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NASA Chooses Three Finalists for Future Space Science Mission to Venus, an Asteroid or the Moon

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The moon, Venus, and an asteroid
From top to bottom, pictured (not to scale) are the moon, Venus, and an asteroid. These three celestial bodies from our solar system are possible candidates for NASA's next space venture.
NASA has selected three proposals as candidates for the agency's next space venture to another celestial body in our solar system. The final project selected in mid-2011 may provide a better understanding of Earth's formation or perhaps the origin of life on our planet.

The proposed missions would probe the atmosphere and crust of Venus; return a piece of a near-Earth asteroid for analysis; or drop a robotic lander into a basin at the moon's south pole to return lunar rocks back to Earth for study.

NASA will select one proposal for full development after detailed mission concept studies are completed and reviewed. The studies begin during 2010, and the selected mission must be ready for launch no later than Dec. 30, 2018. Mission cost, excluding the launch vehicle, is limited to $650 million.

"These are projects that inspire and excite young scientists, engineers and the public," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These three proposals provide the best science value among eight submitted to NASA this year."

Each proposal team initially will receive approximately $3.3 million in 2010 to conduct a 12-month mission concept study that focuses on implementation feasibility, cost, management and technical plans. Studies also will include plans for educational outreach and small business opportunities.

The selected proposals are:

  • The Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer, or SAGE, mission to Venus would release a probe to descend through the planet's atmosphere. During descent, instruments would conduct extensive measurements of the atmosphere's composition and obtain meteorological data. The probe then would land on the surface of Venus, where its abrading tool would expose both a weathered and a pristine surface area to measure its composition and mineralogy. Scientists hope to understand the origin of Venus and why it is so different from Earth. Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado in Boulder, is the principal investigator. The proposed mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Ca.


  • The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft, called Osiris-Rex, would rendezvous and orbit a primitive asteroid. After extensive measurements, instruments would collect more than two ounces of material from the asteriod's surface for return to Earth. The returned samples would help scientists better undertand and answer long-held questions about the formation of our solar system and the origin of complex molecules necessary for life. Michael Drake, of the University of Arizona in Tucson, is the principal investigator. The proposed mission is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md


  • MoonRise: Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission would place a lander in a broad basin near the moon's south pole and return approximately two pounds of lunar materials for study. This region of the lunar surface is believed to harbor rocks excavated from the moon's mantle. The samples would provide new insight into the early history of the Earth-moon system. Bradley Jolliff, of Washington University in St. Louis, is the principal investigator with mission management by JPL.

The proposals were submitted to NASA on July 31, 2009, in response to the New Frontiers Program 2009 Announcement of Opportunity. New Frontiers seeks to explore the solar system with frequent, medium-class spacecraft missions that will conduct high-quality, focused scientific investigations designed to enhance understanding of the solar system.

The final selection will become the third mission in the program. New Horizons, NASA's first New Frontiers mission, launched in 2006, will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in 2014 then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission, called Juno, is designed to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole for the first time, conducting an in-depth study of the giant planet's atmosphere and interior. It is slated for launch in August 2011.

For more information about the New Frontiers Program, visit: http://newfrontiers.nasa.gov

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Stately Saturn

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Stately Saturn
Saturn, stately and resplendent in this natural color view, dwarfs its icy moon Rhea.

Rhea (949 miles in diameter) orbits beyond the rings on the right of the image. The moon Tethys is not shown here, but its shadow is visible on the planet on the left of the image. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Nov. 4, 2009, at a distance of approximately 808,000 miles from Saturn.

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New Video Reveals Secrets of Webb Telescope’s MIRI

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Computer-rendered model of the MIRI InstrumentIt's going to take infrared eyes to see farther back in time than even the Hubble Space Telescope, and that's what the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI or Mid-Infrared Instrument detectors will do. Now there's a new short movie that shows what the MIRI detectors are all about and what they can do.

"The MIRI is one of four science instruments aboard the Webb telescope that is designed to record images and spectra at the longest wavelengths that the Webb telescope can observe," said Matt Greenhouse, Project Scientist for the science instrument payload. "The mid-infrared spectrum covers wavelengths in the range of 5 to 28 micrometers or microns (about 10 to 50 times longer than our eyes can see). Light in this portion of the spectrum is invisible to our eyes but is produced by all room-temperature objects and carries key information about the local and early universe," Greenhouse said. Light at these wavelengths is blocked by water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere and can only be efficiently observed using a telescope in space.

A new video about the MIRI detectors is part of an on-going series called "Behind the Webb" about the James Webb Space Telescope. It was produced and created by the Space Science Telescope Institute (STScI) of Baltimore, Md. and is available at http://www.webbtelescope.org. Part of the video was shot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. in January 2009. "It is a broadcast quality video in high definition and will be available in almost a dozen varieties of file formats from Quicktime, to WMV to Flash, to M4V, and all in different sizes," said Mary Estacion, News Video Producer at STScI.

The video runs exactly three minutes and explains how the three detectors on the MIRI work and the tests they endure to prepare them for the Webb telescope's launch and flight in space. The video is hosted by Estacion, who interviewed Dr. Michael Ressler, the MIRI Project Scientist at NASA JPL. In the video, Ressler explains what MIRI detectors do and how the MIRI sensor works by comparing it to a chip on a camera. The video also takes the viewer behind the scenes and into a clean room to show viewers how the MIRI detectors are tested.

The Webb telescope is the largest space observatory ever constructed. As a result, MIRI will have a huge discovery potential and will enable the Webb telescope to achieve over one hundred times the sensitivity of any previous observatory at these wavelengths.

To see the very first stars and galaxies, astronomers have to look deep into space and far back in time. Starlight travels through space at a finite speed (300,000 kilometers/second). So if we observe an object that is 300,000 kilometers away with the Webb telescope, we see it as it was 1 second in the past. Astronomical distances are measured in “light years”, the distance that light travels in a year. Galaxies can be billions of light years away. As a result of this transmission delay, astronomical telescopes, like the Webb, allow astronomers to literally look back in time and see the universe as it was billions of years in the past.

The space that fills the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. As a consequence of this expansion, the wavelength of ultra-violet and visible light emitted by the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang has been stretched into the infrared portion of the spectrum, and can only be observed by telescopes that are equipped with infrared cameras such as the MIRI. "The Webb observatory design has been optimized to enable infrared observations that will, for the first time, enable astronomers to see the period in the evolution of the universe in which the first galaxies formed," Greenhouse said. "The MIRI will play a key role in enabling the very first observations of the galaxy formation epoch."

In addition to the huge discovery potential, MIRI will provide valuable information in the four areas of the Webb's science objectives: 1) Discovery of the 'first light' emitting objects after the Big Bang; 2) Assembly of galaxies: history of star formation, growth of black holes, prediction of heavy elements; 3) How stars and planetary systems form; and 4) Evolution of planetary systems and conditions for life.

The MIRI optics module labeled to show different componentsMIRI is an international partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) combining the talents of NASA JPL, a consortium of European partners, and an international science team. The MIRI is designed around performance requirements that were established by a succession of international science working groups that developed the science objectives for the Webb telescope mission.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the next-generation premier space observatory, exploring deep space phenomena from distant galaxies to nearby planets and stars. The Webb Telescope will enable scientists to observe the formation and evolution of the first galaxies and the evolution of our own solar system, from the first light after the Big Bang to the formation of planetary systems capable of supporting life. The Webb mission is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

To view the new video on MIRI, visit:

http://webbtelescope.org/webb_telescope/behind_the_webb/

For more information on MIRI, please visit:

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/
http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/instruments/miri/

To understand the mid-infrared spectrum that the MIRI sees, visit:

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/ir_tutorial/what_is_ir.html

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NASA Awards Contract For Fabrication Services To Hampton, Va., Firm

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NASA has selected Science and Technology Corp. of Hampton, Va., to provide fabrication support services to NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton.

The value of the indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract is not to exceed $35 million. The period of performance is five years from the effective date, including a one-month phase-in period.

 Science and Technology Corp. will provide technical support to fabricate research-oriented electronics circuitry, including circuit assemblies for ground support equipment, aircraft, spaceflight, laboratory, science and research facility instrumentation. Special fabrication operations, procedures and techniques may be required. Services will be performed at Langley, the contractor facility and other sites.

For information about

NASA's Langley Research Center, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/langley

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NASA’s WISE Space Telescope Jettisons its Cover

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Artist's concept of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey ExplorerNASA's recently launched Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer opened its eyes to the starry sky today, after ejecting its protective cover.

Engineers and scientists say the maneuver went off without a hitch, and everything is working properly. The mission's "first-light" images of the sky will be released to the public in about a month, after the telescope has been fully calibrated.

"The cover floated away as we planned," said William Irace, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Our detectors are soaking up starlight for the first time."

WISE will perform the most detailed infrared survey of the entire sky to date. Its millions of images will expose the dark side of the cosmos -- objects, such as asteroids, stars and galaxies, that are too cool or dusty to be seen with visible light. The telescope will survey the sky one-and-a-half times in nine months, ending its primary mission when the coolant it needs to see infrared light evaporates away.

WISE launched on Dec. 14 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Once it was thoroughly checked out in space, it was ready to "flip its lid."

The cover served as the top to a Thermos-like bottle that chilled the instrument -- a 40-centimeter (16-inch) telescope and four infrared detector arrays with one million pixels each. The instrument must be maintained at frosty temperatures, as cold as below 8 Kelvin (minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit), to prevent it from picking up its own heat, or infrared, glow. The cover kept everything cool on the ground by sealing a vacuum space into the instrument chamber. In the same way that Thermos bottles use thin vacuum layers to keep your coffee warm or iced tea cold, the vacuum space inside WISE stopped heat from getting in. Now, space itself will provide the instrument with an even better vacuum than before.

The cover also protected the instrument from stray sunlight and extra heat during launch.

At about 2:30 p.m. PST (5:30 p.m. PST), Dec. 29, engineers sent a command to fire pyrotechnic devices that released nuts holding the cover in place. Three springs were then free to push the cover away and into an orbit closer to Earth than that of the spacecraft.

Scientists and engineers are now busy adjusting the rate of the spacecraft to match the rate of a scanning mirror. To take still images on the sky as it orbits around Earth, WISE will use a scan mirror to counteract its motion. Light from the moving telescope's primary miror will be focused onto the scan mirror, which will move in the opposite direction at the same rate. This allows the mission to take "freeze-frame" snapshots of the sky every 11 seconds. That's about 7,500 images a day.

"It's wonderful to end the year with open WISE eyes," said Peter Eisenhardt, the mission's project scientist at JPL. "Now we can synch WISE up to our scan mirror and get on with the business of exploring the infrared universe."

WISE is scheduled to begin its survey of the infrared heavens in mid-January of 2010.

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu.

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Glittering Metropolis

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Glittering Metropolis
Like a whirl of shiny flakes sparkling in a snow globe, Hubble caught this glimpse of many hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the globular cluster M13, one of the brightest and best-known globular clusters in the northern sky. This glittering metropolis of stars is easily found in the winter sky in the constellation Hercules and can even be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

M13 is home to over 100,000 stars and located at a distance of 25,000 light-years. These stars are packed so closely together in a ball, approximately 150 light-years across, that they will spend their entire lives whirling around in the cluster.

Near the core of this cluster, the density of stars is about a hundred times greater than the density in the neighborhood of our sun. These stars are so crowded that they can, at times, slam into each other and even form a new star, called a "

blue straggler."

The

brightest reddish stars in the cluster are ancient red giants. These aging stars have expanded to many times their original diameters and cooled. The blue-white stars are the hottest in the cluster.

 Globular clusters can be found spread largely in a vast halo around our galaxy. M13 is one of nearly 150 known globular clusters surrounding our Milky Way galaxy.

Globular clusters have some of the oldest stars in the universe. They likely formed before the disk of our Milky Way, so they are older than nearly all other stars in our galaxy. Studying globular clusters therefore tells us about the history of our

galaxy.

This image is a composite of archival Hubble data taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.

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Astronauts Aboard the Space Station Talk With Troops in Iraq

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International Space Station

This is one of a series of images featuring the International Space Station photographed soon after the space shuttle Atlantis and the station began their post-undocking relative separation. Some scenes in the series show parts of the Mediterranean Sea and Africa and Spain in the background.
>View larger image.

Some U.S. forces in Iraq will get the chance during the holidays to talk with two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station who also are far away from their families and friends. A 20-minute live video downlink will start at 9 a.m. EST on Dec. 29. The event will be carried live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's Web site.

Station Commander

Jeff Williams, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer, an Army colonel, will talk with U.S. forces while orbiting 220 miles above Earth. Service members will have the chance to talk with the astronauts about life on the station, their military careers and what it is like to live in space for up to six months.

Technology developed for the space and Earth science programs at

NASA is currently being repurposed for use to protect our soldiers in Iraq and across the globe. Examples include satellite-based communications and weather resources, GPS, and other NASA Spinoffs.

 NASA Television will provide live coverage of the conversations, with video from aboard the station during the event. A video file will be available later in the day, with edited footage from both the station and the service members in Iraq.

For more information on

NASA TV, including a schedule of events, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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Happy Holidays

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Happy Holidays
Wishing all the happiest of holidays, members of the Cassini-Huygens team offer their views of Saturn and its moons as gifts to the universe. Cassini-Huygens, a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, is a mission that is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA. The Cassini orbiter (pictured at the bottom of this image) and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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Cassini Spacecraft to Monitor North Pole on Titan

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Artist concept of NASA's Cassini spacecraft flying by the north polar region of Saturn's moon Titan on Dec. 27Though there are no plans to investigate whether Saturn's moon Titan has a Santa Claus, NASA's Cassini will zoom close to Titan's north pole this weekend.

The flyby, which brings Cassini to within about 960 kilometers (600 miles) of the Titan surface at 82 degrees north latitude, will take place the evening of Dec. 27 Pacific time, or shortly after midnight Universal Time on Dec. 28.

The encounter will enable scientists to gather more detail on how the lake-dotted north polar region of Titan changes with the seasons. Scientists will be using high-resolution radar to scan the large and numerous lakes in the north polar region for shape-shifting in size and depth. The ion and neutral mass spectrometer team will take baseline measurements of the atmosphere to compare with the moon's south polar region when Cassini flies by that area on Jan. 12. Cassini will also be collecting images for a mosaic of a bright region called Adiri, where the Huygens probe landed nearly five years ago.

Cassini will have released the Huygens probe exactly five years and three days before this latest flyby. Huygens began its journey down to Titan on the evening of Dec. 24, 2004 California time, or early Dec. 25 Universal Time, and reached the surface Jan. 14, 2005.

Cassini last flew by Titan on Dec. 11, 2009 California time, or Dec. 12 Universal Time. Although this latest flyby is dubbed "T64," planning changes early in the orbital tour have made this the 65th targeted flyby of Titan.

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Passing of Stan Lebar

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Stan Lebar, who led the Westinghouse Electric Corporation team that developed the lunar camera that brought the televised news images of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon to more than 500 million people on earth, died on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009.

Stan Lebar next to an image of him with the lunar cameraDuring his long and distinguished career, other camera programs he managed for NASA included the Apollo Color TV Cameras, the Skylab series of TV cameras, and the TV cameras for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program (ASTP).

From 1943 until the end of World War II, Lebar served in the Pacific Theater of Operations as an Air Force B-24 Ball Turret Gunner. After the war, he attended the University of Missouri and received a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1950. He joined Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1953, and worked in the Aerospace Division, Baltimore, Maryland, until his retirement in 1986.

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Cassini Holiday Movies Showcase Dance of Saturn’s Moons

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Saturn's moons spin around the planet
Saturn's moons give Tchaikovsky's classic ballet, "The Nutcracker," a graceful new spin in this video compiled from some 61 images taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
› Play video (Quicktime) | › View related videos

Like sugar plum fairies in "The Nutcracker," the moons of Saturn performed a celestial ballet before the eyes of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. New movies frame the moons' silent dance against the majestic sweep of the planet's rings and show as many as four moons gliding around one another.

The new video can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org.

To celebrate the holidays, the Cassini imaging team has created a video collection of "mutual events," which occur when one moon passes in front of another, as seen from the spacecraft. Imaging scientists use mutual event observations to refine their understanding of the dynamics of Saturn's moons. Digital image processing has enabled scientists to turn these routine observations into breathtaking displays of celestial motion. The original images were captured between Aug. 27 and Nov. 8, 2009.

In one scene that synthesizes 12 images taken over the span of 19 minutes, Rhea skates in front of Janus, as Mimas and Pandora slide across the screen in the opposite direction. While the dance appears leisurely on screen, Rhea actually orbits Saturn at a speed of about 8 kilometers per second (18,000 mph). The other moons are hurtling around the planet even faster. Mimas averages about 14 kilometers per second (31,000 mph), and Janus and Pandora travel at about 16 kilometers per second (36,000 mph).

Saturn's moons give Tchaikovsky's classic ballet,

"As yet another year in Saturn orbit draws to a close, these wondrous movies of an alien place clear across the solar system remind us how fortunate we are to be engaged in this magnificent exploratory expedition," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

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Mayon Volcano, The Phillipines

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Mayon Volcano, The Phillipines
Tens of thousands of people living within the danger zone of Mayon Volcano in the Philippines were forced to evacuate to emergency shelters in mid-December 2009 as small earthquakes, incandescent lava at the summit and minor ash falls suggested a major eruption was on the way. On the evening of Dec. 14, the local volcano observatory raised the alert level to Level 3, which means "magma is close to the crater and hazardous explosive eruption is imminent."

This natural-color image of Mayon was captured on Dec. 15, 2009, by the Advanced Land Imager on

NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. A small plume of ash and steam is blowing west from the summit. Dark-colored lava or debris flows from previous eruptions streak the flanks of the mountain. A ravine on the southeast slope is occupied by a particularly prominent lava or debris flow.

The Phillipine Star said on Dec. 22 that "ashfall blanketed at least three towns in Albay, raising new health fears for thousands already bracing for an eruption that could come at any time ... Health officials warned the tiny particles could cause respiratory problems or skin diseases, and could affect the thousands of people crammed into evacuation centers.

Also on Dec. 22,

CNN reported that "tens of thousands of people have already fled their homes. More than 9,000 families -- a total of 44,394 people -- are being housed in evacuation camps after authorities raised the alert status of the country's most active volcano" as "fountains of red-hot lava shot up from the intensifying Mayon volcano."

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Off-Duty Day for New Expanded Crew

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ISS022-E-014044 -- Expedition 22 crew
Image above: Wearing festive holiday hats, the Expedition 22 crew speaks with officials from Russia, Japan and the United States. In the front row are Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev (left) and Commander Jeff Williams. Behind them, left to right, are newly-arrived Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi. Credit: NASA
Following the arrival of the three new Expedition 22 crew members Tuesday, the crew aboard the International Space Station had an off-duty day Wednesday.

The crew members spent most of the day sleeping due to the late finish of the docking activities.

NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi docked with their new home at 5:48 p.m. EST Tuesday. The trio launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft at 4:52 p.m. Sunday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

From inside the station, Commander

 Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev monitored the approach of the Russian spacecraft as it docked to the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module.

After completion of leak checks, the hatches between the two vehicles were opened at 7:30 p.m. Williams and Suraev, who arrived at the station Oct. 2 aboard the

Soyuz TMA-16, welcomed the new Expedition 22 flight engineers aboard their orbital home for the next five months.

Creamer, 50, is making his first flight into space. Selected as an

astronaut in 1998, Creamer was a support astronaut for the Expedition 3 crew and worked with hardware integration and robotics.

Kotov, 44, is making his second

spaceflight, having previously served six months aboard the station as an Expedition 15 flight engineer in 2007. Kotov will be a flight engineer for Expedition 22 and assume the duties of Expedition 23 commander when Williams and Suraev depart in March 2010.

Noguchi is making his second spaceflight. He flew on the

STS-114 return-to-flight mission of Discovery in 2005 and conducted three spacewalks totaling more than 20 hours.

› View imagery of Expedition 22 docking

› Read more about Expedition 22
› View crew timelines

› Read more about the station's butterfly experiment

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Research in Space: Facilities on the International Space Station

The International Space Station is the first step in exploration, from research and discovery, to international cooperation, to commercial development, and to exploring beyond low-Earth orbit. This booklet outlines our ISS research capabilities and potential as we usher in this new phase of on-orbit research.

› Read booklet (2.6 Mb PDF)

NASA Publishes Report about International Space Station Science

Advances in the fight against food poisoning, new methods for delivering medicine to cancer cells, and better materials for future spacecraft are among the results published in a NASA report detailing scientific research accomplishments made aboard the International Space Station during its first eight years.

The report includes more than 100 science experiments ranging from bone studies to materials research.

› Read more
› Read full report (3.8 Mb PDF) -->

2010 International Space Station Calendar

NASA is offering a 2010 calendar that describes the work being done on the International Space Station and gives information about the crews that have lived there. The calendar contains photographs taken from the space station and highlights historic NASA milestones and fun facts about the international construction project of unprecedented complexity that began in 1998. (Note: In order to print the document correctly, please select the two-sided print option in your printer dialog box)

› Download calendar (8.6 Mb PDF)

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Undergraduate Students Fly High for Weightless Science

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NASA has selected 28 undergraduate student teams to test their science experiments in simulated weightlessness. The teams were selected to fly in the summer of 2010 with NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities and Systems Engineering Educational Discovery (SEED) programs.

Selected teams will test and evaluate their experiments aboard an aircraft modified to simulate a reduced-gravity environment. The aircraft will fly approximately 30 roller-coaster-like climbs and dips during experiment flights to produce periods of weightlessness and hyper-gravity ranging from 0 g to 2 g.

"Today's students will be the ones going to the moon and beyond to live, explore and work," said Douglas Goforth, the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program manager at

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston."This project gives them a head start in preparing for those future ventures by allowing them to conduct hands-on research and engineering today in a unique reduced-gravity laboratory."

The Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program provides a rare academic experience for undergraduate students to propose, design, fabricate, fly and evaluate a reduced-gravity experiment. The overall experience includes scientific research, hands-on experimental design, test operations and outreach activities.

Teams selected to participate in the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program are from Utah State University, San Jacinto College North, the College of New Jersey, State University of New York at Buffalo, West Virginia University, Purdue University, Yale University, Austin Community College, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, two teams from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and two teams from the University of Michigan. Teams also may invite a full-time, accredited journalist to fly with them and document the team's experiment and experiences.

Teams selected to participate in the

SEED program will work with NASA scientists, engineers and researchers on systems engineering projects that use a reduced gravity environment to test spaceflight hardware, spacecraft components and spaceflight procedures. Each team is assigned a NASA principal investigator to help prepare their experiment for flight. The SEED teams also will participate in at least two videoconferences through NASA's Digital Learning Network to work with other engineering and agency organizations.

The

SEED teams for 2010 are from Washington University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin, Auburn University, the Ohio State University, the University of Nebraska, the University of Toledo, Carthage College, Yale University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Colorado, and Boise State University, from which two teams were selected.

Under these programs,

NASA continues its investment in the nation's education programs. It is directly tied the agency's education goal of strengthening NASA and the nation's future workforce. Through this and other college and university programs, NASA will identify and develop the critical skills and capabilities needed to carry out its space exploration mission.

The flights are provided in cooperation with the

 Reduced Gravity Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center. For more information about the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program or to view abstracts of the selected team's experiments visit:

http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov

For more information about SEED, visit:

http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/se

For more information about NASA's education programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

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Astronauts Aboard the Space Station Talk With Troops in Iraq; Brave Men and Women on Both Sides of the Holiday Hookup Are Far From Home

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Some U.S. forces in Iraq will get the chance during the holidays to talk with two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station who also are far away from their families and friends. A 20-minute live video downlink will start at 8 a.m. CST on Dec. 29. The event will be carried live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's Web site.

Station Commander

 Jeff Williams, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer, an Army colonel, will talk with U.S. forces while orbiting 220 miles above Earth. Service members will have the chance to talk with the astronauts about life on the station, their military careers and what it is like to live in space for up to six months.

 NASA Television will provide live coverage of the conversations, with video from aboard the station during the event. A video file will be available later in the day, with edited footage from both the station and the service members in Iraq.

For more information on

NASA TV, including a schedule of events, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov


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AcrimSat Celebrates 10 Years of Measuring the Sun’s Energy

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AcrimSatLaunched Dec. 20, 1999, the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor Satellite (AcrimSat) monitors the total amount of the sun's energy reaching Earth. It is this energy, called total solar irradiance, that creates the winds, heats the land and drives ocean currents. Some scientists theorize a significant fraction of Earth's warming may be solar in origin due to small increases in the sun's total energy output since the last century. By measuring incoming solar radiation, climatologists are using AcrimSat to improve their predictions of climate change and global warming over the next century.

For more information on AcrimSat, see: http://acrim.jpl.nasa.gov/.

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Astronauts Test Glenn Exercise Harnesses

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Imagine that you want to exercise on a treadmill. You step onto the machine and select your desired speed. As the belt starts moving, you start walking and eventually running. Your feet rhythmically hit the belt, and you get a nice workout.

In space, it isn't that simple.

For astronauts living in space, like those who reside on the International Space Station, getting a good workout is equally -- and in some ways even more important -- than for earthbound people.

Bob Thirsk (Canadian Space Agency) exercises with the Glenn Harness aboard the International Space Station during ISS Expedition 20/21"Crew members exercise for a host of important reasons. There's a psychological benefit to exercise, and crew members work out to combat spaceflight deconditioning -- to help fend off the bone loss that they experience in microgravity and to help maintain muscle strength and cardiovascular endurance. All of these things are adversely affected by long-duration space flight," says

Gail Perusek, Manager for Exercise Physiology and Countermeasures Project at NASA's Glenn Research Center.

Like your local gym, the

space station has a variety of exercise equipment. The exercise complement includes a resistance device, a cycle ergometer and two treadmills.

The two different types of treadmills on the space station are the

Treadmill with Vibration Isolation System (TVIS) and the newly-installed Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT), named after comedian Stephen Colbert. They're different in many ways, but both treadmills share the need for an exercise harness. Astronauts must use a harness to attach themselves to the treadmill while running in space due to the lack of gravity. The harness prevents them from floating off the machine, provides friction against the treadmill belt as they run and exerts an external load, or force, on their body to simulate the resistance of gravity that a terrestrial workout would naturally provide.

The current

harness, which has been in use for several years, has some drawbacks. It isn't comfortable and has limited adjustability. Some crew members have reported chafing, as well as pain in their hips and shoulders from using the harness. As a result, the astronauts are not loading their bodies to the optimal amount needed to maintain muscle and bone health. The thinking is, the more load applied to an astronaut while running (ideally the equivalent of their full body weight on Earth) the better the workout; it increases the health benefits and decreases health risks.

"Bone loss occurs at a more rapid rate in space than it does on

Earth," Perusek says. "In space, astronauts don't get nearly the same amount or quality of repetitive loading as we do here on earth, and bone mineral density loss occurs when the skeleton is unloaded."

The need for a new treadmill harness that is more comfortable and effective inspired the development of a new harness by

NASA's Glenn Research Center. This effort, undertaken in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic and funded by the Human Research Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, resulted in the creation of a new harness design called the Glenn Harness. The team also developed custom instrumentation to measure the loads on the harness during exercise. Two Glenn Harnesses are currently being tested by space station crew members on orbit, in a study called the Harness Station Development Test Objective, or Harness SDTO. Additional harnesses will soon be tested on the station by different crewmembers.

Four years ago, the team from the

NASA Glenn, ZIN Technologies of Middleburg Heights, Ohio and the Cleveland Clinic began work on their re-imagined harness. They realized that the treadmill harness operates much like a backpack, with shoulder straps and a hip belt distributing load. The team travelled to Colorado to consult with backpack companies, such as Osprey and Kelty. Upon their return, the team designed and created prototypes of the new harnesses (initial prototypes were actually crafted from disassembled backpack components) and began testing.

"At Glenn, we have an

Enhanced Zero-gravity Locomotion Simulator (eZLS) where we can simulate zero-g treadmill exercise with human subjects," Perusek says. "We tested the prototypes with our treadmill and determined that indeed the harness was more comfortable than the current harness in a side-by-side comparison on the eZLS, and was able to distribute loads more evenly."

The team also sought extensive input from former

space station crew members regarding the new harness. The idea to use antimicrobial fabric (containing silver ions) for the harness, for example, came from an astronaut who commented on the amount of sweat the harness must endure without a lot of washing.

After all of the research, designing and testing, the team worked with Terrazign, Inc. of Portland Oregon, to create the finished flight harnesses. The flight harnesses were shipped to Johnson Space Center in the spring of 2009, and packaged with additional equipment from Johnson to capture the load data. The first harnesses were blasted into

space in September 2009.

The Glenn Harness incorporates technology from the world of backpacking, with shoulder straps and a hip belt distributing loadThe crew members participating in the study will use and evaluate the new and existing harnesses, and will complete questionnaires after each session to provide qualitative comfort data. The team also designed special sensors, called buckle transducers, which will measure the amount of tension in the harness straps and external loading each astronaut uses during their workout.

Once the crewmembers have returned to earth, they will share their experiences with Perusek and her team during the crew debriefing process. If the feedback proves favorable, the hope is to incorporate the new harness as part of the standard crew exercise equipment.

The in-flight study is expected to continue through November 2010 on Expedition 24, and encompass the results from up to seven participating crewmembers.

"Working on a project that has the potential to positively affect crew members so directly is very rewarding. A lot of great effort has gone into this, and we're very hopeful that it will be of benefit for the crew,"

Perusek says. "As long as we have a manned presence in space, humans will be exercising in zero gravity or even partial gravity, like on the moon, and we'll need comfortable harnessing systems."

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