NASA LOOKING TO FIND WASTE SOLUTIONS FOR SPACE TRAVELERS

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:
NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the State 
Department and Nike today announced a challenge to identify 10 
game-changing innovations that could transform waste-management 
systems and practices. Waste management is important for planning 
long-duration human spaceflight missions to an asteroid, Mars or 
beyond. 

Humans living off the planet require waste solutions that mirror 
issues facing people on Earth. In the hostile environment of space, 
waste must be eliminated or transformed in the most efficient and 
cost-effective manner possible. The innovations, which will be 
presented at the LAUNCH: Beyond Waste forum, may lead to practical 
applications for astronauts as we send humans deeper into our solar 
system. 

The challenge will be open April 1-May 15 and will seek creative 
solutions to minimize waste or transform it into new products in 
space and on Earth. Forum partners will select 10 innovators to 
present their technology solutions at the LAUNCH: Beyond Waste forum, 
hosted by NASA July 20-22, at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
in Pasadena, Calif. 

NASA and the LAUNCH Council -- thought leaders representing a diverse 
and collaborative body of entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, 
government, media and business -- will participate in the forum and 
help guide these innovations forward. The selected LAUNCH innovators 
will receive networking and mentoring opportunities from influential 
business and government leaders, as well as portfolio presentations. 

Previous LAUNCH forums have focused on water, health and energy. These 
forums resulted in innovations, including technology that enables 
irrigation using brackish, saline and polluted water; a biodegradable 
needle that can deliver vaccines or medicine under the skin using a 
pressure device; a tiny holographic microscope attached to a cell 
phone that can detect parasites and bacteria in blood and water in 
remote locations; a handheld lab-in-a-box that diagnoses a variety of 
diseases in a matter of minutes; a modular, flexible smart-grid 
distribution technology to provide access to power for those in need; 
and a simple, affordable fuel cell that converts biomass directly to 
electricity. 

LAUNCH was created to identify, showcase and support innovative 
approaches to global sustainability challenges. LAUNCH searches for 
visionaries whose ideas, technologies or programs show great promise 
for making tangible impacts on society in the developed and 
developing worlds. 

ENDEAVOR'S OMS POD GETS A CLEANING

In Orbiter Processing Facility-2 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour’s left orbital maneuvering system OMS pod is in position on the aft of the shuttle and ready for installation. The OMS pod underwent complete deservicing and cleaning at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, part of the transition and retirement processing of each shuttle. Endeavour is being prepared for public display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Over the course of its 19-year career, Endeavour spent 299 days in space during 25 missions. Image credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis
The above photo and excerpt are from the NASA website:

ROCKETS USED TO STUDY UPPER LEVEL JET STREAM

The following photo and excerpt are from the NASA website:
NASA successfully launched five suborbital sounding rockets from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as part of a study of the upper level jet stream. This image was captured on March 27, 2012. The first rocket was launched at 4:58 a.m. EDT and each subsequent rocket was launched 80 seconds apart. Each rocket released a chemical tracer that created milky, white clouds at the edge of space. Tracking the way the clouds move can help scientists understand the movement of the winds some 65 miles up in the sky, which in turn will help create better models of the electromagnetic regions of space that can damage man-made satellites and disrupt communications systems. The launches and clouds were reported to be seen from as far south as Wilmington, N.C.; west to Charlestown, W. Va.; and north to Buffalo, N.Y. Image Credit: NASA/Wallops

NASA'S DAWN SPACECRAFT OBSERVES ASTEROID CALLED VESTA

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details
on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data
highlight the diversity of Vesta's surface and reveal unusual
geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on
asteroids.

Vesta is one of the brightest objects in the solar system and the only
asteroid in the so-called main belt between Mars and Jupiter visible
to the naked eye from Earth. Dawn found that some areas on Vesta can
be nearly twice as bright as others, revealing clues about the
asteroid's history.

"Our analysis finds this bright material originates from Vesta and has
undergone little change since the formation of Vesta over 4 billion
years ago," said Jian-Yang Li, a Dawn participating scientist at the
University of Maryland, College Park. "We're eager to learn more
about what minerals make up this material and how the present Vesta
surface came to be."

Bright areas appear everywhere on Vesta but are most predominant in
and around craters. The areas vary from several hundred feet to
around 10 miles across. Rocks crashing into the surface of Vesta seem
to have exposed and spread this bright material. This impact process
may have mixed the bright material with darker surface material.

While scientists had seen some brightness variations in previous
images of Vesta from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Dawn scientists
also did not expect such a wide variety of distinct dark deposits
across its surface. The dark materials on Vesta can appear dark gray,
brown and red. They sometimes appear as small, well-defined deposits
around impact craters. They also can appear as larger regional
deposits, like those surrounding the impact craters scientists have
nicknamed the "snowman."

"One of the surprises was the dark material is not randomly
distributed," said David Williams, a Dawn participating scientist at
Arizona State University, Tempe. "This suggests underlying geology
determines where it occurs."

The dark materials seem to be related to impacts and their aftermath.
Scientists theorize carbon-rich asteroids could have hit Vesta at
speeds low enough to produce some of the smaller deposits without
blasting away the surface.

Higher-speed asteroids also could have hit the asteroid's surface and
melted the volcanic basaltic crust, darkening existing surface
material. That melted conglomeration appears in the walls and floors
of impact craters, on hills and ridges, and underneath brighter, more
recent material called ejecta, which is material thrown out from a
space rock impact.

Vesta's dark materials suggest the giant asteroid may preserve ancient
materials from the asteroid belt and beyond, possibly from the birth
of the solar system.

"Some of these past collisions were so intense they melted the
surface," said Brett Denevi, a Dawn participating scientist at the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
"Dawn's ability to image the melt marks a unique find. Melting events
like these were suspected, but never before seen on an asteroid."

Dawn launched in September 2007. It will reach its second destination,
Ceres, in February 2015.

"Dawn's ambitious exploration of Vesta has been going beautifully,"
said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "As we continue to gather a
bounty of data, it is thrilling to reveal fascinating alien
landscapes."

Dawn's mission 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. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission
science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built
the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute
for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian
National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the
mission team.

EXPERIMENTAL PAYLOADS SELECTED FOR COMMERCIAL SUBORBITAL FLIGHTS

The following excerpt is from the NASA website: 
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Flight Opportunities Program has selected 24
cutting-edge space technology payloads for flights on commercial
reusable launch vehicles, balloons and a commercial parabolic
aircraft.

Sixteen of the payloads will ride on parabolic aircraft flights, which
provide brief periods of weightlessness. Five will fly on suborbital
reusable launch vehicle test flights. Two will ride on high-altitude
balloons that fly above 65,000 feet. One payload will fly on the
suborbital launch vehicle and high-altitude balloon platforms. The
flights will take place in 2012 and 2013.

Flight platforms include the Zero-G parabolic airplane, Near Space
Corp. high altitude balloons and reusable launch vehicles from
Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, UP Aerospace and Virgin
Galactic.

"NASA's Flight Opportunities Program leverages investment in
commercially available vehicles and platforms to enable new
technology discoveries," said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's
Space Technology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These
flights enable researchers to demonstrate the viability of their
technologies while taking advantage of American commercial access to
near-space."

Payloads selected for flight on a parabolic aircraft are:
-- "Microgravity Health Care," Scott Alexander Dulchavsky, Henry Ford
Health System, Detroit
-- "Activity Monitoring During Parabolic Flight," Peter Cavanagh,
University of Washington, Seattle
-- "Physics of Regolith Impacts in Microgravity Experiment," Josh
Colwell, University of Central Florida, Orlando
-- "UAH CubeSat Parabolic Flight Testing," Francis Wessling,
University of Alabama, Huntsville
-- "Fuel Mass Gauging Under Zero-G Environment Based on Electrical
Capacitance Volumatric Tomography Techniques," Manohar Deshpande,
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
-- "Microgravity Effects of Nanoscale Mixing on Diffusion Limited
Processes Using Electrochemical Electrodes," Carlos Cabrera,
University of Puerto Rico, San Juan
-- "Effects of Reduced Gravity on Flow Boiling and Condensation,"
Issam Mudawar, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.
-- "OSIRIS-REx Low-Gravity Regolith Sampling Tests," Joseph Vellinga,
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver
-- "Parabolic Flight: Validation of Electro-Hydrodynamic Gas-Liquid
Phase Separation in Microgravity," Boris Khusid, New Jersey Institute
of Technology, Newark
-- "Non-Invasive Hemodynamic Monitoring in Microgravity," Gregory
Kovacs, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
-- "Parabolic Flight Evaluation of a Hermetic Surgery System for
Reduced Gravity," George Pantalos, University of Louisville,
Louisville, Ky.
-- "Evaporative Heat Transfer Mechanisms within a Heat Melt Compactor
Experiment," Eric Golliher, NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
-- "Effects of Reduced and Hyper Gravity on Functional Near-Infrared
Spectroscopy Instrumentation," Greg Adamovsky, NASA Glenn
-- "Sintering of Composite Materials Under Reduced Gravity Conditions
("Cosmic" Project), Orazio Chiarenza, the Advanced Technical
Institute, Fuscaldo, Italy
-- "Boston University Student Proposal for Deployable Solar and
Antenna Array Microgravity Testing," Theodore Fritz, Boston
University
-- "Particle Dispersion System for Microgravity Environments," John
Marshall, SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif.

Payloads selected for flight on a suborbital launch vehicle are:
-- "Near-Zero Gravity Cryogenic Line Chilldown Experiment in a
Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle," Jacob Chung, University of
Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
-- "Collection of Regolith Experiment on a Commercial Suborbital
Vehicle," and "Collisions Into Dust Experiment on a Commercial
Suborbital Vehicle, Josh Colwell, University of Central Florida,
Orlando
-- "Polar Mesospheric Cloud Imaging and Tomography Experiment," Jason
David Reimuller, Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
-- "Vision Navigation System Technology Demonstration," Douglas
Zimpfer, Draper Laboratory, Houston

Payloads selected for flight on a high altitude balloon are:
-- "Flight Demonstration of an Integrated Camera and Solid-State Fine
Steering System," Eliot Young, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder,
Colo.
-- "Initial Flight Testing of a UAT ADS-B Transmitter Prototype for
Commercial Space Transportation Using a High Altitude Balloon,"
Richard Stansbury, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona
Beach, Fla.

The "Structural Health Monitoring for Commercial Space Vehicles"
payload from Andrei Zagrai of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and
Technology in Socorro, will fly on a suborbital launch vehicle and a
high-altitude balloon.

NASA manages the Flight Opportunities Program manifest, matching
payloads with flights, and will pay for payload integration and the
flight costs for the selected payloads. No funds are provided for the
development of these payloads. Other suborbital flight vendors on
contract to NASA will provide flights after they have successfully
flown their qualifying vehicles.

The Flight Opportunities Program, part of NASA's Space Technology
Program, is managed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in
Edwards, Calif. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.
manages the payload activities for the program.

GENERAL SPACE CAPABILITY INTEGRAL TO ALL MILITARY OPERATIONS

The following excerpt is from a Department of Defense American Forces Press Service e-mail:
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, March 23, 2012 - Space capabilities have become integral to all military operations, the commander of Air Force Space Command told reporters here during a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday.
"It's hard to imagine what life was like before we had ... GPS providing very accurate targeting capability, military satellite communications providing all the reach-back that's needed, [and] missile warning providing cover for our deployed forces," Air Force Gen. William L. Shelton said.

The Air Force launched and maintains the 24 satellites that make up the GPS navigation system. The all-weather, 24-hour system was intended for military use, but in 1983 President Ronald Reagan made it freely available to civilians, for the public good, after a Korean Air Lines flight carrying 269 people was shot down for straying into Soviet airspace.

The first GPS satellite was launched in 1989, and the 24th in 1994. In 2000, Congress authorized a modernization effort called GPS-III that will improve position, navigation and timing services and add advanced anti-jam capabilities to the constellation.
"The biggest concern is that GPS's signal is a very weak [one]," Shelton said. "It's a spread-spectrum signal, and it is not difficult to jam. ... In fact, you can buy [a GPS jammer] online, and we're starting to see even criminal elements use GPS jamming to cover their tracks. The game afoot here is to continue to drive a no-kidding adversary to higher powers of their jammers. Once you get to a significant power level, those are called targets."

The Air Force is cranking up power on the satellites to force adversaries to use higher-power jammers that can then be found and targeted, Shelton said.
"One of the design features of GPS-III is higher power," Shelton said, "and we also can do some things with antenna technology and the way we operate our platforms to protect ourselves from jamming."
For the Air Force satellite effort, space launch -- getting satellites from Earth to orbit -- is truly foundational, Shelton said. In 2011, the Defense Department and intelligence community succeeded in all 49 attempts to launch evolved expendable launch vehicles, or EELVs, that carried satellites into orbit.
The Air Force EELV program, replacing the existing launch fleet with two families of vehicles that use common components and infrastructure, seeks to make space launch more reliable and affordable, the general explained.

United Launch Alliance, which Shelton called "the only supplier of the full gamut of launch capabilities," now handles space launches for the Defense Department, NASA, and the intelligence community -- including the National Reconnaissance Office, the government agency that designs, builds, launches and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites.
ULA, formed in 2006, is a joint venture by Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Co. that uses Atlas V and Delta II and Delta IV launch vehicles to support strategic U.S. space initiatives.

"We are very proud of our success record in the launch business, unprecedented in the history of space flight, ... but at the same time, with costs spiraling like they are, we have to take action to reduce the cost," Shelton said.
One action, he said, is to ask ULA to come in with priced options for booster cores, or rocket stages, over three to five years. "Somewhere in there," the general added, "we believe there will be a sweet spot for us."
The other action, Shelton said, is to use commercial services whenever possible, citing military use of wideband communications as an example.
"If all I'm concerned about is volumes of data moving around in space and ultimately down on the ground, commercial space knows how to do that very well and very economically," he explained. "If you look at the bandwidth coming back from Afghanistan, somewhere in the 70 percent to 80 percent range is commercial satellite communications. We've already proven in warfare that we can rely on commercial satellite communication."
But the services must be assured of worldwide capability, the general said.

"If you tell me where I'm going to fight, it's easy," Shelton said. "But if I have to protect the capability to fight anywhere, any time, can I do it commercially, or do I have to have a dedicated military capability to do that? Those are all the kinds of things we are exploring with the commercial community."

Using commercial space launch services for national security satellite launches is not an option today, he said, because the capability doesn't yet exist in the commercial world.
"A national security payload on top of a commercial asset has to be a proven capability," Shelton said. "When you're talking $1 billion for a satellite, as well as the national security capability that satellite represents, as well as how long it would take you to get replacement capability for that, you just don't want to take the risk."

Two U.S. commercial space companies, Orbital Sciences Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., have the potential to launch national security assets.
Orbital, based in Virginia, has delivered or had under contract 1,000 satellites, launch vehicles and other space-related systems since 1982. The company says it provides full-service engineering, production and technical services for NASA, DOD and commercial and academic space programs, and is supplying commercial cargo resupply services for the International Space Station.

SpaceX, established in 2002, reports that it has developed two new launch vehicles; has a manifest for light, medium and heavy-lift space launches into 2017; and has received commercial off-the-shelf funding from NASA to demonstrate delivery and return of cargo to the space station.

Shelton said the Air Force distributed a step-by-step guide to certification for national security launches in October. Commercial companies, he said, "just need to give us adequate insight to [their history of] commercial missions so we can assure ourselves that no corners were cut, that we understand their process, the reliability of the components [and] their capabilities."

"Once they've proven that with a number of missions," he added, "they'll be ready to go."

MESSIER 9 STAR CLUSTER

This photo and excerpt are from the NASA website:
The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most detailed image so far of Messier 9, a globular star cluster located close to the center of the galaxy. This ball of stars is too faint to see with the naked eye, yet Hubble can see over 250,000 individual stars shining in it. Messier 9, pictured here, is a globular cluster, a roughly spherical swarm of stars that lies around 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of the Milky Way, so close that the gravitational forces from the galactic center pull it slightly out of shape. Globular clusters are thought to harbor some of the oldest stars in our galaxy, born when the universe was just a small fraction of its current age. As well as being far older than the sun -- around twice its age -- the stars of Messier 9 also have a markedly different composition, and are enriched with far fewer heavier elements than the sun. In particular, the elements crucial to life on Earth, like oxygen and carbon, and the iron that makes up our planet’s core, are very scarce in Messier 9 and clusters like it. This is because the universe’s heavier elements were gradually formed in the cores of stars, and in supernova explosions. When the stars of Messier 9 formed, there were far smaller quantities of these elements in existence. As well as showing the individual stars, Hubble’s image clearly shows the different colors of the stars. A star’s color is directly related to its temperature -- counter-intuitively, perhaps, the redder it is, the cooler it is; and the bluer it is, the hotter. The wide range of stellar temperatures here is clearly displayed by the broad palette of colors visible in this image. Image Credit: NASA and ESA

VIEW OF SATURN'S MOON ENCELADUS

The photo and following  excerpt is from the NASA website:
Below a darkened Enceladus, a plume of water ice is backlit in this view of one of Saturn's most dramatic moons. Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice from many locations along the moon's famed "tiger stripes" near the south pole of Enceladus. The tiger stripes are fissures that spray icy particles, water vapor and organic compounds. The terrain seen here is on the leading hemisphere of Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across). North is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 20, 2012. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 83,000 miles (134,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 165 degrees. Image scale is 2,628 feet (801 meters) per pixel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

NASA SEARCHING FOR PROPOSALS FOR HEAVY- LIFT ROCKET

The following excerpt is from the NASA website: 

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, 
Ala., has issued a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for advanced 
development proposals to support the nation's next heavy-lift rocket, 
the Space Launch System (SLS). 

NASA is soliciting proposals from industry and academia for innovative 
advanced development in areas including concept development, trades 
and analyses, propulsion, structures, materials, manufacturing, 
avionics and software. These efforts will focus on affordability and 
sustainability of the SLS as it evolves from a 70-metric-ton vehicle 
to a 130-metric-ton vehicle. 

"We look forward to hearing from both industry and academia on 
advanced development solutions that will enable the full capability 
of the evolved Space Launch System," said Mindy Niedermeyer, the 
evaluation team chair. "It's an exciting time for NASA. These 
solutions will create entirely new developments in space technology, 
taking humans farther in space than ever before." 

NASA anticipates making multiple awards in response to this 
solicitation with approximately $48 million in total funding. Of this 
total amount, the funding anticipated for the base year (Fiscal Year 
2013) is $22 million, with $14.5 million for the first year option 
(Fiscal Year 2014), and $11.5 million for the second year option 
(Fiscal Year 15). Total funding to be allocated to academic awards 
for this NRA is approximately $1.5 million per year. Individual 
academic awards are expected to be valued up to $250,000 per year. 
The deadline to submit proposals is May 15, 2012. 

MARS ROVER AS SEEN BY ITSELF

This self portrait from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows dust accumulation on the rover's solar panels as the mission approached its fifth Martian winter. The dust reduces the rover's power supply, and the rover's mobility is limited until the winter is over or wind cleans the panels. This is a mosaic of images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) during the 2,111th to 2,814th Martian days, or sols, of the rover's mission (Dec. 21 to Dec. 24, 2011). The downward-looking view omits the mast on which the camera is mounted. The portrait is presented in approximate true color, the camera team's best estimate of what the scene would look like if humans were there and able to see it with their own eyes. Opportunity has worked through four Martian southern hemisphere winters since it landed in in January 2004 about 14 miles (23 kilometers) northwest of its current location. Closer to the equator than its twin rover, Spirit, Opportunity has not needed to stay on a sun-facing slope during the previous winters. Now, however, Opportunity's solar panels carry a thicker coating of dust, and the team is using a strategy employed for three winters with Spirit: staying on a sun-facing slope. The sun will pass relatively low in the northern sky from the rover's perspective for several months of shortened daylight before and after the southern Mars winter solstice on March 30, 2012. Opportunity is conducting research while located on the north-facing slope of a site called "Greeley Haven." Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.
The above excerpt and photo are from the NASA website:

AN OLD SOL FLARES UP

The photo and excerpt are from the NASA website:
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured this image of an M7.9 class flare on March 13, 2012 at 1:29 p.m. EDT. It is shown here in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, a wavelength particularly good for seeing solar flares and a wavelength that is typically colorized in teal. The flare peaked at 1:41 p.m. EDT. It was from the same active region, No. 1429, that produced flares and coronal mass ejections the entire week. The region has been moving across the face of the sun since March 2, and will soon rotate out of Earth view. A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and last from mere minutes to several hours. Scientists classify solar flares according to their x-ray brightness. There are 3 categories: X-, M- and C-class. X-class flares are the largest of these events. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions. Compared to X- and M-class, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences on Earth. Image Credit: NASA/SDO

STUDENTS OFFERED CHANCE TO DESIGN DEEP SPACE HABITAT

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

HOUSTON -- NASA is offering college and university students a chance 
to help design a deep space habitat. The Exploration Habitat (X-Hab) 
Academic Innovation Challenge is accepting applications for the 2013 
challenge, inviting students to design, manufacture, assemble and 
test systems for use on NASA's deep space habitat prototype. 

Past projects have included an inflatable loft for crew sleeping 
quarters, plant growth systems and sample handling tools. This year, 
students in multiple disciplines can choose projects from a variety 
of possibilities, including photovoltaic solar arrays, a workstation 
to support human-robotic collaboration or a telepresence and holodeck 
conceptual system. Students will work together on potential solutions 
to needs future astronauts might have living and working outside 
Earth. 

"Students will play a vital role in our critical early system planning 
and development," said Alvin Drew, a NASA astronaut and habitat 
systems project manager at the agency's Johnson Space Center in 
Houston. "Their designs could become the basis for the concepts and 
technologies that will make up the habitat we eventually send to 
space." 

The X-Hab Challenge is part of a continuing effort to engage and 
retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, 
or STEM, and provide a real-world challenge exposing them to 
engineering and design processes. NASA will directly benefit from the 
development of innovative habitation-related concepts and 
technologies that could be applied to future missions. 

The challenge is run by the National Space Grant Foundation for the 
deep space habitat project team at Johnson, which is part of NASA's 
Advanced Exploration Systems Program. The goal of for the X-Hab 
Challenge is to help NASA inspire the STEM workforce of the future 
and the next generation of explorers. Winners will receive between 
$10,000 and $49,000 to produce functional products based on their 
designs. Proposals are due May 2, 2012, and awardees should expect to 
deliver their product to Johnson in May or June 2013. 

SPACE ROBOTS

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment aboard
the International Space Station has demonstrated remotely controlled
robots and specialized tools can perform precise satellite-servicing
tasks in space. The project marks a milestone in the use of the space
station as a technology test bed.

"We and our partners are making important technological
breakthroughs," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "As we move
ahead toward reaching our exploration goals, we will realize even
more benefits from humans and robots working together in space."

The Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) robotic handyman, Dextre,
successfully completed the tasks March 7-9 on the space station's
external RRM module, designed to demonstrate the tools, technologies
and techniques needed to robotically refuel and repair satellites.

"The Hubble servicing missions taught us the importance and value of
getting innovative, cutting-edge technologies to orbit quickly to
deliver great results," said Frank Cepollina, a veteran leader of
five Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions and associate director
of the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The impact of the
space station as a useful technology test bed cannot be overstated.
Fresh satellite-servicing technologies will be demonstrated in a real
space environment within months instead of years. This is huge. It
represents real progress in space technology advancement."

Before a satellite leaves the ground, technicians fill its fuel tank
through a valve that is sealed, covered and designed never to be
accessed again. The RRM experiment demonstrates a remote-controlled
robot can remove these barriers and refuel such satellites in space.

Dextre successfully retrieved and inspected RRM tools, released safety
launch locks on tool adapters, and used an RRM tool to cut extremely
thin satellite lock wire. These operations represent the first use of
RRM tools in orbit and Dextre's first participation in a research and
development project.

RRM was developed by SSCO and is a joint effort between NASA and CSA.
During the next two years, RRM and Dextre will conduct several
servicing tasks using RRM tools on satellite parts and interfaces
inside and covering the cube-shaped RRM module.

NASA expects the RRM results to reduce the risks associated with
satellite servicing. It will encourage future robotic servicing
missions by laying the foundation for them. Such future missions
could include the repair, refueling and repositioning of orbiting
satellites.

"We are especially grateful to CSA for their collaboration on this
venture," Cepollina said. "CSA has played a pivotal role in the
development of space robotics, from the early days of the space
shuttle to the work they are doing with Dextre on space station."

During the three-day RRM Gas Fittings Removal task, the 12-foot
(3.7-meter) Dextre performed the most intricate task ever attempted
by a space robot: cutting two separate "lock wires" 20 thousandths of
an inch (0.5 millimeters) in diameter using the RRM Wire Cutter Tool
(WCT). Deftly maneuvered by ground-based mission operators and
Dextre, the WCT smoothly slid its hook under the individual wires and
severed them with only a few millimeters of clearance. This
wire-cutting activity is a prerequisite to removing and servicing
various satellite parts during any future in-orbit missions.

RRM operations are scheduled to resume in May 2012 with the completion
of the gas fittings removal task. The RRM Refueling task is scheduled
for later this summer. NASA and CSA will present RRM results at the
Second International Workshop on on-Orbit Servicing, hosted by
Goddard May 30-31, 2012.

Dextre and RRM are an example of how robots are changing operations in
space. Another is Robonaut 2, or R2, a project of NASA and General
Motors. R2, the first human-like robot, was launched into space in
2011 and is a permanent resident of the International Space Station.

OFF WORLD ASTRONAUTS SEEK TO CONTROL EARTH ROBOTS FROM SPACE

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- This semester, Academy of Art University
Industrial Design students will collaborate with the NASA Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. to design a user interface
that will allow future astronauts in space to remotely operate a
robot on Earth. A number of thesis level students have been chosen
and will use a variety of design skills to complete the project,
including storyboarding, task analysis, ideation, brainstorming,
sketching and rendering. The students’ work will be used to create
the user interface elements, including icons wireframes and glyphs.
Simultaneously the team is identifying opportunities for additional
design disciplines to be integrated into the experience. Already the
team is starting conceptual work on interior architecture, product
design, and apparel.

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for students to contribute
to our country's innovative space program," said Dr. Elisa Stephens,
President of Academy of Art University. “We are constantly looking
for hands-on learning opportunities for our students so that while
they are in school, they get the real-world experience that will
prepare them for a career in their industry of choice. We are
grateful to NASA for working with us and are excited to see students
contribute to our nation’s space program."

The NASA project will require students to create storyboards that show
how astronauts in space can perform work on the ground using robots.
The students will also develop sketches and paper prototypes,
emphasizing graphical elements and other highly usable displays for
the astronauts. A group of NASA scientists will be present at the
Academy of Art University classes to work with the students and
students will also have an opportunity to visit NASA Ames during the
semester.

"Operating a robot is extremely complex and these designs we've tasked
the students with developing require both an in-depth knowledge of
engineering – and the advanced creative skills necessary to make
these designs user friendly for the astronauts,” said Dr. Terry Fong,
Director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames. “The final
products from the students will play a big role in how we think about
future astronaut-centered robotics, and we are grateful to the
Academy of Art for collaborating with us to explore the design space
in new ways."

Future human missions to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations offer
many new opportunities for exploration. With the limited amount of
work that astronauts can do from space, robots complement human
explorers by performing work on the ground under remote control from
spacecraft in orbit. Robots can perform tasks that are tedious,
highly repetitive or long-duration and beyond human capability.

In Summer 2013, NASA will perform an experiment in which astronauts on
the International Space Station remotely operate the "K10" mobile
robot on Earth. The astronauts will use K10 to layout a simulated
radio telescope on an outdoor terrain at the NASA Ames Research
Center. This work will require capturing images with the robot's
cameras and making measurements with other robot-mounted instruments.
The student designs will help NASA plan this and carry out this
engineering test.

NASA OFFERS NEW VIEW OF ORION NEBULA

The photo and excerpt below are from the NASA website:
This new view of the Orion Nebula highlights fledgling stars hidden in the gas and clouds. It shows infrared observations taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Herschel mission, in which NASA plays an important role. Stars form as clumps of this gas and dust collapses, creating warm globs of material fed by an encircling disk. These dusty envelopes glow brightest at longer wavelengths, appearing as red dots in this image. In several hundred thousand years, some of the forming stars will accrete enough material to trigger nuclear fusion at their cores and then blaze into stardom. Spitzer is designed to see shorter infrared wavelengths than Herschel. By combining their observations, astronomers get a more complete picture of star formation. The colors in this image relate to the different wavelengths of light, and to the temperature of material, mostly dust, in this region of Orion. Data from Spitzer show warmer objects in blue, with progressively cooler dust appearing green and red in the Herschel datasets. The more evolved, hotter embryonic stars thus appear in blue. Infrared data at wavelengths of 8.0 and 24 microns from Spitzer are rendered in blue. Herschel data with wavelengths of 70 and 160 microns are represented in green and red, respectively. This image was released on Feb. 29, 2012. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/IRAM