SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 31, 2013) - TopCoder, the world's largest professional development and design community, with NASA and the Harvard-NASA Tournament Lab (at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science), today announced the launch of a series of innovation challenges that will develop foundational technological concepts for disruption tolerant deep space networking.

NASA has made significant progress in developing Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocols that aide in deep space communication. DTN protocols are an approach to network architecture that seeks to address the potential for lack of continuous connectivity in deep space. It is meant to aid NASA in the exploration of the solar system by overcoming communication time delays caused by interplanetary distances, and the disruptions caused by planetary rotation, orbits and limited transmission power.

While DTN protocols are currently able to transmit information, the disruptive and time delayed environment in space makes secure communication difficult. TopCoder is challenging its members to create a mechanism by which cryptographic keys are initialized, distributed and validated while using DTN protocols in order provide secure communications over vast distances in space.

There are currently three DTN challenges available on the TopCoder website :

1. Security Key Challenge: Strengthen DTN communication by adding the ability to include cryptographic keys. 2. Delay-Tolerant Payload Conditioning (DTPC) Challenge: Validate an implementation of the DTPC protocol developed by Marshall Space Flight Center. 3. Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP): Add "sender authentication" to the space flight implementation of the protocol.

TopCoder is inviting its members and anyone else in the world to help create the future of space exploration by participating in the DTN Challenge Series. Learn more at http://www.topcoder.com/dtn.

Comments on the news"Born out of a belief that 10 years in the future (i.e. about 2023) a richer networking environment than point-to-point radio links would be required to communicate, a small team of developers debated the architecture of an interplanetary Internet," said Vinton Cerf, Distinguished Visiting Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. "Today, that vision is being fulfilled with prototype operations on the surface of Mars and in orbit, on the International Space Station and on board the EPOXI comet-visiting spacecraft."

"Contest-based innovation has proven to be an important complement to existing internal efforts to solve important technological problems," said Karim R. Lakhani, Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Principal Investigator of the Harvard-NASA Tournament Lab. "The Disruption Tolerant Networking challenges represent an opportunity for citizens from around the world to make fundamental contributions to the future of space exploration and have a real impact on the space program."

"The TopCoder community is helping us build a secure networking protocol to hold and transmit information that provides privacy within a time-delayed space-network," said Rinat Sergeev, NASA Tournament Lab, Data Scientist and Institute of Quantitative Social Sciences, Harvard. "This is the first time we have tapped the professional crowd to help develop a major keystone in the future era of space exploration and look forward to seeing the community's 600,000 member strong response."

About TopCoder, Inc.TopCoder, the community division of Appirio, is the world's largest design and development community with more than 600,000 members globally. The TopCoder community creates digital assets including analytics, software and creative designs and solutions with a competitive, standards based methodology. For more information, please visit http://www.topcoder.com.

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NASA, Harvard & TopCoder Partner to Develop a Secure Solar System Internet Protocol

October 31, 2013

Image Credit: NASA

NASA

NASAs Global Precipitation Measurement mission wants to see your photos and videos of precipitation from unique perspectives!

There are many ways to view precipitation. Rain gauges collect water as it hits the ground. Weather radars detect rain and snow as it falls through the air. Research aircraft can measure moisture while flying through clouds, and satellites like the GPM Core Observatory can view precipitation from space.

How do you view precipitation? Get out your cameras and show us! Wed like to see weather from all angles far away, up close, above, below and inside the more creative and unique, the better. Post your coolest photos and videos of precipitation from unique perspectives, and well choose the best ones to post on the NASA Precipitation Measurement Missions websites (http://pmm.nasa.gov & http://www.nasa.gov/gpm).

While we welcome images of extreme weather, we dont want YOU to be too extreme. So before you take that photo, please make sure youre keeping safe.

Submission Details

Official Rules

Banner Image Credits (left to right):

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NASA Hosts Global Precipitation Measurement "Unique Perspectives" Photo And Video Contest

Astronaut Talks With Home State Students About Space | NASA Science HD Video
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - Expedition 37 Flight Engineer Karen Nyberg talks with students from the Henning, Minnesota, school district a...

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Astronaut Talks With Home State Students About Space | NASA Science HD Video - Video

Experimental NASA Research Model of Path for Oct. 22-23 CMEs
Please Note: This video loops 3 times. The M9.4 flare on Oct. 23, 2013, was associated with a coronal mass ejections or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send...

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Experimental NASA Research Model of Path for Oct. 22-23 CMEs - Video

NASA #39;s Space Launch System Fuel Tanks
THE FIRST BARREL SEGMENT -- MAF/MSFC. The first completed liquid hydrogen tank barrel segment for the core stage of NASA #39;s Space Launch System heavy-lift roc...

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NASA's Space Launch System Fuel Tanks - Video

NASA MAVEN Mission #39;s Atlas V Rocket Arrives at KSC
MAVEN #39;S ROCKET -- KSC. #Mars. The Atlas V rocket that will send NASA #39;s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution or MAVEN spacecraft to the Red Planet arrived a...

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NASA MAVEN Mission's Atlas V Rocket Arrives at KSC - Video

October 30, 2013

Image Caption: This view of Earth comes from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Terra satellite. Credit: NASA

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory

One-hundred people from 22 U.S. states and some foreign countries will attend a two-day NASA Social on Nov. 4 and 5 at the agencys Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The attendees, who follow NASA and JPL on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks, will tour JPL, participate in interactive events and hear from scientists and engineers about current and upcoming space- and Earth-observing missions. Attendees will share their experiences with their followers through the various social media platforms.

The Nov. 4 events will highlight NASAs role in studying Earth and its climate and will preview three Earth-observing missions JPL is preparing for launch in 2014: the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft, which will measure soil moisture from space; ISS-RapidScat, which will measure ocean winds from the International Space Station; and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), which will study atmospheric carbon dioxide from space.

These presentations will air on NASA Television on Nov. 4 starting at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

To join and track the conversation online during the NASA Social, follow the hashtag #NASASocial .

NASA Social attendees were selected from more than 475 people who registered online. Participants represent Canada, Croatia, Indonesia, Norway, Peru, the United States and the United Kingdom. Attendees from the U.S. come from 22 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

More information about connecting and collaborating with NASA is at: http://www.nasa.gov/connect .

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Earth Science Social Media Event Hosted By NASA

NASA took another step back into the astronaut-launching business when it announced on Monday that last week it had powered up the crew capsule of the Orion spacecraft for the first time. According to the space agency, the test of the spacecrafts avionics systems, conducted at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is a major milestone in preparing the craft for its first unmanned test flight in the autumn of next year.

The power-up of the Orion is the culmination of a year of assembly and testing of NASA's first-ever manned deep-space craft,which has seen over 66,000 parts installed so far. However, last weeks test was more than just seeing if the lights would go on without blowing a fuse. It was also a test of the capsules new power and data distribution system that NASA claims to use state-of-the-art networking capabilities. The space agency says that the power and avionics performed as expected.

The real test for the avionics will come next year, when the completed Orion will be fitted atop a Delta IV heavy rocket for an unmanned mission designated Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1). During EFT-1, the Orion will be launched into an orbit that will take it over 3,600 mi (5,800 km) away from Earth. The reason for this is that when Orion circles back home, it will be moving at the same speed as a returning deep space mission. It will hit the atmosphere at 20,000 mph (72,000 km/h) and the heat shield will be subjected to a temperature of 4,000 F (2,200 C) conditions not experienced by a manned spacecraft since the Apollo missions.

"Orion will take humans farther than we've ever been before, and in just about a year we're going to send the Orion test vehicle into space," says Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development in Washington. "The work we're doing now, the momentum we're building, is going to carry us on our first trip to an asteroid and eventually to Mars. No other vehicle currently being built can do that, but Orion will, and EFT-1 is the first step."

Source: NASA

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NASA powers up Orion for the first time

PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 29 (UPI) -- In the spirit of Halloween, NASA has released images of three "ghostly" stellar objects -- planetary nebulas -- captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Planetary nebulas are in fact material ejected from stars, as their wispy bits and pieces are blown outward into space in the stars' death throes, Spitzer scientists said.

"Some might call the images haunting," Joseph Hora of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the principal investigator of the Spitzer observing program, said. "We look to the pictures for a sense of the history of the stars' mass loss, and to learn how they evolved over time."

Planetary nebulas, erroneously named such by William Herschel in 1785 for their resemblance to planets, come in an array of shapes.

The three images from Spitzer include a brain-like orb called PMR 1 nicknamed the "Exposed Cranium" nebula by Spitzer scientists; NGC 3242, also known as the Ghost of Jupiter, 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Hydra; and the Little Dumbbell Nebula, so named for its butterfly shape.

The Spitzer Space Telescope mission is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

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NASA releases 'ghostly' stellar images in time for Halloween

NASA is accepting applications from graduate and undergraduate university students to fly experiments to the edge of space aboard a high-altitude scientific balloon. This balloon flight competition is a joint project between NASA and the Louisiana Space Consortium (LaSPACE) in Baton Rouge.

NASA is targeting fall 2014 for the next flight opportunity for the LaSPACE-maintained High Altitude Student Platform (HASP). HASP is a balloon-borne instrument stack that provides an annual near-space flight opportunity for 12 undergraduate and graduate student-built instruments.

A panel of engineers from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., and LaSPACE will review the applications and select the finalists for the next flight opportunity. Launched from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's remote site in Fort Sumner, N.M., HASP flights typically fly for 15 to 20 hours at an altitude of approximately 23 miles.

HASP houses and provides power, mechanical support, interfacing and communications for the instruments. It can be used to flight-test compact satellites, prototypes and other small payloads designed and built by students.

HASP can support approximately 200 pounds of payloads and test articles. Since 2006, the HASP program has selected for flights more than 70 payloads involving more than 600 students from across the United States.

The application deadline for the flight is Dec. 20. A question-and-answer teleconference for interested parties will be held at 11 a.m. EST Nov. 15. For application materials, teleconference schedule and additional HASP details, visit:

http://laspace.lsu.edu/hasp

For information about NASA's scientific balloon program, visit:

http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820/

For information about NASA's education programs, visit:

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NASA Seeking Student Science Experiments for Balloon Flight

In three weeks, NASA is set to launch its Maven orbiter to Mars, where it will study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere.

NASA is putting the finishing touches on its next Mars mission, which is slated to launch toward the Red Planet just three weeks from today (Oct. 28).

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The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, or Maven for short, is due to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 18. Maven is designed to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere in great detail, and mission scientists hope the probe's observations yield insights into howMarsshifted from a relatively warm, wet world in the ancient past to the cold and dry place we know today.

"The Maven mission is a significant step toward unraveling the planetary puzzle about Mars' past and present environments," NASA science chief John Grunsfeld said in a statement. "The knowledge we gain will build on past and current missions examining Mars and will help inform future missions to send humans to Mars." [NASA's Maven Mission to Mars (Photos)]

Maven's journey will begin atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. The probe will then endure a 10-month cruise to Mars, arriving in orbit around the Red Planet in September 2014.

The $671 millionMaven missionwill spend at least one Earth year studying Mars' air with three different instrument suites. Scientists hope Maven's observations reveal details about how the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere, which was once relatively thick but is now just 1 percent as dense as that of Earth.

Maven will not be able to probe the Red Planet's air for methane, a gas whose presence could be a sign of potential Martian lifeforms. (About 90 percent of the methane in Earth's atmosphere is biologically derived, scientists say.)

"We just had to leave that one off to stay focused and to stay within the available resources," Maven principal investigator Bruce Jakosky, of the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, told reporters today.

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NASA to launch mission to study Martian atmosphere

In a few weeks, NASA's Operation IceBridge will take to the skies for another busy season of monitoring ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice from above. This year, the mission will be stationed in Antarctica for the first time, enabling scientists to conduct longer flights, and explore areas of the icy continent that were previously out of reach.

NASA's modified P-3B aircraft is scheduled to depart NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., on Nov. 11, and touch down at McMurdo Station in Antarctica later that week, Christy Hansen, IceBridge project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told reporters in a news briefing today (Oct. 29).

Previously, Operation IceBridge research flights took off from Punta Arenas in southern Chile, but this season, the mission will operate directly out of Antarctica. (Images: NASA's IceBridge in Action Over Antarctica)

"Once we start getting into science data collection, we'll be able to collect more science data than when we were based in Chile," Hansen said.

Being stationed in Antarctica will also allow researchers to plan science flights that last up to eight hours, which means the aircraft will be able to cover more ground in some cases, enabling scientists to survey parts of Antarctica not visited on previous IceBridge missions.

Operation IceBridge was one of several Antarctic missions threatened by the recent shutdown of the U.S. federal government, which lasted from Oct. 1 through Oct. 16. During that time, about 800,000 federal employees were furloughed, including Michael Studinger, IceBridge's lead scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

As a result, the status of the IceBridge mission was in limbo for some time, and despite weathering the political storm, Studinger said the government shutdown is expected to limit the amount of research that will be conducted this season.

"It put our preparations on hold for more than two weeks, and added some other headaches that we had to resolve," Studinger said. "We'll collect considerably less science data than we had planned for."

Chad Naughton, project manager for the National Science Foundation's (NSF) U.S. Antarctic Program in Centennial, Colo., said overcoming the effects of the shutdown was challenging, but he expects federally funded research in Antarctica to bounce back.

"We're all systems go for a lot of the good science that's coming down," Naughton said. "It seems annually there's always something that pops up that's a challenge that affects a lot of science and a lot of the logistics. This was a big one, but I think we got through it, and I think a lot of the science that NSF funds on an annual basis is going to continue."

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NASA's IceBridge Readies 1st Antarctic Mission

UFOs near the Sun - Review of NASA images for October 23, 2013
You can see the different types of unidentified objects. Objects have different shapes and sizes. UFOs are in different points in space near the Sun. These o...

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Back to Mission on This Week @NASA
With the government shutdown over, Administrator Charlie Bolden welcomed employees back to the work of NASA #39;s mission. Bolden visited Goddard Space Flight Ce...

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Back to Mission on This Week @NASA - Video

NASA is putting the finishing touches on its next Mars mission, which is slated to launch toward the Red Planet just three weeks from today (Oct. 28).

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, or Maven for short, is due to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 18. Maven is designed to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere in great detail, and mission scientists hope the probe's observations yield insights into how Mars shifted from a relatively warm, wet world in the ancient past to the cold and dry place we know today.

"The Maven mission is a significant step toward unraveling the planetary puzzle about Mars' past and present environments," NASA science chief John Grunsfeld said in a statement. "The knowledge we gain will build on past and current missions examining Mars and will help inform future missions to send humans to Mars." [NASA's Maven Mission to Mars (Photos)]

Maven's journey will begin atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. The probe will then endure a 10-month cruise to Mars, arriving in orbit around the Red Planet in September 2014.

The $671 million Maven mission will spend at least one Earth year studying Mars' air with three different instrument suites. Scientists hope Maven's observations reveal details about how the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere, which was once relatively thick but is now just 1 percent as dense as that of Earth.

Maven will not be able to probe the Red Planet's air for methane, a gas whose presence could be a sign of potential Martian lifeforms. (About 90 percent of the methane in Earth's atmosphere is biologically derived, scientists say.)

"We just had to leave that one off to stay focused and to stay within the available resources," Maven principal investigator Bruce Jakosky, of the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, told reporters today.

Maven's march toward launch was briefly threatened by the government shutdown, which forced NASA to cease most operations and furlough 97 percent of its workforce from Oct. 1 through Oct. 16. But the mission received an emergency exception on Oct. 3, in large part because of Maven's importance as a future communications link between Earth and robots on the Red Planet's surface.

The two-day halt in liftoff preparations has not had any major effects, mission officials said.

"We're on a nominal pre-shutdown plan at this time," said Maven project manager David Mitchell, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Original post:

NASA's Next Mars Mission Poised for Nov. 18 Launch

Washington, Oct 29 : NASA's first-ever deep space craft, Orion, has been powered on for the first time, marking a major milestone in the final year of preparations for flight.

Orion's avionics system was installed on the crew module and powered up for a series of systems tests at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week.

Preliminary data indicate Orion's vehicle management computer, as well as its innovative power and data distribution system -- which use state-of-the-art networking capabilities -- performed as expected.

All of Orion's avionics systems will be put to the test during its first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1), targeted to launch in the fall of 2014.

"Orion will take humans farther than we've ever been before, and in just about a year we're going to send the Orion test vehicle into space," said Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development in Washington.

"The work we're doing now, the momentum we're building, is going to carry us on our first trip to an asteroid and eventually to Mars. No other vehicle currently being built can do that, but Orion will, and EFT-1 is the first step."

Orion provides the United States an entirely new human space exploration capability -- a flexible system that can to launch crew and cargo missions, extend human presence beyond low-Earth orbit, and enable new missions of exploration throughout our solar system.

EFT-1 is a two-orbit, four-hour mission that will send Orion, uncrewed, more than 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface --15 times farther than the International Space Station.

During the test, Orion will return to Earth, enduring temperatures of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit while traveling 20,000 miles per hour, faster than any current spacecraft capable of carrying humans.

The data gathered during the flight will inform design decisions, validate existing computer models and guide new approaches to space systems development. The information gathered from this test also will aid in reducing the risks and costs of subsequent Orion flights.

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NASA's Orion spacecraft comes to life

Washington, Oct 29 : A NASA spacecraft that will examine the upper atmosphere of Mars in unprecedented detail is undergoing final preparations for a scheduled 1:28 p.m. EST Monday, Nov. 18 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN) will examine specific processes on Mars that led to the loss of much of its atmosphere.

Data and analysis could tell planetary scientists the history of climate change on the Red Planet and provide further information on the history of planetary habitability.

"The MAVEN mission is a significant step toward unraveling the planetary puzzle about Mars' past and present environments," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

"The knowledge we gain will build on past and current missions examining Mars and will help inform future missions to send humans to Mars."

The 5,410-pound spacecraft will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket on a 10-month journey to Mars. After arriving at Mars in September 2014, MAVEN will settle into its elliptical science orbit.

Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary mission, MAVEN will observe all of Mars' latitudes.

Altitudes will range from 93 miles to more than 3,800 miles. During the primary mission, MAVEN will execute five deep dip maneuvers, descending to an altitude of 78 miles. This marks the lower boundary of the planet's upper atmosphere.

"Launch is an important event, but it's only a step along the way to getting the science measurements," said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP) in Boulder.

"We're excited about the science we'll be doing, and are anxious now to get to Mars."

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NASA to explore Martian atmosphere

M1.0 class solar flare toward Earth, and filament eruption - NASA images of October 22nd, 2013
M1.0 class solar flare on sunspot 1875, in front of the Earth, and filament eruption on October 22nd, 2013. This solar flare has produced a CME ( coronal mas...

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M1.0 class solar flare toward Earth, and filament eruption - NASA images of October 22nd, 2013 - Video

NASA Administrator Tours Goddard Testing Facilities
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden visited the agency #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Oct. 22 on his first post-government shutdown field cen...

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NASA Administrator Tours Goddard Testing Facilities - Video

2013 Global Health Showcase Keynote by NASA Astronaut Ron Garan
Garan #39;s inspiring speech to students encouraged them to have an orbital perspective, to take risks and be innovative. Together, we can work to solve the plan...

By: Duke Global Health Institute

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2013 Global Health Showcase Keynote by NASA Astronaut Ron Garan - Video