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NASA, Dept. of Interior use drone for wildfire detection

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- A small electric-powered unmanned aerial vehicle from NASA is being tested for early detection of fires in a national wildlife refuge.

The testing of the UAV in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, a 50,000-square-acre area on the Virginia-North Carolina border, is being conducted under a one-year agreement between NASA's Langley Research Center and the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating the feasibility of airborne unmanned platforms and their ability to offer a safer and more cost-effective alternative for surveillance of potential areas of interest immediately following thunderstorm activity," said Great Dismal Swamp Refuge Manager Chris Lowie. "The agency hopes to see a significant decrease in cost to survey the Great Dismal Swamp, as well as a reduction in time to detect nascent fires, which could potentially save millions of dollars to the taxpayer in firefighting costs."

The idea of using a small UAV for fire detection in the swamp came from a NASA employee following a four-month fire in 2011.

The fire was caused by a lightning strike, which fire officials told him were the primary reason for most fires in wilderness areas.

"I learned most fires are caused by lightning strikes and the only way they can spot them is by hiring an aircraft to do an aerial survey of the huge swamp," said Mike Logan, who works at the Langley Research Center. "So I figured why not use a UAV as a fire detector?"

The UAV being used in the experiment will be equipped with an out-of-the-nose camera that can see rising smoke plumes. A downward-pointing infrared camera in the aircraft body will detect heat signatures to find hot spots.

Video from the aircraft will be viewed using a laptop at a mobile ground station.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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NASA, Dept. of Interior use drone for wildfire detection

NASA's orbiters, rovers prep for rare comet close-up

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Mars robotic rovers and orbiters are set to have a front row seat for a comet that will be flying past the Red Planet

NASA scientists will be using various orbiters, rovers and satellites to study the Siding Spring comet as it makes a relatively close flyby past mars on Oct. 19.

Mars robotic rovers and orbiters are set to have a front row seat for a comet that will be flying past the Red Planet so close it will be less than one-tenth the distance of any known comet flyby of Earth.

NASA scientists are just trying to make sure it's not dangerously close.

What astronomers are describing as a "once-in-a-lifetime" comet flyby is expected to zoom within about 87,000 miles of Mars on Sunday, Oct. 19.

While that distance may seem large, it is less than half the distance between Earth and our moon.

The comet, known as C/2013 A1 or Siding Spring, should travel past Mars at approximately 126,000 mph with its nucleus coming closest to the planet at 2:27 p.m. ET, according to NASA. While the nucleus will miss the orbiters working around Mars, the comet will be shedding material as it goes by. That debris is expected to hurtle toward Mars at 35 miles per second.

NASA noted that at that velocity, even a particle only one-fiftieth of an inch across could cause significant damage to a spacecraft and could be disastrous for the Mars orbiters.

The Martian atmosphere, though thinner than that here on Earth, should protect the Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity from being damaged by any particles flying off the comet.

NASA now has three spacecraft -- the Mars Odyssey, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN orbiter -- working above the surface of Mars. And they won't have the protection the rovers do.

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NASA's orbiters, rovers prep for rare comet close-up

Antarctic sea ice level breaks record, NASA says

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A view of the Antarctic's record-breaking sea ice. NASA

Sea ice surrounding Antarctica is at an all-time high, even as overall averages of global temperature continue to climb. NASA reports that ice formation in the continent's southern oceans peaked this year, breaking ice satellite records dating back to the late 1970s.

"We are seeing overall temperatures warming around the globe, so you would expect to see ice loss," said Dr. Walt Meier, a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Given the warming trend, he admits that the Antarctic ice uptick is somewhat of a "mystery."

While the Antarctic sea ice has expanded beyond levels that researchers have seen in the past, experts point to overall atmospheric changes, including shifts in pressures and winds, which can drive ice formations.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that as of Sept. 19, for the first time since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles. The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was recorded at 7.23 million square miles.

Despite this trend, sea ice as a whole is decreasing on a global scale. Researchers say that just like global warming trends have different outcomes in various parts of the world, not every location with sea ice will experience ice loss.

"When we think about global warming we would expect intuitively that ice should also be declining in the Antarctic region as in the Arctic," NASA's senior research scientist Josefino Comiso explained. "But station and satellite data currently show that the trends in surface temperature are most positive in the Arctic while in the Antarctic region the trends are a mixture of positive and negative trends," he said, adding that cooling and declining sea surface temperatures could also contribute a "more rapid advance at the ice edge."

Snowfall could also be behind the growing ice pattern. NASA explains: "Snow landing on thin ice can actually push the thin ice below the water, which then allows cold ocean water to seep up through the ice and flood the snow - leading to a slushy mixture that freezes in the cold atmosphere and adds to the thickness of the ice."

Though some global warming cynics might see the ice trend as an opportunity to dispute the larger climate trend, the statistics on the Arctic warming indicate otherwise. NASA says that on an annual average basis, Arctic sea ice has decreased at a rate of 4.3 percent each decade since 1979, whereas in the Antarctic, sea ice has increased at a rate of 1.7 percent every 10 years.

Despite the current increase in Antarctic ice cover, scientists say the trend is likely to reverse in the future as global warming heats the planet.

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Antarctic sea ice level breaks record, NASA says

NASA Logo Has Cameo in Disney's 1st 'Tomorrowland' Trailer (Video)

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NEW YORK NASA makes a cameo in the first teaser trailer for the new, highly secretive Disney movie "Tomorrowland."

The "Tomorrowland" teaser trailer features the character Casey Newton (played by Britt Robertson) leaving a police department and taking a red hat bearing the NASA logo with her. While the movie's plot is still under-wraps, the teaser was revealed Thursday (Oct. 9) to a raucous crowd here at New York Comic Con. Robertson, George Clooney and Hugh Laurie were even on-hand to reveal some never-before-seen footage from "Tomorrowland" and discuss the film under the watchful eye of producer Damon Lindelof and director Brad Bird.

"[Tomorrowland is] larger than most things I've ever been around," Clooney said after making a surprise appearance at the Comic Con panel. "The beautiful thing about it is that Brad has a real vision of the film he wants to make, and it was really fun, I think for all of us, to come play in this giant toy box with him."

After much cajoling from Clooney, Bird and Lindelof showed another clip from the film during the Comic Con panel much to the delight of the packed crowd. The exclusive features Clooney fighting off some intruding robots with Casey.

"Tomorrowland's" first teaser shows Casey on her way out of jail when she finds an odd pin in her items. When she picks up the pin, it transports her into a field of wheat. Once she lets go of the pin, however, she ends up right back in the prison waiting room.

Casey's NASA hat isn't the movie's only tie to outer space. A box allegedly found in the Disney vaults actually inspired much of the plot for the movie. The container held, among other things, a note printed on NASA letterhead that asked Walt Disney to meet the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and tour Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Disney really did tour the flight center in April 1965.

Entertainment Weekly got a few more space-y details about the plot. Casey is apparently from Florida and watched NASA's launch pads being disassembled at Cape Canaveral, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"Tomorrowland" is set to hit theaters on May 22, 2015.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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NASA Logo Has Cameo in Disney's 1st 'Tomorrowland' Trailer (Video)

NASA’s sleep study, Tough iPhone cases, Lamborghini Hybrid – DT Daily (Oct 8) – Video

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NASA #39;s sleep study, Tough iPhone cases, Lamborghini Hybrid - DT Daily (Oct 8)
Traveling to distant planets and stars takes a long, LONG, time, so long ago, science fiction writers dreamed up the concept of putting astronauts into a deep sleep for the journey. Good idea,...

By: Digital Trends

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NASA's sleep study, Tough iPhone cases, Lamborghini Hybrid - DT Daily (Oct 8) - Video

13,000 Year Old Black Knight Satellite UFO That NASA Knows of" Open Your Mind, Here is the Proof" – Video

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13,000 Year Old Black Knight Satellite UFO That NASA Knows of" Open Your Mind, Here is the Proof"
Black Knight also known as the Black Knight satellite is an alleged object orbiting Earth in near-polar orbit that ufologists and fringe authors believe is approximately 13000 years old and...

By: Secret Astronomy and UFO, NASA Online

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13,000 Year Old Black Knight Satellite UFO That NASA Knows of" Open Your Mind, Here is the Proof" - Video

NASA BOSS ANNOUNCES LIFE ON MARS: ITV News Interview Says All? ArtAlienTV – MARS ZOO 1080p – Video

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NASA BOSS ANNOUNCES LIFE ON MARS: ITV News Interview Says All? ArtAlienTV - MARS ZOO 1080p
Has the NASA boss announced life on Mars in this ITV news interview? Major General Charles Bolden Jnr - head of NASA certainly hints on it in a very big way with a big nod and wink in this...

By: ArtAlienTV - MARS ZOO

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NASA BOSS ANNOUNCES LIFE ON MARS: ITV News Interview Says All? ArtAlienTV - MARS ZOO 1080p - Video

NASA X-ray telescope finds theory-defying pulsar

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An artist's concept of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuStar, X-ray telescope. The spacecraft has discovered the brightest pulsar ever detected. NASA

A NASA space telescope studying X-ray emissions from a nearby galaxy has discovered the brightest pulsar ever detected, the fast-spinning remnant of a collapsed star that shines so intensely it was initially mistaken for a massive black hole, a possible "missing link" between compact stellar-mass black holes and the unseen monsters lurking at the cores of many galaxies.

While the brilliant pulsar may, in fact, become a black hole some day, it is not yet a member of the family tree. But theorists cannot explain how an object just one-and-a-half times as massive as the sun can suck in enough raw material to generate the high-energy X-ray emissions detected by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuStar.

"Today we're announcing the discovery of a pulsating dead star that's beaming X-rays with the energy of about 10 million suns," said Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

"This dead star, called a neutron star, packs about the mass of the whole sun into a region the size of San Francisco. Yet this little mighty mouse pulsar packs the power of a much bigger black hole. The discovery is astonishing, because no object like this has ever been observed to be even remotely this bright. Theorists didn't think that it was possible."

The pulsar was found at the heart of a galaxy known as M-82, some 12 million light years from Earth. Also known as the "cigar galaxy" because of its oblong shape, M-82 is a favorite target for amateur astronomers, bright enough to be seen in relatively small telescopes. Larger instruments reveal huge, distinctive jets of material streaming away from the galaxy's core at right angles to its disk.

Shining in the core of galaxy M-82 some 12 million light years from Eath are two ultra-luminous X-ray sources. One, the brilliant blue "star" just outside the reddish glow, is known as X-1. It harbors a black hole 400 times more massive than the sun. The bright star in the center of the red glow is known as X-2. While almost as bright as X-1, it is, in fact, a pulsar, the collapsed remnant of a star just 1.5 times as massive as the sun. Scientists do not yet know how X-2 generates such enormous energy.

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When stars use up all of their nuclear fuel, the energy generated by fusion in the core stops and gravity takes over, causing the core to collapse. Stars like the sun can only collapse so far, becoming white dwarfs that slowly cool over billions of years.

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NASA X-ray telescope finds theory-defying pulsar

NASA Is Studying How to Mine the Moon for Water

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There's a lot of water on the moon, and NASA wants to learn how to mine it.

Space agency scientists are developing two separate mission concepts to assess, and learn how to exploit, stores ofwater ice on the moon and other lunar resources. The projects called Lunar Flashlight and the Resource Prospector Mission are notionally targeted to blast off in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and aim to help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system.

"If you're going to have humans on the moon and you need water for drinking, breathing, rocket fuel, anything you want, it's much, much cheaper to live off the land than it is to bring everything with you," said Lunar Flashlight principal investigator Barbara Cohen, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. [How to Build a Lunar Colony (Infographic)]

It's therefore important to "understand the inventory of volatiles across the whole moon and their purity, and their accessibility in particular," Cohen said in July during a presentation at the NASA Exploration Science Forum, a conference organized by the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Lunar Flashlight is working toward a possible launch date in December 2017, when it would blast off on the first test flight of NASA's Space Launch System megarocket, along with several other piggybacking payloads.

Lunar Flashlight is a CubeSat mission, meaning the body of the spacecraft is tiny about the size of a cereal box, Cohen said. But after it's deployed in space, the probe would get much bigger by unfurling an 860-square-foot (80 square meters) solar sail. [Photos: Solar Sail Evolution for Space Travel]

The spacecraft would then cruise toward the moon on a circuitous route, propelled along by the photons streaming from the sun. Lunar Flashlight would start orbiting the moon about six months after its launch, then spend another year spiraling down to get about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the lunar surface.

The probe would then make about 80 passes around the moon at this low altitude, measuring and mapping deposits of water ice in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles. It would do this science work with the aid of its solar sail.

"We're going to use it as a mirror," Cohen said. "We're going to take the sunlight, bounce it off the solar sail into the permanently shadowed regions, and we're going to use a passive infrared spectrometer to collect the light from the permanently shadowed regions in wavelengths that are indicative of water frost."

Lunar Flashlight aims to find water ice that would be accessible to future explorers, be they human or robotic.

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NASA Is Studying How to Mine the Moon for Water

NASA: You can't fly to Mars, but your name can

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NASA is preparing the new Orion spacecraft for a first test flight. Your name can fly along with it -- eventually to the Red Planet.

Your name could one day reach the Red Planet. NASA/JPL

Since Richard Branson hasn't gotten around to offering Mars vacations yet (he's still working out that whole suborbital thing), we're all pretty much stuck here on Earth for the time being. But NASA understands the human desire to write our names upon the stars, so it's giving everybody a chance to shoot their names up into space on the first Orion mission, scheduled to launch December 4.

The collected names will be included on a microchip the size of a dime. The first trip will be on board NASA's initial test flight for the new Orion spacecraft. It's set for a 4.5-hour mission in orbit around Earth. It will then take a flying leap back through the atmosphere and land in the Pacific Ocean.

That's a pretty cool journey for your name to take, but NASA has bigger plans. Orion isn't just for toodling around the Earth. It's designed to one day carry astronauts on long missions to visit asteroids and Mars. When you sign up to send your name off into space on Orion, you're signing up to send your name to Mars at some future time.

Currently, nearly 95,000 people have submitted names to fly to Mars. To sign up, you just go to NASA's name-collecting site, fill out some basic information, and submit. The site then generates a digital "boarding pass." You get the simple message "Success! Your name will fly on Orion's flight test." Next, enjoy a happy little chill up your spine as you imagine your name zipping through the atmosphere and some day taking up residence on Mars.

"NASA is pushing the boundaries of exploration and working hard to send people to Mars in the future. When we set foot on the Red Planet, we'll be exploring for all of humanity. Flying these names will enable people to be part of our journey," says Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager.

NASA also will be tracking mileage for all of our names, giving us a spacey version of frequent-flyer award points. The points are just for fun, but it's also a way to keep the public engaged and following along with these groundbreaking missions.

The deadline for getting your name on Orion's inaugural flight is October 31. If you miss Orion this time, NASA will still give newcomers an opportunity to sign up for name fly-alongs on future missions. I, for one, am looking forward to the day when I can say, "My name just arrived at Mars!"

This is my boarding pass. You'll have to go get your own. NASA

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NASA: You can't fly to Mars, but your name can

NASA's New Winds Mission Installed, Gathers First Data

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Provided by Alan Buis, Whitney Clavin and Steve Cole of NASA

NASAs newest Earth observing mission, the International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat, is collecting its first science data on ocean wind speeds and direction following its successful installation and activation on the exterior of the stations Columbus module.

Ground controllers at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston robotically assembled the RapidScat instrument and its nadir adapter, which orients the instrument to point at Earth, on Sept. 29 to 30. On Oct. 1, the instrument was powered on, its antenna began spinning and it started transmitting and receiving its first winds data. The team then began checking out the instrument, a process expected to take about two weeks. Checkout activities to date are proceeding nominally. Following instrument checkout, the team will perform two weeks of preliminary calibration and validation of science data. RapidScat will then be ready to begin its two-year science mission.

[ Watch the Video: RapidScat Installed On The International Space Station ]

On Oct. 3, mission scientists processed their first winds data and produced their first uncalibrated images: a partial global map of wind speeds and a close-up image of what was then Tropical Storm Simon, brewing off the west coast of Mexico, showing its wind speeds and wind directions at approximately 7 p.m. local time. The new images are available at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia18824

Most satellite missions require weeks or even months to produce data of the quality that we seem to be getting from the first few days of RapidScat, said RapidScat Project Scientist Ernesto Rodriguez of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, which built and manages the mission. We have been very lucky that within the first days of operations we have already been able to observe a developing tropical cyclone.

The quality of these data reflect the level of testing and preparation that the team has put in prior to launch, Rodriguez said. It also reflects the quality of the spare QuikScat hardware from which RapidScat was partially assembled.

RapidScat is the first science payload to be robotically assembled in space since the space station itself. Launched Sept. 21 from Floridas Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle, RapidScat rode to orbit in the trunk of SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft. The Dragon reached the station on Sept. 23, was captured by the stations robotic arm and was then berthed at the stations Node 2 Nadir, or Earth-facing, port.

Following inspections of RapidScat from cameras installed in the Dragons trunk and on the stations robotic arm, ground controllers at Johnson Space Center used the DEXTRE manipulator on the stations robotic arm to pluck RapidScats nadir adapter from the Dragon trunk on Sept. 29. An intricate set of maneuvers by the robotic arm then followed, leading to the adapters successful mechanical and electrical connection to the Columbus modules External Payload Facility SDX site five hours later. The robotic arm was then released from the adapter.

About 15 hours later, the RapidScat team was back at work again, using the robotic arm to remove the RapidScat instrument itself from the Dragons trunk and install it onto the nadir adapter. The installation went so well that a process expected to take five hours was completed in just two hours and 20 minutes. Following this first payload-to-payload mate in the history of the space station program, RapidScat then began drawing its power from the space station for the first time. RapidScat is an autonomous payload that requires no interaction from space station astronauts.

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NASA's New Winds Mission Installed, Gathers First Data


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