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Category Archives: NASA

Comet Siding Spring : NASA’s Maven Satellite enters Mars Orbit in time for the Comet (Sept 23, 2014) – Video

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Comet Siding Spring : NASA #39;s Maven Satellite enters Mars Orbit in time for the Comet (Sept 23, 2014)
SOURCE: http://www.foxnews.com News Articles: MAVEN spacecraft will get rare comet closeup in first weeks at Mars http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/boosters_bits/2014/09/comet-sidingspr...

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Comet Siding Spring : NASA's Maven Satellite enters Mars Orbit in time for the Comet (Sept 23, 2014) - Video

NASA Langley Crashes Helicopter to Test Safety Improvements

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NASA researchers will drop a 45-foot-long helicopter fuselage from a height of about 30 feet for the second time in a year all in the name of safety.News media representatives are invited to observe the drop test, scheduled for Oct. 1 at 1:30 p.m. EDT (weather permitting) at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. U.S. media members must email Kathy Barnstorff at kathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov or call 757-864-9886 for credentials no later than noon and be at the NASA Langley front gate by 1 p.m. that day. Researchers will be available for interviews after the test.NASA is collaborating with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, Federal Aviation Administration, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the Australian Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Composite Structures on the Transport Rotorcraft Airframe Crash Test Bed full-scale crash test at Langley's Landing and Impact Research Facility."The big difference in this year's experiment is that we are testing three energy absorbing composite subfloor concepts that should help some of the dummy occupants sustain fewer injuries than they did in the first test last August," said lead test engineer Martin Annett. "We have also made other improvements based on things we learned."The team has instrumented a former Marine helicopter airframe with crash test dummies, cameras and accelerometers. Almost 40 cameras inside and outside the helicopter will record how 13 data-recording crash test dummies and two manikins react before, during and after impact. Some of those cameras will be trained on the side of the helicopter where technicians have painted black polka dots over a white background -- a photographic technique called full field photogrammetry. "High-speed cameras filming at 500 images per second track each dot, so after the drop we can plot and see exactly how the fuselage buckled, bent, cracked or collapsed under crash loads," said test engineer Justin Littell.During the test, onboard computers will record more than 350 channels of data as the helicopter is swung by cables, like a pendulum, into a bed of soil. Just before impact, pyrotechnic devices release the suspension cables from the helicopter to allow free flight. The helicopter will hit the ground at about 30 miles an hour. The impact condition represents a severe but survivable condition under both civilian and military requirements."The crash won't look all that visually exciting," said Annett. "Unlike in the movies there's no huge fireball or spectacular special effects, but the occupants certainly get a jolt. According to the data some of the dummies would have sustained serious if not fatal injuries in last year's crash test."Both tests are part of the Rotary Wing Project in the Fundamental Aeronautics Program of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. "We are looking for ways to make helicopters safer," said Rotary Wing Project Manager Susan Gorton. "The ultimate goal of NASA rotary wing research is to help make helicopters and other vertical take off and landing vehicles more serviceable -- able to carry more passengers and cargo -- quicker, quieter, safer and greener. Improved designs might allow helicopters to be used more extensively in the airspace system."For this test NASA supplied six crash test dummies, built two composite subfloor concepts and installed four emergency locator transmitters that researchers are evaluating. The Navy provided the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter fuselage, seats, crash test dummies and other experiments. The US Army Aeromedical Research Lab (USAARL) contributed a litter experiment and the Army CH-47 program office (PEO CARGO) provided a crash resistant troop seat. The Federal Aviation Administration provided a side-facing specialized crash test dummy and part of the data acquisition system. Cobham Mission Systems also contributed an active restraint system for the cockpit. The German Aerospace Research Center (DLR) and the Australian Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Composite Structures supplied a third composite subfloor technology. Other industry participants have also contributed experiments.NASA will use the results of both tests in efforts to improve rotorcraft performance and efficiency, in part by assessing the reliability of lightweight composite materials. Researchers also want to increase industry knowledge and create more complete computer models that can be used to design safer helicopters.For more information about NASA Langley, go to:http://www.nasa.gov/langley

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NASA Langley Crashes Helicopter to Test Safety Improvements

College to assist NASA in commercialization of technologies

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HAMPTON, Va., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Possible commercialization of technologies developed by NASA is to be studied by NASA Langley Research Center and the College of William and Mary.

"This is the first time that NASA Langley has partnered with a college or university to do this type of study," said Kathy Dezern, the Office of Innovation lead for the NASA Langley Office of Strategic Analysis, Communications, & Business Development. "We're looking forward to the assessments from the William & Mary students that will further NASA's technology developments, commercialization opportunities and future partnerships."

The studies will be conducted by the college's Raymond A. Mason School of Business and the Alan B. Miller Entrepreneurship Center.

NASA said its agreement with the college is for the identification of technologies available for licensing to determine which ones have the most promising commercial or partnership potential. That identification process is to be completed by the end of this month.

"This partnership with NASA will allow our students to participate in a real world, 'hands on' practical business experience," said Richard Ash, William & Mary Banks Professor of Private Equity and Entrepreneurship.

"Enhancing the educational process in this way will provide our Mason School of Business students with an expanded opportunity to advance their interest in further studies in science, technology and commercialization. At the same time, the students will gain valuable experience that will serve to sharpen their team and leadership abilities -- all skills which will be useful in their future careers."

U.S. government agencies are required by law to have a technology transfer program to promote commercial exploitation of new technologies.

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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College to assist NASA in commercialization of technologies

NASA, partners target megacities carbon emissions

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Driving down busy Interstate 5 in Los Angeles in a nondescript blue Toyota Prius, Riley Duren of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is a man on a mission as he surveys the vast urban jungle sprawled around him.

In his trunk, a luggage-sized air-sampling instrument sniffs the outside air through a small tube to measure the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane. While not a very efficient way to study urban emissions, the ground data being collected are helping Duren and his team build confidence in greenhouse gas measurements taken from aircraft and satellites, which can cover large areas more effectively.

At the next exit, Duren pulls over to admire a scene most Angelenos would try to ignore: a large landfill stretched alongside the freeway. The instrument in the trunk quickly detects a large plume of methane emanating from the landfill. A NASA aircraft soon appears overhead, carrying a prototype satellite instrument that records high-resolution images of methane that scientists can use to identify gas plumes. The pilot buzzes the landfill several times to capture images of the invisible gas, then the plane departs and Duren heads off to his next study area.

The instruments in the Prius and airplane are just two of many elements of the Megacities Carbon Project, an international, multi-agency pilot initiative to develop and test ways to monitor greenhouse gas emissions in megacities: metropolitan areas of at least 10 million people. Cities and their power plants are the largest sources of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions and are the largest human contributors to climate change.

Duren is principal investigator for the LA component of the Megacities Carbon Project. He hopes to work with international partners to deploy a global urban carbon monitoring system that will eventually allow local policymakers to fully account for the many sources and sinks, or storage sites, of carbon and how they change over time. Los Angeles and Paris are pilot cities in the initiative. Efforts are underway to add other cities around the world.

When fully established in late 2014, the LA network will consist of 15 monitoring stations around the LA basin. Most will use commercially available high-precision greenhouse gas analyzers to continuously sample local air. The LA network encompasses the portions of the South Coast Air Basin that produce the most intense greenhouse gas emissions in California. Megacities scientists will also periodically take to the road and to the skies to collect mobile measurements of the local atmosphere to better define individual emissions sources and environmental conditions.

"LA is a giant laboratory for climate studies and measurement tests," said Duren. "The LA megacity sprawls across five counties, 150 municipalities, many freeways, landfills, oil wells, gas pipelines, America's largest seaport, mountains, and even dairies, all within an area measuring about 80 miles [130 kilometers] on a side. In theory, you could drive across the whole thing in an hour and a half, or three if it's rush hour."

Urbanization has concentrated more than half of Earth's population, at least 70 percent of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions and a significant amount of methane emissions into a tiny fraction of Earth's land surface. The world's 40 largest cities combined rank as the world's third largest emitter of fossil-fuel carbon dioxide -- larger than the total emissions of Japan. That trend is expected to grow.

There's an urgent need to get a handle on explosive growth in carbon emissions from fossil-fuel use by cities and to establish baseline measurements that currently don't exist. The lack of measurements makes it hard to assess emission trends.

Most countries and some states produce annual inventories of their greenhouse gas emissions based on energy statistics and other data, but the same information is typically not available for individual cities.

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NASA, partners target megacities carbon emissions

[NASA] Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with CRS-4 for International Space Station – Video

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[NASA] Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with CRS-4 for International Space Station
SPACEX COVERAGE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH5EErE8QnI SpaceX launched their 6th Falcon 9 rocket of the year today and 13th overall at 05:52 UTC, September 21st 2014 from Space Launch...

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[NASA] Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with CRS-4 for International Space Station - Video

"NASA’s Maven spacecraft is set to orbit Mars and collect data" : Chad Myers explains. – Video

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"NASA #39;s Maven spacecraft is set to orbit Mars and collect data" : Chad Myers explains.
NASA spacecraft set to orbit Mars Smarter. Faster. More Colorful. Subscribe for daily videos to keep you in the know. The Worldwide Leader in Sports ESPN. Welcome to the official ABC News Channel,...

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"NASA's Maven spacecraft is set to orbit Mars and collect data" : Chad Myers explains. - Video

BREAKING: NASA Spots 5 Mile Long UFO Beneath The Sea. UFO Sightings Are Off The Charts! Rapture? – Video

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BREAKING: NASA Spots 5 Mile Long UFO Beneath The Sea. UFO Sightings Are Off The Charts! Rapture?
http://youtu.be/1ZWSIiYG-pE https://www.youtube.com/user/EndTimesNewsHeadline https://www.facebook.com/NightAndDayWatchman Pray this prayer sincerely to know your saved Jesus, I believe...

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BREAKING: NASA Spots 5 Mile Long UFO Beneath The Sea. UFO Sightings Are Off The Charts! Rapture? - Video

NASA'S MAVEN spacecraft succesfully arrives at Mars

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Artist's impression of MAVEN orbiting the Red Planet (Image: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has successfully completed a maneuver designed to place the robotic explorer in Mars orbit. The achievement is the crowning moment in a 10-month journey through deep space, representing the culmination of millions of dollars and over a decade of planning and hard work by NASA mission operators.

"NASA has a long history of scientific discovery at Mars and the safe arrival of MAVEN opens another chapter," stated astronaut and associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld. "Maven will complement NASAs other Martian robotic explorers and those of our partners around the globe to answer some fundamental questions about Mars and life beyond Earth."

The orbital insertion maneuver centered around a 34-minute, 26-second burn (11 seconds more than originally planned, but all things considered still impressively accurate) that successfully decreased MAVEN's velocity enough for the probe to be caught in Mars' gravitational pull. The spacecraft will now begin a six-week commissioning process during which time NASA mission operators will calibrate and test the orbiter's scientific payload, finally maneuvering the probe into her operational orbit.

Once the period of testing is complete, the orbiter can begin its one-year primary scientific mission of helping us to understand the composition and evolution of the Martian atmosphere in relation to the Sun's solar wind, with the hope of shedding light on just how the Red Planet came to lose the majority of its atmosphere.

During the primary mission phase, MAVEN's perapsis (the lowest point in the spacecraft's orbit) will be lowered from 93 miles (150 km) to roughly 77 miles (125 km). This will allow the probe's impressive array of scientific instruments to characterize the depleted upper atmosphere of the Mars in a far more comprehensive manner than if the probe remained in a static orbit.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden puts a more practical edge on the data to be collected by MAVEN, stating that the readings may well be put to use to "better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s."

Source: NASA

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NASA'S MAVEN spacecraft succesfully arrives at Mars


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