NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly, Researchers Available to Discuss One-Year Mission

NASA will share the completion of American astronaut Scott Kelly’s one-year mission aboard the International Space Station with live television coverage of his return to Houston on Wednesday, March 2, and two news briefings on Friday, March 4.

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Media Accreditation Open for Space Station Crew News Conference, Interviews

NASA will host a news conference with a team of astronauts who will launch to the International Space Station this summer, including NASA’s Kate Rubins, at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, March 9, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website following a 30-minute video of crew training.

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CometWatch February – Part 2

This week’s CometWatch entry pictures Comet 67P/C-G as seen with Rosetta’s NAVCAM on 22 February, from a distance of 32.5 km to the centre of the comet. At this close distance the comet nucleus overfills the camera’s field of view, but allows details of the surface to be seen at closer range than in previous weeks and months. This image focuses on the comet’s ‘neck’ region and the transition of smooth Hapi (centre) into Anuket to the left, and Seth on the large lobe to the right. Serqet is seen to the top left of the frame. Furthermore, the composition of this image is such that traces of the comet’s activity are revealed, emanating from around the neck region and extending towards the top right of the frame. This is nicely complemented by a wide-angle view taken by Rosetta’s OSIRIS wide-angle camera last week – and released today via the OSIRIS image of the day website – showing the current state of the comet’s activity all around the nucleus (below). Meanwhile the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera continues to capture ever-detailed views of the surface in high resolution. The image below was taken on 13 February and also released via the OSIRIS image of the day website this week. The scene captures a detailed look at part of the Aker (foreground) and Khepry (background) regions, and extends into Babi towards the left of the image. The original NAVCAM image for today's CometWatch entry is provided below:

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NASA Administrator to Make X-Plane Announcement at Reagan National Media Event

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Research Jaiwon Shin will be at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, at 1:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Feb. 29, to discuss advanced aeronautic concepts. They’ll also make an announcement about the agency’s plan for a series of experimental aircraft.

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NASA Partners on Air Quality Study in East Asia

NASA and the Republic of Korea are developing plans for a cooperative field study of air quality in May and June to advance the ability to monitor air pollution accurately from space.

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One-Year Crew Returns from Space Station March 1; Live Coverage on NASA TV

NASA Television will provide complete coverage Tuesday, March 1, as three crew members depart the International Space Station, including NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos – the station’s first one-year crew.

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Getting to know the comet’s southern hemisphere

Now that Rosetta has been able to safely approach Comet67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko again following the active months around perihelion last August, scientists have been able to better image the southern hemisphere regions of the comet. This week the spacecraft is around 35 km distance from the nucleus, meaning that the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera can image the comet's surface with a resolution of around 80 cm/pixel. This has allowed OSIRIS scientists to update their maps of previously undefined regions on the comet. Three new regions have been defined in recent months: Bes, Geb and Neith. Following the naming conventions of the other 23 regions, these too take the names of Egyptian deities. “The southern hemisphere regions also use the same naming practice of using male deities for the comet’s large lobe (or body) and female ones for the regions on the small lobe (or head), while the neck regions – Hapi in the northern hemisphere and Sobek in the southern hemisphere – represent gods of the Nile river,” explains Ramy El-Maarry from the University of Bern, part of the team mapping the surface of the nucleus. “The southern hemisphere looks ‘flattened out’ in comparison to the north yet we can still see large cliffs in the south and these include the Neith region on the small lobe (mirroring Hathor in the north), and Geb and Anhur on the large lobe (mirroring Seth).” Ramy notes that there are seven regions defined in the south compared to 19 in the north. “We observe less variation in the southern hemisphere due to the lack of smooth deposits, dust cover and large depressions there,” he says. “In this regards, there are two important benefits: the first is that we can study the actual surface of the nucleus in more detail without the dust cover, and secondly, we […]

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NASA, UN Announce Final Winner of #whyspacematters Photo Competition

As astronaut Scott Kelly’s one-year mission aboard the International Space Station draws to a close, NASA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs are announcing the final winner of a global photography competition highlighting how the vantage point of space helps us better understand our home planet and provide benefits to humanity.

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NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly Talks One-Year Mission in Final In-Space News Conference

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s final news conference from orbit will air live on NASA Television at 12:05 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 25.

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NASA Invites Public to Send Artwork to an Asteroid

NASA is calling all space enthusiasts to send their artistic endeavors on a journey aboard NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft. This will be the first U.S. mission to collect a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth for study.

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Record Number of Americans Apply to #BeAnAstronaut at NASA

More than 18,300 people applied to join NASA’s 2017 astronaut class, almost three times the number of applications received in 2012 for the most recent astronaut class, and far surpassing the previous record of 8,000 in 1978.

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CometWatch February – part 1

This month, Rosetta is approaching Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 40 km or less, returning beautiful views of the nucleus and its surface features. In today's CometWatch image, we see the comet pictured by Rosetta's NAVCAM on 10 February 2016, when the spacecraft was 50.6 km from the comet nucleus. In this orientation, the small comet lobe is in the foreground, towards the top left of the frame, and the large lobe is farther away, in the lower-right part of the image. The view reveals most of the comet's southern hemisphere, which has been experience a short and intense summer since May 2015. The illuminated portion of the large lobe is dominated by the southern region of Anhur, with hints of Sobek on the neck. Smooth portions of Aker and Khepry are also visible towards the upper edge. A number of regions are depicted in this view of the small lobe: Maftet, Nut and Serqet towards the lower left, Bastet on the upper right edge of the lobe, but most notably the vast, round cavity of Hatmehit in the top left and the seemingly flat terrains of Wosret at the centre of the image. The contrast between Hatmehit, covered in dust and boulders, and the rough features on the neighbouring Wosret region were also captured in another striking image, taken with the narrow-angle camera of Rosetta's OSIRIS imaging system on 13 February somewhat closer to the comet, at 45.8 km. The OSIRIS image provides a zoomed-in, detailed view onto this portion of the comet as seen in the NAVCAM image, although with a slightly different viewing angle, revealing a great deal of details about these two regions. A portion of Bastet is also visible in the OSIRIS image, including the brighter slab on the top edge of the lobe. The original NAVCAM […]

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NASA Introduces New, Wider Set of Eyes on the Universe

After years of preparatory studies, NASA is formally starting an astrophysics mission designed to help unlock the secrets of the universe -- the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

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NASA Astronaut Jeff Williams Available for Media Interviews before Launch to Space Station

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams will take time out of the final preparations for his launch to the International Space Station for live satellite media interviews from 7 to 8 a.m. EST Monday, Feb. 29, to discuss his upcoming mission aboard the world’s only orbiting laboratory. These interviews will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA TV to Broadcast U.S. Cargo Ship Departure from Space Station

After delivering more than 7,000 pounds of cargo to support dozens of science experiments from around the world, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft is set to leave the International Space Station Friday, Feb. 19. NASA Television will provide live coverage of the event beginning at 7 a.m. EST.

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CometWatch – 5 February

Today's CometWatch is an image taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 5 February 2016, when the spacecraft was 53.4 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. At these closer distances the comet is now close to filling the camera’s field of view. In particular, this image captures the rich diversity of geological features within Imhotep and bordering regions on the comet’s large lobe. Imhotep was also the focus of recent scientific studies reporting exposures of water-ice and dramatic changes in the surface features observed in the central smooth plains area. In the background, the Wosret and Bastet regions of the comet’s small lobe are featured. The original image is provided below:

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Austin, Texas Students to Speak to Space Station Astronaut

Students from the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools in Austin, Texas will have the opportunity to speak with a NASA astronaut currently living and working on the International Space Station at 11:55 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb. 16. The 20-minute, Earth-to-space call will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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Rosetta’s lander faces eternal hibernation

This article is mirrored from the main ESA web portal.  Silent since its last call to mothership Rosetta seven months ago, the Philae lander is facing conditions on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from which it is unlikely to recover. Rosetta, which continues its scientific investigations at the comet until September before its own comet-landing finale, has in recent months been balancing science observations with flying dedicated trajectories optimised to listen out for Philae. But the lander has remained silent since 9 July 2015. “The chances for Philae to contact our team at our lander control centre are unfortunately getting close to zero,” says Stephan Ulamec, Philae project manager at the German Aerospace Center, DLR. “We are not sending commands any more and it would be very surprising if we were to receive a signal again.” Philae’s team of expert engineers and scientists at the German, French and Italian space centres and across Europe have carried out extensive investigations to try to understand the status of the lander, piecing together clues since it completed its first set of scientific activities after its historic landing on 12 November 2014. A story with incredible twists and turns unfolded on that day. In addition to a faulty thruster, Philae also failed to fire its harpoons and lock itself onto the surface of the comet after its seven-hour descent, bouncing from its initial touchdown point at Agilkia, to a new landing site, Abydos, over 1 km away. The precise location of the lander has yet to be confirmed in high-resolution images. A reconstruction of the flight of the lander suggested that it made contact with the comet four times during its two-hour additional flight across the small comet lobe. After bouncing from Agilkia it grazed the rim of the Hatmehit depression, bounced again, and then finally settled on […]

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NASA, University Study Shows Rising Seas Slowed by Increasing Water on Land

New measurements from a NASA satellite have allowed researchers to identify and quantify, for the first time, how climate-driven increases of liquid water storage on land have affected the rate of sea level rise.

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NASA Administrator Remembers Apollo-Era Astronaut Edgar Mitchell

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the passing of NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell:

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CometWatch 28 January

Today's CometWatch is an image taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 28 January 2016, when the spacecraft was 67.6 km from the comet nucleus. With the declining comet activity, Rosetta is now approaching the nucleus of 67P/C-G at distances that were not possible to attain since March 2015. This is granting us a detailed view of the comet's surface, including of some regions on the southern hemisphere that were still experiencing polar winter at the beginning of last year. In particular, the southern portion of the 'neck' region stands out in today's CometWatch, with a dramatic perspective on the rugged terrains of Sobek. The small lobe, on the left in this orientation, reveals the seemingly flat southern region of Wosret, with hints of Bastet towards the upper edge. The large lobe, on the right, shows a variety of different terrains: from the smooth portions of Aker and Khepry, visible as a bright swath at the top, through the rougher and boulder-rich portions of Khepry and Anhur at the centre, to a side-on view of Imhotep on the right. The great diversity of Imhotep is clearly visible in this image, with smooth areas covered in dust, large circular features, terraces and many boulders. Hints of the Ash region can also be seen towards the right edge. The original 1024 x 1024 image is provided below.

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Primary Mirror Fully Assembled

The 18th and final primary mirror segment is installed on what will be the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever launched. The final mirror installation Wednesday at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland marks an important milestone in the assembly of the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope.

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Inside Rosetta’s comet

This article is mirrored from the main ESA Web Portal. There are no large caverns inside Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA’s Rosetta mission has made measurements that clearly demonstrate this, solving a long-standing mystery. Comets are the icy remnants left over from the formation of the planets 4.6 billion years ago. A total of eight comets have now been visited by spacecraft and, thanks to these missions, we have built up a picture of the basic properties of these cosmic time capsules. While some questions have been answered, others have been raised. Comets are known to be a mixture of dust and ice, and if fully compact, they would be heavier than water. However, previous measurements have shown that some of them have extremely low densities, much lower than that of water ice. The low density implies that comets must be highly porous. But is the porosity because of huge empty caves in the comet’s interior or it is a more homogeneous low-density structure? In a new study, published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, a team led by Martin Pätzold, from Rheinische Institut für Umweltforschung an der Universität zu Köln, Germany, have shown that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is also a low-density object, but they have also been able to rule out a cavernous interior. This result is consistent with earlier results from Rosetta’s CONSERT radar experiment showing that the double-lobed comet’s ‘head’ is fairly homogenous on spatial scales of a few tens of metres. The most reasonable explanation then is that the comet’s porosity must be an intrinsic property of dust particles mixed with the ice that make up the interior. In fact, earlier spacecraft measurements had shown that comet dust is typically not a compacted solid, but rather a ‘fluffy’ aggregate, giving the dust particles high porosity and low […]

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Bolden Speech Highlights “State of NASA” Events at Agency Centers Feb. 9

NASA centers across the country are opening their doors Tuesday, Feb. 9 to media and social media for “State of NASA” events, including a speech from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and unique opportunities for a behind-the-scenes look at the agency’s progress on its journey to Mars. These events follow President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget

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Colorado Students to Speak Live with Space Station Commander

Students from five elementary schools and five middle schools in Colorado will have the opportunity to speak with a NASA astronaut living and working on the International Space Station at 12:35 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 4. The 20-minute, Earth-to-space call will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Space Launch System’s First Flight to Send Small Sci-Tech Satellites Into Space

The first flight of NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will carry 13 CubeSats to test innovative ideas along with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft in 2018.

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Todd May Named Marshall Space Flight Center Director

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has named Todd May director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. May was appointed Marshall deputy director in August 2015 and has been serving as acting director since the Nov. 13, 2015 retirement of Patrick Scheuermann.

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NASA Awards Contract for Information Technology, Multimedia Services at Johnson Space Center

NASA has awarded a contract to MORI Associates, Inc. of Rockville, Maryland, for information technology and external communications services at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

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