November 8-10, 1991 - Klofas.com

Lunar, Mars, Asteroid Missions
A number of planetary missions are
being examined. The dishes, ifthey are
in reasonable shape, are capable of supporting
missions out to the orbit of Mars
and, depending on the spacecraft transmitter
and data rates, considerably beyond.
Several organizations (ie. Lunar
Exploration, Inc.) have proposed lunar
polar orbiters, a few (i.e. AMSAT and
AMSAT -DL) have proposed Mars orbiters,
and others favor asteroid missions.
Each of these types of missions require
fairly large receiving equipment on Earth.
The Table Mountain Antenna Facility is
ideal for these types of missions. As an
aside, the balky antenna on NASA's
Galileo satellite may force them to play
back the recorded images of the October
1991 Gaspra asteroid encounter one year
later, muchcloser to Earth andata rate of
as low as 40 bits / sec. The members of
DSES may be some of the first people on
the planet to see a close-up of an asteroid!
Deep Sky
Several deep sky projects can also be defined. Several members have expressed an interest in
radio noise temperature calibration (Le. Sun, Jupiter, Moon, Milky Way, deep sky pulsars, quasars,
etc.). The radio astronomy community is encouraged to contact us and suggest ideas for projects.
CONTACTS AND MEMBERSHIP
Membership dues for the DSES are currently set at $50 per year. An as-yet-to-be designed
newsletter will be published and volunteers for specific hardware, software, science, and educational
projects will be sought from the membership. Dues andcorrespondence should beaddressed
to: Deep Space Exploration Society, c/o Rex Craig, 5921 Niwot Road, Longmont, CO 80503.
Currently, our news and articles appear in Satellite Operator. The publisher is: R.Myers Communications,
P.O. Box 17108, Fountain Hills, Az., 85269-7108. An electronic mail service and bulletin
board has been provided by the Boulder Center for Science and Policy. The particulars are as
follows: (303) 494-8446, 2400 baud, 8 bits, No parity, 1 stop bit.
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