HONG KONG, March 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Against all odds, tiger numbers have increased across the world over the past ten years. The individuals, NGOs and governments working hard to protect and save these magnificent cats proved that the threats they face can be reversed, bringing benefits to wildlife and communities alike. Whether it's patrolling the jungle or caring for rescued cubs, CNN's Mission Tiger spotlights the conservation heroes who are passionate about saving these endangered creatures.
CNN first travels to the Indonesian island of Sumatra to visit Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation (TWNC). Located on the southern tip of the island, its lush tropical forest and pristine coastline provide a haven for wildlife, including the critically endangered Sumatran tiger. CNN meets the rangers who patrol the forest to protect it from poachers and say they have identified 48 tigers in the reserve through camera trapping since 2012.
With only 400 to 500 Sumatran tigers left in the wild, TWNC is built on the premise that every tiger counts. As well as protecting the forest where wild tigers live, the organization runs a sanctuary for tigers who have come into conflict with humans. CNN learns the ropes of their tiger rehabilitation programme, which is designed to help rescued animals re-learn the skills they need to survive in the wild, including the natural instinct to hunt prey.
Next, CNN hears from Dr. Kanita Ouitavon. As a young researcher, she realized she could make an important contribution to protecting wildlife in her home country of Thailand. This passion led her to study biological sciences before re-joining the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) where she helped create the country's first wildlife forensic science unit in 2010. Ouitavon and her team perform DNA testing on confiscated illegal wildlife products like tiger parts, which are used in traditional medicine or sold as luxury goods. They provide crucial pieces of information that can be used as evidence in court cases on wildlife crime.
In Malaysia, tigers are a traditional symbol, representing bravery and strength, and even appear on the country's coat of arms. However, less than 150 Malayan tigers are thought to exist in the wild today, due to heavy poaching and habitat loss. In the north of Malaysia, Royal Belum State Park remains one of the last refuges of the critically endangered Malayan tiger. CNN explores this jungle, which is also home to the Jahai people from the indigenous Orang Asli community. RIMAU, an NGO founded by filmmakers, Harun Rahman and Lara Ariffin, has partnered with Perak State Parks Corporation Director Shah Redza Hussein to assemble a team of Jahai patrollers who protect their forest home from poachers. This group of 30 patrollers, named "Menraq," meaning "people" in the Jahai language, remove deadly snare traps and report evidence of poaching to local authorities.
I just played through the mission and had absolutely no trouble gunning down the heli during the last stage where you are manning the gun in your own heli. Took all of 5-10 seconds to shoot down the heli which wasn't putting up any fight at all. Are you sure you are talking about the mission, "Tiger Dust"? Played the mission through on Elite. Did not use the drone at all except for the required portions. Limited my sync shots as well to only those required to keep from being detected during the stealth phases. Killed 1 civilian unfortunately that was standing behind a car. Scored 96/100 with 100% accuarcy. Stupid easy which is not a good thing considering this was supposed to be Elite difficulty. Of course I'd send you the savegame, but I'm playing this game on the PS3. Redbox rental. :-P It's my 3rd time renting the game. Plan to finish the campaign before returning the game tomorrow. Will have spent under $10 total on the game rentals. Well worth it.
I made it very clear in my reply that I knew the OP was playing the game on the PC, not the PS3 as I am. That being said, I took the time to play the mission all over again just to see if I could offer any suggestions. On the other hand, your reply contributes nothing to this thread, no disrespect.
The American Astronomical Society (AAS), established in 1899 and based in Washington, DC, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. Its membership of about 7,000 individuals also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research and educational interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects comprising contemporary astronomy. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity's scientific understanding of the universe.
Owing to these combined discoveries, Enceladus has received significant attention for its astrobiological potential. The presence of organics and energy within an ocean world opens many possibilities for habitability and life detection investigations (McKay et al. 2018). It is considered one of the most promising targets for the search for life in our solar system, as mentioned in the 2013 Decadal Survey (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018), the New Frontiers 4 (NF4) Announcement of Opportunity (AO; Niebur 2016), and the New Frontiers 5 (NF5) AO (Niebur 2020). In addition, the underlying liquid water within Enceladus can be directly examined by flying through its south polar plume. As Enceladus's plume is predictable and sourced from a liquid water ocean, it represents a unique opportunity to utilize a flyby mission architecture to directly sample materials from deep within a surface-frozen ocean world. In contrast, other ocean worlds like Europa likely require more complex, landed in situ mission designs to perform analysis of the interior, due to the irregular and spatiotemporal unconstrained nature of Europan plume activity (Rathbun & Spencer 2020). While missions such as Europa Clipper can assess the habitability of Europa through sampling of plume material if a plume is active during the mission duration, it is unknown whether the plume is directly sourced from the deeper interior (Howell & Pappalardo 2020). Therefore, an Enceladus flyby mission represents a unique and promising opportunity to examine the habitability of an ocean world.
Herein, we introduce the Tiger mission (mission logo shown in Figure 1), which was developed during the first session of the 2020 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Planetary Science Summer School (PSSS; Budney et al. 2018; Lowes et al. 2020). The NASA JPL PSSS is a rigorous 10-week program that conducts a prephase A concept study for a NF-class mission designed by graduate students and early career planetary scientists and engineers. The 2020 study culminated in a week-long, virtual session to formalize our proposed concept. The final week included trade study sessions with Team X (NASA JPL's advanced project design team) and a final presentation to a review panel.
Tiger is a habitability-focused, multi-flyby mission concept to Enceladus, concentrating on the south polar region. Tiger would build on the science achieved by Cassini in order to further constrain the environments within Enceladus and determine the habitability of the liquid water ocean and any connected reservoirs. In addition, Tiger would provide information necessary to guide future missions to ocean worlds with life detection/habitability-focused goals. A life detection mission to Enceladus would necessitate a flagship-class lander (e.g., Enceladus Orbilander, MacKenzie et al. 2020), which is not within the budgetary constraints of a NF-class mission. Tiger's mission objectives address key science questions in the 2013 Decadal Survey (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018), as well as the "Roadmap to Ocean Worlds" (Hendrix et al. 2019). The Tiger mission concept and feasibility study showcases the science return of an NF-class mission to Enceladus and discusses the trades and challenges prescribed in adherence to NF requirements. In this work, we discuss both the proposed mission concept and these trades and challenges for the architecture of an NF-class habitability mission to Enceladus.
The Tiger mission focuses on better constraining the habitability of Enceladus through two specific scientific objectives (Figure 2). First, Tiger would assess the potential for habitability of the subsurface ocean by analyzing the organic material in the vapor and redox state of the ocean (Postberg et al. 2011). Second, Tiger would address the transport mechanisms for material from the subsurface ocean through the ice shell and into space as plume ejecta. These are expressed as the following science objectives:
Tiger's instrument payload will permit in situ analysis of the plume vapor and remote sensing of the surface and interior of Enceladus. The suite consists of a mass spectrometer, ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, single-band ice-penetrating radar, and imaging camera (Table 1). For this study, analog instruments have been chosen to constrain science and engineering requirements for Tiger. These instruments would require specific modifications for operation in the Enceladus environment, but adapting these instruments was beyond the scope of this study. All instrument analogs are based on hardware that has either previously flown or been selected for upcoming missions. Each instrument analog, the physical parameters they will measure, and the science objective requirements they satisfy are summarized in Table 2.
The architecture of the Tiger mission concept has been designed using the JPL Team X concurrent engineering process, taking into account NF-class constraints and the science priorities identified in the concept design process. The full NF5 AO has not yet been released as of the completion and submission of this work, so notional NF limits based on previous AOs (Niebur 2016) and expectations for the future one have been used in the design of this mission concept. Systems have all been designed to meet a NASA class B risk classification with appropriate redundancies included throughout. NASA risk classification levels determine acceptable mission risk posture depending on how critical each mission is to NASA's Strategic Plan (NASA 2004); the OSIRIS-REx NF mission is also a Class B mission (Leitner 2014).
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