Nasa Space Information

Socializing Science With Smartphones in Space

2011-09-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

One may think that participation with the International Space Station would be restricted to an exclusive club of high ranking officials and agencies. In actuality, students, teachers and commercial companies have also been taking advantage of the station's unique environment for years. One of those commercial companies, Houston-based Odyssey Space Research, plans to bring the experience to the rest of us via our mobile devices!

International Space Station National Laboratory partner NanoRacks LLC has a collaboration with Odyssey and Apple.This relationship enabled Odyssey to send two iPhone 4's to the space station as part of the STS-135 mission on July 8, 2011. These phones are just like the ones you can find at the store, but with certain alterations to meet NASA flight certification standards. It took less than a year to make the necessary changes and launch the devices to the station.

The iPhone 4 was selected for its mix of features, according to Odyssey CEO Brian Rishikof. "It had a three-axis gyro, and accelerometer, a high resolution camera and screen, and the means to manipulate the image. We had done some projects in the past that used all those features, but of course it was big, dedicated equipment and suddenly here it is in this small little package," said Rishikof.

The smartphones use the same software as their Earth counterparts and Odyssey used standard tools to develop a new app called SpaceLab for iOS, which will enable the planned research aboard the station. The app is also available for people to download to their own devices.

These devices are part of an investigation called NanoRacks Smartphone, which looks at how the phones will operate in space. The hope is to use the compact hardware in future research studies and to augment crew performance and productivity in operational activities. Currently there are four separate experiments that will run on the smartphones via SpaceLab for iOS.

The first study is Limb Tracker, a navigation experiment using photos of the Earth and image overlay manipulation to match the horizon to an arc to give an estimate of altitude and off-axis angles. Next is the Sensor Calibration or Sensor Cal experiment, which uses reference photos and the three-axis gyro and accelerometer for calibration to improve measurement accuracy. The State Acquisition or State Acq experiment also uses photos, but this time to estimate spacecraft orbital parameters. After the first three investigations are complete, the Lifecycle Flight Instrumentation or LFI experiment will operate to track the impact of radiation on the phones. To do this, the devices will monitor radiation-induced single bit upsets, which are unintended changes in memory location values.

One of the other goals in sending the phones to the space station is to engage the public. The SpaceLab for iOS app for users on the ground is identical to the software that was downloaded onto the space devices prior to launch.

According to Rishikof, there is a setting in the application that indicates if the equipment is in microgravity or not. The software operates differently to accommodate the presence of gravity. "There are 200 million devices that run the operating system and could potentially run the application," said Rishikof. "Which means there are 200 million users out there that could get a sense of what it does; a sense of what an experiment in space might look like; a sense of participation."

The investigation is planned to run on the space station in the fall of 2011. The phones are not intended to have the same leisure appeal as they do on Earth, however, given the lack of iTunes, games and Internet or roaming connectivity. "People have asked me if we were loading games on the phones for the crew. No, we did not want them to be distracted, though certainly it would have been fun!" said Rishikof.

Once the investigation completes, the smartphones will return to Earth at the next opportunity. Scientists will then analyze the stored data to better understand how the devices can be used for future research on the space station and how the phones react to the space environment.

Rishikof hopes to be able to share some of the space data with SpaceLab for iOS app users, as well. "We do not have a monopoly on good ideas and hope users will suggest new and compelling things to add," commented Rishikof. "It is not a game, there's no leveling or challenges, the objective is to get data. It really just provides a way to see what's going on and while we don’t expect tons of downloads, we do expect a lot of interest. This would create an unusual opportunity for the entire world to get a look at some space data and explore it on their handheld device."

The NanoRacks Smartphone investigation is not the only phone-related study to launch to the space station with STS-135. The Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites or SPHERES, which has been aboard station since 2006, will also use smartphones to enhance the satellites' capabilities. While the two studies use different hardware, the overall capabilities of these smartphones offer bigger returns for research using a smaller package.

by Jessica Nimon
International Space Station Program Science Office
NASA's Johnson Space Center

NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity Begins Study of Martian Crater

2011-09-01T22:27:00.000-07:00

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its front hazard-avoidance camera to take this picture showing the rover's arm extended toward a light-toned rock, "Tisdale 2," during the 2,695th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Aug. 23, 2011). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to take this picture showing a light-toned rock, "Tisdale 2," during the 2,690th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Aug. 18, 2011). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. -- The initial work of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity at its new location on Mars shows surface compositional differences from anything the robot has studied in its first 7.5 years of exploration.

Opportunity arrived three weeks ago at the rim of a 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) crater named Endeavour. The first rock it examined is flat-topped and about the size of a footstool. It was apparently excavated by an impact that dug a crater the size of a tennis court into the crater's rim. The rock was informally named "Tisdale 2."

"This is different from any rock ever seen on Mars," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for Opportunity at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "It has a composition similar to some volcanic rocks, but there's much more zinc and bromine than we've typically seen. We are getting confirmation that reaching Endeavour really has given us the equivalent of a second landing site for Opportunity."

The diversity of fragments in Tisdale 2 could be a prelude to other minerals Opportunity might find at Endeavour. In the past two weeks, researchers have used an instrument on the rover's robotic arm to identify elements at several spots on Tisdale 2. Scientists have also examined the rock using the rover's microscopic imager and multiple filters of its panoramic camera.

Observations by Mars orbiters suggest that rock exposures on Endeavor's rim date from early in Martian history and include clay minerals that form in less-acidic wet conditions, possibly more favorable for life. Discontinuous ridges are all that remains of the ancient crater's rim. The ridge at the section of the rim where Opportunity arrived is named "Cape York." A gap between Cape York and the next rim fragment to the south is called "Botany Bay."

"On the final traverses to Cape York, we saw ragged outcrops at Botany Bay unlike anything Opportunity has seen so far, and a bench around the edge of Cape York looks like sedimentary rock that's been cut and filled with veins of material possibly delivered by water," said Ray Arvidson, the rover's deputy principal investigator at Washington University in St. Louis. "We made an explicit decision to examine ancient rocks of Cape York first."

The science team selected Endeavor as Opportunity's long-term destination after the rover climbed out of Victoria crater three years ago this week. The mission spent two years studying Victoria, which is about one twenty-fifth as wide as Endeavor. Layers of bedrock exposed at Victoria and other locations Opportunity has visited share a sulfate-rich composition linked to an ancient era when acidic water was present. Opportunity drove about 13 miles (21 kilometers) from Victoria to reach Endeavor. It has driven 20.8 miles (33.5 kilometers) since landing on Mars.

"We have a very senior rover in good health for having already worked 30 times longer than planned," said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "However, at any time, we could lose a critical component on an essential rover system, and the mission would be over. Or, we might still be using this rover's capabilities beneficially for years. There are miles of exciting geology to explore at Endeavour crater."

Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed three-month prime missions in April 2004 and continued working for years of extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit ended communications in March 2010.

"This is like having a brand new landing site for our veteran rover," said Dave Lavery, program executive for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It is a remarkable bonus that comes from being able to rove on Mars with well-built hardware that lasts."

NASA will launch its next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. It will land on Mars in August 2012. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html . You can also follow the mission on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marsrovers .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Ophir Chasma

2011-08-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

During its examination of Mars, the Viking 1 spacecraft returned images of Valles Marineris, a huge canyon system 5,000 km, or about 3,106 miles, long, whose connected chasma or valleys may have formed from a combination of erosional collapse and structural activity. This synthetic oblique view shows Ophir Chasma, the northern most one of the connected valleys of Valles Marineris. For scale, the large impact crater in lower right corner is about 18.5 miles, or 30 km, wide.

Ophir Chasma is a large west-northwest-trending trough about 62 miles, or 100 km, wide. The Chasma is bordered by high-walled cliffs, most likely faults, that show spur-and-gully morphology and smooth sections. The walls have been dissected by landslides forming reentrants. The volume of the landslide debris is more than 1,000 times greater than that from the May 18, 1980, debris avalanche from Mount St. Helens. The longitudinal grooves seen in the foreground are thought to be due to differential shear and lateral spreading at high velocities.

Discovering New Orbits with Kids in Micro-g

2011-08-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

Cady Coleman and Ron Garan measure the orbiting radius of a water droplet as it circles a piece of statically charged rubber tubing on the International Space Station. (NASA)

An example of water 'bending' towards a static charge created by a balloon.
(Image credit: ©Faith Fashion & Photos LLC)

Even simple scientific experiments can yield amazing results and add to the collective knowledge of the research community. Take the winning proposal for the most recent round of the Kids in Micro-g competition, for example, which was designed by two 5th grade girls from Chabad Hebrew Academy in San Diego. Conducted in April 2011 on the International Space Station, this study, called "Attracting Water Drops," looked at static attraction in microgravity to reveal an exciting new understanding of physics in space.

Kids in Micro-g was a hands-on design challenge and part of NASA's Teaching from Space education program. Six finalists were selected in the 2011 Kids in Micro-g competition, earning the chance to have their proposed studies performed on the space station. The Attracting Water Drops experiment involved rubbing a piece of rubber tubing with a pair of nylon shorts to create a static charge. Then astronauts released a droplet of water close by and watched to see what happened.

Marilyn Sniffen, advanced placement science coordinator with Chabad Hebrew Academy, found out about the Kids in Micro-g competition while researching new challenges for her students online. Having previously participated with her classes in other NASA education challenges, she was aware of NASA as a resource to help foster a love of science in students. "I asked my current students if they would like to participate," said Sniffen. "There was no hesitation, as they immediately wanted to check out the list of supplies available for the physics tests that could be done aboard the space station."

Students did their own companion study in the classroom to gain results for the investigation under the force of gravity here on Earth. They observed that a piece of charged rubber tubing held near a stream of running water caused the flow of water to bend toward the tubing. Students learned that the action of rubbing the tubing with nylon transferred negatively charged electrons to the tubing, creating a negative static charge. Since opposite charges attract to each other, and water molecules have a polarity with a positive end, the negatively charged tubing held near the water caused the positive end of the water to draw towards the tubing.

Astronauts Cady Coleman and Ron Garan performed the Attracting Water Droplets experiment aboard the station on April 23, 2011. You can view a video of the investigation being performed here . Their objective was to study the electrostatic interaction of the charged rubber tubing and water drops in microgravity. Students anticipated a greater attraction of the water droplet to the electrostatic charge than found on Earth. "Their hypothesis was that the results in space would be dramatically different than on Earth," commented Sniffen. "This is because the force of gravity on the water was greater than the force attraction to the static charge on the tube."

In addition to successfully proving the hypothesis, however, students and crew members were astonished to see the water droplet actually orbit the charged piece of tubing. "Look at that!" exclaimed Cady Coleman during the experiment on the space station. "It is going around our tubing. You would think it would keep sailing; in microgravity it would keep sailing, but it is coming back to our tubing and around."

Sniffen echoed Coleman's surprise, as she detailed the student's expectations for the water droplets in space. "The students predicted that in micro-g, the drop would be free floating and that it could be 'pulled' around by the charged rubber tube without it falling to the ground. The actual experiment on the station showed they were able to pull the drop around in the air, but it also revealed a surprise we didn't predict. The droplet of water actually orbited the tube at about 6 cm! So our hypothesis was supported, but we learned something entirely new in the process. The kids were amazed, as were we!" said Sniffen.

The school plans to repeat the Earth-bound portion of the experiment while showing the video of the study done on the space station to allow more students to share in the science next school year. "This kind of collaboration is really important for our students as they so often feel that what they are learning in school has no real connection to everyday life," comments Sniffen. "This program has allowed our students to make connections with real science and scientists, real discovery, and other students. It has inspired analytical thinking, creativity and communication for all our students."

Hammin’ It Up

2011-08-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

A satellite with amateur radio capabilities and a student-designed experiment was released into orbit around Earth on Aug. 3, 2011, during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The satellite is transmitting signals containing information that students around the world can access.

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station Satellite-1, or ARISSat-1, is a follow-on project to the unique SuitSat-1. SuitSat-1 was an amateur radio transmitter fitted into a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit that was released from the station into space in 2006. SuitSat-1 transmitted for about two weeks and orbited Earth for seven months before burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

The rectangular ARISSat-1 is covered by six solar panels that will charge the batteries in the satellite for about six months as it orbits Earth. Credit: AMSAT]

Formerly known as SuitSat-2 and also called Radioskaf-V and Kedr by the project’s Russian partners, ARISSat-1 contains a student-designed experiment and other equipment that students can use to learn more about space and space exploration. ("Kedr," which is Russian for "Cedar" in English, was the call sign of Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut and the first human in space.)

ARISSat-1 is a project by the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, or AMSAT, and affiliated with the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. ARISS is an education activity where space station astronauts and cosmonauts use amateur radio equipment aboard the space station to talk with students around the world.

The development, launch and deployment of ARISSat-1 are being conducted as an educational mission with the support of the NASA Office of Education’s ISS National Lab Education Project and RSC-Energia. It is the first of a series of educational satellites planned for deployment from the space station. Future satellites will carry additional student-built experiments, which will have data sent to the ground via amateur radio signals.

AMSAT ARISSat-1 project manager Gould Smith said the educational mission of the project is to use the unique aspects of satellites and amateur radio transmissions to generate student interest in space, science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

ARISSat-1 traveled to the space station in late January aboard a Russian Progress cargo vehicle and was released into space during a spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyaev.

For ARISSat-1, the onboard experiment is from Kursk State Technical University in Kursk, Russia. The experiment is going to measure the vacuum in space at different altitudes as the satellite’s orbit decays, gathering 90 minutes of data each day and transmitting that data continuously back to Earth. By analyzing these data, student scientists can derive atmospheric density from in situ measurements. These data in turn can be used to better predict the orbital lifetime of ARISSat-1.

Aboard ARISSat-1 is an experiment that will measure the vacuum in space at different altitudes as the spacecraft de-orbits. Credit: AMSAT

Originally designed -- like its predecessor -- to fit inside an Orlan spacesuit, ARISSat-1 was redesigned when the expired spacesuit allocated for the project was disposed of sooner than AMSAT could use it. The redesign actually turned out to be a good move for the project, project managers said, because it allowed capabilities to be expanded.

The rectangular spacecraft is covered by six solar panels that will charge the batteries in the satellite for about six months as it orbits Earth. Spoken telemetry values, with data such as temperature and battery life, are intended to promote science and mathematics education by encouraging schoolchildren to listen to the satellite, track its progress and plot the changes. AMSAT president Barry Baines said it’s a great opportunity for students to do actual science, by taking real-time, practical readings on a daily basis and plotting the changes. The telemetry data will be available live and over the Internet for schools and radio amateurs to study the operation and changes that the satellite experiences during its orbits around Earth.

The project website provides free downloadable software that can be used to decode the data. "They can look at all the values, but you can also get the Russian experiment data at the same time and actually look at that every day," Baines said. "Plus, that data will be stored online, and they will be able to access it via the Internet to be able to go back and look at historical data or just use it in a lesson to actually take the real data and analyze it."

"The most useful, exciting and effective element of learning in regards to this project is actually doing something hands-on and practical, rather than just sitting and listening to a lecture. If you can actually go out and collect the data and then do something with it, that’s a lesson that’s learned and understood at higher cognitive levels."

In addition to data, the satellite will transmit 24 pre-recorded greetings in 15 different languages -- French, Spanish, German, English and Chinese, to name a few. More than half of the messages were recorded by schoolchildren, Smith said. "Most of them are really creative and interesting to listen to, especially male and female voices, and even kind of a little rap by the Dutch group. Also, most of them have a secret word at the end, and there’s a contest: If you can identify the secret word and send an e-mail, we’ll return an e-mail back to you with a little certificate."

Attached to the inside of the satellite is a memory card containing images and documents from children around the world. A website has been set up to view the files on the card. There is also a contest to see who correctly copies the most Morse Code signals sent by ARISSat-1. The signals will consist of the call signs of all amateur radio operators who worked on the project. Additionally, still images of Earth will be transmitted from four cameras aboard the satellite. ARISSat-1 also will serve as an orbital communications relay station for use by amateur radio operators around the world. The ARISSat-1 website lists all of the ARISSat-1 contests and challenges.

Helping with the project is NASA retiree Lou McFadin. McFadin has been closely involved with amateur radio and human spaceflight through the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, or SAREX, project, beginning with astronaut Owen Garriott’s first amateur radio communications on the STS-9 shuttle mission in 1983. McFadin is the ARISS hardware manager and has worked with the development of the ARISSat-1 hardware since the start of the project.

"I think if they (students) do the telemetry decode," McFadin said, "there’s a lot of opportunity for learning there. It has solar panel temperatures; it has solar panel data; it has battery voltage and all kinds of information there about what’s going on in the satellite. That kind of learning really connects to our goal of getting children and all Americans interested in space. That’s a big part of what we wanted to do."

SuitSat-1 in orbit after its release from the International Space Station during Expedition 12. Credit: NASA
ARISSat-1 also will serve as a technology demonstration. "For AMSAT, it certainly was a way to try out some new ideas -- how to build the structure for the dynamics of the satellite itself, it’s a new power system, it’s a new transponder system we’ve not tried before, it’s the first time we’ve flown a software-defined transponder, and it’s paving the path for the future for us," Smith said.

McFadin said the software-defined transponder was the key to how they were able to design a satellite to do so many things at once. "It’s an FM transmitter, it’s a transponder, it’s a telemetry transmitter, and Morse code transmitter, all done with one system, all simultaneously," McFadin said. "We’ve never been able to do that before."

This was AMSAT’s second opportunity to release a satellite from the International Space Station, and Smith said they hope to continue the project with future spacecraft and more student-designed experiments. "It’s not any harder to build four of something than it is to build one, hardly. So we built four space frames, five actually, one for the prototype, and we built four flight versions," Smith said. "So it’ll be easy to do this again."

Mark Severance, manager for the ISS National Laboratory Education Project, sees ARISSat-1 as an important flight test for future educational satellites. "Future ARISSats will carry at least four student-designed and -built experiments," Severance noted. "This will give students the opportunity to go hands-on and build actual spaceflight experiment hardware. Furthermore, they can track the satellite using off-the-shelf amateur radio hardware and obtain the data from their experiment directly from their own ground station. In this manner, ARISSat can provide an 'end-to-end' space mission experience for participating students."

NASA's Office of Education's ISS National Laboratory Project will sponsor future ARISSats. The project provides hands-on opportunities for elementary, secondary and university students, as well as lifelong learners, to participate in the space station mission. The ARISS school contact activity is supported by the ISS National Laboratory Project as well as the Teaching From Space Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Teaching From Space facilitates education opportunities like ARISS that use the unique environment of space to increase student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Check out the ARISSat-1 website at http://arissat1.org/ → for information on data transmissions, contests and student activities.

Space Shuttle Program: Spanning 30 Years of Discovery

2011-08-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Image above: Space shuttles Endeavour and Discovery meet in a "nose-to-nose" photo opportunity as the vehicles switch locations Aug. 11 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Now in Orbiter Processing Facility-1 (OPF-1), Discovery will go through more preparations for public display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia next spring. Endeavour will be stored in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) until October, when it will be moved into OPF-2 to continue being readied for display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles next summer. Image credit: NASA/Frankie Martin

NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981 and continued to set high marks of achievement and endurance through 30 years of missions. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended July 21, 2011 when Atlantis rolled to a stop at its home port, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

As humanity's first reusable spacecraft, the space shuttle pushed the bounds of discovery ever farther, requiring not only advanced technologies but the tremendous effort of a vast workforce. Thousands of civil servants and contractors throughout NASA's field centers and across the nation have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to mission success and the greater goal of space exploration.

Astronauts go on spacewalk for station repairs

2011-07-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

Floating in the International Space Station's Quest airlock compartment, astronauts Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan switched their spacesuits to battery power at 9:22 a.m. EDT to officially kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk.

"Ronny, you ready to rock and roll?" Fossum asked before floating out of the airlock.

"Ready to rock and roll," Garan replied.

"Let's go, buddy."

Fossum and Garan plan to accomplish their primary goal first, moving a failed ammonia pump module from a storage platform just outside the airlock to a carrier in the shuttle Atlantis' cargo bay. After that, the astronauts will move a robotic refueling demonstration apparatus from the shuttle to the station, install a materials science space exposure experiment and perform a few maintenance chores.

This is the 160th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the ninth so far this year, the seventh for Fossum and the fourth for Garan.

For identification, Fossum (call sign EV-1) will be wearing a suit with red stripes around the legs. Garan (EV-2) will be in an unmarked suit.

Atlantis unloads ton of food for space station
Atlantis docks at International Space Station
CBS Space Place: The latest news on shuttle mission

Shuttle pilot Douglas Hurley and Sandra Magnus will operate the station's robot arm during the excursion and shuttle flight engineer Rex Walheim will serve as the spacewalk coordinator, working from the flight deck of Atlantis.

Hurley and Magnus will use a robotics work station in the Tranquility module's multi-window cupola. A U.S. toilet also is located in Tranquility, along with equipment used to recover water from urine. The astronauts reported a strong odor from the equipment Monday and the urine processor will not be turned on during today's spacewalk.

"There are two toilets on the space station," said overnight Flight Director Courtenay McMillan. "There's one in the Russian segment, and it's working fine. And there's one, basically the same design, that's in the U.S. segment and it hooks up to our urine processor. So we got a report from the crew that there was a smell that was unexpected coming from that area, and it was pretty intense.

"At the time, we were processing urine in the urine processor, not the toilet itself, but the machine that it hooks up to recycle the water from the urine. We got some air in that system a little while ago and it needs to basically purge itself out over the course of processing. So we think, because everything looks fine in the system, we think it's just working its way out of the system. So we stopped the urine processing for the time being and we're using the toilet basically in stand-alone mode right now."

Flight controllers likely will resume urine processing Wednesday but "not while the crew is doing EVA support,:" McMillan said. "They'll be using the robotics work station in the cupola, which is in the vicinity of the toilet, so we don't really want to be making a smell while they're working in there."

Today's spacewalk is the first during a shuttle visit that will be carried out by space station personnel. Because of a short training flow and a requirement to launch Atlantis with a reduced crew of four, "we wanted to off load the training tasks on the shuttle crew and sort of level the load," lead station Flight Director Chris Edelen said before launch. "So we took advantage of the EVA experience of Mike Fossum and Ron Garan. They've actually done three spacewalks together on previous shuttle missions (and they) were able to get up to speed very quickly on this EVA."

Fossum has 42 hours and one minute of EVA time in his previous six spacewalks while Garan has 20 hours and 32 minutes of EVA experience.

Photos: NASA's final shuttle flight
Photos: The storied career of Atlantis

Returning the failed ammonia pump module is a high priority objective for NASA. The space station is equipped with two coolant loops that circulate ammonia through huge radiators to get rid of the heat generated by the space station's electrical systems. Last July 30, the pump in one coolant loop failed, forcing the crew to implement an emergency powerdown.

"I remember it because I was on console when it failed," Edelen said. "It was one of those moments where on a quiet Saturday and the crew's off duty and getting ready to go to bed and everything's going real well and it all changed in a second when that pump module failed. All the caution and warnings started going off and the crew had to very quickly scramble to reconfigure the systems and power down some of the systems in order to keep the station limping along on one remaining cooling loop.

"That was a major failure in the history of the space station program, the first major failure that required (U.S.) spacewalks without a shuttle present to fix a problem."

Over the course of three spacewalks, the pump module was successfully replaced by a pre-positioned spare. But the coolant system is critical to the station's long-term health and engineers want to find out what went wrong in the pump that failed. After troubleshooting, engineers plan to repair the pump and re-launch it aboard a Japanese cargo ship.

After mounting the pump module in Atlantis' payload bay, Fossum and Garan plan to move an experimental robotic refueling apparatus from the shuttle to a storage platform used by the Canadian Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or SPDM, a robot arm extension also known as DEXTRE.

"We are taking up a payload, it's called the robotics refueling module, this is to demonstrate a capability for the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, which hasn't seen a whole lot of use on the International Space Station to date, but we hope to turn that all around with this payload," said shuttle commander Christopher Ferguson.

"I've kind of likened it to a Fisher-Price play toy for a robot. And I don't mean that in a negative sense, it is really an opportunity for the SPDM to get in there and use several different tools and prove the capability to do something extremely novel, and that is to refuel satellites in orbit that were never designed to be refueled.

"So the manipulator will actually go in and pick up special cutter tools and cut safety wire, it has a drill that can actually drill into a fuel tank so there's some very unique capabilities that will be demonstrated using this. What capability will robots provide to us in the future? To think about going out there and perhaps grappling a satellite that was never designed to be refueled ... and refill it and use it for an additional five or 10 years is a dramatic example of how robotics can modify what we're doing in space."

Along with moving the pump module to Atlantis and installing the robotics refueling kit on the station, Fossum plans to inspect a robot arm mounting fixture on the Russian Zarya module to re-position a grounding wire that appears to be caught in an access door. Both spacewalkers then will install a thermal shield over an unused docking port attached to Tranquility before heading back to the Quest airlock.

The Last Space Shuttle Mission: Flight Day 6

2011-07-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

When Space Shuttle Atlantis left Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday, July 8, it marked the final liftoff for the long-running Space Shuttle Program, which has dominated NASA's manned operations for the past four decades. Over a 12-day mission (since extended to 13 days), the four-person crew on STS-135 will haul the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Raffaello and a Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier (LMC) to the International Space Station. Over the course of the mission, we'll be providing daily updates.

After a long day -- flight engineers Mike Fossum and Ron Garan completed a spacewalk that lasted more than six hours -- the NASA crew onboard Space Shuttle Atlantis had an early night on flight day 5. For the best, as the morning wakeup song -- Elton John's "Rocket Man" -- came at 2:29 a.m. EDT this morning. Once awake, the astronauts were greeted with a special message from Sir Elton John himself: "Good morning, Atlantis, this is Elton John," he said in a recording. "We wish you much success on your mission. A huge thank you to all the men and women at NASA who worked on the shuttle for the last three decades."

Story continues after the gallery, which will be updated as the mission wears on.

The message from Sir John was a good way to get the crew ready for a long day of ... moving, basically. The astronauts onboard Space Shuttle Atlantis spent most of flight day 6 moving equipment and supplies out of the Raffaello multi-purpose module and into the International Space Station. They took a break at 12:54 p.m. to speak with reporters from KGO-TV in San Francisco and WBNG-TV and WICZ-TV in Binghamton, New York.

As I write this daily update, the combined 10-person team on the International Space Station and the docked Space Shuttle are already asleep. Lights out for the day was at 4:59 p.m. EDT for the

NASA footing the bill for many to witness final space shuttle launch

2011-07-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

For one career NASA engineer joining the thousands of Houstonians going to Florida this week for the final space shuttle launch, this trip wasn't necessarily a part of the plan.

Really, he'd have no problem staying at Mission Control in Houston, watching data flow into computer monitors about the shuttle's progress and trajectory as it rockets out of the atmosphere.

That is what Mack Henderson, 72, who began his career working on development of the Saturn V rocket, has done for decades. And it's the reason that he's only attended two spacecraft launches in his 51-year career, one of them for Apollo 12.

This time, however, NASA is paying for him and more than 140 other employees to watch the final space shuttle lift off in person.

"My hope is that after this launch, they'll say, 'Oh, we were just kidding. We're going to fly more space shuttle flights,' " said Henderson, who added that he's happy to be able to witness the milestone but will be sad that the program is ending.

Those may be the sentiments of many of the Houston space-industry workers, past and present, traveling in droves to Florida this week to watch the beginning of the end of NASA's space shuttle era, but they are going anyway.

"In some ways, it's just sad to see it end," said Lisa Reed, 50, who worked for nearly 15 years at NASA before leaving to join a private consulting firm. Reed, who helped train astronauts on docking and life support systems, will watch the launch in Florida with her relatives.

"I have so many good memories leading up to it, and just seeing it end and knowing that a lot of my friends will now be out of a job and that I love the space shuttle program and that it is ending" will be difficult, she said.

Though bittersweet, buzz about the final launch, scheduled for Friday, swept over Johnson Space Center in recent weeks as workers tried to secure coveted spaces on the NASA causeway at Cape Canaveral and planned flights, road trips and hotel stays to be a part of the historic day.

Bus space sells out

NASA, after noticing ballooning interest among its workers in seeing the final shuttle launches, began organizing charter buses, accommodations and a designated viewing area to help workers travel and watch the start of the final missions, said Lisa Rasco, who coordinated the travel program for NASA.

Spaces on the buses for this week's launch sold out several weeks ago, Rasco said. The buses set out on the 18-hour journey Wednesday. A total of 130 people had reserved bus or hotel bookings through the NASA service, she said. Thousands of other workers are flying on their own, driving and planning their own stays before meeting at a Kennedy Space Center recreation facility that can accommodate 10,000 viewers. That area is expected to be filled with NASA workers and their families, she said.

The final shuttle launch was a milestone that David Rose, 44, couldn't miss. A Florida native who worked at Johnson Space Center for 18 years before leaving and joining an engineering consulting firm, Rose helped train astronauts and has seen more than a dozen shuttle launches.

His life has been connected and inspired by the space program and industry, with him traveling to California in 2005 to see the first private spacecraft launch out of the atmosphere. He plans to watch Atlantis launch Friday with his parents-in-law and brother from the NASA causeway.

Excited, but also sad

Rose's life inspiration is not unique among the current and former NASA workers who scrambled to make plans to watch the final launch.

NASA's human space flight program, with the shuttle's 30-year history, stirred the imaginations of many of the professionals who have dedicated their lives to the field. With the shuttle program being the agency's sole human space endeavor of the past three decades, pride in its achievements will draw many Houstonians to Florida this week, said Heather Hinkel, principal engineer of new docking and sensor technology tested in orbit on the final launch of Endeavour in May.

"We are definitely excited for what is next," said Hinkel, 42, who will watch the launch from Banana Creek at Kennedy Space Center. "I know NASA will always have great work, but the human space flight aspect is sort of my favorite thing, so it will just be sad to see that all come to an end."

zain.shauk@chron.com

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/7642558.html#ixzz1ROeob6D1

Docked One Last Time

2011-05-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

Docked One Last Time

Backdropped by a night time view of the Earth and the starry sky, the Space Shuttle Endeavour is photographed docked at the International Space Station on May 28, 2011. The STS-134 astronauts left the station the next day on May 29, after delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and performing four spacewalks during Endeavour's final mission.

Image Credit: NASA

Space Shuttle Mission: STS-134

2011-05-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Image above: The STS-134 crew aboard space shuttle Endeavour talks to reporters during a live in-flight media event on Monday. Photo credit: NASA TV

The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.

During the 16-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre.

NASA to Launch New Science Mission to Asteroid in 2016

2011-05-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

NASA will launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016 and use a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our solar system's formation and how life began. The mission, called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.

"This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and explore into deep space," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. "It’s robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations."

NASA selected OSIRIS-REx after reviewing three concept study reports for new scientific missions, which also included a sample return mission from the far side of the Moon and a mission to the surface of Venus.

Asteroids are leftovers formed from the cloud of gas and dust -- the solar nebula -- that collapsed to form our sun and the planets about 4.5 billion years ago. As such, they contain the original material from the solar nebula, which can tell us about the conditions of our solar system's birth.

Conceptual image of OSIRIS-REx. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

After traveling four years, OSIRIS-REx will approach the primitive, near Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 in 2020. Once within three miles of the asteroid, the spacecraft will begin six months of comprehensive surface mapping. The science team then will pick a location from where the spacecraft's arm will take a sample. The spacecraft gradually will move closer to the site, and the arm will extend to collect more than two ounces of material for return to Earth in 2023. The mission, excluding the launch vehicle, is expected to cost approximately $800 million.

The sample will be stored in a capsule that will land at Utah's Test and Training Range in 2023. The capsule's design will be similar to that used by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which returned the world's first comet particles from comet Wild 2 in 2006. The OSIRIS-REx sample capsule will be taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The material will be removed and delivered to a dedicated research facility following stringent planetary protection protocol. Precise analysis will be performed that cannot be duplicated by spacecraft-based instruments.

RQ36 is approximately 1,900 feet in diameter or roughly the size of five football fields. The asteroid, little altered over time, is likely to represent a snapshot of our solar system's infancy. The asteroid also is likely rich in carbon, a key element in the organic molecules necessary for life. Organic molecules have been found in meteorite and comet samples, indicating some of life's ingredients can be created in space. Scientists want to see if they also are present on RQ36.

"This asteroid is a time capsule from the birth of our solar system and ushers in a new era of planetary exploration," said Jim Green, director, NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "The knowledge from the mission also will help us to develop methods to better track the orbits of asteroids."

The mission will accurately measure the "Yarkovsky effect" for the first time. The effect is a small push caused by the sun on an asteroid, as it absorbs sunlight and re-emits that energy as heat. The small push adds up over time, but it is uneven due to an asteroid's shape, wobble, surface composition and rotation. For scientists to predict an Earth-approaching asteroid's path, they must understand how the effect will change its orbit. OSIRIS-REx will help refine RQ36's orbit to ascertain its trajectory and devise future strategies to mitigate possible Earth impacts from celestial objects.

Michael Drake of the University of Arizona in Tucson is the mission's principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. The OSIRIS-REx payload includes instruments from the University of Arizona, Goddard, Arizona State University in Tempe and the Canadian Space Agency. NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., the Langley Research Center in Hampton Va., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., also are involved. The science team is composed of numerous researchers from universities, private and government agencies.

This is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. The first, New Horizons, was launched in 2006. It will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in July 2015, then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission, Juno, will launch in August to become the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole and study the giant planet's atmosphere and interior. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Caterpillar Inc. Participates in NASA's Second Annual Lunabotics Mining Competition

2011-05-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

Caterpillar promotes education and technology at international collegiate event

Showcasing its world-class technology leadership, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) is supporting the NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. The event, May 26-28, is designed to engage and retain college students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). For complete coverage, follow the competition on Twitter @CaterpillarInc. or #lmc2011.

Tana Utley, Caterpillar Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, will be a keynote speaker during the opening ceremonies of the three-day event. "Educational outreach has been an important part of our collaboration with NASA, and we look forward to continuing this focus during the Lunabotics Mining Competition," said Utley. "The technologies produced at the competition could one day be used in mine and work sites. What better way to enhance jobsite safety and efficiency than to design autonomous solutions."

Participants in the competition will design and build autonomous systems that could be used for future lunar exploration. Teams will test their designs in a head-to-head challenge to see which machine can excavate the most simulated lunar "dirt" over a specific timeframe. "Caterpillar has a long history of supporting educational opportunities that promote the STEM areas," said Eric Reiners, Caterpillar Automation Manager, who is lending his expertise as a judge at the event. "We need to encourage technology, innovation and ingenuity to students of all ages. The development of autonomous systems will ultimately help our global customers boost safety, efficiency and increase profitability."

Currently, there are 45 graduate and undergraduate student teams enrolled in the competition from various parts of the world. That number has more than doubled from last year's event. Caterpillar will have a 287C semi-autonomous Multi Terrain Loader (MTL) on display to showcase the technologies Caterpillar and NASA are developing.

For updates during the competition, find us on Twitter @CaterpillarInc. or #lmc2011 and www.caterpillar.com. To learn more about the Lunabotics Mining Competition, please go to

About Caterpillar:

For more than 85 years, Caterpillar Inc. has been making sustainable progress possible and driving positive change on every continent. With 2010 sales and revenues of $42.588 billion, Caterpillar is the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives.

The company also is a leading services provider through Caterpillar Financial Services, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services, Caterpillar Logistics Services and Progress Rail Services. More information is available at: http://www.caterpillar.com.

NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Meeting

2011-05-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

Event Format: Advisory Meeting

Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Location: NASA Headquarters, Room 9H40, 300 E. Street, SW., Washington DC, DC 20546, US

[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 88 (Friday, May 6, 2011)] [Notices] [Pages 26316-26317] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2011-11028]

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[Notice 11- 044]

Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Meeting

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

ACTION: Notice of meeting; Correction.

Federal Register Citation of Previous Announcement: 76 FR 23339, Notice Number 11-043, dated April 26, 2011; and 76 FR 19147, Notice Number 11-030, dated April 6, 2011.

SUMMARY: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration published a notice in the Federal Register of April 26, 2011, announcing a meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) to take place on May 24, 2011, at the Kennedy Space Center, FL.

Correction: Date and time of ASAP public meeting remains the same: Tuesday, May 24, 2011, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Location has been moved to: NASA Headquarters, Room 9H40, 300 E. Street, SW., Washington, DC 20546. Agenda has been modified accordingly.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Kathy Dakon, ASAP Executive Director, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC 20546, (202) 358-0732.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel will hold its 2nd Quarterly Meeting for 2011. This discussion is pursuant to carrying out its statutory duties for which the Panel reviews, identifies, evaluates, and advises on those program activities, systems, procedures, and management activities that can contribute to program risk. Priority is given to those programs that involve the safety of human flight.

The agenda will include: Updates on Safety and Mission Assurance; Safety Metrics; and Commercial Space.

The meeting will be open to the public up to the seating capacity of the room. Seating will be on a first-come basis. Photographs will only be permitted during the first 10 minutes of the meeting. During the first 30 minutes of the meeting, members of the public may make a 5-minute verbal presentation to the Panel on the subject of safety in NASA. To do so, please contact Ms. Susan Burch at susan.burch@nasa.gov or by telephone at (202) 358-0550 at least 48 hours in advance. Any member of the public is permitted to file a written statement with the Panel at the time of the meeting.

Verbal presentations and written comments should be limited to the subject of safety in NASA. Attendees will be requested to sign a register and to comply with NASA security requirements, including the presentation of a valid picture ID, before receiving an access badge.

Foreign nationals attending this meeting will be required to provide a copy of their passport, visa, or green card in addition to providing the following information no less than 10 working days prior to the meeting: Full name; gender; date/place of birth; citizenship; visa/green card information (number, type, expiration date);

passport information (number, country, expiration date); employer/affiliation information (name of institution, address, country, telephone); title/position of attendee. To expedite admittance, attendees with U.S. citizenship can provide identifying information 3 working days in advance by contacting Susan Burch via e-mail at susan.burch@nasa.gov or by telephone at (202) 358-0550.

It is imperative that the meeting be held on this date to accommodate the scheduling priorities of the key participants.

May 2, 2011. P. Diane Rausch, Advisory Committee Management Officer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [FR Doc. 2011-11028 Filed 5-5-11; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE P

Editorial: Endeavour's last flight: An ode to space exploration

2011-05-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

AP/John RaouxThe space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 16, 2011.

We are fast closing in on the end of an era.

The last flight of space shuttle Endeavour (named and spelled in the British fashion for Capt. James Cook's ship) launched from the Kennedy Space Center Monday, and docked at the International Space Station Wednesday morning.

Then, on June 28, Atlantis is scheduled to begin the space shuttle's final journey.

Some reports are predicting that a million people will turn out to see that launch. After that, America will have no manned space rocket program. It seems strange to contemplate that.

On May 5, the U.S. marked a major milestone. As National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief Charles Bolden wrote: "50 years ago today, Alan Shepard rocketed into space on America's first manned space mission.

That flight set our nation on a path of exploration and discovery that continues to this day."

"May 5, 1961, was a good day," Bolden continued. "When Alan Shepard launched toward the stars that day, no American had ever done so, and the world waited on pins and needles praying for a good outcome. The flight was a great success, and on the strength of Shepard's accomplishment, NASA built the leadership role in human spaceflight that we have held ever since."

What people may not realize is the direct impact that our investment in space exploration has had on the quality of life on Earth.

Because of scientific advances to protect astronauts from extreme heat during takeoff, race car drivers are safer in the cockpits of their cars. Because of scientific advances to protect the food that astronauts eat in space, the incidence of food poisoning among consumers had been reduced. Because of other scientific advances, spurred by the drive to explore space, we have more advanced breast cancer screening, heart defibrillators that restore heart rhythm and satellites that warn of coming hurricanes.

Infrared cameras developed to monitor the blazing plume from the space shuttle help firefighters locate hot spots in wildfires. Technologies used for exploring space can be used to increase crop yields and find more fish at sea.

The material that NASA developed to protect its launch pads from the destructive effects of hot, humid and salt-laden air today protects the Statue of Liberty and Golden Gate Bridge from degradation.

As we seek our future in space, we also learn about our past.

The images from the Hubble space telescope provide breathtaking visual information. And multispectral imaging methods used to see the Martian surface have been applied to, as the Chicago Tribune reported, "badly charred Roman manuscripts that were buried during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Examining those carbonized manuscripts under different wavelengths of light suddenly revealed writing that had been invisible to scholars for two centuries," because of manuscript degradation.

The famous heart surgeon, Dr. Michael DeBakey, who collaborated with NASA on one of its most beneficial inventions, a tiny artificial heart pump, said, "NASA is engaged in very active research. It has as its goal to explore space. But to do so, you've got to do all kinds of research — biological research, physical research and so on. So it's really a very, very intensive research organization.

"And anytime you have any type of intensive research organization or activity going on, new knowledge is going to flow from it."

The knowledge that flowed from NASA in the past 50 years has saved lives and benefited mankind in countless ways. The return on that investment is beyond calculation.

And don't underestimate the power of those stories. Children around the world have been captivated by these accounts; and some of them went on to become the test pilots and astronauts, scientists and engineers who brought about these miraculous advancements.

Fifty years ago, the notion of a manned space program aroused our competitive spirit. It also brought out the best in us as we worked toward a goal that all could endorse and embrace.

The space shuttle program has served its purpose; its time is over. But that doesn't mean America should look down. The world is out of kilter when we're spending billions for war instead of to explore.

We would be wise to lift our eyes to the stars.

Soyuz undocking could be shuttle photo opp

2011-05-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

APE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Iconic images of the shuttle joined to a completed International Space Station will be snapped Monday night if an unprecedented space operation goes off as planned.

For the first time, a Russian space taxi is scheduled to leave the station while a shuttle is docked there.

The departure presents what may be the only opportunity to take pictures NASA and many space fans covet of the shuttle, on the eve of its retirement, parked at the $100 billion outpost that is its greatest legacy.

"Hopefully those pictures will show up in textbooks for years to come," said Kenny Todd, NASA's station manager for operations and integration.

Around 5:30 p.m., a Soyuz spacecraft piloted by Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and carrying a NASA astronaut and an Italian astronaut will undock from a port 50 feet from Endeavour and back away to a distance of about 650 feet.

The station then will rotate 130 degrees in an unusual sideways pose that offers a good view of the station, Endeavour, and two cargo ships flown by Russia and Europe.

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli will climb temporarily into the windowed Soyuz module — a part of the craft that burns up during re-entry — and begin taking pictures and video of the shuttle and station floating 220 miles above the planet.

Nespoli will have about five minutes to take in the unique view before Soyuz thrusters fire to separate the spacecraft from the station and put Kondratyev, Nespoli and American Cady Coleman en route to a landing in Kazakhstan late Monday night.

It sounds simple enough, but the whole process involves risks that took years to gain acceptance.

"There's been a lot of work by a whole lot of teams to make sure this is really a good thing to be doing, but folks are very comfortable with the plan," Courtenay McMillan, a station flight director, said of the photo opportunity.

"Now, instead of a unique configuration, we have more of what I term more of a unique opportunity," Todd said since not every vehicle would be represented in the picture.

The opportunity arose when shuttle and station program leaders approved what is known as "dual docked operations."

In the past, vehicles coming and going from the station were conflicts for a shuttle mission to avoid.

Another showstopper could be coordinating shuttle and Soyuz crew schedules so each gets enough rest and can execute their separate missions without interference.

In this case, engineers determined there was acceptable rocket fuel plume risk , and the schedules could be managed.

But the photo opportunity presented additional challenges.

The Soyuz will back away much like it always does, but at a slightly higher angle to make sure the sun doesn't blind Kondratyev while he manually keeps the spacecraft hovering behind the station for an extended period.

The station had to figure out a pose that ensured good lighting, and flying in any new position, even for half an orbit, requires verification that systems won't be exposed to harmful temperatures.

The photo orientation is "different enough from what we usually fly that it is outside what we know about, so folks had to go off and do the math and figure out what the problems would be," McMillan said.

After taking the pictures, Nespoli will return to his seat in the crew module and seal the hatch. The crew module separates from two others and is the only part of the ship that survives atmospheric re-entry.

But the Soyuz won't be able to immediately return to its port if there is trouble sealing the hatch, which normally is closed prior to undocking. The maneuver hasn't been studied enough to know it can be done safely.

Managers say a hatch problem is highly unlikely, the Soyuz has backup landing opportunities through Tuesday and managers would come up with a solution if necessary.

"We would get there," said Derek Hassmann, the lead flight director for Endeavour's visit to the station.

Plans continue for another round of photos to be taken during the final shuttle flight. But that could be dropped if Monday's operation produces the desired imagery, which could be released within days.

If the effort succeeds, Todd said he hopes the photos give future generations an appreciation for the feat represented by the station, which couldn't have been built without the shuttle.

"So if we're ever to end up in the future somewhere in a book, it would be great to have the space shuttle represented there with us, as well as all the other international partners," he said.

Mars Rover Driving Leaves Distinctive Tracks

2011-05-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

A dance-step pattern is visible in the wheel tracks near the left edge of this scene recorded by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the 2,554th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (April 1, 2011). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When NASA's Opportunity Mars rover uses an onboard navigation capability during backward drives, it leaves a distinctive pattern in the wheel tracks visible on the Martian ground.

The pattern appears in an image posted at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14129 .

The rover team routinely commands Opportunity to drive backward as a precaution for extending the life of the rover's right-front wheel, which has been drawing more electrical current than the other five wheels. Rover drivers can command the rover to check for potential hazards in the drive direction, whether the rover is driving backward or forward. In that autonomous navigation mode, the rover pauses frequently, views the ground with the navigation camera on its mast, analyzes the stereo images, and makes a decision about proceeding.

When the drive is backward, the drive-direction view from the navigation camera is partially blocked by an antenna in the middle of the rover. Therefore, at each pause to check for hazards, the rover pivots slightly to the side to get a clear view. If it sees no hazard, it turns back to the direction it was going and continues the drive for about another 4 feet (1.2 meters) before checking again. This set of activities leaves tracks showing the slight turnout on a rhythmically repeated basis, like a dance step.

Opportunity has driven more than 1.6 miles (about 2.6 kilometers) since leaving "Santa Maria" crater in late March and resuming a long-term trek toward the much larger Endeavour crater. Opportunity has now driven more than 18 miles (29 kilometers) on Mars.

Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued in 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 has not communicated with Earth since March 2010.

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 . You can follow the rovers on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers and on Twitter @MarsRovers . A full list of JPL’s social media accounts is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/social/ .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Earthlings, It’s Time to Keep Your Chess Pieces From Floating Away

2011-05-22T23:32:00.000-07:00

Greg Chamitoff plays chess on the International Space Station in 2008. Photo Credit: NASA

After a brief postponement due to some electrical problems on the space shuttle Endeavour, the latest Earth vs. Space chess match is now under way, and you can post your suggestions on how to beat NASA astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Greg H. Johnson on Facebook and follow the match there or on Twitter.

Chamitoff and Johnson launched on a mission to the International Space Station on Monday, and have only two weeks to complete this match, so the action should be as fast and furious as the busy mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer allows. They’re teaming up for this chess match challenge to the people of Earth.

NASA and the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) hosted the first Earth vs. space match in 2008 when Chamitoff lived aboard the International Space Station. The public won that match thanks to help from chess champions at Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue, Wash.

"Chess is a great game that challenges the mind and helps young people develop critical thinking skills that will serve them well in math, science, and all aspects of their future careers," Chamitoff said.

He and Johnson will play the game during their 14-day space shuttle flight to the International Space Station. The USCF will facilitate the match on its website at:

At the site, the public can suggest or vote on a chess move. The USCF will decide how to respond to the astronauts' moves. NASA and USCF will use Twitter and Facebook to notify participants about the status of the game and when to vote on moves.

Chamitoff, who will conduct two spacewalks during the shuttle mission, is a chess aficionado. He took a chess set when he launched to the space station in May 2008, and brought it back when he returned home in November 2008. He will be taking a different chess set for this trip.

"We hope to do better in this Earth vs. space match," Chamitoff said. "But, I have to admit it will be a challenge because we have an extremely busy flight ahead of us."

Updates on the chess match will be posted on the USCF Twitter and Facebook sites, Chamitoff's Twitter account and the International Space Station's official Facebook page:

http://twitter.com/chessmagnet

NASA Mission Will Observe Earth's Salty Seas

2011-05-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

Artist's concept of the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

PASADENA, Calif. – Final preparations are under way for the June 9 launch of the international Aquarius/SAC-D observatory. The mission's primary instrument, Aquarius, will study interactions between ocean circulation, the water cycle and climate by measuring ocean surface salinity.

Engineers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are performing final tests before mating Aquarius/SAC-D to its Delta II rocket. The mission is a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. SAC stands for Satelite de Applicaciones Cientificas. Aquarius was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In addition to Aquarius, the observatory carries seven other instruments that will collect environmental data for a wide range of applications, including studies of natural hazards, air quality, land processes and epidemiology.

The mission will make NASA's first space observations of the concentration of dissolved salt at the ocean surface. Aquarius' observations will reveal how salinity variations influence ocean circulation, trace the path of freshwater around our planet, and help drive Earth's climate.

The ocean surface constantly exchanges water and heat with Earth's atmosphere. Approximately 80 percent of the global water cycle that moves freshwater from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean happens over the ocean.

Salinity plays a key role in these exchanges. By tracking changes in ocean surface salinity, Aquarius will monitor variations in the water cycle caused by evaporation and precipitation over the ocean, river runoff, and the freezing and melting of sea ice.

Salinity also makes seawater denser, causing it to sink, where it becomes part of deep, interconnected ocean currents. This deep ocean "conveyor belt" moves water masses and heat from the tropics to the polar regions, helping to regulate Earth's climate.

"Salinity is the glue that bonds two major components of Earth's complex climate system: ocean circulation and the global water cycle," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research in Seattle. "Aquarius will map global variations in salinity in unprecedented detail, leading to new discoveries that will improve our ability to predict future climate."

Aquarius will measure salinity by sensing microwave emissions from the water's surface with a radiometer instrument. These emissions can be used to indicate the saltiness of the surface water, after accounting for other environmental factors. Salinity levels in the open ocean vary by only about five parts per thousand, and small changes are important. Aquarius uses advanced technologies to detect changes in salinity as small as about two parts per 10,000, equivalent to a pinch (about one-eighth of a teaspoon) of salt in a gallon of water.

Aquarius will map the entire open ocean every seven days for at least three years from 408 miles (657 kilometers) above Earth. Its measurements will produce monthly estimates of ocean surface salinity with a spatial resolution of 93 miles (150 kilometers). The data will reveal how salinity changes over time and from one part of the ocean to another.

The Aquarius/SAC-D mission continues NASA and CONAE's 17-year partnership. NASA provided launch vehicles and operations for three SAC satellite missions and science instruments for two.

JPL will manage Aquarius through its commissioning phase and archive mission data. Goddard will manage Aquarius mission operations and process science data. NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is managing the launch.

CONAE is providing the SAC-D spacecraft, an optical camera, a thermal camera in collaboration with Canada, a microwave radiometer,; sensors from various Argentine institutions and the mission operations center there. France and Italy are contributing instruments.

For more information about Aquarius/SAC-D, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius and http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

A Timeline to Launch for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

2011-05-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

AMS, foreground, on the International Space Station National

Trent Martin explains installation sequence to Department of Energy representatives and NASA's Bill Gerstenmaier, June 2010. (NASA)

AMS-02 Ready for Launch in Endeavour’s Payload Bay, April 2011. (AMS Collaboration)

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, was carried into orbit on STS-134 on a mission to the International Space Station. While it may sound like just another instrument, in actuality it is the largest scientific collaboration to use the laboratory! This investigation is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and made possible by funding from 16 different nations. Led by Nobel Laureate Professor Samuel Ting, more than 600 physicists from around the globe will be able to participate in the data generated from this particle physics detector.

According to Trent Martin, AMS project manager for NASA, "This type of collaboration is starting to become more common in the space science community, but AMS is by far the most diversely funded space based science detector ever built. This is the type of collaboration that NASA hopes the ISS National Laboratory will help foster in the space scientific community."

The mission, to seek out answers to the mysteries of antimatter, dark matter, and cosmic ray propagation in the universe, is only part of the story. To fully understand where the science is going, you have to look at

NASA efforts with AMS began in 1994, when NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, conducted a feasibility study to see if such a delicate instrument could even fly in space and still produce usable data.

Ken Bollweg, AMS deputy project manager for NASA, mentions the challenges that needed to be overcome for the hazardous environment of space. "The detectors used in these types of experiments are typically used in an underground environment where the temperature doesn’t change more than two degrees from winter to summer and the bedrock hasn't moved in millennia," comments Bollweg. "Reviews of the detectors and their operating requirements indicated that it would be very challenging to adapt this technology to space -- but possible nonetheless."

Work on AMS integration and interface hardware began in earnest upon approval in 1995. One of the first understandings NASA needed to reach with the AMS Collaboration was the limitations of mass, size and power. For instance, the AMS Collaboration considered the AMS permanent magnet lightweight at approximately 2 tons, given that similar electromagnets on Earth weigh about 10,000 tons.

Working together, NASA and the AMS Collaboration developed a two-part plan to enable the mass requirements. The Unique Support Structure or USS-01 completed in 1997 and was launched with STS-91 in June of 1998. It carried a 9,197 lb engineering evaluation version of AMS. With the successful STS-91 mission and some extra time, since it was clear that the station would not be ready to host AMS in 2001, the scientists decided to make a few improvements. Plans for the AMS grew to be more complex, including the upgrade to a more powerful cryogenic superconducting superfluid helium-cooled magnet. These changes increased the projected weight for AMS to 15,251 lb, making it necessary to test a second support structure, called USS-02.

Determining a way to communicate the data from AMS to the ground was another important element of the undertaking. A digital data recorder system was developed and used during the STS-91 mission to capture data for the AMS Collaboration. Even though this was a preliminary effort to the overall AMS goal, the resulting data led to improved measurement sensitivity.

Several years passed as engineers continued working on procedures, certification requirements, and entered into the testing phases of development. In December 2001 NASA flew a prototype synchrotron radiation detector with STS-108. This flight test clarified performance of the detector for the AMS. The enhanced complexity of the AMS also meant an increase in data channels from close to 70,000 to over 300,000. In response, NASA developed a new digital data recorder system, which launched on STS-133 in February 2011. This enabled a trial run of the recorder system in preparation for the actual launch of AMS with STS-134.

With the announcement that the space station would continue to operate through 2020, the AMS Collaboration swapped out the current cryogenic magnet with a permanent magnet, which would have an infinite life. The entire AMS was taken apart, the magnets exchanged, and put back together for testing. From concept to implementation, this only took seven months to extend the potential life of the AMS investigation.

Martin commends the efforts of the many NASA and contractor personnel who made significant contributions to the completion of the AMS investigation. These individuals will continue to support AMS while it is on its mission in orbit to gather valuable data. Martin notes in particular the support of NASA's Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations. "[He was] critical to AMS's success, especially while AMS was off the space shuttle and space station manifests after the Columbia accident," says Martin. "He saw to it that Advanced Projects Office personnel were able to continue with the integration and certification tasks and personally visited AMS at various stages of development and testing."

The AMS will be the most advanced charge particle detector flown in space, increasing global knowledge of antimatter and dark matter and providing a powerful tool to physicists. The investigation will enable the discipline of modern physics to grow as scientists seek answers to the origins of our universe.

by Jessica Nimon
International Space Station Program Science Office
NASA's Johnson Space Center

Exploring the Wonders of the Universe

2011-05-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

Exploring the Wonders of the Universe

The newly-installed Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 is visible at center of the International Space Station's starboard truss. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, is the largest scientific collaboration to use the orbital laboratory.

This investigation is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and made possible by funding from 16 nations. Led by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting, more than 600 physicists from around the globe will be able to participate in the data generated from this particle physics detector.

The mission of the AMS is, in part, to seek answers to the mysteries of antimatter, dark matter and cosmic ray propagation in the universe.

The Big Picture Wins Big

2011-05-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

Remember life before cell phones? Or GPS? Or tablet computers? Kind of hard, isn't it? Air traffic management researchers feel the same way about life before the Future ATM (Air Traffic Management) Concepts Evaluation Tool, or FACET.

FACET is a computer program developed by NASA that generates simulations for managing air traffic scenarios. It provides a "big picture" view of what's happening in the skies overhead. For any given moment in time, it can show thousands of aircraft swarming through our national airspace. With each aircraft represented as a tiny icon, a FACET simulation can look like an "ant farm in the sky," with aircraft clustering around major airports like ants targeting a drop of peanut butter. You may have seen video generated from FACET on the morning news during air travel outlook reports.

Recently, the creators of this simulation software at NASA's Ames Research Center in California won NASA's 2010 Government Invention of the Year. The award, presented by NASA's Inventions and Contributions Board, is given to inventions that have made a significant contribution to NASA's goals and to broader communities; in this case, the aeronautics community. Nominations are rated on use, creativity, benefits to the community, and overall significance to humankind.

This series of FACET simulations shows a typical day in U.S. air travel, an atypical day (September 11, 2001), and even
daily air travel sorted by U.S. airlines. Video credit: NASA/Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

"As the world's population grows and air travel demand increases, our airspace will become more crowded," said Banavar Sridhar, NASA senior scientist for Air Transportation Systems. "FACET helps air traffic management researchers find ways to increase airspace capacity and establish more efficient routes with the least impact on the environment, thereby saving fuel and minimizing emissions."

One of the best things about FACET is that it doesn't need supercomputers to run, even when asked to crunch data from thousands of flight plans. The software can operate on a single computer, which was a big leap forward that really helps researchers. FACET can model current traffic patterns to see where improvements could be made, or model entirely new patterns that result from new flight operations techniques, like new merging and spacing rules, weather avoidance techniques, or approach patterns into airports.

How does it work? FACET uses aircraft performance profiles, airspace models, weather data, and flight schedules to model trajectories for the climb, cruise, and descent phases of flight for each type of aircraft. Then a graphical interface displays the traffic patterns in two and three dimensions, under various current and projected conditions for specific airspace regions or over the entire continental United States. You'll see examples of all of these different models in the video linked from this page.

According to FACET team members, the software has become a valuable tool for Federal Aviation Administration traffic flow managers and commercial airline dispatchers. They use FACET technology to do real-time operations planning by combining live air traffic data from FAA radar systems and weather data from the National Weather Service to create a real-time big picture of what's happening in the air. With that information, airspace system operators can reroute flights around congested airspace and severe weather to maintain safety and minimize delay.

This is one big picture that's having a big impact on air travel.

Karen Rugg
NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

2011-05-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

Since 1981, NASA space shuttles have been rocketing from the Florida coast into Earth orbit. The five orbiters — Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour — have flown more than 130 times, carrying over 350 people into space and travelling more than half a billion miles, more than enough to reach Jupiter. Designed to return to Earth and land like a giant glider, the shuttle was the world's first reusable space vehicle. More than all of that, though, the shuttle program expanded the limits of human achievement and broadened our understanding of our world.

It all started with STS-1, launched on April 12, 1981, just twenty years to the day after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. When astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen launched that morning in Columbia, it was the first time in history a new spacecraft was launched on its maiden voyage with a crew aboard.

For an entire generation, the space shuttle was NASA. We've watched a parade of firsts -- Sally Ride, Guy Bluford, Kathy Sullivan, John Glenn and others. We've seen astronauts float free, and launch and repair spacecraft like Hubble which have fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe.

In this feature, we look back at the Shuttle's historic missions, the people it flew into space, and its achievements.

Space Shuttle Mission: STS-134

2011-05-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

Image above: Commander Mark Kelly (left) and Mission Specialist Mike Fincke aboard space shuttle Endeavour talk to students at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz. Photo credit: NASA TV

The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.

During the 16-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre.

Earthlings, It’s Time to Keep Your Chess Pieces From Floating Away

2011-05-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Power of A Moon Rock

2011-05-22T22:57:00.000-07:00

"This is a moon rock and it's on our kitchen table. This rock encapsulates all of the optimism and unlimited potential that Americans had at the time. It made me believe that anything is possible. I wanted kids of this generation to have this experience. So, although it wasn't easy -- I borrowed a Moon Rock from NASA."
--Debra Sea in "Moon Rock"

Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. The six space flights returned 2,200 separate samples from six different exploration sites on the Moon.

In 1970, Debra Sea and her brothers, David and William, admire a Moon Rock from Apollo 11 as it sits atop their kitchen table.
Credit: Sea Family
To view the film, "Moon Rock," by Debra Sea, please visit:
moonrockthemovie.com/movie.html
The sample that sat before Debra and two of her younger brothers in 1970 returned to Earth from Apollo 11. And it landed on her kitchen table by way of her father, Duane Sea, a former a NASA science demonstrator, also known as a Spacemobiler.

Duane and his Spacemobile traveled to schools across the Mid-West, reaching more than 400,000 students. In the summer, Debra and her siblings would go along for the ride.

"Like everyone else, we were wildly optimistic about the future of space science," Debra said.

At age 10, her Moon Rock experience was documented with a photograph, which was labeled as "Moon Rock" in her family album. So, it was only natural that her film would also be labeled as "Moon Rock."

"It was always a story I wanted to tell," said Debra. "The timing was perfect."

Perfect because she was a working on her Master's of Fine Arts (MFA) at the University of North Carolina Greensboro when she chose "Moon Rock" as her Master Production film project. She was one of three students chosen to receive a 2011 Carole Fielding Student Grants awarded by the University Film and Video Association.

For her thesis film, "Moon Rock," Debra Sea borrowed a Moon Rock from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
Credit: NASA/Sean Smith
But Debra quickly learned that borrowing a Moon Rock from NASA was no easy task.

After six months and a great deal of determination, her Lunar Sample Application was approved. For pick-up, she was referred to NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., because it was in her outreach region.

The larger, display Moon Rocks are considered a national treasure that cannot be shipped, only hand carried. With possession, comes a strict set of guidelines. It must be kept in sight or in a safe. It can't be kept in a motel room overnight. And don't touch the Lucite without gloves, because the oil from skin can damage and cloud the Lucite.

"We were like old friends," Debra said of the Moon Rock. Except this was a different rock -- from Apollo 14. And this time, she was responsible for it. That was quite the burden for Debra, who constantly worried about the rock, much like a mother worries for her child.

Meghan Guethe, Langley's exhibits manager, helped Debra through the process. She understood and appreciated Debra's desire to keep it safe. "Everything is priced when it is sent out with an exhibit," Guethe said. "We cannot price these."

In the summer, Debra Sea and her brothers would travel in a Spacemobile driven by their father Duane, a former NASA Science demonstrator, also known as a Spacemobiler.
Credit: Sea Family
It took a lot of planning to prepare the invaluable Moon Rock's trip to three classrooms at Wadena-Deer Creek, a K-12 school in Minnesota, where Debra's brother David teaches. She created a contingency plan for each airport.

And when she and her film assistant Adrienne Ostberg, a first-year MFA student, had their last flight canceled, they rotated staying with the rock in a private, locked room, purposed for nursing moms.

Their "baby" was a Moon Rock, which was enclosed in a Lucite pyramid. The 115-gram rock had its own carrying case and a small brass plate on the case reads, "IF FOUND, RETURN TO -- NASA, JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS 77058."

Duane accompanied her to the school. And despite the fact that he hadn't worked for NASA in 40 years, he smoothly converted back into his Spacemobiler ways.

"Have you ever driven a nail with a banana?" Duane asked the students after dipping one into a container of liquid nitrogen and freezing it solid.

As the banana proved to have the power of a hammer, the looks of authentic amazement and surprise on the student's faces spoke powerfully. And so did their questions.

This Moon Rock, from Apollo 14, visited three classes at Wadena-Deer Creek, a K-12 school in Minnesota, where Debra's brother David teaches.
Credit: NASA/Sean Smith
"Is this a magic trick?" a student asked.

"No, magic. Just science" Duane replied.

"He had such a presence," Debra said of her father.

The Moon Rock temporarily abolished his presence. The students put gloves on and one-by-one touched the pyramid and gazed into the rock that had traveled some 238,857 miles (384,403 km) back to Earth 40 years prior.

"Everyone wanted to touch it, like a relic," Debra said of the students, and even airport security personnel that help her to guard it from harm.

But the contact that truly mattered was that of the students.

"I keep hearing that kids are different today than they were years ago. I just don't buy that," Duane said. "Kids are kids. The same eager faces that you see in front of you today are the same that I saw in front of me 40 years ago."

Debra and two of her brothers recreated the "Moon Rock" photo, and the moment that sparked their own sense of wonder. It seemingly had a great affect on them as each studied and works in a science-related field.

Whether Science or magic, their Moon Rock experience was afforded to a new generation. And now, it's up to them to decide what to do with it.

"I see incredible optimism and potential in these kids. And after bringing the Moon Rock home, I feel really hopeful about the future," Debra said. "I still believe that anything is possible. And I know I always will."

Denise Linberry
The Researcher News
NASA Langley Research Center

Update 3: NASA captures satellite images of 2011 Mississippi floods

2011-05-19T02:18:00.000-07:00

NASA unveiled a series of satellite images of the current Mississippi flooding on May 18 showing the major flooding of the Mississippi River around Memphis, and other states . NASA's fleet of Earth-observing satellites have been gathering data on the current Mississippi flooding as well as floods worldwide.

On May 18, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite observed water in the Morganza Floodway along the Mississippi River.

The Mississippi River reached nearly 48 feet in Memphis, Tenn., on May 10, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. It was the highest water level for Memphis since 1937.

This month muddy water has pushed over the Mississippi's banks both east and west of the normal river channel. Flood waters span the distance between Memphis and West Memphis.

MODIS acquired the top image on May 18, 2011, and the bottom image on May 4, 2011. Both images use a combination of visible and infrared light to increase contrast between water and land. Water ranges in color from gray-blue to navy. (Lake Pontchartrain appears silvery blue on May 18 due largely to the angle of sunlight.) Vegetation is green. Bare ground is brown. Clouds are pale blue-green and cast shadows.

Both images show flooded conditions along the Mississippi River. A significant difference between the images, however, is the water visible in the Morganza Floodway on May 18. The Army Corps of Engineers reported that the discharge in the floodway was 108,000 cubic feet per second on May 18, the floodway's fifth day of operation in 2011.

On May 18, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite observed water in the Morganza Floodway along the Mississippi River. As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers explains, the floodway is designed to ease water levels in downstream communities along the Mississippi by diverting some water into the Atchafalaya Basin. MODIS acquired the top image on May 18, 2011, and the bottom image on May 4, 2011. Both images use a combination of visible and infrared light to increase contrast between water and land. Water ranges in color from gray-blue to navy. (Lake Pontchartrain appears silvery blue on May 18 due largely to the angle of sunlight.) Vegetation is green. Bare ground is brown. Clouds are pale blue-green and cast shadows. Both images show flooded conditions along the Mississippi River. A significant difference between the images, however, is the water visible in the Morganza Floodway on May 18. The Army Corps of Engineers reported that the discharge in the floodway was 108,000 cubic feet per second on May 18, the floodway’s fifth day of operation in 2011. The Advanced Hydrological Prediction Service (AHPS) of the U.S. National Weather Service reported that the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge reached 44.85 feet (13.67 meters) at 2:00 p.m. CDT on May 18. This level was below the city’s record flood level of 47.28 feet (14.41 meters) set in 1927. As of May 18, the Mississippi River was projected to remain at roughly the same level at Baton Rouge through May 23.

MODIS acquired the top image on May 18, 2011, and the bottom image on May 4, 2011. Both images use a combination of visible and infrared light to increase contrast between water and land. Water ranges in color from gray-blue to navy. (Lake Pontchartrain appears silvery blue on May 18 due largely to the angle of sunlight.) Vegetation is green. Bare ground is brown. Clouds are pale blue-green and cast shadows. Both images show flooded conditions along the Mississippi River. A significant difference between the images, however, is the water visible in the Morganza Floodway on May 18.

The Army Corps of Engineers reported that the discharge in the floodway was 108,000 cubic feet per second on May 18, the floodway’s fifth day of operation in 2011. The Advanced Hydrological Prediction Service (AHPS) of the U.S. National Weather Service reported that the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge reached 44.85 feet (13.67 meters) at 2:00 p.m. CDT on May 18. This level was below the city’s record flood level of 47.28 feet (14.41 meters) set in 1927. As of May 18, the Mississippi River was projected to remain at roughly the same level at Baton Rouge through May 23.

Following are Images of Morganza, Arkansas, Tennesse, from NASA:

On May 14, 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza Spillway in an attempt to ease flooding along the Mississippi River in Louisiana. The decision was made to protect the heavily populated areas and infrastructure around the ports of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The decision is not without cost, however, to the thousands of people who are likely to lose homes and farms within the flood plain downstream. On May 15, the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image (top) of the Morganza Floodway. The image was acquired at 11:20 a.m. Central Daylight Time, one day after the spillway was partially opened.

he lower photo was taken on May 14 by the Army Corps, several hours after water began streaming onto the floodway. The flood control structure, or spillway, includes 125 gates, 11 of which had been opened as of noon on May 16. In the satellite image, the white pixels near the spillway are whitewater churned up by the flow through the gates; the downloadable large image shows this in much finer detail. Square and quadrilateral shapes on the landscape show areas that were cleared for farming or perhaps shaped for flood control earthworks. I

n the natural color satellite, water ranges in colors of olive, tan, black, and gray, reflecting the different loads of muddy sediment churned up from the bottom; darker areas might also reflect deeper water. Past the spillway, water is more readily apparent along the levee on the south and east side of the floodway, suggesting that there are fewer trees and perhaps lower elevations in those areas. Potential inundation maps (PDF) from the Army Corps appear to confirm that, as water levels are projected to rise to 10–15 feet (3–4.5 meters) in the southern and eastern areas and 5–10 feet (1.5–3 meters) in the northern and western areas in the image above.

Green areas do not necessarily mean a lack of water. As the aerial photo shows, much of the floodway is covered with trees that will shield the water below from the eyes of satellite sensors. Water is somewhat easier to spot in the near-infrared and shortwave infrared image linked below the top photo. Video of the opening of the Morganza Floodway can be viewed online here. The floodway was last opened in 1973, the first and only time it was used before 2011.

The Mississippi River spilled over its banks in Arkansas and Tennessee on May 12, 2011, as the International Space Station passed overhead. This astronaut photograph shows muddy water sitting on floodplains around Tomato, Arkansas, as well as extensive flooding to the north. Flood waters around Tomato appear confined by an embankment in the west. The embankment extends southward from a bend in the Mississippi. West of the embankment lies a patchwork of agricultural fields. East of the river lies an expanse of dark green forest, the Anderson-Tully State Wildlife Management Area.

Along a northward loop of the Mississippi River, near the city of New Madrid, flood water rested on agricultural fields in early May 2011. Taken from an altitude of 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth, this astronaut photo shows muddy water filling a broad swath of cropland north of the river bend. In this image, north is toward the lower right. Crops normally carpet the landscape north of New Madrid. This portion of Missouri, however, lies near the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway. On May 2, 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers breached a levee near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The move spared the residents of Cairo, Illinois, but filled the floodway.

On May 13, 2011, the Mississippi River was approaching a record level at the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had exceeded the previous record at Natchez, Miss. The Advanced Hydrological Prediction Service (AHPS) reported that the river reached 55.45 feet (16.90 meters) at 3:00 p.m.

Central Daylight Time at Vicksburg, and 59.87 feet (18.25 meters) at 2:00 p.m. CDT at Natchez. The previous record for Natchez, set in 1937, was 58.04 feet (17.69 meters). The AHPS forecast that water levels would continue to rise in both locations. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these false-color images of the area around Natchez on May 11, 2011 (top), and April 21, 2007 (bottom).

The images combine infrared, red, and green wavelengths to form a false-color image that distinguishes between muddy water and land. Water is blue, and sediment-laden water is a dull blue-green. Vegetation is red, and the brighter the red, the more robust the vegetation. Red and gray patches west of the river (top edge of each image) are agricultural fields. Clouds are white, and cast shadows onto the land surface below. In May 2011, the Mississippi River pushed over its banks onto floodplains. In some places, the flood waters almost reached oxbow lakes along the river.

The previous record for Natchez, set in 1937, was 58.04 feet (17.69 meters). The AHPS forecast that water levels would continue to rise in both locations.

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these false-color images of the area around Natchez on May 11, 2011 (top), and April 21, 2007 (bottom). The images combine infrared, red, and green wavelengths to form a false-color image that distinguishes between muddy water and land. Water is blue, and sediment-laden water is a dull blue-green. Vegetation is red, and the brighter the red, the more robust the vegetation. Red and gray patches west of the river (top edge of each image) are agricultural fields. Clouds are white, and cast shadows onto the land surface below. In May 2011, the Mississippi River pushed over its banks onto floodplains. In some places, the flood waters almost reached oxbow lakes along the river.

Following are Previous Images from NASA:

(Up) Landsat 5 shows the Mississippi River along the state borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas on May 12, 2006. (bottom) Landsat 5 image shows the Mississippi River along the state borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas on May 10, 2011. Credit: USGS/NASA //Remotely sensed data are not the only science endeavors occurring due to floods.

The USGS collects river data through its network of about 7,700 stream gauges around the Nation. You can receive instant, customized updates about water conditions, including flooding, by subscribing to USGS WaterAlert. The scenes captured by Landsat 5 show the Mississippi River in the Memphis, Tenn. area, and along the state borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas. The May 2006 images show the river before it began to flood. In the May images, the dark blue tones are water, the light green is cleared fields, and the light tones are clouds.

You can receive instant, customized updates about water conditions, including flooding, by subscribing to USGS WaterAlert. The scenes captured by Landsat 5 show the Mississippi River in the Memphis, Tenn. area, and along the state borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas. The May 2006 images show the river before it began to flood. In the May images, the dark blue tones are water, the light green is cleared fields, and the light tones are clouds.

(Up) Landsat 5 image of the Mississippi River in the Memphis, Tenn. area on May 12, 2006. (bottom) Landsat 5 image of the Mississippi River in the Memphis, Tenn. area on May 10, 2011. Credit: USGS/NASA

(UP) Landsat 5 image of the Mississippi River in the Memphis, Tenn. area on May 12, 2006. (bottom) Landsat 5 image of the Mississippi River in the Memphis, Tenn. area on May 10, 2011. Credit: USGS/NASA

ISS027-E-027019 (12 May 2011) --- Parts of two states highly impacted by recent flooding of the Mississippi River, are pictured in this International Space Station image featuring an area east of Blytheville, Ark., off the right side of the image. Center point coordinates are located at 35.8 degrees north latitude and 89.7 degrees west longitude The areas of Ruckers Place, Tenn. and Tomato, Ark. are surrounded by water, while Barfield, Ark. is still dry behind the levee on the right side of the image. North is toward the bottom of the photo.

ISS027-E-027023 (12 May 2011) --- An Expedition 27 crew member aboard the International Space Station, 220 miles above Earth and the Mississippi River, captured this May 12 still photo, clearly showing the outlines of some heavily flooded agricultural fields on the Missouri side of the river. The center point for this 400-mm frame is 36.27 degrees north latitude and 89.57 degrees west longitude (north of Caruthersville, Mo. and west of Ridgely, Tenn.). North is towards the lower right corner of the image.

Free-Floating Planets May Be More Common Than Stars

2011-05-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.

The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The newfound planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light-years from Earth.

"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected, holding major implications for planetary formation and evolution models," said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

"Our survey is like a population census," said David Bennett, a NASA and National Science Foundation-funded co-author of the study from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. "We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these data, can estimate overall numbers in the galaxy."

The study, led by Takahiro Sumi from Osaka University in Japan, appears in the May 19 issue of the journal Nature.

The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more often. As a result, they are thought to be more common than free-floating Jupiters.

Previous observations spotted a handful of free-floating, planet-like objects within star-forming clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form more like stars than planets. These small, dim orbs, called brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing balls of gas and dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and shine with starlight. It is thought the smallest brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large planets.

On the other hand, it is likely that some planets are ejected from their early, turbulent solar systems, due to close gravitational encounters with other planets or stars. Without a star to circle, these planets would move through the galaxy as our sun and other stars do, in stable orbits around the galaxy's center. The discovery of 10 free-floating Jupiters supports the ejection scenario, though it's possible both mechanisms are at play.

"If free-floating planets formed like stars, then we would have expected to see only one or two of them in our survey instead of 10," Bennett said. "Our results suggest that planetary systems often become unstable, with planets being kicked out from their places of birth."

The observations cannot rule out the possibility that some of these planets may have very distant orbits around stars, but other research indicates Jupiter-mass planets in such distant orbits are rare.

The survey, the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), is named in part after a giant wingless, extinct bird family from New Zealand called the moa. A 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand is used to regularly scan the copious stars at the center of our galaxy for gravitational microlensing events. These occur when something, such as a star or planet, passes in front of another, more distant star. The passing body's gravity warps the light of the background star, causing it to magnify and brighten. Heftier passing bodies, like massive stars, will warp the light of the background star to a greater extent, resulting in brightening events that can last weeks. Small planet-size bodies will cause less of a distortion, and brighten a star for only a few days or less.

A second microlensing survey group, the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), contributed to this discovery using a 4.2-foot (1.3 meter) telescope in Chile. The OGLE group also observed many of the same events, and their observations independently confirmed the analysis of the MOA group.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,Calif., manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program office. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov.

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Trent Perrotto 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

STATUS REPORT : STS-134-06

2011-05-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

STS-134 MCC Status Report #06

HOUSTON – On tap today is the top scientific priority of the STS-134 mission, installing Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS-2) on the International Space Station’s truss, where it can sift through cosmic particles, seeking the answers to fundamental questions of physics.

The $2 billion, 15,251- pound instrument will be plucked from Endeavour’s payload bay by Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori using the space shuttle’s robotic arm. They’ll hand it off to the space station’s Canadarm2 at 2:01 a.m. CDT Thursday, and Pilot Greg Johnson and Mission Specialist Greg Chamitoff will then install it on the starboard side of the station’s truss.

From its new perch on top of the station’s truss, it will begin observations of the cosmos and automatically send information to scientists on Earth for the life of the station.
Endeavour’s crew and Expedition 27 Flight Engineer Ron Garan, who is matching schedules with the shuttle crew, were awakened at 9:56 p.m. The wake-up song “Luna,” performed by Jose Serrano for his friend Chamitoff, was transmitted about 30 minutes later after a communications drop-out cleared.

Endeavour docked with the International Space Station at 5:14 a.m. CDT Wednesday, and installed Express Logistics Carrier, a cargo platform loaded with spare parts for the station. Overnight, robotics experts in Mission Control moved the station’s Mobile Transporter from a worksite on the far end of the port side of the truss to a site on the far starboard side to prepare for the AMS-2 handoff. Installation should be complete by 2:41 a.m.

The combined crew also will begin preparations for the first spacewalk of the mission by Feustel and Chamitoff, which is scheduled for Friday. The team will review plans for the spacewalk, which will involve retrieval of one materials experiment and installation of another, installation of a floodlight, some cooling loop fill equipment and a wireless communications antenna.

Feustel and Chamitoff will camp out in the Quest airlock overnight to prepare their bodies for action in the reduced pressure of their spacesuits on the following day. The spacesuits were among the first items transferred from the shuttle to the station after docking and hatch opening.
Meanwhile, mission managers are continuing to review more than 500 images taken by Expedition 27’s Dmitry Kondratyev, Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman. Several areas of thermal protection tile were shown to be damaged, and managers are waiting for analysis to be completed before deciding whether to seek additional focused inspection of those areas later in the mission.

The next status report will be issued before the crew goes to sleep at 1:26 p.m., or earlier if warranted.

- end -

Space Shuttle Mission: STS-134

2011-05-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

Image above: Commander Mark Kelly and the STS-134 crew are welcomed aboard the International Space Station by the Expedition 27 crew. Photo credit: NASA TV

The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.

During the 16-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre.

Robotics Work for Endeavour's Crew Today

2011-05-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

The initial wake up call to the crew of space shuttle Endeavour was at 10:56 p.m. EDT, and the day's wake up song was uplinked about 30 minutes later because of a communications drop out. The song “Luna” by Jose Serrano was played for Mission Specialist Greg Chamitoff. The artist is a friend of his and wrote the song especially for this mission.

The fourth day of the mission will focus on the installation of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), a particle physics detector. The AMS is a 2-ton ring of powerful magnets and ultrasensitive detectors built to track, but not capture, cosmic rays in a search for various types of unusual matter. The 15,251-pound instrument will be connected to the outside of the International Space Station, tilted a bit so it will not interfere with any of the station's mechanisms and storage platforms. It will be operated remotely from Earth and should not require any attention from astronauts in orbit.

The mobile transporter is in position. The crew will extract AMS using the space shuttle robotic arm at 1:56 a.m. Shortly thereafter, the station crew will wake, and at 3:01 a.m., the shuttle robotic arm will transfer AMS to the station's robotic arm. At 3:41 a.m., the crew will manipulate the station arm to install AMS onto the starboard side of the station's truss structure on the zenith side.

Later this morning, the crew will participate in interviews.

Toward the end of the flight day, the crew will review procedures for the mission's first spacewalk, and spacewalkers Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff will begin their camp out at a reduced air pressure, a procedure that helps purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams and prevents the “bends” when they exit the airlock.

Mars Mission Components Delivered to Florida

2011-05-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

The heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is the largest ever built for a planetary mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

Technicians at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, prepare the heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, in this April 2011 photo. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

An Air Force C-17 transport plane delivered the heat shield, back shell and cruise stage of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on May 12, 2011. The heat shield and back shell together form the aeroshell, which will encapsulate the mission's rover and descent stage. The cruise stage will perform critical communication and navigation functions during the flight from Earth to Mars.

The mission will launch in late 2011 and deliver its rover, Curiosity, to the surface of Mars in August 2012.

For more information about this week's delivery of flight system components, see

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the Mars Science Laboratory is available online at

A live feed of Curiosity being built and tested in a clean room at JPL, with a chat feature available most days, is online at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl . You can also follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity and Twitter @MarsCuriosity .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

2011-143

Tornado Challenges Satellite Damage Track Detection Techniques

2011-05-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

A composite of two ASTER views over North Alabama taken May 5. The image extends from near the Tennessee border line to Jasper, Ala. Several tornado tracks are evident, including the Phil Campbell to Harvest track. These tracks are not as obvious as the Tuscaloosa tornado track. This is not because of a difference in intensity, but from the underlying surface over which the tornadoes occurred. (NASA)

High resolution ASTER image corresponds to the Google Earth image area of Northern Madison county region and the Harvest area. Tornado track is barely identifiable. (NASA)

View annotated composite image The Short-term Prediction Research and Transition, or SPoRT, team has used satellite data from the North Alabama region to identify tornado damage from the April 27th super storm outbreak.

NASA's Terra satellite, part of the Earth Observing System of satellites, captured images of the damage path. An instrument aboard Terra called the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, was used to discern vegetation contrasts over the region.

"This is the first time ASTER data has been applied to such a massive outbreak of storms," said Gary Jedlovec, atmospheric scientist at Marshall Space Flight Center. "The usefulness of satellite information in providing improved accuracy along with damage assessment in severe weather events continues to evolve."

The tornado track signature observed by ASTER is seen as a disruption in the vegetation or other reflective surfaces over a region caused by tornado winds. Uprooted trees quickly stop the process of photosynthesis and change color -- this is easily detected by satellite.

However, detecting damage in areas outside of heavy forestland is challenging.

In Madison and Limestone counties much of the area scarred by the tornadoes are agricultural in nature. Fields are either pasture land or row crops -- therefore the effect of tornado winds is minimal and the mark on satellite imagery is suppressed.

While this indicates a limitation to the use of this particular image analysis for tornado track detection over primarily agricultural land use, the SPoRT team is exploring the use of temperature channels from ASTER to better identify damage marks on Earth's surface. Terra/ASTER is a joint activity between NASA's Science Mission Directorate Earth Science Division and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Terra is one of 14 NASA satellites that look at the Earth to study and understand changes in the Earth system and provide societal benefits.

The NASA image created by the Short-term Prediction and Research Transition or SPoRT project at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, using data provided courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, Japan’s Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, along with the Japan Research Observation System Organization.

Janet Anderson, 256-544-0034
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Janet.L.Anderson@nasa.gov

The Far Side of the Moon -- And All the Way Around

2011-05-12T05:55:00.000-07:00

Because the moon is tidally locked And what a surprise - unlike the widespread maria on the nearside, basaltic volcanism was restricted to a relatively few, smaller regions on the farside, and the battered highlands crust dominated. A different world from what we saw from Earth.

Of course, the cause of the farside/nearside asymmetry is an interesting scientific question. Past studies have shown that the crust on the farside is thicker, likely making it more difficult for magmas to erupt on the surface, limiting the amount of farside mare basalts. Why is the farside crust thicker? That is still up for debate, and in fact several presentations at this week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference attempt to answer this question.

The Clementine mission obtained beautiful mosaics with the sun high in the sky (low phase angles), but did not have the opportunity to observe the farside at sun angles favorable for seeing surface topography. This WAC mosaic provides the most complete look at the morphology of the farside to date, and will provide a valuable resource for the scientific community. And it's simply a spectacular sight!

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Wide Angle Camera (WAC) is a push-frame camera that captures seven color bands (321, 360, 415, 566, 604, 643, and 689 nm) with a 57-km swath (105-km swath in monochrome mode) from a 50 km orbit. One of the primary objectives of LROC is to provide a global 100 m/pixel monochrome (643 nm) base map with incidence angles between 55°-70° at the equator, lighting that is favorable for morphological interpretations.

Each month, the WAC provides nearly complete coverage of the Moon under unique lighting. As an added bonus, the orbit-to-orbit image overlap provides stereo coverage. Reducing all these stereo images into a global topographic map is a big job, and is being led by LROC Team Members from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). Several preliminary WAC topographic products have appeared in LROC featured images over the past year (Orientale basin, Sinus Iridum).

For a sneak preview of the WAC global DEM with the WAC global mosaic, view a rotating composite moon (70 MB video from ASU's LROC website). The WAC topographic dataset will be completed and released later this year.

The global mosaic released today is comprised of over 15,000 WAC images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011. The non-polar images were map projected onto the GLD100 shape model (WAC derived 100 m/pixel DTM), while polar images were map projected on the LOLA shape model. In addition, the LOLA derived crossover corrected ephemeris, and an improved camera pointing, provide accurate positioning (better than 100 m) of each WAC image.

As part of the March 2011 PDS release, the LROC team posted the global map in ten regional tiles. Eight of the tiles are equirectangular projections that encompass 60° latitude by 90° longitude. In addition, two polar stereographic projections are available for each pole from ±60° to the pole. These reduced data records (RDR) products will be available for download on March 15, 2011. As the mission progresses, and our knowledge of the lunar photometric function increases, improved and new mosaics will be released! Work your way around the moon with these six orthographic projections constructed from WAC mosaics. The nearside view linked below is different from that released on 21 February.

Six orthographic views of the Moon created from the new WAC global mosaic. From upper left to lower right the central longitude is 0°, 60°, 120°, 180°, 240°, 300°. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University.

Astronauts Learn Ropes Strapping in CrewsAstronauts Learn Ropes Strapping in Crews

2011-05-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

STS-130 Commander George Zamka gets into his seat with the help of one of the astronaut support personnel on launch day. Photo credit: NASA TV

Chris Hadfield served as an Astronaut Support Personnel, or ASP, before he made his own flights into orbit. Photo credit: NASA

The shuttle is at a different angle when it's on the launch pad, so the astronauts and support technicians have to adapt to the tilted environment. Here, Nicole Stott and Michael Barratt practice launch day procedures before the launch of STS-133. Photo credit: NASA

Astronauts climbing into a space shuttle are typically thinking about lots of things, from trajectories and abort scenarios to systems and when to talk to the launch team and mission controllers. Not to mention the pure excitement that comes with getting ready to go into orbit.

They might not be thinking so much about strapping themselves into the seats on the shuttle.

"You've got your mind on a lot of stuff when you're getting into the shuttle and getting ready to launch into space," said astronaut Stan Love, a mission specialist on the STS-122 mission. " And hooking up connections isn't always top of your priority list."

That's why the crew gets help from other astronauts who get into the shuttle with them but have no intention of flying. Those astronauts are known formally as Astronaut Support Personnel, but they go by several names, including ASPs, Cape Crusaders because they are assigned to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or just C-squareds.

Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut who flew on STS-74 and STS-100, worked as an ASP before his first flight. He credits the experience with teaching him the details of launch day.

"Working at the Cape as a Cape Crusader, C-squared, whatever you want to call it," Hadfield said, "I learned so much about how the vehicles get ready, about the attitude at KSC, and about what it is to be one of the crew members getting in and out of the vehicle."

It's not as easy as putting on a seatbelt, after all. For one thing, on launch day the shuttle's nose is pointed skyward, so the crew really does have to climb into their seats because they are tilted 90 degrees. Getting in place means wriggling in on their backs and lifting their legs over their heads.

There are plenty of things to get used to the first time an astronaut gets in a shuttle seat to fly, said Steve Swanson, a mission specialist aboard STS-117 and STS-119.

"The first time you get in there for real, it's amazing," Swanson said. "You’re walking on the back wall, you consider that that's the actual ground now. You have to really figure all that out. That's the first time you really get to do all that."

Plus, the astronauts are wearing partial pressure suits -- the bulky, orange flight suits that are designed to help the crew survive an emergency. The ensembles are more commonly referred to as "pumpkin suits" and they have numerous fittings and connections that have to be prepped before liftoff.

The ASPs work closely with the Closeout Crew -- a team of technicians who work through the choreography to get six or seven astronauts in place quickly and precisely.

"It's a very well-polished process," Hadfield said. "The Closeout Crew up in the White Room really know their job. They're expert and see us astronauts roll through and they take good care of us and they make sure we don't miss a step. And you as the Astronaut Support Personnel, you're helping with that process, but really those guys have the responsibility."

Because everyone going to the crew compartment is standing on a wall instead of a floor and reaching toward areas they aren't all that used to, the switches throughout the orbiter have to be looked after, too, to make sure they are in the right position.

"We couldn't get in without them," Swanson said. "We pretty much say we just lay there and they do all the work for you because if you try to help, you actually hinder them, one of those type of situations."

In space, when the crew is getting ready to enter the atmosphere and land, one of the crew members has to make sure the rest of the astronauts are secured in their own seats. Love had that role during STS-122.

The strapping in is not done lightly or necessarily for comfort, Love said.

"Especially since Columbia when it became evident that being strapped securely into your seat would improve your chances of survival if something bad happened," Love said. "And they are big guys and they are pulling hard. So you're really in that seat."

Helping crews get ready for their own trips into orbit made his own trip that much sweeter, Hadfield said.

"It's really nice when it's your turn to be wearing the pumpkin suit and standing there and have those guys joke with you as they put all the harness and everything on and crawl in on your hands and knees and spin yourself around and get on your back and have yourself basically bolted into the vehicle to get ready for launch," Hadfield said.

Hadfield said his appreciation of his own launch days was heightened by his time as an ASP.

"Having worked here as an astronaut support crew, if anything, it gives you more confidence, more understanding," Hadfield said. "It therefore makes your readier for the time when the engines light."

Steven Siceloff
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

NASA's Dawn Captures First Image of Nearing Asteroid

2011-05-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

This image shows the first, unprocessed image obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft of the giant asteroid Vesta in front of a background of stars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

This image, processed to show the true size of the giant asteroid Vesta, shows Vesta in front of a spectacular background of stars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has obtained its first image of the giant asteroid Vesta, which will help fine-tune navigation during its approach. Dawn is expected to achieve orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 188 million kilometers (117 million miles) from Earth.

The image from Dawn's framing cameras was taken on May 3 when the spacecraft began its approach and was approximately 1.21 million kilometers (752,000 miles) from Vesta. The asteroid appears as a small, bright pearl against a background of stars. Vesta is also known as a protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a planet.

"After plying the seas of space for more than a billion miles, the Dawn team finally spotted its target," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This first image hints of detailed portraits to come from Dawn's upcoming visit."

Vesta is 530 kilometers (330 miles) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes obtained images of the bright orb for about two centuries, but with little surface detail.

Mission managers expect Vesta's gravity to capture Dawn in orbit on July 16. To enter orbit, Dawn must match the asteroid's path around the sun, which requires very precise knowledge of the body's location and speed. By analyzing where Vesta appears relative to stars in framing camera images, navigators will pin down its location and enable engineers to refine the spacecraft's trajectory.

Dawn will start collecting science data in early August at an altitude of approximately 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) above the asteroid's surface. As the spacecraft gets closer, it will snap multi-angle images, allowing scientists to produce topographic maps. Dawn will later orbit at approximately 200 kilometers (120 miles) to perform other measurements and obtain closer shots of parts of the surface. Dawn will remain in orbit around Vesta for one year. After another long cruise phase, Dawn will arrive in 2015 at its second destination, Ceres, an even more massive body in the asteroid belt.

Gathering information about these two icons of the asteroid belt will help scientists unlock the secrets of our solar system's early history. The mission will compare and contrast the two giant bodies shaped by different forces. Dawn's science instruments will measure surface composition, topography and texture. Dawn will also measure the tug of gravity from Vesta and Ceres to learn more about their internal structures. The spacecraft's full odyssey will take it on a 5-billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) journey, which began with its launch in September 2007.

Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The University of California in Los Angeles is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau in Germany, with significant contributions by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering in Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by NASA, the Max Planck Society and DLR.

For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn .

More information about JPL is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov . Follow us via social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Details are at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/social .

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne C. Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Preflight Interview: Sergei Volkov

2011-05-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

Expedition 28/29 Flight Engineer Sergei Volkov responds to a question from a reporter during an Expedition 28/29 preflight press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo credit: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Q: Why did you want to be a cosmonaut?

A: Very tough question. It wasn’t just a kid dream. Actually it wasn’t a kid dream, because my father was a cosmonaut and I was able to see all pros and cons of this job, and when I was a kid it was more minuses than plusses always busy, studying all day long, exams. That’s why as for kid, it was really a, I think, not scared but kids usually not too ready, or at least imagine that will studying all their life. I think it’s the worst case scenario for all kids.

So you saw all the work and none of the fun?

Yes. That is why when I made a decision to become a cosmonaut it was sort of deep understanding that I can manage to do this job, and I wanted be useful to my country. That was one of the input, I wanted to be a cosmonaut, when I grew up and I thought, I’m a military pilot, why can’t I be a cosmonaut, it’s interesting job and I would like to participate.

Let me ask you, excuse me, a little bit about how you grew up and became a pilot, and start with your hometown. Tell me about where you grew up and what it was like there.

I grew up in Star City because my father was a cosmonaut and in our house, 11-story building, only cosmonauts lived, all famous cosmonauts: Valentina Tereshkova, Alexei Leonov, Yuri Gagarin’s wife, and all this famous cosmonauts, and I was able to meet them and Leonov personally covered all kids because father was always somewhere in trips or trainings or in space. That’s why he was sort of our mentor in our house, and then, I finished school in Star City and then I graduated from Tambov Military School of Pilots, and then as an air force pilot I flew on air force base, and then was selected a cosmonaut.

What was it that got you interested in wanting to be a pilot?

I always dreamed about to being a pilot since my first time I’ve been in a cockpit of the fighter, because originally my father was instructor of military school and when I was three years old he took me to the airfield, and while he flew with cadets his friends gave me a tour of the airfield and, of course, I was able to sit in the real fighter and that’s how the dreams appear and since that time I couldn’t imagine that I can be somebody [other] than the pilot.

But you did. As you said you went to college, to pilot school in the air force. Did you enjoy being an air force pilot?

Yes. It was great this first solo flight and to be able to fly the airplane, is great.

What was it, as you were a pilot then, what was it that made you feel, perhaps I could be a cosmonaut, too, that made you want to, to apply to do that job? Especially since, as you said, you had seen the hard side of it as a boy?

Maybe because the life of pilot wasn’t enough for me. I wanted something more to be able to fly a little bit higher.

So as a cosmonaut you have a job that, not unlike an air force pilot, does have a risk associated with it, but being a cosmonaut is a different kind of risk. So, Sergei, I wonder why you think that risk is worthwhile? What is it that we’re getting or what is it as people learn about, that makes it worth taking the risk for you?

I think the curiosity of mankind, that we want something unknown. Like 500 years ago, humankind wanted to know what the other side of the ocean is, and it was a very risky project and then we decided that probably we can fly; let’s fly higher. And now we’re flying space station, and still it’s not enough for us, we want to know what’s beyond. And I think there could be many answers on this question from very simple—because we are curious and we want to know what is beyond—and the complicated answer that we can stay longer, all time on our world and in Earth, and we need to somehow reach other planets because it’s always interesting for us. It’s not from the destination, but what was always the key point, try to find something, doesn’t matter when it happened, try to find something. Five hundred years ago it was spices, gold; right now, we don’t know what to expect when we reach Mars surface, we don’t know what we may expect from flying beyond the solar system, but we always wanted to know and I think its inspiring us and we continue to fly, even if it’s a really risky job.

Sergei, you are a member of the International Space Station’s Expedition 28 and 29 crews. Please give me a summary of the goals of your flight and tell me what your main responsibilities are going to be on this mission.

The main goals, I think, pretty the same as most of the crew does. It’s launch from Kazakhstan, and I’m going to be commander of Soyuz vehicle, S27, and then docking with International Space Station. Then we are ready to dock with three progresses that will be during our increment, one Russian EVA, potentially another EVA from Russian side, and at least one American EVA, and of course we are looking forward to see shuttle guys with us flying 10 days and landing according to schedule in middle of November. That’s a main milestone of our expeditions.

And between you’ll be doing a lot of science work and maintenance work on board the station.

Absolutely.

Now you spent almost 200 days in space on your first flight, when you were the commander of Expedition 17 three years ago. How has that experience helped you as you’ve trained for this mission?

It helps a lot because now I understand what I really need to know. It’s like when you are in school you can imagine what you will need from your background. For right now I know I need to focus myself or maybe focus all my crew members, Mike Fossum and Satoshi Furukawa, we can discuss not in theory but I can share my experience with them we flew together with Mike 10 days on board the station, and we know each other well and at least we know how to settle our life better.

What are you looking forward to about getting to spend another six months on board the space station?

First of all it’s my job to fly to space, and of course doing what you need to do is a great feeling. As a professional I’m looking forward to do EVA from Russian side. I’m going to support as arm operator American EVA, and it’s also very exciting task for me because I’ve trained a lot for this and I think we’ll manage success. That’s probably the two most exciting things that I am looking forward to.

Well let me get you to tell us about the place we’re talking about. Describe the International Space Station as it exists today, with all the different laboratories and modules and robotics that are there.

International Space Station, it’s huge I would say, space building. When you just can see it—and you can see it actually from five kilometers perfectly well when the sun is rising—and you can’t imagine, or can’t believe, that this miracle was built by people, by humans. Then your closer you can see all those modules and nodes. It was done practically during our Expedition 17, but still some new modules appeared, and now it’s, a very good house to live in and a great place to work. We have everything we need, we have equipment for the experiments, we have scientists who support us and provide those experiments to us, and the station’s great.

Well, let’s start by talking about the experiments ’cause now you’re going to a station where you’re going to have six crew members and several laboratories to take advantage of, so there’s a lot more science that is being done these days…

Absolutely.

…than Expedition 17. A lot of this is designed to find out how people can live and work in space.

I agree with you.

Tell me about a few of those kinds of experiments that you and your crewmates are going to be involved in.

Expedition 28 Flight Engineer and Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum (center) and Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov (left) and Satoshi Furukawa are pictured during a cake-cutting ceremony in the Jake Garn Simulation and Training Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo credit: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration

One of the newest experiments from the Russian side, it’s sort of following previous it’s, the main problem is bone [mass loss] and now we have the piece of bones with us and we will manage to see the actual degradation of the calcium from the bones, it’s not only a problem for the cosmonauts and astronauts but for many of people who live on Earth. I think it’s very valuable to have another result and maybe find the cure from this disease because, that’s the newest one that we didn’t perform before. And, of course, the benefits of the station, that you continue experiments for a long period of time, and a lot of experiments will just continue, some of them I’ve already done before during my expedition, now it’s just a sequence of those experiments, and it’s going to Plazmennyi Kristall [Plasma Crystal] and it’s going to be a lot of research of human body, what we can do, we need to know, and how we going to live on Mars and beyond, and that’s a great source to have this data is from astronauts and cosmonauts flying International Space Station.

Is just the fact that you’re there and living in that environment is really one big experiment in itself?

I would say, it’s part of the experiment but for the scientists it’s not enough just to send people somewhere, they stay in weightlessness, have fun, and then successfully return. We need to do a lot of tasks to succeed in all these experiments and from each side we have thousands, and 24 hours is not enough for us right now.

Are there other life sciences experiments that are going to be new for you this time?

I don’t think so. Most of the experiments are just like continuing of previous experiments.

I guess then there is some value in getting data from the same subject again a second time?

Absolutely, and all the same subject do the same experiment, what had happened when you did it like two years ago. Now with your knowledge, your experience, and analysis from the ground, you may see the improvement my expectation is to see some improvement in some experiments.

Now there are a lot of other kinds of science besides the human life sciences that you and your crewmates will be doing. You will be the operators of experiments. Give me a sense of the different kinds of research work that you guys will be doing on board the station this time.

Studying the radiation in space and actually on the Earth, it’s a problem. We sort of know how to prevent our bodies from these extremely dangerous rays but to be able to analyze the data, to collect this data without any safety layers like ozone layer or atmosphere, the space station is a perfect place. Of course, Earth science, Earth observation targets, we not just observe the events that had happened during our flight like volcano erupture or maybe the results of earthquake, but you can see how the people ruin the world, their home here, and this is also very valuable because when you stay inside of the woods, you can’t imagine how huge this forest is or how huge the damage or impact of the human beings is. But from space, when you can see at the same time like 10,000 kilometers square, you can imagine how harmful we are.

You also mentioned a moment ago that you have like physics research, the plasma crystal experiment, there’s biological research other kinds of science that you’re doing, too.

Of course, growing some plants, it’s going to be one of our tasks we have a small greenhouse it can’t provide food for us but at least for the scientists they can make their, again, studying of these products, how well they are, were grown, and will we be able to maybe have fresh food when you fly far[ther] than 400 kilometers above the Earth.

Now, along with all the science work that you guys will do, you are responsible for taking care to make sure that the station is operating properly as well. Give me a sense of the other kinds of maintenance work that a space station crew member is responsible for.

According to my previous experience you train to react on all failures and you are ready to perform R&R [remove and replace] for some equipment, but nobody can tell you for sure to be ready that this device will have failure, or you need backup. That is why have scheduled maintenance because everything unfortunately that man can build get the expiration date. We need perform the replacement without any failures of equipment. but you probably have heard some issues with Electrons right now; I hope that we do manage to repair it or change the tank. So far I can’t see any issues that we have.

One of the first highlights that will come on your schedule will be the final visit from a space shuttle mission, and STS-135 is going include a spacewalk for Mike Fossum and Ron Garan. Usually it’s shuttle crew members who go outside during these spacewalks; why are station crew members going outside during a shuttle visit?

I maybe because Mike and Ron already done EVAs and they perform three EVAs during their flight, STS-124, during my mission, and to have, it’s always benefit have two experienced crew member who already performed EVA and the other reason I think because there are going to be only four crew members [on the shuttle] instead of six, and probably guys need somebody else in that some other specialists deal with autonomous flight and then docking phase, and to have this source of two very well experienced astronauts on board the station and not to use this resource, I think it’s not good.

Well, and you mentioned a moment ago that you’re going to be involved in this spacewalk as an operator of the robotic arm. So tell us about what tasks there are scheduled for this EVA.

There are three main tasks on this EVA. First, very important put the failed ammonia pump from the truss to the payload bay and then they need to take a new fluid experiment from the shuttle bay and install it on the truss. Those two tasks are very big and long, and the third task is repairment of external camera that’s installed on one of the truss.

So for your arm operations, I take it, you’re going to be maneuvering your crewmates around outside.

That’s my expectation, yeah. Somebody will stand on the end effector and I will fly him from one structure to another structure.

You look like you’re going to, look forward to that.

Absolutely.

What else is on the timeline for this flight—what other sort of work will be done during STS-135’s visit?

Because it’s the last flight and all participants of ISS program would like to bring as much spare parts as possible, the shuttle will be full by the equipment and food and needed stuff. That is why it’s a lot of transportation work we will unload the shuttle and we’ll, I’m pretty sure that we will fill with some failed equipment and trash.

And the last opportunity to bring things back home…

Yes, yes…

…large things back home…

Yes, absolutely.

…like the pump module. Because this flight of Atlantis is the last mission in the Space Shuttle Program, what are your thoughts, Sergei, about the space shuttle’s place in the history of human spaceflight and the role that it’s played in building this space station?

I think thanks to this machine, we manage to build the space station, because all trusses, all modules from American side were delivered by the shuttle and were assembled by shuttle crew or some ISS crew members who flew with the shuttle crew members. I think that’s the biggest plus of utilizing the shuttle and I think almost 80% of success to building of International Space Station is built on shuttle wings.

Well, just a couple of weeks after Atlantis departs the current schedule calls for you and Alexander Samokutyaev to do a spacewalk out of the Russian segment of the space station. Tell me what’s on the plan for this EVA.

Because we continue to build Russian part of station, there were two modules new modules, appeared previous year, MRM [Mini Research Module] 2 and MRM 1, and the Docking Compartment [Pirs] is relatively old. That’s why we need to reorganize some equipment that was installed on surface of Docking Compartment. One is a Strela, and we will uninstall one of the Strelas from Docking Compartment and bring to the MRM 2. That’s also the biggest task, probably takes like one hour and a half. Then installation new experiment for communication and we’ll try laser communication, and that’s also the milestone of our EVA usual tasks is install new experiments and take just experiments that we need to take from the surface of station and move them back. That’s the main goal.

Bring back samples…

Samples and new task just recently appeared. It’s this small Sputnik that was built by the students of Moscow University, and we will just fly it….

You’re going to release the satellite?

…and it will translate some information voices of famous people that kind of experiment.

Nice. Now there’s a possibility that there will be a second Russian spacewalk during your increment, correct? What’s the plan there?

Because it’s possibility, we just discuss this, and we didn’t have any training on it, that’s why I can’t tell you about the second EVA so far.

But it is a thing that all crew members have to do they have to train for spacewalks just in case they come up.

Absolutely, and there is the basic training it’s not only on Russian side but American side, we have basic training like everybody who going to fly as a International Space Station crew member supposed to know how to do the EVA. That’s one of our tasks.

There’s also a plan for some new cargo ships that have been developed on the American side under NASA’s Commercial orbiter Transportation, Orbital Transportation Services program, that have test flights that are coming up later on this year. Tell me about those vehicles and what work you or your crewmates, you have to do to get the station ready for that.

Expedition 28/29 Flight Engineer Sergei Volkov participates in an emergency scenario training session in an International Space Station mock-up/trainer in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo credit: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration

I know that Mike and Satoshi trained for catching free-flying objects and it’s great to have a new vehicle, always great to see something new that’s flying, potentially can dock to the station, and because of the shuttle retirement we need another vehicles, not only Progress, and ATVs [Automated Transfer Vehicles] also good, HTV [H-II Transfer Vehicle], but I think it’s great that each country participant will have the cargo vehicle with their plusses and minuses.

So there’s a, a chance you may get to see a brand new kind of vehicle at the station.

Yeah, it would be great to see a new vehicle.

You’ve got commercial cargo ships that are just, that’s just one way that spaceflight has changed in its first 50 years since Gagarin’s flight—have gone from one man in a tiny capsule to this giant space building, as you described it. Where do you think human space exploration will be 50 years from now? How is the International Space Station getting us ready for that?

Hard to tell. We are so dependent on government money it depends on how much money the budget will provide us, and we need to believe that at least have the moon base on surface—this is my dream, actually, to spend at least one month on surface of the moon and do some work there. Maybe Mars; who knows? It’s hard to tell right now. I don’t want to just dream, or imagine; I’m a professional, and what I can tell based on my knowledge what is going on in the program.

How is what you’re doing on the International Space Station helping prepare for those possibilities?

As we mentioned before the human research experiment that provides data, how the human body will react on the long weightlessness will we be able to go out of the capsule after landing to Mars surface, and what you need to do, maybe what kind of pills we need to use or maybe what kind of physical exercise we need to perform to be ready not just to lay around the capsule and see the red sky and red sand but to be able to perform some tasks on the surface of Mars. I think the International Space Station is the best source of this information.

President Obama Meets With STS-133 Crew

2011-05-10T02:42:00.000-07:00

STS-133 commander Steven Lindsey, far left, presents a montage to President Barack Obama as crew members Michael Barratt, pilot Eric Boe, Nicole Slott and Steve Bowen look on during a visit to the Oval Office, Monday, May 9, 2011, in Washington.

Image Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers

NASA Kepler Mission Manager Update - Another 93 Gigabits of Data Added to the Archive

2011-05-10T02:37:00.000-07:00

During a regularly scheduled science data download on Tuesday, April 26, the project team reoriented the Kepler spacecraft to downlink data from its solid-state recorder (SSR). All data collected since March 20 was returned successfully. The Quarter 9, Month 1 science data collection download now is complete.

Communications with Kepler while it is in the science attitude is accomplished using a low gain antenna on the spacecraft that operates on X-band frequency. To return all the science and engineering data that has been stored on the SSR, a high-gain antenna (HGA) operating in Ka-band frequency is used. The HGA must be pointed at Earth to support the high rate downlink (4.3 Mbps). This temporarily prohibits the spacecraft from pointing at the science field-of-view.

The monthly activity includes collection of science calibration data; turning the HGA toward Earth; and, playing back the SSR data - approximately 45 minutes for engineering data and another 5.25 hours for 37 days of science data. The number of days in each month's science set varies a bit due to Deep Space Network, or DSN, availability and other scheduling constraints. A total of 93 gigabits of data was downloaded in approximately six hours before reorienting the spacecraft to science attitude.

In order to return to the fine point attitude control, which is the highest pointing stability and what is required for science, the project team must wait for the spacecraft to return to the thermal condition it was in before the break. When the spacecraft is turned to a different attitude, the sun shines on different parts of the structure, which causes it to warp ever so slightly. This slight warping means that the angle between the star trackers and the telescope line of sight is a bit off.

When it's maneuvered back to the science attitude, it takes time to settle back to its original shape. Until the spacecraft has thermally settled, the telescope will not be aligned with its guide stars well enough for us to transition to fine point. This can take eight hours or more. This month's activity went very well, and the total science break, which includes the collection of calibration data, was about 17 hours. The monthly budget is 20 hours.

The data is downloaded via NASA's DSN operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif. From the DSN, the data flows to the Mission Operations Center in Boulder, Colo., and on to the Data Management Center in Baltimore, Md. The raw pixels are archived at the Data Management Center and then transmitted to the Kepler Science Operations Center (SOC) at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

The data has arrived at the SOC and will be processed this week.

Kepler is currently 32 million kilometers from Earth, collecting science data at the Spring attitude (the angular orientation of the spacecraft), in its 9th quarter of operations. All subsystems are operating normally. The next download of science data is scheduled for May 25.

NASA delays Endeavour launch until at least May 16

2011-05-10T02:01:00.001-07:00

NASA said today that it has decided to push back the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour until at least May 16. This is the third delay since the shuttle's April 29 launch was scrubbed due to problems with its hydraulic systems.

The shuttle Endeavour atop pad 39A shortly after a launch scrub was announced on April 29. NASA said today it would delay the launch until at least May 16.

(Credit: NASA TV)

In a release, NASA said that Endeavour will launch no earlier than May 16. After the April 29 scrubbing, the agency targeted May 2, then May 8, and now mid-May at the earliest. NASA managers have got to be worried that each subsequent delay is threatening the space shuttle program's last-ever launch, that of Atlantis, which is currently slated for June 28.

NASA said it will hold a press conference Monday to update the public on the status of repairs to Endeavour's hydraulic systems. "Kennedy [Space Center] technicians are continuing work to resolve an issue in a heater circuit associated with Endeavour's hydraulic system that resulted in the [April 29] launch postponement," NASA said in a release today. "Technicians determined the failure was inside an aft load control assembly, which is a switchbox in the shuttle's aft compartment, and possibly its associated electrical wiring."

The agency acknowledged that it has yet to uncover the underlying cause of the switchbox failure, but said its technicians are substituting hardware that might have been the problem. "This weekend, technicians will install and check out new wiring that bypasses the suspect electrical wiring connecting the switchbox to the heaters," the release stated. "They will also run the heaters for up to 30 minutes to verify they are working properly and complete retesting of the other systems powered by the switchbox."

While NASA is currently targeting May 16 as the earliest possible date for launching Endeavour on its final mission, the agency said that there are launch opportunities available until May 26. It did not address what would happen if Endeavour cannot be launched until after May 26, but presumably that would mean that the Atlantis mission would have to be pushed back.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20060606-52.html#ixzz1LwEeNSJ6

TRMM Maps a Wet Spring, 2011 for the Central U.S.

2011-05-10T01:47:00.000-07:00

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite has been keeping track of the drenching rainfall that has been occurring in the central U.S. this springtime, and a newly created rain map from that data from April to May 4, 2011 shows those soaked areas.

A combination of heavy rains and a large snow melt has put parts of the central U.S. at risk for record flooding this spring with several locations along the Mississippi already at or near record levels. One likely culprit is La Niña. Despite the fact that the current La Niña appears to be winding down, its effects in the atmosphere can persist for a while. Furthermore, although not every La Niña brings major flooding to the region, La Niña's are conducive for above-normal rainfall from East Texas and northern Louisiana up through Arkansas and the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys with below-normal rainfall across Texas, southern Louisiana and Florida.

TMPA rainfall anomalies were created in this rainfall map for the period April 4 to May 4, 2011 for the eastern two thirds of the country. The anomalies were constructed by computing the average rainfall rate over the period and then subtracting the 10-year average rate for the same period. Credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce

During La Niña, below-normal sea surface temperatures occur in the equatorial East Pacific and above-normal temperatures in the West Pacific. This pattern leads to enhanced tropical thunderstorm activity over the West Pacific, which in turn can influence the weather in middle latitudes by shifting the jet stream pattern. On average, La Niña's favor an upper-level trough over the Midwest with the jet stream dipping down out of the northern Rockies and flowing west-to-east across the central Mississippi and Ohio Valleys before heading back up over the Northeast. This pattern steers developing low pressure systems across the Plains and central Mississippi into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys. These areas of low pressure provide the focus for showers and storms while drawing warm moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in enhanced rainfall across the central part of the country.

The main objective of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite is to measure rainfall over the global Tropics. TRMM measures rainfall using a combination of passive microwave and active radar sensors. For expanded coverage, TRMM can be used to calibrate rainfall estimates from other satellites. The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. provides rainfall estimates over the global Tropics.

TMPA rainfall anomalies were created in a rainfall map for the period April 4 to May 4, 2011 for the eastern two thirds of the country. The anomalies were constructed by computing the average rainfall rate over the period and then subtracting the 10-year average rate for the same period. The resulting pattern shows a broad area of above-normal rainfall (shown in green and blue) stretching from eastern Oklahoma across the central Mississippi Valley and up into the lower Ohio Valley with below-normal rainfall along the northern Gulf Coast. This rainfall pattern is consistent with a La Niña.

In addition to rainfall, this type of jet stream pattern can lead to strong storms by allowing strong jet stream winds to override warm moist air from the Gulf as was evidenced by the recent tornado outbreak. In fact, some of the biggest tornado outbreaks, including the previous record "Super Outbreak" in 1974, have occurred during La Niña's.

TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

Steve Lang
SSAI/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Dawn Reaches Milestone Approaching Asteroid Vesta

2011-05-10T01:44:00.000-07:00

Artist's concept of Dawn NASA's Dawn spacecraft, illustrated in this artist's concept, is propelled by ion engines. Image credit: NASA/JPL

› Journal entry on approach phase

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Dawn spacecraft has reached its official approach phase to the asteroid Vesta and will begin using cameras for the first time to aid navigation for an expected July 16 orbital encounter. The large asteroid is known as a protoplanet – a celestial body that almost formed into a planet.

At the start of this three-month final approach to this massive body in the asteroid belt, Dawn is 1.21 million kilometers (752,000 miles) from Vesta, or about three times the distance between Earth and the moon. During the approach phase, the spacecraft's main activity will be thrusting with a special, hyper-efficient ion engine that uses electricity to ionize and accelerate xenon. The 12-inch-wide ion thrusters provide less thrust than conventional engines, but will provide propulsion for years during the mission and provide far greater capability to change velocity.

"We feel a little like Columbus approaching the shores of the New World," said Christopher Russell, Dawn principal investigator, based at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). "The Dawn team can't wait to start mapping this Terra Incognita."

Dawn previously navigated by measuring the radio signal between the spacecraft and Earth, and used other methods that did not involve Vesta. But as the spacecraft closes in on its target, navigation requires more precise measurements. By analyzing where Vesta appears relative to stars, navigators will pin down its location and enable engineers to refine the spacecraft's trajectory. Using its ion engine to match Vesta's orbit around the sun, the spacecraft will spiral gently into orbit around the asteroid. When Dawn gets approximately 16,000 kilometers (9,900 miles) from Vesta, the asteroid's gravity will capture the spacecraft in orbit.

"After more than three-and-a-half years of interplanetary travel, we are finally closing in on our first destination," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We're not there yet, but Dawn will soon bring into focus an entire world that has been, for most of the two centuries scientists have been studying it, little more than a pinpoint of light."

Scientists will search the framing camera images for possible moons around Vesta. None of the images from ground-based and Earth-orbiting telescopes have seen any moons, but Dawn will give scientists much more detailed images to determine whether small objects have gone undiscovered.

The gamma ray and neutron detector instrument also will gather information on cosmic rays during the approach phase, providing a baseline for comparison when Dawn is much closer to Vesta. Simultaneously, Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer will take early measurements to ensure it is calibrated and ready when the spacecraft enters orbit around Vesta.

Dawn's odyssey, which will take it on a journey of 4.8-billion kilometers (3-billion miles), began on Sept. 27, 2007, with its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It will stay in orbit around Vesta for one year. After another long cruise phase, Dawn will arrive at its second destination, an even more massive body in the asteroid belt, called Ceres, in 2015.

These two icons of the asteroid belt will help scientists unlock the secrets of our solar system's early history. The mission will compare and contrast the two giant bodies, which were shaped by different forces. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure surface composition, topography and texture. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft will measure the tug of gravity from Vesta and Ceres to learn more about their internal structures.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of SMD's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft.

The framing cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau in Germany, with significant contributions by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering in Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by NASA, the Max Planck Society and DLR.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

To learn more about Dawn's approach phase, read the latest Dawn Journal at http://blogs.jpl.nasa.gov/2011/05/dawn-begins-its-vesta-phase/

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

New Deputy Brings International Education Experience

2011-05-10T00:22:00.000-07:00

Dean Aaron Kern Credit: NASA Exploration for a different challenge and new opportunities has landed Dean Aaron Kern a new position as Deputy Director for the Office of Education at Goddard. He arrives with a wealth of national and international teaching experience he hopes to share with others.

Kern admits being excited about his new position because of a positive NASA experience over 20 years ago. “My first exposure to NASA was part of an international group of teachers attending a two-week training project at the Johnson Space Center. At the end I remember saying this was a great opportunity for teachers to receive training from the experts and lots of great resources for the classroom,” he said.

In college Kern admits he was a typical student, altering his direction of study several times before settling on a duel major in elementary and special education. Ultimately, he had to decide between a course in classroom design or neuropsychology. “Neuropsychology and disabilities was much more interesting and led to my interest in learning more about how to work with students with disabilities in the classroom.”

After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Northern Arizona University (NAU) Kern began his teaching career in Phoenix, Arizona. “I’ve been a special and elementary education teacher at all levels of K-12 and even taught music at one point in my career” he said. Along the way, Kern obtained a Master of Arts degree in education administration from NAU, and continued doctorial studies at the University of Colorado at Denver.

Kern spent 10 years teaching in four different countries working in international American and British sponsored schools before returning to the U.S. He worked for several more years in the emerging education school choice effort known as charter schools at the local and state levels before joining the U.S. Department of Education in 2002 as Director of the Charter Schools Program. “I became interested in the charter school programs from a civil rights and social perspective where you are addressing a critical issue and the achievement challenges for kids because of their zip code, ethnicity, and/or race,” Kern said. “I see the NASA experience as another opportunity to use my educational background to have a positive influence on student learning.”

As Deputy Director, Kern will oversee Goddard’s educational programs. “We are indeed fortunate to have Dean join the Goddard staff,” said Dr. Robert Gabrys, director of Goddard’s Office of Education. “His background in education at the school, state, and government levels provides us with a depth of education expertise that will serve both the Center and Headquarters (NASA) well.”

According to Kern, NASA’s Summer of Innovation program is definitely a part of the national conversation. “It brings to the forefront more visibility for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), which is becoming part of the mainstream conversation when talking about education reform.”

Kern believes this opportunity will allow direct influence over programs that will inspire our next generation to explore. “I believe insight is key when rolling out new programs, initiatives, or training. How will it be received at the teacher, state, and national level is key to successfully gaining classroom access. Whatever you are doing, it must support the national policy conversation in education, at all levels.”

For the avid bike rider, Kern’s new position in Maryland puts an end to the daily 20-mile bike commute from Old Town Alexandria, Virginia to the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. “On the weekends I cram to make up those miles.” In addition to traveling with wife Monica, Kern enjoys singing in the Metropolitan Chorus and bargain hunting at second-hand stores.

Dewayne Washington
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Explore@NASA Goddard: Saturday, May 14, 2011, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. FREE!

2011-05-10T00:16:00.000-07:00

Explore at NASA Goddard logo Have a blast exploring the universe at a FREE open house event at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Explore@NASA Goddard, on Saturday, May 14, from 11am to 5pm rain or shine, is full of family fun, music, food, and science. Free satellite parking and transportation to Goddard will be provided. There is no public parking at the Center.

Explore@NASA Goddard will include indoor and outdoor exhibits and entertainment that will thrill and educate at the same time.

The event is organized into six zones:

* Earth Science: Experience how NASA measures and monitors our changing Earth from space

* Solar System: Discover how solar cycles affect Earth’s climate and how space weather changes the magnetosphere. Witness planetary science in action

* Universe: Explore the many ways the universe and everything in it is constantly changing

* Engineering & Technology: See discoveries in science through technological research, development, and engineering

* People: Investigate the diverse people and careers at Goddard Space Flight Center

* On the Mall: Discover the fun activities, great food, crafts, and entertainment on our mall area. Fantastic foods abound, from soul food to BBQ, and ice cream to souvlaki. Music features the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock®, and Milkshake with great music for kids.

Facebook logo › Check out Explore@NASA Goddard on Facebook

Six NASA Astronauts - Including D.C. Native - Available For Interview

2011-05-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
jbuck@nasa.gov

May 6, 2011

MEDIA ADVISORY : M11-089

Six NASA Astronauts - Including D.C. Native - Available For Interviews

WASHINGTON -- The astronauts who flew aboard space shuttle Discovery's last flight will visit NASA Headquarters in Washington on Tuesday, May 10. They will give a presentation about their 13-day mission at 11 a.m. EDT and will be available for media interviews from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The STS-133 crew consists of Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe, mission specialists Alvin Drew, Nicole Stott, Steve Bowen and Michael Barratt. Drew was born in the District of Columbia and graduated from the city's Gonzaga College High School.

The crew will share mission highlights with agency employees, their families and reporters in the NASA Headquarters' James E. Webb Auditorium, located at 300 E Street SW. The presentation will air live on NASA Television. Reporters must call 202-358-1100 to attend the presentation or to schedule an interview.

STS-133 was the last mission for the longest-serving veteran of NASA's space shuttle fleet. Since 1984, Discovery flew 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited Earth 5,830 times and traveled 148,221,675 miles.

Discovery and its crew delivered to the International Space Station the Permanent Multipurpose Module, or PMM, which was converted from the multipurpose logistics module Leonardo. The PMM can host experiments in fluid physics, materials science, biology, biotechnology and other areas.

STS-133 also brought critical spare components and the Express Logistics Carrier 4 to the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, became the first human-like robot in space and a permanent resident of the station. The mission's two spacewalks assisted in outfitting the station and completed a variety of other tasks designed to upgrade station systems.

For more information about the STS-133 crew members and their mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts133/main

Bobko, Helms Join Astronaut Hall of Fame

2011-05-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Astronaut Karol "Bo" Bobko flew on three space shuttle missions beginning with STS-6 in 1983. Photo credit: NASA

Astronaut Susan Helms made her first space shuttle flight in 1993 and spent 163 days on the International Space Station in 2001. Photo credit: NASA

One of the space shuttle program's earliest commanders and the first woman to live on the International Space Station took their places alongside the nation's space heroes May 7 as they were welcomed into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Karol "Bo" Bobko and Susan Helms joined the Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The celebration came two days after NASA marked the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard's flight in 1961 that made him the first American in space.

Bobko flew as the pilot on STS-6, the first flight of space shuttle Challenger, in April 1983. Two years later, he commanded Discovery on STS-51D and landed the shuttle safely despite a blown main gear tire. Six months later, Bobko commanded Atlantis on its maiden flight, STS-51J.

"My wife said whenever I was given a chance, I chose the career path toward space," Bobko said. "All spaceflight is beautiful and inspiring."

The astronaut thought he would go into space a lot sooner. The Air Force chose him for its own astronaut corps in 1966 to crew the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL, a project the Air Force later canceled. Like STS-1 Pilot Bob Crippen and five others who were in the MOL program, Bobko joined NASA. He worked on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project as a support team member before flying as a chase pilot on the shuttle prototype Enterprise landing tests.

"Bo loved spaceflight and he wanted everyone working with him to enjoy it as much as he did," said Bobko's presenter, former astronaut Jeff Hoffman. "He enjoyed flying so much that his family said they could judge how close he was getting to a flight because the smile on his face kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger."

Helms, an Air Force veteran like Bobko, flew five times on the shuttle beginning with STS-54 in January 1993. Her spaceflight career included flights on Endeavour, Discovery, Columbia, Atlantis and the International Space Station. She spent more than 5,000 hours in space, with 163 days of that on the station.

"It was one of the most amazing things that I've ever had the chance to do, which was be part of a space outpost" Helms said. "That truly was a human adventure that has no equal."

Working from Discovery, Helms performed a world-record spacewalk lasting eight hours and 56 minutes.

Endurance was kind of a trademark of Helms, said her presenter, NASA Administrator and former astronaut Charlie Bolden. She went for a jog on one occasion with her dog, Radar, and when she and the dog got back, she said the jog had gone fine. But Radar went and laid down on the bed for two days.

"She outran the dog," Bolden said.

Bobko and Helms join a group that includes the legends of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, along with the astronauts who flew the space shuttle on some of its most noted missions.

Steven Siceloff
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

NASA’s Spaceward Bound Takes Teachers Trekking across the Mojave Desert

2011-05-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

Click image for full resolution.
Leaving civilization behind, the group searched for biological soil crusts, referred to as BSCs, in the vast plains of the desert. BSCs are a complex community of cyanobacteria, moss and lichen that represent how life can survive in extreme environments.
Image credit: NASA/Matthew F. Reyes

Cima Sand Dunes are beautiful but deceitful. To survey the landscape, students and teachers headed for the highest point of the dunes. They soon discovered that for every step they took up, they slid down 0.75 steps.
Image credit: NASA/Matthew F. Reyes

Click image for full resolution.
Students from Valley View Middle School, Pleasanton, Calif., launched an instrumented weather balloon designed and built by Columbus High School, Ga., students in the Doing Research at Extreme Altitudes by Motivated Students (DREAMS) program.
Image credit: NASA/Matthew F. Reyes

"The most rewarding part of the experience was meeting with scientists and their crews every night after dinner," said Leyla Morrison, a teacher from Valley High School, Las Vegas, Nev.
Image credit: NASA/Matthew F. Reyes

What clues found on Earth do NASA scientists use to help them deduce that there may be life on other planets? Can the same process be applied in the classroom to inspire and motivate the next generation of explorers?

This spring, Spaceward Bound, a NASA education program, took teachers and education students on a high desert expedition across the dry, hot plains of the Mojave Desert. Students, teachers and scientists travelled to the Mojave National Preserve, Death Valley National Park and surrounding regions, including Cima Crater and the Kelso Dunes, March 21-25 and April 18-22. Their mission was to find microbial life that also may be found on other planets.

Developed at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., Space ward Bound's mission is to train the next generation of space explorers. Led by science teams from NASA and its research partners, students and teachers are given real planetary research experience by conducting field experiments at planetary analogue sites throughout the world. California State University's (CSU) Desert Studies Center, Zzyzx, Calif., served as the base camp for the 2011 expeditions.

"My experience was fantastic! After talking with scientists, working in the field and analyzing samples in the lab, I remembered why I fell in love with science," said Jan Winter, a science teacher from Stanley Middle School, Lafayette, Calif. "It also reminded me to ask my students more open-ended questions."

Teachers sometimes use "cookbook" experiments in their classrooms. By collaborating with scientists to analyze their data and formulate hypotheses after a long day of field research, teachers experienced an alternative method for teaching science. They noted significant differences between the highly structured techniques used in the classroom, and the less-structured approach of fieldwork, where results and indications from one day's work guided decisions about what to do the next day. As part of any investigation, "Students need to be told that we don't always know the 'right' answer," Winter said.

During the expedition, teachers from Las Vegas, Nev., Spaceward Bound alumni teachers and science education majors from California Polytechnic State University, and CSU's San Bernardino and San Francisco universities were taught how to evaluate microbes in the desert soil crusts, make batteries out of "dry" lake bed mud, launch instrumented high altitude balloons, remotely control rovers, and conduct other geology and soil experiments.

During field research, the group headed for the Kelso Dunes and Cima Dome and Lava Tubes to find and collect samples of biological soil crusts (BSC), complex communities of cyanobacteria, moss and lichen that are studied for their ability to survive extreme environments. Driving along desert plains, the expedition found samples large enough to collect without harming the viability of the colony. Their next task was to find a section of barren land and compare it to the life found in the BSC samples.

"Looking at soil crusts and hypoliths are tangible activities that can be incorporated into the school curricula," said Paula Mills, a teacher and curriculum leader from Prince Alfred College, Kent Town, South Australia. "I am currently thinking about including more Earth science in the middle school curricula. This program has enabled me to find new, exciting and real activities that students can participate in."

The desert group also travelled a rocky road to the Lava Tubes, where they observed gaps in the Earth formed by geologically "young" (approximately 10,000-15,000 years old) magma. After descending into the depths of the caves, they explored the interiors and took thermographic images as future satellites and astronauts might to identify potential habitats on other planets.

"This experience changed my view of how to teach science one hundred percent," said Leyla Morison, a science teacher from Valley High School, Las Vegas, Nev. "The most rewarding part of the experience was meeting with scientists and their crews every night after dinner. I was able to participate, as well as witness scientists justifying their empirical data, theories, paradigms, hypotheses, and data analysis to their peers."

As part of the field research experience, teachers and students were given time to practice laboratory techniques using field samples they had gathered during the day.

They also were given the opportunity to watch students from Valley View Middle School, Pleasanton, Calif., launch an instrumented weather balloon designed and built by Columbus High School, Ga., students in the Doing Research at Extreme Altitudes by Motivated Students (DREAMS) program. Mission objectives included investigating various perchlorates in Mars-like conditions, testing a full flight video system, using remote sensing to survey the Mojave National Preserve, collecting Geiger counter samples for full flight, performing an algae ultraviolet exposure experiment, and logging environmental data for full flight.

"We need to emphasize to our students the importance of working as a group. My students saw the videos I took of daily meetings, where scientists discuss their findings each day and their plans for the next day. It takes all types of scientists working together to solve problems," said Winter.

"I definitely feel that I have a better understanding of science practices. Now I can better motivate students in the classroom to be science professionals," said Morrison.

For more information about the DREAMS program, see:

http://dreams.columbus2space.org/

All Eyes on the Shuttle

2011-05-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

Perhaps one of the most impressive images is that of a space shuttle lifting off the launch pad. But more than just an impressive sight, images play a critical role in shuttle flight safety. Each successful mission depends heavily on still and video images that allow the launch team to closely scrutinize the spacecraft before and after liftoff.

Long before the main engines fire and the solid rocket boosters ignite, the entire shuttle stack has been photographed and monitored with TV cameras as the countdown clock ticks down.

The Final Inspection Team plays a large part in providing prelaunch imagery and analysis to the launch team during the critical time after the huge, orange external fuel tank has been filled with super-cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

Image above: It's Final Inspection Team member Ivan Bush's job to use a laptop to send images back to the Launch Control Center during countdown. Image credit: NASA/Cheryl Mansfield

"The images we take on the Final Inspection Team are sent back to the Launch Control Center," says Tom Ford, NASA's lead for the inspection team. "When we give the report to the Mission Management Team, and to the launch director and shuttle project engineer, they can look at our imagery, and in particular the ones we single out and tell them that we know there is a problem here, and they can do analysis of their own on those images." The trained eyes of the team members can spot potential problems that might go undetected without their on-the-spot inspection.

"Imagery is really what we're all about," says team photographer Ivan Bush, a United Space Alliance employee who transmits the images from the pad back to launch control. "We're responsible for getting the launch team, the launch director and the crew assessment via imagery of how the space vehicle is ready to go for flight."

But it was only a few years ago that the team gained the ability to send the digital images directly from the launch pad to launch control via laptop computer. Prior to that, the digital cards had to be hand delivered by the team. It's not that sending images from a laptop computer was a revolutionary idea. But it had been impossible since wireless transmission wasn't feasible with a fully fueled space shuttle standing just feet away.

"We looked into sending images back wirelessly, but our safety requirements wouldn't allow that," explains Ford. "So we said OK, we have to have this. Let's think of a bare-bones system that will work while meeting the safety requirements, and we came up with the (fiber-optic) drop."

Image above: On the second trip to the launch pad during the STS-120 countdown, the inspection team was able to send back this image of the dissipating area of ice (indicated by the arrow), giving launch managers time to make a "go" for launch call. Image credit: NASA/Final Inspection Team

The new capability was put to the test immediately in the fall of 2007, as the countdown clock clicked down toward the launch of space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-120. Launch managers had to make the "go/no-go" decision. Before making the call, they needed to carefully examine a small ice build-up on the external tank's liquid hydrogen umbilical that had been spotted by the inspection team.

The team members used the new fiber-optic capability to send back their photos, including some showing the ice buildup. In a rare move, the launch managers asked inspection team members to go back to the pad for a second look and once again send back updated photos of the now-dissipating ice.

With the analysis done, the launch team made the call: Discovery was "go" for launch, and the shuttle and crew embarked on a dramatic and highly successful 15-day mission to the International Space Station.

However, the launch team isn't limited to only the still images sent back from the pad. The team uses a host of sources to monitor the shuttle stack before and after launch.

"In the Launch Control Center we have the ice-frost console, and we continuously monitor upward to 135 different camera locations," says Bush."Those assets are controlled by NASA and other contractors. Some are basically large telescopes and they are able to film the orbiter several minutes into its flight profile."

Image above: This Contraves-Goerz Kineto Tracking Mount, used on the Eastern Range, includes a two-camera, camera control unit offering a combination of film, shuttered and high-speed digital video, and FLIR cameras configured with 20-inch to 150-inch focal length lenses. Image credit: NASA The variety of trackers used at the different camera sites are for short-range tracking (T-10 through T+57 seconds), medium-range (T-7 through T+110 seconds), and long-range (T-7 through T+165 seconds). Around the launch pad, cameras focus on the external tank, solid rocket boosters and the shuttle itself. For miles up and down the coast, tracking cameras and long-range optical tracking systems capture ascent imagery.

"We have about 60 cameras within the actual perimeter of the launch pad -- some are infrared, some are HD, some are standard cameras, some are at higher and slower speed," Bush explains. "A lot of them are at about 400 frames per second so we can catch a very, very slow behavioral aspect of each vehicle component, because some components we want to watch how they work the moment they are supposed to go to work. And we watch them frame-by-frame."

The monitoring isn't confined to just land-based imaging. At sea, ship-mounted wideband and Doppler radar tracking systems are used to detect debris during launch and ascent. Cameras mounted aboard the shuttle stack itself help give a close-up view of the climb as the boosters and external tank perform their jobs and then fall away as the shuttle achieves orbit. Once in space, the astronauts themselves use visual inspections to ensure the vehicle sustained no damage during its ascent.

As the final space shuttle lifts off Launch Pad 39A and pierces the sky over NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technology and trained eyes will once again be keenly focused on its amazing ride to space, helping to ensure a safe and successful mission as the shuttle era draws to a close.

Cheryl L. Mansfield
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

IBM celebrates tech behind first U.S. manned space flight

2011-05-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

Computerworld - As NASA marks the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. manned space flight, IBM is celebrating the mathematicians and engineers who helped make it happen.

While people around the world held their breath and watched astronaut Alan Shepard blast off on May 5, 1961, workers at IBM sat on the edge of their seats watching their technology go to work. IBM not only had been in charge of installing and maintaining three "large-scale" computers for the mission, it also was also responsible for developing the technology that enabled NASA to track the spacecraft and provide real-time information to Mission Control.

"Alan Shepard was the bravest of the brave, and his flight ushered in America's space age," said Arthur Cohen, the mathematician who led IBM's Project Mercury Team. "The IBM team had the honor of applying computing power and mathematics to support the project.... We experienced an unforgettable sense of excitement when Alan Shepard safely accomplished his mission. I will forever remember May 5, 1961, and the incredible team of NASA and IBM men and women I had the opportunity to work with."

Cohen, in an email to Computerworld noted that IBM's work involved an early manifestation of real-time and predictive analytics. What IBM technicians put together for NASA helped to usher in the days of real-time communication.

According to IBM, its team of more than 75 employees working on the Mercury Project from 1959 to 1963 developed a "real-time channel" called the IBM 7281, which could receive up to 1,000 bits of data per second.

They also created advanced software programs and mathematics models to analyze incoming data and provide mission-critical information to NASA flight controllers throughout the space flight.

"The real-time aspect -- receiving asynchronous data -- was new and breakthrough," said Cohen. "The 7281 real-time channel and the data that was streaming in had to be received and evaluated in real time to be able to use information to drive displays at [Cape Canaveral]. That was brand new. It had never been done before. Of course, real time then was 1,000 bits of data per second. Today, it's, of course, trillions of bits per second."

Cohen noted the monitor that took in all the real-time information was particularly challenging to develop, but its creation also had long-term benefits on the advancement of computing.

"The monitor accepted information real-time and decided which software needed to be addressed to proceed so Mission Control would get the information it required," he added.

He said that the other technology that had a big impact on the future of computing was the mathematics IBM developed specifically for the mission. Cohen said IBM's team had to create the math needed to determine the spacecraft's trajectory, correct the trajectory, and track the capsule into re-entry or abort.

To provide real-time information to Mission Control, the IBM team built and ran three large-scale computers that funneled in all flight information. There were two 7090 transistorized computers installed at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a 709 computer at the Bermuda Control Center, which acted as a backup to the project's Mission Control facility at Cape Canaveral.

Cohen remembers the entire project as an incredible amount of painstaking work.

"It was a tremendous amount of work," he said. "We sometimes worked 36 hours straight or more. As we got closer to launch, we were waiting for liftoff to occur and we couldn't leave the computing centers, so sometimes we had to sleep there with the computers.... There was a lot of suspense involved as we anticipated a man going on top of a rocket. We knew the computer systems would work, but we were in suspense of the first U.S. man going to space."

Glitch means further delay for Endeavour

2011-05-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - NASA officials on Friday again postponed the final flight of the shuttle Endeavour, until May 16 at the earliest.

The reason: a nagging electrical problem that engineers worry could lead to a major malfunction when the orbiter tries to land after its last trip to the International Space Station.

Technicians discovered the glitch last week just hours before Endeavour's scheduled April 29 takeoff. President Obama and his family had flown to Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch, along with wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.), whose husband, Mark Kelly, is Endeavour's commander. Giffords' staff said she would return for the rescheduled launch.

Since the original launch was scrubbed, NASA has repeatedly postponed setting a new date as engineers work to fix the problem, which they suspect lies with an electrical switch box that connects several systems.

Among those systems: heaters that prevent fuel lines from freezing while the orbiter is in space. These lines help power the hydraulics system that runs essential functions, such as the landing gear. A failure in the heater circuit initially tipped NASA to the problem.

Space center workers have installed a new electrical switch box, which is working fine, but the engineers are still trying to understand what caused the failure.

NASA on Friday also extended Endeavour's planned mission to 16 days, from 14.

After it launches, NASA will have just one mission left in the 30-year-old shuttle program: a planned June 28 launch of Atlantis to deliver spare parts to the station. It's not clear what effect Endeavour's launch delay will have on that final flight.

Growing Up at Goddard: Shuttle Small Payloads Launched Careers of Many

2011-05-07T04:02:00.000-07:00

Get-Away Special Cannister payloads await launch installed in the Shuttle Cargo Bay Credit: NASA

Airlines can not afford to fly with empty seats very often – and Space Shuttle orbiters can’t leave valuable payload capacity “on the ground.” Costing hundreds of millions of dollars per flight, NASA filled extra space in the shuttle’s cargo bay using the Shuttle Small Payloads Project (SSPP).

Hooks and power buses built into the shuttle bays allowed hundreds of small, modular experiments and technology test units to make the best use of missions that didn’t need all 50,000 pounds of payload capacity. Between 1982 and 2003, more than 200 of these projects, including Get-Away Special (GAS) Cannisters, Hitchhikers and Spartans, flew in 108 missions.

The program offered an invaluable proving ground for science and technology as well as for a large contingent of young scientists and engineers who came to Goddard in the early 1980s and grew up here working with small payloads. The Shuttle Small Payloads Project became one of NASA’s most fertile nurturing grounds as well as one of NASA’s most economically and technically successful programs. Many of these investigators rose to positions of authority, shaping the course of NASA science and exploration.

“In terms of ride-share opportunities, we know what the formula for success is and we’re currently working with Marshall space flight center to ensure some funding for small mission capability on NASA’s heavy-lift vehicle.”

– Mike Weiss, Project Manager for the Exporations Systems Projects “Back then the SSPP, and the other projects in the Special Payloads Division (SPD), operated in a skunk-works type of atmosphere,” said Gerry Daelemans, now Project Formulations Manager for the Earth Science Program Office and Landsat 9. “Young people gravitated to it. There were a lot of different projects in the SPD – we had the original Small Explorers (SMEX) Project, the Shuttle based Spartan Project, the PegSat Project. A lot of people got a lot of really good engineering and management experience in a short period of time. There was a lot of cross-fertilization of training on a lot of different small and quick missions, all of which flew in less than three years. Today nobody would dream of that.”

Many missions could be approved to fly in two years from conception – mere months for a second flight if the experimenter was ready, Daelemans said. “You could risk failing, because if you did, we could just re-fly you.”

To Earth Orbit – and Beyond

In the mid 1980s, Dr. James Garvin, a fresh-faced geoscientist from Brown University, flew laser ranging Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) equipment aboard aircraft out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. Systems he helped design graphed the meter-scal topography of Mars, the moon and Mercury.

However, to get the more detailed data needed to learn how to assess landing sites and surfaces of other planets, he needed to experiment with LIDAR in Earth orbit.

“Mapping Mars allowed us to have confidence to fly these kind of missions,” Garvin said of the Shuttle Laser Altimeter missions (SLA I and SLA II: Jan. 1996 and Aug. 1997)). “What it did for us was show what we could actually do for Earth science.”

GAS Can payloads ride in orbit in the Space Shuttle Cargo Bay and on the Mission Peculiar Experiment Support Structure (MPESS), also called the crossbay bridge. Credit: NASA

Using leftover equipment from the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter project, the SLA team integrated a wave-form analyzer – allowing scientists to glean significant new data from individual backscattered photons, rather than from the bulk of the returned light.

He got his chance in 1996 aboard STS 72 on Endeavour. Their first topographic profiles showed the peak of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, one of the largest volcanoes on earth.

Later, Garvin and the SLA team noticed peculiar surface height distributions in the data. “We started getting these booming echoes that turned out to be the tops of trees, and smaller returns from the ground underneath,” he said. “We realized we could use this method to measure the biomass of the planet.” Individual signals teased out of the apparent noise also allowed them to measure the difference between glacier top surfaces and the ground beneath – technology and methods adapted for the IceSat-1 and Operation Ice Bridge missions.

“The legacy of those experiments was the proving ground for what we have since accomplished in developing these LIDAR instruments for other planets,” Garvin said. “Everyone who worked on this project went on to really make a contribution to science.”

Beyond Technology – Growing Up at Goddard

Small payloads work exposed many Goddard engineers and managers to the larger agency, said Joann Baker. She started in 1983 working with Get Away Special (GAS) cannisters.

“It was exciting because I got to go integrate payloads in the actual Shuttle bay. I learned a lot about safety. I presented safety information to the broader agency. We got a lot of inter-center interaction that way,” she said.

These opportunities and responsibilities boosted the career trajectories of many Goddard leaders.

“That was a powerful experience. It gave me a lot of confidence and experience that in other larger, more structured organizations would have taken many more years to garner that level of experience,” said Craig Tooley. He calls his start as a mechanical engineer in the Special Payloads Division at Goddard in 1983 the “luckiest thing” that ever happened to him. “We were kind of thrust into it.”

He went on to manage the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission and is now the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission Flight Project Manager.

The program was also open to students and institutions outside NASA, and many of those investigators drew big achievements from their small payloads, said Dr. Ruthan Lewis, who helped manage multiple SSPP missions.

“Engaging and inspiring students was very exciting,” she said. “To watch these students start from near zero experience, and just see their wonderment, their sense of, ‘Wow, I flew my experiment in space, and I learned so much from it.’ That was just incredible.”

Goddard engineers and managers are working to ensure low-cost access to space for science and technology payloads remains an agency priority.

“Once a program matures and requirements get established, it’s difficult to introduce new ideas,” Lewis said.

	Dr. James Garvin Then: 1984 – Shuttle Laser Altimeter project lead – SLA and SLA II Now: Chief Scientist for NASA, and now for Sciences and Exploration Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center
	Craig Tooley Then: 1983 – Mechanical Engineer for GAS and Hitchhiker Now: Project manager for LRO, then now the MMS mission Flight Project Manager
	Gerry Daelemans Then: 1988 – electrical engineer, avionics: power and control systems for Hitchhiker Now: Project Formulations Manager, Earth Science Program Office, Landsat 9
	Joann Baker Then: 1983 – GAS Electrical Engineer, integrating experiments with Hitchhiker Now: Baker did integration and testing on Triana, Swift, LRO and MMS

Space Shuttle Endeavour to Launch No Earlier Than May 16

2011-05-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

NASA managers have retargeted space shuttle Endeavour's launch to no earlier than Monday, May 16. After a meeting on Friday, they also extended the length of Endeavour's STS-134 mission to the International Space Station from 14 to 16 days. If Endeavour launches on May 16, liftoff would be at 8:56 a.m. EDT.

At 3 p.m. on Monday, May 9, NASA Space Shuttle Program Launch Integration Manager Mike Moses and Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach will hold a news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to discuss the progress of repairs since Endeavour's launch postponement on April 29. The news conference will air live on NASA Television and online at www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Kennedy technicians are continuing work to resolve an issue in a heater circuit associated with Endeavour's hydraulic system that resulted in the launch postponement. Technicians determined the failure was inside an aft load control assembly, which is a switchbox in the shuttle's aft compartment, and possibly its associated electrical wiring.

Although the root cause of the failure in the switchbox has not been found, technicians are replacing hardware that could have caused the problem. The faulty box was changed Wednesday, and a test of nine shuttle systems powered by the new box is under way.

This weekend, technicians will install and check out new wiring that bypasses the suspect electrical wiring connecting the switchbox to the heaters. They also will run the heaters for up to 30 minutes to verify they are working properly and complete retesting of the other systems powered by the switchbox.

The shuttle has three Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) that provide hydraulic power to steer the vehicle during ascent and entry. The hydrazine fuel lines on each APU have two heater circuits that prevent the fuel from freezing while the shuttle is in space. NASA launch commit criteria and flight rules require all APUs and heater circuits to be operational for launch. On Endeavour's first launch attempt, one of two heaters for APU-1's fuel line did not work. Engineers confirmed the circuit in the original switchbox that directed power to the heaters was shorted out.

Launch attempts are available through May 26. May 21 is the only day a launch is not an option because it would lead to a May 23 docking with the space station. May 23 is when three of the space station's Expedition 27 crew members undock and return home in their Soyuz spacecraft. Managers reviewed the STS-134 mission timeline and determined the Endeavour crew can accomplish all objectives even with the departure of the three station crew members.

From NASA to UMES: Rocket engineer teaches from experience

2011-05-02T01:57:00.000-07:00

PRINCESS ANNE -- Ricky Stanfield has worked on some of America's critical defense and science projects over the past 20 years, including Army tactical hardware, Navy missile-flight tests and payload development for NASA's sounding rockets.

Now, the Northrop Grumman Corp. engineer is applying that real-world experience in the classroom, where he teaches a course on fluid mechanics at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

"I was a relentless builder of things growing up," Stanfield said. "It all started with Lego sets and model kits."

Fluid mechanics is the study of liquids and gases under stationary and moving conditions. Students who major in mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering will likely encounter fluid motion issues when designing cars, medical equipment and duct systems, to name a few.
Fluid mechanics is very difficult," said Derek Cooper, a 21-year-old mechanical engineering major at UMES. "But Dr. Stanfield definitely makes it easier to comprehend."

Northrop Grumman relocated its engineering and fabrication operation from Virginia to Somerset County in 2010 to support a U.S. Navy contract. Stanfield is engineering director and deputy program manager at the facility in the Princess Anne Industrial Park.

"Part of the attraction to moving to Princess Anne for me was the chance to teach at UMES," said Stanfield, who once considered teaching high school physics. This spring, he teaches a class with two mechanical and two aerospace engineering majors.

Stanfield graduated from Longwood College in Farmville, Va., with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a minor in mathematics and secondary education.

"Longwood is about the same size as UMES," he said. "I enjoyed attending a smaller college since it gave me the chance to be more involved with the college itself. Those were leadership experiences that I have been able to apply in my career."

Stanfield's first job was with the Department of the Army, where he worked as a physicist for 10 years.

"I worked on landmine countermeasures and tactical deception systems," he said. "Despite my title, they were using me more as a mechanical engineer than as a physicist, so I steered my graduate studies in that direction."

The New Jersey native, who grew up in an Air Force family, earned a Master of Science in engineering and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

"I attended all of my graduate school classes while working full time and raising a growing family, so I understand the pressures that non-traditional students have when balancing school, work, and family," Dr. Stanfield said.

Stanfield specialized in structure-borne acoustics and vibrations while attending graduate school at Catholic University.

"My dissertation focused on the use of axisymmetric shell finite element models to predict vibration in the airframes of sounding rockets," he said. "I also studied the use of passive vibration control techniques to manage these vibrations."

Stanfield -- who is married to his wife of 22 years, Theresa, and has two teenagers -- has worked for Northrop Grumman for 12 years. In the community, he volunteers as an assistant scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America; a referee for the American Youth Soccer Organization; and as a coordinator of the Chincoteague Island YMCA runner's group. He also is a marathon runner.

Stanfield would like to continue teaching the fast-paced fluid mechanics course at UMES, which includes advanced mathematics such as differential equations and integral calculus. He's also open to teaching other courses within the mechanical engineering field.
Next time someone says, "It's not rocket science," check with Stanfield's students. The answer might surprise.

Shuttle Endeavour's launch no earlier than May 8: NASA

2011-05-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, May 2 (Xinhuanet) -- The launch of US space shuttle Endeavor on its final voyage will be no earlier than May 8th. NASA made the announcement after technical problems uncovered last week proved more complex than originally thought. A problem with a heating system on one of the ship's hydraulic power generators prompted managers to stop the countdown.

Mike Moses, NASA Officer, said, "The failure that we have appears to be a power problem which is in the LCA which is basically a box of switches that we use to control power feeds. So it's an electronic box. So that basically means the power is not getting out to the heaters that weren't working on launch day and we need to go in and change out that box."

NASA tried to launch Endeavour, on Friday, but that was called off after the problem in ONE of two heater circuits was detected. NASA hoped Endeavour would lift off on Monday, but further trouble-shooting indicated the glitch was more complicated than officials hoped initially. Endeavour's six astronauts have returned to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for a few days of additional training before they report to Kennedy for the next launch attempt.