraft took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a four-day mission. MSTI, which carried a Department of Defense payload that took infrared photos of islands in the Pacific Ocean, undertook an innovative approach in its design process which was hardware-driven, rather than requirements-driven. Eighty-three percent of the $15-million spacecraft was built from off-the-shelf components. ... The "eyes" of the Hubble Space Telescope -- JPL's Wide Field/Planetary Camera-1, captured the most detailed view ever of a galaxy's core, feeding a suspected black hole in the Virgo cluster, about 45 million light years from Earth. Final work is under way on WF/PC-2, which will correct the optical flaw in Hubble's primary mirror in late 1993. December Exactly two years after its first gravity assist pass by Earth, the Galileo spacecraft made its second flyby on its way to Jupiter on Dec. 8, streaking above the South Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of 304 kilometers (189 miles). On its way to Earth, the spacecraft's camera captured various images and spectral scans of the northern regions of the moon, as it flew within 110,000 kilometers (about 68,000 miles) of the lunar surface. The spacecraft will reach Jupiter in December 1995. ... One day after Galileo's closest approach to Earth, researchers for the Galileo Optical Experiment (GOPEX) fired laser beams from locations in California and New Mexico to the spacecraft at distances of up to 6 million kilometers (3.7 million miles). GOPEX is part of a program testing the use of laser beams to transmit large volumes of space-acquired data currently achieved by radio signals. ... Using satellite images taken before and after the June Landers earthquake, JPL geologist Robert Crippen produced a videotape showing the motion of earthquake faults in the Mojave Desert. This was the first time that fault motion has been observed through the use of images acquired from space. ... JPL astronomers obtained the sharpest images yet of an Earth- approaching asteroid, 4179 Toutatis, as it passed within 4 million kilometers (2.5 million miles) of Earth. ###