Jan. 9, 2013 Starting this month, NASA will send a remotely piloted research aircraft as high as 65,000 feet over the tropical Pacific Ocean to probe unexplored regions of the upper atmosphere for answers to how a warming climate is changing Earth.

The first flights of the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX), a multi-year airborne science campaign with a heavily instrumented Global Hawk aircraft, will take off from and be operated by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The Global Hawk is able to make 30-hour flights.

Water vapor and ozone in the stratosphere can have a large impact on Earth's climate. The processes that drive the rise and fall of these compounds, especially water vapor, are not well understood. This limits scientists' ability to predict how these changes will influence global climate in the future. ATTREX will study moisture and chemical composition in the upper regions of the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere. The tropopause layer between the troposphere and stratosphere, 8 miles to 11 miles above Earth's surface, is the point where water vapor, ozone and other gases enter the stratosphere.

Studies have shown even small changes in stratospheric humidity may have significant climate impacts. Predictions of stratospheric humidity changes are uncertain because of gaps in the understanding of the physical processes occurring in the tropical tropopause layer. ATTREX will use the Global Hawk to carry instruments to sample this layer near the equator off the coast of Central America.

"The ATTREX payload will provide unprecedented measurements of the tropical tropopause," said Eric Jensen, ATTREX principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "This is our first opportunity to sample the tropopause region during winter in the northern hemisphere when it is coldest and extremely dry air enters the stratosphere."

Led by Jensen and project manager Dave Jordan of Ames, ATTREX scientists installed 11 instruments in the Global Hawk. The instruments include remote sensors for measuring clouds, trace gases and temperatures above and below the aircraft, as well as instruments to measure water vapor, cloud properties, meteorological conditions, radiation fields and numerous trace gases around the aircraft. Engineering test flights conducted in 2011 ensured the aircraft and instruments operated well at the very cold temperatures encountered at high altitudes in the tropics, which can reach minus 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

Six science flights are planned between Jan. 16 and March 15. The ATTREX team also is planning remote deployments to Guam and Australia in 2014. Scientists hope to use the acquired data to improve global model predictions of stratospheric humidity and composition. The ATTREX team consists of investigators from Ames and three other NASA facilities; the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The team also includes investigators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Center for Atmospheric Research, academia, and private industry.

ATTREX is one of the first investigations in NASA's new Venture-class series of low- to moderate-cost projects. The Earth Venture missions are part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program managed by Langley. These small, targeted science investigations complement NASA's larger science research satellite missions.

For more information about the ATTREX mission, visit: http://espo.nasa.gov/missions/attrex

A digital ATTREX press kit is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/events/2013/attrex.html

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NASA chases climate change clues into the stratosphere

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has detected 461 new potential alien planets, including four worlds slightly larger than Earth that may be capable of supporting life as we know it.

The 461 newfound candidate exoplanets, which were announced today (Jan. 7), bring Kepler's total haul in its first 22 months of operation to 2,740 alien worlds. Only 105 have been confirmed to date, but scientists say 90 percent or so should end up being the real deal.

Four of the new candidates are "super-Earths" planets 1.25 to 2 times as big as our own that orbit in their stars' habitable zones, a range of distances where liquid water is possible on a world's surface. One of those four is just 1.5 times the size of Earth and circles a sun-like star, researchers said.

"That one in particular is very interesting," Christopher Burke of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute told reporters today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

The new finds represent the latest update to the catalog of the $600 million Kepler mission, which launched in March 2009. Scientists had previously reported roughly 2,300 other candidate planets spotted during the telescope's first 16 months of operation.

Kepler's new detections also increase the number of stars known to host more than one planet candidate from 365 to 467, researchers said.

"The large number of multi-candidate systems being found by Kepler implies that a substantial fraction of exoplanets reside in flat multi-planet systems," Jack Lissauer, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said in a statement. "This is consistent with what we know about our own planetary neighborhood."

Kepler flags planets by noting the telltale brightness dips caused when they cross the face of, or transit, their host stars from the instrument's perspective. The telescope needs to witness three such transits to make a detection, so its early discoveries have been biased toward larger worlds in relatively tight orbits.

But over time, Kepler should find more and more small planets, and more in distant orbits. The new additions to the catalog reinforce that reality, increasing the number of Earth-size and super-Earth Kepler candidates by 43 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

The new detections also suggest that it's only a matter of time before astronomers detect the first true "alien Earth" a planet the size of our own in its star's habitable zone. Another new Kepler study released today, after all, found that the Milky Way likely hosts at least 17 billion Earth-size worlds in tight orbits, while many more may circle their stars more distantly.

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NASA Finds 461 Alien Planet Candidates, Some Possibly Habitable

NASA captured a beautiful photo of the aftermath of a star explosion.

Updated Jan. 9, 2013 at 5:19 PM

NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) captured the aftermath of a massive star explosion. As a result, we got this beautiful image of the historical supernova remnant Cassiopeia-A, located 11,000 light-years away, NASA reported Wednesday.

According to NASA, light from the explosion that created this dead star must have reached earth 300 years ago after 11,000 years of travel, and though the star is long dead, its remains are still "bursting with action."

"The outer blue ring is where the shock wave from the supernova blast is slamming into surrounding material, whipping particles up to within a fraction of a percent of the speed of light," NASA wrote. "NuSTAR observations should help solve the riddle of how these particles are accelerated to such high energies."

NASA launched NuSTAR in 2012 on a two year mission to look for the high-energy regions of the universe.

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Massive star explosion captured in NASA photo

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has pulled out another item from its toolkit for the first time, using a brush to sweep Martian rocks clean of the planets ubiquitous red dust, the space agency announced Monday (Jan. 7).

Curiositys first use of the Dust Removal Tool at the tip of its robotic arm marks another milestone for the rover, which has spent about five months on the Red Planet. The Curiosity rover landed Aug. 5 to begin a two-year mission to determine if the Mars may have once been habitable for primitive life.

The Dust Removal Tool is a brush that allows Curiosity to sweep away the reddish-brown particles that coat most surfaces on Mars, in order to get a better look at rocks that could be worth drilling intofor further study. The motorized brush is made with wire bristles, and is attached to the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm.

The tool, built by New York City-based Honeybee Robotics, resembles brushes that flew to Mars on NASA's previous rover missions, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

"This is similar to the brush on board the Rock Abrasion Tools on Spirit and Opportunity, and will let researchers get a look at the rock (rather than the pervasive dust) before deciding whether to drill for a sample," Honeybee Robotics spokesman John Abrashkin told SPACE.com.

For its inaugural run, Curiosity mission planners chose to use the brush on a Martian rock called "Ekwir_1," which sits in the "Yellowknife Bay" area of Curiosity's landing site in Mars' Gale Crater.

"We wanted to be sure we had an optimal target for the first use," Diana Trujillo, the mission's activity lead for the Dust Removal Tool at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "We need to place the instrument within less than half an inch of the target without putting the hardware at risk. We needed a flat target, one that wasn't rough, one that was covered with dust. The results certainly look good."

Cleaning the dust off rocks not only allows Curiosity to get a better look at them, but clears away surface contaminants that might confuse samples taken from deeper in the rocks after the rover digs down into them with its hammering drill.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover is exploring Yellowknife Bay as it makes its way toward a point called Glenelg at the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-high (5 kilometers) mountain that rises up from the center of Gale Crater.

You can follow SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz.Follow SPACE.com on Twitter@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook&Google+.

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NASA's Curiosity Rover Brushes Mars Rock Clean, a First

LONG BEACH, CALIF. A NASA space telescope snapped a new view of two oddball black holes shining ultra-bright in X-ray light in a distant spiral galaxy.

NASAs NuSTAR X-ray observatory spotted the bright black holes while observing the galaxy Caldwell 5, which is located 7 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Camelopardalis (the Giraffe).

The black holes, which appear in magenta superimposed on a visible-light view of the galaxy in NuSTARs view, present a cosmic mystery: Their X-ray emissions shine as bright as supermassive black holes, yet haven't sunk to the galaxy's core, as such monster black holes usually do. Scientists have dubbed such objects ultra-luminous X-ray sources, or ULXs.

The Milky Way galaxy is filled with so-called stellar black holes created by the collapse of individual giant stars, with masses of up to 12 times that of the sun. Yet those black holes don't emit the intense levels energy to form such blazingly bright black holes as those seen by NuSTAR.

Supermassive black holes, by comparison, contain millions to billions of times the mass of the sun, usually are found at the center of a galaxy.

One possibility is that the black holes seen by NuSTAR are actually of an intermediate size, said NuSTAR principal investigator Fiona Harrison, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology. But intermediate-sized black holes are thought to be much rarer than their bigger and smaller cousins.

"High-energy X-rays hold a key to unlocking the mystery surrounding these objects," Harrison said in a statement. "Whether they are massive black holes, or there is new physics in how they feed, the answer is going to be fascinating."

NASAs NuSTAR telescope (the name is short for Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) launched into space in June 2012. It focuses its observations on high-energy light wavelengths between 6keV and 79 keV in order to take a census of black holes and understand how elements are formed.

The two black holes were first spotted by NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory, but past images of the objects were blurry. The view from NuSTAR is much more refined, offering a clearer picture of their location in the galaxy, researchers said.

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Mysteriously Bright Black Holes Revealed by NASA Telescope

NASA is facing a conundrum of large proportions; shuttle-sized, in fact. Now that the shuttle program has ended, NASA is no longer using shuttle facilities and equipment. That includes everything from a launch pad to space in the building where rockets were assembled. So NASA is conducting a secret auction. Orlando Sentinel staff writer Scott Powers explains what NASA is selling, why, and who the buyers might be.

Copyright 2013 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

If you're in the market for a garage, a very large garage, say big enough to hold a space shuttle, well, you're in luck. A year and a half after the last shuttle landed, NASA is seeking renters or buyers for some of its shuttle facilities and equipment. That includes a hangar and even the launch pad of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Scott Powers is with us to tell us more about this unusual auction. He wrote about it for the Orlando Sentinel. Hi there, Scott.

SCOTT POWERS: Hi, Audie.

CORNISH: So basically, NASA is selling off anything that was made just for the shuttle program. Is that correct?

POWERS: Yeah. It's - most of the leased facilities are actually for rent at this point. They're everything from a parachute packing plant. There's an array of radar stations. There's a couple of buildings out there that are used to refurbish and install shuttle tiles. Those kinds of things have a lot of specialized equipment in them and they can be used for other things, I suppose. But NASA realizes their money is going to run out for these facilities soon, and they figured that they need to get partners to continue their use or shut them down and padlock them. They'd rather find partners.

CORNISH: So let's talk about that launch pad for a minute. Given that the shuttle program is over, who's going to want to use that?

POWERS: Probably no one. The problem is with all of the government launch pads out there, there are a lot of hoops that a private space company would have to jump through to use it. A lot of private industry would rather have their own launch pad out there. And there's some talk about building a private launch pad out there someday. And if that were the case, then many of those would work together with a new launch pad.

CORNISH: So other than commercial space flight companies, who else would want to buy some of this stuff? Who are the potential customers?

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In The Market For A Very Large Garage? Call NASA.

LONG BEACH, Calif. NASA's 23-year-old Hubble Space Telescope is still going strong, and agency officials said Tuesday (Jan. 8) they plan to operate it until its instruments finally give out, potentially for another six years at least.

After its final overhaul in 2009, the Hubble telescope was expected to last until at least 2015. Now, NASA officials say they are committed to keeping the iconic space observatory going as long as possible.

"Hubble will continue to operate as long as its systems are running well," Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said here at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Hubble, like other long-running NASA missions such as the Spitzer Space Telescope, will be reviewed every two years to ensure that the mission is continuing to provide science worth the cost of operating it, Hertz added.

In fact, Hubble supporters hope it will continue to run even after its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is launched an event planned for 2018.

"We are not planning to arbitrarily end the operation of Hubble when JWST is launched," Hertz said during a NASA Town Hall Meeting at the AAS conference. "It may be great if we get at least one year of overlap between JWST and Hubble." [Building the James Webb Space Telescope (Photos)]

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in April 1990, and has since been upgraded five times by astronauts in orbit. Its last space shuttle servicing mission in May 2009 left the scope with two new instruments, including a wide-field camera and a high-precision spectrograph to spread out light into its constituent wavelengths. The space telescope is named after the late astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), who proved that the universe is expanding.

"It's working better than ever, 23 years in," Dan Coe, an astronomer working with Hubble at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., told SPACE.com. "We're still pushing the frontier."

Coe agreed that overlap time with both Hubble and James Webb operating simultaneously would be ideal. Such a plan would allow the observatories to work on complementary projects and provide crosschecks between the two telescopes' measurements.

How long Hubble can run also depends on NASA's budget, which, like funding for all federal agencies, is uncertain given the economic challenges in the United States.

"It all comes down to money," Coe said.

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Hubble Space Telescope Could Last Until 2018, NASA Says

NASA plans to announce tomorrow (Jan. 10) the launch of a new satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), to monitor Earth's landscape and the changes to it.

The new satellite, scheduled to launch Feb. 11, will replace the Landsat 5 satellite, which is to be decommissioned in the coming months, the U.S. Geological Survey reported in December.

The announcement will be made at 1 p.m. EST at NASA headquarters in Washington. You can watch it live here, as well as on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Landsat 5 is the longest-operating Earth-observing satellite mission in history, according to the USGS. Launched in 1984 with a three-year design life, it has been taking images and recording changes on the Earth's surface ever since. The satellite almost failed several times, but engineers brought it back to life. However, the recent failure of a gyroscope (which helps satellites maintain their orientation) left no option but to end the mission, the USGS said in its release.

"Any major event since 1984 that left a mark on this Earth larger than a football field was likely recorded by Landsat 5, whether it was a hurricane, a tsunami, a wildfire, deforestation or an oil spill," USGS Director Marcia McNutt said in the statement. "We look forward to a long and productive continuation of the Landsat program, but it is unlikely there will ever be another satellite that matches the outstanding longevity of Landsat 5."

The satellite monitored the effects of the devastating floods along the Mississippi River in 2011, snapped an image of the path of a tornado in Massachusetts that same year, and helped the effort to battle raging wildfires in Arizona.

LDCM, like Landsat 5, is a collaboration between NASA and the USGS that will continue the Landsat program's 40-year data record of monitoring Earth from space. Landsat 5 has orbited the globe more than 150,000 times and recorded over 2.5 million images.

Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter@OAPlanet. We're also onFacebookand Google+.

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NASA to Announce Launch of New Earth-Observing Satellite

WASHINGTON NASA and Bigelow Aerospace have reached an agreement that could pave the way for attaching a Bigelow-built inflatable space habitat to the International Space Station, a NASA spokesman said.

The $17.8 million contract was signed in late December, NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto told SpaceNews Monday (Jan. 7). Perrotto declined to provide other terms of the agreement, except to say that it centers around the Bigelow Expanded Aerospace Module(BEAM). He said a formal announcement is in the works.

That inflatable space habitat, which is similar to the Genesis-model prototypes Bigelow launched in 2006 and 2007, could be used for extra storage at the space station and provide flight data on the on-orbit durability of Bigelows inflatable modulescompared to the outposts existing metallic modules.

Bigelow and NASA have been discussing an inflatable addition to the space station for years.

The deal signed in December follows a nonpaying NASA contract Bigelow got in 2011, under which the North Las Vegas, Nev., company worked up a list of procedures and protocols for adding BEAM to the space station. Bigelow got that contract, which did not call for any flight hardware, in response to a 2010 NASA Broad Agency Announcement seeking ideas for support equipment and services meant to help the U.S. portion of the International Space Station live up to its billing as a national laboratory.

Last March, NASA spokesman Josh Buck said the agency would tap one of its Commercial Resupply Services contractors, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) or Orbital Sciences Corp., to get BEAM to the space station.

SpaceX and Orbital are under contract for space station cargo deliveries through 2016. So far, only SpaceX has flown to the station. The company, which flies Dragon cargo capsulesatop Falcon 9 rockets, completed its first contracted run in October. Orbital, which is developing a cargo freighter called Cygnus for launch aboard its new Antares rocket, is now scheduled to launch a demonstration cargo run in February from NASAs Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.

SpaceX and Orbital both signed Commercial Resupply Services contracts in 2008. SpaceXs $1.6 billion resupply pact calls for 12 flights. Orbitals $1.9 billion deal is for eight flights.

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

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NASA Deal May Put Inflatable Private Module on Space Station

NASA Earth-Observing Fleet June2012
Wikipedia Video File. Personnel Use. Concept.

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NASA Earth-Observing Fleet June2012 - Video

NASA WE HAVE A PROBLEM WE CN #39;T FIND THEM THERE IS TOO MUCH ALIEN TRAFFIC TODAY UP HERE
UFO.alien

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NASA WE HAVE A PROBLEM WE CN'T FIND THEM THERE IS TOO MUCH ALIEN TRAFFIC TODAY UP HERE - Video

Massive sun eruption could tower over 20 Earths NASA States
A massive eruption on the surface of the sun this week blasted out a wave of super-hot plasma so high that it could tower over 20 Earths, NASA officials say

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Massive sun eruption could tower over 20 Earths NASA States - Video

NASA Tour Part1

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NASA Tour Part1 - Video

This visible image of Tropical Cyclone Dumile over La Reunion Island and Mauritius was captured by the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite on Jan. 3, 2013, at 0650 UTC. Dumile's center was just northwest of Reunion (left) and Mauritius (right). Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites captured visible and infrared data on Tropical Cyclone Dumile as it slammed into the islands of La Reunion and Mauritius in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Cyclone Dumile on Jan. 3, 2013 at 0650 UTC (1:50 a.m. EST/U.S.) The image showed Dumile's center was about 85 nautical miles (97.8 miles/157.4 km) northwest of Reunion Island and Mauritius, and the strongest thunderstorms appeared to be southwest of the center of circulation. The image was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured two infrared images of Tropical Cyclone Dumile on Jan. 2 at 2123 UTC (4:23 p.m. EST/U.S.) and Jan. 3 at 0936 UTC (4:36 a.m. EST/U.S.). The coldest, highest clouds with heaviest rainfall formed a ring around Dumile's center on Jan. 2 meaning that the storm's eye had formed. The satellite overpass on Jan. 3 provided a close-up of the most powerful thunderstorms happening over both La Reunion and Mauritius. Infrared imagery on Jan. 3 also showed that Dumile's eye had "closed." AIRS images are created at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Enlarge

The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured these infrared images of Tropical Cyclone Dumile on Jan. 2 at 2123 UTC, and Jan. 3 at 0936 UTC. The purple areas indicate the coldest, highest clouds with heaviest rainfall. The circular blue area in the middle of the purple area on the Jan. 2 image is Dumile's center. Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

Warnings are up for La Reunion on Jan. 3. The territory is on red alert and a local advisory is in effect for high winds, heavy rain, high ocean swells and rough surf along the coasts of the island. For updated warnings (in French), please visit: http://www.meteo.fr/temps/domtom/La_Reunion/meteoreunion2/.

Mauritius Meteorological Services issued the following forecast for Jan. 3: Cloudy skies with showers and thunderstorms, some rainfall will be heavy at times. Heavy rainfall may cause ponding of water. A northerly sustained wind is expected up to 30 km/h with gusts of 70 km/h, decreasing gradually. The public is advised not to venture near rivers and other water courses because of rough seas. An improvement in weather is expected on Jan. 4. For updates, visit: metservice.intnet.mu/.

Where is Cyclone Dumile's Center?

On Jan. 3 at 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST/U.S.) Tropical Cyclone Dumile was centered just 85 nautical miles (97.8 miles/157.4 km) northwest of La Reunion, near 20.3 south latitude and 54.4 east longitude. Dumile's maximum sustained winds were near 65 knots (75 mph/120.4 kph) making it a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Tropical-storm-force winds extended about 95 nautical miles (109.3 miles/176 km) from the center, meaning that La Reunion island was getting battered by them. Cyclone Dumile is moving southward at 13 knots (15 mph/24 kph) and is churning up very rough seas with wave heights up to 34 feet (10.3 meters).

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NASA satellites see Cyclone Dumile over La Reunion and Mauritius

NASA is reportedly backing a plan to capture a near-Earth asteroid with an unmanned spacecraft and drag it into lunar orbit for study.

The project, cooked up by scientists at California's Keck Institute for Space Studies, could potentially deliver an asteroid to the vicinity of the Moon by next decade. Keck Institute researchers have confirmed NASA's interest in their cheaper, safer alternative to sending a crewed mission to an asteroid, according to New Scientist.

The idea would be to send a "slow-moving spacecraft, propelled by solar-heated ions" to a small asteroid, perhaps about 7 meters wide, the science journal reported. The robot ship would capture the space rock using a "bag measuring about 10 meters by 15 meters." It would take between six and ten years from the launch of the spacecraft atop an Atlas V rocket to the placement of the asteroid in lunar orbit.

The cost of such a mission would run around $2.6 billion, according to its planners. That's just a bit more than it cost to land NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars earlier this year, New Scientist noted. Once in lunar orbit, the captured asteroid could be studied by robotic probes or possibly even astronauts landing on its surface.

Could the mission prove dangerous if something were to go wrong and the asteroid collided with the Earth instead of settling into orbit around the Moon? Since the plan appears to involve capturing such a small asteroid, probably not terribly so. By comparison, the Tunguska event is believed to have been caused by a space object measuring 100 meters or more across, while the theorized impact that killed off the dinosaurs might have involved a meteor nearly the size of San Francisco.

Interest in visiting asteroids has been heating up in recent years. NASA is working on an unmanned probe called OSIRIS-REx scheduled for a 2014 launch. It's equipped with a robotic arm designed to pluck samples from a near-Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36, which the spacecraft is being prepped to reach in 2020.

It's also been reported that NASA is actively training astronauts for manned missions to asteroids that could kick off in about a decade.

Meanwhile, a new private venture called Planetary Resources this year unveiled an ambitious plan to begin mining asteroids for water, rare metals, and other materials in the coming years.

There's also an interesting intersection between the Keck Institute's asteroid-nabbing project and NASA's reported interest in setting up a floating base in fixed orbit near the Moon to serve as a platform for manned missions to both the lunar surface and to more distant destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.

The proposed space station would be situated at what's called a Lagrange point, or L-Point, a place where the gravitational pull of two large bodiesin this case the Earth and the Moonare at an equilibrium, making it possible to place a spacecraft (or an asteroid?) in a fixed spot in space at relatively little expense. NASA wants to put its base at Earth-Moon L-Point 2, on the far side of the Moon, according to reports.

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NASA May Try to Capture Asteroid, Fix It in Lunar Orbit

WASHINGTON -- NASA scientists will present new findings on a wide range of astrophysics topics next week at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The meeting takes place Jan. 6-10 at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd, in Long Beach, Calif. Media registration for the event is open.

None of the briefings will be carried on NASA Television, but all will be web-streamed on AAS's website for registered journalists.

NASA's media briefings during the meeting will feature topics such as new video of a rapidly rotating neutron star, the latest images of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, and the most detailed "weather map" of a brown dwarf star. In addition, NASA scientists and their colleagues who use NASA research capabilities will present noteworthy findings during several scientific sessions throughout the week.

For a complete list of NASA-related news briefings, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aas

The site will be updated throughout the week with additional information about NASA presentations.

For detailed information about the 221st AAS meeting, visit: http://aas.org/meetings/aas221

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

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NASA Events Set for American Astronomical Society Meeting

NASA Television will broadcast the annual FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Kickoff event on Saturday, Jan. 5, starting at 10:30 a.m. EST from Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. The event also will be streamed live on NASA's website.

As in past years, NASA plays a significant role by providing public access to robotics programs to encourage young people to investigate careers in the sciences and engineering. Through the NASA Robotics Alliance Project, the agency provides grants for almost 250 teams and sponsors four regional student competitions, including a FIRST regional competition in Washington that will be held March 28-30.

Each year, FIRST presents a new robotics competition scenario where each team receives an identical kit of parts and has six weeks to design and build a robot based on the team's interpretation of the game scenario. Other than dimension and weight restrictions, the look and function of the robots is up to each individual team. This year more than 2,500 teams from 49 states, and 12 countries will participate.

Engineer Dean Kamen founded FIRST in 1989 to help convince American youth that engineering and technology are exciting and 'cool' fields. NASA participation in the FIRST program is provided through the NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For a complete a list of the regional events, corporate sponsors and other details, visit: http://www.usfirst.org/

For more information on the NASA's Robotics Alliance Project visit: http://robotics.nasa.gov

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NASA Kicks Off 2013 First Robotics Season with Live Broadcast Jan. 5

NASA researchers are testing tiles made out of garbage including plastic water bottles, clothing scraps, duct tape and foil drink pouches in an attempt to turn astronauts' trash into a space missions treasure.

Like their earthbound counterparts, astronauts generate junk in their day-to-day lives, but unlike us, they cant just bag it and leave it on the curb.

"We don't want to contaminate the surface of an asteroid or something just by throwing the trash out the door," said Richard Strayer, a microbiologist working on the project.

"If NASA doesn't do something about it, then the spacecraft will become like a landfill, with the astronauts adding trash to it every day."

To make use of the material, researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are running tests on circular tiles made out of compressed trash. The discs, which went through a specialized compactor that melts but does not burn the waste, were created using a recipe based on trash from shuttle missions.

Each tile is just over a centimeter thick, roughly 20 cm in diameter which is a bit larger than a standard compact disk and made from about a days worth of junk.

But before researchers can send the discs on a deep space mission, they must answer several questions: Can they be safely stored on a spacecraft? Can they be sterilized so they are free of microorganisms? Can water be removed from the trash and re-used?

Mary Hummerick, another microbiologist working on the project, sees potential in all the plastic packaging the astronauts discard.

If the plastic content of the disks is high enough, "they could actually shield radiation," she said. NASAs website explains that the tiles could be arranged to shield the astronauts sleeping area or reinforce the spacecrafts "storm shelter."

If all goes as planned, the end product could be especially important for crews living in space for up to two years which is, NASA points out, the expected duration of a Mars mission.

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NASA could turn space trash into radiation shields

Synopsis - Jan 04, 2013

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THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL, QUOTATION, OR INVITATION TO BID NOTICE.

A. Request Summary

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is seeking ways to provide or develop in situ vicarious calibration instruments, systems, and approaches for a future mission's ocean color instrument. This RFI asks organizations to provide information regarding current instrument capabilities or descriptions of developments that would be needed in order to provide an in situ vicarious calibration capability for maintaining global climate quality ocean color remote sensing reflectances for a multi- or hyperspectral sensor. "Vicarious" calibration for ocean color refers to a final bias adjustment to the calibrated, spectral top-of-atmosphere radiances observed by an ocean color instrument. Responses could consider the PACE Science Definition Team (SDT) report (found at http://dsm.gsfc.nasa.gov/PACE.html ) for details of sample vicarious calibration for ocean color requirements, particularly the details in Section 4.6.1 of the report.

B. Background

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NASA Request for Information: Ocean Color Remote Sensing Vicarious in situ Calibration Instruments

WASHINGTON Right before Christmas, a Russian rocket carrying three astronauts one American, one Russian and one Canadian launched from a chilly spaceport in Kazakhstan to begin a five-month mission to the International Space Station.

Unlike many of its predecessors, this crew's job is straightforward: Do science from studying solar rays to investigating how microgravity affects fish and their bones, which could provide insight on why astronauts lose bone density while in space.

"Twenty-thirteen really promises to be a productive one," said Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, after arriving at the outpost.

If that's true, NASA will get one step closer toward finally fulfilling the promise of the $100 billion space station that was intended to be a groundbreaking laboratory circling about 220 miles above Earth.

Though critics have questioned why it has taken so long work began on the station in 1998 NASA said the new emphasis on science and the arrival of new equipment mean the future looks bright.

"As the coming year unfolds, NASA will continue to conduct important research on the International Space Station, which continues to yield scientific benefits and provide key information about how humans may live and thrive in the harsh environment of space," NASA leaders wrote in a year-end status report.

Key is the addition of new equipment.

By next fall, NASA plans to send to the station an "Animal Enclosure Module" that will allow scientists to study the effects of weightlessness on rodents which could help doctors develop better medicines for bone and muscle ailments. The 60-pound module had flown 23 times aboard the space shuttle.

Marybeth Edeen, NASA manager of the station's national laboratory, said the rodents could be used to test drugs intended to treat osteoporosis or illnesses that degrade the muscles, such as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"A 30-day-old mouse on the station has the bone and muscle structure of a 60-to-70-year-old woman," said Edeen, adding that rapid changes brought on by weightlessness enable drug companies to quickly assess the results of experimental medicines.

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NASA says 2013 will be a year of science on the space station