NASA chief gets airborne mission updates at Langley

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Poster boards, videos, big screens and small planes were on display Friday as NASA chief Charles Bolden flew into Hampton for a quick briefing on key airborne missions operating out of NASA Langley Research Center.

It was a chance for scientists, engineers and pilots to tout their successes and their relevance as they research "sense-and-avoid" drone technology, better alternative jet fuels and a powerful laser that can help compile a 3-D profile of wind.

"This is all awesome to me," Administrator Bolden said afterward in the center's hangar. "Because it speaks to the things that we're really trying to collaborate with the FAA, Department of Defense and aviation in general to try to (improve) flying safety."

Pushing flight safety is preaching to the choir. A compact man, Bolden is not only a former naval aviator and retired Marine Corps major general, but he has flown four times on the Space Shuttle twice as mission commander.

He listened attentively to each presentation and never missed an opportunity to shake the hand of a Langley pilot.

Drone sense

Sense-and-avoid technology, once cracked, is key to the $80 billion market in unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, explained Frank Jones, associate director of Langley's Research Services Directorate.

The technology uses sophisticated computer algorithms to enable unmanned drone aircraft to detect and maneuver around other aircraft and tall stationary objects, such as buildings and cell phone towers.

Bolden watched a video of earlier test flights illustrating how aircrafts deliberately set on collision paths successfully used sense-and-avoid technology to avoid catastrophe, with one plane veering off safely.

The technology is still evolving, Jones said, and tests continue to unearth room for improvement in areas such as air speed and communications.

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NASA chief gets airborne mission updates at Langley

Nasa's 'Witch Head Nebula' Looks Hauntingly Real… Because It Is (PICTURE)

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Dusty Space Cloud

This image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In the instruments' combined data, this nearby dwarf galaxy looks like a fiery, circular explosion. Rather than fire, however, those ribbons are actually giant ripples of dust spanning tens or hundreds of light-years. Significant fields of star formation are noticeable in the center, just left of center and at right. The brightest center-left region is called 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula, for its appearance in visible light.

This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes display the natural beauty created by physical processes. The area covered in the image is about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across. Sand dunes are among the most widespread wind-formed features on Mars. Their distribution and shapes are affected by changes in wind direction and wind strength. Patterns of dune erosion and deposition provide insight into the sedimentary history of the surrounding terrain.

This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image originated by a collision with another asteroid, or by internal processes early in the asteroid's history. Images in higher resolution from Dawn's lowered orbit might help answer that question. The image was recorded with the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft from a distance of about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). The image resolution is about 260 meters per pixel.

This undated photo shows a classic type 1a supernova remnant. Researchers Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the United States and US-Australian Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize on October 4, 2011 for their research on supernovae.

A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is in the background of the image, and the moon's north polar hood is clearly visible. See PIA08137 to learn more about that feature on Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across). Next, the wispy terrain on the trailing hemisphere of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) can be seen on that moon which appears just above the rings at the center of the image. See PIA10560 and PIA06163 to learn more about Dione's wisps. Saturn's small moon Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers across) orbits beyond the rings on the right of the image. Finally, Pan (17 miles, or 28 kilometers across) can be seen in the Encke Gap of the A ring on the left of the image. The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 17, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 27 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (13 kilometers) per pixel on Dione.

Combining almost opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, this composite image of the Herschel in far-infrared and XMM-Newton's X-ray images obtained January 20, 2012, shows how the hot young stars detected by the X-ray observations are sculpting and interacting with the surrounding ultra-cool gas and dust, which, at only a few degrees above absolute zero, is the critical material for star formation itself. Both wavelengths would be blocked by Earth's atmosphere, so are critical to our understanding of the lifecycle of stars . (AFP / Getty Images)

Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust. (NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage)

A bubbling cauldron of star birth is highlighted in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light that we can't see with our eyes has been color-coded, such that the shortest wavelengths are shown in blue and the longest in red. The middle wavelength range is green. Massive stars have blown bubbles, or cavities, in the dust and gas--a violent process that triggers both the death and birth of stars. The brightest, yellow-white regions are warm centers of star formation. The green shows tendrils of dust, and red indicates other types of dust that may be cooler, in addition to ionized gas from nearby massive stars.

This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151. X-rays (blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are combined with optical data (yellow) showing positively charged hydrogen (H II) from observations with the 1-meter Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma. The red ring shows neutral hydrogen detected by radio observations with the NSF's Very Large Array. This neutral hydrogen is part of a structure near the center of NGC 4151 that has been distorted by gravitational interactions with the rest of the galaxy, and includes material falling towards the center of the galaxy. The yellow blobs around the red ellipse are regions where star formation has recently occurred. (NASA / CXC / CfA / J. Wang)

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Nasa's 'Witch Head Nebula' Looks Hauntingly Real... Because It Is (PICTURE)

NASA TV Airs Discussion on Removing Barriers to Deep Space Exploration

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NASA Television will air a roundtable discussion with aerospace industry leaders at 9 a.m. EST Tuesday, Nov. 12 about the progress being made toward sending humans into deep space.

The live broadcast will take place at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, in Washington, and is open to visitors with paid admission.

Panelists representing NASA and its prime contractors will discuss the work being done on the agency's Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket, which will carry humans farther into space than ever before. The participants are:

-- William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and operations, NASA

-- Julie Van Kleek, vice president, advanced space and launch programs, Aerojet Rocketdyne

-- Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager, ATK Space Launch Division

-- John Elbon, vice president and general manager, Boeing Space Exploration

-- Jim Crocker, vice president and general manager, civil space, Lockheed Martin Space Systems

Orion and the Space Launch System will provide the United States an entirely new human space exploration capability, a flexible system that can extend human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration in our solar system.

The discussion is sponsored by TechAmerica's Space Enterprise Council in partnership with the George Marshall Institute and the Coalition for Space Exploration.

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NASA TV Airs Discussion on Removing Barriers to Deep Space Exploration

NASA to conduct aerial survey of Greenland, arctic seas ice cover

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GREENBELT, Md., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- NASA says an airborne survey will measure changes in the Greenland ice sheet and surrounding arctic sea ice produced by a single season of summer melt.

The first-ever such survey will be conducted using survey instruments on a C-130 research aircraft that flew from Wallops Island, Va., to Greenland Wednesday, the space agency reported. Survey flights will be conducted through Nov. 16, to collect data that will improve understanding of seasonal melt and provide baseline measurements for future satellite missions, officials said.

The data gathered will give researchers a more comprehensive view of seasonal changes and provide context for measurements to be gathered during NASA's ICESat-2 satellite mission, scheduled for launch in 2016, they said.

"The more ground we cover the more comparison points we'll have for ICESat-2," Bryan Blair at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said.

In past years, some glaciers in western Greenland have experienced declines of nearly 100 feet in elevation in a single summer, scientists said.

"Surface melt is more than half of the story for Greenland's mass loss," said Ben Smith of the University of Washington's Advanced Physics Laboratory, a member of the science team selecting flight lines for the aerial survey.

The C-130 will fly out of Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, scientists said.

"We plan to concentrate our flights on areas northwest, southeast and southwest Greenland and the Arctic Ocean," said Michelle Hofton, mission scientist at Goddard and the University of Maryland. "The measurements we collect along lines sampled in IceBridge's spring 2013 Arctic campaign will allow scientists to assess changes over the summer."

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NASA to conduct aerial survey of Greenland, arctic seas ice cover

NASA Sets Launch Date for MAVEN Mission to Mars

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NASA's MAVEN mission to Mars is scheduled for a Nov. 18 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., the space agency announced this week.

The 37.5-foot long, unmanned Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is currently set to lift off atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 at 1:28 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 18 but NASA has set a 20-day launch window following that date in the event of delays.

MAVEN will be the space agency's first scientific mission to Mars since successfully landing the Curiosity Mars rover on the surface of the planet in August 2012. Unlike Curiosity, MAVEN is an orbital mission, designed to circle the planet from above to search for clues as to "how the sun may have stripped Mars of most of its atmosphere, turning a planet once possibly habitable to microbial life into a cold and barren desert world," according to NASA.

"The MAVEN mission is a significant step toward unraveling the planetary puzzle about Mars' past and present environments. The knowledge we gain will build on past and current missions examining Mars and will help inform future missions to send humans to Mars," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement.

The MAVEN spacecraft will travel through interplanetary space for about 10 months before arriving at its destination next September. After locking into a preliminary orbit around Mars, mission engineers will spend five weeks testing the probe's instruments and science mapping sequences while positioning it in its final science-mapping orbit, NASA said.

MAVEN's primary mission will last a year, during which it will "study the nature of the red planet's upper atmosphere, how solar activity contributes to atmospheric loss, and the role that escape of gas from the atmosphere to space has played through time," the space agency said.

The probe will carry three suites of scientific instruments designed to measure the planet's ionosphere and the effect of the solar wind on it, determine the "global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere," and measure the composition and isotopes of neutral gases and ions.

MAVEN, which arrived in Florida in August, was built by NASA partner and ULA member Lockheed Martin. The solar-powered spacecraft will weigh more than 5,600 pounds with a full load of fuel at launch and around 1,990 pounds during its mission, when it will operate on as little as 1135 watts of solar power when Mars is at its furthest distance from the Sun. MAVEN has a high-gain antenna which will be used to communicate with Earth twice a week.

The MAVEN mission is being led by principal investigator Dr. Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, which is providing two of the probe's science instruments. The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory is also supplying four science instruments, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., which is also managing the project, will have two science instruments aboard the spacecraft.

Lockheed Martin will provide mission operations in addition to building the probe itself. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. will conduct program management, communications, and navigation support duties via the Mars Program Office and its Deep Space Network operations, the space agency said.

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NASA Sets Launch Date for MAVEN Mission to Mars

(5) Nanotechnologie Nanotechnology Led Nouvelles technologies New Technologys – Video

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(5) Nanotechnologie Nanotechnology Led Nouvelles technologies New Technologys
Nanotechnologies. Technologie du futur. Un regard sur le futur Nouvelles technologies. New Technologys. Technologie d #39;avenir Les produits de luxe. LED . Tech...

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(5) Nanotechnologie Nanotechnology Led Nouvelles technologies New Technologys - Video

(6) Nanotechnologie Nanotechnology Led Nouvelles technologies New Technologys – Video

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(6) Nanotechnologie Nanotechnology Led Nouvelles technologies New Technologys
Nanotechnologies. Technologie du futur. Un regard sur le futur Nouvelles technologies. New Technologys. Technologie d #39;avenir Les produits de luxe. LED . Tech...

By: LUXUTILISdotCOM

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(6) Nanotechnologie Nanotechnology Led Nouvelles technologies New Technologys - Video