This portion of a classic 1997 panorama from the IMP camera on the mast of NASAs Mars Pathfinder lander includes Twin Peaks on the horizon, and the Sojourner rover next to a rock called Yogi. Credit: NASA/JPL

NASAs Mars Pathfinder probe dropped to the surface of Mars for an airbag-cushioned landing 20 years ago Tuesday, bouncing 15 times across an ancient flood plain before deploying a mobile robot to usher in two decades of uninterrupted Martian exploration.

The Independence Day landing in 1997 was the first touchdown of a robot on Mars since NASAs Viking landers arrived in 1976, and the U.S. space agency has since maintained a continuous robotic presence at the red planet, dispatching additional landers, rovers and orbiters to sample rocks, monitor Martian weather, and glimpse into the worlds warmer, wetter past.

Ithink Mars holds a special place in everyones hearts because it looks a lot like the Earth it looks like a place we could live, said Mike Watkins, director of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where engineers developed, built and operated Mars Pathfinder.

Watkins said Pathfinders landing on Mars helped lead NASA to answer fundamental questions about Earths neighbor: What was its history? How did Mars get the way it is? Was it once habitable?

Follow-on missions have sent rovers driving across dried-up lake and river beds, to deposits left by ancient hot springs, and orbiters that found signs of intermittent water still present on the desert planet and helped unravel how Mars became so cold and inhospitable.

I believe that Pathfinder, in particular, helped us understand a new way of exploring planets, Watkins said in a panel discussion televised on NASA TV. You could argue that Viking, as the first planetary lander, sort of pioneered in situ science, but that was kind of a one-off mission. I think Pathfinder showed us not only that mobility can be useful, but the notion of an ongoing interactive exploration of a planet, a voyage of continuous discovery.

Conceived in late 1993 as NASA faced a severe budget crunch in the wake of several high-profile robotic mission mishaps, Mars Pathfinder had to fit within stringent cost and schedule limits.

NASA Headquarters in Washington, at the behest of then-administrator Dan Goldin, gave engineers at JPL three years and $150 million to ready the lander for launch in December 1996. Goldin said NASA could no longer afford multibillion-dollar missions to explore the solar system in an era of nearly-flat budgets.

The agency had to revamp how it conducted interplanetary missions after the Viking Mars landings and the Voyager probes first forays into the outer solar system, Goldin said recently, because money is not the magic ingredient.

Goldin infused his mantra of faster, better, cheaper across NASAs programs, leading to the launch of fleets of smaller, less costly spacecraft to study the cosmos and visit unexplored destinations, from new regions on the Martian surface, to Mercury, Pluto, asteroids and comets.

Mars Pathfinder got its start months after controllers lost contact with NASAs $813 million Mars Observer orbiter days before it was to arrive at the red planet. But NASAs next Mars mission, despite vastly more ambitious objectives, ended up costing about one-third the expenditure that went into Mars Observer.

We had to do something bold, Goldin said during a celebration of Pathfinders 20th anniversary. It just couldnt be another orbiter It had to be really hard. When you compare what it cost for Viking, that was billions, and now were a factor of 20 (less) on cost and a factor of three (less) on schedule, with technology that they didnt have time to develop in advance.

While Pathfinders team had to work within tight financial and time boxes, managers said they had freedom to innovate. In real terms, that usually meant building, breaking, then fixing a part that needed to fly on the mission.

When something went wrong and there was a problem, I could being together a handful of people, and in a matter of minutes, to hours or maybe a few days, we could undertsand the problem and we could put a solution in place and wed go execute it, said Brian Muirhead, Mars Pathfinders flight system manager at JPL. Sometimes, in our big projects today, it could take weeks to months to make those kinds of changes.

One example was a cable that engineers designed to extend below the lander during final descent to measure its altitude. That didnt work, so designers opted for a radar to bounce signals off the Martian surface for altitude data, but that solution also proved complicated as a prototype lander swung beneath a parachute during drop testing in Earths atmosphere.

The landers inflatable cushion was also tricky, but engineers needed the airbags to keep the spacecrafts mass down, exchanging air for heavier rocket fuel to bring the robot to a rest on Mars. The Viking landers relied on retrorockets to brake for touchdown, but the airbags, in principle, were more resilient.

Mission engineers procured time on a supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories to model how the airbags would respond to different terrains and conditions on Mars. Muirhead said the airbag tests brought the computer, one of the most powerful in existence at the time, to its knees.

There were certain parts of it we came to realize you really couldnt treat very well with a computer simulation, airbags being, by far and away, the foremost example, said Sam Thurman, Mars Pathfinders entry, descent and landing system engineer at JPL.

NASA sent a full-scale model of the airbags, made of a high-strength fiber called Vectran, to the Plum Brook Station in Ohio for drop tests against an inclined, rocky floor meant to mimic the Martian surface.

Mission managers were finally comfortable with the airbag design in early 1996, deeming the system qualified for the trip to Mars eight months before blastoff.

Mars Pathfinder departed Earth on Dec. 4, 1996, riding a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral on the first leg of its seven-month voyage.

Unlike the Viking landers, which dropped to Mars from orbiting motherships, Pathfinder made a direct descent, slicing through the atmosphere at higher speeds than the Vikings experienced.

A heat-resistant shield protected the lander during the first part of entry, then a supersonic parachute deployed, braking rockets fired and the airbags inflated before the shepherding craft cut the landers Kevlar bridle.

Shortly before 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT; 1700 GMT) on July 4, 1997, the lander hit the ground at about 31 mph (14 meters per second), and rebounded several stories high, bouncing at least 15 times before coming to a stop more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) from its original landing point in Ares Vallis, a rocky plain in Marss northern hemisphere.

The airbags deflated automatically, opening Pathfinders flower-like petals to make way for the exit of the Sojourner rover, a six-wheeled vehicle that was not originally part of the Pathfinder mission.

NASA added Sojourner after scouring the agency for money to fund it, and its cost, along with the price of the Delta 2 booster and a three-month operations budget, pushed Pathfinders final cost to $264 million.

The Pathfinder lander soon transmitted its first signals to anxious engineers on Earth, and the first images were beamed back to the ground a few hours later.

The very first thing we wanted to do is to get those images down to see what the landing site looked like, and the rover on the petal, said Jennifer Trosper, Pathfinders flight director.

I remember getting those images down, and we were printing them out on printers, she said, in contrast to todays smartphone and social media age.

The Sojourner rover, named for American civil rights pioneer Sojourner Truth, drove down a ramp to start traversing the landing zone the day after arriving on Mars. Staying in touch with mission control via a wireless modem link with the stationary landing platform, the solar-powered rover about the size of a microwave oven inspected the rock-strewn region nearby, logging more than 300 feet (100 meters) on its odometer.

Designed to last between one week and one month, Sojourner relayed data for nearly three months until the Pathfinder landing station stopped communicating with Earth on Sept. 27. The ground team suspected the spacecrafts battery was depleted and its internal temperature dropped below a safe level, according to a mission fact sheet posted on a NASA website.

The end of Pathfinders mission came about two weeks after NASAs Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft slid into orbit at the planet.

The Sojourner rovers chassis was a forerunner to bigger vehicles, first the identical Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed in 2004, and then the Curiosity mission that arrived in 2012.

The Opportunity and Curiosity rovers are still moving across the red planet today, and another rover based on Curiositys frame will launch to Mars in July 2020.

Look at the legacies that that little rover have led to, to Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and then Mars 2020, said Charles Elachi, JPLs director from 2001 through 2016. Thats a kind of small but visionary technology investment that NASA and Dan (Goldin) were very well known for, which led us to do the great things that we do now.

But the last 20 years of NASA Mars missions have not been without blemishes.

NASA lost two spacecraft as they arrived at Mars in late 1999, both of which followed in the footsteps of Pathfinder, incorporating Goldins faster, better, cheaper philosophy.

The Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere as it tried to enter orbit in September 1999, an error caused by the mismatch of English units and metric units used by the crafts navigation and operations teams. Less than three months later, the Mars Polar Lander crashed on the red planet, likely due to a premature engine shutdown.

Investigators said a contributing cause of the mishaps was their tight budgets, concluding the projects were under-funded by at least 30 percent.

NASA gave more money to subsequent Mars missions and added additional engineering reviews to ensure their readiness for launch.

Mars scientists have had at least one operating mission at Mars every day since Pathfinders Independence Day descent 20 years ago. NASAs Mars Odyssey joined Mars Global Surveyor in 2001, and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers blasted off in mid-2003, along with the European Space Agencys first interplanetary mission, Mars Express.

Odyssey, Opportunity and Mars Express are still returning scientific data all years beyond their intended lifetimes while Mars Global Surveyor stopped transmitting in 2006 and engineers last heard from the Spirit rover in 2010.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, carrying a high-resolution mapping camera, launched in August 2005 and arrived at Mars in March 2006. NASA is still getting data from MRO, which returns dazzling sharp-eyed views of Martian terrain.

NASAs Phoenix lander touched down on the northern polar plains of Mars in May 2008, succumbing to the extreme Martian winter in November 2008 as expected.

The Curiosity rover has explored Gale Crater, an impact basin rife with geologic features like dunes, buttes and a three-mile-tall mountain, since August 2012. NASAs MAVEN orbiter has been sampling the upper atmosphere of Mars since 2014, and India flew its first planetary mission into Martian orbit the same year.

The newest arrival is ESAs ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which aims to seek the source of methane in the Martian atmosphere, a potential indicator of ongoing biological or geological activity.

Many of Pathfinders engineers have worked on all of JPLs Mars rovers.

One of the great legacies of Pathfinder and the Mars program is it allowed us to do engineering the way engineering is done, which is to have the same people do a mission, learn what they did right or wrong, and then do another one, and then do another one, Watkins said.

The series of missions, launching at cadences as short as every two years when the planets are properly aligned, have helped NASA build up a knowledge base they we really havent had for any other planet, Watkins said.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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NASA marks 20 years of continuous Mars exploration - Spaceflight Now

Humankind has been ogling Jupiters Great Red Spot through our telescopes for more than 300 years. The Voyager and Galileo missions brought us closer to understanding where this 10,000-mile-wide storm comes from, but its still swirling with mysteries. Well, it better get ready for its close-up: Next week, NASAs Juno spacecraft will come closer to the furious tempest than any spacecraft ever has before, hopefully solving some of those mysteries in the process.

On July 10, Juno will fly directly over the Great Red Spot, passing about 5,600 miles above the glaring eye. During the flyby, all eight of the spacecrafts instruments will be turned on to gather data, including its camera.

Scott Bolton, who heads up the Juno mission, says the team is looking forward to exploring a variety of questions when the spacecraft gets there. The most basic one is: whats it look like when you get really close? says Bolton. Thats sort of a fundamental question, and there are scientific questions of course that are tied to that.

Although Bolton cant say for sure what Juno will find when it gets there, hes hoping the cameras send back stunning imageswhich isnt too much to hope for, since the spacecraft is already sending back remarkable shots of other parts of the gas giant.

The data may reveal new details about how this massive storm, with winds whipping as fast as 425 miles per hour, and Jupiters atmosphere in general, work. Instruments on the probe might help to explain where the storm gets its red coloration, and could even peer below the surface of the storm for the first time ever.

It sees through the cloud tops, and we can investigate how deep the [storms] roots are, says Bolton. Do we see a signature at all underneath the cloud tops, or is it just a shallow feature? That helps us understand maybe how its made, and why its lasted this long.

Although many scientists think the storms roots must go very deep into Jupiters atmosphere, Bolton says Junos observations could potentially throw out that hypothesis. Until now, weve never had any kind of instrument that could see below the top layer, the veneer, of Jupiter.

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NASA's Juno spacecraft is about to peer into the depths of Jupiter's Great Red Spot - Popular Science

Wednesday, July 5, 2017 at 5 a.m.

NASA wants to put nuclear reactors on Mars.

Image from NASA

NASA is moving forward with plans to land on Mars by the 2030s, so the agency is also working out how to keep people alive once they actually get there. And thus, for the first time since the 1960s, NASA is zeroing in on nuclear fission.

One idea that is gaining some traction is a set of small nuclear reactors to provide power on the red planet. NASA is preparing to test out the idea. In September, NASA researchers are slated to head out to the Nevada desert, where they will start testing a technology that may lead to astronauts landing on Mars equipped with their own small nuclear reactors someday.

The project, Kilopower, has been in development since 2014, and will see the building of small nuclear fission reactors. The plan is that uranium atoms will be split in these relatively tiny reactors, giving off extreme heat that can then be converted into electricity. The first run will be at the Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas. Testing is due to start in September and end in January 2018.

The test reactor, which is a little more than six feet tall, will produce up to one kilowatt of electric power. NASA's prediction is that a Mars base would require a supply of just 40 kilowatts equivalent to the power needs of eight houses on Earth.

This is the first time since 1965 that NASA has gotten into fission reactors. The first venture was under NASA's Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary program (a.k.a. SNAP), which saw the development of two types of nuclear reactors. The first kind,radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs, use heat released from the natural decay of a radioactive substance, like plutonium. This type of generator has been used to power various space probes, including the Curiosity rover currently on Mars, over the years.

But NASA didn't stop there. The SNAP program also gave rise to the development of an atom-splitting nuclear fission reactor, SNAP 10A. It was launched in 1965, the first and only nuclear power plant to be sent into space, where it operated for 43 days before failing. (The craft it was on is still in orbit around Earth now.) That was the end of the nuclear fission program from then until now, at least as far as NASA is concerned.

The Russians had better luck with fission reactors. The Soviet space program developed more than 30 Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites between 1967 and 1988, followed by theThermionic Experiment with Conversion in Active Zone (TOPAZ).

So the Russians have been way ahead of us on fission reactors, but not because NASA hasn't been interested. Over the past 50 years, the space agency has backed a number of nuclear power technology efforts, but the programs never got very far because of a mix of political, technical and financial problems.

However, NASA is working to get back on board with nuclear fission. The $15 million project to test the new nuclear fission reactor will mark the first time that NASA has powered up such a reactor that could be used in space since the SNAP program back in the 1960s.

The first tests will be aimed at proving the design for the reactor works. Once all of that is worked out, NASA should be ready to start building full-scale reactors that could actually be used on Mars.That's going to be crucial because once people get to Mars, they'll need a power source to produce everything from air to water to fuel. The plan is currently to send four or five fission reactors on the trip, launched cold and activated only once they have landed on the planet.

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NASA Is Going Nuclear for Mars - Houston Press

Christopher Paul

July 5th, 2017

NASA and Boeing have cleared the component, shown here, for use as the bottom of the dome of an SLS liquid oxygen tank structural test article. After the dome is welded to the rest of the test article in the Vertical Assembly Center, right, it will undergo inspection and processing before being shipped from the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for structural testing. Photo & Caption Credit: Judy Guidry / NASA / MSFC

Moving beyond site selectioncontroversy and production problems that caused headlines in May,NASA is working to complete a Space Launch System (SLS) structural test article at the Space Agencys Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in Louisiana.

Early in May, workers discovered that the forward liquid oxygen tank dome had been damaged during welding, raising concerns the item would be useless for structural tests planned at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. However, engineers from NASA and prime contractor Boeing have now cleared the dome for use and completed repairs to the MAFsspecialized friction stir welding assembly.

Much of the hardware necessary for the structural tests on the SLS core stage has already been completed. The engine section, which will mount fourRS-25 engines, was shipped to Marshall in April. The liquid hydrogen tank welding was completed in September of last year, and the intertank section was recently completed. Among the major test items, only the liquid oxygen tank remains unfinished. Meanwhile, Boeing has begunwelding the first flight-intended liquid hydrogen tank.

Engineers assembled the structure of the intertank that will be flown on the first Space Launch System integrated flight with Orion. The intertank, one of five parts of the 212-foot core stage being built and assembled at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, is on its way to undergo the application of thermal protection systems. The intertank is the only major structural part of the core stage that is not welded. It is made of eight large panels which are connected with 7,500 bolts. The 22-foot-tall structure carries most of the massive launch load produced by the solid rocket boosters that separate from the core stage about two minutes after launch. Photo & Caption Credit: Judy Guidry / NASA / MSFC

The Space Launch System intertank, shown here moving down the factory floor, finished structural assembly at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Technicians moved it to an area where it will be coated with a thermal protection system. The yellow object (left back) is the engine section of the core stage, which also completed structural assembly and is being outfitted with propulsion system hardware that will feed fuel to the four RS-25 engines on the first SLS mission. Photo & Caption Credit: Judy Guidry / NASA / MSFC

The completed test articles will be qualified at a Marshall-basedtest stand that NASAsInspector General harshly criticizedin a May report. The IG found that NASA didnot adequately consider alternate locations, such as Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where NASA already hosts rocket engine testing. It noted that the journey by barge from Michoud to Marshall required two weeks of travel for each test component on a bargethat could only carry one piece at a time requiring six weeks total of travel and a total cost of over $1 million.

The entire test article could be shipped to Stennis within a week ata total cost of around $200,000.

The IG also criticized the space agency for not considering life cycle costs and ordering construction based on incomplete designs and specifications. The reportrecommended that stricter procedures govern NASAs testing construction in the future, but noted that it was too late to move the test standsas NASA was moving ahead quickly with its test schedule.

LEFT IMAGE: NASA cleared the dome, shown here being removed from the infeeder tool, for use as intended as the bottom dome of the liquid oxygen tank structural test article being welded in the Vertical Assembly Center, right. The dome sustained minor damage during operations May 3, 2017. The investigation team is currently wrapping up their investigation of the mishap and will prepare recommendations to the SLS program. RIGHT IMAGE: More than 500,000 U.S. gallons of fuel will flow from the liquid hydrogen tank to the four RS-25 engines that power NASAs Space Launch System rocket. During a flight, and even during testing, a tanks insides must be clean to ensure contaminants do not find their way into complex propulsion and engine systems. Technicians recently lifted the liquid hydrogen tank structural qualification test article into a cleaning cell at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where its insides will be thoroughly cleaned, coated, and dried to certify the process for the following flight article. Photo & Caption Credits: Judy Guidry / NASA / MSFC

The bottom of a Space Launch System liquid hydrogen fuel tank test article is visible as it is lowered into a cleaning cell at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where the tank was manufactured. Technicians will clean the inside of the tank to remove any potential contaminants. Photo & Caption Credit: Judy Guidry / NASA / MSFC

The liquid hydrogen tank test article is currently waiting for shipment to Marshall, and the liquid oxygen tank lacks only the aft dome before welding on it is completed. The intertank section, which is bolted together, rather than welded, is also waiting for shipment to Marshall.

Once all the components arrive at the test stands in Alabama, they will be subjected to structural tests to certify the SLS design for flight by simulating the stresses the heavy-lift rocket will experience during its launch and ascent.

Tagged: Marshall Space Flight Center Michoud Assembly Facility NASA Space Launch System The Range

Christopher Paul has had a lifelong interest in spaceflight. He began writing about his interest in the Florida Tech Crimson. His primary areas of interest are in historical space systems and present and past planetary exploration missions. He lives in Kissimmee, Florida, and also enjoys cooking and photography. Paul saw his first Space Shuttle launch in 2005 when he moved to central Florida to attend classes at the Florida Institute of Technology, studying space science, and has closely followed the space program since. Paul is especially interested in the renewed effort to land crewed missions on the Moon and to establish a permanent human presence there. He has covered several launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral for space blogs before joining SpaceFlight Insider in mid-2017.

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Problems aside, NASA moves toward SLS structural testing at Marshall - SpaceFlight Insider

This portion of a 1997 panorama from a camera aboard NASA's Mars Pathfinder lander shows the microwave-oven-size Sojourner rover next to a rock called "Yogi."

Mars exploration took a big leap 20 years ago today.

On July 4, 1997, NASA's Pathfinder mission touched down on the Red Planet, delivering an eponymous lander and a small rover called Sojourner the agency's first wheeled Mars craft to the surface.

Pathfinder was the first NASA mission to reach Mars successfully since the twin Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers/orbiters in the mid-1970s, and its success helped pave the way for a robotic Red Planet invasion. In the two decades since, eight other NASA robots have reached Mars, and five of them remain active today. [Occupy Mars: History of Robotic Red Planet Missions (Infographic)]

"Pathfinder initiated two decades of continuous Mars exploration, bringing us to the threshold of sample return and the possibility of humans on the first planet beyond Earth," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington, said in a statement.

Pathfinder launched on Dec. 4, 1996, embarking on an eight-month cruise to the Red Planet. After the lander touched down, the six-wheeled, microwave-oven-size Sojourner rover rolled down a ramp onto Mars' red dirt.

The images beamed home by the lander and rover racked up 200 million hits on the still-young internet between July 4 and July 8, 1997 a traffic record at the time, NASA officials said.

The Pathfinder lander was designed to operate for one month, and Sojourner for just one week. But both robots kept going for three months, gathering data about Mars' atmosphere and climate, as well as the planet's geology and interior.

The scientific bounty notwithstanding, the $264 million Pathfinder mission was primarily a technology demonstration that helped usher in a new era of relatively cheap, fast-development planetary efforts, NASA officials said.

"We needed to invent or re-invent 25 technologies for this mission in less than three years, and we knew that if we blew the cost cap, the mission would be cancelled," Pathfinder flight system manager and deputy project manager Brian Muirhead, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in the same statement.

"Everybody who was part of the Mars Pathfinder project felt we'd done something extraordinary, against the odds," Muirhead added.

NASA reused these new technologies which included Sojourner, advanced computers and an airbag landing system in its next rover mission, which sent the golf-cart-size twins Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet.

Spirit and Opportunity landed a few weeks apart in January 2004 and soon began searching for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet. Both robots found plenty of such evidence, then kept rolling far beyond their three-month warranties: Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in March 2010, and Opportunity is still going strong today.

The other NASA robots that reached Mars after Pathfinder are the Phoenix lander and Curiosity rover, which touched down in May 2008 and August 2012, respectively; Mars Global Surveyor; Mars Odyssey; the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO); and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN). The latter four are orbiters that arrived at the Red Planet in September 1997, October 2001, March 2006 and September 2014, respectively. (Two other NASA Red Planet missions, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander, launched in the late 1990s but did not reach their destinations successfully.)

Opportunity, Curiosity, Odyssey, MRO and MAVEN are still operating today. So are Europe's Mars Express orbiter, India's Mars Orbiter Mission and the European/Russian ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. If all goes according to plan, these robots will be joined at Mars by several other spacecraft in the next few years: NASA plans to launch a lander called InSight in 2018, and both NASA and Europe (with Russia as a partner) plan to send life-hunting rovers toward the Red Planet in 2020.

Pathfinder's landing isn't the only big NASA event that occurred on July 4. On that date in 2005, for example, the agency's Deep Impact probe slammed an impactor into Comet Tempel 1 to investigate the icy body's composition. And on July 4 of last year, NASA's Juno spacecraft arrived in orbit around Jupiter.

Editor's note:Video produced by Space.com's Steve Spaleta.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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NASA's 1st Mars Rover Landed 20 Years Ago Today - Space.com

On a recent rainy afternoon at Riley Park, Stall High School students gathered in the outfield.

The students, ROTC cadets and English-language learners, launched a nearly 4-pound weather balloon bearing a video camera about 200 feet into the air. On the mezzanine next to the press box, students gathered around a satellite dish and a computer screen, monitoring the images coming in from the camera.

On the giant videoboard at Riley Park, the same images flashed on the screen.

"That's crucial," said Stall teacher Maria Royle. "We have to make sure we can get our images to them to show on the Jumbotron."

Stall High School students practice launching a weather balloon as they prepare to work with NASA to live-stream the "Great American Eclipse" on Aug. 21.Charleston County School District/Provided

The exercise was a dry run for what NASA is calling the "Great American Eclipse," the total eclipse of the sun on Aug. 21. The eclipse will mark the first time in 99 years that a total solar eclipse will occur across the entire continental U.S., with the area just north of Charleston in the path for optimal viewing.

The Stall High students, wearing "Team Warrior" T-shirts, are among the many high school and college students working with NASA to study and live-stream the eclipse.

On Aug. 21, Royle and her students will gather again at Riley Park, this time to launch their helium-filled balloon and its camera more than 100,000 feet into the air. From there, the balloon's equipment will capture video and other data for use by NASA.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," said Royle, who teaches English as a second language, math and science at Stall. "The students are learning computer skills, science, weather data, programming and a lot of teamwork.

"We have worked them really hard, and they've put in a lot of hours on this."

Morgan McClure, a rising junior at Stall, is an ROTC officer and chief of cybersecurity for his unit.

"My main job is programming, and we are using a couple of different video clients to stream our camera to NASA," he said. "And then NASA will stream it onto their site.

"Our satellite dish will connect to the balloon and tell us where the payload lands after the eclipse. It could be in the marsh, in the sea, in somebody's backyard. We have to be able to retrieve it and return it to NASA."

Stall High School teacher Maria Royle (left) discusses the school's joint project with NASA to live-stream the "Great American Eclipse" on Aug. 21 with SMSgt (Ret) Gale Rickert and ROTC cadet and student Chelsey Graham.Charleston County School District/Provided

Royle, a native of Puerto Rico, said the project has been rewarding for her English-language learners.

"They were a little nervous at first about it," she said. "But I tell them, the sky is the limit for them. I'm bilingual and an English-language learner myself, so I've been where they are."

The public can come out to Riley Park on Aug. 21 to view the Stall students in action, and watch the images on the videoboard.

"What we're doing has never been done before," Royle said. "So we'll see how it works. NASA is eager to see the data and the pictures that we will be able to get."

NASA says viewers around the world will be able to view video from 11 spacecraft, including three of NASA's, and more than 50 high-altitude balloons, and from the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Reach Jeff Hartsell at (843) 937-5596. Follow on Twitter @Jeff_fromthePC

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Stall High School students ready for NASA's 'Great American Eclipse' project - Charleston Post Courier

Jupiter cloud bands stand out in this image from NASA's Juno spacecraft. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstdt and Sen Doran created the image using data Juno collected on May 19, when it was about 20,800 miles (33,400 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has now been orbiting the solar system's largest planet for a year.

Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016, after a nearly five-year trek through deep space. Ever since its arrival, the probe has been peering at the gas giant intently, gathering data that should help scientists better understand Jupiter's formation and evolution.

"The success of science collection at Jupiter is a testament to the dedication, creativity and technical abilities of the NASA-Juno team," Juno project manager Rick Nybakken, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. [Photos: NASA's Juno Mission to Jupiter]

"Each new orbit brings us closer to the heart of Jupiter's radiation belt, but so far the spacecraft has weathered the storm of electrons surrounding Jupiter better than we could have ever imagined," Nybakken added.

Juno's orbit is 53.5 Earth days long and extremely elliptical, bringing the spacecraft within 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) of Jupiter at closest approach, or perijove, and taking the spacecraft as far away as 5 million miles (8 million km).

Juno gathers most of its data during its close approaches, and the probe has completed five of them so far (not counting the initial orbital-arrival perijove), racking up a total of 71 million miles (114.5 million km) in orbit, NASA officials said.

But perijove number six is imminent, and it promises to be pretty exciting: On July 10, Juno will zoom directly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, giving humanity its first up-close look at the famous 10,000-mile-wide (16,000 km) storm, which scientists have been monitoring from afar for nearly 200 years.

"This monumental storm has raged on the solar system's biggest planet for centuries," Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in the same statement."Now, Juno and her cloud-penetrating science instruments will dive in to see how deep the roots of this storm go, and help us understand how this giant storm works and what makes it so special."

The $1.1 billion Juno mission launched on Aug. 5, 2011. The spacecraft took a looping path through the inner solar system to set up a speed-boosting flyby of Earth, which took place in October 2013.

Juno carries seven different science instruments, which the probe uses to study Jupiter's structure, composition, and magnetic and gravitational fields. Juno's observations so far suggest that Jupiter may have a large, partially dissolved core and that Jovian auroras are fundamentally different from those of Earth. The spacecraft has also spotted surprising cyclones near the huge planet's poles.

Juno's mission is scheduled to last through at least February 2018.

The probe's Jupiter arrival isn't the only anniversary NASA is celebrating today. An impactor released by the agency's Deep Impact spacecraft slammed into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, and the Pathfinder lander touched down on Mars on the same date in 1997.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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Happy Anniversary, Juno! NASA Probe Marks 1 Year at Jupiter - Space.com

July 4, 2017 by Geoff Brown Artist concept of NASA's DART spacecraft, part of NASAs first mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL

NASA is moving forward with a plan to develop a refrigerator-sized spacecraft capable of deflecting asteroids and preventing them from colliding with Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, is being designed and would be built and managed by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. NASA approved a move from concept development to the preliminary design phase on June 23.

DART would use what is known as a kinetic impactor techniquestriking the asteroid to shift its orbit. The impact would change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing so well before the predicted impact, this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid's path away from Earth.

A test with a small, nonthreatening asteroid is planned for 2024.

"DART is a critical step in demonstrating we can protect our planet from a future asteroid impact," said Andy Cheng, who is co-leading the DART investigation at APL along with Andy Rivkin. "Since we don't know that much about their internal structure or composition, we need to perform this experiment on a real asteroid. With DART, we can show how to protect Earth from an asteroid strike with a kinetic impactor by knocking the hazardous object into a different flight path that would not threaten the planet."

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Small asteroids hit Earth almost daily, breaking up harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. Objects large enough to do damage at the surface are much rarer.

The target for DART's first test is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022, and then again in 2024. The asteroid is called DidymosGreek for "twin"because it's an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: Didymos A, about one-half mile in size; and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 530 feet in size. DART would impact only the smaller of the two bodies, Didymos B.

The Didymos system has been closely studied since 2003. The primary body is a rocky S-type object, with composition similar to that of many asteroids. The composition of its small companion, Didymos B, is unknown, but the size is typical of asteroids that could potentially create regional effects should they impact Earth.

After launch, DART would fly to Didymos and use an APL-developed onboard autonomous targeting system to aim itself at Didymos B. Then the spacecraft would strike the smaller body at a speed about nine times faster than a bullet, approximately 3.7 miles per second. Earth-based observatories would be able to see the impact and the resulting change in the orbit of Didymos B around Didymos A, allowing scientists to better determine the capabilities of kinetic impact as an asteroid mitigation strategy.

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Objects larger than 0.6 miles in diameterlarge enough to cause global effectshave been the focus of NASA's ground-based search for potentially hazardous objects with orbits that bring them near the Earth. About 93 percent of these sized objects have already been found, NASA says.

DART would test technologies to deflect objects in the intermediate size rangelarge enough to do regional damage yet small enough that there are many more that have not been observed and could someday hit Earth. NASA-funded telescopes and other assets continue to search for these objects, track their orbits, and determine if they are a threat.

To assess and formulate capabilities to address these potential threats, NASA in 2016 established its Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which is responsible for finding, tracking, and characterizing potentially hazardous asteroids and comets coming near Earth; issuing warnings about possible impacts; and assisting plans and coordination of U.S. government response to an actual impact threat.

Explore further: Image: Asteroid Impact Mission spacecraft

ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission, being studied for a 2022 arrival at the Didymos double asteroid, involves not just one but four spacecraft.

This is the micro-lander that ESA's proposed Asteroid Impact Mission would put down on its target asteroid.

An ambitious joint US-European mission, called AIDA, is being planned to divert the orbit of a binary asteroid's small moon, as well as to give us new insights into the structure of asteroids. A pair of spacecraft, the ESA-led ...

Telescopes around the globe recently homed in on one point in the sky, observing the paired Didymos asteroids the target for ESA's proposed Asteroid Impact Mission.

The famous near-Earth asteroid Apophis caused quite a stir in 2004 when it was announced that it could hit our planet. Although the possibility of an impact during its close approach in 2029 was excluded, the asteroid's collision ...

A leading astrophysicist from Queen's University Belfast has warned that an asteroid strike is just a matter of time.

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NASA plans to test asteroid deflection technique designed to prevent Earth impact - Phys.Org

A Dayton science teacher has been chosen to participate in a national STEM learning program tied to NASA, called Bringing the Universe to Americas Classrooms.

Jennifer Patton-Hoang from Kiser PreK-6 School is one of 50 teacher-advisors chosen from several hundred applicants nationwide. The program, in collaboration with WGBH-TV station in Boston, is designed to create new teaching models and digital media tools for science, technology, engineering and math classes.

As a teacher advisor, Patton-Hoang will take new digital resources produced by WGBH using data, images and other media from NASA and use them with her students in the fall, then give feedback to a research partner, Oregon State University. She also will participate in several virtual sessions about classroom digital media with her teacher advisor colleagues.

I hope to add more tools to my toolbox as a teacher, to be able to present it to my students. said Patton-Hoang, who is going into her fourth year of teaching fifth- and sixth-grade science courses. I was interested in being a teacher advisor because it provides real scientific data that our students couldnt get on their own. It allows them to manipulate and analyze in a way thats really meaningful to them.

Denise Olson, senior marketing manager for WGBH, said criteria for the program included years of teaching, science subjects, and geographic location, adding that teacher enthusiasm was most important for integrating digital media in the classroom.

For Patton-Hoang, the announcement of working with WGBH does not affect her teaching plans: This just adds another layer. It will add a lot deeper understanding for the students on the topics were already covering, she said.

Bringing the Universe to Americas Classrooms, is in its second year of a 5-year project.

NASA provided a grant for development of the resources, Olson said. Many of the resources use data, images, and other media from NASA, as well as from other partners and sources. They also include media from WGBH productions.

Resources are free to all educators at PBS LearningMedia. The collections of resources contain materials for both teachers and students. Material created for PBS LearningMedia use satellite images, data visualizations, interactive tools, and broadcast videos from NASA and WGBH according to Olson.

I think teachers, all teachers, are always looking for new and innovative ways to provide material to their students, Patton-Hoang said.

Patton-Hoang gained experience through numerous grants and scholarships through STEM Education, Otterbein Colleges Operation Physics and Miami Universitys WISE Science Program, according to a press release. She is also the recipient of the 2017 Dayton Public Schools Foundation grant, 2016 Montgomery County Educational Service Center STEM Fellow and nominated for the June 2017 Scobee Rodgers Innovative Educator Award.

The application process for Year 3 of the project will begin in early 2018 according to Olson. Those that want to be notified when the process opens can email education@wgbh.org and they will be placed on a mailing list.

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Dayton teacher selected for collaborative NASA program - Dayton Daily News

(Image: Artist concept of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft.)

A devastating large asteroid headed right for Earthit's unlikely in our lifetimes, but inevitable in the very long term. NASA and other space institutions are starting to think more about how to deal with this fact, and one idea with widespread support is to build a spacecraft that could simply slam into an asteroid while it is still far away from Earth, altering its trajectory just enough to safely fly around our home planet.

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That's exactly what the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor spacecraft would do. This NASA project would target an asteroid not headed toward Earth as a test. The spacecraft concept was approved on June 23 to enter the design phase of the project. A target launch date has not been announced, but NASA mentioned their target asteroid, Didymos, will be making distant approaches to Earth in 2022 and 2024, suggesting a launch soon enough to hit the asteroid in the early 2020s is possible.

The target asteroid is actually a binary asteroid with two bodies, hence the name Didymos, Greek for "twin." Didymos A, the larger asteroid at about a half-mile wide (780 meters), has a smaller asteroid orbiting around it. Didymos B is only about 530 feet (160 meters) wide. DART, about the size of a refrigerator, would impact the smaller of the two, Didymos B, at 3.7 miles per second, or 5 to 9 times faster than a modern rifle bullet.

"A binary asteroid is the perfect natural laboratory for this test," said Tom Statler, program scientist for DART. "The fact that Didymos B is in orbit around Didymos A makes it easier to see the results of the impact, and ensures that the experiment doesn't change the orbit of the pair around the sun."

Of course, for something like DART to save the planet someday, we would need to hit a large asteroid while it is still far away. The bigger the asteroid, the earlier we need to find it, and if we can hit it while it is still months or years out, just a little nudge would be enough to alter its trajectory safely around us. If we are surprised by a large asteroid that would arrive in a matter of weeks, we would face the difficult decision of nuking it to smithereens as a last ditch effort.

Of all near-Earth objects (NEOs) that are over 1 kilometer in average diameter, we have located an estimated 95 percent. However, of NEOs around 20 meters in diameter or smaller, we have located less than 1 percent.

A meteor strike in Chelyabinsk, Russia, occurred in 2013 when an asteroid about 20 meters in diameter unexpectedly exploded over the city of 3.5 million in a 400 to 500 kiloton blast, releasing roughly 30 times as much energy as the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Even though the primary force of the explosion was 19 miles (30 kilometers) up in the atmosphere, over 1,400 people were injured and significant infrastructure damage occurred in an area roughly ten miles wide.

The Chelyabinsk meteor, brighter than the sun at its brightest point.

If an asteroid like the Chelyabinsk meteor were on a collision course for, say, New York City, it would be nice to be able to knock it out of the way with an impactor spacecraft. But we would need a system like DART on hand, and we would need to find the incoming asteroidthe Chelyabinsk meteor was obscured by the light of the sun, and it struck entirely without warning.

The WISE space telescope was repurposed in 2013 to search for NEOs, and telescopes coming online in the 2020s could greatly expand the catalogue of potentially hazardous asteroids and other planetary bodies.

And of course, we need to worry about the big one, the life-annihilating chunk of rock and ice somewhere out in the void. From studying impact craters, we know meteors around 6 miles (10 km) strike the Earth every 50 to 100 million years. The last one that size struck 65 million years ago, and it wiped out the former kings of this planet. If our species survives long enough, humans will confront a similar rock of doom. Let's hope we're ready for it.

Source: NASA

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NASA Spacecraft Would Smash Into an Asteroid as a Dry Run for Saving the Planet - Popular Mechanics

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is back in contact with Earth after its successful first-ever dive through the narrow gap between the planet Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017. The spacecraft is in the process of beaming back science and engineering data collected during its passage, via NASA's Deep Space Network Goldstone Complex in California's Mojave Desert. The DSN acquired Cassini's signal at 11:56 p.m. PDT on April 26, 2017 (2:56 a.m. EDT on April 27) and data began flowing at 12:01 a.m. PDT (3:01 a.m. EDT) on April 27.

"In the grandest tradition of exploration, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has once again blazed a trail, showing us new wonders and demonstrating where our curiosity can take us if we dare," said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

As it dove through the gap, Cassini came within about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Saturn's cloud tops (where the air pressure is 1 bar -- comparable to the atmospheric pressure of Earth at sea level) and within about 200 miles (300 kilometers) of the innermost visible edge of the rings.

While mission managers were confident Cassini would pass through the gap successfully, they took extra precautions with this first dive, as the region had never been explored.

"No spacecraft has ever been this close to Saturn before. We could only rely on predictions, based on our experience with Saturn's other rings, of what we thought this gap between the rings and Saturn would be like," said Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape."

The gap between the rings and the top of Saturn's atmosphere is about 1,500 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide. The best models for the region suggested that if there were ring particles in the area where Cassini crossed the ring plane, they would be tiny, on the scale of smoke particles. The spacecraft zipped through this region at speeds of about 77,000 mph (124,000 kph) relative to the planet, so small particles hitting a sensitive area could potentially have disabled the spacecraft.

As a protective measure, the spacecraft used its large, dish-shaped high-gain antenna (13 feet or 4 meters across) as a shield, orienting it in the direction of oncoming ring particles. This meant that the spacecraft was out of contact with Earth during the ring-plane crossing, which took place at 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT) on April 26. Cassini was programmed to collect science data while close to the planet and turn toward Earth to make contact about 20 hours after the crossing.

Cassini's next dive through the gap is scheduled for May 2.

Launched in 1997, Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004. Following its last close flyby of the large moon Titan on April 21 PDT (April 22 EDT), Cassini began what mission planners are calling its "Grand Finale." During this final chapter, Cassini loops Saturn approximately once per week, making a total of 22 dives between the rings and the planet. Data from this first dive will help engineers understand if and how they will need to protect the spacecraft on its future ring-plane crossings. The spacecraft is on a trajectory that will eventually plunge into Saturn's atmosphere -- and end Cassini's mission -- on Sept. 15, 2017.

More information about Cassini's Grand Finale, including images and video, is available at:

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/grandfinale

For the latest views of Saturn, visit the Cassini Raw Image gallery:

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/raw-images/

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about Cassini is at:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

News media contact:

Preston Dyches Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-394-7013 preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown/Laurie Cantillo NASA Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077 Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov/Laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

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NASA Spacecraft Dives Between Saturn and Its Rings

Jupiter sports a chagrined-looking face.

The Man in the Moon isn't the only time we've spotted a face on an extraterrestrial body. Citizen scientist Jason Major rotated an image of Jupiter snapped by NASA's Juno spacecraft and created an instant classic: "Jovey McJupiterface." The new twist on the image makes it look like Jupiter has two white eyes and a distressed mouth.

The "eyes" are storms and the gas giant's swirling atmosphere gives the face personality, like a celestial Edvard Munch painting. Jupiter is home to a series of huge rotating storms that look like white spots and are known as "pearls."

The Juno spacecraft launched on its mission to study Jupiter in 2011. NASA makes the raw camera images available to the public and highlights the results in a fascinatingimage-processing gallery.

"JunoCam images aren't just for art and science sometimes they are processed to bring a chuckle," NASA notes in a Friday release for the "Jovey McJupiterface" image.

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Jaw-dropping Jupiter: NASA's Juno mission eyes the gas giant

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'Jovey McJupiterface': Jupiter grimaces in NASA image - CNET

(WTNH) NASA plans on testing a dart that could potentially knock a dangerous asteroid off course.

The dart is about the size of a refrigerator. Right now, its in the preliminary design phase.

The project is a joint effort between NASA and the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland for the asteroids that are too big to break up.

NASA says asteroids hit earth nearly every day, but most are small enough to burn up in the atmosphere.

This would be for the asteroids that are too big to break up. NASA hopes to have the dart ready by October of 2022.

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NASA unveils plan to destroy dangerous asteroid - WTNH Connecticut News (press release)

The situation for human beings on Mars is dire, and not just because the red planet's atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and the average temperature is -81 degrees.

There's also the issue of the child-trafficking ring operating in secret on the planet 33.9 million miles from earth, according to a guest on the Alex Jones Show.

"We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride," Robert David Steele said Thursday during a winding, conspiratorial dialogue with Jones about child victims of sex crimes. "So that once they get to Mars they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony."

NASA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But Guy Webster, a spokesman for Mars exploration at NASA, told the Daily Beast that rumors about live humans on Mars are false.

"There are no humans on Mars," he said. "There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there weren't. There are, but there are no humans."

Jones is known for peddling elaborate and debunked conspiracy theories on his radio show, which airs on 118 stations around the country and reaches millions of listeners. The site had 4.5 million unique page views in the past month and more than 5 million from mid-April to mid-May, according to Quantcast. His YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers.

Among his most well-known accusations in recent years is that the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 children and six adults were killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax. Jones has claimed that the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and, more recently, promoted the "Pizzagate" conspiracy, which alleged that Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was linked to a child-sex ring operating from the basement of a suburban Washington D.C. pizzeria.

The theory originated on Reddit, where a user claimed hacked emails belonging to Clinton campaign manager John Podesta revealed evidence of an international child-sex ring. The key, the user alleged, was replacing the word "pizza" with "little boy."

From that moment, the conspiracy theory took on a life of its own, culminating in a North Carolina man firing a military-style assault rifle inside the restaurant in December. Edgar Maddison Welch told investigators he was there to save abused children. Instead, he pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges in March and was sentenced to four years in prison last month.

Confronted about his Sandy Hook allegations during a controversial interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly last month, Jones hedged.

"I tend to believe that children probably did die there," he told the anchor. "But then you look at all the other evidence on the other side. I can see how other people believe that nobody died there."

On Thursday's Infowars broadcast, Steele appeared to connect the kidnapped children being held captive on Mars to pedophile rings who allegedly use children for their youthful body parts and energy.

"Pedophilia does not stop with sodomizing children," Steele said. "It goes straight into terrorizing them to adrenalize their blood and then murdering them. It also includes murdering them so that they can have their bone marrow harvested as well as body parts."

"This is the original growth hormone," Jones said.

"Yes, it's an anti-aging thing," Steele replied.

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No, NASA is not hiding kidnapped children on Mars - Orlando Sentinel

Fresh off the announcement last week thathe will lead a revived National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence is set to visit to NASAs Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.

Pence who was named byPresident Donald Trump last Friday to helm the new commission Trump said will help the U.S. think big once again will tour the Cape Canaveral facility and learn more about the centers work as a multi-user spaceport for commercial and government clients,NASA said in a news release.

The agency said Pence will learn about NASAs efforts to travel past the moon and to Mars, with NASAs new Space Launch System rocket and Orion craft.

The vice president is scheduled to land aboard Air Force Two on the space centers famed Shuttle Landing Facility runway at noon. He then will speak to NASA employees just before 1 p.m.

NASA said it will broadcast much of Pences tripvia NASA TV.

Last month, Pence traveled to Houston to introduce NASAs 2017 class of astronaut candidates.

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NEW: Mike Pence coming to Florida this week for NASA tour - Palm Beach Post

The first humans to settle on Mars could have small nuclear power stations responsible for providing energy.

That's because NASA is currently working on an 11 million project to develop nuclear fission reactors that could work on the red planet . The space agency has built several 6.5ft (1.98m) reactors and is due to start testing them here on Earth.

Each reactor splits uranium atoms in half to generate power and, if they pass the initial tests, they could be shipped to Mars to be tested there.

Any human colony on the harsh planet will need power to generate oxygen, water, light, heat and electricity for recharging vehicles and scientific equipment.

Each nuclear reactor can produce up to 10 kilowatts of power - enough to support two people on an expedition mission to the planet. That's according to a 2008 paper in which NASA estimated that an eight-person expedition would need 40 kilowatts of power.

This isn't the first time the US space agency has experimented with nuclear reactors in space.

Back in the 1960s it had a so-called SNAP (Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) programme that developed, among other things, the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). This is, in effect, a small lump of decaying plutonium-238 that gives off heat and power as it breaks down.

The Curiosity rover currently exploring Mars uses an RTG for power as does the Cassini probe .

Lee Mason, who oversees power and energy storage technology development at NASA's Glenn Research Center, told Space.com that these new reactors will be the "first time we operate a fission reactor that could be used in space since [the] 1960s SNAP program."

Successfully installing a power source on Mars is going to be a key part of establishing humans on the planet. Fission reactors are a better choice than solar panels because of Mars' distance from the sun and their resistance to the planet's infamous dust storms.

"Weve landed some really cool things on Mars and theyve had some pretty remarkable power systems but theyre not going to cut it for human missions," Mason said during last months Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C.

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NASA plans to put nuclear reactors on MARS to power a human colony - Mirror.co.uk

Nasais developing small nuclear fission reactors that could overcome one of the last technical barriers to life on Mars.

Energy generation has become the primary goal of space scientists after they establishedthere is water on the red planet.

Testing of the 6.5 ft tall reactors, developed as part of a Kilopower projectover the past three years, is due to start in September.

If the units pass design and performance pass tests, Nasa would then test them on Mars.

The US department of Energy and Nasas Glenn Research Center are two key partners in the 11mproject.

About 40 kilowatts of power are required for a human expedition to Mars, equivalent to what is needed for about eight hours on Earth, according to a 2008 report by Nasa.

The power requirements are for producing fuel, air, and water as well as recharging batteries for rovers and science equipment.

Each reactor under development would produce up to 10 kilowatts of power so only four would be necessary to power a colony of eight human beings.

The reactors work by splitting uranium atoms in half to generate heat which can be converted into electricity.

Relying on solar power would be difficult as Mars only receives about a third of the sunlight Earth does.

The last fission reactor tested by NASA was the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power during the 1960s, nicknamed SNAP. Its system of radioisotope thermoelectric generators have powered dozens of space probes including the Curiosity robotic rover.

Lee Mason is responsible for power and energy storage technology development at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

"It'll be the first time that we operate a fission reactor that could be used in space since [the] 1960s SNAP program," he told Space.

Earlier this week, NASA had to deny the allegation made by a guest on the Alex Jones show that the organisation was running a secret child-trafficking ring on Mars.

Canadian-American businessman Elon Musk has announcedplans to colonise Mars.

Using traditional methods, taking an Apollo-style approach, an optimistic cost would be about $10 billion (8bn) per person he wrote in a paper on New Space.

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Nasa to test technology for potential future human colony on Mars - The Independent

NASA, working in conjunction with Lockheed-Martin, has completed and approved the preliminary design for a quiet supersonic jet known as QueSST. The basic idea is to build a plane whose shockwaves produce a diffuse sonic thump instead of the usual boom.

The next step will be the construction of an experimental craft, currently referred to as a Low Boom Flight Demonstration Aircraft, to provide proof of concept for larger planes. NASA says it will start accepting proposals for building the experimental plane later this year, and flight testing could start as early as 2021.

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The big question is what the long-term applications of the technology would be. The shutdown of the Concorde in 2003 was only partly down to noise complaints it also didnt make money. But businesses including Aerion and Boom are trying to resuscitate the supersonic business jet, and NASAs research could eventually help lower regulatory barriers around aircraft noise.

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A Quieter Supersonic Plane is Coming from NASA and Lockheed - Fortune

By studying what makes geckos feet sticky, NASA scientists have created a device that will adhere to almost anything.

The gecko gripper uses minuscule silicon wedges to latch onto a wide range of slippery surfaces, like solar panels and plastics. The grippers can work with heavy objects, easily maneuvering, say, an adult male, or a 278 kg (613 lb) robot. NASA hopes to use gecko grippers in place of traditional adhesives like velcro, which are trickier to use in space and can leave behind residue. Since theyre made of silicon, the grippers can also withstand extreme pressure, temperature, and radiation conditions.

Gecko grippers adhere to testing objects using the same scientific forces as a gecko climbing up the glass in its tank. A single gecko foot contains about half a million tiny hairs called setae. The ends of these hairs may be small, but together they create a powerful connection between the foot and the surface. That connection takes advantage of Van der Waals forces, which occur when the electrons inside an atom or molecule arent evenly spaced, creating a negative pole and a positive pole. This causes other molecules or atoms nearby to become polarized, creating a weak electrical field that temporarily allows the gecko to stick. While gecko grippers use silicon wedges instead of setae, they too experience the sticky powers of Van der Waals forces.

Gecko grips could be used for a variety of purposes, but scientists are especially interested in their ability to clean up floating debris in space. Chunks of space trash can endanger satellites and space stations, so removing them is key to preventing future damage. Velcro is bad for collecting debris because it requires two points of connection: a strip of velcro on the trash-collecting device, and a strip on the debris itself. Gecko grippers could be a viable solution.

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NASA looked to gecko feet for its latest space innovation - Quartz

By: PTI | Washington | Published:July 3, 2017 10:32 am NASAs Juno spacecraft is set to fly directly over Jupiters Great Red Spot on July 10. This true colour mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASAs Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles) (Source: NASA)

NASAs Juno spacecraft is set to fly directly over Jupiters Great Red Spot the gas giants iconic 16,000-kilometer-wide storm. This will be humanitys first up-close and personal view of the gigantic feature a storm monitored since 1830 and possibly existing for more than 350 years.

Jupiters mysterious Great Red Spot is probably the best-known feature of Jupiter. This monumental storm has raged on the solar systems biggest planet for centuries, said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

Now, Juno and her cloud-penetrating science instruments will dive in to see how deep the roots of this storm go, and help us understand how this giant storm works and what makes it so special, said Bolton.

The data collection of the Great Red Spot is part of Junos sixth science flyby over Jupiters mysterious cloud tops. Perijove the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiters center will be on July 10. At the time of perijove, Juno will be about 3,500 kilometers above the planets cloud tops.

Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno will have covered another 39,771 kilometers and will be directly above the coiling crimson cloud tops of Jupiters Great Red Spot. The spacecraft will pass about 9,000 kilometers above the Giant Red Spot clouds. All eight of the spacecrafts instruments as well as its imager, JunoCam, will be on during the flyby.

On July 4 , Juno will have logged exactly one year in Jupiter orbit. At the time, the spacecraft will have chalked up about 114.5 million kilometres in orbit around the giant planet.

The success of science collection at Jupiter is a testament to the dedication, creativity and technical abilities of the NASA-Juno team, said Rick Nybakken, project manager for Juno from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US.

Each new orbit brings us closer to the heart of Jupiters radiation belt, but so far the spacecraft has weathered the storm of electrons surrounding Jupiter better than we could have ever imagined, said Nybakken.

Juno was launched in 2011 from the US. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planets cloud tops -as close as about 3,400 kilometres. During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planets origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Early science results from NASAs Juno mission portray the largest planet in our solar system as a turbulent world, with an intriguingly complex interior structure, energetic polar aurora, and huge polar cyclones.

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NASA's Juno probe set to fly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot on July 10 - The Indian Express