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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Preparations are underway to lift NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory spacecraft, or DSCOVR, wrapped in plastic, from its transportation pallet at the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida, near Kennedy Space Center. DSCOVR is a partnership between NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force. DSCOVR will maintain the nation's real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of NOAA's space weather alerts and forecasts. Launch is currently scheduled for January 2015 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 v 1.1 launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. To learn more about DSCOVR, visit www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
The Apollo 12 Lunar Module (LM), in a lunar landing configuration, is photographed in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Modules (CSM) on Nov. 19, 1969. Aboard the LM were astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., commander; and Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot. via NASA ift.tt/1lwOF9L
--This photo has been uploaded as part of the NASA Remix Project--
The goal of this group is to encourage people to re-interpret and remix the great photo libarary NASA has released into the public domain. Please take this photo Remix It, make a Mashup by combing this photos with other images or textures and reinvent it into a new piece of art. Go ahead give it a try, its fun! Then post your artwork to the group pool. To view some of the best images in the group you can view our stream on flickr river. If your up for a challenge we host remix competitions every month on our discussion forum.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly took this photograph of a sunrise over the western United States and posted it to social media on Aug. 10, 2015. Kelly wrote, "#GoodMorning to those in the western #USA. Looks like there's a lot going on down there. #YearInSpace" via NASA ift.tt/1ICJwE0
Wanted exceptional F-18 pilots of small stature. Apply at Dryden Flight Research Center with a resume.
On Nov. 6, 2015, NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren spent 7 hours and 48 minutes working outside the International Space Station on the 190th spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance. The astronauts restored the port truss (P6) ammonia cooling system to its original configuration, the main task for the spacewalk. via NASA ift.tt/1kK3Z2c
Retired NASA "Weightless Wonder IV" N930NA
Ex-USAF KC-135A 59-1481, c/n 17969
Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base
Houston, Texas
June 2002
NASA Sets Briefings for Hubble Space Telescope Shuttle Mission HOUSTON -- NASA will hold a series of news media briefings Sept. 8 - 9 to preview the space shuttle's fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage of the briefings from the Johnson Space Center and the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Questions also will be taken from other participating NASA locations. Shuttle Atlantis' 11-day flight, designated STS-125, is targeted for launch Oct. 8 and will include five spacewalks to refurbish and upgrade the telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments. Replacing failed hardware on Hubble will extend the telescope's life into the next decade. U.S. news media planning to attend the briefings at Johnson must contact the newsroom there at 281-483-5111 by Sept. 2 to arrange for credentials. All reporters who are foreign nationals must contact the newsroom by Aug. 8. On Sept. 9, Atlantis' seven astronauts will be available for round-robin interviews at Johnson. Reporters planning to participate in-person or by phone must contact Gayle Frere at 281-483-8645 by Sept. 2 to reserve an interview opportunity. Scott Altman will command Atlantis' crew, which includes Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Megan McArthur and Mike Massimino. The spacewalkers are Good, Grunsfeld, Feustel and Massimino. McArthur is the flight engineer and lead for robotic arm operations. Along with the briefings to preview the Hubble servicing mission at Johnson, media will have an opportunity during the afternoon of Sept. 8 to review new equipment being developed for NASA's Constellation Program. Constellation is building America's next human spacecraft, which will fly astronauts to low Earth orbit, the moon and beyond. During the review, media will see items that include concepts of a new spacesuit, a pressurized rover vehicle for astronauts, and a mockup of the Orion crew capsule. The schedule (all times are CDT) includes: Monday, Sept. 8 7 a.m. - Video B-Roll Feed 8 a.m. - NASA Overview Briefing (from Goddard) 9 a.m. - Shuttle Program Overview Briefing (from Johnson) 10 a.m. - HST/SM 4 Program Overview (from Goddard) 11:30 a.m. - NASA TV Video File Noon - HST/SM4 Science Overview (from Goddard) 1:30 p.m. - HST Program and Science Round-Robins (from Goddard; not on NASA TV) 1:30 p.m. - Constellation Program Preview (from Johnson, not on NASA TV)
Two remarkable global maps of Jupiter's banded cloud tops can be compared by just sliding your cursor over this sharp projection (or follow this link) of image data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Both captured on January 19, during back-to-back 10 hour rotations of the ruling gas giant, the all-planet projections represent the first in a series of planned annual portraits by the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program. Comparing the two highlights cloud movements and measures wind speeds in the planet's dynamic atmosphere. In fact, the Great Red Spot, the famous long-lived swirling storm boasting 300 mile per hour winds, is seen sporting a rotating, twisting filament. The images confirm that Great Red Spot is still shrinking, though still larger than planet Earth. Posing next to it (lower right) is Oval BA, also known as Red Spot Junior. via NASA ift.tt/1NZpVTA
Bernard Anthony Harris, Jr. M.D. (born June 26, 1956 in Temple, Texas) is a former NASA astronaut. On February 9, 1995, Harris became the first African American to perform an extra-vehicular activity (spacewalk), during the second of his two Space
missions.
Benard A. Harris graduated from Sam Houston High School, San Antonio, Texas, in 1974, where he was actively involved in science fairs, book clubs and other school activities. He received a bachelor of science degree in biology from University of Houston in 1978. He earned his MD from Texas Tech University School of Medicine in 1982. Dr. Harris completed a residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic in 1985.
Harris completed a National Research Council Fellowship at NASA's Ames Research Center in 1987. While at Ames, he conducted research in musculoskeletal physiology and disuse.
He also trained as a flight surgeon at the Aerospace School of Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio in 1988. Dr. Harris received a master's degree in biomedical science from The University of Texas Medical Branch in 1996. Harris is also a certificated pilot.
After completing his fellowship at NASA Ames, he joined NASA's Johnson Space Center as a clinical scientist and flight surgeon, where he conducted clinical investigations of space adaptation and developed countermeasures for extended duration space flight.
He was the first black man to go in space as one of NASA's research teams and he was involved in the construction of the space rovers
--This photo has been uploaded as part of the NASA Remix Project--
The goal of this group is to encourage people to re-interpret and remix the great photo libarary NASA has released into the public domain. Please take this photo Remix It, make a Mashup by combing this photos with other images or textures and reinvent it into a new piece of art. Go ahead give it a try, its fun! Then post your artwork to the group pool. To view some of the best images in the group you can view our stream on flickr river. If your up for a challenge we host remix competitions every month on our discussion forum.
A pencil from the NASA Balloon Program Office. How about that, I guess you can take a balloon to the moon!
--This photo has been uploaded as part of the NASA Remix Project--
The goal of this group is to encourage people to re-interpret and remix the great photo libarary NASA has released into the public domain. Please take this photo Remix It, make a Mashup by combing this photos with other images or textures and reinvent it into a new piece of art. Go ahead give it a try, its fun! Then post your artwork to the group pool. To view some of the best images in the group you can view our stream on flickr river. If your up for a challenge we host remix competitions every month on our discussion forum.
Detail of fuselage structure. When you're in a window seat and rest your head against the fuselage wall to take a nap, this is what's hidden underneath all the plastic trim.
This 747, N905NA, is used by NASA to ferry space shuttles. Photographed at Moffett Field, Calif.
--This photo has been uploaded as part of the NASA Remix Project--
The goal of this group is to encourage people to re-interpret and remix the great photo libarary NASA has released into the public domain. Please take this photo Remix It, make a Mashup by combing this photos with other images or textures and reinvent it into a new piece of art. Go ahead give it a try, its fun! Then post your artwork to the group pool. To view some of the best images in the group you can view our stream on flickr river. If your up for a challenge we host remix competitions every month on our discussion forum.
A United Launch Alliance Delta II rockets lifts off on it's 153rd mission since being introduced in 1989, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The workhorse lifted NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Satellite into orbit to study the Earth's soil moisture every 2-3 days over the next three years.
These are some images of Shuttle Atlantis as it was mated to the 747 at Edwards Air Force Base in California on May 31, 2009. This was prior to leaving Edwards on the morning of June 1 on the way to Biggs Army Air Field in El Paso, Texas.
Caption: In case you’ve never seen them, this is what the tiles look like up close. They are part of the orbiter’s thermal protection system or TPS and they are made of coated silica ceramics. Their job is to protect the underside of the orbiter from the extreme heat when the shuttle reenters Earth’s atmosphere. By the way, I looked it up….reentry temperature can exceed 2300 degrees Fahrenheit! Umm, yeah. Hot.
Image credit: NASA
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It takes up to 8 hours for the Space Shuttle crawler runs the 3 miles lenght from the VAB to the launch pad.
*Photo taken at Kennedy Space Center, FL. (Cape Canaveral Space Shuttle Launch facility)
Image from the Special Collecion of Wally Schirra
Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
NASA astronaut Joe Acaba answers questions at a behind-the-scenes NASA Social at NASA Headquarters on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012 in Washington. Acaba launched to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft May 15, 2012, spending 123 days aboard as a flight engineer of the Expedition 31 and 32 crews. He recently returned to Earth on Sept. 17 after four months in low earth orbit. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasts off from Space Launch Complex-41 with NASAs Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-K) payload. This was the first of 13 ULA launches scheduled for 2013, the 35th Atlas V mission, and the 67th ULA launch.
Photo courtesy United Launch Alliance
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The first of NASA's three next-generation
Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS), known as TDRS-K, launched
at 8:48 p.m. EST Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in
Florida.
"TDRS-K bolsters our network of satellites that provides essential
communications to support space exploration," said Badri Younes,
deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and
Navigation at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It will improve the
overall health and longevity of our system."
The TDRS system provides tracking, telemetry, command and
high-bandwidth data return services for numerous science and human
exploration missions orbiting Earth. These include the International
Space Station and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
"With this launch, NASA has begun the replenishment of our aging space
network," said Jeffrey Gramling, TDRS project manager. "This addition
to our current fleet of seven will provide even greater capabilities
to a network that has become key to enabling many of NASA's
scientific discoveries."
TDRS-K was lifted into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V
rocket from Space Launch Complex-41. After a three-month test phase,
NASA will accept the spacecraft for additional evaluation before
putting the satellite into service.
The TDRS-K spacecraft includes several modifications from older
satellites in the TDRS system, including redesigned
telecommunications payload electronics and a high-performance solar
panel designed for more spacecraft power to meet growing S-band
requirements. Another significant design change, the return to
ground-based processing of data, will allow the system to service
more customers with evolving communication requirements.
The next TDRS spacecraft, TDRS-L, is scheduled for launch in 2014.
TDRS-M's manufacturing process will be completed in 2015.
NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Program, part of the Human
Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at the agency's
Headquarters in Washington, is responsible for the space network. The
TDRS Project Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., manages the TDRS development program. Launch services
were provided by United Launch Alliance. NASA's Launch Services
Program at the Kennedy Space Center was responsible for acquisition
of launch services.
For more information about TDRS, visit:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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In the Marshall Islands at a range in Kwajalein, the EVEX team readies the launcher.
Credit: NASA
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A NASA-funded sounding rocket mission will launch from an atoll in the Pacific this spring. The mission will help scientists better understand and predict the electrical storms in Earth's upper atmosphere that can negatively affect satellite communication and global positioning signals.
The mission, called EVEX, for the Equatorial Vortex Experiment, will launch into a crucial layer of charged particles surrounding our planet. Called the ionosphere, this layer serves as the medium through which high frequency radio waves – such as those sent down to the ground by global positioning system (GPS) satellites or, indeed, any satellite communicating with Earth – travel. The ionosphere begins about 60 miles above the ground and is filled with electrons and ions, alongside the more familiar extension of our electrically neutral atmosphere. Governed by Earth’s magnetic field, high-altitude winds, and incoming material and energy from the sun, the ionosphere can be calm in certain places or times of day, and quite turbulent at others.
EVEX will launch two rockets for a twelve-minute journey through the equatorial ionosphere above the South Pacific. This area of the ionosphere is known for calm days and tempestuous evenings, times when the ionosphere becomes rippled like a funhouse mirror, disturbing radio signals, and introducing GPS errors of a half mile or more. The two rockets will measure events in two separate regions of the ionosphere to see how they work together to drive the ionosphere from placid and smooth to violently disturbed. Such information could ultimately lead to the ability to accurately forecast this important aspect of space weather.
The launch window for EVEX is from April 27 to May 10. The team will decide when to fly based on conditions in the ionosphere on any given night.
Read more at www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/news/evex.html
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Late Friday night, 40 high school girls arrived at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for a STEM-themed sleepover, ready to learn about careers in Science, technology, engineering and math. The educational event offered young women a chance to meet working female scientists and to discover opportunities for women in STEM-related professions.
The teens kicked off the third annual STEM Girls Night In with an astronaut Q&A, talks from female scientists across disciplines and a collection of hands-on activities. The night culminated in a three-hour Mars rover competition and concluded with a late-night showing of “Hidden Figures.”
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Jessica Koynock
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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[Ed Campion from Goddard moderates the Hubble Press Conference]
NASA Sets Briefings for Hubble Space Telescope Shuttle Mission
HOUSTON -- NASA will hold a series of news media briefings Sept. 8 - 9 to preview the space shuttle's fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage of the briefings from the Johnson Space Center and the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Questions also will be taken from other participating NASA locations.
Shuttle Atlantis' 11-day flight, designated STS-125, is targeted for launch Oct. 8 and will include five spacewalks to refurbish and upgrade the telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments. Replacing failed hardware on Hubble will extend the telescope's life into the next decade.
U.S. news media planning to attend the briefings at Johnson must contact the newsroom there at 281-483-5111 by Sept. 2 to arrange for credentials. All reporters who are foreign nationals must contact the newsroom by Aug. 8.
On Sept. 9, Atlantis' seven astronauts will be available for round-robin interviews at Johnson. Reporters planning to participate in-person or by phone must contact Gayle Frere at 281-483-8645 by Sept. 2 to reserve an interview opportunity.
Scott Altman will command Atlantis' crew, which includes Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Megan McArthur and Mike Massimino. The spacewalkers are Good, Grunsfeld, Feustel and Massimino. McArthur is the flight engineer and lead for robotic arm operations.
Along with the briefings to preview the Hubble servicing mission at Johnson, media will have an opportunity during the afternoon of Sept. 8 to review new equipment being developed for NASA's Constellation Program. Constellation is building America's next human spacecraft, which will fly astronauts to low Earth orbit, the moon and beyond. During the review, media will see items that include concepts of a new spacesuit, a pressurized rover vehicle for astronauts, and a mockup of the Orion crew capsule.
The schedule (all times are CDT) includes:
Monday, Sept. 8
7 a.m. - Video B-Roll Feed
8 a.m. - NASA Overview Briefing (from Goddard)
9 a.m. - Shuttle Program Overview Briefing (from Johnson)
10 a.m. - HST/SM 4 Program Overview (from Goddard)
11:30 a.m. - NASA TV Video File
Noon - HST/SM4 Science Overview (from Goddard)
1:30 p.m. - HST Program and Science Round-Robins (from Goddard; not on NASA TV)
1:30 p.m. - Constellation Program Preview (from Johnson, not on NASA TV)
Leaks Found in Earth's Protective Magnetic Field
By Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
posted: 16 December 2008
03:20 pm ET
Scientists have found two large leaks in Earth's magnetosphere, the region around our planet that shields us from severe solar storms.
The leaks are defying many of scientists' previous ideas on how the interaction between Earth's magnetosphere and solar wind occurs: The leaks are in an unexpected location, let in solar particles in faster than expected and the whole interaction works in a manner that is completely the opposite of what scientists had thought.
The findings have implications for how solar storms affect the our planet. Serious storms, which involved charged particles spewing from the sun, can disable satellites and even disrupt power grids on Earth.
The new observations "overturn the way that we understand how the sun's magnetic field interacts with the Earth's magnetic field," said David Sibeck of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., during a press conference today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
The bottom line: When the next peak of solar activity comes, in about 4 years, electrical systems on Earth and satellites in space may be more vulnerable.
How it works
Earth's magnetic field carves out a cavity in the sun's onrushing field. The Earth's magnetosphere is thus "buffeted like a wind sock in gale force winds, fluttering back and forth in the" solar wind, Sibeck explained.
Both the sun's magnetic field and the Earth's magnetic field can be oriented northward or southward (Earth's magnetic field is often described as a giant bar magnet in space). The sun's magnetic field shifts its orientation frequently, sometimes becoming aligned with the Earth, sometime becoming anti-aligned.
Scientists had thought that more solar particles entered Earth's magnetosphere when the sun's field was oriented southward (anti-aligned to the Earth's), but the opposite turned out to be the case, the new research shows.
The work was sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation and based on observations by NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) satellite.
How many and where
Essentially, the Earth's magnetic shield is at its strongest when scientists had thought it would be at its weakest.
When the fields aren't aligned, "the shield is up and very few particles come in," said physicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
Conversely, when the fields are aligned, it creates "a huge breach, and there's lots and lots of particles coming in," Raeder added, at the news conference.
As it orbited Earth, THEMIS's five spacecraft were able to estimate the thickness of the band of solar particles coming when the fields were aligned — it turned out to be about 20 times the number that got in when the fields were anti-aligned.
THEMIS was able to make these measurements as it moved through the band, with two spacecraft on different borders of the band; the band turned out to be one Earth radius thick, or about 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers). Measurements of the thickness taken later showed that the band was also rapidly growing.
"So this really changes our understanding of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling," said physicist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley, also at the press conference.
And while the interaction of anti-aligned particles occurs at Earth's equator, those of aligned particles occur at higher latitudes both north and south of the equator. The interaction is "appending blobs of plasma onto the Earth's magnetic field," which is an easy way to get the solar particles in, said Sibeck, a THEMIS project scientist.
Next solar cycle
This finding not only has implications for scientists' understanding of the interaction between the sun and Earth's magnetosphere, but for predicting the effects to Earth during the next peak in the solar cycle.
The Sun operates on an 11-year cycle, alternating between active and quiet periods. We are currently in a quiet period, with few sunspots on the sun's surface and fewer solar flares, though the next cycle of activity has begun. It is expected to peak around 2012, bringing lots of sunspots, flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). CMEs can interact with the Earth's magnetosphere, causing problems for satellites, communications, and power grids.
This upcoming active period now looks like it will be more intense than the previous one, which peaked around 2006, some scientists think. The reason is the changes in the sun's alignment.
During the last peak, solar fields hitting the Earth were first anti-aligned then aligned. Anti-aligned fields can energize particles, but in this case, the energy came before the particles themselves, which doesn't create much of a fuss in terms of geomagnetic storms and disruptions.
But the next cycle will see aligned, then anti-aligned fields, in theory amplifying the effects of the storms as they hit.
Raeder likens the difference to igniting a gas stove one of two ways: In the first way, the gas is turned on and the stove is lit and you get a flame. In the other way, you let the gas run for awhile, so that when you add the gas you get a much bigger boom.
"It should be that we're