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USGS Astrogeology. Deborah Lee Soltesz. Astrogeology & USGS Flagstaff Science Center The USGS Flagstaff Science Center was established in 1963 to provide lunar geologic mapping and assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon.
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USGS Astrogeology Deborah Lee Soltesz
Astrogeology & USGS Flagstaff Science Center The USGS Flagstaff Science Center was established in 1963 to provide lunar geologic mapping and assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon. Flagstaff was chosen as a site for the excellent atmospheric conditions for astronomical observations of the Moon. A telescope was built here specifically to support a USGS program of lunar geologic mapping in addition to the topographic maps of the Moon that were being made at Flagstaff's Lowell Observatory. Another important factor was Flagstaff's location near volcanic craters, Meteor Crater, and the Grand Canyon, which provide natural laboratories for field studies and astronaut training on terrains similar to the surface of the Moon..
Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker Gene founded the USGS Astrogeology Research Program in Flagstaff in the early 1960’s to support the Apollo missions to the Moon. Carolyn is a scientist emeritus with the USGS Astrogeology Research Program in Flagstaff. She has discovered more than 800 asteroids and 32 comets, including co-discovering Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with her husband and David Levy. SL9 impacted Jupiter in 1994.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, USGS Astrogeology assisted the Apollo mission by building prototype equipment, such as the rover shown here, training the astronauts in geology, and mapping potential landing sites. The prototype geologic rover, Grover, is on display a the Shoemaker Center for Astrogeology at the USGS Flagstaff Science Center.
During the Apollo Era, USGS Astrogeology assisted in field testing equipment and training astronauts in Flagstaff and various other sites around Northern Arizona. Today, Astrogeology continues to support equipment field tests in the Flagstaff region for NASA and JPL.
USGS geologist Jack Schmitt, along with Gene Cernan, were the last men to step foot on the Moon. Jack was transferred to NASA to join the space program, and went to the Moon on the Apollo 17 mission. Below: Jack gives keynote speech at the dedication of the USGS Shoemaker Center for Astrogeology in Flagstaff.
For the Apollo missions, the USGS created maps used to support landing site selection and surface operations. Today, Astrogeology continues to provide this support for unmanned landers.
Today, the USGS Astrogeology Research Program continues to support unmanned and manned missions, and perform planetary research, cartography and image processing.
The USGS Astrogeology Research Program is involved in the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan, with researchers and technical professionals involved in several aspects of the mission.
The USGS Astrogeology Research Program is involved in the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission, providing science, mapping, and software support.
USGS Astrogeology is in charge of the Microscopic Imager (MI) on the Mars Exploration Rover. The MI mission operations are run from the USGS Shoemaker Center for Astrogeology in Flagstaff, Arizona.
One of the ways USGS Astrogeology supports space exploration is through landing site mapping and analysis
Mark works with Microscopic Imager (MI) imagery on the Digital Photogrammetric Workstation in Flagstaff. The images his team creates help scientists visualize the size and shape of the features the MI camera collects.
Jeff, a USGS planetary scientist, at Mars Exploration Rover science operations at JPL. Jeff was chosen to be one of 24 participating scientists on the mission.
Ken, a planetary scientist for USGS Astrogeology, speaks at a press conference about the Microscopic Imager (MI) on Mars Exploration Rover. Ken leads the MI instrument team.
MER Microscopic Imager operations are run from the USGS Shoemaker Center for Astrogeology in Flagstaff.
Ken runs the USGS Planetary Geologic Mapping Program, which coordinates providing support, data, and publication of geologic maps. Scientists from multiple institutions participate in the program.
Many of the most famous images from the history of space exploration were produced right here in Flagstaff at the USGS Astrogeology Research Program
One of the dozens of projects Astrogeology is working on is to create a global image mosaic of the Moon from images collected by Lunar Orbiter in the 1960s. The images were collected and stored on thousands of filmstrips. Project members are scanning the filmstrips to create digital versions of the strips, then assembling the digital strips into a mosaic that will show nearly the complete surface of the Moon.
The Astrogeology Data Center is the heart of Astrogeology’s work. It houses the servers that allow us to maintain in-house software, process global mosaics from space mission data, serve maps over the internet, and house tremendous amounts of image data coming in from active missions. The Data Center holds over 10 terabytes of data storage, and houses numerous Linux, Windows, and Unix systems.
The Isis software is an image processing package developed by Astrogeology to manipulate imagery collected by current and past NASA planetary missions sent to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and other solar system bodies. Isis is composed of over 100 individual applications, and an image viewer (shown here). Isis 3, the latest version in its 20+ year history, is written in C++ and uses the Qt windowing API. Right: Isis QView displaying an image of the Moon caught by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it flew by
Map-a-Planet provides a Web Map Service, giving mappers direct access to image data from desktop applications. http://www.mapaplanet.org/
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/LunarOrbiterDigitization/http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/LunarOrbiterDigitization/
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