Introducing NASA's bouncy-house habitat for the ISS

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March 16, 2015

We think it's actually a bounce house for the astronauts. (Credit: NASA)

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com @BednarChuck

It might look like a moon-shaped bouncy house, but a large, shiny, silver inflatable sphere scheduled to be transported to the International Space Station (ISS) later this year is actually a new expandable habitat co-developed by NASA and Bigelow Aerospace.

BEAM us up, Scotty!

Known as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), the habitat is scheduled to be carried to the orbiting laboratory on a SpaceX flight this September, according to a Washington Post report published on Friday. Upon its arrival, it will be attached to the ISS and will undergo extensive tests over the next two years to see if it can handle the rigors of space.

[STORY: Inflatable bouncer injuries on the rise]

BEAM recently passed the US space agencys rigorous certification requirements, the newspaper added, but only time will tell if the habitat can withstand the radiation of space, the movement of the ISS itself, and potential collisions with the countless fragments of debris in orbit.

On its official website, Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace noted that it had been awarded a $17.8 million contract for the development of expandable space habitat technology. The module will be berthed to the stations Tranquility node, and a pressurization system will be activated by the ISS crew in order to expand the structure to its full size.

During the trial period, astronauts will periodically enter the module to gather performance data and inspect the unit, and at the conclusion of the two-year test, the BEAM module is slated to be jettisoned from the space station, where it will fall back towards Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

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Introducing NASA's bouncy-house habitat for the ISS

NASA helps EWU student realize rocket dream

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By Jeff Bunch

Eastern Washington University student Jesse Shelly has always been fascinated with rockets, space flight and the men and women who make it happen.The former air traffic controller got to live out one of his dreams last week.

EWU student Jesse Shelly with astronaut Stan Love

Shelly, a junior studying mechanical engineering and a member of the rocket club, was given the opportunity to participate as a social media ambassador for last weeks test firing in Utah of the largest rocket booster ever made.

Shelly attended the two-day event as a de facto member of the media. He earned his spot by applying through a program run by NASA that was looking for 45 people to learn about the rocket program, see the test firing and promote all of it on social media.

The March 10-11 event was called, Get Fired Up! Experience the Most Powerful Rocket Booster Ever Built. It featured the first test of NASAs Space Launch Systems booster that was built and tested by contractor ATK Aerospace Group.

NASA described the significance of the event on its website before the launch:

NASA Social participants will have the opportunity to see the test firing for the largest, most powerful booster ever built for theSpace Launch System (SLS) NASAs new heavy-lift rocket in development to enable missions farther into space than ever before.When completed, two five-segment boosters and four RS-25 main engines will power the SLS on its way to deep space missions, including to an asteroid and eventually to Mars. The solid rocket boosters operate in parallel with the main engines for the first two minutes of flight providing more than 75 percent of the thrust needed for the launch vehicle to escape the gravitational pull of Earth.

In addition to the test firing on March 11, Shelly and the NASA Social team were able to tour of the ATK facilities in Utah. ATK is the prime contractor for SLS boosters, which have been used in a long line of space missions. Shelly and other attendees also got a chance to ask questions of NASA and ATK representatives at a press conference that aired live on NASA TV.

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HK chief executive's daughter behaves oddly on red carpet

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Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Socialite Paris Hilton were among the luminaries who walked the red carpet in Hong Kong ahead of the city's first fundraiser for the Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR).

However, one arrival on the red carpet turned heads for all the wrong reasons.

Leung Chai-yan, the notorious daughter of Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, arrived late on the red carpet and appeared to need support walking.

Leaning against the backdrop for support, she ignored pleas by the carpet host to leave, before stumbling off to laughter and jeers from the local media.

The 23-year-old law student has gained notoriety for a series of explosive social media pictures and messages, one in which she appears to show her slashed wrist, and another saying she feels no shame living luxuriously off taxpayers' money. The accounts have since been deleted.

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Stars turn out for Hong Kong Aids fund-raiser

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Stoke City: Ex-favourite heads Stateside to coach at New York Red…

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FORMER Stoke favourite Wayne Thomas is heading to the MLS to take up a coaching role at New York Red Bulls.

The 35 year-old defender will join the club as an Academy coach after working part-time in a similar capacity at Stoke.

But he is best remembered by Stoke fans for his 217 appearances for the club between the summers of 2000 and 2005.

Highlights included a goal - and pitch-long run to celebrate with Stoke fans at the other end - during an FA Cup defeat against Arsenal at Highbury in 2005.

He later played for the likes of Burnley, Southampton and Doncaster.

He even plied his trade in Greece for a spell before returning to play in non-league with Tamworth and Worcester City.

He appeared in a televised FA Cup tie for Tamworth against Bristol City last season.

And this season he played a starring role in Worcester's Cup run that saw them win at Coventry before going out in a replay to Scunthorpe when he missed the fateful penalty in a 14-13 shootout defeat.

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Orbital ATK and NASA test Qualification Motor 1 on March 11 2015 – Video

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Orbital ATK and NASA test Qualification Motor 1 on March 11 2015
SpaceFlight Insider exclusive video package covering the March 11, 2015 test firing of an Orbital ATK five-segment solid rocket booster at Promontory, Utah. The booster is part of NASA #39;s new...

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Orbital ATK and NASA test Qualification Motor 1 on March 11 2015 - Video

LA NASA INTERVIENE EN CASA DE ALBERBE M.D.T. PARTE FINAL GMOD c/Alberbe | MTDog FTS – Video

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NASA sees Extra-Tropical Storm Pam moving away from New Zealand

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IMAGE:On March 15 at 02:05 UTC, the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible image of Tropical Cyclone Pam off northern New Zealand as it was becoming an... view more

Credit: Image Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

Pam, a once powerful Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale is now an extra-tropical storm moving past northern New Zealand. NASA's Aqua satellite and the ISS-RapidScat instrument provided a look at the storm's structure and wind speed.

On March 15 at 02:05 UTC, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Pam off northern New Zealand as it was becoming an extra-tropical cyclone. The image showed strong thunderstorms around the center of circulation and east of the center. Cloud in Pam's southern quadrant had reached northern New Zealand at that time.

The RapidScat instrument aboard the International Space Station (ISS) measures surface winds. When the ISS passed over Pam on March 15 RapidScat gathered data on surface winds that showed the strongest winds stretched from the northeast to the south of the center near 35 m/s (78 mph/126 kph). On March 16, after Pam made its transition to an extra-tropical storm, RapidScat gathered surface wind data on the storm from 2:20 to 3:45 UTC (March 15 from 8:20 to 11:45 p.m. EDT). RapidScat measured maximum sustained winds near 25 meters per second /56 mph/90 kph, west and south of the center.

The New Zealand Meteorological Service (NZMS) issued a bulletin on Extra-tropical storm Pam on March 16 at 25:35 local time. The bulletin included a Severe Weather Watch for Wellington that is valid through 8:35 p.m. local time on Tuesday, March 17.

The NZMS noted that Cyclone Pam was moving to the southeast but southerly gales for the east and south of the north island will be slow to subside.

Cyclone Pam was about 400 km east of Gisborne and moving to the southeast away from New Zealand and towards the Chatham Islands. NZMS noted "The heavy rain, severe southerly gales and extremely large seas that affected eastern parts of the North Island will continue to ease Monday night and Tuesday morning. However, a warning remains in force for heavy rain about the ranges of Hawkes Bay until early Tuesday morning. Also, in exposed parts of the east and south of the North Island, south to southwest gales continue Monday night and much of Tuesday."

The watch in place calls for the possibility of gale-force southerly winds in Wellington and dangerous coastal conditions through Tuesday. Heavy ocean swells and very large waves are forecast to continue to affecting the coast from East Cape to Cape Palliser Monday night (local time), and should gradually ease during Tuesday, according to NZMS. For updated forecasts from NZMS, visit: http://www.metservice.com/national/home.

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NASA sees Extra-Tropical Storm Pam moving away from New Zealand

NASA Releases New Asteroid Detection Software For Amateur Astronomers

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Since the early 20th century, astronomers have relied on the same technique to detect asteroids -- they take images of a section in the sky and look for star-like objects that move between frames. However, with an increase in sensitivity of ground-based telescopes, it has become increasingly difficult for astronomers to sift through the massive pile of data and verify every single detection.

In order to increase the frequency of asteroid detection, including of those bodies that could be potential threats to our planet, NASA has released a new software, developed in collaboration with Planetary Resources, Inc., capable of running on any standard PC. The software, which can be downloaded for free, will accept images from a telescope and run an algorithm on them to determine celestial bodies that are moving in a manner consistent with an asteroid.

Amateur astronomers and asteroid hunters can also take images from their own telescopes and analyze them with the software. The application will tell the user whether a matching asteroid record exists and offer a way to report new findings to the Minor Planet Center, which then confirms and archives new discoveries, NASA said in a statement released Sunday.

The new algorithm, which increases the chances of asteroid detection in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter by 15 percent, was created as part of NASAs Asteroid Data Hunter challenge. The work is also of special interest to Planetary Resources, which hopes to mine asteroids for water and precious metals in the near future.

The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge has been successful beyond our hopes, creating something that makes a tangible difference to asteroid hunting astronomers and highlights the possibility for more people to play a role in protecting our planet, Jason Kessler, program executive for NASAs Asteroid Grand Challengesaid in the statement. The grand challenge,sponsored by the NASA Tournament Lab, was announced in 2013 with an aim to find all asteroid threats to human populations.

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The nanotech revolution: Sonia Trigueros | WIRED Health preview

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From Fantastic Voyage to Star Trek'sSeven of Nine, the use of nanotechnology inside the human body has long been explored in science fiction. However, WIRED Health speaker Sonia Trigueros is working to make nanotechnology in healthcare a science fact.

Imagine a world without chemotherapy. Where cancer treatment consists of a pill that selectively targets and kills cancer cells without damaging healthy ones. She believes that world is within our reach, perhaps 20 years away.

Trigueros is co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Nanotechnology at the University of Oxford; she will speak at WIRED Health in the session A Nanoscale Approach to Cancer.

The purpose of her work -- using DNA molecules wrapped around single-walled carbon nanotubes -- is to create a highly efficient drug delivery system for use in the battlegrounds of cancer and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This use of nanoparticles in medicine could totally transform healthcare.

A molecular biologist, Trigueros works as part of an interdisciplinary team that includes chemists, physicists and engineers, all working towards creating new healthcare treatments through the use of nanotechnology.

"You are reading and learning from all the different methodologies," Trigueros says. "So you cannot stop learning." After eight years in the physics department she has had to learn a lot in order to speak the same scientific language as her colleagues.

But for Trigueros it's not just about collaboration. "It's about placing yourself out of your comfort zone," she says. "You have to be outside of your knowledge. You're collaborating with people but you have to know about their discipline. Because if not, it's going to be impossible."

Why? Because, she says, nanotechnology is a game-changer: "It is changing the way that we see science because it's impossible to do it in one discipline only."

When most people think about nanotechnology they think about making things smaller. However, for Trigueros that is not the most relevant aspect. She says the most relevant aspect is that when we use nanotechnology to make something smaller, the material changes and develops different properties: something light becomes heavier; metallics behave completely differently.

"What we have here is a new area of research," she says, "with completely new properties. And we only know about 10 percent of them. As soon as we know the basic properties of the materials the applications are millions. It's a new science."

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Nano piano's lullaby could mean storage breakthrough

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AUDIO:Arrays of gold, pillar-supported bowtie nanoantennas can be used to record distinct musical notes, in this case, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. " view more

Credit: University of Illinois

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated the first-ever recording of optically encoded audio onto a non-magnetic plasmonic nanostructure, opening the door to multiple uses in informational processing and archival storage.

"The chip's dimensions are roughly equivalent to the thickness of human hair," explained Kimani Toussaint, an associate professor of mechanical science and engineering, who led the research.

Specifically, the photographic film property exhibited by an array of novel gold, pillar-supported bowtie nanoantennas (pBNAs)--previously discovered by Toussaint's group--was exploited to store sound and audio files. Compared with the conventional magnetic film for analog data storage, the storage capacity of pBNAs is around 5,600 times larger, indicating a vast array of potential storage uses.

To demonstrate its abilities to store sound and audio files, the researchers created a musical keyboard or "nano piano," using the available notes to play the short song, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

"Data storage is one interesting area to think about," Toussaint said. "For example, one can consider applying this type of nanotechnology to enhancing the niche, but still important, analog technology used in the area of archival storage such as using microfiche. In addition, our work holds potential for on-chip, plasmonic-based information processing."

The researchers demonstrated that the pBNAs could be used to store sound information either as a temporally varying intensity waveform or a frequency varying intensity waveform. Eight basic musical notes, including middle C, D, and E, were stored on a pBNA chip and then retrieved and played back in a desired order to make a tune.

"A characteristic property of plasmonics is the spectrum," said Hao Chen, a former postdoctoral researcher in Toussaint's PROBE laboratory and the first author of the paper, "Plasmon-Assisted Audio Recording," appearing in the Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports. "Originating from a plasmon-induced thermal effect, well-controlled nanoscale morphological changes allow as much as a 100-nm spectral shift from the nanoantennas. By employing this spectral degree-of-freedom as an amplitude coordinate, the storage capacity can be improved. Moreover, although our audio recording focused on analog data storage, in principle it is still possible to transform to digital data storage by having each bowtie serve as a unit bit 1 or 0. By modifying the size of the bowtie, it's feasible to further improve the storage capacity."

The team previously demonstrated that pBNAs experience reduced thermal conduction in comparison to standard bowtie nanoantennas and can easily get hot when irradiated by low-powered laser light. Each bowtie antenna is approximately 250 nm across in dimensions, with each supported on 500-nm tall silicon dioxide posts. A consequence of this is that optical illumination results in subtle melting of the gold, and thus a change in the overall optical response. This shows up as a difference in contrast under white-light illumination.

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Nano piano's lullaby could mean storage breakthrough

Germany's Epitaxy Competence Center focuses on 3D nano-LED

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March 13, 2015 // Paul Buckley

European Union researchers, who were involved in project GECCO have for the first time created a '3D nano-LED' for white light, will see their work continued under the cooperation with Germany's Epitaxy Competence Center - ec.

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Following the end of the funded GECCO project which investigated 3D GaN for high efficiency solid state lighting applications ec, which was opened by Osram Opto Semiconductors and Germany's Institute of Semiconductor Technology, Technical University of Braunschweig, will extend the development work for industry.

The ec has been established as a two million euro joint venture between the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, Braunschweig University of Technology and Osram Opto Semiconductors GmbH. The Center's main focus is on GaN technology, which underpins potential applications in optoelectronics, LED and laser technologies as well as power electronics and sensors.

All of these technologies are essential building blocks for the automotive industry, the field of mechanical engineering, as well as medical and other application areas.

ec, which was formed as a Gallium Nitride Research Center to increase the importance of the gallium nitride technology (GaN) in Germany, is focusing on stimulating the evolution of epitaxy production methods in Germany while also providing the infrastructure for nano-analysis and processing techniques. The ec builds a bridge between basic research at universities on the one hand and product-oriented research and development in the industry on the other.

GaN-based white LED technology are being designed into car headlights as as as LED lamps and streetlighting.

"GaN-based white LED technology will continue to gain market share," said Aldo Kamper, CEO of Osram Opto Semiconductors, in his speech at the opening ceremony. At the same time efficient processes are always asked: "Technological development towards even greater performance and lower cost of production has to go faster. This only works if industry and academia work together closely; in research projects or with ec as a center of excellence. In addition, the employees of such centers combine enormous expertise and form a pool of talent in the field of semiconductor technology".

"In the future we plan to expand epitaxy further and further develop the infrastructure for nano-analysis and systematic processing," explained Dr.-Ing. Snke Fndling, head of ec, further plans for the center of excellence.

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Germany's Epitaxy Competence Center focuses on 3D nano-LED