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NASA Ames turns 75; tens of thousands flock to open house

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MOUNTAIN VIEW -- Greg Katayuma visited NASA's Ames Research Center when he was in grade school but hadn't been back since.

So when he heard that the center was inviting the public into the famed facility to celebrate its 75th anniversary, he jumped at the chance to return.

"We thought we'd come out here and take a look and see what they do," said Katayuma, 59, who spent the better part of Saturday with his family touring the Moffett Field center. He was one of thousands of curious visitors who attended the open house, Ames' first in 17 years.

Visitors to the event visited booths set up by NASA researchers looking at everything from nanotechnology to astrobiology. They walked inside Hangar One and peered through its steel skeleton. They walked through an inflatable mock-up of an International Space Station module, pretended to take a ride in a model of a lunar rover, and took pictures next to an inflatable model of the new Orion space capsule.

They also got to go inside the "back fence," the inner part of NASA Ames where its employees actually work. There, some lucky folks got to go inside particular buildings while others were able to just view some of the imposing structures.

Perhaps most impressive was Ames' National Full Scale Aerodynamic Complex, a gigantic wind tunnel complex used to test the aerodynamics of full-sized aircraft. Show organizers opened two massive doors on the wind tunnel, allowing visitors to take a rare look inside.

"People often wonder post-Shuttle what NASA's doing," said Chuck Duff, Ames' director of center operations. "We're doing more than ever. We're focusing on exploration."

Seeing the wind tunnel up close was the one thing Katayuma definitely wanted to do during his visit. "The sheer size of this one building is the most impressive thing we've seen so far," he said.

Show organizers were expecting a crowd of 150,000 people. They handed out 120,000 tickets to the event last month. But organizers weren't checking for tickets at the door, meaning that anyone who fought the traffic -- which backed up cars on northbound and southbound Highway 101 and on Moffett Boulevard -- could get in.

Many visitors came with their kids in tow, whether to accommodate their interest in space science -- or to try to encourage it.

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NASA Ames turns 75; tens of thousands flock to open house

What's a plasma bomb? NASA probe reveals clues about the sun.

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The first results from a new NASA sun-studying spacecraft are in, and they reveal a complex and intriguing picture of Earth's star.

NASA'sInterface Region Imaging Spectrographprobe (IRIS) has observed 'bombs' of plasma on the sun, nanoflares that rapidly accelerate particles, and powerful jets that may drive the solar wind, among other phenomena, five new studies report.

While spacecraft can enter planetary atmospheres, they cannot fly through the outer atmosphere of the sun, where temperatures reach 3.5 million degrees Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius). Probes like IRIS instead must study the star from a safe distance. Unlike previous instruments, IRIS can take far more detailed observations of the sun, capturing observations of regions only about 150 miles (240 kilometers) wide on a time scale of just a few seconds. [See images from IRIS]

"The combination of enhanced spatial and spectral resolution, [which are] both three to four times better than previous instruments, allows a much closer look [at the sun's atmosphere]," Hardi Peter of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany told Space.com by email. Peter was the lead author on a study of hot plasma 'bombs' on the sun.

The surface of the sun, or photosphere, is the region visible to human eyes. Above the photosphere lie the hotter chromosphere and transition regions, which emit ultraviolet light that can only be observed from space. This is because Earth's atmosphere absorbs most of this radiation before it reaches land-based instruments. The outer part of thesolar atmosphereis calledthe corona.

While much of the sun's energy is generated in its core through hydrogen fusion, temperatures rise in the exterior layers moving out farther from the heat source. This means that something is powering that outer region, and scientists think the magnetic fields generated by the churning solar plasma provide at least part of the answer.

In emerging active regions,magnetic fieldsrise through the surface into the upper atmosphere, like a string pulled upward. When the energy carried by the field lines becomes too great, they snap, disconnecting from one another and reconnecting with other broken field lines in a process known as magnetic reconnection.

Paola Testa, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, led a team that used IRIS to study the footprints of these loops, where he found that the intensity changed over a span of 20 to 60 seconds. Investigating possible causes, Testa determined that the variations were consistent with simulations of electrons generated fromcoronal nanoflares.

"Nanoflares are short heating events releasing amounts of energy about a billion times smaller than large flares," Testa said.

Although smaller than their larger cousins, nanoflares occur more frequently, likely due to magnetic reconnection. Energy released during magnetic reconnection accelerates some particles to high energies, where they are emitted as radio waves and the highest energy X-rays. Scientists have observed these signals in medium and large flares, but for nanoflares, the rapidly moving electrons are too faint to detect directly using current instrumentation.

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What's a plasma bomb? NASA probe reveals clues about the sun.

NASA Langley helps build robot to fetch an asteroid | With Video

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Before American astronauts go to Mars, they first have to grapple with an asteroid.

Literally.

NASA plans to launch a robotic mission in a few years to capture a small asteroid, haul it home and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon. Then astronauts will fly up to study it, conducting spacewalks farther from Earth than ever before. Others can study it, too.

The idea is that finessing all these steps will help build and hone the technology needed to one day send astronauts to explore deep space and colonize Mars.

"The promise of this type of a mission in the big scheme of things in terms of opening up space for exploration and space resources this is like the Wright brothers' first flight, in some sense," said Dan Mazanek, senior space systems engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton.

Mazanek and his team are working with other NASA centers to develop a full-scale, prototype robotic system that's one of two options NASA is considering for its Asteroid Retrieval Mission, or ARM, set to launch by the end of this decade.

On Friday morning, he showed off the system to local and state VIPs who, along with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, had just helped launch a new $52 million integrated engineering services building on the NASA Langley campus. The event also included center director Steve Jurczyk, NASA's deputy associate administrator Lesa Roe, Virginia congressmen Scott Rigell and Bobby Scott, and Hampton mayor George Wallace.

Mazanek's system, called Option B, will consist of a spacecraft fitted with two robotic "arms" with what's called microspine grippers "like thousands of fish hooks on the rock surface; hands with zillions of fingers." With gripping technology this advanced, he said, a robot could walk straight up a wall or even across a ceiling.

The spacecraft will also have three robotic limbs or legs for landing on a large asteroid and straddling a small boulder of between two and five meters. Once the arms pick up the boulder, the legs will "hop up" from the asteroid's microgravity environment and head back into space.

As the spacecraft begins its long, leisurely journey back to Earth under solar power, it can tuck the asteroid boulder safely inside its three closed limbs and use its arms for other things, like taking pictures of the asteroid.

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NASA Langley helps build robot to fetch an asteroid | With Video

NASA prepares to observe close encounter with 'dawn of man' comet

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Comet Siding Spring, will pass within about 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of the red planet Researchershope to capture first image of a comet from another planet Will provide an unprecedented opportunity for researchers to gather data Siding Spring comes from the Oort Cloud, material left over from the formation of the solar system Spacecraft will collect in a 'duck and cover' move to avoid hitting comet

By Mark Prigg for MailOnline

Published: 19:07 EST, 17 October 2014 | Updated: 06:23 EST, 18 October 2014

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Nasa is making final preparations for a once-in-a-million-years journey as a comet grazes the atmosphere of Mars on Sunday.

Comet C/2013 A1, also known as comet Siding Spring, will pass within about 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of the Red Planet on Sunday - less than half the distance between Earth and our moon, and less than one-tenth the distance of any known comet flyby of Earth.

Researchers say it will provide an unprecedented opportunity to gather data on both the comet and its effect on the Martian atmosphere.

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NASA prepares to observe close encounter with 'dawn of man' comet

NASA Partners with Leading Technology Innovators to Enable Future Exploration

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Recognizing that technology drives exploration, NASA has selected four teams of agency technologists for participation in the Early Career Initiative (ECI) pilot program. The program encourages creativity and innovation among early career NASA technologists by engaging them in hands-on technology development opportunities needed for future missions.

NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate created the ECI to enable a highly collaborative, joint-partnering work environment between the best and brightest NASA early career innovators and leading innovators in industry, academia and other government organizations.

"Continued investment in technology is a requirement for the success of NASA's current and future missions," said Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Investing in the future leaders in space technology in partnership with the nations leading innovators is part of our overall portfolio strategy for mission success."

Teams selected for the ECI pilot program and their topic areas are:

High-Speed Video Imaging with Disruptive Computational Photography Enabling Technology, submitted by NASA's Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, with partner, Innovative Imaging and Research (I2F) of Mississippi. The team will develop and demonstrate a system for high-speed, 3-D, High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Video imaging will be performed at the chip level using computational photography, providing NASA with advanced visualization technologies to meet future needs.

Lightweight Integrated Solar Array and Transceiver (LISA-T), submitted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama with partner, Huntsville's NeXolve, to build and demonstrate a deployable solar array and integrated transceiver system. The technology represents a novel approach to developing a lighter weight, higher power technology solution for future spacecraft energy needs.

On-Orbit Autonomous Assembly of Nanosatellites, submitted by NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia with external partner Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The team will develop advanced autonomous docking hardware based on Halbach magnetic array technology. Reliable autonomous rendezvous and docking techniques provide enabling technologies for future mission needs.

Integrated Display and Environmental Awareness System (IDEAS), submitted by NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, with Orlando area partners Abacus Technology and Purple Rock Scissors, and the Florida Institute of Technology of Melbourne. The team will develop a wearable computer with an optical heads-up display providing augmented reality data and communications, enhancing real-time operations on the ground and in space.

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NASA Partners with Leading Technology Innovators to Enable Future Exploration


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