For Scientists Watching The Red Planet From Our Orbiters, The Past Month Has Been A Windfall. "Global"

LIFTOFF!

On July 7, three crew members launched from Earth; headed to their new home on the International Space Station. 

Crewmembers Kate Rubins of NASA, Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will spend approximately four months on the orbital complex, returning to Earth in October. 

Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Cygnus Cargo Craft: What’s Onboard?

New experiments are scheduled to arrive to the International Space Station with the launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft on Tuesday. These science payloads will study fires, meteors, regolith, adhesion and 3-D printing in microgravity.

Take a look at the experiments:

Saffire-I

What is it? What happens when you set a fire in space? The Spacecraft Fire Experiment-I (Saffire-I) will find out!

How does it work? This experiment will intentionally light a large-scale fire inside an empty Cygnus resupply vehicle after it leaves the space station and before it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.

Why is it important? The Saffire-I investigation provides a new way to study a realistic fire on an exploration vehicle, which has not been possible in the past because the risks for performing studies on manned spacecraft are too high. Instruments on the returning Cygnus will measure flame growth, oxygen use and more.

Meteor

What is it? A less heated investigation, Meteor Composition Determination (Meteor) will enable the first space-based observations of meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere from space. Meteors are somewhat rare and are difficult to monitor from the ground because of Earth’s atmosphere.

How does it work? This investigation uses high-resolution video and image analysis of the atmosphere to acquire the physical and chemical properties of the meteoroid dust, such as size, density and chemical composition.

Why is it important? Studying the elemental composition of meteors adds to our understanding of how the planets developed, and continuous measurement of meteor interactions with Earth’s atmosphere could spot previously unforeseen meteors.

Strata-1

What is it? A more “grounded” investigation will study the properties and behavior of regolith, the impact-shatterd “soil” found on asteroids, comets, the moon and other airless worlds.

How does it work? The Strata-1 experimental facility exposes a series of regolith simulants, including pulverized meteorite material, glass beads, and regolith simulants composed of terrestrial materials and stored in multiple transparent tubes, to prolonged microgravity on the space station. Scientists will monitor changes in regolith layers and layering, size sorting and particle migration via video images and close examination after return of the samples to Earth.

Why is it important? The Strata-1 investigation could give us new answers about how regolith behaves and moves in microgravity, how easy or difficult it is to anchor a spacecraft in regolith, how it interacts with spacecraft and spacesuit materials and other important properties.

Gecko Gripper

What is it? From grounded to gripping, another investigation launching takes inspiration from small lizards. Geckos have specialized hairs on their feed called setae that let them stick to vertical surfaces without falling, and their stickiness doesn’t wear off after repeated use. The Gecko Gripper investigation tests a gecko-adhesive gripping device that can stick on command in the harsh environment of space.

How does it work? The gripping device is a material with synthetic hairs much like setae that are much thinner than a human hair. When a force is applied to make the tiny hairs bend, the positively charged part of a molecule within a slight electrical field attracts the negatively charged part of its neighbor resulting in “stickiness.” Once adhered, the gripper can bear loads up to 20 pounds. The gripper can remain in place indefinitely and can also be easily removed and reused.

Why is it important? Gecko Grippers have many applications on current and future space missions, including acting as mounting devices for payloads, instruction manuals and many other small items within the space station. In addition, this technology enables a new type of robotic inspection system that could prove vital for spacecraft safety and repair.

Additive Manufacturing Facility

What is it? From adhesion to additive, the new Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) will also launch on the flight. Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is the process of building a part layer-by-layer, with an efficient use of the material.

How does it work? The AMF uses this technology to enable the production of components on the space station for both NASA and commercial objectives.

Why is it important? Parts, entire experiments and tools can be created on demand with this technology. The ability to manufacture on the orbiting laboratory enables on-demand repair and production capability, as well as essential research for manufacturing on long-term missions.

These sticky, stony and sizzling investigations are just a sampling of the wide range of science conducted on the orbiting laboratory that benefits future spaceflight and provides Earth-based benefits as well.

Watch the Launch!

You can watch the launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft online. Stream live coverage starting at 10 p.m. EDT on March 22. Launch is scheduled for 11:05 p.m., which is the start of a 30-minute launch window. 

Watch online: nasa.gov/nasatv 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Where Will We Land On Mars?

What?

You’ve heard us say that we’re on a journey to Mars, but the Red Planet is big. Once we get there, where will we land the first humans? We’re holding the first Landing Sites/Exploration Zones Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars to figure it out. This first workshop was held Oct. 27-30, 2015 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Why?

The goal of this workshop was to collect proposals for locations on Mars that would be of high scientific research value while also providing natural resources to enable explorers to land, live and work safely on the Red Planet. Determining where we will land humans on Mars is a multi-year process. There was around 45 proposal teams at the workshop. This was the first of many workshops to determine the best landing site for human exploration on Mars.

Why Now?

We plan to use existing assets at Mars, such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Odyssey spacecraft, to support the selection process of potential Exploration Zones. However, the life expectancy of MRO and Odyssey are limited. We are eager to take advantage of the remaining operational years of those Martian images to gather high resolution maps of potential Exploration Zones while the spacecraft remain operational.

Stay Updated

The workshop will be aired live USTREAM starting at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 27.

This blog post will also be updated daily with a recap from the workshop’s events.

For a full schedule of the event visit: http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/explorationzone2015/pdf/program.pdf

Day 1 Recap:

"There is no such thing as robotic exploration. All exploration is human exploration — the robot is just a tool.” - John Grunsfeld, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate

Day one of the workshop answered a lot of basic questions about why looking at landing sites now is important for the future of our journey to Mars.

Attendees heard from many presenters, including Ellen Ochoa, Director of Johnson Space Center and John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Experts explained that in order to leverage our current assets at Mars and start the process of picking possible landing sites, we need to start the discussion now.

This data will Inform our efforts to define what we need as far as future reconnaissance capabilities at Mars and drive where we send robotic landers to get ground truth.

Check back tomorrow for the day two update, and watch live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

BONUS: Have questions about potential landing sites on Mars? We’ll be hosting a live social Q&A tomorrow at 7 p.m. EDT. Two NASA experts and one 15-year old student on one of the proposal teams will be answering your questions. Tune in on USTREAM and use #askNASA.

Day 2 Recap:

The second day of the Mars Landing Sites Workshop was filled with presentations from various proposal groups. Contributors made cases for where the best science could be collected on the Martian surface.

We also had the opportunity to hear from a young presenter, Alex Longo. A 15-year old student from Raleigh, N.C.

Longo also joined us for the social Q&A where we answered questions from #askNASA. He, along with two NASA experts, fielded questions that ranged from specifics about the workshop, to chatting aboutMars mysteries.

Tune in tomorrow to watch more of the presentations and see potential Mars landing sites! Watch live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

Check back tomorrow for the day three update.

Day 3 Recap:

The third day of the workshop included presentations from the remaining proposal teams. This final day of presentations will lead into the last day of the workshop, when groups will discuss all of the ideas shared during the past week.

The day got really exciting when our Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV) made an appearance. This SEV concept is designed to be flexible, depending on the exploration destination. The pressurized cabin can be used for surface exploration of planetary bodies, including near-Earth asteroids and Mars.

Tomorrow is the final day of the workshop and will include group discussions. Participants will have the chance to assess the proposed sites and talk about the future steps needed for selecting a potential human landing site for our journey to Mars.

Watch these discussions live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

Final Day Recap:

The final day of our workshop on potential Mars landing sites included discussions on the presentations that were made throughout the week.

Participants also had the opportunity to hear from NASA experts like Jim Green, director of planetary science, about future exploration and our journey to Mars.

Video of the full workshop will be available on the Lunar Planetary Institute’s YouTube channel. For more information and updates on our journey to Mars, visit HERE.

Let History Never Forget the Name Enterprise

Just as the captains of the fictional 24th century Starfleet blazed a trail among the stars, the space shuttle Enterprise helped pave the way for future space exploration. 

Fifty years ago, Star Trek debuted with the USS Enterprise as the main space-faring vessel used in much of the Star Trek universe. As such, the vessel holds a treasured place in the hearts of Star Trek fans and is as much of a character in the show as Kirk and Spock. Over three different series and a total of 14 seasons on TV and 13 feature films, the iterations of Enterprise have captured the imaginations and provided inspiration for its fans across the globe. 

This brief history of the shuttle tells the tale of humanity's first reusable spacecraft. Space shuttles were first built in the late 1970s and were flown in space from 1981 to 2011. Their missions ranged from helping to build the International Space Station to repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.   

It’s All In The Name

The first shuttle was originally to be named Constitution, celebrating the country’s bicentennial and was to be unveiled to the public on Constitution Day, Sept. 17, 1976. However, a massive letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans prompted President Gerald Ford to suggest the change. In the above photo, we see the shuttle Enterprise rolled out in Palmdale, California, with cast members of Star Trek on Sept. 17, 1976. 

To Boldly Go . . .

This circular red, white and blue emblem was  the official insignia for the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test flights and became a model for future space shuttle mission patch designs, including placing the names of the crew on the patch . The four astronauts listed on the patch are: 

Fred Haise., commander of the first crew 

Charles Fullerton, pilot of the first crew 

Joe Engle, commander of the second crew 

Dick Truly, pilot of the second crew 

First Impressions

In this image, Enterprise makes its first appearance mated to its boosters as it is slowly rolled to the huge Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center. Although she never flew in space, shuttle Enterprise underwent a series of fit and function checks on the pad in preparation for the first launch of its sister craft, Columbia.

Not Meant To Be

Enterprise sits on Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center undergoing tests after completing its 3.5 mile journey from the VAB. Have you ever wondered why Enterprise never went into space? Converting Enterprise from a training vehicle to space-worthy one was too cost prohibitive, our engineers felt.

Engage

Commander Fred Haise and pilot Charles Fullerton are seen in the cockpit of Enterprise prior to the fifth and final Approach and Landing Test at Dryden Flight Research Center (Armstrong Flight Research Center). The tests were performed to learn about the landing characteristics of the shuttle.

It’s Been An Honor To Serve With You

The Enterprise’s two crews pose for a photo op at the Rockwell International Space Division's Orbiter assembly facility at Palmdale, California. They are (left to right) Charles Fullerton, Fred Haise, Joe Engle and Dick Truly.

Fair Winds And Following Seas

On July 6, 2012, the Enterprise, atop a barge, passes the Statue of Liberty on its way to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, where is now permanently on display.

Learn more about Star Trek and NASA.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

How hard is it to become an austronaut? I want to start to studie astrophysics and I don't know if I'll ever get any kind of job. Do you have any tips for people like me?

Astrophysics is a perfect field for pursuing any work at NASA!  A degree in a STEM field is a requirement of becoming an astronaut, but other than that there are many possibilities.  One of the best things about the astronaut office is its diversity.  We are scientists, engineers, military pilots, flight test engineers, medical doctors, etc. etc. My biggest tip is to ensure you are pursuing what it is you are passionate about as that’s the only way to truly become exceptional at what you are doing, and most importantly, to be happy doing it.  Passion, hard work, and dedication will get you there.  Good luck!

Do you ever get to work along side people you use to look up to?

I did get a chance to work with some people that I really looked up to, and I was surprised by their generosity and giving me great advice. They’re busy people, and they spent hours giving me great advice. 

Voyager: The Space Between

Our Voyager 1 spacecraft officially became the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space in 2012. 

Whether and when our Voyager 1 spacecraft broke through to interstellar space, the space between stars, has been a thorny issue. 

In 2012, claims surfaced every few months that Voyager 1 had “left our solar system.” Why had the Voyager team held off from saying the craft reached interstellar space until 2013?

Basically, the team needed more data on plasma, which is an ionozied gas that exists throughout space. (The glob of neon in a storefront sign is an example of plasma).

Plasma is the most important marker that distinguishes whether Voyager 1 is inside the solar bubble, known as the heliosphere.  The heliosphere is defined by the constant stream of plasma that flows outward from our Sun – until it meets the boundary of interstellar space, which contains plasma from other sources.

Adding to the challenge: they didn’t know how they’d be able to detect it.

No one has been to interstellar space before, so it’s  like traveling with guidebooks that are incomplete.

Additionally, Voyager 1’s plasma instrument, which measures the density, temperature and speed of plasma, stopped working in 1980, right after its last planetary flyby.

When Voyager 1 detected the pressure of interstellar space on our heliosphere in 2004, the science team didn’t have the instrument that would provide the most direct measurements of plasma. 

Voyager 1 Trajectory

Instead, they focused on the direction of the magnetic field as a proxy for source of the plasma. Since solar plasma carries the magnetic field lines emanating from the Sun and interstellar plasma carries interstellar magnetic field lines, the directions of the solar and interstellar magnetic fields were expected to differ.

Voyager 2 Trajectory

In May 2012, the number of galactic cosmic rays made its first significant jump, while some of the inside particles made their first significant dip. The pace of change quickened dramatically on July 28, 2012. After five days, the intensities returned to what they had been. This was the first taste test of a new region, and at the time Voyager scientists thought the spacecraft might have briefly touched the edge of interstellar space.

By Aug. 25, when, as we now know, Voyager 1 entered this new region for good, all the lower-energy particles from inside zipped away. Some inside particles dropped by more than a factor of 1,000 compared to 2004. However, subsequent analysis of the magnetic field data revealed that even though the magnetic field strength jumped by 60% at the boundary, the direction changed less than 2 degrees. This suggested that Voyager 1 had not left the solar magnetic field and had only entered a new region, still inside our solar bubble, that had been depleted of inside particles.

Then, in April 2013, scientists got another piece of the puzzle by chance. For the first eight years of exploring the heliosheath, which is the outer layer of the heliosphere, Voyager’s plasma wave instrument had heard nothing. But the plasma wave science team had observed bursts of radio waves in 1983 and 1984 and again in 1992 and 1993. They determined these bursts were produced by the interstellar plasma when a large outburst of solar material would plow into it and cause it to oscillate.

It took about 400 days for such solar outbursts to reach interstellar space, leading to an estimated distance of 117 to 177 AU (117 to 177 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth) to the heliopause.

Then on April 9, 2013, it happened: Voyager 1’s plasma wave instrument picked up local plasma oscillations. Scientists think they probably stemmed from a burst of solar activity from a year before. The oscillations increased in pitch through May 22 and indicated that Voyager was moving into an increasingly dense region of plasma.

The above soundtrack reproduces the amplitude and frequency of the plasma waves as “heard” by Voyager 1. The waves detected by the instrument antennas can be simply amplified and played through a speaker. These frequencies are within the range heard by human ears.

When they extrapolated back, they deduced that Voyager had first encountered this dense interstellar plasma in Aug. 2012, consistent with the sharp boundaries in the charged particle and magnetic field data on Aug. 25.

In the end, there was general agreement that Voyager 1 was indeed outside in interstellar space, but that location comes with some disclaimers. They determined the spacecraft is in a mixed transitional region of interstellar space. We don’t know when it will reach interstellar space free from the influence of our solar bubble.

Voyager 1, which is working with a finite power supply, has enough electrical power to keep operating the fields and particles science instruments through at least 2020, which will make 43 years of continual operation.

Voyager 1 will continue sending engineering data for a few more years after the last science instrument is turned off, but after that it will be sailing on as a silent ambassador. 

In about 40,000 years, it will be closer to the star AC +79 3888 than our own Sun.

And for the rest of time, Voyager 1 will continue orbiting around the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, with our Sun but a tiny point of light among many.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Our Parker Solar Probe Just Touched the Sun!

For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. Our Parker Solar Probe flew right through the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona. (That’s the part of the Sun that we can see during a total solar eclipse.)

This marks one great step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science! Landing on the Moon helped scientists better understand how it was formed. Now, touching the Sun will help scientists understand our star and how it influences worlds across the solar system.

Unlike Earth, the Sun doesn’t have a solid surface (it’s a giant ball of seething, boiling gases). But the Sun does have a superheated atmosphere. Heat and pressure push solar material away from the Sun. Eventually, some of that material escapes the pull of the Sun’s gravity and magnetism and becomes the solar wind, which gusts through the entire solar system.

But where exactly does the Sun’s atmosphere end and the solar wind begin? We’ve never known for sure. Until now!

In April 2021, Parker Solar Probe swooped near the Sun. It passed through a massive plume of solar material in the corona. This was like flying into the eye of a hurricane. That flow of solar stuff — usually a powerful stream of particles — hit the brakes and went into slow-motion.

For the first time, Parker Solar Probe found itself in a place where the Sun’s magnetism and gravity were strong enough to stop solar material from escaping. That told scientists Parker Solar Probe had passed the boundary: On one side, space filled with solar wind, on the other, the Sun’s atmosphere.

Parker Solar Probe’s proximity to the Sun has led to another big discovery: the origin of switchbacks, zig-zag-shaped magnetic kinks in the solar wind.

These bizarre shapes were first observed in the 1990s. Then, in 2019, Parker Solar Probe revealed they were much more common than scientists first realized. But they still had questions, like where the switchbacks come from and how the Sun makes them.

Recently, Parker Solar Probe dug up two important clues. First, switchbacks tend to have lots of helium, which scientists know comes from the solar surface. And they come in patches.

Those patches lined up just right with magnetic funnels that appear on the Sun’s surface. Matching these clues up like puzzle pieces, scientists realized switchbacks must come from near the surface of the Sun.

Figuring out where switchbacks come from and how they form will help scientists understand how the Sun produces the solar wind. And that could clue us into one of the Sun’s biggest mysteries: why the Sun’s atmosphere is much, much hotter than the surface below.

Parker Solar Probe will fly closer and closer to the Sun. Who knows what else we’ll discover?

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Measuring Cosmic Rays at the Edge of Space

It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  It’s a… SuperTIGER?

No, that’s not the latest superhero spinoff movie - it’s an instrument launching soon from Antarctica! It’ll float on a giant balloon above 99.5% of the Earth’s atmosphere, measuring tiny particles called cosmic rays.

Right now, we have a team of several scientists and technicians from Washington University in St. Louis and NASA at McMurdo Station in Antarctica preparing for the launch of the Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder, which is called SuperTIGER for short. This is the second flight of this instrument, which last launched in Antarctica in 2012 and circled the continent for a record-breaking 55 days.  

SuperTIGER measures cosmic rays, which are itty-bitty pieces of atoms that are zinging through space at super-fast speeds up to nearly the speed of light. In particular, it studies galactic cosmic rays, which means they come from somewhere in our Milky Way galaxy, outside of our solar system.

Most cosmic rays are just an individual proton, the basic positively-charged building block of matter. But a rarer type of cosmic ray is a whole nucleus (or core) of an atom - a bundle of positively-charged protons and non-charged neutrons - that allows us to identify what element the cosmic ray is. Those rare cosmic-ray nuclei (that’s the plural of nucleus) can help us understand what happened many trillions of miles away to create this particle and send it speeding our way.

The cosmic rays we’re most interested in measuring with SuperTIGER are from elements heavier than iron, like copper and silver. These particles are created in some of the most dynamic and exciting events in the universe - such as exploding and colliding stars.

In fact, we’re especially interested in the cosmic rays created in the collision of two neutron stars, just like the event earlier this year that we saw through both light and gravitational waves. Adding the information from cosmic rays opens another window on these events, helping us understand more about how the material in the galaxy is created.

Why does SuperTIGER fly on a balloon?

While cosmic rays strike our planet harmlessly every day, most of them are blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field.  That means that scientists have to get far above Earth - on a balloon or spacecraft - to measure an accurate sample of galactic cosmic rays.  By flying on a balloon bigger than a football field, SuperTIGER can get to the edge of space to take these measurements.  

It’ll float for weeks at over 120,000 feet, which is nearly four times higher than you might fly in a commercial airplane. At the end of the flight, the instrument will return safely to the ice on a huge parachute. The team can recover the payload from its landing site, bring it back to the United States, repair or make changes to it, if needed, and fly it again another year!

There are also cosmic ray instruments on our International Space Station, such as ISS-CREAM and CALET, which each started their development on a series of balloons launched from Antarctica. The SuperTIGER team hopes to eventually take measurements from space, too.  

Why do we launch from Antarctica?

McMurdo Station is a hotspot for all sorts of science while it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere (which is winter here in the United States), including scientific ballooning.  The circular wind patterns around the pole usually keep the balloon from going out over the ocean, making it easier to land and recover the instrument later. And the 24-hour daylight in the Antarctic summer keeps the balloon at a nearly constant height to get very long flights - it would go up and down if it had to experience the temperature changes of day and night. All of that sunlight shining on the instrument's array of solar cells also gives a continuous source of electricity to power everything.

Antarctica is an especially good place to fly a cosmic ray instrument like SuperTIGER. The Earth’s magnetic field blocks fewer cosmic rays at the poles, meaning that we can measure more particles as SuperTIGER circles around the South Pole than we would at NASA scientific ballooning sites closer to the Earth’s equator.  

The SuperTIGER team is hard at work preparing for launch right now - and their launch window opens soon! Follow @NASABlueshift for updates and opportunities to interact with our scientists on the ice.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

@flood123789: What does it feel like to drink a lot of water in zero gravity