NASA Commemorates Chandra X-Ray Observatory's 10th Anniversary

Ten years ago, on July 23, 1999, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia and deployed into orbit. Chandra has doubled its original five-year mission, ushering in an unprecedented decade of discovery for the high-energy universe.

With its unrivaled ability to create high-resolution X- ray images, Chandra has enabled astronomers to investigate phenomena as diverse as comets, black holes, dark matter and dark energy.

"Chandra's discoveries are truly astonishing and have made dramatic changes to our understanding of the universe and its constituents," said Martin Weisskopf, Chandra project scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The science that has been generated by Chandra -- both on its own and in conjunction with other telescopes in space and on the ground -- has had a widespread, transformative impact on 21st century astrophysics. Chandra has provided the strongest evidence yet that dark matter must exist. It has independently confirmed the existence of dark energy and made spectacular images of titanic explosions produced by matter swirling toward supermassive black holes.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Chandra, three new versions of classic Chandra images will be released during the next three months. These images, the first of which is available Thursday, provide new data and a more complete view of objects that Chandra observed in earlier stages of its mission. The image being released today is of E0102-72, the spectacular remains of an exploded star.

"The Great Observatories program -- of which Chandra is a major part -- shows how astronomers need as many tools as possible to tackle the big questions out there," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's other "Great Observatories" are the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope.

The next image will be released in August to highlight the anniversary of when Chandra opened up for the first time and gathered light on its detectors. The third image will be released during "Chandra's First Decade of Discovery" symposium in Boston, which begins Sept. 22.

"I am extremely proud of the tremendous team of people who worked so hard to make Chandra a success," said Harvey Tananbaum, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. "It has taken partners at NASA, industry and academia to make Chandra the crown jewel of high-energy astrophysics."

Tananbaum and Nobel Prize winner Riccardo Giacconi originally proposed Chandra to NASA in 1976. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra is in a highly elliptical orbit that takes it almost one third of the way to the moon, and was not designed to be serviced after it was deployed.

Marshall manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center.

Third Spacewalk Begins at 10:32 a.m. EDT

Spacewalkers Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy began the STS-127 mission’s third spacewalk about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, at 10:32 a.m. EDT.

Wolf and Cassidy first will remove multilayer insulation from the Kibo module and prepare the Japanese Exposed Section payloads for their transfer from the Exposed Section to the Exposed Facility on Thursday. Then they will focus on battery replacements. The space station power system is a photovoltaic system that gathers solar power and stores it in batteries. Wolf and Cassidy will replace four of six old batteries in one of the six station power channels, channel 2B. In preparation for the task, the old batteries have been drained and the electrical loads normally handled by 2B have been placed on different power channels.

The new batteries are stored on the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD. Endeavour astronauts Doug Hurley and Julie Payette are using the space station robotic arm to move the ICC-VLD to the spacewalk worksite area near the Port 6 truss. Wolf and Cassidy will work together in a carefully rehearsed process to remove insulation from the old Port 6 batteries, install scoops to gently remove them, pass the batteries back and forth to a stowage location on the ICC-VLD, and repeat the process to replace them with the new batteries.

Each new battery assembly consists of 38 lightweight Nickel Hydrogen cells and associated electrical and mechanical equipment. Two battery assemblies connected in series are capable of storing a total of 8 kW of electrical power. This power is fed to the space station via the Battery Charge/Discharge Unit and Direct Current Switching Unit respectively. The batteries have a design life of 6.5 years and can exceed 38,000 charge/discharge cycles at 35% depth of discharge. Each battery measures 40” by 36” by 18” and weighs 375 pounds.

During today's spacewalk mission specialists Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy will focus on the first set of battery replacements for the oldest solar array assembly on the International Space Station. The spacewalkers also will remove multilayer insulation from the Kibo module and prepare the Japanese Exposed Section payloads for transfer from the Japanese cargo carrier to the scientific front porch.

Shuttle pilot Doug Hurley and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette will use the station’s Canadarm2 to assist Wolf and Cassidy during the mission's third spacewalk.

Last Planned Space Shuttle Main Engine Test

NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center invites journalists to view the last planned space shuttle main engine test scheduled for 2 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, July 29.

The 520-second test ends a 34-year era of space shuttle main engine testing at the facility. Stennis engineers conducted their first space shuttle main engine test in 1975. The first shuttle mission was launched in 1981. Since then, 126 missions have flown, all with main engines tested by Stennis. Seven flights remain before the space shuttle fleet is retired.

The primary work at Stennis has been space shuttle main engine testing, but the center also is helping NASA prepare for the next era of human spaceflight. Between 2007 and 2008, Stennis conducted component testing as part of early development of the J-2X engine for NASA's Constellation Program. The J-2X will be tested at simulated altitudes up to 100,000 feet on the 300-foot A-3 test stand currently under construction at the center.

Journalists wishing to view the final space shuttle main engine test should contact Chris McGee, the news chief at Stennis, at 228-688-3249 by noon on Tuesday, July 28. Reporters must arrive at Stennis by 1 p.m. on the day of the event to be credentialed and escorted to the site.

Astronauts Move Japanese Exposed Section to Station

Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts completed the delicate move of the Japanese Experiment Section from Endeavour's payload bay to the end of the Japanese Exposed Section, the so-called "porch" on the Kibo laboratory. At 8:28 a.m. EDT, Commander Mark Polansky and Julie Payette attached the shuttle robotic arm to the Exposed Section and lifted it out of the bay. They moved it away from Endeavour to a point where the space station arm, operated by Koichi Wakata and Doug Hurley, grasped it at about 9:33 a.m.

When the handoff was complete, the station arm installed it on the Exposed Facility at about 10:36 a.m., as the International Space Station had just passed over Japan. Payette radioed the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Mission Control team in Tsukuba, Japan, that the hard mate was complete.

The Exposed Section carries three Japanese experiments that the Kibo robotic arm will move to the "porch" on Thursday.

Later this morning, the station arm will grab the Integrated Cargo Carrier from the station's mobile base system and move it to an overnight park position in preparation for Wednesday's spacewalk.

Second Spacewalk Begins

STS-127 lead spacewalker Dave Wolf and Endeavour Mission Specialist Tom Marshburn began the mission’s second spacewalk at 11:27 a.m. EDT, when they switched their spacesuits to battery power. The space walk is expected to last 6.5 hours.

The pair will retrieve three hardware spares from the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD, and place them in a long-term storage location on the outside of the station’s Port 3 truss. On Sunday, robotic arm operators moved the cargo carrier to a location where Wolf and Marshburn can easily access it.

First, Wolf and Marshburn will retrieve a Ku-Band Space-to-Ground Antenna from the ICC-VLD and place it in the Port 3 External Stowage Platform, ESP-3. Next, they will transfer a Pump Module that is part of the station’s exterior thermal control system, and a Linear Drive Unit that helps the mobile transporter move along the truss backbone, to ESP-3. Marshburn will take a fixed grapple bar and preposition it on an ammonia tank assembly in preparation for its replacement on STS-128 in August. Finally, both spacewalkers will move a television camera that was launched on the Japanese Exposed Facility (JEF) to its final location on JEF. The spacewalkers will be assisted by Julie Payette and Doug Hurley, who will help move Wolf from the ICC-VLD to the ESP-3 on the space station robotic arm.

Space Shuttle Mission

The International Space Station population will grow to a record 13 today once the space shuttle Endeavour completes its orbital chase and docks at 12:55 p.m. CDT.

Today’s wake-up call, “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles, was chosen for Commander Mark Polansky. He and the rest of the shuttle crew – Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy, Tim Kopra, Tom Marshburn, Canadian Julie Payette and Dave Wolf – were awakened at 6:03 a.m.

The astronauts aboard Endeavour will begin rendezvous preparations at 7:23 a.m. and perform the terminal initiation engine burn at 10:17 a.m. to begin the shuttle’s final approach. All of the tools the crew will use to accomplish the rendezvous checked out as expected Thursday.

Meanwhile, on the station, Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Barratt are ready to document the condition of Endeavour’s heat protection tiles with photos as Polansky guides the shuttle through a slow back flip at a distance of 600 feet. Those digital images will be downlinked to Mission Control and evaluated along with data from Thursday’s 3-D scans of the shuttle’s reinforced carbon-carbon thermal protection materials.

Once docked, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Roman Romanenko of Russia, Bob Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency will join their Expedition 20 colleagues in opening hatches at 2:03 p.m. to begin 11 days of docked operations.

After a brief greeting and thorough safety briefing for the visiting crew, Kopra’s specially fitted seat liner will be transferred to one of the two Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station and he will become the newest Expedition 20 crew member. Wakata will be returning home aboard Endeavour after more than four months aboard the station.

Apollo 11 Moonwalk Video by NASA

NASA released Thursday newly restored video from the July 20, 1969, live television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The release commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first mission to land astronauts on the moon.

The initial video release, part of a larger Apollo 11 moonwalk restoration project, features 15 key moments from the historic lunar excursion of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

A team of Apollo-era engineers who helped produce the 1969 live broadcast of the moonwalk acquired the best of the broadcast-format video from a variety of sources for the restoration effort. These included a copy of a tape recorded at NASA's Sydney, Australia, video switching center, where down-linked television from Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek was received for transmission to the U.S.; original broadcast tapes from the CBS News Archive recorded via direct microwave and landline feeds from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston; and kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson that had not been viewed for 36 years.

"The restoration is ongoing and may produce even better video," said Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who oversaw television processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11. "The restoration project is scheduled to be completed in September and will provide the public, future historians, and the National Archives with the highest quality video of this historic event."

NASA contracted with Lowry Digital of Burbank, Calif., which specializes in restoring aging Hollywood films and video, to take the highest quality video available from these recordings, select the best for digitization, and significantly enhance the video using the company's proprietary software technology and other restoration techniques.

Under the initial effort, Lowry restored 15 scenes representing the most significant moments of the three and a half hours that Armstrong and Aldrin spent on the lunar surface. NASA released the video Thursday at a news conference at the Newseum in Washington.

On July 20, 1969, as Armstrong made the short step off the ladder of the Lunar Excursion Module onto the powdery lunar surface, a global community of hundreds of millions of people witnessed one of humankind's most remarkable achievements live on television.

The black and white images of Armstrong and Aldrin bounding around the moon were provided by a single small video camera aboard the lunar module. The camera used a non-standard scan format that commercial television could not broadcast.

NASA used a scan converter to optically and electronically adapt these images to a standard U.S. broadcast TV signal. The tracking stations converted the signals and transmitted them using microwave links, Intelsat communications satellites, and AT&T analog landlines to Mission Control in Houston. By the time the images appeared on international television, they were substantially degraded.

At tracking stations in Australia and the United States, engineers recorded data beamed to Earth from the lunar module onto one-inch telemetry tapes. The tapes were recorded as a backup if the live transmission failed or if the Apollo Project needed the data later. Each tape contained 14 tracks of data, including bio-medical, voice, and other information; one channel was reserved for video.

A three-year search for these original telemetry tapes was unsuccessful. A final report on the investigation is expected to be completed in the near future and will be publicly released at that time.

Inspects Heat Shield, Prepares for Station Docking By Shuttle Crew

Seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour awakened at 7:03 a.m. to begin a day of heat shield inspections and preparations for Friday’s rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station.

The song “These Are Days” by the band 10,000 Maniacs emanated from speakers inside Endeavour’s crew cabin, a wake-up call targeted especially for Mission Specialist Tim Kopra.

Commander Mark Polansky and Pilot Doug Hurley will start their day with an Orbital Maneuvering System engine firing to refine Endeavour’s path toward the station. A second burn is planned at the end of the crew’s day. In addition, the crew will set up a camera in the shuttle’s docking tunnel, extend the Orbiter Docking System ring and check out the hand-held laser range-finder and other equipment that will be used to provide precise distance and approach information for the upcoming docking.

Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Kopra and Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency will focus on inspections of Endeavour’s heat shield using the shuttle’s robotic arm and the Orbiter Boom Sensor System.

Spacewalkers Wolf, Cassidy, Marshburn and Kopra also will begin checking out the space suits they will wear and the tools they will use on the mission’s five spacewalks.

Aboard the station, Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Michael Barratt, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Roman Romanenko, Robert Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency, will spend the day packing and preparing for the arrival of visitors. They’ll review photography procedures for documenting the condition of the shuttle’s heat protection tiles as it completes a rendezvous pitch maneuver during its approach to the station.

T-3 Hours and Holding; Tanking Complete

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the countdown to launch of space shuttle Endeavour on its STS-127 has entered a two-hour, 30-minute built-in hold at T-3 hours. This hold will last until 2:08 p.m. EDT.

Tanking operations are complete. with both propellants -- liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen -- now in stable replenish. The loading of the space shuttle's external tank began at 8:38 a.m. and proceeded smoothly throughout the three-hour process.

Weather at Kennedy remains at 60-percent chance for favorable weather for an early-evening liftoff at 6:03 p.m. The primary weather concerns for launch are the potential for showers and thunderstorms near the Shuttle Landing Facility.

Full countdown coverage will begin at 12:30 p.m. on NASA Television and NASA's Launch Blog.

STS-127 Mission Overview

The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

The STS-127 crew members are Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

Nasa Radar Tandem Searches For Ice On The Moon

With the Mini-RF instrument, a synthetic aperture radar flying aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, the space agency now has two powerful tools searching for ice on the moon.

This week operators powered up and began preparing Mini-RF (Miniature Radio Frequency) for its primary mission, to create detailed images of the moon’s darkest areas, scan the lunar surface for hints of water ice and demonstrate new communications technologies.

LRO, launched June 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and reached the moon June 25. Its seven science instruments now are being checked out and brought online.

The LRO Mini-RF is a version of the radar already circling the moon on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Since Chandrayaan-1 orbital operations began in late 2008, its Mini-RF, also known as Mini-SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), has mapped about 80 percent of both of the moon’s poles and provided images of areas never seen from Earth. Its second imaging period is set to begin in mid-August, opening the possibility of unique, joint measurements between Chandrayaan-1 and LRO that would enhance the hunt for ice.

“The Mini-RF team has reached a significant milestone, two payloads now in operation at the moon, “says Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF program, from NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. “Having two very complementary instruments orbiting the moon on two different spacecraft shows how truly international the exploration of the moon can be.”

Mini-RF sends radio pulses to the moon from the orbiting spacecraft and then precisely records the radio echoes that bounce back from the surface, along with their timing and frequency. From these data scientists can build images of the moon that not only show the terrain in areas they otherwise couldn’t see, such as the permanently-shadowed areas near the lunar poles, but also contain information on the physical nature of the terrain.

“We’re uncovering the moon’s coldest, darkest regions, looking into craters and at other mysterious areas that never receive sunlight, yet preserve materials from the solar system’s earliest days,” says Ben Bussey, Mini-RF deputy principal investigator from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. “The exploration potential of these regions is also significant, since any ice deposits we locate would be valuable to future human lunar explorers.”

The Mini-RF instruments were designed, built and tested by a team from across the United States. APL hosts the operations center and performed the final integration and testing on both instruments. They were developed and built by the Naval Air Warfare Center and several other commercial and government contributors, including Sandia National Laboratories, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Instrument principal investigators Stewart Nozette (LRO) and Paul Spudis (Chandrayaan-1) are from the Universities Space Research Association’s Lunar and Planetary Institute. NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, manages the Mini-RF program.

Rover Engineers Test More Maneuvers

Mars Exploration Rover team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., prepare an experiment on July 13, 2009, for assessing how a test rover moves when embedded in loose soil and commanded to drive backward with wheels turned.

Engineers checking possible rover movements to get Spirit out of the "Troy" sand trap on Mars are evaluating how a comparable rover at JPL fares in a crablike backward drive, with all four corner wheels turned 60 degrees toward the right.

This is the fifth of 11 maneuvers on the current testing list. Others ahead are crabbing backward with wheels turned 20 degrees to the right, a tight forward right arc, a clockwise turn in place, a counterclockwise turn in place, crabbing forward with wheels turned to the left, and driving while steering. Some of the maneuvers might be repeated.

The team is learning how the test rover reacts to various motions in a test sandbox built to simulate Spirit's situation at Troy. The steps eventually sent as driving commands to Spirit may be a combination of some of the 11 maneuvers being tested.

Postponed of Launch of NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour

Space shuttle Endeavour's launch to the International Space Station has been postponed until Sunday to give technical teams more time to evaluate lightning strikes at the launch pad that occurred during thunderstorms Friday. Liftoff is scheduled for 7:13 p.m. EDT.

Sensors indicted there were 11 lightning strikes within 0.35 miles, which is inside the launch pad's threshold. Teams have seen nothing so far that indicates anything has been affected.

The Mission Management Team will meet at 8 a.m. Sunday to evaluate the latest data. Fueling of the external fuel tank is scheduled to begin at 9:48 a.m. Sunday.

The 16-day STS-127 mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

Ozone, Nitrogen Change the Way Rising CO2 Affects Earth's Water

Through a recent modeling experiment, a team of NASA-funded researchers have found that future concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere and of nitrogen in the soil are likely to have an important but overlooked effect on the cycling of water from sky to land to waterways.


The researchers concluded that models of climate change may be underestimating how much water is likely to run off the land and back into the sea as atmospheric chemistry changes. Runoff may be as much as 17 percent higher in forests of the eastern United States when models account for changes in soil nitrogen levels and atmospheric ozone exposure.


"Failure to consider the effects of nitrogen limitation and ozone on photosynthesis can lead us to underestimate regional runoff," said Benjamin Felzer, an ecosystem modeler at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. "More runoff could mean more contamination and flooding of our waterways. It could also mean fewer droughts than predicted for some areas and more water available for human consumption and farming. Either way, water resource managers need more accurate runoff estimates to plan better for the changes."


Felzer and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., published their findings recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences.


Plants play a significant role in Earth’s water cycle, regulating the amount of water cycling through land ecosystems and how long it stays there. Plants draw in water from the atmosphere and soil, and they discharge it naturally through transpiration, the tail end of photosynthesis when water vapor and oxygen are released into the air.

The amount of water that plants give up depends on how much carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere. Studies have shown that despite a global drop in rainfall over land in the past 50 years, runoff has actually increased.





Water continually circulates from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back again to the ocean, as shown here in an interactive illustration of the basic “hydrological”, or water, cycle. In his study, Felzer shows the influence that CO2, nitrogen and ozone exposure also have on this cycle, factors often overlooked when considering the origins of and changes in runoff beyond those caused by rain and climate.

Credit: NASA JPL-Global Climate Change



Other studies have shown that increasing CO2 is changing how plant "pores," or stomata, discharge water. With elevated CO2 levels, leaf pores contract and sometimes close to conserve internal water reserves. This "stomatal conductance" response increases water use efficiency and reduces the rate of transpiration.

Plants that release less water also take less of it from the environment. With less water being taken up by plants, more water is available for groundwater or runs off the land surface into lakes, streams, and rivers. Along the way, it accumulates excess nutrients and pollutants before emptying into waterways, where it affects the health of fish, algae, and shellfish and contaminate drinking water and beaches. Excess runoff can also contribute to flooding.

Sometimes rising CO2 has the opposite effect, Felzer noted, promoting vegetation growth by increasing the rate of photosynthesis. More plant growth can lead to a thicker canopy of leaves with increased transpiration and less runoff. However, this effect has been shown to be smaller than the effect of reduced stomatal conductance.

Aware of these cycles, Felzer and colleagues used theoretical models to project various future scenarios for the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and what it would mean to the changing water cycle in forests east of the Mississippi River. They found that runoff would increase anywhere from 3 to 6 percent depending on location and the amount of the increase in CO2.

Felzer and colleagues also examined the role of two other variables -- atmospheric ozone and soil-based nitrogen -- in the changing water cycle. Excess ground-level ozone harms the cells responsible for photosynthesis. Reductions in photosynthesis leads to less transpiration and cycling of water through leaves and more water added to runoff.

In most boreal and temperate forests, the rate of photosynthesis is also limited by the availability of nutrients such as nitrogen in the soil. The less nitrogen in the soil, the slower their rate of photosynthesis and transpiration.


"The increase in runoff is even larger when nitrogen is limited and environments are exposed to high ozone levels," said Felzer. In fact, the team found an additional 7 to 10 percent rise in runoff when nitrogen was limited and ozone exposure increased.


"Though this study focuses on Eastern U.S. forests, we know nitrogen and ozone effects are also important in South America and Europe. One region has seen a net increase and the other a net runoff reduction," said co-author Adam Schlosser of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT. "Our environment and quality of life depend on less uncertainty on this front."

NASA Tests Rovers and Oxygen Production Technology in Hawaii

NASA has concluded nearly two weeks of testing equipment and lunar rover concepts in Hawaii. The islands’ volcanic terrain, rock distribution and soil materials provide a high-quality simulation of the moon's polar region. One of many field demonstrations developed by NASA’s Exploration Technology Development Program, these tests provides valuable information and help engineers and scientists spot complications that might not be obvious in laboratories.

The agency's In Situ Resource Utilization Project, which studies ways astronauts can use resources found at landing sites, demonstrated how people might prospect for resources on the moon and make their own oxygen from lunar rocks and soil. NASA's lunar exploration plan currently projects that on-site lunar resources could generate one to two metric tons of oxygen annually. This is roughly the amount of oxygen that four to six people living at a lunar outpost might breathe in a year.

ROxygen and PILOT, or Precursor ISRU Lunar Oxygen Testbed were two technologies that were tested. The two large, complementary systems might produce oxygen from soil on an outpost-sized scale.

A prototype system combines a polar prospecting rover and a drill specifically designed to penetrate the harsh lunar soil. The rover's system demonstrates small-scale oxygen production from regolith. A similar rover could search for water ice and volatile gases such as hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen, in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon's poles. Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh built the rover, which carries equipment known as the Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE).

Other tested concepts include a NASA-developed robotic excavator known as Cratos; a new lunar wheel developed by Michelin North America of Greenville, S.C.; a lunar sample coring drill the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology in Canada developed for NASA with support from the Canadian Space Agency, or CSA; an excavator developed by Lockheed Martin of Denver; and a night vision camera called TriDAR for the rover's navigation and drill site selection. Neptec in Canada developed the camera with support from CSA. The tests were hosted by The Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, headquartered at the University of Hawaii, Hilo.

Additional instruments that were field tested will be used to improve understanding of minerals found on the moon. They include a Mossbauer spectrometer from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and the University of Mainz in Germany; an X-ray diffraction unit called mini CheMIN from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and a handheld Raman spectrometer CSA provided.

Preparation for the Next Test

Mike Seibert and Sharon Laubach, engineers on the Mars Exploration Rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, check the exact position of a test rover in preparation for the next test of a possible maneuver for Spirit to use on Mars. The test setup at JPL simulates the situation where Spirit is embedded in a patch of soft soil dubbed "Troy," in Mars' Gusev Crater. The July 7, 2009, preparation shown here preceded an assessment of straight-backward driving the next day, one of several possible maneuvers to be assessed in the test sandbox before further driving commands will be sent to Spirit.

Supersonic Technology Named Nasa Commercial Invention of 2008

The 2008 NASA Commercial Invention of the Year is a high temperature resin designed to create composites through low-cost manufacturing processes -- ideal for advanced aerospace vehicles.

Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., were able to create the unique material, which is ideal for the high temperatures of supersonic flight. The material, known as PETI-330, is used in the development of advanced composite fabrication technology for the agency's aeronautics supersonics program. PETI-330 is patented as "Composition of and Method for Making High Performance Resins for Infusion and Transfer Molding Processes."

In the late 1980s, NASA's High-Speed Research Program began to develop high performance, high temperature resins that could be used to fabricate carbon fiber reinforced composites. The resins potentially would be useful on advanced aerospace vehicle structures and aircraft engine components such as inlets and compressor vanes. A resin called PETI-5 was developed that met a number of the program's goals.

Continued research for a resin that would be useful for the fabrication of composites by low-cost manufacturing methods led to PETI-330. It is the first commercially available, off-the-shelf, high temperature resin that has processing characteristics useful for resin infusion, resin transfer molding and the vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding manufacturing processes.

The finished product of PETI-330 has the strength and high temperature properties ideal for large structures exposed to hot temperatures, offering a combination of processability, high temperature performance and toughness ideal for high performance aerospace vehicles. PETI-330 and the vacuum process are of interest to the aerospace industry because of a combination of weight reduction and manufacturing cost savings.

The inventors, John Connell, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Paul Hergenrother, all from Langley, will be honored at the 2010 NASA Project Management Challenge in Galveston, Texas. Ube America, a division of Ube Industries, Inc., licensed the technology from NASA.

Abort System For Astronaut Escape by NASA

NASA has successfully demonstrated an alternate system for future astronauts to escape their launch vehicle. A simulated launch of the Max Launch Abort System, or MLAS, took place Wednesday morning at 6:26 a.m. at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

The unpiloted launch tested an alternate concept for safely propelling a future spacecraft and its crew away from a problem on the launch pad or during ascent. The MLAS consists of four solid rocket abort motors inside a bullet-shaped composite fairing attached to a full-scale mockup of the crew module.

The 33-foot-high MLAS vehicle was launched to an altitude of approximately one mile to simulate an emergency on the launch pad. The flight demonstration began after the four solid rocket motors burned out. The crew module mockup separated from the launch vehicle at approximately seven seconds into the flight and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean.

The test demonstrated a number of things: the unpowered flight of the MLAS along a stable trajectory; reorientation and stabilization of the MLAS; separation of the crew module simulator from the abort motors; and stabilization and parachute recovery of the crew module simulator. An important objective of the test was to provide the workforce of NASA's Engineering and Safety Center, or NESC, with experience in flight testing a spacecraft concept. NESC leads the project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

NASA has chosen another launch abort system, known as the LAS, for the Orion spacecraft. The system has a single solid launch abort motor in a tower mounted at the top of the launch vehicle stack of the Orion and Ares I rocket. The LAS will be capable of automatically separating the spacecraft from the rocket at a moment's notice to make possible a safe landing. Orion, part of a new spacecraft system NASA's Constellation Program is developing, is undergoing design reviews in preparation for flying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2015 and, later, to the moon.

Data from today's MLAS pad abort test could help NASA in several ways. MLAS is the first demonstration of a passively-stabilized launch abort system on a vehicle in this size and weight class. It is the first attempt to acquire full-scale aero-acoustic data -- the measurement of high loads on a vehicle moving through the atmosphere at high velocity -- from a faired capsule in flight. The test is also the first to demonstrate full scale fairing and crew module separation and collect associated aerodynamic and orientation data. In addition, data from the parachute element will help validate simulation tools and techniques for Orion's parachute system development.

The NESC is an independently funded NASA program that draws on technical experts from across all NASA centers to provide objective engineering and safety assessments of critical, high risk projects.

The MLAS is named after Maxime (Max) Faget, a Mercury-era pioneer. Faget was the designer of the Project Mercury capsule and holder of the patent for the "Aerial Capsule Emergency Separation Device," which is commonly known as the escape tower.

NESC partners in the MLAS effort include Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Space Station Marathon

The International Space Station (ISS) has recently started a remarkable series of flybys over the United States. Beginning the first weekend of July, the station has been appearing once, twice, and sometimes three times a day successively. No matter where you live, you should have at least a few opportunities to see the biggest spaceship ever built.

The ISS has been under construction for nearly 11 years, and it has grown very large and very bright. The station is now more than 350 ft wide (wider than a football field), has 12,600 cubic feet of labs and living quarters, and on Earth would weigh about 670,000 lb. Sunlight illuminating the massive outpost makes it shine fifteen times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

Sometimes it is even brighter than that. Sunlight glinting from the station's flat surfaces (mainly solar arrays) produce dazzling flares as much as six hundred times brighter than Sirius. For astronomers: On the scale of visual magnitudes, space station flares register -8.

"The station flared spectacularly on May 22 when it passed over my backyard observatory in the Netherlands," reports amateur astronomer Quintus Oostendorp. "I knew the ISS was coming, so I had my telescope ready and I was able see exactly what happened."

At present, the flares are unpredictable. No one knows when they will happen or exactly how bright they will be. Any given flyby could be interrupted by one—and that's what makes the watch so much fun.

The marathon of space station flybys won't stop until mid-to-late July (depending on your location). That gives space shuttle Endeavour, currently scheduled to launch on July 11, time to reach the space station and join the show. As the shuttle approaches station for docking, many observers will witness a memorable double flyby—Endeavour and the ISS sailing side by side across the starry night sky.

Endeavour is on yet another space station construction mission. This time it will deliver a "space porch" to be added to Japan's Kibo science laboratory module. The porch is not a place where astronauts can sit, relax and watch the stars drift by (although that is not a bad idea); it is a science platform. When an experiment needs to be exposed to the hard vacuum or energetic radiation of space, it can placed outside on the porch to take advantage of the space station's unique research environment. The official name of the porch is the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility and it will add its own small contribution to the station's reflected luminosity in the night sky.

NASA Research to Help Aircraft Avoid Ocean Storms, Turbulence

Convective Weather

A prototype system could provide commercial airline pilots with key weather and turbulence forecasts when flying over remote regions of the ocean where little real- or near-real-time data is available now. The NASA-funded system, being developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), combines computer models and data from five operating NASA satellites with an artificial intelligence system to predict turbulence. The system is on track for testing next year, with the goal of ultimately giving pilots a regularly updated picture of potential storms over the ocean so that they can fly away from or around danger. This photograph, acquired in February 1984 by an astronaut aboard the space shuttle, shows a series of mature thunderstorms in southern Brazil.

Deep Convective Clouds

A 2009 astronaut photo from the International Space Station (ISS) of deep convective clouds, seen from above, over the Atlantic Ocean. Free standing and embedded towering convective clouds are particularly dangerous to aircraft flying over the open ocean.

Turbulence Waves and Deep Convection

NASA and NCAR are working to develop a near-real-time forecast that identifies turbulence from breaking gravity waves that are generated by rapidly rising deep convection. This image from NASA's MODIS instrument (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) shows gravity waves over the ocean. Atmospheric gravity waves (also called atmospheric internal waves) occur when a uniform layer of air blows over a large obstacle, like a mountain or island. Before hitting the obstacle, the atmosphere must be stratified — each layer must have a uniform temperature and density that only changes with height. When the air hits the obstacle, the horizontal ribbons of uniform air are disturbed, which forms a wave pattern. This wave pattern in the air impresses itself onto sea waves when it touches the surface of the ocean. In addition to the surface mimicking the wave pattern, wave clouds can form as well, creating potential turbulence for aircraft.

Slicing through the Atmosphere

NASA uses advanced satellite instruments to study the atmosphere. One instrument, CALIPSO, uses a lidar system to make a 3-D view of clouds. CALIPSO data will be used as a source of precise validation and tuning for these NASA/NCAR applications under development. Click on the image or below to view an animation showing a series of CALIPSO curtain images from around the globe.

Phoenix Deck

This mosaic of images from the Surface Stereo Imager camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows a portion of the spacecraft's deck after deliveries of several Martian soil samples to instruments on the deck.

In the center and right foreground is the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer. On the left is the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer.

The component images for this approximately true color view were taken on various dates during the five months that Phoenix studied its surroundings after landing on a Martian arctic plain on May 25, 2008.

The Phoenix Mission was led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission was by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development was by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

The Mission Cassini Continues

As Saturn advanced in its orbit toward equinox and the sun gradually moved northward on the planet, the motion of Saturn's ring shadows and the changing colors of its atmosphere continued to transform the face of Saturn as seen by Cassini in this image from the mission's fourth year.

Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for five Earth years as of June 30, 2009. That's about one sixth of a Saturnian year, enough time for the spacecraft to have observed seasonal changes in the planet, its moons and sunlight's angle on the dramatic rings.

This captivating natural color view was created from images collected shortly after Cassini began its extended Equinox Mission in July 2008. The mosaic combines 30 images--10 each of red, green and blue light—taken over the course of approximately two hours as Cassini panned its wide-angle camera across the entire planet and ring system on July 23, 2008, from a southerly elevation of 6 degrees.

Six moons complete this constructed panorama (see the full-size image): Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers, across), Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers, across), Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles, across), Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles, across), Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers, across) and Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles, across).

Cassini captured these images at a distance of approximately 690,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 20 degrees.

Moon Images taken by LRO

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft's two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have

returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface.

"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator -- the dividing line between day and night -- making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission."

These images show cratered regions near the moon's Mare Nubium region, as photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's LROC instrument. Impact craters feature prominently in both images. Older craters have softened edges, while younger craters appear crisp. Each image shows a region 1,400 meters (0.87 miles) wide, and features as small as 3 meters (9.8 feet) wide can be discerned. The bottoms of both images face lunar north.

The image below shows the location of these two images in relation to each other. The locator image shows an area 3,542 meters (2.2 miles) wide by 14,000 meters (8.7 miles) long. The scene is at the lunar coordinates 34.4 degrees South by 6.0 degrees West.

The image below shows a raw image of the region photographed by one of the LROC cameras. Each band in this "venetian blinds" image is about 90 km (55.9 miles) wide. For comparison, the width of the locator image above is shown here as two white lines.

Himalayan glaciers image by NASA

In the Bhutan Himalayas, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer data have revealed significant spatial variability in glacier flow, such that the glacier velocities in the end zones on the south side exhibit significantly lower velocities (9 to 18 meters, or 30 to 60 feet per year), versus much higher flow velocities on the north side (18 to 183 meters, or 60 to 600 feet per year). The higher velocity for the northern glaciers suggests that the southern glaciers have substantially stagnated ice. This view looking towards the northwest was created by draping an ASTER simulated natural color image over digital topography from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) data set. The ASTER scene was acquired November 20, 2001, and is centered near 28.3 degrees north latitude, 90.1 degrees east longitude.

NASA's Rocket

A Nice Liftoff

Spectators at the NASA News Center at Kennedy Space Center get a birds-eye-view of Space Shuttle Discovery as it roars through a stray cloud after liftoff at 10:39 a.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39B on the historic Return to Flight mission STS-114. It is the 114th Space Shuttle flight and the 31st for Discovery. The 12-day mission will end with touchdown at the Shuttle Landing Facility on Aug. 7.

Nine New Astronauts

After reviewing more than 3,500 applications, NASA has selected nine people for the 2009 astronaut candidate class. They will begin training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston this August.

"This is a very talented and diverse group we've selected," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "They will join our current astronauts and play very important roles for NASA in the future. In addition to flying in space, astronauts participate in every aspect of human spaceflight, sharing their expertise with engineers and managers across the country. We look forward to working with them as we transcend from the shuttle to our future exploration of space, and continue the important engineering and scientific discoveries aboard the International Space Station."

The new astronaut candidates are:

Serena M. Aunon, 33, of League City, Texas; University of Texas Medical Branch flight surgeon for NASA's Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs; born in Indianapolis. Aunon holds degrees from George Washington University, University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston and the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Jeanette J. Epps, 38, of Fairfax, Va.; technical intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., Epps holds degrees from LeMoyne College in Syracuse and the University of Maryland.

Jack D. Fischer, major, U.S. Air Force, 35, of Reston, Va.; test pilot; U.S. Air Force Strategic Policy intern, Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon. Born in Boulder, Colo., Fischer is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Co., and MIT.

Michael S. Hopkins, lieutenant colonel, U.S. Air Force, 40, of Alexandria, Va.; special assistant to the Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon. Born in Lebanon, Mo., Hopkins holds degrees from the University of Illinois and Stanford University.

Kjell N. Lindgren, 36, of League City, Texas; University of Texas Medical Branch flight surgeon for NASA's Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Lindgren has degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Kathleen (Kate) Rubins, 30, of Cambridge, Mass.; principal investigator and fellow, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. Born in Farmington, Conn., Rubins conducts research trips to the Congo and has degrees from the University of California-San Diego and Stanford University.

Scott D. Tingle, commander, U.S. Navy, 43, of Hollywood, Md.; test pilot and assistant program manager-Systems Engineering at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Born in Attleboro, Mass., Tingle holds degrees from Southeastern Massachusetts University (now the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) and Purdue University.

Mark T. Vande Hei, lieutenant colonel, U.S. Army, 42, of El Lago, Texas; flight controller for the International Space Station at the Johnson Space Center as part of the U.S. Army NASA Detachment. Born in Falls Church, Va., Vande Hei is a graduate of Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minn., and Stanford University.

Gregory R. (Reid) Wiseman, lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy, 33, of Virginia Beach, Va.; test pilot; department head, Strike Fighter Squadron 103, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Oceana, Va. Born in Baltimore, Wiseman is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Johns Hopkins University.

Planning For "Tracking Test" By NASA


At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, crews continue work to repair a plate that attaches a gaseous hydrogen vent line to space shuttle Endeavour's external fuel tank. Hydrogen leaks in the area of the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP, postponed Endeavour's launch attempts June 13 and 17, delaying its 16-day flight to the International Space Station. Seals in the GUCP were removed overnight and will be shipped to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. today for inspection.

A "tanking test" is planned for Wednesday, July 1, starting at 7 a.m. EDT to ensure repairs were successful. Endeavour's external tank will be filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, just as it is before launch. NASA managers will hold a news conference following the test to discuss the results at approximately 1 p.m. The test will be shown live on NASA television.

Endeavour's next launch attempt is targeted for July 11 at 7:39 p.m.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the STS-127 mission astronauts will spend today in the fixed base simulator brushing up on procedures for their first spacewalk. They'll also rehearse the installation of the Japanese Experiment Facility platform that will be attached as the "porch" for the Kibo science laboratory on Flight Day 4 of the mission.

NASA Selects Proposals in the direction of Develop Science Education and Outreach

NASA has selected four organizations to share approximately $18 million over five years for education and public outreach activities to help inspire the next generation of science leaders and explorers. The cooperative agreements support the astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary and Earth divisions of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, which is providing the funding for the activities.

"NASA seeks to work with the best of the nation's science and educational communities to help champion and elevate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics," said Paul Hertz, chief scientist of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Stimulating and informative activities, along with experiences created and executed by experts, inspire our future scientists. This provides a productive return on the public's investment for future scientific research."

These activities contribute to NASA's overall education and outreach efforts through development and dissemination of new educational and outreach products that use the directorate's science discoveries. The agreements provide opportunities for students and educators, citizen scientists and the public to engage in authentic experiences working with NASA and research communities. Activities will include comprehensive public awareness and engagement plans coordinated with NASA, the selected proposers and other institutions nationwide.

Selected proposals are:

• "Astrophysics Science Education and Public Outreach Forum," Denise Smith, principal investigator, Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy
• Planetary Science Education and Public Outreach Forum: "Extending the Coherence and Reach of NASA Planetary Science and SMD Education and Public Outreach," Stephanie Shipp, principal investigator, Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, a division of the University Space Research Association
• Heliophysics Science Education and Public Outreach Forum: "A Forum to Support Excellence in Heliophysics Education and Public Outreach through Sustained Collaboration," Bryan Mendez, principal investigator, University of California, Berkeley
• Earth Science Education and Public Outreach Forum: "Building a Cohesive and Effective Community," Theresa Schwerin, principal investigator, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Arlington, Va.

Each selected proposer will receive approximately $850,000 per year. Further funding will be provided after NASA review and subsequent approval of progress reports.

This opportunity was open to U.S. organizations, including NASA centers, industry, educational institutions, not-for-profit organizations, federally funded research and development centers, and other government agencies. Fourteen proposals were received in response to the January 2009 announcement. A peer review panel of education and public outreach professionals evaluated each proposal.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate has a diverse portfolio of education and public outreach investments and activities in higher education, elementary and secondary education, informal education, and outreach.

Moon Returns

Unidentified flying objects cached By NASA

Successful Entry of NASA Lunar Mission into Moon Orbit

After a four and a half day journey from the Earth, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has successfully entered orbit around the moon. Engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., confirmed the spacecraft's lunar orbit insertion at 6:27 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

During transit to the moon, engineers performed a mid-course correction to get the spacecraft in the proper position to reach its lunar destination. Since the moon is always moving, the spacecraft shot for a target point ahead of the moon. When close to the moon, LRO used its rocket motor to slow down until the gravity of the moon caught the spacecraft in lunar orbit.

"Lunar orbit insertion is a crucial milestone for the mission," said Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. "The LRO mission cannot begin until the moon captures us. Once we enter the moon's orbit, we can begin to buildup the dataset needed to understand in greater detail the lunar topography, features and resources. We are so proud to be a part of this exciting mission and NASA's planned return to the moon."

A series of four engine burns over the next four days will put the satellite into its commissioning phase orbit. During the commissioning phase each of its seven instruments is checked out and brought online. The commissioning phase will end approximately 60 days after launch, when LRO will use its engines to transition to its primary mission orbit.

For its primary mission, LRO will orbit above the moon at about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, for one year. The spacecraft's instruments will help scientists compile high resolution, three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths.

The satellite will explore the moon's deepest craters, examining permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans. LRO will return more data about the moon than any previous mission.

Test of Max Launch Abort System for June 25

NASA has scheduled the test launch of the Max Launch Abort System, or MLAS, to no earlier than June 25 at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. The launch window will extend from approximately 5:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. EDT.

Because of the prospect of further schedule changes, news media representatives should contact Rebecca Powell at 757-824-1139 or Ashley Edwards at 202-358-1756 to confirm the accurate date and time of the launch.

The unpiloted test is part of an effort to design a system for safely propelling future spacecraft and crews away from hazards on the launch pad or during the climb to orbit. This system was developed as an alternative concept to the launch abort system chosen for NASA's Orion crew capsule.

The 33-foot-high MLAS vehicle will be launched to an altitude of approximately one mile to simulate an emergency on the launch pad. A full-scale mockup of the crew capsule will separate from the launch vehicle and parachute into the Atlantic Ocean.

Successful Lunar Impactor Launch

NASA effectively launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, Thursday on a charge to search for water ice in a everlastingly shadowed crater at the moon's South Pole. The satellite lifted off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 5:32 p.m. EDT, with a companion mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO.

LRO safely estranged from LCROSS 45 minutes later. LCROSS then was powered-up, and the assignment operations team at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., done system checks that confirmed the spacecraft is fully functional.

LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket separately will collide with the moon at approximately 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2009, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are tentatively targeted to impact the moon's south pole near the Cabeus region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by LRO, other spacecraft orbiting the moon, and observatories on Earth.

"LCROSS has been the little mission that could," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We stand poised for an amazing mission and possible answers to some very intriguing questions about the moon."

The 1,290-pound LCROSS and 5,216-pound Centaur upper stage will perform a swing-by maneuver of the moon around 6 a.m. on June 23 to calibrate the satellite's science instruments and enter a long, looping polar orbit around Earth and the moon. Each orbit will be roughly perpendicular to the moon's orbit around Earth and take about 37 days to complete. Before impact, the spacecraft and Centaur will make approximately three orbits.

On the final approach, about 54,000 miles above the surface, LCROSS and the Centaur will separate. LCROSS will spin 180 degrees to turn its science payload toward the moon and fire thrusters to slow down. The spacecraft will observe the flash from the Centaur's impact and fly through the debris plume. Data will be collected and streamed to LCROSS mission operations for analysis. Four minutes later, LCROSS also will impact, creating a second debris plume.

"This mission is the culmination of a dedicated team that had a great idea," said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames. "And now we'll engage people around the world in looking at the moon and thinking about our next steps there."

The LCROSS science team will lead a coordinated observation campaign that includes LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope, observatories on Hawaii's Mauna Kea and amateur astronomers around the world.

Ames manages LCROSS and also built the instrument payload. Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, Calif., built the spacecraft.

Source : NASA

Problem in Launching the Space Shuttle

NASA delayed the launch of space shuttle Endeavour's STS-127 mission Wednesday because of a leak related with the gaseous hydrogen venting system outside the shuttle’s outside fuel tank.

Endeavour's next launch prospect is July 11. This date comes after the end of an orbital sun-angle condition called a beta angle cut-out, which occurs between June 22 and July 10. The cut-out creates a thermal condition that prohibits shuttle and space station docked operations.

The gaseous hydrogen venting system is used to carry excess hydrogen safely away from the launch pad. Wednesday's leak is similar to one that prevented Endeavour's launch on June 13.

The 16-day mission to the International Space Station will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

New Inhabitants of Enormous Stars

This merged color infrared picture of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals new inhabitants of enormous stars and new details in compound structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This extensive view is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. It offers a nearby laboratory for how massive stars form and persuade their environment in the often violent nuclear regions of other galaxies. This view combines the sharp imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) with color imagery from a previous Spitzer Space Telescope examination done with its Infrared Astronomy Camera (IRAC). The Galactic core is covered in visible light by intervening dust clouds, but infrared light penetrates the dust. The spatial resolution of NICMOS corresponds to 0.025 light-years at the distance of the galactic core of 26,000 light-years. Hubble reveals details in objects as small as 20 times the size of our own solar system. The NICMOS images were taken between February 22 and June 5, 2008.

Source : NASA

NASA Plans for Hydrospheric and Biospheric Science Services Contract

The news from the Washington that NASA has chosen Sigma Space Corporation of Lanham, Md., to offer Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Support Services. The entire maximum ordering value of the cost-plus fixed fee contract will be $120 million.

Sigma will provide sustain to the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Sigma will support research relating satellite remote sensing as well as field and aircraft instruments for measuring Earth, oceanic, biospheric and atmospheric processes; scientific and engineering sustain for the development and calibration of remote sensing instruments; and the development of data systems for the production and sharing of satellite products.

This contract will support the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project Science Data Segment; Earth Observing-1; Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and the Earth Observing System missions Terra, Aqua and Aura.

The work will be performed mainly at Goddard. The period of performance for the contract is from June 1, 2009, through May 31, 2014.

Source : NASA

Next Space Shuttle is ready to Launch

NASA managers are likely to compose a final decision by this afternoon about whether to launch space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday, June 17 or wait until later in the week.

Technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center continue to make progress as they work to fix a leak related with the gaseous hydrogen venting system outside Endeavour's external fuel tank. The leak postponed Endeavour's Saturday morning scheduled launch to the International Space Station. Overnight, teams on Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A completed changing out internal seals in the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP, which is attached to the external tank. They’re now in the process of reattaching the vent line. The vent line runs from the GUCP, away from the launch pad to a "flare stack" where surplus hydrogen is safely burned off. The reattachment is expected to be completed late tonight.

The earliest the shuttle could be ready for liftoff is June 17, however there is a conflict on that date with the scheduled launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

NASA managers are looking to maximize launch opportunities this week for both the shuttle and the LRO/LCROSS missions. If there are no issues with Endeavour’s repair work, the shuttle would attempt to launch on June 17 and LRO/LCROSS would have launch opportunities on June 19 and 20. If Endeavour doesn’t launch on June 17 and LRO/LCROSS launches on that day, the shuttle could make a launch attempt on June 20.

Endeavour's leak is similar to what happened during the first launch attempt of space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission in March. Technicians are using the same repair method, which led to Discovery's successful launch on its next attempt.

Source : NASA

Lotus Temple

It is situated in Place of Kalkaji in South Delhi, near to Kalkaji Temple.The well-known place to visit Pilgrimage Centre, where people from all the faith approach for meditation and obtaining peace.

Shaped like a Lotus, the Lotus Temple is situated in Kalkaji in the south of Delhi. Made of marble, dolomite, sand and cement, the temple is the modern architectural wonder of India. A perfect place for meditation and obtaining peace and calm, the temple is visited by people from all walks of life. The Lotus Temple is a very new architectural marvel of the Bahai faith. The Bahai Faith is the youngest of the world's self-governing religions. Its founder, Bahadullah (1817-1892), is regard by Bahais as the most recent in the line of Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that include Buddha, Moses, Abraham, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.

Saturn

Saturn (pronounced /'sæt?n/) is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Along with the planets Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune it is classify as a gas giant (also known as a Jovian planet, after the planet Jupiter). It was named after the Roman god Saturnus, equate to the Greek Kronos (the Titan father of Zeus) and the Babylonian Ninurta. Saturn's sign represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ?), The day in the week Saturday gets its name from the planet.

The planet Saturn is calm of hydrogen, with small proportions of helium and trace elements. The interior consists of a small core of rock and ice, bounded by a thick layer of metallic hydrogen and a gaseous outer layer. The outer atmosphere is normally bland in appearance, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h, considerably faster than those on Jupiter. Saturn has a planetary magnetic field intermediate in strength among that of Earth and the more powerful field around Jupiter.

Grapefruit

The grapefruit is a subtropical citrus tree grown for its fruit which was initially named the "forbidden fruit" of Barbados.These evergreen trees are frequently found at around 5-6 m tall, even though they can reach 13-15 m. The leaves are shady green, long up to 150 mm and thin. It produces 5 cm fair four-petalled flowers. The fruit is yellow-skinned, mainly oblate and ranges in diameter from 10-15 cm. The flesh is segmented and acidic, unreliable in color depending on the cultivars, which include white, pink and red pulps of varying sweetness. The 1929 US Ruby Red (of the Red blush variety) has the first grapefruit patent.

The fruit has only become popular from the late 19th century; before that it was only grown as a decorative plant. The US quickly became a major creation of fruit, with orchards in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. In Spanish, the crop is known as toronja or pomelo.

Fixed asset

Fixed asset also familiar as property, plant, and equipment (PP&E), is a term used in accountancy for assets and goods which cannot easily be converted into cash. This can be differing with current assets such as cash or bank accounts, which are describe as liquid assets. In most cases, only tangible assets are also called as fixed.

It usually includes items such as land and buildings, motor vehicles, furniture, office tools, computers, fixtures and fittings, and plant and machinery. These frequently receive favorable tax treatment (deprecation allowance) over short-term assets because they depreciate in excess of time.

Battery electric vehicle

The electric car, EV, or basically electric vehicle is battery electric vehicles (BEV) that make use of chemical energy stored in rechargeable battery packs. Electric vehicles use electric motors and motor controllers in its place of interior combustion engines (Ices). Vehicles using both electric motors and Ices are examples of hybrid vehicles, and are not deliberate pure BEVs because they operate in a charge-sustaining mode. Hybrid vehicles with batteries that can be thrilling externally to displace some or all of their ICE power and gasoline fuel are called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and are pure BEVs during their charge-depleting mode. BEVs are normally automobiles, light trucks, neighborhood electric vehicles, motorcycles, motorized bicycles, electric scooters, golf carts, milk floats, forklifts and similar vehicles.

Flexography

Flexography also called surface printing, often abbreviated to flexo, is a method of printing most usually used for packaging labels, tape, bags, boxes, banners, etc... Flexo was pioneered by Barry Pannowitz and Alf Green, and later by Dean Gleeson and Patrick Crouch who worked together in eradicate Moire, the clashing of screen angles.

A flexo print is achieved by creating a mirrored master of the necessary image as a 3D relief in a rubber or polymer material. A measured amount of ink is deposited upon the exterior of the printing plate (or printing cylinder) using an anilox roll. The print surface then rotates; contact the print material which transfers the ink.

Originally flexo printing was basic in quality. Labels require high quality have usually been printed Offset until recently. In the last few years great advances have been made to the superiority of flexo printing presses.

Cricket bat and Shape

A cricket bat is worn by batsmen in the sport of cricket. It is typically made of willow wood. This specialized bat is shaped something like a paddle, consisting of a padded handle similar to - but sturdier than - that of a tennis racquet, which is typically cylindrical in shape. This widens into the blade of the bat, a wider wooden block flat on one side and with a V-shaped edge on the other to provide greater air flow in the follow through and greater strength to the over-all bat. The flat side (the front of the bat) is used to punch the ball. The point at which the handle widens into the blade is known as the shoulder of the bat, and the base of the blade is known as the toe of the bat.

Public transport

Public transport, public transportation, public travel or mass transit comprises all transport systems in which the passengers do not tour in their own vehicles. While it is generally taken to include rail and bus services, wider definitions would comprise scheduled airline services, ship, taxicab services etc. – any system that transports members of the universal public. A further restriction that is sometimes practical is that it must take place in shared vehicles that would bar taxis that are not shared-ride taxis.

New definition of planet

International Astronomical Union proposed that the term "planet" be redefined to include other objects beyond the traditional nine planets considered a part of the solar system in the year 2006. On August 24, 2006 in Prague, in the Czech Republic the members of the IAU will vote on the proposal. They have included three planets they are Ceres which is considered as a planet, then an asteroid. The next comes the Charon previously measured as a moon of Pluto would be considered as double planet under this proposed definition. And then comes the finally discovered 2003 UB313 also named as Xena. It is quite possible that, after more searching, astronomers will discover more objects in the solar system that meet this new definition.

Crystal

In chemistry and mineralogy, a crystal is a solid in which the element atoms, molecules, or ions are packed in a frequently ordered, repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions.

The word crystal originates from the Greek word κρύσταλλος (krystallos) meaning clear ice, as it was thoughts to be an especially solid form of water. Citation needed: The word once referred mainly to quartz, or "rock crystal".

Most metals encounter in everyday life is polycrystals. [Citation needed] Crystals are often symmetrically intergrown to form crystal twins.

Corporate bond

A corporate bond is a bond issued by a company. The term is usually applied to longer-term debt instruments, normally with a maturity date falling at least a year after their issue date. The term "commercial paper" is sometimes worn for instruments with a shorter maturity.

Sometimes, the term "corporate bonds" is used to include all bonds apart from those issued by governments in their own currency. Strictly speaking, however, it only applies to those issued by corporations.

Negotiable instrument

A negotiable instrument is not a contract per se, as contract formation requires an offer, acceptance, and consideration, none of which are basics of a negotiable instrument. Unlike ordinary contract documents, the right to the performance of a negotiable instrument is connected to the possession of the document itself (with certain exceptions such as loss or theft).

The rights of the payee (or holder in due course) are better than those provide by ordinary contracts as follows: The rights to payment are not subject to set-off, and do not rely on the power of the underlying contract giving rise to the debt (for example if a cheque was drawn for payment for goods delivered but defective, the drawer is still liable on the cheque) No notice needs to be given to any prior party legally responsible on the instrument for transfer of the rights under the instrument by negotiation Transfer free of equities—the holder in due course can hold enhanced title than the party he obtains it from Negotiation enables the transferee to become the party to the contract, and to enforce the contract in his own name. Negotiation can be effect by endorsement and delivery (order instruments), or by delivery alone (bearer instruments).

Social anthropology

Social anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies how at this time living human beings behave in social groups.

Substantive focus and practice Practioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long term, concentrated field studies (including participant observation methods), the social organization of a particular people: customs, economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, kinship and family structure, gender relations, childrearing and socialization, religion, and so on.

Social anthropology also explore the role of meanings, ambiguities and contradiction of social life, patterns of sociality, violence and conflict, and the underlying logics of social behavior. Social anthropologists are taught in the interpretation of narrative, ritual and symbolic behavior not merely as text, but with communication examined in relation to action, practice, and the historical context in which it is embedded. Social anthropologists address the variety of positions and perspectives to be found within any social group.