WWF’s current strategy for achieving its mission specifically focuses on restoring populations of 36 species (species or species groups that are important for their ecosystem or to people, including elephants, tunas, whales, dolphins and porpoises), and ecological footprint in 6 areas (carbon emissions, cropland, grazing land, fishing, forestry and water).

The organization also works on a number of global issues driving biodiversity loss and unsustainable use of natural resources, including
finance, business practices, laws, and consumption choices. Local offices also work on national or regional issues.

WWF works with a large number of different groups to achieve its goals, including other NGOs, governments, business, investment banks, scientists, fishers, farmers and local communities. It also undertakes public campaigns to influence decision makers, and seeks to educate people on how to live in a more environmentally friendly manner.

Notable programs and campaigns :

- Debt-for-Nature Swap;

- Earth Hour;

- Healthy Grown;

- Marine Stewardship Council;

- WWF global initiatives.

In 2008, through the Global Programme Framework (GPF), WWF is now focusing its efforts on 13 Global Initiatives:

- Amazon;

- Arctic;

- China for a Global Shif;

- Climate & Energy;

- Coastal East Africa;

- Coral Triangle;

- Forest and Climate;

- Green Heart of Africa;

- Living Himalayas;

- Market Transformation;

- Smart Fishing;

- Tigers.

To be read after the Unit 14

Mars Science Laboratory

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed Curiosity, a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigating Mars' habitability, studying its climate and geology, and collecting data for a manned mission to Mars. The rover carries a variety of scientific instruments designed by an international team.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort for the robotic exploration of Mars that is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of California Institute of Technology. The total cost of the MSL project is about $2.5 billion.

NASA called for proposals for the rover’s scientific instruments in April 2004, and eight proposals were selected on December 14 of that year. Testing and design of components also began in late 2004, including Aerojet’s designing of a monopropellant engine with the ability to throttle from 15–100 percent thrust with a fixed propellant inlet pressure.

By November 2008 most hardware and software development was complete, and testing continued. At this point, cost overruns were approximately $400 million. In the attempts to meet the launch date, several instruments and a cache for samples were removed and other instruments and cameras were simplified to simplify testing and integration of the rover. The next month, NASA delayed the launch to late 2011 because of inadequate testing time. Eventually the costs for developing the rover did reach $2.47 billion, that for a rover that initially had been classified as a medium-cost mission with a maximum budget of $650 million, yet NASA still had to ask for an additional $82 million to meet the planned November launch.

Between March 23–29, 2009, the general public ranked nine finalist rover names (Adventure, Amelia, Journey, Perception, Pursuit, Sunrise, Vision, Wonder, and Curiosity) through a public poll on the NASA website. On May 27, 2009, the winning name was announced to be Curiosity.

Previous successful U.S. Mars rovers include Spirit and Opportunity, and Sojourner from the Mars Pathfinder mission. Curiosity is about twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit and Opportunity.

The MSL mission has four scientific goals: Determine the landing site's habitability including the role of water, the study of the climate and the geology of Mars. It is also useful preparation for a future manned mission to Mars.

To contribute to these goals, MSL has five main scientific objectives:

1. Determine the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds.

2. Investigate the chemical building blocks of life (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur).

3. Identify features that may represent the effects of biological pro-cesses.

4. Investigate the chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials.

5. Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks and soils.

As part of its exploration, it also measured the radiation exposure in the interior of the spacecraft as it traveled to Mars, and it is continuing radiation measurements as it explores the surface of Mars. This data would be important for a future manned mission.

The Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation.

A 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble’s four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. The Large Space Telescope was renamed the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in honour of Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer who, among other things, determined that the universe extended beyond the borders of Milky Way.

Hubble’s orbit outside the distortion of Earth’s atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images with almost no background light. Hubble’s Deep Field has recorded some of the most detailed visible-light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST was built by the United States space agency NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency, and is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute. The HST is one of NASA’s Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space

Telescope.

Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923. Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When

finally launched in 1990, Hubble’s main mirror was found to have been ground incorrectly, compromising the telescope’s capabilities. The optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s elevated perspective and advanced optics allow it to peer farther away than previous ground-based optics are able to see. Because light takes time to travel long distances, the range of the HST makes it function similar to a time machine; the light from remote objects only reveals how that object appeared when the light left it, not how it appears today. Thus when we look at the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light-years from Earth, we see it as it was 2.5 million years ago.

When astronomers pointed the HST to a seemingly-empty patch of sky, for instance, they captured an image of over 3,000 galaxies too distant to be detected by other telescopes. Some of the galaxies were so young, they had not yet begun serious star formation. Other deep field observations have since been taken, providing a wealth of information.

In addition to gazing at the early universe, Hubble also helped astronomers gauge how much time had passed since the Big Bang. By measuring a special kind of pulsing star known as a Cepheid variable, they were able to narrow down the age of the universe from its pre-HST range of 10 to 20 billion years to a more precise 13.7 billion years.

In addition to galaxies, the Hubble Space Telescope also examines individual stars in various stages of their evolution – from the clouds of dust that form infant stars to the corpses of those long since detonated, and those in between. It has even been able to peer outside of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and into its neighbours, the Magellanic Clouds and Andromeda Galaxy.

The Hubble Space Telescope may spend much of its time peering light-years from Earth, but on occasion it takes the time to photograph the planets travelling around our sun. High resolution images taken of Jupiter, Saturn, and even Pluto can provide insights that can only be topped by planetary probes circling the planets. Images from the HST allow scientists on Earth to monitor changes in the planet’s atmosphere and surface. When the comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into the Jupiter in 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope photographed the fatal collision. The aftermath revealed

a great deal about the gas giant’s atmosphere.

In orbit for more than two decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided scientists with a greater understanding of the planets, galaxy, and the whole universe.

Hubble is the only telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. Between 1993 and 2002, four Space Shuttle missions repaired,

upgraded, and replaced systems on the telescope; a fifth mission was canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved one final servicing mission, completed in 2009. The telescope is now expected to function until at least 2014, and possibly 2020. Its scientific successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is currently scheduled to be launched in 2018.