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Thu Feb 5 06:45:16 CST 2015

Good morning all,
 I hope you will have a great day.....was raining and strorming here all night as well as this morning but on Tuesday it was maginficant....the moon was as full as I've ever seen it, very low on the horizon...the sky was crystal clear the stars brilliant....it was so amazing.....called a snow moon...see the attachment below....also check out the links below to share with the kids....especailly Pluto as I have been talking with the kids on school visits about the New Horizon's mission and they are always so excited.....have a busy day today and will not be back until Monday so I wanted to wish you all a very happy weekend...of course we must enjoy today and each day as we pass through it, always doing our best, enjoying everything we do as we do it, staying focused on the good in our lives, letting those we care about most know, smiling and having fun! Gabe

 SNOW MOON

DSCOVR:
Deep Space Climate Observatory
Tracking Earth's Space Environment

     DSCOVR Launch Status

     February 4, 2015
     The U.S. Air Force (USAF), acting in its capacity as the launch services provider with SpaceX, and with concurrence from NOAA and NASA, has announced a delay in the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission. DSCOVR is now expected to launch no earlier than February 8, 2015. NOAA continues to monitor any risk to the schedule in close coordination with its partners and will provide updates as they are available.

     Watch the launch live on NASA Television. Coverage begins at 3:30pm EST on launch day, February 8, 2015, http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv.

NASA TV Coverage Set for U.S. Cargo Ship's Departure from Space Station

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Expedition 42 commander and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti used the Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple the SpaceX Dragon (CRS-5) ship on Jan. 12 2015, two days after its launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Dragon was attached to the station's Harmony module three hours after it was grappled, where it spent a month being unloaded.
Image Credit: NASA
After delivering more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station last month, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is set to leave the orbiting laboratory on Tuesday, Feb. 10.
NASA Television will provide live coverage of Dragon's departure beginning at 1:45 p.m. EST.
The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to detach from the Earth-facing side of the station's Harmony module and release through commands sent by ground controllers in mission control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston operating the Canadarm 2 robotic arm. Mission control will maneuver Dragon into place for its release, which is scheduled for 2:09 p.m.
Dragon will execute three thruster firings to move a safe distance from the space station for its deorbit burn at approximately 7 p.m. The capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean around 7:44 p.m. The deorbit burn and the splashdown will not air on NASA TV.
In the event that weather at the landing zone does not permit a Feb. 10 departure, the next available opportunity is on Feb. 11 with a 1:17 p.m. departure time with NASA TV coverage beginning at 12:45 p.m.
Dragon currently is the only spacecraft able to return cargo from the space station to Earth. It will return about 3,700 pounds of cargo, including science samples from human physiology research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations and education activities sponsored by NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) in Melbourne, Florida. CASIS, a nonprofit organization, is responsible for managing research performed in the U.S. national laboratory portion of the space station.
Dragon launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Jan. 10 on the company's fifth commercial resupply mission to the station. It arrived at the station Jan. 12.
For NASA TV schedule and video streaming information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
For more information about the International Space Station, and its research and crews, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
For more information about the mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/spacex

NASA Spacecraft Returns New Images of Pluto En Route to Historic Encounter

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The image of Pluto and its moon Charon, taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, was magnified four times to make the objects more visible. Over the next several months, the apparent sizes of Pluto and Charon, as well as the separation between them, will continue to expand in the images.
Image Credit: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft returned its first new images of Pluto on Wednesday, as the probe closes in on the dwarf planet. Although still just a dot along with its largest moon, Charon, the images come on the 109th birthday of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the distant icy world in 1930.
"My dad would be thrilled with New Horizons," said Clyde Tombaugh's daughter Annette Tombaugh, of Las Cruces, New Mexico. "To actually see the planet that he had discovered, and find out more about it -- to get to see the moons of Pluto-- he would have been astounded. I'm sure it would have meant so much to him if he were still alive today."
New Horizons was more than 126 million miles (nearly 203 million kilometers) away from Pluto when it began taking images. The new images, taken with New Horizons' telescopic Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on Jan. 25 and Jan. 27, are the first acquired during the spacecraft's 2015 approach to the Pluto system, which culminates with a close flyby of Pluto and its moons on July 14.
"This is our birthday tribute to Professor Tombaugh and the Tombaugh family, in honor of his discovery and life achievements -- which truly became a harbinger of 21st century planetary astronomy," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "These images of Pluto, clearly brighter and closer than those New Horizons took last July from twice as far away, represent our first steps at turning the pinpoint of light Clyde saw in the telescopes at Lowell Observatory 85 years ago, into a planet before the eyes of the world this summer."
Over the next few months, LORRI will take hundreds of pictures of Pluto, against a starry backdrop, to refine the team's estimates of New Horizons' distance to Pluto. As in these first images, the Pluto system will resemble little more than bright dots in the camera's view until late spring. However, mission navigators can still use such images to design course-correcting engine maneuvers to direct the spacecraft for a more precise approach. The first such maneuver based on these optical navigation images, or OpNavs, is scheduled for March 10.
"Pluto is finally becoming more than just a pinpoint of light," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.  "LORRI has now resolved Pluto, and the dwarf planet will continue to grow larger and larger in the images as New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward its targets. The new LORRI images also demonstrate that the camera's performance is unchanged since it was launched more than nine years ago."
Closing in on Pluto at about 31,000 mph, New Horizons already has covered more than 3 billion miles since it launched on Jan. 19, 2006. Its journey has taken it past each planet's orbit, from Mars to Neptune, in record time, and it is now in the first stage of an encounter with Pluto that includes long-distance imaging as well as dust, energetic particle and solar wind measurements to characterize the space environment near Pluto.
"The U.S. has led the exploration of the planets and continues to do so with New Horizons," said Curt Niebur, New Horizons program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This mission will obtain images to map Pluto and its moons better than has ever been achieved by any previous planetary mission."
APL manages the New Horizons mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Alan Stern, of SwRI, is the principal investigator and leads the mission. SwRI leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL designed, built and operates the spacecraft.
To view the Pluto image online and see the mission timeline for upcoming images, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
and http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

[X]
New Spaceport Magazine Available Online Today
NASA unveiled the budget on Monday. Do you know what it means to us? Open up and find out!

Spaceport Magazine has you covered!

In the February<http://go.nasa.gov/16nocne> issue:
*       NASA unveils budget for fiscal year 2016<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/6>
*       SMAP maps moisture beneath Earth's surface<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/12>
*       NASA, Boeing, SpaceX outline objectives<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/20>
*       Visitor complex unveils Orion heat shield exhibit<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/30>
*       Kennedy hosts Moon Express development<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/34>
*       NASA chief technologist visits Kennedy labs<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/40>
*       Iconic space shuttle era facility demolished<http://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine/docs/spaceport_magazine_____february_201/44>
Check out the magazine<http://go.nasa.gov/16nocne> on the ISSUU digital newsstand or click the cover photo. View past issues at the ISSUU digital newsstand here<https://issuu.com/spaceportmagazine>.

To download or view the accessible PDF version or view past PDF issues of the magazine, go to http://go.nasa.gov/1k2qusq.

Editor's note: Spaceport Magazine is hosted on a third-party website in order to take advantage of cross-platform sharing functions and improved visual mechanics. Similar to other digital mediums, please be cognizant of and do not click items that may be inappropriate to view at work.

The magazine team is interested in your feedback and ideas for content. Email us at ksc-spaceportmagazine at mail.nasa.gov<mailto:ksc-spaceportmagazine at mail.nasa.gov>.

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