The International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
NASA SPACECRAFT REVEALS ICE IN LUNAR SOUTH POLE CRATER
FROM: NASA
Elevation (left) and shaded relief (right) image of Shackleton, a 21-km-diameter (12.5-mile-diameter) permanently shadowed crater adjacent to the lunar south pole. The structure of the crater's interior was revealed by a digital elevation model constructed from over 5 million elevation measurements from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter. Credit:NASA/Zuber, M.T. et al., Nature, 2012
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has
returned data that indicate ice may make up as much as 22 percent of
the surface material in a crater located on the moon's south pole.
The team of NASA and university scientists using laser light from
LRO's laser altimeter examined the floor of Shackleton crater. They
found the crater's floor is brighter than those of other nearby
craters, which is consistent with the presence of small amounts of
ice. This information will help researchers understand crater
formation and study other uncharted areas of the moon. The findings
are published in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.
"The brightness measurements have been puzzling us since two summers
ago," said Gregory Neumann of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., a co-author on the paper. "While the distribution of
brightness was not exactly what we had expected, practically every
measurement related to ice and other volatile compounds on the moon
is surprising, given the cosmically cold temperatures inside its
polar craters."
The spacecraft mapped Shackleton crater with unprecedented detail,
using a laser to illuminate the crater's interior and measure its
albedo or natural reflectance. The laser light measures to a depth
comparable to its wavelength, or about a micron. That represents a
millionth of a meter, or less than one ten-thousandth of an inch. The
team also used the instrument to map the relief of the crater's
terrain based on the time it took for laser light to bounce back from
the moon's surface. The longer it took, the lower the terrain's
elevation.
In addition to the possible evidence of ice, the group's map of
Shackleton revealed a remarkably preserved crater that has remained
relatively unscathed since its formation more than three billion
years ago. The crater's floor is itself pocked with several small
craters, which may have formed as part of the collision that created
Shackleton.
The crater, named after the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, is
two miles deep and more than 12 miles wide. Like several craters at
the moon's south pole, the small tilt of the lunar spin axis means
Shackleton crater's interior is permanently dark and therefore
extremely cold.
"The crater's interior is extremely rugged," said Maria Zuber, the
team's lead investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge in Mass. "It would not be easy to crawl
around in there."
While the crater's floor was relatively bright, Zuber and her
colleagues observed that its walls were even brighter. The finding
was at first puzzling. Scientists had thought that if ice were
anywhere in a crater, it would be on the floor, where no direct
sunlight penetrates. The upper walls of Shackleton crater are
occasionally illuminated, which could evaporate any ice that
accumulates. A theory offered by the team to explain the puzzle is
that "moonquakes"-- seismic shaking brought on by meteorite impacts
or gravitational tides from Earth -- may have caused Shackleton's
walls to slough off older, darker soil, revealing newer, brighter
soil underneath. Zuber's team's ultra-high-resolution map provides
strong evidence for ice on both the crater's floor and walls.
"There may be multiple explanations for the observed brightness
throughout the crater," said Zuber. "For example, newer material may
be exposed along its walls, while ice may be mixed in with its
floor."
The initial primary objective of LRO was to conduct investigations
that prepare for future lunar exploration. Launched in June 2009, LRO
completed its primary exploration mission and is now in its primary
science mission. LRO was built and is managed by Goddard. This
research was supported by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations
Mission Directorate and Science Mission Directorate at the agency's
headquarters in Washington.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
U.S. AIR FORCE ANNOUNCE ATLAS V LAUNCH
FROM: U.S. AIR FORCE
Air Force Officials Announce Milestone Atlas V Launch
By Amaani Lyle
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 20, 2012 - As part of the Defense Department's ongoing efforts to maintain assured, affordable access to space through 2030, the Atlas V rocket successfully lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Florida's Cape Canaveral, Air Force officials said.
"This is an exciting time for the U.S. space launch community, said Scott Correll, the program's executive officer. "From today's successful launch of the 50th EELV to the recent success of Space X's support to NASA with their Falcon 9 is clear the commercial space transportation industry is making notable strides."
The EELV program replaced the existing fleet of launch systems with two families of launch vehicles -- the Boeing Delta IV and Lockheed Martin Atlas V -- built and operated by the DOD's prime contractor, United Launch Alliance, Correll said.
An official from the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base explained that the Atlas V is a critical part of a spectrum of government missions.
"Atlas V launches space-based infrared systems, global positioning systems, the defense meteorological satellite program, and the advanced extremely-high frequency system satellites," said Air Force Col. Bob Hodgkiss, director of the launch systems directorate. "I'm pleased to report that this year we have also already launched the wideband global sat-com IV aboard a Delta IV, and the Navy's mobile user objective system satellite 1 aboard Atlas V."
Because of considerable program costs, which can run as high as several billion dollars per launch, quality assurance and the development of a competitive market are paramount, Air Force officials said.
"Since the Air Force must by law self-indemnify, we do a very rigorous evaluation of the physical, electrical and radio frequency interfaces between the rocket, the satellite and the ground systems," Hodgkiss said of the process to determine flight readiness. "My team is the government's insurance policy, so we need to be sure we have the highest probability of success in one of the riskiest activities the Air Force does."
On the business side of the program, Hodgkiss said, the program's primary users, the Air Force, NASA, and the National Reconnaissance Office are developing strategies to infuse competition into space launch as a cost reduction measure.
"We are balancing the commitment we will make to ULA with the potential to reintroduce competition to the program when one or more commercial launch companies have demonstrated to the Air Force they are reliable launch providers," the colonel said.
Correll asserts that certifying new entrants will potentially enable competition, thereby lowering costs and creating innovation in government payloads such as communications, navigation, weather satellites, and science and national security missions.
"The framework offers multiple paths to on-ramp potential new entrants and part of this strategy requires an entrant to demonstrate at least one launch of a vehicle configured as an EELV class national security space launch," he said.
ULA's next launch and the NRO's next mission, the Delta IV NROL-15, is scheduled for June 28.
"Our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, Coast Guardsmen and intelligence community are dependent upon the warfighting capabilities we enable," Correll said. "Our priority and focus remain mission success first while controlling costs in this constrained fiduciary environment."
Saturday, June 23, 2012
NASA, FAA ADVANCE NATIONAL GOALS IN COMMERCIAL HUMAN SPACE TRANSPORTATION WITH LANDMARK AGREEMENT
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Photo: Launch of SpaceX Dragon to ISS.
Credit: NASA.
FROM: NASA
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA have
signed a historic agreement to coordinate standards for commercial
space travel of government and non-government astronauts to and from
low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS). The two
agencies will collaborate to expand efforts that provide a stable framework for the U.S. space industry, avoid conflicting requirements
and multiple sets of standards, and advance both public and crew
safety.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the two agencies
establishes policy for operational missions to the space station.
Commercial providers will be required to obtain a license from the
FAA for public safety. Crew safety and mission assurance will be
NASA's responsibility. This approach allows both agencies to
incorporate experience and lessons learned as progress is made.
"This important agreement between the FAA and NASA will advance our
shared goals in commercial space travel," said U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood. "Working together, we will assure clear,
consistent standards for the industry."
"This agreement is the next step in bringing the business of launching
Americans back to American soil," Charles Bolden, NASA administrator
said. "We are fostering private sector innovation while maintaining
high standards of safety and reliability to re-establish U.S.-crewed
access to low-Earth orbit, in-sourcing work to American companies and
encouraging the development of dynamic and cost-effective spaceflight
capabilities built to last."
"The Obama administration recognizes the scientific, technological and
economic benefits of maintaining the United States' leadership in
space travel and exploration," said FAA Acting Administrator Michael
Huerta. "This agreement between the FAA and NASA continues and
advances those vital national interests."
NASA's Commercial Crew Program aims to facilitate development of a
U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of
achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from
low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The policy
established in the MOU clarifies for potential commercial providers
the regulatory environment for operational missions to the orbiting
laboratory. It also ensures that the two agencies will have
compatible processes for ensuring public safety.
The FAA is responsible for regulating and licensing all U.S. private
companies and individuals involved in commercial space
transportation. To date, the FAA Office of Commercial Space
Transportation has licensed 207 successful launches, including two
non-orbital commercial human space flights in 2004 and the recent
first launch to the ISS and re-entry of a non-manned commercial
spacecraft.
Friday, June 22, 2012
NASA SELECTS LOW COST, HIGH SCIENCE EARTH VENTURE SPACE SYSTEM
Photo: Hurricane. Credit: U.S. Navy.NASA
WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected an ocean wind study proposal led by
the University of Michigan from among 19 submitted to the agency's
Announcement of Opportunity for small spaceflight investigations of
the Earth system. The proposed mission will make accurate
measurements of ocean surface winds throughout the life cycle of
tropical storms and hurricanes, which could help lead to better
weather forecasting.
The competitively-selected proposal, the Cyclone Global Navigation
Satellite System (CYGNSS), is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Chris
Ruf of the University of Michigan, and includes partnerships with the
Southwest Research Institute of Texas, Surrey Satellite Technology of
Colorado and NASA Ames Research Center.
It is the second award, and first award for space-based
investigations, in the Earth Venture-class series of rapidly
developed, cost-constrained projects for NASA's Earth Science
Division. The award will be funded during the next five years for
$151.7 million. The cost includes initial development, launch,
deployment and data analysis.
The mission will use a constellation of small satellites that will be
carried to orbit on a single launch vehicle. The CYGNSS data will
enable scientists, for the first time, to probe key air-sea
interaction processes that take place near the inner core of the
storms, which are rapidly changing and play large roles in the
genesis and intensification of hurricanes. The CYGNSS measurements
also may provide information to the hurricane forecast community.
Once in orbit, CYGNSS's eight micro-satellite observatories will
receive both direct and reflected signals from Global Positioning
System (GPS) satellites. The direct signals pinpoint CYGNSS
observatory positions, while the reflected signals respond to ocean
surface roughness, from which wind speed is retrieved.
"The CYGNSS mission is both a scientific and a programmatic advance
for NASA’s Earth science and applications program," said John
Grunsfeld, NASA's Science Mission Directorate associate administrator
in Washington. "CYGNSS will provide vital science data on tropical
cyclones, and the CYGNSS team will advance our ability to obtain
high-quality Earth science data through smaller, more affordable
space systems."
The Earth Venture missions are part of NASA's Earth System Science
Pathfinder program. The small, targeted science investigations
complement NASA's larger research missions. In 2007, the National
Research Council recommended NASA undertake these types of regularly
solicited, quick-turnaround projects. The previous Earth Venture
award was for five airborne investigations all of which are
progressing well with initial data being collected. The first
Announcement of Opportunity in the Earth Venture-Instruments series
was issued earlier this year, and proposals are now under review.
The Earth Venture program is expected to continue with awards at
regular intervals for investigations using cutting edge
instrumentation carried on airborne platforms, on small space
missions, or as secondary instruments or hosted payloads on larger
platforms. NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., manages the
Earth System Science Pathfinder program for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate. The missions in this program provide an innovative
approach to address Earth science research with periodic windows of
opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
X-37B ORBITAL TEST VEHICLE RETURNS HOME
The Air Force's unmanned, reusable space plane landed in the early morning of June 16 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., a successful conclusion to a record-setting test-flight mission that began March 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. (U.S. Air Force file photo)
Air Force space vehicle comes in for a landing
by Tech. Sgt. Julie Weckerlein
Air Force Public Affairs Agency
6/18/2012 - WASHNGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force's unmanned, reusable space plane landed in the early morning of June 16 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., a successful conclusion to a record-setting test-flight mission that began March 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, one of two such vehicles, spent 469 days in orbit to conduct on-orbit experiments, primarily checkout of the vehicle itself.
"The vehicle was designed for a mission duration of about 270 days," said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37B program manager. "We knew from post-flight assessments from the first mission that OTV-1 could have stayed in orbit longer. So one of the goals of this mission was to see how much farther we could push the on-orbit duration."
Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37B program performs risk reduction, experimentation, and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies. The X-37B mission is the longest space mission only after the NASA Discovery shuttle program.
The 11,000-pound state-of-the-art vehicle, which is about a fourth the size of the shuttle, allows space technology experts to continue sending up experiments, with results returning safely to Earth for study.
"With the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development," McIntyre said. "The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs"
The vehicle was initially a NASA initiative, but was transferred to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2004. When it first launched in 2006, it was lauded for its cutting-edge technologies, such as the auto de-orbit capability, thermal protection tiles, and high-temperature components and seals.
"The X-37B's advanced thermal protection and solar power systems, and environmental modeling and range safety technologies are just some of the technologies being tested," said McIntyre. "Each mission helps us continue to advance the state-of-the-art in these areas."
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
VOYAGER 1 AND THE NEW FRONTIER
FROM: NASA
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion – that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.
"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."
The data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth detail the number of charged particles measured by the two High Energy telescopes aboard the 34-year-old spacecraft. These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.
"From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering," said Stone. "More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month."
This marked increase is one of a triad of data sets which need to make significant swings of the needle to indicate a new era in space exploration. The second important measure from the spacecraft's two telescopes is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. While there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off precipitously, which could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.
The final data set that Voyager scientists believe will reveal a major change is the measurement in the direction of the magnetic field lines surrounding the spacecraft. While Voyager is still within the heliosphere, these field lines run east-west. When it passes into interstellar space, the team expects Voyager will find that the magnetic field lines orient in a more north-south direction. Such analysis will take weeks, and the Voyager team is currently crunching the numbers of its latest data set.
"When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old," said Stone. "Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be -- or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it.”
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is more than 9.1 billion miles (14.7 billion kilometers) away from the sun. Both are operating as part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission, an extended mission to explore the solar system outside the neighborhood of the outer planets and beyond. NASA's Voyagers are the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.
The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2012
NASA RELEASES WORKSHOP DATA AND FINDINGS ON ASTEROID 2011 AG5
FROM: NASA
WASHINGTON -- Researchers anticipate that asteroid 2011 AG5,
discovered in January 2011, will fly safely past and not impact Earth
in 2040.
Current findings and analysis data were reported at a May 29 workshop
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., attended by
scientists and engineers from around the world. Discussions focused
on observations of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs).
Observations to date indicate there is a slight chance that AG5 could
impact Earth in 2040. Attendees expressed confidence that in the next
four years, analysis of space and ground-based observations will show
the likelihood of 2011 AG5 missing Earth to be greater than 99
percent.
Measuring approximately 460 feet (140 meters) in size, the space rock
was discovered by the NASA-supported Catalina Sky Survey operated by
the University of Arizona in Tucson. Several observatories monitored
2011 AG5 for nine months before it moved too far away and grew too
faint to see.
"While there is general consensus there is only a very small chance
that we could be dealing with a real impact scenario for this object,
we will still be watchful and ready to take further action if
additional observations indicate it is warranted," said Lindley
Johnson, program executive for the Near-Earth Object (NEO)
Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Several years ago another asteroid, named Apophis, was thought to pose
a similar impact threat in 2036. Additional observations taken from
2005 through 2008 enabled NASA scientists to refine their
understanding of the asteroid's path, which showed a significantly
reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter.
"Any time we're able to observe an asteroid and obtain new location
data, we're able to refine our calculations of the asteroid's future
path," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's NEO Program Office at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "When few
observations exist, our initial orbit calculation will include a
wider swath to account for uncertainties. With more data points, the
knowledge of the potential positions of the asteroid improves and the
swath becomes smaller -- typically eliminating the risk of an
impact."
Observations of 2011 AG5 have been limited to date because of its
present location beyond the orbit of Mars and in the daytime sky on
the other side of the sun. In fall 2013, conditions will improve to
allow space- and ground-based telescopes to better track the
asteroid's path. At that time, 2011 AG5 will be 91 million miles (147
million kilometers) from Earth but favorably located for observations
in the late evening sky.
The level of hazard will gain even more clarity in 2023, when the
asteroid is approximately 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers)
from Earth. If 2011 AG5 passes through a 227-mile-wide
(365-kilometer) region in space called a keyhole in early February
2023, Earth's gravitational pull could influence the object's orbital
path just enough to bring it back for an impact on February 5, 2040.
If the asteroid misses the keyhole, an impact in 2040 will not occur.
"Given our current understanding of this asteroid's orbit, there is
only a very remote chance of this keyhole passage even occurring,"
said Johnson.
Although scientists widely expect it to be a safe flyby, they
acknowledge the slight chance that computed odds could rise as a
result of observations to be taken from 2013 to 2016. According to
the experts at the workshop, even if the odds do increase, there is
still ample time to plan and carry out at least one of several viable
missions to change the asteroid's course.
PHAs are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. They
have the closest orbits to Earth's, coming within 5 million miles
(about 8 million kilometers). They are large enough to enter Earth's
atmosphere intact and cause damage on at least a local scale. Damage
from an asteroid the size of 2011 AG5 could cover a region at least a
hundred miles wide.
NASA established the NEO Program in 1998 to coordinate the agency's
efforts to detect, track and characterize Earth-approaching NEOs and
comets larger than 1 kilometer in size. The program now also searches
for NEOs as small as object 2011 AG5. NASA supports NEO observation,
tracking and analysis activities worldwide. Activities are
coordinated through the NEO Program Office at JPL.
Monday, June 18, 2012
FIRST FLIGHT INSTRUMENT DELIVERED FOR JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
FROM: NASA
WASHINGTON -- The first of four instruments to fly aboard NASA's James
Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has been delivered to NASA. The
Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) will allow scientists to study cold
and distant objects in greater detail than ever before.
MIRI arrived at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.,
May 29. It has been undergoing inspection before being integrated
into Webb’s science instrument payload known as the Integrated
Science Instrument Module (ISIM).
Assembled at and shipped from the Science and Technology Facilities
Council's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom, MIRI
was developed by a consortium of 10 European institutions and NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., after having
been handed over to the European Space Agency.
MIRI will observe light with wavelengths in the mid-infrared range of
5 microns to 28 microns, which is a longer wavelength than human eyes
can detect. It is the only instrument of the four with this
particular ability to observe the physical processes occurring in the
cosmos.
"MIRI will enable Webb to distinguish the oldest galaxies from more
evolved objects that have undergone several cycles of star birth and
death," said Matt Greenhouse, ISIM project scientist at Goddard.
"MIRI also will provide a unique window into the birth places of
stars which are typically enshrouded by dust that shorter wavelength
light cannot penetrate."
MIRI's sensitive detectors will allow it to observe light, cool stars
in very distant galaxies; unveil newly forming stars within our Milky
Way; find signatures of the formation of planets around stars other
than our own; and take imagery and spectroscopy of planets, comets
and the outermost bits of debris in our solar system. MIRI's images
will enable scientists to study an object’s shape and structure.
The most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb is the successor to
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Webb’s four instruments will reveal
how the universe evolved from the Big Bang to the formation of our
solar system. Webb is a joint project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
NASA ADMINISTRATOR BOLDEN VIEWS THE DRAGON CAPSULE
FROM: NASA
Bolden, Musk and the Dragon
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, congratulates SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk in front of the historic Dragon capsule that returned to Earth on May 31 following the first successful mission by a private company to carry supplies to the International Space Station.
Bolden and Musk also thanked the more than 150 SpaceX employees working at the McGregor facility for their role in the historic mission.
This image was taken on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden joined SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk at the SpaceX Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, Wednesday to see the first commercial space capsule to complete a mission to the International Space Station.
WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden joined SpaceX CEO and
Chief Designer Elon Musk at the SpaceX Rocket Development Facility in
McGregor, Texas, Wednesday to see the first commercial space capsule
to complete a mission to the International Space Station.
Bolden and Musk also thanked the more than 150 SpaceX employees
working at the McGregor facility for their role in the historic
mission. SpaceX's Dragon capsule made history May 31 when it returned
to Earth after delivering supplies to the space station.
"The Dragon capsule is a tangible example of the new era of
exploration unfolding right now," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
said. "Commercial space is becoming a reality as SpaceX and our other
commercial partners look ahead to future missions to the space
station and other destinations. I congratulate Elon Musk and the
entire SpaceX team again for this historic milestone."
While on-site, Bolden had the opportunity to view some of the 1,367
pounds of cargo the spacecraft returned to Earth from the space
station. Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a
significant quantity of science experiments and cargo from the
station. Experiments will be given back to researchers hoping to gain
new insights provided by the station's unique microgravity
environment. The cargo was transferred to NASA June 13 and will be
taken to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston for further
processing.
Dragon's journey to the station was SpaceX's second demonstration
mission under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Program (COTS), which provides investments intended to lead to
regular resupply missions to the International Space Station and
stimulate the commercial space industry in the United States. The
mission began May 22 as the capsule launched from Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After its
maneuverability and abort systems were tested, crew members of
Expedition 31 aboard the station grappled the capsule and berthed it
to the orbiting laboratory.
Dragon, its exterior scorched by the heat of re-entry, splashed down
in the Pacific Ocean May 31. SpaceX recovered the capsule immediately
and transported it to McGregor, where engineers unloaded cargo and
removed hazardous materials. Dragon will be shipped to SpaceX
Headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., later this year.
On Thursday, Bolden and Musk will be at SpaceX Headquarters and speak
with reporters at 9 a.m. PDT. They will see the Dragon spacecraft
that flew the first COTS demonstration mission in December 2010,
during which SpaceX became the first private company to recover a
spacecraft after it orbited Earth. They also will see a prototype
Dragon spacecraft being designed to carry astronauts to the space
station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
HEAVY ELEMENTS AND SMALL PLANETS
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- The formation of small worlds like Earth
previously was thought to occur mostly around stars rich in heavy
elements such as iron and silicon. However, new ground-based
observations, combined with data collected by NASA's Kepler space
telescope, shows small planets form around stars with a wide range of
heavy element content and suggests they may be widespread in our
galaxy.
A research team led by Lars A. Buchhave, an astrophysicist at the
Niels Bohr Institute and the Centre for Star and Planet Formation at
the University of Copenhagen, studied the elemental composition of
more than 150 stars harboring 226 planet candidates smaller than
Neptune.
"I wanted to investigate whether small planets needed a special
environment in order to form, like the giant gas planets, which we
know preferentially develop in environments with a high content of
heavy elements," said Buchhave. "This study shows that small planets
do not discriminate and form around stars with a wide range of heavy
metal content, including stars with only 25 percent of the sun's
metallicity."
Astronomers refer to all chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and
helium as metals. They define metallicity as the metal content of
heavier elements in a star. Stars with a higher fraction of heavy
elements than the sun are considered metal-rich. Stars with a lower
fraction of heavy elements are considered metal-poor.
Planets are created in disks of gas and dust around new stars. Planets
like Earth are composed almost entirely of elements such as iron,
oxygen, silicon and magnesium. The metallicity of a star mirrors the
metal content of the planet-forming disk. Astronomers have
hypothesized that large quantities of heavy elements in the disk
would lead to more efficient planet formation. It has long been noted
that giant planets with short orbital periods tend to be associated
with metal-rich stars.
Unlike gas giants, the occurrence of smaller planets is not strongly
dependent on the heavy element content of their host stars. Planets
up to four times the size of Earth can form around stars with a wide
range of heavy element content, including stars with a lower
metallicity than the sun. The findings are described in a new study
published in the journal Nature.
"Kepler has identified thousands of planet candidates, making it
possible to study big-picture questions like the one posed by Lars.
Does nature require special environments to form Earth-size planets?"
said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames
Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. "The data suggest that small
planets may form around stars with a wide range of metallicities --
that nature is opportunistic and prolific, finding pathways we might
otherwise have thought difficult."
The ground-based spectroscopic observations for this study were made
at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands;
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins in Ariz.; McDonald
Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin; and W.M. Keck
Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Launched in March 2009, Kepler searches for planets by continuously
monitoring more than 150,000 stars, looking for telltale dips in
their brightness caused by passing, or transiting, planets. At least
three transits are required to verify a signal as a planet. Follow-up
observations from ground-based telescopes are also needed to confirm
a candidate as a planet.
Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations
and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission development.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the
Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of
Colorado in Boulder.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives hosts and
distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery
Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the
agency's headquarters in Washington.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
NUSTAR, GALACTIC EXPLORER
This photo shows the Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket with the NuSTAR spacecraft after attachment to the L-1011 carrier aircraft known as "Stargazer." Image credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB
Written on JUNE 10, 2012 AT 7:54 AM by JTOZER
NuStar Headed To The Stars
NASA‘s Nuclear Spectroscopic Teelscope Array, or NuSTAR, is now perched atop its Pegasus XL rocket, strapped to the plane that will carry the mission to an airborne launch. Launch is scheduled for June 13, no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT).
The plane — the L-1011 “Stargazer” aircraft — is now at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. It is scheduled to fly to Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean from June 5 to 6. About an hour before launch, the plane will lift off from the island, and drop NuSTAR and its rocket over the ocean. The rocket will then ignite, carrying NuSTAR to its final orbit around Earth’s equator.
NuSTAR will be the first space telescope to create sharp images of X-rays with high energies, similar to those used by doctors and dentists. It will conduct a census for black holes, map radioactive material in young supernovae remnants, and study the origins of cosmic rays and extreme physics around collapsed stars.
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va. Launch management and government oversight for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
NASA'S SPITZER FINDS FIRST OBJECTS BURNED FURIOUSLY
FROM: NASA
WASHINGTON -- The faint, lumpy glow from the very first objects in the
universe may have been detected with the best precision yet using
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The objects could be wildly massive
stars or voracious black holes. They are too far away to be seen
individually, but Spitzer has captured new, convincing evidence of
what appears to be the collective pattern of their infrared light.
The observations help confirm the first objects were numerous in
quantity and furiously burned cosmic fuel.
"These objects would have been tremendously bright," said Alexander
"Sasha" Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., lead author of a new paper appearing in The
Astrophysical Journal. "We can't yet directly rule out mysterious
sources for this light that could be coming from our nearby universe,
but it is now becoming increasingly likely that we are catching a
glimpse of an ancient epoch. Spitzer is laying down a roadmap for
NASA's upcoming James Webb Telescope, which will tell us exactly what
and where these first objects were."
Spitzer first caught hints of this remote pattern of light, known as
the cosmic infrared background, in 2005, and again with more
precision in 2007. Now, Spitzer is in the extended phase of its
mission, during which it performs more in-depth studies on specific
patches of the sky. Kashlinsky and his colleagues used Spitzer to
look at two patches of sky for more than 400 hours each.
The team then carefully subtracted all of the known stars and galaxies
in the images. Rather than being left with a black, empty patch of
sky, they found faint patterns of light with several telltale
characteristics of the cosmic infrared background. The lumps in the
pattern observed are consistent with the way the very distant objects
are thought to be clustered together.
Kashlinsky likens the observations to looking for Fourth of July
fireworks in New York City from Los Angeles. First, you would have to
remove all the foreground lights between the two cities, as well as
the blazing lights of New York City itself. You ultimately would be
left with a fuzzy map of how the fireworks are distributed, but they
would still be too distant to make out individually.
"We can gather clues from the light of the universe's first
fireworks," said Kashlinsky. "This is teaching us that the sources,
or the "sparks," are intensely burning their nuclear fuel."
The universe formed roughly 13.7 billion years ago in a fiery,
explosive Big Bang. With time, it cooled and, by around 500 million
years later, the first stars, galaxies and black holes began to take
shape. Astronomers say some of that "first light" may have traveled
billions of years to reach the Spitzer Space Telescope. The light
would have originated at visible or even ultraviolet wavelengths and
then, because of the expansion of the universe, stretched out to the
longer, infrared wavelengths observed by Spitzer.
The new study improves on previous observations by measuring this
cosmic infrared background out to scales equivalent to two full moons
-- significantly larger than what was detected before. Imagine trying
to find a pattern in the noise in an old-fashioned television set by
looking at just a small piece of the screen. It would be hard to know
for certain if a suspected pattern was real. By observing a larger
section of the screen, you would be able to resolve both small- and
large-scale patterns, further confirming your initial suspicion.
Likewise, astronomers using Spitzer have increased the amount of the
sky examined to obtain more definitive evidence of the cosmic
infrared background. The researchers plan to explore more patches of
sky in the future to gather more clues hidden in the light of this
ancient era.
"This is one of the reason's we are building the James Webb Space
Telescope," said Glenn Wahlgren, Spitzer program scientist at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "Spitzer is giving us tantalizing clues,
but James Webb will tell us what really lies at the era where stars
first ignited."
Other authors are Richard Arendt of Goddard and the University of
Maryland in Baltimore; Matt Ashby and Giovanni Fazio of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.; and
John Mather and Harvey Moseley of Goddard. Fazio led the initial
observations of these sky fields.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., manages the
Spitzer Space Telescope mission for the agency's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the
Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech) in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science
Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at
Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
VENUS VERSUS THE SOL
FROM: NASA
This image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows Venus as it nears the disk of
The sun on June 5, 2012. Venus’s 2012 transit will be the last such event until 2117. Photo: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
RIPPLES IN THE FABRIC OF SPACE EJECT BLACK HOLE FROM A GALAXY
FROM: NASA
GIANT BLACK HOLE KICKED OUT OF HOME GALAXY
WASHINGTON -- Astronomers have found strong evidence that a massive
black hole is being ejected from its host galaxy at a speed of
several million miles per hour. New observations from NASA's Chandra
X-ray Observatory suggest that the black hole collided and merged
with another black hole and received a powerful recoil kick from
gravitational wave radiation.
"It's hard to believe that a supermassive black hole weighing millions
of times the mass of the sun could be moved at all, let alone kicked
out of a galaxy at enormous speed," said Francesca Civano of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the new
study. "But these new data support the idea that gravitational waves
-- ripples in the fabric of space first predicted by Albert Einstein
but never detected directly -- can exert an extremely powerful
force."
Although the ejection of a supermassive black hole from a galaxy by
recoil because more gravitational waves are being emitted in one
direction than another is likely to be rare, it nevertheless could
mean that there are many giant black holes roaming undetected out in
the vast spaces between galaxies.
"These black holes would be invisible to us," said co-author Laura
Blecha, also of CfA, "because they have consumed all of the gas
surrounding them after being thrown out of their home galaxy."
Civano and her group have been studying a system known as CID-42,
located in the middle of a galaxy about 4 billion light years away.
They had previously spotted two distinct, compact sources of optical
light in CID-42, using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
More optical data from the ground-based Magellan and Very Large
Telescopes in Chile supplied a spectrum (that is, the distribution of
optical light with energy) that suggested the two sources in CID-42
are moving apart at a speed of at least 3 million miles per hour.
Previous Chandra observations detected a bright X-ray source likely
caused by super-heated material around one or more supermassive black
holes. However, they could not distinguish whether the X-rays came
from one or both of the optical sources because Chandra was not
pointed directly at CID-42, giving an X-ray source that was less
sharp than usual.
"The previous data told us that there was something special going on,
but we couldn't tell if there were two black holes or just one," said
another co-author Martin Elvis, also of CfA. "We needed new X-ray
data to separate the sources."
When Chandra's sharp High Resolution Camera was pointed directly at
CID-42, the resulting data showed that X-rays were coming only from
one of the sources. The team thinks that when two galaxies collided,
the supermassive black holes in the center of each galaxy also
collided. The two black holes then merged to form a single black hole
that recoiled from gravitational waves produced by the collision,
which gave the newly merged black hole a sufficiently large kick for
it to eventually escape from the galaxy.
The other optical source is thought to be the bright star cluster that
was left behind. This picture is consistent with recent computer
simulations of merging black holes, which show that merged black
holes can receive powerful kicks from the emission of gravitational
waves.
There are two other possible explanations for what is happening in
CID-42. One would involve an encounter between three supermassive
black holes, resulting in the lightest one being ejected. Another
idea is that CID-42 contains two supermassive black holes spiraling
toward one another, rather than one moving quickly away.
Both of these alternate explanations would require at least one of the
supermassive black holes to be very obscured, since only one bright
X-ray source is observed. Thus the Chandra data support the idea of a
black hole recoiling because of gravitational waves.
These results will appear in the June 10 issue of The Astrophysical
Journal.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the
Chandra Program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge,
Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
SPACEX DRAGON CAPSULE RETURNS TO EARTH AFTER FIRST COMMERCIAL FLIGHT TO SPACE STATION
FROM: NASA
HOUSTON -- SpaceX's Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean
at 11:42 a.m. EDT a few hundred miles west of Baja California,
Mexico, marking a successful end to the first mission by a commercial
company to resupply the International Space Station.
"Congratulations to the teams at SpaceX and NASA who worked hard to
make this first commercial mission to the International Space Station
an overwhelming success," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.
"This successful splashdown and the many other achievements of this
mission herald a new era in U.S. commercial spaceflight. American
innovation and inspiration have once again shown their great strength
in the design and operation of a new generation of vehicles to carry
cargo to our laboratory in space. Now more than ever we're counting
on the inventiveness of American companies and American workers to
make the International Space Station and other low Earth orbit
destinations accessible to any and all who have dreams of space
travel."
The Dragon capsule will be taken by boat to a port near Los Angeles,
where it will be prepared for a return journey to SpaceX's test
facility in McGregor, Texas, for processing. Some cargo will be
removed at the port in California and returned to NASA within 48
hours. The remainder will be returned to Texas with the capsule.
The capsule delivered to the station 1,014 pounds of supplies
including experiments, food, clothing and technology. On its return
trip to Earth, the capsule carried science experiments that will be
returned to researchers hoping to gain new insights provided by the
unique microgravity environment in the station's laboratories. In
addition to the experiments, Dragon returned a total of 1,367 pounds
of hardware and cargo no longer needed aboard the station.
Dragon's journey to the space station was SpaceX's second
demonstration mission under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation
Services (COTS) Program, which provides investments to stimulate the
commercial space industry in America. The mission began May 22 as the
capsule launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida
aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Following a series of tests of its
maneuverability and abort systems, the capsule was grappled and
berthed to the space station by the crew members of Expedition 31
aboard the orbiting complex.
In the next several weeks, NASA will evaluate the Dragon capsule's
mission performance to close out remaining COTS milestones. Once that
work is completed NASA and SpaceX will set the target date for the
company's first full cargo mission.
In addition to fostering the development of new American cargo
vehicles, NASA also is helping spur innovation and development of new
spacecraft and launch vehicles from the commercial industry to
develop safe, reliable and cost-effective capabilities to transport
astronauts to low Earth orbit and the space station.
NASA also is developing the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System
(SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket that will provide an
entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo
missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth
orbit and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
NASA'S PEGASUS
Pegasus Fairing Removed
Orbital Sciences’ Pegasus XL rocket is viewed over the Pegasus payload fairing, positioned part in and part out of the environmental enclosure in Orbital’s hangar on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Half of the Pegasus fairing has been removed from around NASA’s NuSTAR spacecraft. Access to the spacecraft is needed for compatibility testing to verify communication with a tracking station in Hawaii.
Image credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB
April 10, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
NASA PREPARING TO LAUNCH ITS NEWEST X-RAY TELESCOPE ARRAY CALLED NUSTAR
NASA PREPARING TO LAUNCH ITS NEWEST X-RAY EYES
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR,
is being prepared for the final journey to its launch pad on
Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. The mission will study
everything from massive black holes to our own sun. It is scheduled
to launch no earlier than June 13.
"We will see the hottest, densest and most energetic objects with a
fundamentally new high-energy X-ray telescope that can obtain much
deeper and crisper images than before," said Fiona Harrison, the
NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., who first conceived of the
mission 20 years ago.
The observatory is perched atop an Orbital Sciences Corporation
Pegasus XL rocket. If the mission passes its Flight Readiness Review
on June 1, the rocket will be strapped to the bottom of an aircraft,
the L-1011 Stargazer, also operated by Orbital, on June 2. The
Stargazer is scheduled to fly from Vandenberg Air Force Base in
central California to Kwajalein June 5-6.
On launch day, the Stargazer will take off and at around 11:30 a.m.
EDT (8:30 a.m. PDT) will drop the rocket, which will then ignite and
carry NuSTAR to a low orbit around Earth.
"NuSTAR uses several innovations for its unprecedented imaging
capability and was made possible by many partners," said Yunjin Kim,
the project manager for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "We're all really excited to see
the fruition of our work begin its mission in space."
NuSTAR will be the first space telescope to create focused images of
cosmic X-rays with the highest energies. These are the same types of
X-rays that doctors use to see your bones and airports use to scan
your bags. The telescope will have more than 10 times the resolution,
and more than 100 times the sensitivity, of its predecessors while
operating in a similar energy range.
The mission will work with other telescopes in space now, including
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which observes lower-energy X-rays.
Together, they will provide a more complete picture of the most
energetic and exotic objects in space, such as black holes, dead
stars and jets traveling near the speed of light.
"NuSTAR truly demonstrates the value that NASA's research and
development programs provide in advancing the nation's science
agenda," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director.
"Taking just over four years from receiving the project go-ahead to
launch, this low-cost Explorer mission will use new mirror and
detector technology that was developed in NASA's basic research
program and tested in NASA's scientific ballooning program. The
result of these modest investments is a small space telescope that
will provide world-class science in an important but relatively
unexplored band of the electromagnetic spectrum."
NuSTAR will study black holes that are big and small, far and near,
answering questions about the formation and physics behind these
wonders of the cosmos. The observatory will also investigate how
exploding stars forge the elements that make up planets and people,
and it will even study our own sun's atmosphere.
The observatory is able to focus the high-energy X-ray light into
sharp images because of a complex, innovative telescope design.
High-energy light is difficult to focus because it only reflects off
mirrors when hitting at nearly parallel angles. NuSTAR solves this
problem with nested shells of mirrors. It has the most nested shells
ever used in a space telescope, 133 in each of two optic units. The
mirrors were molded from ultra-thin glass similar to that found in
laptop screens and glazed with even thinner layers of reflective
coating.
The telescope also consists of state-of-the-art detectors and a
lengthy 33-foot (10-meter) mast, which connects the detectors to the
nested mirrors, providing the long distance required to focus the
X-rays. This mast is folded up into a canister small enough to fit
atop the Pegasus launch vehicle. It will unfurl about seven days
after launch. About 23 days later, science operations will begin.
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft
was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Va. Its
instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL;
University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley); Columbia
University in New York; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; and ATK Aerospace
Systems in Goleta, Calif. NuSTAR will be operated by UC Berkeley,
with the Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial ground station
located at Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at
Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif. NASA's Explorer
Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
Friday, June 1, 2012
HUBBLE OBSERVES GALAXY 4980
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARMED WITH SCIENCE
Written on MAY 27, 2012 AT 7:10 AM by JTOZER
A Spiral Galaxy in Hydra
This image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 4980, a spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Hydra. The shape of NGC 4980 appears slightly deformed, something which is often a sign of recent tidal interactions with another galaxy. In this galaxy’s case, however, this appears not to be the case as there are no other galaxies in its immediate vicinity.
The image was produced as part of a research program into the nature of galactic bulges, the bright, dense, elliptical centers of galaxies. Classical bulges are relatively disordered, with stars orbiting the galactic center in all directions. In contrast, in galaxies with so-called pseudobulges, or disc-type bulges, the movement of the spiral arms is preserved right to the center of the galaxy.
Although the spiral structure is relatively subtle in this image, scientists have shown that NGC 4980 has a disc-type bulge, and its rotating spiral structure extends to the very center of the galaxy.
A galaxies’ bright arms are the location of new star formation in spiral galaxies, and NGC 4980 is no exception. The galaxy’s arms are traced out by blue pockets of extremely hot newborn stars are visible across much of its disc. This sets it apart from the reddish galaxies visible in the background, which are distant elliptical galaxies made up of much older, and hence redder, stars.
This image is composed of exposures taken in visible and infrared light by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The image is approximately 3.3 by 1.5 arcminutes in size.
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