GSC Update

*An excellent editorial on the status of our nation's space program found on Space.com for critics and supporters alike

*NASA's latest project is a probe headed for the sun's closest neighbor, Mercury. The craft, Messenger, will launch July 30th and uses a complicated set of orbital manuvers (including using Venus as a giant gravitational brake) to save fuel and avoid whizzing by Mercury and being incinerated by the sun. This will be the first visit to Mercury since the brief Mariner visits in 1974 and 1975. Arriving around March 2011 for a year long study, the probe will update our knowledge of the planet that, due to it's proximity and relative celestial position with the sun, only is visible to telescopes a few days a year. Messenger was built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

*NASA's Cassini spacecraft has begun it's in-depth study of Saturn and uncovered some puzzling mysteries. The probe found a mysterious source of oxygen emenating from Saturn's E ring. Cassini starting analyzing the materials within the particles of the rings to find decreasing amounts of water from the outer ring to the middle. The probe has also produced imagery that could be actual tectonics on the mysterious surface of Titan.

*NASA continues to maintain it's prescence in space. With the grouding of the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station is limited to two occupants, American Michael Fincke and Russian Gennady Padalka. Problems with circuity and spacesuits continue to plague the space station, forcing risky spacewalks. NASA also continues to consider alternative technologies including a Mars GPS satellite system for future expeditions (look for the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter set for 2009) and the radical "space elevator" concept.

As always, sources/information from Space.com