NASA Releases Images of X-class Solar Flare

The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 1:48 p.m. EDT March 29, 2014, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured images of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
To see how this event impacted Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.
This flare is classified as an X.1-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.

Wind Tunnel Testing a Full-Sized Aircraft Tail

NASA recently tested a full-sized tail from a 757 commercial aircraft that was modified and equipped with tiny jets called "sweeping jet actuators" to blow air across the rudder surfaces.
The test vertical tail is an actual 757 tail that came out of an aircraft bone yard in Arizona and was refurbished into a wind tunnel model.
The tunnel hosted the 26-foot 757 tail for a series of tests of an innovative Active Flow Control system that one day might allow airplane builders to design smaller tails, which would reduce weight and drag, and help improve fuel efficiency. The “flow control” comes from the actuators, which are devices that essentially blow air in a sweeping motion along the span of the tail and manipulate that flow of air.
The image was taken inside the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex, a massive wind tunnel located at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett, Ca. In the image, an engineer braces himself against the strong winds in the tunnel as he holds a wand emitting a stream of smoke that’s used to visualize “in flight” air flow across the tail.
Actuator technology will be installed for flight tests on the tail of Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator program 757 flight test aircraft in early 2015 as part of an agreement with NASA.

Hubble: Magnifying the Distant Universe

Galaxy clusters are some of the most massive structures that can be found in the Universe — large groups of galaxies bound together by gravity. This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals one of these clusters, known as MACS J0454.1-0300. Each of the bright spots seen here is a galaxy, and each is home to many millions, or even billions, of stars.

Astronomers have determined the mass of MACS J0454.1-0300 to be around 180 trillion times the mass of the sun. Clusters like this are so massive that their gravity can even change the behavior of space around them, bending the path of light as it travels through them, sometimes amplifying it and acting like a cosmic magnifying glass. Thanks to this effect, it is possible to see objects that are so far away from us that they would otherwise be too faint to be detected.

In this case, several objects appear to be dramatically elongated and are seen as sweeping arcs to the left of this image. These are galaxies located at vast distances behind the cluster — their image has been amplified, but also distorted, as their light passes through MACS J0454.1-0300. This process, known as gravitational lensing, is an extremely valuable tool for astronomers as they peer at very distant objects.

This effect will be put to good use with the start of Hubble's Frontier Fields program over the next few years, which aims to explore very distant objects located behind lensing clusters, similar to MACS J0454.1-0300, to investigate how stars and galaxies formed and evolved in the early Universe.

Space Station Live: Micro-7 Experiment to Launch on SpaceX-3

Space Station Live commentator Brandi Dean interviews Dr. Honglu Wu, the principal investigator of the Micro-7 experiment that is set to launch aboard SpaceX-3. This aired during Space Station Live on March 28, 2014.

Asteroid Initiative Opportunities Forum Highlights Progress, Public Participation

NASA officials discussed latest progress and new opportunities in the agency's Asteroid Initiative in a March 26 forum with members of the aerospace industry, academia and space enthusiasts. The forum followed a March 21 Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) calling for additional mission concept studies led outside of NASA, with $6 million in potential awards.
NASA’s Asteroid Initiative is comprised of an Asteroid Grand Challenge (AGC) to develop new partnerships and collaborations to accelerate NASA’s existing planetary defense work, and a mission to capture and redirect an asteroid and visit it with astronauts to collect samples.
NASA refers to the latter effort to identify, redirect and send astronauts to explore an asteroid as the "Asteroid Redirect Mission" (ARM). This mission has three major elements: target identification, characterization and selection; a robotic mission to capture and redirect the selected asteroid into a stable orbit above the moon; and a crewed mission segment in which astronauts in the Orion spacecraft launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will rendezvous with the captured asteroid, conduct spacewalks to collect samples from it, and return them to the Earth for analysis.
"Our Asteroid Initiative is part of a stepping stone approach focused on meeting the President’s bold challenge of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The Asteroid Redirect Mission will help us develop technologies, including solar electric propulsion, needed for future deep space missions; and the Grand Challenge includes enhanced Near Earth Object (NEO) detection and characterization, which will extend our understanding of NEO threats while providing additional opportunities for investigation of asteroids and demonstrations of technologies and capabilities."
Following Bolden's welcome remarks, astronaut Karen Nyberg, who recently completed a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station, stressed the importance of the space station as a feat of international collaboration and a cornerstone for future, farther exploration into space.
"I know everybody here at NASA is extremely excited to hear your ideas on how we can go forward with the Asteroid Initiative with the ultimate goal of taking us – the world population – farther into the solar system," said Nyberg

 Mission Concept Study Updates
 n a six-panel lineup, leading NASA experts described ongoing concept studies for the Asteroid Redirect Mission, starting with near-Earth object observation efforts to identify viable candidates for the mission. Mission concept leads Brian Muirhead of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Dan Mazanek of NASA's Langley Research Center explained the leading asteroid capture concepts. One would use an inflatable bag to envelop a small, free-flying asteroid.
In both cases, the target asteroid would already be on a trajectory which comes near the Earth-moon system. A redirect vehicle powered by advanced solar-electric propulsion would use thrusters to slowly push the asteroid to a new position: a distant retrograde lunar orbit. Both concepts would also demonstrate basic planetary defense techniques to determine if they could be used to defend the planet in the case of a potential catastrophic asteroid collision with Earth.
Once in a stable lunar orbit, NASA would send astronauts aboard the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft to visit the asteroid. This unprecedented mission would take humans farther into deep space than ever before.
 In both cases, the target asteroid would already be on a trajectory which comes near the Earth-moon system. A redirect vehicle powered by advanced solar-electric propulsion would use thrusters to slowly push the asteroid to a new position: a distant retrograde lunar orbit. Both concepts would also demonstrate basic planetary defense techniques to determine if they could be used to defend the planet in the case of a potential catastrophic asteroid collision with Earth.
Once in a stable lunar orbit, NASA would send astronauts aboard the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft to visit the asteroid. This unprecedented mission would take humans farther into deep space than ever before.

Opportunities for Involvement 
A panel dedicated to the BAA opportunity featured systems experts who explained details of the five-part solicitation. Notices of intent for the BAA are due April 4 and proposals are due May 5. Contracts are expected to begin July 1 and conclude Dec. 31, 2014.
Jason Kessler, the program executive for NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge, highlighted current activities and announced a new partnership with SpaceGAMBIT that will focus on how the Maker community can engage with the challenge to find all asteroid threats to human population and know what to do about them.
 The event also featured a presentation from seventh grade students at Dillard Drive Middle in Raleigh, N.C. The students have just begun using Pan-STARRS data to observe known asteroids and possibly find new near-Earth objects.
NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot concluded the event, noting that teams working on the two Asteroid Redirect Mission concepts  have been consolidated into one team, and the agency is beginning to assign work on the mission concepts to NASA centers in advance of a mission concept review.
"It's pretty exciting for me to stand here and think about how far they've come in just a year developing these capabilities to do this mission, but also to make sure that all the things we're working on are extensible to our real destination, which is Mars," Lightfoot said.
Lightfoot added he expects the Asteroid Redirect Mission to cost roughly half of the roughly $2.6 billion originally estimated in the Keck Institute for Space Studies Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study, released in 2012.

New Soyuz Trio Completes Two Day Trip to Station

A new trio of Expedition 39 flight engineers has arrived at the International Space Station after a two-day, 34-orbit trip. Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov was at the controls of the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft when it docked automatically to the Poisk docking compartment at 7:53 p.m. EDT. Skvortsov was flanked by Flight Engineers Steve Swanson and Oleg Artemyev during the two day flight.
The crew opened the hatches to the station at 10:35 p.m. after a series of leak and pressure checks between the two spacecraft before . The new station residents entered Poisk and greeted Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos.
After the welcoming ceremony and congratulatory words with family, friends and mission officials, the newly comprised crew conducted a mandatory safety orientation. All six crew members then will have an off-duty day Friday as they relax, having shifted their schedules to accommodate the busy launch and docking activities.
The original plan for the Soyuz to arrive at the station in just four orbits over six hours defaulted to the more traditional 34-orbit plan after the Soyuz spacecraft failed to conduct an engine firing early in the rendezvous sequence following launch to refine its orbit.
The Soyuz crew was safe the entire time as flight controllers replanned their approach and rendezvous. The two day launch-to-docking profile was the normal Soyuz mission profile used for years before Russian space officials began single-day launch to docking efforts in March 2013.
 As is customary, Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev will have several days set aside to familiarize themselves with their new home in space. The new trio will also assist the veteran crewmates as they adjust to living and working in space for six months.
Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev are scheduled to return home in September as Expedition 40 crew members. They will officially become Expedition 40 when Expedition 39 crew members Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin end their mission and undock in their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft in May for their return to Earth.

Expedition 39/40 Mission Overview

More than 15 years after its first element was launched, the International Space Station is now a round-the-clock laboratory that supports a crew of six working on cutting-edge science.

Soyuz Docking With Station Delayed to Thursday

Space Station Mission Operations Integration Manager Kenny Todd talks with Public Affairs Officer Brandi Dean about the postponement of the Soyuz's docking with the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-12M on Tuesday at 5:17 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The three were expected to dock Tuesday night but reverted to a backup 34-orbit rendezvous, which will result in an arrival and docking on Thursday.

Recalling a Record: X-43A Scramjet Set New Hypersonic Record a Decade Ago

On March 27, 2004, NASA’s X-43A shattered existing speed records for aircraft with air-breathing engines when the scramjet-powered vehicle reached a speed of Mach 6.83 (4,900 mph) during a brief flight over the Pacific Ocean. The record speed was more than twice as fast as the SR-71 Blackbird, which could cruise at Mach 3.32 (2,193 mph), and bested even the rocket-powered X-15A-2, which reached Mach 6.7 (4,520 mph) in October 1967.
Perhaps most significant, this was the first time a scramjet engine – a ramjet configuration that allows supersonic airflow through the combustion chamber – was used to accelerate a vehicle in flight.
Having exhausted its small amount of hydrogen fuel, the autonomously operated X-43A, a subscale craft with no onboard crew, performed a series of maneuvers that collected hypersonic aerodynamic data that was telemetered back to a control room at what was then NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. Finally, the X-43A plummeted into a planned impact zone within the Pacific Missile Test Range. Researchers from both Dryden and NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., eagerly studied this data and compared it with predictive models in the ensuring months.
The flight was part of an ambitious program to advance research in high-speed air-breathing propulsion technologies from laboratory experiments to flight test. The multi-year effort, called Hyper-X, was aimed at conducting flight research in the hypersonic speed regime – above Mach 5, or more than 3,600 mph.
Brad Neal served as lead operations engineer for the program at NASA Dryden, recently renamed in honor of former astronaut and flight research pilot Neil A. Armstrong. Now chief engineer at NASA Armstrong, Neal looks back at the Hyper-X achievements with pride.
“It was the first demonstration of an integrated scramjet in atmospheric flight,” he recalled. “Nothing like that had ever been attempted before.”
An earlier flight in June 2001 was cut short due to a malfunction of the booster rocket used to propel the craft to scramjet ignition speeds. Following the successful second flight, a third and final test of the X-43A on November 16, 2004, achieved a new record speed of Mach 9.68 (6,600 mph).

Joel Sitz, currently Deputy Associate Director for Programs at NASA Armstrong, managed flight-testing of the X-43A from July 1998 to December 2004.
"The successful Hyper-X flights were the aeronautical equivalent of landing on the moon,” he said. “We had to overcome tremendous technical and operational challenges.”
Sitz believes the Hyper-X accomplishments have opened up the hypersonic frontier.
“Scramjets have now been proven to work and turbine technology is maturing with materials designed to withstand temperatures at Mach 4, the transition region for converting to ramjet or scramjet propulsion through Mach 10 and beyond,” Sitz noted. A turbine-based, combined-cycle propulsion system could be used to power an aerospace vehicle capable of taking off and landing on a conventional runway, potentially lowering launch costs while increasing mission flexibility. Developing and testing such a system would be a significant scientific and engineering challenge.

Expedition 39/40 Trio’s Arrival at Space Station Delayed

The next trio of crew members destined for the International Space Station is now looking forward to a Thursday arrival at the orbiting laboratory after their Soyuz spacecraft was unable to complete its third thruster burn to fine-tune its approach.
Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Steve Swanson of NASA are in good spirits aboard the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft, and their colleagues already aboard the station were informed of the new plan. Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos were expecting their new crewmates to dock at 11:05 p.m. EDT Tuesday night, but now will need to wait a little longer.
Flight controllers in the Mission Control Center outside Moscow are now reverting to a backup 34-orbit rendezvous, which would result in an arrival and docking at 7:58 p.m. Thursday, March 27. Rendezvous experts are reviewing the plan, and may update it later as necessary. Docking will be at the station’s Poisk docking module.
This longer rendezvous and docking pattern was the standard rendezvous profile until last year; this would have been the fifth rendezvous using the accelerated timeline. The last two-day rendezvous was Expedition 34, which launched on Dec. 19, 2012, and docked to the station on Dec. 21, 2012. That Soyuz crew included NASA’s Tom Marshburn, the Canadian Space Agency’s Chris Hadfield and Roscosmos’ Roman Romanenko. The first same-day rendezvous and docking was Expedition 35, which launched on March 28, 2013, and docked to the station March 29. That crew included NASA’s Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos’ Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin.
Flight controllers in Moscow are reviewing data to determine the reason the third thruster burn did not occur. In conversations between flight controllers in Moscow and Houston, initial information indicates the problem may have been the spacecraft was not in the proper attitude, or orientation, for the burn.
Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev are scheduled to return home in September as Expedition 40 crew members. They will officially become Expedition 40 when Expedition 39 crew members Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin end their mission and undock in their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft in May for their return to Earth.

Expedition 39 Counts Down to Soyuz and Dragon Launches

A new Expedition 39 trio waits at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for its launch Tuesday night to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Falcon rocket carrying the Dragon commercial cargo craft awaits its launch planned for Sunday evening from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
New Flight Engineers Alexander Skvortsov, Steve Swanson and Oleg Artemyev will launch aboard a Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft at 5:17 p.m. EDT for a six-hour ride to the orbital laboratory. Their rocket rolled out to the launch pad Sunday morning and has been raised into its vertical launch position.

After four orbits they will dock to the Poisk module at 11:04 p.m., with hatch opening targeted for 12:45 a.m. Waiting to greet them will be Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mikhail Tyurin.
Meanwhile, the orbiting residents are busy with ongoing science, station maintenance and exercise.
Japanese astronaut Wakata started his morning working inside the Fluids Integrated Rack to prepare samples for the Advanced Colloids Experiment. That study observes microscopic particles suspended in a liquid with possible benefits for commercial products on Earth.

He spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning fans inside the Kibo laboratory. Wakata then set up sensors to measure air flow in the Japanese lab module.
Mastracchio, a NASA astronaut, worked throughout his morning on another fluids experiment performing test runs with participation from researchers on Earth. The ongoing Capillary Flow Experiment observes how fluids behave inside containers with complex geometries. Researchers can potentially use the data to model fluid transfer systems on future spacecraft.

During the afternoon Mastracchio performed some light plumbing work, pumping fluids from the Water Recovery Management System. He  also assisted Wakata in the Kibo lab for the air flow measurement work.
Flight Engineer and veteran cosmonaut Tyurin worked in the station’s Russian segment inspecting and photographing windows inside the Pirs docking compartment. He also checked voice loops from Baikonur Cosmodrome in preparation for Tuesday’s launch.
SpaceX is getting ready for its third mission to deliver cargo to the orbital lab and safely return critical research and other gear back to Earth. The Falcon rocket carrying the Dragon resupply ship is planned for launch Sunday at 10:50 p.m. NASA TV coverage begins at 9:45 p.m. with a post-launch news conference to follow about 90 minutes after liftoff.

Recycling Water on Space Station

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata discusses the the International Space Station's Water Recovery System, which recycles urine and waste water into clean water. Or as Wakata puts it, "Here on board the ISS, we turn yesterday's coffee into tomorrow's coffee."

New Station Crew Wrapping Up Training for Launch

Three new Expedition 39 crew members wrapped up training Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as they prepare for next week’s launch to join Commander Koichi Wakata and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mikhail Tyurin aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev inspected the Soyuz TMA-12M that will carry them on an express, six-hour journey to the station on Tuesday. The trio checked out the seats and the interior configuration of the Soyuz in advance of its being rolled out to the launch pad.
The Soyuz carrying Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev is scheduled to lift off from Baikonur at 5:17 p.m. EDT Tuesday (3:17 a.m. Wednesday, Kazakh time) and dock to the Poisk mini-research module at 11:04 p.m. NASA Television will provide live coverage of all the events, including the hatch opening planned for 12:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev will remain aboard the station until mid-September. Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin have been aboard the orbital outpost since November 2013 and will return to Earth May 14, leaving Swanson as the Expedition 40 commander.
Aboard the orbiting complex Friday, Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin tackled a range of scientific experiments and performed some routine maintenance and cleaning to get the station shipshape for the arrival of their three new crewmates.
Wakata spent much of the morning cleaning the ventilation screens and ductwork that carries the air in and out of the Unity node. Proper air flow inside the station’s module is essential to crew health because in the absence of gravity stagnant air can form dangerous pockets of carbon dioxide.

 Mastracchio meanwhile continued maintenance work on the Waste and Hygiene Compartment – the station’s bathroom located in the Tranquility node.  He also replaced an audio terminal unit in the Columbus laboratory that was suspected of being faulty.
Afterward, Mastracchio assisted Wakata with the Body Measures experiment, which collects anthropometric data to help researchers understand the magnitude and variability of the changes to body measurements during spaceflight. Predicting these changes will maximize crew performance, prevent injury and reduce time spent altering or adjusting spacesuits and workstations. The investigation also could help scientists understand the effects of prolonged bed rest, which produces physiological changes similar to those experienced in microgravity. With Wakata wearing reflective dots on his body – much like the ones used for motion capture for special effects in movies – Mastracchio collected data and photographs for the experiment.
 Wakata rounded out the day with more ventilation system cleaning, while Mastracchio set up the Combustion Integrated Rack for more ground-commanded research. This experiment rack, 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.
 On the Russian side of the complex, Tyurin spent much of his day loading items for disposal aboard the ISS Progress 54 cargo craft and updating the station’s Inventory Management System as he went along. Progress 54, which arrived at the station back on Feb. 5 with 2.8 tons of cargo, is set to depart the station on April 7 for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean.
Tyurin also deployed dosimeters for the Matryoshka experiment. Named after the traditional Russian nesting dolls, Matryoshka analyzes the radiation environment onboard the station.
Over the weekend, the station’s residents will have some free time to relax, speak with family members back on Earth and take care of weekly housekeeping chores. Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin also will continue their daily two-hour exercise regimen to prevent the loss of muscle mass and bone density that occurs during long-duration spaceflight.

Space Station Live: Servicing Satellites in Space

Goddard Space Flight Center's Jill McGuire, the project manager for the Robotic Refueling Mission and Charles Bacon, Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office Systems Engineer explains the Robotic Refueling Mission. This is the weekly Payload Operations Integration Center segment from Marshall Space Flight Center and aired during Space Station Live on March 19, 2014.

NASA Orbiter Finds New Gully Channel on Mars

A comparison of images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in November 2010 and May 2013 reveal the formation of a new gully channel on a crater-wall slope in the southern highlands of Mars.
These before-and-after images are available online at http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/new-gully-channel-terra-sirenum-pia17958 .
Gully or ravine landforms are common on Mars, particularly in the southern highlands. This pair of images shows that material flowing down from an alcove at the head of a gully broke out of an older route and eroded a new channel. The dates of the images are more than a full Martian year apart, so the observations did not pin down the Martian season of the activity at this site. Before-and-after HiRISE pairs of similar activity at other sites demonstrate that this type of activity generally occurs in winter, at temperatures so cold that carbon dioxide, rather than water, is likely to play the key role.
HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

NASA's STEREO Studies Extreme Space Weather

On July 22, 2012, a massive cloud of solar material erupted off the sun's right side, zooming out into space and passing one of NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft along the way. Scientists clocked this giant cloud, known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME, as traveling over 1,800 miles per second as it left the sun.
Conversations began to buzz and the emails to fly: this was the fastest CME ever observed by STEREO, which since its launch in 2006 has helped make CME speed measurements much more precise. Measuring a CME at this speed, traveling in a direction safely away from Earth, represented a fantastic opportunity for researchers studying the sun's effects. Now, a paper in Nature Communications, published on March 18, 2014, describes how a combination of events worked together to create these incredible speeds.
"The authors believe this extreme event was due to the interaction of two CMEs separated by only 10 to 15 minutes," said Joe Gurman, project scientist for STEREO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Plus the CMEs traveled through a region of space that had been cleared out by another CME four days earlier."


The researchers describe the July 2012 event as a perfect storm, referring to the phrase originally coined for the October 1991 Atlantic Ocean storm to describe an event where a rare combination of circumstances can drastically aggravate a situation.
Such work helps scientists understand how extreme solar events form and what their effects might be if aimed toward Earth. At Earth, the harshest space weather can have strong effects on the magnetic system surrounding the planet, which in turn can affect satellites and interrupt GPS and radio communications. At its worst, rapidly changing magnetic field lines around Earth can induce electric surges in the power utility grids on the ground. One of the best ways to protect against such problems, and perhaps learn to predict the onset of one of these storms, is to make computer models matching the observations of past events.
In the case of the July 2012 event, three spacecraft offered data on the CMEs: the two STEREO spacecraft and the joint European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. SOHO lies between Earth and the sun, while the two STEREO spacecraft have orbits that for most of their journey give views of the sun that cannot be had from Earth. Each spacecraft observed the CMEs from a different angle, and together they could help map out a three-dimensional image of what happened.
The authors suggest it was the successive, one-two punch of the CMEs that was the key to the high speeds of the event – speeds that would lead to circling Earth five times in one minute.  A CME from four days earlier had an impact too. First, it swept aside particles in the way, making it all the easier for the next CMEs to travel.  Second, it altered the normal spiral of the magnetic fields around the sun to a straighter pattern above the region that was the source for these CMEs, thus allowing for freer movement.
"A key finding is that it’s not just the initial conditions on the sun that can produce an extreme space weather storm," said Gurman. "The interactions between successive coronal mass ejections farther out in interplanetary space need to be considered as well."
The researchers found that state-of-the-art models that didn't take the effects of successive CMEs into consideration failed to correctly simulate the July 2012 event.  Such information will be incorporated into the models being tested by space weather forecasters. This should lead to better predictions of the worst storms and better protection of Earth and our technology in space.

Space Station Live: Space Garden Launching to Station

Dr. Gioia Massa, Veggie Hardware Validation Test Science Team Lead, discusses the Veggie payload set to launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX-3 commercial resupply services mission. The hardware for Veggie will support the largest garden ever aboard the station.

Astronaut Karen Nyberg Talks With Minnesota Students

From NASA's International Space Station Mission Control Center, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg participated in a Digital Learning Network (DLN) event with students from Edna I. Murphy Elementary School in Grand Rapids, Minn.

The DLN connects students and teachers with NASA experts and education specialists using online communication technologies like video/web conferencing and webcasting. Register for free,

Introducing the Expedition 40/41 Flight Crew

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst will launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in May 2014 to begin a 6-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Your 15 Minutes of 'Frame' - from NASA's Cassini

Arguably the most photogenic planet in the solar system, Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest planet after Jupiter. With its luminous striped surface and stunning ring system, the planet is a wonder to view, especially from orbit, as NASA's Cassini spacecraft has demonstrated since arriving at the Saturn system in 2004.
Over the years, the Cassini mission website has been sharing raw, unprocessed versions of images sent to Earth by the spacecraft. On June 30 (July 1 EDT), Cassini will celebrate 10 years exploring Saturn, its rings and moons. To help mark 10 years in orbit, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has created a special gallery on the Saturn website where members of the public can experience "15 minutes of frame" by submitting their own amateur images made up from image data brought back by Cassini.
With more than a half-dozen images and GIFs already live on the page, users are invited to visit Cassini's raw image database, dig through the treasure trove and create their own digital masterpiece and suggested caption. The submission process is as simple as filling out a form and uploading the image. Guidelines and further information can be found on the Cassini website.
Now that Cassini has completed its first decade of observations, mission planners are looking forward to the next phase, when the spacecrafts's instruments will return additional data and images. The mission will probe the densest part of the geysers spewing from Enceladus, and dive between Saturn and its innermost ring.
 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 in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Orion Makes Testing, Integration Strides Ahead of First Launch to Space

Orion is marching ever closer to its first trip to space on a flight that will set the stage for human exploration of new destinations in the solar system.
The Orion team continues to work toward completing the spacecraft to be ready for a launch in September-October.  However, the initial timeframe for the launch of Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) has shifted from September-October to early December to support allowing more opportunities for launches this year.  Completing the spacecraft according to the original schedule will allow many engineers and technicians to continue transitioning to work on the Orion spacecraft that will fly atop the agency's Space Launch System. It will also ensure that NASA's partners are fully ready for the launch of EFT-1 at the earliest opportunity on the manifest.
To that end, the core and starboard boosters for the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch Orion into space for the first time arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this month. That leaves just one booster still in production at the company's Decatur, Ala., facility. It's scheduled to arrive in April along with the rocket's upper stage, and will join the other boosters inside ULA's Horizontal Integration Facility for processing and testing.
Meanwhile, in the spacecraft factory at Kennedy Space Center - the Operations and Checkout Facility - Orion itself is making progress of its own.
After completing construction on the service module in January, engineers at Kennedy moved on to testing whether it could withstand the stresses that it will endure during launch and in space. The service module sits below Orion's crew module and above the rocket, and would normally provide power and in-space propulsion and house a number of other systems that aren't needed on this first flight. Despite being pushed and twisted in multiple directions, the service module came through the tests not only unscathed, but earlier than planned.
Once the service module testing was completed, it was the crew module's turn.
Almost all of the spacecraft's avionics components have been installed, and system by system, the engineers are powering them up. It's a methodical, deliberate process, in which each connector is checked individually before they're hooked up and the system turned on to make sure each battery, heater, camera and processor - to name a few - works on its own, before the entire system is turned on together. Otherwise, one faulty cable could damage an entire, one-of-a-kind system.
The process is called functional testing, and once it's complete and all 59 systems have been verified, the engineers will graduate to performance testing, in which all of the systems work together to operate the crew module as a whole. Ultimately, they'll be able to turn on all of the flight computers, radios and other systems at once and simulate the vehicle's sensors so that the spacecraft thinks its flying in space.
The crew module testing will wrap up in April, and then Orion's heat shield - the largest of its kind ever built - will be installed. With that in place, the crew module, service module and launch abort system will be ready to mate this spring. Its launch later this year will send Orion 3,600 miles above the Earth for a two-orbit flight that will give engineers the chance to verify its design and test some of the systems most critical for the safety of the astronauts who will fly on it in the future. After traveling 15 times farther into space than the International Space Station, Orion will return to Earth at speeds near 20,000 mph, generating temperatures of up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

Space Station Live: Protein Crystallization Experiment Launching on SpaceX

Space Station Live commentator Amiko Kauderer interviews CASIS PCG HDPCG-2 Principal Investigator Dr. Stephen Aller regarding the Advancing Membrane Protein Crystallization by Using Microgravity experiment set to launch aboard SpaceX-3.

Mid-Level Solar Flare Seen by NASA's SDO

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 6:34 p.m. EDT on March 12, 2014, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, captured an image of it. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.
This flare is classified as an M9.3 flare, just slightly weaker than the most intense flares, which are labeled X-class. The letters denote broad categories of strength, while the numbers provide more information. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc.
This M9.3 flare was emitted by an active region — a magnetically strong and complex region on the sun's surface — labeled AR 11996.
Updates will be provided as they are available on the flare and whether there was an associated coronal mass ejection, or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and affect electronic systems in satellites and on Earth.

NASA's Operation IceBridge Begins New Arctic Campaign

Researchers aboard NASA's P-3 research aircraft left the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., March 10 for Greenland to begin a new season of collecting data on Arctic land and sea ice.
The mission, known as Operation IceBridge, is to gather data on changes to polar ice and maintain continuity of measurements between NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) missions. The original ICESat mission ended in 2009, and its successor, ICESat-2, is scheduled for launch in 2017.
By flying yearly campaigns, IceBridge provides valuable data on rapidly changing areas of polar land and sea ice. Flights run through May 23 from Thule Air Base and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, with a week-long deployment to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Over the past five years, IceBridge has surveyed large portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, as well as sea ice in both polar regions. IceBridge data have been used to build detailed maps of bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, calculate changes in Arctic sea ice thickness and volume, and improve our understanding of the rate at which glaciers in Greenland are flowing into the sea.
The first part of the campaign will focus on sea ice in the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland and in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas north of Alaska. As in the past two years, IceBridge will provide data on ice thickness to help sea ice researchers develop more accurate seasonal Arctic sea ice models.
The remainder of the campaign will turn to measuring ice surface elevation and thickness at many of the Greenland Ice Sheet's outlet glaciers, which are channels of ice that flow from an ice sheet, constrained on its sides by bedrock. The surface elevation measurements taken by IceBridge's laser altimeter, the Airborne Topographic Mapper, will provide scientists data on how the ice sheet is changing and give a useful benchmark for ICESat-2.
Radar instruments such as the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder, which is operated by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., will peer beneath the surface to collect the data on ice thickness and sub-ice terrain, internal layering in the ice sheet and snow depth.
The P-3 research aircraft's extensive instrument suite features a new component this year –
a spectrometer that measures ice albedo, or reflectivity.
"A small change in albedo over the entire Arctic could have a significant effect on how much heat is absorbed by the surface," said Nathan Kurtz, a sea ice scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This year's flights will serve as a preliminary test for the instrument.
Throughout the campaign, the IceBridge team will coordinate its efforts with other research groups working in the region. Researchers on the surface will study sea ice and snow thickness near Barrow, Alaska, in the Canadian Basin and just north of Greenland. Measurements in these areas will later be used to further verify the accuracy of IceBridge's snow radar instrument, particularly in areas with rough ice surfaces.

According to Jackie Richter-Menge, sea ice scientist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., snow radar works well on ice that has not been deformed. Ice with a rougher surface can scatter radar waves, making the returning signal harder to interpret.
The IceBridge team also will work with the CryoVEx (CryoSat-2 Validation Experiment) team, which operates a campaign to verify measurements made by the European Space Agency's ice-monitoring satellite, CryoSat-2, in orbit since 2010. The IceBridge team plans to fly directly beneath the orbit of CryoSat-2 around the same time the satellite passes overhead to compare measurements. Researchers from the European Space Agency, York University in Toronto, Canada, and the Technical University of Denmark also will be flying airborne instruments to measure ice and snow.
"It's really exciting to have all of these people working together," said Richter-Menge. "It shows how interested everyone is in advancing these measurements."
Three high school science teachers from the United States, Denmark and Greenland also will join IceBridge and fly with the team to get first-hand experience and knowledge they can bring back to their classrooms. These teachers come to IceBridge through partnerships with the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland Joint Committee and PolarTREC, a U.S.-based program that pairs teachers with polar research expeditions.

Expedition 38 Lands In Kazakhstan Completing Mission

Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Mike Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy landed in Kazakhstan at 11:24 p.m. EDT. They landed inside the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft ending their mission after five-and-a-half months aboard the International Space Station. The trio undocked from the Poisk module at 8:02 p.m. EDT.
Staying behind are new Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mikhail Tyurin. The crew members arrived at the station’s Rassvet module Nov. 7 aboard a Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft. They are scheduled to return home in mid-May. Wakata, a Japanese astronaut, is the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s first station commander.
Kotov is completing his third mission aboard the orbital laboratory for a total of 526 days in space. He served as a flight engineer during Expedition 15 in 2007. He then served for six months as an Expedition 22/23 crew member beginning in December 2009.
Hopkins and Ryazanskiy are wrapping up their first space mission each accumulating 166 days in space. During his stay aboard the orbital laboratory, Hopkins conducted a pair of U.S. spacewalks for a total 12 hours and 58 minutes. Ryazanskiy conducted three Russian spacewalks during his mission working outside the station for 20 hours and five minutes.
Hopkins joined NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio for the first pair of Expedition 38 spacewalks installing a new ammonia pump module to restore the station’s cooling system. The U.S. astronauts began the first spacewalk Dec. 21 exiting the Quest airlock to remove and stow a degraded pump module. They completed the installation of the new pump module during a second spacewalk on Dec. 24.
Shortly after those excursions, Ryazanskiy and Kotov exited the Pirs docking compartment Dec. 27 to install photographic gear, route cables, remove completed external experiments and install new scientific gear. The duo went out a second time Jan. 27 to complete the photographic installation work, retrieve more science gear and enable robotic arm operations on the station’s Russian segment.
Kotov and Ryazanskiy’s first spacewalk occurred Nov. 9 when the duo handed off the Olympic torch in its first ever outer space portion of the relay. The torch was returned to Earth the next day and used to light the Olympic flame Feb. 7 at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
Kotov has completed six spacewalks over his cosmonaut career accumulating 36 hours and 51 minutes outside the space station in a Russian Orlan spacesuit.
Waiting to replace the returning trio are Expedition 39/40 crew members Steve Swanson, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev. They are in Star City, Russia, completing mission training and making final preparations for their March 25 launch aboard a Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
Packed inside the returning Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft was gear, personal items and science. Student investigations launched on Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Orbital 1 mission in January also returned with the crew aboard the Soyuz spacecraft.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is conducted with the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in partnership with NanoRacks LLC under a Space Act agreement. The SSEP offers young scientists the opportunity for the ultimate science fair project: conceiving, designing, implementing and analyzing a real scientific research question in space aboard the International Space Station.

One example of these student investigations is the “L. acidophilus Bacteria Growth in Microgravity” study, proposed by fifth grade students in Hays County, Texas. This was an investigation of lactobacillus bacteria growth in microgravity. This probiotic bacterium, also referred to as “good” bacterium, is important for bone strength and intestinal health in humans. Because of the importance of these bacteria to the human body, this study determines if microgravity has any effect on its growth. This information is beneficial as NASA studies the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body in preparation for future missions to asteroids or to Mars.
Another student investigation proposed by sixth and eighth grade students in Crown Point, Ind., “The Effect of Microgravity on the Development of the Salamander,” looks at the effect of microgravity on the development of a spotted salamander. Gaining knowledge about the developmental impact from microgravity may lead to further exploration of the development of other living organisms, such as humans, in microgravity. When the salamanders return to Earth, they will be observed for any abnormalities and compared to spotted salamanders on Earth.
Findings from the 23 investigations that launched on Jan. 9 to the space station will be presented at a July 2014 SSEP annual conference.

NASA Data Sheds New Light on Changing Greenland Ice

Research using NASA data is giving new insight into one of the processes causing Greenland's ice sheet to lose mass. A team of scientists used satellite observations and ice thickness measurements gathered by NASA's Operation IceBridge to calculate the rate at which ice flows through Greenland's glaciers into the ocean. The findings of this research give a clearer picture of how glacier flow affects the Greenland Ice Sheet and shows that this dynamic process is dominated by a small number of glaciers.
Over the past few years, Operation IceBridge measured the thickness of many of Greenland's glaciers, which allowed researchers to make a more accurate calculation of ice discharge rates. In a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers calculated ice discharge rates for 178 Greenland glaciers more than one kilometer (0.62 miles) wide.
Ice sheets grow when snow accumulates and is compacted into ice. They lose mass when ice and snow at the surface melts and runs off and when glaciers at the coast discharge ice into the ocean. The difference between yearly snowfall on an ice sheet and the sum of melting and discharge is called a mass budget. When these factors are equal, the mass budget is balanced, but for years the Greenland Ice Sheet has had a negative mass budget, meaning the ice sheet is losing mass overall.
For years the processes of surface melt and glacier discharge were roughly equal in size, but around 2006 surface melt increased and now exceeds iceberg production. In recent years, computer model projections have shown an increasing dominance of surface melt, but a limited amount of glacier thickness data made pinpointing a figure for ice discharge difficult.
Ice discharge is controlled by three major factors: ice thickness, glacier valley shape and ice velocity. Researchers used data from IceBridge's ice-penetrating radar – the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder, or MCoRDS, which is operated by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan. – to determine ice thickness and sub-glacial terrain, and images from satellite sources such as Landsat and Terra to calculate velocity. The team used several years of observations to ensure accuracy. "Glacier discharge may vary considerably between years," said Ellyn Enderlin, glaciologist at the University of Maine, Orono, Maine and the study's lead author. "Annual changes in speed and thickness must be taken into account."
Being able to study Greenland in such a large and detailed scale is one of IceBridge's strengths. "IceBridge has collected so much data on elevation and thickness that we can now do analysis down to the individual glacier level and do it for the entire ice sheet," said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We can now quantify contributions from the different processes that contribute to ice loss."
With data on glacier size, shape and speed, researchers could calculate each glacier's contribution to Greenland's mass loss and the total volume of ice being discharged from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Of the 178 glaciers studied, 15 accounted for more than three-quarters of ice discharged since 2000, and four accounted for roughly half. Considering the large size of some of Greenland's glacier basins, such as the areas drained by the Jakobshavn, Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq glaciers, this was not exactly surprising.
What they also found was that the size of these basins did not necessarily correlate with glacier discharge rate, shuffling the order of Greenland's largest glaciers. Previously Helheim Glacier was thought to be Greenland's third largest glacier, but this study puts it in fifth place and adds two southeast Greenland glaciers, Koge Bugt and Ikertivaq South to the list of big ice-movers.
Glacier thickness measurements and this study's calculation methods have the potential to improve future computer model projections of the Greenland Ice Sheet. And with a new picture of which glaciers contribute most to mass loss, IceBridge will be able to more effectively target areas in future campaigns, promising more and better data to add to the research community's body of knowledge.

International Space Station to Beam Video via Laser Back to Earth

What's more interesting than videos of cats chasing laser beams over the kitchen floor? How about videos sent OVER laser beams from NASA's International Space Station back to Earth?
A team of about 20 working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., through the lab’s Phaeton early-career-hire program, led the development of the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) investigation, which is preparing for a March 16 launch to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX-3 mission. The goal? NASA’s first optical communication experiment on the orbital laboratory.
Scientific instruments used in space missions increasingly require higher communication rates to transmit gathered data back to Earth or to support high-data-rate applications, like high-definition video streams. Optical communications—also referred to as “lasercom”—is an emerging technology where data is sent via laser beams. This offers the promise of much higher data rates than what is achievable with current radio frequency (RF) transmissions and has the advantage that it operates in a frequency band that is currently unregulated by the Federal Communications Commission.
"Optical communications has the potential to be a game-changer," said mission manager Matt Abrahamson. "Right now, many of our deep space missions communicate at 200 to 400 kilobits per second.” OPALS will demonstrate up to 50 megabits per second and future deep space optical communication systems will provide over one gigabits per second from Mars.
"It’s like upgrading from dial-up to DSL," added project systems engineer Bogdan Oaida. "Our ability to generate data has greatly outpaced our ability to downlink it. Imagine trying to download a movie at home over dial-up. It’s essentially the same problem in space, whether we’re talking about low-Earth orbit or deep space."
OPALS is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, part of a cargo resupply mission to the space station. The payload will be inside the Dragon cargo spacecraft. Once deployed, OPALS will be conducting transmission tests for a period of nearly three months, with the possibility of a longer mission. After the Dragon capsule docks with the station, OPALS will be robotically extracted from the trunk of the Dragon, and then manipulated by a robotic arm for positioning on the station’s exterior. It is the first investigation developed at JPL to launch on SpaceX's Falcon rocket.
The technology demo was conceived, developed, built and tested at JPL by engineers in the early stage of their careers in order to gain experience building space hardware and developing an end-to-end communication system. The system uses primarily commercial off-the-shelf hardware and encloses electronics in a pressurized container. "We were not as constrained by mass, volume or power on this mission as we were by cost," said Abrahamson, and this approach allowed a lower cost development on an efficient schedule.
As the space station orbits Earth, a ground telescope tracks it and transmits a laser beacon to the OPALS. While maintaining lock on the uplink beacon, the orbiting instrument’s flight system will downlink a modulated laser beam with a formatted video. Each demonstration, or test, will last approximately 100 seconds as the station instrument and ground telescope maintain line of sight. It will be used to study pointing, acquisition and tracking of the very tightly focused laser beams, taking into account the movement of the space station, and to study the characteristics of optical links through Earth’s atmosphere. NASA will also use OPALS to educate and train personnel in the operation of optical communication systems.
The success of OPALS will provide increased impetus for operational optical communications in NASA missions. The space station is a prime target for multi-gigabit per second optical links. Fast laser communications between Earth and spacecraft like the station or the Mars Curiosity rover would enhance their connection to engineers and scientists on the ground as well as to the public.
OPALS is a partnership between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; the International Space Station Program based at Johnson Space Center in Houston; Kennedy Space Center in Florida; Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and the Advanced Exploration Systems Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA Launches New Research, Seeks the Subtle in Parallel Ways

On March 7, NASA announced the selection of 10 investigations for the study of identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly and, in doing so, launched human space life science research into a new era. Although NASA’s Human Research Program has been researching the effects of spaceflight on the human body for decades, these 10 investigations will provide NASA with broader insight into the subtle effects and changes that may occur in spaceflight as compared to Earth-based environments. NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) will jointly manage this ambitious new undertaking.
“We realized this is a unique opportunity to perform a class of novel studies because we had one twin flying aboard the International Space Station and one twin on the ground,” says Craig Kundrot, Ph.D. and deputy chief scientist of NASA’s Human Research Program. “We can study two individuals who have the same genetics, but are in different environments for one year.”

The investigations, which were picked from a pool of 40 proposals, introduce to space physiology the field of –omics, the integrated study of DNA, RNA, and the entire complement of biomolecules in the human body. Studying human physiology at this fundamental level will provide NASA and the broader spaceflight community with unique information. This is because these tiny components of the human body tell researchers volumes about an individual’s composition and their reaction to stressors like those associated with spaceflight. Investigating the subtle changes – or lack thereof – between the Kelly brothers at this level, after Scott’s year in space and Mark’s year on Earth, could shed light between the nature vs. nurture aspect of the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
The studies will focus on four areas: human physiology, behavioral health, microbiology/microbiome, and molecular or -omics studies. Human physiological investigations will look at how the spaceflight environment may induce changes in different organs like the heart, muscles or brain within the body.  Behavioral health investigations will help characterize the effects spaceflight may have on perception and reasoning, decision making and alertness. The microbiology/microbiome investigations will explore the brothers’ dietary differences and stressors to find out how both affect the organisms in the twins’ guts. Lastly, but potentially opening a whole new realm of information about humans exposed to the spaceflight environment are the molecular or  -omics investigations. These studies will look at the way genes in the cells are turned on and off as a result of spaceflight; and how stressors like radiation, confinement and microgravity prompt changes in the proteins and metabolites gathered in biological samples like blood, saliva, urine and stool.
Some of the investigations are brand new, some are already being considered as part of the research plans for the one-year mission set for 2015, and some are already being performed with crews living aboard the space station for six-month durations. These will allow the agency to build upon existing knowledge about long duration spaceflight.
Although the investigations conducted on the Kelly brothers are not expected to provide definitive data about the effects of spaceflight on individuals — because there are only two subjects for data collection — they do serve as a demonstration project for future research initiatives. These investigations may identify changes to pursue in research of larger astronaut populations.
“This is a unique opportunity for the agency,” says Kundrot. “The investigations are a pathfinder for the agency with regard to the study of astronaut physiology.”
“This pilot project will, for the first time in space, integrate physiology with 21^st century -omics techniques currently performed at leading medical schools and hospitals,” says Graham Scott, NSBRI chief scientist. 

Space to Ground - 3/7/2014

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

Mystery of Planet-forming Disks Explained by Magnetism

Astronomers say that magnetic storms in the gas orbiting young stars may explain a mystery that has persisted since before 2006.
Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to study developing stars have had a hard time figuring out why the stars give off more infrared light than expected. The planet-forming disks that circle the young stars are heated by starlight and glow with infrared light, but Spitzer detected additional infrared light coming from an unknown source.
A new theory, based on three-dimensional models of planet-forming disks, suggests the answer: Gas and dust suspended above the disks on gigantic magnetic loops like those seen on the sun absorb the starlight and glow with infrared light.
"If you could somehow stand on one of these planet-forming disks and look at the star in the center through the disk atmosphere, you would see what looks like a sunset," said Neal Turner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
The new models better describe how planet-forming material around stars is stirred up, making its way into future planets, asteroids and comets.
While the idea of magnetic atmospheres on planet-forming disks is not new, this is the first time they have been linked to the mystery of the observed excess infrared light.  According to Turner and colleagues, the magnetic atmospheres are similar to what takes place on the surface of our sun, where moving magnetic field lines spur tremendous solar prominences to flare up in big loops.
Stars are born out of collapsing pockets in enormous clouds of gas and dust, rotating as they shrink down under the pull of gravity. As a star grows in size, more material rains down toward it from the cloud, and the rotation flattens this material out into a turbulent disk. Ultimately, planets clump together out of the disk material.
In the 1980s, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite mission, a joint project that included NASA, began finding more infrared light than expected around young stars.  Using data from other telescopes, astronomers pieced together the presence of dusty disks of planet-forming material.  But eventually it became clear the disks alone weren't enough to account for the extra infrared light -- especially in the case of stars a few times the mass of the sun.
One theory introduced the idea that instead of a disk, the stars were surrounded by a giant dusty halo, which intercepted the star's visible light and re-radiated it at infrared wavelengths. Then, recent observations from ground-based telescopes suggested that both a disk and a halo were needed. Finally, three-dimensional computer modeling of the turbulence in the disks showed the disks ought to have fuzzy surfaces, with layers of low-density gas supported by magnetic fields, similar to the way solar prominences are supported by the sun's magnetic field.
The new work brings these pieces together by calculating how the starlight falls across the disk and its fuzzy atmosphere. The result is that the atmosphere absorbs and re-radiates enough to account for all the extra infrared light.
"The starlight-intercepting material lies not in a halo, and not in a traditional disk either, but in a disk atmosphere supported by magnetic fields," said Turner. "Such magnetized atmospheres were predicted to form as the disk drives gas inward to crash onto the growing star."
Over the next few years, astronomers will further test these ideas about the structure of the disk atmospheres by using giant ground-based telescopes linked together as interferometers.  An interferometer combines and processes data from multiple telescopes to show details finer than each telescope can see alone. Spectra of the turbulent gas in the disks will also come from NASA's SOFIA telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile, and from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope after its launch in 2018.

NASA Experts, Exhibits At SXSW Interactive

NASA seeks to answer the unknown.
At SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, attendees will find out how NASA is answering the tough questions such as: Is there life on other planets? Are we smarter than the dinosaurs? What are astronauts studying on the International Space Station?

Panels
NASA will lead five presentations and panel sessions during the SXSW Interactive festival, which are open to SXSW Interactive badged participants.

Live from Space! Talk with Astronauts in Orbit
Sat, Mar 8; 11:00am, Omni Downtown, Capital Ballroom
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP25456
John Yembrick, NASA's social media manager, will lead a discussion about how technology has evolved the way the agency connects with the public. Just a few short years ago, only a select few were able to talk to astronauts in space. Today, all you need is to be on the Internet. At SXSW, audience members can ask questions directly to astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio from 250 miles away – in space.
"You don’t have to go to the movies to feel connected to human spaceflight,” Yembrick said. “Every day on social media astronauts on the International Space Station are sharing their experience with us down here on Earth. The station is not only an outstanding test bed for future space exploration, but also at providing us the human perspective of looking back at our home planet from orbit. Like never before, we can live vicariously through the eyes of the astronauts.”
That's Hot: Visualizing NASA Climate Science Data
Sat, Mar. 8; 12:30pm, Omni Downtown, Lone Star Room
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP24689
NASA has a fleet of spacecraft studying every aspect of our home planet with five new missions launching in 2014. This panel will demonstrate how NASA is using mobile applications, interactive websites, near real-time visualizations and social media to deliver meaningful and understandable Earth science data - in some cases just hours after it's collected. Representatives from JPL on this panel include Michael Green, manager for public engagement formulation, Doug Ellison, visualization producer, and Veronica McGregor, media relations manager.
NASA and Kerbal Space Program: The Asteroid Mission In Real and Virtual Worlds
Sat, Mar. 8; 12:30pm, Palmer Events Center, Exhibit Hall 1
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_OE03288
Kerbal Space Program and NASA will share the stage at SXSW Gaming during SXSW. Their panel will offer the first look at the in-game mission as well as discuss the process of taking a real mission that is still highly conceptual and assembling it in Kerbal Space Program. NASA will be represented at the panel by Jason Townsend, Deputy Social Media Manager, and Jason Kessler, Grand Challenges Program executive, who leads NASA's efforts to "find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them."
 First Signs: Finding Life on Other Planets
Sun, Mar 9, 12:30pm, Omni Downtown, Lone Star Room
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP17180
"First Signs: Finding Life on Other Planets" panel will feature NASA scientists working on the James Webb Space Telescope.  Amber Straughn, NASA Deputy Project Scientist for JWST Communications and Outreach, and Natalie Batalha, Research Astrophysicist at NASA Ames Research Center will join other panelists to discuss the important contributions this telescope will make in the search for life in the Universe, and set the stage for how JWST could find the first signs of life on another planet.
Are We Smarter than the Dinosaurs?
Mon, Mar 10; 9:30am, Omni Downtown, Capital Ballroom
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP22997
NASA is using prizes and challenges to help solve world big problems – like that of a potential asteroid strike. Kessler and colleague Jennifer Gustetic, Prizes and Challenges Program executive, will talk about how open innovation can meaningfully engage people in space, provide funding opportunities to developers, makers & entrepreneurs, and help us solve problems of global importance at a panel called "Are We Smarter than the Dinosaurs?" on Monday, March 10.
"66 million years ago, the dinosaurs had a very, very bad day thanks to a really large asteroid," Gustetic said. "NASA has led the global effort to find potentially hazardous asteroids, but there's still work to do and it will take a global effort with innovative solutions through participatory engagement to complete the survey of smaller, but still potentially hazardous asteroids.
Exhibits
The general public will be able to talk with scientists and engineers working on the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope and view a 13-foot-tall model of part of the Webb telescope at the SXSW Gaming Expo. The Expo takes place Friday, March 7 through Sunday, March 9 at the Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Road, Austin, Texas.
Badged SXSW Interactive participants can check out the "Experience NASA" exhibit Sunday, March 9 through Wednesday, March 12 at the SXSW Tradeshow in the Austin Convention Center. This exhibit will feature some of NASA’s most exciting missions, including our Mars Rovers, the soon-to-fly Orion space capsule, the Space Launch System, and the Asteroid Grand Challenge, which seeks public participation. NASA will also host a Space Meetup on Monday, March 10 at 4 p.m. where participants can meet fellow space enthusiast – along with NASA staff from multiple programs, missions, and projects – all at the NASA exhibit.
Stay Connected
For the latest updates from NASA events at SXSW, follow NASA on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Instagram. You can also join the conversation using the hashtag #NASASXSW.

Space Station Live: Cold Atom Laboratory Mission

Public Affairs Officer Lori Meggs at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama spoke with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists Anita Sengupta and Michael Hohensee about the Cold Atom Laboratory and how it could change what we know about fundamental physics.

NASA Tests New Robotic Refueling Technologies

NASA has successfully concluded a remotely controlled test of new technologies that would empower future space robots to transfer hazardous oxidizer – a type of propellant – into the tanks of satellites in space today.
Concurrently on the ground, NASA is incorporating results from this test and the Robotic Refueling Mission on the International Space Station to prepare for an upcoming ground-based test of a full-sized robotic servicer system that will perform tasks on a mock satellite client.
Collectively, these efforts are part of an ongoing and aggressive technology development campaign to equip robots and humans with the tools and capabilities needed for spacecraft maintenance and repair, the assembly of large space telescopes, and extended human exploration.


The Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., checked another critical milestone off their list with the completion of their Remote Robotic Oxidizer Transfer Test (RROxiTT) in February 2014.
"This is the first time that anyone has tested this type of technology, and we've proven that it works. It's ready for the next step to flight," says Frank Cepollina, veteran leader of the five servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope and the associate director of SSCO.
"RROxiTT gives NASA, and the satellite community at large, confidence that advanced satellite refueling and maintenance technologies aren't a wild dream of the future," says Cepollina. "They're being built and tested today – and the capabilities that they can unlock can become a reality."
Since 2009, SSCO has been investigating human and robotic satellite servicing while developing the technologies necessary to bring on-orbit spacecraft inspection, repair, refueling, component replacement and assembly capabilities to space.
Taking lessons learned from the successful Robotic Refueling Mission, the SSCO team devised the ground-based RROxiTT to test how robots can transfer hazardous oxidizer, at flight-like pressures and flow rates, through the propellant valve and into the mock tank of a satellite.
While this capability could be applied to spacecraft in multiple orbits, SSCO focused RROxiTT specifically on technologies that could help satellites traveling the busy space highway of geosynchronous Earth orbit, or GEO.
Located about 22,000 miles above Earth, this orbital path is home to more than 400 satellites, many of which beam communications, television and weather data to customers worldwide.
By developing robotic capabilities to repair and refuel GEO satellites, NASA hopes to add precious years of functional life to satellites and expand options for operators who face unexpected emergencies, tougher economic demands and aging fleets. NASA also hopes that these new technologies will help boost the commercial satellite-servicing industry that is rapidly gaining momentum.
Besides aiding the GEO satellite community, a capability to fix and relocate "ailing" satellites also could help mitigate the growing orbital debris problem that threatens continued space operations, ultimately making space greener and more sustainable.
 Goddard and Kennedy Collaborate on New Technologies
 RROxiTT tested a suite of new robotic technologies and procedures developed by the SSCO team at two collaborating centers, Goddard and Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Technologies included a flexible propellant hose, a new Oxidizer Nozzle Tool, and a unique propellant transfer system (PTS) all developed by the multi-Center SSCO team. The PTS, consisting of oxidizer tanks, seal-less pumps, flow-metering devices, and a maze of tubing, contains the components a servicer satellite would need to replenish the propellant of orbiting spacecraft for many years of extended life.
During operations, a robot operator at NASA Goddard in Maryland commanded an industrial robot at Kennedy in Florida -- more than 800 miles away -- to mate to a satellite valve and transfer propellant into a mock tank. At the conclusion of nine days of RROxiTT operations, the SSCO team declared victory.
"It's one thing to build a set of technologies and discover that they work," says Benjamin Reed, deputy project manager of SSCO at Goddard. "It's another thing to consider the capabilities that they could unlock. The paradigm of one-and-done should be relegated to the 20th century – the future of space will be re-use, re-purpose and replenish."
 Applications to Help People Stay Safer on Earth
While RROxiTT technologies are being designed for use in space, they may one day be applied to robotically replenish satellites before they launch.
Oxidizer – namely nitrogen tetroxide – is a chemical that, when mixed with satellite fuel, causes instant combustion that provides thrust (motion) for a satellite. The liquid is contained within a satellite tank at intense pressures, up to 300 pounds per square inch (about 20 times atmospheric pressure). Toxic, extremely corrosive and compressed, it requires special handling.
Using these new RROxiTT technologies to robotically fill up satellites on the ground would keep humans at a safe distance during these extremely hazardous operations.
Future Satellite Servicing Demonstrations
Since wrapping up RROxiTT, SSCO is broadening its portfolio to include xenon transfer technologies -- propellant used by satellites with electric propulsion systems.
The team is also gearing up for the next phase of the Robotic Refueling Mission on the International Space Station. The next Automated Transfer Vehicle, currently scheduled to launch to the space station in June of this year, will deliver new RRM hardware for a fresh set of activities.
Upcoming demonstrations include spacecraft inspection, the replenishment of cryogens in satellites not originally designed for in-flight service, and advanced solar cell technology. A separate space station demonstration currently in development will focus on real-time relative navigation.
On the ground, SSCO will be conducting a separate test at Goddard in later this year. Drawing from lessons learned from RRM, RROxiTT, and their efforts in robot algorithms and development, the team will command a full-sized robot servicer system to perform a series of servicing tasks on a suspended satellite mockup. Results will help the team evaluate how the numerous servicer subsystems and technologies work together as an integrated system to accomplish servicing objectives.  The event will test both proven and newly developed technologies.
"Sustainable space development is not only good stewardship of the shared resource of outer space," says Reed, "but it also makes sense as we develop the skill set to embark humans deeper into our solar system."