A NASA post advertising a job opening for a new Planetary Protection Officer provided a field day for headline writers who apparently couldn't resist having a bit of fun at the agency's expense. Stories went viral by suggesting that NASA wants to hire someone to defend Earth from aliens and will pay them good money to do it.

While true in the broadest possible sense the "aliens" in question are microbes, not sentient beings the office is actually part of a long-standing program to make sure NASA spacecraft don't contaminate other planets with any earthly bugs and to ensure that any samples returned to Earth are properly isolated and pose no threat to our ecosystem.

Catharine "Cassie" Conley is the outgoing Planetary Protection Officer, the seventh to hold the post. She came on board in 2006 and, like her predecessors, reports directly to the NASA administrator.

"As the Planetary Protection Officer for NASA, I am responsible for ensuring that the United States complies with Article IX of The Outer Space Treaty," she said in a NASA interview.

"Article IX specifies that planetary exploration should be carried out in a manner so as to avoid contamination of the bodies we are exploring throughout the solar system, and also to avoid any adverse effects to Earth if materials are brought back from outer space.

Catharine Conley, NASA's outgoing Planetary Protection Officer, holds a Ph.D. in plant biology. She's held the post since 2006.

NASA

As she told The New York Times in a 2015 interview, "If we're going to look for life on Mars, it would be really kind of lame to bring Earth life and find that instead."

No matter. NASA's search for the agency's eighth Planetary Protection Officer at a salary of up to $187,000 per year was enough to trigger a flurry of stories.

"NASA has a job opening for someone to defend Earth from aliens and it pays a 6-figure salary," Business Insider headlined its web story.

The piece included a graphic from the movie "Independence Day" showing a giant alien spaceship in the process of destroying New York City. The caption: "A typical day in the office for a planetary protection officer isn't this exciting."

The Independent in Britain headlined its story: "NASA offering six-figure salary for new 'planetary protection officer' to defend Earth from aliens."

Even former shuttle commander Mark Kelly got in on the fun, tweeting, "I nominate Bruce Willis."

Followers chimed in with other suggestions, including "Men in Black" star Will Smith; Matt Damon of "Martian" fame; Peter Cushing, the evil "Star Wars" general; Jodie Foster, who met aliens in the movie "Contact;" Bill Pullman, who portrayed the president in "Independence Day;" and even the fictional Jack Bauer of the long-running series "24."

But planetary protection is serious business at NASA, guiding how missions are designed and implemented. Consider the agency's Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn.

Now at the end of a 20-year mission the past 13 in orbit around Saturn Cassini is virtually out of fuel and without propellant, NASA cannot control the probe's orientation or change its trajectory.

Instead of simply letting the spacecraft die, leaving it at the mercy of unpredictable gravitational interactions, flight controllers earlier this year used most of the probe's remaining fuel to put it on a trajectory that will impact Saturn next month, ensuring its destruction.

That's because at least one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, has a sub-surface ocean that could be an abode for life. If NASA simply let Cassini die, it eventually could crash into Enceladus, depositing microbes from Earth. And heat from the spacecraft's three plutonium-powered radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs.

The RTGs were built to withstand a launch pad explosion and all three likely would survive an impact on Enceladus where "more than likely (they would melt) through the ice shell, over time, and then you're in the sub surface," said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA headquarters. "It's going to be laying there, and it's going to end up in the ocean."

And that includes tens of thousands of microbes that hitched a ride to Saturn aboard Cassini.

"Human microbes can withstand all kinds of things, but having the right environment where heat is available is really the way they could multiply and grow," Green said in an interview Wednesday. "So, having that system in the ocean is not good. Even though it might be a remote chance, it's not zero."

NASA ended the Galileo Jupiter probe the same way, crashing it into the giant planet's atmosphere in 1995 to make sure it could not one day hit Europa, another moon with a sub-surface ocean, or any others that might be habitable.

The Juno probe currently in orbit around Jupiter faces the same fate when its mission ends as will the Europa Clipper, a spacecraft currently on the drawing board that will study the intriguing moon during multiple flybys in the 2020s.

Mars, of course, is a major concern when it comes to planetary protection, the target of multiple satellites, landers and rovers over several decades. No one yet knows whether some form of microbial life might exist at the red planet, either on or below the surface, and NASA scientists want to find out, if possible, before humans make the trip.

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Once astronauts arrive, it's "game over," Green said. "It's then the clash of two potentially different ecosystems."

"For me as a scientist, I want to get in there and I want to understand the environment before we bring our environment with us," he said. "Answering the question is Mars alive today, is there a living population, is actually something that's very important for us to try to pull off. And that's very hard to do."

Astronauts, of course, will live in isolated habitats, "almost like they'll be quarantined," Green added. "So there will still be areas all over Mars that'll be very pristine and could maintain an ecosystem, you know, perhaps there's life in the aquifers, and it'll take maybe a couple of centuries before it's totally game over."

"This is the kind of thing we need to guard against, and getting in there and understanding the environment the best we can is the first thing we want to do."

Green and his fellow planetary scientists are equally concerned about making sure any Mars rocks returned to Earth are handled safely. When the Apollo astronauts brought rocks back from the moon, the samples and the astronauts were initially quarantined. Green said NASA is considering a variety of options to isolate Mars rocks.

"We're looking at either constructing or using an existing bio-level 4 facility," he said. "This is a facility that would be used for the most extreme virus or bacteria or something that could sweep the world and kill the population. There are facilities like that (and) we're going to have to either develop our own or tag onto something like that."

He said some researchers don't believe life currently exists on Mars and "they'd be delighted to just lift the top of every one of the rock tubes and that would make them publicly available if they didn't die the next day!"

"But that's not how it's going to work," he said. "We're going to bring them in and examine the heck out of them. (Even) if it had zero biological contamination associated with it, is going to be a number of years before anybody will be able to analyze the samples outside that facility."

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"Alien" headlines aside, NASA is serious about planetary protection - CBS News

Why it matters to you

The images could help researchers understand why the sun's outer atmosphere is hotter than the lower layers, as well as potentially gaining a better understanding of what Mercury might be made of.

The first full solar eclipse to come to the U.S. in 100 years will only last in totality for about two minutes unless of course you are a NASA scientist with a pair of jet planes. During the Aug. 21 eclipse,NASA is aiming to photograph the most detailed images of the sun yet by extending the total view time of the eclipse with a pair of telescopes mounted on two WB-57F jets. While photographers on the ground view the phenomenon with special glasses and filters, getting higher in the earths atmosphere will result in both clearer pictures and an extended viewing time for a NASA eclipse study.

By following the eclipse via jet, the team will extend their viewing time of the celestial phenomenon from less than two and a half minutes to over seven minutes. The scientists will shoot from twin telescopes, both located on the nose of the jets.

The teams goal is to capture the details in the corona as the moon completely blocks the sun, leaving the outer atmosphere easily visible. The darkness created by the eclipse will also allow the researchers to study Mercury the team plans to take the first thermal images of the planet during the eclipse from those same jets. Recording how fast the planet cools while the sun is covered could help scientists better understand Mercurys make-up.

These could well turn out to be the best ever observations of high frequency phenomena in the corona, Dan Seaton, co-investigator of the project and researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, said. Extending the observing time and going to very high altitude might allow us to see a few events or track waves that would be essentially invisible in just two minutes of observations from the ground.

NASA says the images could help researchers understand why the sun is so hot. While the temperatures in the corona reach the millions, lower layers such as the photosphere top out in the thousands. Gathering data from the corona during the eclipse could help the team better understand why the inner layers of the suns atmosphere are actually cooler than the outer layers. The images could help prove or disprove a theory that nano-flares, which scientists have not yet seen, accounts for the temperature differences.

The telescopic camera will be shooting high resolution images at 30 fps. By taking multiple images over time, scientists expect they could identify potential nanoflares by comparing the shots to look for motion. The images will be taken with the traditional visible light camera, while the images of Mercury will be shot in infrared to create a temperature map of the planet.

The project is just one of 11 different tasks NASA is leading during the eclipse.

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How will NASA photograph the eclipse? With jet planes, of course - Digital Trends

ASHEBORO Students at The Dream Center of Randolph County are playing a role in the U.S. Department of Educations ongoing effort to solve a national problem the critical shortage of students with mastery of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.

Through an exciting out-of-school collaboration between the department and NASA, local students are conducting scientific observations of the natural environment and are learning the relevance of STEM skills to daily life.

The Dream Center is part of the departments 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, which focuses in part on exposing students in high-need schools to meaningful STEM-learning opportunities. One goal of the 21st CCLC program which will serve more than 1.5 million students in all 50 states in 2016 is to demonstrate the value of STEM skills both inside and outside the classroom, thereby raising student interest in STEM and related professions.

Since NASA first became a partner in 2013, available programs have grown from 20 sites in three states to nearly 146 sites across 15 states in 2016. This year, NASA will offer two options for unique STEM experiences: Engineering Design Challenges (EDC) and a Global Observation to Benefit Environment (GLOBE) investigation.

EDC introduces students to the engineering design process so they can develop solutions to real NASA challenges, such as how to land a spacecraft on Mars or grow plants in lunar habitats. GLOBE immerses students in scientific investigation techniques, such as data gathering, to learn how clouds impact the Earths climate. In both cases, students work with NASA engineers and scientists to receive feedback on their work, learn about STEM careers and find out what its like to work in science and engineering professions.

In 2016-2017, 23 students from both Asheboro and Randleman are participating in the NASA partnership program. Students are working in teams of four to design a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) that will safely carry two astronauts through a series of landing trials. The CEV must fit inside the designated size constraint, weigh no more than 100 grams and safely carry two astronauts. Teams must design and build a vehicle with secure seats for the astronauts and include a hatch that stays closed during testing. The challenge also requires a model of an internal fuel tank on the vehicle. Students will complete the project and submit a video of the engineering design process they used to complete the project.

Dr. James Johnson, principal at Randleman Elementary School, explained the importance of the program.

Before becoming involved in this project, students often felt as if not knowing the answer to a problem or question was bad. Through STEM learning, the students have learned that the not knowing is where learning actually starts. They have learned to question the things they dont know and look for an answer.

The Dream Center of Randolph County is a free after-school program offered for under-resourced children in Randolph County. The program offers enrichment activities and tutoring to families with children in grades 6-8.

For more information, visit http://www.thedreamcenternc.org.

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Students work with NASA to land on Mars - Asheboro Courier Tribune

Two years after its famous flyby of Pluto, NASAs New Horizons spacecraft is zooming toward another space rock at the edge of the Solar System, and scientists now think they may know its shape. The object could resemble a rubber duck or it could be two space rocks very close together, according to new observations. The information is key to better prepare for New Horizons flyby of the object, which is currently scheduled for January 1st, 2019.

The small icy body is called 2014 MU69 and it orbits about 4 billion miles away from Earth. Last month, New Horizons scientists briefly spotted 2014 MU69 from a remote part of Argentina, as the rock passed in front of a background star, momentarily blocking the stars light. The short eclipse also known as an occultation was seen with five different telescopes, and gave scientists a ton of new data about 2014 MU69s size, shape, and brightness.

Its even possible that the object is, in fact, two objects

Up until now, the New Horizons team has only been able to track 2014 MU69 with the Hubble Space Telescope. (Since the rock is pretty dim, telescopes like Hubble cant gather too much information on its properties.) But the recent observations suggest that the rock is no more than 20 miles long, and its shape is not round or elliptical, like most space rocks. Instead, the icy body is either shaped like a stretched football, called an extreme prolate spheroid, or like two rocks joined together. That creates a rubber ducky shape similar to the comet that the European Space Agency landed on two years ago.

Its even possible that the object is, in fact, two objects like a pair of rocks that are orbiting around each other, or are so close that theyre touching. If 2014 MU69 does turn out to be two objects, then each one is probably between nine and 12 miles in diameter, according to the New Horizons team.

2014 MU69 was first discovered in 2014 in the Kuiper Belt, the large cloud of icy bodies that orbit beyond Neptune. Since then, weve had very little new information about the properties of this rock. But knowing the objects size and shape will help the New Horizons team better plan for the spacecrafts flyby. And it will certainly make this event much more interesting.

This new finding is simply spectacular, Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, said in a statement. The shape of MU69 is truly provocative, and could mean another first for New Horizons going to a binary object in the Kuiper Belt.

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The next stop for NASA's Pluto spacecraft may be a duck-shaped space rock - The Verge

A NASA illustration showing twin WB-57F research planes tracking the eclipse over North America. Bardur Eklund/NASA/Faroe Islands/SwRI hide caption

A NASA illustration showing twin WB-57F research planes tracking the eclipse over North America.

If you're lucky enough to be in the path of totality for the Aug. 21 solar eclipse over North America, you will get at best about 2 minutes to view "totality" when the moon almost completely covers the disc of the Sun.

But a team of NASA-funded scientists have figured out a way to get a much longer look. For them, totality will last three times as long as for the rest of us more than 7 minutes. They plan to use the extra time to produce detailed observations of the Sun's corona and temperatures on Mercury.

How will they do it? A team from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Co., led by Amir Caspi will be flying in a pair of converted Cold War-era jet bombers equipped with stabilized telescopes in their nose cones. They will essentially chase the moon's shadow as the path of totality moves across the central United States.

"These could well turn out to be the best ever observations of high frequency phenomena in the corona," says Dan Seaton, co-investigator of the project and researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, according to NASA. "Extending the observing time and going to very high altitude might allow us to see a few events or track waves that would be essentially invisible in just two minutes of observations from the ground."

The twin WB-57F research jets, converted "Canberra" bombers built in the 1950s, will take off from an airfield near Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, climb to 50,000 feet and maneuver into the path of totality somewhere over Missouri, following it over the state and across Illinois and Tennessee.

Not only do they get a longer observing time, but looking at the eclipse from the stratosphere will have the added benefit of darker skies and less atmospheric disturbance.

One of the WB-57F jets that will observe the total eclipse for about three and a half minutes each as they fly over Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee. Amir Caspi/NASA hide caption

One of the WB-57F jets that will observe the total eclipse for about three and a half minutes each as they fly over Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee.

The scientists hope to create the first-ever thermal image of Mercury and answer a puzzling questions about the Sun's atmosphere: why its different layers are so unevenly heated, ranging from millions of degrees to only a few thousand.

One theory is that the high temperatures could be caused by the accumulated effect of something called nanoflares, which are too small and too numerous to be detected by themselves under normal observing conditions. With the sensitive telescopes and the dampening effect of the eclipse, scientists just might be able to see evidence of nanoflares.

"We see the evidence of nanoflare heating, but we don't know where they occur," Caspi says. "If they occur higher up in the corona, we might expect to see waves moving downwards, as the little explosions occur and collectively reconfigure the magnetic fields."

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NASA Jets Will Extend Eclipse By Chasing Moon's Shadow - NPR

If youre on the job market and happen to have an advanced STEM degree (or equivalent experience), and willing to take a drug test and stop alien life from reaching Earth, NASAs got the job for you. Now through August 14, 2017, the US space agency is taking applications for the role of Planetary Protection Officer.

Its fun to imagine that the job involves fighting advanced alien attacks like a movie action hero. But in reality, as Gizmodo reports, its more about protecting other planets from us.

NASA created the PPO position after the US agreed to a 1967 international treaty on space exploration guidelines. In it, international researchers agreed to what was basically an extremely thorough version of leave no trace, a phrase familiar to campers everywhere. If we were to accidentally bring life to anywhere outside of Earth, scientists have no idea if and how it would affect other planets. Microbes may colonize the place, or they may mess with extraterrestrial life we havent even discovered yet.

The original treaty mandates that any mission to space must have a 1 in 10,000 chance (or lower) of accidentally contaminating an area with our own microbial life. In an interview with Business Insider, Catharine Conley, a NASA scientist who currently holds the position of PPO, described these odds as moderate precaution. Its not extremely careful, but its not extremely lax, she said.

When we send anything to land on another planet, whether its a ship full of humans or just a rover, we run the risk of sending microbial contaminants with it. Microbes are hardy little buggers, and because theyre so small and divide so quickly, its pretty challenging to know if youre really leaving nothing behind. And sure, space is pretty uninhabitable being a freezing vacuum and all, but we know that some microbial life can survive out thereor at least start growing again once it comes back to Earth.

Gizmodo reported in 2015 we have no idea what space microbes would be capable of doing to us, or the other plants and animals with whom we share the planet. To date, weve been vigilant about preventing any chance of finding out: Back when US astronauts first landed on the moon, they were quarantined for three weeks to make sure they werent accidentally bringing back any foreign materials, and the decontamination plans for bringing samples back from Mars involve at least two sterile barriers.

So even though the PPO gig has nothing to do with punching aliens in the face, its still a really important job. And it pays from $124,406 to $187,000 per year for three years, with the possibility of extending two more. Who hasnt dreamt of being paid to protect planets from foreign life?

Read this next: NASAs plan for when the next asteroid strikes Earth

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You can earn six figures from NASA if you're willing to protect Earth from alien life - Quartz

This image of the Earth rising over the moon was the first one recovered by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. NASA / LOIRP hide caption

This image of the Earth rising over the moon was the first one recovered by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project.

When was the last time you had a roll of film developed? For many, our digital devices are datebook, rolodex and camera all in one. But moments captured on film are finding a second life through a project based in Idaho, and it raises some questions about our digital future.

In his Boise basement darkroom, Levi Bettwieser deftly unspools, cuts and winds a roll of film into a canister. He rinses it in several chemicals, waits few minutes, then takes it out and holds it up to the light.

"Looks like there's a helicopter, a bunch of people on a beach, boats just looks like a day at the beach," he says.

Bettwieser didn't take these pictures, and he doesn't work for a developing lab. His mom was a photographer, and cameras have always been a part of his life. So when he started looking for old cameras in thrift stores around Boise, he was surprised to find that some still had film in them.

"I figured all the cameras had been opened and all the film was destroyed or it was too old," he says. He tried to develop them anyway and it worked. "All the images from those rolls they weren't anything significant, really; they were birthday parties and vacations and things like that. But I realized that those were important moments for people. And so I figured, You know what? I need to start finding more rolls of film to process, because there's more memories out there."

Bettwieser scours estate sales and vintage shops for undeveloped film (some from the 1930s) then posts his findings on a website he created called the Rescued Film Project. He says his mission is to reunite film owners with their photos and it seemed to resonate.

Levi Bettwieser examines some recently developed film at the light table in his basement. Matt Guilhem/Boise State Public Radio hide caption

Levi Bettwieser examines some recently developed film at the light table in his basement.

"People started sending me rolls of film," Bettwieser explains. "And I went from finding a roll of film here and there in thrift stores ... to a package showing up on my door every day with rolls of film in it."

He spends his days as a videographer, but nights, early mornings and weekends are dedicated to the Rescued Film Project. "When I pull that film out of the tank for the very first time, I'm the very first person who has ever seen that," he says. "And that is still what drives me to this day and kind of keeps me going."

Somebody may have taken the roll decades ago, and for years the memory remained locked away. Then Bettwieser comes along and not only develops it, but chronicles it in a digital archive. In his own way, he's doing what a lot of us do every day without realizing it.

"Your Facebook, for example, or your Twitter feed you are creating a daily archive of your life," says Dennis Wingo, an engineering scientist and researcher who's worked with NASA. "It's an archive of your thoughts. It's an archive of the interactions with your friends. That has value, not only to you but to your children, your grandchildren and your family 500 years from now."

About 10 years ago, Wingo undertook his own version of the Rescued Film Project. His was called the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, and the goal was to resurrect high-resolution pictures of the moon taken by the orbiter in the mid-1960s. To do that, Wingo had to unlock images that had been stored on magnetic tapes tapes that could only be read by that era's archaic technology.

After a global search, Wingo and his team located what seemed to be the last four machines in existence and extracted the images, which are now part of NASA's archive. But he's keenly aware this isn't the last time someone like him will have to tackle a job like this.

"Ten or 15 years ago, there were several companies that had advertisements: 'Here is a DVD that will last 100 years!' Well, they never thought to include in there: 'Here's a DVD player that will last 100 years.' "

Wingo saved images of the moon that helped the Apollo missions, and the Rescued Film Project is saving photos of bygone Christmases. But Levi Bettwieser thinks both add something to history. "I love the idea of taking what are these simple moments and elevating them and putting them on a platform for people to view so that we can have these shared experiences," he says. "It makes us all realize that we all kind of do the same things and we are similar as human beings."

But when computers are eventually rendered obsolete, will anyone want to save all this data again in a new form? Should hard drives be the next magnetic tapes, keeping the past present could be a challenge.

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From Family Snapshots To NASA Photos, Archivists Aim To Solve Preservation Puzzles - NPR

August 3, 2017 by Lori Keesey The Ion-Neutral Mass Spectrometer and flight spare are shown here before they were delivered in preparation for the Dellingr launch. Credit: NASA

Along for the ride on Dellingr's maiden journey is a suite of miniaturized NASA-developed technologiesone no larger than a fingernailthat in many cases already have proven their mettle in suborbital or space demonstrations, boosting confidence that they will perform as designed once in orbit.

Scientists and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, built all the instruments, primarily with research-and-development program funding.

Ion-Neutral Mass Spectrometer

The Ion-Neutral Mass Spectrometer, developed by Goddard Principal Investigator Nikolaos Paschalidis and his team in less than a year, is a complicated instrument designed to sample the densities of neutral and ionized atom species in the atmosphere. During the Dellingr mission, it will measure the equatorial ionosphere, the atmospheric layer that affects the transmission of radio waves.

The team initially flew the instrument on a previous CubeSat mission. Although the instrument gathered "beautiful" ion-composition counts of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen, the CubeSat bus proved unreliable and the mission was aborted six months after launch, Paschalidis said.

"The immediate plan with Dellingr is to extensively prove the instrument's functionality. Assuming all goes well, we want to collect as much data as possible, calibrate for spacecraft attitude and location, analyze the data, and plot ion and neutral composition and densities as a function of orbit. This by itself is a unique data set," Paschalidis added.

Boom and No-Boom Magnetometer Systems

Two miniaturized magnetometer systems, developed by Goddard Principal Investigators Eftyhia Zesta and Todd Bonalsky, also were successfully demonstrated earlier this year aboard a sounding-rocket mission from Poker Flats, Alaska. On Dellingr, these instruments are expected to show a dramatic improvement in the accuracy and precision of miniaturized magnetometers by using a never-before-tried technique involving boom and no-boom systems.

Included in this observing technique is one thumbnail-sized magnetometer positioned at the end of a deployable boom and a couple sensors positioned inside Dellingr. The purpose of the internal sensors is measuring the magnetic fields, or "noise," generated by the spacecraft's torquers, solar panels, motors, and other hardware. Sophisticated algorithms that Zesta's team created then will analyze the external and internal magnetometer data to subtract spacecraft-generated noise from the actual science data.

"CubeSats, like any spacecraft, will be noisy; they are magnetically unclean," Zesta explained, adding that to avoid the problem in more traditional spacecraft, the magnetometer is placed at the end of a long boom. "Even with a one-meter (three foot) boomunless there is a magnetic cleanliness programyou will need to use algorithms to get rid of bus noise. Algorithms are the only way to get scientific value from your data."

In comparison, the Dellingr the boom is only about 22-inches long and it is not magnetically clean, Zesta said. "We absolutely needed to develop noise-cancellation algorithms if we wanted to get any useful science data."

The Diminutive DANY

Deploying the magnetometer boom and UHF antenna is a miniaturized device called the Diminutive Assembly for Nanosatellite Deployables, or DANY. Created by technologist Luis Santos, it acts as a pin puller.

It operates much like a car-door latch. Affixed to the exterior of Dellingr, it holds the boom and antenna in place during launch and then, upon command, applies a current that activates a heating element, which weakens a plastic device holding the retaining pins. Once Dellingr reaches its intended obit, the satellite activates the heating element and the deployables will swing open to begin operations.

Goddard Fine Sun Sensor

Another technology making Dellingr's debut flight is the Goddard Fine Sun Sensor, or GFSS, designed specifically for CubeSats. The panel-mountable device will gather digital data orienting onboard instruments to the sun. As with the other Dellingr instruments, improvements are afoot. Principal Investigator Zachary Peterson is taking lessons learned from the Dellingr effort to improve GFSS's accuracy and lower its power consumption. Other flight opportunities are planned.

Thermal-Control Technology

In addition to gathering or enabling the collection of scientific data, Dellingr will demonstrate technology. Principal Investigator Allison Evans is miniaturizing an older thermal-control technology that requires no electronics and consists of louvers that open or close, much like venetian blinds, depending on whether heat needs to be conserved or shed. During the flight, she wants to prove the louvers will operate as expected in a space environment.

The device consists of front and back plates, flaps, and springs. The back plate is painted with a white, highly emissive paint and the front plate and flaps are made of aluminum, which aren't as emissive. The bimetallic springs do all the work. They are made of two different types of metal. Attached to the highly emissive back plate, the springs uncurl if one of the metals gets too hot, forcing the flaps to open. When the spring cools down, it reverts to its original shape and the flaps close.

For the Dellingr demonstration, Evans is flying just one flap/spring combination to help mature the technology in preparation for future missions where the miniature thermal louvers would be an integrated part of the thermal design. "A mission with a temperature-sensitive instrument or a component that sheds significant amounts of heat only occasionally would be a good candidate for this technology," she said.

Explore further: NASA set to launch Dellingr; CubeSat purposely designed to improve reliability of small satellites

NASA scientists and engineers named their new CubeSat after the mythological Norse god of the dawn. Now, just days from launch, they are confident Dellingr will live up to its name and inaugurate a new era for scientists ...

The Dellingr six-unit CubeSat, which is taking its developers just one year to design, build and integrate, won't be the only potentially groundbreaking capability for NASA. Its heliophysics payloads also are expected to ...

An older technology once de rigueur for preventing spacecraft gadgetry from getting too hot or too cold has been resurrected and repurposed for an emerging class of small satellites now playing an increasingly larger role ...

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Figuring out how plasma bubbles and blobs affect one another and ultimately the transmission of communications, GPS, and radar signals in Earth's ionosphere will be the job of a recently selected CubeSat mission.

(Phys.org) To investigate climate change, scientists and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center are developing the IceCube satellite, which will be no larger than a loaf of bread. In 2016, this satellite will ...

The elemental composition of the Sun's hot atmosphere known as the 'corona' is strongly linked to the 11-year solar magnetic activity cycle, a team of scientists from UCL, George Mason University and Naval Research Laboratory ...

Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date for a stratosphere on an enormous planet outside our solar system, with an atmosphere hot enough to boil iron.

Now that scientists can detect the wiggly distortions in space-time created by the merger of massive black holes, they are setting their sights on the dynamics and aftermath of other cosmic duos that unify in catastrophic ...

(Phys.org)Observations conducted with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have uncovered a young stellar cluster designated NGC 3293. The data provided by the spacecraft reveal insights about its stellar population. The findings ...

(Phys.org)A team of researchers with Universit Paris-Saclay has found evidence suggesting that the planet Venus may once have had an ocean. In their paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the group ...

The sun's core rotates nearly four times faster than the sun's surface, according to new findings by an international team of astronomers. Scientists had assumed the core was rotating like a merry-go-round at about the same ...

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NASA-developed technologies showcased on Dellingr's debut flight - Phys.Org

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will fly in a unique highly-elliptical orbit to search for exoplanets around the nearest and brightest stars.

WASHINGTON Cameras recently installed on a NASA spacecraft designed to look for nearby exoplanets will be slightly out of focus once launched, but the agency said that will not affect the mission's science.

NASA confirmed July 26 that the focus of the four cameras on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spacecraft will drift when the spacecraft cools to operating temperatures after launch next March. The problem was noticed in recent tests when the cameras were chilled to approximately minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 75 degrees Celsius).

"Recent tests show the cameras on TESS are slightly out of focus when placed in the cold temperatures of space where it will be operating," NASA spokesperson Felicia Chou said in response to a SpaceNews inquiry. "After a thorough engineering evaluation, NASA has concluded TESS can fully accomplish its science mission with the cameras as they are, and will proceed with current integration activities." [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

Chou added July 28 that the out-of-focus area is limited to the outer edges of the image, and that "recent testing shows that the camera focus towards the image center is better than originally designed."

The problem with the TESS cameras came up during a July 24 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council science committee in Hampton, Virginia. Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution, brought up the issue in a summary of a meeting of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, of which he is a member.

"That could have some big effects on the photometry," he said of the focus problem. "This is certainly a concern for the folks who know a lot about photometry."

TESS will use those cameras to monitor the brightness of the nearest and brightest stars in the sky, an approach similar to that used by Kepler, a NASA spacecraft developed originally to monitor one specific region of the sky. Both spacecraft are designed to look for minute, periodic dips in brightness of those stars as planets pass in front of, or transit, them.

In a photo posted to Twitter July 25, technicians pose with the four cameras that will be installed on the TESS spacecraft.

Chou said that since TESS is designed to conduct photometry, measuring the brightness of the stars in its field of view, "resolution is less important compared to imaging missions like Hubble." However, astronomers are concerned that there will be some loss of sensitivity because light from the stars will be spread out onto a slightly larger area of the detector.

"The question is how much science degradation will there be in the results," Boss said. "The TESS team thinks there will be a 10 percent cut in terms of the number of planets that they expect to be able to detect."

Despite the reduction, Boss said TESS scientists believe they will still be able to meet the mission's primary science requirements, and thus there is no need to fix the cameras. The four cameras were attached this week to a plate that will later be installed on the spacecraft, which is being assembled by Orbital ATK.

"There will be some loss of science, and we just want to know more about it," Boss said. That includes anything the project can do in software, or even mechanical fixes to the spacecraft, to compensate for the focus problem.

NASA has not disclosed the cause of the focus problem, but Boss said it may be due to crystallization of the glue used to bond the detector arrays in place. He said project engineers didn't expect the focus to continue to drift after the temperature stabilized.

Chou said the project will continue to monitor the problem. "Should further testing reveal the cameras are unable to complete the mission, NASA will revisit the decision and determine the steps moving forward," she said.

TESS is scheduled to launch no earlier than March 2018 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. That launch was previously planned for late 2017 but postponed by delays in SpaceX's launch schedule and the NASA launch certification process.

TESS will operate in a unique orbit that takes it between 67,000 miles and 232,000 miles (108,000 and 373,000 kilometers) from Earth. The orbit is particularly stable, thus minimizing the maneuvers the spacecraft has to perform to maintain it.

The spacecraft will have a two-year primary mission, and scientists expect it to detect thousands of exoplanets, including dozens the size of the Earth. Astronomers plan to follow up some of the most promising discoveries with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.

This story was provided bySpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

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August 3, 2017 Heliophysics is the study of how the Sun affects space and the space environment of planets. Credit: NASA

NASA has selected nine proposals under its Explorers Program that will return transformational science about the sun and space environment and fill science gaps between the agency's larger missions; eight for focused scientific investigations and one for technological development of instrumentation. One, called sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (sunRISE), is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The broad scope of the investigations illustrates the many vital and specialized research areas that must be explored simultaneously in the area of heliophysics, which is the study of how the sun affects space and the space environment of planets.

"The Explorers Program seeks innovative ideas for small and cost-constrained missions that can help unravel the mysteries of the Universe," said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division and the selection official. "These missions absolutely meet that standard with proposals to solve mysteries about the sun's corona, the Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere, and the solar wind."

Under the selected proposals, five Heliophysics Small Explorer missions and two Explorer Missions of Opportunity Small Complete Missions (SCM), concept studies will be conducted that span a broad range of investigations focusing on terrestrial weather in the near-Earth space environmentmagnetic energy, solar wind, heating and energy released in the solar atmosphere.

The proposals were selected based on potential science value and feasibility of development plans. Small Explorer mission costs are capped at $165 million each, and Mission of Opportunity costs are capped at $55 million each.

Each Heliophysics Small Explorer mission will receive $1.25 million to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. The selected proposals are:

Mechanisms of Energetic Mass EjectioneXplorer (MEME-X)

Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI)

Multi-Slit Solar Explorer (MUSE)

Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS)

Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH)

Each Mission of Opportunity SCM will receive $400,000 to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. The selected proposals are:

sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (sunRISE)

Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE)

A Partner Mission of Opportunity (PMO) proposal has been selected for components and scientific analysis for three in situ payload instruments aboard the Turbulence Heating ObserveR (THOR) mission - one of four proposed missions currently under consideration by ESA (European Space Agency). After ESA's final selection, work will begin on implementation of the PMO only if THOR is selected.

The chosen PMO is:

U.S. Contributions to the THOR mission (THOR-US)

One Mission of Opportunity SCM received highly favorable review for scientific and scientific implementation merit, but was deemed to require more technological development of the instrument's innovative optical design before further consideration of an implementation concept. This proposal is offered funding for a continued technology development study. The SCM chosen for a technology development investigation is:

COronal Spectrographic Imager in the Extreme ultraviolet (COSIE)

The Explorers Program is the oldest continuous NASA program designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the agency's astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Since the Explorer 1 launch in 1958, which discovered Earth's radiation belts, the Explorers Program has launched more than 90 missions, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions that led to Nobel Prizes for their investigators.

Explore further: SwRI's small satellite mission moves forward

More information: For more information about NASA's Science Mission Directorate activities, see science.nasa.gov

NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to further develop the concept for a small satellite mission to image the Sun's outer corona. SwRI's "Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere" (PUNCH) program ...

SA has selected five proposals submitted to its Explorers Program to conduct focused scientific investigations and develop instruments that fill the scientific gaps between the agency's larger missions.

NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018.

NASA's Astrophysics Explorer Program has selected two missions for launch in 2017: a planet-hunting satellite and an International Space Station instrument to observe X-rays from stars.

A sounding rocket originally developed as a prototype for NASA's next generation of space-based solar spectrographs will make its third flight tomorrow, May 5, at 12:25 p.m. MDT from White Sands, N.M.

NASA has selected a mission that will perform the first reconnaissance of the Trojans, a population of primitive asteroids orbiting in tandem with Jupiter. The Lucy mission will launch in 2021 to study six of these exciting ...

The elemental composition of the Sun's hot atmosphere known as the 'corona' is strongly linked to the 11-year solar magnetic activity cycle, a team of scientists from UCL, George Mason University and Naval Research Laboratory ...

Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date for a stratosphere on an enormous planet outside our solar system, with an atmosphere hot enough to boil iron.

Now that scientists can detect the wiggly distortions in space-time created by the merger of massive black holes, they are setting their sights on the dynamics and aftermath of other cosmic duos that unify in catastrophic ...

(Phys.org)Observations conducted with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have uncovered a young stellar cluster designated NGC 3293. The data provided by the spacecraft reveal insights about its stellar population. The findings ...

(Phys.org)A team of researchers with Universit Paris-Saclay has found evidence suggesting that the planet Venus may once have had an ocean. In their paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the group ...

The sun's core rotates nearly four times faster than the sun's surface, according to new findings by an international team of astronomers. Scientists had assumed the core was rotating like a merry-go-round at about the same ...

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Enlarge / President Donald Trump gives the pen to Buzz Aldrin after signing an Executive Order to reestablish the National Space Council in June.

Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images

Asthe lunar module pilot for Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin remains the most well-known figure in the aerospace industry today and a consistent advocate for human exploration of Mars. He has long pushed for the concept of a "cycler," a semi-permanent spacecraft in orbit around the Sun that would carry cargo and crew between Earth and Mars periodically.

But in recent years, Aldrin has begun to embrace the thingthat made him famousthe Moonas a critical waypoint on the road to Mars. This involves the collection of lunar ice, believed to be accessible at the poles, for use as propellant to send astronauts deeper into space.

As we inch closer tothe 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing,momentum appears to be building behind this idea. Several officials with the Trump administration have indicated their preference for lunar landings before attempting to send astronauts to Mars, and after six years of promoting the "Journey to Mars," NASA has also begun considering a human return to the Moon.

This weekAldrin issued a clear call for a return to the Moon as the first step toward sending humans to establish a permanent presence on Mars. He encouraged the new National Space Council to work with the Trump administration to formulate a plan and announce it on July 20, 2019the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing.

To accomplish this, Trump should take a hard look at NASA, Aldrin argued. In anop-ed published in The Hill, Aldrin called out the expensive hardware programs now consuming all of NASA's human exploration budget, including the International Space Station, Orion spacecraft, and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

"Its got to be reduced if were ever going to get anywhere new," Aldrin wrote. "People, companies, NASA itself, dont like to have things reduced. But if we dont, were going to continue spending to keep the International Space Station going. Were going to keep the Orion piloted spacecraft, a project that is too expensive and too late. And were going to keep the Space Launch System flying once a year at a hefty price tag of billions of dollars. Again, were not going anywhere if we dont do something about these issues."

Ars called Aldrin after reading the op-ed to flesh out the details of his plan. As ever, the 87-year-old astronaut was full of energy and eager to talk all things space. As the commercial space industry has grown and evolved, Aldrin said he's taken that into consideration in his ideas. "I've been really impressed by the commercial space station ideas," Aldrin said, mentioning Bigelow Aerospace and Axiom Space.

Aldrin said he's not calling for the outright cancellation of the SLS and Orionat least not yet. If the programs are going to be part of NASA's exploration strategy, they need to be put on notice. They need to perform on schedule, in 2019, and their budgets must be cut. And if NASA is serious about deep space exploration, it must consider ending the International Space Station in 2020 to free up $3 to $4 billion in annual funding.

The international partnership behind the station, including Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada, should grow to add developing nations such as China and aim instead toward development of lunar bases, Aldrin said. This begins with polar satellites around the Moon and lunar rovers to detect ice, then progressing toward a commercial "cycler" between low Earth orbit and the Moon, perhaps two of Bigelow's B330 modules. Over time, robots and humans will construct lunar bases to mine this ice, convert it into water, and return it to low-Earth orbit.

By learning to live and work on the Moon and collecting fuel for Martian missions, NASA will then have the experience it needs to go deeper into the Solar System, as well as the rocket fuel needed to dramatically cut its costs to get there.

Aldrin said he is not a fan of NASA's current plan to develop a "Deep Space Gateway" in orbit around the Moon, because it doesn't go far enough to advance human exploration toward the surface of the Moon or Mars. Like some critics of the Deep Space Gateway, such as Robert Zubrin, Aldrin appears to be concerned that a cislunar station is a cul-de-sac rather than a highway toward deep space.

One gets the sense from Aldrin that he recognizes this may be his last, best chance to influence space policy. With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing looming, there is an opportunity to guide space policy toward more ambitious goals like those he played a part in long ago. And the Trump administration, Aldrin believes, offers a chance to shake things up among the established aerospace firms, with their large, cost-plus contracts, and the newer commercial companies.

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As the Moon landing anniversary nears, Buzz Aldrin wants to shake NASA up - Ars Technica

Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a hero? How about the protector of mankind? Well now NASA is looking for just that and it'll pay a six-figure salary for the honor.

The U.S. space agency is currently in search not of life on other planets but of a "Planetary Protection Officer", who can protect Earth and its inhabitants from alien invasion.

The job, which is offering a salary of between $124,406 and $187,000 per year, involves preventing alien microbes from contaminating the Earth, as well as ensuring human space explorers do not damage other planets, moons and objects in space.

"Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration," NASA wrote in the job posting on its website late last month.

Other duties include advising Safety Mission Assurance officials on planetary protection matters and ensuring compliance by robotic and human spaceflight missions.

The role is open to those with "broad engineering experience" and a willingness to travel.

It is not for those shy of responsibility, however. The Planetary Protection Officer role is one of just two such full-time positions in the world, according to Business Insider, and comes at the requirement of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The other position is with the European Space Agency.

Applications are open until August 14, 2017. The post is for an initial period of three years, though may be extended for an additional two.

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NASA is looking for someone to protect Earth from aliens and the job pays a six-figure salary - CNBC

Asteroid 2014 JO25 was imaged by radar from NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California one day before its closest approach to Earth. A grid composed of 30 images shows the two-lobed asteroid in different rotations. The space rock passed Earth on April 19, 2017, at a distance of 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers).

A graphic shows asteroid 2014 JO25 as it is projected to fly safely past Earth on April 19, 2017, at a distance of about 1.1 million miles or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon.

This graphic illustrates asteroid 2016 HO3 orbiting Earth as the pair go around the sun together. The asteroid was first spotted on April 27, 2016, by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakala, Hawaii.

All about asteroids This graphic shows the track for asteroid 2004 BL86, which flew about 745,000 miles from Earth on January 26, 2015. That's about three times as far away as the moon.

This graphic shows the path Asteroid 2014 RC took as it passed Earth on September 7, 2015. The space rock came within one-tenth the distance from Earth to the moon.

A diagram shows the orbit of an asteroid named 2013 TV135 (in blue), which made headlines in September 2013 when it passed close by Earth. The probability of it striking Earth one day stands at 1 in 63,000, and even those odds are fading fast as scientists find out more about the asteroid. It will most likely swing past our planet again in 2032, according to NASA.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 made a record-close pass -- 17,100 miles -- by Earth on February 15, 2013. Most asteroids are made of rocks, but some are metal. They orbit mostly between Jupiter and Mars in the main asteroid belt. Scientists estimate there are tens of thousands of asteroids and when they get close to our planet, they are called near-Earth objects.

Another asteroid, Apophis, got a lot of attention from space scientists and the media when initial calculations indicated a small chance it could hit Earth in 2029 or 2036. NASA scientists have since ruled out an impact, but on April 13, 2029, Apophis, which is about the size of 3 football fields, will make a close visit -- flying about 19,400 miles (31,300 kilometers) above Earth's surface. The images above were taken by the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory in January 2013.

If you really want to know about asteroids, you need to see one up close. NASA did just that. A spacecraft called NEAR-Shoemaker, named in honor of planetary scientist Gene Shoemaker, was the first probe to touch down on an asteroid, landing on the asteroid Eros on February 12, 2001. This image was taken on February 14, 2000, just after the probe began orbiting Eros.

The first asteroid to be identified, 1 Ceres, was discovered January 1, 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi in Palermo, Sicily. But is Ceres just another asteroid? Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show that Ceres has a lot in common with planets like Earth. It's almost round and it may have a lot of pure water ice beneath its surface. Ceres is about 606 by 565 miles (975 by 909 kilometers) in size and scientists say it may be more accurate to call it a mini-planet. NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to Ceres to investigate. The spacecraft is 35 million miles (57 million kilometers) from Ceres and 179 million miles (288 million kilometers) from Earth. The photo on the left was taken by Keck Observatory, Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The image on the right was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

One big space rock got upgraded recently. This image of Vesta was taken by the Dawn spacecraft, which is on its way to Ceres. In 2012, scientists said data from the spacecraft show Vesta is more like a planet than an asteroid and so Vesta is now considered a protoplanet.

Asteroids have hit Earth many times. It's hard to get an exact count because erosion has wiped away much of the evidence. The mile-wide Meteor Crater in Arizona, seen above, was created by a small asteroid that hit about 50,000 years ago, NASA says. Other famous impact craters on Earth include Manicouagan in Quebec, Canada; Sudbury in Ontario, Canada; Ries Crater in Germany, and Chicxulub on the Yucatan coast in Mexico.

NASA scientists say the impact of an asteroid or comet several hundred million years ago created the Aorounga crater in the Sahara Desert of northern Chad. The crater has a diameter of about 10.5 miles (17 kilometers). This image was taken by the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994.

In 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia, scientists theorize an asteroid flattened about 750 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of forest in and around the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

One of the top asteroid-tracking scientists is Don Yeomans at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by the California Institute of Technology. Yeomans says every day, "Earth is pummeled by more than 100 tons of material that spewed off asteroids and comets." Fortunately, most of the asteroid trash is tiny and it burns up when it hits the atmosphere, creating meteors, or shooting stars. Yeomans says it's very rare for big chunks of space litter to hit Earth's surface. Those chunks are called meteorites.

Asteroids and comets are popular fodder for Earth-ending science fiction movies. Two of the biggest blockbusters came out in 1998: "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon." (Walt Disney Studios) Others include "Meteorites!" (1998), "Doomsday Rock" (1997), "Asteroid" (1997), "Meteor" (1979), and "A Fire in the Sky" (1978). Can you name others?

Asteroid 1998 QE2 is about 3.75 million miles from Earth. The white dot is the moon, or satellite, orbiting the asteroid.

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NASA's planetary defense system will be put to the test in October - CNN

Laughing to keep from crying, Peggy Whitson says goodbye to crewmates Tomas Pesquet (back left) and Oleg Novitskiy (back right), with Jack 2Fish Fisher and Fyodor Yurchikhin by her side.

airspacemag.com August 1, 2017 3:00PM

Ive never liked it when people appropriate the term family to include everything from co-workers to customers. Ive got my own family, thanks, and filling my tank with gas doesnt quite warrant a welcome to the Exxon family.

Still, some jobs really do go beyond just being another place to work, and astronaut has to be one of them. Over the decades, human spaceflight has developed a distinct culture, with its own particular customs and rituals that make NASA more like a family than a typical government agency.

I was thinking about this recently, watching Peggy Whitsons change-of-command ceremony on the space station. In case you dont know her, Whitson is one of the most accomplished astronauts of all time. Shes spent more time in space than any other American. She was the first woman to head NASAs astronaut office, and this was her third time commanding the space station.

Whitson is known for her work ethic and her intelligence, and listening to her air-to-ground exchanges with Mission Control, shes usually pretty business-like. So I wasnt prepared for this very emotional send-off of her crewmates, Tomas Pesquet of France and Oleg Novitski, who were returning to Earth the next day on a Soyuz transport.

I like everything about this clip, including Whitsons muting her own mike when she starts to get choked up. A space station astronaut once told me that he found his emotions to be stronger in orbitthe highs were higher, and the lows were lower. Whether or not thats been true for Whitson, its clear that her bond with her fellow astronauts is very real.

Maybe its becauseas she points out to Fyodor Yurchikhin, the cosmonaut relieving her of commandsome of them have been working together for a long time. Many astronauts, even famous ones, spend just a short time in the spaceflight business. John Glenn, for example, was an astronaut for only five years, Sally Ride for just nine. Whitson has worked in and around NASA for more than 30 years, virtually her entire career, including serving, before she became an astronaut, as the project scientist for the shuttle-Mir program in the 1990s. Shes married to a NASA biomedical researcher. If anyones entitled to call it the NASA family, Whitson is.

Speaking of families, another time-honored Russian spaceflight tradition is the phone call to the ground after a Soyuz docks with the station, so the families and friends of the astronauts and cosmonauts can check in with their loved ones at the start of their long stay in orbit. Heres the scene from last Friday, right after Sergey Ryazanskiy, NASAs Randy Bresnik, and veteran Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli (at 60, the oldest station crew member yet) arrived on board:

We may not see many more of these family calls to Moscow, once ferry flights on U.S. commercial spaceships begin in the next year or two. Ill miss them.

At least well be watching the dockings in HD, though. Fridays docking to the station was captured with new, high-quality cameras on the station, and the detail, as you can see, is noticeably better than it used to be.

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Comings and Goings in the NASA Family - Air & Space Magazine

TAMPA BAY, Fla. - As the excitement surrounding the upcoming solar eclipse continues to grow, the interest in finding the best and safest way to view the moment is all the talk.

On August 21, 2017, the moon will mask the sun for a rare total solar eclipse over North America. The moon will completely cover the sun and residents spanning from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina will be able to see the sun's full corona. Other residents outside of this path will be able to see the partial solar eclipse as the moon covers part of the sun's disk. Learn more about the Eclipse here.

Solar Eclipse Headlines:

NASA wants to make sure you're wearing the right kind of eclipse glasses to watch the astronomical moment. Here are the guidelines for official eclipse viewing glasses:

NASA is warning there are unsafe solar glasses being distributed. Check this document to make sure you have NASA approved glasses.

The American Astronomical Society has verified the following five manufacturers that meet the ISO 12312-2 international standard for these products:

An alternative method for safe viewing of the partially eclipsed sun is pinhole projection. For example, cross the outstretched, slightly open fingers of one hand over the outstretched, slightly open fingers of the other. With your back to the sun, look at your hands shadow on the ground. The little spaces between your fingers will project a grid of small images on the ground, showing the sun as a crescent during the partial phases of the eclipse. (Source: Eclipse2017.nasa.gov/safety)

Moral of the story, check your eclipse glasses for these requirements and if you don't have one of the approved pair of eclipse glasses, do not look at the eclipse without protection, or you could damage your eyesight.

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Eclipse Viewing Tip: Make sure you have NASA approved solar eclipse glasses - ABC Action News

On July 20, 1969, man was on the moon.

"The eagle has landed." "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot." The world breathed a sigh of relief and celebrated maybe no group more so than the people inside the Apollo mission control room inside Building 30 of the Johnson Space Center, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

Johnson Space Center

The room is sacred to Gene Kranz, now 83, who was NASA's flight director during the Gemini and Apollo missions. "We won the battle for space in this room and we captured the high ground and we did not surrender it during our tour," Kranz said.

It was Kranz who was in charge when an explosion aboard Apollo 13 nearly cost the lives of its three astronauts. That high drama was featured in the movie "Apollo 13."

NASA used the mission control room with its monochrome computer monitors and rotary dial telephones starting in 1965. It went dark in 1992, well into the shuttle program.

CBS News

Since then, the room has been designated a national historic landmark, but you'd never know from the looks of it. Houston, we have a problem: decay from years of neglect and souvenir-seekers who walked off with pieces of space history.

When he sees the room, Kranz said he feels "a combination of frustration, anger, resentment."

CBS News

"This is not appropriate. This is where our generation made history. This is where Apollo fulfilled the challenge issued by President Kennedy," Kranz said.

It's an insult to everyone who worked in the room to make history, he said. With NASA's slashed budget, the agency's priority is the future of space travel, not preserving its past. Space Center Houston, the non-profit that runs the visitors center here, has launched a $5 million fundraising campaign to restore this room to its 1960s glory. Space Center Houston CEO William Harris detailed for us how this iconic part of NASA's past will have a brighter future. "All the consoles have to be removed, restored, buttons replaced The screens will need to be redone," Harris said. "All of this is really old. But our commitment is to restore it back to the way it was." Kranz wants to experience one more thrill in this room to see it restored and he's bringing his legendary can-do spirit to the project. "This is a room that will now represent the best American had to offer," Kranz said. "Failure is not an option."

It's not an option, and there is a deadline. Organizers have until late summer to raise the $5 million to get the restoration work done in time for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 2019.

2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Wednesday August 2 2017

Nasa flag-bearer Raila Odinga addresses a rally at Ogembo township in Bomachoge, Kisii County, on August 1, 2017. PHOTO | BENSON MOMANYI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

National Super Alliance leaders on Tuesday returned to Kisii County, seeking to neutralise President Uhuru Kenyattas Jubilee campaigns there on Monday.

The Nasa leaders, led by presidential candidate Raila Odinga, called for a huge turnout on election day on Tuesday, but urged vigilance on the vote count.

I ask you to keep an eye on the polling stations until votes are announced; this time we are not going to let any vote get lost, said Mr Odinga at a rally in Masimba, Nyaribari Masaba constituency.

Mr Odinga reiterated his controversial call for guarding votes, which the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has argued should be left to accredited party agents.

Addressing crowds in the wake of the killing of the polls agency ICT boss Chris Msando, the opposition leadersaccused the government of complicity in the murder.

Mr Odinga said Nasa will win even if all of us are assassinated.

We need investigations to be conducted quickly so that Kenyans can know the truth. We will win and do so with a landslide, said Mr Odinga.

Nasaco-principals Musalia Mudavadi and Kalonzo Musyoka said the killing of Mr Msando epitomised the ugly face of political assassinations.

We should not be talking about assassinations and extra-judicial killings in a democracy like Kenya, Mr Musyoka told a mammoth crowd at Gusii stadium.

Mr Mudavadi and Mr Moses Wetangula called for open and speedy investigationsinto the killing so that Kenyans can know the truth.

The function was attended by, among others, Kitutu South MP, also the Nasa chief campaigner in Kisii Richard Onyonka, Kisii Governor James Ongwae and his deputy Joash Maangi.

Others were senatorial and woman rep candidates Prof Sam Ongeri and Ms Janet Ongera, respectively.

Earlier, the leaders had divided themselves into two groups, one led by Mr Odinga and the other by Mr Mudavadi as they criss-crossed the county in their last pitch ahead of the elections five days away.

One team that was led by Mr Mudavadi toured Magenche, Etago and Suneka before converging with Mr Odingas team at Gusii stadium for the main rally.

At Masimba, where Mr Odinga started his campaign, the opposition leader said President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto had presided over the theft of more than Sh350 billion in the years they have been in power.

Mr Odinga said IDPs from other regions were paid as much as Sh400,000 and given land, while those from Kisii were given a paltry Sh50,000.

They are saying they have closed the IDPs file when many of them are still languishing in poverty, he said.

He flew by helicopter to various places where he criticised Jubilee for allegedly telling falsehoods about its development record.

Mr Odinga assured the electorate that Nasa will ensure all projects that stalled will be completed when it takes over power.

We managed to do most of the roads Jubilee is claiming to have done and we assure you we will complete them, he said.

Mr Odinga said the Nasa government will increase funding for counties from the current 15 per cent to 45 per cent to spur development in the grassroots.

President orders "speedy investigations" into the death of IEBC ICT manager and Carol Ngumbu.

The motorcyles you ride are Jubilee property, President Kenyatta tells provincial administrators.

They accuse management of the State corporation of failing to ink their CBA.

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Nasa seeks to seal Kisii vote ahead of August 8 polls - Daily Nation

NASA has announced the latest beneficiaries of its Small Business Technology Transfer program, which solicits and funds small-scale research projects outside the agency but relevant to its interests. Nineteen projects in a variety of fields are being awarded a total of $14.3 million.

Those 19 were selected from an initial pool of 56 announced last year; those Phase I companies and institutions were awarded up to $125,000 to pursue their proposals, and would have reported on their progress to NASA later. The surviving 19 Phase II projects presumably showed enough promise that theyll get up to $750,000 to keep going.

You can peruse them all here, but here are the five I found most interesting:

These projects and the other 14 will prove themselves (or not) over the next two years, after which they will encounter (predictably) the Post Phase II Initiatives and Opportunities. Think your company or research might be a good match? Check out the STTR/SBIR basics page and get applyin.

See the article here:

NASA puts $14M in funding towards soft robots, flash lidar and other ... - TechCrunch

News & Observer

NASA: Not all solar eclipse viewing glasses are safe News & Observer With the solar eclipse less than a month away, eclipse viewing glasses are in high demand among people hoping to get a glimpse of the rare event. But NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, warns that many eclipse viewing glasses on ... NASA issues safety warning for unsafe eclipse glassesWAVY-TV Want to be a scientist for the day? NASA wants your help during the solar eclipseSacramento Bee NASA warns of unsafe viewing glasses ahead of solar eclipse10TV FOX 8 News WVUE-TV -WCNC -Safety | Total Solar Eclipse 2017 all 213 news articles »

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NASA: Not all solar eclipse viewing glasses are safe - News & Observer

An asteroid will whizz by Earth on Oct. 12 without incident and NASA intends to keep it that way.

The asteroid, dubbed 2012 TC4, measures between 30 and 100 feet across potentially making it larger than the 65-foot space rock that blew up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013.

This latest rock is estimated to pass within 4,200 miles of Earth, although scientists say it could end up as far away at 170,000 miles two-thirds of the distance from Earth to the moon.

Either way, the asteroid will be used as a trial for NASAs planetary defense system. The system is meant to be an early detector of a possible calamitous asteroid or comet, potentially allowing NASA enough time to divert it, weaken its impact or warn us of our doom.

The question is: How prepared are we for the next cosmic threat? Vishnu Reddy, a professor at the University of Arizona whos leading the asteroid observation campaign, told uanews.arizon.edu.

So we proposed an observational campaign to exercise the network and test how ready we are for a potential impact by a hazardous asteroid.

Details on what this system actually entails are unclear, but it will test precise orbit determination and international communications, according to NASA.

The effort involves more than a dozen observatories and labs around the world that have teamed up to collectively learn the strengths and limitations of our near-Earth object observation capabilities, Reddy said.

The asteroid last whipped by Earth in 2012 at about one-fourth the distance to the moon. NASA has stressed that 2012 TC4 poses zero threat to Earth.

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NASA will soon test its asteroid defense system - New York Post