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26 Teachers to go Into Space on NASA's SOFIA Airborne Observatory

"The unique design of SOFIA gives educators hands-on experience with world-class astronomical research," said John Gagosian, SOFIA program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Working with astronomers, educators participate in a research project from beginning to end and integrate that unique perspective with classroom lessons and public outreach programs."

SOFIA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program is a yearly professional development opportunity extended to educators through a competitive, peer-reviewed process. This year's educators are:

-- Melvin Gorman and Gordon Serkis, Chinle Junior High School in Chinle, Ariz.

-- Ira Harden and Vincente Washington, City Honors College Preparatory Charter School in Inglewood, Calif.

-- Clifford Gerstman and Susan Groff, Middle College High School in Santa Ana, Calif.

-- Mike Cimino, Heritage Middle School, and John Clark, Deltona High School in Deltona, Fla.

-- Randi Brennon, Hawaii Academy of Arts and Sciences in Pahoa, Hawaii

-- Jo Dodds, Twin Falls Senior High School in Twin Falls, Idaho

-- Ralph Peterson, North Gem High School in Bancroft, Idaho

-- Jennifer Carter and Claudett M. Edie, Rowan County Senior High School in Morehead, Ky.

-- Chelen Johnson, Breck School in Golden Valley, Minn

-- Matt Oates, Dilworth STEM Academy in Sparks, Nev.

-- Dan Ruby, Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center in Reno, Nev.

-- Ryan Munkwitz and John Walsh, Southampton Intermediate and High School in Southampton, N.Y.

-- James Johnson, Children's Center for Treatment & Education in Custer City, Pa.

-- Adriana Alvarez and Mariela Aguirre, Alicia R. Chacon International School in El Paso, Texas

-- David V. Black, Walden School of Liberal Arts in Provo, Utah

-- Carolyn Bushman, Wendover Jr./Sr. High School in Wendover, Utah

-- Sarah Scoles, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and Anne Smith, Green Bank Middle School in Green Bank, W.Va.

-- Constance Gartner, Wisconsin School for the Deaf in Delavan, Wis.

"These educators submitted applications describing how they plan to take what they learn from SOFIA back to their classrooms and communities to help promote increased literacy in science, technology, engineering and math," said astronomer Dana Backman, manager of SOFIA's education and public outreach programs. "Selection for this unique opportunity is truly an honor for the educators, as well as for their local schools and science centers."

SOFIA is a joint program between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The SOFIA program is managed at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., where the aircraft is based. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., manages SOFIA science and mission operations in concert with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in Columbia, Md., and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) in Stuttgart, Germany. SOFIA's education and public outreach programs are managed by the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in San Francisco.

Modified GT Sets World Speed Record at SLF

6-23-2011 A modified Ford GT set a world record during testing June 16 and 17 when Johnny Bohmer reached 223 mph on the runway of NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. A Guinness World Records judge authenticated the accomplishment, confirming Bohmer's place in automotive history, along with Kennedy's role in the achievement.

Bohmer's Performance Power Racing modified the car and was testing the suspension and aerodynamic coatings at the runway. The record is the first in the new Guinness category of standing mile for a street-legal car. That means Bohmer began from a standstill and revved up to speeds faster than the space shuttle's average touchdown speed.

"This is probably the best place on the Earth," Bohmer said before the run. "It's very nice, I'm very happy with it. I took it up to 210 (June 16) without trying."

Built for spacecraft returning from orbit at high speeds, the three-mile long concrete runway is becoming a preferred testing ground for drivers and racing teams. Joe Gibbs racing, which competes in NASCAR events, has used the runway for evaluations, as have Indy Car teams.

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Shuttle Flights in 2008

Feb. 12 -- Discovery (STS-119 / 15A) will kick off a five-flight 2009 with its 36th mission to deliver the final pair of U.S. solar arrays to be installed on the starboard end of the station's truss. The truss serves as the backbone support for external equipment and spare components, including the Mobile Base System. Lee Archambault will command the 14-day flight that will include four planned spacewalks. Joining him will be pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Joseph Acaba, Richard Arnold and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will replace Sandy Magnus on the station as a flight engineer. STS-119 marks the 28th shuttle flight to the station.

May 15 -- Endeavour (STS-127 / 2JA) sets sail on its 23rd mission with the Japanese Kibo Laboratory's Exposed Facility and Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section, the final permanent components of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s contribution to the station program. During the 15-day mission, Endeavour's crew will perform five spacewalks and deliver six new batteries for the P6 truss, a spare drive unit for the Mobile Transporter and a spare boom assembly for the Ku-band antenna. Mark Polansky will be Endeavour's commander with Doug Hurley as pilot. Mission specialists will be Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will become a station flight engineer replacing Koichi Wakata, who will return home with the STS-127 crew. It will be the 29th shuttle flight to the station.

July 30 -- Atlantis (STS-128 / 17A) launches on its 31st flight, an 11-day mission carrying science and storage racks to the station. In the payload bay will be a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module holding science and storage racks. Three spacewalks are planned to remove and replace a materials processing experiment outside the European Space Agency's Columbus module and return an empty ammonia tank assembly. The mission includes the rotation of astronaut Nicole Stott for Tim Kopra, who will return to Earth with the shuttle crew. The remaining crew members have yet to be named. STS-128 marks the 30th shuttle flight dedicated to station assembly and outfitting.

Oct. 15 -- Discovery's (STS-129 / ULF-3) 37th mission will focus on staging spare components outside the station. The 15-day flight includes at least three spacewalks. The payload bay will carry two large External Logistics Carriers holding two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly, a spare latching end effector for the station's robotic arm, a spare trailing umbilical system for the Mobile Transporter and a high-pressure gas tank. Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk will return home aboard Discovery with its crew, which has yet to be named. STS-129 marks the 31st shuttle mission devoted to station assembly.

Dec. 10 -- Endeavour (STS-130 / 20A) will close 2009 with its 24th mission to deliver the final connecting node, Node 3, and the Cupola, a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center that provides a 360-degree view around the station. At least three spacewalks are planned during the 11-day mission. The 32nd station assembly mission by a shuttle does not yet have a crew named.

SHUTTLE FLIGHTS IN 2010 Feb. 11 -- Atlantis (STS-131 / 19A) begins its 32nd mission as the first flight in 2010, carrying a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module filled with science racks that will be transferred to laboratories of the station. The 11-day mission will include at least three spacewalks to attach a spare ammonia tank assembly outside the station and return a European experiment that has been outside the Columbus module. It will be the 33rd shuttle mission to the station. The crew has yet to be named.

April 8 -- Discovery's (STS-132 / ULF-4) 38th mission will carry an integrated cargo carrier to deliver maintenance and assembly hardware, including spare parts for space station systems. In addition, the second in a series of new pressurized components for Russia, a Mini Research Module, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the Zarya module. The Russian module also will carry U.S. pressurized cargo. The first Russian Mini Research Module to go to the station is scheduled to launch on a Russian rocket in the summer of 2009.

Additionally, at least three spacewalks are planned to stage spare components outside the station, including six spare batteries, a boom assembly for the Ku-band antenna and spares for the Canadian Dextre robotic arm extension. A radiator, airlock and European robotic arm for the Russian Multi-purpose Laboratory Module also are payloads on the flight. The laboratory module is scheduled for launch on a Russian rocket in 2011. The mission marks the 34th mission to the station. The STS-132 crew has yet to be named.

May 31 -- Endeavour's (STS-133 / ULF-5) 25th mission will carry critical spare components that will be placed on the outside of the station. Those will include two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields. At least three spacewalks are planned to be carried out by the crew, which has yet to be named. The 15-day mission will be the 35th to the station

NASA Updates

Breaking News-

11 New Planetary Systems

1-26-2012 MOFFET FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.

The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.

"Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits."

Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward Earth and the Kepler spacecraft.

Each of the new confirmed planetary systems contains two to five closely spaced transiting planets. In tightly packed planetary systems, the gravitational pull of the planets on each other causes some planets to accelerate and some to decelerate along their orbits. The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change. Kepler detects this effect by measuring the changes, or so-called Transit Timing Variations (TTVs).

Planetary systems with TTVs can be verified without requiring extensive ground-based observations, accelerating confirmation of planet candidates. The TTV detection technique also increases Kepler's ability to confirm planetary systems around fainter and more distant stars.

Five of the systems (Kepler-25, Kepler-27, Kepler-30, Kepler-31 and Kepler-33) contain a pair of planets where the inner planet orbits the star twice during each orbit of the outer planet. Four of the systems (Kepler-23, Kepler-24, Kepler-28 and Kepler-32) contain a pairing where the outer planet circles the star twice for every three times the inner planet orbits its star.

"These configurations help to amplify the gravitational interactions between the planets, similar to how my sons kick their legs on a swing at the right time to go higher," said Jason Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill., and lead author of a paper confirming four of the systems.

Kepler-33, a star that is older and more massive than our sun, had the most planets. The system hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5 to 5 times that of Earth. All of the planets are located closer to their star than any planet is to our sun.

Trajectory Manuever Planned

1-8-2012 PASADENA, Calif. -- An engine firing s trajectory manuever to Mars is slated on Jan. 11 will be the biggest maneuver that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft will perform on its flight between Earth and Mars.

The action will use a choreographed sequence of firings of eight thruster engines during a period of about 175 minutes beginning at 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST or 2300 Universal Time). It will redirect the spacecraft more precisely toward Mars to land at Gale Crater. The trajectory resulting from the mission's Nov. 26, 2011, launch intentionally misses Mars to prevent the upper stage of the launch vehicle from hitting the planet. That upper stage was not cleaned the way the spacecraft itself was to protect Mars from Earth's microbes. The maneuver is designed to impart a velocity change of about 12.3 miles per hour (5.5 meters per second).

"We are well into cruise operations, with a well-behaved spacecraft safely on its way to Mars," said Mars Science Laboratory Cruise Mission Manager Arthur Amador, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "After this trajectory correction maneuver, we expect to be very close to where we ultimately need to be for our entry point at the top of the Martian atmosphere."

The mission's schedule before arrival at Mars on Aug. 5 in PDT (Aug. 6 in Universal Time and EDT) includes opportunities for five more flight path correction maneuvers, as needed, for fine tuning.

The Jan. 11 maneuver has been planned to use the spacecraft's inertial measurement unit to measure the spacecraft's orientation and acceleration during the maneuver. A calibration maneuver using the gyroscope-containing inertial measurement unit was completed successfully on Dec. 21. The inertial measurement unit is used as an alternative to the spacecraft's onboard celestial navigation system due to an earlier computer reset.

<Diagnostic work continues in response to the reset triggered by use of star-identifying software on the spacecraft on Nov. 29. In tests at JPL, that behavior has been reproduced a few times out of thousands of test runs on a duplicate of the spacecraft's computer, but no resets were triggered during similar testing on another duplicate. The spacecraft itself has redundant main computers. While the spacecraft is operating on the "A side" computer, engineers are beginning test runs of the star-identifying software on the redundant "B side" computer to check whether it is susceptible to the same reset behavior.

>The Mars Science Laboratory mission will use its car-size rover, Curiosity, to investigate whether the selected region on Mars inside Gale Crater has offered environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.

On Jan. 15, the spacecraft operations team will begin a set of engineering checkouts. The testing will last about a week and include tests of several components of the system for landing the rover on Mars and for the rover's communication with Mars orbiters.

The spacecraft's cruise-stage solar array is producing 780 watts. The telecommunications rate is 2 kilobits per second for uplink and downlink. The spacecraft is spinning at 2.04 rotations per minute. The Radiation Assessment Detector, one of 10 science instruments on the rover, is collecting science data about the interplanetary radiation environment.

>As of 9 a.m. PST (noon EST, or 1700 Universal Time) on Saturday, Jan. 7, the spacecraft will have traveled 72.9 million miles (117.3 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to Mars. It will be moving at about 9,500 mph (15,200 kilometers per hour) relative to Earth and at about 69,500 mph (111,800 kilometers per hour) relative to the sun.

NASA Twinn Spacecraft Goes for the Moon

12-29-11 PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's twin spacecraft to study the moon from crust to core are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit.

Named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft are scheduled to be placed in orbit beginning at 1:21 p.m. PST (4:21 p.m. EST) for GRAIL-A on Dec. 31, and 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST) on Jan. 1 for GRAIL-B.

"Our team may not get to partake in a traditional New Year's celebration, but I expect seeing our two spacecraft safely in lunar orbit should give us all the excitement and feeling of euphoria anyone in this line of work would ever need," said David Lehman, project manager for GRAIL at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

The distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles (402,336 kilometers). NASA's Apollo crews took about three days to travel to the moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sept. 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) to get there.

This low-energy, long-duration trajectory has given mission planners and controllers more time to assess the spacecraft's health. The path also allowed a vital component of the spacecraft's single science instrument, the Ultra Stable Oscillator, to be continuously powered for several months. This will allow it to reach a stable operating temperature long before it begins making science measurements in lunar orbit.

"This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. "Our two spacecraft are operating so well during their journey that we have performed a full test of our science instrument and confirmed the performance required to meet our science objectives."

As of Dec. 28, GRAIL-A is 65,860 miles (106,000 kilometers) from the moon and closing at a speed of 745 mph (1,200 kph). GRAIL-B is 79,540 miles (128,000 kilometers) from the moon and closing at a speed of 763 mph (1,228 kph).

During their final approaches to the moon, both orbiters move toward it from the south, flying nearly over the lunar south pole. The lunar orbit insertion burn for GRAIL-A will take approximately 40 minutes and change the spacecraft's velocity by about 427 mph (688 kph). GRAIL-B's insertion burn 25 hours later will last about 39 minutes and is expected to change the probe's velocity by 430 mph (691 kph).

The insertion maneuvers will place each orbiter into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with a period of 11.5 hours. Over the following weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period from 11.5 hours down to just under two hours. At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).

When science collection begins, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them as they orbit the moon. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface. they will move slightly toward and away from each other. An instrument aboard each spacecraft will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely, and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon's gravitational field. The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface. This information will increase our knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.

JPL manages the GRAIL mission. MIT is home to the mission's principal investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

NASA Radio Rock Station

12-25-11 WASHINGTON -- NASA's mission of discovery and exploration will be showcased in a custom-produced Internet music radio station that is crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults.

Third Rock - America's Space Station is set to launch with a New Rock/Indie/Alternative format on Monday, Dec. 12. The station is being developed and operated at no cost to the government through a Space Act Agreement. Third Rock can be reached from NASA's home page, www.nasa.gov, and will soon be available through NASA iPhone and Droid mobile applications.

"NASA constantly is looking for new and innovative ways to engage the public and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers," said David Weaver, associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We have led the way in innovative uses of new media and this is another example of how the agency is taking advantage of these important communication tools."

NASA is collaborating with Houston-based RFC Media to launch the station.

"Today's 4G audience craves new music and enjoys finding it," said Pat Fant, RFC Media co-founder and chief operating officer. "We've pulled out the best songs and the deepest tracks from a full spectrum of rock artists across many styles and decades. NASA features and news items are embedded throughout the programming alongside greetings by celebrity artists."

Third Rock also will help partner companies fill high-tech job openings in the engineering, science and IT fields. In addition to the NASA Web Portal, the station will be available online in the future at the radio tab of Apple's iTunes and other sites.

"No one knows more about discovering new rock than NASA," said Cruze, RFC Media co-founder and president. "Exciting new music is being discovered online through specialty sites like Third Rock-America's Space Station, where listeners will hear about great new artists way before their friends hear of them."

To listen to Third Rock, visit: http://www.rfcmedia.com/thirdrockradio/

Mars Rover Finds Mineral Vein Deposited by Water

12-10-11 WASHINGTON -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on Mars.

"This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for Opportunity. "This stuff is a fairly pure chemical deposit that formed in place right where we see it. That can't be said for other gypsum seen on Mars or for other water-related minerals Opportunity has found. It's not uncommon on Earth, but on Mars, it's the kind of thing that makes geologists jump out of their chairs."

The latest findings by Opportunity were presented Wednesday at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco.

The vein examined most closely by Opportunity is about the width of a human thumb (0.4 to 0.8 inch), 16 to 20 inches long, and protrudes slightly higher than the bedrock on either side of it. Observations by the durable rover reveal this vein and others like it within an apron surrounding a segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater. None like it were seen in the 20 miles (33 kilometers) of crater-pocked plains that Opportunity explored for 90 months before it reached Endeavour, nor in the higher ground of the rim.

Last month, researchers used the Microscopic Imager and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on the rover's arm and multiple filters of the Panoramic Camera on the rover's mast to examine the vein, which is informally named "Homestake." The spectrometer identified plentiful calcium and sulfur, in a ratio pointing to relatively pure calcium sulfate.

Calcium sulfate can exist in many forms, varying by how much water is bound into the minerals' crystalline structure. The multi-filter data from the camera suggest gypsum, a hydrated calcium sulfate. On Earth, gypsum is used for making drywall and plaster of Paris.

Observations from orbit have detected gypsum on Mars previously. A dune field of windblown gypsum on far northern Mars resembles the glistening gypsum dunes in White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.

"It is a mystery where the gypsum sand on northern Mars comes from," said Opportunity science-team member Benton Clark of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "At Homestake, we see the mineral right where it formed. It will be important to see if there are deposits like this in other areas of Mars."

The Homestake deposit, whether gypsum or another form of calcium sulfate, likely formed from water dissolving calcium out of volcanic rocks. The minerals combined with sulfur either leached from the rocks or introduced as volcanic gas, and was deposited as calcium sulfate into an underground fracture that later became exposed at the surface.

photo of Ms. Lori Gavern and Dr. Kathryn Sullivan bby diane knaus

Mrs.Lori Garver NASA, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan NOAA

photo of NOAA bldg

NOAA Headquarters at Suitland, Maryland

NASA Launches Satellite

10-28-2011 Cheers were heard throught out the NOAA building as many of us watched the launch on wall size screens from California Delta Launch Central as it proceeded.

According to Thomas Renkevens Depuy Division Chief Satellite Services at NOAA. The new satellite NPP will fly 521 miles above the earth to collect the information for weather forecasts 24 hours a day. It takes many people to keep this in operation and record the data in an ongoing 24 hour timeframe .”

Also attending the launch event at NOAA was Carol Lanne Vice President of Bell Aerospace & Technology the company that built the saetllite.”This is an awesome piece of telecommunication equipment.” We are very proud to be a part of such an emerging technology, it is very exciting.

NASA Launches New Mars Rover

11-27-11 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air

"We are very excited about sending the world's most advanced scientific laboratory to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "MSL will tell us critical things we need to know about Mars, and while it advances science, we'll be working on the capabilities for a human mission to the Red Planet and to other destinations where "

The mission will pioneer precision landing technology and a sky-crane touchdown to place Curiosity near the foot of a mountain inside Gale Crater on Aug. 6, 2012. During a nearly two-year prime mission after landing, the rover will investigate whether the region has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

"The launch vehicle has given us a great injection into our trajectory, and we're on our way to Mars," said MSL Project Manager Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "The spacecraft is in communication, thermally "

The Atlas V initially lofted the spacecraft into Earth orbit and then, with a second burst from the vehicle's upper stage, pushed it out of Earth orbit into a 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) journey to Mars.

"Our first trajectory correction maneuver will be in about two weeks," Theisinger said. "We'll do instrument checkouts in the next several weeks and continue with thorough preparations for the landing on Mars and operations on the surface."

The Space Station

7-27-2011 WASHINGTON -- The Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) for the International Space Station partner agencies met Tuesday, July 26, to discuss how to use the space station as a test bed for technologies that will enable missions beyond low Earth orbit.

The board will begin identifying several specific technology collaboration initiatives based on possible future missions suggested by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group. These technology developments and demonstrations on the station could support voyages to an asteroid or Mars or the development of lunar habitats.

The MCB also discussed efforts to increase station use and reported on the status of standardization efforts for rendezvous and proximity operations, interfaces for replaceable items and payloads and command protocols for spacecraft. The recently released revision of the International Docking Systems Standard can be downloaded at:

http://www.internationaldockingstandard.com

Ongoing space station research includes:

- The uses of the International Space Station as a national laboratory are growing. Memorandums of understanding are in place between NASA and other U.S. government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, which is now in its second year of selecting experiments related to human health research.

Space Act Agreements also are active with private firms and universities in the areas of vaccine development for bacterial pathogens, gene differentiation for production of new plant cultivars, nanocube scale experiment systems, hyper-spectral imaging for agricultural applications and advanced propulsion technologies. Earlier this month, NASA formally selected the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space for negotiation of a cooperative agreement to stimulate, develop and manage uses of the station by organizations other than NASA.

- The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has collected more than 2 billion observations of galactic cosmic rays since its launch and installation on the space station in May. The astrophysics instrument is a partnership of hundreds of scientists and sixteen countries led by Nobel laureate Samuel Ting.

- Robotic technologies developed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for the station have been used to improve the dexterity of surgeons in fine scale surgery. NASA will be testing a humanoid robot, Robonaut, developed in partnership with General Motors in the coming months. The first test of robotically controlled refueling in orbit, developed jointly by NASA and CSA, launched earlier this month aboard Atlantis' STS-135 flight.

- The space station partnership is working to share data from remote sensing instruments mounted on the orbiting outpost and to increase the application of such data to disaster response. The Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean has collected more than 3,510 images, providing unprecedented spectral resolution of difficult-to-map coastal waters. The International Space Station Agricultural Camera collected its first images on June 10. Its data is used to assess crop health and rapid changes during the growing season.

- NASA's studies of crew health have identified relationships between diet and bone loss that offer important insights for future studies. Recently published data on chemical changes in pharmaceuticals identified that low-dose ionizing radiation in orbit degrades many medications, and that additional development of space-hardy medications will be needed for human spaceflight beyond Earth orbit.

- The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, continues experiments aimed at human adaptation to future long-term expeditions. Effects of the flight conditions on the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system and bones are being investigated in dedicated medical experiments. Wheat and vegetables are being planted, followed by genetic, microbiological and biochemical tests of the plants. Four different long-duration Russian astrobiology experiments from Expose-R returned after two years of open space exposure.

- In addition to astronomical and Earth observations, Japan promotes biotechnological research by analyzing structures of high-quality protein crystals created on the station leading to treatments for muscular dystrophy. Japan also continues experiments related to future long-term human spaceflight missions such as investigating bone loss mechanism, the effects of radiation and countermeasures of those. Scientists have gained insight to the fields of fundamental life and materials science from research conducted in the Kibo laboratory.

- With the return of European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Paolo Nespoli in May, ESA successfully concluded a focal set of research known as the "MagISStra" mission. Recently returned long-duration experiments include: a year-long radiation exposure experiment conducted with Roscosmos, nine different European astrobiology experiments after two years of open space exposure and the CFS-A study of fungi after five months in space. The completion of the ZAG and Otolith experiments by shuttle crew members gives new, unexpected insight into human balance. The Materials Science Laboratory now has the ability to cool rapidly metal alloy samples, with new cartridges expanding its use by the research community. These experiments are being performed in collaboration with the station's international partners.

The Final Four Flight Landing Update

7-21-2011 The STS-135 astronauts got to take a look at the vehicle that carried them on the final space shuttle mission, and paused for a moment to reflect on the journey.

"Although we got to take the ride," said Commander Chris Ferguson on behalf of his crew, " we sure hope that everybody who has ever worked on, or touched, or looked at, or envied or admired a space shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us."

In the shadow of Atlantis as it sat on the runway at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, the crew was welcomed back by senior NASA officials, including NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

"They have come to be known as the 'final four.' They did an absolutely incredible job," said Bolden. "They made us very proud."

A shuttle program post-landing news conference is set for 10 a.m. EDT, followed by a crew news conference at noon. Both will be carried live on NASA TV and online at www.nasa.gov/ntv. Participants in the 10 a.m. panel will be Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations, Bob Cabana, Kennedy center director, Mike Moses, space shuttle launch integration manager, and Mike Leinbach, space shuttle launch director.

Atlantis landed at 5:57 a.m. EDT, after 200 orbits around Earth and a journey of 5,284,862 miles.

The STS-135 crew consisted of Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim. They delivered more than 9,400 pounds of spare parts, spare equipment and other supplies in the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module - including 2,677 pounds of food - that will sustain space station operations for the next year. The 21-foot long, 15-foot diameter Raffaello brought back nearly 5,700 pounds of unneeded materials from the station.

A welcome home ceremony for the astronauts will be held Friday, July 22, in Houston. The public is invited to attend the 4 p.m. CDT event at NASA's Hangar 990 at Ellington Field. Gates to Ellington Field will open at 3:30 p.m. The ceremony will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

The LAUNCH-STS-135 is the final mission of NASA's Space Shuttle Program. "With today's final launch of the space shuttle we turn the page on a remarkable period in America's history in space, while beginning the next chapter in our nation's extraordinary story of exploration," Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Tomorrow's destinations will inspire new generations of explorers, and the shuttle pioneers have made the next chapter of human spaceflight possible."

The STS-135 crew consists of Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim. They will deliver the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module filled with more than 8,000 pounds of supplies and spare parts to sustain space station operations after the shuttles are retired.

"The shuttle's always going to be a reflection to what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through," Ferguson said shortly before liftoff. "We're not ending the journey today…we're completing a chapter of a journey that will never end." The mission includes flying the Robotic Refueling Mission, an experiment designed to demonstrate and test the tools, technologies and techniques needed for robotic refueling of satellites in space, even satellites not designed for servicing. The crew also will return with an ammonia pump that recently failed on the station. Engineers want to understand why the pump failed and improve designs for future spacecraft. Atlantis is on a 12-day mission and scheduled to dock to the station at 11:06 a.m. on Sunday. STS-135 is the 135th shuttle flight, the 33rd flight for Atlantis and the 37th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance. NASA's Web coverage of STS-135 includes mission information, a press kit, interactive features, news conference images, graphics and videos.

One Millionth Observation

7-5-2011 WASHINGTON -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope crossed another milestone in its space odyssey of exploration and discovery. On Monday, July 4, the Earth-orbiting observatory logged its one millionth science observation during a search for water in an exoplanet's atmosphere

"For 21 years Hubble has been the premier space science observatory, astounding us with deeply beautiful imagery and enabling ground-breaking science across a wide spectrum of astronomical disciplines," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. He piloted the space shuttle mission that carried Hubble to orbit. "The fact that Hubble met this milestone while studying a faraway planet is a remarkable reminder of its strength and legacy."

Although Hubble is best known for its stunning imagery of the cosmos, the millionth observation is a spectroscopic measurement, where light is divided into its component colors. These color patterns can reveal the chemical composition of cosmic sources.

Hubble's millionth exposure is of the planet HAT-P-7b, a gas giant planet larger than Jupiter orbiting a star hotter than our sun. HAT-P-7b, also known as Kepler 2b, has been studied by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler observatory after it was discovered by ground-based observations. Hubble now is being used to analyze the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere.

"We are looking for the spectral signature of water vapor. This is an extremely precise observation and it will take months of analysis before we have an answer," said Drake Deming of the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Hubble demonstrated it is ideally suited for characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets, and we are excited to see what this latest targeted world will reveal."

Hubble was launched April 24, 1990, aboard space shuttle's Discovery's STS-31 mission. Its discoveries revolutionized nearly all areas of astronomical research from planetary science to cosmology. The observatory has collected more than 50 terabytes of data to-date. The archive of that data is available to scientists and the public at: http://hla.stsci.edu/

NASA Views Air Polution

6-23-2011 WASHINGTON -- Two NASA research airplanes will fly over the Baltimore-Washington region and northeast Maryland this summer as part of a mission to enhance the capability of satellites to measure ground-level air quality from space.

The campaign is called DISCOVER-AQ, which stands for Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality. It is one of the five Earth Venture class of investigations selected last year as part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program. These targeted science investigations complement NASA's larger research missions.

A fundamental challenge for spaceborne instruments monitoring air quality is to distinguish between pollution high in the atmosphere and pollution near the surface where people live. The new NASA field campaign will make measurements from aircraft in combination with ground-based observation sites to help scientists better understand how to observe ground-level pollution from space in the future.

"What we're trying to do with DISCOVER-AQ is to fill the knowledge gap that limits our ability to monitor air pollution with satellites," said James Crawford, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Since many countries, including the United States, have large gaps in ground-based networks of air pollution monitors, experts look to satellites to provide a more complete geographic perspective on the distribution of pollutants.

A fleet of Earth-observing satellites, called the Afternoon Constellation or "A-train" will pass over the DISCOVER-AQ study area each day in the early afternoon. The satellites' data, especially from the Aqua and Aura spacecraft, will give scientists the opportunity to compare the view from space with that from the ground and aircraft.

"The A-Train satellites have been useful in giving us a broader view of air pollution than has ever been seen," said Kenneth Pickering, DISCOVER-AQ's project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "DISCOVER-AQ will help interpret that data to improve air-quality analysis and regional air-quality models."

Initial test flights are planned for the week of June 27, with up to 14 science flights starting as early as July 1. The P-3B, a four-engine turboprop, will carry nine instruments. The two-engine UC-12 will carry two instruments. Sampling will focus on an area extending from Beltsville, Md., to the northeastern corner of Maryland in a pattern that follows major roadway traffic corridors. The flight path passes over six ground measurement sites operated by the Maryland Department of the Environment.

NASA investigators will be joined in the air by colleagues from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. The 117-foot P-3B will fly low-altitude spiral profiles over the ground stations. These profiles will extend from 15,000 feet to as low as 1,000 feet from the ground. The flights will sample air along traffic corridors at low altitude between ground stations.

The smaller King Air UC-12 will collect data from as high as 26,000 feet. The plane's instruments will look down at the surface, much like a satellite instrument, and measure particulate and gaseous pollution.

The combined scientific resources are what make DISCOVER-AQ a rare opportunity for air quality researchers. "One instrument is not more important than another," said Jennifer Hains, a research statistician with the Maryland Department of the Environment in Baltimore. "The combination of all of them makes this campaign valuable."l

Ground sites maintained by the Maryland Department of the Environment form the backbone of the surface network. These sites will be supplemented by additional instrumentation provided by NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Howard University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and Millersville University in Pennsylvania.

Astronaut Kelly Retires

HOUSTON -- NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Capt. Mark Kelly has announced his plans to retire from the agency on Oct. 1. He is a veteran of four space shuttle missions.

"We salute Commander Mark Kelly and his contributions to NASA as an extremely accomplished member of the astronaut corps and the final commander of the space shuttle Endeavour," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "We deeply respect his achievements and his decision to focus on his family. We continue to send out our thoughts and prayers to Mark and his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as she makes a remarkable recovery. We know that Mark will continue to do great things for his country no matter what he chooses to do next. He has helped us build a space program poised to take advantage of the many opportunities in our bright future."

Kelly announced his retirement Tuesday on Facebook and via his Twitter account. On Facebook, he wrote, "This was not an easy decision. Public service has been more than a job for me and for my family." He added, "I know that as our space program evolves, there are those who will question NASA's future. I am not among them. There isn't a group more dedicated to its mission or more capable than the outstanding men and women of NASA."

Kelly commanded the STS-134 flight in May and STS-124 in 2008. He served as the pilot on STS-121 in 2006 and STS-108 in 2001. He joined NASA as an astronaut candidate in 1996.

NASA Innovations in Education

WASHINGTON --6-20-2011 NASA has awarded $7.2 million in cooperative agreements to 14 minority-serving organizations across the United States to enhance learning through the use of the agency's Earth Science resources. The selected organizations include colleges, universities, nonprofit groups and a community college.

The winning proposals illustrated innovative approaches using NASA content to support elementary, secondary and undergraduate teaching and learning. There is a particular emphasis on engaging students using NASA Earth observation data, Earth system models, as well as providing climate-related research experiences for teachers and undergraduate students.

These grants support NASA's goal of engaging students in the critical disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and inspiring the next generation of explorers.

The 14 proposals will fund organizations in the District of Columbia and in California, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The awards have a two and one half-year period of performance and range in value from about $230,000 to $825,000.

The cooperative agreements are part NASA's Minority University Research and Education Program. For a list of selected organizations and projects' descriptions, click on "Selected Proposals" and look for "2011 Innovations in Global Climate Change Education" at:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com

Astronauts Launched to the International Space Station

6-7-2011 HOUSTON -- NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa launched to the International Space Station at 3:12 p.m. CDT Tuesday (2:12 a.m. local time, Wednesday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov - the Soyuz commander- are scheduled to dock their spacecraft with their new home at 4:22 p.m. Thursday, June 9. They will join Expedition 28 commander Andrey Borisenko and flight engineer Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian space agency and Ron Garan of NASA. The trio has been aboard the station since April 6.

On Thursday, coverage of the Soyuz docking will begin on NASA Television at 3:30 p.m. NASA TV coverage of the hatches opening and the welcoming ceremony aboard the orbiting laboratory will begin at 8:30 p.m.

The six-person crew will continue the uninterrupted presence of humans on the station since Nov. 2, 2000, conducting expanded scientific research and station maintenance activities. The station residents also will welcome the crew of the last space shuttle flight, Atlantis' STS-135 mission, targeted to launch July 8. The shuttle will deliver critical supplies in the Italian-built Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module and support spacewalks by Fossum and Garan to retrieve a failed cooling system pump module, which Atlantis will return to Earth for analysis.

Garan, Borisenko and Samokutyaev, who launched to the station April 4, will return to Earth in September. Before departing, Borisenko will hand over command of the station to Fossum for Expedition 29, which begins when the Soyuz TMA-21 undocks.

NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin will join Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa to complete the Expedition 29 crew in September.

Fossum will blog about his experiences while aboard the space station. His first blog entry will be posted later today at: http://blogs.nasa.gov

photo astranaughts last walk

Image above: Astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Mike Fincke work on the exterior of the International Space Station during the fourth spacewalk of the STS-134 mission. Photo credit: NASA TV

Last Spacewalk

5-27-2011 Astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff completed a seven-hour, 24-minute spacewalk at 7:39 a.m. EDT. The primary objectives for the spacewalk were accomplished, including stowing the 50-foot-long boom and adding a power and data grapple fixture to make it the Enhanced International Space Station Boom Assembly, available to extend the reach of the space station's robotic arm.

This was the final spacewalk conducted by space shuttle astronauts. It also was the last of the four spacewalks for the STS-134 mission, for a mission total of 28 hours, 44 minutes.

At 5:02 a.m., Fincke and Chamitoff surpassed the 1,000th hour astronauts and cosmonauts have spent spacewalking in support of space station assembly and maintenance. The milestone occurred four hours and 47 minutes into today's spacewalk, the 159th in support of station assembly and maintenance, totaling 1,002 hours, 37 min.

It was the 248th spacewalk U.S. astronauts have conducted and the 118th from space station airlocks.

It was Fincke's ninth spacewalk for a total time of 48 hours and 37 minutes; he is sixth on the all-time list. At about 8 p.m. this evening, he will become the U.S. astronaut who has spent the most number of days in space, surpassing Peggy Whitson's record of 377 days in space.

It was Chamitoff's second spacewalk for a total time of 13 hours and 43 minutes.

Water From the Moon

5-26-2011 MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- A team of NASA-funded researchers has measured for the first time water from the moon in the form of tiny globules of molten rock, which have turned to glass-like material trapped within crystals. Data from these newly-discovered lunar melt inclusions indicate the water content of lunar magma is 100 times higher than previous studies suggested.

The inclusions were found in lunar sample 74220, the famous high-titanium "orange glass soil" of volcanic origin collected during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The scientific team used a state-of-the-art ion microprobe instrument to measure the water content of the inclusions, which were formed during explosive eruptions on the moon approximately 3.7 billion years ago.

The results published in the May 26 issue of Science Express raise questions about aspects of the "giant impact theory" of how the moon was created. That theory predicted very low water content of lunar rock due to catastrophic degassing during the collision of Earth with

The study also provides additional scientific justification for returning similar samples from other planetary bodies in the solar system.

"Water plays a critical role in determining the tectonic behavior of planetary surfaces, the melting point of planetary interiors and the location and eruptive style of planetary volcanoes," said Erik Hauri, a geochemist with the Carnegie Institution of Washington and lead author of the study. "I can conceive of no sample type that would be more important to return to Earth than these volcanic glass samples ejected by explosive volcanism, which have been mapped not only on "

In contrast to most volcanic deposits, the lunar melt inclusions are encased in crystals that prevent the escape of water and other volatiles during eruption.

"These samples provide the best window we have on the amount of water in the interior of the moon where the orange glass came from," said science team member James Van Orman of Case Western Reserve

In a 2008 study led by Alberto Saal of Brown University in Providence, R.I., the same team reported the first evidence of water in lunar volcanic glasses. They used magma degassing models to estimate how much water was originally in the magmas before eruption. Building on that study, a Brown undergraduate student, Thomas Weinreich, searched for and found the melt inclusions. With that data, the team measured the pre-eruption concentration in the magma and estimated the amount of water in the moon's interior.

"The bottom line is that in 2008, we said the primitive water content in the lunar magmas should be similar to lavas coming from the Earth's depleted upper mantle," Saal said. "Now, we have proven that "

The study also puts a new twist on the origin of water-ice detected in craters at the lunar poles by several recent NASA missions. The ice has been attributed to comet and meteor impacts, but the researchers believe it is possible that some of the ice came from water released by the eruption of lunar magmas eons ago.

The paper entitled, "High Pre-Eruptive Water Contents Preserved in Lunar Melt Inclusions," was written by Hauri, Weinreich, Saal, Van Oman and Malcolm Rutherford of Brown. The research is funded by NASA's Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research and Cosmochemistry Programs in Washington, the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) at the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett

The NLSI is a virtual organization enabling collaborative, interdisciplinary research in support of agency lunar science programs. The researchers are members of NLSI teams from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio and Brown. The institute uses technology to bring scientists together around the world, and it is comprised of seven competitively selected U.S. teams and several international partners. NASA's Science Mission and Exploration Systems Mission Directorates in Washington fund the institute.

Spacewalkers

5-20-2011 Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff are more than three hours in to today's spacewalk. They have completed the installation of the ammonia jumper cable that will connect the cooling loops of the station's port-3 and 4 segments. This task was necessary for activities scheduled for the second spacewalk in which Feustel and Mike Fincke will top off the ammonia in the station’s port-6 photovoltaic thermal control system cooling loop, which has a slow ammonia leak.

They started by installing the cable, then they vented nitrogen from the loops between the port-1 and port-5 segments and from the jumper that connects the ammonia reservoir that will be used for the refill on the second spacewalk.

Feustel will work on routing the cables to which it will connect while Chamitoff sets up the antenna. Chamitoff will first remove two handrails on Destiny and replace them with EWC handrails, which have the antennas integrated. Each handrail is held in place by two bolts. Once the antenna handrails are installed, Chamitoff will connect two power cables, and Feustel will connect three more and store two additional cables for future use.

Feustel will wrap up the first spacewalk of the mission by preparing tools and equipment that will be used in the second and third spacewalks.

Mars Maps

7-23-2010 WASHINGTON -- A camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever. Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore

The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey. Researchers at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility in Tempe, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., have been compiling the map since THEMIS observations began eight years ago.

The pictures have been smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically controlled to make a giant mosaic. Users can pan around images and zoom into them. At full zoom, the smallest surface details are 330 feet wide. While portions of Mars have been mapped at higher resolution, this map provides the most accurate view so far of the entire planet.

The new map is available at:

http://www.mars.asu.edu/maps/?layer=thm_dayir_100m_v11

High Definition

WASHINGTON -- On Monday, July 19, NASA Television will launch a full-time High Definition (HD) channel that media, cable and satellite service providers can access for news content and coverage

The channel will deliver HD video that only NASA can provide, such as live launch coverage of space shuttles and other spacecraft. The "ISS Update," a daily program covering the activities of the on-orbit International Space Station crews, will air on the new HD channel. Video of the Earth shot by crews on the station and from NASA

NASA's video file news feed, media conferences, lectures, satellite interviews and special events also will be delivered in HD. The NASA TV HD channel will be offered in MPEG-2 format.

Virginia Students Win Competition

6-21-10 WASHINGTON -- A rotorcraft that resembles a catamaran has taken the

The entry by ten students at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., met the competition's challenge to design a civilian aircraft that could rescue up to 50 survivors in the event of a natural disaster, hover to help rescue missions, land on ground or water, travel 920 miles and cruise at speeds up to 345 miles an hour. The amphibious tilt-rotor vehicle also had to be able to fight fires by siphoning water into an internal tank, then dumping it after airborne.

NASA's Aeronautics Mission Directorate in Washington sponsored the competition through the Subsonic Rotary Wing Project in its Fundamental Aeronautics Program.

More than 100 college students from the United States, India, the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, China and Nigeria entered the contest in teams or as individuals.

Susan Gorton, principal investigator of the Subsonic Rotary Wing Project, led the review panel. "The designs were creative, innovative and looked at many issues in detail," she said. "Reading the student papers highlighted how many bright young engineers are interested in the future of rotary wing vehicles. I certainly hope some of them "

Ten Virginia Tech undergraduates came up with the winning design-- a twin-hulled vehicle with a large prop-rotor flanking each hull. A team of 10 graduate students from Georgia Tech in Atlanta and the University of Liverpool in England took second place, and 28 undergraduates from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville placed third.

NASA sponsored the design contest to interest students in aeronautics and engineering careers. Each winning U.S. team received a cash award and an engraved trophy through a NASA education grant and cooperative agreement. Cash awards ranged from $5,000 for first place to $3,000 for third place. Five of the students from the top U.S. teams also won paid summer internships at NASA.

Tsunami Prediction

6-14-2010 WASHINGTON -- A NASA-led research team has successfully demonstrated for the first time elements of a prototype tsunami prediction system that quickly and accurately assesses large earthquakes and estimates the size of resulting tsunamis.

After the magnitude 8.8 Chilean earthquake on Feb. 27, a team led by Y. Tony Song of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used real-time data from the agency's Global Differential GPS (GDGPS) network to successfully predict the size of the resulting tsunami. The network, managed by JPL, combines global and regional real-time data from hundreds of GPS sites and estimates their positions every second. It can detect ground motions as small as a few centimeters.

This successful test demonstrates that coastal GPS systems can effectively be used to predict the size of tsunamis," said Song. "This could allow responsible agencies to issue better warnings that can save lives and reduce false alarms that can unnecessarily disturb the lives of coastal residents."

Song's team concluded that the Chilean earthquake, the fifth largest ever recorded by instruments, would generate a moderate, or local, tsunami unlikely to cause significant destruction in the Pacific. The tsunami's effect was relatively small outside of Chile.

Song's GPS-based prediction was later confirmed using sea surface height measurements from the joint NASA/French Space Agency Jason-1 and Jason-2 altimetry satellites. This work was partially carried out< by researchers at Ohio State University, Columbus.

The value of coordinated real-time observations from precision GPS, satellite altimetry and advanced Earth models has been demonstrated," said John LaBrecque, manager of the Solid Earth and Natural Hazards program in the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Song's prediction method, published in 2007, estimates the energy an undersea earthquake transfers to the ocean to generate a tsunami. It relies on data from coastal GPS stations near an epicenter, along with information about the local continental slope. The continental slope is the descent of the ocean floor from the edge of the continental shelf to the ocean bottom.

Conventional tsunami warning systems rely on estimates of an earthquake's location, depth and magnitude to determine whether a large tsunami may be generated. However, history has shown earthquake magnitude is not a reliable indicator of tsunami size. Previous tsunami models presume a tsunami's power is determined by how much the seafloor is displaced vertically. Song's theory says horizontal motions of a faulting continental slope also contribute to a tsunami's power by transferring kinetic energy to the ocean.

The theory is further substantiated in a recently accepted research paper by Song and co-author Shin-Chan Han of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. That study used data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to examine the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

When the Feb. 27 earthquake struck, its ground motion was captured by the NASA GDGPS network's station in Santiago, Chile, about 146 miles from the earthquake's epicenter. These data were made available to Song within minutes of the earthquake, enabling him to derive the seafloor motions.

Based on these GPS data, Song calculated the tsunami's source energy, ranking it as moderate: a 4.8 on the system's 10-point scale (10 being most destructive). His conclusion was based on the fact that the ground motion detected by GPS indicated the slip of the fault transferred fairly little kinetic energy to the ocean.

"We were fortunate to have a station sufficiently close to the epicenter," said Yoaz Bar-Sever, JPL manager of the GDGPS system. "Broad international collaboration is required to densify the GPS tracking network so that it adequately covers all the fault zones that can give rise to large earthquakes around the world."

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

photo of Atlantis Coming home for the asat time

Photo Courtesy of NASA From the STS-132 Flight Day 13 Gallery

Atlantis Home At Last For the Last Time

5-26-2010 Space shuttle Atlantis and six astronauts ended a journey of more than 4.8 million miles with an 8:48 a.m. EDT landing Wednesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flawless landing wrapped up a highly successful mission to deliver the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1, known as "Rassvet" ("dawn" in Russian), to the International Space Station.

"It was smooth as silk," STS-132 Commander Ken Ham said of Atlantis' entry and landing. "We were clearly riding in the middle of a fireball, and it was spectacular. The windows, all of them, were bright, brilliant orange. One of the neatest things was when we flew right into orbital sunrise."

This was the final scheduled flight for Atlantis, which has logged more than 120 million miles during its 25 years of service. The orbiter will go through standard prelaunch preparations as the "launch-on-need" vehicle for Endeavour's STS-134 mission. That flight currently is targeted for November.

"Atlantis treated us very well. She was just an incredible ship," Mission Specialist Michael Good said, citing the precision of the deorbit burn as an example of Atlantis' performance. "The engines had it trimmed out to within .01 of what the burn was supposed to be."

The all-veteran astronaut crew will head home to Houston on Thursday. The public is invited to attend the welcome ceremony for the crew Thursday at 4 p.m. CDT at Ellington Field's NASA Hangar 276.

"We're thrilled, because we accomplished the mission that was put in front of us," Ham said. He explained that in addition to the technical objectives of the 12-day mission, the astronauts also wanted to enjoy themselves and share their enthusiasm of spaceflight with the world.

"We've been hearing stories about how folks have been having fun and enjoyed watching us have fun, and that's really important to us."

Breathe Easier

NASA-funded scientists and medical researchers are working together to tackle the problems of public health associated with bad air quality. Bad air quality can contribute to and aggravate asthma, bronchitis, high blood pressure, and stroke -- to name a few. Air quality-related health problems result in hospital visits that cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually.

RAND study: Air pollution costs $193 million in hospital visits

NASA is using data intended for weather and climate research to help pinpoint how environmental factors such as aerosol levels in the atmosphere impact cardiovascular health. Aerosols are solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere, and can occur naturally or get emitted by human activities such as burning fossil fuels.

Scientists measure aerosols, also called particulate matter (PM), by their size. The smallest particles -- less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) -- are the worst for human health because they can make their way into the lungs or bloodstream and exacerbate cardiovascular problems, especially in very young and elderly populations.

The ability to detect these microscopic particles (often found in smoke and haze) is helping public health researchers better document the health risks for the general population and specifically at-risk populations.

Dr. Yang Liu, a researcher at Emory University, first realized that NASA satellite data could enhance public health tracking while attending a 2007 NASA workshop where scientists from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) presented an overview of a newly formed tracking network.

The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network was created in 2002 as a cooperative program to find and document links between environmental hazards, such as aerosols, and diseases. The network uses ground-based air pollution data provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and disease information from the CDC to monitor and distribute information about environmental hazards and disease trends, as well as develop a strategy to combat these trends.

Discovery and Astronauts Return STS-131

4-20-1020 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Discovery and seven astronauts ended a 15-day journey of more than 6.2 million miles with a 9:08 a.m. EDT landing Tuesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The STS-131 mission to the International Space Station delivered science racks, new crew sleeping quarters, equipment and supplies. During three spacewalks, the crew installed a new ammonia storage tank for the station's cooling system, replaced a gyroscope for the station's navigation system and retrieved a Japanese experiment from outside the Kibo laboratory for examination on Earth.

Alan Poindexter commanded the flight and was joined by Pilot Jim Dutton and Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, Clay Anderson, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Naoko Yamazaki. Lindenburger is the last of three teachers selected as mission specialists in the 2004 Educator-Astronaut class to fly on the shuttle.

A welcome ceremony for the astronauts will be held Wednesday, April 21, in Houston. The public is invited to attend the 4 p.m. CDT event at Ellington Field's NASA Hangar 990.

photo volvanic ash

NASA's Terra satellite flew over the volcano on April 16 10:45 UTC (6:45 a.m. EDT) and the MODIS instrument captured a visible image of Eyjafjallajökull's ash plume (brown cloud) stretching from the U.K. (left) to Germany (right). Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response Team

Terra Satellite Sees Iceland Volcano's Ash Moving into Germany

NASA's Terra satellite has captured another image of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano ash cloud, now moving into Germany. Eyjafjallajökull continues to spew ash into the air and the ash clouds are still impacting air travel in Northern Europe.

NASA's Terra satellite flew over the volcano on April 16 at 10:45 UTC (6:45 a.m. EDT) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS instrument aboard Terra captured a visible image of Eyjafjallajökull's ash plume over the England and the Netherlands, stretching into Germany.

Air travel into and out of northern Europe has either been grounded or diverted because volcanic ash particles pose a risk of damage to airplane engines. NASA works with other agencies on using satellite observations to aid in the detection and monitoring of aviation hazards caused by volcanic ash. For more on this NASA program, visit: http://science.larc.nasa.gov/asap/research-ash.html.

The MODIS Rapid Response System was developed to provide daily satellite images of the Earth's landmasses in near real time. True-color, photo-like imagery and false-color imagery are available within a few hours of being collected, making the system a valuable resource. The MODIS Rapid Response Team that generates the images is located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. For more information and a real-time MODIS image gallery, visit: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Text credit: Rob Gutro, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Space Water Filter Medical Options Possible

Dr. Philip Scarpa’s team at Kennedy partnered with NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio to develop a device that filters microscopic contaminants, including heavy metals and toxins, out of drinking water to produce fluid as sterile as any made on Earth.

"On every space mission, there's a potential of getting sick or getting hurt," Scarpa said. As Kennedy's medical operations manager, Scarpa helps provide medical support to the astronauts before they launch into space and after they land.

On Earth, several medical conditions require IV fluids, usually for rehydration or for delivering medicines. The NASA International Space Station Patient Condition Database identified 115 medical conditions that could occur on the space station and would require IV fluids to be administered.

For example, an astronaut with severe burns can require about 100 liters of IV fluids for weeks, with 30 liters needed in the first three days. One recent NASA study reported that a mission to Mars may need as much as 248 liters of IV fluids on board. Currently there are 12 liters of fluid stored on the space station. Even less severe conditions, such as broken bones or motion sickness, can deplete the stock quickly, especially if more than one astronaut is sick or injured.

At more than two pounds of weight per liter, IV fluids are very costly to take into space. It also takes up a lot of volume, and due to its need for sterility, IV fluids have a limited shelf life.

“On board or ‘in-situ’ production of IV fluids needed for medical treatments, could greatly reduce these costs and storage limitations, and would give NASA much more flexibility in how it can use the water it already has on the spacecraft,” Scarpa said.

Prior to partnering with Glenn in 2007, Scarpa teamed up with researchers from the United Kingdom and Canada to develop the technology. Called “Project Clearwater,” the team started its research in 2005 with a grant from the Florida Space Research Institute. "When we started looking into this, we thought we would quickly find out that someone had done this already," Scarpa said. "After our background research, we were surprised that no one had been successful with this before. It's not easy. The requirements for medical-grade water for injection are very strict and difficult to meet without large factory-based processes."

Devising a workable filter system for space also presents more hurdles than just removing contaminants successfully.

Without gravity, water can channel by adherence to its container and bypass a filter entirely. Mixing of the final salt water solution also could be incomplete, and launch vibrations could cause the device to release small particulates into the lines. Also, without gravity, the air in the system doesn't separate out from the fluid. This may form bubbles in critical areas, such as blocking off filters. If the filters are blocked, the water will not be screened.

"Bubbles are probably the biggest concern," Scarpa said. “Bubbles in IV fluids are dangerous for a patient as well. If entered into the veins, they could cause a stroke by blocking the brain’s blood flow.”

Scarpa’s team devised the use of micron-sized filters to trap and squeeze out the bubbles from the system.

By 2006, the team had developed a suitcase-sized device that filtered both drinking and dirty water, producing ultra-pure sterile water that meets all U.S. Pharmacopeia standards.

Based on that initial success, the team from Kennedy and Glenn developed a flight-ready system. Dubbed “IVGEN” for IntraVenous Fluid Generation, it will seek to produce IV-grade water from available space station drinking water.

The device will be hooked up to an Iodine Crew Water Container on the station and water will be transferred into an accumulator, which is a plastic bag inside a hard container. Nitrogen from the station will pressurize the bag to push the water out of the accumulator and through several micron filters, a deionized packed resin filter, then another set of micron filters and into an IV collection bag similar to the kind used in hospitals.

The bag, which contains salt and a stir bar, will thoroughly mix the fluid and salt to form normal saline, the kind of IV fluids used on Earth. After the solution runs into another collection bag to measure mixing uniformity, the sterile saline will be complete and ready for collection.

For the purposes of the experiment, additional computers and sensors have been installed to take on-orbit data of all IV fluids created and to measure equipment performance.

In the station’s Microgravity Sciences Glovebox, astronauts will run the device several times beginning in early May, and two bags of sterile saline solution will be frozen and returned to Earth on STS-132 for testing.

"A perfect result would be to have output water that satisfies the strict standards for water for injection without any failures or performance issues," Scarpa said.

He is optimistic the device will work because the system was extensively tested on the ground and in the Zero-G aircraft.

As NASA ventures out farther into space, astronauts will require longer stays and farther destinations with little chance for immediate return or resupply from Earth. Producing medical-grade IV solutions is key to mission success.

In addition to spaceflight, Dr. Scarpa realizes the great potential benefit of this technology for applications right here on Earth, so he has been developing a small, handheld unit that could be used by the military in remote field operations, in submarines and on ships, and in medical relief efforts.

Scarpa said, “IV fluid production anytime, anywhere, has great medical benefit on the ground as well as in space.”

NASA Hosts First-Ever Water Sustainability Forum

3-10-2010 WASHINGTON -- NASA today announced its founding partnership of Launch, an initiative to identify, showcase and support innovative approaches to sustainability challenges through a series of forums. The first forum, "Launch: Water," will take place at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida from March 16-18.

"NASA is perfectly positioned to host a conversation with experts about potential solutions to the world's most perplexing sustainability problems," said NASA's Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, the host of the forum. "NASA offers a culture of problem-solving, deep technical expertise on sustainable systems such as the International Space Station, and a unique capacity to capture and analyze data about our home planet."

Other founding partners are the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. State Department and Nike. The event will bring together 10 entrepreneurs from around the world who have proposed solutions to water shortages and 40 council members who represent business, policy, engineering, science, communications and sustainability sectors. During the two-and-a-half day forum, the invited innovators and the Launch Council will participate in sessions designed to identify challenges and discuss future opportunities for their innovations.

Launch is a global initiative to identify and support innovative work that will contribute to a sustainable future. Organizers have begun a global search for visionaries, whose innovative world-class ideas, technologies or programs show great promise in making tangible impacts on society. Through a series of forums focused on key challenge areas including water, air, food, energy, mobility and sustainable cities, Launch will give thought leaders a forum to present innovative ideas among peers and join in collaborative, solution-driven discussions.

NASA Radar Finds Ice Deposits at Moon's North Pole; Additional Evidence of Water Activity on Moon

WASHINGTON -- Using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have detected ice deposits near the moon's north pole. NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 1 to 9 miles (2 to15 km) in diameter. Although the total amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it's estimated there could be at least 600 million metric tons of water ice.

"The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments on lunar missions indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon," said Paul Spudis, principal investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. "The new discoveries show the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought."

During the past year, the Mini-SAR mapped the moon's permanently-shadowed polar craters that aren't visible from Earth. The radar uses the polarization properties of reflected radio waves to characterize surface properties. Results from the mapping showed deposits having radar characteristics similar to ice.

"After analyzing the data, our science team determined a strong indication of water ice, a finding which will give future missions a new target to further explore and exploit," said Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF Program for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate in Washington.

The Mini-SAR's findings are being published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The results are consistent with recent findings of other NASA instruments and add to the growing scientific understanding of the multiple forms of water found on the moon. The agency's Moon Mineralogy Mapper discovered water molecules in the moon's polar regions, while water vapor was detected by NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS.

Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper are two of 11 instruments on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1. The Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., performed the final integration and testing on Mini-SAR. It was developed and built by the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., and several other commercial and government contributors.

What's Happening in Space, NASA Sets Coverage For Goes-P Weather Satellite Launch March 2

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P, or GOES-P, is scheduled for launch aboard a Delta IV rocket on Tuesday, March 2, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The one-hour launch window extends from 6:19 to 7:19 p.m. EST.

GOES-P will provide expanded capability for space and solar environment-monitoring instruments. The satellite will enhance forecasts and warnings for solar disturbances. GOES-P data will help protect billions of dollars in investments by the government and private sector for assets on the ground and in space.

GOES-P will feature a highly stable pointing platform that will improve the performance of its Imager and Sounder, instruments used for creating daily weather-prediction models and hurricane forecasting. Data from GOES-P will be valuable for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service, which provides oceanographic circulation models and forecasts for U.S. coastal communities.

As with all of NOAA's geostationary and polar-orbiting weather satellites, GOES-P will be able to relay distress signals detected from emergency locator beacons on the ground and at sea in support of the international search and rescue system. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., was responsible for designing and developing the spacecraft and its instruments for NOAA.

GOES-P is the last of three in the series of geostationary weather and environmental satellites built for NASA by Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems. The spacecraft will be checked out by Goddard and Boeing before being turned over to NOAA for operational use.

Endeavour Lights Up the Sky

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Endeavour lit up the predawn sky above Florida's Space Coast on Monday with a 4:14 a.m. EST launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle's last scheduled night launch began a 13-day flight to the International Space Station and the final year of shuttle operations.

Endeavour's STS-130 mission will include three spacewalks and the delivery of the Tranquility node, the final major U.S. portion of the station. Tranquility will provide additional room for crew members and many of the space station's life support and environmental control systems.

Attached to Tranquility is a cupola with seven windows, which houses a robotic control station. The windows will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft. After the node and cupola are added, the orbiting laboratory will be approximately 90 percent complete.

Shortly before liftoff, Commander George Zamka said, "Thanks to the great team that got Tranquility, cupola and Endeavour to this point. And thanks also to the team that got us ready to bring Node 3 and cupola to life. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. It's time to go fly."

Virts is making his first trip to space.

Endeavour's first landing opportunity at Kennedy is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 20, at 10:01 p.m. The STS-130 mission will be Endeavour's 24th flight and the 32nd shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance.

NASA's Web coverage of STS-130 includes mission information, interactive features, news conference images, graphics and videos. Mission coverage, including the latest NASA TV schedule, is available on the main space shuttle Web site at: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

NASA Managers Agree on Endeavour's Sunday Launch Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:02:00 -0600

"Everything thus far is going exceeding well… we're right on schedule where we're supposed to be and we'll continue to work through the day on our preparations," said NASA Test Director Jeff Spaulding during this morning's L-3 Countdown Status Briefing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Preps and tests at Launch Pad 39A will continue with final flight crew stowage occurring after communications checks Saturday. The rotating service structure that protects the shuttle from inclement weather prior to launch will be moved away from the vehicle at about 8 a.m. EST Saturday.

NASA Payload Manager Joe Delai described the processing of the Tranquility node as one of the most complex modules he's had the privilege of working with. "We all should be proud of what we've done… and I'm very proud to work with this team," Delai said.

Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters said the forecast is looking good for launch day with a 70 percent chance that weather will cooperate for liftoff. Winds will continue to be monitored, but Winters said it looks like they should subside enough for launch. Weather also is looking very good for the loading of space shuttle Endeavour's external fuel tank with propellants at about 7:15 p.m. Saturday.

Endeavour's 13-day, STS-130 mission is scheduled for liftoff at 4:39 a.m. Sunday.

Mars Rover Opportunity

1-23-2010 PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars exploration rover Opportunity is allowing scientists to get a glimpse deep inside Mars.

Perched on a rippled Martian plain, a dark rock not much bigger than a basketball was the target of interest for Opportunity during the past two months. Dubbed "Marquette Island," the rock is providing a better understanding of the mineral and chemical makeup of the Martian interior.

"Marquette Island is different in composition and character from any known rock on Mars or meteorite from Mars," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "It is one of the coolest things Opportunity has found in a very long time." During six years of roving, Opportunity has found only one other rock of comparable size that scientists conclude was ejected from a distant crater. The rover studied the first such rock during its initial three-month mission. Called "Bounce Rock," that rock closely matched the composition of a meteorite from Mars found on Earth.

Marquette Island is a coarse-grained rock with a basalt composition. The coarseness indicates it cooled slowly from molten rock, allowing crystals time to grow. This composition suggests to geologists that it originated deep in the crust, not at the surface where it would cool quicker and have finer-grained texture.

"It is from deep in the crust and someplace far away on Mars, though exactly how deep and how far we can't yet estimate," said Squyres.

The composition of Marquette Island, as well as its texture, distinguishes it from other Martian basalt rocks that rovers and landers have examined. Scientists first thought the rock could be another in a series of meteorites that Opportunity has found. However, a much lower nickel content in Marquette Island indicates a Martian origin. The rock's interior contains more magnesium than in typical Martian basalt rocks Spirit has studied. Researchers are determining whether it might represent the precursor rock altered long ago by sulfuric acid to become the sulfate-rich sandstone bedrock that blankets the region of Mars that Opportunity is exploring.

"It's like having a fragment from another landing site," said Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. Gellert is lead scientist for the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on Opportunity's robotic arm. "With analysis at an early stage, we're still working on some riddles about this rock."

The rover team used Opportunity's rock abrasion tool to grind away some of Marquette Island's weathered surface and expose the interior. This was the 38th rock target Opportunity has ground into, and one of the hardest. The tool was designed to grind into one Martian rock, and this rock may not be its last.

"We took a conservative approach on our target depth for this grind to ensure we will have enough of the bit left to grind the next hard rock that Opportunity comes across," said Joanna Cohen of Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corp., in New York, which built and operates the tool.

Opportunity currently is about 30 percent of the way on a 12-mile trek begun in mid-2008 from a crater it studied for two years. It is en route toward a much larger crater, Endeavour. The rover traveled 3.3 miles in 2009, farther than in any other year on Mars. Opportunity drove away from Marquette Island on Jan. 12.

"We're on the road again," said Mike Seibert, a rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The year ahead will include lots more driving, if all goes well. We'll keep pushing for Endeavour crater but watch for interesting targets along the way where we can stop and smell the roses."

Since landing on Mars in 2004, Opportunity has made numerous scientific discoveries, including the first mineralogical evidence that Mars had liquid water. After working 24 times longer than originally planned, Opportunity has driven more than 11 miles and returned more than 133,000 images. JPL manages the rovers for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington./font>

Final Training Day for STS-130 Crew

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the six STS-130 crew members climbed aboard space shuttle Endeavour on Launch Pad 39A. They will go through a complete launch countdown simulation right up to the point of liftoff.The astronauts will complete their prelaunch training at Kennedy this afternoon with a bench review of flight crew equipment and are scheduled to fly back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston tomorrow.

Launch teams at the pad conducted a walkdown of the shuttle to ensure there was no damage from the unusually icy weather conditions experienced last week. They also will continue testing and maintenance until liftoff.

Endeavour is targeted to launch at 4:39 a.m. EST Feb. 7 to deliver the Italian-built Tranquility with its attached cupola to the International Space Station.

On Jan. 27, an executive-level Flight Readiness Review meeting will be held at Kennedy to assess the readiness of the shuttle, flight crew and payloads to proceed with the countdown.

The official launch date will be set at the review and announced during a press briefing following the meeting.

Endeavor Preparations

1-11-2010 Technicians on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida will begin prelaunch propellant servicing on space shuttle Endeavour today, which will continue through Thursday.

Meanwhile at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Endeavour's six STS-130 astronauts continue their review of flight equipment and rendezvous procedures.

Teams continue to work toward a target launch of Feb. 7, as engineers review data from the test of a high-pressure ammonia jumper hose assembly that failed during a prelaunch test last week. The analysis is expected to continue for several days and the results will determine if there will be any impact to the shuttle mission.

Crews Prepare for Truss Installation, Spacewalk

A busy day in orbit for the crews of Space Shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station has set the stage for another station assembly task, the installation of the final truss segment and American solar power panels. As the crew prepared for the first spacewalk to assist with the truss installation, Mission Control radioed that no further inspection of Discovery’s heat shield is necessary clearing the way for an earlier deployment of the solar wings Friday.

Near the end of the crew day, the station’s robotic arm maneuvered the 31,000 pound, 45-foot-long truss segment to an overnight “park” position to await the start of the first spacewalk by Mission Specialists Steve Swanson and Ricky Arnold. They will “campout” in the Quest airlock of the station at a reduced air pressure overnight to prepare their bodies for the spacewalk planned to last six and a half hours. Meanwhile, the newest station crew member Koichi Wakata is settling in for a three-month stay on board after swapping places with Sandy Magnus who returns home aboard Discovery after four months in space. Wakata is the first Japanese astronaut to stay long-term aboard the station.

Discovery's STS-119 flight is delivering the space station's fourth and final set of solar array wings, completing the station's truss, or backbone. The arrays will provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station's expanded crew of six in May. The 14-day mission will feature four spacewalks to help install the S6 truss segment to the starboard, or right, side of the station and the deployment of its solar arrays. The flight also will replace a failed unit for a system that converts urine to potable water.

Commander Lee Archambault is joined on STS-119 by Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, John Phillips and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will replace space station crew member Sandra Magnus, who has been aboard the station for more than four months. He will return to Earth during the next station shuttle mission, STS-127, targeted to launch in June 2009.

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