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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

With only four months left in the mission, Cassini is busy at Saturn. The upcoming cargo launch, anniversaries and more!

As our Cassini spacecraft made its first-ever dive through the gap between Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017, one of its imaging cameras took a series of rapid-fire images that were used to make this movie sequence. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Hampton University

1-3. The Grand Finale

Our Cassini spacecraft has begun its final mission at Saturn. Some dates to note:

May 28, 2017: Cassini makes its riskiest ring crossing as it ventures deeper into Saturn's innermost ring (D ring).

June 29, 2017: On this day in 2004, the Cassini orbiter and its travel companion the European Space Agency's Huygens probe arrived at Saturn.

September 15, 2017: In a final, spectacular dive, Cassini will plunge into Saturn - beaming science data about Saturn's atmosphere back to Earth to the last second. It's all over at 5:08 a.m. PDT.

More about the Grand Finale

4. Cargo Launch to the International Space Station

June 1, 2017: Target date of the cargo launch. The uncrewed Dragon spacecraft will launch on a Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 39A at our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The payload includes NICER, an instrument to measure neutron stars, and ROSA, a Roll-Out Solar Array that will test a new solar panel that rolls open in space like a party favor.

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5. Sojourner

July 4, 2017: Twenty years ago, a wagon-sized rover named Sojourner blazed the trail for future Mars explorers - both robots and, one day, humans. Take a trip back in time to the vintage Mars Pathfinder websites:

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6. Voyager

August 20, 2017: Forty years and still going strong, our twin Voyagers mark 40 years since they left Earth.

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7. Total Solar Eclipse

August 21, 2017: All of North America will be treated to a rare celestial event: a total solar eclipse. The path of totality runs from Oregon to South Carolina.

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8. From Science Fiction to Science Fact

Light a candle for the man who took rocketry from science fiction to science fact. On this day in 1882, Robert H. Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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9. Looking at the Moon

October 28, 2017: Howl (or look) at the moon with the rest of the world. It's time for the annual International Observe the Moon Night.

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10. Last Human on the Moon

December 13, 2017: Forty-five years ago, Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan left the last human footprint on the moon.

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Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

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Getting to Mars: A New Rocket for the Journey

Do you know what the structural backbone is of our new rocket, the Space Launch System? If you answered the core stage, give yourself a double thumbs up! Or better yet, have astronaut Scott Kelly do it!

We’re on a journey to Mars. For bolder missions to deep space, we need a big, powerful rocket like SLS to take astronauts in the Orion spacecraft to places we've never gone before. The core stage is a major part of that story, as it will house the fuel and avionics systems that will power and guide the rocket to those new destinations beyond Earth’s orbit. Here's how:

It's Big, and It's Fast.

The core stage will be the largest rocket stage ever built and is under construction right now at our Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. It will stand at 212 feet tall and weigh more than 2.3 million pounds with propellant. That propellant is cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the vehicle’s RS-25 engines. In just 8.5 minutes, the core stage will reach Mach 23, which is faster than 17,000 mph!

It's Smart.

Similar to a car, the rocket needs all the equipment necessary for the "drive" to deep space. The core stage will house the vehicle’s avionics, including flight computers, instrumentation, batteries, power handling, sensors and other electronics. That's a lot of brain power behind those orange-clad aluminum walls. *Fun fact: Orange is the color of the rocket's insulation.

It's a Five-Parter.

The core stage is made up of five parts. Starting from the bottom is the engine section, which will deliver the propellants to the four RS-25 engines. It also will house avionics to steer the engines, and be an attachment point for the two, five-segment solid rocket boosters. The engine section for the first SLS flight has completed welding and is in the final phases of manufacturing at Michoud.

Next up is the liquid hydrogen tank. It will hold 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen cooled to -423 degrees Fahrenheit. Right now, engineers are building the tank for the first SLS mission. It will look very similar to the qualification test article that just finished welding at Michoud. That's an impressive piece of rocket hardware!

The next part of the core stage is the intertank, which will join the propellant tanks. It has to be super strong because it is the attachment point for the boosters and absorbs most of the force when they fire 3.6 million pounds of thrust each. It's also a "think tank" of sorts, as it holds the SLS avionics and electronics. The intertank is even getting its own test structure at our Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

And then there's the liquid oxygen tank. It will store 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen cooled to -297 degrees. If you haven't done the math, that's 733,000 gallons of propellant for both tanks, which is enough to fill 63 large tanker trucks. Toot, toot. Beep, beep! A confidence version of the tank has finished welding at Michoud, and it's impressive. Just ask this guy.

The topper of the core stage is the forward skirt. Funny name, but serious hardware. It's home to the flight computers, cameras and avionics. The avionics system is being tested right now in a half-ring structure at the Marshall Center.

You can click here for more SLS core stage facts. We'll continue building, and see you at the launch pad for the first flight of SLS with Orion in 2018!

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Sometimes... there’s more than meets the eye. 👀 You’re looking at two very different takes on an iconic image. ⁣

Human eyes can see only a small portion of the range of radiation given off by the objects around us. We call this wide array of radiation the electromagnetic spectrum, and the part we can see visible light.

In the first image, researchers revisited one of Hubble Space Telescope’s most popular sights: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. Here, the pillars are seen in infrared light, which pierces through obscuring dust and gas and unveil a more unfamiliar — but just as amazing — view of the pillars. ⁣ ⁣ The entire frame is peppered with bright stars and baby stars are revealed being formed within the pillars themselves. The image on the bottom is the pillars in visible light.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team⁣

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

HBCU Students Make Moves with NASA Tech

In September 2023, students at HBCUs participated in a hackathon at the National HBCU Week Conference, where they used NASA’s technologies to create solutions to problems that affect Black communities. The winning team, Team Airtek, proposed a nano-sensor array for medical diagnoses that would give students on HBCU campuses a non-invasive, non-intensive way to test themselves for precursors for diseases and illnesses like diabetes and COVID.

The hackathon they participated in is a modified version of the full NASA Minority University Research and Education Project Innovation and Tech Transfer Idea Competition (MITTIC) that takes place each fall and spring semester at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

No matter what you’re studying, you can join the MITTIC competition and come up with new and innovative tech to help your community and the world.

MITTIC could be the beginning of your career pathway: Teams can go on exclusive NASA tours and network with industry experts. Show off your entrepreneurial skills and your team could earn money—and bragging rights.

Don’t wait too long to apply or to share with someone who should apply! The deadline for proposals is Oct. 16, 2023. Apply here: https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/nasamittic.

What is the weirdest thing you had to account for when building the perseverance rover?

Taking the Vital Signs of Mars

Does Mars have quakes? What is the temperature of the Red Planet? How did Mars even form? What can it tell us about how other rocky planets formed?

The Mars InSight lander is scheduled to launch in May 2018 to search for the answers to those questions.

InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will conduct the first thorough “check-up” of Mars in more than 4.5 billion years, measuring its “pulse”, or seismic activity; its temperature; and its “reflexes” (the way the planet wobbles when it is pulled by the Sun and its moons).

How and Why?

By using sophisticated instruments – tools that can measure the vital signs of a planet – InSight will delve deep beneath the surface of Mars, detecting the clues left by the earliest stages of planetary formation.  

Previous Mars missions have explored the surface history of the Red Planet. Mars has been less geologically active than Earth, so it retains a more complete record of its history in its core, mantle and crust. InSight will study the sizes, densities and overall structure of the Red Planet’s core, mantle and crust. 

The lander will also measure the rate at which heat escapes from the planet’s interior, and provide glimpses into the evolutionary processes of all the rocky planets in our solar system, including Earth, and even those circling other stars!

Send Your Name to Mars!

You can send your name to Mars onboard the InSight lander! The deadline to get your Martian boarding pass is Nov. 1. To submit your name, visit: mars.nasa.gov/syn/insight

Learn more about Mars InSight HERE.

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Houston, We Have a Launch!

Today, three new crew members will launch to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, along with Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:26 p.m. EDT. The three Expedition 47 crew members will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, rendezvousing with the space station six hours after launch.

Traveling to the International Space Station is an exciting moment for any astronaut. But what if you we’re launching to orbit AND knew that you were going to break some awesome records while you were up there? This is exactly what’s happening for astronaut Jeff Williams.

This is a significant mission for Williams, as he will become the new American record holder for cumulative days in space (with 534) during his six months on orbit. The current record holder is astronaut Scott Kelly, who just wrapped up his one-year mission on March 1.

On June 4, Williams will take command of the station for Expedition 48. This will mark his third space station expedition…which is yet another record!

Want to Watch the Launch?

You can! Live coverage will begin at 4:30 p.m. EDT on NASA Television, with launch at 5:26 p.m.

Tune in again at 10:30 p.m. to watch as the Soyuz spacecraft docks to the space station’s Poisk module at 11:12 p.m.

Hatch opening coverage will begin at 12:30 a.m., with the crew being greeted around 12:55 a.m.

NASA Television: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Follow Williams on Social!

Astronaut Jeff Williams will be documenting his time on orbit, and you can follow along on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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

A Hitchhiker’s Ride to Space

This month, we are set to launch the latest weather satellite from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Joint Polar Satellite System-1, or JPSS-1, satellite will provide essential data for timely and accurate weather forecasts and for tracking environmental events such as forest fires and droughts.

Image Credit: Ball Aerospace

JPSS-1 is the primary satellite launching, but four tiny satellites will also be hitchhiking a ride into Earth orbit. These shoebox-sized satellites (part of our CubeSat Launch Initiative) were developed in partnership with university students and used for education, research and development. Here are 4 reasons why MiRaTA, one of the hitchhikers, is particularly interesting…

Miniaturized Weather Satellite Technology

The Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) CubeSat is set to orbit the Earth to prove that a small satellite can advance the technology necessary to reduce the cost and size of future weather satellites. At less than 10 pounds, these nanosatellites are faster and more cost-effective to build and launch since they have been constructed by Principal Investigator Kerri Cahoy’s students at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (with lots of help). There’s even a chance it could be put into operation with forecasters.

The Antenna? It’s a Measuring Tape

That long skinny piece coming out of the bottom right side under MiRaTA’s solar panel? That’s a measuring tape. It’s doubling as a communications antenna. MiRaTA will measure temperature, water vapor and cloud ice in Earth’s atmosphere. These measurements are used to track major storms, including hurricanes, as well as everyday weather. If this test flight is successful, the new, smaller technology will likely be incorporated into future weather satellites – part of our national infrastructure.

Tiny Package Packing a Punch MiRaTA will also test a new technique using radio signals received from GPS satellites in a higher orbit. They will be used to measure the temperature of the same volume of atmosphere that the radiometer is viewing. The GPS satellite measurement can then be used for calibrating the radiometer. “In physics class, you learn that a pencil submerged in water looks like it’s broken in half because light bends differently in the water than in the air,” Principal Investigator Kerri Cahoy said. “Radio waves are like light in that they refract when they go through changing densities of air, and we can use the magnitude of the refraction to calculate the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere with near-perfect accuracy and use this to calibrate a radiometer.” 

What’s Next?

In the best-case scenario, three weeks after launch MiRaTA will be fully operational, and within three months the team will have obtained enough data to study if this technology concept is working. The big goal for the mission—declaring the technology demonstration a success—would be confirmed a bit farther down the road, at least half a year away, following the data analysis. If MiRaTA’s technology validation is successful, Cahoy said she envisions an eventual constellation of these CubeSats orbiting the entire Earth, taking snapshots of the atmosphere and weather every 15 minutes—frequent enough to track storms, from blizzards to hurricanes, in real time.

Learn more about MiRaTA

Watch the launch!

The mission is scheduled to launch this month (no sooner than Nov. 14), with JPSS-1 atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II rocket lifting off from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. You’ll be able to watch on NASA TV or at nasa.gov/live.

Watch the launch live HERE on Nov. 14, liftoff is scheduled for Tuesday, 4:47 a.m.! 

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

Did you have a favorite astronaut as a kid? If not, who were your inspirations? :)

Of course Mae Jemison was an inspiration, but I didn’t have a favorite. Because how do you pick out of such a great group?

Ever want to ask a real life astronaut a question? Here's your chance!

Astronaut Jessica Meir will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Saturday, March 11 from 4:30-5:30pm ET/1:30-2:30pm PT here on NASA’s Tumblr. Make sure to ask your question now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask!

Jessica Meir was selected to become an astronaut in 2013 and was part of NASA’s first astronaut class that was 50% female. She and her astronaut classmates are training to fly to space now and are involved in the future of our human exploration program. She’d like to be one of the first astronauts to set foot on Mars and pursue technological and scientific advances. 

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brown University, a Master of Science in Space Studies from the International Space University, and a Doctorate in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD). In her research, the Caribou, Maine native studied the physiology of animals in extreme environments.  Follow Jessica on Twitter at @Astro_Jessica and follow NASA on Tumblr for your regular dose of space.