Expedition 41 Crew Launches to the International Space Station

The Soyuz TMA-14M rocket is launched with Expedition 41 Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Flight Engineer Elena Serova of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore of NASA, Friday, Sept. 26, 2014 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Samokutyaev, Serova, and Wilmore will spend the next five and a half months aboard the International Space Station. Serova will become the fourth Russian woman to fly in space and the first Russian woman to live and work on the station.

NASA’s Mars Spacecraft Maneuvers to Prepare for Close Comet Flyby

NASA is taking steps to protect its Mars orbiters, while preserving opportunities to gather valuable scientific data, as Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring heads toward a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19.
The comet’s nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers), shedding material hurtling at about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per second, relative to Mars and Mars-orbiting spacecraft. At that velocity, even the smallest particle -- estimated to be about one-fiftieth of an inch (half a millimeter) across -- could cause significant damage to a spacecraft.
NASA currently operates two Mars orbiters, with a third on its way and expected to arrive in Martian orbit just a month before the comet flyby. Teams operating the orbiters plan to have all spacecraft positioned on the opposite side of the Red Planet when the comet is most likely to pass by.
"Three expert teams have modeled this comet for NASA and provided forecasts for its flyby of Mars," explained Rich Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "The hazard is not an impact of the comet nucleus, but the trail of debris coming from it. Using constraints provided by Earth-based observations, the modeling results indicate that the hazard is not as great as first anticipated. Mars will be right at the edge of the debris cloud, so it might encounter some of the particles -- or it might not."
During the day's events, the smallest distance between Siding Spring's nucleus and Mars will be less than one-tenth the distance of any known previous Earthly comet flyby. The period of greatest risk to orbiting spacecraft will start about 90 minutes later and last about 20 minutes, when Mars will come closest to the center of the widening dust trail from the nucleus.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) made one orbit-adjustment maneuver on July 2 as part of the process of repositioning the spacecraft for the Oct. 19 event. An additional maneuver is planned for Aug. 27. The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter is planning a similar maneuver on Aug. 5 to put that spacecraft on track to be in the right place at the right time, as well.
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is on its way to the Red Planet and will enter orbit on Sept. 21. The MAVEN team is planning to conduct a precautionary maneuver on Oct. 9, prior to the start of the mission's main science phase in early November.
In the days before and after the comet's flyby, NASA will study the comet by taking advantage of how close it comes to Mars. Researchers plan to use several instruments on the Mars orbiters to study the nucleus, the coma surrounding the nucleus, and the tail of Siding Spring, as well as the possible effects on the Martian atmosphere. This particular comet has never before entered the inner solar system, so it will provide a fresh source of clues to our solar system's earliest days.
MAVEN will study gases coming off the comet's nucleus into its coma as it is warmed by the sun. MAVEN also will look for effects the comet flyby may have on the planet’s upper atmosphere and observe the comet as it travels through the solar wind.
Odyssey will study thermal and spectral properties of the comet's coma and tail. MRO will monitor Mars’ atmosphere for possible temperature increases and cloud formation, as well as changes in electron density at high altitudes. The MRO team also plans to study gases in the comet’s coma. Along with other MRO observations, the team anticipates this event will yield detailed views of the comet’s nucleus and potentially reveal its rotation rate and surface features.
Mars' atmosphere, though much thinner than Earth's, is thick enough that NASA does not anticipate any hazard to the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers on the planet's surface, even if dust particles from the comet hit the atmosphere and form into meteors. Rover cameras may be used to observe the comet before the flyby, and to monitor the atmosphere for meteors while the comet's dust trail is closest to the planet.
Observations from Earth-based and space telescopes provided data used for modeling to make predictions about Siding Spring's Mars flyby, which were in turn used for planning protective maneuvers. The three modeling teams were headed by researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park, the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and JPL.

The Lotus pool by Moonlight (Cantonese version)-Zheng Yuan

Every whisper of the stars on the overlooking Lake

Wind-Lotus flower is not cold

I look at echo the rippling silk

Thoughts that a lot of smiles in the heart

Drunk looking Lake detailed views

Water Moon fairy eyes

Like to ride the wind to fly out the night sky

Tracking you will listen

May the Cape into a couple with

But can true love such as well water

After four seasons in the mind who would be

If I failed to say that the

Hold you in my arms, love is like water

Light wave as if a lifetime of allowing

You were like ying is smoking lightly return

Reflecting Chinese pair

Willing to change to a couple with

But can true love such as well water

After four seasons in the mind who would be

If I failed to say that the

Willing to change to a couple with

But can true love such as well water

After four seasons in the mind who would be

If I failed to say that the

Willing to change to a couple with

If true love I wish I could have hundreds of years of Chitose

Hope you see knows who I am

Even if not said

Also want to say a Word

Space Station Live: Astronaut Rick Mastracc

Space Station Live commentator Pat Ryan interviews NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio about his time aboard the International Space Station as part of ISS Expeditions 38 and 39. This interview aired during Space Station Live on July 7, 2014.

Russian Cargo Craft Undocks From Station

An unpiloted Russian Progress cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station Monday, completing its second and final undocking from the station since arriving in late November 2013.
The ISS Progress 53 resupply craft undocked from the aft port of the Zvezda service module at 9:29 a.m. EDT as the station orbited over Mongolia. 
From a window in the Russian segment of the station, Expedition 40 Flight Engineer Alexander Skvortsov photographed the departing Progress cargo ship as it began a 15-second separation burn to move a safe distance away from the orbiting complex.
A 3-minute, 16-second deorbit burn beginning at 12:34 p.m. slowed the Progress for its destructive re-entry in the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean less than an hour later. Progress resupply ships are not designed to be recovered, so, like its predecessors, Progress 53 was refilled with trash and station discards after its original cargo was unloaded by the station crew.
Progress 53 delivered 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies when it first arrived at the station on Nov. 29, following a flight that included a “fly-by” of the station two days earlier to test revamped Kurs automated rendezvous system hardware.  Because of a technical glitch unrelated to the new Kurs system, the Nov. 29 approach and docking of the Progress was controlled manually by the station’s crew using TORU, the Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous Unit.
To complete the testing of the Kurs-NA rendezvous hardware and its associated software, Progress 53 undocked from Zvezda on April 23 and successfully performed an automated docking to that port two days later. The enhanced Kurs system will be incorporated into future Progress vehicles to reduce weight by eliminating several navigational antennas, thus enabling the Progress to carry additional supplies to the station.
The final departure of Progress 53 clears the Zvezda docking port for the arrival in August of the European Space Agency’s fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV-5. Named for the Belgian physicist and astronomer Georges Lemaitre, the ATV-5 is scheduled for launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket in late July.
In addition to monitoring the departure of Progress 53, the station’s six-person Expedition 40 crew supported a variety of experiments that can be conducted only in a microgravity environment and continued preparations for next week’s spacewalk.
Skvortsov and Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev began the day with an assessment of their arm muscles before moving on to a review of the tasks they will conduct during their spacewalk slated for June 19. Later, they gathered the tools and equipment they will use during the excursion. The two spacewalkers will mount a new integrated command and telemetry system on Zvezda and replace a payload rack on the Russian segment with a payload boom previously installed in a temporary location.
 Artemyev also checked out Otklik experiment hardware for monitoring particle impacts on the station. He rounded out his day by downloading data for the Identification study, which measures the loads on the station during dynamic events such as Monday’s Progress undocking.
Station Commander Steve Swanson began the day drawing a blood sample from Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst. The astronauts themselves are the experiment for human physiology studies aboard the station as their blood, saliva and urine samples are processed and stored in freezers for further analysis back on Earth. As NASA works toward sending humans on longer voyages beyond low Earth orbit, it is critical to understand how the human body adapts and changes during long-duration spaceflight.
Afterward, Swanson installed a new test sample for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Resist Tubule experiment, which takes a look at the mechanisms for gravity resistance in plants. Results from this study will help researchers learn more about the evolution of plants and enable efficient plant production both on Earth and in space. For future deep space missions, plants may be able to provide astronauts with regenerative sources of food and supplemental methods of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman spent the morning gathering U.S. spacewalking tools and equipment to loan to his Russian crewmates for next week’s spacewalk. The equipment list included tethers and a pair of helmet cameras that can provide live, first-person views from the spacewalk.
Gerst meanwhile participated in a periodic fitness evaluation while working on an exercise bike known as the Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System, or CEVIS. Wiseman assisted Gerst with blood pressure measurements for part of the evaluation.
 Following a break for lunch, Swanson led Wiseman and Gerst through some handover activities to help them become familiar with the systems and payloads of the U.S. segment of the station. Wiseman and Gerst arrived aboard the station on May 28 along with Flight Engineer Max Suraev. The three new crew members also had time set aside on their own throughout the day to learn the ropes of their orbital home.
Suraev otherwise spent most of his workday removing a series of brackets in the Rassvet Mini-Research Module-1.
Wiseman later swapped out a manifold bottle in the Combustion Integrated Rack. This facility, which includes an optics bench, combustion chamber, fuel and oxidizer control and five different cameras, allows a variety of combustion experiments to be performed safely aboard the station. Experiments performed in this facility could lead to improvements in spacecraft materials selection and strategies for putting out accidental fires aboard spacecraft.
Afterward, Wiseman joined Swanson in the Destiny lab to talk with CBS Evening News’ Scott Pelley. The two astronauts discussed their participation in social media and the scientific research aboard the station.

New Station Trio Set for Wednesday Launch

While the orbiting Expedition 40 crew supported botanical research and robotics Tuesday aboard the International Space Station, the three crewmates who will return the station to its full six-person crew on Wednesday are in the final stages of preparations for launch.
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, cosmonaut Maxim Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst are set to launch aboard their Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:57 p.m. EDT Wednesday (1:57 a.m. Thursday, Kazakh time). Less than six hours later, at 9:48 p.m., Soyuz Commander Suraev will dock the Russian spacecraft to the Rassvet module on the Earth-facing side of the station.
 Commander Steve Swanson and Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov, who have been aboard the complex since March 27, will welcome the new flight engineers aboard when the hatches open at 11:25 p.m.
NASA Television coverage of the launch begins at 3 p.m. Wednesday. Live coverage resumes at 9 p.m. for the docking, followed by hatch opening coverage at 11 p.m.
 The Soyuz that will carry Wiseman, Suraev and Gerst to the station was rolled out by train from the integration building on Monday and erected on the launch pad.
 Meanwhile aboard the orbiting complex, Swanson spent much of Tuesday morning in the station’s Kibo laboratory breaking down equipment used for the most recent session of the Resist Tubule experiment. This Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency study takes a look at the mechanisms for gravity resistance in plants. Results from this study will help researchers learn more about the evolution of plants and enable efficient plant production both on Earth and in space. During a long-duration mission beyond low Earth orbit, plants can provide future astronauts with regenerative sources of food and supplemental methods of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.
Afterward, Swanson used the Kibo module’s airlock to transfer a replacement camera to the exterior of the station. The robotic teams at the Mobile Servicing System Operations Complex in Saint Hubert, Quebec, and the Mission Control Center in Houston worked together to command the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or Dextre, to retrieve the camera from the airlock and install it near the elbow joint of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. As part of an operation that began last week with the transfer of a camera into the system’s mobile base, which together with Dextre and Canadarm2 forms the Mobile Servicing System, Dextre has become the first robot to repair itself in space.
 Swanson took a break from his work to talk with CBS correspondents Bill Harwood and Peter King and ABC News anchor Dan Kloeffler.
On the Russian side of the complex, Skvortsov and Artemyev teamed up for the Russian BAR experiment, which is studying methods of detecting a leak from one of the station’s modules.
Skvortsov and Artemyev later participated in examinations of the veins in their legs as teams on the ground keep track of any changes to the cosmonaut’s health during the six-month stay aboard the station.
Artemyev also updated software for the Napor-mini RSA experiment, which utilizes an optical telescope and a small radar system for monitoring Earth’s environment.

Scientists Seek Answers With Space Station Thyroid Cancer Study

The multi-national efforts that go into research aboard the International Space Station show that working together can yield results with universal benefits. This is especially the case when talking about human health concerns such as cancer. Researchers make use of the microgravity environment aboard the space station to seek answers to questions about the nature of cancer cells. With the Microgravity on Human Thyroid Carcinoma Cells (Cellbox-Thyroid) study, recently conducted in orbit, the hope is to reveal answers that will help in the fight against thyroid cancer.
The American Cancer Society estimates about 62,980 cases of thyroid cancer in the U.S. for 2014. The thyroid is a gland in the neck that secretes hormones that help the body to regulate growth and development, metabolism, and body temperature. The Cellbox-Thyroid study is enabled through a collaborative effort between NanoRacks, Airbus Defense and Space, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to facilitate the microgravity investigation aboard the space station.
“NanoRacks is hosting this German research study aboard the U.S. National Laboratory,” said Jeff Manber, CEO of NanoRacks. “It may well make critical advances in understanding and even delaying the onset of cancer in the thyroid.”
The overall aim of the Cellbox-Thyroid study is to identify new biomarkers and target proteins for use in developing new cancer-fighting drugs. The investigation has roots in research performed in SIMBOX aboard the Sino-German Chinese Shenzhou-8 mission. During that 2011 study, Daniela-Gabriele Grimm, M.D., principal investigator and researcher with the Department of Biomedicine, Pharmacology at Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark, looked at cancer cells in microgravity and found that tumors behave less aggressively in that environment. Grimm’s published findings appeared earlier this year in the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.
“A further important finding was that a tumor grows three-dimensionally in space. The mechanism for this finding will also be investigated in this Cellbox-Thyroid experiment,” said Grimm. This result published in Elsevier Biomaterials 2013.
With the Cellbox-Thyroid study, Grimm seeks to build on her earlier conclusions by identifying the proteins that can be targeted to anti-cancer therapies. Insights into what controls how tumors grow may lead to knowledge for enhancing treatments on Earth. The experiments took place aboard the space station soon after berthing of the SpaceX Dragon on April 20. The samples returned to Earth aboard the same vehicle on May 18 for further analysis by researchers on the ground.
Specifically, researchers are looking for the microgravity environment to reveal an altered gene expression pattern—how the gene’s encoded information directs protein molecule assembly. They also seek to learn about the proteins expressed or secreted by the cells, called proteome and secretome. Isolating how the cell processes work could lead to new thyroid cancer drugs and provide a better understanding of the mechanism leading to cancer development for new strategies in thyroid cancer therapy.
“Spaceflight experiments are of great value for cell biology research in general and for cancer research in particular,” said Grimm. “Our experiments indicate that microgravity induce[s] changes in the expression and secretion of genes and proteins involved in cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, and survival, shifting the cells toward a less aggressive phenotype.”
In microgravity, researchers anticipate the cancer cells will form three-dimensional multicellular tumor spheroids. This behavior was identified in the previous study, where cells floated without mixing with each other in the microgravity environment. This finding revealed that biochemical components on the cell surfaces were responsible for the initial cell-to-cell interactions required for spheroid formation.
For the Cellbox-Thyroid study, researchers used six experiment containers that fit into the NanoRacks platform and centrifuge for the test runs. After the experiments completed, the samples were stored for return to Earth. Once back on the ground, researchers will analyze the samples and compare them to data from ground controls using simulated microgravity via a random positioning machine and the results from the SIMBOX study.
The hope is that the continuance of this research from the original SIMBOX mission to the space station study will confirm findings and build the statistical data. Grimm plans an additional follow up study, called Spheroids, for 2015. Spheroids will operate for two weeks while in orbit, providing data that—together with its predecessors—may one day take a chunk out of those annual thyroid cancer statistics.

Botanical Studies, Dragon Departure Preps for Station Crew

The three-person Expedition 40 crew spent its first full workday Thursday aboard the International Space Station working with a trio of botanical experiments and preparing for Sunday’s departure of the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft.
Following the crew’s daily planning conference with the flight control teams around the world, Commander Steve Swanson set up a test sample for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Resist Tubule experiment, which takes a look at the mechanisms for gravity resistance in plants.  Results from this study will help researchers learn more about the evolution of plants and enable efficient plant production both on Earth and in space. During a long-duration mission beyond low-Earth orbit, plants can provide future astronauts with regenerative sources of food and supplemental methods of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.
 Afterward, Swanson teamed up with Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev to transfer research samples from some of the freezers aboard the station into the GLACIER freezer that will be returning to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft.
On Sunday, Dragon is set to be detached from the Earth-facing side of the station's Harmony module and unberthed through commands sent by robotic ground controllers at mission control in Houston operating the Canadarm 2 robotic arm. Dragon then will be maneuvered into place for its release, which is scheduled for 9:26 a.m. EDT. Dragon, which delivered about 2.5 tons of science and supplies to the station for the SpaceX-3 commercial resupply services mission when it arrived at the complex April 20, will be carrying 3,500 pounds of NASA science samples and cargo when it splashes down for recovery off the coast of California at 3:02 p.m. (12:02 p.m. PDT).
 Swanson later thinned out “Outredgeous” red romaine lettuce seedlings growing in the Veggie plant facility to give the remaining plants more room to grow.  Veggie is a low-cost plant growth chamber that uses a flat-panel light bank that includes red, blue and green LEDs for plant growth and crew observation. For the Veg-01 experiment, researchers are testing and validating the Veggie hardware, and the plants will be harvested and returned to Earth to determine food safety.
 The commander then transferred the Micro-7 BioCell habitat to the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus.  Micro-7 takes a look at how microgravity affects the genetic expression and physical shape of non-dividing cells, which are the majority of cells that make up the human body.

After checking out a crew command control panel for Sunday’s Dragon activities, Swanson fielded questions from Denver television station KMGH-TV for an in-flight interview in the station’s Destiny laboratory. Swanson, who hails from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, discussed life aboard the station and his attempts to spot his hometown from space.
Swanson rounded out his day by removing the Biotube-MICRO payload from one of the station’s EXPRESS racks for return aboard Dragon. This experiment investigates the potential for magnetic fields to orient plant roots as they grow in microgravity. Plants are not directly sensitive to magnetic fields, but starch grains, called amyloplasts, in plant cells respond to external magnetic fields. Results from Biotube-MICRO may lead to using high-strength magnetic fields in space as a substitute for gravitational cues for growing plants during long-duration missions.
 On the Russian side of the complex, Artemyev conducted the Uragan Earth-observation experiment, which seeks to document and predict the development of natural and man-made disasters on Earth. He also participated in the Interactions experiment, which studies the impacts of personal, cultural and national differences among crew members.
 Flight Engineer Alexander Skvortsov focused much of his attention on routing and connecting cables for the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) control panel and proximity communication equipment inside the Zvezda service module.   The fifth and final ATV cargo ship, dubbed “Georges Lemaître,” is targeted to launch to the station this summer.
Meanwhile, the three flight engineers who will return the station to its full six-person crew complement are now in the homestretch leading up to their May 28 launch to the station. Reid Wiseman of NASA, Max Suraev of Roscosmos and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency wrapped up pre-flight activities Thursday in Star City, Russia, and flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan where their Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft is being prepared for launch.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Wrapping Up Waypoint Work

Portions of powdered rock collected by drilling into a sandstone target last week have been delivered to laboratory instruments inside NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, and the rover will soon drive on toward its long-term destination on a mountain slope.
Other instruments on the rover have inspected the rock's interior exposed in the hole and in drill cuttings heaped around the hole. The target rock, "Windjana," is a sandstone slab within a science waypoint area called "The Kimberley."
The camera and spectrometer at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm examined the texture and composition of the cuttings.  The instrument that fires a laser from atop the rover's mast zapped a series of points inside the hole with sharpshooter accuracy.
The rover team has decided not to drill any other rock target at this waypoint. In coming days, Curiosity will resume driving toward Mount Sharp, the layered mountain at the middle of Mars' Gale Crater. The rover is carrying with it some of the powdered sample material from Windjana that can be delivered for additional internal laboratory analysis during pauses in the drive.
The mission's two previous rock-drilling sites, at mudstone targets, yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that long ago provided conditions favorable for microbial life.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Expedition 39 Trio Set to Depart Station

Three Expedition 39 crew members are wrapping up more than six months aboard the International Space Station as they get set for the journey back to Earth aboard a Soyuz spacecraft Tuesday.
Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, will bid farewell to their station crewmates and close the hatches to their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft docked to the Rassvet module Tuesday afternoon. NASA Television coverage of the farewells and hatch closure begins at 3 p.m. EDT.
 When their Soyuz undocks at 6:36 p.m., it will mark the end of Expedition 39 and the start of Expedition 40 under the command of NASA astronaut Steve Swanson. Wakata, the first Japanese commander of the orbiting complex, passed the helm of the station over to Swanson during a change of command ceremony Monday afternoon.
 A deorbit burn at 9:04 p.m. will put the Soyuz on track for a parachute-assisted landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 9:58 p.m. (7:58 a.m. Wednesday, Kazakh time). The landing will complete a journey of over 79 million statute miles and more than 3,000 orbits of the Earth for the trio since launching to the station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan back on Nov. 7.

Live NASA Television coverage of the undocking begins at 6:15 p.m. Coverage resumes at 8:45 p.m. for the deorbit burn and continues through the landing and post-landing activities.
Swanson and his crewmates, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos, will operate the station as a three-person crew for two weeks until the arrival of three new crew members -- Reid Wiseman of NASA, Max Suraev of Roscosmos and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency. The trio of new flight engineers, who are wrapping up pre-flight activities in Star City, Russia, will fly to Baikonur on Thursday to begin the homestretch of preparations for their May 28 launch to the station.
Samples from the ongoing microbiome investigation will return on the Soyuz TMA-11M. The microbiome study looks at the impact of space travel on the immune system and on human microbiomes – microbes living in and on the human body at any given time. Samples from crew members’ bodies and the space station environment are taken periodically to monitor changes in the immune system and microbiomes. The results of this study may add to research on health impacts to people who live and work in extreme environments on Earth, and help with research on early disease detection, metabolic function and immune system deficiency.

How Does Your Garden Glow? NASA's OCO-2 Seeks Answer

Science is full of serendipity -- moments when discoveries happen by chance or accident while researchers are looking for something else. For example, penicillin was identified when a blue-green mold grew on a Petri dish that had been left open by mistake.
Now, satellite instruments have given climate researchers at NASA and other research institutions an unexpected global view from space of a nearly invisible fluorescent glow that sheds new light on the productivity of vegetation on land. Previously, global views of this glow from chlorophyll were only possible over Earth’s ocean, using NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua spacecraft.
When the Japanese Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT), known as “IBUKI” in Japan, launched into orbit in 2009, its primary mission was to measure levels of carbon dioxide and methane, two major heat-trapping greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. However, NASA researchers, in collaboration with Japanese and other international colleagues, found another treasure hidden in the data: fluorescence from chlorophyll contained within plants. Although scientists have measured fluorescence in laboratory settings and ground-based field experiments for decades, these new satellite data now provide the ability to monitor what is known as solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence on a global scale, opening up a world of potential new applications for studying vegetation on land.
A “signature” of photosynthesis, solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence is an indicator of the process by which plants convert light from the sun into chemical energy. As chlorophyll molecules absorb incoming radiation, some of the light is dissipated as heat, and some radiation is re-emitted at longer wavelengths as fluorescence.
Enter NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). Researchers who study the interaction of plants, carbon and climate are eagerly awaiting fluorescence data from the OCO-2 satellite mission, scheduled to launch in July 2014. The instrument aboard OCO-2 will make precise measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, recording 24 observations a second versus GOSAT’s single observation every four seconds, resulting in almost 100 times more observations of both carbon dioxide and fluorescence than GOSAT.
“Data from OCO-2 will extend the GOSAT time series and allow us to observe large-scale changes to photosynthesis in a new way,” said David Schimel, lead scientist for the Carbon and Ecosystems research program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages the OCO-2 mission for NASA. “The fluorescence data may turn out to be a unique and very complementary data set of the OCO-2 mission.”
“OCO-2’s fluorescence data, when combined with the observatory’s atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements, will increase the value of the OCO-2 mission to NASA, the United States and world,” said Ralph Basilio, OCO-2 project manager at JPL.
Turning the Sun Off
Being able to see fluorescence from space allows scientists to estimate photosynthesis rates over vast scales, gleaning insights into vital processes that affect humans and other living things on Earth. “The rate of photosynthesis is critical because it’s the process that drives the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere and agricultural [food] production,” said Joseph Berry, a researcher in the Department of Global Ecology at Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.
Measuring the fluorescent “glow” may sound simple, but the tiny signal is overpowered by reflected sunlight. “Imagine that you’re in your child’s bedroom and they have a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling," Schimel said. "Then you turn the lights on. The stars are still glowing, but looking for that glow with the lights on is like looking for fluorescence amidst the reflected sunlight.” Retrieving the fluorescence data requires disentangling sunlight that is reflected by plants from the light given off by them -- in other words, figuring out a way to “turn the sun off.”
Researchers found that by tuning GOSAT’s spectrometer (an instrument that can measure different parts of the spectrum of light) to look at very narrow channels, they could see parts of the spectrum where there was fluorescence but less reflected solar radiation. “It’s as if you had put on a pair of glasses that filtered out the radiation in your child’s room except for that glow from the stars,” said Schimel.
Scientists are excited about the new measurement because it will give them better insight into how Earth's plants are taking up carbon dioxide. According to the Global Carbon Project, a non-governmental organization devoted to developing a complete picture of the carbon cycle, our burning of fossil fuels on Earth had produced nearly 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2011. This is almost 5 tons of carbon dioxide for every one of Earth’s seven billion inhabitants.
About half of that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere. The other half is dissolved in the ocean or taken up by Earth’s biosphere (living organisms on land and in the ocean), where it is tucked away in carbon reservoirs or “sinks.” These sinks are shielding us from the full effect of our emissions.
Plants in a High-Carbon World
“Everybody that’s using fossil fuels right now is being subsidized by the biosphere,” said Berry. “But one of the key unknowns is -- what’s going to be happening in the long term? Is it going to continue to subsidize us?”
The future of Earth’s plants depends largely on one of the carbon cycle’s key ingredients: water. Plants need water to carry out photosynthesis. When their water supply runs low, such as during times of drought, photosynthesis slows down.
For the past quarter century, satellite instruments such as MODIS and the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites have enabled researchers to monitor plant health and productivity by measuring the amount of “greenness,” which shows how much leaf material is exposed to sunlight. The drawback of using the greenness index, however, is that greenness doesn’t immediately respond to stresses -- water stress for example -- that reduce photosynthesis and productivity.
“Plants can be green, but not active,” said JPL research scientist Christian Frankenberg, also a member of the OCO-2 science team. “Imagine an evergreen needle-leaf forest at high elevation in winter. The trees are still green, but they’re not photosynthesizing.”
Solar-induced fluorescence data would tell you straight away that something had happened, explains Schimel, but greenness doesn’t tell you until the plants are already drooping and maybe dead.
About 30 percent of the photosynthesis that occurs in Earth’s land regions takes place in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon, which encompasses about 2.7 million square miles (7 million square kilometers) of South America. The Amazon is home to more than half of Earth’s terrestrial biomass and tropical forest area -- making it one of the two most important land regions for carbon storage (the other being the Arctic, where carbon is stored in the soil).
Recent studies in the Amazon using fluorescence measurements have examined how photosynthesis rates change during wet and dry seasons. Most of the results show that during the dry season, photosynthesis slows down. According to Berry, when the air is dry and hot, it makes sense for plants to conserve water by closing their stomates (pores). “During the dry season when it would cost the plants a lot of water, photosynthesis is dialed down and the forest becomes less active,” he said.
In 2005 and 2010, the Amazon basin experienced the type of droughts that historically have happened only once in a century. Greenness measurements indicated widespread die-off of trees and major changes to the forest canopy (treetops) after the droughts, but fluorescence data from GOSAT exposed even milder water stress in the dry season of normal years. “There is the potential that as climate change proceeds, these droughts will become more severe. The areas that support tropical rainforest could decrease,” said Berry. Less tropical forest means less carbon absorbed from the air.
In addition, as trees decay, they release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, creating a scenario whereby the biosphere potentially becomes a source of carbon rather than a sink. “If there is a dieback of the tropical rainforest, that might add to the effect of fossil fuel carbon dioxide on climate change,” said Frankenberg.
Because photosynthesis is one of the key processes involved in the carbon cycle, and because the carbon cycle plays an important role in climate, better fluorescence information could help resolve some uncertainties about the uptake of carbon dioxide by plants in climate models. “We think fluorescence is going to help carbon cycle models get the right answer,” said Berry. “If you don’t have the models right, how can you get the rest of it right?”
“We really don’t understand the quantitative relationship between climate and photosynthesis very well, because we’ve only been able to study it at very small scales,” said Schimel. “Measuring plant fluorescence from space may be an important addition to the set of techniques available to us.”

Pioneering Mercury Astronauts Launched America's Future

From ancient astronomers to fantasy authors to modern-day scientists, visionaries dreamed for centuries about travel beyond Earth into outer space. On a spring day in 1959, America's fledgling space agency introduced seven military test pilots who would turn the stuff of science fiction into the "right stuff," launching the nation into the future.
Over the coming years these new astronauts would make frequent trips to Florida's Space Coast and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station training for flights into the "new frontier." All would go on to become early heroes in space exploration and in the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union.
In a Washington D.C. news conference on April 9, 1959, 55 years ago, Dr. Keith Glennan, NASA's first administrator, announced the names of the long-awaited first group of astronauts. Now known as the "Original Seven," they included three Naval aviators, M. Scott Carpenter, Walter M. Schirra Jr., and Alan B. Shepard Jr.; three Air Force pilots, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, and Donald K. (Deke) Slayton; along with Marine Corps aviator John H. Glenn Jr.
"Today we are introducing to you and to the world these seven men who have been selected to begin training for orbital spaceflight," Glennan said. "These men, the nation's Project Mercury astronauts, are here after a long, and perhaps unprecedented, series of evaluations which told our medical consultants and scientists of their superb adaptability to their coming flight."
On Oct. 7, 1958, the space agency announced plans to launch humans into space. Project Mercury became NASA's first major undertaking. The objectives of the program were simple by today's standards, but required a major undertaking to place a human-rated spacecraft into orbit around Earth, observe the astronaut's performance in such conditions and safely recover the astronaut and the spacecraft.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision that the military services could provide the pilots simplified the astronaut selection process. From a total of 508 service records screened in January 1959, 110 men were found to meet the minimum standards. This list of names included five Marines, 47 Naval aviators and 58 Air Force pilots.
NASA officials were pleased so many agreed to participate in the man-in-space project. At the introductory news conference, Shepard said that he was eager to participate as soon as he learned NASA was seeking pilots for spaceflight.
"I think that I was enthusiastic about the program from the start and I enthusiastically volunteered," he said.
Carpenter pointed out that his eagerness extended to his wife.
"When I was notified that I was being considered during the second and third days of the competitive program, I was on duty at sea," he said, "so my wife called (NASA Headquarters in) Washington and volunteered for me."
When the group was asked why they wanted to travel into space, Slayton explained his belief that aviation had extended around the globe and it was now time to start looking up.
"I feel that this is the future of not only this country but for the world," he said. "It is an extension of flight and we have to go somewhere and that is all that is left. This is an excellent opportunity to be in on something new."
The initial battery of written tests, technical surveys and medical history reviews were administered to 56 pilots during February 1959. Those who declined or were eliminated reduced the total at the beginning of March to 36. They were then invited to undergo extraordinary physical examinations at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, N.M., and extreme mental and physical environmental tests at the Wright Air Development Center in Dayton, Ohio.
When asked to name the toughest test during the extensive evaluations, Glenn pointed to the physical examinations.
"We had some pretty good tests," he said. "It is difficult to pick one because if you figure how many openings there are on a human body and how far you can go into any one of them, you answer which one would be the toughest for you."
During the introductory news conference, Schirra noted that his father was a pioneer in the early days of flight. The elder Schirra went to Canada during World War I and earned his pilot rating, later becoming a barnstormer.
"My father was one of the very early aviators," he said, "so I feel going into space is an expansion in another dimension, much as aviation was an expansion from the surface of the Earth."
Grissom saw volunteering to be an astronaut as another way to help America as an Air Force officer.
"My career has been serving the nation, serving the country and here is another opportunity where they need my talents," he said. "I am just grateful for an opportunity to serve in this capacity."
Cooper was quick to express faith in the thousands of people who would be designing, building and preparing the launch vehicles and spacecraft for flight.
"I have faith in the people that I am working with in this program," he said, "and I know it will be a success."
Glenn compared Project Mercury to the Wright Brothers' first powered aircraft flight in North Carolina in 1903.
"My feelings are that this whole project with regard to space is like the Wright Brothers standing at Kitty Hawk about fifty years ago, with Orville and Wilbur pitching a coin to see who was going to shove the other one off the hill," he said. "I think we stand on the verge of something as big and as expansive as that."

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Hubble View: A Hungry Starburst Galaxy

This new Hubble picture is the sharpest ever image of the core of spiral galaxy Messier 61. Taken using the High Resolution Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, the central part of the galaxy is shown in striking detail.
Also known as NGC 4303, this galaxy is roughly 100,000 light-years across, comparable in size to our galaxy, the Milky Way. Both Messier 61 and our home galaxy belong to a group of galaxies known as the Virgo Supercluster in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) — a group of galaxy clusters containing up to 2,000 spiral and elliptical galaxies in total.
Messier 61 is a type of galaxy known as a starburst galaxy. Starburst galaxies experience an incredibly high rate of star formation, hungrily using up their reservoir of gas in a very short period of time (in astronomical terms). But this is not the only activity going on within the galaxy; deep at its heart there is thought to be a supermassive black hole that is violently spewing out radiation.
Despite its inclusion in the Messier Catalogue, Messier 61 was actually discovered by Italian astronomer Barnabus Oriani in 1779. Charles Messier also noticed this galaxy on the very same day as Oriani, but mistook it for a passing comet — the comet of 1779.

Cassini Spies the Ice-Giant Planet Uranus

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured its first-ever image of the pale blue ice-giant planet Uranus in the distance beyond Saturn’s rings.
The robotic spacecraft briefly turned its gaze away from the ringed beauty of Saturn on April 11, 2014, to observe the distant planet, which is the seventh planet from the sun.
The planets Uranus and Neptune are sometimes referred to as “ice giants” to distinguish them from their larger siblings, Jupiter and Saturn, the classic "gas giants." The moniker derives from the fact that a comparatively large part of the planets’ composition consists of water, ammonia and methane, which are typically frozen as ices in the cold depths of the outer solar system. Jupiter and Saturn are made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with smaller percentages of these ices.
When this view was obtained, Uranus was nearly on the opposite side of the sun as seen from Saturn, at a distance of approximately 28.6 astronomical units from Cassini and Saturn. An astronomical unit is the average distance from Earth to the sun, equal to 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). At their closest – once during each Saturn orbit of nearly 30 years – the two planets approach to within about 10 astronomical units of each other.
In addition to its aesthetic appeal, Cassini’s view of Uranus also serves a practical purpose. Scientists working on several of Cassini’s science investigations expect that they will be able to use images and spectra from these observations to help calibrate their own instruments.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

New Craft Will Be America's First Space Lifeboat in 40 Years

The next generation of American spacecraft designed to carry people into low-Earth orbit will be required to function as a lifeboat for the International Space Station for up to seven months. This service has not been provided by an American spacecraft since an Apollo command module remained docked to Skylab for about three months from 1973 to '74.
Like a lifeboat on a cruise ship, the spacecraft is not expected to be called into service to quickly evacuate people but it has to be ready for that job just in case.
Right now, the lifeboat function on the space station is served by requiring a pair of Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be docked at all times. Each Soyuz holds three people. So with two docked, there can be six people working on the station at any one time. The crew drops to three when one Soyuz leaves and before another arrives during a procedure called an indirect handover.
There are fundamentally two capabilities a spacecraft must perform to be called a lifeboat, said NASA engineers who are working with companies developing spacecraft in the agency's Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
First, the spacecraft needs to provide a shelter for astronauts in case of a problem on the station. Second, the ship has to be able to quickly get all its systems operating and detach from the station for a potential return to Earth.
"You've got to make sure it provides the same capability on day 210 as it does on day 1," said Justin Kerr, manager of CCP's Spacecraft Office.
Two things make it tough for spacecraft designers when it comes to the lifeboat feature: power and protection from things outside the spacecraft like micrometeoroids. The vast amount of electricity generated by the space station's acre of solar arrays is reserved for the station's systems and science experiments.
The amount of power dedicated for a docked crew spacecraft is similar to the amount of electricity a refrigerator uses.
"There's very little power available for these spacecraft so what we're really driving the partners to do is develop this quiescent mode that draws very little power," Kerr said.
Ideally, designers want to have the spacecraft powered off when it is attached to the station. That might not be possible, though, because air doesn't automatically circulate in microgravity the way it does on Earth. So a spacecraft, even with its hatch open inside of the station, can develop dead spots, or sections of the cabin without air for breathing, unless there is something to move the air around.
"You don't want someone to go into the spacecraft and immediately pass out because there's no breathable air in that one area," said Scott Thurston, deputy manager of CCP's Spacecraft Office.
Designers also have the unique challenge to build a spacecraft strong enough to withstand impacts from micrometeoroids, but cannot carry a lot of armor because it would be too heavy to launch. Although numerous impacts are not expected, designers are still expected to show their craft can survive an occasional hit.
"It's something you have to design for, the magic bb scenario," Thurston said.
The situations when the craft will be needed are not only hypothetical. There have been occasions on the International Space Station when the crew members took refuge in the Soyuz because space debris was passing near the station.
CCP gave aerospace companies a list of requirements their spacecraft need to meet during NASA’s certification process for use as in-orbit lifeboats, Thurston said.
Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX are working in partnership with NASA on spacecraft designs that meet these criteria under their Commercial Crew Integrated Capability agreements.
Thurston said each company is coming up with its own novel solutions for the best way to meet the needs of a spacecraft that docks with the station and then stays in orbit for seven months.
"There's no rock left unturned," Thurston said. "Some have started out with very extravagant environmental control and life support systems and as they're doing their studies, they're slowly figuring out exactly what they need and what they don't need."
With a new American spacecraft also offering another four to seven seats, the station can host more astronauts than its current complement of six. That means more science on the station since more people would be available for research duties.
"You never kept more on station than you could get off the station and back home," Thurston said. "It's why we staff that station the way we do. Now, you expand the crew capacity and then the crew and that really expands the amount of science you can do."

Well-behaved, Young Galaxy Surprises Astronomers

Scientists have discovered a young galaxy acting in unexpectedly mature ways. The galaxy, called S0901, is rotating in a calm manner typical of more developed galaxies like our own spiral Milky Way.
“Usually, when astronomers examine galaxies in an early era, they find that turbulence plays a much greater role than it does in modern galaxies. But S0901 is a clear exception to that pattern," said James Rhoads of Arizona State University, Tempe.
It has taken the light from the galaxy 10 billion years to reach us across space, so we are seeing it when it was comparatively young.
"This galaxy is the equivalent of a 10-year-old. I can tell you from watching my kids' classes that 10-year-olds like to fidget! S0901 is unusual because it's not fidgeting, and instead is very well behaved." Rhoads is lead author of the research, appearing in the May 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
The discovery was made using the Herschel space observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions.
"This is a truly surprising result that reminds us that we still don't understand many details of the evolution of the universe. Facilities like Herschel help us understand this complex story," said Paul Goldsmith, U.S. Herschel Project Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
When galaxies form, they accumulate mass because their gravity attracts vast, external gas clouds. As the gas clouds enter a particular galaxy, they fall into haphazard orbits. These disordered paths cause turbulence in the host galaxy, which can drive star formation.
To investigate the internal conditions of forming galaxies, Rhoads and Sangeeta Malhotra, also from Arizona State University, and colleagues targeted two young galaxies, one of them being S0901.
Using a cosmic magnifier known as a gravitational lens, the researchers got a better view of the galaxies than they would have otherwise. An instrument on Herschel, the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI), was then able to pick up the signature of ionized carbon, revealing the motion of the gas molecules in the galaxies. This motion was much smoother than anticipated in the S0901 galaxy. Results for the second galaxy hinted at a calm rotation too, but were less clear.
"Galaxies 10 billion years ago were making stars more actively than they do now," says Malhotra. "They usually also show more turbulence, likely because they are accumulating gas faster than a modern galaxy does. But here we have cases where an early galaxy combines the calm rotation of a modern one with the active star formation of their early peers."

Target on Mars Looks Good for NASA Rover Drilling

The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover plans to proceed in coming days with the third-ever drilling into a rock on Mars to collect a sample for analysis.
The rover used several tools to examine the candidate site over the weekend, including a wire-bristle brush -- the Dust Removal Tool -- to clear away dust from a patch on the rock. The target slab of sandstone has been given the informal name "Windjana," after a gorge in Western Australia.
"In the brushed spot, we can see that the rock is fine-grained, its true color is much grayer than the surface dust, and some portions of the rock are harder than others, creating the interesting bumpy textures," said Curiosity science team member Melissa Rice of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "All of these traits reinforce our interest in drilling here in order understand the chemistry of the fluids that bound these grains together to form the rock."
Before Curiosity drills deeply enough for collection of rock-powder sample, plans call for a preparatory "mini-drill" operation on the target, as a further check for readiness.
Curiosity's hammering drill collects powdered sample material from the interior of a rock, and then the rover prepares and delivers portions of the sample to laboratory instruments onboard. The first two Martian rocks drilled and analyzed this way were mudstone slabs neighboring each other in Yellowknife Bay, about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) northeast of the rover's current location at a waypoint called "The Kimberley." Those two rocks yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that provided conditions billions of years ago favorable for microbial life.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

NASA Honors William Shatner With Distinguished Public Service Medal

After nearly 50 years of warping across galaxies and saving the universe from a variety of alien threats and celestial disasters, Star Trek’s William Shatner finally went where no other member of Starfleet has gone before. This weekend, the acclaimed actor and director was honored with NASA’s Distinguished Public Service medal, the highest award bestowed by the agency to non-government personnel.
The honor was presented to Shatner Saturday evening in Los Angeles at his annual Hollywood Charity Horse Show, where he raises money for a variety of children’s causes. The citation for the medal reads, “For outstanding generosity and dedication to inspiring new generations of explorers around the world, and for unwavering support for NASA and its missions of discovery.”
William Shatner has been so generous with his time and energy in encouraging students to study science and math, and for inspiring generations of explorers, including many of the astronauts and engineers who are a part of NASA today, ” said David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington.  “He's most deserving of this prestigious award.”
A life-long advocate of science and space exploration, Shatner gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James Tiberius Kirk, commander of the starship USS Enterprise in NBC’s science fiction television series “Star Trek” from 1966 to 1969. It was a role he would reprise in an animated version of the series in 1973, seven major films from 1979 to 1994, and more recent “Star Trek” video games.
Shatner’s relationship with NASA dates back to the original series, with references to the space agency and its programs that were incorporated into storylines throughout the television and film franchises. In 1979, when NASA was ready to introduce a reusable spacecraft as the successor to the Apollo program, a new space shuttle prototype, originally to be named Constitution, was dubbed Enterprise in honor of the Star Trek universe and the work of Shatner and his series co-stars.

NASA's Spitzer and WISE Telescopes Find Close, Cold Neighbor of Sun

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest "brown dwarf" known -- a dim, star-like body that  surprisingly is as frosty as Earth's North Pole.
Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance to 7.2 light-years away, earning it the title for fourth closest system to our sun. The closest system, a trio of stars, is Alpha Centauri, at about 4 light-years away.
"It's very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," said Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, University Park. "And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures."
Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as collapsing balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight. The newfound coldest brown dwarf is named WISE J085510.83-071442.5. It has a chilly temperature between minus 54 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius). Previous record holders for coldest brown dwarfs, also found by WISE and Spitzer, were about room temperature.
WISE was able to spot the rare object because it surveyed the entire sky twice in infrared light, observing some areas up to three times. Cool objects like brown dwarfs can be invisible when viewed by visible-light telescopes, but their thermal glow -- even if feeble -- stands out in infrared light. In addition, the closer a body, the more it appears to move in images taken months apart. Airplanes are a good example of this effect: a closer, low-flying plane will appear to fly overhead more rapidly than a high-flying one.
"This object appeared to move really fast in the WISE data," said Luhman. "That told us it was something special."
After noticing the fast motion of WISE J085510.83-071442.5 in March of 2013, Luhman spent time analyzing additional images taken with Spitzer and the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile. Spitzer's infrared observations helped determine the frosty temperature of the brown dwarf. Combined detections from WISE and Spitzer, taken from different positions around the sun, enabled the measurement of its distance through the parallax effect. This is the same principle that explains why your finger, when held out right in front of you, appears to jump from side to side when you alternate left- and right-eye views.
"It is remarkable that even after many decades of studying the sky, we still do not have a complete inventory of the sun's nearest neighbors," said Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. JPL manages and operates Spitzer. "This exciting new result demonstrates the power of exploring the universe using new tools, such as the infrared eyes of WISE and Spitzer."

Orion Feels the Vibe During Tests at Kennedy Space Center

Testing designed to simulate the vibrations NASA's Orion will experience during its first trip to space successfully wrapped up inside the Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The completion of the testing marks another step forward toward Orion's uncrewed December flight that will put to the test the spacecraft that will send astronauts to an asteroid and eventually Mars on future missions.
"It was a great accomplishment for the test team in preparation for the Exploration Flight Test-1 later this year," said Rafael Garcia, the Orion Program Test and Verification lead at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Following months of preparations and pretest analysis, the multi-point random vibration test was conducted without any major issues and was completed two days ahead of schedule."
To prepare for the vibration tests, which were conducted April 17-24, a team of NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers and technicians transferred Orion from the crew module assembly station to a special vibration stand in a portable test chamber. The spacecraft was isolated from the floor and stand on special footing. Orion's thrusters were cantilevered out so they were isolated from the test, and its windows, parachutes and drogue chutes were covered for protection.
Accelerometers and strain gages were placed around the crew module in various locations. These were used to measure simulated acceleration and strain levels on Orion's structure.
Two electromagnetic shakers, each capable of up to 4,000 pounds of force, were attached to Orion on opposite sides. Baseline vibration tests began at five megahertz and gradually were increased up to about 500 megahertz. After each test run, the shakers were relocated to different points on Orion and systems specialists checked for any changes or abnormalities in the spacecraft's structure.    
Garcia said that preliminary analysis of the test data confirmed that Orion's structure performed as predicted.
Before each thirty-second test run, Orion's avionics, batteries and electrical systems were powered up and its ammonia and helium tanks were pressurized to 200 psi.
The tests were monitored in a separate control room near the high bay, and the data after each 30-second run was analyzed to check for imperfections or defects and how the crew module performed. A flight following team in Firing Room 1 in Kennedy's Launch Control Center monitored Orion during periods of powered-up testing.
"Shut-down limits were established in case the vibrations began to exceed limits," said Trevor Kott, the Orion Crew and Service Module ground test manager at Johnson. "This kind of test can be very complicated. There's a science to finding the right balance."
During the vibration test, other instrumentation on Orion was monitored for its state of health.
"The completion of the test is a great accomplishment for the test team and NASA's Orion Program in preparation for EFT-1," Garcia said.
Orion’s first flight will launch an uncrewed capsule 3,600 miles into space for a four-hour mission to test several of its most critical systems. After making two orbits, Orion will return to Earth at almost 20,000 miles per hour and endure temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, before its parachutes slow it down for a landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Space Station Live: Gardening in Space

Paul Zamprelli, Business Director for Orbital Technologies Corp., talks about the VEGGIES experiment. The study will provide the technology to grow vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes and radishes for astronaut consumption.

Space Station Live: Destination Station: Indianapolis

Space Station Live commentator Kyle Herring interviews Megan Sumner, the media lead for Destination Station: Indianapolis. Destination Station is NASA's International Space Station Program national awareness campaign that promotes research opportunities, educates communities about activities performed on the International Space Station, and communicates the real and potential impacts of the station on our everyday lives.

Astronauts Complete Short Spacewalk to Replace Backup Computer

NASA Astronauts Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio have completed a short spacewalk to replace a failed Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM) back up computer. They began the re-pressurization of the Quest airlock at 11:32 a.m. EDT signifying the excursion’s end time.
The backup computer failed April 11 after a routine health check by the Mission Control team in Houston. While the primary computer continues operating flawlessly NASA managers ordered Wednesday’s spacewalk repair to ensure redundancy on critical systems. The computer outage did not pose a risk to the six crew members aboard the space station.

 The duo worked on the S0 truss which is where the backup MDM is located. The truss is located above the Destiny laboratory module and forms the center of the station’s Integrated Truss Structure, or backbone. The MDM provides telemetry and commands to truss systems, solar alpha rotary joints and the Mobile Transporter rail car which rides along the truss structure.

Swanson and Mastracchio installed a spare MDM that was housed inside the Destiny lab since April 2001 when it was delivered aboard space shuttle Endeavour. They removed the failed MDM from the S0 truss where it has been located since the truss was delivered with the MDM already inside in April 2002. The station houses 45 MDMs, 24 internally and 21 externally.
Station and SpaceX managers decided the computer failure wouldn’t impact Sunday’s arrival of the Dragon commercial cargo craft on the SpaceX-3 mission. After an engineering review of the station’s systems it was determined the station had enough redundancy for SpaceX-3 to begin its mission when it launched Friday afternoon aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
Read about the SpaceX-3 launch and docking.
A few hours earlier today an ISS Progress 53 resupply ship undocked from the Zvezda service module. It will back up about 311 miles from the space station so Russian mission controllers can test its upgraded Kurs automated rendezvous system. The Progress will redock again Friday at 8:15 a.m. to the Zvezda service module after the Kurs tests are complete.