Nasa Technology News

Cassini scientists had been looking for the glint, also known as a specular reflection, since the spacecraft began orbiting Saturn in 2004. But Titan's northern hemisphere, which has more lakes than the southern hemisphere, has been veiled in winter darkness.

The sun only began to directly illuminate the northern lakes recently as it approached the equinox of August 2009, the start of spring in the northern hemisphere. Titan's hazy atmosphere also blocked out reflections of sunlight in most wavelengths. This serendipitous image was captured on July 8, 2009, using Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.

The new infrared image is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

This image will be presented Friday, Dec. 18, at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"This one image communicates so much about Titan -- thick atmosphere, surface lakes and an otherworldliness," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It's an unsettling combination of strangeness yet similarity to Earth. This picture is one of Cassini's iconic images."

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has captivated scientists because of its many similarities to Earth. Scientists have theorized for 20 years that Titan's cold surface hosts seas or lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, making it the only other planetary body besides Earth believed to harbor liquid on its surface. While data from Cassini have not indicated any vast seas, they have revealed large lakes near Titan's north and south poles.

In 2008, Cassini scientists using infrared data confirmed the presence of liquid in Ontario Lacus, the largest lake in Titan's southern hemisphere. But they were still looking for the smoking gun to confirm liquid in the northern hemisphere, where lakes are also larger.

Katrin Stephan, of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin, an associate member of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team, was processing the initial image and was the first to see the glint on July 10th.

"I was instantly excited because the glint reminded me of an image of our own planet taken from orbit around Earth, showing a reflection of sunlight on an ocean," Stephan said. "But we also had to do more work to make sure the glint we were seeing wasn't lightning or an erupting volcano."

Team members at the University of Arizona, Tucson, processed the image further, and scientists were able to compare the new image to radar and near-infrared-light images acquired from 2006 to 2008.

When it flies by Saturn's largest moon, Titan, this weekend, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will study the interactions between the magnetic field of Saturn and Titan.

The flyby will take place the evening of Dec. 11 California time, or shortly after midnight Universal Time on Dec. 12.

As Titan plows through the magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere around Saturn, it creates a wake in the magnetic field lines coming away from the planet.

This flyby will allow Cassini's fields and particles instruments to study that wake about 5,200 kilometers (3,200 miles) away from the moon, a relatively unexamined region. Other instruments will also be taking a closer look at Titan's clouds.

At closest approach to Titan, Cassini will swing to within about 4,900 kilometers (3,000 miles) of the surface of the moon.

Cassini last zoomed by Titan two months ago. Although this latest flyby is dubbed "T63," planning changes early in the orbital tour have made this the sixty-fourth targeted flyby of Titan.

Titan is a kind of "sister world" to Earth because it has a surface covered with organic material and an atmosphere whose chemical composition hearkens back to an early Earth.

Space shuttle Endeavour will be moved from its hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida a day earlier than planned.

First motion from Orbiter Processing Facility-2 to the VAB, is targeted for 1 p.m. EST on Dec. 11, pending good weather and approval from a review meeting scheduled for Friday morning.

Managers moved up the rollover after evaluating Endeavour's processing progress and confirming the change wouldn't adversely affect the team.

Forecasters are calling for possible bad weather on Saturday, so targeting rollover for Friday gives the team additional flexibility to make the move this week.

Once in the VAB, Endeavour will be attached to the waiting solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank for its STS-130 mission to the International Space Station, currently targeted to launch in early February.

Liftoff of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is scheduled for Dec. 11.

This week at Vandenberg, weather officials predict intermittent showers, wind and thick clouds due to an approaching front. The official launch forecast will be available closer to launch day.

Spirit's right-rear wheel stalled again on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28, 2009) during the first step of a two-step extrication maneuver. This stall is different in some characteristics from the stall on Sol 2092 (Nov. 21). The Sol 2099 stall occurred more quickly and the inferred rotor resistance was elevated at the end of the stall. Investigation of past stall events along with these characteristics suggest that this stall might not be result of the terrain, but might be internal to the right-rear wheel actuator. Rover project engineers are developing a series of diagnostics to explore the actuator health and to isolate potential terrain interactions. These diagnostics are not likely to be ready before Wednesday. Plans for future driving will depend on the results of the diagnostic tests.

Before the Sol 2099 drive ended, Spirit completed 1.4 meters of wheel spin and the rover's center moved 0.5 millimeters (0.02 inch) forward, 0.25 millimeters (0.01 inch) to the left and 0.5 millimeters (0.02 inch) downward. Since Spirit began extrication on Sol 2088, the rover has performed 9.5 meters (31 feet) of wheel spin and the rover's center, in total, has moved 16 millimeters (0.63 inch) forward, 10 millimeters (0.39 inch) to the left and 5 millimeters (0.20 inch) downward.

The last major component set to be added to the International Space Station, the Node 3 module known as Tranquility, was officially transferred from the European Space Agency to NASA during a ceremony Nov. 20.

"Station is truly a phenomenal engineering accomplishment, but as important as all that hardware is on orbit, what it really is, it's the unity of all of us as partners," said Bob Cabana, Kennedy's director and a former astronaut who commanded the first space station construction mission. "All those different cultures coming together and working together as one for the betterment of not just our own countries, but our world, and preparing us to go beyond low Earth orbit to explore in space."

Atlantis Astros Feted Today; Endeavour Crew Rehearse for STS-130.

Meanwhile, preparations for space shuttle Endeavour and its crew are ramping up for the STS-130 mission targeted to launch Feb. 4, 2010.

Endeavour is scheduled to roll over from the orbiter processing facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in late December. There, it will be lifted and attached to the waiting external tank and twin solid rocket boosters.

Endeavour will deliver a third connecting module, the Tranquility node, to the station in addition to the seven-windowed Cupola module, which will be used as a control room for robotics.

The STS-129 mission included three spacewalks and the installation of two platforms to the International Space Station's truss, or backbone. The platforms hold large spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired.

Astronaut Nicole Stott returned to Earth after 91 days in space. She had spent 87 days aboard the space station and 80 days as an Expedition 20/21 flight engineer. She is the last astronaut who will be transported to or from the space station by the space shuttle.

NASA Chooses Small Business High Tech Projects for Development.

Chosen from more than 1,600 proposals, the competitively selected awards will address agency research and technology needs. The awards are part of NASA's Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR, and Small Business Technology Transfer, or STTR, programs.

The SBIR contracts will be awarded to 245 small, high technology firms in 36 states. The STTR contracts will be awarded to 31 small high technology firms in 19 states. As part of the STTR program, selected firms will partner with 26 universities and research institutions in 20 states.

The live call from orbit will take place between 11:08 a.m. and 11:28 a.m. CST. Twenty students, ranging from kindergarten to college age, will ask questions of Wilmore and fellow astronauts Nicole Stott and Leland Melvin. Stott has served as a flight engineer and member of the Expedition 21 crew living aboard the International Space Station for more than two months. She will return to Earth aboard Atlantis. Melvin is a mission specialist and crewmate of Wilmore's aboard Atlantis.

A scarf belonging to famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart will circle the Earth repeatedly as part of the personal cargo being carried into space by the astronauts of space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-129 mission.

In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming in the process a prominent and celebrated adventurer. She, along with her navigator, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean five years later while trying to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane.

A cycling jersey from Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong Foundation will travel on the flight, completing the distance in seven minutes that Armstrong and the cyclists in the peloton rode in three weeks during the Tour de France.

First-time shuttle Pilot Barry E. Wilmore has seen to it that Tennessee Technical University is well-represented in the commemorative assortment known as the Official Flight Kit. The school, which Wilmore graduated from with a master's in electrical engineering, will see a thumb drive, purple and gold placard, gold medallion, and a stuffed-toy eagle make the trip into space aboard space shuttle Atlantis.

Students are recognizing NASA Goddard's 50th anniversary by reflecting on science, technology, engineering and the fine arts. NASA Goddard was opened in 1959.

After receiving and reviewing contest submissions, Ja Hyun "Ashely" Lim was chosen as the winner. At the time of contest submission, she was a ninth grader at North County High School in Glen Burnie, Md. Lim's eloquent rendering of a paint brush stroke from the Space Shuttle's lift off pad launch gantries to the Statute of Liberty monument plainly demonstrates "movement" of NASA technology from one application of a technology to another external to NASA.

IC531 was used as an interior structure primer coating for Miss Liberty. The coating was developed by NASA Goddard to protect gantries and other structures at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. launch site.

The high-ratio silicate formulation in IC531 bonds to steel and in just 30 minutes and creates a very hard ceramic finish with superior adhesion and abrasion resistance.

Lim was honored at the NASA Goddard Celebrates 50 Years of Technology Spinoffs Event this past summer. In the spirit of cooperation, the NASA Goddard IPP will be presenting a framed copy of Lim's artwork to the National Park Service at the Statue of Liberty on Nov. 13 at 9:30 a.m. EST at Ellis Island, N.Y.

Located on a 12-acre island, the statue of ‘Liberty Enlightening the World' was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy.

Astronomers have announced the discovery of a fifth planet circling 55 Cancri, a star beyond our solar system. The star now holds the record for number of confirmed extrasolar planets orbiting in a planetary system.

55 Cancri is located 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer and has nearly the same mass and age as our sun. It is easily visible with binoculars. Researchers discovered the fifth planet using the Doppler technique, in which a planet's gravitational tug is detected by the wobble it produces in the parent star. NASA and the National Science Foundation funded the research.

The newly discovered planet weighs about 45 times the mass of Earth and may be similar to Saturn in its composition and appearance. The planet is the fourth from 55 Cancri and completes one orbit every 260 days. Its location places the planet in the "habitable zone," a band around the star where the temperature would permit liquid water to pool on solid surfaces. The distance from its star is approximately 116.7 million kilometers (72.5 million miles), slightly closer than Earth to our sun, but it orbits a star that is slightly fainter.

The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water. Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon's south pole.

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Permanently shadowed regions could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water, and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.

"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."

An armada of robots may one day fly above the mountain tops of Saturn's moon Titan, cross its vast dunes and sail in its liquid lakes. Wolfgang Fink, visiting associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena says we are on the brink of a great paradigm shift in planetary exploration, and the next round of robotic explorers will be nothing like what we see today.

"The way we explore tomorrow will be unlike any cup of tea we've ever tasted," said Fink, who was recently appointed as the Edward and Maria Keonjian Distinguished Professor in Microelectronics at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "We are departing from traditional approaches of a single robotic spacecraft with no redundancy that is Earth-commanded to one that allows for having multiple, expendable low-cost robots that can command themselves or other robots at various locations at the same time."

The way things work now, engineers command a rover or spacecraft to carry out certain tasks and then wait for them to be executed. They have little or no flexibility in changing their game plan as events unfold; for example, to image a landslide or cryovolcanic eruption as it happens, or investigate a methane outgassing event.

In this mission scenario, an orbiter would circle Titan with a global view of the moon, with an air balloon or airship floating overhead to provide a birds-eye view of mountain ranges, lakes and canyons. On the ground, a rover or lake lander would explore the moon's nooks and crannies. The orbiter would "speak" directly to the air balloon and command it to fly over a certain region for a closer look. This aerial balloon would be in contact with several small rovers on the ground and command them to move to areas identified from overhead.

A rover might report that it's seeing smooth rocks in the local vicinity, while the airship or orbiter could confirm that indeed the rover is in a dry riverbed - unlike current missions, which focus only on a global view from far above but can't provide information on a local scale to tell the rover that indeed it is sitting in the middle of dry riverbed.

A current example of this type of exploration can best be seen at Mars with the communications relay between the rovers and orbiting spacecraft like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. However, that information is just relayed and not shared amongst the spacecraft or used to directly control them.

"One day an entire fleet of robots will be autonomously commanded at once. This armada of robots will be our eyes, ears, arms and legs in space, in the air, and on the ground, capable of responding to their environment without us, to explore and embrace the unknown," he added.

For more information on this work, visit http://autonomy.caltech.edu . More information on JPL missions is at http:/www.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

NASA satellites are amazing examples of technology. The TRMM satellite peers into tropical cyclones and can tell how much rain is falling per hour and where. QuikScat uses microwave technology to measure Ida's surface wind speed. The GOES-12 satellite, operated by NOAA, produces stunning visuals that are now made into movies by NASA. Both of these satellites have provided the latest views of Tropical Storm Ida today.

NASA satellites have helped forecasters see that much of the rainfall and cloud cover are north of the storm's center.

This morning's TRMM overpass showed that most of the deep convection (rising air and developing thunderstorms) has been sheared off by wind shear, and pushed northeast of the center of circulation. TRMM showed only a small area of convection around the center.

NASA's Quick Scatterometer satellite (QuikScat) observed Ida's winds by using microwaves to peer into the clouds. QuikScat can determine the speed of the rotating winds within the storm at the surface of the ocean. From a pass this morning at 6:23 a.m. ET, QuikScat confirmed that tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 200 miles from Ida's center. The National Hurricane Center's discussion noted that "A QuikScat pass around 12 UTC (7 a.m. ET) showed winds of 50-55 knots in the core...and assuming that the instrument did not quite resolve the maximum wind speed...the advisory intensity will be set to 60 knots."

Pyrimidine is a ring-shaped molecule made up of carbon and nitrogen and is the basic structure for uracil, part of a genetic code found in ribonucleic acid (RNA). RNA is central to protein synthesis, but has many other roles.

Nuevo is the lead author of a research paper titled “Formation of Uracil from the Ultraviolet Photo-Irradiation of Pyrimidine in Pure Water Ices,” Astrobiology vol. 9 no. 7, published Oct. 1, 2009.

NASA Ames scientists have been simulating the environments found in interstellar space and the outer solar system for years. During this time, they have studied a class of carbon-rich compounds, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have been identified in meteorites, and are the most common carbon-rich compound observed in the universe. PAHs typically are six-carbon ringed structures that resemble fused hexagons, or a piece of chicken wire.

Pyrimidine also is found in meteorites, although scientists still do not know its origin. It may be similar to the carbon-rich PAHs, in that it may be produced in the final outbursts of dying, giant red stars, or formed in dense clouds of interstellar gas and dust.

“Molecules like pyrimidine have nitrogen atoms in their ring structures, which makes them somewhat whimpy. As a less stable molecule, it is more susceptible to destruction by radiation, compared to its counterparts that don’t have nitrogen,” said Scott Sandford, a space science researcher at Ames. “We wanted to test whether pyrimidine can survive in space, and whether it can undergo reactions that turn it into more complicated organic species, such as the nucleobase uracil.”

At the mid-point of this field campaign, seven flights over Antarctica have been completed in the first 13 days of Operation Ice Bridge. The mission is on track to complete its 17 planned flights by mid-November.

As of the landing of the Oct. 27 flight, completed targets included: three flights over glaciers, two over sea ice, one over the Getz ice shelf, and one to study the topography of the ice sheet on the mission's closest approach to the South Pole.

The DIY Podcast topic module about fitness explains that space station crew members use treadmill exercises to maintain bone mass, cardiovascular fitness and muscle endurance. The device that's mentioned and demonstrated is the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, or TVIS. Now, a new treadmill to go along with TVIS has been added to the station, and you may want to include it in your classroom's podcast about fitness.

A new Progress cargo resupply vehicle launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 9:14 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Oct. 14. Less than nine minutes later, the ISS Progress 35 reached its preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas.

Progress 35 is set to dock to the station on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 9:41 p.m. with more than two tons of oxygen, air, propellant and other supplies and equipment aboard.

Once the Expedition 21 crew members have unloaded the cargo, Progress 35 will be filled with trash and station discards. It will be undocked from the station and like its predecessors deorbited to burn in the Earth's atmosphere.

But the second of the three Progress sections is a refueling module, and the third, uppermost as the Progress sits on the launch pad, is a cargo module. On the Soyuz, the descent module, where the crew is seated on launch and which returns them to Earth, is the middle module and the third is called the orbital module.

This challenge originated in 2007 as the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge and in 2008 it was called the General Aviation Technology Challenge. In those challenges the teams demonstrated light aircraft that incorporate improvements to maximize fuel efficiency, reduce noise and improve safety. These innovations are intended to result in aircraft with less negative impacts on the environment and on their communities. These are features that might be applied in the full range of private, commercial and military aircraft of the future. Awards totaling $250,000 were made in the 2007 competition and awards totaling $97,000 were made in 2008.

To compute the equivalence, the energy content of the electricity or fuel will be compared to one gallon of gasoline. The expectation is that electric, bio-fueled and hybrid-powered aircraft will compete. The competition will not be held until the summer of 2011, so that teams have time to develop and test truly novel aircraft.