NASA Invites Children, Families to Learn About NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Md. will host this month's Sunday Experiment on Sunday, Sept. 15 from 1 to 3 p.m. EDT. The Sunday Experiment is a free afternoon for children of all ages and their families to discover NASA Goddard's exciting missions.

The Sept. 15 Sunday Experiment will explore NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. SDO was launched in 2010, and is currently studying solar activity and how it causes space weather. Space weather affects our lives on Earth, and even satellites and astronauts out in space!

SDO is helping us understand where the sun's energy comes from, what happens inside of the sun, and how energy is stored and released in the sun's atmosphere. By better understanding the sun and how it works, we will be able to better predict space weather events.

Planned hands-on activities to be featured this month include building an electromagnet, comparing the magnetic fields of the Earth and sun using a "magnaprobe," and experimenting with UV light detectors.

Participants at Sunday Experiment event will learn about solar events and how they affect Earth from an SDO scientist; they can also participate in hands-on activities that explore the magnetic fields of the sun and ultraviolet light. Families will leave inspired by the activities, wowed by the scientists and engineers, and excited about Goddard's revolutionary research and technology. Visitors can witness the mesmerizing Science on a Sphere and explore the cosmos and Goddard's cutting edge science and discovery.

The Sunday Experiment usually held the third Sunday of each month from Sept. through May, with some exceptions, spotlights Goddard's world-renowned science and engineering research and technological developments. Families leave inspired by the activities, wowed by the scientists and engineers, and excited about Goddard's revolutionary research and technology. In addition to celebrating all things science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the Sunday Experiment celebrates major science missions that are managed by Goddard and set to launch in the near future.

For more information on Sunday Experiment, visit Goddard's Visitor Center Web page: http://visitorcenterevents.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For more information and directions to the NASA Goddard Visitor's Center, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/home/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/directions/index.html

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NASA Invites Children, Families to Learn About NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission

NASA: 96 Things You Can Do With an Asteroid

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Landing on asteroids will be a risky endeavor, perhaps aggravated by changes in asteroid dust when its touched. Credit: NASA Near Earth Object Program

NASA is really getting into this crowd-sourcing thing. The space agency asked and the public responded with hundreds of ideas of what missions could be done with asteroids in regards to protecting Earth from these space rocks and finding an asteroid humans can explore. NASA received over 400 responses to their Asteroid Initiative Request For Information request, hearing from the space industry, universities, and the general public.

Now, after looking at all the responses, NASA has chosen 96 ideas it regards as most promising, ranging from asteroid observation plans to asteroid redirection, deflection or capture systems, to creating crowd sourcing and citizen science opportunities. Next, NASA will host an Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop where NASA personnel and the space community will discuss and further these 96 ideas to narrow them down even further to help with its planning activities and future missions. The 96 ideas were chosen by a team of NASA scientists, engineers, and mission planners who evaluated the proposed ideas. The evaluation team rated the responses for relevance to the RFI objectives, innovativeness of the idea, maturity of the development approach, and potential to improve mission affordability.

This is the first time NASAs has used this type of crowd-sourcing and discussion method to look at possible future missions.

NASA said the ideas proposed provide the agency with fresh insight into how best to identify, capture and relocate a near-Earth asteroid for closer study and respond to asteroid threats. Ideas included pointers on how to decrease an asteroids spin, nudge it away from a path toward Earth, take samples to return to Earth and create activities to heighten public awareness of not only the threat asteroids pose, but the valuable resources and scientific benefits they may offer.

This rich set of innovative ideas gathered from all over the world provides us with a great deal of information to factor into our plans moving forward, said Robert Lightfoot, Associate Administrator for NASA. Were making great progress on formulating this mission, and we look forward to discussing further the responses we received to the RFI.

The upcoming public workshop will be held on Sept. 30 Oct. 2 and onsite participation is limited to just the presenters, but it appears the workshop will be webcast (more info later), as NASA said they will release information on virtual participation options as the workshop nears.

Source: NASA

Tagged as: Asteroid initiative, Asteroids, NASA

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NASA: 96 Things You Can Do With an Asteroid

NASA Moonshot Will Test Laser Communications

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NASA launches a moon satellite this week that will test ultrafast optical data transmission.

Lunar module: Engineers at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility prepare work on a moon probe that will test a high-bandwidth laser communications system.

A new communications technology slated for launch by NASA this Friday will provide a record-smashing 600 megabits-per-second downloads. The resulting probe will orbit the moon and send communications back to Earth via lasers.

The plan hints at how lasers could give a boost to terrestrial Internet coverage, too. Within a few years, commercial Internet satellite services are expected to use optical connectionsinstead of todays radio linksproviding far greater bandwidth. A Virginia startup, Laser Light Communications, is in the early stages of designing such a system and hopes to launch a fleet of 12 satellites in four years.

Already, some companies provide short-range through-the-air optical connections for tasks such as connecting campus or office buildings when an obstruction such as a river or road makes laying fiber infeasible. There are a bunch of technologies that all come together for new applications and improved service, not just one, says Heinz Willebrand, president and CEO of Lightpointe, a San Diego-based company whose technology provides up to 2.5 gigabits per second for a few hundred meters.

One new technology figuring in NASAs moon probe: a superconducting nanowire detector, cooled to 3 degrees Kelvin. That gadget, developed at MIT and itsLincoln Laboratory, is designed to detect single photons sent nearly a quarter of a million miles from infrared lasers on an orbiting lunar probe, which is being launched Friday to measure dust in the lunar atmosphere.

The new communications system, dubbed Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration, will deliver six times greater download speeds compared to the fastest radio system used for moon communications. It will use telescopes that are just under one meter in diameter to pick up the signal. But it could be rengineered to provide 2.5 gigabits per second, if the ground telescope designed to detect the signals were enlarged to three meters in diameter, says Don Boroson, the Lincoln Lab researcher who led the project. This is demonstrating the first optical data transmission for a deep-ish space mission. If you resize it and partly rengineer it, you could potentially do it to Mars, he says.

Because clouds block photons, detectors are being installed at three spots: one each in California and New Mexico, and a third on the Canary Islands. On this mission, though, the system will merely be tested. Most operations will be handled by radio technologiesupgraded versions of the system that delivered Neil Armstrongs One small step for man transmission in 1969. But if all goes well, optical systems will likely dominate space transmissions in the future, with radio systems serving as a backup.

In addition to the nanowire detector, the system depends on high-speed encoding and decoding of data, and a separate set of calculations and adjustments to keep the telescopes pointed at each other. There are a bunch of technologies that are new and exciting, Boroson says.

But what may be even more exciting for bandwidth-hungry Earthlings is the prospect of a satellite-based all-optical network to augment the ground-based one.

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NASA Moonshot Will Test Laser Communications

NASA to launch new LADDEE moon probe Friday

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NASA's next moon shot a robotic spacecraft tasked with investigating lunar dust and the moon's thin atmosphere is set to launch from Virginia this week.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE for short) is scheduled to start its journey to the moon on Friday (Sept. 6) at 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 Sept. 7 GMT), launching atop a Minotaur 5 rocket, the maiden voyage for the new booster.

Weather permitting, the launch may be visible to observers along the East Coast of the United States when the rocket lifts off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. [Photos: NASA's LADEE Moon Dust Mission in Pictures]

"I love this mission. LADEE is going to be fantastic," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, told reporters in a briefing on Aug. 22. "I'm getting really excited as we move to the launch pad first of all because it's going to the moon. Ever since I was a young boy like so many folks looking up at the sky I've wondered about the moon."

LADEE pronounced "laddie," not "lady" will probe the lunar atmosphere for signs of moon dust that could have created a distinct glow on the moon's horizon that Apollo astronauts saw before sunrise. Scientists think that the mysterious luminosity could have been created by charged dust above the surface of the moon.

- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate

The LADEE spacecraft will also use its instrumentation to examine the thin atmosphere of the moon, called a surface boundary exosphere. Many moons, plants and some large asteroids all have this kind of atmosphere making it the most common kind of atmosphere in the solar system, Sarah Noble, a LADEE program scientist said.

Investigating the moon's atmosphere could help scientists understand more about the nature of atmospheres on many other bodies in the solar system including the closest planet to the sun, Mercury.

"The interesting thing about Mercury is that we don't have any samples of Mercury's surface ..." Noble said. "On the moon, we actually already know what the rocks are at the surface, but [LADEE] will help to compare what is on the surface versus what is in the atmosphere on the moon. [This science] will actually help us work our way back to Mercury and understand the difference between what we're seeing in the atmosphere and what might be on the ground there. We're actually going to learn about Mercury even from this lunar mission."

Once launched, LADEE will take 30 days to make it into its final orbit around the moon. The probe could make it to the Earth's cosmic neighbor in less time, but it would use too much fuel getting there, mission scientists said.

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NASA to launch new LADDEE moon probe Friday

NASA Selects Top 96 Asteroid Initiative Ideas

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NASA has chosen 96 ideas it regards as most promising from more than 400 submitted in response to its June request for information (RFI) about protecting Earth from asteroids and finding an asteroid humans can explore.

The ideas provide the agency with fresh insight into how best to identify, capture and relocate a near-Earth asteroid for closer study and respond to asteroid threats. They include pointers on how to decrease an asteroid's spin, nudge it away from a path toward Earth, take samples to return to Earth and create activities to heighten public awareness of not only the threat asteroids pose, but the valuable resources and scientific benefits they may offer.

"This rich set of innovative ideas gathered from all over the world provides us with a great deal of information to factor into our plans moving forward, said Robert Lightfoot, Associate Administrator for NASA. "We're making great progress on formulating this mission, and we look forward to discussing further the responses we received to the RFI."

These ideas were submitted by industry, universities, international organizations, and the public. NASA's selection process involved agency scientists, engineers and mission planners who are formulating details of the asteroid initiative.

NASA's request for information was the first opportunity for industry and other potential partners to offer ideas for the asteroid initiative.

NASA plans a public workshopSept. 30 - Oct. 2to examine and synthesize the 96 highly rated ideas. The workshop will feature discussions by experts from inside and outside NASA. The other approximately 300 ideas, which were not selected for examination, may be fed into planning for the asteroid initiative.

NASA's asteroid initiative has two parts: the mission by astronauts to explore an asteroid and a grand challenge to protect the planet. It is included in President Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget request for NASA, and leverages the agency's progress on its Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and cutting-edge technology development. The mission is a key step in NASA's plan to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

To learn more about the RFI selection process and view the workshop outline, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/content/asteroid-initiative-idea-synthesis-workshop

For more information about NASA's asteroid initiative, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative

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NASA Selects Top 96 Asteroid Initiative Ideas