>About Us
>Organization and Leadership
>Accomplishments
>FY 2006 Year in Review
FY 2006 Year in Review
In January 2006, NASA launched its spacecraft, New Horizons, to the Agency's first mission to Pluto, Pluto's moon Charon, and the Kuiper Belt. The National Academy of Sciences ranked the exploration of Pluto-Charon and the Kuiper Belt among the highest priorities for solar system exploration. Different from the inner, rocky planets (like Earth) or the outer gas giants, Pluto is a dwarf type of planet known as an "ice dwarf," commonly found in the Kuiper Belt region billions of miles from the sun. Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archeological dig into the history of the outer solar system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation.
After a 2.88 billion mile round-trip journey, the Stardust mission returned cometary and interstellar dust particles back to Earth. Since the returned material has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system, scientists believe these dust particles will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system.
The Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. This discovery, along with the presence of escaping internal heat and very few (if any) impact craters in the South Polar Region, shows that Enceladus is geologically active today.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) began its inspection of the red planet in fine detail. The orbiter carries six scientific instruments for examining the surface, atmosphere, and subsurface of Mars in unprecedented detail from low orbit. NASA expects to get several times more data about Mars from MRO than from all previous Martian missions combined. MRO's high-data-rate communications system relays information between Mars surface missions and Earth. The data regarding the history and distribution of Mars' water will improve understanding of planetary climate change and whether Mars ever supported life. The MRO also continued to evaluate potential landing sites for future missions.
On Mars, the rover Opportunity reached the rim of a hole in the Martian surface wider and deeper than any it had previously visited. The crater, known as "Victoria," is approximately one-half mile wide and 230 feet deep. Initial images from the rover's first overlook after a 21-month journey to "Victoria Crater" show rugged walls with layers of exposed rock and a floor blanketed with dunes. The layers of rock offer information about the environmental conditions long ago. The MRO recorded images of the rover at the site.
During hurricane season, NASA airborne and orbiting science instruments contributed a great deal of information. NASA satellites provide critical detail in determining if and when hurricane formation is occurring. NASA provides researchers and forecasters with space-based observations, data assimilation, and computer climate modeling. NASA-sponsored measurements and modeling of global sea surface temperature, precipitation, winds, and sea surface height have also improved understanding of El Niño and La Niña events, which respectively tend to suppress and enhance Atlantic and Gulf hurricane development. NASA's current hurricane-related products from orbiting science instruments include data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the Aqua satellite; the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the Aura satellite; the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua and Terra satellites; the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite; the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS); and the Ocean Color Time-Series Project. In addition, researchers investigated tropical storms and hurricanes in the eastern and mid-Atlantic Ocean regions, including those threatening Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands.
On April 28, 2006, the CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellites were launched into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The CALIPSO and CloudSat are a pair of Earth-observing satellites designed to study clouds from orbit.