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ATHLETE Rover Steps Up to Long Desert Trek
The ATHLETE rover, currently under development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is in the Arizona desert this month to participate in NASA's Research and Technology Studies, also known as Desert RATS. The desert tests offer a chance for a NASA-led team of engineers, astronauts and scientists from across the country to test concepts for future missions. To see a video of ATHLETE at the 2010 Desert RATS visit: NASA will demonstrate a variety of hardware during this year's test, including: -- All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorers (ATHLETE): two heavy-lift rover platforms that allow a habitat, or other large items, to go where the action is. -- Space Exploration Vehicles: two rovers astronauts could live in for seven days at a time. -- Habitat Demonstration Unit/Pressurized Excursion Module: a simulated habitat where the rovers can dock to allow the crew room to perform experiments or deal with medical issues. -- Portable Communications Terminal: a rapidly deployable communications station. -- Centaur 2: a four-wheeled possible transportation method for NASA Robonaut 2. -- Portable Utility Pallets: mobile charging stations for equipment. -- A suite of new geology sample collection tools, including a self-contained GeoLab glove box for conducting in-field analysis of various collected rock samples. The public was involved in test preparation by helping NASA decide what areas should be explored. NASA posted several possibilities online and allowed members of the public to vote on the most promising locations. Several thousand ballots were cast and 67 percent favored a location that appeared to be home of several overlapping lava flows. NASA centers involved in the Desert RATS tests include Johnson Space Center in Houston; Langley Research Center in Va.; JPL; Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Kennedy Space Center in Florida; Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland; Glenn Research Center in Cleveland; Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama; and NASA Headquarters in Washington. In addition, professors and students from various universities, as well as the Canadian Space Agency, are participating in the Desert RATS field tests. For more information about NASA's field tests and to follow Desert RATS on various social media sites, visit: Follow the Desert RATS tests on Twitter at: NASA and ATK Successfully Test Five-Segment Solid Rocket Motor PROMONTORY, Utah -- With a loud roar and mighty column of flame, NASA and ATK Aerospace Systems successfully completed a two-minute, full-scale test of the largest and most powerful solid rocket motor designed for flight. The motor is potentially transferable to future heavy-lift launch vehicle designs. The stationary firing of the first-stage development solid rocket motor, dubbed DM-2, was the most heavily instrumented solid rocket motor test in NASA history. More than 760 instruments measured 53 test objectives. Prior to the static test, the solid rocket motor was cooled to 40 degrees Fahrenheit to verify the performance of new materials and assess motor performance at low temperatures during the full-duration test. Initial test data showed the motor performance met all expectations. "For every few degrees the temperature rises, solid propellant burns slightly faster and only through robust ground testing can we understand how material and motor performance is impacted by different operating conditions," said Alex Priskos, first stage manager for Ares Projects at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "Ground-testing at temperature extremes pushes this system to its limits, which advances our understanding of five-segment solid rocket motor performance." The first-stage solid rocket motor is designed to generate up to 3.6-million pounds of thrust at launch. Information collected from this test, together with data from the first development motor test last year, will be evaluated to better understand the performance and reliability of the design. Although similar to the solid rocket boosters that help power the space shuttle to orbit, the five-segment development motor includes several upgrades and technology improvements implemented by NASA and ATK engineers. Motor upgrades from a shuttle booster include the addition of a fifth segment, a larger nozzle throat, and upgraded insulation and liner. The motor cases are flight-proven hardware used on shuttle launches for more than three decades. The cases used in this ground test have collectively launched 48 previous missions, including STS-1, the first shuttle flight. After more testing, the first-stage solid rocket motor will be certified to fly at temperature ranges between 40-90 degrees Fahrenheit. The solid rocket motor was built as an element of NASA's Constellation Program and is managed by the Ares Projects Office at Marshall. ATK Aerospace Systems, a division of Alliant Techsystems of Brigham City, Utah, is the prime contractor. NASA's First Twins to Fly in Space Together
Growing up in West Orange, N.J., twin brothers Mark and Scott Kelly were very close and they shared a lot. They were co-captains on their high school swim team, had the same AP Biology class, and worked at some of the same jobs. Now, the two astronauts will share a different "space" as they are scheduled to meet early next year and become the first siblings to be in space together. "It's something that I think we both consider would be really neat if it happened, but having the privilege of flying in space, without flying together is just an incredible opportunity and I always thought it'd be great if it happened," Scott said. Scott will launch to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 7. (Oct. 8. local time). Mark will command the last scheduled space shuttle flight, STS-134, in February 2011. If the launch schedule holds, the pair will be working together in orbit for eight days before the shuttle undocks and returns to Earth. With all their similarities, like most siblings, they had their differences too. Scott was a Mets fan and Mark liked the Yankees. Often, the sibling rivalry didn't stop at sports. "Pretty much every day we would get into fist fights, so it was tough for my mom. She'd try to break 'em up, then some of the fights would last hours and hours," Mark said. After graduating from Mountain High School in 1982, Mark and Scott took on somewhat different paths. Scott went to the State University of New York Maritime College, and Mark to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Both became U.S. Navy captains and later came back together as a part of the same Test Pilot School class. Following Test Pilot School, Mark and Scott both applied for the astronaut program. In 1996, they were selected in the same Astronaut Corps class. As NASA astronauts for more than a decade now, the Kelly brothers have ventured beyond this planet. Scott has flown on two prior shuttle missions: as pilot of STS-103 in 1999 and as commander of STS-118 in 2007. Mark is a veteran of three prior shuttle missions: as pilot of STS-108 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006, and as commander of STS-124 in 2008. With only one pilot and one commander needed on a space shuttle, Mark and Scott never imagined the possibility of being in space at the same time. "It's going to be a lot of fun, but these missions are really complicated. All of us have to work together," Mark said. "To make sure this thing gets executed correctly with nobody getting hurt and everything getting accomplished." Mark will be delivering supplies and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the station. AMS is a device to study the universe's origin by searching for the antimatter, dark matter, strange matter and measuring cosmic rays. Scott will serve as the flight engineer for Expedition 25 and commander for Expedition 26 during his six-month-long mission aboard the complex. When the twins meet in space next year they will make history as the station opens for shuttle a final time. Follow Mark and Scott on Twitter as they share their experience in space together and show there is no limit to where family ties can reach - NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Two Planets Transiting Same Star The transit signatures of two distinct planets were seen in the data for the sun-like star designated Kepler-9. The planets were named Kepler-9b and 9c. The discovery incorporates seven months of observations of more than 156,000 stars as part of an ongoing search for Earth-sized planets outside our solar system. The findings will be published in Thursday's issue of the journal Science. Kepler's ultra-precise camera measures tiny decreases in the stars' brightness that occur when a planet transits them. The size of the planet can be derived from these temporary dips. The distance of the planet from the star can be calculated by measuring the time between successive dips as the planet orbits the star. Small variations in the regularity of these dips can be used to determine the masses of planets and detect other non-transiting planets in the system. In June, mission scientists submitted findings for peer review that identified more than 700 planet candidates in the first 43 days of Kepler data. The data included five additional candidate systems that appear to exhibit more than one transiting planet. The Kepler team recently identified a sixth target exhibiting multiple transits and accumulated enough follow-up data to confirm this multi-planet system. "Kepler's high quality data and round-the-clock coverage of transiting objects enable a whole host of unique measurements to be made of the parent stars and their planetary systems," said Doug Hudgins, the Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Scientists refined the estimates of the masses of the planets using observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The observations show Kepler-9b is the larger of the two planets, and both have masses similar to but less than Saturn. Kepler-9b lies closest to the star with an orbit of about 19 days, while Kepler-9c has an orbit of about 38 days. By observing several transits by each planet over the seven months of data, the time between successive transits could be analyzed. "This discovery is the first clear detection of significant changes in the intervals from one planetary transit to the next, what we call transit timing variations," said Matthew Holman, a Kepler mission scientist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "This is evidence of the gravitational interaction between the two planets as seen by the Kepler spacecraft." In addition to the two confirmed giant planets, Kepler scientists also have identified what appears to be a third, much smaller transit signature in the observations of Kepler-9. That signature is consistent with the transits of a super-Earth-sized planet about 1.5 times the radius of Earth in a scorching, near-sun 1.6 day-orbit. Additional observations are required to determine whether this signal is indeed a planet or an astronomical phenomenon that mimics the appearance of a transit. NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace and 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 the Kepler science data. A Message from Mercury
By Nicole Stott, on August 21st, 2010 This is a picture taken by the MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft, currently just inside the orbit of Mercury at less than 1/3 the distance of Earth from the Sun. It shows the Earth and Moon from 114 million miles away. The Earth and Moon are overexposed to get the star background, but here we are — from far, far away. Pictures like this one always make me think again about our place in the grand scheme of things. The goal of the MESSENGER spacecraft is to learn more about the planet Mercury, but one of the neatest things about this kind of mission is that we always end up learning something more about our own home planet. Exploration is a wonderful thing – whether it’s in low Earth orbit on the ISS or many millions of miles away, we are learning amazing things to help us improve life here on Earth. Mercury is the first rock from the Sun and we know less about it than any of the other planets in our solar system. Like Earth, Mercury is a rocky, terrestrial planet (there are 2 others: Venus and Mars). Closest to our Sun, Mercury has the shortest year and endures more solar radiation than any planet, and its battered surface is perhaps one of the oldest in the solar system. It experiences the largest daily range in temperatures (from daytime hottest at 840 degrees F – hot enough to melt lead, to nights dipping to -350 degrees F – cold enough to turn oxygen from a gas to liquid). Also, discovering how Mercury has sustained a magnetic field while larger bodies either lost theirs (as Mars did) or show no sign of ever having one (like Venus) will help us understand how our own planet generates its protective magnetic field. The picture taken of Earth from the MESSENGER spacecraft is beautiful, but it doesn’t really even hint at how beautifully and perfectly placed our planet Earth is in the solar system to take care of us. When MESSENGER looks at Mercury and discovers new and exciting things about that planet, it will be especially interesting to discover more new and exciting things about our own. How to See the Best Meteor Showers of the Year: Tools, Tips and 'Save the Dates'
There are several major meteor showers to enjoy every year at various times, with some more active than others. For example, April's Lyrids are expected to produce about 15 meteors an hour at their peak for observers viewing in good conditions. Now, if you put the same observer in the same good conditions during a higher-rate shower like August's Perseids or December's Geminids, that person could witness up to 80 meteors an hour during peak activity. Whether you're watching from a downtown area or the dark countryside, here are some tips to help you enjoy these celestial shows of shooting stars. Those streaks of light are really caused by tiny specks of comet-stuff hitting Earth's atmosphere at very high speed and disintegrating in flashes of light. First a word about the moon - it is not the meteor watcher's friend. Light reflecting off a bright moon can be just as detrimental to good meteor viewing as those bright lights of the big city. There is nothing you can do except howl at the moon, so you'll have to put up with it or wait until the next favorable shower. However, even though the 2010 Perseids and Geminids share the night sky with the moon, they are still expected to produce more visible meteor activity than other major showers that don't have an interfering moon. The best thing you can do to maximize the number of meteors you'll see is to get as far away from urban light pollution as possible and find a location with a clear, unclouded view of the night sky. If you enjoy camping, try planning a trip that coincides with dates of one of the meteor showers listed below. Once you get to your viewing location, search for the darkest patch of sky you can find, as meteors can appear anywhere overhead. The meteors will always travel in a path away from the constellation for which the shower is named. This apparent point of origin is called the "radiant." For example, meteors during a Leonid meteor shower will appear to originate from the constellation Leo. (Note: the constellation only serves as a helpful guide in the night's sky. The constellation is not the actual source of the meteors. For an overview of what causes meteor showers click on Meteor Showers: Shooting for Shooting Stars) Whether viewing from your front porch or a mountaintop, be sure to dress for success. This means clothing appropriate for cold overnight temperatures, which might include mittens or gloves, and blankets. This will enable you to settle in without having to abandon the meteor-watching because your fingers are starting to turn colors. Next, bring something comfortable on which to sit or lie down. While Mother Nature can put on a magnificent celestial display, meteor showers rarely approach anything on the scale of a July 4th fireworks show. Plan to be patient and watch for at least half an hour. A reclining chair or ground pad will make it far more comfortable to keep your gaze on the night sky. Lastly, put away the telescope or binoculars. Using either reduces the amount of sky you can see at one time, lowering the odds that you'll see anything but darkness. Instead, let your eyes hang loose and don't look in any one specific spot. Relaxed eyes will quickly zone in on any movement up above, and you'll be able to spot more meteors. Avoid looking at your cell phone or any other light. Both destroy night vision. If you have to look at something on Earth, use a red light. Some flashlights have handy interchangeable filters. If you don't have one of those, you can always paint the clear filter with red fingernail polish. The meteor showers listed below will provide casual meteor observers with the most bang for their buck. They are the easiest to observe and most active. All these showers are best enjoyed in the hours after midnight. Be sure to also check the "Related Links" box for additional information, and for tools to help you determine how many meteors may be visible from your part of the world. Major Meteor Showers (2010-2011) Delta Aquarids Perseids Orionids Leonids Geminids Quadrantids Lyrids Eta Aquarids Cassini Bags Enceladus 'Tigers'
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has successfully completed its flyby over the "tiger stripes" in the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus and has sent back images of its passage. The spacecraft also targeted the moon Tethys. The tiger stripes are actually giant fissures that spew jets of water vapor and organic particles hundreds of kilometers, or miles, out into space. While the winter is darkening the moon's southern hemisphere, Cassini has its own version of "night vision goggles" -- the composite infrared spectrometer instrument - to track heat even when visible light is low. It will take time for scientists to assemble the data into temperature maps of the fissures. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. More raw images from the Enceladus flyby, dubbed "E11," are available at: More information about the Cassini-Huygens mission is at: from Webmaster B. javamanmonk: did somebody say enchiladas?
Researchers to unveil car for blind drivers
Washington 2010-07-03 23:12:26 (GMT) WiredPRNews.com – Scientists are reportedly working to create a car designed to allow people who are blind to drive independently. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech are planning to introduce a prototype of the vehicle next year. As noted in the report, “nonvisual interfaces” is the technology integrated into the automobile, which utilizes sensors to aid a blind driver in navigation based on information provided about their surroundings. Dr. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, is quoted by the AP as stating, “We’re exploring areas that have previously been regarded as unexplorable… We’re moving away from the theory that blindness ends the capacity of human beings to make contributions to society.” From Webmaster B. javamanmonk: question - Do blind people talk on their cell phones while they're driving? 50 Years of Communications in Space
The idea behind a communications satellite is simple: send a signal into space, and send it back down to another spot on the globe. In NASA's early days, engineers discovered the easiest way to accomplish this: bounce signals off a giant metal balloon floating in orbit. The concept was developed into the aptly-named Echo program, and Echo 1A became the first successful launch of the project on Aug. 12, 1960. Echo 1A, now commonly known as just Echo I, was a 100 foot diameter balloon made of mylar polyester. The spacecraft was designed as a passive communications reflector for transcontinental and intercontinental telephone, radio, and television signals. Pictured here is a scale prototype of the Echo satellite undergoing a Skin Stress Test on May 1, 1960. The prototype was 12 feet in diameter, with the size being chosen because that was the ceiling height in the NASA Langley model shop. After an unsuccessful launch attempt for the original Echo I satellite, Echo 1A and the follow-on Echo II were successfully launched. The Echo projects were instrumental in letting the world see that the U.S. was a major force in the space race not very far behind Russia. Among the many contributions of the Echo programs are the first voice communication via satellite which was made by none other than then President Eisenhower and the first coast-to-coast telephone call using a satellite. In addition, the Echo programs resulted in advances in atmospheric density, solar pressure, gossamer structures, solar sailing, and transmitting videos via satellites. The Echo 1A satellite re-entered the atmosphere on May 24, 1968. Antennae
A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision. The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas. The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars. Some of these black holes may have masses that are almost one hundred times that of the Sun. The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlap region between the two galaxies. The Hubble data reveal old stars and star-forming regions in gold and white while filaments of dust appear in brown. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars. Fast Facts for Antennae: Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: NASA/STScI Scale Image is 3.4 arcmin across, (about 61,000 light years) Category Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies Coordinates (J2000) RA 12h 01m 53.70s | Dec -18° 52' 35.5'' Constellation Corvus Observation Date Dec 1, 1999; Dec 29, 2001; Nov 22, May 31, Apr 18, Jul 10 & Jul 13, 2002 Observation Time 117 hours (4 days 21 hours) Obs. ID 315, 3040-44, 3718 Color Code Optical (Yellow), X-ray (Blue), Infrared (Red) Instrument ACIS Also Known As NGC 4038, NGC 4039 Distance Estimate About 60 million light years Release Date August 05, 2010 General Reference Printable Map
U.S. Geological Survey, USA - The National Atlas offers hundreds of page-size, printable maps that can be downloaded at home, at the office, or in the classroom at no cost. NGC 1068 supermassive black hole
This is a composite image of NGC 1068, one of the nearest and brightest galaxies containing a rapidly growing supermassive black hole. The X-ray images and spectra obtained using Chandra's High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer show that a strong wind is being driven away from the center of NGC 1068 at a rate of about a million miles per hour. This wind is likely generated as surrounding gas is accelerated and heated as it swirls toward the black hole. A portion of the gas is pulled into the black hole, but some of it is blown away. High energy X-rays produced by the gas near the black hole heat the ouflowing gas, causing it to glow at lower X-ray energies. X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in red, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in green and radio data from the Very Large Array in blue. The spiral structure of NGC 1068 is shown by the X-ray and optical data, and a jet powered by the central supermassive black hole is shown by the radio data. This Chandra study is much deeper than previous X-ray observations. Using this data, researchers believe that each year several times the mass of our sun is being deposited out to large distances, about 3,000 light years from the black hole. The wind likely carries enough energy to heat the surrounding gas and suppress extra star formation. These results help explain how a supermassive black hole can alter the evolution of its host galaxy. It has long been suspected that material blown away from a black hole can affect its environment, but a key question has been whether such "black hole blowback" typically delivers enough power to have a significant impact. NGC 1068 is located about 50 million light years from Earth and contains a supermassive black hole about twice as massive as the one in the middle of the Milky Way Galaxy. Image Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/ MIT/C.Canizares, D.Evans et al), Optical (NASA/STScI), Radio (NSF/ NRAO/VLA) The following is the animated gif from STS 130 Endeavour space shuttle mission February 2010.
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