endeavor,STS-130 Crew,SS-130,air quality,bad air,air polution,icelands volcano,water sustainability forum,international space station,Wise,crews,shuttle flights,glaciers,crews,capsule,image map,wind energy,missions,astronauts,space station,nasa.html

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

Update 7-23-2010

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 and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet.

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 satellites also will be available.

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 decide to work with NASA as a career choice."

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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