April 25, 2013

Image Caption: The public will be able to fly along with NASA's Voyager spacecraft as the twin probes head towards interstellar space, which is the space between stars. As indicated in this artist's concept, a regularly updated gauge using data from the two spacecraft will indicate the levels of particles that originate from far outside our solar system and those that originate from inside our solar bubble. Those are two of the three signs scientists expect to see in interstellar space. The other sign is a change in the direction of the magnetic field. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A gauge on the Voyager home page tracks levels of two of the three key signs scientists believe will appear when the spacecraft leave our solar neighborhood and enter interstellar space.

When the three signs are verified, scientists will know that one of the Voyagers has hurtled beyond the magnetic bubble the sun blows around itself, which is known as the heliosphere.

The gauge indicates the level of fast-moving charged particles, mainly protons, originating from far outside the heliosphere, and the level of slower-moving charged particles, also mainly protons, from inside the heliosphere. If the level of outside particles jumps dramatically and the level of inside particles drops precipitously, and these two levels hold steady, that means one of the spacecraft is closing in on the edge of interstellar space. These data are updated every six hours.

Scientists then need only see a change in the direction of the magnetic field to confirm that the spacecraft has sailed beyond the breath of the solar wind and finally arrived into the vast cosmic ocean between stars. The direction of the magnetic field, however, requires periodic instrument calibrations and complicated analyses. These analyses typically take a few months to return after the charged particle data are received on Earth.

Voyager 1, the most distant human-made spacecraft, appears to have reached this last region before interstellar space, which scientists have called the magnetic highway. Inside particles are zooming out and outside particles are zooming in. However, Voyager 1 has not yet seen a change in the direction of the magnetic field, so the consensus among the Voyager team is that it has not yet left the heliosphere.

Voyager 2, the longest-operating spacecraft, but not as distant as Voyager 1, does not yet appear to have reached the magnetic highway, though it has recently seen some modest drops of the inside particle level.

NASAs Eyes on the Solar System program, a Web-based, video-game-like tool to journey with NASAs spacecraft through the solar system, has added a Voyager module that takes viewers along for a ride with Voyager 1 as it explores the outer limits of the heliosphere. Time has been sped up to show one day per second. Rolls and other maneuvers are incorporated into the program, based on actual spacecraft navigation data. The charged particle data are also shown. Visit that module at: http://1.usa.gov/13uYqGP .

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NASA Invites You To Fly Along With Voyager

OVNIS TOP SECRET 16 avril 2013 A l #39;Attention du GEIPAN de la NASA des HUMAINS /CASSIA John
Si vous ne parvenez pas dcrypter, contactez les FTPL. Cassia John.

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OVNIS TOP SECRET 16 avril 2013 A l'Attention du GEIPAN de la NASA des HUMAINS /CASSIA John - Video

X-15 Flight by Capt. Joe Engle 1964 NASA-USAF; Edwards Air Force Base X-15A-3 56-6672 NB-52B
more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/ X-15 simulator training, and a flight of the X-15A-3 ( 56-6672 ) by then Air Force Captain Joe Engle, (later a Space S...

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X-15 Flight by Capt. Joe Engle 1964 NASA-USAF; Edwards Air Force Base X-15A-3 56-6672 NB-52B - Video

Antares Anticipating Launch on This Week @ NASA
The Antares rocket remains at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport #39;s Pad 0-A at Wallops Flight Facility -- awaiting launch on its first test flight under NASA...

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Antares Anticipating Launch on This Week @ NASA - Video

BELhospice - Nasa prica
Video klip o pacijentima o kojima brine BELhospice.

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BELhospice - Nasa prica - Video

NASA Mighty Eagle SLI flight (full length)
Mighty Eagle 100 #39; flight for Student Launch Initiative on 4/19/13 Video shot from a Quadcopter UAV Shot with a GoPro Hero3 @ 1080p60 No cropping or deshaking...

By: Garrick Merrill

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NASA Mighty Eagle SLI flight (full length) - Video

NASA LABAS SI MIKAY! XD
TANGGAL WIG GWIYOMI VERSION BY MACKY LOPEZ Please Watch Macky Lopez on Poptalk (GMA NEWS TV) April 30! and her GandangGabiVice Guesting! soon! Follow me on T...

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NASA LABAS SI MIKAY! XD - Video

WASHINGTON A NASA plan to send astronauts to an asteroid was met with skepticism Wednesday when NASA Chief Charlie Bolden presented the idea to top space officials in Congress though their doubts may not be enough to sink the program.

The asteroid mission, unveiled a few weeks ago, would send a NASA probe to capture a small asteroid and drag it to a point near the moon so astronauts riding a new rocket and capsule could visit it, possibly as soon as 2021.

"The goal is [to] remain the world's leader in exploration," Bolden said. But members of the U.S. House science committee took issue with the project's cost and feasibility and questioned why the agency wasn't planning a return to the moon en route to an eventual mission to Mars.

The NASA chief delivered a blunt reply: It's all NASA can afford.

"I need money to go to the moon," Bolden said.

As part of its 2014 budget proposal, the White House wants NASA to spend $105 million next year to begin planning the asteroid mission, which could cost upward of $2.6 billion.

Broadly, the administration envisions sending a probe as soon as 2017 to capture a 25-foot, 500-ton asteroid and tug it near the moon possibly to a spot about 277,000 miles from Earth that would use competing gravitational forces to allow it to "sit" there.

Astronauts flying NASA's new Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket then would visit it to take samples and possibly set foot on its surface.

In addition to scientific benefits, Bolden said an asteroid trip would serve as a steppingstone for an eventual Mars mission while also teaching NASA engineers how to divert an asteroid in case one ever threatened Earth. He called it "an unprecedented technological challenge."

Lawmakers, however, wanted to know whether NASA would learn more and do more by going back to the moon instead.

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NASA chief: Visiting an asteroid is all we can afford

NASA is exploring ways to send a flotilla of small satellites to a destination, rather than one large orbiter. In a first test, three tiny satellites are now on orbit and beeping back at Earth. Why the idea could be an aid to scientific research.

That's no smart phone in your pocket or purse; that's the heart and soul of a satellite.

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Three satellites, to be exact, released into orbit on Sunday with the launch of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s new Antares rocket, the latest addition to NASA's stable of space-station resupply vehicles.

The tiny satellites, each occupying a cube four inches on a side, represent an experiment in using cheap but powerful off-the-shelf technology to run a new generation of small, affordable science satellites.

Two of these orbiters, which NASA has dubbed Phonesat 1.0, use the electronics and sensors packaged in a Google Nexus One smart phone to serve as on-board computers. Accelerometers that normally tell the phones which way you've oriented the screen now gather information on the satellites' orientation in space. And the cameras? Yep, snapshots of Earth from 156 miles up.

The third satellite, a prototype for Phonesat 2.0, uses a more powerful Nexus S, which also has a built-in gyroscope. Ultimately, engineers plan to use that extra capability to control solar panels and to control the spacecraft's orientation, instead of just recording it.

The notion of using a smart phone's innards to run a satellite grew out of informal hallway chatter, recalls James Cockrell, project manager for Phonesat at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.

The benchmark people often use as a point of comparison for the power of their favorite laptop or smart phone is the primitive computing power used in the Apollo program, which landed humans on the moon and brought them back safely in the late 1960s and early '70s.

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Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

ORBITAL SELECTED BY NASA FOR TESS ASTROPHYSICS SATELLITE

-- Company to Serve as Industrial Partner to MIT and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Under Four-Year, $75 Million Contract --

(Dulles, VA 24 April 2013) - Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB), one of the world`s leading space technology companies, announced today that it has been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to design, manufacture, integrate and test a new astrophysics satellite that will perform a full-sky search for exoplanets around nearby stars. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) satellite program, which will be based on Orbital`s proven LEOStar-2 spacecraft platform, will be executed at Orbital`s satellite production and testing facility in Dulles, VA. The four-year contract is valued at approximately $75 million.

The mission of the TESS spacecraft is to provide prime exoplanet candidates for further characterization by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes in the future. The planned launch of the TESS spacecraft in mid-2017 is well matched to JWST`s scheduled launch in 2018 to maintain momentum in NASA`s exoplanet program.

"We are honored to have the opportunity to support MIT and Goddard in this pioneering astrophysics mission that will result in the first space-borne all-sky exoplanet transit survey," said Mr. Mike Miller, Orbital`s Senior Vice President of Science and Environmental Satellite Programs. "Our reliable and affordable line of LEOStar spacecraft, coupled with MIT`s world-class science leadership and Goddard`s experienced mission management team, will provide an innovative space science mission for NASA in the most cost-effective way possible."

Chosen for its scientific value and low-risk development plan, the TESS mission will perform an all-sky survey using an unique array of telescopes to discover exoplanets orbiting nearby stars and will seek to identify habitable, Earth-like planets. TESS will further the study of small exoplanets, first uncovered by NASA`s Kepler spacecraft, by examining an immense quantity of small planets that surround the sky`s brightest stars. The stars examined by Kepler are fainter and more difficult to study than those TESS will survey, and past ground-based observations have been limited to only giant exoplanets, thereby ensuring that TESS will provide a compelling new catalog of stars hosting transiting exoplanets, suitable for future missions to study.

The TESS mission was awarded under NASA`s Explorer series of lower cost and highly productive space science satellites. Orbital has built multiple Explorer satellites for NASA in the past, including the NuSTAR, Swift, GALEX, AIM and IBEX spacecraft, all of which are currently operational and providing valuable scientific data.

The TESS project is being led by Principal Investigator Dr. George Ricker of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, and mission management is performed by NASA`s Goddard Space Flight Center. The TESS mission features partners from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, NASA`s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, The Aerospace Corporation, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The two-year astrophysics mission will be funded by a $200 million award from NASA.

The TESS mission will rely on Orbital`s LEOStar-2 platform, a flexible, high-performance spacecraft for space and Earth science, remote sensing and other applications. Spacecraft built on the LEOStar-2 bus have such performance options as redundancy, propulsion capability, high data rate communications, and high-agility/high-accuracy pointing. The LEOStar-2 series of spacecraft have supported multiple missions for commercial and government customers over the past 15 years.

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Orbital Sciences Corporation : ORBITAL SELECTED BY NASA FOR TESS ASTROPHYSICS SATELLITE

NASA

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is among NASA's fleet powered by Plutonium-236.

By Mike Wall Space.com

NASA will now foot the entire bill for the United States' production of plutonium-238 spacecraft fuel, which recently started up again for the first time in a quarter-century.

The space agency had been splitting costs for the reboot with the U.S. Department of Energy, which actually produces plutonium-238. But NASA is the only projected user of the stuff, so the arrangement changed in the White House's federal budget request for 2014, which was unveiled earlier this month.

"Since the (Obama) administration has a 'user pays' philosophy, we are now in a position to pay for basically the entire enterprise, including the base infrastructure at DOE," NASA Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson said in an April 10 press conference. "We'll be partnering with DOE in the next couple of months to figure out how to best do this, and how to streamline the program to produce plutonium-238."[Nuclear Generators Power NASA Probes (Infographic)]

Plutonium-238 is not a bomb-making material, but it is radioactive, emitting heat that can be converted to electricity using a device called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. For decades, RTGs have powered NASA probes to destinations in deep space, where sunlight is too weak and dispersed to be of much use to a robot.

For example, the agency's twin Voyager spacecraft, which are knocking on the door of interstellar space, are both RTG-powered. So is the Mars rover Curiosity, whose observations recently helped scientists determine that the Red Planet could once have supported microbial life.

The DOE stopped producing Pu-238 in 1988, after which NASA began sourcing the fuel from Russia. But the agency received its last Russian shipment in 2010, and supplies have been dwindling ever since, worrying many scientists and space-exploration advocates.

So NASA and the DOE have been working together on a Pu-238 restart, which officials from both agencies have estimated will cost between $75 million and $90 million over five years.

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NASA now footing entire bill for plutonium production

Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt.

The phones ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch).

Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed.

"The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success."

Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal.

Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead.

Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here.

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Why NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space

Brian Fung/Flickr/NASA/JPL

Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt.

The phones -- ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google -- are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch).

Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed.

"The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success."

Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal.

Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead.

Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here.

More From The Atlantic

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NASA Sends Cell Phones (Regular Old Cell Phones) Into Space

Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt.

The phones ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch).

Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed.

"The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success."

Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal.

Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead.

Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here.

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NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space

George Brecht performances at NASA
Another Fluxconcert in Amsterdam (Googleism), Part 2 1. George Brecht, #39;Piano Piece, A Vase of Flowers on (to) a Piano #39; by Koen Nutters 2. George Brecht, #39;En...

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George Brecht performances at NASA - Video

ufo 19 abril 2013 soho stereo nasa
ufos ovnis 19 abril 2013, satelite stereo nasa, o que son ?

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ufo 19 abril 2013 soho stereo nasa - Video

NASA #39;s Kepler Mission Discovers Its Smallest #39;Habitable Zone #39; Planets to Date
NASA #39;s Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance fro...

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NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its Smallest 'Habitable Zone' Planets to Date - Video

UAS UAV Video Support Flight for NASA MSFC Mighty Eagle Robotic Lander Demonstration
Take-off is at 0:35. This is a video from a GoPro camera attached to our unmanned aerial system (UAS) quadcopter UAV during a coordinated flight with the NAS...

By: Roscket Tasartir

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UAS UAV Video Support Flight for NASA MSFC Mighty Eagle Robotic Lander Demonstration - Video

Antares and The Future on This Week @ NASA
Now that the Antares rocket and its simulated Cygnus spacecraft have successfully test-launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Flight Fa...

By: NASAtelevision

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Antares and The Future on This Week @ NASA - Video

NASA | SDO: Three Years of Sun in Three Minutes
In the three years since it first provided images of the sun in the spring of 2010, NASA #39;s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has had virtually unbroken covera...

By: NASAexplorer

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NASA | SDO: Three Years of Sun in Three Minutes - Video