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Category Archives: NASA

Ted Cruz tells NASA chief to focus less on climate change and more on space exploration (+video)

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NASA is one of the largest and most well-known agencies in the US government. But while many Americans associate the famous agency with moon walkers, space shuttles, and dramatic countdowns from 10, the agency actually has two clearly defined missions: Simply put, it is NASA's job to both study space from Earth and to study Earth from space.

And it was these two core missions that Sen. Ted Cruz wanted to discuss with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a Senate subcommittee hearing yesterday. More specifically, how the two missions should be funded next year.

Senator Cruz, (R) of Texas, became the new chair of the Senate's subcommittee onSpace, Science, and Competitiveness when the Republican Party took control of thechamber in January. Since that time, he has been pushing the agency to adopt a "more space, less Earth" strategy.

His position ran into some opposition on Capitol Hill yesterday during the hearing onPresident Obama's $18.5 billion budget request for NASA for fiscal 2016,when he told Mr. Bolden he'd like to start "by asking a general question."

"In your judgment, what is the core mission of NASA?" Cruz asked Bolden, according to the National Journal.

Bolden replied that he'd been contemplating that mission over the past few days, including reading over the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which created the agency.

"Our core mission from the very beginning has been to investigate, explore space and the Earth environment, and to help us make this place a better place," Bolden said.

The answer did not seem to satisfy Cruz, according to the National Journal, who replied that "almostany American would agree that the core function of NASA is to explore space."

"That's what inspires little boys and little girls across this country," Cruz added. "I am concerned that NASA in the current environment has lost its full focus on that core mission."

Cruz then pointed to a chart behind him illustrating that, since 2009, NASA funding for Earth sciences has seen a 41 percent increase, while funding for exploration and space operations has seen a 7.6 percent decrease.

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Ted Cruz tells NASA chief to focus less on climate change and more on space exploration (+video)

Water on Mars: New NASA study suggests Red Planet once had more water than Earths Arctic Ocean – Video

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Water on Mars: New NASA study suggests Red Planet once had more water than Earths Arctic Ocean
New research by NASA indicates a primitive ocean on Mars once held more water than the Earth #39;s Arctic Ocean. Some 4.3 billion years ago, Mars was a far wetter place with five million cubic...

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Water on Mars: New NASA study suggests Red Planet once had more water than Earths Arctic Ocean - Video

NASA launches satellites to probe magnetic mystery

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A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket climbs away from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on March 12, 2015. The rocket carried four NASA science satellites designed to study how the sun's magnetic field interacts with Earth's. NASA TV

Kicking off a $1.1 billion mission, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket streaked into space Thursday, boosting four NASA satellites into orbit to study interactions between Earth's magnetic field and the sun's, which generate the titanic energy discharges that drive auroras and play havoc with satellite navigation, communications and power grids.

The hard-to-study mechanism underlying space weather is known as magnetic reconnection, and it is the focus of NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale -- MMS -- mission, a long-awaited project to reveal the underlying physics powering Earth's space environment.

Carrying the four MMS satellites stacked one atop the other in a protective nose cone fairing, the Atlas 5 roared to life and climbed away from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:44 p.m. EDT (GMT-4). Thirteen minutes later, after the first of two Centaur second stage engine firings, the rocket and its satellite payload were safely in orbit.

The four satellites making up NASA's $1.1 billion Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, are stacked for launch Thursday in the nose of an Atlas 5 rocket. The satellites will work in concert to study the underlying physics of explosive interactions between the sun's magnetic field and Earth's.

NASA

After a second Centaur engine firing, the satellites, built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., were released at five-minute intervals starting about one hour and 32 minutes after liftoff.

"The spin rates, the attitude, it was essentially a flawless delivery of our four satellites," said Craig Tooley, NASA MMS project manager at Goddard. "They're all healthy and turned on."

Each 3,000-pound, 12-foot-wide satellite features a suite of sensitive instruments and eight extendable antenna-like booms: four 197-foot-long radial wire booms and two 41-foot axial extensions for electric field sensors and two 16-foot booms carrying magnetometers.

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NASA launches satellites to probe magnetic mystery

NASA Eyes Smart Glasses for Astronauts

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NASA and Osterhout Design Group have partnered to explore using smart glasses on land and in space.

This summer's Space Camp itinerary: flight simulators, zero-gravity machine, and assisted-reality smart glasses?

NASA and Osterhout Design Group (ODG) today announced a partnership that will explore astronauts' use of smart glasses for terrestrial and space-based activities.

After testing virtual and augmented reality in flight, the organizations aim to deploy ODG's technology on NASA space missions.

The most advanced, robust, and mobile AR device available today, ODG's Smart Glasses (R-6 model pictured) project 3G graphics onto a tablet, allowing for a high-tech, hands-free experienceperfect for cosmonauts floating through the solar system.

"As electronic directions and instructions replace paper checklists and longer duration missions are considered, there is a need for tools that can meet evolving demands," NASA engineering director Lauri Hansen said in a statement. "ODG's technology provides an opportunity to increase space mission efficiencies and we are pleased to explore its potential in human spaceflight while also advancing its use here on Earth."

Using position sensors, the glasses gain full awareness of the situation, able to know where the user is location, where they're looking, and how they're moving.

Folks in the medical, energy, and utilities fields already use ODG's software, which NASA will implement to increase astronauts' accuracy and efficiency during in-flight activities.

"ODG's Smart Glasses are revolutionizing the way we explore information and interact with our environments and each other," CEO Ralph Osterhout said. "ODG and NASA share an unwavering commitment to advance technology and today's announcement is a vote of confidence in the power, promise, and possibility of headworn augmented reality technology."

When not testing next-gen smart glasses, NASA has been busy sending balloons into space and firing up the biggest rocket ever built.

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NASA Eyes Smart Glasses for Astronauts

NASA satellites to study magnetic space explosions

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A cosmic phenomenon in Earth's magnetic field that is both dazzling and potentially dangerous for people on the surface is the focus of a new scientific mission, scheduled to launch into orbit on Thursday (March 12).

The Magnetsopheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, consists of four satellites that will study a process called magnetic reconnection: the explosive phenomenon that can send powerful bursts of particles hurtling toward Earth, potentially damaging satellites. But magnetic reconnection is also responsible for the auroras the northern and southern lights near Earth's poles. Anew NASA video explains the MMS missionin detail.

MMS is the only dedicated instrument studying magnetic reconnection, and scientists say it could finally reveal how this phenomenon occurs. The mission requires an elaborately choreographed arrangement of four separate satellites in an orbit around Earth, placing them in the path of the magnetic reconnection events taking place right on Earth's doorstep. [NASA'S Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission in Pictures]

"[MMS] is going to actually fly in Earth's magnetosphere, this protective magnetic environment around the Earth," Jeff Newmark, interim director of NASA's heliophysics division, said in a Feb. 25 briefing. "We're using this environment around the Earth as a natural laboratory. Rather than building one on Earth, we're going to where magnetic reconnection actually occurs in space so we can understand it."

You canwatch the MMS satellite launch Thursday, with NASA's webcast beginning at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 March 13 GMT). Liftoff is set for 10:44 p.m. EDT (0244 a.m. March 13 GMT) atop an unmanned Atlas V rocket. Today at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), NASA will hold a science briefing webcast to discuss the mission.

While past space missions have also recorded some data on magnetic reconnection, MMS is the first space mission dedicated solely to studying this phenomenon, according to a statement from NASA. It will collect data 100 times faster than any previous mission that has observed magnetic reconnection in space. The $1.1 billion MMS mission was built and tested at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Magnetic fields can be found all over the universe. Planets, stars, galaxies,black holesand many other bodies create magnetic field lines that can wrap tightly around their parent bodies like vines, or wander loosely into space.

With one end attached to the positive side of a magnet, and the other end attached to the negative side, magnetic field lines are typically looped. Occasionally, a magnetic field line will snap, like a rubber band, before quickly reforming a loop. The snapping and reconnecting of magnetic field lines, also known asmagnetic reconnection, releases great bursts of energy, sometimes accelerating nearby particles close to the speed of light.

"Exactly how magnetic energy is destroyed in a reconnection event is completely unknown," Jim Burch, MMS principle investigator, said in a news briefing on March 10.

When magnetic reconnection occurs in the sun it creates solar flares that explode off the surface. It can also cause coronal mass ejections, in which the solar flare belches up a storm of particles that hurtle outward into space sometimes straight toward Earth. The planet's own magnetic field protects people on the ground from these particle storms, but orbiting satellites areat risk of being damaged.

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NASA satellites to study magnetic space explosions

Watch NASA test the largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built | Mashable – Video

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Watch NASA test the largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built | Mashable
On March 11 at an isolated location in Utah, NASA successfully tested what the agency is calling the largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built. The booster is intended to help...

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Watch NASA test the largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built | Mashable - Video

Watch NASA Fire Up the Biggest Rocket Ever Built

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NASA ground tested its Space Launch System for the very first time this week.

NASA on Wednesday fired up its Space Launch System (SLS) for the very first time and thankfully, we can watch the "largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built" produce 3.6 million pounds of thrust in two minutes of awesome.

The SLS will be responsible for lifting NASA's deep-space Orion crew vehicle into space, carrying astronauts to destinations like Mars and near-Earth asteroids.

This week's "major-milestone" ground test was conducted at NASA commercial partner Orbital ATK's Promontory, Utah test facility. It's difficult not to be dumbstruck with the sheer power on display in the video of the test below as the enormous booster scorches the valley around it with enormous jets of flame and billows of smoke.

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Watch NASA Fire Up the Biggest Rocket Ever Built


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