Launch 12:25 p.m. EDT August 5, 2011

Bound for Jupiter - a plume sundial. You can tell the time of launch by the shadow of the plume [...]]]>

The day before launch - Atlas V in 551 configuration (5-meter payload fairing, 5 solid rocket strap-ons). Under the fairing is a Centaur second stage and Juno.

Launch 12:25 p.m. EDT August 5, 2011

Bound for Jupiter - a plume sundial. You can tell the time of launch by the shadow of the plume - the sun is nearly overhead

Two weeks after I started work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in late 2003 I was given my first “real” assignment. I was asked to sit in on Mission Juno’s design meetings and write the E/PO (Education and Public Outreach) proposal outline for the mission, a page-and-a-half summary with a budget. It was exciting to delve into a new kind of out-of-this-world work and begin a dream-come-true job as the informal and public outreach person on the Cassini Mission, with occasional planetary mission proposal writing forays.

Fast forward nearly 8 years and I find myself sitting in the shadows of Kennedy Space Center writing a blog about my own adventures at the launch of the mission which launched my own career at JPL. There will be many blogs, photo essays, and tweets from the 150 Tweetup attendees and many other launch guests. Mojo was one of the lucky 150 attendees at the tweetup and his blog is here.

My job at the launch was threefold. My first role was at the NASA tweetup itself. I’ve been the @CassiniSaturn Twitter persona since June 2008, and so I was working the tweetup backing up my outer planetary mission buddy @NasaJuno on Twitter duty the hours leading up to, at and after launch. I was also on hand to talk about NASA’s Year of the Solar System and show my What’s Up podcast during the hour just before launch at the Tweetup.

My second job was to organize a “star party” for the launch guests and create a flyer for all the attendees. The guests included the Juno mission’s invited Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Program students and educators, who came out to my star party. Each of the several thousand launch goodie bags had that star chart flyer featuring Saturn, the moon, Jupiter and Vesta, with a link to my What’s Up for August 2011 podcast and to NASA’s Year of the Solar System website outreach material. The podcast and website feature the Juno mission and planetary windy worlds like Saturn and Jupiter this month.

My third role was to participate in the Planetary Science Mission Directorate’s “Scientists in Action” webcast, live-streamed to museum audiences remotely. Museum audiences all over the country, and probably the world, watched this and other Juno launch programming.

In addition to the “work,” I was also a starry-eyed space girl at the NASA Tweetup, and was beyond excited to see my first launch. Just like the others, I was lapping up all the speaker comments and tweeting from @jhjones like crazy, when I wasn’t tweeting from @CassiniSaturn or @NASAJuno. I was stunned at the amazing bus tour stops, in spite of the sweltering heat. And I soaked up the electric camaraderie and atmosphere of everyone at the Tweetup program.

Although it was a “you had to be there” kind of event, I hope these pictures and tales give you a taste of the magic that is NASA. I almost can’t believe I get to go to NASA planetary mission launches at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center for work! And share the excitement of Cassini, Juno, and next month, Grail with informal education outreach! I’m not on cloud nine, I’m above it!

My Juno launch photo album

The NASA Juno website

Juno launch videos

I'm putting my hands inside the neophrene gloves, which are now filled with nitrogen

Jane and JPL outreach colleagues give 3 lunar samples a thumbs up.

While attending the 41st Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in The Woodlands, TX (a suburb of Houston) in early March 2010, I was lucky enough to visit the Johnson [...]]]>

I'm putting my hands inside the neophrene gloves, which are now filled with nitrogen

Jane and JPL outreach colleagues give 3 lunar samples a thumbs up.

While attending the 41st Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in The Woodlands, TX (a suburb of Houston) in early March 2010, I was lucky enough to visit the Johnson Space Center’s famous Lunar Sample Processing Facility. Most of the time during my one week stay, I was setting up, staffing, and taking down an exhibit focusing on NASA/ESA missions to the Outer Planets.

After packing the exhibit Thursday night we got a good night’s sleep and headed to Johnson Space Center, about an hour’s distance away the next morning. Every space enthusiast can visit JSC, and have a great tour. But we had a specific destination in mind — the Lunar Sample Processing Facility. How appropriate a visit, especially after a week at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference!

First, we stopped for lunch at astronaut Jose Hernandez’s family restaurant Tierra Luna Grill.

After lunch we (we being my JPL outreach colleagues Preston Dyches, Eddie Gonzales and I) parked outside Building 31N, and walked upstairs. We donned booties to cover our shoes, and put on head-to toe white bunny suits, gloves and head covering, after removing any gold jewelry. Why? Gold and silver alloys (even 24K gold) have trace amounts of lead and lead is not allowed in the laboratory. Our cameras and cell phones were wiped down to reduce dust, and placed in an airlock. Then we entered the air shower, where any dust remaining on our bunny suits was gently filtered off, and a minute later, we walked into the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility.

We entered the room, filled with monochrome cabinets and tools made of steel and teflon. White clad space geeks listened intently as our tour guide, Charles Galindo, principal scientist and astrobiology lab manager (he’s very active in educational outreach) took us from cabinet to cabinet, peeling back the years of history, to reveal the why and the how behind the wow!

Soon we were inserting our hands into the huge and awkward neophrene gloves, and touching hammers that touched real lunar samples! We walked around the room, and into the corridors, past the locked steel vault holding priceless samples collected from the surface of the moon. At one end of the room was a large case with three large lunar samples. I’ll end my little tale with a short description of these three samples.

Lunar Sample 61016.7 was collected from Plum Crater on the Apollo 16 mission. This sample is nicknamed Big Mulie in honor of UT geologist Bill Muehlberger, and is the largest rock (11.7 kg) collected on the Apollo Missions. The sample contained 4 rock types, including anorthosite from the ancient lunar crust, age: 4.5 billlion years.

Lunar Sample 15459 was collected from Spur Crater on the Apollo 15 mission. It is a large dense regolith breccia which contains a mineral, glass and chemical composition like that of the local soil. Here are a couple In Situ images!

Lunar Sample 15556.0 is medium grained vesticular basalt from Apollo 15. Here are many images including thin sections. This sample was collected 60 m NE of the rim of Hadley Rille!

When I am out with my telescopes showing the moon to my sidewalk astronomy audiences, I carry a lunar landing site map exactly like this one. The Apollo 15 landing site is easy to point out to my audiences, especially near the first quarter moon phase. It’s near the familiar lunar landmarks like the Appenines, right on the rim of the great Imbrium Impact basin.

Hadley Rille is an observing mecca for lunatics like me. It draws me in to it, and then with a nod to space history and Apollo 15 recollections, I can’t help but try to see some of the tiny craters near the landing site. Peering through an eyepiece at the areas where men landed and walked on the moon adds a dimension to amateur astronomy which I find compelling. You will too, I’m sure!

My complete photo album, including more site visits at JSC and the exhibit at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference 2010 are here. Many thanks to Charles Galindo of JSC for taking us on this amazing adventure and to Eddie Gonzales of JPL for orchestrating the whole visit!

I saw this car parked in front of my building at JPL last week

Checking out the Tesla's trunk

Back at work after my 20 minute Tesla drive

Nikola Tesla's laboratory, circa 1900

My favorite sign at JPL is this Rover Xing sign.

It is not unusual to see [...]]]>

Unique vehicles abound at JPL

I saw this car parked in front of my building at JPL last week

Checking out the Tesla's trunk

Back at work after my 20 minute Tesla drive

Nikola Tesla's laboratory, circa 1900

My favorite sign at JPL is this Rover Xing sign.

It is not unusual to see robotic vehicles on the roads around the laboratory, especially during the weeks surrounding our annual open house when a dozen or more rovers, robots and spacecraft are out on public display.

One recent morning, I noticed a unique vehicle parked next to my building. It was a Tesla Roadster! I stopped and took a photo of it – it is such a gorgeous car! Then, of course, I tweeted it, and put the picture on Facebook.

On my lunch hour I went back out and looked at it, and noticed the license plate holder said “My Other EV is on Mars!”

Toward the end of the day, I overheard a group of colleagues talking about the Tesla, and I joined them. A minute later the Tesla’s owner walked up and asked me if I wanted a ride! When she drives the Tesla to work, she becomes an Electric Vehicle EVangelist and offers half-hour rides around Pasadena. She has a long waiting list, but had a cancellation, and offered me the 5 p.m. time-slot. It’s her way to spread the EVangelism and make more people aware of electric vehicles.

Within a few minutes I was stowing my purse in the trunk of this gorgeous car! Then after a few rules (pay for your own tickets, don’t crash, etc.) I was handed the keys! I opened the driver’s door and stepped down in the drivers seat. Wow, this car is just my size!

I aligned the side mirrors by rolling down the window and manually adjusting them. I familiarized myself with the blind spots, adjusted the seat and put the key in the ignition.The roadster came silently to life. I shifted from neutral to drive, checked for traffic behind me, pressed the throttle pedal and drove the Tesla down JPL’s Mariner Road, out the security gate and onto the 210 or Foothill Freeway.

My friend encouraged me to accelerate, and I obeyed instantly! In seconds I was cruising at 60 MPH, changing lanes while caressing the three-spoke steering wheel, pedal to the metal, and watching all the ordinary cars turn green with envy.

I couldn’t help but think of the car’s namesake, Nikola Tesla, whose inventions include the induction motor and alternating-current power transmission. The Tesla Roadster was unveiled just days after the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2006. If he were alive today, I think he’d enjoy a test drive with me in and around NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

Soon, it was time to return the car so another lucky driver could share my experience, and join the cadre of Tesla EVangelists!

I drove back through the gates, parked the car, shifted back into neutral, set the brake,and turned over the keys, but not before I got a picture of my first and maybe my last Tesla test drive.