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NASA and IBM Rally Global Developers around Space Exploration on the IBM Cloud

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IBM(NYSE: IBM)today announced that it will offer itsBluemixplatform for the NASASpace App ChallengeVirtual Event to help developers rapidly build applications thatcontribute to space exploration and solve global challenges.IBM will also collaborate with NASA Space Apps Challenge events globally to offer mentorship, guidance and tutorials for Challenge participants; and will help foster innovation by granting free access to over a hundred unique cloud-based services such as Watson analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) tools through Bluemix.

The NASA Space Apps Challenge is an international three-day code-a-thon where developers,scientists, students, entrepreneurs and educatorsgather to build applications, software, hardware, data visualization and platform solutions to bolster space exploration missions and improve life on Earth. This year, more than 10,000 developers are expected to participate across 136 cities and online through the virtual challenge. Through their collaboration with NASA Space Apps events around the world, IBM will help participants leverage publicly available data to design solutions to 35 different challenges across four categories, including: outer space, Earth, humans and robotics. Some examples of specific challenges include:

Visualizing Asteroids in the Sky:Participants are challenged to leverage data aggregators and analytics to create a system that can help NASA tracks asteroids.

Sensor Yourself:Participants are challenged to put together a stream of senor data to guide movement for robots

Crop Alert Learning from the Growers:Participants are challenged to develop a mobile/web app/SMS capability to help growers create more creative methods of growing crops

More than 200 NASA data sources including data sets, services and tools, supplied through real-life NASA missions and technology will be available for participants to leverage for their applications. Using Bluemix, participants can call on more than 100 different services to rapidly build and iterate on solutions with team members around the world. For example, participants building solutions for theroboticscategory could use IBMsIoT serviceto build an app for the sensor yourself challenge; coupling it with analytics services through Bluemix to analyze and make sense of sensor data for a potential robot simulator.

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge is at the forefront of innovation, providing real-world examples of how technology can be used to by the best and brightest developers in the world to solve some of the most daunting challenges facing our civilization, said Sandy Carter, General Manager, Cloud Ecosystem and Developers, IBM. Using the IBM Cloud, IBM is making it easier for developers to solve NASA challenges by helping them leverage and make sense of data in ways that wouldnt have been possible even just a few years ago.

For developers building applications on the IBM Cloud, IBM will provide online tutorials to showcase best practices, and will offer dedicated virtual support with access to IBM experts to help guide the development process. IBM experts will alsowork side-by-side with onsite contestants to help them master cloud-based developmentat various locations around the world, including New York, Austin, Boston and more.

Two projects from each of the 136 cities will have an opportunity to advance to global judging, where a panel of NASA judges will select one winner in each of the five finalist categories, including: Best Mission Concept, Best Use of Hardware, Best Use of Data, Most Inspiring, and Galactic Impact. IBM will award up to 30 awards at local Space Apps events for the most innovative use of Bluemix,with winners receiving up to a year of free access to Bluemix and up to 80 hours of technical support and assistance over six months by senior IBM developers.

Developers interested in participating in the challenge, which runs from April 10 12, can register athttps://2015.spaceappschallenge.org/.

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NASA and IBM Rally Global Developers around Space Exploration on the IBM Cloud

Billion-Dollar Road Trip Will Bring Space Boulder Into Lunar Orbit

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NASA is going on a $1.25-billion road trip, and all were getting is this lousy boulder.

Today, the space agency announced a modified plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission: Instead of bringing an entire asteroid back to lunar orbit, an uncrewed spacecraft will snag a boulder.

Were going to have a sensor suite on the spacecraft that will allow us to actually look at the boulders and actually make an educated choice about which ones were going to pull, says NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot. Lets get on with it.

As described during a news conference, NASA will select a final destination for its spacecraft in 2019. Theres already a space-rock short list that includes Itokawa, Bennu, and 2008 EV5, the last of which is currently at the top of the list. The spacecraft will launch in December 2020, then spend about two years heading into an asteroid belt in Earth's neighborhood.

Once it gets there, it will retrieve a boulder up to 13 feet (four meters) wide from the surface, then spend anywhere between 215 and 400 days circling the asteroid, using its gravity to nudge the giant rock into a different orbit.

Next, the spacecraft will return its prize, the boulder, to a stable orbit around the moon in 2025. At that point, astronauts could rendezvous with the boulder and collect samples.

If successful, the mission will be the first to purposefully place a hefty chunk of space rock anywhere near Earth. Astronauts will dock with the retrieved boulder and collect data that will help scientists learn more about the particular type of asteroid it came from.

NASA says the mission is a stepping-stone toward human exploration of Mars, as well as a chance to test planetary defense strategies. While the spacecraft is visiting its target asteroid, it will be gently redirecting it to a different orbit, allowing scientists to test a possible way to deflect large asteroids heading for Earth.

Several of the missions components, such as solar electric propulsion, are being considered for extended missions into deep space.

NASA is moving into whats called Phase A, where mission plans are being refined. Target selection wont happen for a few more years, and NASA needs to get its heavy lifterthe Space Launch System and Orion crew capsuleup and running to actually send humans to lunar orbit.

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Billion-Dollar Road Trip Will Bring Space Boulder Into Lunar Orbit

NASA Hosts Student Rocket Fair, Helps Students Launch High-Power Rockets

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More than 30 high school, college and university teams will launch student-built rockets during the 15th annual NASA Student Launch event April 10-11 near NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Middle school and high school teams will launch their rockets to an altitude of one mile, deploy onboard science experiments and land safely using a system of recovery parachutes. University and college teams will participate in either the Mini-Mars Ascent Vehicle (Mini-MAV) or the Maxi-Mars Ascent Vehicle (Maxi-MAV) divisions. Mini-MAV teams must use a robotic system to autonomously load a payload into their rocket, launch to half a mile and eject the payload during descent. Maxi-MAV teams, competing for a share of $50,000 in prize money, will attempt to meet more autonomy requirements before also launching to a half mile.

All launches will take place at Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama. Maxi-MAV launches begin at 10 a.m. CDT and will run until approximately 5 p.m. on April 10. Mini MAV and middle and high school launches begin at 7:30 a.m. and run until completed April 11. In the event of rain, the event will move to April 12.

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., April 9, students will participate in a Rocket Fair at Marshall's Activities Building 4316, where they will give technical presentations to, and get valuable feedback from, engineers and team members from NASA and Student Launch corporate sponsor Orbital ATK.

New to this year's Student Launch event is a partnership with NASA's Centennial Challenges, the agency's prize program for citizen inventors. The awards banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. April 10 inside the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center at 1 Tranquility Base in Huntsville. Real-time coverage of the banquet and awards presentation will be provided on the NASA Student Launch Twitter account @NASA_Launchfest.

Media interested in covering Student Launch activities should contact Angela Storey of the Marshall Public and Employee Communications Office at 256-544-0034 no later than 4 p.m. April 8. Media attending events at Marshall must report to the Redstone Visitor Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout Road and Research Park Boulevard no later than 10 a.m. April 9 for escort. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. Journalists will need photo identification and proof of car insurance.

The Student Launch program challenges participating student teams to design rockets that address the research needs of different NASA missions. Student teams will share their research results, which may be used to design and develop future NASA projects.

The program is managed by Marshall's Academic Affairs Office and supported by NASA's Office of Education, Human Explorations Operations Mission Directorate, and Centennial Challenges Program at the agencys headquarters in Washington, as well as Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems of Promontory, Utah. Marshall manages the Centennial Challenges program for NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.

Student Launch is open to public viewing and will be aired live on NASA Television and Marshall's Ustream and Twitter accounts, at:

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NASA Hosts Student Rocket Fair, Helps Students Launch High-Power Rockets

NASA sees Tropical Cyclone 22S 'come together right now'

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IMAGE:NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible-light image of Tropical Storm 22S in the Southern India Ocean on April 6 at 09:45 UTC. view more

Credit: NASA Goddard's MODIS Rapid Response Team

Like the classic song from 1969, NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone 22S in the Southern Indian Ocean and saw it "come together, right now."

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm 22S as it organized and became a tropical storm on April 6 at 09:45 UTC (5:45 a.m. EDT). The image was created by the NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The image showed a rounded area of clouds associated with the tropical storm and a band of thunderstorms from the north feeding into the eastern side of the center of circulation.

On April 6, 2015, at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Tropical Cyclone 22S' maximum sustained winds were near 45 knots (51.7 mph/83.3 kph). It was centered near 14.9 south latitude and 61.4 east longitude, about 401 nautical miles (461 miles/ 743 km) northeast of Port Louis, Mauritius. 22S has tracked west-southwestward at 9 knots (10.3 mph/16.6 kph).

22S is moving along the northern edge of a subtropical ridge (elongated area) of high pressure and once that ridge weakens and moves east, the tropical storm will turn to the south and intensify to hurricane-force upon approach to Rodrigues Island. Rodrigues Island is an outer island in the Republic of Mauritius, located about 350 miles (560 km) east of Mauritius.

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NASA sees Tropical Cyclone 22S 'come together right now'

NASA spots an eye in fast-developing Cyclone Ikola

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IMAGE:NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible image of Tropical Cyclone Ikola in the Southern India Ocean on April 6 at 08:05 UTC. view more

Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

Tropical Cyclone Ikola formed quickly on April 6 and quickly strengthen to hurricane-force in the Southern Indian Ocean. NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead after the storm developed an eye.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Ikola on April 6 at 08:05 UTC (4:05 a.m. EDT). The MODIS image clearly showed an eye with thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the eastern and western quadrants. A large, thick band of thunderstorms from the eastern side were spinning around the southern quadrant and into the western side of the low-level center. The image was created by the NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that also flies aboard Aqua captured infrared data on the storm during the same overpass. Cloud top temperatures circling the eye were colder than -63F/-52C, indicating high, strong thunderstorms with the potential for heavy rainfall.

At 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) on April 6, 2015, Tropical Cyclone Ikola's maximum sustained winds were near 65 knots (75 mph/120 kph). It was located about 1,497 nautical miles (1,723 miles/ 2,772 km) west-northwest of Learmonth, Australia, near 14.2 south latitude and 89.2 east longitude. Ikola was moving to the southeast at 9 knots (10.3 mph/16.6 kph) and poses no threat to land areas.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Ikola to strengthen to 75 knots (86.3 mph/138.9 kph) and then gradually weaken, where it is forecast to dissipate far west of Perth, Western Australia.

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Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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NASA spots an eye in fast-developing Cyclone Ikola

NASA Extends Campaign for Public to Name Features on Pluto

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The public has until Friday, April 24 to help name new features on Pluto and its orbiting satellites as they are discovered by NASAs New Horizons mission.

Announced in March, the agency wants to give the worldwide public more time to participate in the agencys mission to Pluto that will make the first-ever close flyby of the dwarf planet on July 14.

The campaign extension, in partnership with the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Paris, was due to the overwhelming response from the public.

Due to increasing interest and the number of submissions were getting, it was clear we needed to extend this public outreach activity, said Jim Green, director of NASAs Planetary Science Division at the agencys headquarters in Washington. This campaign not only reveals the publics excitement about the mission, but helps the team, which will not have time to come up with names during the flyby, to have a ready-made library of names in advance to officially submit to theIAU.

TheIAUis the formal authority for naming celestial bodies. Submissions must follow a set of accepted themes and guidelines set out by the IAUs Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. After the campaign concludes, NASAs New Horizons team will sort through the names and submit its recommendations to theIAU. TheIAUwill decide whether and how the names will be used.

The campaign allows the public of all ages to submit names for the many new features scientists expect to discover on Pluto following the encounter.

"Im impressed with the more than 40,000 thoughtful submissions, said MarkShowalter, scientist New Horizons science team co-investigator, andSETIInstitute in Mountain View, California, which is hosting the naming website. Every day brings new lessons in the world's history, literature and mythology. Participation has come from nearly every country on Earth, so this really is a worldwide campaign.

New Horizons already has covered more than 3 billion miles since it launched on Jan. 19, 2006. Its journey has taken it past each planets orbit, from Mars to Neptune, in record time, and now its now in the first stage of an historic encounter with Pluto that includes long-distance imaging, as well as dust, energetic particle and solar wind measurements to characterize the space environment near Pluto.

The spacecraft will pass Pluto at a speed of 31,000 mph taking thousands of images and making a wide range of science observations. At a distance of nearly 4 billion miles from Earth at flyby, it will take approximately 4.5 hours for data to reach Earth.

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NASA Extends Campaign for Public to Name Features on Pluto

NASA Allowing Public To Name Features On Dwarf Planet Pluto

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By Bradford Hornsby April 6, 2015 2:59 PM

(NASA/JHU APL/SwRI/Steve Gribben)

(CBS SF) NASA has partnered with the International Astronomical Union to allow the public to nominate names for soon-to-be-discovered features on Pluto and its orbiting satellites.

NASAs New Horizons spacecraft will make the first-ever close flyby of Pluto and its satellites in July, collecting thousands of photographs which should reveal an in-depth look at the features on the bodies in the Pluto system.

These features will be named by the public after a vetting by NASAs New Horizons team and the IAU. Dont get too excited and think a feature on Pluto will soon be named after you, your pet hamster, or Seymour Buttz as there is a very strict set of rules for nomenclature.

All nominated names must related to mythology and the literature and history of exploration. Nominations also can not be the name of a living person. Below are the basic rules for names from IAU.

Pluto: Names for the Underworld from the worlds mythologies, Gods, goddesses, and dwarfs associated with the Underworld. Heroes and other explorers of the Underworld. Writers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. Scientists and engineers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

Charon: Destinations and milestones of fictional space and other exploration. Fictional and mythological vessels of space and other exploration. Fictional and mythological voyagers, travelers and explorers.

Styx: River gods.

Nix: Deities of the night.

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NASA Allowing Public To Name Features On Dwarf Planet Pluto

Mars rover Curiosity spots 'ice cream sandwich' rocks (Photos)

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This photo, taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on March 18, 2015, shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called "Garden City" in the foothills of Mount Sharp.(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

This image, taken by the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager on Mars 25, 2015, is a close-up of a two-tone mineral vein at the Garden City site in the lower reaches of Mount Sharp.(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

NASA's Curiosity rover has photographed some Martian rocks that bear a passing resemblance to a tasty frozen treat.

The rocks, which lie at a site dubbed Garden City near the base of Mars' 3.4-mile-high Mount Sharp, harbor ridges up to 2.5 inches tall that are composed of bright and dark mineral veins.

"Some of them look like ice-cream sandwiches: dark on both edges and white in the middle," Curiosity science team member Linda Kah of the University of Tennessee said in a statement. "These materials tell us about secondary fluids that were transported through the region after the host rock formed." [Latest Photos from NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity]

The car-size Curiosity rover touched down in August 2012, on a mission to determine if Mars could ever have supported microbial life. The rover found evidence of an ancient, habitable lake-and-stream system at a spot near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay.

The fluid movement responsible for the Garden City veins was likely more recent than the conditions that formed the Yellowknife Bay lake, which probably existed around 3.5 billion years ago.

"Mud that formed lake-bed mudstones Curiosity examined near its 2012 landing site and after reaching Mount Sharp must have dried and hardened before the fractures formed," NASA officials wrote in the statement. "The dark material that lines the fracture walls reflects an earlier episode of fluid flow than the white, calcium-sulfate-rich veins do, although both flows occurred after the cracks formed."

Mount Sharp has long been Curiosity's main science destination. Mission team members want the rover to climb up through the mountain's foothills, reading a history of Mars' changing environmental conditions as it goes.

Curiosity reached the foot of Mount Sharp in September 2014. The six-wheeled robot then spent six months exploring the bottom layers of an outcrop called Pahrump Hills, drilling into three different rocks to collect samples for analysis.

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Mars rover Curiosity spots 'ice cream sandwich' rocks (Photos)

Eyes in the sky: How NASA helps gauge drought impact

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Shortly before 5 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time on Friday, a small, nondescript Beechcraft Air King climbed from the runway at Mammoth Yosemite Airport, reached 15,300 feet and headed over the snow-starved Sierra Nevada.

To anyone driving past the airport, nestled on the backside of the mountain range, the airplane's departure might have seemed like just another private plane taking off from a rural airfield.

Instead, the 1960s-vintage, twin-engine turboprop NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) is playing a key role in helping water managers in drought-ravaged California track the amount of water stored in the state's paltry Sierra snow pack.

The aircraft carries two instruments whose data combine to provide the most comprehensive estimates yet of snow's water content critical information for forecasting the mount of water that the mountains hold in reserve for what traditionally has been the state's dry season.

The observatory began flying in 2013 as a three-year demonstration project, starting with one watershed. On Friday, the ASO would fly two sorties, traveling along tightly spaced, back-and-forth tracks over four watersheds.

The observatory's progress during its first two years has transformed from a let's-see-if-this-works effort to a must-have data source that has caught the attention of other western states.

Until now, water managers have never known the true distribution of snow water equivalent across a watershed, says Thomas Painter, a hydrologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and the project's lead scientist.

"You can't manage what you don't measure," he says.

Yet mountain snows provide about 75 percent of the West's water. Population growth, a relentless draw-down of water stored in aquifers, and global warming's projected impact on precipitation and soil moisture pose significant challenges for managing water resources.

As if to underscore the point, researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory published a study in February that yielded projections for "a remarkably drier future that falls outside the contemporary experience" of people and ecosystems in western North America.

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Eyes in the sky: How NASA helps gauge drought impact

World Tech Update Microsoft Surface 3, Amazons Dash Button, NASAs flying saucer – Video

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World Tech Update Microsoft Surface 3, Amazons Dash Button, NASAs flying saucer
Microsoft goes after laptop diehards with the new Surface 3 tablet, Amazon wants you to restock household items with a push of its Dash Button and NASA #39;s flying saucer lander takes a spin.

By: IDG.tv

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World Tech Update Microsoft Surface 3, Amazons Dash Button, NASAs flying saucer - Video


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