The International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Sunday, March 31, 2013
ISON: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND
FROM: NASA
Comet ISON's Trek Around the Sun
Comet ISON is now approaching the inner solar system. Discovered last year, the comet remains unusually active for its distance from the sun. If current trends continue, ISON could rank as one of the brightest comets in decades when it makes its close approach to the sun in late November. This animation shows the comet's approach and departure from the inner solar system from various perspectives. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Saturday, March 30, 2013
SPACEX DRAGON DELIVERS RESEARCH BACK TO EARTH
FROM: NASA
SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft Returns Critical NASA Science to Earth
WASHINGTON -- A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft successfully completed the company's second cargo flight to the International Space Station on Tuesday, March 26, with a 12:36 p.m. EDT splashdown in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico.
"The scientific research delivered and being returned by Dragon enables advances in every aspect of NASA's diverse space station science portfolio, including human research, biology and physical sciences," said Julie Robinson, International Space Station Program scientist. "There are more than 200 active investigations underway aboard our orbiting laboratory in space. The scientific community has eagerly awaited the return of today's Dragon to see what new insights the returned samples and investigations it carries will unveil."
Science being conducted aboard the space station includes research on physical and biological processes that cannot be done anywhere else, applied research to improve lives on Earth, and exploration research to help humans move safely beyond Earth orbit.
A boat will take the Dragon capsule 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. This includes a freezer packed with research samples collected in the space station's unique microgravity environment. The remainder of the cargo will be returned to Texas with the capsule.
Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return a significant amount of cargo to Earth. The spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on March 1, carrying about 1,268 pounds (575 kilograms) of supplies and investigations. It returned about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of science samples, equipment and education activities.
Investigations included among the returned cargo could aid in food production during future long-duration space missions and enhance crop production on Earth. Others could help in the development of more efficient solar cells, detergents and semiconductor-based electronics.
Among the returned investigations was the Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures (CSLM-3) experiment, which also launched to space aboard this Dragon. CLSM-3 studies how crystals known as dendrites form as a metal alloy becomes solid. The research could help engineers develop stronger materials for use in automobile, aircraft and spacecraft parts.
Dragon also is returning several human research samples that will help scientists continue to examine how the human body reacts to long-term spaceflight. The results will have implications for future space exploration and direct benefits here on Earth.
The mission was the second of at least 12 cargo resupply trips SpaceX plans to make to the space station through 2016 under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.
SpaceX is one of two companies to build and test new cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the other company participating in COTS. A demonstration flight of Orbital's Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft to the station is planned for later this year.
NASA initiatives such as COTS and the agency's Commercial Crew Program are helping develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low Earth orbit. In addition to cargo flights, NASA's commercial space partners are making progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next few years.
While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop and advance these commercial spaceflight capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. 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 in the solar system.
SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft Returns Critical NASA Science to Earth
WASHINGTON -- A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft successfully completed the company's second cargo flight to the International Space Station on Tuesday, March 26, with a 12:36 p.m. EDT splashdown in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico.
"The scientific research delivered and being returned by Dragon enables advances in every aspect of NASA's diverse space station science portfolio, including human research, biology and physical sciences," said Julie Robinson, International Space Station Program scientist. "There are more than 200 active investigations underway aboard our orbiting laboratory in space. The scientific community has eagerly awaited the return of today's Dragon to see what new insights the returned samples and investigations it carries will unveil."
Science being conducted aboard the space station includes research on physical and biological processes that cannot be done anywhere else, applied research to improve lives on Earth, and exploration research to help humans move safely beyond Earth orbit.
A boat will take the Dragon capsule 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. This includes a freezer packed with research samples collected in the space station's unique microgravity environment. The remainder of the cargo will be returned to Texas with the capsule.
Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return a significant amount of cargo to Earth. The spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on March 1, carrying about 1,268 pounds (575 kilograms) of supplies and investigations. It returned about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of science samples, equipment and education activities.
Investigations included among the returned cargo could aid in food production during future long-duration space missions and enhance crop production on Earth. Others could help in the development of more efficient solar cells, detergents and semiconductor-based electronics.
Among the returned investigations was the Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures (CSLM-3) experiment, which also launched to space aboard this Dragon. CLSM-3 studies how crystals known as dendrites form as a metal alloy becomes solid. The research could help engineers develop stronger materials for use in automobile, aircraft and spacecraft parts.
Dragon also is returning several human research samples that will help scientists continue to examine how the human body reacts to long-term spaceflight. The results will have implications for future space exploration and direct benefits here on Earth.
The mission was the second of at least 12 cargo resupply trips SpaceX plans to make to the space station through 2016 under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.
SpaceX is one of two companies to build and test new cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the other company participating in COTS. A demonstration flight of Orbital's Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft to the station is planned for later this year.
NASA initiatives such as COTS and the agency's Commercial Crew Program are helping develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low Earth orbit. In addition to cargo flights, NASA's commercial space partners are making progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next few years.
While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop and advance these commercial spaceflight capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. 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 in the solar system.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
AIRCRAFT TO SURVEY POLAR ICE
FROM: NASA
P-3B Starts the Day
On March 21, 2013, the P-3B waits outside the hangar at Thule Air Base with the Greenland Ice sheet in the background.
IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown. It will yield an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. These flights will provide a yearly, multi-instrument look at the behavior of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and Antarctic ice.
Data collected during IceBridge will help scientists bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) -- in orbit since 2003 -- and ICESat-2, planned for early 2016. ICESat stopped collecting science data in 2009, making IceBridge critical for ensuring a continuous series of observations.
IceBridge will use airborne instruments to map Arctic and Antarctic areas once a year. IceBridge flights are conducted in March-May over Greenland and in October-November over Antarctica. Other smaller airborne surveys around the world are also part of the IceBridge campaign.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Michael Studinger
Saturday, March 23, 2013
STATE DEPARTMENT REMARKS ON U.S.-INDIA SPACE COOPERATION
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
U.S.-India Space Cooperation
Remarks
Geoffrey Pyatt
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
U.S.-India Civil Space Joint Working Group
Washington, DC
March 21, 2013
Good morning everyone. It’s an enormous privilege to welcome Administrator Bolden, Ambassador Rao, the Indian delegation, and our colleagues from the Indian Embassy, NASA, NOAA, and the State Department here in Washington to this Joint Working Group.
The United States and India are leaders in earth observation. We’re excited to see how this working group can build on joint activities using U.S. and Indian earth observation satellites to better understand earth systems and provide information to improve economies and lives.
We also should seek to increase our commercial space cooperation and create opportunities for U.S. and Indian companies.
And our very capable space science communities have much to offer each other through collaboration. India’s first Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, slated for October 2013, is an exciting opportunity for U.S.-India collaboration.
Being here at this working group this morning is a particular pleasure for me, as I’ve been working for many years on helping make this sort of cooperation possible. Thanks to visionary, bipartisan U.S. and Indian leadership, we’ve recognized how much we have to offer each other and have made great strides in the past decade in bringing our scientific and technical communities together.
The hard work on both sides in transforming our interactions with each other has allowed successes such as including U.S. instruments on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission -- a path-finding step to show our two systems how to work together, as well as a fruitful scientific endeavor pointing out the promise of this cooperation. More recently, the removal of ISRO subordinate entities from the Entity List at the 2011 Civil Space Joint Working Group meeting and additional measures taken since have further expanded the possibilities for trade and cooperation in civil space.
In January, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes satellite export reform measures expected to expedite trade in space technology.
U.S.-India science and technology builds on a relationship that is robust and vibrant. The U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund, established in 2009 and with an annual budget of $2 to $3 million, is a landmark in our belief to work together to promote commercialization of innovative technologies.
This collaboration on innovation across a wide range of disciplines is generating new jobs for our people and helping to address many of the globe’s big challenges.
Our space cooperation has become a signature aspect of this science, technology, and innovation cooperation, highlighting both the constancy of our mutual respect and appreciation for each others’ capabilities through the decades, as well as the vast potential – dare I say universal? -- opened up by the changes in our relationship.
I congratulate all of you – the experts and practitioners from both our countries – for your participation in building closer ties in space exploration, space science, earth observation, and launch and ensuring the safety and security of outer space activities. I know your efforts this week will further the cooperation that expands our collective knowledge, brings practical benefits to our citizens, and helps us plan for our future. I wish you all the best in this meeting of the Civil Space Joint Working Group.
U.S.-India Space Cooperation
Remarks
Geoffrey Pyatt
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
U.S.-India Civil Space Joint Working Group
Washington, DC
March 21, 2013
Good morning everyone. It’s an enormous privilege to welcome Administrator Bolden, Ambassador Rao, the Indian delegation, and our colleagues from the Indian Embassy, NASA, NOAA, and the State Department here in Washington to this Joint Working Group.
The United States and India are leaders in earth observation. We’re excited to see how this working group can build on joint activities using U.S. and Indian earth observation satellites to better understand earth systems and provide information to improve economies and lives.
We also should seek to increase our commercial space cooperation and create opportunities for U.S. and Indian companies.
And our very capable space science communities have much to offer each other through collaboration. India’s first Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, slated for October 2013, is an exciting opportunity for U.S.-India collaboration.
Being here at this working group this morning is a particular pleasure for me, as I’ve been working for many years on helping make this sort of cooperation possible. Thanks to visionary, bipartisan U.S. and Indian leadership, we’ve recognized how much we have to offer each other and have made great strides in the past decade in bringing our scientific and technical communities together.
The hard work on both sides in transforming our interactions with each other has allowed successes such as including U.S. instruments on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission -- a path-finding step to show our two systems how to work together, as well as a fruitful scientific endeavor pointing out the promise of this cooperation. More recently, the removal of ISRO subordinate entities from the Entity List at the 2011 Civil Space Joint Working Group meeting and additional measures taken since have further expanded the possibilities for trade and cooperation in civil space.
In January, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes satellite export reform measures expected to expedite trade in space technology.
U.S.-India science and technology builds on a relationship that is robust and vibrant. The U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund, established in 2009 and with an annual budget of $2 to $3 million, is a landmark in our belief to work together to promote commercialization of innovative technologies.
This collaboration on innovation across a wide range of disciplines is generating new jobs for our people and helping to address many of the globe’s big challenges.
Our space cooperation has become a signature aspect of this science, technology, and innovation cooperation, highlighting both the constancy of our mutual respect and appreciation for each others’ capabilities through the decades, as well as the vast potential – dare I say universal? -- opened up by the changes in our relationship.
I congratulate all of you – the experts and practitioners from both our countries – for your participation in building closer ties in space exploration, space science, earth observation, and launch and ensuring the safety and security of outer space activities. I know your efforts this week will further the cooperation that expands our collective knowledge, brings practical benefits to our citizens, and helps us plan for our future. I wish you all the best in this meeting of the Civil Space Joint Working Group.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE ON MARS
 |
| Credit: NASA, JPL, Caltech. |
NASA Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars
WASHINGTON -- An analysis of a rock sample collected by NASA's Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes.
Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- some of the key chemical ingredients for life -- in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month.
"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."
Clues to this habitable environment come from data returned by the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments. The data indicate the Yellowknife Bay area the rover is exploring was the end of an ancient river system or an intermittently wet lake bed that could have provided chemical energy and other favorable conditions for microbes. The rock is made up of a fine grain mudstone containing clay minerals, sulfate minerals and other chemicals. This ancient wet environment, unlike some others on Mars, was not harshly oxidizing, acidic, or extremely salty.
The patch of bedrock where Curiosity drilled for its first sample lies in an ancient network of stream channels descending from the rim of Gale Crater. The bedrock also is fine-grained mudstone and shows evidence of multiple periods of wet conditions, including nodules and veins.
Curiosity's drill collected the sample at a site just a few hundred yards away from where the rover earlier found an ancient streambed in September 2012.
"Clay minerals make up at least 20 percent of the composition of this sample," said David Blake, principal investigator for the CheMin instrument at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
These clay minerals are a product of the reaction of relatively fresh water with igneous minerals, such as olivine, also present in the sediment. The reaction could have taken place within the sedimentary deposit, during transport of the sediment, or in the source region of the sediment. The presence of calcium sulfate along with the clay suggests the soil is neutral or mildly alkaline.
Scientists were surprised to find a mixture of oxidized, less-oxidized, and even non-oxidized chemicals providing an energy gradient of the sort many microbes on Earth exploit to live. This partial oxidation was first hinted at when the drill cuttings were revealed to be gray rather than red.
"The range of chemical ingredients we have identified in the sample is impressive, and it suggests pairings such as sulfates and sulfides that indicate a possible chemical energy source for micro-organisms," said Paul Mahaffy, principal investigator of the SAM suite of instruments at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
An additional drilled sample will be used to help confirm these results for several of the trace gases analyzed by the SAM instrument.
"We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new 'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life," said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Curiosity is on a mission of discovery and exploration, and as a team we feel there are many more exciting discoveries ahead of us in the months and years to come."
Scientists plan to work with Curiosity in the Yellowknife Bay area for many more weeks before beginning a long drive to Gale Crater's central mound, Mount Sharp. Investigating the stack of layers exposed on Mount Sharp, where clay minerals and sulfate minerals have been identified from orbit, may add information about the duration and diversity of habitable conditions.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project has been using Curiosity to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale Crater ever has offered an environment favorable for microbial life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed seven months ago to begin its two-year prime mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
THE GULLYS OF MARS
Landforms on Mars
This image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) flying onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.
Gully landforms like those in this image are found in many craters in the mid-latitudes of Mars. Changes in gullies were first seen in images from the Mars Orbiter Camera in 2006, and studying such activity has been a high priority for HiRISE. Many examples of new deposits in gullies are now known.
This image shows a new deposit in Gasa Crater, in the Southern mid-latitudes. The deposit is distinctively blue in enhanced-color images. This image was acquired in southern spring, but the flow that formed the deposit occurred in the preceding winter.
Current gully activity appears to be concentrated in winter and early spring, and may be caused by the seasonal carbon dioxide frost that is visible in gully alcoves in the winter.
Written by: Colin Dundas
Image Credit-- NASA-JPL-University of Arizona
Friday, March 15, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
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