1. NASA

Category Archives: NASA

NASA's Plans For The Future And Present

Posted on by

September 11, 2013

Image Credit: NASA

[ Watch The Video - NASA From the Ground Up ]

NASA

Space exploration has always created benefits for humankind from new technologies and discoveries, to deepening international relationships and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

For more than 50 years, NASA has led the world in space with missions to extend human reach and transform our capabilities and understanding. Were currently implementing an ambitious plan that integrates NASAs activities across exploration and science. It focuses on new technologies to carry out robotic and human missions to the moon, an asteroid and Mars, while enabling us to live and work in space for the long term. This week, I will join with others in government, industry and academia at the AIAA 2013 conference in San Diego to discuss NASAs plans for the future and present a paper that captures the meaning of the phrase Off the Earth, For the Earth from the International Space Station Expedition 34 patch.

As we prepare to explore farther into our solar system, we have to do things differently. Thats why were partnering with American companies to conduct routine flights to the International Space Station, so that NASA can focus on developing the spacecraft and technology to carry out deep space missions. And its why weve worked so hard to create a vision of shared exploration objectives with our international partners, recently detailed in the Global Exploration Roadmap.

Advances weve made in robotics and human spaceflight enable us to begin developing a mission to capture and redirect an asteroid closer to Earth so astronauts can visit it, but this is only a beginning. Our new asteroid mission and many related activities will not only take us to new destinations more importantly, theyll lay the groundwork for exploration achievements for years to come.

Web feature: Whats Next for NASA?

Off the Earth, For the Earth offers an animating title for the framework for Americas space program based on todays needs and tomorrows opportunities. The pieces to begin implementing this framework exist starting with the full realization of the potential of the International Space Station. It also includes the groundbreaking work now taking place at NASA and around the world to accelerate the pace of technology development and solidify the role of commercial providers of cargo and soon, crew, transportation to low Earth orbit.

See more here:

NASA's Plans For The Future And Present

Nasa joins Instagram: the best pictures so far

Posted on by

"We believe we have some of the most engaging images on and off the planet -- and we cant wait to engage with Instagrammers."

Nasa photographed the launch of the moon orbit called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE)

(Nasa/Chris Perry

LADEE will gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust.

Nasa also posted an image of Earth as seen by the Geostationary Satellite system (GOES). Geostationary describes an orbit in which a satellite is always in the same position with respect to the rotating Earth.

This allows GOES to hover continuously over one position on the Earth's surface. GOES satellites watch out for atmospheric "triggers" for severe weather conditions such as tornadoes.

(Nasa/NOAA GOES Project)

An Instagrammed image from the Hubble Space telescope captured a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Antlia, other wise known as the Air Pump.

The galaxy lies more than 110 million light-years away from Earth.

(Hubble/European Space Agency and Nasa)

Read more from the original source:

Nasa joins Instagram: the best pictures so far

NASA TV Coverage Set for Orbital Sciences Demonstration Mission

Posted on by

NASA Television will air pre- and post-launch news conferences and provide live launch coverage of Orbital Sciences Corporation's cargo resupply demonstration mission to the International Space Station.

The company's Cygnus cargo carrier will be the first spacecraft launched to the orbiting laboratory from Virginia. It will be launched aboard Orbital's Antares rocket at 11:16 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Sept. 17, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.

NASA TV launch commentary coverage will begin at 10:45 a.m. Video b-roll of launch preparations will air at 10:30 a.m. A post-launch news briefing will begin at approximately 1 p.m. at the Wallops Visitors Center. NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will operate a phone bridge for the pre- and post-launch briefings. To participate in any briefing by phone, reporters must call the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 at least 15 minutes before the start of the briefing.

Cygnus will deliver about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food and clothing, to the Expedition 37 crew aboard the space station. Future flights of Cygnus will significantly increase NASA's ability to deliver new science investigations to the nation's only laboratory in microgravity.

NASA will preview the launch and mission in a news conference at 2 p.m. Monday, Sept. 16, at the Wallops Visitors Center. NASA TV and the agency's website will air the briefing live with question and answer capability available from participating NASA centers or on the telephone. Questions also can be asked during the briefings via Twitter by using the hashtag #askNASA.

The briefing participants are:

-- Alan Lindenmoyer, program manager, NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program -- Frank Culbertson, executive vice president, Orbital Sciences Corp. -- Mike Pinkston, Antares program manager, Orbital Sciences Corp. -- Sarah Daugherty, test director, NASA's Wallops Flight Facility

The deadline to apply for accreditation to attend the launch is 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12 for media who are U.S. citizens. The deadline has passed for non-U.S. citizens. For additional information regarding accreditation contact Keith Koehler at keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov.

Rendezvous with the space station is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 22. NASA Television coverage will begin at 4:30 a.m. and will continue through the capture and installation of the Cygnus spacecraft. Capture is scheduled for about 7:17 a.m. with installation of the craft beginning about 9 a.m.

View post:

NASA TV Coverage Set for Orbital Sciences Demonstration Mission

From T-3 Minutes – Minotaur V Rocket Launches NASA’s LADEE Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft From Wallops – Video

Posted on by


From T-3 Minutes - Minotaur V Rocket Launches NASA #39;s LADEE Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft From Wallops
From T-3 Minutes through LADEE separation (T+23 minutes) - A Minotaur V Rocket Launches NASA #39;s LADEE Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft From Wallops Island, Virginia a...

By: Matthew Travis

Link:

From T-3 Minutes - Minotaur V Rocket Launches NASA's LADEE Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft From Wallops - Video

NASA's black-hole-hunter catches its first 10 supermassive black holes

Posted on by

Sep. 9, 2013 NASA's black-hole-hunter spacecraft, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has "bagged" its first 10 supermassive black holes. The mission, which has a mast the length of a school bus, is the first telescope capable of focusing the highest-energy X-ray light into detailed pictures.

The new black-hole finds are the first of hundreds expected from the mission over the next two years. These gargantuan structures -- black holes surrounded by thick disks of gas -- lie at the hearts of distant galaxies between 0.3 and 11.4 billion light-years from Earth.

"We found the black holes serendipitously," explained David Alexander, a NuSTAR team member based in the Department of Physics at Durham University in England and lead author of a new study appearing Aug. 20 in The Astrophysical Journal. "We were looking at known targets and spotted the black holes in the background of the images."

Additional serendipitous finds such as these are expected for the mission. Along with the mission's more targeted surveys of selected patches of sky, the NuSTAR team plans to comb through hundreds of images taken by the telescope with the goal of finding black holes caught in the background.

Once the 10 black holes were identified, the researchers went through previous data taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite, two complementary space telescopes that see lower-energy X-ray light. The scientists found that the objects had been detected before. It wasn't until the NuSTAR observations, however, that they stood out as exceptional, warranting closer inspection.

By combining observations taken across the range of the X-ray spectrum, the astronomers hope to crack unsolved mysteries of black holes. For example, how many of them populate the universe?

"We are getting closer to solving a mystery that began in 1962," said Alexander. "Back then, astronomers had noted a diffuse X-ray glow in the background of our sky but were unsure of its origin. Now, we know that distant supermassive black holes are sources of this light, but we need NuSTAR to help further detect and understand the black hole populations."

This X-ray glow, called the cosmic X-ray background, peaks at the high-energy frequencies that NuSTAR is designed to see, so the mission is key to identifying what's producing the light. NuSTAR can also find the most hidden supermassive black holes, buried by thick walls of gas.

"The highest-energy X-rays can pass right through even significant amounts of dust and gas surrounding the active supermassive black holes," said Fiona Harrison, a study co-author and the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, and Spitzer missions also provide missing pieces in the puzzle of black holes by weighing the mass of their host galaxies.

See the rest here:

NASA's black-hole-hunter catches its first 10 supermassive black holes


  1. NASA