NASA's Maven explorer arrives at Mars after a year

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's Maven spacecraft arrived at Mars late Sunday after a 442 million-mile journey that began nearly a year ago.

The robotic explorer fired its brakes and successfully slipped into orbit around the red planet, officials confirmed.

"I think my heart's about ready to start again," said Maven's chief investigator, Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado. "All I can say at this point is, 'We're in orbit at Mars, guys!'"

Now the real work begins for the $671 million mission, the first dedicated to studying Mars' upper atmosphere.

Flight controllers in Colorado will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments, and observing a comet streaking by. Then in early November, Maven will start probing the upper atmosphere of Mars. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.

Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry. That early wet world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.

NASA launched Maven last November from Cape Canaveral, the 10th U.S. mission sent to orbit the red planet. Three earlier ones failed, and until the official word came of success late Sunday night, the entire team was on edge.

"I don't have any fingernails any more, but we've made it," said Colleen Hartman, deputy director for science at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It's incredible."

The spacecraft was clocking more than 10,000 mph when it hit the brakes for the so-called orbital insertion, a half-hour process. The world had to wait 12 minutes to learn the outcome, once it occurred, because of the lag in spacecraft signals given the 138 million miles between the two planets on Sunday.

"Based on observed navigation data, congratulations, Maven is now in Mars orbit," came the official announcement. Flight controllers applauded the news and shook hands; laughter filled the previously tension-filled room.

Noted NASA project manager David Mitchell: "Wow, what a night. You get one shot with Mars orbit insertion, and Maven nailed it tonight."

Maven joins three spacecraft already circling Mars, two American and one European. And the traffic jam isn't over: India's first interplanetary probe, Mangalyaan, will reach Mars in two days and also aim for orbit. Jakosky wished the team well.

Jakosky, who's with the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, hopes to learn where all the water on Mars went, along with the carbon dioxide that once comprised an atmosphere thick enough to hold moist clouds.

The gases may have been stripped away by the sun early in Mars' existence, escaping into the upper atmosphere and out into space. Maven's observations should be able to extrapolate back in time, Jakosky said.

Maven — short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission — will spend at least a year collecting data. That's a full Earth year, half a Martian one. Its orbit will dip as low as 78 miles above the Martian surface as its eight instruments make measurements. The craft is as long as a school bus, from solar wingtip to tip, and as hefty as an SUV.

Maven will have a rare brush with a comet next month.

The nucleus of newly discovered Comet Siding Spring will pass 82,000 miles from Mars on Oct. 19. The risk of comet dust damaging Maven is low, officials said, and the spacecraft should be able to observe Siding Spring as a science bonus.

Lockheed Martin Corp., Maven's maker, is operating the mission from its control center at Littleton, Colorado.

This is NASA's 21st shot at Mars and the first since the Curiosity rover landed on the red planet in 2012. Just this month, Curiosity arrived at its prime science target, a mountain named Sharp, ripe for drilling. The Opportunity rover is also still active a decade after landing.

All these robotic scouts are paving the way for the human explorers that NASA hopes to send in the 2030s.

___

Online:

NASA: http://mars.nasa.gov/maven/

University of Colorado: http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/

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US firm in China meat scandal lays off 340 staff

BEIJING — A U.S. meat supplier said Monday it is laying off most of the workforce of a Chinese subsidiary accused of selling expired beef and chicken to McDonald's, KFC and other major restaurant chains.

Shanghai Husi Food Co. has been under investigation since a Shanghai TV station reported in July it repackaged and sold old meat. Six employees were arrested in August on suspicion of producing substandard products.

Its owner, OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, said it will lay off 340 people at the Shanghai unit. It said a small number of employees would be kept on while the investigation is underway. The website of Shanghai Husi says it employs about 500 people.

"Over the past two months, Shanghai Husi has experienced significant financial and customer losses," said an OSI Group statement. "It is very unlikely that production will be resumed soon."

The scandal has alarmed Chinese diners and disrupted operations for fast food brands.

Product safety is unusually sensitive in China following scandals over the past decade in which infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or sickened by phony or adulterated milk powder, drugs and other goods.

KFC owner Yum Brands Inc. and McDonald's Corp. said they immediately stopped using products from Husi.

Burger King Corp., Starbucks Corp., pizza chain Papa John's International Inc. and a Dicos, a chain of sandwich shops, withdrew products with ingredients from suppliers that dealt with Husi.

OSI has announced plans for a "quality control center" in Shanghai and said it will spend 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) on a food safety education campaign.

The company announced Sept. 1 it was turning over management of a separate facility in the southern city of Guangzhou that produces vegetable and fruit products to KanPak China, owned by Golden State Foods of Irvine, California.

KFC has broken all ties with OSI Group in China, the United States and Australia.

McDonald's, which has bought meat from OSI in the United States since the 1950s, complained it felt deceived but has said it will stick with the company, possibly because Chinese food processors cannot match OSI's scale and technology.

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EdTrip’s a field day for teachers

For most students, field trips are something to look forward to as a day away from the classroom and, every so often, as a chance to see for themselves something truly transformative, something they've only heard about in school or read about in books.

But for teachers, coordinating these trips can be a logistical nightmare of finding the right destination, drawing up an itinerary and collecting dozens of parental-consent forms — all things that take time away from teaching.

So a MassChallenge finalist offers to do all of that for them, all the while drumming up business for Bay State venues.

"Coordinating field trips is a massive investment of time if you're a teacher," said EdTrips CEO Jakob Garrow, who used to work for an educational travel company with his co-founder, Laura Wallendal. "We realized if there were a way to make it easier for teachers, more of them would take trips."

The two teamed up with Jillian Kando, their chief technology officer, to create a website that, in addition to collecting payments and parents' permission, allows teachers to search for a destination by name, subject or the grade they teach. Or they can use EdTrips' concierge service, which passes along a 20 percent discount off the cost of tickets to their destinations if they choose from a curated list of field-trip matches based on criteria such as their grade, their budget and the distance they want to travel.

Teachers pay nothing to use the website, while venues pay EdTrips a percentage of overall ticket sales for each trip organized through the site.

Since April, the company has partnered with 247 Massachusetts destinations, including Boston PhotoWalks Tours and Scavenger Hunts, Peabody Essex Museum and Woods Hole Science Aquarium, with plans to expand to venues in other states.

Peter McGovern, who teaches Spanish and Mandarin Chinese at Catholic Memorial School in West Roxbury, hopes to use the website to organize trips that would incorporate cultural opportunities such as a show or a tour of Chinatown, where his students could practice their Mandarin.

"Students could see the real-world value of being able to communicate with people in their language," he said. "And having the permission slip collection and payment online would save a lot of time."

Since Labor Day, at least four teachers have used EdTrips to pay by credit card for field trips to the Paul Revere House, which otherwise takes only cash or checks the day of the trip, said Emily Holmes, education director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association, which runs the historic North End site.

"Definitely we're hoping we'll have exposure to a new audience," Holmes said.

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Hyundai Santa Fe’s onetime brake lockup is puzzling

Last week I parallel-parked my 2003 Hyundai Sante Fe. I came out to drive away and went about 3 feet before the car stopped like the brakes had locked up. I went back and forth about 3 feet at least three more times with the same results. I left the car and came back the next morning and drove to a garage with no problems. The garage scanned all vehicle control modules for codes — none found. They also found no service bulletins from Hyundai pertaining to this symptom. They inspected all brake components — all are in good condition. Any suggestion?

I'm not often completely stumped by an automotive question, but this one has me really intrigued. Looking at the issue logically, my first thought is something physically stopping the vehicle from moving more than 3 feet.

Do you have any friends — or enemies — who might play a trick on you like a strategically placed pair of cinder blocks? I remember an unnamed friend who, for the fun of it, chained the rear axle of an old Chevy wagon to the adjacent fire hydrant and watched as his friend tried to pull away. I'll leave the results to your imagination!

What kind of mechanical or electronic issue could have caused this and then suddenly disappeared without a trace? I'm open to suggestions, but the only normal "action" that might have somehow compounded into this is initialization of the antilock braking system (ABS). Each time the vehicle is started, in the first few miles per hour of driving, the ABS tests itself by actuating the pump, dump valves and solenoids to make sure they're working. This may be felt as a slight vibration in the brake pedal.

With that said, this initialization only occurs once per key cycle, so it doesn't seem particularly likely to be the culprit. In fact, no brake lockup would seem likely because the vehicle rolls roughly one tire revolution before the lockup.

Anyone else want to take a shot at this?

Oh, almost forgot — was there a parking ticket on the windshield? And did you check for a wheel lock to disable the car?

I have a 2014 Acura RDX that is a very nice vehicle except for the fact that the passenger seat cannot be raised vertically. My wife is fairly short and sits too low compared with the driver's side, which has an electric lift. The dealer said that there is no fix for this. It seems like a simple problem. Have you heard of any electric, or manual lifts for this ? Or, simply some wedges installed under the seat mounts?

You could try a mobility store to find a booster for her seat, or perhaps an auto upholstery shop could build up the seat with thicker or firmer foam.

The reason it seems simple yet there's no solution from the dealer is that any change that alters a motor vehicle creates a liability issue for the dealer and carmaker.

Personally, I have installed spacers under the seat mounts on a couple of my personal vehicles, but like I said, I'd suggest a visit to a mobility store.

When I was topping off the oil in my car I accidentally put in half a quart of DEX/MERC automatic transmission fluid. Can I drive it? If yes, how far before changing the oil? Or do I need to change it now?

Automatic transmission fluid is primarily a high-quality lubricating oil with special additives for the transmission, so you probably don't have an immediate problem. But the fact that you were topping up the oil means it's been in the crankcase for a while, so why not get the oil changed now and put the worry aside?

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race -car driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or via email at paul brand@startribune.com. Please explain the problem in detail and include a daytime phone number.

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iPhone 6 buyers pack Back Bay Apple store

Apple devotees are trying out their new supersized cellphones after they lined up outside the Apple store on Boylston Street early yesterday to be the first to get their hands on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Many of them woke up at the crack of dawn, and some even camped out overnight, in a scene that was repeated across the country yesterday. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch screen and the iPhone 6 Plus features a 5.5-inch screen.

More than 4 million pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were placed the day they became available online last week. And if supplies don't run out, analysts predict that Apple will sell more than 10 million iPhones this weekend.

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Alibaba stock soars in jubilant trading debut

NEW YORK — Alibaba debuted as a publicly traded company Friday and swiftly climbed nearly 40 percent in a mammoth IPO that offered eager investors seemingly unlimited growth potential and a way to tap into the burgeoning Chinese middle class.

The sharp demand for shares sent the market value of the e-commerce giant soaring well beyond that of Amazon, eBay and even Facebook. The initial public offering was on track to be the world's largest, with the possibility of raising as much as $25 billion.

Jubilant CEO Jack Ma stood on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as eight Alibaba customers, including an American cherry farmer and a Chinese Olympian, rang the opening bell.

"We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart," Ma told CNBC. "We hope in 15 years, people say this is a company like Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart. They changed, shaped the world."

The company's online ecosystem stands apart from most e-commerce rivals because it does not sell anything directly, preferring to connect individuals and small businesses. It enjoyed a surge in U.S. popularity over the past two weeks as executives made sales pitches based on Alibaba's strong revenue and big ambitions.

"There are very few companies that are this big, grow this fast and are this profitable," Wedbush analyst Gil Luria said.

Trading under the ticker "BABA," shares opened at $92.70 and hit nearly $100 within hours. By the end of the day, the stock rose $25.89, or 38 percent, to close at $93.89.

Some Institutional investors, such as banks or hedge funds, were able to buy the stock at $68 per share, the amount set Thursday evening. Most other investors had to wait until shares started trading publicly, which meant paying a much higher price after adjustments for demand.

Alibaba's Taobao, TMall and other platforms account for some 80 percent of Chinese online commerce. Most of the company's 279 million active buyers visit the sites at least once a month on smartphones and other mobile devices, adding to the stock's attractiveness as online shopping shifts away from laptop and desktop machines.

Online spending by Chinese shoppers is forecast to triple from its 2011 size by 2015. Beyond that, Alibaba has said it plans to expand into emerging markets and, eventually, into Europe and the U.S.

The company does not compete with its merchants or hold inventory, serving instead as a conduit that links buyers and sellers of all kinds.

"The business model is really interesting. It's not just an eBay. It's not an Amazon. It's not a Paypal. It's all of that and much more," said Reena Aggarwal, a professor at Georgetown.

Yet the track record for Chinese stocks in general does not inspire confidence. Over the last two decades, they have earned a reputation for burning investors in both the U.S. and China. Many of those that do post gains fail to keep pace with inflation. Returns have been depressed by a range of factors, including fraud allegations, questionable accounting and cumbersome regulations.

Analysts say the $90-plus price range is a fair valuation for the shares, but one fund manager suggested Friday that the price might not stay that high.

That price "might be at least for the moment the higher end of the trading range as investors get comfortable with the company," said Kathleen Smith, IPO exchange-traded fund manager at IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.

Alibaba's revenue from the quarter ending in June surged 46 percent from last year to $2.54 billion. Its earnings climbed 60 percent to nearly $1.2 billion, after subtracting a one-time gain and certain other items.

In its last fiscal year ending March 31, Alibaba earned $3.7 billion, making it more profitable than eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. combined.

Based in Ma's hometown of Hangzhou in eastern China, Alibaba began in 1999 when Ma and 17 friends developed a fledgling e-commerce business on the cusp of the Internet boom. Today, its main platforms are its original business-to-business service, Alibaba.com, consumer-to-consumer site Taobao and TMall, a place for brands to sell to consumers.

Friday's closing price gave the company a value of $231.44 billion, compared with $150 billion for Amazon and $67 billion for eBay.

Alibaba offered 320.1 million shares for a total offering size of $21.77 billion. Underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to 48 million more shares.

The IPO easily eclipsed the $16 billion Facebook raised in 2012, the most for a technology IPO. If all of its underwriters' options are exercised, it would also top the all-time IPO fundraising record of $22.1 billion set by the Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. in 2010.

Gartner analyst Andrew Frank said Alibaba's success shows that Chinese Internet companies are beginning to challenge Silicon Valley.

"It's not the first Chinese company we've seen in the Internet space, but it's certainly the biggest one that seems to be resonating," he said. "It's a symbol that the Internet dreams of wealth and power are not just limited to a few small cities in the West Coast in the U.S."

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Prostate cancer death rate in Boston puzzles researchers

Despite its status as a health care mecca, the Boston area has some of the highest numbers of prostate cancer-related deaths in the state, according to a local nonprofit health group.

"If you look at prostate cancer mortality rates, you will see that statewide data would be probably lowest nationally. But if you start looking at Suffolk County, Boston specifically, that's where the data are the worst," said Dr. Faina Shtern, president of AdMeTech Foundation, a nonprofit supporting early detection and treatment of diseases.

According to Shtern, Franklin County in western Massachusetts has the highest mortality rate at 28.8 percent, with Suffolk County a close second at 26.9 percent.

The numbers are based on data from the American Cancer Society, the state Department of Public Health and the National Cancer Institute.

Shtern, who formerly served as director of radiology research at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said the reason behind these high numbers is unclear.

She said it was initially suspected that the high incidence of prostate cancer among African-American men — who are 60 percent more likely to develop it and 240 percent more likely to die of it than white men — played a role, but that would not explain the high rates in Franklin County.

According to 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24.5 percent of Suffolk County identified as black or African-American, but only 1.4 percent of Franklin County identified as the same.

"There is absolutely no scientific evidence of any kind that would indicate why this is happening," Shtern said.

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Alibaba’s IPO to rock NYSE today

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding will start trading today on the New York Stock Exchange after the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut yesterday priced its initial public offering at $68 per share — the high end of its expected range — to raise $21.8 billion in the largest U.S.-listed IPO.

The price gives the 15-year-old Alibaba a market valuation of $167.6 billion, bigger than that of Amazon, Cisco and eBay. And it has the potential to break the global IPO record if more shares are sold to underwriters.

Little known in the United States, Alibaba controls 80 percent of online sales in China, the world's second-largest economy. Its businesses include consumer online marketplace Taobao and wholesale online marketplace Alibaba.com.

Former English teacher Jack Ma started Alibaba in his apartment with $60,000.

Its revenue in the quarter that ended in June climbed 46 percent from last year to $2.54 billion, while earnings grew 60 percent to almost $1.2 billion. Alibaba earned $3.7 billion in its last fiscal year — more than Amazon and eBay combined.

"There are very few companies that are this big, grow this fast, and are this profitable," Wedbush analyst Gil Luria said.

Analysts at Cambridge's Forrester Research don't see Alibaba as a threat to U.S. companies in the short-term. Though Alibaba has expansion plans outside China — and has made a string of investments in American companies — it would take "either a major acquisition or a number of years for Alibaba to pull together a platform that could compete with major U.S. companies like Amazon, Apple, eBay and Facebook," the Forrester analysts said in a recent report.

But Alibaba's China business continues to grow, and it will remain a critical partner for brands entering the Chinese e-commerce space, they said.

The U.S can expect to see many more U.S. IPOs by Chinese companies, according to technology forecaster Daniel Burrus of Burrus Research Associates. "And they will be well-funded, and they will be big," he said.

Herald wire services were used in this report.

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Asian stocks higher on China stimulus reports

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Asian stock markets were mostly higher Wednesday, buoyed by reports that China is providing liquidity to major banks and hopes that the Federal Reserve will not speed up plans to raise interest rates.

KEEPING SCORE: Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.1 percent to 15,929.85 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.2 percent to 24,415.89. However, China's Shanghai Composite dipped 0.1 percent to 2,294 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent to 5,426.10. Markets in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia were higher.

CHINA BANKS: Sentiment was boosted by news reports that China's central bank will inject a total of 500 billion yuan ($81 billion) into the five biggest state banks over three months. Additional financial system liquidity would build on targeted measures to shore up growth, amid a bout of weak economic data. There was no official confirmation of the reports.

FED WATCH: Some investors are hoping that the statement from the Fed meeting that ends Wednesday will maintain the phrase "considerable time" to remain in its plan to raise interest rates. Some analysts said the recent rally in the U.S. dollar, which may dampen some areas of the U.S. economy, has become a reason for the Fed to turn cautious. The Fed has held the rate close to zero for more than five years, and stocks have surged against that backdrop.

THE QUOTE: Chinese support for banks if confirmed "is likely to snap Asian equities out of their Fed-induced slumber," said Evan Lucas, market strategist with IG in Australia. "However I again reiterate that the Fed is still the main driving force in the market currently."

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude was down 7 cents to $94.81 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose $1.96 to close at $94.88 a barrel on Tuesday.

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New products hit the hubspot

IPO-bound HubSpot yesterday unveiled a slew of new products — including a sales platform that will take on established industry leaders — in a major expansion for the company.

"(This is) probably the biggest day in HubSpot history for us so far," said Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of Cambridge-based HubSpot, which is known for its marketing software.

In front of roughly 10,000 customers at its Inbound 14 marketing conference, which has joined forces with MITX's FutureM event this year, Halligan and co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah announced Sidekick, a tool for salespeople, and HubSpot CRM, a customer management system.

"The buyer has radically changed," Halligan said. "The seller needs to change too."

A number of companies, including Salesforce.com, already provide customer management systems, but Shah said HubSpot CRM is targeted toward small and medium businesses.

"The attempt behind the HubSpot CRM is ... to go after people who are not using CRMs yet," Shah said.

The biggest feature of the CRM is the amount of work it does automatically, Halligan said.

HubSpot's new offerings will be free to use, but so-called "power users" will have to pay for premium features.

That "freemium" model may be the key to gaining market share, said Sam Melnick, an analyst with IDC.

"You're not going to overthrow Salesforce.com by going head to head with them," Melnick said. "It's an easier route to market."

Bob Ruffalo, CEO of IMPACT Branding and Design in Connecticut, said his company uses HubSpot for marketing, but is a 
Salesforce.com customer right now. He plans to switch to HubSpot CRM.

"It's a great product," Ruffalo said.

He said HubSpot CRM makes more sense for small businesses that are building a sales team.

"It takes a lot of learning out of the process," he said.

One of Boston's fastest growing companies, HubSpot filed paperwork with the SEC last month for its initial public offering, seeking to raise as much as $100 million.

"We want to build an anchor company in HubSpot," Halligan said. "We're on the path."

Halligan and Shah started off their keynote presentation yesterday by poking fun at the IPO process, introducing a legal slide regarding SEC disclosures as "a slide we've been working on for eight years."

The company, which has 11,500 customers using its marketing platform, also announced improvements to that, including a calendar and a tool to easily manage marketing campaigns.

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