Friday, July 18, 2014

How Does Your Garden Glow? NASA's OCO-2 Seeks Answer

How Does Your Garden Glow? NASA's OCO-2 Seeks Answer:

Researchers who study the interaction of plants
Researchers who study the interaction of plants, carbon and climate are eagerly awaiting data from NASA's upcoming Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission on a nearly invisible fluorescent glow emitted from the chlorophyll contained within plants.
Credit: Shutterstock

› Larger image


May 05, 2014

Science is full of serendipity -- moments when discoveries happen by chance or accident while researchers are looking for something else. For example, penicillin was identified when a blue-green mold grew on a Petri dish that had been left open by mistake.

Now, satellite instruments have given climate researchers at NASA and other research institutions an unexpected global view from space of a nearly invisible fluorescent glow that sheds new light on the productivity of vegetation on land. Previously, global views of this glow from chlorophyll were only possible over Earth's ocean, using NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA's Terra and Aqua spacecraft.

When the Japanese Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT), known as "IBUKI" in Japan, launched into orbit in 2009, its primary mission was to measure levels of carbon dioxide and methane, two major heat-trapping greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. However, NASA researchers, in collaboration with Japanese and other international colleagues, found another treasure hidden in the data: fluorescence from chlorophyll contained within plants. Although scientists have measured fluorescence in laboratory settings and ground-based field experiments for decades, these new satellite data now provide the ability to monitor what is known as solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence on a global scale, opening up a world of potential new applications for studying vegetation on land.

A "signature" of photosynthesis, solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence is an indicator of the process by which plants convert light from the sun into chemical energy. As chlorophyll molecules absorb incoming radiation, some of the light is dissipated as heat, and some radiation is re-emitted at longer wavelengths as fluorescence.

Enter NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). Researchers who study the interaction of plants, carbon and climate are eagerly awaiting fluorescence data from the OCO-2 satellite mission, scheduled to launch in July 2014. The instrument aboard OCO-2 will make precise measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, recording 24 observations a second versus GOSAT's single observation every four seconds, resulting in almost 100 times more observations of both carbon dioxide and fluorescence than GOSAT.

"Data from OCO-2 will extend the GOSAT time series and allow us to observe large-scale changes to photosynthesis in a new way," said David Schimel, lead scientist for the Carbon and Ecosystems research program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages the OCO-2 mission for NASA. "The fluorescence data may turn out to be a unique and very complementary data set of the OCO-2 mission."

"OCO-2's fluorescence data, when combined with the observatory's atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements, will increase the value of the OCO-2 mission to NASA, the United States and world," said Ralph Basilio, OCO-2 project manager at JPL.

Turning the Sun Off

Being able to see fluorescence from space allows scientists to estimate photosynthesis rates over vast scales, gleaning insights into vital processes that affect humans and other living things on Earth. "The rate of photosynthesis is critical because it's the process that drives the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere and agricultural [food] production," said Joseph Berry, a researcher in the Department of Global Ecology at Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.

Measuring the fluorescent "glow" may sound simple, but the tiny signal is overpowered by reflected sunlight. "Imagine that you're in your child's bedroom and they have a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling," Schimel said. "Then you turn the lights on. The stars are still glowing, but looking for that glow with the lights on is like looking for fluorescence amidst the reflected sunlight." Retrieving the fluorescence data requires disentangling sunlight that is reflected by plants from the light given off by them -- in other words, figuring out a way to "turn the sun off."

Researchers found that by tuning GOSAT's spectrometer (an instrument that can measure different parts of the spectrum of light) to look at very narrow channels, they could see parts of the spectrum where there was fluorescence but less reflected solar radiation. "It's as if you had put on a pair of glasses that filtered out the radiation in your child's room except for that glow from the stars," said Schimel.

Scientists are excited about the new measurement because it will give them better insight into how Earth's plants are taking up carbon dioxide. According to the Global Carbon Project, a non-governmental organization devoted to developing a complete picture of the carbon cycle, our burning of fossil fuels on Earth had produced nearly 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2011. This is almost 5 tons of carbon dioxide for every one of Earth's seven billion inhabitants.

About half of that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere. The other half is dissolved in the ocean or taken up by Earth's biosphere (living organisms on land and in the ocean), where it is tucked away in carbon reservoirs or "sinks." These sinks are shielding us from the full effect of our emissions.

Plants in a High-Carbon World

"Everybody that's using fossil fuels right now is being subsidized by the biosphere," said Berry. "But one of the key unknowns is -- what's going to be happening in the long term? Is it going to continue to subsidize us?"

The future of Earth's plants depends largely on one of the carbon cycle's key ingredients: water. Plants need water to carry out photosynthesis. When their water supply runs low, such as during times of drought, photosynthesis slows down.

For the past quarter century, satellite instruments such as MODIS and the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites have enabled researchers to monitor plant health and productivity by measuring the amount of "greenness," which shows how much leaf material is exposed to sunlight. The drawback of using the greenness index, however, is that greenness doesn't immediately respond to stresses -- water stress for example -- that reduce photosynthesis and productivity.

"Plants can be green, but not active," said JPL research scientist Christian Frankenberg, also a member of the OCO-2 science team. "Imagine an evergreen needle-leaf forest at high elevation in winter. The trees are still green, but they're not photosynthesizing."

Solar-induced fluorescence data would tell you straight away that something had happened, explains Schimel, but greenness doesn't tell you until the plants are already drooping and maybe dead.

About 30 percent of the photosynthesis that occurs in Earth's land regions takes place in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon, which encompasses about 2.7 million square miles (7 million square kilometers) of South America. The Amazon is home to more than half of Earth's terrestrial biomass and tropical forest area -- making it one of the two most important land regions for carbon storage (the other being the Arctic, where carbon is stored in the soil).

Recent studies in the Amazon using fluorescence measurements have examined how photosynthesis rates change during wet and dry seasons. Most of the results show that during the dry season, photosynthesis slows down. According to Berry, when the air is dry and hot, it makes sense for plants to conserve water by closing their stomates (pores). "During the dry season when it would cost the plants a lot of water, photosynthesis is dialed down and the forest becomes less active," he said.

In 2005 and 2010, the Amazon basin experienced the type of droughts that historically have happened only once in a century. Greenness measurements indicated widespread die-off of trees and major changes to the forest canopy (treetops) after the droughts, but fluorescence data from GOSAT exposed even milder water stress in the dry season of normal years. "There is the potential that as climate change proceeds, these droughts will become more severe. The areas that support tropical rainforest could decrease," said Berry. Less tropical forest means less carbon absorbed from the air.

In addition, as trees decay, they release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, creating a scenario whereby the biosphere potentially becomes a source of carbon rather than a sink. "If there is a dieback of the tropical rainforest, that might add to the effect of fossil fuel carbon dioxide on climate change," said Frankenberg.

Because photosynthesis is one of the key processes involved in the carbon cycle, and because the carbon cycle plays an important role in climate, better fluorescence information could help resolve some uncertainties about the uptake of carbon dioxide by plants in climate models. "We think fluorescence is going to help carbon cycle models get the right answer," said Berry. "If you don't have the models right, how can you get the rest of it right?"

"We really don't understand the quantitative relationship between climate and photosynthesis very well, because we've only been able to study it at very small scales," said Schimel. "Measuring plant fluorescence from space may be an important addition to the set of techniques available to us."

Written by Laurie J. Schmidt


Alan Buis 818-354-0474

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov


2014-141
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:14 AM 0 comments

NASA Delivers New Insight into Star Cluster Formation

NASA Delivers New Insight into Star Cluster Formation:

The Flame Nebula
Stars are often born in clusters, in giant clouds of gas and dust.
› Full image and caption


May 07, 2014

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and infrared telescopes, astronomers have made an important advance in the understanding of how clusters of stars come into being.

The data show early notions of how star clusters are formed cannot be correct. The simplest idea is stars form into clusters when a giant cloud of gas and dust condenses. The center of the cloud pulls in material from its surroundings until it becomes dense enough to trigger star formation. This process occurs in the center of the cloud first, implying that the stars in the middle of the cluster form first and, therefore, are the oldest.

However, the latest data from Chandra suggest something else is happening. Researchers studied two clusters where sun-like stars currently are forming - NGC 2024, located in the center of the Flame Nebula, and the Orion Nebula Cluster. From this study, they discovered the stars on the outskirts of the clusters actually are the oldest.

"Our findings are counterintuitive," said Konstantin Getman of Penn State University, University Park, who led the study. "It means we need to think harder and come up with more ideas of how stars like our sun are formed."

Getman and his colleagues developed a new two-step approach that led to this discovery. First, they used Chandra data on the brightness of the stars in X-rays to determine their masses. Then they determined how bright these stars were in infrared light using ground-based telescopes and data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. By combining this information with theoretical models, the ages of the stars throughout the two clusters were estimated.

The results were contrary to what the basic model predicted. At the center of NGC 2024, the stars were about 200,000 years old, while those on the outskirts were about 1.5 million years in age. In the Orion Nebula, star ages ranged from 1.2 million years in the middle of the cluster to almost 2 million years near the edges.

"A key conclusion from our study is we can reject the basic model where clusters form from the inside out," said co-author Eric Feigelson, also of Penn State. "So we need to consider more complex models that are now emerging from star formation studies."

Explanations for the new findings can be grouped into three broad notions. The first is star formation continues to occur in the inner regions because the gas in the inner regions of a star-forming cloud is denser -- contains more material from which to build stars -- than the more diffuse outer regions. Over time, if the density falls below a threshold where it can no longer collapse to form stars, star formation will cease in the outer regions, whereas stars will continue to form in the inner regions, leading to a concentration of younger stars there.

Another idea is that old stars have had more time to drift away from the center of the cluster, or be kicked outward by interactions with other stars. One final notion is that the observations could be explained if young stars are formed in massive filaments of gas that fall toward the center of the cluster.

Previous studies of the Orion Nebula Cluster revealed hints of this reversed age spread, but these earlier efforts were based on limited or biased star samples. This latest research provides the first evidence of such age differences in the Flame Nebula.

"The next steps will be to see if we find this same age range in other young clusters," said Penn State graduate student Michael Kuhn, who also worked on the study.

These results will be published in two separate papers in The Astrophysical Journal and are available online. They are part of the MYStIX (Massive Young Star-Forming Complex Study in Infrared and X-ray) project led by Penn State astronomers.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colo. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech.

For an additional interactive image, podcast, and video on the finding, visit:

http://chandra.si.edu

For Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

For more information on NASA's Spitzer mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer and

http://spitzer.caltech.edu

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Janet Anderson
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-6162
janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
2014-144
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:13 AM 0 comments

Planck Takes Magnetic Fingerprint of Our Galaxy

Planck Takes Magnetic Fingerprint of Our Galaxy:

Magnetic field of our Milky Way galaxy
The magnetic field of our Milky Way galaxy as seen by the Planck satellite, a European Space Agency mission with significant NASA contributions. This image was compiled from the first all-sky observations of polarized light emitted by interstellar dust in the Milky Way.
› Full image and caption


May 06, 2014

A new image from the Planck space telescope reveals the magnetic field lines of our Milky Way galaxy. The fingerprint-like map allows astronomers to study the structure of the magnetic field and better understand the process of star formation.

The image, compiled from the first all-sky observations of polarized light emitted by interstellar dust in the Milky Way, is available at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA18048

Planck is a European Space Agency mission with significant NASA contributions. Though the mission stopped collecting data in 2013, scientists are still analyzing its huge data sets for more clues to the history of our universe.

In particular, they are looking at polarized light, both from the early universe and from dust in our galaxy as shown in the new map. (Results from the early universe are scheduled to come out later this year.)

"This is the best picture we've ever had of the magnetic field in the Milky Way over such a large part of the sky," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. Planck project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Light can be described as a wave of electric and magnetic fields that vibrate in directions at right angles to each other and to their direction of travel. Usually, these fields can vibrate at all orientations. However, if they happen to vibrate preferentially in certain directions, the light is "polarized." This can happen, for example, when light bounces off a reflective surface like a mirror or the sea. Special filters can be used to absorb this polarized light, which is how polarized sunglasses eliminate glare.

In space, the light emitted by stars, gas and dust can also be polarized in various ways that depend on magnetic fields. Consequently, the swirls, loops and arcs in this new image trace the structure of the magnetic field in our home galaxy. Darker regions correspond to stronger polarized emission, and the striations indicate the direction of the magnetic field projected on the plane of the sky. The Planck image shows that there is large-scale organization in some parts of the galactic magnetic field.

The dark band running horizontally across the center corresponds to the galactic plane. The data also reveal variations of the polarization direction within nearby clouds of gas and dust. This can be seen in the tangled features above and below the plane, where the local magnetic field is particularly disorganized.

Planck's galactic polarization data are analyzed in a series of four papers just submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Read the full story from the European Space Agency at: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Planck/Planck_takes_magnetic_fingerprint_of_our_Galaxy

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists work together to analyze the Planck data.

More information is online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/planck

http://www.esa.int/planck

http://planck.caltech.edu

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2014-143
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:12 AM 0 comments

Rosetta's Target Comet is Becoming Active

Rosetta's Target Comet is Becoming Active:

Sequence of images shows comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
This sequence of images shows comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko moving against the background star field. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS
› Full image and caption


May 15, 2014

The target of ESA's Rosetta mission has started to reveal its true personality as a comet, its dusty veil clearly developing over the past six weeks.

A new sequence of images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was taken between March 24 and May 4, as the gap between craft and comet closed from around 3.1 million miles (5 million kilometers) to 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers). By the end of the sequence, the comet's coma extends about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) into space. By comparison, the nucleus is roughly only 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across, and cannot yet be 'resolved.'

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's coma has developed as a result of the comet moving progressively closer to the sun along its 6.5-year orbit. Even though it is still more than 373 million miles (600 million kilometers) from the sun - four times the distance between Earth and sun - its surface has already started to warm, causing its surface ices to sublimate and gas to escape from its rock-ice nucleus.

The escaping gas also carries a cloud of tiny dust particles out into space, which slowly expands to create the coma. As the comet continues to move closer to the sun, the warming continues and activity rises, and pressure from the solar wind will eventually cause some of the material to stream out into a long tail.

The Optical, Spectrocopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS), and the spacecraft's dedicated navigation cameras, have been regularly acquiring images to help determine Rosetta's exact trajectory relative to the comet. Using this information, the spacecraft has already started a series of maneuvers that will slowly bring it in line with the comet before making its rendezvous in the first week of August. Detailed scientific observations will then help to find the best location on the comet for the spacecraft's Philae lander to descend to the surface in November.

Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed. By studying the gas, dust and structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, via both remote and in-situ observations, the Rosetta mission should become a key to unlocking the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth's water and perhaps even life. Rosetta will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the sun, and deploy a lander.

ESA member states and NASA contributed to the Rosetta mission. Airbus Defense and Space built the Rosetta spacecraft. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For information on the U.S. instruments on Rosetta, visit:

http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov

More information about Rosetta, visit:

http://www.esa.int/rosetta

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov


Markus Bauer

European Space Agency, Noordwijk, Netherlands

+31 71 565 6799

markus.bauer@esa.int


2014-150
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:11 AM 0 comments

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Smaller Than Ever Measured

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Smaller Than Ever Measured:

Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot
Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot -- a swirling storm feature larger than Earth -- has shrunken to its smallest size ever measured. Astronomers have followed this downsizing since the 1930s.

This series of images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope documents the storm over time, beginning in 1995 with a view from the telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) when the long axis of the Great Red Spot was estimated to be 13,020 miles (20,950 kilometers) across. This camera was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and corrected the telescope's initial blurry vision. In a 2009 photo, after WFPC2 had been replaced by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the storm was measured at 11,130 miles (17,910 kilometers) across.
› Larger view


May 15, 2014

Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot -- a swirling storm feature larger than Earth -- has shrunk to its smallest size ever measured.

According to Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recent NASA Hubble Space Telescope observations confirm the Great Red Spot now is approximately 10,250 miles (16,500 kilometers) across. Astronomers have followed this downsizing since the 1930s.

Historic observations as far back as the late 1800s gauged the Great Red Spot to be as big as 25,500 miles (41,000 kilometers) on its long axis. NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flybys of Jupiter in 1979 measured the storm to be 14,500 miles (23,300 kilometers) across.

In the comparison images, one Hubble photo was taken in 1995 by the Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) when the long axis of the Great Red Spot was estimated to be 13,020 miles (20,950 kilometers) across. This camera was developed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and corrected the telescope's initial blurry vision. In a 2009 photo, after WFPC2 had been replaced by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the storm was measured at 11,130 miles (17,910 kilometers) across.

Beginning in 2012, amateur observations revealed a noticeable increase in the rate at which the spot is shrinking -- by 580 miles (930 kilometers) per year -- changing its shape from an oval to a circle.

"In our new observations it is apparent that very small eddies are feeding into the storm," said Simon. "We hypothesized that these may be responsible for the accelerated change by altering the internal dynamics and energy of the Great Red Spot."

Simon's team plans to study the motions of the small eddies and also the internal dynamics of the storm to determine whether these eddies can feed or sap momentum entering the upwelling vortex, resulting in this yet unexplained shrinkage.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

For more information about the WFPC2, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/1kyiuSL

For more information about NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, visit these sites:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

http://hubblesite.org/

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

For more information about Voyager, visit these sites:

http://www.nasa.gov/voyager

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:10 AM 0 comments

Construction to Begin on 2016 NASA Mars Lander

Construction to Begin on 2016 NASA Mars Lander:

Artist rendition of the proposed InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations)
This artist's concept depicts the stationary NASA Mars lander known by the acronym InSight at work studying the interior of Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


May 19, 2014

NASA and its international partners now have the go-ahead to begin construction on a new Mars lander, after it completed a successful Mission Critical Design Review on Friday.

NASA's Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission will pierce beneath the Martian surface to study its interior. The mission will investigate how Earth-like planets formed and developed their layered inner structure of core, mantle and crust, and will collect information about those interior zones using instruments never before used on Mars.

InSight will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, on the central California coast near Lompoc, in March 2016. This will be the first interplanetary mission ever to launch from California. The mission will help inform the agency's goal of sending a human mission to Mars in the 2030s.

InSight team leaders presented mission design results last week to a NASA review board, which then gave approval for advancing to the next stage of preparation.

"Our partners across the globe have made significant progress in getting to this point and are fully prepared to deliver their hardware to system integration starting this November, which is the next major milestone for the project," said Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "We now move from doing the design and analysis to building and testing the hardware and software that will get us to Mars and collect the science that we need to achieve mission success."

To investigate the planet's interior, the stationary lander will carry a robotic arm that will deploy surface and burrowing instruments contributed by France and Germany. The national space agencies of France and Germany -- Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) -- are partnering with NASA by providing InSight's two main science instruments.

The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will be built by CNES in partnership with DLR and the space agencies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It will measure waves of ground motion carried through the interior of the planet, from "marsquakes" and meteor impacts. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, from DLR, will measure heat coming toward the surface from the planet's interior.

"Mars actually offers an advantage over Earth itself for understanding how habitable planetary surfaces can form," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator from JPL. "Both planets underwent the same early processes. But Mars, being smaller, cooled faster and became less active while Earth kept churning. So Mars better preserves the evidence about the early stages of rocky planets' development."

The three-legged lander will go to a site near the Martian equator and provide information for a planned mission length of 720 days -- about two years. InSight adapts a design from the successful NASA Phoenix Mars Lander, which examined ice and soil on far-northern Mars in 2008.

"We will incorporate many features from our Phoenix spacecraft into InSight, but the differences between the missions require some differences in the InSight spacecraft," said InSight Program Manager Stu Spath of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver. "For example, the InSight mission duration is 630 days longer than Phoenix, which means the lander will have to endure a wider range of environmental conditions on the surface."

Guided by images of the surroundings taken by the lander, InSight's robotic arm will place the seismometer on the surface and then place a protective covering over it to minimize effects of wind and temperature on the sensitive instrument. The arm will also put the heat-flow probe in position to hammer itself into the ground to a depth of 3 to 5 yards, or meters.

Another experiment will use the radio link between InSight and NASA's Deep Space Network antennas on Earth to precisely measure a wobble in Mars' rotation that could reveal whether Mars has a molten or solid core. Wind and temperature sensors from Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia and a pressure sensor will monitor weather at the landing site, and a magnetometer will measure magnetic disturbances caused by the Martian ionosphere.

InSight's international science team is made up of researchers from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected missions. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program. Lockheed Martin will build the lander and other parts of the spacecraft at its Littleton, Colorado, facility near Denver.

For more about InSight, visit:

http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov

For more information about Mars missions:

http://www.nasa.gov/mars

For more about the Discovery Program, visit:

http://discovery.nasa.gov

Guy Webster

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6278

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov


Dwayne Brown

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov


Gary Napier

Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver

303-971-4012

gary.p.napier@lmco.com


2014-156
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:10 AM 0 comments

Pitch Black: Cosmic Clumps Cast the Darkest Shadows

Pitch Black: Cosmic Clumps Cast the Darkest Shadows:

Mapping the Densest Dusty Cloud Cores
Astronomers have found cosmic clumps so dark, dense and dusty that they throw the deepest shadows ever recorded. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Zurich
› Full image and caption


May 21, 2014

Astronomers have found cosmic clumps so dark, dense and dusty that they throw the deepest shadows ever recorded. Infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of these blackest-of-black regions paradoxically light the way to understanding how the brightest stars form.

The clumps represent the darkest portions of a huge, cosmic cloud of gas and dust located about 16,000 light-years away. A new study takes advantage of the shadows cast by these clumps to measure the cloud's structure and mass.

The dusty cloud, results suggest, will likely evolve into one of the most massive young clusters of stars in our galaxy. The densest clumps will blossom into the cluster's biggest, most powerful stars, called O-type stars, the formation of which has long puzzled scientists. These hulking stars have major impacts on their local stellar environments while also helping to create the heavy elements needed for life.

"The map of the structure of the cloud and its dense cores we have made in this study reveals a lot of fine details about the massive star and star cluster formation process," said Michael Butler, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and lead author of the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The state-of-the-art map has helped pin down the cloud's mass to the equivalent of 70,000 suns packed into an area spanning about 50 light-years in diameter. The map comes courtesy of Spitzer observing in infrared light, which can more easily penetrate gas and dust than short-wavelength visible light. The effect is similar to that behind the deep red color of sunsets on smoggy days -- longer-wavelength red light more readily reaches our eyes through the haze, which scatters and absorbs shorter-wavelength blue light. In this case, however, the densest pockets of star-forming material within the cloud are so thick with dust that they scatter and block not only visible light, but also almost all background infrared light.

Observing in infrared lets scientists peer into otherwise inscrutable cosmic clouds and catch the early phases of star and star cluster formation. Typically, Spitzer detects infrared light emitted by young stars still shrouded in their dusty cocoons. For the new study, astronomers instead gauged the amount of background infrared light obscured by the cloud, using these shadows to infer where material had lumped together within the cloud. These blobs of gas and dust will eventually collapse gravitationally to make hundreds of thousands of new stars.

Most stars in the universe, perhaps our sun included, are thought to have formed en masse in these sorts of environments. Clusters of low-mass stars are quite common and well-studied. But clusters giving birth to higher-mass stars, like the cluster described here, are scarce and distant, which makes them harder to examine.

"In this rare kind of cloud, Spitzer has provided us with an important picture of massive star cluster formation caught in its earliest, embryonic stages," said Jonathan Tan, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and co-author of the study.

The new findings will also help reveal how O-type stars form. O-type stars shine a brilliant white-blue, possess at least 16 times the sun's mass and have surface temperatures above 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (30,000 degrees Celsius). These giant stars have a tremendous influence on their local stellar neighborhoods. Their winds and intense radiation blow away material that might draw together to create other stars and planetary systems. O-type stars are short-lived and quickly explode as supernovas, releasing enormous amounts of energy and forging the heavy elements needed to form planets and living organisms.

Researchers are not sure how, in O-type stars, it is possible for material to accumulate on scales of tens to 100 times the mass of our sun without dissipating or breaking down into multiple, smaller stars.

"We still do not have a settled theory or explanation of how these massive stars form," said Tan. "Therefore, detailed measurements of the birth clouds of future massive stars, as we have recorded in this study, are important for guiding new theoretical understanding."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. 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: http://spitzer.caltech.edu

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov



2014-158
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:09 AM 0 comments

NASA's WISE Findings Poke Hole in Black Hole 'Doughnut' Theory

NASA's WISE Findings Poke Hole in Black Hole 'Doughnut' Theory:

The Clumping Behavior of Galaxies
Active, supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies tend to fall into two categories: those that are hidden by dust, and those that are exposed. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


May 22, 2014

A survey of more than 170,000 supermassive black holes, using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has astronomers reexamining a decades-old theory about the varying appearances of these interstellar objects.

The unified theory of active, supermassive black holes, first developed in the late 1970s, was created to explain why black holes, though similar in nature, can look completely different. Some appear to be shrouded in dust, while others are exposed and easy to see.

The unified model answers this question by proposing that every black hole is surrounded by a dusty, doughnut-shaped structure called a torus. Depending on how these "doughnuts" are oriented in space, the black holes will take on various appearances. For example, if the doughnut is positioned so that we see it edge-on, the black hole is hidden from view. If the doughnut is observed from above or below, face-on, the black hole is clearly visible.

However, the new WISE results do not corroborate this theory. The researchers found evidence that something other than a doughnut structure may, in some circumstances, determine whether a black hole is visible or hidden. The team has not yet determined what this may be, but the results suggest the unified, or doughnut, model does not have all the answers.

"Our finding revealed a new feature about active black holes we never knew before, yet the details remain a mystery," said Lin Yan of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "We hope our work will inspire future studies to better understand these fascinating objects."

Yan is the second author of the research accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. The lead author is a post-doctoral researcher, Emilio Donoso, who worked with Yan at IPAC and has since moved to the Instituto de Ciencias Astronómicas, de la Tierra y del Espacio in Argentina. The research also was co-authored by Daniel Stern at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Roberto Assef of Universidad Diego Portales in Chile and formerly of JPL.

Every galaxy has a massive black hole at its heart. The new study focuses on the "feeding" ones, called active, supermassive black holes, or active galactic nuclei. These black holes gorge on surrounding gas material that fuels their growth.

With the aid of computers, scientists were able to pick out more than 170,000 active supermassive black holes from the WISE data. They then measured the clustering of the galaxies containing both hidden and exposed black holes -- the degree to which the objects clump together across the sky.

If the unified model were true, and the hidden black holes are simply blocked from view by doughnuts in the edge-on configuration, then researchers would expect them to cluster in the same way as the exposed ones. According to theory, since the doughnut structures would take on random orientations, the black holes should also be distributed randomly. It is like tossing a bunch of glazed doughnuts in the air -- roughly the same percentage of doughnuts always will be positioned in the edge-on and face-on positions, regardless of whether they are tightly clumped or spread far apart.

But WISE found something totally unexpected. The results showed the galaxies with hidden black holes are more clumped together than those of the exposed black holes. If these findings are confirmed, scientists will have to adjust the unified model and come up with new ways to explain why some black holes appear hidden.

"The main purpose of unification was to put a zoo of different kinds of active nuclei under a single umbrella," said Donoso. Now, that has become increasingly complex to do as we dig deeper into the WISE data."

Another way to understand the WISE results involves dark matter. Dark matter is an invisible substance that dominates matter in the universe, outweighing the regular matter that makes up people, planets and stars. Every galaxy sits in the center of a dark matter halo. Bigger halos have more gravity and, therefore, pull other galaxies toward them.

Because WISE found that the obscured black holes are more clustered than the others, the researchers know those hidden black holes reside in galaxies with larger dark matter halos. Though the halos themselves would not be responsible for hiding the black holes, they could be a clue about what is occurring.

"The unified theory was proposed to explain the complexity of what astronomers were seeing," said Stern. "It seems that simple model may have been too simple. As Einstein said, models should be made 'as simple as possible, but not simpler.'"

Scientists still are actively combing public data from WISE, which was put into hibernation in 2011 after scanning Earth's entire sky twice. WISE was reactivated in 2013, renamed NEOWISE, and given a new mission to identify potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.

For more information about NEOWISE, visit:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/programs/neowise.html

For more information about WISE, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/wise

J.D. Harrington

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-5241

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov


Whitney Clavin

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-4673

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2014-163
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:09 AM 0 comments

NASA Releases Earth Day 'Global Selfie' Mosaic

NASA Releases Earth Day 'Global Selfie' Mosaic:

A low-resolution preview of the 3.2-billion-pixel sized NASA Earth Day Global Selfie 2014 photo mosaic.
A low-resolution preview of the 3.2-billion-pixel sized NASA Earth Day Global Selfie 2014 photo mosaic. The image is comprised of more than 36,000 individual photos submitted by people around the world.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAA

› Larger image


May 22, 2014

A low-resolution preview of the 3.2-billion-pixel sized NASA Earth Day Global Selfie 2014 photo mosaic. The image is comprised of more than 36,000 individual photos submitted by people around the world. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAA

For Earth Day this year, NASA invited people around the world to step outside to take a "selfie" and share it with the world on social media. NASA released Thursday a new view of our home planet created entirely from those photos.

The "Global Selfie" mosaic was built using more than 36,000 individual photographs drawn from the more than 50,000 images tagged #GlobalSelfie and posted on or around Earth Day, April 22, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. The project was designed to encourage environmental awareness and recognize the agency's ongoing work to protect our home planet.

Selfies were posted by people on every continent and 113 countries and regions, from Antarctica to Yemen, Greenland to Guatemala, and Pakistan to Peru. The resulting global mosaic is a zoomable 3.2-gigapixel image that users can scan and explore to look at individual photos. The Global Selfie was assembled after several weeks of collecting and curating the submitted images.

"With the Global Selfie, NASA used crowd-sourced digital imagery to illustrate a different aspect of Earth than has been measured from satellites for decades: a mosaic of faces from around the globe," said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "We were overwhelmed to see people participate from so many countries. We're very grateful that people took the time to celebrate our home planet together, and we look forward to everyone doing their part to be good stewards of our precious Earth."

The GigaPan image of Earth is based on views of each hemisphere captured on Earth Day 2014 by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite instrument on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. Suomi NPP, a joint mission between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, collects data on both long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions.

The Global Selfie mosaic and related images and videos are available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1n4y8qp

The Global Selfie is part of a special year for NASA Earth science. For the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth Science missions are scheduled to launch in one year. The Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory, a joint mission with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, was launched in February. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 is set to launch in July, with the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission to follow in November. And two Earth science instruments -- RapidScat and the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System -- will be launched to the International Space Station.

NASA missions have helped identify thousands of new planets across the universe in recent years, but the space agency studies no planet more closely than our own. With 17 Earth-observing satellites in orbit and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns, NASA produces data that help scientists get a clearer picture of Earth's interconnected natural systems. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

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


2014-161
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:08 AM 0 comments

Sunsets on Titan Reveal the Complexity of Hazy Exoplanets

Sunsets on Titan Reveal the Complexity of Hazy Exoplanets:

Artist's rendering of NASA's Cassini spacecraft
Artist's rendering of NASA's Cassini spacecraft observing a sunset through Titan's hazy atmosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


May 27, 2014

Scientists working with data from NASA's Cassini mission have developed a new way to understand the atmospheres of exoplanets by using Saturn's smog-enshrouded moon Titan as a stand-in. The new technique shows the dramatic influence that hazy skies could have on our ability to learn about these alien worlds orbiting distant stars.

The work was performed by a team of researchers led by Tyler Robinson, a NASA Postdoctoral Research Fellow at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The findings were published May 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It turns out there's a lot you can learn from looking at a sunset," Robinson said.

Light from sunsets, stars and planets can be separated into its component colors to create spectra, as prisms do with sunlight, in order to obtain hidden information. Despite the staggering distances to other planetary systems, in recent years researchers have begun to develop techniques for collecting spectra of exoplanets. When one of these worlds transits, or passes in front of its host star as seen from Earth, some of the star's light travels through the exoplanet's atmosphere, where it is changed in subtle, but measurable, ways. This process imprints information about the planet that can be collected by telescopes. The resulting spectra are a record of that imprint.

Spectra enable scientists to tease out details about what exoplanets are like, such as aspects of the temperature, composition and structure of their atmospheres.

Robinson and his colleagues exploited a similarity between exoplanet transits and sunsets witnessed by the Cassini spacecraft at Titan. These observations, called solar occultations, effectively allowed the scientists to observe Titan as a transiting exoplanet without having to leave the solar system. In the process, Titan's sunsets revealed just how dramatic the effects of hazes can be.

Multiple worlds in our own solar system, including Titan, are blanketed by clouds and high-altitude hazes. Scientists expect that many exoplanets would be similarly obscured. Clouds and hazes create a variety of complicated effects that researchers must work to disentangle from the signature of these alien atmospheres, and thus present a major obstacle for understanding transit observations. Due to the complexity and computing power required to address hazes, models used to understand exoplanet spectra usually simplify their effects.

"Previously, it was unclear exactly how hazes were affecting observations of transiting exoplanets," said Robinson. "So we turned to Titan, a hazy world in our own solar system that has been extensively studied by Cassini."

The team used four observations of Titan made between 2006 and 2011 by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument. Their analysis provided results that include the complex effects due to hazes, which can now be compared to exoplanet models and observations.

With Titan as their example, Robinson and colleagues found that hazes high above some transiting exoplanets might strictly limit what their spectra can reveal to planet transit observers. The observations might be able to glean information only from a planet's upper atmosphere. On Titan, that corresponds to about 90 to 190 miles (150 to 300 kilometers) above the moon's surface, high above the bulk of its dense and complex atmosphere.

An additional finding from the study is that Titan's hazes more strongly affect shorter wavelengths, or bluer, colors of light. Studies of exoplanet spectra have commonly assumed that hazes would affect all colors of light in similar ways. Studying sunsets through Titan's hazes has revealed that this is not the case.

"People had dreamed up rules for how planets would behave when seen in transit, but Titan didn't get the memo," said Mark Marley, a co-author of the study at NASA Ames. "It looks nothing like some of the previous suggestions, and it's because of the haze."

The team's technique applies equally well to similar observations taken from orbit around any world, not just Titan. This means that researchers could study the atmospheres of planets like Mars and Saturn in the context of exoplanet atmospheres as well.

"It's rewarding to see that Cassini's study of the solar system is helping us to better understand other solar systems as well," said Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The VIMS team is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

More information about Cassini is available at the following sites:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Preston Dyches
818-354-5011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

Michele Johnson

650-604-6982

NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California

michele.johnson@nasa.gov


2014-164
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:07 AM 0 comments

The 'Serpent' Star-forming Cloud Hatches New Stars

The 'Serpent' Star-forming Cloud Hatches New Stars:

Within the swaddling dust of the Serpens Cloud Core
Within the swaddling dust of the Serpens Cloud Core, astronomers are studying one of the youngest collections of stars ever seen in our galaxy. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/2MASS
› Full image and caption


May 28, 2014

Stars that are just beginning to coalesce out of cool swaths of dust and gas are showcased in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Infrared light has been assigned colors we see with our eyes, revealing young stars in orange and yellow, and a central parcel of gas in blue. This area is hidden in visible-light views, but infrared light can travel through the dust, offering a peek inside the stellar hatchery.

The dark patch to the left of center is swaddled in so much dust, even the infrared light is blocked. It is within these dark wombs that stars are just beginning to take shape.

Called the Serpens Cloud Core, this star-forming region is located about 750 light-years away in Serpens, or the "Serpent," a constellation named after its resemblance to a snake in visible light. The region is noteworthy as it only contains stars of relatively low to moderate mass, and lacks any of the massive and incredibly bright stars found in larger star-forming regions like the Orion nebula. Our sun is a star of moderate mass. Whether it formed in a low-mass stellar region like Serpens, or a high-mass stellar region like Orion, is an ongoing mystery.

The inner Serpens Cloud Core is remarkably detailed in this image. It was assembled from 82 snapshots representing a whopping 16.2 hours of Spitzer observing time. The observations were made during Spitzer's "warm mission," a phase that began in 2009 after the observatory ran out of liquid coolant, as planned.

Most of the small dots in this image are stars located behind, or in front of, the Serpens nebula.

The 2MASS mission was a joint effort between the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. 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:

http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov


2014-166
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:07 AM 0 comments

NASA Coverage for Saucer-Shaped Test Vehicle Flight

NASA Coverage for Saucer-Shaped Test Vehicle Flight:

A saucer-shaped test vehicle holding equipment for landing large payloads on Mars
A saucer-shaped test vehicle holding equipment for landing large payloads on Mars is shown in the Missile Assembly Building at the US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kaua'i, Hawaii. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption


May 29, 2014

NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project will fly a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space next week from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.

On Monday, June 2, a televised news conference about the test will be held at the PMRF at 8 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time (11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time/2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time).

Briefing panelists include:

-- U.S. Navy Capt. Bruce Hay, PMRF Commanding Officer

-- Mike Gazarik, associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington

--Mark Adler, LDSD project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California

--Ian Clark, LDSD principal investigator at JPL

NASA has identified six potential dates for launch of the high-altitude balloon carrying the LDSD experiment: June 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14. Decisions to attempt launch of the LDSD test will be made the day before each launch opportunity date. NASA will issue launch advisories via the mission website, advisories and on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/NASA_Technology

and

https://twitter.com/NASA

On launch attempt days, journalists are invited to PMRF to watch the liftoff and flight of the balloon carrying the LDSD. June 3 is the first launch attempt day, with a launch window extending from 8 to 9:30 a.m. HST (11 to 12:30 PDT/2 to 3:30 EDT).

NASA's LDSD carries several onboard cameras. It is expected that video of selected portions, including the rocket-powered ascent, will be downlinked live and streamed live to NASA TV and online.

The public may watch the news conference on June 2, and the balloon launch and subsequent test on June 3, on NASA TV or on the Web at:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

and

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2

Live commentary is expected to begin at 7:45 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time (10:45 a.m. PDT/1:45 p.m. EDT). For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and updated scheduling information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

After the balloon reaches an altitude of 120,000 feet, the rocket-powered test vehicle will be dropped. Seconds later, its motor will fire, carrying it to 180,000 feet and as fast as about Mach 3.8.

More information about the LDSD space technology demonstration mission is online at:

http://go.usa.gov/kzZQ

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the LDSD mission, a cooperative effort led by JPL. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages LDSD within the Technology Demonstration Mission Program Office. NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, is coordinating support with the Pacific Missile Range Facility and providing the balloon systems for the LDSD test.

For more information about the Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

David Steitz

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-236-5829

david.steitz@nasa.gov


DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov



Stefan Alford

Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii

808-335-4740

stefan.alford@navy.mil


2014-168
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 8:05 AM 0 comments

NASA's 'Flying Saucer' Readies for First Test Flight

NASA's 'Flying Saucer' Readies for First Test Flight:

LDSD's Rocket-powered Test Vehicle
This artist's concept shows the test vehicle for NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), designed to test landing technologies for future Mars missions. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Full image and caption


June 12, 2014

9th Update 12:30 PM PDT


NASA did not conduct the flight test of the agency's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range in Kauai, Hawaii, during its designated launch period. The project's reserved time at the range will expire Saturday, June 14, with NASA unable to fly the test because of continuing unfavorable weather conditions.



Mark Adler, the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator project manager and Ian
Clark, principal investigator on the project, both from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, participated in a media teleconference this morning and addressed questions on the project.



"There were six total opportunities to test the vehicle, and the delay of all six opportunities was caused by weather," said Adler. "We needed the mid-level winds between 15,000 and 60,000 feet to take the balloon away from the island. While there were a few days that were very close, none of the days had the proper wind conditions."



The team had researched for more than two years wind conditions and locations around the world that would be conducive to the test. Kauai was selected because research showed that this area had the proper wind conditions to carry the balloon away from populated areas and where it needed to go over the ocean in order to launch the test vehicle. Recent weather conditions have been unexpected and have caused unacceptable wind conditions to launch the balloon.



NASA continues to look at options for a future launch window. The team is working with the Pacific Missile Range Facility and looking at weather conditions predicted for later in the month when another launch window could be possible.



"Our team has been working on this project for several years, and we have been so focused," said Clark. "We came here to do our job and get this vehicle off the ground, but unfortunately weather didn't allow us to do this. We are very optimistic and are hoping to test the vehicle at the end of the month."



NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LDSD mission, a cooperative effort led by JPL. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages LDSD within the Technology Demonstration Mission Program Office. NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is coordinating support with the Pacific Missile Range Facility and providing the balloon systems for the LDSD test.



Continue to follow us here and also on Twitter: @NASA_Technology, @NASA,
@NASAJPL and @NASA_Marshall for the latest updates on the mission.


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8th Update 3:00 PM PDT

NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator will not launch Saturday, June 14, due to unfavorable weather conditions forecast for this last designated launch date in the current launch period. NASA will research range availability for the coming weeks and the costs associated with extending the test flight period for launching LDSD's high-altitude balloon and test vehicle, with programmatic decisions required to proceed.


We will hold a teleconference for media with LDSD project representatives with the date and time still being decided, more than likely tomorrow morning. As soon as we have that information confirmed, we will send a media advisory with date, time and call-in information.


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7th Update 7:02 PM PDT

Due to weather conditions, there will be no launch of the LDSD test vehicle today, Wednesday, June 11. The next potential launch date is Saturday, June 14.


Check back on our website and @NASA_Technology to get the latest updates on the mission.


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6th Update 9:21 PM PDT

Mission managers are proceeding with preparations for a launch attempt Wednesday morning, June 11, of a high-altitude balloon carrying the LDSD test vehicle to the edge of space on a test flight of the "flying saucer." At present, weather forecasted for the morning is close, but not within launch parameters. Mission managers will evaluate the latest weather conditions again early in the morning, to confirm favorable conditions. The Wednesday launch window extends from 8:15 a.m. to 9 a.m. HST (11:15 a.m. to 12 noon PDT).


Check back on our website and @NASA_Technology to get the latest updates on the mission.


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5th Update 6:12 PM PDT

The winds aren't cooperating for our launch of the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) tomorrow, Monday, June 9. Other potential launch dates include June 11 and 14. Wind conditions have been the prevailing factor in the launch delays, as they have to be just the right speed and direction in order to launch the balloon that carries the LDSD test vehicle. The launch decision for Wednesday, June 11 will be made on Tuesday, June 10. Check back with us for updates.


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4th Update 3:06 PM PDT

Due to weather conditions, there will be no launch of the LDSD test vehicle tomorrow, Saturday, June 7. Other potential launch dates include June 9, 11, and 14. Launch decision for Monday, June 9 will be made on Sunday, June 8. Check back with us for updates.


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3rd Update 4:20 PM PDT

Due to weather conditions, there will be no launch of the LDSD test vehicle Thursday, June 5. Other potential launch dates include June 7, 9, 11 and 14. The decision to move forward with another launch attempt of the LDSD test is made the day before each launch opportunity date.


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2nd Update 5:30 PM PDT

Due to weather conditions, there will be no launch of the LDSD test vehicle Tuesday, June 3. Other potential launch dates include June 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14. Launch decision for Thursday, June 5 will be made on Wednesday, June 4. Check back with us for updates.


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NASA's flying saucer-shaped test vehicle is ready to take to the skies from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, for its first engineering shakeout flight.

The first launch opportunity for the test vehicle is June 3, when the launch window opens at 8:30 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time (11:30 a.m. PDT/2:30 p.m. EDT). The test will be carried live on NASA TV and streamed on the Web. The Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will gather data about landing heavy payloads on Mars and other planetary surfaces.

"The agency is moving forward and getting ready for Mars as part of NASA's Evolvable Mars campaign," said Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We fly, we learn, we fly again. We have two more vehicles in the works for next year."

As NASA plans increasingly ambitious robotic missions to Mars, laying the groundwork for even more complex human science expeditions to come, accommodating extended stays for explorers on the Martian surface will require larger and heavier spacecraft.

The objective of the LDSD project is to see if the cutting-edge, rocket-powered test vehicle operates as it was designed -- in near-space at high Mach numbers.

"After years of imagination, engineering and hard work, we soon will get to see our Keiki o ka honua, our 'boy from Earth,' show us its stuff," said Mark Adler, project manager for the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The success of this experimental test flight will be measured by the success of the test vehicle to launch and fly its flight profile as advertised. If our flying saucer hits its speed and altitude targets, it will be a great day."

The way NASA's saucer climbs to test altitude is almost as distinctive as the test vehicle itself.

"We use a helium balloon -- that, when fully inflated, would fit snugly into Pasadena's Rose Bowl -- to lift our vehicle to 120,000 feet," said Adler. "From there we drop it for about one-and-a-half seconds. After that, it's all about going higher and faster -- and then it's about putting on the brakes."

A fraction of a second after dropping from the balloon, and a few feet below it, four small rocket motors will fire to spin up and gyroscopically stabilize the saucer. A half second later, a Star 48B long-nozzle, solid-fueled rocket engine will kick in with 17,500 pounds of thrust, sending the test vehicle to the edge of the stratosphere.

"Our goal is to get to an altitude and velocity which simulates the kind of environment one of our vehicles would encounter when it would fly in the Martian atmosphere," said Ian Clark, principal investigator of the LDSD project at JPL. "We top out at about 180,000 feet and Mach 4. Then, as we slow down to Mach 3.8, we deploy the first of two new atmospheric braking systems."

The project management team decided also to fly the two supersonic decelerator technologies that will be thoroughly tested during two LDSD flight tests next year.

If this year's test vehicle flies as expected, the LDSD team may get a treasure-trove of data on how the approximately 20-foot (6-meter) supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator (SIAD-R) and the supersonic parachute operate a full year ahead of schedule.

The SIAD-R, essentially an inflatable doughnut that increases the vehicle's size and, as a result, its drag, is deployed at about Mach 3.8. It will quickly slow the vehicle to Mach 2.5 where the parachute, the largest supersonic parachute ever flown, first hits the supersonic flow. About 45 minutes later, the saucer is expected to make a controlled landing onto the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii.

NASA TV will carry live images and commentary of LDSD engineering test. The test vehicle itself carries several onboard cameras. It is expected that video of selected portions of the test, including the rocket-powered ascent, will be downlinked during the commentary. Websites streaming live video of the test include:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2

For more information about LDSD, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/ldsd/

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LDSD mission, a cooperative effort led by JPL. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages LDSD within the Technology Demonstration Mission Program Office. NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is coordinating support with the Pacific Missile Range Facility and providing the balloon systems for the LDSD test.

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

agle@jpl.nasa.gov


David Steitz

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1730

david.steitz@nasa.gov


Stefan Alford

Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii

808-335-4740

stefan.alford@navy.mil


2014-169
Posted by Nelio Inacio at 7:58 AM 0 comments
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