A Like For NASA

Learn more about the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) at: http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 

Watch live coverage of today’s (Wed. April 18, 2018) launch at: http://www.nasa.gov/nasalive/

Stunning Aurora from Space

This video is a compilation of ultra-high definition time-lapses of the aurora shot from the space station. Auroras are a space weather phenomenon that occur when electrically-charged electrons and protons collide with neutral atoms in the upper atmosphere. The dancing lights of the aurora provide a spectacular show for those on the ground, but also capture the imaginations of scientists who study the aurora and the complex processes that create them.

NASA, Air Force Perform Rescue Operations on Boeing Starliner

NASA astronaut Suni Williams cannonballs off a Boeing CST-100 Starliner test article after NASA engineers and Air Force pararescuemen climbed aboard the spacecraft to simulate rescuing astronauts in the event of an emergency during launch or ascent.

The Starliner is designed for land-based returns, but simulating rescue operations at NASA’s Langley Research Center’s Hydro Impact Basin in Hampton, Virginia, ensures flight crew and ground support are versed in what to do during a contingency scenario.

For more information about rescue and safety operations, see Commercial Crew: Building in Safety from the Ground Up in a Unique Way.

Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day 2016 April 6 

Auroras and the Magnetosphere of Jupiter 

Jupiter has auroras. Like near the Earth, the magnetic field of our Solar System’s largest planet compresses when impacted by a gust of charged particles from the Sun. This magnetic compression funnels charged particles towards Jupiter’s poles and down into the atmosphere. There, electrons are temporarily excited or knocked away from atmospheric gases, after which, when de-exciting or recombining with atmospheric ions, auroral light is emitted. The featured illustration portrays the magnificent magnetosphere around Jupiter in action. In the inset image released last month, the Earth-orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory shows unexpectedly powerful X-ray light emitted by Jovian auroras, depicted in false-colored purple. That Chandra inset is superposed over an optical image taken at a different time by the Hubble Space Telescope. This aurora on Jupiter was seen in October 2011, several days after the Sun emitted a powerful Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).

Thanks for the shoutout!

I will be taking a short photography break to attend to a few long-neglected projects. I’ll be back with bone-yard pictures in time for Halloween, or sooner if something interesting crops up first.

Until then, here’s a completely irrelevant parting shot of the vacuum chambers on a hypersonic aeroelasticity wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Later, y'all. 

The James Webb Space Telescope

Like your backyard telescope, just MUCH more powerful

In 2018, we’re launching the world’s biggest space telescope ever - the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb will look back in time, studying the very first galaxies ever formed. While Webb doesn’t have a tube like your typical backyard telescope, because it’s also a reflector telescope it has many of the same parts! Webb has mirrors (including a primary and a secondary) just like a small reflector telescope, only its mirrors are massive (6.5 meters across) and coated in gold (which helps us reflect infrared light).

How does a reflector telescope work? Light is bounced from the primary to the smaller secondary mirror, and then directed to your eye:

Webb works pretty much the same way!

Taking the place of your eye to the eyepiece is a package of science instruments, including cameras and spectrographs, which will capture the light directed into them by the telescope’s mirrors.    

In order to install these instruments, we had to move the telescope structure upside down… an impressive sight!

Once Webb was in place on the assembly stand in the cleanroom, the team at Goddard Space Flight Center installed the instrument module (which we call the ISIM, or Integrated Science Instrument Module), with surgical precision. ISIM has four instruments, three of which were contributed by our partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. 

All four will detect infrared light from stars and galaxies as far away as 13.6 billion light years. In addition to seeing these first sources of light in the early Universe, Webb will look at stars and planetary systems being formed in clouds of dust and gas. It will also examine the atmospheres of planets around other stars – perhaps we will find an atmosphere similar to Earth’s!

Here is an image with the science instruments being lowered into their spot behind the primary mirror. You can see the golden mirror is face-down.

Here’s another perspective of the instruments being fit into the telescope. 

What you’ve seen come together above is just the telescope part of the James Webb Space Telescope mission – next comes putting together the rest of the observatory. This includes our massive tennis court-sized sunshield (which acts like the tube-part of your backyard telescope, protecting the mirrors from stray light and heat), as well as the parts that do things like power the telescope and let us communicate with it.

It actually takes several weeks for Webb to completely unfold into its full deployment!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for updates on our progress. You can also visit our site for more information: http://jwst.nasa.gov

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Photo Credit #1: NASA/Chris Gunn. Photo Credit #2: NASA/Desiree Stover

Tiny NASA Cameras to Watch Commercial Lander form Craters on Moon

Footage from vibration and thermal vacuum testing of the SCALPSS cameras and data storage unit.

Credits: NASA/Gary Banziger

This little black camera looks like something out of a spy movie — the kind of device one might use to snap discrete photos of confidential documents.

It's about half the size of a computer mouse.

The SCALPSS cameras, one of which is pictured here prior to thermal vacuum testing, are about the size of a computer mouse. Credits: NASA

But the only spying this camera — four of them, actually — will do is for NASA researchers wondering what happens under a spacecraft as it lands on the Moon.

It's a tiny technology with a big name — Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies, or SCALPSS for short — and it will journey to the Moon in 2021 as a payload aboard an Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander spacecraft. Intuitive Machines is one of two U.S. companies delivering technology and science experiments to the lunar surface later this year as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. SCALPSS will provide important data about the crater formed by the rocket plume of the lander as it makes its final descent and landing on the Moon's surface.

As part of the Artemis program, NASA will send robots and humans to study more of the Moon than ever before. The agency plans to establish sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade, and has outlined its Artemis Base Camp concept for the lunar South Pole. Landers may deliver multiple payloads very near one another. Data such as that from SCALPSS will prove aid in computer models that inform subsequent landings.

SCALPSS team members prepare the cameras and data storage unit for vibration testing. Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

"As we send bigger, heavier payloads and we try to land things in close proximity to each other, first at the Moon then at Mars, this ability to predict landing impacts is very important," said Michelle Munk, principal investigator for SCALPSS at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The four SCALPSS cameras, which will be placed around the base of the commercial lander, will begin monitoring crater formation from the precise moment a lander's hot engine plume begins to interact with the Moon's surface.

"If you don't see the crater when it starts to form, you can't really model it," said Munk. "You've got to have the start point and the end point and then you can figure out what happened, in between."

The cameras will continue capturing images until after the landing is complete. Those final stereo images, which will be stored on a small onboard data storage unit before being sent to the lander for downlink back to Earth, will allow researchers to reconstruct the crater's ultimate shape and volume.

The SCALPSS data storage unit will store the imagery the cameras collect as the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander spacecraft makes its final descent and lands on the Moon's surface. Credits: NASA

Testing to characterize the SCALPSS camera and lens took place last year at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Researchers conducted radial distortion, field-of-view and depth-of-focus tests among others. They also ran analytical models to better characterize how the cameras will perform. Development of the actual SCALPSS payload took place at Langley. And over the summer, researchers were able to enter the lab to assemble the payload and conduct thermal vacuum and vibration tests.

That lab access involves special approval from officials at Langley, which is currently only giving access to essential employees and high-priority projects to keep employees safe during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. SCALPSS was one of the first projects to return to the center. Before they could do that, facilities had to pass safety and hazard assessments. And while on center, the team had to follow strict COVID-19 safety measures, such as wearing masks and limiting the number of people who could be in a room at one time. The center also provided ample access to personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer.

The SCALPSS hardware was completed in late October and will be delivered to Intuitive Machines in February.

"Development and testing for the project moved at a pretty brisk pace with very limited funds," said Robert Maddock, SCALPSS project manager. "This was likely one of the most challenging projects anyone on the team has ever worked on."

But Munk, Maddock and the entire project team have embraced these challenges because they know the images these little cameras collect may have big ripple effects as NASA prepares for a human return to the Moon as part of the Artemis program.

"To be able to get flight data and update models and influence other designs — it's really motivating and rewarding," said Munk.

Hot off the heels of this project, the SCALPSS team has already begun development of a second payload called SCALPSS 1.1. It will be flown by another CLPS commercial lander provider to a non-polar region of the Moon in 2023 and collect data similar to its predecessor. It will also carry two additional cameras to get higher resolution stereo images of the landing area before engine plume interactions begin, which is critical for the analytic models in establishing the initial conditions for the interactions.

NASA’s Artemis program includes sending a suite of new science instruments and technology demonstrations to study the Moon, landing the first woman and next man on the lunar surface in 2024, and establishing a sustained presence by the end of the decade. The agency will leverage its Artemis experience and technologies to prepare for humanity’s the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars as early as the 2030s.

Joe Atkinson NASA Langley Research Center

The Symbols of NASA

NASA also uses symbols for specific projects within the agency. Each space shuttle crew designs a patch that represents what it will do during the mission. Some robotic probes sent to explore space have had mission patches. From the wing of the space shuttle to the top of the NASA homepage, the agency's official insignia is probably its best-known symbol.

The round red, white and blue insignia, nicknamed the "meatball," was designed by employee James Modarelli in 1959, NASA's second year. The design incorporates references to different aspects of the mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The round shape of the insignia represents a planet. The stars represent space. The red v-shaped vector represents aeronautics. The circular orbit around the agency's name represents space travel. 

After it was introduced, the "meatball" was the most common symbol of NASA for 16 years, but in 1975 NASA decided to create a more "modern" logo. That logo, which consisted of the word "NASA" in a unique type style, was nicknamed the "worm." That logo was retired in 1992, and the classic meatball insignia has been the most common agency symbol since. 

In addition to the insignia, NASA has another official symbol. If the meatball is the everyday face of NASA, the NASA seal is the dressed-up version. The NASA administrator uses the seal for formal purposes such as award presentations and ceremonies. Like the meatball insignia, the seal also includes planet, stars, orbit and vector elements

NASA also uses symbols for specific projects within the agency. Each space shuttle crew designed a patch that represents what they were going to do during the mission. Some robotic probes sent to explore space have had mission patches. 

Image Credits: NASA

NASA Crash-Test Dummies Make A Splash Landing

Engineers drop a NASA’s Orion Spacecraft test capsule with crash-test dummies inside into 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin to simulate what the spacecraft may experience when splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-crash-test-dummies-suit-up-for-action

It’s incredible what humans can do on and off of our planet. Here is a view from the International Space Station taken by Engineer and NASA Astronaut, Colonel Tim Kopra.

Doha, Bahrain – manmade EarthArt.

February 7, 2016.

Credit: NASA Astronaut Tim Kopra’s Twitter Account