tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-126961112024-03-13T04:36:12.231-07:00Nasa Technology NewsVijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14953950814098444055noreply@blogger.comBlogger541125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-2650172406461440872012-03-12T04:51:00.000-07:002012-03-12T04:52:04.570-07:00Citizen Scientists Reveal a Bubbly Milky WayA team of volunteers has pored over observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and discovered more than 5,000 "bubbles" in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy. Young, hot stars blow these bubbles into surrounding gas and dust, indicating areas of brand new star formation.<br /><br />Upwards of 35,000 "citizen scientists" sifted through the Spitzer infrared data as part of the online Milky Way Project to find these telltale bubbles. The volunteers have turned up 10 times as many bubbles as previous surveys so far. <br /><br />"These findings make us suspect that the Milky Way is a much more active star-forming galaxy than previously thought," said Eli Bressert, an astrophysics doctoral student at the European Southern Observatory, based in Germany, and the University of Exeter, England, and co-author of a paper submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.<br /><br />"The Milky Way's disk is like champagne with bubbles all over the place," he said.<br /><br />Computer programs struggle at identifying the cosmic bubbles. But human eyes and minds do an excellent job of noticing the wispy arcs of partially broken rings and the circles-within-circles of overlapping bubbles. The Milky Way Project taps into the "wisdom of crowds" by requiring that at least five users flag a potential bubble before its inclusion in the new catalog. Volunteers mark any candidate bubbles in the infrared Spitzer images with a sophisticated drawing tool before proceeding to scour another image. <br /><br />"The Milky Way Project is an attempt to take the vast and beautiful data from Spitzer and make extracting the information a fun, online, public endeavor," said Robert Simpson, a postdoctoral researcher in astronomy at Oxford University, England, principal investigator of the Milky Way Project and lead author of the paper.<br /><br />The data come from the Spitzer Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) and Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer Galactic (MIPSGAL) surveys. These datasets cover a narrow, wide strip of the sky measuring 130 degrees wide and just two degrees tall. From a stargazer's perspective, a two-degree strip is about the width of your index finger held at arm's length, and your arms opened to the sky span about 130 degrees. The surveys peer through the Milky Way's disk and right into the galaxy's heart.<br /><br />The bubbles tagged by the volunteers vary in size and shape, both with distance and due to local gas cloud variations. The results will help astronomers better identify star formation across the galaxy. One topic under investigation is triggered star formation, in which the bubble-blowing birth of massive stars compresses nearby gas that then collapses to create further fresh stars.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-89150074543623915102012-03-06T01:42:00.001-08:002012-03-06T01:42:32.622-08:00Proposed Mars Mission Has New Name<div style="text-align: justify;">A proposed Discovery mission concept led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to investigate the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets by studying the deep interior of Mars now has a new name, InSight.<br /><br />InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport and is a partnership involving JPL, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, the French Space Agency (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and other NASA centers. The previous name for the proposal was GEMS (GEophysical Monitoring Station). NASA requested that name be reserved for an astrophysics mission known as the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer, which was already in development.<br /><br />"We chose the name InSight because we would literally peer into the interior of Mars to map out its structure," said JPL's Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator. "With our geophysical instruments we will be able to see right through to the center of Mars, and will be able to map out how deeply the crust extends as well as the size of the core."<br /><br />InSight is one of three missions vying to be selected for flight in the Discovery Program, a series of NASA missions to understand the solar system by exploring planets, moons, and small bodies such as comets and asteroids. All three mission teams are required to submit concept study reports to NASA on March 19.<br />For more information, visit http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/ .<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-78215483258149974792012-02-24T02:45:00.001-08:002012-02-24T02:45:57.955-08:00NASA Satellite Finds Earth's Clouds are Getting Lower<div style="text-align: justify;">Earth's clouds got a little lower -- about one percent on average -- during the first decade of this century, finds a new NASA-funded university study based on NASA satellite data. The results have potential implications for future global climate.<br /><br />Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around one percent over the decade, or by around 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes.<br /><br />Lead researcher Roger Davies said that while the record is too short to be definitive, it provides a hint that something quite important might be going on. Longer-term monitoring will be required to determine the significance of the observation for global temperatures.<br /><br />A consistent reduction in cloud height would allow Earth to cool to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperature of the planet and potentially slowing the effects of global warming. This may represent a "negative feedback" mechanism - a change caused by global warming that works to counteract it. "We don't know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower," says Davies. "But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude."<br /><br />NASA's Terra spacecraft is scheduled to continue gathering data through the remainder of this decade. Scientists will continue to monitor the MISR data closely to see if this trend continues.<br /><br />For more information, visit: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=466683 .</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-70196745698951573282012-02-14T00:36:00.000-08:002012-02-14T00:37:02.076-08:00NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer in Standby Mode<div style="text-align: justify;">NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, or Galex, was placed in standby mode today as engineers prepare to end mission operations, nearly nine years after the telescope's launch. The spacecraft is scheduled to be decommissioned -- taken out of service -- later this year. The mission extensively mapped large portions of the sky with sharp ultraviolet vision, cataloguing millions of galaxies spanning 10 billion years of cosmic time.<br /><br />The Galaxy Evolution Explorer launched into space from a Pegasus XL rocket in April of 2003. Since completing its prime mission in the fall of 2007, the mission was extended to continue its census of stars and galaxies.<br /><br />The mission's science highlights include the discovery of a gigantic comet-like tail behind a speeding star, rings of new stars around old galaxies, and "teenager" galaxies, which help to explain how galaxies evolve. The observatory also helped confirm the existence of the mysterious substance or force known as dark energy, and even caught a black hole devouring a star.<br /><br />The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages the mission and built the science instrument. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program, managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France collaborated on this mission. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.<br /><br />Graphics and additional information about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer are online at http://www.nasa.gov/galex/ and http://www.galex.caltech.edu/ .<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-20436685307126655262012-02-08T02:29:00.001-08:002012-02-08T02:29:51.544-08:00Rover Beginning Ninth Year of Mars Work<div style="text-align: justify;">Eight years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a three-month mission, NASA's enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission five months ago.<br /><br />Opportunity reached a multi-year driving destination, Endeavour Crater, in August 2011. At Endeavour's rim, it has gained access to geological deposits from an earlier period of Martian history than anything it examined during its first seven years. It also has begun an investigation of the planet's deep interior that takes advantage of staying in one place for the Martian winter.<br /><br />Opportunity landed in Eagle Crater on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (Jan. 24, PST), three weeks after its rover twin, Spirit, landed halfway around the planet. In backyard-size Eagle Crater, Opportunity found evidence of an ancient wet environment. The mission met all its goals within the originally planned span of three months. During most of the next four years, it explored successively larger and deeper craters, adding evidence about wet and dry periods from the same era as the Eagle Crater deposits.<br /><br />In mid-2008, researchers drove Opportunity out of Victoria Crater, half a mile (800 meters) in diameter, and set course for Endeavour Crater, 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.<br /><br />"Endeavour is a window further into Mars' past," said Mars Exploration Rover Program Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br /><br />The trek took three years. In a push to finish it, Opportunity drove farther during its eighth year on Mars -- 4.8 miles (7.7 kilometers) -- than in any prior year, bringing its total driving distance to 21.4 miles (34.4 kilometers).<br /><br />The "Cape York" segment of Endeavour's rim, where Opportunity has been working since August 2011, has already validated the choice of Endeavour as a long-term goal. "It's like starting a new mission, and we hit pay dirt right out of the gate," Callas said.<br /><br />The first outcrop that Opportunity examined on Cape York differs from any the rover had seen previously. Its high zinc content suggests effects of water. Weeks later, at the edge of Cape York, a bright mineral vein identified as hydrated calcium sulfate provided what the mission's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., calls "the clearest evidence for liquid water on Mars that we have found in our eight years on the planet."<br /><br />Mars years last nearly twice as long as Earth years. Entering its ninth Earth year on Mars, Opportunity is also heading into its fifth Martian winter. Its solar panels have accumulated so much dust since Martian winds last cleaned them -- more than in previous winters -- the rover needs to stay on a sun-facing slope to have enough energy to keep active through the winter.<br /><br />Source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-022<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-51633990672527280412012-02-05T22:54:00.000-08:002012-02-05T22:55:00.335-08:00Mars-Bound Instrument Detects Solar Burst's Effects<div style="text-align: justify;">The largest solar particle event since 2005 has been detected by the radiation- monitoring instrument aboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, on its way from Earth to Mars.<br /><br />The Radiation Assessment Detector, inside the mission's Curiosity rover tucked inside the spacecraft, is measuring the radiation exposure that could affect a human astronaut on a potential Mars mission. It has measured an increase resulting from a Jan. 22 solar storm observed by other NASA spacecraft. No harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event.<br /><br />For more information about what effects the radiation detector has measured, visit: http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2012/rad-solarstorm.htm .</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-21372199290191002012012-01-31T01:04:00.001-08:002012-01-31T01:04:54.842-08:00Climate Sciences and the Climate Center of JPL<div style="text-align: justify;">Understanding the far-reaching effects of climate change and how to adapt to these effects is one of the great challenges facing society today. Underpinning this challenge is the need to strengthen our understanding of the science and improve on our ability to project the future change, particularly at the regional scale. The factors that connect the buildup of CO2 to global warming require improvements in our understanding which come use of a variety of earth observations that are both available today and planned for tomorrow.<br /><br />JPL lies at the forefront of key areas of the climate sciences both in developing the critical global observations of Earth required to meet these significant challenges as well as in advancing our understanding of key climate processes on many different fronts. This talk will place many aspects of the research pursued at JPL in this larger context. The JPL-based Earth science highlighted will include:<br /><br />• Basic research on understanding cryospheric changes, including the loss of ice from the world’s ice sheets and subsequent challenges in modeling this ice loss.<br />• The monitoring of sea level rise and the challenges in understanding the factors that produce this rise and the projections of future rise.<br />• The planetary energy balance, our understanding of it, how it is expected to change and where gaps exist in our understanding of the change.<br />• The carbon cycle – how research at JPL is leading the community in a growing understanding of the carbon cycle and strategies to manage it.<br />• The water cycle, its component parts including clouds, precipitation, water vapor and surface and subsurface water. New ways to fingerprint the processes that shape the water cycle and determine how it is changing will be emphasized.<br /><br />One of the ways these important advances are being used is through an ongoing and focused effort to evaluate Earth system models in an attempt to place some level of ultimate confidence on their projections. An important activity led by JPL is the Earth system model evaluation effort carried out in partnership with PCMDI. Highlights of this effort, drawn from the research activities above, will be described.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-5217062661447213102012-01-30T06:16:00.000-08:002012-01-30T06:17:28.557-08:00Vesta Likely Cold and Dark Enough for Ice<div style="text-align: justify;">Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta's average global temperatures and illumination by the sun.<br /><br />"Near the north and south poles, the conditions appear to be favorable for water ice to exist beneath the surface," says Timothy Stubbs of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Stubbs and Yongli Wang of the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute at the University of Maryland published the models in the January 2012 issue of the journal Icarus. The models are based on information from telescopes including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.<br /><br />Vesta, the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, probably does not have any significant permanently shadowed craters where water ice could stay frozen on the surface all the time, not even in the roughly 300-mile-diameter (480-kilometer-diameter) crater near the south pole, the authors note. The asteroid isn't a good candidate for permanent shadowing because it is tilted on its axis at about 27 degrees, which is even greater than Earth's tilt of roughly 23 degrees. In contrast, the moon, which does have permanently shadowed craters, is tilted at only about 1.5 degrees. As a result of its large tilt, Vesta has seasons, and every part of the surface is expected to see the sun at some point during Vesta's year.<br /><br />The presence or absence of water ice on Vesta tells scientists something about the tiny world's formation and evolution, its history of bombardment by comets and other objects, and its interaction with the space environment. Because similar processes are common to many other planetary bodies, including the moon, Mercury and other asteroids, learning more about these processes has fundamental implications for our understanding of the solar system as a whole. This kind of water ice is also potentially valuable as a resource for further exploration of the solar system.<br /><br />Though temperatures on Vesta fluctuate during the year, the model predicts that the average annual temperature near Vesta's north and south poles is less than roughly minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit (145 kelvins). That is the critical average temperature below which water ice is thought to be able to survive in the top 10 feet or so (few meters) of the soil, which is called regolith.<br /><br />Source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-024</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-7553195745040979912012-01-23T05:11:00.000-08:002012-01-23T05:12:25.585-08:00Planck Telescope Warms up as Planned<div style="text-align: justify;">The High Frequency Instrument aboard the Planck space telescope has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe. The sensor ran out of coolant on Jan. 14, as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy.<br /><br />"The High Frequency Instrument has reached the end of its observing life, but the Low Frequency Instrument will continue observing for another year, and analysis of data from both instruments is still in the early phase," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. Planck project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The scientific payoff from the High Frequency Instrument's brilliantly successful operation is still to come."<br /><br />NASA plays an important role in the Planck mission, which is led by the European Space Agency. In addition to helping with the analysis of the data, NASA contributed several key components to the mission itself. JPL built the state-of-the-art detectors that allowed the High Frequency Instrument to detect icy temperatures down to nearly absolute zero, the coldest temperature theoretically attainable.<br /><br />Less than half a million years after the universe was created 13.7 billion years ago, the initial fireball cooled to temperatures of about 4,000 degrees Celsius (about 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit), releasing bright, visible light. As the universe has expanded, it has cooled dramatically, and its early light has faded and shifted to microwave wavelengths.<br /><br />By studying patterns imprinted in that light today, scientists hope to understand the Big Bang and the very early universe, as it appeared long before galaxies and stars first formed.<br /><br />Planck has been measuring these patterns by surveying the whole sky with its High Frequency Instrument and its Low Frequency Instrument. Combined, they give Planck unparalleled wavelength coverage and the ability to resolve faint details.<br /><br />Launched in May 2009, the minimum requirement for success was for the spacecraft to complete two whole surveys of the sky. In the end, Planck worked perfectly in completing not two, but five whole-sky surveys with both instruments.<br /><br />The Low Frequency Instrument will continue surveying the sky for a large part of 2012, providing data to improve the quality of the final results. The first results on the Big Bang and very early universe will not come for another year.<br /><br />Read the full European Space Agency news release at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Planck/SEMXWNMXDXG_0.html .<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-55839399246933425812012-01-19T03:23:00.000-08:002012-01-19T03:24:50.250-08:00Cassini Testing Part of Its Radio System<div style="text-align: justify;">Engineers with NASA's Cassini mission are conducting diagnostic testing on a part of the spacecraft's radio system after its signal was not detected on Earth during a tracking pass in late December. The spacecraft has been communicating with Earth using a backup part.<br /><br />The issue occurred with the ultra-stable oscillator, which is used for one type of radio science experiment and also as a means of sending data back to Earth. The spacecraft is currently using an auxiliary oscillator, whose frequency stability is adequate for transmitting data from the spacecraft to Earth. Tests later this month will help mission managers decide whether it will be possible to bring the ultra-stable oscillator back into service.<br /><br />Some of the data collected for the radio science experiment using the auxiliary oscillator will be of lesser quality than that from the ultra-stable oscillator. Signals used for occultation experiments - where scientists analyze how radio signals are affected as they travel through Saturn's rings or the atmospheres of Saturn and its moons back to Earth - will be of lesser quality. A second kind of radio science investigation using gravity measurements to probe the internal structure of Saturn or its moons will not be affected. Cassini carries 12 science experiments.<br /><br />The cause is still under investigation, but age may be a factor. The spacecraft launched in 1997 and has orbited Saturn since 2004. Cassini completed its prime mission in 2008 and has had two additional mission extensions. This is the first time its ultra-stable oscillator has had an issue.<br /><br />The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.<br /><br />For more information about the mission, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-87734761107811278552012-01-10T21:01:00.000-08:002012-01-10T21:02:52.045-08:00Trajectory Maneuver Slated for Jan. 11<div style="text-align: justify;">An engine firing on Jan. 11 will be the biggest maneuver that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft will perform on its flight between Earth and Mars.<br /><br />The action will use a choreographed sequence of firings of eight thruster engines during a period of about 175 minutes beginning at 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST or 2300 Universal Time). It will redirect the spacecraft more precisely toward Mars to land at Gale Crater. The trajectory resulting from the mission's Nov. 26, 2011, launch intentionally misses Mars to prevent the upper stage of the launch vehicle from hitting the planet. That upper stage was not cleaned the way the spacecraft itself was to protect Mars from Earth's microbes.<br /><br />The maneuver is designed to impart a velocity change of about 12.3 miles per hour (5.5 meters per second).<br /><br />"We are well into cruise operations, with a well-behaved spacecraft safely on its way to Mars," said Mars Science Laboratory Cruise Mission Manager Arthur Amador, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "After this trajectory correction maneuver, we expect to be very close to where we ultimately need to be for our entry point at the top of the Martian atmosphere." <br /><br />The mission's schedule before arrival at Mars on Aug. 5 in PDT (Aug. 6 in Universal Time and EDT) includes opportunities for five more flight path correction maneuvers, as needed, for fine tuning.<br /><br />The Jan. 11 maneuver has been planned to use the spacecraft's inertial measurement unit to measure the spacecraft's orientation and acceleration during the maneuver. A calibration maneuver using the gyroscope-containing inertial measurement unit was completed successfully on Dec. 21. The inertial measurement unit is used as an alternative to the spacecraft's onboard celestial navigation system due to an earlier computer reset.<br /><br />Diagnostic work continues in response to the reset triggered by use of star-identifying software on the spacecraft on Nov. 29. In tests at JPL, that behavior has been reproduced a few times out of thousands of test runs on a duplicate of the spacecraft's computer, but no resets were triggered during similar testing on another duplicate. The spacecraft itself has redundant main computers. While the spacecraft is operating on the "A side" computer, engineers are beginning test runs of the star-identifying software on the redundant "B side" computer to check whether it is susceptible to the same reset behavior.<br /><br />The Mars Science Laboratory mission will use its car-size rover, Curiosity, to investigate whether the selected region on Mars inside Gale Crater has offered environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.<br /><br />Source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-004</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-77555330332823198702012-01-09T02:37:00.000-08:002012-01-09T02:39:31.687-08:00Spacecraft Reunite in Lunar Orbit<div style="text-align: justify;">During GRAIL's science mission, the two spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.<br /><br />Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field. The data will allow scientists to understand what goes on below the lunar surface. This information will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.<br /><br />Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) with the sole purpose of education and public outreach. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego.<br /><br />GRAIL MoonKAM will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. Thousands of fifth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL satellites for students to study.<br /><br />A student contest that began in October 2011 also will choose new names for the spacecraft. The new names are scheduled to be announced in January 2012. Ride and Maria Zuber, the mission's principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, chaired the final round of judging.<br /><br />NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the Çalifornia Institute of Technology in Pasadena.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-83558899013776151792012-01-04T01:56:00.000-08:002012-01-04T01:57:48.535-08:00NASA's Cassini Delivers Holiday Treats From Saturn<div style="text-align: justify;">No team of reindeer, but radio signals flying clear across the solar system from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have delivered a holiday package of glorious images. The pictures, from Cassini's imaging team, show Saturn's largest, most colorful ornament, Titan, and other icy baubles in orbit around this splendid planet.<br /><br />The release includes images of satellite conjunctions in which one moon passes in front of or behind another. Cassini scientists regularly make these observations to study the ever-changing orbits of the planet's moons. But even in these routine images, the Saturnian system shines. A few of Saturn's stark, airless, icy moons appear to dangle next to the orange orb of Titan, the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. Titan's atmosphere is of great interest because of its similarities to the atmosphere believed to exist long ago on the early Earth.<br /><br />The images are online at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org .<br /><br />While it may be wintry in Earth's northern hemisphere, it is currently northern spring in the Saturnian system and it will remain so for several Earth years. Current plans to extend the Cassini mission through 2017 will supply a continued bounty of scientifically rewarding and majestic views of Saturn and its moons and rings, as spectators are treated to the passage of northern spring and the arrival of summer in May 2017.<br /><br />"As another year traveling this magnificent sector of our solar system draws to a close, all of us on Cassini wish all of you a very happy and peaceful holiday season, " said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. <br /><br />More information about Cassini mission is online at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .<br /><br />The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-26456002877860142842011-12-19T05:12:00.001-08:002011-12-19T05:12:49.891-08:00NASA Shuts Doors, Pulls Plug on Shuttle DiscoveryNASA powered down the space shuttle Discovery for a final time Friday (Dec. 16), more than 28 years after the agency's retired fleet leader first came alive. The vehicle was "unplugged" inside Orbiter Processing Facility-1 (OPF-1) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<br /><br />The electrical shutdown, which came soon after technicians closed the shuttle's twin 60-foot (18.3-meter) long payload bay doors, was a milestone in Discovery's transition from a space-worthy orbiter to a museum exhibit. The shuttle, the oldest of NASA's remaining orbiters, is destined for display next spring at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.<br /><br />Discovery's cargo hold — which carried to orbit the Hubble Space Telescope and Ulysses solar probe along with modules for the International Space Station and more than a dozen satellites — was closed for what may be its last time. The Smithsonian plans to display the shuttle with its bay doors shut, at least initially.<br /><br />The power down was much more permanent. Though Discovery's three electricity-generating fuel cells were reinstalled last week, they were first drained of all their reactants, and their feed lines were purged. Other than serving as an engineering example for researchers, they will never work again.<br /><br />As a result, the shuttle's glass cockpit with its multiple computer screens and its backlit switches will from now on be dark. [Photos: See Inside Space Shuttle Discovery]<br /><br />Since landing back on Earth after its 39th and final mission in March, Discovery has been carefully taken apart to preserve some of its components for future use while making the vehicle safe for public display. Its engines have been removed and replaced with replicas and its thrusters cleaned of their hazardous materials.<br /><br />Inside its crew cabin, Discovery's waste collection system — otherwise known as its toilet — was removed, cleaned, and replaced, and its flight deck configured to appear ready for another mission, one that will never come. As with the fuel cells, the Smithsonian requested NASA keep Discovery as complete as possible so as to serve as a resource for future study.<br /><br />Discovery is targeted to make one last flight in April 2012, though not under its own power and well within the atmosphere. Ferried atop NASA's modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, the shuttle will be flown to Dulles Airport in Virginia. There it will be unloaded by cranes and rolled into the Udvar-Hazy's James S. McDonnell Space Hangar as its centerpiece attraction.<br /><br />Discovery will replace the prototype shuttle Enterprise, which the Udvar-Hazy has displayed since 2003. Enterprise in turn will be flown to New York City, where it is to go on exhibit at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-46848416747062210342011-10-11T05:52:00.001-07:002011-10-11T05:52:51.834-07:00Space Observatory Provides Clues to Creation of Earth's Oceans<div style="text-align: justify;">Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth's surface ended up covered in water.<br /><br />New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth's oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.<br /><br />"Our results with Herschel suggest that comets could have played a major role in bringing vast amounts of water to an early Earth," said Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-author of a new paper in the journal Nature, published online today, Oct. 5. "This finding substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water in the solar system to now include icy bodies originating in the Kuiper Belt."<br /><br />Scientists theorize Earth started out hot and dry, so that water critical for life must have been delivered millions of years later by asteroid and comet impacts. Until now, none of the comets previously studied contained water like Earth's. However, Herschel's observations of Hartley 2, the first in-depth look at water in a comet from the Kuiper Belt, paint a different picture.<br /><br />Herschel peered into the comet's coma, or thin, gaseous atmosphere. The coma develops as frozen materials inside a comet vaporize while on approach to the sun. This glowing envelope surrounds the comet's "icy dirtball"-like core and streams behind the object in a characteristic tail.<br /><br />Herschel detected the signature of vaporized water in this coma and, to the surprise of the scientists, Hartley 2 possessed half as much "heavy water" as other comets analyzed to date. In heavy water, one of the two normal hydrogen atoms has been replaced by the heavy hydrogen isotope known as deuterium. The ratio between heavy water and light, or regular, water in Hartley 2 is the same as the water on Earth's surface. The amount of heavy water in a comet is related to the environment where the comet formed.<br /><br />By tracking the path of Hartley 2 as it swoops into Earth's neighborhood in the inner solar system every six-and-a-`half years, astronomers know that it comes from the Kuiper Belt. The five comets besides Hartley 2 whose heavy-water-to-regular-water ratios have been obtained all come from an even more distant region in the solar system called the Oort Cloud. This swarm of bodies, 10,000 times farther afield than the Kuiper Belt, is the wellspring for most documented comets.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-71637261065171618982011-09-30T06:09:00.000-07:002011-09-30T06:10:47.479-07:00Cassini Spacecraft Captures Images and Sounds of Big Saturn Storm<div style="text-align: justify;">Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft now have the first-ever, up-close details of a Saturn storm that is eight times the surface area of Earth.<br /><br />On Dec. 5, 2010, Cassini first detected the storm that has been raging ever since. It appears approximately 35 degrees north latitude of Saturn. Pictures from Cassini's imaging cameras show the storm wrapping around the entire planet covering approximately 2 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers).<br /><br />The storm is about 500 times larger than the biggest storm previously seen by Cassini during several months from 2009 to 2010. Scientists studied the sounds of the new storm's lightning strikes and analyzed images taken between December 2010 and February 2011. Data from Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument showed the lightning flash rate as much as 10 times more frequent than during other storms monitored since Cassini's arrival to Saturn in 2004. The data appear in a paper published this week in the journal Nature.<br /><br />"Cassini shows us that Saturn is bipolar," said Andrew Ingersoll, an author of the study and a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Saturn is not like Earth and Jupiter, where storms are fairly frequent. Weather on Saturn appears to hum along placidly for years and then erupt violently. I'm excited we saw weather so spectacular on our watch."<br /><br />At its most intense, the storm generated more than 10 lightning flashes per second. Even with millisecond resolution, the spacecraft's radio and plasma wave instrument had difficulty separating individual signals during the most intense period. Scientists created a sound file from data obtained on March 15 at a slightly lower intensity period.<br /><br />Cassini has detected 10 lightning storms on Saturn since the spacecraft entered the planet's orbit and its southern hemisphere was experiencing summer, with full solar illumination not shadowed by the rings. Those storms rolled through an area in the southern hemisphere dubbed "Storm Alley." But the sun's illumination on the hemispheres flipped around August 2009, when the northern hemisphere began experiencing spring.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-43411448977024403112011-09-27T00:54:00.000-07:002011-09-27T00:55:13.860-07:00NASA Announces Two Game-Changing Space Technology Projects<div style="text-align: justify;">NASA has selected two game-changing space technology projects for development. The selections are part of the agency's efforts to pursue revolutionary technology required for future missions, while proving the capabilities and lowering the cost of government and commercial space activities.<br /><br />"NASA's Game Changing Technology Development program uses a rolling selection process to mature new, potentially transformative technologies from low to moderate technology readiness levels -- from the edge of reality to a test article ready for the rigors of the lab," said Space Technology Director Michael Gazarik at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These two new projects are just the beginning. Space Technology is making investments in critical technology areas that will enable NASA's future missions, while benefiting the American aerospace community."<br /><br />The "Ride the Light" concept seeks to provide external power on demand for aerospace vehicles and other applications. The concept uses beamed power and propulsion produced by commercially available power sources such as lasers and microwave energy. The project will attempt to develop a low-cost, modular power beaming capability and explore multiple technologies to function as receiving elements of the beamed power.<br /><br />This combination of technologies could be applied to space propulsion, performance and endurance of unpiloted aerial vehicles or ground-to-ground power beaming applications. Development of such capabilities fulfills NASA's strategic goal of developing high payoff technology and enabling missions otherwise unachievable with today's technology.<br /><br />NASA has awarded approximately $3 million for concept studies to multiple companies during this first phase of the Ride the Light project. Systems engineering and analysis during this first phase of the Ride the Light project will be done by Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville, Ala.; Aerojet in Redmond, Wash.; ATK in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.; Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; and Teledyne Scientific, Boeing, and the Aerospace Corp., all located in Los Angeles. Following these studies, NASA expects to make an implementation decision in 2013.<br /><br />NASA also has selected Amprius Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., to pursue development of a prototype battery that could be used for future agency missions. Amprius is teaming with JPL and NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on the project, with an estimated value of $710,000 for one year of development.<br /><br />The Amprius project will focus on the material optimization of silicon anodes and electrolyte formulation to meet the agency's low-temperature energy requirements. Amprius developed a unique ultra-high capacity silicon anode for lithium ion batteries that will enable NASA to dramatically improve the specific energy of mission critical rechargeable batteries. NASA requirements are unique because of the extremely low temperatures encountered in space.<br /><br />These awards are being made through NASA's Game Changing Development Program. For more information about the program and the agency's Space Technology Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/oct<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-31037052289799087012011-09-20T01:53:00.000-07:002011-09-20T01:55:04.181-07:00Final Landing of the Space Shuttle<div style="text-align: justify;">At today's final landing of the space shuttle, we had the rare opportunity to witness history. We turned the page on a remarkable era and began the next chapter in our nation’s extraordinary story of exploration.<br /><br />The brave astronauts of STS-135 are emblematic of the shuttle program. Skilled professionals from diverse backgrounds who propelled America to continued leadership in space with the shuttle's many successes. It is my great honor today to welcome them home.<br /><br />I salute them and all of the men and women who have flown shuttle missions since the very first launch on April 12, 1981.<br /><br />The shuttle program brought our nation many firsts. Many proud moments, some of which I was privileged to experience myself as a Shuttle commander. I was proud to be part of the shuttle program and will carry those experiences with me for the rest of my life.<br /><br />As we move forward, we stand on the shoulders of these astronauts and the thousands of people who supported them on the ground – as well as those who cheered their triumphs and mourned their tragedies.<br /><br />This final shuttle flight marks the end of an era, but today, we recommit ourselves to continuing human space flight and taking the necessary – and difficult – steps to ensure America’s leadership in human spaceflight for years to come.<br /><br />I want to send American astronauts where we’ve never been before by focusing our resources on exploration and innovation, while leveraging private sector support to take Americans to the International Space Station in low Earth orbit.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/bolden/posts/post_1311188665250.html">Source:</a><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-9463633394725915012011-09-19T05:30:00.000-07:002011-09-19T05:31:40.839-07:00NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers a World Orbiting Two Stars<div style="text-align: justify;">The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.<br /><br />Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.<br /><br />"This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now."<br /><br />A research team led by Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., used data from the Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the "habitable zone," the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the surface of the orbiting planet.<br /><br />Scientists detected the new planet in the Kepler-16 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other from our vantage point on Earth. When the smaller star partially blocks the larger star, a primary eclipse occurs, and a secondary eclipse occurs when the smaller star is occulted, or completely blocked, by the larger star.<br /><br />Astronomers further observed that the brightness of the system dipped even when the stars were not eclipsing one another, hinting at a third body. The additional dimming in brightness events, called the tertiary and quaternary eclipses, reappeared at irregular intervals of time, indicating the stars were in different positions in their orbit each time the third body passed. This showed the third body was circling, not just one, but both stars, in a wide circumbinary orbit.<br /><br />The gravitational tug on the stars, measured by changes in their eclipse times, was a good indicator of the mass of the third body. Only a very slight gravitational pull was detected, one that only could be caused by a small mass. The findings are described in a new study published Friday, Sept. 16, in the journal Science.<br /><br />"Most of what we know about the sizes of stars comes from such eclipsing binary systems, and most of what we know about the size of planets comes from transits," said Doyle, who also is the lead author and a Kepler participating scientist. "Kepler-16 combines the best of both worlds, with stellar eclipses and planetary transits in one system."<br /><br />This discovery confirms that Kepler-16b is an inhospitable, cold world about the size of Saturn and thought to be made up of about half rock and half gas. The parent stars are smaller than our sun. One is 69 percent the mass of the sun and the other only 20 percent. Kepler-16b orbits around both stars every 229 days, similar to Venus’ 225-day orbit, but lies outside the system’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface, because the stars are cooler than our sun.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-16b.html">Source:</a><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-9905034105810970782011-09-17T01:46:00.000-07:002011-09-17T01:49:25.576-07:00Comet Elenin Poses No Threat to Earth<div style="text-align: justify;">Often, comets are portrayed as harbingers of gloom and doom in movies and on television, but most pose no threat to Earth. Comet Elenin, the latest comet to visit our inner solar system, is no exception. Elenin will pass about 22 million miles (35 million kilometers) from Earth during its closest approach on Oct. 16, 2011.<br /><br />Also known by its astronomical name C/2010 X1, the comet was first detected on Dec. 10, 2010 by Leonid Elenin, an observer in Lyubertsy, Russia, who made the discovery "remotely" using an observatory in New Mexico. At that time, Elenin was about 401 million miles (647 million kilometers) from Earth. Since its discovery, Comet Elenin has – as all comets do – closed the distance to Earth's vicinity as it makes its way closer to perihelion, its closest point to the sun.<br /><br />NASA scientists have taken time over the last several months to answer your questions. Compiled below are the some of the most popular questions, with answers from Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and David Morrison of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-5314763833219657562011-09-16T05:53:00.000-07:002011-09-16T05:54:59.344-07:00NASA Rover Inspects Next Rock at Endeavour<div style="text-align: justify;">NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is using instruments on its robotic arm to inspect targets on a rock called "Chester Lake."<br /><br />This is the second rock the rover has examined with a microscopic imager and a spectrometer since reaching its long-term destination, the rim of vast Endeavour crater, in August. Unlike the first rock, which was a boulder tossed by excavation of a small crater on Endeavour's rim, Chester Lake is an outcrop of bedrock.<br /><br />The rocks at Endeavour apparently come from an earlier period of Martian history than the rocks that Opportunity examined during its first seven-and-a-half years on Mars. More information about the ongoing exploration of Endeavour's rim is at: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22660.aspx .<br /><br />Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit stopped communicating in 2010. NASA will launch the next-generation Mars rover, car-size Curiosity, this autumn for arrival at Mars' Gale crater in August 2012.<br /><br />NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the rovers is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/marsrovers .</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-4639794893431199262011-09-09T04:55:00.000-07:002011-09-09T04:56:15.029-07:00NASA Spacecraft Sees Wind-Whipped Fires in East Texas<div style="text-align: justify;">As most of Texas continues to experience the worst one-year drought on record, more than 170 wildfires have erupted across the Lone Star State so far this month alone. The Texas Forest Service reports the past week's blazes have charred more than 135,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes.<br /><br />Strong, gusty winds on the western side of Tropical Storm Lee, which passed over Louisiana on Monday, Sept. 5, 2011, stoked the fires burning throughout eastern Texas. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft passed over the wildfires at 12:05 p.m. CDT on Sept. 5. At that time, temperatures were around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), with winds from the north gusting to 25 mph (40 kilometers per hour).<br /><br />This image is a blend of data from MISR's vertical-viewing camera, which provides the sharpest view of surface features, and data acquired at a view angle of 70 degrees, which accentuates the appearance of smoke plumes generated by the fires. The Bear Creek Fire north of Marshall, near the top center of the image, is the largest fire in the image. When this image was acquired, the fire had charred 30,000 acres and was 0 percent contained. To the west is the Diana Fire, just north of Longview, and the Henderson-502 Fire, northwest of Nacogdoches.<br /><br />The combined smoke from these two fires extends more than 171 miles (275 kilometers), passing over Lake Livingston into the northern outskirts of Houston. The city of Houston appears as the grayish area at the bottom of the image, to the left of Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.<br /><br />This image covers about 275 miles (442 kilometers) in the north-south direction, and 199 miles (320 kilometers) in the east-west direction.<br /><br />MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Terra spacecraft is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The MISR data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-59204988075552922692011-08-25T02:37:00.000-07:002011-08-25T02:39:12.105-07:00NASA Picks Three Proposals for Flight Demonstration<div style="text-align: justify;">NASA has selected three proposals, including one from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as Technology Demonstration Missions to transform space communications, deep space navigation and in-space propulsion capabilities. The projects will develop and fly a space solar sail, deep space atomic clock, and space-based optical communications system.
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<br />These crosscutting flight demonstrations were selected because of their potential to provide tangible, near-term products and infuse high-impact capabilities into NASA's future space operations missions. By investing in high payoff, disruptive technology that industry does not have today, NASA matures the technology required for its future missions while proving the capabilities and lowering the cost of government and commercial space activities.
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<br />"These technology demonstration missions will improve our communications, navigation and in-space propulsion capabilities, enable future missions that could not otherwise be performed, and build the technological capability of America's space industry," said NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Optical communication will enable rapid return of the voluminous data associated with sending spacecraft and humans to new frontiers. High-performance atomic clocks enable a level of spacecraft navigation precision and autonomous operations in deep space never before achieved, and solar sails enable new space missions through highly efficient station-keeping or propellant-less main propulsion capabilities for spacecraft."
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<br />The proposals selected for demonstration missions are:
<br />-- Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, David J. Israel, principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
<br />-- Deep Space Atomic Clock, Todd Ely, principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology/NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
<br />-- Beyond the Plum Brook Chamber; An In-Space Demonstration of a Mission-Capable Solar Sail, Nathan Barnes, principal investigator at L'Garde Inc., of Tustin, Calif.
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<br />Technology Demonstration Missions are a vital element in NASA's space technology maturation pipeline. They prove feasibility in the environment of space and help advance innovations from concept to flight and use in missions. The advances anticipated from communications, navigation and in-space propulsion technology will allow future NASA missions to pursue bolder and more sophisticated science, enable human missions beyond low Earth orbit, and enable entirely new approaches to U.S. space operations.
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<br />The Laser Communications Relay demonstration mission will fly and validate a reliable, capable, and cost-effective optical communications technology. Optical communications technology provides data rates up to 100 times higher than today's systems, which will be needed for future human and robotic space missions. The technology is directly applicable to the next generation of NASA's space communications network. After the demonstration, the developed space and ground assets will be qualified for use by near-Earth and deep space missions requiring high bandwidth and a small ground station reception area.
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<br />The Deep Space Atomic Clock demonstration mission will fly and validate a miniaturized mercury-ion atomic clock that is 10-times more accurate than today's systems. This project will demonstrate ultra-precision timing in space and its benefits for one-way radio navigation. The investigation will fly as a hosted payload on an Iridium spacecraft and make use of GPS signals to demonstrate precision orbit determination and confirm the clock's performance. Precision timing and navigation is critical to the performance of a wide range of deep space exploration missions.
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<br />The Solar Sail demonstration mission will deploy and operate a sail area 7 times larger than ever flown in space. It is potentially applicable to a wide range of future space missions, including an advanced space weather warning system to provide more timely and accurate notice of solar flare activity. This technology also could be applied to economical orbital debris removal and propellant-less deep space exploration missions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is collaborating with NASA and L'Garde Inc. on the demonstration.
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<br />The clock and solar sail will be ready for flight in three years. The optical communications team anticipates it will take four years to mature the technology for flight. NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist plans to make a total investment in these three missions of approximately $175 million, contingent on future appropriations. Each of the selected teams also will receive funding from partners who plan on using the technologies as part of future space missions.
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<br />Projects include all elements of the flight test demonstration including test planning, flight hardware, launch, ground operations, and post-testing assessment and reporting. Each team has proposed between one and two years of spaceflight operations and data analysis. To reduce cost, the technology demonstrations will ride to space with other payloads aboard commercially provided launch vehicles. Launches are anticipated in 2015 and 2016.
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-85481843553781704262011-08-20T01:55:00.000-07:002011-08-20T01:56:51.210-07:00NASA Research Confirms it's a Small World, After All<div style="text-align: justify;">A NASA-led research team has confirmed what Walt Disney told us all along: Earth really is a small world, after all.
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<br />Since Charles Darwin's time, scientists have speculated that the solid Earth might be expanding or contracting. That was the prevailing belief, until scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics, which explained the large-scale motions of Earth's lithosphere, or outermost shell. Even with the acceptance of plate tectonics half a century ago, some Earth and space scientists have continued to speculate on Earth's possible expansion or contraction on various scientific grounds.
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<br />Now a new NASA study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, has essentially laid those speculations to rest. Using a cadre of space measurement tools and a new data calculation technique, the team detected no statistically significant expansion of the solid Earth.
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<br />So why should we care if Mother Nature is growing? After all, Earth's shape is constantly changing. Tectonic forces such as earthquakes and volcanoes push mountains higher, while erosion and landslides wear them down. In addition, large-scale climate events like El Nino and La Nina redistribute vast water masses among Earth's ocean, atmosphere and land.
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<br />Scientists care because, to put movements of Earth's crust into proper context, they need a frame of reference to evaluate them against. Any significant change in Earth's radius will alter our understanding of our planet's physical processes and is fundamental to the branch of science called geodesy, which seeks to measure Earth's shape and gravity field, and how they change over time.
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<br />To make these measurements, the global science community established the International Terrestrial Reference Frame. This reference frame is used for ground navigation and for tracking spacecraft in Earth orbit. It is also used to monitor many aspects of global climate change, including sea level rise and its sources; imbalances in ice mass at Earth's poles; and the continuing rebound of Earth's surface following the retreat of the massive ice sheets that blanketed much of Earth during the last Ice Age.
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12696111.post-51959659543905777362011-08-10T05:47:00.000-07:002011-08-10T05:49:02.478-07:00NASA's Juno Spacecraft Launches to Jupiter<div style="text-align: justify;">NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:25 a.m. PDT (12:25 p.m. EDT) Friday to begin a five-year journey to Jupiter.
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<br />Juno's detailed study of the largest planet in our solar system will help reveal Jupiter's origin and evolution. As the archetype of giant gas planets, Jupiter can help scientists understand the origin of our solar system and learn more about planetary systems around other stars.
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<br />"Today, with the launch of the Juno spacecraft, NASA began a journey to yet another new frontier," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "The future of exploration includes cutting-edge science like this to help us better understand our solar system and an ever-increasing array of challenging destinations."
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<br />After Juno's launch aboard an Atlas V rocket, mission controllers now await telemetry from the spacecraft indicating it has achieved its proper orientation, and that its massive solar arrays, the biggest on any NASA deep-space probe, have deployed and are generating power.
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<br />"We are on our way, and early indications show we are on our planned trajectory," said Jan Chodas, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We will know more about Juno's status in a couple hours after its radios are energized and the signal is acquired by the Deep Space Network antennas at Canberra."
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<br />Juno will cover the distance from Earth to the moon (about 250,000 miles or 402,336 kilometers) in less than one day's time. It will take another five years and 1,740 million miles (2,800 million kilometers) to complete the journey to Jupiter. The spacecraft will orbit the planet's poles 33 times and use its collection of eight science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant's obscuring cloud cover to learn more about its origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.
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<br />With four large moons and many smaller moons, Jupiter forms its own miniature solar system. Its composition resembles that of a star, and if it had been about 80 times more massive, the planet could have become a star instead.
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<br />"Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our solar system," said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "It is by far the oldest planet, contains more material than all the other planets, asteroids and comets combined, and carries deep inside it the story of not only the solar system but of us. Juno is going there as our emissary -- to interpret what Jupiter has to say."
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<br />Juno's name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife, the goddess Juno, was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.
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<br />The NASA Deep Space Network -- or DSN -- is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions.
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<br />JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
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<br />For more information about Juno, visit http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu .</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0