Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, March 11, 2017

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SOUTH PASADENA - SAN MARINO

Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 11, 2017 

New NASA Radar Technique 
Finds Lost Lunar Spacecraft

Huntington Exhibit Octavia 
E. Butler: Telling My Stories

NASA Marks Women’s 
History with Virtual Tour

 Finding derelict spacecraft and space debris in Earth’s orbit 
can be a technological challenge, however, a new technological 
application, announced Thursday, of interplanetary radar 
pioneered by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has 
successfully located spacecraft orbiting the Moon -- one active, 
and one dormant. This new technique could assist planners of 
future Moon missions.

 “We have been able to detect NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance 
Orbiter [LRO] and the Indian Space Research Organization’s 
Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in lunar orbit with ground-based 
radar,” said Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at JPL and principal 
investigator for the test project. “Finding LRO was relatively easy, 
as we were working with the mission’s navigators and had precise 
orbit data where it was located. Finding India’s Chandrayaan-1 
required a bit more detective work because the last contact with 
the spacecraft was in August of 2009.”

Add to the mix that the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is very small, 
a cube about five feet (1.5 meters) on each side -- about half the 
size of a smart car. Although the interplanetary radar has been 
used to observe small asteroids several million miles from Earth, 
researchers were not certain that an object of this smaller size as 
far away as the Moon could be detected, even with the world’s 
most powerful radars. Chandrayaan-1 proved the perfect target 
for demonstrating the capability of this technique.

 Finding a derelict spacecraft at lunar distance that has not been 
tracked for years is tricky because the Moon is riddled with 
mascons (regions with higher-than-average gravitational pull) 
that can dramatically affect a spacecraft’s orbit over time, and even 
cause it to have crashed into the Moon. JPL’s orbital calculations 
indicated that Chandrayaan-1 is still circling some 124 miles 
(200 kilometers) above the lunar surface, but it was generally 
considered “lost.”

 However, with Chandrayaan-1, the radar team utilized the fact 
that this spacecraft is in polar orbit around the Moon, so it would 
always cross above the lunar poles on each orbit. So, on July 2, 
2016, the team pointed Goldstone and Green Bank at a location 
about 100 miles (160 kilometers) above the Moon’s north pole 
and waited to see if the lost spacecraft crossed the radar beam. 
The team used data from the return signal to estimate its velocity 
and the distance to the target. This information was then used to 
update the orbital predictions for Chandrayaan-1.

 “It turns out that we needed to shift the location of Chandrayaan-1 
by about 180 degrees, or half a cycle from the old orbital estimates 
from 2009,” said Ryan Park, the manager of JPL’s Solar System 
Dynamics group, who delivered the new orbit back to the radar 
team. “But otherwise, Chandrayaan-1’s orbit still had the shape 
and alignment that we expected.”

Hunting down LRO and rediscovering Chandrayaan-1 have 
provided the start for a unique new capability. Working together, 
the large radar antennas at Goldstone, Arecibo and Green Bank 
demonstrated that they can detect and track even small spacecraft 
in lunar orbit. Ground-based radars could possibly play a part 
in future robotic and human missions to the Moon, both for a 
collisional hazard assessment tool and as a safety mechanism for 
spacecraft that encounter navigation or communication issues.

 A new exhibition opening 
this spring at The Huntington 
Library, Art Collections, 
and Botanical Gardens 
examines the life and work 
of celebrated author Octavia 
E. Butler (1947–2006), the 
first science fiction writer 
to receive a prestigious 
MacArthur “genius” award 
and the first African-
American woman to win 
widespread recognition 
writing in that genre. 
“Octavia E. Butler: Telling 
My Stories” opens April 8, in 
the West Hall of the Library 
and continues through Aug. 
7. Butler’s literary archive 
resides at The Huntington.

 “She was a pioneer—a 
master storyteller who 
brought her voice, the voice 
of a woman of color, to 
science fiction,” said Natalie 
Russell, assistant curator of 
literary manuscripts at The 
Huntington and curator of 
the exhibition. “Tired of 
stories featuring white, male 
heroes, she developed an 
alternative narrative from a 
very personal point of view.”

 A Pasadena, Calif., native, 
Butler told the New York 
Times in a 2000 interview: 
“When I began writing 
science fiction, when I began 
reading, heck, I wasn’t in 
any of this stuff I read. The 
only black people you found 
were occasional characters 
or characters who were 
so feeble-witted that they 
couldn’t manage anything, 
anyway. I wrote myself in, 
since I’m me and I’m here 
and I’m writing.”

 Butler would have been 
70 in 2017; she died an 
untimely death at age 58, 
apparently of a stroke at her 
home in Seattle.

After Butler’s death, The 
Huntington became the 
recipient of her papers, 
which arrived in 2008 in two 
four-drawer file cabinets 
and 35 large cartons. “She 
kept nearly everything,” said 
Russell, “from her very first 
short stories, written at age 
12, to book contracts and 
programs from speaking 
engagements. The body of 
materials includes 8,000 
individual items and 
more than 80 boxes of 
additional items: extensive 
drafts, notes, and research 
materials for more than a 
dozen novels, numerous 
shorts stories and essays, 
as well as correspondence 
and other materials. By the 
time the collection had been 
processed and catalogued, 
more than 40 scholars were 
asking to get access to it. In 
the past two years, it has been 
used nearly 1,300 times—or 
roughly 15 times per week, 
said Russell, making it one of 
the most actively researched 
archives at The Huntington.

 “Octavia E. Butler: Telling 
My Stories” will include 
examples of journal entries, 
photographs, and first 
editions of her books, 
including Kindred, arguably 
her best-known work. The 
book is less science fiction 
and more fantasy, involving 
an African-American 
woman who travels back 
in time to the horrors of 
plantation life in pre-Civil 
War Maryland. “I wanted 
to reach people emotionally 
in a way that history tends 
not to,” Butler said about 
the book. Published in 
1979, Kindred continues 
to command widespread 
appeal and is regularly 
taught in high schools and at 
the university level, as well 
as chosen for community-
wide reading programs and 
book clubs.

 


 In celebration of last week's 
International Women’s 
Day and Women’s History 
Month in March, NASA 
has unveiled an educational 
virtual tour that brings 
students into the exciting 
careers of seven women 
in science, technology, 
engineering and math 
(STEM) fields at the agency.

 Building on NASA’s 
participation with the 20th 
Century Fox film “Hidden 
Figures,” NASA’s Modern 
Figures tour introduces 
several amazing women, 
including two from the 
agency’s Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, 
California, who are 
contributing to America’s 
space program today, and 
is the first NASA-themed 
career tour available via the 
free Google Expeditions 
mobile app.

 NASA’s Modern 
Figures virtual tour 
gives students a three-
dimensional experience in a 
100,000-square-foot aircraft 
hangar, simulated Martian 
landscape, Space Flight 
Operations Facility, and 
other fascinating locations 
where these women work 
as materials scientists, 
launch directors, software 
engineers, and in other 
STEM fields.

 The agency signed a Space 
Act Agreement with Google 
in late 2016 to collaborate 
in the areas of education 
and public engagement, 
which includes developing 
a series of NASA-themed 
virtual field trips and 
tours available freely to 
classrooms worldwide. In 
addition to the Modern 
Figures Expedition, NASA 
contributed content for the 
development of a 3-D tour 
of the International Space 
Station, as well as two new 
tours that allow students 
to experience NASA’s Juno 
mission to Jupiter, and the 
surface of Mars, as captured 
by NASA rovers.

 These tours provide virtual 
field trip experiences that 
teachers can lead while 
students view NASA 
content in 3-D via Google 
Cardboard viewers in their 
classrooms. The Google 
Expeditions partnership 
supports NASA’s mission to 
inspire and attract kids into 
STEM studies and careers 
by providing opportunities 
for students to virtually step 
out of the classroom and 
experience NASA careers, 
missions and locations in 
space without leaving their 
desks. 

 JPL, a division of Caltech 
in Pasadena, California, 
manages the Juno mission 
and the Mars Exploration 
Program for the agency. 
Tracy Drain and Christina 
Diaz of JPL are among the 
women featured in NASA’s 
Modern Figures Google 
Expedition.

 For more information about 
NASA’s exciting exploration 
missions, go to: nasa.gov.

 For more information 
about NASA’s Modern 
Figures, visit: nasa.gov/
modernfigures.

Free CERT 
Emergency 
Skills Training

 
Free training for CERT 
graduates, Neighborhood 
Watch Block Captains, 
Amateur Radio Operators, 
and the general public. The 
goal of the meeting, April 12 
from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., is to 
educate and empower groups 
of neighbors to be self sufficient 
during a disaster. This will be 
a very hands on discussion of 
the steps required to build a 
plan for you and your closest 
neighbors. 

 The Golden Hour is the 
one hour you have after 
an earthquake to find any 
neighbors who may be injured 
and trapped. The “Map Your 
Neighborhood” training 
will help empower you and 
your neighbors to develop a 
plan where “neighbors help 
neighbors” until help can arrive. 
Please bring 1-5 neighbors so 
that you can work as a team on 
your plan.

 The event will be at Library 
Community Room - 1115 El 
Centro Street, South Pasadena.

Board Seeks Community 
Input on South Pasadena 
Middle School Gymnasium

 
The South Pasadena Unified 
School District (SPUSD) 
School Board will conduct a 
public hearing March 14 at 
6:30 p.m. during the board 
meeting to receive comments 
about construction related to 
the South Pasadena Middle 
School (SPMS) old gymnasium 
building. Specifically, the 
Board wants to hear the 
community’s perspective on 
repurposing the existing space 
versus replacing the structure. 
The future building will be a 
vibrant addition to the campus 
and will house a black box 
theater, instructional space for 
art classes and a lab for robotics 
and other STEM programs.

 “The Board wants to hear 
the community’s thoughts 
about whether to replace or 
reconfigure this building. As 
we come to a decision, multiple 
factors will be taken into 
account including architectural 
and engineering considerations, 
cost, and community input. We 
will consider all factors as we 
determine a construction plan 
for this important instructional 
space,” said Elisabeth Eilers, 
SPUSD School Board president.

 The structure, originally built 
as a gymnasium for students 
on the SPMS campus, has 
been partially retired for the 
past several years. Currently, 
only a portion of the building 
is being used due to outdated 
systems and access issues 
requiring costly updates and 
improvements. Expected to 
serve all SPMS students, the 
future structure may be used 
for community events as well. 

 Once the School Board 
determines direction, planning 
is expected to last approximately 
14 months. Construction 
could begin as early as fall 2018, 
with completion expected 
approximately one year later.

 In addition to attending 
the public hearing at the 
SPUSD office, community 
members also may express 
opinions about this project 
electronically, through a link 
on the SPUSD website at spusd.
net under Information & 
Announcements or by mailing 
correspondence to SPUSD 
Superintendent Geoff Yantz, 
1020 El Centro Street, South 
Pasadena, California 91030. 

Crowell Public 
Library Talk

Edan Epstein, Afternoon of 
the Faun

Wednesday, March 15: 7 pm

 In this South Pasadena 
author’s sixth novel, a man 
struggles with grief following 
the death of his charismatic 
father. His despair sends 
him on a quest to become 
completely invisible. His 
journey perversely parallels 
his father’s childhood 
struggle for survival in the 
forests of Europe at the end 
of World War II. Afternoon 
of the Faun is a lyrical tale 
of descent, survival, and 
redemption.

Crowell Public Library is 
located 1890 Huntington 
Dr. For more information 
call the Library at (626) 300-
0777. 


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