NASA Communications And Navigation In 2021: Top 10 Iconic Moments

What range/area will Perseverance be able to cover on the Martian surface? I'm assuming it's greater than the other rovers but by how much?

World Teacher Appreciation Day!

On #WorldTeachersDay, we are recognizing our two current astronauts who are former classroom teachers, Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold, as well as honoring teachers everywhere. What better way to celebrate than by learning from teachers who are literally out-of-this-world!

During the past Year of Education on Station, astronauts connected with more than 175,000 students and 40,000 teachers during live Q & A sessions. 

Let’s take a look at some of the questions those students asked:

The view from space is supposed to be amazing. Is it really that great and could you explain? 

Taking a look at our home planet from the International Space Station is one of the most fascinating things to see! The views and vistas are unforgettable, and you want to take everyone you know to the Cupola (window) to experience this. Want to see what the view is like? Check out earthkam to learn more.

What kind of experiments do you do in space?

There are several experiments that take place on a continuous basis aboard the orbiting laboratory - anything from combustion to life sciences to horticulture. Several organizations around the world have had the opportunity to test their experiments 250 miles off the surface of the Earth. 

What is the most overlooked attribute of an astronaut?

If you are a good listener and follower, you can be successful on the space station. As you work with your team, you can rely on each other’s strengths to achieve a common goal. Each astronaut needs to have expeditionary skills to be successful. Check out some of those skills here. 

Are you able to grow any plants on the International Space Station?

Nothing excites Serena Auñón-Chancellor more than seeing a living, green plant on the International Space Station. She can’t wait to use some of the lettuce harvest to top her next burger! Learn more about the plants that Serena sees on station here. 

What food are you growing on the ISS and which tastes the best? 

While aboard the International Space Station, taste buds may not react the same way as they do on earth but the astronauts have access to a variety of snacks and meals. They have also grown 12 variants of lettuce that they have had the opportunity to taste.

Learn more about Joe Acaba, Ricky Arnold, and the Year of Education on Station.

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What responsibility and duties does your job include?

What are you most excited to see on your next flight? Or, what natural phenomena do you enjoy seeing the most? Thank you!

See Why Our Researchers Explore Earth's Extreme and Remote Environments

When we talk about exploration in far-flung places, you might think of space telescopes taking images of planets outside our solar system, or astronauts floating on the International Space Station. 

But did you know our researchers travel to some of Earth's most inaccessible and dangerous places, too? 

Two scientists working with the ICESat-2 mission just finished a trek from the South Pole to latitude 88 south, a journey of about 450 miles. They had to travel during the Antarctic summer - the region's warmest time, with near-constant sunshine - but the trek was still over solid ice and snow. 

The trip lasted 14 days, and was an important part of a process known as calibration and validation. ICESat-2 will launch this fall, and the team was taking extremely precise elevation measurements that will be used to validate those taken by the satellite. 

Sometimes our research in Earth's remote regions helps us understand even farther-flung locations…like other planets. 

Geologic features on Mars look very similar to islands and landforms created by volcanoes here on our home planet. 

As hot jets of magma make their way to Earth's surface, they create new rocks and land - a process that may have taken place on Mars and the Moon.

In 2015, our researchers walked on newly cooled lava on the Holuhraun volcano in Iceland to take measurements of the landscape, in order to understand similar processes on other rocky bodies in our solar system.

There may not be flowing lava in the mangrove forests in Gabon, but our researchers have to brave mosquitoes and tree roots that reach up to 15-foot high as they study carbon storage in the vegetation there.

The scientists take some measurements from airplanes, but they also have to gather data from the ground in one our of planet's most pristine rainforests, climbing over and around roots that can grow taller than people. They use these measurements to create a 3-D map of the ecosystem, which helps them understand how much carbon in stored in the plants. 

You can follow our treks to Earth’s most extreme locales on our Earth Expeditions blog.

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Learn about supermoons, read the monthly blog from the Dawn mission’s chief engineer and more.

1. This Is the Season for Supermoons 

The second of three fall supermoons occurred on November 14 and the final one is December. What are supermoons? Since the moon’s orbit is elliptical, one side (perigee) is about 30,000 miles closer to Earth than the other (apogee). The word syzygy, in addition to being useful in word games, is the scientific name for when the Earth, sun, and moon line up as the moon orbits Earth. When perigee-syzygy of the Earth-moon-sun system occurs and the moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun, we get a perigee moon or more commonly, a supermoon!

+ Learn more 

2. Dawn Mission Blog

When Dawn arrived at Ceres in March 2015, it became the first spacecraft to reach a dwarf planet  Meet the Dawn mission’s chief engineer Dr. Marc Rayman and read his insightful blogs about the mission. 

+ Latest Blog

+  All Mission Managers Blogs

3. The Seas of Titan

On its penultimate close flyby of Saturn’s largest moon Titan, Cassini will use its radio science instrument to scan the great seas of methane near the moon’s North Pole. Titan’s three large northern seas, Punga Mare, Ligeia Mare and Kraken Mare, are each hundreds of miles across, but imaging cameras can’t see them very well because the moon’s surface is veiled by a thick haze. Radio signals, however, can penetrate the moon’s atmosphere, and Cassini has an instrument that uses radio signals to reveal Titan's dramatic landscapes.

+ See a map of Titan’s methane seas

4.  Spot the Station!

Have you ever seen the International Space Station fly over your town? Do you want to? 

+ Here's how and where and when to look

5. The Science of Light, Celebrating Dark Skies in Our National Parks

Learning more about the science of light and human vision will help us understand the value and fragility of natural lightscapes. During the day, the surface of the planet is bathed in light from the sun. The energy in sunlight drives weather, the water cycle, and ecosystems. But at night, in the absence of bright light, our atmosphere turns transparent and allows us to see beyond our planet into the vastness of the cosmos.

+ More

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

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Tracking a Warming Arctic – From Underground to High in the Sky

The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of Earth. This warming is creating big and small changes, some of which could ripple beyond the planet’s frozen regions and affect us world-wide – possibly raising sea levels, increasing greenhouse warming and affecting wildlife.

Our Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment, known as ABoVE, just began a 10-year mission in Alaska and western Canada, studying these changes.

Underground: Permafrost is the layer of frozen soil beneath some Arctic forests and tundra. 

Like the name suggests, this icy layer stays solid year-round, so when it does melt, it can create big problems. The soil above the thawing permafrost can collapse, creating this wobbly, unstable surface.

7 feet above sea level: As the permafrost thaws, the soil above it can fall away. 

Along the banks of the Itkillik River in Alaska, thawing permafrost has dripped into the water, eroding the cliff side. Known as the “Stinky Bluffs,” this permafrost contains lots of frozen organic matter from dead plants and animals. As the permafrost thaws, this organic matter doesn’t just smell, it also releases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, adding to the warming effect.

446 feet above sea level: Wildfires aren’t unusual in the forests and shrub lands of Alaska, but as the climate continues to warm, they burn longer and do more damage. 

People who live off the land in the region help researchers understand where plant life isn’t growing back after fires.

100-1000 feet above sea level: Researchers set up 100-foot tall towers at strategic locations throughout Alaska to measure carbon dioxide and methane emissions from right above the forest canopy. 

This provides an up-close look at what gases are released or absorbed from the trees, or swirl in from neighboring regions. These data are combined with measurements taken from airplanes and satellites to create a clearer picture of how much carbon is entering the atmosphere.

3,369 feet above sea level: Dall sheep live in several Alaskan mountain ranges, where they’re critical to both the tourism and sports hunting economies. 

Credit: National Park Service

Changes in temperature and vegetation can profoundly affect their behavior, like grazing habits, and so researchers study how changing plant life and snow cover affect the sheep.

100-30,000 feet above sea level: Carbon emissions in the air come from thawing permafrost, fossil fuel burning, decaying vegetation and wildfires burning across the Arctic-boreal regions. 

One experiment in the ABoVE campaign measures these emissions with instruments on a DC-8 plane.

About 30,000 feet about sea level: When wildfires burn through vegetation, the effects extend far beyond what we see on the ground. 

Fires release carbon stored in the plants into the atmosphere, where it affects air quality and contributes to the greenhouse effect.

438 miles: Our ABoVE campaign combines research on the ground and from planes with data collected by a fleet of Earth-observing satellites, orbiting Earth hundreds of miles above the surface. 

Data from these satellites provides information on vegetation, atmospheric particles and gasses, and how humans are impacting our planet. With all these data sets analyzed by computer programs, the result is a comprehensive picture of our warming planet.

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Have you ever had to troubleshoot a problem in space?

What You Should Know About Scott Kelly’s #YearInSpace

1. It’s Actually More Like a Three-Year Mission

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko may have had a year-long stay in space, but the science of their mission will span more than three years. One year before they left Earth, Kelly and Kornienko began participating in a suite of investigations aimed at better understanding how the human body responds to long-duration spaceflight. Samples of their blood, urine, saliva, and more all make up the data set scientists will study. The same kinds of samples continued to be taken throughout their stay in space, and will continue for a year or more once they return.

2. What We Learn is Helping Us Get to Mars

One of the biggest hurdles of getting to Mars is ensuring humans are “go” for a long-duration mission and that crew members will maintain their health and full capabilities for the duration of a Mars mission and after their return to Earth. Scientists have solid data about how bodies respond to living in microgravity for six months, but significant data beyond that timeframe had not been collected…until now. A mission to Mars will likely last about three years, about half the time coming and going to Mars and about half the time on Mars. We need to understand how human systems like vision and bone health are affected by the 12 to 16 months living on a spacecraft in microgravity and what countermeasures can be taken to reduce or mitigate risks to crew members during the flight to and from Mars. Understanding the challenges facing humans is just one of the ways research aboard the space station helps our journey to Mars.

3. The Science Will Take Some Time

While scientists will begin analyzing data from Kelly and Kornienko as soon as they return to Earth, it could be anywhere from six months to six years before we see published results from the research. The scientific process takes time, and processing the data from all the investigations tied to the one-year mission will be no easy task. Additionally, some blood, urine and saliva samples from Kelly and Kornienko will still be stored in the space station freezers until they can be returned on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Early on in the analytical process scientists may see indications of what we can expect, but final results will come long after Kelly and Kornienko land.

4. This Isn’t the First Time Someone Has Spent a Year in Space

This is the first time that extensive research using exciting new techniques like genetic studies has been conducted on very long-duration crew members. Astronaut Scott Kelly is the first American to complete a continuous, year-long mission in space and is now the American who has spent the most cumulative time in space, but it’s not the first time humans have reached this goal. Previously, only four humans have spent a year or more in orbit on a single mission, all aboard the Russian Mir Space Station. They all participated in significant research proving that humans are capable of living and working in space for a year or more.

Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov spent 438 days aboard Mir between January 1994 and March 1995 and holds the all-time record for the most continuous days spent in space.

Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev spent 380 days on Mir between August 1998 and August 1999.

Cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov completed a 366-day mission from December 1987 to December 1988.

5. International Collaboration is Key

The International Space Station is just that: international. The one-year mission embodies the spirit of collaboration across countries in the effort to mitigate as many risks as possible for humans on long-duration missions. Data collected on both Kelly and Kornienko will be shared between the United States and Russia, and international partners. These kinds of collaborations help increase more rapidly the biomedical knowledge necessary for human exploration, reduce costs, improve processes and procedures, and improve efficiency on future space station missions.

6. So Much Science!

During Kelly’s year-long mission aboard the orbiting laboratory, his participation in science wasn’t limited to the one-year mission investigations. In all, he worked on close to 400 science studies that help us reach for new heights, reveal the unknown, and benefit all of humanity. His time aboard the station included blood draws, urine collection, saliva samples, computer tests, journaling, caring for two crops in the Veggie plant growth facility, ocular scans, ultrasounds, using the space cup, performing runs with the SPHERES robotic satellites, measuring sound, assisting in configuring cubesats to be deployed, measuring radiation, participating in fluid shifts testing in the Russian CHIBIS pants, logging his sleep and much, much more. All of this was in addition to regular duties of station maintenance, including three spacewalks!

7. No More Food in Pouches

After months of eating food from pouches and cans and drinking through straws, Kelly and Kornienko will be able to celebrate their return to Earth with food of their choice. While aboard the space station, their food intake is closely monitored and designed to provide exactly the nutrients they need. Crew members do have a say in their on-orbit menus but often miss their favorite meals from back home. Once they return, they won’t face the same menu limitations as they did in space. As soon as they land on Earth and exit the space capsule, they are usually given a piece of fruit or a cucumber to eat as they begin their initial health checks. After Kelly makes the long flight home to Houston, he will no doubt greatly savor those first meals.

8. After the Return Comes Reconditioning

You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Use it or lose it.” The same thing can be said for astronauts’ muscles and bones. Muscles and bones can atrophy in microgravity. While in space, astronauts have a hearty exercise regimen to fight these effects, and they continue strength training and reconditioning once they return to Earth. They will also participate in Field Tests immediately after landing. Once they are back at our Johnson Space Center, Functional Task Tests will assess how the human body responds to living in microgravity for such a long time. Understanding how astronauts recover after long-duration spaceflight is a critical piece in planning for missions to deep space.

9. Twins Studies Have Researchers Seeing Double

One of the unique aspects of Kelly’s participation in the one-year mission is that he has an identical twin brother, Mark, who is a former astronaut. The pair have taken part in a suite of studies that use Mark as a human control on the ground during Scott’s year-long stay in space. The Twins Study is comprised of 10 different investigations coordinating together and sharing all data and analysis as one large, integrated research team. The investigations focus on human physiology, behavioral health, microbiology/microbiome and molecular/omics. The Twins Study is multi-faceted national cooperation between investigations at universities, corporations, and government laboratories.

10. This Mission Will Help Determine What Comes Next

The completion of the one-year mission and its studies will help guide the next steps in planning for long-duration deep space missions that will be necessary as humans move farther into the solar system. Kelly and Kornienko’s mission will inform future decisions and planning for other long-duration missions, whether they are aboard the space station, a deep space habitat in lunar orbit, or a mission to Mars.

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The Kepler space telescope has shown us our galaxy is teeming with planets — and other surprises

The Kepler space telescope has taught us there are so many planets out there, they outnumber even the stars. Here is a sample of these wondrous, weird and unexpected worlds (and other spectacular objects in space) that Kepler has spotted with its “eye” opened to the heavens.

Kepler has found that double sunsets really do exist.

Yes, Star Wars fans, the double sunset on Tatooine could really exist. Kepler discovered the first known planet around a double-star system, though Kepler-16b is probably a gas giant without a solid surface.

Kepler has gotten us closer to finding planets like Earth.

Nope. Kepler hasn’t found Earth 2.0, and that wasn’t the job it set out to do. But in its survey of hundreds of thousands of stars, Kepler found planets near in size to Earth orbiting at a distance where liquid water could pool on the surface. One of them, Kepler-62f, is about 40 percent bigger than Earth and is likely rocky. Is there life on any of them? We still have a lot more to learn.

This sizzling world is so hot iron would melt!

One of Kepler’s early discoveries was the small, scorched world of Kepler-10b. With a year that lasts less than an Earth day and density high enough to imply it’s probably made of iron and rock, this “lava world” gave us the first solid evidence of a rocky planet outside our solar system. 

If it’s not an alien megastructure, what is this oddly fluctuating star?

When Kepler detected the oddly fluctuating light from “Tabby’s Star,” the internet lit up with speculation of an alien megastructure. Astronomers have concluded it’s probably an orbiting dust cloud.  

Kepler caught this dead star cannibalizing its planet.

What happens when a solar system dies? Kepler discovered a white dwarf, the compact corpse of a star in the process of vaporizing a planet.

These Kepler planets are more than twice the age of our Sun!

The five small planets in Kepler-444 were born 11 billion years ago when our galaxy was in its youth. Imagine what these ancient planets look like after all that time?

Kepler found a supernova exploding at breakneck speed.

This premier planet hunter has also been watching stars explode. Kepler recorded a sped-up version of a supernova called a “fast-evolving luminescent transit” that reached its peak brightness at breakneck speed. It was caused by a star spewing out a dense shell of gas that lit up when hit with the shockwave from the blast. 

* All images are artist illustrations.

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