Space Station Live: Deploying Cubesats from the Station

NASA PAO Officer Amiko Kauderer talks to Michael Johnson, NanoRacks Chief Technology Officer, about the installation of the CubeSat deployer in the Japanese Experiment Module Airlock. The installation work is in preparation for the upcoming deployment of several tiny satellites.

Space to Ground - 1/31/14

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Got a question or comment?

Astronaut Mike Hopkins: Workout in Space 1

Astronaut Mike Hopkins, a lifelong athlete, worked closely with his strength and conditioning coach Mark Guilliams to develop these specially-designed workouts in orbit. Shown here, Hopkins is using the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device to perform this challenging workout. (100 Pull Ups, Push Ups, Sit Ups and Air Squats each.)

As part of his mission, Hopkins is a participant in a number of going medical studies and research experiments.

Pro K is one area of research Mike is helping with. For this study, the astronauts eat a low protein diet in an effort to minimize bone mineral loss. This will not only help future astronauts on long duration missions, but given the dietary trends in the U.S., this research will have direct public health significance helping us better understand protein-rich diets. Learn more about Pro K: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sta...

Numerous benefits are already being realized from space station science such as vaccine development research, imagery that aids disaster relief and farming, and education programs that inspire future scientists, and engineers are just some examples. To learn more about benefits from ISS, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/iss-science

Staying healthy is important for all astronauts going to space, but lifelong fitness is particularly important to Mike. To follow along with his workouts and other Astronaut workouts and activities, check out: http://www.facebook.com/TrainAstronaut

NASA's LRO Snaps a Picture of NASA's LADEE Spacecraft

With precise timing, the camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was able to take a picture of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft as it orbited our nearest celestial neighbor. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) operations team worked with its LADEE and LRO operations counterparts to make the imaging possible.
LADEE is in an equatorial orbit (east-­to-­west) while LRO is in a polar orbit (south-­to-­north). The two spacecraft are occasionally very close and on Jan. 15, 2014, the two came within 5.6 miles (9 km) of each other. As LROC is a push-broom imager, it builds up an image one line at a time, so catching a target as small and fast as LADEE is tricky. Both spacecraft are orbiting the moon with velocities near 3,600 mph (1,600 meters per second), so timing and pointing of LRO must be nearly perfect to capture LADEE in an LROC image.
LADEE passed directly beneath the LRO orbit plane a few seconds before LRO crossed the LADEE orbit plane, meaning a straight down LROC image would have just missed LADEE. The LADEE and LRO teams worked out the solution: simply have LRO roll 34 degrees to the west so the LROC detector (one line) would be in the right place as LADEE passed beneath.
As planned at 8:11 p.m. EST on Jan. 14, 2014, LADEE entered LRO’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) field of view for 1.35 milliseconds and a smeared image of LADEE was snapped. LADEE appears in four lines of the LROC image, and is distorted right­to­left. What can be seen in the LADEE pixels in the NAC image?
Step one is to minimize the geometric distortion in the smeared lines that show the spacecraft. However, in doing so the background lunar landscape becomes distorted and unrecognizable (see above). The scale (dimension) of the NAC pixels recording LADEE is 3.5 inches (9 cm), however, as the spacecraft were both moving about 3,600 mph (1,600 meters per second) the image is blurred in both directions by around 20 inches (50 cm). So the actual pixel scale lies somewhere between 3.5 inches and 20 inches. Despite the blur it is possible to find details of the spacecraft, which is about 4.7 feet (1.9 meters) wide and 7.7 feet (2.4 meters) long. The engine nozzle, bright solar panel and perhaps a star tracker camera can be seen (especially if you have a correctly oriented schematic diagram of LADEE for comparison).
LADEE was launched Sept. 6, 2013. LADEE is gathering detailed information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and determining whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky.
LRO launched Sept. 18, 2009. LRO continues to bring the world astounding views of the lunar surface and a treasure trove of lunar data.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the LRO mission. NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages the LADEE mission.

NASA Ramps Up Space Launch System Sound Suppression Testing

The first round of acoustic tests on a scale model of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) is underway. The tests will allow engineers to verify the design of the sound suppression system being developed for the agency's new deep space rocket.
The testing, which began Jan. 16 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will focus on how low- and high-frequency sound waves affect the rocket on the launch pad. This testing will provide critical data about how the powerful noise generated by the engines and boosters may affect the rocket and crew, especially during liftoff.
"We can verify the launch environments the SLS vehicle was designed around and determine the effectiveness of the sound suppression systems," said Doug Counter, technical lead for the acoustic testing. "Scale model testing on the space shuttle was very comparable to what actually happened to the vehicle at liftoff. That's why we do the scale test."
During the tests, a 5-percent scale model of the SLS is ignited for five seconds at a time while microphones, located on the vehicle and similarly scaled mobile launcher, tower and exhaust duct, collect acoustic data. A thrust plate, side restraints and cables keep the model secure.
Engineers are running many of the evaluations with a system known as rainbirds, huge water nozzles on the mobile launcher at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During launch, 450,000 gallons of water will be released from five rainbirds just seconds before booster ignition. Water is the main component of the sound suppression system because it helps protect the launch vehicle and its payload from damage caused by acoustical energy. SLS with NASA's new Orion spacecraft on top will be launched from Kennedy on deep space missions to destinations such as an asteroid and Mars.
A series of acoustics tests also is taking place at the University of Texas at Austin. Engineers are evaluating the strong sounds and vibrations that occur during the ignition process for the RS-25 engines that will power SLS.

NASA Preparing for 2014 Comet Watch at Mars

This spring, NASA will be paying cautious attention to a comet that could put on a barnstorming show at Mars on Oct. 19, 2014.
On that date, comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring will buzz Mars about 10 times closer than any identified comet has ever flown past Earth.
Spacecraft at Mars might get a good look at the nucleus of comet Siding Spring as it heads toward the closest approach, roughly 86,000 miles (138,000 kilometers) from the planet, give or take a few percent. On the other hand, dust particles that the comet nucleus sheds this spring could threaten orbiting spacecraft at Mars in October.
The level of risk won’t be known for months, but NASA is already evaluating possible precautionary measures as it prepares for studying the comet.
"Our plans for using spacecraft at Mars to observe comet Siding Spring will be coordinated with plans for how the orbiters will duck and cover, if we need to do that," said Rich Zurek, Mars Exploration Program chief scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Comet Siding Spring, formally named C/2013 A1, was discovered on Jan. 3, 2013, from Australia's Siding Spring Observatory. At the time, it was farther from the sun than Jupiter is. Subsequent observations enabled scientists at JPL and elsewhere to calculate the trajectory the comet will follow as it swings past Mars. Observations in 2014 will continue to refine knowledge of the comet's path, but in approximate terms, Siding Spring's nucleus will come about as close to Mars as one-third of the distance between Earth and the moon.
Comet Ready for Its Close-up
Observations of comet Siding Spring are planned using resources on Earth, orbiting Earth, on Mars and orbiting Mars, and some are already underway.  NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the NEOWISE mission have observed the comet this month both to characterize this first-time visitor from the Oort cloud and to study dust particle sizes and amounts produced by the comet for understanding potential risks to the Mars orbiters. Infrared imaging by NEOWISE reveals a comet that is active and dusty, even though still nearly three-fourths as far from the sun as Jupiter is. Ground-based observatories such as the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility are also expected to join in as the comet becomes favorably positioned for viewing.
As the comet nears Mars, NASA assets there will be used to study this visitor from distant reaches of the solar system.
"We could learn about the nucleus -- its shape, its rotation, whether some areas on its surface are darker than others," Zurek said.
Researchers using spacecraft at Mars gained experience at trying to observe a different comet in 2013, as comet ISON (formally C/2012 S1) approached Mars. That comet's Mars-flyby distance was about 80 times farther than Siding Spring's will be. Another difference is that ISON continued inward past Mars for nearly two months, briefly becoming visible to some unaided-eye skywatchers on Earth before flying very close to the sun and disintegrating. Siding Spring will reach its closest approach to the sun just six days after its Mars flyby. It won't put on a show for Earth, and it won't return to the inner solar system for about a million years.
At comet Siding Spring's flyby distance, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter could provide imagery with resolution of dozens of pixels across the diameter of the nucleus. When HiRISE observed comet ISON, the nucleus was less than one pixel across. ISON did not get bright enough to make itself visible to other cameras at Mars that made attempted observations, but Siding Spring could provide a better observation opportunity.
Cameras on the Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity might watch for meteors in the sky that would be an indication of the abundance of particles in the comet's tail, though the geometry of the flyby would put most of the meteors in daytime sky instead of dark sky.
"A third aspect for investigation could be what effect the infalling particles have on the upper atmosphere of Mars," Zurek said. "They might heat it and expand it, not unlike the effect of a global dust storm." Infrared-sensing instruments on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey might be used to watch for that effect.
Assessing Possible Hazards to Mars Orbiters
One trait Siding Spring shares with ISON is unpredictability about how much it will brighten in the months before passing Mars. The degree to which Siding Spring brightens this spring will be an indicator of how much hazard it will present to spacecraft at Mars.
"It's way too early for us to know how much of a threat Siding Spring will be to our orbiters," JPL's Soren Madsen, Mars Exploration Program chief engineer, said last week. "It could go either way. It could be a huge deal or it could be nothing -- or anything in between."
The path the nucleus will take is now known fairly well. The important unknowns are how much dust will come off the nucleus, when it will come off, and the geometry of the resulting coma and tail of the comet.
During April and May, the comet will cross the range of distances from the sun at which water ice on a comet's surface typically becomes active -- vaporizing and letting dust particles loose. Dust ejected then could get far enough from the nucleus by October to swarm around Mars.
"How active will Siding Spring be in April and May? We'll be watching that," Madsen said. "But if the red alarm starts sounding in May, it would be too late to start planning how to respond. That's why we're doing what we're doing right now."
Two key strategies to lessen risk are to get orbiters behind Mars during the minutes of highest risk and to orient orbiters so that the most vulnerable parts are not in the line of fire.
The Martian atmosphere, thin as it is, is dense enough to prevent dust from the comet from becoming a hazard to NASA's two Mars rovers active on the surface. Three orbiters are currently active at Mars:  NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's Mars Express. Two more departed Earth in late 2013 and are due to enter orbit around Mars about three weeks before the comet Siding Spring flyby: NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) and India's Mars Orbiter Mission.
Orbiters are designed with the risk of space-dust collisions in mind. Most such collisions do not damage a mission. Design factors such as blanketing and protected placement of vulnerable components help. Over a five-year span for a Mars orbiter, NASA figures on a few percent chance of significant damage to a spacecraft from the background level of impacts from such particles, called meteoroids. Whether the Siding Spring level will pack that much hazard -- or perhaps greater than 10 times more -- into a few hours will depend on how active it becomes.
This comet is orbiting the sun in almost the opposite direction as Mars and the other planets. The nucleus and the dust particles it sheds will be travelling at about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per second, relative to the Mars orbiters. That's about 50 times faster than a bullet from a high-powered rifle and double or triple the velocity of background meteoroid impacts.
Cautionary Preparations
If managers choose to position orbiters behind Mars during the peak risk, the further in advance any orbit-adjustment maneuvers can be made, the less fuel will be consumed. Advance work is also crucial for the other main option: reorienting a spacecraft to keep its least-vulnerable side facing the oncoming stream of comet particles. The safest orientation in terms of comet dust may be a poor one for maintaining power or communications.
"These changes would require a huge amount of testing," Madsen said. "There's a lot of preparation we need to do now, to prepare ourselves in case we learn in May that the flyby will be hazardous."

New NASA Laser Technology Reveals How Ice Measures Up

New results from NASA's MABEL campaign demonstrated that a photon-counting technique will allow researchers to track the melt or growth of Earth’s frozen regions.
When a high-altitude aircraft flew over the icy Arctic Ocean and the snow-covered terrain of Greenland in April 2012, it was the first polar test of a new laser-based technology to measure the height of Earth from space.
Aboard that aircraft flew the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar, or MABEL, which is an airborne test bed instrument for NASA's ICESat-2 satellite mission slated to launch in 2017. Both MABEL and ICESat-2's ATLAS instrument are photon counters – they send out pulses of green laser light and time how long it takes individual light photons to bounce off Earth's surface and return. That time, along with ATLAS’ exact position from an onboard GPS, will be plugged into computer programs to tell researchers the elevation of Earth's surface – measuring change to as little as the width of a pencil.
This kind of photon-counting technology is novel for satellites; from 2003 to 2009, ICESat-1’s instrument looked at the intensity of a returned laser signal, which included many photons. So getting individual photon data from MABEL helps scientists prepare for the vast amounts of elevation data they'll get from ICESat-2.
"Using the individual photons to measure surface elevation is a really new thing," said Ron Kwok, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's never been done from orbiting satellites, and it hasn't really been done much with airborne instruments, either."
ICESat-2 is tasked with measuring elevation across Earth's entire surface, including vegetation and oceans, but with a focus on change in the frozen areas of the planet, where scientists have observed dramatic impacts from climate change. There, two types of ice – ice sheets and sea ice – reflect light photons in different patterns. Ice sheets and glaciers are found on land, like Greenland and Antarctica, and are formed as frozen snow and rain accumulates. Sea ice, on the other hand, is frozen seawater, found floating in the Arctic Ocean and offshore of Antarctica.
MABEL's 2012 Greenland campaign was designed to observe a range of interesting icy features, said Bill Cook, MABEL's lead scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. With the photon counts from different surfaces, other scientists could start analyzing the data to determine which methods of analyzing the data allow them to best measure the elevation of Earth's surface.
"We wanted to get a wide variety of target types, so that the science team would have a lot of data to develop algorithms," Cook said. "This was our first real dedicated science mission."
The flights over the ocean near Greenland, for example, allowed researchers to demonstrate that they can measure the height difference between open water and sea ice, which is key to determining the ice thickness. MABEL can detect enough of the laser light photons that bounce off Earth surface and return to the instrument, and programs can then make necessary elevation calculations, Cook said.
 Part of what we're doing with MABEL is to demonstrate ICESat-2's instrument is going to have the right sensitivity to do the measurements," Cook said. "You can do this photon counting if you have enough photons."
In an article recently published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Kwok and his colleagues showed how to calculate elevation from MABEL data, and do so over different types of ice – from open water, to thin, glassy ice, to the snow-covered ice.
"We were pretty happy with the precision," Kwok said. "The flat areas are flat to centimeter level, and the rough areas are rough." And the density of photons detection could also tell researchers what type of ice the instrument was flying over.
The contours of the icy surface are also important when monitoring ice sheets and glaciers covering land. The original ICESat-1 mission employed a single laser, which made it more difficult to measure whether the ice sheet had gained or lost elevation. With a single beam, when the instrument flew over a spot a second time, researchers couldn't tell if the snowpack had melted or if the laser was slightly off and pointed down a hill. Because of this, scientists needed 10 passes over an area to determine whether the ice sheet was changing, said Kelly Brunt, a research scientist at NASA Goddard.
"ICESat-1 was fantastic, but it was a single beam instrument," Brunt said. "We're more interested in repeating tracks to monitor change – that's hard to do."
ICESat-2 addresses this problem by splitting the laser into six beams. These are arranged in three pairs, and the beams within a pair are spaced 295 feet (90 meters), or just less than a football field apart. By comparing the height of one site to the height of its neighbor, scientists can determine the terrain's general slope.
Brunt and her colleagues used MABEL data from the 2012 Greenland campaign to try to detect slopes as shallow as 4 percent incline; their results will be published in the May 2014 issue of the journal Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters. They counted only a portion of the photons, in order to simulate the weaker laser beams that ICESat-2 will carry. With computer programs to determine the slope, the researchers verified it against results from earlier missions.
"The precision is great," Brunt said. "We're very confident that with ICESat-2's beam pair, we can see slope."
And there are still more things for MABEL to measure. The instrument team is planning a 2014 summer campaign to fly over glaciers and ice sheets in warmer weather. "We want to see what the effects of the melt is," Cook said. "How do glaciers look if they're warmer, rather than colder?"

ISS Expedition 38 Russian Cosmonauts Install Cameras on EVA

Outside the International Space Station, Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy conducted a spacewalk Jan. 27 to reinstall a pair of cameras designed to downlink views of the Earth for internet-based subscribers as part of a commercial agreement between a Canadian firm and the Russian Federal Space Agency. An initial attempt to install and activate the cameras during a previous spacewalk Dec. 27 was unsuccessful, but the second time proved to be the charm as data was finally received at the Russian Mission Control Center following the reinstallation of the cameras. The spacewalk was the sixth in Kotov's career and the third for Ryazanskiy.

Space Station 2024 Extension Expands Economic and Research Horizons

When it comes to potential, sometimes a little space to grow can make a big difference. For the International Space Station, a little more time in space provides that room to flourish. The announcement by the Obama Administration to support the extension of the orbiting laboratory to at least 2024 gives the station a decade to continue its already fruitful microgravity research mission. This offers scientists and engineers the time they need to ensure the future of exploration, scientific discoveries and economic development.
The decision to extend the life of the space station was announced in a blog entry from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “The [space station] is a unique facility that offers enormous scientific and societal benefits,” Bolden wrote. “The Obama Administration’s decision to extend its life until at least 2024 will allow us to maximize its potential, deliver critical benefits to our nation and the world, and maintain American leadership in space.”
This decision provides traction for space exploration by prolonging the testing timeframe for essential technologies related to long-duration journeys—such as to an asteroid or Mars. Optimizing systems like the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) aboard station refines designs for future spacecraft.
“I really see the space station as the first step in exploration,” said NASA Associate Administrator William Gerstenmaier. “It is gaining us operational experience in a distant location, well beyond the Earth, at 75,000 km off the surface of the moon. Those are the kind of experience, technology and hardware that we need to go to Mars, so all that feeds forward.”
Exploration is hardly limited to space travel, as investigators show with their pursuit of discoveries using microgravity research. In the decade ahead, scientists have the forward timeline necessary for research planning and to make the most of facilities being built today. With an already ready-to-use suite of facilities aboard station, opportunities to run studies will include a greater chance for follow-up investigations. This enables results from station science to cycle through follow-on studies and increase the collective knowledge in the various disciplines. Since the impact of science results emerges over a five to 10 year timescale, this is an attractive incentive for new researchers.
“For 14 years, the space station has had a continuous human presence, allowing breakthroughs in science and technology not possible on Earth,” said Sam Scimemi, NASA’s International Space Station director. “The ability to extend our window of discovery through at least 2024 presents important new opportunities to develop the tools we need for future missions to deep space while reaping large benefits for humanity.”
In the next 10 years a wide variety of investigations will begin, continue and complete experimentation in orbit. From developments in astrophysics from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) we learn more about our universe. Meanwhile, space station Earth remote sensing instruments keep watchful eyes open to help researchers study our climate, planet and can even assist with disaster recovery efforts.
Anticipated developments from the upcoming 1-year mission and biology studies such as T-Cell Act In Aging aid not only future explorers, but people with related health concerns on the Earth. Industries also benefit, with applications from fundamental physics investigations, such as microgravity fluid physics and combustion tests.
“Humankind has never had laboratory capabilities like these—where gravity can be controlled as a variable,” said International Space Station Chief Scientist Julie Robinson, Ph.D. “The extension of the space station to at least 2024 gives scientists what we need: time to build the experiments and theories that could come from nowhere else.”
Now that commercial cargo vehicles are regularly serving the space station, this extension can help transition low Earth orbit from exclusive to accessible. Business opportunities and growth for companies that provide cargo to the space station helps them to expand and compete. This can drive down costs per visit, and eventually those costs will improve access to orbit without a NASA-maintained laboratory. The even more impressive aspect to this development is that as these international interests expand, they grow global economies. This means the potential for new jobs, technologies and the possible creation of untapped markets.
“Commercial use of the space station is growing for research and development each year. Other government agencies, such as NSF and NIH also are funding scientists to use the laboratory,” said Robinson. “Space agency funding is enabling a much larger set of innovative research ideas from the private sector that will transform the way we see orbit.”
This extension shows a belief in the continued potential and a recognition of the growing benefits of this singular laboratory. Even as the space community is abuzz about the decade ahead, NASA moves forward with the conversation, continuing with international partnership talks and the possibility for space station life beyond 2024.
“We’ve talked to our partners about this,” said Gerstenmaier. “They want to go forward with this. It’s just working through the government approval, through their individual groups to get to where they need to be.”
Ultimately, the space station provides the capability for us to perform microgravity research in important areas of study, understand our changing planet from climate and global perspectives, and figure out how to survive in the harsh, but necessary environment of space. The benefits from the station already enhance our lives and enrich our future as we continue with missions to low Earth orbit and beyond.
“If we as a species are going to get off the Earth…we are going to have to use this small foothold called the International Space Station to go do that,” said Gerstenmaier. “This is our only opportunity to really move forward in this manner. So that should be our focus going forward, is how can we optimize and maximize the use of what we’ve got from this facility.”

TDRS-L launch on This Week @NASA

NASA's TDRS-L satellite launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas rocket January 23, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. TDRS-L, the second of three next-generation Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, provides tracking, telemetry; command and data return services for NASA science and human exploration missions. Also, KSC transformation continues, Center renamed for Armstrong, Next space station crew, SLS Thrust Frame Adapter, Orion chute test, 5 Earth Science missions for 2014 and more!

Media gets prelaunch status of NASA next Tracking and Data Relay Satellite

During a briefing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center the prelaunch status was discussed of the agency's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite L (TDRS-L), scheduled to launch January 23 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The TDRS-L spacecraft is the second of three new satellites designed to ensure vital operational continuity for NASA by expanding the lifespan of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) fleet, which consists of eight satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The spacecraft provide tracking, telemetry, command and high bandwidth data return services for numerous science and human exploration missions orbiting Earth.

NASA Spacecraft Take Aim At Nearby Supernova

An exceptionally close stellar explosion discovered on Jan. 21 has become the focus of observatories around and above the globe, including several NASA spacecraft. The blast, designated SN 2014J, occurred in the galaxy M82 and lies only about 12 million light-years away. This makes it the nearest optical supernova in two decades and potentially the closest type Ia supernova to occur during the life of currently operating space missions.
To make the most of the event, astronomers have planned observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and Swift missions.
As befits its moniker, Swift was the first to take a look. On Jan. 22, just a day after the explosion was discovered, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) captured the supernova and its host galaxy.

Remarkably, SN 2014J can be seen on images taken up to a week before anyone noticed its presence. It was only when Steve Fossey and his students at the University of London Observatory imaged the galaxy during a brief workshop that the supernova came to light.
"Finding and publicizing new supernova discoveries is often the weak link in obtaining rapid observations, but once we know about it, Swift frequently can observe a new object within hours," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Although the explosion is unusually close, the supernova's light is attenuated by thick dust clouds in its galaxy, which may slightly reduce its apparent peak brightness.
"Interstellar dust preferentially scatters blue light, which is why Swift's UVOT sees SN 2014J brightly in visible and near-ultraviolet light but barely at all at mid-ultraviolet wavelengths," said Peter Brown, an astrophysicist at Texas A&M University who leads a team using Swift to obtain ultraviolet observations of supernovae.
However, this super-close supernova provides astronomers with an important opportunity to study how interstellar dust affects its light. As a class, type Ia supernovae explode with remarkably similar intrinsic brightness, a property that makes them useful "standard candles" -- some say "standard bombs" -- for exploring the distant universe.
Brown notes that X-rays have never been conclusively observed from a type Ia supernova, so a detection by Swift's X-ray Telescope, Chandra or NuSTAR would be significant, as would a Fermi detection of high-energy gamma rays.
A type Ia supernova represents the total destruction of a white dwarf star by one of two possible scenarios. In one, the white dwarf orbits a normal star, pulls a stream of matter from it, and gains mass until it reaches a critical threshold and explodes. In the other, the blast arises when two white dwarfs in a binary system eventually spiral inward and collide.
Either way, the explosion produces a superheated shell of plasma that expands outward into space at tens of millions of miles an hour. Short-lived radioactive elements formed during the blast keep the shell hot as it expands. The interplay between the shell's size, transparency and radioactive heating determines when the supernova reaches peak brightness. Astronomers expect SN 2014J to continue brightening into the first week of February, by which time it may be visible in binoculars.
M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, is located in the constellation Ursa Major and is a popular target for small telescopes. M82 is undergoing a powerful episode of star formation that makes it many times brighter than our own Milky Way galaxy and accounts for its unusual and photogenic appearance.

NASA Instruments on European Comet Spacecraft Begin Countdown

Three NASA science instruments are being prepared for check-out operations aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, which is set to become the first to orbit a comet and land a probe on its nucleus in November.
Rosetta was reactivated Jan. 20 after a record 957 days in hibernation. U.S. mission managers are scheduled to activate their instruments on the spacecraft in early March and begin science operations with them in August. The instruments are an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, a microwave thermometer and a plasma analyzer.
"U.S. scientists are delighted the Rosetta mission gives us a chance to examine a comet in a way we've never seen one before -- in orbit around it and as it kicks up in activity," said Claudia Alexander, Rosetta's U.S. project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The NASA suite of instruments will provide puzzle pieces the Rosetta science team as a whole will put together with the other pieces to paint a portrait of how a comet works and what it's made of."
Rosetta's objective is to observe the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko up close. By examining the full composition of the comet's nucleus and the ways in which a comet changes, Rosetta will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.
The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, called Alice, will analyze gases in the tail of the comet, as well as the coma, the fuzzy envelope around the nucleus of the comet. The coma develops as a comet approaches the sun. Alice also will measure the rate at which the comet produces water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. These measurements will provide valuable information about the surface composition of the nucleus. The instrument also will measure the amount of argon present, an important clue about the temperature of the solar system at the time the comet's nucleus originally formed more than 4.6 billion years ago.
The Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter will identify chemicals on or near the comet's surface and measure the temperature of the chemicals and the dust and ice jetting out from the comet. The instrument also will see the gaseous activity in the tail through coma.
The Ion and Electron Sensor is part of a suite of five instruments to analyze the plasma environment of the comet, particularly the coma. The instrument will measure the charged particles in the sun's outer atmosphere, or solar wind, as they interact with the gas flowing out from the comet while Rosetta is drawing nearer to the comet's nucleus.
NASA also provided part of the electronics package the Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer, which is part of the Swiss-built Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument. ROSINA will be the first instrument with sufficient resolution to separate two molecules with approximately the same mass: molecular nitrogen and carbon monoxide. Clear identification of nitrogen will help scientists understand conditions at the time the solar system was born.
U.S. science investigators are partnering on several non-U.S. instruments and are involved in seven of the mission's 21 instrument collaborations. NASA has an American interdisciplinary scientist involved in the research. NASA's Deep Space Network is supporting the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Ground Station Network for spacecraft tracking and navigation.
Rosetta, composed of an orbiter and lander, is flying beyond the main asteroid belt. Its lander will obtain the first images taken from the surface of a comet, and it will provide the first analysis of a comet's composition by drilling into the surface. Rosetta also will be the first spacecraft to witness, at close proximity, how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation.
The potential research and data from the Rosetta mission could help inform NASA's asteroid initiative -- a mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid for astronauts to explore. The initiative represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities that will help protect our home planet and achieve the goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.
"Future robotic and human exploration missions to Mars, an asteroid and beyond will be accomplished via international partnerships combining worldwide scientific and engineering expertise," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "Rosetta will provide an opportunity to study a small new world that could inform us on the best ways to approach, orbit and capture our target asteroid for a future human mission."
The solar-powered spacecraft was placed into a deep sleep in June 2011 to conserve energy during the portion of its trajectory that carried it past the orbit of Jupiter. During Rosetta's hibernation, all instruments and subsystems were shut off, except the main computer including a spacecraft clock and a few heaters. ESA mission managers are beginning to commission the spacecraft and its instruments.
"The successful wake-up of Rosetta from its long, lonely slumber is a testament to the teams that built and operate the spacecraft, and the international cooperation between ESA and NASA ensured that we had some of the world's largest deep space dishes available to relay the first signal back to Earth," said Mark McCaughrean, senior scientific advisor in ESA's Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration. "There is still a lot of work ahead of us before the exciting cometary rendezvous, escort, and landing phase, but it's great to be back online."
ESA member states and NASA contributed to the Rosetta mission. Airbus Defense and Space built the Rosetta spacecraft. JPL manages the US contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL also built the Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter and hosts its principal investigator, Samuel Gulkis. The Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio developed the Rosetta orbiter's Ion and Electron Sensor (IES) and hosts its principal investigator, James Burch. The Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., developed the Alice instrument and hosts its principal investigator, Alan Stern.

NASA's Opportunity at 10: New Findings from Old Rover

New findings from rock samples collected and examined by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have confirmed an ancient wet environment that was milder and older than the acidic and oxidizing conditions told by rocks the rover examined previously.
In the Jan. 24 edition of the journal Science, Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, writes in detail about the discoveries made by the rover and how these discoveries have shaped our knowledge of the planet. According to Arvidson and others on the team, the latest evidence from Opportunity is landmark.
"These rocks are older than any we examined earlier in the mission, and they reveal more favorable conditions for microbial life than any evidence previously examined by investigations with Opportunity," said Arvidson.
While the Opportunity team celebrates the rover's 10th anniversary on Mars, they also look forward to what discoveries lie ahead and how a better understanding of Mars will help advance plans for human missions to the planet in the 2030s.
Opportunity's original mission was to last only three months. On the day of its 10th anniversary on the Red Planet, Opportunity is examining the rim of the Endeavour Crater. It has driven 24 miles (38.7 kilometers) from where it landed on Jan. 24, 2004.  The site is about halfway around the planet from NASA's latest Mars rover, Curiosity.
To find rocks for examination, the rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., steered Opportunity in a loop, scanning the ground for promising rocks in an area of Endeavour's rim called Matijevic Hill. The search was guided by a mineral-mapping instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which did not arrive at Mars until 2006, long after Opportunity's mission was expected to end.
Beginning in 2010, the mapping instrument, called the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, detected evidence on Matijevic Hill of a clay mineral known as iron-rich smectite. The Opportunity team set a goal to examine this mineral in its natural context -- where it is found, how it is situated with respect to other minerals and the area's geological layers -- a valuable method for gathering more information about this ancient environment. Researchers believe the wet conditions that produced the iron-rich smectite preceded the formation of the Endeavor Crater about 4 billion years ago.
"The more we explore Mars, the more interesting it becomes. These latest findings present yet another kind of gift that just happens to coincide with Opportunity's 10th anniversary on Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. "We're finding more places where Mars reveals a warmer and wetter planet in its history. This gives us greater incentive to continue seeking evidence of past life on Mars."
Opportunity has not experienced much change in health in the past year, and the vehicle remains a capable research partner for the team of scientists and engineers who plot each day's activities to be carried out on Mars.
"We're looking at the legacy of Opportunity's first decade this week, but there's more good stuff ahead," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., the mission's principal investigator. "We are examining a rock right in front of the rover that is unlike anything we've seen before. Mars keeps surprising us, just like in the very first week of the mission."
JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, which worked for six years, and their successor, Curiosity, also contributed valuable information about the diverse watery environments of ancient Mars, from hot springs to flowing streams. NASA's Mars orbiters Odyssey and MRO study the whole planet and assist the rovers.
"Over the past decade, Mars rovers have made the Red Planet our workplace, our neighborhood," said John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, which built and operates Opportunity. "The longevity and the distances driven are remarkable. But even more important are the discoveries that are made and the generation that has been inspired."
Special products for the 10th anniversary of the twin rovers' landings, including a gallery of selected images, are available online

NEOWISE Celebrates First Month of Operations After Reactivation

In its first 25 days of operations, the newly reactivated NEOWISE mission has detected 857 minor bodies in our solar system, including 22 near-Earth objects (NEOs) and four comets.  Three of the NEOs are new discoveries; all three are hundreds of meters in diameter and dark as coal.
The mission has just passed its post-restart survey readiness review, and the project has verified that the ability to measure asteroid positions and brightness is as good as it was before the spacecraft entered hibernation in early 2011. At the present rate, NEOWISE is observing and characterizing approximately one NEO per day, giving astronomers a much better idea of the objects’ sizes and compositions.
Out of the more than 10,500 NEOs that have been discovered to date, only about 10 percent have had any physical measurements made of them; the reactivated NEOWISE will more than double that number.
JPL manages the NEOWISE mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Atlas V Ignition for TDRS-L Launch

Jan. 23, 2014 – The dual Atlas V rocket engines roar to life on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41. The launch vehicle will boost NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, or TDRS-L, spacecraft to Earth orbit. Liftoff was at 9:33 p.m. EST.

Space Station Live: Studying The Risk of Visual Impairment in Space

Public Affairs Officer Brandi Dean interviews Christian Otto, the principal investigator of the Ocular Health experiment. The research seeks to characterize the physiological changes and risk of visual impairment during a long-term mission in microgravity.

The Ocular Health study will help scientists to understand the changes to an International Space Station crew member's eyesight. The study compares an astronaut's vision during long-term stays in space to their vision before and after a space mission.

Space Station Live: Studying Fire In Space (FLEX-2)

Public Affairs Officer Lori Meggs at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama talks about a "cool" flames experiment in space. Meggs speaks to Vedha Nayagam, co-investigator for the FLEX-2 combustion experiment.

You never want to hear about a fire in space, but for this experiment, that's exactly what had to happen. The FLEX-2 experiment burned different types of fuel droplets and showed us how flames behave without gravity, so that we may learn better ways to extinguish flames in space -- information that could lead to improved environmentally friendly fuels on Earth.

NASA Set for a Big Year in Earth Science

For the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth science missions will be launched into space in the same year, opening new and improved remote eyes to monitor our changing planet. The five launches, including two to the International Space Station, are part of a very busy year for NASA Earth science researchers, who also will conduct airborne campaigns to the poles and hurricanes, develop advanced sensor technologies, and use satellite data and analytical tools to improve natural hazard and climate change preparedness.

Herschel Telescope Detects Water on Dwarf Planet

Scientists using the Herschel space observatory have made the first definitive detection of water vapor on the largest and roundest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres.
Plumes of water vapor are thought to shoot up periodically from Ceres when portions of its icy surface warm slightly. Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet, a solar system body bigger than an asteroid and smaller than a planet.
Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with important NASA contributions.
"This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere," said Michael Küppers of ESA in Spain, lead author of a paper in the journal Nature.
The results come at the right time for NASA's Dawn mission, which is on its way to Ceres now after spending more than a year orbiting the large asteroid Vesta. Dawn is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in the spring of 2015, where it will take the closest look ever at its surface.
"We've got a spacecraft on the way to Ceres, so we don't have to wait long before getting more context on this intriguing result, right from the source itself," said Carol Raymond, the deputy principal investigator for Dawn at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Dawn will map the geology and chemistry of the surface in high resolution, revealing the processes that drive the outgassing activity."
For the last century, Ceres was known as the largest asteroid in our solar system. But in 2006, the International Astronomical Union, the governing organization responsible for naming planetary objects, reclassified Ceres as a dwarf planet because of its large size. It is roughly 590 miles (950 kilometers) in diameter. When it first was spotted in 1801, astronomers thought it was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Later, other cosmic bodies with similar orbits were found, marking the discovery of our solar system's main belt of asteroids.
Scientists believe Ceres contains rock in its interior with a thick mantle of ice that, if melted, would amount to more fresh water than is present on all of Earth. The materials making up Ceres likely date from the first few million years of our solar system's existence and accumulated before the planets formed.
Until now, ice had been theorized to exist on Ceres but had not been detected conclusively. It took Herschel's far-infrared vision to see, finally, a clear spectral signature of the water vapor. But Herschel did not see water vapor every time it looked. While the telescope spied water vapor four different times, on one occasion there was no signature.
Here is what scientists think is happening: when Ceres swings through the part of its orbit that is closer to the sun, a portion of its icy surface becomes warm enough to cause water vapor to escape in plumes at a rate of about 6 kilograms (13 pounds) per second. When Ceres is in the colder part of its orbit, no water escapes.
The strength of the signal also varied over hours, weeks and months, because of the water vapor plumes rotating in and out of Herschel's views as the object spun on its axis. This enabled the scientists to localize the source of water to two darker spots on the surface of Ceres, previously seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. The dark spots might be more likely to outgas because dark material warms faster than light material. When the Dawn spacecraft arrives at Ceres, it will be able to investigate these features.
The results are somewhat unexpected because comets, the icier cousins of asteroids, are known typically to sprout jets and plumes, while objects in the asteroid belt are not.
"The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids," said Seungwon Lee of JPL, who helped with the water vapor models along with Paul von Allmen, also of JPL. "We knew before about main belt asteroids that show comet-like activity, but this is the first detection of water vapor in an asteroid-like object."
The research is part of the Measurements of 11 Asteroids and Comets Using Herschel (MACH-11) program, which used Herschel to look at small bodies that have been or will be visited by spacecraft, including the targets of NASA's previous Deep Impact mission and upcoming Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex). Laurence O' Rourke of the European Space Agency is the principal investigator of the MACH-11 program.
Herschel is a European Space Agency mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. While the observatory stopped making science observations in April 2013, after running out of liquid coolant, as expected, scientists continue to analyze its data. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community.
Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

At Your Service: Orion Service Module Complete

The second of three major parts of the spacecraft that will launch into orbit on Orion’s first mission this fall is complete.
Work has been progressing steadily on all three main parts of Orion – the service module, the crew module and the launch abort system – and this month the service module joined the launch abort system in crossing the finish line.
Orion’s service module sits below the crew module and above the rocket that will launch Orion into space. The recently completed service module, which will fly during Orion's first test flight, is a structural representation and will lack many of the key capabilities of the final service module. Service modules on future missions will provide power, heat rejection, the in-space propulsion capability for orbital transfer, attitude control and high-altitude ascent aborts. It will also house water, oxygen and nitrogen for the trip. But because Orion’s first mission will be a four-hour-long, unmanned flight test, many of those systems aren’t needed just yet. Instead, this first service module will primarily be responsible for the structural support involved in carrying the crew module and launch abort system as they’re launched into space.
Since the crew module and launch abort system together weigh more than 37,000 pounds at liftoff, that’s no easy task. The crew module gets some help with it from three massive panels, called fairings, that encase the service module and shield it from heat, wind and acoustics. They support half of the crew module and launch abort system’s weight during launch and ascent, before they’re jettisoned more than 100 miles up. After that, the loads on Orion are much lower and can be carried by the service module alone.

To ensure that the service module and its fairings are up to the challenge, it will spend two weeks in February undergoing tests. Engineers will carefully apply small amounts of stress to the structure to test its stiffness and verify it reacts as predicted. If it does, they’ll up the ante, pushing and twisting it from multiple directions.
If it can withstand the strain, the engineers will know it’s ready for flight.

The launch abort system was completed in December, and the crew module is coming right along. Engineers at Kennedy Space Center recently completed the complex welding that’s required to make sure Orion’s propulsion and life support fluid systems are leak tight.
To minimize the number of mechanical joints, which are invitations for leaks, the fluid systems are welded together as one piece into a virtual spaghetti bowl that surrounds the Orion pressure vessel. The process required more than 260 individual welds in complicated geometries, each of which was then X-rayed to ensure that it was good.
Over the next three months, Orion’s thermal protection system will be installed – tiles on the top of the crew module and the largest heat shield of its kind ever built. With that in place, the crew module, service module and launch abort system will be ready to mate this spring.

Weekly Recap From the Expedition Lead Scientist

Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio performed the SPHERES Zero Robotics competition from the International Space Station. On Jan. 17, teams from across the United States and abroad gathered at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and virtually for the fifth annual challenge. NASA uploaded software developed by high school students onto the spherical free-floating SPHERES satellites. During the simulated mission, the teams competed in a special challenge called CosmoSPHERES, a competition in which students must program their satellites to alter a fictional comet’s earthbound trajectory. Kotov and Mastracchio commanded the satellites aboard the space station for the competition in order to execute the teams' flight program and provided real time commentary on the competition via live feed. The winner of the European competition was team C.O.F.F.E.E and for the United States was "yObOtics! Gru Eagles." SPHERES stands for Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites. Zero Robotics is a challenge where students have the opportunity to utilize the station as a laboratory to test programming codes from the ground using SPHERES. The program is aimed at engaging students in innovative, complementary learning opportunities, as well as increasing student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
To view additional images of the event, visit @Astro_Box and @SciAstro on Twitter.
NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Mastracchio completed operations for the National Laboratory Pathfinder Vaccine (NLP Vaccine-21) -- also known as the Antibiotic Effectiveness in Space (AES-1) investigation. NLP Vaccine-21 is planned for return on SpaceX-3, scheduled for launch in February. It arrived on Orbital-1 earlier in the month. Drug-resistant bacteria are of increasing concern to public health. As bacteria grow more resistant to antibiotics, there are less effective pharmaceutical treatment options for people with bacterial infections. Researchers for the AES-1 investigation aboard the space station look to determine gene expression patterns and changes using E. coli. This research builds upon previous space station investigations into drug-resistant bacteria, such as the National Laboratory Pathfinder Vaccine Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (NLP-Vaccine-MRSA) study of what is commonly referred to as staph infection. EXPRESS Racks can support science experiments in any discipline by providing structural interfaces, power, data, cooling, water, and other items needed to operate science experiments in space.
Hopkins and Mastracchio set up the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus Science Insert-06: Ants in Space (CSI-06) habitats. They opened forage areas to release the ants, Tetramorium caespitum, and stowed the habitats at the end of operations. CSI-06 includes two habitat groups, each containing four habitats. Historical photographs also were taken. The investigation is planned for return on SpaceX-3. Students in grades K-12 will observe videos of these "ant-ronauts" recorded by cameras on the International Space Station. The students will conduct their own ant interaction investigations in their classrooms as part of a related curriculum. Educational investigations such as Ants in Space are designed to motivate budding scientists in primary and secondary school to pursue their interest in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The study examines the behavior of ants by comparing groups living on Earth to those in space. The idea is that ant interactions are dependent upon the number of ants in an area. Measuring these interactions may be important in determining behavior of ants in groups. This insight may add to existing knowledge of swarm intelligence, or how the complex behavior of a group is influenced by the actions of individuals. Developing a better understanding of swarm intelligence may lead to more refined mathematical procedures for solving complex problems, like routing trucks, scheduling airlines or telecommunications efficiency.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata completed the Try Zero-G operations. He demonstrated unique phenomena of zero gravity. Try Zero-G allows the public, especially students, to vote for and suggest physical tasks for JAXA astronauts to perform to demonstrate the difference between zero and one gravity (G) for educational purposes. Various categories of experiments are performed, including movements in space, spin (rotation), folding clothes, "Magic Carpet," water pistol, eye drops, propulsion through space and two-way movement. Video from these experiments will be used to support resources for educators in Japan. Try Zero-G introduces the next generation of explorers to the space environment and implements activities to enlighten the general public about microgravity utilization and human spaceflight.
Hopkins performed his fifth session of Reversible Figures while Wakata completed his third. This investigates whether the perception of ambiguous perspective-reversible figures (figure that can normally be seen to change in perspective or orientation in two different ways) is affected by microgravity. A comparison of the perceived reversals during visualization of the figures in crew members occurs before, during and after long-term exposure to microgravity. It is expected that measurable, perceptual differences can expand our understanding of human cognitive-perception dynamics by examining the differences that exist between the microgravity environment of the space station and that of Earth's surface..

NASA Finds 2013 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend

NASA scientists say 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures.
With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which analyzes global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated report Tuesday on temperatures around the globe in 2013. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience temperatures warmer than those measured several decades ago.
The average temperature in 2013 was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.1 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F (0.8 C) since 1880, according to the new analysis. Exact rankings for individual years are sensitive to data inputs and analysis methods.
"Long-term trends in surface temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing climate change," GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. "While one year or one season can be affected by random weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued, long-term monitoring."
Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperatures from year to year, but the continued increases in greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere are driving a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but with the current level of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and plays a major role in controlling changes to Earth's climate. It occurs naturally and also is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Driven by increasing man-made emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere presently is higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years.
The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the GISS temperature record. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, measured at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, was about 315 parts per million. This measurement peaked last year at more than 400 parts per million.
While the world experienced relatively warm temperatures in 2013, the continental United States experienced the 42nd warmest year on record, according to GISS analysis. For some other countries, such as Australia, 2013 was the hottest year on record.
The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea-surface temperature, and Antarctic research station measurements, taking into account station history and urban heat island effects. Software is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place from 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis. It has been 38 years since the recording of a year of cooler than average temperatures.
The GISS temperature record is one of several global temperature analyses, along with those produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. These three primary records use slightly different methods, but overall, their trends show close agreement.

TDRS-L Updates ^_^

Go for Rollout, Launch Review Complete

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - 11:20

Launch and mission managers gave a "go" to roll out the TDRS-L/Atlas V stack tomorrow at 10 a.m. following the successful completion of today's Launch Readiness Review at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The teams also confirmed the launch time of 9:05 p.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 23 at the opening of a 40-minute launch window.  There is an 80 percent chance of favorable weather with just a minimal chance of a thick cloud layer. The temperature at launch time will be near 54 degrees with NNW winds 12 to 18 knots. The countdown for launch on Thursday will begin at 2:05 p.m.

Space Station Crewmember Discusses Space Medicine with Japanese Students

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 38 Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency discussed the maintenance of crewmembers' health in orbit and space medicine with students from various Japanese schools during an in-flight event on Jan. 21. Wakata, who has been aboard the complex since early November, will become the first Japanese commander of the station in March for the final two months of his six-month mission on the orbital laboratory.

Rosetta: To Chase a Comet

Comets are among the most beautiful and least understood nomads of the night sky. To date, half a dozen of these most heavenly of heavenly bodies have been visited by spacecraft in an attempt to unlock their secrets. All these missions have had one thing in common: the high-speed flyby. Like two ships passing in the night (or one ship and one icy dirtball), they screamed past each other at hyper velocity -- providing valuable insight, but fleeting glimpses, into the life of a comet. That is, until Rosetta.
NASA is participating in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, whose goal is to observe one such space-bound icy dirt ball from up close -- for months on end. The spacecraft, festooned with 25 instruments between its lander and orbiter (including three from NASA), is programmed to "wake up" from hibernation on Jan. 20. After a check-out period, it will monitor comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it makes its nosedive into, and then climb out of, the inner solar system. Over 16 months, during which old 67P is expected to transform from a small, frozen world into a roiling mass of ice and dust, complete with surface eruptions, mini-earthquakes, basketball-sized, fluffy ice particles and spewing jets of carbon dioxide and cyanide.
"We are going to be in the cometary catbird seat on this one," said Claudia Alexander, project scientist for U.S. Rosetta from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.  "To have an extended presence in the neighborhood of a comet as it goes through so many changes should change our perspective on what it is to be a comet."
Since work began on Rosetta back in 1993, scientists and engineers from all over Europe and the United States have been combining their talents to build an orbiter and a lander for this unique expedition.  NASA's contribution includes three of the orbiter's instruments (an ultraviolet spectrometer called Alice; the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter; and the Ion and Electron Sensor. NASA is also providing part of the electronics package for an instrument called the Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer, which is part of the Swiss-built Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis instrument. NASA is also providing U.S. science investigators for selected non-U.S. instruments and is involved to a greater or lesser degree in seven of the mission's 25 instruments. NASA's Deep Space Network provides support for ESA's Ground Station Network for spacecraft tracking and navigation.
"All the instruments aboard Rosetta and the Philae lander are designed to work synergistically," said Sam Gulkis of JPL, the principal investigator for the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter. "They will all work together to create the most complete picture of a comet to date, telling us how the comet works, what it is made of, and what it can tell us about the origins of the solar system."
The three NASA-supplied instruments are part of the orbiter's scientific payload. Rosetta's Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter specializes in the thermal properties. The instrument combines a spectrometer and radiometer, so it can sense temperature and identify chemicals located on or near the comet's surface, and even in the dust and ices jetting out from it. The instrument will also see the gaseous activity through the dusty cloud of material.  Rosetta scientists will use it to determine how different materials in the comet change from ice to gas, and to observe how much it changes in temperature as it approaches the sun.
Like the Microwave for Rosetta Orbiter, the Alice instrument contains a spectrometer. But Alice looks at the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum. Alice will analyze gases in the coma and tail and measure the comet’s production rates of water and carbon monoxide and dioxide. It will provide information on the surface composition of the nucleus, and make a potentially key measurement of argon, which will be a big clue about what the temperature was in the primordial solar system when the comet's nucleus originally formed (more than 4.6 billion years ago).
The Rosetta orbiter's Ion and Electron Sensor is part of a suite of five instruments to characterize the plasma environment of the comet -- in particular, its coma, which develops when the comet approaches the sun. The sun’s outer atmosphere, the solar wind, interacts with the gas flowing out from the comet, and the instrument will measure the charged particles it comes in contact with as the orbiter approaches the comet's nucleus.
All three instruments are slated to begin science collection by early summer. Along with the pure science they will provide, their data are expected to help Rosetta project management determine where to attempt to land their Philae lander on the comet in November.
"It feels good to be part of a team that is on the cusp of making some space exploration history," said Art Chmielewski, NASA's project manager for US Rosetta, based at JPL. "There are so many exciting elements and big milestones coming up in this mission that it feels like I should buy a ticket and a big box of popcorn. Rosetta is going to be a remarkable ride."
Rosetta is a mission of the European Space Agency, Paris, with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the French National Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter was built at JPL and JPL is home to its principal investigator, Samuel Gulkis. The Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, developed the Rosetta orbiter's Ion and Electron Sensor (IES) and is home to its principal investigator, James Burch. The Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo., developed the Alice instrument and is home to its principal investigator, Alan Stern.

Space to Ground - 1/17/14

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Got a question or comment? Use #spacetoground to talk to us.

Crew Works Science, Preps for Spacewalk and Upcoming Spacecraft Ops

The six-member Expedition 38 crew continues an array of international, student and commercial research inside the orbital laboratory. The crew is also preparing for its fourth spacewalk and upcoming Progress and Soyuz vehicle activities.
Commander Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio partnered up during the afternoon for a version of the long running SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites) experiment. The experiment uses student written algorithms that operate small bowling ball-sized satellites to demonstrate critical mission tasks such as formation flying and vehicle dockings.
Mastracchio started his morning loading software and swapping out a hard drive on a laptop computer that helps operate the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. At the end of the day, he conducted more research for the Vaccine-21 experiment that observes the interaction between microbes and antibiotics in microgravity.
Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata continued more work with the NanoRacks commercial research facilities. He operated a microscope to analyze microbes on a petri dish for a student designed experiment. NanoRacks is a private company that offers its commercial research facilities on the space station to businesses and universities.
Flight Engineer Mike Hopkins joined Wakata after lunch time to stow U.S. spacewalk tools. The two astronauts gathered items such as safety tethers, pliers and wrenches. They stowed them in the Quest airlock and updated the station’s inventory management system.
Hopkins worked throughout his morning on the Binary Colloidal Alloy Test fluid physics experiment. He photographed samples for the study which observes microscopic particles suspended in a liquid. Benefits include better manufacturing processes for commercial products such as paint or food products.
Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy are counting down to their mission’s fourth spacewalk. The duo checked their Russian Orlan spacesuits and set up the suits’ replaceable parts. The cosmonauts will exit the Pirs docking compartment Jan. 27 at 9:10 a.m. to complete the installation of Earth observation cameras that was delayed during a Dec. 27 spacewalk.
Mission controllers postponed Wednesday’s orbital reboost due to the possibility of the International Space Station being placed in the vicinity of an old Delta-1 rocket fragment. The reboost is now planned for Friday at 7:17 p.m. EST. This places the station at the correct altitude to welcome the arrival of a Progress resupply craft Feb. 5 and ready the Soyuz TMA-10M for its undocking March 12.

Excitement Building As NASA Continues Preparations For RS-25 Engine Testing

Activity is growing in the A Test Complex at NASA's Stennis Space Center in MIssissippi as the agency prepares to take a giant step forward in its return to deep space.
Early in 2014, attention is on the A-1 Test Stand, which is being prepared to test RS-25 rocket engines that will power the core stage of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS). The rocket will carry humans to an asteroid and eventually Mars.
“This is a big year for Stennis, for NASA and for the nation’s human space program,” said Gary Benton, RS-25 rocket engine test project manager. “By mid-summer, we will be testing the engines that will carry humans deeper into space than ever before.
Renovation of the A-1 stand represents critical groundwork for such future missions. The A-1 test team completed gimbal, or pivot, testing of the J-2X rocket engine in early September, signaling the start of full-scale renovation efforts for RS-25 testing. Equipment installed on the A-1 stand for J-2X testing could not be used to test RS-25 engines because it did not match the new engine specifications and thrust requirements. For instance in flight, the J-2X engine is capable of producing 294,000 pounds of thrust. The RS-25 engine in flight will produce nearly twice as much -- about 530,000 pounds of thrust.
The first RS-25 engine is set to be delivered to the stand in May, and work is progressing, thanks to focused efforts of NASA officials and contractor teams.
A major task was completed on schedule in December with installation of a new thrust frame adapter on the stand. Each rocket engine type requires a thrust frame adapter unique to its specifications. Physically, the adapter is the largest facility item on the RS-25 testing preparation checklist.
Now, sights are set on upcoming work milestones, including:

• Completing piping work needed to deliver rocket propellants for tests.
• Installing necessary instrumentation.
• Completing a readiness review in March, followed by early tests of new piping systems.
• Installing equipment needed to accurately measure rocket engine thrust during tests.
• Installing an initial RS-25 engine.
• Completing preliminary tests of installed engine and a new rocket engine test controller.

Engineers are scheduled to conduct the first hotfire test on an RS-25 engine in July. Testing of RS-25 engines will continue for years to come then in order to power the nation’s ongoing human space program.
Anticipation is high, said Jeff Henderson, A-1 Test Stand director. “We’ve shown what we can accomplish here, and now, we have to continue in that same manner of excellence,” he explained. “We just have to stay focused on what it’s all about.”

NASA: Cracked Sea Ice Stirs Up Arctic Mercury Concern

Vigorous mixing in the air above large cracks in Arctic sea ice that expose seawater to cold polar air pumps atmospheric mercury down to the surface, finds a NASA field campaign. This process can lead to more of the toxic pollutant entering the food chain, where it can negatively affect the health of fish and animals who eat them, including humans.
Scientists measured increased concentrations of mercury near ground level after sea ice off the coast of Barrow, Alaska, cracked, creating open seawater channels called leads. The researchers were in the Arctic for the NASA-led Bromine, Ozone, and Mercury Experiment (BROMEX) in 2012.
“None of us had suspected that we would find this kind of process associated with leads,” said Son Nghiem, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Nghiem is the BROMEX principal investigator and a coauthor of a paper reporting the discovery published in Nature on Jan. 15.
The mercury-pumping reaction takes place because open water in a lead is much warmer than the air above it, according to study lead author Chris Moore of the Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nev. Because of that temperature difference, the air above the lead churns like the air above a boiling pot. “The mixing is so strong, it actually pulls down mercury from a higher layer of the atmosphere to near the surface,” Moore said. The mixing, marked by dense clouds spewing out of the leads, extends up into the atmosphere about a quarter-mile (400 meters). Moore estimates this may be the height where the mercury pumping occurs.
Almost all of the mercury in the Arctic atmosphere is transported there in gaseous form from sources in areas farther south. Scientists have long known that mercury in the air near ground level undergoes complex chemical reactions that deposit the element on the surface. Once the mercury is completely removed from the air, these reactions stop. However, this newly discovered mixing triggered by leads in the sea ice forces down additional mercury to restart and sustain the reactions.
Leads have become more widespread across the Arctic Ocean as climate change has reduced Arctic sea ice cover. “Over the past decade, we’ve been seeing more new sea ice rather than perennial ice that has survived for several years. New ice is thinner and saltier and cracks more easily. More new ice means more leads as well,” said Nghiem.
To understand the effects of the leads, the team took ground-based measurements of mercury and other chemical species over the frozen Chukchi Sea and over snow-covered land. They used images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite to observe sea ice and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration model of air transport to gain insight into what was upwind of their mercury measurements.
Co-author Daniel Obrist, also from the Desert Research Institute, said, “The ‘aha’ moment came when we combined the surface measurements with the satellite data and model. We considered a bunch of chemical processes and sources to explain the increased levels of mercury we observed, until we finally realized it was this pumping process.”
Nghiem points out that this new finding has come at a turning point for action on Arctic mercury pollution. The Minamata Convention, a global treaty to curb mercury pollution in which Arctic vulnerability is particularly noted, has been signed by 94 nations since it was opened for signatures in Oct. 2013. Arctic mercury pollution originates almost entirely in nations as far south as the tropics, from sources such as wildfires, coal burning and gold mining. “Once the Minamata Convention has been ratified and becomes international law, we expect this work to help assess its effectiveness,” Nghiem said.
The study also includes co-authors from Environment Canada, Toronto; the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Fort Wainwright, Alaska; and the University of Bremen, Germany, and was jointly funded by NASA, Environment Canada and the Desert Research Institute.