Houston Students to Speak to NASA Astronaut on International Space Station

Students from Hartsfield Elementary 4-H Club of the Houston Independent School District in Texas will speak with a NASA astronaut currently living and working aboard the International Space Station.

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NASA Statement About SpaceX Private Moon Venture Announcement

NASA statement on SpaceX’s announcement Monday about a private space mission around the moon.

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NASA Wind Tunnel Tests Lockheed Martin’s X-Plane Design for a Quieter Supersonic Jet

Supersonic passenger airplanes are another step closer to reality as NASA and Lockheed Martin begin the first high-speed wind tunnel tests for the Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) X-plane preliminary design at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

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Space Science Image of the Week: NAVCAM close-ups

A trio of the closest NAVCAM images of Comet 67P-Churyumov Gerasimenko is featured as our ESA Space Science Image of the Week.

During the last few weeks of its mission at Comet 67P/C–G, the Rosetta spacecraft ventured closer than it had ever been to the surface of the nucleus. Eventually, it came to rest on the small lobe of the comet in a daring descent on 30 September 2016. No navigation images were taken during the descent; the last five NAVCAM images were taken several hours earlier, between about 20 and 17 km from the comet centre.

This montage features the three closest images of the comet's surface taken by Rosetta's navigation camera – acquired in the first half of September. 

The left image in the composite (also shown below) was taken on 8 September, some 2.6 from the comet surface.

Enhanced NAVCAM image of Comet 67P/C-G taken on 8 September 2016, 4.3 km from the comet centre and about 2.6 km from the surface. The distance from Rosetta to the closest pixel in this image is 2.3 km. The scale is 0.2 m/pixel and the image measures about 225 m across. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

Context view for the 8 September NAVCAM image. Credit: ESA

The image shows a portion of the large comet lobe, portraying the boundary between the Ash and Seth regions. A context view is provided in the image on the right.

This view reveals the dust-covered terrains of Ash in the lower right part of the frame, declining towards Seth in the upper left, where part of one of the many round features present in this region is visible.

The central frame in the composite (also shown below) was taken on 14 September, about 2.6 km from the comet surface.

Enhanced NAVCAM image of Comet 67P/C-G taken on 14 September 2016, 4.2 km from the comet centre and about 2.6 km from the surface. The distance from Rosetta to the closest pixel in this image is 2.4 km. The scale is 0.2 m/pixel and the image measures about 225 m across. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

Context view for the 14 September NAVCAM image. Credit: ESA

This image provides a detailed view of small and large boulders scattered in the Anubis region, which is also located on the large comet lobe and separated by a scarp from Seth. A context view is provided in the image on the right.

On the right in the composite (and shown below), an image from 11 September shows another view of the Seth region.

Enhanced NAVCAM image of Comet 67P/C-G taken on 8 September 2016, 4.5 km from the comet centre and about 3.5 km from the surface. The distance from Rosetta to the closest pixel in this image is 3.2 km. The scale is 0.3 m/pixel and the image measures about 310 m across. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

Context view for the 8 September NAVCAM image. Credit: ESA

Taken about 3.5 km from the comet surface, the view reveals a terrace casting dramatic shadows on the underlying terrain, covered in dust and boulders. A context view is provided in the image on the right.

Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is now moving along the part of its orbit that is farthest from the Sun, in the outer Solar System, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Today, it is over 600 million km from the Sun and over 740 million km from Earth.

All images from Rosetta's navigation camera are available online via the Archive Image Browser.

The three original NAVCAM images are provided below.

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An encounter with Klim Churyumov

Artist's impression of Philae landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Two years ago this week, the entire world was getting ready for a historic endeavour in space: the first soft landing of a human-made probe on a comet.

On 12 November 2014, Rosetta's lander Philae landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and while the landing didn't go exactly as planned, Philae finally managed to secure itself to the nucleus and to conduct a series of scientific experiments in situ, while Rosetta kept observing the comet from a distance until the mission's end last September.

As communicators of ESA's science missions, we gathered at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, to follow Philae's landing and report it via ESA's web and social media. During the week, ESOC was packed with scientists and engineers from the Rosetta and Philae teams, members of the international press and a number of special guests. Among them was also Professor Klim Churyumov, who together with Svetlana Gerasimenko had discovered the comet back in 1969, and who sadly passed away last month.

Professor Churyumov and his interpreters with a 3D model of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at ESOC on 11 November 2014. Credit: ESA/C.Carreau

The day before landing – two years ago today – I had the pleasure to briefly meet Professor Churyumov and even asked him a few questions, taking down notes with the help of his interpreters. Back then, I was planning to write down a transcript of that conversation for this blog, but in the end the chance did not materialise at the time. Then recently, while going through my old notebooks, I found the notes from that brief interview and finally had some time to share them with the readers of the blog.

At the time, in November 2014, Rosetta had been at the comet for only three months, during which it had taken many striking pictures of this incredible little world. I asked Klim what were his expectations of how “his” comet would look like, and the reaction to Rosetta's first close-up images. He said he was very amazed to discover that 67P/C-G consists of two lobes. Of course, he was not surprised that it had an irregular shape, as most comets do because of their small mass.

According to my notes and to the translation, Klim had compared Comet 19P/Borrelly to a potato, Comet 81P/Wild (also known as Wild 2) to an elongated grapefruit, and Comet 67P/C-G... well, to him it looked like a shoe! Indeed, he said the unexpected and beautiful shape of the comet nucleus reminded him of some traditional Ukranian shoes made of straw and used by local farmers. We all joked of how “his” comet was in fact a “cosmic slipper”.

Klim Churyumov at ESOC on 11 November 2014. Credit: ESA/C.Carreau

He added that the landscapes of the comet reminded him of mountain ranges on Earth, with peaks and valleys, like in the Alps or in the Carpathians, but smaller.

He also pointed out that this comet has spent most of its lifetime much farther away from the Sun than it currently does, as it was an encounter with Jupiter in 1959 that reduced the comet's perihelion and led it to its present orbit, incidentally making it possible for Svetlana Gerasimenko and himself to discover it ten years later. As such, he thought of the comet as a time capsule, a “Greetings from the Past” message for scientists to investigate.

I also asked him about the next steps and what he'd be most looking forward to in terms of the scientific exploitation of the data from Rosetta. He was eagerly waiting for Philae's descent and the first measurements to be performed on the surface of a comet.

He also mentioned that comets might have brought to our planet water and other molecules crucial to the emergence of life as we know it on Earth, and recalled the findings of NASA's Stardust mission, which detected the amino acid glycine at Comet Wild 2. He was hoping Rosetta would find amino acids at “his” comet too... and many months later, it actually happened, as Rosetta detected glycine at Comet 67P/C-G.

As for water, Klim said he had no doubts that Earth's water comes from space, and was looking forward to Rosetta's measurements of the isotopic composition of water at the comet. In fact, that result was published only a month after our conversation, demonstrating that water at Comet 67P/C-G contains three times more deuterium than water on Earth, and fuelling once again the debate on the main carriers of water to our planet’s oceans – comets or asteroids?

Klim Churyumov (left) with Sam Gulkis (right), principal investigator of the MIRO instrument on Rosetta, at Philae's comet landing event in ESOC. Credit: ESA/C.Carreau

Klim said he was also looking forward to the measurements of the electric and magnetic field by the Rosetta Plasma Consortium suite of sensors on the orbiter and the ROMAP instrument on Philae, as well as to the results of the Radio Science Experiment (RSI) and of the CONSERT radar experiment to probe the comet's interior. Several studies based on data from these instruments were published on scientific journals in the past couple of years, and I hope that he had a chance to read about these interesting results.

As a final remark, he mentioned having a dream: he would have loved to be an astronaut, travel to the comet to have a walk on the surface, take some pictures and safely come back to Earth. And he was sure something like this would become possible in the future.

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NASA to Hold Media Teleconference Today on Study to Add Crew to First Orion, Space Launch System Mission

NASA will discuss plans for an ongoing study to assess the feasibility of adding a crew to Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, during a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST today, Friday, Feb. 24. The call will stream live on NASA’s website.

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NASA Invites Media to Next Test of Orion Spacecraft Parachutes

NASA is inviting media to attend a test of the Orion spacecraft’s parachutes on Wednesday, March 8, at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Orion is scheduled for its second airdrop test, in a series of eight, to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights.

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NASA Women ‘Introduce a Girl to Engineering' Event set for Thursday

NASA celebrates National Engineer Week and Girl's Day with a series of events.

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NASA Establishes New Public-Private Partnerships to Advance U.S. Commercial Space Capabilities

NASA is partnering with eight U.S. companies to advance small spacecraft and launch vehicle technologies that are on the verge of maturation and are likely to benefit both NASA and the commercial space market.

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NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

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NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System

NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

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NASA Cargo Headed to Space Station Includes Important Experiments, Equipment

Major experiments that will look into a range of scientific disciplines from human health to atmospheric conditions on Earth are on their way to the International Space Station following liftoff at 9:39 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

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NASA’s Juno Mission to Remain in Current Orbit at Jupiter

NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, which has been in orbit around the gas giant since July 4, 2016, will remain in its current 53-day orbit for the remainder of the mission.

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NASA to Televise International Space Station Cargo Ship Launch, Docking

NASA Television will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of a Russian cargo spacecraft delivering almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the International Space Station beginning at 12:30 a.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22.

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NASA Selects Proposals for First-Ever Space Technology Research Institutes

NASA has selected proposals for the creation of two multi-disciplinary, university-led research institutes that will focus on the development of technologies critical to extending human presence deeper into our solar system.

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NASA to Air Prelaunch Briefing, Launch of Next Space Station Resupply Mission

NASA provider SpaceX is scheduled to launch its 10th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station no earlier than 10:01 a.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 18. Live coverage of the launch will begin at 8:30 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Announces Awards to Develop Oxygen Recovery Technologies for Future Deep Space Missions

NASA has selected two proposals for the development of oxygen recovery technologies that could help astronauts breathe a little easier on deep space, long-duration missions. The agency will invest as much as $2 million and 24 months for the development of each proposal into a complete and integrated system for NASA testing.

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Tornado Recovery Efforts, Assessments Ongoing at NASA’s Michoud

Teams at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans worked overnight and are continuing Wednesday with assessment and recovery efforts following a tornado strike at the facility Tuesday.

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Tornado Recovery Underway at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

Recovery efforts are underway at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, which was impacted by a tornado at 11:25 a.m. CST Tuesday. All 3,500 employees at the facility have been accounted for, with five sustaining minor injuries.

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Texas Students to Speak to NASA Astronaut on International Space Station

Students from the Weslaco Independent School District in Weslaco, Texas, will speak with a NASA astronaut currently living and working aboard the International Space Station at 12:05 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 9. The 20-minute, Earth-to-space call will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Highlights Science Launching on Next SpaceX Cargo Mission

NASA will host a media teleconference at 3 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 8, to discuss research investigations launching aboard the next SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station. Among the investigations are experiments with potential to fight human disease and a new autonomous spacecraft docking technology for testing.

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NASA Opens Media Accreditation for Next Orbital ATK Cargo Resupply Mission

NASA has opened media accreditation for the next Orbital ATK launch of a commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Cygnus spacecraft is targeted to launch March 19, during a 30-minute window that opens at approximately 10:56 p.m. EDT.

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Media Invited to See NASA Air Traffic Management Technology in Action

NASA is in Washington state to test a new aircraft technology that could help airlines reduce air traffic delays and air traffic controller workloads. Media are invited to learn about the new software during an in-flight test Thursday, Feb. 9.

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