Astronomic success

The University of Arizona's flat-topped lander, loaded with equipment to analyze Mars' icy soil and atmosphere, advances a quest for interplanetary knowledge that began when the state's tall peaks and dry, open skies first drew astronomers here a century ago.

With its latest — and perhaps greatest — project, the UA becomes the first public university to lead a Mars mission. The project also cements the UA's place as a key NASA partner. The university has received nearly $100 million in NASA research program funds in just the last two years, and now takes in more NASA money for planetary missions than the next nine universities combined.

The money follows, and fuels, the UA's success in space science. Researchers here have designed instruments that helped map the moon, provided the most detailed images yet of Mars, analyzed the rings of Saturn and recorded the descent to its moon Titan. They have created Earth- and space-based telescope components, cameras and instruments that brought back new discoveries about neighboring planets and the cosmos beyond.

All this is the scientific equivalent of making the Final Four every year — and winning it all with stunning regularity.

"It's just astounding the kind of academic entrepreneurship that has gone on at the University of Arizona," says Steve Maran, a retired NASA astronomer who worked at Kitt Peak and later at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "It's an absolute leader."

The key to the UA's success is grounded right here on Earth. The university has created a culture of broad-based cooperation across scientific disciplines including astronomy, optics, geology, aerospace engineering, biology, chemistry, physics and atmospheric science — and has attracted some of the world's best minds in those fields.

Now it's looking to the future by teaming young scientists with experienced professors and promoting the most promising future discoverers into positions that will keep them here to see through long-term projects.

It all happens here because Arizona enjoys a rare intersection of factors that makes it an ideal place from which to view our solar system, and galaxies beyond.

"There's a logical reason why so much space science gets done here: It's because we're Arizona, a dry place with lots of mountaintops," says UA astronomer Marcia Rieke. "It's more than chance we ended up here."

Interdisciplinary cooperation

Planetary scientists at the UA are more likely to be geologists than astronomers, and are just as likely to be engineers or chemists.

Instead of rock hammers and magnifying lenses, they use orbiting cameras, space telescopes, landers with remote-controlled science stations, and robotic rovers loaded with imagers and instruments.

That interdisciplinary cooperation, a hallmark of the UA's space studies, began with the arrival in 1960 of astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper, who shifted the focus of the world's largest telescopes from the stars to the moon and planets within our solar system.

As the first director of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Kuiper sought out a broad base of experts in lunar studies, planetary atmospheres, asteroids, infrared astronomy and spectroscopic analysis. He recruited geologists and taught them astronomy, and hired a mining geologist to teach astronomers geology.

The cross-pollination of expertise and knowledge continues today, allowing teams of scientists to tackle problems from a variety of directions, piling expertise upon expertise. It all adds up to much more competitive grant proposals and, in turn, more NASA research dollars.

Examples of the cooperation exist throughout the UA's space-science programs. One UA lab combines astronomy, molecular physics, chemistry and astrobiology to seek out molecules in interstellar space using radio telescopes on Earth. Led by Lucy Ziurys, the Arizona Radio Observatory program has discovered two compounds extremely important to biochemistry — one a precursor to the sugar molecule that forms the backbone of DNA.

Great hires

The pattern was set in the earliest days of UA space studies: Recruit the brightest scientific minds, whose work attracts coveted research dollars, which lures more top scientists.

Just a few key hires transformed the UA from an "almost backwater" astronomy program into a world leader in space exploration, says retired NASA astronomer Maran. "It's an incredibly strong organization there that has come up amazingly in the world since the late 1950s," says Maran, who also wrote "Astronomy For Dummies."

One early innovator was Aden B. Meinel, who joined the UA in 1961 after serving as the first director of the National Observatory at Kitt Peak. As conventional glass mirror telescopes reached their limits, Meinel championed a new approach to combine several smaller mirrors into a larger, more powerful viewing instrument. His work and innovations would find their way into the Multiple Mirror Telescope on Mount Hopkins south of Tucson.

Meinel's work inspired current UA astronomer Roger Angel, whose expertise includes adaptive optics, telescope design, optical fabrication and astrobiology. Angel devised a way to fuse glass into a honeycomb structure that allowed the production of larger lightweight mirrors. In the process, he created the UA's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab that today can produce mirrors more than 8 meters in diameter.

Their work helped their programs grow. Today, there are more than 300 faculty, staff and graduate students working either at the Department of Astronomy, Steward Observatory or the Mirror Lab.

The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, which began in 1960 with about 10 scientists, today has 250 faculty and staff. With varying degrees of participation, the lab has been involved in nearly "every major planetary mission since that time," says Director Michael Drake.

The UA also is involved in several current missions, including the Phoenix Mars Mission and the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and its moons.

Further out, UA planetary scientists are gearing up for OSIRIS, to collect an asteroid sample, and the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope. They also are leading an analysis of Mercury's geologic history for the Messenger Mission.

The next generation

Planetary research is science on a grand time scale. The huge distances involved mean that a mission — and the next big discovery — can take years.

Awaiting these new discoveries is the next generation of space scientists. The UA teams promising young scientists with their more experienced counterparts. In one prominent example, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory director Drake, a regents' professor with 33 years at the UA, is serving as co-principal investigator for the UA's proposed OSIRIS Mission with Dante Lauretta, 36.

The 2011 mission would land a spacecraft on an asteroid and return with samples of carbon thought to date to the solar system's formation.

"What most of us are after in this business is to understand why is life on Earth, how did it originate on the planet, and does it exist elsewhere," Lauretta says.

The UA will know by September whether it will be awarded the $425 million mission. A green light could push Lauretta into the small circle of planetary experts NASA is willing to entrust with multimillion-dollar projects.

"After this experiment, he will be credible to lead a space mission," Drake says.

Getting students involved at every level also ensures the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's future viability, Drake says.

"One of the advantages with university-based missions is we have graduate students and undergraduate students, and we have consistently engaged them in those missions in significant ways," he says.

Stephanie Barnes, 22, hasn't even graduated from college and already is a member of a Phoenix Mars Mission instrument team.

"I never wanted to be an astronaut because I'm terrified of flying," Barnes says. "But I've always wanted to work for NASA."

The Sabino High graduate is set to earn her bachelor's degree in optical sciences next May just days before the spacecraft's Mars touchdown.

"I was just sitting in class one day reading the school newspaper and there was an ad (seeking) Space Grant interns: 'Work for NASA.' " she says. "I applied, and I got lucky and got on this one."

She worked on the team that calibrated the Surface Stereo Imager, a UA-designed-and-built stereo camera that will show in great detail the northern polar area where Phoenix is to land. Lately, Barnes has been working on the 43-foot-wide by 7-foot-tall panoramic screen on which stereo images of Mars' surface will be projected. Scientists will use the images to decide where to dig with the lander's robotic arm and where to point its other imaging devices.

Some UA space scientists will take their expertise elsewhere. Barnes, for example, hopes to work for Lockheed-Martin Space Systems, the contractor that built the Phoenix spacecraft for NASA. Others will stay at the UA, putting their knowledge to use on programs that are just beginning and will take years to complete.

"The bigger picture is that multigenerational aspect," Drake says. "It's great to have your 15 minutes in the sun, but you want to make sure this lab, this university and the state continue to prosper — and that's what we're trying to accomplish."