One of the most enduring and inspiring side effects of space exploration is the pictures -- pictures of Earth taken from new heights; pictures of Earth's neighbors, taken from new angles; pictures that resemble, and in fact are, art. They are magical. They are mysterious. They are weird. They suggest, if they don't fully embody, why we go to the trouble of exploring in the first place.

And they often resemble art of a more earthly variety.Below is a collection of images -- some of them created byprolific space photographer Chris Hadfield, taken from the International Space Station(we'll call those "NASA"), some of them created by nearly-as-prolific painters here on Earth (we'll call those "MOMA"). Here's a game: Can you tell the difference between the two?

Scroll down for the key.

1. NASA or MOMA?

2. NASA or MOMA?

3. NASA or MOMA?

4. NASA or MOMA?

5. NASA or MOMA?

6. NASA or MOMA?

Continue reading here:

NASA or MOMA?

A vintage logo for NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.NASA

NASA has locked its facilities to foreigners, disabled online research databases and ordered a complete review of access by foreign nationals to its facilities, as allegations swirled of foreign spies within the space agency.

The reports came to a head this weekend with the arrest of former contract worker Bo Jiang as he was leaving the country with a one-way ticket to China -- carrying several data storage devices, including hard drives, flash drives and computers that likely contained sensitive information.

- NASA administrator Charles Bolden

In testimony Wednesday before Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency, NASA chief Charles Bolden said associate administrator Robert Lightfoot would head a complete investigation into the issue. External investigations would likely follow.

We dont anticipate having a Chinese visitor to a NASA facility any time soon, he said.

Ive ordered a complete review of the access that foreign nationals are granted at NASA facilities, Bolden said. Within a week we probably will ask [the National Academy of Public Administration] to do an external review, he added.

Jiang was far from the only foreign national working in NASA facilities around the country. There are 281 foreign nationals with physical access to the agencys facilities including 192 Chinese nationals, he said.

The number of U.S. citizens working in Chinese facilities?

To my knowledge, we have no NASA personnel who are working in the Peoples Republic of China, Bolden said.

See more here:

Seeking spies, NASA locks out foreigners

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft the farthest-flung object created by human hands has left the solar system forever, scientists say.

On Aug. 25, 2012, 35 years after the Voyager 1 missionlaunched, Earth's most distant spacecraft detected a sharp change in the intensity of fast-moving charged particles called cosmic rays, suggesting it had left the outermost reaches of the heliosphere marking the edge of the solar system.

"Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere," said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, in a statement.

Though Voyager 1 has apparently exited the sun's sphere of influence, the scientists still don't know for sure whether the probe has entered interstellar space or a mysterious in-between region beyond the solar system.

"It's outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that," Webber said. "We're in a new region. And everything we're measuring is different and exciting."

Webber and his colleagues noticed the dramatic cosmic ray signal drop when Voyager 1was about 11 billion miles (17.7 billion kilometers) from the sun. Anomalous cosmic rays trapped in the heliosphere's outer reaches dropped to 1 percent of their previous level. Meanwhile, galactic cosmic rays, which come from outside the solar system, jumped to twice their previous levels, reaching their highest levels since the spacecraft launched, researchers said.

The findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Voyager 1 was actually the second of NASA's two Voyager spacecraft to launch on historic tours of the solar system. Voyager 2 blasted off on Aug. 20, 1977, with Voyager 1 following a few weeks later on Sept. 5 of that year.

Both spacecraft carry a gold-plated copper disc containing sounds and images of Earth. The golden record is about 12 inches (30 centimeters) across and attached to the hull of each Voyager probe. The records are engraved with a diagram that explains how to play them and where Earth can be found, just in case the Voyager probes are discovered by intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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NASA 's Voyager 1 Probe Has Left Solar System: Study

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA has shut down access to an online database and banned new requests from Chinese and some other foreign nationals seeking access to its facilities amid mounting concerns about espionage and export control violations, the U.S. space agency's administrator said on Wednesday.

The security measures include a complete ban on remote computer access by Chinese and some other non-U.S. contractors already working at NASA centers, agency chief Charles Bolden said at a congressional oversight hearing in Washington.

The tightening of security follows the arrest on Saturday of Chinese national Bo Jiang, a former NASA contractor. He was attempting to return to China with "a large amount of information technology that he may not have been entitled to possess," said Representative Frank Wolf, a Republican whose Virginia district includes the NASA Langley Research Center, where Jiang worked.

The FBI arrested Jiang at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, where he had boarded a flight to Beijing, court papers provided by Wolf's office show.

Jiang was arraigned on Monday in U.S. district court in Norfolk, Virginia. A detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

He is charged with lying to federal law enforcement agents about computer hardware he planned to take with him to China, the court documents show.

Wolf, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice and science, identified Jiang last week during another hearing on possible security lapses at NASA field centers.

"We know that China is an active, aggressive espionage threat," Wolf, a longtime China critic, said during Wednesday's hearing.

"A recent White House report said that the technologies NASA works on - aerospace and aeronautics - are those that the Chinese have most heavily targeted," Wolf added.

Original post:

NASA steps up security after arrest of former contractor

The head of NASA pledged today to carry out a full review of space agency security procedures after the arrest this month of a former contractor suspected of attempting to take sensitive technology back to his native China.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made the pledge to the House Committee on Appropriations today (March 20) during a hearing to answer lawmakers' questions about potential security lapses at space agency centers.

"It is critically important for us to have confidence in NASA's ability to protect sensitive assets from exploitation," said U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who originally announced the arrest of the former NASA contractor during a press conference on Monday (March 18).

Chinese spy at NASA?

At the center of the controversy is Bo Jiang, a Chinese national who worked as a contractor for the National Institute of Aerospace at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. He was arrested by FBI agents on March 16 onboard a plane bound for China departing from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. Officials say Jiang lied to law enforcement authorities about the electronics equipment he was carrying, and Wolf has accused him of being a spy for China.

"We know that China is an active, aggressive espionage threat," Wolf said today. "The technologies that NASA works on are those that the Chinese most heavily target."

The congressman even suggested that some of China's recent space advancements, which include launching astronauts to space on Chinese-built rockets and docking spacecraft in orbit, were enabled through Chinese theft of space technology. [China's 1st Manned Space Docking (Pictures)]

Bolden assured the lawmakers that he took their concerns seriously, and said he's taken several steps already to find security failures within the space agency.

"NASA takes all your allegations of security violations, and those from anyone else, very seriously," Bolden said. "This is about national security, not about NASA security, and I take that personally. I'm responsible and I will hold myself accountable once our reviews are completed."

New measures

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NASA Probes Security Lapses After Arrest of Ex-Contractor

One of the most enduring and inspiring side effects of space exploration is the pictures -- pictures of Earth taken from new heights; pictures of Earth's neighbors, taken from new angles; pictures that resemble, and in fact are, art. They are magical. They are mysterious. They are weird. They suggest, if they don't fully embody, why we go to the trouble of exploring in the first place.

And they often resemble art of a more earthly variety.Below is a collection of images -- some of them created byprolific space photographer Chris Hadfield, taken from the International Space Station(we'll call those "NASA"), some of them created by nearly-as-prolific painters here on Earth (we'll call those "MOMA"). Here's a game: Can you tell the difference between the two?

Scroll down for the key.

1. NASA or MOMA?

2. NASA or MOMA?

3. NASA or MOMA?

4. NASA or MOMA?

5. NASA or MOMA?

6. NASA or MOMA?

The rest is here:

NASA or MOMA? Play the Game!

NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Mars since it landed to much fanfare last August, is back on active status Tuesday, after a memory glitch set the robot back.

"We expect to get back to sample-analysis science by the end of the week," said Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper in a statement.

On February 28, controllers put the rover into "minimal activity safe mode" when they switched the machine's operations to a backup computer after detecting malfunctions in the primary computer's flash memory.

Engineers have diagnosed the software issue that prompted the alert last month, and are prepared to prevent it from happening again, NASA said.

The once-primary "A-side" computer is now back online as a backup, it added, and engineers are testing the B-side computer, which has taken over, by commanding a preliminary free-space move of the robotic arm.

The six-wheeled vehicle, with 10 scientific instruments on board, is the most sophisticated robot ever sent to another planet.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity mission, which is set to last at least two years, aims to study the Martian environment and to hunt for evidence of water in preparation for a possible future manned mission.

Last week, NASA announced that the rover's analysis of a rock sample had found conditions once suited to life on the Red Planet.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

At the televised press conference, the NASA team said this was the first definitive proof a life-supporting environment had existed beyond Earth.

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NASA 's Curiosity rover back online after memory glitch

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray.

That's about all the United States - or anyone for that matter - could do at this point about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth, Bolden told lawmakers at a U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee hearing on Tuesday.

An asteroid estimated to be have been about 55 feet in diameter exploded on February 15 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and damaged buildings. More than 1,500 people were injured.

Later that day, a larger, unrelated asteroid discovered last year passed about 17,200 miles from Earth, closer than the network of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.

The events "serve as evidence that we live in an active solar system with potentially hazardous objects passing through our neighborhood with surprising frequency," said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat.

"We were fortunate that the events of last month were simply an interesting coincidence rather than a catastrophe," said Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, who called the hearing to learn what is being done and how much money is needed to better protect the planet.

NASA has found and is tracking about 95 percent of the largest objects flying near Earth, those that are .62 miles or larger in diameter.

"An asteroid of that size, a kilometer or bigger, could plausibly end civilization," White House science advisor John Holdren told legislators at the same hearing.

But only about 10 percent of an estimated 10,000 potential "city-killer" asteroids, those with a diameter of about 165 feet have been found, Holdren added.

Continued here:

Large asteroid heading to Earth? Pray, says NASA

WASHINGTON A former NASA contractor was arrested March 16 by the FBI at Dulles International Airport outside Washington while trying to catch a one-way flight to his native China, U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) announced during a March 18 press conference here.

Bo Jiang, a Chinese national who worked as a contractor for the National Institute of Aerospace at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is to be arraigned March 18 in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va. Jiang was arrested because he "lied to federal law enforcement authorities" about computer hardware he planned to take with him to China, court papers provided to the press by Wolf's office allege.

According to a complaint signed by FBI special agent Rhonda Squizzero, Jiang was carrying a laptop, a computer hard drive and a subscriber identity module, or SIM, card that he did not tell law enforcement officials about during a consensual search aboard the plane that would have carried him to Beijing on March 16.

Wolf, the chairman of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, named Jiang last week during a hearing on alleged security violations at NASA field centers one of multiple hearings the China critic has held on the subject this year.

Jiang, Wolf first alleged at a March 7 press conference, previously had unauthorized access at Langley to NASA data and technology, some of which he might have brought back to China. Wolf cited whistle blower reports from NASA employees at the aeronautics research center as the source of this information.

Wolf added March 18 that a Langley official, who he declined to name, sought exceptions to NASA security protocol on Jiang's behalf. Wolf cited internal agency emails as the source of that information.

Meanwhile, Squizzero's complaint says the FBI reviewed the whistle blower reports it received from Wolf's office March 13 and found the information in them "reliable." The reports played a part in the bureau's decision to arrest Jiang, the complaint says.

At a March 13 hearing before the subcommittee Wolf chairs, Paul Martin, NASA's inspector general, said Langley's Office of Security Services was investigating whether there had been security breeches at the center, but that agency counterintelligence experts did not believe they were dealing with an espionage case.

Jiang is being held in Norfolk, Wolf said.

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

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Former NASA Contractor Arrested at Dulles Airport

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is back in action after being sidelined by a computer glitch for the second time in three weeks.

Curiosity went into a precautionary "safe mode" on Sunday (March 16), apparently because a file slated for deletion was connected to one still in use by the rover. But the mission team has now sorted things out and returned the robot to active status, NASA officials announced today (March 19).

The car-size Curiosity rover has not resumed science operations yet, however. It's still recovering from a separate memory glitch that knocked out its main, or A-side, computer in late February. Engineers swapped Curiosity over to its backup (B-side) computer at the time, spurring the rover to go into safe mode on Feb. 28.

Curiosity bounced back on March 2, only to stand down briefly once again a few days later to wait out a Mars-bound solar eruption. [Curiosity Rover's Latest Amazing Mars Photos]

Mission engineers continue to configure and check out the B-side computer, which remains the Curiosity rover's active computer. The A-side is now available as a backup if needed, officials said.

All of this drama has delayed Curiosity's activities at a Martian site called Yellowknife Bay, which mission scientists announced last week could have supported microbial life.

This discovery was based on Curiosity's study of material pulled out of a hole it drilled last month into a Yellowknife Bay rock. Further such analytical work should be possible soon, rover team members said.

"We expect to get back to sample-analysis science by the end of the week," Curiosity mission manager Jennifer Trosper, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

The rover team also wants to drill another hole in the Yellowknife Bay area to confirm and extend their previous observations. But this won't happen until May, partly because of an upcoming unfavorable planetary alignment.

Engineers won't send commands to the six-wheeled robot for most of April, because Mars and Earth will be on opposite sides of the sun during this time.

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NASA Reboots Mars Rover Curiosity After Computer Glitch

LOS ANGELES (AP) When NASAs twin spacecraft Ebb and Flow crashed into the moon last year, scientists did not count on seeing the aftermath.

On Tuesday, the space agency released before-and-after pictures of the lunar north pole where Ebb and Flow came to rest. Months after the back-to-back, mission-ending dives, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flew over the crash sites and imaged the final resting spots.

Ebb and Flow broke into smithereens upon impact and pinpointing the small craters they carved was difficult, said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, who operates the orbiters camera.

Even the missions chief scientist, Maria Zuber, was surprised when she saw the impact sites, which looked like dots.

I was expecting to see skid tracks, said Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ebb and Flow deliberately plunged into a lunar mountain in December after mapping the moons gravity field in unprecedented detail. The location was chosen because it was far away from the Apollo landings and other historic sites.

Since the finale occurred in the dark, telescopes from Earth did not capture it. Even the reconnaissance orbiter had to wait until sunlight streamed to the northern lunar region.

Launched in 2011, the spacecraft spent nearly a year flying in formation, exclusively collecting gravitational data. Among the discoveries: The lunar crust is much thinner and more battered than scientists had imagined.

Initially flying at 35 miles above the lunar surface, the spacecraft dipped lower and lower in altitude during the $487 million mission.

Scientists are still poring through the last chunk of data beamed back just before their demise.

More here:

NASA moon craft spots Ebb and Flow crash sites

At a House Committee hearing Tuesday, NASA administrator Charles Bolden Jr. was asked what America would do if a meteor similar to the one that hit in Russia on Feb. 15 was found to be on a path toward New York City, with impact three weeks away. His response? "Pray."

At the moment, we might be lucky to get even three weeks warning. The United States and the rest of the world simply do not have the ability to detect many "small" meteors like the one that exploded over Russia, which has been estimated at roughly 55 feet long. Donald Yeomans, Manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office and the author of "Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us," told CBSNews.com that there are a lot of these small meteors in orbit, and little early warning system in place to detect them.

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Yeomans said the most efficient way to find them would be a space-based infrared telescope. This has two benefits: One, the sun would not serve to prevent detection of some objects, and two, the infrared nature of the telescope would mean it would be effective in detecting them. (Part of the reason there was no warning for the Russia meteor is that the sun blinded the satellites.) CBS News contributor and City University of New York physics professor Michio Kaku calls such a telescope a "no brainer," in part because it comes at the relatively low cost of a few hundred million dollars.

"In Russia, if that asteroid had held intact for a few more seconds, it would have hit the ground with the force of 20 Hiroshima bombs," hesaid on CBS This Morning Tuesday, arguing the investment was worth it. Yeomans also called for ground-based wide field optical telescopes that could scan vast regions of the sky each night.

At Tuesday's hearing -- before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology -- Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, acknowledged that the United States had no idea the Russian meteor was coming.

There is currently a project under way that would likely provide at least some warning for U.S. cities: The ATLAS, or Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System, isbeing developedto offer a one-week warning for a 148-foot meteor impact or a three-week warning for a 450-foot meteor impact. (The project, which involves eight telescopes, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2015.) Still, that's only enough time to evacuate residents and shore up infrastructure, not to head off the object entirely.

The nation has done a far better job at tracking larger space threats than it has the smaller objects.

"An object larger than one kilometer, which would cause a global problem -- we've found 95 percent of them already and none of them represent a problem in the next 100 years," said Yeomans.A hit from such an asteroid would be the equivalent of thousands of nuclear bombs going off, he said. "Civilization would survive probably, but not in the form that we know it."

If such an object is discovered to be approaching Earth, the leading contender to address the problem would be to crash a spacecraft into it in order to slow it down and alter its course. "If you find it early enough, and you smack it early enough, you've got enough time," said Yeomans. The technology already exists to track and hit a space object: In 2005, NASA deliberately struck the Tempel 1 comet and photographed the impact. Still, for a large object, you'd need billions of dollars and, Yeomans estimates, at least a 10-year head start.

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NASA 's advice for near-term meteor strike: "Pray"

An eagle-eyed NASA spacecraft has spotted the tiny craters two moon probes created when they crashed intentionally into the lunar surface last year.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) snapped a series of photographs of the two 16.5-foot-wide (5 meters) craters, which mark where the space agency'stwin Grail probesended their gravity-mapping mission, and their operational lives, on Dec. 17.

"It was really fun to find the craters," Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), said today (March 19) during a press conference at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

It's a bit of a surprise that the LROC team was able to find the craters at all, Robinson added. LRO orbits the moon at an altitude of about 100 miles (160 kilometers), and the craters are small, nondescript features on a body riddled with impact scars. [Grail Probes' Final Moments (Video)]

The two Grail spacecraft known as Ebb and Flow slammed into a mountain near the lunar north pole at 3,771 mph (6,070 km/h), striking the lunar surface about 20 seconds apart. They were running out of fuel and were bound to crash at some point, so the Grail team brought them down in a controlled fashion away from areas of historical importance such as the Apollo landing sites.

The Grail craters first showed up in LROC photos from January, but images taken on Feb. 28 show them in much greater detail. Robinson and his team used these later photos to produce a topographic map of the impact zone, which was named after the late NASA astronaut Sally Ride,who had led Grail's educational MoonKAM project before her death last July.

This map revealed that the two craters are separated by about 7,250 feet (2,210 m) in straight-line distance and 985 feet (300 m) in altitude, researchers said. Surprisingly, the crashes ejected material that appears darker than the surrounding lunar dirt.

"Fresh impact craters on the moon are typically bright, but these may be dark due to spacecraft material being mixed with the ejecta," Robinson said in a statement. This material may be residual fuel left in the probes' lines, or bits of their carbon-fiber bodies, he added.

LRO also managed to observe the immediate aftermath of the Dec. 17 Grail impacts after performing some precision maneuvering, team members announced today.

LRO didn't get any images of the actual crashes, which occurred in the dark. But its ultraviolet imaging spectrograph did see emissions from mercury and atomic hydrogen in the ejected plumes when they rose high enough to reach sunlight.

More here:

Graves of Twin Moon Probes Spotted by NASA Spacecraft

Researchers practice collecting rocks outside the Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah.

Millionaire entrepreneur Dennis Tito got space enthusiasts excited last month when he announced a project to fly a married couple around Mars in 2018but NASA may have passed on a similar mission when it was proposed in the late 1990s by a prominent aerospace engineer.

According to Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society and a prominent advocate for exploration of the red planet, he had meetings with former NASA administrator Daniel Goldin in the late 1990s to pitch him a nearly identical mission to Tito's that would have launched in 2001 and cost the agency about $2 billion.

Dubbed Athena, the mission would have used technology that existed in 1996 on a two-year Mars flyby mission. Two astronauts would have orbited the planet for about a year, remotely-controlling rovers on the Martian surface with about 100 times less lag time than rovers controlled from Earth. The spaceship would never land on Mars, which Zubrin contends was Goldin's problem with the mission.

[POLL: Americans Support Manned Mars Mission]

"He passed on ithe said if we go to Mars, we want to land, we want to explore," he says. "I contend that this is a lot better than nothing. This would have been an icebreaker mission. It would have killed the dragons that suggest we can't go to Mars."

Zubrin and other commercial space advocates have grown fed up with NASA's timeline for getting back into the manned spaceflight game. Tito said as much in a press conference announcing his plan, which he estimates will cost between $1 and $2 million and is scheduled to happen in 2018.

"We have not sent humans beyond the moon in more than 40 years," he said. "I've been waiting, and a lot of people my age, have been waiting. And I think it's time to put an end to that lapse."

In a proposal paper published by Zubrin in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 1996, he admits that a flyby mission is "not an optimal mission plan for human exploration of Mars," but "is a way to get started," an opinion he still holds.

[NASA: Ancient Mars Had 'Key Ingredients for Life']

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NASA Passed on Mars Flyby Mission in 1990s

After a brief winter vacation, NASA's polar ice surveyors are back in business.

The 2013 IceBridge Arctic campaign plans to fly its first science flight tomorrow (March 20) from Thule, Greenland. The mission is a continuation of several years of effort to record changes in glacial and sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic after the ICEsat satellite stopped collecting data in 2009. A replacement satellite, ICEsat-2, is scheduled for launch in 2016. IceBridge, as its name suggests, is filling in the gap.

"The main goal is to build a long time series that documents the changes in thickness and snow cover of the Artic sea ice and changes in the glaciers and ice sheets of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic," project scientist Michael Studinger said in an email interview.

The IceBridge team was greeted with a surprise when they landed in Greenland this week, Studinger told OurAmazingPlanet. "When we arrived in Thule, temperatures were over 40 degrees Fahrenheit [4.4 degrees Celsius], which is unusually warm. Temperatures in mid-March are typically around minus 20 to minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit [minus 29 to minus 32 C], much colder. I saw meltwater on the sea ice yesterday before landing, which is very unusual that time of the year. We will see how this impacts our radar measurements," he said.

From NASA's P3-B research plane, scientists will measure the elevation and thickness of sea ice, as well as snow depth. A variety of radar, gravity and other instruments examines the ice from the surface to the bedrock or seafloor. Laser altimeters record changes in ice elevation.

The daily flights from Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, will help scientists track rapidly changing glaciers, such as the Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland, and Arctic sea ice, which reached a record minimum in September 2012, according to a NASA statement. As in previous years, IceBridge researchers plan to fly to Fairbanks, Alaska, and back, to measure sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

Data on sea ice thickness, which provides initial ice conditions for seasonal Arctic sea ice forecasts, will be released at the end of the campaign in May, NASA said.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us@OAPlanet, Facebookor Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

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NASA 's IceBridge Mission Braves the Arctic

Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) as seen by NASA STEREO
EDIT: There #39;s a newer version of this movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reizDW0Y-Rk%5D This is Comet PanSTARRS as seen by the NASA/STEREO-B satellite...

By: Sungrazer Comets

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Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) as seen by NASA STEREO - Video

Mar. 18, 2013 A massive backplane that will hold the primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope nearly motionless while it peers into space is another step closer to completion with the recent assembly of the support structure's wings.

The wings enable the mirror, made of 18 pieces of beryllium, to fold up and fit inside a 16.4-foot (5-meter) fairing on a rocket, and then unfold to 21 feet in diameter after the telescope is delivered to space. All that is left to build is the support fixture that will house an integrated science instrument module, and technicians will connect the wings and the backplane's center section to the rest of the observatory. The center section was completed in April 2012.

"This is another milestone that helps move Webb closer to its launch date in 2018," said Geoff Yoder, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope program director, NASA Headquarters, Washington.

Designed, built and set to be tested by ATK at its facilities in Magna, Utah, the wing assemblies are extremely complex, with 900 separate parts made of lightweight graphite composite materials using advanced fabrication techniques. ATK assembled the wing assemblies like a puzzle with absolute precision. ATK and teammate Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., completed the fabrication.

"We will measure the accuracy down to nanometers -- it will be an incredible engineering and manufacturing challenge," said Bob Hellekson, ATK's Webb Telescope program manager. "With all the new technologies that have been developed during this program, the Webb telescope has helped advance a whole new generation of highly skilled ATK engineers, scientists and craftsmen while helping the team create a revolutionary telescope."

When fully assembled, the primary mirror backplane support structure will measure about 24 feet by 21 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds. The backplane must be very stable, both structurally and thermally, so it does not introduce changes in the primary mirror shape, and holds the instruments in a precise position with respect to the telescope. While the telescope is operating at a range of extremely cold temperatures, from minus 406 to minus 360 degrees Fahrenheit, the backplane must not vary more than 38 nanometers (about one one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair). The thermal stability requirements for the backplane are unprecedented.

"Our ATK teammates demonstrated the thermal stability on test articles before building the wing assemblies with the same design, analysis, and manufacturing techniques. One of the test articles ATK built and tested is actually larger than a wing," said Charlie Atkinson, deputy Webb Optical Telescope Element manager for Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, Calif. "The mirrors are attached to the wings, as well as the rest of the backplane support structure, so the alignment is critical. If the wings distort, then the mirror distorts, and the images formed by the telescope would be distorted."

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built and observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars. The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

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NASA 's Webb Telescope gets its wings

Synopsis/Solicitation Combo - Mar 18, 2013

On-Line RFQ - Posted on Mar 18, 2013

PCBM SOW - Posted on Mar 18, 2013

General Information

Solicitation Number: NNH13462552Q Posted Date: Mar 18, 2013 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Mar 18, 2013 Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Original Response Date: Apr 08, 2013 Current Response Date: Apr 08, 2013 Classification Code: 18 -- Space vehicles NAICS Code: 336419

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Headquarters Acquisition Branch, Code 210.H, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Description

NASA/HQ has a requirement for a Contractor to provide and install a Passive Common Berthing Mechanism onto the inflatable section of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) payload.

This notice is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation, which is issued as a Request for Quotation (RFQ); quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. Offerors are required to use the On-Line RFQ system to submit their quote. The On-line RFQ system is linked above or it may be accessed at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=C&pin= . The information required by FAR Subpart 12.6 is included in the on-line RFQ.

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NASA Solicitation: Passive Common Berthing Mechanism - PCBM - Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM)

WASHINGTON NASA is implementing strict new limits on employee travel and explicitly banning agency-funded participation in several prominent conferences this spring as the agency absorbs a 5 percent budget cut imposed March 1 under sequestration.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden issued new guidance March 13 that states that "NASA funded participation will not be allowed" at either the National Space Symposium being held April 8-11 in Colorado Springs, Colo., or the American Astronautical Society's Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium being held March 19-21 in Greenbelt, Md., and the Goddard Memorial Dinner being held March 22 at the Washington Hilton here.SpaceNewsis a media sponsor of the National Space Symposium.

Restrictions are even tighter for travel outside the United States. Currently, no foreign conferences are approved for NASA participation. Meetings now off limits to NASA employees and their contractors include: the International Astronautical Federation's Spring Meeting in Paris, March 18-20; the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2013 in Vienna, April 7-12; the Sixth European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt, Germany, April 22-25; and the Rotary International Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, June 23-26.

For many NASA employees and contractors, the National Space Symposium is the year's must-attend space conference. NASA officials usually participate as exhibitors, speakers and attendees. [What NASA's 2013 Budget Pays For (Video)]

A NASA spokesman said agency employees and contractors may attend the National Space Symposium at their own expense but NASA will have no official presence at the conference. Bolden and his deputy, Lori Garver, were among NASA officials scheduled to speak at the annual meeting, which draws thousands of government and corporate space officials from around the world.

"[W]e won't have a booth there and NASA personnel aren't attending," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel wrote in a March 15 email.

"The show will go on," said Space Foundation spokeswoman Janet Stevens. "It will be awesome as usual. We will miss our NASA partners if they ultimately are not able to attend."

The Space Foundation still expects a large U.S. military presence, thanks to the symposium's proximity to Air Force Space Command, and the usual assortment of aerospace contractors, commercial companies and international space officials.

"It's a shame that at a U.S.-based space symposium our own space agency won't be represented when we have representation from all over the world," Stevens said.

NASA bought a large booth across from Boeing Co. at the front of the otherwise sold-out main exhibit hall. Stevens said booth fees are no longer refundable. She did not say how much NASA's booth cost. The smallest booths cost roughly $10,000.

See the article here:

Sequester Takes Bite Out of NASA Employees' Travel

Synopsis - Mar 15, 2013

Draft Document - Posted on Mar 15, 2013

General Information

Solicitation Number: RFI-GGSG-2013 Posted Date: Mar 15, 2013 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Mar 15, 2013 Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Original Response Date: Apr 05, 2013 Current Response Date: Apr 05, 2013 Classification Code: A -- Research and Development NAICS Code: 541712

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 210.Y, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Description

NASA GSFC is hereby soliciting information about potential sources for specialized scientific support to the Earth Sciences Directorate in the areas of geodynamic, geomagnetic, geophysical, and atmospheric investigations of solar system bodies such as the Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Among the requirements for these investigations are instrument development; software development and maintenance; data collection, archiving and dissemination; scientific data analysis, modeling and interpretation; reports and presentations of scientific results; public outreach and education; and associated technical and administrative work.

Support services for this effort includes but are not limited to: provide support to investigators associated with current programs and projects such as GRACE, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission, the Interdisciplinary Studies in Earth Science, ICESat, and future missions outlined in the roadmap of Earth-science missions defined the National Academy of Science Decadal Survey, such as SWOT, DESDynI, ICESat-2, GPSRO, and GRACE Follow-On, and GRACE-2. The contractor shall provide support to investigators involved in analysis of space geodetic data (SLR, DORIS, and, GNSS), used for geodetic analysis, precision orbit determination, and the determination and maintenance of the terrestrial reference frame. The contractor shall provide support to investigators involved with LAGEOS-1, LAGEOS-2, Starlette, Stella, LARETS, LARES, Earth Positioning satellites such as GPS, Galileo, and GLONASS; Satellite and satellite constellations that map and determine the Earth's gravity and magnetic fields such as GRACE, GOCE, and SWARM; Earth altimetry satellites such as TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, Jason-3, Envisat, GEOSAT, GEOSAT-Follow-On (GFO-1), GFO-2, CryoSat-2, and SENTINEL-3; planetary spacecraft such as Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, GRAIL, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MESSENGER, and MAVEN. The contractor shall provide support for data systems such as the CDDIS.

No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is the potential offeror's responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis.

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NASA Solicitation: Geophysics and Space Geodesy Support