This week I had the good fortune of being selected to attend the 24th NASA Tweetup event for the GRAIL mission which is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center aboard a Delta II rocket on September 8, 2011. This is scheduled to be the final Delta II rocket launched by NASA.
For those unfamiliar with what a NASA Tweetup is or what the GRAIL mission entails, here is some background.
NASA Tweetup
In January 2009, NASA hosted the first tweetup event at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. It is an opportunity for followers of NASA Twitter accounts to gather together and get a behind-the-scenes look at missions, talk with scientists, engineers, administrators, and astronauts, and get an up close and personal look at NASA. It’s also a great place for space geeks to gather and get to know each other. There are two types of tweetups: one centered on the launch of a vehicle (rocket or space shuttle) and one without a scheduled launch. A launch tweetup is a two-day event, while the other tweetups are typically only one day.
While it may vary by tweetup, there is typically a maximum of 150 attendees randomly selected from the group of registered Twitter users. Obviously, depending on the nature of the tweetup, there are many more people who tried to get a spot. For the final space shuttle mission, I read that there was over 6500 people who registered, while for this GRAIL launch, it was only around 825. Registration is free to any Twitter user, but you’re on your own for travel, lodging, and food costs (although you do get a pass to get into the location it’s being held, in the case of the GRAIL tweetup, it’s Kennedy Space Center).
With each NASA Tweetup being different, especially with a launch event, it really is a unique and once in a lifetime event. Of course, assuming NASA continues to host tweetup events, I hope to have a few more “once in a lifetimes” in my lifetime. If only all the NASA locations weren’t so far from Milwaukee.
GRAIL Mission
Unless you are a super hard-core space geek or are related to someone working on it, it’s very doubt that you’ve heard of the GRAIL mission. GRAIL stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, and it is two spacecrafts that will orbit the moon to precisely measure and map the moon’s gravitational field.
Using this information, scientists will be able to determine the interior structure and composition of the moon, which will lead to being able to better understand the moon’s origin and development. It will also be able to help with navigation of any future moon landings.
This mission has two very important firsts associated with it: this will be the first time anyone has tried the difficult task of putting two different spacecrafts in the same precise orbit around another planetary object (necessary for the devices measuring the gravitational field). Second, this mission will carry cameras (MoonKAM) whose targets will be chosen by middle school students.
While it may not sound as sexy as the Juno mission to Jupiter or the Mars Science Laboratory, GRAIL will go a long way to help scientists understand how planetary objects were formed and what was happening at the creation of our solar system.
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