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Mr. Mark Foreman - Space Flight (CUT)

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Mr. Mark

NASA Schedules Media Events and Coverage for New Solar Mission Launch

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WASHINGTON -- NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission is scheduled to launch at 7:27 p.m. PDT (10:27 p.m. EDT) Wednesday, June 26, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Launch on an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket is targeted for the middle of a five-minute launch window. Live NASA Television coverage of the launch begins at 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT). NASA TV also will air an IRIS prelaunch news conference and science briefing beginning at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, June 25.

IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission to observe how solar material moves, gathers energy and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the sun's lower atmosphere. This interface region between the sun's photosphere and corona powers its dynamic million-degree atmosphere and drives the solar wind.

The drop of the air-launched Pegasus from Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft will occur over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 39,000 feet, about 100 miles northwest of Vandenberg off the central coast of California, south of Big Sur.

The IRIS News Center at Kennedy's Vandenberg Resident Office will be staffed starting Monday, June 24 and may be reached between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. at 805-605-3051.

For complete details on media registration, media events, and live launch coverage on NASA Television, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/13L6djG

NASA also will host a Google+ Hangout at 1:30 p.m. EDT June 25, on the IRIS mission. Social media followers may submit questions on Twitter and Google+ in advance and during the event using the hashtag #askNASA.

Before the hangout begins, NASA will open a thread on its Facebook page where questions may be posted. The hangout can be viewed live on NASA's Google+ page, the NASA Television YouTube channel or NASA TV. For more information and to join the hangout, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/17039WY

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NASA Schedules Media Events and Coverage for New Solar Mission Launch

NASA’s Centennial Challenge Prize Awarded To Sample Return Robot

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June 11, 2013

Image Caption: Members of team Survey pose with officials from NASAs Sample Return Robot. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA

After two days of extensive competition, Team Survey of Los Angeles was awarded $5,000 in prize money after successfully completing Level 1 of the Sample Return Robot Challenge, a part of NASAs Centennial Challenges prize program.

The event, hosted by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) June 5-7 in Worcester, Mass., drew robotics teams from the United States, Canada and Estonia to compete for a total of $1.5 million in NASA prize money. Eleven teams arrived to compete at WPI; 10 teams passed the initial inspection and took to the challenge field. After two rounds of Level 1 competition, Team Survey met the $5,000 prize requirements and was declared the winner of this years competition.

Team Survey members Jascha Little, Russel Howe, Zac Lizer, Tommy Smith, Zoe Stephenson, Scott Little, Brandon Booth, and Joanna Balme, all from Los Angeles, were presented a check June 8 by NASAs Larry Cooper, Centennial Challenges program executive, at the opening of the TouchTomorrow technology festival. A WPI organized science and robotics festival attracted thousands of attendees, showcasing the teams and robots as well as NASA and WPI exhibits in science, robotics and space technology.

It is evident from the level of improvements the teams have shown from last years event to this weeks Level 1 win that the technology has significantly progressed, and the desired results of this challenge are within reach, said Sam Ortega, program manager of Centennial Challenges. We are so proud of the great spirit and camaraderie the teams have shown, as well. It speaks volumes about the caliber of teams and individuals who compete in these events.

NASA uses prize competitions to increase the number and diversity of the individuals, organizations and teams that are addressing a particular problem or challenge. Prize competitions stimulate private sector investment that is many times greater than the cash value of the prize and further NASAs mission by attracting interest and attention to a defined technical objective.

To win prize dollars, teams were required to demonstrate a robot that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of the challenge was to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies.

Team Surveys robot successfully completed Level 1 by navigating from the starting platform and locating a sample that was previously identified in the robots onboard computer. The robot then autonomously returned one undamaged sample to its starting platform within the 30-minute time limit. No teams made it to the second level of the competition this year.

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NASA's Centennial Challenge Prize Awarded To Sample Return Robot

Nanotechnology helps track and improve drug action in pancreatic cancer

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Public release date: 12-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Alison Heather a.heather@garvan.org.au 61-292-958-128 Garvan Institute of Medical Research

UK and Australian scientists have been able to show ways in which we can markedly improve drug targeting of solid tumours, using tiny 'biosensors' along with new advanced imaging techniques.

In real time and in three dimensions, these technologies can show us how cancers spread and how active cancer cells respond to a particular drug. They can also tell us how much, how often and how long to administer drugs. Finally, using preclinical models of the disease, they can guide the use of 'combination therapies', techniques that enhance drug delivery by breaking up the tissue surrounding a tumour.

The study was performed by Dr Paul Timpson of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Professor Kurt Anderson of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, UK. PhD student Max Nobis studied the signaling protein 'Src', which becomes activated to drive invasive pancreatic cancer, and looked at how it could best be deactivated by a small molecule inhibitor currently in phase II clinical trials known as 'dasatinib'. Their findings are published in the journal Cancer Research, now online.

"We have already shown that Src is activated in pancreatic tumours and we knew that dasatinib deactivates Src and could partially reduce the spread of this form of cancer. Through a collaborative partner in the US, we had access to FRET (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer) imaging technology," said Dr Paul Timpson.

"Until now, we have been limited to studying tumour signalling in two dimensions and lacked a dynamic way of reporting on drug targeting in live tumour tissue. Nanotechnology opens up a portal into living tissue that allows us to watch cancers spreading, and to determine which parts of a tumour we should be targeting with drugs."

"This imaging technology has allowed us to map areas within the tumour that are highly aggressive, allowing us to pinpoint regions of poor drug delivery deep within a tumour at sub-cellular resolution. We can then see where we need to improve on drug delivery to improve clinical outcome."

It has been hard to treat pancreatic tumours because they are extremely dense with collagen and have poor blood vessel networks for delivering drugs.

Professor Kurt Anderson observed that combination therapies can now be used to break down collagen, weakening tumour architecture and making it easier to get the drugs where they need to be. "The trick is to break down the structure just enough to get the drug in, but not so much that you damage the organ itself," he said.

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Nanotechnology helps track and improve drug action in pancreatic cancer