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Lagniappe for April 2024

Fri, 04/05/2024 - 10:53am

7 Min Read Lagniappe for April 2024 Explore the April 2024 issue, highlighted by NASA achieving a milestone for new Artemis Moon rocket engines, NASA and Stennis Leaders providing an annual update, and a reminder about the total solar eclipse on April 8.

Explore the April 2024 issue of Lagniappe featuring:

NASA Achieves Milestone for Engines to Power Future Artemis Missions
NASA-Sponsored FIRST Robotics Competition Welcomes 37 Teams to Magnolia Regional
NASA, Stennis Leaders Provide Annual Update

Gator Speaks Gator SpeaksNASA/Stennis

Picture this. The year is 2044. It is 20 years into the future, and you think to yourself, “Life is all about moments. Sometimes we recognize the moment at hand, and at other times, it passes us by before we notice. I wish I paid attention when NASA told me about the last total solar eclipse in 2024, since it has been such a long time since one was visible across the United States.”

Then, you snap out of the daydream of the future, return to the present moment, and realize, “Wait! There’s still time to view the total solar eclipse in 2024.”

The regret you were feeling from missing out on the total solar eclipse in 2024 fades. Indeed, the moment has not passed you by… yet.

The total solar eclipse coming on Monday, April 8, 2024, will in fact be the last total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous United States until 2044. If you are like Gator, you may have to brush up on what the word contiguous means, which describes the adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia that make up the United States of America.

It is a long time until 2044, so I invite all to step outside on April 8 and safely give this year’s eclipse a look. A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun.

Depending on your location, you may be in a spot where the Moon’s shadow completely covers the Sun, known as the path of totality. The sky will become dark, as if it were dawn or dusk. Weather permitting, people along the path of totality will see the Sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, which is usually obscured by the bright face of the Sun.

No matter where you are on April 8, NASA has you covered with this Solar Eclipse Guide: What to Expect: A Solar Eclipse Guide (nasa.gov).

It will help you learn more about when the eclipse will occur, where you can go to watch the eclipse, and how you will watch the eclipse safely.

Every day, NASA explores the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all. On April 8, I invite you to join NASA wherever you might be and explore the views of the total solar eclipse.

INFINITY Science Center, the official visitor center of NASA Stennis, will be open on Monday, April 8, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at regular admission rates. All are invited for a day of solar science.

40 Years Ago: STS-41C, the Solar Max Repair Mission

Fri, 04/05/2024 - 10:23am

On Apr. 6, 1984, space shuttle Challenger took off on its fifth flight, STS-41C. Its five-person crew of Commander Robert L. “Crip” Crippen, Pilot Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, and Mission Specialists Terry J. “TJ” Hart, James D. “Ox” Van Hoften, and George D. “Pinky Nelson flew a seven-day mission that expanded the shuttle’s capabilities. They deployed the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), the largest and heaviest shuttle payload up to that time. They retrieved, repaired, and redeployed the failing Solar Max satellite in a highly complex choreography of rendezvous and proximity operations, autonomous astronaut flying of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), robotic operations, and spacewalking. The mission also demonstrated the ability of the ground teams and astronauts to successfully respond to unexpected situations.

Left: The STS-41C crew of (clockwise from bottom left) Commander Robert L. Crippen, Mission Specialists Terry J. Hart, James D. “Ox” Van Hoften, and George D. “Pinky” Nelson, and Pilot Francis R. “Dick” Scobee. Middle: The STS-41C crew patch. Right: Challenger’s payload bay for STS-41C.

In February 1983, NASA announced Crippen, Scobee, Hart, Van Hoften, and Nelson as the STS-13 crew, the mission renamed STS-41C in September 1983. Crippen, the flight’s only veteran, had flown as the pilot for the first shuttle flight STS-1 in April 1981 and at the time of the announcement in training to command STS-7 in June 1983. For the other four, all selected as astronauts in 1978, STS-41C represented their first trip into space. The mission had two primary objectives. First, the deployment of the LDEF, managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and second, the retrieval, repair, and release of the Solar Maximum Mission, Solar Max for short, satellite, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. A student experiment in the middeck looked at the behavior of 3,300 honeybees in weightlessness. Crippen and Scobee had prime responsibility for operating the shuttle and conducting the rendezvous and proximity operations. Hart had primary responsibility for deploying LDEF using the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS), the shuttle’s robotic arm. Nelson would fly the MMU to secure Solar Max so Hart could grapple it with the RMS and place it into a Flight Support Structure (FSS) in Challenger’s payload bay where Nelson and Van Hoften would execute the repairs. Several earlier shuttle flights rehearsed techniques and tested hardware to make STS-41C successful, including the first shuttle spacewalk on STS-6, the SPAS-01 rendezvous and proximity operations on STS-7, the PFTA test of the RMS on STS-8, and the test flights of the MMU on STS-41B.

Left: The structure of the Long-Duration Exposure Facility before the installation of the experiments. Middle: Launch of the Solar Maximum Mission in February 1980. Right: Schematic of the Solar Max satellite.

The LDEF consisted of a 21,400-pound structure measuring 14 by 30 feet, at the time the largest and heaviest object launched by the shuttle and handled by the RMS. The satellite contained 86 trays of various types of materials and structures, power and propulsion science, electronics, and optics representing 57 individual experiments managed by 194 U.S. and international principal investigators. A later shuttle mission planned to retrieve LDEF after 9-10 months in orbit and return it to Earth. Solar Max, launched on Feb. 14, 1980, utilized the Multi-Mission Modular Spacecraft body, specifically designed for retrieval by the space shuttle for servicing and/or repair by spacewalking astronauts. One of its instruments, the white-light coronagraph/polarimeter, operated successfully before suffering an electronics failure in September 1980. Two months later, the second of four fuses in Solar Max’s attitude control system failed, causing it to rely on its magnetorquers to maintain attitude. This meant that only three of its seven instruments could obtain useful data, as others required more accurate pointing. Ground controllers put the satellite in a slow spin to keep it in a stable sun-pointed orbit awaiting the arrival of the repair crew. Should the repairs prove unsuccessful, the astronauts could secure Solar Max in Challenger’s payload bay and return it to Earth.

Left: The crawler transporter departs Launch Pad 39A after delivering Challenger. Middle: On launch day, the STS-41C astronauts walk out of crew quarters to board the Astrovan for the ride to Launch Pad 39A. Right: Challenger rises into the sky.

Challenger’s successful first shuttle landing at KSC on Feb. 11, 1984, to end the STS-41B mission shortened the turnaround time between touchdown and the next launch to a then-record 55 days. Following refurbishment and mating with its External Tank (ET) and Solid Rocket Boosters, Challenger returned to Launch Pad 39A on March 29. Liftoff occurred on schedule at 8:58 a.m. EST on April 6, with Challenger taking its five-member crew into the skies. As soon as the shuttle cleared the launch tower, control of the flight shifted to Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Flight Director Gary E. Coen led his team of controllers, including capsule communicator or capcom John E. Blaha, monitored all aspects of the launch. STS-41C performed the first direct to orbit ascent, using the shuttle’s main engines to achieve orbit instead of relying on the Orbiter Maneuvering System (OMS) engines to complete the job. The ET reentered over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, providing ground observers with a brilliant light show as it broke apart. A later two-minute OMS burn circularized the orbit to reach Solar Max’s 290-mile altitude, the highest of the shuttle program to that time. Once in orbit, the astronauts opened Challenger’s payload bay doors and deployed the Ku-band high-gain antenna to communicate with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS). They activated and checked out the FSS to support Solar Max in the payload bay and Hart unstowed the RMS and tested its mobility.

Left: STS-41C astronaut Terry J. Hart lifts the Long-Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) out of Challenger’s payload bay. Middle: LDEF shortly after release. Right: LDEF recedes from Challenger.

The main activity for the astronauts’ second day in space centered around the deployment of LDEF. Crippen undid the retention latches holding LDEF in the payload bay. Hart operated the RMS, grappling LDEF first by the Experiment Initiation System fixture to activate the experiments, then relocating the arm’s end-effector to LDEF’s second fixture to lift it straight out of the payload bay. Holding it high over Challenger, Hart commanded the end effector to release LDEF and Crippen and Scobee pulsed Challenger’s thrusters to slowly back away. LDEF assumed a gravity gradient orientation, with its heavier end pointing at the Earth, remaining stable without the use of any thrusters. To prepare for the next day’s spacewalk, Nelson and Van Hoften began their prebreathe, breathing pure oxygen using their launch and entry helmets, while Crippen reduced the cabin’s pressure from the normal 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi) to 10.2 psi. Due to a configuration issue that had them breathing air instead of oxygen, Nelson and Van Hoften had to repeat the prebreathe activity. They also checked out their spacesuits to ensure their readiness for the spacewalk, while Crippen and Scobee began the series of rendezvous maneuvers to reach Solar Max.

Left: STS-41C astronauts James D. “Ox” Van Hoften, left, and George D. “Pinky” Nelson wear their launch and entry helmets during the prebreathe for the first spacewalk. Middle: Nelson flies the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) from Challenger to Solar Max. Right: Nelson prepares for the first docking attempt with Solar Max.

Mission Control during the first STS-41C spacewalk as NASA astronaut George D. “Pinky” Nelson flies the Manned Maneuvering Unit to the Solar Max satellite.

By the time the crew awoke to begin their third day in space, Challenger had closed the distance to Solar Max to 320 miles. Engineers at Goddard powered down Solar Max’s instruments and enabled its communications system to interact with Challenger’s. They also inhibited its attitude control system to allow the astronauts to maneuver it without resistance. The satellite continued its slow rotation of once every six minutes to maintain stability. The astronauts first visually sighted Solar Max at a distance of 600,000 feet, and continued maneuvers to close the distance to the satellite. As Challenger approached Solar Max, Hart assisted Nelson and Van Hoften to don their spacesuits. Jerry L. Ross served as capcom during the spacewalk. Nelson and Van Hoften switched their suits to battery power, officially starting the spacewalk, as Crippen and Scobee closed in on Solar Max, finally stopping 140 feet away. The spacewalkers exited the airlock into the payload bay and began checking out the MMU. Nelson donned the unit and with Van Hoften’s help installed the Trunnion Pin Attachment Device (TPAD), the device used to dock the MMU with a trunnion pin on Solar Max, on the front of the unit. Hart unstowed the RMS, ready to grapple Solar Max. Nelson flew the MMU in the payload bay to familiarize himself with its characteristics then began his 10-minute flight to Solar Max. On his first attempt to dock to the satellite using the TPAD, its jaws didn’t fire to grasp the trunnion pin and he bounced off the satellite. He tried a second time, and once again could not dock. He tried a third time, but bounced off again, his attempts causing Solar Max to wobble in all three axes. He grabbed one of the solar arrays in an attempt to stabilize the satellite. Running low on maneuvering gas, Nelson flew back to the payload bay. Crippen decided to capture Solar Max using the rolling grapple technique with Hart operating the RMS. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mission Control and the crew decided to stand down for the day. Goddard turned on the magnetorquers to slowly bring the spacecraft under control. Nelson parked the MMU, and both he and Van Hoften returned inside after a shortened spacewalk lasting 2 hours 38 minutes. Crippen fired Challenger’s thrusters to back away from Solar Max and station keep 60 miles away overnight. The initial plan for the next day would have Crippen and Scobee rendezvous a second time and have Hart do a rotating grapple with the RMS to capture Solar Max and place it in the FSS, with Nelson and Van Hoften performing the repairs on the satellite during a second spacewalk the day after.

STS-41C crew Earth observation photographs. Left: The Texas Gulf Coast. Middle left: Panama. Middle right: The Richat structure in Mauritania. Right: Circular irrigation in Saudi Arabia.

Overnight, Mission Control decided to take another 24 hours to finalize plans and delayed the rendezvous by one day, adding an extra day to the mission. They informed the crew shortly after the wakeup call on flight day four. In the meantime, engineers at Goddard managed to slow Solar Max’s tumble and pointed its solar arrays to the Sun to charge up its batteries. The crew’s activities on this day focused on the honeybee student experiment, the large format camera, and Earth observations.

Left: Terry J. Hart grapples Solar Max during orbital night. Right: Using the RMS, Hart moving Solar Max to the Flight Support Structure in Challenger’s payload bay.

The astronauts began their fifth day by starting the second rendezvous with Solar Max, the series of maneuvers bringing Challenger to within 40 feet of the satellite, now rotating at half a degree per second as expected to perform the rolling grapple. With Solar Max positioned over the payload bay, Hart steered the RMS and grappled the satellite on his first attempt. He maneuvered it to the rear of the payload bay and berthed it on the FSS, marking the first in-orbit capture of a satellite for repair. Umbilicals provided power from the shuttle to Solar Max. Hart unlatched the RMS and stowed until its next use during the following day’s spacewalk. President Ronald W. Reagan called to congratulate the crew on the successful capture of Solar Max.

Left: Astronauts George D. “Pinky” Nelson, left, and James D. “Ox” Van Hoften replace Solar Max’s attitude control system module during the second STS-41C spacewalk. Middle: Van Hoften, left, and Nelson replace the main electronics box of one of the satellite’s instruments. Right: Nelson on the end of the Remote Manipulator System inspects Solar Max.

Left: During the second STS-41C spacewalk, James D. “Ox” Van Hoften flies the Manned Maneuvering Unit in Challenger’s payload bay. Middle: Terry J. Hart lifts the repaired Solar Max out of Challenger’s payload bay. Right: Solar Max departs from Challenger.

On flight day six, Scobee helped Nelson and Van Hoften put on their spacesuits in preparation for the mission’s second spacewalk, with the plan to complete all the repairs on Solar Max originally planned across two excursions. After depressurizing and exiting the airlock, Van Hoften positioned himself on the Manipulator Foot Restraint (MFR) that Hart had picked up with the RMS. With both spacewalkers back with the Solar Max, they first replaced the satellite’s attitude control system module – the item that crippled the satellite – in just 45 minutes. They next installed a manifold to protect the X-ray polychromator instrument. For the final task, the replacement of the main electronics box of the satellite’s chronograph polarimeter instrument, never designed for on-orbit repair, Nelson swapped places with Van Hoften on the MFR. The two completed that task in one hour. Nelson then moved over to take measurements of the trunnion pin to determine why the TPAD could not latch onto it during the first spacewalk. He noted a little thermal button sticking up about ¼ inch that might have interfered with the TPAD, later identified conclusively as the culprit. Hart then steered Nelson on the end of the arm to conduct a survey of Solar Max. Because the spacewalkers completed the repair tasks ahead of schedule, Mission Control allowed Van Hoften to fly the MMU in the payload bay and conduct engineering tests with it. Nelson and Van Hoften returned to the airlock, ending the second spacewalk after 6 hours 44 minutes, the longest Earth orbital spacewalk to that time. Between the two spacewalks, Nelson and Van Hoften spent 9 hours 22 minutes outside Challenger. Hart grappled Solar Max with the RMS and lifted it out of the FSS, holding it over the payload bay overnight as engineers at Goddard checked out the satellite’s systems prior to release the next day.

Left: STS 41C astronaut James D. “Ox” Van Hoften examines the honeybee student experiment. Right: The STS-41C crew members pose on Challenger’s flight deck near the end of their successful mission, wearing customized shirts.

The next morning, Hart released Solar Max from the RMS and Scobee flew the shuttle away from the satellite. Later in the morning, the astronauts, sporting shirts that read “Ace Satellite Repair Co.,” held a 30-minute press conference, answering reporters’ questions about their ultimately successful first repair of an on-orbit satellite. They spent the rest of the day readying Challenger for the next day’s entry and landing, including stowing unneeded equipment and testing the orbiter’s maneuvering thrusters and aerodynamic control surfaces. Nelson and Van Hoften stowed the two spacesuits and Hart the RMS, equipment that had served the crew so well during this mission.

Left: Space shuttle Challenger rolls down the runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California to end the STS-41C mission. Middle: STS-41C astronauts congratulate themselves on a successful flight. Right: In Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Lead STS-41C Flight Director Eugene F. Kranz applauds the successful landing of STS-41C.

On Friday April 13, as the astronauts awakened for their final day in space, their distance to LDEF had increased to more than 6,000 miles and to Solar Max to 80 miles. In preparation for reentry, the astronauts closed the payload bay doors. Mission Control called up that a low cloud deck had moved over the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at KSC and waved off the deorbit burn by one revolution. As the weather at KSC worsened, with light rain showers moving in, Mission Control decided to bring Challenger home at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where the weather seemed perfect. Crippen and Scobee oriented Challenger with its tail in the direction of flight and fired its two OMS engines to slow the spacecraft enough to drop it from orbit. They reoriented the orbiter to fly with its heat shield exposed to the direction of flight as it entered Earth’s atmosphere at 400,000 feet. The buildup of ionized gases caused by the heat of reentry prevented communications for about 15 minutes but provided the astronauts a great light show as their reentry took place in darkness. After crossing the California coastline, they made the final turn into Edwards. Scobee lowered the landing gear at 300 feet and Crippen brought Challenger down to a smooth touchdown 16 minutes after sunrise on Edwards’s dry lake bed runway 17, calling out “Houston, Challenger is wheels stop,” to end the successful satellite deployment and repair mission. During the mission lasting 6 days 23 hours 40 minutes they orbited the Earth 108 times.

Left: Space shuttle Challenger arrives back at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Middle: Solar Max image of a solar coronal mass ejection event on May 4, 1986. Right: Solar Max false color image of Halley’s comet taken on Feb. 28, 1986.

Following the landing, the astronauts returned to Houston, where they reunited with their families who had awaited them at KSC. Workers at Edwards towed Challenger to NASA’s Dryden, now Armstrong, Flight Research Center and mounted it atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a modified Boeing 747. On April 17, the duo took off from Edwards on the first leg of the transcontinental flight to KSC. After an overnight refueling stop at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Challenger arrived at KSC’s SLF, where workers began preparing it for its next flight, STS-41G. Meanwhile, engineers at Goddard began activating Solar Max’s instruments almost immediately after deployment, and all systems, including the repaired ones, worked perfectly, and within three days its instruments began collecting science data. Following a 30-day thorough checkout, Solar Max returned to a fully operational status. And although it missed the 1980 solar maximum, the satellite returned much useful data as the Sun cycled through a solar minimum and approached the next maximum in the 11-year cycle. When the mission ended in November 1989, Solar Max had returned 240,000 images of the Sun’s corona, recorded more than 12,000 solar flares, and observed 15 deep-space gamma ray bursts and also observed Halley’s Comet as it passed through the inner solar system in early 1986. Although planned for retrieval after 9-10 months in space, LDEF remained in orbit far longer. A series of payload shuffles in 1985 followed by the Challenger accident in January 1986 and subsequent extended grounding of the shuttle fleet delayed its return until STS-32 in January 1990, after 57 months in space.

Enjoy the crew narrated video of the STS-41C mission.

Read Crippen’s, Hart’s, Van Hoften’s, and Nelson’s recollections of the STS-41C mission in their oral histories with the JSC History Office.

Explore More 11 min read Eclipses Near and Far Article 4 days ago 7 min read 65 Years Ago: NASA Selects America’s First Astronauts Article 6 days ago 6 min read 45 Years Ago: Space Shuttle Columbia Arrives at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Article 3 weeks ago

Categories: NASA

Hubble Peers at Pair of Closely Interacting Galaxies

Fri, 04/05/2024 - 3:20am

2 min read

Hubble Peers at Pair of Closely Interacting Galaxies This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features Arp 72.ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Galbany, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features Arp 72, a very selective galaxy group that only includes two galaxies interacting due to gravity: NGC 5996 (the large spiral galaxy) and NGC 5994 (its smaller companion, in the lower left of the image). Both galaxies lie approximately 160 million light-years from Earth, and their cores are separated from each other by a distance of about 67,000 light-years. The distance between the galaxies at their closest points is even smaller, closer to 40,000 light-years. While this might sound vast, in galactic separation terms it is really quite close. For comparison, the distance between the Milky Way and its nearest independent galactic neighbor Andromeda is around 2.5 million light-years. Alternatively, the distance between the Milky Way and its largest and brightest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (satellite galaxies orbit around another galaxy), is about 162,000 light-years.

Given this and the fact that NGC 5996 is roughly comparable in size to the Milky Way, it is not surprising that NGC 5996 and NGC 5994 — separated by only about 40,000 light-years — are interacting with one another. In fact, the interaction likely distorted NGC 5996’s spiral shape. It also prompted the formation of the very long and faint tail of stars and gas curving away from NGC 5996, up to the top right of the image. This ‘tidal tail’ is a common phenomenon that appears when galaxies closely interact and is visible in other Hubble images of interacting galaxies.

Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

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Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Share Details Last Updated Apr 05, 2024 EditorAndrea Gianopoulos Related Terms

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Categories: NASA

NASA Employee Grateful for Opportunities at NASA Stennis

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 4:07pm

3 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Cherie Beech works in the NASA Stennis Office of the Chief Information Officer, where she helps many of the more than 5,200 employees of the NASA Stennis Federal City, as customer engagement and information technology acquisition specialist.NASA/Danny Nowlin

Cherie Beech knows full well the opportunity that working at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, affords. Since arriving at the federal city as a contractor 26 years ago, she since has expanded her skillset and grown as a member of the NASA Stennis team.

“I always want to make sure, by doing my job, that things are better than the way I found it…That’s what I strive to do. I’m ecstatic to work at NASA Stennis. I’m very humble and grateful for it.”

cherie beech

NASA Stennis Customer Engagement and IT Acquisition Specialist

“We are very blessed to have these opportunities,” said Beech, who works in the NASA Stennis Office of the Chief Information Officer. “It is fascinating because it takes everybody, all of us, to accomplish the work. It took me a long time, but I finally understand that it takes all skillsets to accomplish the job, because it takes all of us to ensure mission success.”

The mission is helping NASA explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery. Through Artemis, NASA will return America to the Moon to establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration and then set its sights on Mars for the benefit of all. Such a goal requires a diverse group of people to help make it happen.

“We all bring our unique traits and skills to the table, and that’s what I enjoy,” Beech said. “We all are valued. We are all contributing to the bigger thing, and I find that fascinating.”

Beech, a native of Picayune, Mississippi, grew up less than 15 miles from the south Mississippi NASA center often referenced then as “the test site.” She sometimes heard propulsion testing as a young girl and since has experienced NASA Stennis transforming into a multifaceted aerospace and technology hub.

“It’s a place full of opportunity,” she said.

Beech began her NASA Stennis career as a scheduler with Lockheed Martin. Her role evolved to include work with budget submissions, and communication and outreach, among other functions. Beech continued working across multiple contracts through the years working to support the NASA Stennis Office of the Chief Information Officer. She subsequently was hired as a civil servant by NASA in 2020.

“Once I was at NASA Stennis, then I realized there is a lot here to offer for all careers. There are also chances where you can talk to people and learn from everybody. People are so nice and very willing to help you and mentor and guide you. Since being here, I have learned all the necessary technical knowledge.”

In her role as customer engagement and information technology acquisition specialist with NASA, Beech now helps many of the more than 5,200 employees working across the federal city to ensure all understand the latest technology updates that contribute to their line of work. She also helps ensure employees are aware of all the NASA information technology purchasing regulations for work projects involving hardware and/or software.

“I always want to make sure, by doing my job, that things are better than the way I found it,” Beech said. “That’s what I strive to do. I’m ecstatic to work at NASA Stennis. I’m very humble and grateful for it.”

For information about NASA’s Stennis Space Center, visit:

Stennis Space Center – NASA

Categories: NASA

NASA’s NEOWISE Extends Legacy With Decade of Near-Earth Object Data

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 3:26pm

6 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This artist’s concept depicts the NEOWISE spacecraft in orbit around Earth. Launched in 2009 to survey the entire sky in infrared, the spacecraft took on a more specialized role in 2014 when it was reactivated to study near-Earth asteroids and comets.NASA/JPL-Caltech

As the infrared space telescope continues its long-duration survey of the universe, it is creating a unique resource for future astronomers to make new discoveries.

NASA’s NEOWISE mission has released its 10th year of infrared data – the latest in a unique long-duration (or “time-domain”) survey that captures how celestial objects change over long periods. Time-domain astronomy can help scientists see how distant variable stars change in brightness and observe faraway black holes flaring as they consume matter. But NEOWISE has a special focus on our planet’s local cosmic neighborhood, producing a time-domain infrared survey used for planetary science, with a particular emphasis on asteroids and comets.

Short for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, NEOWISE is a key component of NASA’s planetary defense strategy, helping the agency refine the orbits of asteroids and comets while also estimating their size. One such example is the potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis, which will make a close approach of our planet in 2029.

By repeatedly observing the sky from its location in low-Earth orbit, NEOWISE has made 1.45 million infrared measurements of over 44,000 solar system objects. That includes more than 3,000 NEOs, 215 of which the space telescope discovered. Twenty-five of those are comets, including the famous comet NEOWISE.

“The space telescope has been a workhorse for characterizing NEOs that may pose a hazard to Earth in the future,” said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE’s principal investigator at the University of Arizona and University of California, Los Angeles. “The data that NEOWISE has generated for free use by the scientific community will pay dividends for generations.”

From Data to Discovery

Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission sends data three times a day to the U.S. Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) network, which then delivers it to IPAC, an astronomical data research center at Caltech in Pasadena, California. IPAC processes the raw data into fully calibrated images that are accessible online. It also generates NEO detections, sending them to the Minor Planet Center – the internationally recognized clearinghouse for the position measurements of solar system bodies. By searching multiple images of the same patch of sky at different times, scientists capture the motions of individual asteroids and comets.

This top-down animated view of the solar system shows the positions of all the asteroids and comets detected by NEOWISE in the decade since its reactivation in 2014. Credit: IPAC/Caltech/University of Arizona

“The science products we generate identify specific infrared sources in the sky with precisely determined positions and brightnesses that enable discoveries to be made,” said Roc Cutri, lead scientist for the NEOWISE Science Data System at IPAC. “The most fun thing when I look at the data for the first time is knowing that no one has seen this before. It puts you in a unique position of doing real exploration.”

IPAC will also produce data products for NASA’s NEO Surveyor, which is targeting a launch no earlier than 2027. Managed by JPL, with Mainzer serving as principal investigator, the next-generation space survey telescope will seek out some of the hardest-to-find near-Earth objects, such as dark asteroids and comets that don’t reflect much visible light but shine brighter in infrared light.

Two Missions, One Spacecraft

The NEOWISE spacecraft launched in 2009, but as a different mission and with a different name: the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, which set out to survey the entire sky. As an infrared telescope, WISE studied distant galaxies, comparatively cool red dwarf stars, exploding white dwarfs, and outgassing comets, as well as NEOs.

An infrared telescope requires cryogenic coolant to prevent the spacecraft’s heat from disrupting its observations. After the WISE telescope’s ran out of coolant and was no longer able to observe the universe’s coldest objects, NASA put the spacecraft into hibernation in 2011. But because the telescope could still detect the infrared glow of comets and asteroids as they are heated by the Sun, Mainzer proposed to restart the spacecraft to keep an eye on them. The mission was reactivated in 2014 and renamed NEOWISE, extending the life of a spacecraft that was initially planned for less than a year of operation.

“We are 14 years into a seven-month mission,” said Joseph Masiero, NEOWISE’s deputy principal investigator and a scientist at IPAC. He started at JPL as a postdoctoral researcher working on WISE just two months before the spacecraft launched on Dec. 14, 2009. “This little mission has been with me my entire career – it just kept going, making new discoveries, helping us better understand the universe,” Masiero added. “And if it wasn’t for the tyranny of orbital dynamics, I’m sure the spacecraft would continue to operate for years to come.”

Solar activity is causing NEOWISE to fall out of orbit, and the spacecraft is expected to drop low enough into Earth’s atmosphere that it will eventually become unusable.

“NEOWISE has lasted way past its original spacecraft design lifetime,” said Joseph Hunt, NEOWISE project manager at JPL. “But as we didn’t build it with a way to reach higher orbits, the spacecraft will naturally drop so low in the atmosphere that it will become unusable and entirely burn up in the months following decommissioning. Exactly when depends on the Sun’s activity.”

More About the Mission

NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor support the objectives of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 directed NASA to discover and characterize at least 90% of the near-Earth objects more than 140 meters (460 feet) across that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of our planet’s orbit. Objects of this size can cause significant regional damage, or worse, should they impact the Earth.

JPL manages and operates the NEOWISE mission for PDCO within the Science Mission Directorate. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Science data processing takes place at IPAC at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about NEOWISE, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/neowise

and

http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/

NASA’s NEOWISE Celebrates 10 Years, Plans End of Mission Data From NASA’s WISE Used to Preview Lucy Mission’s Asteroid Dinkinesh Asteroid Mission Aims to Explore Mysteries of Earth's Core News Media Contacts

Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Charles Blue
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1257 / 202-802-5345
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov

2024-038

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NASA Noise Prediction Tool Supports Users in Air Taxi Industry

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 2:57pm

1 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The results from a NASA software tool called OVERFLOW, used to model the flow of air around aircraft, are shown in this image.NASA

Several air taxi companies are using a NASA-developed computer software tool to predict aircraft noise and aerodynamic performance. This tool allows manufacturers working in fields related to NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission to see early in the aircraft development process how design elements like propellors or wings would perform. This saves the industry time and money when making potential design modifications.

This NASA computer code, called “OVERFLOW,” performs calculations to predict fluid flows such as air, and the pressures, forces, moments, and power requirements that come from the aircraft. Since these fluid flows contribute to aircraft noise, improved predictions can help engineers design quieter models. Manufacturers can integrate the code with their own aircraft modeling programs to run different scenarios, quantifying performance and efficiency, and visually interpreting how the airflow behaves on and around the vehicle. These interpretations can come forward in a variety of colors representing these behaviors.

This computer program is available to industry for U.S. release via the software.nasa.gov website.

An OVERFLOW modeling image from the manufacturer Joby Aviation.Joby Aviation An OVERFLOW modeling image from the manufacturer Wisk.Wisk An OVERFLOW modeling image from the manufacturer Archer Aviation.Archer Aviation Share Details Last Updated Apr 04, 2024 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms

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Save-The-Date: DoD-NASA Lidar Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM)

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 12:41pm

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Details

DoD-NASA Lidar TIM

August 13-15, 2024

MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Arlington, VA (Crystal City)
241 18th St S, Arlington, VA 22202

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is hosting a TIM between NASA and DoD to facilitate the sharing of lidar knowledge between these institutions and identify potential areas of collaboration that maximally utilizes the strengths from each organization. This TIM will provide an opportunity to discuss common issues and challenges and possible solutions.

Objectives

This TIM will include up to CUI-level presentations and discussions from leaders in lidar technology development and application.

Share DoD & NASA capabilities in lidar systems, technologies, processing and exploitation/analysis with DoD community & NASA centers, including JPL and NASA headquarters.
Identify NASA and DoD mission and sensor needs that could leverage existing lidar investments to satisfy requirements.
Connect NASA and DoD lidar practitioners, experts and end-user communities and
Roadmap at least two potential applications for collaborative opportunity. Briefings will only include up to CUI level, and representatives from the NASA Centers, JPL, and various DoD organizations (FFRDCs, UARCs, service laboratories, and user community) will be invited to participate.

Co-Chairs

M. Jalal Khan (MIT-LL), T.Y. Fan (MIT-LL), Jessica Gaskin (NESC), Upendra Singh (NESC), and Parminder Ghuman (GSFC)

More information

Coming soon!

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Tech Today: Synthetic DNA Diagnoses COVID, Cancer

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 12:20pm

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Princeton University undergraduate Kate Sheldon, doing summer work at Firebird Diagnostics, holds a prototype of the Agnostic Life Finder, or ALF, which was developed to seek life on Mars without making Earth-specific assumptions about molecular biology.Credit: Firebird Diagnostics LLC

At first glance, the search for life beyond Earth might not seem related to human illness, but to biochemist Steven Benner, the connection is clear.

“In diagnostics for an infectious disease, you’re looking for alien life inside of a patient,” said Benner, who has spent nearly two decades conducting NASA-funded research on what alien life might look like at the molecular level.

“It’s actually a bit easier to build a diagnostics assay to detect COVID than to build an agnostic life finder to search for Martian DNA, whose structure would be unknown,” he said.

Benner is the co-founder and CEO of Firebird Diagnostics LLC, based in Alachua, Florida, which sells synthetic DNA and molecule packages to researchers, who use them to develop tools to detect and treat ailments like cancer, hepatitis, and HIV. The company also sold COVID tests during the pandemic.

Benner holds that while some of what we know about biochemistry on Earth may be universal, most is Earth-specific. He and his partners developed DNA-like molecular systems with six and eight nucleotides, or building blocks, based on research funded partly by NASA’s Astrobiology Program. These systems add to the four building blocks in Earth-based DNA an additional two or four synthetic nucleotides.

Mary Voytek, head of the Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said Benner’s work shows there are alternatives to Earth-based biological molecules, “This helps us understand what else is possible and may be found in life beyond Earth.”

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NASA Wallops to Launch Three Sounding Rockets During Solar Eclipse

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:54am

Three Black Brant IX sounding rockets for the Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission are scheduled to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility launch range in Virginia. The launch window opens April 8, 2024, at 2:40 p.m. EDT.

Launching approximately 45 minutes before, during, and after the peak local eclipse, the APEP sounding rockets will study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet. Targeted launch times for the three rockets are 2:40 p.m., 3:20 p.m., and 4:05 p.m. but may be subject to change.

The launches will be livestreamed on Wallops’ YouTube beginning at 2:30 p.m.

Weather permitting, the launches may be visible in the mid-Atlantic region. Remember to always wear solar safety or “eclipse” glasses when looking at the Sun to protect your eyes. For the Wallops area, the eclipse will begin around 2:06 p.m. The Moon will block 81.4% of the Sun’s light at peak local eclipse at 3:23 p.m. and conclude at 4:34 p.m.

Launch viewing map forAtmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path mission are scheduled to launch from NASA’s launch range at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on April 8, 2024.Credit: NASA

Members of the public are invited to the NASA Wallops Visitor Center on Monday, April 8, to view the sounding rocket launches and the partial eclipse. Gates to the visitor center will open from 1-5 p.m. and will close once parking lot capacity is reached. For those traveling to our visitor center, all vehicles MUST fit within a standard parking spot for this event; no large, oversized vehicles or buses will be allowed for entry.

The visitor center will offer solar-related activities, have NASA sounding rocket experts onsite to answer questions, and host Globe Program expert Brian Campbell, who will be showing people how to collect data during the eclipse using the Observer app. Eclipse glasses and pinhole viewers will be available during this event while supplies last. Food trucks will be onsite serving food and drinks, including empanadas, crab cakes, hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue, water ice, and more.

While this combined viewing event is exciting for some, it may not be ideal for all. A designated sensory-friendly quiet area will be available at the Wallops Visitor Center for guests. This supervised quiet area will include dimmed lighting, seating, a reflection area, and touch items for guests to explore.

Prepare for safe solar viewing during this year’s eclipse by checking out NASA’s Eclipse Safety page.

Media Contact
Amy Barra
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia

Share Details Last Updated Apr 04, 2024 EditorMadison OlsonContactAmy Barraamy.l.barra@nasa.govLocationWallops Flight Facility Related Terms

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Advances in Understanding COPV Structural Life

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:08am

The Structures Technical Discipline Team (TDT) was involved in numerous investigations this past year, but composites, fracture mechanics, and pressure vessels dominate the list. All three of these specialties are important to composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV). One of the TDT’s most important findings this year was the exposure of an inherent vulnerability that underpredicts structural life, driven by current specifications and testing standards for COPVs. This NESC work and its recommendations will significantly improve safety and mission success for all current and future COPV operations throughout the aerospace community.

Dr. David Dawicki employs digital image correlation to evaluate strain in metallic coupons.

Damage Tolerance Analysis Standard Can Be Unconservative for COPVs

COPVs consist of a metallic liner that contains the fluid or gas and a composite overwrap that provides strength (Figure 1). The operational pressure cycles for a spaceflight COPV generally starts with an initial overpressure, called an autofrettage cycle, that yields the metallic liner, while the stronger composite overwrap remains elastic. Liner yielding during autofrettage results in a small amount of liner growth, resulting in liner compression when the COPV is depressurized after autofrettage. The subsequent operational cycles can be either elastic (elastically responding COPV) or elastic-plastic (plastically responding COPV).

Figure 1.Illustration of COPV major components.

The damage tolerance life evaluation of spaceflight COPVs is governed by the ANSI/AIAA-S-081B, Space Systems–Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessels. This standard provides the baseline requirements for damage tolerance analyses (DTA) of COPVs with elastically responding liners. The standard allows the DTA to consider the influence of the elastic-plastic autofrettage cycle independently of the elastically responding cycles. The elastically responding cycles are permitted to be analyzed using linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) tools like the NASGRO crack-growth analysis software. The standard states that the DTA must not consider any beneficial influences of the autofrettage cycle on the subsequent elastically responding cycles but does not consider the possibility of detrimental influences of the autofrettage cycle.

In the study, Unconservatism of Linear-Elastic Fracture Mechanics Analysis Post Autofrettage (NASA/TM-20230013348), an NESC team conducted a combined experimental and analytical investigation into the influence of the autofrettage cycle on subsequent elastic cycles. Tests were conducted on coupons with part-through surface cracks that were subjected to cyclic loading that was representative of the operational cycles of a COPV liner. Half of the tests were conducted with the full loading history (including the autofrettage cycle) and the other half were identical except that the autofrettage cycle was omitted. Cracks in the tests with the autofrettage cycle grew faster than cracks in the identical tests that excluded the autofrettage cycle, as shown by the fracture surfaces in the photomicrographs (Figure 2). The distance between the mark left by the autofrettage cycle and the ductile fracture region was the amount of crack growth (Δa=0.0077 inch) due to the LEFM cycles. Crack growth due to the LEFM cycles in the LEFM-only test was Δa=0.0022 inch, more than three times slower than that in the identical autofrettage plus LEFM test.

Figure 2. Fracture surfaces from two identical tests showing crack growth (Δa), with and without an initial autofrettage cycle.

A validated finite element analysis and experimental measurements were used to evaluate the influence of the autofrettage cycle. The elastic-plastic autofrettage cycle was found to create a large region of plastic deformation ahead of the crack and blunted the crack tip. Previous fracture mechanics tests and analytical studies in the literature examined elastic overloads and found that plastic deformation ahead of the crack developed residual stresses that closed the crack surfaces, reducing the subsequent crack growth rate. However, the crack blunting allowed the crack to remain open for the entire loading, as illustrated by the finite element simulations of the crack surfaces at peak and minimum stress (Figure 3). The differences between the tests with and without the autofrettage cycle that were observed experimentally and simulated with a validated finite element analysis indicate that the damage tolerance analysis approach allowed by the standard can be unconservative. The NESC proposed an alternative damage tolerance analysis approach and recommended that the AIAA Aerospace Pressure Vessel Committee on standards update the ANSI/AIAA S-081B standard to address COPV liners with compressive stresses following the peak autofrettage stress.

Figure 3. Abaqus finite element analysis of crack growth with and without an autofrettage cycle. Y-axis indicates crack opening displacement and x-axis indicates crack length.

A Brief Introduction to Damage Tolerance for COPVs

ANSI/AIAA S-081B standard, Space Systems–Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessels, is a compilation of accepted practices for COPVs used in space applications developed as a collaboration of industry, government, and universities. The standard covers many aspects of COPVs including damage tolerance life analyses that are used for flight qualification overseen by fracture control boards. The standard for damage tolerance requires that the COPV “…survive four operational lifetimes with the largest crack in the metallic liner that can be missed by a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) subjected to bounding stresses representative of what the COPV experiences in its life (manufacturing, integration, operational including thermal and residual).” The operational life of a COPV liner typically includes an initial elastic-plastic cycle (autofrettage or proof) followed by other cycles that may be elastic (elastically responding liners) or elastic-plastic (plastically responding liners). A representative load spectrum is shown at right. During autofrettage, the COPV is pressurized to at least proof pressure to compress the liner inner surface, making it less susceptible to operational stresses. COPVs with elastically responding liners may be damage-tolerance qualified using LEFM analysis tools, but plastically responding liners must be damage-tolerance qualified by testing. Guidance on evaluating the appropriateness of LEFM tools for COPV damage tolerance was provided in NESC Technical Bulletin No. 21-04, Evaluating Appropriateness of LEFM Tools for COPV and Metal Pressure Vessel Damage Tolerance Life Verification Tolerance Life Verification and NASA/TM-2020-5006765/Volumes 1/2.

A COPV consists of a metallic liner with an exterior composite wrap. The composite provides strength, and the liner contains the compressed fluid or gas. Results of a failure test. COPVs contain high pressure gases or fluids that can have tremendous explosive energy.

Future of the Structures Discipline

As the Agency moves more toward forming strategic industry partnerships with commercial contracts for new programs, the Structures TDT has highlighted the need for proper focus on appropriate requirements as the Team’s strategic vector. Although NASA Standards are often provided for reference, their prescriptive nature is not necessarily appropriate for use with commercial contracts. Industry partners and/or NASA team members create alternative standards, unique for each program, but there is inconsistency across different programs with respect to detailed requirements in these standards. Emerging technologies such as soft goods, large-scale deployable structures, inflatables, probabilistic analysis techniques, and additive manufactured hardware all drive unique requirements. The TDT identified the need for a tailoring guide, tied to mission priorities and risk postures, to assist with insight/oversight strategies for NASA programs. Using industry partners also means less NASA-owned hardware, which can lead to a loss of institutional knowledge.

Representative loading spectrum for an elastically responding COPV liner with an initial elastic-plastic cycle.

Its imperative that Engineering Directorates at each center proactively look for in-house projects so the next generation of engineers have opportunities for hands-on experience developing, designing, and testing (DDT) flight hardware. This experience is the foundation necessary for NASA engineers to guide the commercial partners through their own DDT processes and to be able to provide appropriate verification and validation of NASA requirements. Structures TDT members form a diverse team crossing all centers and programs, facilitating good collaboration on requirement interpretation, which ultimately ensures safety of NASA crew and mission success of operations in these new commercial programs.

Computed tomography scan of a metallic liner detecting a part-through crack.

Categories: NASA

Harnessing the 2024 Eclipse for Ionospheric Discovery with HamSCI

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:00am

3 min read

Harnessing the 2024 Eclipse for Ionospheric Discovery with HamSCI

As the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, draws closer, a vibrant community of enthusiastic amateur radio operators, known as “hams,” is gearing up for an exciting project with the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) group. Our goal is clear and ambitious: to use the Moon’s shadow as a natural laboratory to uncover the intricacies of the ionosphere, a layer of Earth’s atmosphere crucial for radio communication.

This rare event offers an unmatched opportunity to observe the ionosphere’s response to the temporary absence of solar radiation during the eclipse. HamSCI, a collective of citizen scientists and professional researchers, plans to seize this opportunity by conducting radio experiments across North America.

This image captures the Moon passing in front of the Sun during an eclipse on Jan. 30, 2014, seen in space by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA/SDO

Our mission centers on two main activities: the Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP) and the Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge. For the SEQP, amateur radio operators across the continent will aim to establish as many radio contacts (called QSOs) as possible before, during, and after the eclipse, creating a lively scene filled with radio signals. This effort will generate a vast network of observations on radio wave behavior under the eclipse’s unique conditions. The SEQP, a competitive yet friendly event, encourages wide participation and adds an element of excitement.

The Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge, named in honor of ham radio operator Philip Gladstone for his significant contributions to radio science, adopts a focused approach. Participants will use special equipment to monitor select radio frequencies, aiding in our observation of the ionosphere’s reaction to the eclipse. This crucial aspect of our project validates scientific models of the ionosphere and enriches our understanding of its interaction with solar radiation.

Amateur radio enthusiasts of all backgrounds and skill levels are invited to join these events, united by a shared enthusiasm for scientific exploration and a collective curiosity about the upper atmosphere. Through the support of the amateur radio community, HamSCI demonstrates the profound impact of citizen science in contributing to our scientific knowledge.

As the eclipse ends, our analytical work begins. We will delve into the collected data, interpret it, and publish our findings. These efforts are expected to significantly advance our understanding of the ionosphere and showcase the value of community involvement in scientific discovery.

HamSCI is an organization that aims to inspire wonder and encourage people to participate in scientific discovery. The community of citizen scientists associated with HamSCI believe that the seamless fusion of science and amateur radio is an excellent example of what can be achieved when people come together, driven by curiosity and a passion for exploration.

For more information about HamSCI and details on the SEQP and the Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge, please visit:

HamSCI’s Eclipse Information: https://hamsci.org/eclipse
Contest Information: https://hamsci.org/contest-info

By McKenzie Denton
HamSCI Citizen Science Team Member

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How NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Measure Ages of Stars

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 10:00am

Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it’s a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our Sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its life, it changes little for billions of years. One exception to that rule is the star’s rotation period – how quickly it spins. By measuring the rotation periods of hundreds of thousands of stars, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope promises to bring new understandings of stellar populations in our Milky Way galaxy after it launches by May 2027.

Stars are born spinning rapidly. However, stars of our Sun’s mass or smaller will gradually slow down over billions of years. That slowdown is caused by interactions between a stream of charged particles known as the stellar wind and the star’s own magnetic field. The interactions remove angular momentum, causing the star to spin more slowly, much like an ice skater will slow down when they extend their arms.

This effect, called magnetic braking, varies depending on the strength of the star’s magnetic field. Faster-spinning stars have stronger magnetic fields, which causes them to slow down more rapidly. Due to the influence of these magnetic fields, after about one billion years stars of the same mass and age will spin at the same rate. Therefore, if you know a star’s mass and rotation rate, you potentially can estimate its age. By knowing the ages of a large population of stars, we can study how our galaxy formed and evolved over time.

Measuring Stellar Rotation

How do astronomers measure the rotation rate of a distant star? They look for changes in the star’s brightness due to starspots. Starspots, like sunspots on our Sun, are cooler, darker patches on a star’s surface. When a starspot is in view, the star will be slightly dimmer than when the spot is on the far side of the star.

This image of our Sun was taken in August 2012 by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. It shows a number of sunspots. Other stars also experience starspots, which cause the star’s observed brightness to vary as the spots rotate in and out of view. By measuring those changes in brightness, astronomers can infer the star’s rotation period. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will collect brightness measurements for hundreds of thousands of stars located in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, yielding information about their rotation rates.Credit: NASA

If a star has a single, large spot on it, it would experience a regular pattern of dimming and brightening as the spot rotated in and out of view. (This dimming can be differentiated from a similar effect caused by a transiting exoplanet.) But a star can have dozens of spots scattered across its surface at any one time, and those spots vary over time, making it much more difficult to tease out periodic signals of dimming from the star’s rotation.

Applying Artificial Intelligence

A team of astronomers at the University of Florida is developing new techniques to extract a rotation period from measurements of a star’s brightness over time, through a program funded by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope project.

They are using a type of artificial intelligence known as a convolutional neural network to analyze light curves, or plots of a star’s brightness over time. To do this, the neural network first must be trained on simulated light curves. University of Florida postdoctoral associate Zachary Claytor, the science principal investigator on the project, wrote a program called “butterpy” to generate such light curves.

A star can have dozens of spots scattered across its surface at any one time, causing irregular brightness fluctuations that make it difficult to tease out periodic signals of dimming due to the star’s rotation. This graph of data from the butterpy program shows how the observed brightness of a simulated star would vary over a single rotation period. NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will be able to measure the light curves, and therefore rotation rates, of hundreds of thousands of stars, bringing new insights into stellar populations in our galaxy.Credit: NASA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

“This program lets the user set a number of variables, like the star’s rotation rate, the number of spots, and spot lifetimes. Then it will calculate how spots emerge, evolve, and decay as the star rotates and convert that spot evolution to a light curve – what we would measure from a distance,” explained Claytor.

The team has already applied their trained neural network to data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). Systematic effects make it more challenging to accurately measure longer stellar rotation periods, yet the team’s trained neural network was able to accurately measure these longer rotation periods using the TESS data.

Roman’s Star Survey

The upcoming Roman Space Telescope will gather data from hundreds of millions of stars through its Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey, one of three core community surveys it will conduct. Roman will look toward our galaxy’s center – a region crowded with stars – to measure how many of these stars change in brightness over time. These measurements will enable multiple science investigations, from searching for distant exoplanets to determining the stars’ rotation rates.

The specific survey design is still being developed by the astronomical community. The NASA-funded study on stellar rotation promises to help inform potential survey strategies.

“We can test which things matter and what we can pull out of the Roman data depending on different survey strategies. So when we actually get the data, we’ll already have a plan,” said Jamie Tayar, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Florida and the program’s principal investigator.

“We have a lot of the tools already, and we think they can be adapted to Roman,” she added.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

By Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

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NASA Achieves Milestone for Engines to Power Future Artemis Missions

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 9:59am

4 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA conducted a full-duration RS-25 hot fire April 3 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, achieving a major milestone for future Artemis flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. It marked the final test of a 12-test series to certify production of new RS-25 engines by lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, to help power NASA’s SLS rocket on Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond, beginning with Artemis V. NASA/Danny Nowlin Crews transport RS-25 developmental engine E0525 to the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Aug. 30, 2023, for the second and final certification test series.NASA/Danny Nowlin A crane lifts developmental engine E0525 onto the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Aug. 30, 2023, in preparation for a series of 12 tests to collect performance data for lead SLS (Space Launch System) engines contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, to produce engines that will help power the SLS rocket, beginning with Artemis V.NASA/Danny Nowlin Crews prepare to place RS-25 engine E0525 on the engine vertical installer on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Aug. 30, 2023. NASA/Danny Nowlin Team members ready RS-25 engine E0525 for full installation on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Aug. 30, 2023, for a second certification test series to collect data for the final RS-25 design certification review.NASA/Danny Nowlin The second – and final – RS-25 certification test series begins Oct. 17, 2023. When the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants mix and ignite, an extremely high temperature exhaust, of up to 6,000-degrees Fahrenheit, mixes with water to form steam that exits the flame deflector and rises into the atmosphere, forming a cloud that subsequently cools.NASA/Danny Nowlin A cloud of steam is visible at NASA’s Stennis Space Center during an Oct. 17, 2023, hot fire that marks the first test in the critical series to support future SLS (Space Launch System) missions to deep space.NASA/Danny Nowlin An RS-25 hot fire at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Nov. 15, 2023, marks the second test of a 12-test engine certification series. The NASA Stennis test team typically fires the certification engine for 500 seconds, the same amount of time engines must fire to help launch the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket to space with astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft. NASA/Danny Nowlin Operators fire the RS-25 engine at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Nov. 15, 2023, up to the 113% power level. The first four Artemis missions are using modified space shuttle main engines that can power up to 109% of their rated level. New RS-25 engines will power up to the 111% level to provide additional thrust, so testing up to the 113% power level provides a margin of operational safety.NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA demonstrates a key RS-25 engine capability necessary for flight of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket during a hot fire on Nov. 29, 2023. Crews gimbaled, or pivoted, the RS-25 engine around a central point during the almost 11-minute (650 seconds) hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.NASA/Danny Nowlin The first RS-25 engine test of 2024 takes place on Jan. 17, 2024, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center as crews complete a 500-second hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand. NASA/Danny Nowlin A remote field camera offers a head-on view of an RS-25 engine hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Jan. 23, 2024.NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA marks the halfway point of its second RS-25 certification series on Jan. 27, 2024, with the sixth test of the series on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. For each Artemis mission, four RS-25 engines, along with a pair of solid rocket boosters, power the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, producing more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. NASA/Danny Nowlin Teams at NASA’s Stennis Space Center install a second production nozzle, left, on Feb. 6, 2024, to gather additional performance data on the RS-25 certification engine at the Fred Haise Test Stand.NASA/Danny Nowlin A new RS-25 engine production nozzle is lifted on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Feb. 6, 2024. Crews used specially adapted procedures and tools to swap out the nozzles with the engine in place on the stand.NASA/Danny Nowlin Operators fire RS-25 engine E0525 for 550 seconds and up to a power level of 113% on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Feb. 23, 2024. The hot fire test was the first featuring a new engine nozzle, allowing engineers to collect and compare performance data on a second production unit.NASA/Danny Nowlin The third RS-25 hot fire of 600 seconds or more is conducted March 6, 2024, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The full-duration test on the Fred Haise Test Stand marked the ninth in a 12-test certification series for production of new engines to help power NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket on Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond, beginning with Artemis V. NASA/Danny Nowlin The test team at NASA’s Stennis Space Center conduct the first RS-25 hot fire of spring 2024 on March 22, powering the engine for a full duration 500 seconds and up to a power level of 113%.NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA closes in on a milestone for production of new RS-25 engines to help power future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond following a successful full duration test on March 27, 2024, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The hot fire marked the 11th test of a 12-test series.NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA conducted a full-duration RS-25 hot fire April 3 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.NASA/Danny Nowlin

NASA achieved a major milestone April 3 for production of new RS-25 engines to help power its Artemis campaign to the Moon and beyond with completion of a critical engine certification test series at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

The 12-test series represents a key step for lead engines contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, to build new RS-25 engines, using modern processes and manufacturing techniques, for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rockets that will power future lunar missions, beginning with Artemis V.

“The conclusion of the certification test series at NASA Stennis is just the beginning for the next generation of RS-25 engines that will help power human spaceflight for Artemis,” said Johnny Heflin, SLS liquid engines manager. “The newly produced engines on future SLS rockets will maintain the high reliability and safe flight operational legacy the RS-25 is known for while enabling more affordable high-performance engines for the next era of deep space exploration.”

Through Artemis, NASA will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon; land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface; and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all.

Contributing to that effort, the NASA Stennis test team conducted a full-duration, 500-second hot fire to complete the 12-test series on developmental engine E0525, providing critical performance data for the final RS-25 design certification review. The April 3 hot fire completed a test series that began in October 2023.

RS-25 engines are evolved space shuttle main engines, upgraded with new components to produce the additional power needed to help launch NASA’s SLS rocket. The first four Artemis missions are using modified space shuttle main engines also tested at NASA Stennis. For each Artemis mission, four RS-25 engines, along with a pair of solid rocket boosters, power the SLS rocket, producing more than 8.8 million pounds of total combined thrust at liftoff.

“This was a critical test series, and credit goes to the entire test team for their dedication and unique skills that allowed us to meet the schedule and provide the needed performance data,” said Chip Ellis, project manager for RS-25 testing at NASA Stennis. “The tests conducted at NASA Stennis help ensure the safety of our astronauts and their future mission success. We are proud to be part of the Artemis mission.”

The E0525 developmental engine featured new key components – including a nozzle, hydraulic actuators, flex ducts, and turbopumps – that matched design features of those used during an initial certification test series completed at NASA Stennis last summer.

The two certification test series helped verify the new engine components meet all Artemis flight requirements moving forward. Aerojet Rocketdyne is using techniques such as 3D printing to produce new RS-25 engines more efficiently, while maintaining high performance and reliability. NASA has awarded the company contracts to provide 24 new engines, supporting SLS launches for Artemis V through Artemis IX.

“Successfully completing this rigorous test series is a testament to the outstanding work done by the team to design, implement and test this upgraded version of the RS-25 that reduces the cost by 30% from the space shuttle program,” said Mike Lauer, RS-25 program director at Aerojet Rocketdyne. “We tested the new RS-25 engines to the extreme limits of operation to ensure the engines can operate at a higher power level needed for SLS and complete the mission with margin.”

RS-25 Final Certification Test Series by the Numbers

All RS-25 engines are tested and proven flightworthy at NASA Stennis prior to use on Artemis missions. RS-25 tests at the center are conducted by a diverse team of operators from NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Syncom Space Services, prime contractor for site facilities and operations.

Facebook logo @NASASTENNIS @NASASTENNIS Instagram logo @NASASTENNIS Share Details Last Updated Apr 04, 2024 EditorNASA Stennis CommunicationsContactC. Lacy Thompsoncalvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov / (228) 688-3333LocationStennis Space Center Related Terms

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Eclipses Near and Far

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 8:39am

On April 8, 2024, North America will witness its last total solar eclipse for more than twenty years. Other parts of the world will experience the rare celestial event in the coming decade. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, blocking its disk from view but making its corona visible in a dazzling display. Although spectacular when seen from the ground, observed from space, solar eclipses appear as large shadows moving across the face of the Earth. The unique geometry of the Earth-Sun-Moon system allows total solar eclipses to occur. Eclipses also occur outside the Earth-Moon system, although the geometries of those worlds rarely if ever produce the stunning display visible on Earth. Spacecraft exploring other worlds have documented these extraterrestrial eclipses.

Left: Schematic geometry of a solar eclipse; sizes and distances not to scale. Right: Path of the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse. Image credit: courtesy Sky & Telescope.

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, with the Moon casting its shadow on its home planet. Although the Sun is much larger than the Moon, it is also much farther away. As seen from Earth, the Sun and Moon have roughly the same angular diameter and appear roughly the same size in the sky. A total eclipse occurs when the Moon blocks out the Sun’s disk entirely. Because the Moon does not orbit in a perfect circle around the Earth, it appears smaller at its farthest point thus creating annular eclipses. Moons around other planets can also create eclipses although their different sizes relative to the Sun do not create our familiar eclipses. Planets with multiple moons can have more than one eclipse occur at the same time.

Left: Gemini XII astronauts photograph the total solar eclipse from Earth orbit in November 1966. Middle: Surveyor 3 observes a solar eclipse from the Moon in April 1967. Right: In November 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts returning from Moon experienced a solar eclipse as the Earth blocked the Sun shortly before splashdown.

Gemini XII astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin for the first time photographed a solar eclipse from Earth orbit on Nov. 12, 1966. Sixteen hours into their flight, the nearly total eclipse came into view as they flew over the Galapagos Islands and Aldrin took several photographs and a short film clip. Calculations showed that Gemini XII passed within 3.4 miles of the center of the eclipse’s path that traversed South America. The Surveyor 3 spacecraft observed the first solar eclipse from the Moon on April 24, 1967. Unlike solar eclipses observed on Earth, this time the Earth itself blocked the Sun – observers on Earth saw the event as a lunar eclipse as the Moon passed through the Earth’s shadow. In November 1969, as Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, Richard F. Gordon, and Alan L. Bean neared Earth on their return from the second lunar landing – during which they visited Surveyor 3 – orbital mechanics had a show in store for them. Their trajectory passed through Earth’s shadow, treating them to a total solar eclipse. From their perspective, the Earth appeared about 15 times larger than the Sun. Gordon radioed Mission Control, “We’re getting a spectacular view at eclipse,” and Bean proclaimed it a “fantastic sight.” Conrad reported on the rapidly changing scenery, with the Sun illuminating the Earth’s atmosphere in a 360-degree ring with ever-changing colors while the planet remained pitch black. In the darkness, they could see flashes of lightning in thunderstorms appearing as fireflies. As their eyes adapted to the dark portion of the Earth, they saw landmasses such as India and even city lights. In the center of the Earth’s dark disc they reported seeing a large bright circle that turned out to be the glint of the full Moon reflecting off the Indian Ocean.

Left: The Moon’s shadow photographed from Mir during the August 1999 eclipse. Image credit: courtesy French space agency CNES. Middle: NASA astronaut Donald R. Pettit observed the first solar eclipse from the International Space Station during Expedition 6 in December 2002. Right: Pettit’s second eclipse during Expedition 31 in May 2012.

The credit belongs to French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré for taking the first photograph from Earth orbit of the Moon’s shadow during a solar eclipse. He photographed the Aug. 11, 1999, total eclipse pass over England while onboard the Russian space station Mir as an Expedition 27 flight engineer. NASA astronaut Donald R. Pettit claims the title as the first person to photograph an eclipse from the International Space Station when he observed the Dec. 2, 2002, total eclipse during Expedition 6. As an additional claim, on May 20, 2012, Pettit observed his second eclipse from the space station during Expedition 31, this one an annular eclipse over the Western Pacific Ocean.

Left: Expedition 12 image of the March 2006 total eclipse over the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Middle: Expedition 52 image of the August 2017 total eclipse over North America. Right: Expedition 63 image of the June 2020 annular eclipse.

Left and middle: Two views of the eclipse over Antarctica in December 2021, from the Expedition 66 crew aboard the space station, left, and from the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite. Right: DSCOVR image of the October 2023 annular solar eclipse over North America.

Space station crews have observed and documented a number of solar eclipses in addition to Pettit’s two sightings, their ability to see the Moon’s shadow as it traverses the Earth’s surface determined by their orbital trajectory. Expedition 12 observed the total eclipse on March 29, 2006, Expedition 43 documented the total eclipse on March 25, 2015, Expedition 52 observed the most recent total eclipse visible from North America on Aug. 21, 2017, Expedition 61 observed the annular eclipse on Dec. 26, 2019, Expedition 63 saw the annular eclipse on June 21, 2020, Expedition 66 imaged the total eclipse over Antarctica on Dec. 4, 2021, and Expedition 70 viewed the annular eclipse visible in North America on Oct. 14, 2023. Positioned nearly one million miles away at the L1 Earth-Sun Lagrange point, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite keeps a watchful eye on Earth’s climate. NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a camera and telescope aboard DSCOVR, has taken stunning images of the Moon’s shadow during eclipses as well as the Moon transiting across the face of the Earth.

Mars

Beyond the Earth-Moon system, eclipses do not occur on Mercury and Venus since they lack natural satellites to block out the Sun. Mars has two small satellites, Phobos and Deimos, both too small to fully eclipse the Sun, even though it appears only half as big as on Earth. Several rovers have captured Phobos and Deimos as they form annular eclipses. Some astronomers contend that due to the small sizes of the Martian satellites, especially Deimos, compared to the Sun, these are technically transits, not eclipses, but no formal definition exists. The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity imaged the first eclipses from the surface of Mars shortly after its arrival on the planet, first of Deimos on March 4, 2004, followed by Phobos three days later. More recently, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover imaged the annular eclipse of Phobos on April 20, 2022, and the eclipse (or transit) of Deimos on Jan. 22, 2024.

Left: Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity images of Deimos, left, and Phobos crossing in front of the Sun. Middle: Perseverance image of a Phobos annular eclipse in April 2022. Right: Perseverance image of a Deimos eclipse (or transit) in January 2024.

Jupiter

Left: Hubble Space Telescope infrared image of a triple eclipse on Jupiter on March 28, 2004, with moons Ganymede, Io, and Callisto casting shadows on the planet. Middle: Hubble Space Telescope image of the Jan. 24, 2015, multiple eclipse on Jupiter, with five of its moons – Callisto, Io, Europa, Amalthea, and Thebe – casting shadows on the planet. Right: Europa eclipses Io in December 2014, as observed through an Earth-based telescope. Image credit: courtesy Jen Miller and Joy Chavez, Gemini Observatory.

Since the outer gas giant planets do not have solid surfaces, no spacecraft has imaged an actual eclipse by one of the multitude of moons orbiting these worlds. What we can observe, through ground-based and orbiting telescopes and spacecraft are the shadows cast by the moons on their home planets. Eclipses on Jupiter are not exceptionally rare given the planet’s large size compared to its many moons and greater distance from the Sun. Only five of Jupiter’s moons, Amalthea, Io, Europe, Ganymede, and Callisto are either large enough or close enough to the planet to completely occult the Sun. And given the low tilts of the moons’ orbits, they cast a shadow on every revolution. Double, triple and multiple simultaneous eclipses are not uncommon. The Hubble Space Telescope has observed numerous such events. Given the number of Jupiter’s moons, especially the four large Galilean moons, and that their orbits all lie very close to Jupiter’s equatorial plane, they occasionally eclipse each other, with the outer moons passing between the Sun and the inner moons. When Earth passes through Jupiter’s equatorial plane, fortunate observers can capture these rare events using ground-based telescopes, sometimes accidentally as they observe the Galilean moons for other reasons.

Left: Juno image of Io’s shadow on Jupiter in September 2019. Right: Juno image of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede casting its shadow on the planet in February 2022.

The Juno spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter since 2016, has returned stunning images of Jupiter’s cloud patterns. On Sept. 11, 2019, it captured a spectacular image of Io’s shadow on Jupiter’s colorful cloud tops. On Feb. 25, 2022, Juno imaged the largest moon Ganymede’s shadow.

Saturn and beyond

Left: As it orbited Saturn, in November 2009 Cassini imaged eclipses of moons Titan, center, and Enceladus, lower right of Titan, and the planet’s rings. Middle: Titan casts its shadow, elongated by the planet’s curvature, on Saturn in this November 2009 image from the Cassini orbiter. Right: Sequential Hubble Space Telescope February 2009 images of a quadruple eclipse, as Saturn’s moons Enceladus, Dione, Titan, and Mimas cast their shadows on the planet.

Like Jupiter, dozens of moons orbit around the ringed planet Saturn, providing ample opportunities for telescopes and spacecraft to observe them passing in front of and casting their shadows onto the planet. The Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn between 2004 and 2017, captured thousands of images of the planet, its rings, and its moons. On many occasions, Cassini passed behind the planet and its moons, creating artificial eclipses, while at other times the spacecraft imaged the moons’ shadows on the planet’s cloud tops. The Hubble Space Telescope captured a series of images of a rare quadruple eclipse on Feb. 24, 2009, as Saturn’s moons Enceladus, Dione, Titan, and Mimas transited across the planet, casting their shadows on the cloud tops.

The Cassini spacecraft created this artificial eclipse of Saturn in November 2013 as it traveled beyond Saturn during one of its orbits, with many objects, including Earth, made visible.

On July 19, 2013, Cassini took a series of images from a distance of about 750,000 miles as Saturn eclipsed the Sun. In the event dubbed The Day the Earth Smiled, people on Earth received notification in advance that Cassini would be taking their picture from 900 million miles away, and were encouraged to smile at its camera. In addition to the Earth and Moon, Cassini captured Venus, Mars, and seven of Saturn’s satellites in the photograph.

Left: Composite image showing the relative apparent sizes of the Sun and a selection of planetary moons. Image credit: courtesy sdoisgo.blogspot.com. Middle: July 2006 Hubble Space Telescope image of Uranus and its moon Ariel casting a shadow on the planet. Right: The New Horizons spacecraft created an artificial eclipse as it flew behind Pluto during its July 2015 flyby, the Sun’s rays highlighting its tenuous atmosphere.

The Earth occupies a unique position with the nearly equal apparent diameters of the Moon and the Sun, providing opportunities for annular and total solar eclipses. As viewed from planets farther in the solar system, the Sun’s apparent diameter diminishes, with the apparent sizes of the moons orbiting those planets either larger or smaller than the Sun. Eclipses as we know them do not exist elsewhere in the solar system. Spacecraft exploring those remote worlds easily create artificial eclipses by passing through the planets’ shadows, often revealing important information, such as New Horizons imaging the tenuous atmosphere surrounding Pluto.

Paths of solar eclipses between 2021 and 2030. Image credit: courtesy Greatamericaneclipse.com.

The next total solar eclipse visible in North America will not occur until 2044, but over the next few years, several eclipses visible in other parts of the world will no doubt be targets of opportunity for astronauts’ cameras aboard the space station. And spacecraft exploring planets in the solar system will continue to document eclipses in those faraway places.

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Categories: NASA

The Marshall Star for April 3, 2024

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 4:14pm

23 Min Read The Marshall Star for April 3, 2024 Huntsville, Marshall Preparing to Celebrate Total Solar Eclipse

By Celine Smith

On April 8 between 1 and 3 p.m., the Moon will pass between the Sun and Earth to create a total solar eclipse for 15 states. While Alabama will experience a partial eclipse, area residents can enjoy some fun-filled festivities to celebrate the event.

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, in collaboration with the Alabama Space Grant Consortium and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, will host a family-friendly eclipse watch party. There will be children’s activities in the Spark!Lab, starting at 10 a.m. Dennis Gallagher, a plasma physicist within the Heliophysics and Planetary Science branch at Marshall, will give eclipse presentations at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. in the National Geographic Theater at the center. Those attending the eclipse watch party will receive a pair of eclipse glasses with their ticket, which is included in the price of general admission to the rocket center. Civil servants can receive free admission for themselves and family members with their ID badge, while Marshall contractors can gain admission with their badge.

Joe Matus, an engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, captured this image of the total solar eclipse Aug. 21, 2017, near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. NASA/Joe Matus

Marshall team members don’t have to leave the arsenal to enjoy the solar eclipse. Food trucks will be staying at the food corral during the eclipse, so viewers can enjoy lunch while witnessing the natural phenomenon.

Meanwhile, experts from NASA and Marshall have collaborated with the city of Russellville, Arkansas, to provide educational outreach opportunities and panel discussions. The public is invited to this free event, with more than 100,000 tourists expected to visit Russellville for the rare experience.

Due to the length of the eclipse totality in Russellville, NASA is planning to host part of the agency’s live television broadcast from the city, as well as conduct several scientific presentations and public events for visitors. There, the total eclipse will last for four minute and 11 seconds.

Everyone is invited to experience the eclipse through NASA’s live coverage on NASA+ and the NASA app. NASA also will stream the broadcast live on its Facebook, X, YouTube, and Twitch social media accounts, as well as a telescope-only feed of eclipse views on the NASA TV media channel and YouTube.

Those viewing the eclipse should take proper precautions to protect their eyes. Without protective eyewear during a partial eclipse, viewers are susceptible to eye damage. It’s also highly recommended that eclipse viewers wear a hat, use sunscreen, and avoid exposing a lot of skin.

According to Gallagher, the Sun’s magnetic field is affected by its rotation. When the Sun rotates enough, the magnetic field can no longer hold its energy releasing solar flares. There are even some instances where bundles of the Sun’s magnetic field and ionized gas are ejected together from the Sun’s surface, creating a coronal mass ejection. These arches and arcs may be visible during the eclipse.

“Luminous tendrils of ionized gas reaching two to three solar radii in all directions away from the Sun’s surface will be revealed in graceful loops and sweeping arches off into the distance,” Gallagher said.

“Coronal mass ejections and solar flare emissions are a direct hazard to humans and human made systems. Coronal mass ejections specifically interact with Earth’s magnetic field to create additional hazards in space and on Earth’s surface. While the Sun seems a steady life-giving companion, uninvolved with Earthly travails, a total solar eclipse offers everyone, including scientists, the chance to get a closer look at what goes on at the Sun behind the blinding glare of its nuclear heart.”

Read more about the 2024 total solar eclipse from NASA.

Smith, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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Hi-C Rocket Experiment Could Provide New Look at Solar Flares

By Jessica Barnett

For a brief moment in April, team members with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center could get their best opportunity yet to study a solar flare using a combination of new technologies in the first-ever Solar Flare Sounding Rocket Campaign.

Teams are planning to launch two rocket experiments within a minute of each other during an active solar flare. The High-resolution Coronal Flare mission (Hi-C Flare) led by Marshall and the fourth Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager mission (FOXSI-4), led by the University of Minnesota, have complementary instrumentation designed to study the extreme energies involved with solar flares.

From left, NASA test engineer William Hogue, Hi-C principal investigator Sabrina Savage, and NASA systems scientist Ken Kobayashi stand in front of the Hi-C flare instrument section after it has been packaged and prepared for shipping from White Sands to Alaska. NASA

“This is a pioneering campaign,” said Sabrina Savage, principal investigator for Hi-C Flare. “Launching sounding rockets to observe the Sun to test new technologies optimized for flare observations has not even been an option until now.”

Following a month of integration and testing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Hi-C Flare team is completing two weeks of launch site integration at the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. The planned campaign window will be open for two weeks, beginning April 5. Each morning, the teams will spend about five hours preparing the experiment for launch, followed by up to four hours of monitoring solar data for the right flare that meets the mission study criteria. If none occurs, the rockets will be restowed in shelters overnight, and the launch will be reattempted the next day.

But if the right one does appear, the experiments will launch on Black Brant IX sounding rockets. Hi-C Flare is equipped with the third iteration of the High-Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C 3. This will be the fourth flight for Hi-C, but its first with such ride-along instruments as COOL-AID (COronal OverLapagram – Ancillary Imaging Diagnostics), CAPRI-SUN (high-Cadence low-energy Passband x-Ray detector with Integrated full-SUN field of view), and SSAXI (Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager). With these new tools, the team hopes to further solar research by capturing data at flare energies in higher-than-ever resolution and cadence.

Austin Bumbalough, an electronics engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, waves from behind the Hi-C payload in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building in White Sands, New Mexico, in February 2024. The payload will be used in the Hi-C rocket experiment planned to take place sometime in April.NASA

“It’s a different wavelength from previous Hi-C flights, there are different features that we expect to see on the Sun’s corona, and there’s a slightly different temperature range of features that we expect to see,” said Adam Kobelski, institutional principal investigator for the SSAXI instrument.

The Sun is currently experiencing the “solar maximum” phase of its activity cycle, which increases the chances of a solar flare occurring during the campaign window. The study requires a specific type of flare, one that registers as a C5-class or higher with a duration longer than the rocket flight. While it isn’t yet possible to precisely predict when a solar flare will occur or how long it will be, the team has developed algorithms to provide alerts and predictive diagnostics using data from solar telescopes in orbit, factoring in the complexity of active regions and real-time changes to X-ray and extreme ultraviolet solar output.

The alert won’t be instant, however. In fact, it could take several minutes for the information to get from a telescope in space to the team on the ground to the team members who launch the rocket – and even then, due to the science requirements for the two missions, Hi-C Flare is planning to launch after FOXSI-4 takes flight. The flare may have progressed by up to 10 minutes by the time Hi-C Flare begins making observations.

The Hi-C flare instrument sits inside a clean tent for integration testing at White Sands Missile Range in February 2024. NASA

“That’s why we’re requiring a long-duration flare, so we can guarantee ourselves that we will see it,” said Genevieve Vigil, technical and camera lead for Hi-C and COOL-AID.

Once in air, sensors on the rocket will point the cameras toward the Sun and stabilize the instrumentation. Then, a shutter door will open and allow the cameras to acquire data for about five minutes before the door closes and the rocket falls back to Earth. Vigil said the rocket will land somewhere in the Alaskan tundra, where it will stay until weather conditions are safe enough for it to be retrieved via helicopter and for the team to begin fully processing the data.

Kobelski is hoping to see small-scale heating in the corona.

“It’s a very unique thing that only this set of instrumentation can do, since it has the high resolution and can see very hot things,” he said. “I would like to see actual structure in the heating that occurs in the corona.”

The Hi-C Flare experiment and rocket subsystems are staged on the launch rail and prepared for integration with the rocket motors in April 2024.NASA

For Vigil, it’s about testing the equipment and the process.

“I want to show that this method – of catching a flare in action, then launching a rocket to go take pictures of it – is an effective way to study flares,” she said. “That would open a lot of doors to a lot of other kinds of instruments that you could build and specifically design for flare studies, that you could then test.”

Marshall Space Flight Center leads the Hi-C Flare experiment in partnership with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Montana State University in Bozeman. Launch support is provided at Poker Flat Research Range by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, which is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA’s Heliophysics Division manages the sounding-rocket program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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‘Hooray for SLS!’ Children’s Book Launches on NASA.gov

“Hooray for SLS!” – the first in a series of illustrated children’s books designed to introduce the youngest members of the Artemis Generation ages 3 to 8 to the unique elements that make NASA’s Artemis campaign possible – is now publicly available on NASA’s website.

“Hooray for SLS!” is a NASA product written by Lane Polak and illustrated by Heather Legge-Click.NASA

In addition to a downloadable version of the book, coloring sheets, and student activities online, parents and educators can also watch and listen to a read aloud version of the book on YouTube.

“Hooray for SLS!”is a NASA product written by Lane Polak and illustrated by Heather Legge-Click. Learn more about SLS (Space Launch System) and check out the book here.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the SLS Program.

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I Am Artemis: Mat Bevill

Significant events in history keep finding Mat Bevill. As the associate chief engineer for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program, Bevill assists the program chief engineer by interfacing with each of the element chief engineers and helping make critical decisions for the development and flight of the SLS mega rocket that will power NASA’s Artemis campaign. With the launch of Artemis II, the first crewed test flight of SLS and the Orion spacecraft, Bevill’s technical leadership and support for the SLS Chief Engineer’s Office will place him, once again, at a notable moment in time.

Mat Bevill, the associate chief engineer for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program, stands in front of a four-segment solid rocket booster that powered the space shuttle at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA/Brandon Hancock

“Think of me as the assistant coach. While the head coach is on the front line leading the team, I’m on the sidelines providing feedback and advising those efforts,” said Bevill. As a jack-of-all-trades, he enables progress in any way that he can, something he’s familiar with after 37 years with NASA. And, on Nov. 16, 2022, as the SLS rocket roared to life for the first time with the Artemis I test flight, Bevill couldn’t help but reflect on a lifetime of experiences and lessons that led to that moment.

Bevill began his NASA career while he was still attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. During his sophomore year as a mechanical engineer student, he applied for the agency’s internship program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Just a few months before Bevill began his journey with NASA, the Challenger accident occurred, taking the lives of all seven crewmembers in January 1986. Bevill joined the Solid Motor Branch at Marshall as teams across the agency worked to understand the cause of the accident. It was a fast-paced environment, and Bevill had to learn quickly about the solid rocket boosters.

“It was a surreal experience, but I was privileged to work with those people. We were figuring out tough lessons together and working toward a common goal,” Bevill recalls.

Those tough lessons provided Bevill with tremendous hands-on experience related to the solid rocket booster hardware that would not only shape his career, but, later, the SLS rocket. The five-segment solid rocket boosters that provide more than 75% of thrust for SLS to go to the Moon are based on the same four-segment design that powered 135 shuttle missions to low Earth orbit. His experience from his time with the shuttle led him to deputy chief engineer for the SLS Boosters Office.

Just as for Artemis I, Bevill will be standing by and serving as the “assistant coach” for Artemis II as the SLS rocket, once again, takes flight and sends the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon. “SLS has been the crowning jewel of my career, and I consider myself blessed to be a part of NASA’s history,” Bevill said.

SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.

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NASA Names Finalists to Help Deal with Dust in Human Lander Challenge

NASA selected 12 finalist teams to compete in the next round of the Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) competition. In 2023, NASA invited undergraduate and graduate students from accredited colleges and universities in the United States to propose innovative solutions to manage the lunar dust a spacecraft stirs up when landing on the Moon.

NASA’s Artemis campaign will establish a long-term human presence on and around the Moon for the benefit of all, and one of the challenges the agency and its partners must address is the particularly dusty aspect of landing on the lunar surface. These university-level teams will spend the next several months continuing to develop their concepts for managing or preventing the cloud of dust created when using rocket engines to land on unprepared surfaces like the Moon. This effect is called plume surface interaction and can damage assets NASA plans to establish on the Moon’s surface, like habitats and scientific experiments.

“Each team brings a unique perspective and I’m excited to see the cumulation of each team’s extensive research and concept development at the 2024 Forum,” said Jamshid Samareh, lead for the technology identification and assessment team at NASA’s Langley Research Center. “Their proposed system-level designs showcase the brilliance and dedication of the Artemis Generation to our collective mission. I am confident their work will propel us closer to the Moon and hopefully inspire future advancements in space exploration.”

The 2024 HuLC Finalist Teams are:

Colorado School of Mines
- “Prudent Landers – FAST”
- Advisor: Mark Florida, Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid, David Purcell
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
- “Plume Additive for Reducing Surface Ejecta and Cratering (PARSEC)”
- Advisor: Dr. Siwei Fan
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
- “Ceramic Research Advancement Technology at Embry-Riddle (C.R.A.T.E.R.)”
- Advisor: Seetha Raghavan
Ohio Northern University
- “HuLC Smash”
- Dr. Louis DiBerardino
Texas A&M University
- “Maroon Moon: Preliminary Surface Stabilization to Mitigate Lunar Plume Surface Interaction”
- Advisor: John F. Connolly, Dr. Jean-Louis Briaud
Texas A&M University
- “Synthetic Orbital Landing Area for Crater Elimination (SOLACE)”
- Advisor: Dr. Helen Reed
Texas State University
- “Numerical Simulation and Physical Validation of Regolith Ejecta During Plume Surface Interaction”
- Advisor: Dr. Bin Xiao
The College of New Jersey
- “TCNJ Adaptable Regolith Retention Program (TARRP)”
- Advisor: Mohammed Alabsi
University of California San Diego
- “Microwave Lunar Sintering of Nanophase Iron Enriched Lunar Regolith for the Creation of a Lunar Landing Pad”
- Advisor: Dr. Amy Eguchi, Dr. Zahra Sadeghizadeh, Dr. Ross Turner
University of Colorado Boulder (Graduate Team)
- “Lunar Surface Assessment Tool (LSAT): A Simulation of Lunar Dust Dynamics for Risk Analysis”
- Advisor: James Nabity
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- “HINDER: Holistic Integration of Navigational Dynamics for Erosion Reduction”
- Advisor: Laura Villafane Roca
University of Michigan
- “ARC-LIGHT: Algorithm for Robust Characterization of Lunar surface Imaging for Ground Hazards and Trajectory”
- Advisor: Mirko Gamba, Chris Ruf

The finalist selection process involved a rigorous assessment of each team’s proposal package submission, consisting of a 5–7-page concept proposal and a two-minute summary video. The judging panel made up of subject matter experts from NASA’s Human Landing System Program considered factors such as feasibility, innovation, and adherence to NASA’s safety standards. Each team will receive a $7,000 stipend award to facilitate further development of their proposed concept and their full participation in the 2024 HuLC Forum in Huntsville in June. The 12 finalists will make final presentations to a panel of NASA and industry experts at the onsite HuLC Forum. The top three winning teams will share a prize purse of $18,000.

The Human Lander Challenge is sponsored by NASA’s Human Landing System Program and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Human Landing System Program.

Through Artemis, NASA will land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and prepare for future astronaut missions to Mars.

For full competition details, visit the Human Lander Challenge website.

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Chandra: Stunning Echo of 800-year-old Explosion

In the year 1181 a rare supernova explosion appeared in the night sky, staying visible for 185 consecutive days. Historical records show that the supernova looked like a temporary ‘star’ in the constellation Cassiopeia shining as bright as Saturn.

Ever since, scientists have tried to find the supernova’s remnant. At first it was thought that this could be the nebula around the pulsar – the dense core of a collapse star – named 3C 58. However closer investigations revealed that the pulsar is older than supernova 1181.

Pa 30 is a nearly circular nebula with a central star in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is pictured here combining images from several telescopes. This composite image uses data across the electromagnetic spectrum and shows a spectacular new view of the supernova remnant.X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/U. Manitoba/C. Treyturik, (XMM-Newton) ESA/C. Treyturik; Optical: (Pan-STARRS) NOIRLab/MDM/Dartmouth/R. Fesen; Infrared: (WISE) NASA/JPL/Caltech/; Image Processing: Univ. of Manitoba/Gilles Ferrand and Jayanne English

In the last decade, another contender was discovered; Pa 30 is a nearly circular nebula with a central star in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is pictured here combining images from several telescopes. This composite image uses data across the electromagnetic spectrum and shows a spectacular new view of the supernova remnant. This allows us to marvel at the same object that appeared in our ancestors’ night sky more than 800 years ago.

X-ray observations by ESA’s XMM-Newton (blue) show the full extent of the nebula and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (cyan) pinpoints its central source. The nebula is barely visible in optical light but shines bright in infrared light, collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer (red and pink). Interestingly, the radial structure in the image consists of heated sulfur that glows in visible light, observed with the ground-based Hiltner 2.4 m telescope at the MDM Observatory (green) in Arizona, USA, as do the stars in the background by Pan-STARRS (white) in Hawaii, USA.

Studies of the composition of the different parts of the remnant have led scientists to believe that it was formed in a thermonuclear explosion, and more precisely a special kind of supernova called a sub-luminous Type Iax event. During this event two white dwarf stars merged, and typically no remnant is expected for this kind of explosion. But incomplete explosions can leave a kind of ‘zombie’ star, such as the massive white dwarf star in this system. This very hot star, one of the hottest stars in the Milky Way (about 200 000 degrees Celsius), has a fast stellar wind with speeds up to 16,000 km/h. The combination of the star and the nebula makes it a unique opportunity for studying such rare explosions.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

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Europa Clipper Survives and Thrives in ‘Outer Space’ on Earth

In less than six months, NASA is set to launch Europa Clipper on a 1.6-billion-mile voyage to Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa. From the wild vibrations of the rocket ride to the intense heat and cold of space to the punishing radiation of Jupiter, it will be a journey of extremes. The spacecraft was recently put through a series of hard-core tests at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to ensure it’s up to the challenge.

Called environmental testing, the battery of trials simulates the environment that the spacecraft will face, subjecting it to shaking, chilling, airlessness, electromagnetic fields, and more.

Europa Clipper is seen in the 25-Foot Space Simulator at JPL in February, before the start of thermal vacuum testing. A battery of tests ensures that the NASA spacecraft can withstand the extreme hot, cold, and airless environment of space. NASA/JPL-Caltech

“These were the last big tests to find any flaws,” said JPL’s Jordan Evans, the mission’s project manager. “Our engineers executed a well-designed and challenging set of tests that put the system through its paces. What we found is that the spacecraft can handle the environments that it will see during and after launch. The system performed very well and operates as expected.”

The most recent environmental test for Europa Clipper was also one of the most elaborate, requiring 16 days to complete. The spacecraft is the largest NASA has ever built for a planetary mission and one of the largest ever to squeeze into JPL’s historic 85-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC). Known as the 25-foot Space Simulator, the chamber creates a near-perfect vacuum inside to mimic the airless environment of space.

At the same time, engineers subjected the hardware to the high temperatures it will experience on the side of Europa Clipper that faces the Sun while the spacecraft is close to Earth. Beams from powerful lamps at the base of the Space Simulator bounced off a massive mirror at its top to mimic the heat the spacecraft will endure.

To simulate the journey away from the Sun, the lamps were dimmed and liquid nitrogen filled tubes in the chamber walls to chill them to temperatures replicating space. The team then gauged whether the spacecraft could warm itself, monitoring it with about 500 temperature sensors, each of which had been attached by hand.

TVAC marked the culmination of environmental testing, which included a regimen of tests to ensure the electrical and magnetic components that make up the spacecraft don’t interfere with one another.

NASA’s Europa Clipper is seen being lifted into the Space Simulator at JPL in February. Thermal vacuum testing, which lasted 16 days, ensures that the spacecraft will withstand the harsh conditions of space.NASA/JPL-Caltech

The orbiter also underwent vibration, shock, and acoustics testing. During vibration testing, the spacecraft was shaken repeatedly – up and down and side to side – the same way it will be jostled aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during liftoff. Shock testing involved pyrotechnics to mimic the explosive jolt the spacecraft will get when it separates from the rocket to fly its mission. Finally, acoustic testing ensured that Europa Clipper can withstand the noise of launch, when the rumbling of the rocket is so loud it can damage the spacecraft if it’s not sturdy enough.

“There still is work to be done, but we’re on track for an on-time launch,” Evans said. “And the fact that this testing was so successful is a huge positive and helps us rest more easily.”

Later this spring, the spacecraft will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. There, teams of engineers and technicians will carry out final preparations with eyes on the clock. Europa Clipper’s launch period opens Oct. 10.

After liftoff, the spacecraft will zip toward Mars, and in late February 2025, it will be close enough to use the Red Planet’s gravitational force for added momentum. From there, the solar-powered spacecraft will swing back toward Earth to get another slingshot boost – from our own planet’s gravitational field – in December 2026.

Then it’s on to the outer solar system, where Europa Clipper is set to arrive at Jupiter in 2030. The spacecraft will orbit the gas giant while it flies by Europa 49 times, dipping as close as 16 miles from the moon’s surface to gather data with its powerful suite of science instruments. The information gathered will tell scientists more about the moon’s watery interior.

A timelapse video shows engineers and technicians moving NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft into the 85-foot-tall Space Simulator at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The spacecraft underwent thermal vacuum testing in the chamber in February 2024 and passed with flying colors.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. The mission’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

Learn more about Europa.

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NASA Sets Coverage for Astronaut Loral O’Hara, Crewmates Return

Three crew members are scheduled to begin their return to Earth on April 5, from the International Space Station. NASA will provide live coverage of their departure from the orbital complex and landing.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Loral O’Hara uses a portable glovebag to replace components on a biological printer, the BioFabrication Facility, that is testing the printing of organ-like tissues in microgravity.NASA

NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus will depart from the station’s Rassvet module in the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft at 10:55 p.m. CDT April 5, and will head for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, at 2:18 a.m. April 6.

Coverage will begin at 7 p.m. on April 5 with farewells and the Soyuz hatch closure on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.

O’Hara is completing a mission spanning 204 days in space that covered 3,264 orbits of the Earth and 86.5 million miles. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya launched with NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson to the station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft on March 23. Dyson will remain aboard the station for a six-month research mission.

After landing, the three crew members will fly on a helicopter from the landing site to the recovery staging city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. O’Hara then will depart back to Houston.

The HOSC (Huntsville Operations Support Center) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, the Commercial Crew Program, and Artemis missions, as well as science and technology demonstration missions. The Payload Operations Integration Center within the HOSC operates, plans, and coordinates the science experiments onboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

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Categories: NASA

NASA Selects Companies to Advance Moon Mobility for Artemis Missions

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 4:06pm

An artist’s concept design of NASA’s Lunar Terrain Vehicle.NASA

NASA has selected Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab to advance capabilities for a lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) that Artemis astronauts will use to travel around the lunar surface, conducting scientific research during the agency’s Artemis campaign at the Moon and preparing for human missions to Mars.

The awards leverage NASA’s expertise in developing and operating rovers to build commercial capabilities that support scientific discovery and long-term human exploration on the Moon. NASA intends to begin using the LTV for crewed operations during Artemis V.

“We look forward to the development of the Artemis generation lunar exploration vehicle to help us advance what we learn at the Moon,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This vehicle will greatly increase our astronauts’ ability to explore and conduct science on the lunar surface while also serving as a science platform between crewed missions.”

NASA will acquire the LTV as a service from industry. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, milestone-based Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract with firm-fixed-price task orders has a combined maximum potential value of $4.6 billion for all awards.

Artist concept of Lunar Outpost’s Lunar Dawn lunar terrain vehicle.Credit: Lunar Outpost Artist concept of Intuitive Machines’ Moon RACER lunar terrain vehicle.Credit: Intuitive Machines Artist concept of Venturi Astrolab’s FLEX lunar terrain vehicle.Credit: Astrolab

Each provider will begin with a feasibility task order, which will be a year-long special study to develop a system that meets NASA’s requirements through the preliminary design maturity project phase. The agency will issue a subsequent request for task order proposal to eligible provider(s) for a demonstration mission to continue developing the LTV, deliver it to the surface of the Moon, and validate its performance and safety ahead of Artemis V. NASA anticipates making an award to only one provider for the demonstration. NASA will issue additional task orders to provide unpressurized rover capabilities for the agency’s moonwalking and scientific exploration needs through 2039.

The LTV will be able to handle the extreme conditions at the Moon’s South Pole and will feature advanced technologies for power management, autonomous driving, and state of the art communications and navigation systems. Crews will use the LTV to explore, transport scientific equipment, and collect samples of the lunar surface, much farther than they could on foot, enabling increased science returns.

Between Artemis missions, when crews are not on the Moon, the LTV will operate remotely to support NASA’s scientific objectives as needed. Outside those times, the provider will have the ability to use their LTV for commercial lunar surface activities unrelated to NASA missions.

“We will use the LTV to travel to locations we might not otherwise be able to reach on foot, increasing our ability to explore and make new scientific discoveries,” said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With the Artemis crewed missions, and during remote operations when there is not a crew on the surface, we are enabling science and discovery on the Moon year around.”

NASA provided technical requirements, capabilities, and safety standards needed for LTV development and operations, and the selected companies have agreed to meet the key agency requirements. The contract request for proposal required each provider to propose a solution to provide end-to-end services, including LTV development, delivery to the Moon, and execution of operations on the lunar surface.

Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts – including the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut – to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, technology evolution, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for crewed missions to Mars. Advanced rovers, along with the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft, commercial human landing systems and next-generation spacesuits, and Gateway are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.

Learn more about NASA’s Artemis campaign at:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Kathryn Hambleton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
kathryn.a.hambleton@nasa.gov

Victoria Ugalde / Nilufar Ramji
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
victoria.d.ugalde@nasa.gov / nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov

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Categories: NASA

Scientists Pursue the Total Solar Eclipse with NASA Jet Planes

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 2:30pm

5 min read

Scientists Pursue the Total Solar Eclipse with NASA Jet Planes

The April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse will produce stunning views across North America. While anyone along the eclipse path with a clear sky will see the spectacular event, the best view might be 50,000 feet in the air, aboard NASA’s WB-57 jet planes. That’s where a trio of NASA-funded teams are sending their scientific instruments to take measurements of the eclipse.

Two teams will image the Sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – and a third will measure the ionosphere, the upper electrically charged layer of Earth’s atmosphere. This information will help scientists better understand the structure and temperature of the corona, the effects of the Sun on Earth’s atmosphere, and even aid in the search of asteroids that may orbit near the Sun.

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse will produce stunning views across North America. While anyone along the eclipse path with a clear sky will see the spectacular event, the best view might be 50,000 feet in the air, aboard NASA’s WB-57 jet planes. That’s where a trio of NASA-funded teams are sending their scientific instruments to take measurements of the eclipse. Credit: NASA

During a total solar eclipse, the Moon perfectly blocks the bright face of the Sun, casting a small swath of Earth in darkness. With the Sun’s main light masked, the much dimmer solar corona becomes visible to the naked eye. This provides scientists a unique opportunity to study this mysterious region of the Sun. The brief blocking of sunlight also allows scientists to study how the Sun’s light affects Earth’s atmosphere.

In the past, solar eclipses have driven numerous scientific discoveries. For this solar eclipse, NASA is funding several scientific experiments – including the three using the WB-57s – to make measurements during the eclipse. NASA’s WB-57s fly much higher than commercial aircraft. This altitude allows the jets to fly above clouds – meaning no chance of missing the eclipse due to bad weather. Additionally, the height puts the jets above most of Earth’s atmosphere, which allows for the cameras to take crisper images and capture wavelengths, such as infrared light, that don’t make it to the ground. Since the planes can travel at 460 miles per hour, they’re also able to extend the time they spend in the Moon’s shadow. While the eclipse will last no more than four and a half minutes at any point on the ground, the planes will see an eclipse that lasts about 25 percent longer, over 6 minutes and 22 seconds.

This map shows the path of the 2024 total solar eclipse. The dark path across the continent is the path of totality. By flying along this path, the WB-57s will extend the amount of time they spend in totality.NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio/Michala Garrison; Eclipse Calculations By Ernie Wright, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

“By extending the duration of totality, we’re increasing the duration of how much data we can acquire,” said Shadia Habbal, a researcher at the University of Hawaii who leads of one of the WB-57 eclipse experiments.

Habbal’s experiment will fly spectrometers – which record specific wavelengths of light and cameras. The instruments will measure the temperature and chemical composition of the corona and coronal mass ejections, which are large bursts of solar material. With this data, scientists aim to better understand the structure of the corona and identify the source of the solar wind, the constant stream of particles emitted by the Sun.

Habbal hopes the results of their study will help differentiate between different competing models of how the corona is heated. “This light is our best probe short of sticking a thermometer in the corona,” Habbal said.

NASA/ESA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured this video of a coronal mass ejection on March 13, 2023. NASA/ESA/SOHO

For another team, led by Amir Caspi at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, it’s not their first time chasing eclipses by plane. Caspi led a previous trailblazing experiment with the WB-57s during the 2017 total solar eclipse that crossed America from sea to sea. Images taken from the jet were used to study the structure of the corona.

That time was the first the jets had ever been used to study an eclipse. This time, an improved camera setup will allow measurements in more wavelengths from infrared to visible light that will hopefully reveal new information about structures in the middle and lower corona. The observations, taken with a high-resolution, high-speed camera, could also help study a dust ring that circles the Sun and help search for asteroids that may orbit near the Sun.

“There isn’t a lot of data of the Sun at some of the wavelengths we’ll be studying,” Caspi said. “We don’t know what we’ll find, so it’s extra exciting to be making these measurements.”

A third experiment will study the effects of the Moon’s shadow on the ionosphere using an instrument called an ionosonde, which was designed at JHU APL. An ionosonde functions like a simple radar. The device sends out high-frequency radio signals and listens for their echoes rebounding off the ionosphere, which allows the researchers to measure how charged the ionosphere is.

“The eclipse basically serves as a controlled experiment,” said Bharat Kunduri, leader of the ionosphere project and a research assistant professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. “It gives us an opportunity to understand how changes in solar radiation can impact the ionosphere, which can in turn impact some of these technologies like radar and GPS that we rely on in our daily lives.”

By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Explore More 5 min read That Starry Night Sky? It’s Full of Eclipses Article 1 day ago 4 min read Scientists Use NASA Data to Predict Solar Corona Before Eclipse Article 1 day ago 2 min read Solar Eclipse Resources

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Categories: NASA

Carving a Path

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 2:25pm

NASA/Woody Hoburg

These aren’t highways in this picture taken on Aug. 15, 2023; they’re paths carved by glaciers as they move through the Karakoram mountain range north of the Himalayas.

Crew aboard the International Space Station take photos of Earth, recording how the planet changes over time due to human activity and natural events. This allows scientists to monitor disasters and direct response on the ground and study a number of phenomena, from the movement of glaciers to urban wildlife.

Image Credit: NASA/Woody Hoburg

Categories: NASA

NASA Receives 13 Nominations for the 28th Annual Webby Awards

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 12:44pm

6 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

Since it began in 1958, NASA has been charged by law with spreading the word about its work “to the widest extent practicable.” From typewritten press releases to analog photos and film, NASA has effectively moved into social media and other online communications. NASA’s broad reach across digital platforms has been recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), which gave NASA 13 nominations for the academy’s Webby Awards this year.

At NASA, we share the secrets of the universe through every platform and media there is. These nominations—for websites, podcasts, social media, apps and virtual experiences—showcase the breadth and depth of the NASA digital team, as they inspire the next generation to reach for the stars.

Marc Etkind

NASA Associate Administrator for Communications

Public Voting Opportunities

Voting for the Webby People’s Voice Awards—chosen by the public—is open now through Thursday, April 18. Voting links for each category are listed below.

28th Annual Webby Nominees Apps

Space Images
NASA, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech
Apps & Software-General Apps | Education, Science & Reference

The Space Images app provides stunning new images of space, planets, Mars, asteroids, stars, galaxies, and cutting-edge space technology as they are released each week from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Campaigns

NASA: Message in a Bottle
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Advertising, Media & PR-PR Campaigns | Best Community Engagement

NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign invited people around the world to sign their names to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. The poem connects the two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored. The campaign was a special collaboration, uniting art and science, by NASA, the U.S. Poet Laureate, and the Library of Congress.

Podcasts

NASA’s Curious Universe
Podcasts-Shows | Science & Education

As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity. NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter.

NASA’s Curious Universe: Suiting Up for Space
Podcasts-Individual Episodes | Science & Education

Spacesuits are more than just garments – in the airless vacuum of space or on the freezing surface of the moon, they keep astronauts alive. In this episode of NASA’s Curious Universe podcast, we explore how NASA engineers like Amy Ross and Paromita Mitra contributed to the development of the next generation of spacesuits.

Social

Hubble’s Servicing Mission 1
Social-Social Content Series | Education & Science

Shortly after its 1990 deployment, NASA discovered a flaw in the observatory’s primary mirror that affected the clarity of the telescope’s early images. Fortunately, Hubble’s design allowed astronauts to perform repairs, replace parts, and update its technology with new instruments while in orbit. Servicing Mission 1 was the first opportunity to install corrective optics that counteracted the primary mirror’s flaw, add new instruments, and conduct planned maintenance on the telescope.

NASA Social Media
Social-Features | Best Overall Social Presence, Brand

NASA’s flagship social media accounts host dynamic conversations about what’s new with America’s space agency, and why it matters. Spanning 15 social media platforms, these accounts reach more than 200 million people around the world.

NASA’s First Asteroid Sample Return Mission
Social-Social Campaigns | Education & Science

Science fiction became reality on Sept. 24, 2023 when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered rocks older than our own planet to the Utah desert, rocks that contain clues to the early solar system and the origins of life. The accompanying social media campaign and in-person, behind-the-scenes NASA Social event gave the public an inside look into NASA’s first mission to deliver an asteroid sample to Earth.

Annular Solar Eclipse
NASA, ADNET Systems Inc.
Social-Social Campaigns | Events & Live Streams

On Oct. 14, 2023, audiences across the web joined us live as a “ring of fire” eclipse. Visible in parts of the United States, Mexico, and many countries in South and Central America, millions of people in the Western Hemisphere experienced this eclipse.

Video

OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return (Official 4K NASA Live Stream)
Video-General Video | Events & Live Streams

Live coverage of OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, as it returned to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, to drop off material from asteroid Bennu. The spacecraft didn’t land, but continued on to a new mission, OSIRIS-APEX, to explore asteroid Apophis. Meanwhile, scientists hope the Bennu sample OSIRIS-REx dropped into the Utah desert will offer clues to whether asteroids colliding with Earth billions of years ago brought water and other key ingredients for life here.

Virtual Experiences

NASA’s Immersive Earth
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Metaverse & Virtual-General Virtual Experiences | Science & Education

NASA created the Earth Information Center with founding partners FEMA, EPA, NOAA, USAID, USDA and USGS. The Earth Information Center draws data from research conducted by NASA’s centers and government and industry partners. The interactive physical exhibit is located inside NASA Headquarters in Washington, where visitors are invited to see how our planet is changing in six key areas: sea level rise and coastal impacts, health and air quality, wildfires, greenhouse gases, sustainable energy, and agriculture.

Websites

NASA.gov
Websites and Mobile Sites-General Desktop & Mobile Sites | Government & Associations

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About the Webby Awards

Established in 1996, The Webbys is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS)—a 3000+ member judging body comprised of leading Internet experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities. The Webbys honors excellence in nine major media types: websites and mobile sites, video, advertising, media and public relations, apps and software, social, podcasts, games and Metaverse, virtual and artificial Intelligence (AI).

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category—The Webby Award and The Webby People’s Voice Award. Members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the Winners of The Webby Awards. The Webby People’s Voice is awarded by the voting public.

Categories: NASA

Rock Sampled by NASA’s Perseverance Embodies Why Rover Came to Mars

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 11:55am

The 21st rock core captured by NASA’s Perseverance has a composition that would make it good at trapping and preserving signs of microbial life, if any was once present. The sample – shown being taken here – was cored from “Bunsen Peak” on March 11, the 1,088th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.NASA/JPL-Caltech

The 24th sample taken by the six-wheeled scientist offers new clues about Jezero Crater and the lake it may have once held.

Analysis by instruments aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover indicate that the latest rock core taken by the rover was awash in water for an extended period of time in the distant past, perhaps as part of an ancient Martian beach. Collected on March 11, the sample is the rover’s 24th – a tally that includes 21 sample tubes filled with rock cores, two filled with regolith (broken rock and dust), and one with Martian atmosphere.

“To put it simply, this is the kind of rock we had hoped to find when we decided to investigate Jezero Crater,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena, California. “Nearly all the minerals in the rock we just sampled were made in water; on Earth, water-deposited minerals are often good at trapping and preserving ancient organic material and biosignatures. The rock can even tell us about Mars climate conditions that were present when it was formed.”

The presence of these specific minerals is considered promising for preserving a rich record of an ancient habitable environment on Mars. Such collections of minerals are important for guiding scientists to the most valuable samples for eventual return to Earth with the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Edge of the Crater’s Rim

Nicknamed “Bunsen Peak” for the Yellowstone National Park landmark, the rock – about 5.6 feet wide and 3.3 feet high (1.7 meters by 1 meter) – intrigued Perseverance scientists because the outcrop stands tall amid the surrounding terrain and has an interesting texture on one of its faces. They were also interested in Bunsen Peak’s vertical rockface, which offers a nice cross-section of the rock and, because it’s not flat-lying, is less dusty and therefore easier for science instruments to investigate.

Meet the 24th Martian sample collected by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover – “Comet Geyser,” a sample taken from a region of Jezero Crater that is especially rich in carbonate, a mineral linked to habitability.

Before taking the sample, Perseverance scanned the rock using the rover’s SuperCam spectrometers and the X-ray spectrometer PIXL, short for Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry. Then the rover used the rotor on the end of its robotic arm to grind (or abrade) a portion of the surface and scanned the rock again. The results: Bunsen Peak looks to be composed of about 75% carbonate grains cemented together by almost pure silica.

“The silica and parts of the carbonate appear microcrystalline, which makes them extremely good at trapping and preserving signs of microbial life that might have once lived in this environment,” said Sandra Siljeström, a Perseverance scientist from the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) in Stockholm. “That makes this sample great for biosignature studies if returned to Earth. Additionally, the sample might be one of the older cores collected so far by Perseverance, and that is important because Mars was at its most habitable early in its history.” A potential biosignature is a substance or structure that could be evidence of past life but may also have been produced without the presence of life.

The Bunsen Peak sample is the third that Perseverance has collected while exploring the “Margin Unit,” a geologic area that hugs the inner edge of Jezero Crater’s rim.

This mosaic shows a rock called “Bunsen Peak” where NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover extracted its 21st rock core and abraded a circular patch to investigate the rock’s composition.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Perseverance’s CacheCam captured this image of the rover’s latest cored sample – taken from an intriguing rock called “Bunsen Peak” – on March 11. NASA/JPL-Caltech

“We’re still exploring the margin and gathering data, but results so far may support our hypothesis that the rocks here formed along the shores of an ancient lake,” said Briony Horgan, a Perseverance scientist from Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana. “The science team is also considering other ideas for the origin of the Margin Unit, as there are other ways to form carbonate and silica. But no matter how this rock formed, it is really exciting to get a sample.”

The rover is working its way toward the westernmost portion of the Margin Unit. At the base of Jezero Crater’s rim, a location nicknamed “Bright Angel” is of interest to the science team because it may offer the first encounter with the much older rocks that make up the crater rim. Once it’s done exploring Bright Angel, Perseverance will begin an ascent of several months to the rim’s top.

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

News Media Contacts

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Charles Blue
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-802-5345
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov

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