Twin Spacecraft to Weigh in on Earth's Changing Water

A pair of new spacecraft that will observe our planet's ever-changing water cycle, ice sheets and crust is in final preparations for a California launch no earlier than Saturday, May 19. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), will take over where the first GRACE mission left off when it completed its 15-year mission in 2017.

GRACE-FO will continue monitoring monthly changes in the distribution of mass within and among Earth's atmosphere, oceans, land and ice sheets, as well as within the solid Earth itself. These data will provide unique insights into Earth's changing climate, Earth system processes and even the impacts of some human activities, and will have far-reaching benefits to society, such as improving water resource management.

GRACE-Follow On (GRACE-FO) is a satellite mission scheduled for launch in May 2018. GRACE-FO will continue the work of the GRACE satellite mission tracking Earth's water movement around the globe. These discoveries provide a unique view of Earth's climate and have far-reaching benefits to society and the world's population.

"Water is critical to every aspect of life on Earth -- for health, for agriculture, for maintaining our way of living," said Michael Watkins, GRACE-FO science lead and director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "You can't manage it well until you can measure it. GRACE-FO provides a unique way to measure water in many of its phases, allowing us to manage water resources more effectively."

Like GRACE, GRACE-FO will use an innovative technique to observe something that can't be seen directly from space. It uses the weight of water to measure its movement -- even water hidden far below Earth's surface. GRACE-FO will do this by very precisely measuring the changes in the shape of Earth's gravity field caused by the movement of massive amounts of water, ice and solid Earth.

"When water is underground, it's impossible to directly observe from space. There's no picture you can take or radar you can bounce off the surface to measure changes in that deep water," said Watkins. "But it has mass, and GRACE-FO is almost the only way we have of observing it on large scales. Similarly, tracking changes in the total mass of the polar ice sheets is also very difficult, but GRACE-FO essentially puts a 'scale' under them to track their changes over time."

A Legacy of Discoveries

GRACE-FO will extend the GRACE data record an additional five years and expand its legacy of scientific achievements. GRACE chronicled the ongoing loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and mountain glaciers. That wealth of data shed light on the key processes, short-term variability and long-term trends that impact sea level rise, helping to improve sea level projections. The estimates of total water storage on land derived from GRACE data, from groundwater changes in deep aquifers to changes in soil moisture and surface water, are giving water managers new tools to measure the impact of droughts and monitor and forecast floods.

GRACE data also have been used to infer changes in deep ocean currents, a driving force in Earth's climate. Its atmospheric temperature profile data, derived from measurements of how signals from the constellation of GPS satellites were bent as they traveled through the atmosphere and received by antennas on the GRACE satellites, have contributed to U.S. and European weather forecast products. GRACE data have even been used to measure changes within the solid Earth itself, including the response of Earth's crust to the retreat of glaciers since the last Ice Age, and the impact of large earthquakes.

According to Frank Webb, GRACE-FO project scientist at JPL, the new mission will provide invaluable observations of long-term climate-related mass changes.

"The only way to know for sure whether observed multi-year trends represent long-term changes in mass balance is to extend the length of the observations," Webb said.

An Orbiting Cat and Mouse

Like its predecessors, the two identical GRACE-FO satellites will function as a single instrument. The satellites orbit Earth about 137 miles (220 kilometers) apart, at an initial altitude of about 305 miles (490 kilometers). Each satellite continually sends microwave signals to the other to accurately measure changes in the distance between them. As they fly over a massive Earth feature, such as a mountain range or underground aquifer, the gravitational pull of that feature tugs on the satellites, changing the distance separating them. By tracking changes in their separation distance with incredible accuracy -- to less than the thickness of a human hair -- the satellites are able to map these regional gravity changes.

A GPS receiver is used to track each spacecraft's position relative to Earth's surface, and onboard accelerometers record non-gravitational forces on the spacecraft, such as atmospheric drag and solar radiation. These data are combined to produce monthly maps of the regional changes in global gravity and corresponding near-surface mass variations, which primarily reflect changes in the distribution of water mass in Earth's atmosphere, oceans, land and ice sheets.

In addition, GRACE-FO will test an experimental Laser Ranging Interferometer, an instrument that could increase the precision of measurements between the two spacecraft by a factor of 10 or more, for future missions similar to GRACE. The interferometer, developed by a German/American instrument team, will be the first in-space demonstration of laser interferometry between satellites.

"The Laser Ranging Interferometer is an excellent example of a great partnership," said Frank Flechtner, GFZ's GRACE-FO project manager. "I'm looking forward to analyzing these innovative inter-satellite ranging data and their impact on gravity field modeling."

GRACE-FO will be launched into orbit with five Iridium NEXT communications satellites on a commercially procured SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This unique "rideshare" launch will first deploy GRACE-FO, then the Falcon 9 second stage will continue to a higher orbit to deploy the Iridium satellites.

GRACE-FO continues a successful partnership between NASA and Germany's GFZ, with participation by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information on GRACE-FO, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/gracefo

A media reel is available at:

https://vimeo.com/266146377

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0474

Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0918

Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

2018-085

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Twin Spacecraft to Weigh in on Earth's Changing Water

A pair of new spacecraft that will observe our planet’s ever-changing water cycle, ice sheets, and crust is in final preparations for a California launch no earlier than Saturday, May 19.

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NASA Sets Sights on May 5 Launch of InSight to Mars

NASA's next mission to Mars, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight), is scheduled to launch Saturday, May 5, on a first-ever mission to study the heart of the Red Planet. Coverage of prelaunch and launch activities begins Thursday, May 3, on NASA Television and the agency's website.

InSight, the first planetary mission to take off from the West Coast, is targeted to launch at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT) from Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

Launching on the same rocket is a separate NASA technology experiment known as Mars Cube One (MarCO). MarCO consists of two mini-spacecraft and will be the first test of CubeSat technology in deep space. They are designed to test new communications and navigation capabilities for future missions and may aid InSight communications.

NASA TV and online mission coverage is as follows (all times Pacific):

Thursday, May 3

1 p.m. - Prelaunch Briefing

• Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington
• Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
• Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL
• Annick Sylvestre-Baron, deputy project manager for InSight seismometer investigation at France's space agency, the Centre National d'Études Spatiales, Paris
• Philippe Lognonné - InSight seismometer investigation lead at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France
• Tilman Spohn, investigation lead at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3), an instrument on InSight, Berlin
• Andrew Klesh, MarCO chief engineer at JPL
• Anne Marinan, MarCO systems engineer at JPL
• Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, Denver
• Tim Dunn, launch director with NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center, Florida
• Scott Messer, ULA program manager for NASA launches, Centennial, Colorado
• Col. Michael Hough, commander of the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Central California
• 1st Lt. Kristina Williams, weather officer for the 30th Space Wing

Saturday, May 5 (all times Pacific)

3:30 a.m. - Launch coverage begins.

4:05 a.m. - Launch time

Prelaunch Briefing Participation

Media and the public also may ask questions during the event on social media using #askNASA.

Public Launch Viewing

There are two official launch viewing sites for the public in Lompoc, California. For information on these sites, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/timeline/launch/watch-in-person/

InSight will be the first mission to peer deep beneath the Martian surface, studying the planet's interior by measuring its heat output and listening for marsquakes, which are seismic events similar to earthquakes on Earth. It will use the seismic waves generated by marsquakes to develop a map of the planet's deep interior. The resulting insight into Mars' formation will help us better understand how other rocky planets, including Earth, were and are created.

JPL manages the InSight mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver.

Several European partners, including France's space agency, the Centre National d'Étude Spatiales, and Germany's DLR, are supporting the mission.

ULA, of Centennial, Colorado, is providing the Atlas V launch service. The Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch management.

The prelaunch briefing and launch commentary will be streamed on NASA TV and at

https://www.nasa.gov/live

It will also be streamed live and archived at

https://youtube.com/nasajpl/live

Join the conversation on social media by following InSight at:

https://twitter.com/NASAInSight

or

https://www.facebook.com/NASAInSight/

News Media Contact

DC Agle / Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011 / 818-393-2433

agle@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726 / 202-358-1003

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

Tori McLendon

NASA Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

321-867-2468

tori.n.mclendon@nasa.gov

2nd Lt. Amy Rasmussen

30th Space Wing, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

805-606-4017

amy.rasmussen@us.af.mil

2018-084b

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Results of Heat Shield Testing

NASA Mars 2020 Mission Status Report

A post-test inspection of the composite structure for a heat shield to be used on the Mars 2020 mission revealed that a fracture occurred during structural testing. The mission team is working to build a replacement heat shield structure. The situation will not affect the mission's launch readiness date of July 17, 2020.

Project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is working with contractor Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, to understand the cause of the fracture and determine whether any design changes need to be incorporated into a replacement.

The fracture, which occurred near the shield's outer edge and spans the circumference of the component, was discovered on April 12, after the shield completed a week-long test at the Lockheed Martin Space facility. The test was designed to subject the heat shield to forces up to 20 percent greater than those expected during entry into the Martian atmosphere. While the fracture was unexpected, it represents why spaceflight hardware is tested in advance so that design changes or fixes can be implemented prior to launch.

The heat shield is part of the thermal protection system and aeroshell designed to encapsulate and protect the Mars 2020 rover and landing system from the intense heat generated during descent into the Martian atmosphere. The structure was originally tested in 2008 and wasone of two heat shields manufactured in support of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, which successfully landed the Curiosity rover on Mars in August 2012.

The current heat shield will be repaired in order to support the prelaunch spacecraft testing while a new heat shield structure is readied for flight over the next year. Once the new structure is complete and tested, the thermal protection tiles will then be installed for flight, and the heatshield and other components of the aeroshell will be delivered to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final spacecraft processing prior to launch.

The Mars 2020 Project at JPL manages the Mars 2020 spacecraft development for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

2018-083

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NASA Sets Sights on May 5 Launch of InSight Mars Mission

NASA’s next mission to Mars, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight), is scheduled to launch Saturday, May 5, on a first-ever mission to study the heart of Mars. Coverage of prelaunch and launch activities begins Thursday, May 3, on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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Montana, Vermont Students to Speak with NASA Astronauts on Space Station

Students from Montana and Vermont will talk with astronauts on the International Space Station next week as part of NASA’s Year of Education on Station.

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Before the Flood Arrives

New NASA Study May Improve Future River-Observing Satellites

River floods are one of the most common and devastating of Earth's natural disasters. In the past decade, deluges from rivers have killed thousands of people every year around the world and caused losses on the order of tens of billions of U.S. dollars annually. Climate change, which is projected to increase precipitation in certain areas of the planet, might make river floods in these places more frequent and severe in the coming decades.

Now, a new study led by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, analyzes what it would take for river-observing satellitesto become an even more useful tool to mitigate flood damage and improve reservoir management globally in near real-time.

"Early flood warning systems traditionally depend on gauge networks that detect floods farther up the river, but gauge data are becoming more and more scarce," said George Allen, lead author of the new research and a hydrologist at JPL. "Our study shows that there's room for satellites to help fill in the gap. But for satellites to inform real-time flood mitigation, they have to provide data to water managers within a sufficiently short lag time."

River floods occur when a channel fills with water beyond the capacity of its banks, normally due to heavy rainfall. The flood travels along the course of the river as a wave, moving downstream faster than the water itself. Several satellite missions have been able to detect floods as sudden changes in the height or width of river waters. Once a flood is observed, it is relatively easy to predict accurately how it will move down the river. This information is extremely useful in early flood warning systems and other real-time river management applications.

To study the speed at which floods propagate through the planet's rivers, Allen and his colleagues ran a simple numerical model of flow waves that used information such as the width, slope, depth and roughness -- the amount of friction water experiences when traveling along a river -- of rivers worldwide. After analyzing wave speeds through 11 million miles (17.7 million kilometers) of rivers around the planet, the researchers found that flood waves traveling at their maximum speed take a median time of three days to reach the next downstream dam, four days to arrive to the next downstream city and six days to exit the river system entirely.

The team compared their model's results with discharge records from more than 20,000 U.S. Geological Survey gauge stations along around 40,000 miles (64,400 kilometers) of varied river systems in the United States. They found that the model estimated faster wave speeds than the gauge data showed.

"That was expected, based on the fact that we're modeling waves moving at maximum speeds, whereas the gauge data are looking at all types of wave speeds: low speeds, high speeds, everything in between," Allen said. "In this way, our study estimates a worst-case-scenario of how fast floods can move down rivers."

The scientists then used their wave speed findings to calculate data latency -- how quickly satellite data should be downloaded, processed and made available to the public to be useful for flood early warning systems and other real-time flood mitigation strategies, as well as reservoir management. In particular, they focused on future data from NASA's upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. SWOT, scheduled to launch in 2021, is specifically designed to observe rivers. That's because it has a repeat orbit of 21 days and will be able to detect flood waves, particularly in higher-latitude large rivers. The researchers found that making SWOT data available within days after being acquired by the spacecraft could be useful for real-time flood mitigation. Compared to past or current satellites providing river and flood information, SWOT will provide never-before-seen maps of river height, allowing for more reliable prediction of flood timing and magnitude.

If the data were to be processed in two days or less, Allen's team calculated, it would be ready for emergency managers before at least two-thirds of observed waves reached the next downstream city. For dams, the quick turnaround of satellite measurements would give advance notice to downstream reservoirs in at least half of the cases when SWOT detects a flood wave.

"There is a trade-off between data latency and data quality," said Cédric David of JPL, who directed the new study and is a member of SWOT's science team. "So, do we want to wait to get the best data possible, or do we want to get a rough version of what's going on now, so we can provide actionable information? As we prepare for new satellite missions like SWOT, that's when we start asking these types of questions."

Satellite data that could inform flood early warning systems would be particularly useful for developing nations, where either there are insufficient river gauges or countries do not share gauge data with their downstream neighbors, Allen said.

Results of the study are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

For more information on SWOT, visit:

https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0474

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Maria-José Viñas

NASA's Earth Science News Team

2018-082

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NASA to Hold Briefing on Next Earth-Observing Mission

NASA will host a media briefing at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) Monday, April 30, to discuss the upcoming launch of a mission that will provide unique insights into our planet's changing climate and Earth system processes, and have far-reaching benefits to society, such as improving water resource management.

The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington, and air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. It will also be streamed live and archived at https://youtube.com/nasajpl/live.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) missionwill measure and monitor monthly changes in how mass is redistributed within and among Earth's atmosphere, oceans, land and ice sheets, as well as within Earth itself. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The briefing participants are:

• David Jarrett, GRACE-FO program executive in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters, Washington
• Michael Watkins, GRACE-FO science lead and director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
• Frank Webb, GRACE-FO project scientist at JPL
• Phil Morton, NASA GRACE-FO project manager at JPL
• Frank Flechtner, GRACE-FO project manager for the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), in Potsdam, Germany

Media and the public may ask questions during the briefing on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.

GRACE-FO is scheduled to launch May 19 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as a "rideshare" on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying five Iridium communications satellites. GRACE-FO is a partnership between NASA and GFZ.

For more information about the mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/gracefo

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0474

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0918

stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

2018-081

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NASA Invites Media to Briefing on Next Earth-Observing Mission

NASA will host a media briefing at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, April 30, to discuss the upcoming launch of a mission that will provide unique insights into our planet’s changing climate and Earth system processes, and have far-reaching benefits to society, such as improving water resource management.

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Stellar Dust Survey Paves Way for Exoplanet Missions

Veils of dust wrapped around distant stars could make it difficult for scientists to find potentially habitable planets in those star systems. The Hunt for Observable Signatures of Terrestrial Systems, or HOSTS, survey was tasked with learning more about the effect of dust on the search for new worlds. The goal is to help guide the design of future planet-hunting missions. In a new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, HOSTS scientists report on the survey's initial findings.

Using the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer, or LBTI, on Mount Graham in Arizona, the HOSTS survey determines the brightness of warm dust floating in the orbital planes of other stars (called exozodiacal dust). In particular, HOSTS has studied dust in nearby stars' habitable zones, where liquid water could exist on the surface of a planet. The LBTI is five to 10 times more sensitive than the previous telescope capable of detecting exozodiacal dust, the Keck Interferometer Nuller.

Among the findings detailed in the new paper, the HOSTS scientists report that a majority of Sun-like stars in their survey do not possess high levels of dust -- good news for future efforts to study potentially-habitable planets around those stars. A final report on the full HOSTS survey results is expected early next year.

More information about the new findings from HOSTS and the search for Earthlike planets beyond our solar system is available in this news release from the University of Arizona.

The LBTI is funded by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program office and managed by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. JPL is a division of Caltech, also in Pasadena. Six JPL scientists co-authored the new research paper. The LBTI is an international collaboration among institutions in the U.S., Italy and Germany, and it is managed and headquartered at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

NASA is taking a multifaceted approach to finding and studying planets outside our solar system. On April 18, NASA launched its newest planet-hunting observatory, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is expected to find thousands of new exoplanets, mostly around stars smaller than our Sun.

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-1821

Calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Doug Carroll

University of Arizona, Tucson

520-621-9017

dougcarroll@email.arizona.edu

2018-080

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US Cargo Spaceship Set for Departure from International Space Station

After delivering more than 5,800 pounds of science investigations and cargo for NASA, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is set to depart the International Space Station on Wednesday, May 2. NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage of Dragon's departure beginning at 10 a.m. EDT.

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Media Invited to Orbital ATK Cargo Launch from Virginia

Media accreditation now is open for the launch of Orbital ATK’s ninth contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station, currently targeted for no earlier than 5:04 a.m. EDT May 20.

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What Uranus Cloud Tops Have in Common With Rotten Eggs

Even after decades of observations and a visit by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, Uranus held on to one critical secret -- the composition of its clouds. Now, one of the key components of the planet's clouds has finally been verified.

A global research team that includes Glenn Orton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has spectroscopically dissected the infrared light from Uranus captured by the 26.25-foot (8-meter) Gemini North telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea. They found hydrogen sulfide, the odiferous gas that most people avoid, in Uranus' cloud tops. The long-sought evidence was published in the April 23rd issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.

The detection of hydrogen sulfide high in Uranus' cloud deck (and presumably Neptune's) is a striking difference from the gas giant planets located closer to the Sun -- Jupiter and Saturn -- where ammonia is observed above the clouds, but no hydrogen sulfide. These differences in atmospheric composition shed light on questions about the planets' formation and history.

"We've strongly suspected that hydrogen sulfide gas was influencing the millimeter and radio spectrum of Uranus for some time, but we were unable to attribute the absorption needed to identify it positively. Now, that part of the puzzle is falling into place as well," Orton said.

The Gemini data, obtained with the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS), sampled reflected sunlight from a region immediately above the main visible cloud layer in Uranus' atmosphere.

"While the lines we were trying to detect were just barely there, we were able to detect them unambiguously thanks to the sensitivity of NIFS on Gemini, combined with the exquisite conditions on Mauna Kea," said lead author Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford, U.K.

No worries, though, that the odor of hydrogen sulfide would overtake human senses. According to Irwin, "Suffocation and exposure in the negative 200 degrees Celsius [392 degrees Fahrenheit] atmosphere made of mostly hydrogen, helium and methane would take its toll long before the smell."

Read more on the news of Uranus' atmosphere from Gemini Observatory here.

Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

News Media Contact

Gretchen McCartney

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-6215

Gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov

JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1003

joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

Peter Michaud

Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii

808-974-2510

pmichaud@gemini.edu

2018-079

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Four Years of NASA NEOWISE Data

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission has released its fourth year of survey data. Since the mission was restarted in December 2013, after a period of hibernation, the asteroid- and comet-hunter has completely scanned the skies nearly eight times and has observed and characterized 29,375 objects in four years of operations. This total includes 788 near-Earth objects and 136 comets since the mission restart.

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of the planets in our solar system into orbits that allow them to enter Earth's neighborhood. Ten of the objects discovered by NEOWISE in the past year have been classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). Near-Earth objects are classified as PHAs, based on their size and how closely they can approach Earth's orbit.

"NEOWISE continues to expand our catalog and knowledge of these elusive and important objects," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "In total, NEOWISE has now characterized sizes and reflectivities of over 1,300 near-Earth objects since the spacecraft was launched, offering an invaluable resource for understanding the physical properties of this population, and studying what they are made of and where they have come from."

The NEOWISE team has released an animation depicting detections made by the telescope over its four years of surveying the solar system.

More than 2.5 million infrared images of the sky were collected in the fourth year of operations by NEOWISE. These data are combined with the year one through three NEOWISE data into a single publicly available archive. That archive contains approximately 10.3 million sets of images and a database of more than 76 billion source detections extracted from those images.

Originally called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the spacecraft launched in December 2009. It was placed in hibernation in 2011 after its primary astrophysics mission was completed. In September 2013, it was reactivated, renamed NEOWISE and assigned a new mission: to assist NASA's efforts to identify and characterize the population of near-Earth objects. NEOWISE also is characterizing more distant populations of asteroids and comets to provide information about their sizes and compositions.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages and operates the NEOWISE mission for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office within the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Science data processing takes place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

To review the latest data release from NEOWISE, please visit:

http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/neowise/

For more information about NEOWISE, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/neowise

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

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

To learn more about NASA's efforts for Planetary Defense see:

https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/overview

News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1003

joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

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Vice President Pence Swears in New NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine

Jim Bridenstine officially took office as the 13th administrator of NASA Monday after he was given the oath of office by Vice President Mike Pence at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.

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Vice President Pence to Swear in New Agency Administrator; Airing on NASA Television

Vice President Mike Pence will swear in Jim Bridenstine as NASA’s new administrator at 2:30 p.m. EDT Monday, April 23, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The ceremony will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Invites Media to Swearing-In of New Agency Administrator

Media are invited to see Vice President Mike Pence swear in Jim Bridenstine as NASA’s new administrator at 2:30 p.m. EDT Monday, April 23, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The ceremony will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Awards Construction Contract for Instrument Development Facility

NASA has awarded a contract to the Manhattan Construction Company, of Arlington Virginia, for the construction of the Instrument Development Facility at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

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NASA Astronauts on Space Station to Speak with Students from Florida, Texas

Students from Coral Gables, Florida, and the Texas Gulf Coast will talk with astronauts aboard the International Space Station next week as part of NASA’s Year of Education on Station.

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Statements on Jim Bridenstine’s Senate Confirmation as NASA Administrator

The following are statements from Rep. Jim Bridenstine and acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot on Thursday’s U.S. Senate confirmation of Bridenstine as the 13th Administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

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NASA Engineers Dream Big with Small Spacecraft

Many of NASA's most iconic spacecraft towered over the engineers who built them: think Voyagers 1 and 2, Cassini or Galileo -- all large machines that could measure up to a school bus.

But in the past two decades, mini-satellites called CubeSats have made space accessible to a new generation. These briefcase-sized boxes are more focused in their abilities and have a fraction of the mass -- and cost -- of some past titans of space.

NASA's Mars Cube One, or MarCO, is heading to deep space to test a first-of-its-kind technology demonstration: near-real-time communication between Earth and Mars using CubeSats.

In May, engineers will be watching closely as NASA launches its first pair of CubeSats designed for deep space. The twin spacecraft are called Mars Cube One, or MarCO, and were built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Both MarCO spacecraft will be hitching a ride on the same rocket launching InSight, NASA's next robotic lander headed for Mars. The MarCOs are intended to follow InSight on its cruise through space; if they survive the journey, each is equipped with a folding high-gain antenna to relay data about InSight as it enters the Martian atmosphere and lands.

The MarCOs won't produce any science of their own, and aren't required for InSight to send its data back home (the lander will rely on NASA's Mars orbiters for that, in addition to communicating directly with antennas on Earth). But the twins will be a crucial first test of CubeSat technology beyond Earth orbit, demonstrating how they could be used to further explore the solar system.

"These are our scouts," said Andy Klesh of JPL, MarCO's chief engineer. "CubeSats haven't had to survive the intense radiation of a trip to deep space before, or use propulsion to point their way towards Mars. We hope to blaze that trail."

The official names of these two scouts are "MarCO-A" and "MarCO-B." But to the team that built them, they're "Wall-E" and "Eva" -- nicknames based on Pixar characters. Both MarCOs use a compressed gas commonly found in fire extinguishers to push themselves through space, the same way Wall-E did in his 2008 film.

Survival is far from guaranteed. As the saying goes: space is hard. The first challenge will be switching on. The MarCO batteries were last checked in March by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems of Irvine, California, which inserted each CubeSat into a special dispenser that will propel it into space. Those batteries will be used to deploy each CubeSat's solar arrays, with the hope that enough power will be left over to turn on their radios. If power is too low, the MarCO team may hear silence until each spacecraft is more fully charged.

If both MarCOs make the journey, they'll test a method of communications relay that could act as a "black box" for future Mars landings, helping engineers understand the difficult process of getting spacecraft to safely touch down on the Red Planet. Mars landings are notoriously hard to stick.

The MarCOs could also prove that CubeSats are ready to go beyond Earth. CubeSats were first developed to teach university students about satellites. Today, they're a major commercial technology, providing data on everything from shipping routes to environmental changes.

NASA scientists are eager to explore the solar system using CubeSats. JPL even has its own CubeSat clean room, where several flight projects have been built, including the MarCOs. For young engineers, the thrill is building something that could potentially reach Mars in just a matter of years rather than a decade.

"We're a small team, so everyone gets experience working on multiple parts of the spacecraft," Klesh said. "You learn everything about building, testing and flying along the way. We're inventing every day at this point."

The MarCOs were built by JPL, which manages InSight and MarCO for NASA. They were funded by both JPL and NASA's Science Mission Directorate. A number of commercial suppliers provided unique technologies for the MarCOs. A full list, along with more information about the spacecraft, can be found here.

News Media Contact

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

2018-077

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NASA to Discuss Demonstration of New Space Exploration Power System

Media are invited to attend a news conference at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland at 9:15 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 2, to discuss a recent experiment to demonstrate a new nuclear reactor power system designed for space.

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NASA TV Updates Launch Coverage for Planet-Hunting Mission TESS

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) now is scheduled for launch today at 6:51 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 18, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

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NASA Marks Earth Day with #NASA4Earth Tools, Events

This Earth Day, NASA invites you to create your own shareable views of our home planet, help combat mosquito-transmitted diseases and watch our fleet of Earth-observing spacecraft as they circle the globe.

NASA pioneers and supports an amazing range of advanced technologies and tools to help scientists and environmental specialists better understand and protect our home planet -- from space lasers to virtual reality, small satellites and smartphone apps.

NASA pioneers and supports an amazing range of advanced technologies and tools to help scientists and environmental specialists better understand and protect our home planet. To celebrate Earth Day 2018, April 22, the agency is highlighting many of these technologies and the applications behind them. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

To celebrate Earth Day 2018 on April 22, the agency is highlighting many of these innovative technologies, including some developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and is encouraging the public to use several of the online tools. Look for videos and stories to be posted throughout this week on NASA social media with the hashtag #NASA4Earth and on this web page:

https://www.nasa.gov/earthday

Visit NASA's Earth Day page to access three online tools available for the public to explore our planet, view NASA spacecraft and help prevent disease:

Animated GIFs of Your Changing World

NASA's Worldview is a web-based application for interactively browsing and downloading global, high-resolution satellite imagery that is as current as yesterday and extends back almost two decades. Through an easy-to-use map interface, you can use your tablet, laptop or desktop computer to watch the growth of tropical storms, the movement of icebergs and the spread of wildfires. Pan-and-zoom into any area of the world and make an animated GIF to share on social media. A video tutorial is available.

3-D View of NASA Earth Spacecraft and Data

Fly along with NASA's fleet of Earth science missions and observe Earth from a global perspective in the immersive, 3-D environment. The Eyes on the Earth app, downloadable to your laptop or desktop, displays the current locations of all NASA Earth-observing missions now in orbit and gives you a sneak peek of upcoming missions. "Latest Events" lets you explore geo-located images from space of recent Earth natural events, such as major storms, wildfires and algal blooms.

Citizen Science App to Combat Mosquito-borne Disease

Citizen scientists can play a role in helping prevent Zika and other mosquito-transmitted diseases. The free GLOBE Observer smartphone app can be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store. With the app the public can report where they find mosquito breeding habitats and larvae, information that scientists and public health officials use to map the range and population density of mosquitoes in your neighborhood.

NASA is participating in the following Earth Day public events:

Earth Day in the Nation's Capital

Thursday, April 19, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT, and Friday, April 20, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Union Station main hall at 40 Massachusetts Ave. NE in Washington

Hands-on activities, demonstrations and talks by NASA scientists at the Hyperwall stage. Opening ceremony with NASA officials, April 19 at 10:30 a.m.

Earth Day Houston

Sunday, April 22, noon to 6 p.m. CDT

Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney St. in Houston

A citywide event featuring displays, exhibits and talks on topics ranging from alternative energy to recycling methods. NASA Johnson Space Center staff will demonstrate virtual reality goggles showing the International Space Station, which hosts several exterior instruments that monitor Earth, and discuss the use of Earth observation images at Johnson and the center's Sustainability Program to reduce environmental impacts and build energy-efficient facilities.

A live NASA social media event will highlight several Earth science technologies:

Facebook Live: Transforming How We See Our Planet

Friday, April 20, 11 a.m. PDT, broadcast on NASA Television, streamed live on the NASA Facebook page and the agency's website. NASA regularly pushes the envelope to find new ways to better see and understand our changing planet. Join us to hear about three up-and-coming technologies: Ved Chirayath, NASA scientist, has developed cameras to image marine environments obscured by the ocean's surface; Shayna Skolnik of Navteca is working to bring NASA satellite data of Earth to life through virtual reality; and Brian Campbell, NASA outreach specialist, talks about the space laser system on the upcoming ICESat-2 mission that will measure polar ice and other important Earth features.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. The agency's observations of Earth's complex natural environment are critical to understanding how our planet's natural resources and climate are changing now and could change in the future.

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/earth

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0474

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0918

stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

2018-075

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NASA Celebrates Earth Day with #NASA4Earth Tools, Events

This Earth Day, NASA invites you to create your own shareable views of our home planet, help combat mosquito-transmitted diseases, and watch our fleet of Earth-observing spacecraft as they circle the globe.

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NASA Nominated for Six Webby Awards

A solar eclipse and the demise of one of NASA's most successful planetary missions made 2017 the agency's biggest year yet for online engagement, and NASA's efforts in digital communications have been recognized with nominations for six Webby Awards, the highest honor for online communications.

"NASA's digital engagement involves dozens of people across the agency," said Jen Rae Wang, associate administrator for communications. "We're really pleased that our efforts are being recognized again."

NASA's six nominations are for:

NASA.gov

website for Government & Civil Innovation

Solar System Exploration

website for Science

NASA Climate Change

website for Green

Exoplanet Exploration

website for Weird

NASA Snapchat

for Content and Marketing: Education & Discovery

NASA JPL Social Media

for Social Corporate Communications

NASA JPL's Real-time Cassini Grand Finale was also honored in the Best Use of Online Media Category.

Through April 19, members of the public can vote for the nominees to receive the Webbys' People's Voice award. After registering with the Webby Awards site, members of the public can vote for the nominees at these links:

NASA.gov: https://wbby.co/web-gov
Solar System Exploration: https://wbby.co/web-sci
Climate Change: https://wbby.co/web-green Exoplanet Exploration: https://wbby.co/web-weird
NASA Snapchat: https://wbby.co/soc-edu
NASA JPL Social Media: http://wbby.co/soc-corp

The NASA Office of Communications has managed NASA.gov, the agency's primary site on the World Wide Web, since 1994, setting a high standard for government online communications. The site has been awarded the Webby for government websites in 2003, 2012 and 2014, while the public has voted it the winner of the People's Voice award nine times since 2002, most recently last year. The site receives almost 350,000 visits a day, surging when news piques the interest of the public. In 2017, the site anchored NASA's most popular online event ever: coverage of the Aug. 21 solar eclipse. More than 40 million people watched live TV coverage across NASA.gov, the agency's Facebook page and other platforms. More than 12 million people watched multiple live video feeds of the eclipse from across the United States, and the site saw almost 26 million sessions total, nearly a fifth of the year's total in one day.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, has produced many Webby and People's Voice winners over the years. The Climate Change website won the Science Webby in 2011 and 2015, as well as the People's Voice for Science in 2010. In 2013, the Solar System Exploration site won Webbys for both Government and Science, while the Mars Curiosity Rover Social Media Campaign won the Webby and People's Voice for Best Overall Social Presence. Most of NASA's awards have been in the government, science and education categories; the Exoplanet Exploration site's nomination is NASA's first in the Weird category.

NASA's social media presence comprises more than 525 social media accounts on 18 platforms. Through this presence, NASA seeks to not just share new discoveries and stories about space exploration on social media, but to do so in a way that is understandable and engages the public to interact with our content. The agency's flagship Twitter account now has more than 29 million followers, the most of any federal government agency and is in the top 100 overall accounts on the platform. NASA's flagship Instagram account has over 31 million followers and is in the top 50 accounts on the platform, in addition to NASA being the largest federal government agency on Facebook and Google+. NASA maintains a robust presence sharing behind-the-scenes stories on Snapchat and curates highlights from around the agency on Tumblr, Pinterest, and GIPHY. All told, NASA's social media presence reaches more than 173 million followers across all agency accounts. Thanks in large part to social media, more people are now connecting and engaging with NASA and learning about its missions.

Members of the public can follow NASA across a variety of social media channels.

Established in 1996 by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the Webby Awards honor excellence on the internet, including websites, advertising and media, online film and video, mobile sites, apps and social media. The Webby in each category is awarded by a judging panel, but members of the public can register with the Webby Awards and vote for the People's Voice Award in each category.

News Media Contact

Stephanie L. Smith

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-5464

slsmith@jpl.nasa.gov

2018-074

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NASA's New Space 'Botanist' Arrives at Launch Site

A new instrument that will provide a unique, space-based measurement of how plants respond to changes in water availability has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin final preparations for launch to the International Space Station this summer aboard a cargo resupply mission.

NASA's ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) left NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on April 6 by ground transport and arrived at Kennedy Space Center on April 9.

A few days after it reaches the space station, ECOSTRESS will be robotically installed on the exterior of the station's Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility Unit.

ECOSTRESS will give us new insights into plant health by quantifying the temperature of plants from space as never before, measuring regions as small as 230 feet (70 meters) on a side, or about the size of a small farm. It will do this by estimating how much water plants are releasing to cool themselves (i.e., evapotranspiration -- the equivalent of sweating in humans). This will tell us how much water different plants use and need, and how they react to environmental stresses caused by water shortages. ECOSTRESS will estimate how much water moves through and out of plants by tracking how the temperatures of plants change. The data from its minimum one-year mission will be used by ecologists, hydrologists, agriculturalists, meteorologists and other scientists.

"Most satellite measurements of plant surface temperature are made at a particular time of day, often in the mid-morning, when plants are not stressed," said Simon Hook, the project's principal investigator at JPL. "ECOSTRESS takes advantage of the space station's orbit to obtain measurements at different times of day, allowing us to see how plants respond to water stress throughout the day."

Until now, scientists addressing this question globally have had to estimate how that same-time-of-day snapshot varies over the course of a day. ECOSTRESS promises to eliminate much of this guesswork.

ECOSTRESS is expected to provide key insights into how plants link Earth's global carbon and water cycles. ECOSTRESS data will be used in conjunction with other satellite and ground measurements, such as those from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite. By doing this, scientists hope to understand more clearly the total amount of carbon dioxide plants remove from the atmosphere during a typical day. In addition, they hope to better identify which areas on the planet require more or less water for the amount of carbon dioxide they take up.

In practical terms, the year of data gleaned from ECOSTRESS will be useful for agricultural water managers. This data should improve our understanding of how certain regions are affected by drought and help agricultural and water management communities better manage water use for agriculture. The high ground spatial resolution of ECOSTRESS data will be useful for research on the effects of drought on agriculture at the field-scale.

JPL built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for NASA's Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. ECOSTRESS is sponsored by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program, managed by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

For more information on ECOSTRESS, visit:

https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contact

Alan Buis

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0474

Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Esprit Smith

JPL Media Relations

2018-073

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Maryland, Michigan, Texas Students to Link Up with NASA Astronauts on Space Station

Students from Maryland, Michigan and Texas will talk with astronauts on the International Space Station this week as part of NASA’s Year of Education on Station.

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Astrophysics CubeSat Demonstrates Big Potential in a Small Package

The ASTERIA satellite, which was deployed into low-Earth orbit in November, is only slightly larger than a box of cereal, but it could be used to help astrophysicists study planets orbiting other stars.

Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, recently announced that ASTERIA has accomplished all of its primary mission objectives, demonstrating that the miniaturized technologies on board can operate in space as expected. This marks the success of one of the world's first astrophysics CubeSat missions, and shows that small, low-cost satellites could be used to assist in future studies of the universe beyond the solar system.

"ASTERIA is small but mighty," said Mission Manager Matthew W. Smith of JPL. "Packing the capabilities of a much larger spacecraft into a small footprint was a challenge, but in the end we demonstrated cutting-edge performance for a system this size."

Seeing Stars

ASTERIA, or the Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics, weighs only 22 pounds (10 kilograms). It carries a payload for measuring the brightness of stars, which allows researchers to monitor nearby stars for orbiting exoplanets that cause a brief drop in brightness as they block the starlight.

This approach to finding and studying exoplanets is called the transit method. NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has detected more than 2,300 confirmed planets using this method, more than any other planet-hunting observatory. The agency's next large-scale, space-based planet-hunting observatory, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is anticipated to discover thousands of exoplanets and scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on April 16.

In the future, small satellites like ASTERIA could serve as a low-cost method to identify transiting exoplanets orbiting bright, Sun-like stars. These small satellites could be used to look for planetary transits when larger observatories are not available, and planets of interest could then be studied in more detail by other telescopes. Small satellites like ASTERIA could also be used to study certain star systems that are not within the field of view of larger observatories, and most significantly, focus on star systems that have planets with long orbits that require long observation campaigns.

The ASTERIA team has now demonstrated that the satellite's payload can point directly and steadily at a bright source for an extended period of time, a key requirement for performing the precision photometry necessary to study exoplanets via the transit method.

Holding steady on a faraway star is difficult because there are many things that subtly push and pull on the satellite, such as Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. ASTERIA's payload achieved a pointing stability of 0.5 arcseconds RMS, which refers to the degree to which the payload wobbles away from its intended target over a 20-minute observation period. The pointing stability was repeated over multiple orbits, with the stars positioned on the same pixels on each orbit.

"That's like being able to hit a quarter with a laser pointer from about a mile away," said Christopher Pong, the attitude and pointing control engineer for ASTERIA at JPL. "The laser beam has to stay inside the edge of the quarter, and then the satellite has to be able to hit that exact same quarter -- or star -- over multiple orbits around the Earth. So what we've accomplished is both stability and repeatability."

The payload also employed a control system to reduce "noise" in the data created by temperature fluctuations in the satellite, another major hurdle for an instrument attempting to carefully monitor stellar brightness. During observations, the temperature of the controlled section of the detector fluctuates by less than 0.02 Fahrenheit (0.01 Kelvin, or 0.01 degree Celsius).

Small satellites

ASTERIA is a CubeSat, a type of small satellite consisting of "units" that are 10 centimeters cubed, or about 4 inches on each side. ASTERIA is the size of six CubeSat units, making it roughly 10 centimeters by 20 centimeters by 30 centimeters. With its two solar panels unfolded, the satellite is about as long as a skateboard.

The ASTERIA mission utilized commercially available CubeSat hardware where possible, and is contributing to a general knowledge of how those components operate in space.

"We're continuing to characterize CubeSat components that other missions are using or want to use," said Amanda Donner, mission assurance manager for ASTERIA at JPL.

ASTERIA launched to the International Space Station in August 2017. Having been in space for more than 140 days, the satellite is operating on an extended mission through May.

ASTERIA was developed under the Phaeton Program at JPL. Phaeton provides early-career hires, under the guidance of experienced mentors, with the challenges of a flight project. ASTERIA is a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; where Sara Seager is the principal investigator.

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-1821

Calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

2018-072

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NASA to Discuss Deep Space Exploration Progress at Johnson Space Center

Media are invited to see how engineers and scientists are helping make NASA’s deep space human exploration plans a reality at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Thursday, April 26.

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NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Planet-Hunting Mission

On a mission to detect planets outside of our solar system, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:32 p.m. EDT Monday, April 16. Prelaunch mission coverage will begin on NASA Television and the agency’s website Sunday, April 15, with three live briefings.

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NASA's Juno Mission Provides Infrared Tour of Jupiter's North Pole

Scientists working on NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter shared a 3-D infrared movie depicting densely packed cyclones and anticyclones that permeate the planet's polar regions, and the first detailed view of a dynamo, or engine, powering the magnetic field for any planet beyond Earth. Those are among the items unveiled during the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday, April 11.

In this animation the viewer is taken low over Jupiter's north pole to illustrate the 3-D aspects of the region's central cyclone and the eight cyclones that encircle it. The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission during its fourth pass over the massive planet. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter's atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter's poles work. In the animation, the yellow areas are warmer (or deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere) and the dark areas are colder (or higher up in Jupiter's atmosphere). In this picture the highest "brightness temperature" is around 260K (about -13°C) and the lowest around 190K (about -83°C). The "brightness temperature" is a measurement of the radiance, at 5 µm, traveling upward from the top of the atmosphere towards Juno, expressed in units of temperature.

Juno mission scientists have taken data collected by the spacecraft's Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument and generated the 3-D fly-around of the Jovian world's north pole. Imaging in the infrared part of the spectrum, JIRAM captures light emerging from deep inside Jupiter equally well, night or day. The instrument probes the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops. The imagery will help the team understand the forces at work in the animation - a north pole dominated by a central cyclone surrounded by eight circumpolar cyclones with diameters ranging from 2,500 to 2,900 miles (4,000 to 4,600 kilometers).

NASA's Juno mission has provided the first view of the dynamo, or engine, powering Jupiter's magnetic field. The new global portrait reveals unexpected irregularities and regions of surprising magnetic field intensity. Red areas show where magnetic field lines emerge from the planet, while blue areas show where they return. As Juno continues its mission, it will improve our understanding of Jupiter's complex magnetic environment.

"Before Juno, we could only guess what Jupiter's poles would look like," said Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome. "Now, with Juno flying over the poles at a close distance it permits the collection of infrared imagery on Jupiter's polar weather patterns and its massive cyclones in unprecedented spatial resolution."

Another Juno investigation discussed during the media briefing was the team's latest pursuit of the interior composition of the gas giant. One of the biggest pieces in its discovery has been understanding how Jupiter's deep interior rotates.

"Prior to Juno, we could not distinguish between extreme models of Jupiter's interior rotation, which all fitted the data collected by Earth-based observations and other deep space missions," said Tristan Guillot, a Juno co-investigator from the Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France. "But Juno is different -- it orbits the planet from pole-to-pole and gets closer to Jupiter than any spacecraft ever before. Thanks to the amazing increase in accuracy brought by Juno's gravity data, we have essentially solved the issue of how Jupiter's interior rotates: The zones and belts that we see in the atmosphere rotating at different speeds extend to about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers).

An infrared view of Jupiter's North Pole. The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission. The images were obtained during Juno's fourth pass over Jupiter. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter's atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter's poles work. In the animation, the yellow areas are warmer (or deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere) and the dark areas are colder (or higher up in Jupiter's atmosphere). In this picture the highest "brightness temperature" is around 260K (about -13°C) and the lowest around 190K (about -83°C). The "brightness temperature" is a measurement of the radiance, at 5 µm, traveling upward from the top of the atmosphere towards Juno, expressed in units of temperature.

"At this point, hydrogen becomes conductive enough to be dragged into near-uniform rotation by the planet's powerful magnetic field."

The same data used to analyze Jupiter's rotation contain information on the planet's interior structure and composition. Not knowing the interior rotation was severely limiting the ability to probe the deep interior. "Now our work can really begin in earnest -- determining the interior composition of the solar system's largest planet," said Guillot.

At the meeting, the mission's deputy-principal investigator, Jack Connerney of the Space Research Corporation, Annapolis, Maryland, presented the first detailed view of the dynamo, or engine, powering the magnetic field of Jupiter.

Connerney and colleagues produced the new magnetic field model from measurements made during eight orbits of Jupiter. From those, they derived maps of the magnetic field at the surface and in the region below the surface where the dynamo is thought to originate. Because Jupiter is a gas giant, "surface" is defined as one Jupiter radius, which is about 44,400 miles (71,450 kilometers).

These maps provide an extraordinary advancement in current knowledge and will guide the science team in planning the spacecraft's remaining observations.

"We're finding that Jupiter's magnetic field is unlike anything previously imagined,"said Connerney. "Juno's investigations of the magnetic environment at Jupiter represent the beginning of a new era in the studies of planetary dynamos."

The map Connerney's team made of the dynamo source region revealed unexpected irregularities, regions of surprising magnetic field intensity, and that Jupiter's magnetic field is more complex in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. About halfway between the equator and the north pole lies an area where the magnetic field is intense and positive. It is flanked by areas that are less intense and negative. In the southern hemisphere, however, the magnetic field is consistently negative, becoming more and more intense from the equator to the pole.

The researchers are still figuring out why they would see these differences in a rotating planet that's generally thought of as more-or-less fluid.

"Juno is only about one third the way through its planed mapping mission and already we are beginning to discover hints on how Jupiter's dynamo works," said Connerney. "The team is really anxious to see the data from our remaining orbits."

Juno has logged nearly 122 million miles (200 million kilometers) to complete those 11 science passes since entering Jupiter's orbit on July 4, 2016. Juno's 12th science pass will be on May 24.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency (ASI), contributed two instruments, a Ka-band frequency translator (KaT) and the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM). Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, built the spacecraft.

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu

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

https://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

https://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

More information on Jupiter can be found at:

https://www.nasa.gov/jupiter

News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1003

joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

2018-071

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NASA Invites Media to Launch of GRACE Follow-On Spacecraft

Media accreditation now is open to cover the launch of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission – twin satellites that constitute the agency’s latest Earth-observing mission.

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NASA Announces New Chief Scientist

Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot has named the Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green as the agency's new chief scientist, effective May 1. He succeeds Dr. Gale Allen, who has served in an acting capacity since 2016 and will retire after more than 30 years of government service.

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Bound for Mars: Countdown to First Interplanetary Launch from California

In the early morning hours of May 5, millions of Californians will have an opportunity to witness a sight they have never seen before - the historic first interplanetary launch from America's West Coast. On board the 189-foot-tall (57.3-meter) United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will be NASA's InSight spacecraft, destined for the Elysium Planitia region located in Mars' northern hemisphere. The May 5 launch window for the InSight mission opens at 4:05 am PDT (7:05 EDT, 11:05 UTC) and remains open for two hours.

"If you live in Southern California and the weather is right, you'll probably have a better view of the launch than I will," said Tom Hoffman, project manager for NASA's InSight mission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "I'll be stuck inside a control room looking at monitors -- which is not the best way to enjoy an Atlas 5 on its way to Mars."

NASA's InSight to Mars will be the first interplanetary launch from America's West Coast. Residents in some of California's coastal communities could get a front row seat when the mission launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Here's when and where to see it.

In clear skies, the InSight launch should be viewable up and down a wide swath of the California coast. Residents from as far north as Bakersfield to perhaps as far south as Rosarito, Mexico, may see the Atlas rocket rising in the predawn sky and then heading south, parallel to the coastline.

The United Launch Alliance two-stage Atlas V 401 launch vehicle will produce 860,200 pounds (3.8 million newtons) of thrust as it climbs away from its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, California. During the first 17 seconds of powered flight, the Atlas V will climb vertically above its launch pad. Then it will begin a pitch and yaw maneuver that will place it on a trajectory towards Earth's south pole.

"After lift-off from Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex 3, the Atlas V begins a southerly trajectory and climbs out over the Channel Islands off Oxnard," said Tim Dunn, launch director for the Launch Services Program at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "If you live on the California Central Coast or south to L.A. and San Diego, be sure to get up early on May 5^th, because Atlas V is the gold standard in launch vehicles and it can put on a great show."

Mach One occurs 1 minute and 18 seconds into the Atlas V's powered flight. At that time the vehicle will be about 30,000 feet (9 kilometers) in altitude and 1 mile (1.75 kilometers) down range. Two minutes and 36 seconds later, the Atlas first stage will shut down at an altitude of about 66 miles (106 kilometers) and 184 miles (296 kilometers) down range. The Centaur second stage (carrying InSight inside a 40-foot-long payload fairing) separates from the now-dead first stage six seconds later. Ten seconds later, the Centaur's engine kicks in with its 22,890 pounds (101,820 newtons) of thrust, which will carry it and InSight into its 115-mile-high (185-kilometer) parking orbit 13 minutes and 16 seconds after launch. This parking orbit will last 59 to 66 minutes, depending on the date and time of the launch. The Centaur will then re-ignite for one last burn at one hour and 19 minutes after launch, placing InSight into a Mars-bound interplanetary trajectory. Spacecraft separation from the Centaur will occur about 93 minutes after liftoff for the first May 5 launch opportunity as the spacecraft is approximately over the Alaska-Yukon region.

InSight's launch period is May 5 through June 8, 2018, with multiple launch opportunities over windows of approximately two hours each date. Launch opportunities are set five minutes apart during each date's window.

Additional information on viewing the launch in person is at:https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/timeline/launch/watch-in-person/.

Live televised coverage of the launch will be available at:https://www.nasa.gov/live.

Whichever date the launch occurs, InSight's landing on Mars is planned for Nov. 26, 2018, around noon PST (3 p.m. EST / 20:00 UTC).

NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander will study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all rocky planets formed, including Earth and its moon. The lander's instruments include a seismometer to detect marsquakes and a probe that will monitor the flow of heat in the planet's subsurface.

NASA' s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The InSight spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver. NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida provides launch management. United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, is NASA's launch service provider of the Atlas 5 rocket. A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission.

For more information about InSight, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

News Media Contact

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov

JoAnna Wendel

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1003

joanna.r.wendel@nasa.gov

2018-069

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Frostburg State Students to Speak with NASA Astronaut in Space

Frostburg State University, in collaboration with its sister institutions in Frostburg, Maryland, will speak with NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold who is living, working and doing research aboard the International Space Station at 9:55 a.m. EDT Monday, April 9.

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NASA Awards Contract for Logistics Support Services

NASA has awarded a contract to L&M Technologies Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide logistics support services at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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NASA Brings Universe of Discovery to USA Science and Engineering Festival

Step into the future of aviation and space exploration with NASA at the USA Science and Engineering Festival on Saturday, April 7, and Sunday, April 8, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington.

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NASA Announces New Hubble Fellows Selected for 2018

NASA has selected 24 new Fellows for its prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). The program enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research in any area of NASA Astrophysics, using theory, observation, experimentation, or instrument development. Each fellowship provides the awardee up to three years of support.

The new NHFP preserves the legacy of NASA's previous postdoctoral fellowship programs, the Hubble, Einstein and Sagan Fellowships. Once selected, fellows are named to one of three sub-categories corresponding to three broad scientific questions NASA has sought to answer about the universe:

• How does the universe work? - Einstein Fellows
• How did we get here? - Hubble Fellows
• Are we alone? - Sagan Fellows

The NHFP continues to be one of the highlights of NASA's pursuit of excellence in space science.

"The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program selects some of the best new scientists and provides opportunities for them to excel in the field of astrophysics," said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division Director at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "Their discoveries will advance our understanding of the cosmos and bring us closer to solving the mysteries of the universe."

The newly selected NHFP Fellows will begin their programs in the fall of 2018 at a host university or research center of their choosing in the United States. The list below provides the names of the 2018 awardees, their host institutions, and their proposed research topics:

Einstein Fellows

• Kate Alexander, Northwestern University, Quantifying the Diversity of Relativistic Transients with Radio Observations
• Benedikt Diemer, Harvard University, Mapping the True Boundary of Dark Matter Halos with the Splashback Radius
• Ke Fang, Stanford University, The Highest-energy Electromagnetic Counterparts to Neutron Star Mergers
• Maximiliano Isi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fundamental Physics in the Era of Gravitational Wave Astronomy
• Ben Margalit, University of California-Berkeley, Interpreting the Diverse Transient Sky
• Aaron Smith, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Radiation Signatures of the First Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes
• Vladimir Zhdankin, Princeton University, First-Principles Modeling of Astrophysical Turbulence in Collisionless, Nonthermal Plasmas

Hubble Fellows

• Philip Cowperthwaite, Carnegie Observatories, Driving the Growth of Joint Gravitational Wave and Electromagnetic Astronomy
• Daniel Goldstein, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Putting a New Generation of Strongly Lensed Supernovae to Work
• Max Gronke, University of California-Santa Barbara, Casting (Lyman-Alpha) Light on Galaxy Formation
• Melodie Kao, Arizona State University, How Do Substellar Objects Generate Magnetic Fields?
• Charlotte Mason, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Revolutionizing Reionization with JWST
• Aaron Meisner, Caltech, Revealing the Sun's Coolest, Nearest Neighbors with NEOWISE-Reactivation
• Erica Nelson, Harvard University, The Emergence of Galactic Structure
• Anna Schauer, University of Texas-Austin, Minihaloes: Formation Sites of the First Stars and the Onset of Reionization
• Irene Shivaei, University of Arizona, Unveiling the Obscured Early Universe in the JWST Era
• Tuguldur Sukhbold, The Ohio State University, Core-Collapse Supernovae Across Metallicities and Engines
• Jamie Tayar, University of Hawaii-Institute for Astronomy, Subgiants: Models, Rotation, Convection, and Planets
• Yuan-Sen Ting, Institute for Advanced Study, Chemically Tagging the Milky Way

Sagan Fellows

• Ian Czekala, University of California-Berkeley, A Uniform Measurement of Pre-Main Sequence Stellar Masses and System Architectures Using Protoplanetary Disks
• Johan Mazoyer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Can We Detect Exo-Earths with Future Large Space-Based Coronagraphic Instruments?
• Erik Petigura, Caltech, The Origin of Small Planets
• Kamber Schwarz, University of Arizona, The Evolution of Volatile Molecules from Protoplanetary Disks to Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Daniel Tamayo, Princeton University, A Million-Fold Speedup in the Dynamical Characterization of Exoplanet Systems

More than 500 of the world's prominent and active scientists in astrophysics have been supported in their early careers since NASA began the fellowship program in 1990 with the creation of the original Hubble Fellowship. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) administers the NHFP on behalf of NASA, in collaboration with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) at Caltech in Pasadena, California, and the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

An important part of the NHFP are the Symposia, which allow Fellows the opportunity to present results of their research, to meet each other and the scientific and administrative staff who manage the program.

The Chandra X-ray Center administers the Einstein Fellowship program for NASA. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations. STScI administers the Hubble Fellowship program for NASA. STScI is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and the science and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2020. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington. The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, which is operated at Caltech in coordination with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, administers the Sagan Fellowship program for NASA.

For photos and more information about the 2018 NHFP Fellows and this program visit:

https://ift.tt/2GvSA5A

https://ift.tt/2q3R2ES

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-1821

Calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Cheryl Gundy

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

410-338-4707

gundy@stsci.edu

2018-068

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NASA Awards Contract to Build Quieter Supersonic Aircraft

NASA has taken another step toward re-introducing supersonic flight with the award Tuesday of a contract for the design, building and testing of a supersonic aircraft that reduces a sonic boom to a gentle thump.

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Aerospace Tech Startups Get a Chance to Pitch at JPL

Fifteen startup companies in the aerospace sector descended on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on March 15 to pitch their ideas to a packed von Karman auditorium filled with JPL technologists, corporate and government agency leaders, and potential investors.

The event, co-hosted by JPL and Starburst Accelerator, gave each presenter about 15 minutes to pitch their products and business plans in the hopes of bending the ears of investors, and raising awareness of the emergent business sector in the process.

For JPL, the occasion was a chance for technology leaders and program offices across the Lab to get an up-close look at some of the innovative concepts coming from aerospace startups.

Highlights from the day's pitches included a satellite-based electric propulsion system both lighter and more efficient than current market options; an underwater drone surveillance network nicknamed the "Swiss Army Knife of the sea;" and a space-based gas station where future missions could fuel up and unload.

Six judges on the panel gave feedback and asked questions while the scoring results from the audience were collected by Starburst through a mobile app for use in their accelerator and sponsorship programs. The event was focused on awareness, networking and community-building, according to Francois Chopard, chief executive of Starburst.

"There are more and more startups entering the space industry," Chopard said. "For large corporations, there is a new way to innovate: to work and collaborate with outside companies and outside innovation."

Tom Cwik, program manager of JPL's Office of Space Technology, said JPL recognizes that the commercial space sector is expanding, due in large part to the innovations coming out of venture-backed startups driving new ideas. "JPL is going to be a part of that," Cwik said during the Starburst event. "We want to increase the interactions with this community, find the overlap in technology, and collaborate."

JPL's manager for technology partnerships, Richard French, said top-tier firms and forward-leaning government agencies are both actively engaged with new tools for capturing commercially driven innovation and technologies.

"Commercial space is expanding and is gaining momentum, in part due to a major increase in venture-backed startup companies," French said. "JPL is expecting to increase interactions with the emerging commercial space sector and will be expanding our exploration of the overlap between JPL's future mission needs and commercial opportunities."

The recent event, French said, is the beginning of that expansion, and he expects more events and programs to be on JPL's radar in the future.

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-1821

calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Taylor Hill

JPL Internal Communications

2018-067

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New Research Heading to Space Station Aboard 14th SpaceX Resupply Mission

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station soon will receive a delivery of experiments dealing with how the human body, plants and materials behave in space following the 4:30 p.m. EDT launch Monday of a SpaceX commercial resupply mission.

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