Juno Scientists Prepare for Seventh Science Pass of Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its seventh science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Friday, Sept. 1, at 2:49 p.m. PDT (5:49 p.m. EDT and 21:49 UTC). At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno's orbit when it is closest to the planet's center), the spacecraft will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops -- as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.

More information on the Juno mission is available at:

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The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

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News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077

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2017-234

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NASA and Iconic Museum Honor Voyager Spacecraft 40th Anniversary

NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will celebrate 40 years of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft -- humanity's farthest and longest-lived mission -- with a public event at 9:30 a.m. PDT (12:30 p.m. EDT), Tuesday, Sept. 5.

The observance will take place at the Smithsonian's museum located at Independence Avenue at 6th street SW in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.

Activities will include panel discussions about the Voyagers' creation and mission history, their unprecedented science findings and imagery, impact on Earth's culture and how the spacecraft inspired countless scientists, engineers and the next generation of explorers. The event also will include a galactic message transmitted toward the Voyager 1 spacecraft by a celebrity guest.

The Voyagers' original mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Although the twin spacecraft are now far beyond the planets in the solar system, NASA continues to communicate with them daily as they explore the frontier where interstellar space begins.

Participants in the Sept. 5 event are:

• Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
• Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, Caltech, Pasadena, California
• Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena
• Gary Flandro, Voyager Mission Grand Tour creator, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Alan Cummings, Voyager researcher, Caltech
• Ann Druyan, writer/producer, Golden Record Visionary
• Morgan Cable, researcher, JPL
• Eric Zirnstein, researcher, Princeton University, New Jersey
• Matthew Shindell, curator, National Air and Space Museum

The public can ask questions on social media using #AskNASA.

Commemorative posters for the mission, celebrating the Voyagers' launches and incredible journeys, are available at:

› Download posters

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For more information on Voyager, visit:

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News Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6425/818-359-3241

Elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Karen Fox

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

301-286-6284

karen.c.fox@nasa.gov

2017-232b

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NASA and Iconic Museum Honor Voyager Spacecraft 40th Anniversary

NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will celebrate 40 years of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft -- humanity's farthest and longest-lived mission -- with a public event at 12:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 5.

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NASA’s Johnson Space Center Closes Through Labor Day for Tropical Storm Harvey

NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will remain closed to all but mission essential personnel through Labor Day due to the effects of now-Tropical Storm Harvey.

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NASA Cancels Planned Media Availabilities with Astronauts

Due to the ongoing effects of Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston, NASA has canceled an in-flight question and answer session with astronaut Peggy Whitson aboard the International Space Station.

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Saturn Plunge Nears for Cassini Spacecraft

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is 18 days from its mission-ending dive into the atmosphere of Saturn. Its fateful plunge on Sept. 15 is a foregone conclusion -- an April 22 gravitational kick from Saturn's moon Titan placed the two-and-a-half ton vehicle on its path for impending destruction. Yet several mission milestones have to occur over the coming two-plus weeks to prepare the vehicle for one last burst of trailblazing science.

"The Cassini mission has been packed full of scientific firsts, and our unique planetary revelations will continue to the very end of the mission as Cassini becomes Saturn's first planetary probe, sampling Saturn's atmosphere up until the last second," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We'll be sending data in near real time as we rush headlong into the atmosphere -- it's truly a first-of-its-kind event at Saturn."

VIDEO
› DOWNLOAD VIDEO Cassini: A Saturn Odyssey

The spacecraft is expected to lose radio contact with Earth within about one to two minutes after beginning its descent into Saturn's upper atmosphere. But on the way down, before contact is lost, eight of Cassini's 12 science instruments will be operating. In particular, the spacecraft's ion and neutral mass spectrometer (INMS), which will be directly sampling the atmosphere's composition, potentially returning insights into the giant planet's formation and evolution. On the day before the plunge, other Cassini instruments will make detailed, high-resolution observations of Saturn's auroras, temperature, and the vortices at the planet's poles. Cassini's imaging camera will be off during this final descent, having taken a last look at the Saturn system the previous day (Sept. 14).

In its final week, Cassini will pass several milestones en route to its science-rich Saturn plunge. (Times below are predicted and may change slightly; see https://go.nasa.gov/2wbaCBT for updated times.)

• Sept. 9 Cassini will make the last of 22 passes between Saturn itself and its rings -- closest approach is 1,044 miles (1,680 kilometers) above the clouds tops.
• Sept. 11 -- Cassini will make a distant flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Even though the spacecraft will be at 73,974 miles (119,049 kilometers) away, the gravitational influence of the moon will slow down the spacecraft slightly as it speeds past. A few days later, instead of passing through the outermost fringes of Saturn's atmosphere, Cassini will dive in too deep to survive the friction and heating.
• Sept. 14 -- Cassini's imaging cameras take their last look around the Saturn system, sending back pictures of moons Titan and Enceladus, the hexagon-shaped jet stream around the planet's north pole, and features in the rings.
• Sept. 14 (5:45 p.m. EDT / 2:45 p.m. PDT) -- Cassini turns its antenna to point at Earth, begins a communications link that will continue until end of mission, and sends back its final images and other data collected along the way.
• Sept. 15 (4:37 a.m. EDT / 1:37 a.m. PDT) -- The "final plunge" begins. The spacecraft starts a 5-minute roll to position INMS for optimal sampling of the atmosphere, transmitting data in near real time from now to end of mission.
• Sept. 15 (7:53 a.m. EDT / 4:53 a.m. PDT) -- Cassini enters Saturn's atmosphere. Its thrusters fire at 10 percent of their capacity to maintain directional stability, enabling the spacecraft's high-gain antenna to remain pointed at Earth and allowing continued transmission of data.
• Sept. 15 (7:54 a.m. EDT / 4:54 a.m. PDT) -- Cassini's thrusters are at 100 percent of capacity. Atmospheric forces overwhelm the thrusters' capacity to maintain control of the spacecraft's orientation, and the high-gain antenna loses its lock on Earth. At this moment, expected to occur about 940 miles (1,510 kilometers) above Saturn's cloud tops, communication from the spacecraft will cease, and Cassini's mission of exploration will have concluded. The spacecraft will break up like a meteor moments later.

As Cassini completes its 13-year tour of Saturn, its Grand Finale -- which began in April -- and final plunge are just the last beat. Following a four-year primary mission and a two-year extension, NASA approved an ambitious plan to extend Cassini's service by an additional seven years. Called the Cassini Solstice Mission, the extension saw Cassini perform dozens more flybys of Saturn's moons as the spacecraft observed seasonal changes in the atmospheres of Saturn and Titan. From the outset, the planned endgame for the Solstice Mission was to expend all of Cassini's maneuvering propellant exploring, then eventually arriving in the ultra-close Grand Finale orbits, ending with safe disposal of the spacecraft in Saturn's atmosphere.

"The end of Cassini's mission will be a poignant moment, but a fitting and very necessary completion of an astonishing journey," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The Grand Finale represents the culmination of a seven-year plan to use the spacecraft's remaining resources in the most scientifically productive way possible. By safely disposing of the spacecraft in Saturn's atmosphere, we avoid any possibility Cassini could impact one of Saturn's moons somewhere down the road, keeping them pristine for future exploration."

Since its launch in 1997, the findings of the Cassini mission have revolutionized our understanding of Saturn, its complex rings, the amazing assortment of moons and the planet's dynamic magnetic environment. The most distant planetary orbiter ever launched, Cassini started making astonishing discoveries immediately upon arrival and continues today. Icy jets shoot from the tiny moon Enceladus, providing samples of an underground ocean with evidence of hydrothermal activity. Titan's hydrocarbon lakes and seas are dominated by liquid ethane and methane, and complex pre-biotic chemicals form in the atmosphere and rain to the surface. Three-dimensional structures tower above Saturn's rings, and a giant Saturn storm circled the entire planet for most of a year. Cassini's findings at Saturn have also buttressed scientists' understanding of processes involved in the formation of planets.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about Cassini:

http://ift.tt/2nVxm2X

http://ift.tt/1rJDu0Q

News Media Contact

Preston Dyches

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-394-7013

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

2017-231

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NASA Awards $400,000 to Top Teams at Second Phase of 3D-Printing Competition

NASA is making progress and awarding prizes in its competition to build a 3-D printed habitat for deep space exploration.

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NASA's Next Mars Mission to Investigate Interior of Red Planet

Preparation of NASA's next spacecraft to Mars, InSight, has ramped up this summer, on course for launch next May from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California -- the first interplanetary launch in history from America's West Coast.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is assembling and testing the InSight spacecraft in a clean room facility near Denver. "Our team resumed system-level integration and test activities last month," said Stu Spath, spacecraft program manager at Lockheed Martin. "The lander is completed and instruments have been integrated onto it so that we can complete the final spacecraft testing including acoustics, instrument deployments and thermal balance tests."

InSight is the first mission to focus on examining the deep interior of Mars. Information gathered will boost understanding of how all rocky planets formed, including Earth.

"Because the interior of Mars has churned much less than Earth's in the past three billion years, Mars likely preserves evidence about rocky planets' infancy better than our home planet does," said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. He leads the international team that proposed the mission and won NASA selection in a competition with 27 other proposals for missions throughout the solar system. The long form of InSight's name is Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

Whichever day the mission launches during a five-week period beginning May 5, 2018, navigators have charted the flight to reach Mars the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2018.

The mission will place a stationary lander near Mars' equator. With two solar panels that unfold like paper fans, the lander spans about 20 feet (6 meters). Within weeks after the landing -- always a dramatic challenge on Mars -- InSight will use a robotic arm to place its two main instruments directly and permanently onto the Martian ground, an unprecedented set of activities on Mars. These two instruments are:

-- A seismometer, supplied by France's space agency, CNES, with collaboration from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany. Shielded from wind and with sensitivity fine enough to detect ground movements half the diameter of a hydrogen atom, it will record seismic waves from "marsquakes" or meteor impacts that reveal information about the planet's interior layers.

-- A heat probe, designed to hammer itself to a depth of 10 feet (3 meters) or more and measure the amount of energy coming from the planet's deep interior. The heat probe is supplied by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, with the self-hammering mechanism from Poland.

A third experiment will use radio transmissions between Mars and Earth to assess perturbations in how Mars rotates on its axis, which are clues about the size of the planet's core.

The spacecraft's science payload also is on track for next year's launch. The mission's launch was originally planned for March 2016, but was called off due to a leak into a metal container designed to maintain near-vacuum conditions around the seismometer's main sensors. A redesigned vacuum vessel for the instrument has been built and tested, then combined with the instrument's other components and tested again. The full seismometer instrument was delivered to the Lockheed Martin spacecraft assembly facility in Colorado in July and has been installed on the lander.

"We have fixed the problem we had two years ago, and we are eagerly preparing for launch," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, of JPL.

The best planetary geometry for launches to Mars occurs during opportunities about 26 months apart and lasting only a few weeks.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the InSight Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Together with two active NASA Mars rovers, three NASA Mars orbiters and a Mars rover being built for launch in 2020, InSight is part of a legacy of robotic exploration that is helping to lay the groundwork for sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

More information about InSight is online at:

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News Media Contact

Guy Webster / Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6278 / 818-393-2433

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Danielle Hauf

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Denver

303-932-4360

danielle.m.hauf@lmco.com

Shannon Ridinger

Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

256-544-3774

shannon.j.ridinger@nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

2017-230

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A Clockwork Rover for Venus

A good watch can take a beating and keep on ticking. With the right parts, can a rover do the same on a planet like Venus?

A concept inspired by clockwork computers and World War I tanks could one day help us find out. The design is being explored at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments (AREE) is funded for study by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. The program offers small grants to develop early stage technology, allowing engineers to work out their ideas.

AREE was first proposed in 2015 by Jonathan Sauder, a mechatronics engineer at JPL. He was inspired by mechanical computers, which use levers and gears to make calculations rather than electronics.

By avoiding electronics, a rover might be able to better explore Venus. The planet's hellish atmosphere creates pressures that would crush most submarines. Its average surface temperature is 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius), high enough to melt lead.

Steampunk computing

Mechanical computers have been used throughout history, most often as mathematical tools like adding machines. The most famous might be Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, a 19th century invention for calculating algebraic equations. The oldest known is the Antikythera mechanism, a device used by ancient Greeks to predict astronomical phenomena like eclipses.

Mechanical computers were also developed as works of art. For hundreds of years, clockwork mechanisms were used to create automatons for wealthy patrons. In the 1770s, a Swiss watchmaker named Pierre Jaquet-Droz created "The Writer," an automaton that could be programmed to write any combination of letters.

Sauder said these analog technologies could help where electronics typically fail. In extreme environments like the surface of Venus, most electronics will melt in high temperatures or be corroded by sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.

"Venus is too inhospitable for kind of complex control systems you have on a Mars rover," Sauder said. "But with a fully mechanical rover, you might be able to survive as long as a year."

Wind turbines in the center of the rover would power these computers, allowing it to flip upside down and keep running. But the planet's environment would offer plenty of challenges.

The extreme planet

No spacecraft has survived the Venusian surface for more than a couple hours.

Venus' last visitors were the Soviet Venera and Vega landers. In the 1970s and 1980s, they sent back a handful of images that revealed a craggy, gas-choked world.

"When you think of something as extreme as Venus, you want to think really out there," said Evan Hilgemann, a JPL engineer working on high temperature designs for AREE. "It's an environment we don't know much about beyond what we've seen in Soviet-era images."

Sauder and Hilgemann are preparing to bake mechanical prototypes, allowing them to study how thermal expansion could affect their moving parts. Some components of the Soviet landers had actually been designed with this heat expansion in mind: their parts wouldn't work properly until they were heated to Venusian temperatures.

Tank treads for Venus

AREE includes a number of other innovative design choices.

Mobility is one challenge, considering there are so many unknowns about the Venusian surface. Sauder's original idea was inspired by the "Strandbeests" created by Dutch artist Theo Jansen. These spider-like structures have spindly legs that can carry their bulk across beaches, powered solely by wind.

Ultimately, they seemed too unstable for rocky terrain. Sauder started looking at World War I tank treads as an alternative. These were built to roll over trenches and craters.

Another problem will be communications. Without electronics, how would you transmit science data? Current plans are inspired by another age-old technology: Morse code.

An orbiting spacecraft could ping the rover using radar. The rover would have a radar target, which if shaped correctly, would act like "stealth technology in reverse," Sauder said. Stealth planes have special shapes that disperse radar signals; Sauder is exploring how to shape these targets to brightly reflect signals instead. Adding a rotating shutter in front of the radar target would allow the rover to turn the bright, reflected spot on and off, communicating much like signal lamps on Navy ships.

Now in its second phase of NIAC development, the JPL team is selecting parts of the AREE concept to be refined and prototyped. Team members hope to flesh out a rover concept that will eventually be able to study the geology of Venus and perhaps drill a few samples.

For more information about AREE, go to:

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News Media Contact

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-228

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NASA Satellite Images Show Evolution of Hurricane Harvey

August 15, 2017

NASA has awarded a contract to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, to extend operations of the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, through Sept. 30, 2018.

August 15, 2017

NASA Awards Contract to Extend Operations of JPL

NASA has awarded a contract to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, to extend operations of the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, through Sept. 30, 2018.

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Saturn With a Side of Bacon

NASA Announces Cassini End-of-Mission Activities

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NASA Awards Contract for Center Protective Services for Glenn Research Center

NASA has awarded a contract to Golden Svcs, LLC in Kingston, Tennessee, to provide protective services at the agency’s Ohio facilities, NASA’s Glenn Research Center’s Lewis Field in Cleveland and Plum Brook Station in Sandusky.

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NASA Announces Cassini End-of-Mission Activities

On Sept. 15, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will complete its remarkable story of exploration with an intentional plunge into Saturn's atmosphere, ending its mission after nearly 20 years in space. News briefings, photo opportunities and other media events will be held at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

NASA also will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Aug. 29 to preview activities for Cassini during its final two weeks.

VIDEO › DOWNLOAD VIDEO Cassini: The Wonder of Saturn

Launched in 1997, Cassini arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2004 on a mission to study the giant planet, its rings, moons and magnetosphere. In April of this year, Cassini began the final phase of its mission, called its Grand Finale -- a daring series of 22 weekly dives between the planet and its rings. On Sept. 15, Cassini will plunge into Saturn, sending new and unique science about the planet's upper atmosphere to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor. This is the first time a spacecraft has explored this unique region of Saturn -- a dramatic conclusion to a mission that has revealed so much about the ringed planet.

Cassini flight controllers will monitor the spacecraft's final transmissions from JPL Mission Control.

Cassini Media Events and Schedule

(All media teleconferences and NASA TV news conferences will be available on the agency's website, and times are subject to change)

Tuesday, Aug. 29

• 2 p.m. EDT -- Media teleconference about spacecraft science and operations activities for the final orbits leading up to the end of the mission will include:

• - Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist, Headquarters, Washington

  - Earl Maize, Cassini project manager, JPL

  - Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, JPL

Visuals discussed during the telecon will be available at the start of the event at:

http://ift.tt/2wKig8t

Wednesday, Sept. 13

• 1 p.m. EDT -- News conference from JPL with a detailed preview of final mission activities (also available on NASA TV and online)

Thursday, Sept. 14

• 10 a.m. to 3 p.m PDT -- NASA Social -- onsite gathering for 30 pre-selected social media followers. Events will include a tour, and a speaker program that will be carried on NASA TV and online.
• About 8 p.m. PDT -- Final downlink of images expected to begin (streamed online only)

Friday, Sept. 15: End of Mission

• 7 to 8:30 a.m. EDT -- Live commentary on NASA TV and online. In addition, an uninterrupted, clean feed of cameras from JPL Mission Control, with mission audio only, will be available during the commentary on the NASA TV Media Channel and on Ustream.
• About 8 a.m. EDT -- Expected time of last signal and science data from Cassini
• 9:30 a.m. EDT -- Post-mission news conference at JPL (on NASA TV and online)

Media and the public also may ask questions during the events using #askNASA.

For online streaming, visit:

http://ift.tt/2mkMV4N

To watch the news conferences online, visit:

http://ift.tt/2mkMV4N

http://www.youtube.com/nasajpl/live

Accreditation

To cover these events at JPL, media must have pre-arranged credentials issued via the JPL Media Relations Office. The deadlines to apply for credentials have passed.

Resources

A Cassini press kit will be available beginning on Aug. 29 at:

http://ift.tt/2vkSnZw

Video for the Cassini mission is available for download at:

http://ift.tt/2wK9gjN

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

For more information on the Cassini mission's finale, including graphics, fact sheets, press kit, and an up-to-date timeline of mission events, visit:

http://ift.tt/2nBhQsZ

Follow the mission on social media at:

http://www.twitter.com/CassiniSaturn

http://ift.tt/2wKNIDC

News Media Contact

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo

NASA Headquarters, Washington

|202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Preston Dyches

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-7013

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-226b

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NASA Announces Cassini End-of-Mission Media Activities

On Sept. 15, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will complete its remarkable story of exploration with an intentional plunge into Saturn's atmosphere, ending its mission after nearly 20 years in space.

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Media Invited to Talk to Record-Breaking NASA Astronaut Before Landing

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s final news conference from the International Space Station will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 30.

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NASA Awards Engineering Services and Science Capability Contract

NASA has selected Jacobs Technology of Tullahoma, Tennessee, to provide a broad spectrum of engineering and scientific support services at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

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NASA Astronauts Available for Interviews Before Space Station Mission

NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba, who are making final preparations for a Sept. 12 launch to the International Space Station, will be available for live satellite interviews at 7 and 9 a.m. EDT, respectively, on Friday, Sept. 1.

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NASA Successfully Launches Latest Communications Satellite

NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M (TDRS-M), which is the third and final in a series of next generation communications satellites, has successfully been placed into orbit following separation from an United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

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Q&A: What Happens During a Total Eclipse?

It might be the hottest event of the summer: On Monday, the U.S. will see the first solar eclipse visible across both coasts in nearly a century.

The path of totality -- where the view of the Sun will be totally blocked by the Moon's shadow -- will cross from Oregon to South Carolina. The event has turned small towns like Twin Falls, Idaho, and Madras, Oregon, into prime vacation destinations. NASA is hosting events in a number of these locations, as well as encouraging teachers to share science with their students.

Jim Lux, a telecommunications specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has traveled far and wide to view total eclipses in the past. Below, he describes what makes them unique experiences.

Q: What happens during a total eclipse that makes it so special?

A: Words don't describe it -- it's better than any words. Pictures don't do it justice. Particularly if the corona is right, you get a dark sky with stars and planets and a black hole punched out of it. It's not super dark like in the middle of the night. The temperature drops and it gets cold.

When the Sun is about half-covered, it's a crescent, and any shadows form little crescent images everywhere. When you see that, you know totality is close.

You see shadow bands on the ground. These are a couple feet wide, and they move faster than you can run. If you're sitting next to a pool and see ripples moving on the bottom, it's a lot like that.

Right before totality, you might see a diamond ring effect, like a lens flare bursting from the remaining edge of the Sun.

Q: Is it eerie?

A: There's a slightly creepy aspect to the whole thing. There's no cue saying totality will end, so you're staring up, waiting for a piece of the Sun to become clear again. It's the feeling of being in a dark room and thinking, "When I flip the switch, what if the lights don't go on?"

Q: How many eclipses have you seen so far?

A: I've seen three. In 1991, I drove down with my wife to La Paz in Baja California to see one that lasted seven minutes, the longest in a century. In 1994, we went to Puerto Iguazu, where Argentina and Paraguay come together, and watched the eclipse over Iguazu Falls. In 1999, we went to Salzburg, Austria.

That was a broad range of locations: We went from camping in the desert, to the South American jungle, to a nice hotel in Salzburg. For this eclipse, we're going to eastern Oregon.

Q: What was it like seeing an eclipse in the jungle?

A: The sound changed as it got dark. You hear the same things that happen in the evening: Crickets started up. Cicadas have that buzz when it's hot during the day, and suddenly go "chirp chirp" when it gets dark. All the transitions at sunset are happening at an odd time of day.

Q: How do people react to a total eclipse?

A: Everyone has all these plans for experiments and photography. They throw all those plans out as soon as totality starts because it's so cool watching it.

People throw parties during the eclipse. In '99, it was pouring rain in England; we saw footage of all these people at Stonehenge standing in a soggy field.

In Argentina, intercity buses were driving past the falls at the time of the eclipse, and tourists poured out of them. Then a few minutes later, when it was over, they all poured back in and took off.

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News Media Contact

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-225

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An Insider's Guide to Voyager: 1977-2017

From the first detection of active volcanoes outside Earth to the first up-close images of Neptune, the 40-year Odyssey of NASA's Voyager mission is full of unforgettable memories. Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, and Voyager 2, the second farthest, launched on Aug. 20, 1977. In honor of their 40th launch anniversaries, we asked scientists and engineers who have worked with the spacecraft, as well as enthusiasts inspired by the mission, to share their most meaningful Voyager moments.

Some Voyager team members began their careers in the early days of the mission. Designing science sequences for the 1986 Uranus encounter was a first job after college for Suzanne Dodd, now the Voyager project manager: "We were making history," she said. Jamie Rankin, a current graduate student at Caltech in Pasadena, California, started working with Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone just days after Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012: "Every day as a graduate student here is like living in a legacy of discovery," she wrote.

Read these stories and more at:

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The era of exploration for Voyager continues even now, as showcased in a video about the mission. The twin Voyagers still send signals from deep space every day and collect valuable information about their environments. Voyager 1 is in interstellar space, while Voyager 2 is expected to cross over in the next few years. "The wonderful thing about the Voyager journey is not just that it's 40 years long, but in fact, it's still discovering new things because it's going where nothing has been before," Stone said.

VIDEO
› DOWNLOAD VIDEO Voyager at 40: Keep Reaching for the Stars

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News Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6425

elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-224

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Large Asteroid to Safely Pass Earth on Sept. 1

Asteroid Florence, a large near-Earth asteroid, will pass safely by Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles, (7.0 million kilometers, or about 18 Earth-Moon distances). Florence is among the largest near-Earth asteroids that are several miles is size; measurements from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and NEOWISE mission indicate it's about 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) in size.

"While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began."

This relatively close encounter provides an opportunity for scientists to study this asteroid up close. Florence is expected to be an excellent target for ground-based radar observations. Radar imaging is planned at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California and at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The resulting radar images will show the real size of Florence and also could reveal surface details as small as about 30 feet (10 meters).

Asteroid Florence was discovered by Schelte "Bobby" Bus at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia in March 1981. It is named in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the founder of modern nursing. The 2017 encounter is the closest by this asteroid since 1890 and the closest it will ever be until after 2500. Florence will brighten to ninth magnitude in late August and early September, when it will be visible in small telescopes for several nights as it moves through the constellations Piscis Austrinus, Capricornus, Aquarius and Delphinus.

Radar has been used to observe hundreds of asteroids. When these small, natural remnants of the formation of the solar system pass relatively close to Earth, deep space radar is a powerful technique for studying their sizes, shapes, rotation, surface features and roughness, and for more precise determination of their orbital path.

JPL manages and operates NASA's Deep Space Network, including the Goldstone Solar System Radar, and hosts the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program, an element of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office within the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects can be found at:

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For more information about NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, visit:

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For asteroid and comet news and updates, follow AsteroidWatch on Twitter:

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News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Laurie Cantillo / Dwayne Brown

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1077 / 202-358-1726

laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov / dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

2017-223

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What to Expect When Viewing the Eclipse

NASA's Eyes on the Eclipse application offers an easy preview of the event for any location.

What does a partial eclipse look like, anyway?

A new web-based tool from NASA lets anyone preview the event from any location, making it easy to see the difference between the total eclipse traversing a narrow band of the country on Aug. 21, and the partial event most Americans will experience.

The Eyes on the Eclipse application allows users to simulate a view of the eclipse from any point on the planet, and can be used with any web browser:

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In this interactive 3-D simulation, users can click on any location to preview the August 21st, 2017 eclipse. The app will work in any web browser on desktop or laptop computers, as well as newer tablets and phones.

NASA TV also will cover the eclipse from multiple locations, including by air and from the International Space Station. The program, available via streaming on the web, begins with a pre-show at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT), followed by the main program at 10 a.m. (1 p.m.) The broadcast will follow the path of the eclipse from Oregon to South Carolina with views from jet aircraft, high-altitude balloons, satellites and solar telescopes, and will include live reports from Salem, Oregon; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Beatrice, Nebraska; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carbondale, Illinois; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Clarksville, Tennessee; and Charleston, South Carolina.

For more information on the eclipse, visit http://ift.tt/2i7xPgZ and view this video in the JPL What's Up series.

And when experiencing the real thing, remember to exercise due care. For a list of precautions, visit: 2017-222

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News Media Contact

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-222

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Scientists Improve Brown Dwarf Weather Forecasts

Dim objects called brown dwarfs, less massive than the Sun but more massive than Jupiter, have powerful winds and clouds -- specifically, hot patchy clouds made of iron droplets and silicate dust. Scientists recently realized these giant clouds can move and thicken or thin surprisingly rapidly, in less than an Earth day, but did not understand why.

Now, researchers have a new model for explaining how clouds move and change shape in brown dwarfs, using insights from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Giant waves cause large-scale movement of particles in brown dwarfs' atmospheres, changing the thickness of the silicate clouds, researchers report in the journal Science. The study also suggests these clouds are organized in bands confined to different latitudes, traveling with different speeds in different bands.

"This is the first time we have seen atmospheric bands and waves in brown dwarfs," said lead author Daniel Apai, associate professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Just as in Earth's ocean, different types of waves can form in planetary atmospheres. For example, in Earth's atmosphere, very long waves mix cold air from the polar regions to mid-latitudes, which often lead clouds to form or dissipate.

The distribution and motions of the clouds on brown dwarfs in this study are more similar to those seen on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Neptune has cloud structures that follow banded paths too, but its clouds are made of ice. Observations of Neptune from NASA's Kepler spacecraft, operating in its K2 mission, were important in this comparison between the planet and brown dwarfs.

"The atmospheric winds of brown dwarfs seem to be more like Jupiter's familiar regular pattern of belts and zones than the chaotic atmospheric boiling seen on the Sun and many other stars," said study co-author Mark Marley at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

Brown dwarfs can be thought of as failed stars because they are too small to fuse chemical elements in their cores. They can also be thought of as "super planets" because they are more massive than Jupiter, yet have roughly the same diameter. Like gas giant planets, brown dwarfs are mostly made of hydrogen and helium, but they are often found apart from any planetary systems. In a 2014 study using Spitzer, scientists found that brown dwarfs commonly have atmospheric storms.

Due to their similarity to giant exoplanets, brown dwarfs are windows into planetary systems beyond our own. It is easier to study brown dwarfs than planets because they often do not have a bright host star that obscures them.

"It is likely the banded structure and large atmospheric waves we found in brown dwarfs will also be common in giant exoplanets," Apai said.

Using Spitzer, scientists monitored brightness changes in six brown dwarfs over more than a year, observing each of them rotate 32 times. As a brown dwarf rotates, its clouds move in and out of the hemisphere seen by the telescope, causing changes in the brightness of the brown dwarf. Scientists then analyzed these brightness variations to explore how silicate clouds are distributed in the brown dwarfs.

Researchers had been expecting these brown dwarfs to have elliptical storms resembling Jupiter's Great Red Spot, caused by high-pressure zones. The Great Red Spot has been present in Jupiter for hundreds of years and changes very slowly: Such "spots" could not explain the rapid changes in brightness that scientists saw while observing these brown dwarfs. The brightness levels of the brown dwarfs varied markedly just over the course of an Earth day.

To make sense of the ups and downs of brightness, scientists had to rethink their assumptions about what was going on in the brown dwarf atmospheres. The best model to explain the variations involves large waves, propagating through the atmosphere with different periods. These waves would make the cloud structures rotate with different speeds in different bands.

University of Arizona researcher Theodora Karalidi used a supercomputer and a new computer algorithm to create maps of how clouds travel on these brown dwarfs.

"When the peaks of the two waves are offset, over the course of the day there are two points of maximum brightness," Karalidi said. "When the waves are in sync, you get one large peak, making the brown dwarf twice as bright as with a single wave."

The results explain the puzzling behavior and brightness changes that researchers previously saw. The next step is to try to better understand what causes the waves that drive cloud behavior.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit:

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News Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6425

elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-221

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NASA-led Mission Studies Storm Intensification

A group of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists, including scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, are teaming up this month for an airborne mission focused on studying severe storm processes and intensification. The Hands-On Project Experience (HOPE) Eastern Pacific Origins and Characteristics of Hurricanes (EPOCH) field campaign will use NASA's Global Hawk autonomous aircraft to study storms in the Northern Hemisphere to learn more about how storms intensify as they brew out over the ocean.

The scope of the mission initially focused only on the East Pacific region, but was expanded to both the Gulf and Atlantic regions to give the science team broader opportunities for data collection.

"Our key point of interest is still the Eastern Pacific, but if the team saw something developing off the East Coast that may have high impact to coastal communities, we would definitely recalibrate to send the aircraft to that area," said Amber Emory, NASA's principal investigator.

Having a better understanding of storm intensification is an important goal of HOPE EPOCH. The data will help improve models that predict storm impact to coastal regions, where property damage and threat to human life can be high.

NASA has led the campaign through integration of the HOPE EPOCH science payload onto the Global Hawk platform and maintained operational oversight for the six planned mission flights. NOAA's role will be to incorporate data from dropsondes -- devices dropped from aircraft to measure storm conditions -- into NOAA National Weather Service operational models to improve storm track and intensity forecasts that will be provided to the public. NOAA first used the Global Hawk to study Hurricane Gaston in 2016.

With the Global Hawk flying at altitudes of 60,000 feet (18,300 meters), the team will conduct six 24-hour-long flights, three of which are being supported and funded through a partnership with NOAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems program.

NASA's autonomous Global Hawk is operated from NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California and was developed for the U.S. Air Force by Northrop Grumman. It is ideally suited for high-altitude, long-duration Earth science flights.

The ability of the Global Hawk to autonomously fly long distances, remain aloft for extended periods of time and carry large payloads brings a new capability to the science community for measuring, monitoring and observing remote locations of Earth not feasible or practical with piloted aircraft or space satellites.

The science payload consists of a variety of instruments that will measure different aspects of storm systems, including wind velocity, pressure, temperature, humidity, cloud moisture content and the overall structure of the storm system.

Many of the science instruments have flown previously on the Global Hawk, including the High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), a microwave sounder instrument that takes vertical profiles of temperature and humidity; and the Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) dropsondes, which are released from the aircraft to profile temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction.

New to the science payload is the ER-2 X-band Doppler Radar (EXRAD) instrument that observes vertical velocity of a storm system. EXRAD has one conically scanning beam as well as one nadir beam, which looks down directly underneath the aircraft. EXRAD now allows researchers to get direct retrievals of vertical velocities directly underneath the plane.

The EXRAD instrument is managed and operated by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and the HAMSR instrument is managed by JPL. The National Center for Atmospheric Research developed the AVAPS dropsonde system, and the NOAA team will manage and operate the system for the HOPE EPOCH mission.

Besides the scientific value that the HOPE EPOCH mission brings, the campaign also provides a unique opportunity for early-career scientists and project managers to gain professional development.

HOPE is a cooperative workforce development program sponsored by the Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership (APPEL) program and NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The HOPE Training Program provides an opportunity for a team of early-entry NASA employees to propose, design, develop, build and launch a suborbital flight project over the course of 18 months. This opportunity enables participants to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to manage NASA's future flight projects.

Emory started as a NASA Pathways Intern in 2009. The HOPE EPOCH mission is particularly exciting for her, as some of her first science projects at NASA began with the Global Hawk program.

The NASA Global Hawk had its first flights during the 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) campaign. Incidentally, the first EPOCH science flight targeted Tropical Storm Franklin as it emerged from the Yucatan peninsula into the Gulf of Campeche along a track almost identical to that of Hurricane Karl in 2010, which was targeted during GRIP and where Emory played an important role.

"It's exciting to work with people who are so committed to making the mission successful," Emory said. "Every mission has its own set of challenges, but when people come to the table with new ideas on how to solve those challenges, it makes for a very rewarding experience and we end up learning a lot from one another."

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

818-354-0474

alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Kate Squires

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

661-276-2020

Kate.k.squires@nasa.gov

Written by Kate Squires

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

2017-219

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2017 Astronaut Candidates Available for Interviews Before Training

NASA’s newest astronaut candidates, a diverse dozen women and men, will participate in media interviews and a final news conference before training on Tuesday, Aug. 22, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

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NASA Awards Contract to Extend Operations of JPL

NASA has awarded a contract to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, to extend operations of the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, through Sept. 30, 2018.

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NASA Awards Contract for Infrastructure, Applications, Communications

NASA has awarded the Kennedy Infrastructure, Applications and Communication (KIAC) contract to ASRC Federal Data Solutions, LLC of Beltsville, Maryland.

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NASA Awards Contract to Extend Operations of Research, Development Center

NASA has awarded a contract to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, to extend operations of the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), also in Pasadena, through Sept. 30, 2018.

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NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Communications Satellite

NASA is targeting 8:03 a.m. EDT Friday, Aug. 18, for the launch of its next Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) mission atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch, and related activities that begin Thursday, Aug. 17, will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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Study Finds Drought Recoveries Taking Longer

Land ecosystems are taking longer to recover from droughts, and incomplete recovery may become the norm in places, with tree deaths and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

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NASA Signs Combined Data Services Agreement for Polar Satellite Program

NASA has procured combined data support services under an agreement with the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo, Norway, for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program and various cooperative international missions. This action is supported under an international agreement between the United States and Norway.

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NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station Aboard SpaceX Resupply Mission

Experiments seeking a better understanding of Parkinson’s disease and the origin of cosmic rays are on their way to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft following today’s 12:31 p.m. EDT launch.

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NASA Announces Television Coverage for Aug. 21 Solar Eclipse

On Monday, Aug. 21, all of North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun, and NASA Television will carry it live from coast to coast from unique vantage points on the ground and from aircraft and spacecraft, including the International Space Station. Coverage will be featured during the live four-hour broadcast Eclipse Across America: Thro

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NASA Announces Television Coverage for Aug. 21 Solar Eclipse

NASA TV will carry the Aug. 21 solar eclipse live from unique vantage points on the ground, from aircraft and from spacecraft, including the International Space Station.

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NASA Awards Contract for Modification of Mobile Launcher

NASA has awarded a contract to RS&H, Inc. of Merritt Island, Florida, for architectural engineering and design services for the modification of the mobile launcher at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Cassini Prepares to Say Goodbye to a True Titan

The giant, hazy moon Titan has been essential to Cassini's mission, from the spacecraft's 2004 arrival at Saturn to the very end.

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NASA Awards Acquisition, Business Support Services Contract

NASA has awarded a contract to Paragon TEC, Inc. of Cleveland to provide acquisition and business support services at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and its Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

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NASA Television to Air Six-Hour Spacewalk at International Space Station

Two Russian cosmonauts will venture outside the International Space Station Thursday, Aug. 17, to deploy several nanosatellites, collect research samples and perform structural maintenance.

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TRAPPIST-1 is Older Than Our Solar System

If we want to know more about whether life could survive on a planet outside our solar system, it's important to know the age of its star.

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25 Years of Global Sea Level Data, and Counting

Celebrating four extraordinary oceanography satellites and their 25-year mission to make a measurement fundamental to studying the oceans and climate.

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NASA Selects Proposals to Study Galaxies, Stars, Planets

NASA has selected six astrophysics Explorers Program proposals for concept studies, three of which are managed by JPL.

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Watch Martian Clouds Scoot, Thanks to NASA's Curiosity

Wispy, early-season clouds resembling Earth's ice-crystal cirrus clouds move across the Martian sky in some new image sequences from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

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NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Space Station Resupply Mission

NASA commercial cargo provider SpaceX is targeting its 12th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for 12:31 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 14. Coverage will begin on NASA Television and the agency’s website Sunday, Aug. 13, with two briefings.

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NASA Selects Proposals to Study Galaxies, Stars, Planets

NASA has selected six astrophysics Explorers Program proposals for concept studies. The proposed missions would study gamma-ray and X-ray emissions from clusters of galaxies and neutron star systems, as well as infrared emissions from galaxies in the early universe and atmospheres of exoplanets, which are planets outside of our solar system.

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Cassini to Begin Final Five Orbits Around Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is about to embark on a set of ultra-close passes through Saturn's upper atmosphere with its final five orbits around the planet.

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Cassini to Begin Final Five Orbits Around Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will enter new territory in its final mission phase, the Grand Finale, as it prepares to embark on a set of ultra-close passes through Saturn’s upper atmosphere with its final five orbits around the planet.

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NASA Awards Space Science, Data Analysis Contract

NASA has awarded a contract to ADNET Systems, Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland, to provide Earth and space science research and development at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

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Can Poor Air Quality Mask Global Warming's Effects?

In the 1900s, the U.S. warmed everywhere except the Southeast, where warming didn't begin till the 1990s. A study finds air quality improvements may have played a role.

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New Clues to Universe's Structure Revealed

Three JPL scientists are part of the Dark Energy Survey, which is helping to further our understanding of the structure of the universe.

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NASA Highlights Science on Next Space Station Resupply Mission

NASA will host a media teleconference at noon EDT Tuesday, Aug. 8, to discuss select science investigations launching on the next SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station.

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California Cub Scouts to Speak with NASA Astronaut on Space Station

Cub Scouts of the Bay Area will speak with a NASA astronaut living, working and doing research aboard the International Space Station at 1:40 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 7.

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NASA Selects Proposals to Study Sun, Space Environment

NASA has selected nine proposals under its Explorers Program, including one managed by JPL.

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Five Years Ago and 154 Million Miles Away: Touchdown!

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which landed near Mount Sharp five years ago this week, is examining clues on that mountain about long-ago lakes on Mars.

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Hubble Detects Exoplanet with Glowing Water Atmosphere

Scientists have discovered the strongest evidence to date for a stratosphere on a planet outside our solar system.

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Two Voyagers Taught Us How to Listen to Space

Over the mission's 40 years, NASA's Voyager spacecraft have paved the way for modern deep space communications.

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NASA Awards Laboratory Support Services and Operations Contract at Kennedy

NASA has awarded the Laboratory Support Services and Operations (LASSO) contract at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to URS Federal Services Inc., an AECOM company, of Germantown, Maryland.

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First and Farthest: How the Voyagers Blazed Trails

Few missions can match the achievements of NASA's groundbreaking Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft during their 40 years of exploration.

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NASA's Voyager Spacecraft Still Reaching for the Stars After 40 Years

Humanity's farthest and longest-lived spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, achieve 40 years of operation and exploration this August and September.

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NASA’s Voyager Spacecraft Still Reaching for the Stars After 40 Years

Humanity’s farthest and longest-lived spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, achieve 40 years of operation and exploration this August and September. Despite their vast distance, they continue to communicate with NASA daily, still probing the final frontier.

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NASA Awards $14.3 Million to Small Businesses, Research Institutions to Develop Innovative Technologies

NASA has selected 19 proposals from American small businesses and research institutions for Phase II of its competitive Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, totaling $14.3 million in awards.

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