[Spacetalk] https://www.nasa.gov/index.html

Tue Mar 15 06:52:44 CDT 2016

Good morning all,
 I hope you had a great weekend and have enjoyed the beginning of this week….I know many school are off next week for spring break so you are sad to think you will be off for the week….NOT!!!!….some of you have been emailing with the countdown which I think is cute….on Friday there will be a launch to the ISS which NASA TV will cover live but also remember NASA TV replays the launch so even if you are not in school at the time I hope you will take a few minutes to share it with the kids, these launches are cool as the not only show the launch from the outside but also from the inside…it is amazing as it  appears the crew is just relaxing in an easy chair….it looks so smooth... Tomorrow I will going to Williston High School and on Thursday to Thomas Jefferson Middle School…I don’t go to many HS or middle schools in the US so looking forward to both….as my favorite thing is always spending time with the kids. We have to remember to always do our best, enjoy everything we do, live in the present, make each day special, let those we care about most know, smile, and have fun...Gabe

NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Record-Breaking U.S. Astronaut
 <http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/m16-026.jpg>
Expedition 47 crew members NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, and cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexei Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos pose for a photograph before their Soyuz qualification exams Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016, at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.
Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls
On a second American record-breaking mission for 2016, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams <http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/williamsj.pdf> is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station <http://www.nasa.gov/station> at 5:26 p.m. EDT Friday, March 18, with cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka of the Russian space agency Roscosmos from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA Television launch coverage will begin at 4:30 p.m. During his six-month mission, Williams will become the new American record holder for cumulative days in space -- 534 -- surpassing Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly, who wrapped up his one-year mission on March 1. Williams will take command of the station on June 4 for Expedition 48. This will be his third space station expedition -- another record. The three will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, rendezvousing with the space station six hours after launch. They’ll dock to the station’s Poisk module at 11:12 p.m. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 10:30 p.m. The hatches between the Soyuz and station will be opened less than two hours later at about 12:55 a.m. Saturday, March 19, when the newly arrived crew members will be greeted by Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko of Roscosmos and Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency). NASA TV coverage of the hatch opening will begin at 12:30 a.m. Together, the Expedition 47 crew members will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory. Williams, Ovchinin and Skripochka are scheduled to spend six months on the station, returning to Earth in early September 2016.

For the full schedule of prelaunch, launch and docking coverage, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv <http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv> Follow the space station crew members on Instagram and Twitter at: http://instagram.com/iss <http://instagram.com/iss> and http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station  <http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station%C2%A0>

Astronaut Scott Kelly to Retire from NASA in April <http://links.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTYwMzExLjU2NDE5NjgxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE2MDMxMS41NjQxOTY4MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MjgxOTk5JmVtYWlsaWQ9Zm9yZGdhYmVAbmV0emVyby5jb20mdXNlcmlkPWZvcmRnYWJlQG5ldHplcm8uY29tJmZsPSZleHRyYT1NdWx0aXZhcmlhdGVJZD0mJiY=&&&100&&&http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/astronaut-scott-kelly-to-retire-from-nasa-in-april?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery>
NASA Administrator Pays Tribute to Astronaut Scott Kelly
 <http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/kelly_return.jpg>
Scott Kelly speaks to family, friends and NASA officials after arriving in Houston. Kelly was greeted upon arrival on U.S. soil by Dr. Jill Biden, Second Lady of the United States, Mark Kelly, former astronaut and Scott's twin brother, Dr. John Holdren, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, and Ellen Ochoa, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credits: NASA TV
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The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the retirement of astronaut Scott Kelly: “When the first Americans set foot on Mars, they will be following in the footsteps of one of the finest astronauts in the history of the space program, my friend, Commander Scott Kelly.  After spending an American record 520 days in space – including his Year in Space – I can think of no one more deserving of some well-deserved rest and time on the same planet as his family and friends.  “All of us in the NASA family -- and indeed in the broader scientific community -- are grateful that he was willing to sacrifice time with his loved ones, meals that don’t come in a bag, a cold beer, hot showers, cool autumn breezes, the sounds of birds chirping, the ability to lay his head on an actual pillow and so much more of the pleasures of life during his year of research and experimentation the International Space Station. “We will never forget the 700 stunning images he posted to social media, the leadership he demonstrated as ISS Commander for the last six months and, most of all, the impact that all his missions and years of service will continue to have on our Journey to Mars.” For more information about Kelly’s NASA career, and biography, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/kellysj.pdf <http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/kellysj.pdf>
This Week@ NASA, March 11, 2015
Bolden testifies on FY 2017 NASA budget
During a March 10 hearing of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden testified about the $19 billion dollar Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposed for the agency by President Obama. In his remarks, the Administrator outlined the many benefits that this investment in NASA’s present will yield for the future. The funding will enable a future where we send American astronauts to Mars in the 2030s; where more Americans work in good-paying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) based careers; where future generations can breathe cleaner air, drink cleaner water, and fly on cleaner, greener, more fuel-efficient aircraft; and a future where humankind has a deeper understanding of our universe, our place in it, and our own planet.
First SLS flight engine test <http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/engine-test-marks-major-milestone-on-nasa-s-journey-to-mars> On March 10 at Stennis Space Center, in Mississippi, RS-25 engine number 2059 became the first flight engine for NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to be test fired. Four RS-25s will power the core stage of the SLS. The flight certification test of this engine is a major milestone in NASA’s return to deep space exploration and the Journey to Mars. 
New SLS rocket test stand “topped out” On March 4, construction crews at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center "topped out" Test Stand 4697 by welding the structure’s top-most beam into place. The 85-foot-tall test stand is one of two being built to test hardware for the SLS rocket. Test Stand 4697 will use hydraulic cylinders to subject the liquid oxygen tank and hardware of the SLS core stage to the same conditions it will experience during a launch. The other test stand -- 4693 – will be used for similar testing on the core stage's liquid hydrogen tank. Both stands are scheduled to be completed later this year. The SLS will be the world's most powerful rocket and carry astronauts in NASA's Orion spacecraft on deep-space missions. 
Crew previews upcoming mission to ISS During a March 9 news conference at Johnson Space Center, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and her Expedition 48 crewmates, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency talked about their upcoming mission to the International Space Station. The trio will launch to the station in June from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. During their four-month tour, they’ll help with about 250 science investigations and technology demonstrations. Research being conducted on the space station will enable future long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space, including to an asteroid and Mars.
Total solar eclipse <http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/eclipse/index.html> NASA collaborated with the Exploratorium Science Center in San Francisco and the National Science Foundation to provide live NASA Television coverage of the March 8 total solar eclipse from Micronesia. The fully eclipsed sun was only visible in parts of South East Asia, but the live broadcast made the phenomenon available to millions of people around the world. The next total solar eclipse visible from the United States will occur on Aug. 21, 2017.
Dawn’s anniversary image of Ceres  <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/main/index.html>On March 6, 2015, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrived at the dwarf planet Ceres. The spacecraft recently celebrated the one-year anniversary with new images of Ahuna Mons - the mysterious 3-mile-high mountain that investigators initially thought was pyramid-shaped. However, subsequent, more detailed images showed the mountain was actually shaped more like a dome. Dawn's latest images of Ahuna Mons, taken 120 times closer than in February 2015, are helping researchers learn more details about the mountain – except exactly how it formed. Dawn’s arrival at Ceres made it the first-ever spacecraft to reach a dwarf planet. And that’s what’s up this week @NASA …

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March 10, 2016
 <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/mission-manager-update-k2-continues-to-shine/#> <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/mission-manager-update-k2-continues-to-shine/#> <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/mission-manager-update-k2-continues-to-shine/#> <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/mission-manager-update-k2-continues-to-shine/#> <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/mission-manager-update-k2-continues-to-shine/#>
Mission Manager Update: K2 continues to shine
It’s been nine months since my last report, so what has the mission been up to? Well, the search of the Kepler data has continued and is now in the home stretch. Last July we announced Kepler-452b <http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-kepler-mission-discovers-bigger-older-cousin-to-earth>, an older, larger planet than Earth, but one that orbits a star very much like our sun and has spent billions of years in its habitable zone. Kepler-452b joins the very interesting and growing group of near-Earth-size exoplanets <http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/a-keplers-dozen-small-habitable-zone-planets> – planets that orbit other suns – that are less than twice the size of Earth and reside in their sun's habitable zone which is the distance from the star where liquid water might pool on the surface. Also in July, we released our second-to-last exoplanet catalog, increasing the total number of candidates to more than 4,600, and added 12 small potentially rocky candidates <http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/twelve-new-small-kepler-habitable-zone-candidates> in the habitable zone. This penultimate catalog was also noteworthy for being our first fully automated catalog, turning over the task of vetting potential exoplanets to software. Because it is so much faster, it means that for the first time, we were able to go back and reassess all the data from the mission, and to do so uniformly. And now we’re on the last lap, doing our final evaluation of the data to deliver the final mission catalog, which is anticipated early next year. Of course, the list of exoplanets will continue to grow as other observers and other missions take the baton and continue to expand the frontier. To that end, our new K2 mission <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasas-k2-mission-the-kepler-space-telescopes-second-chance-to-shine> has been a smashing success! The spacecraft has operated beautifully, with scarcely a whiff of trouble. As part of our K2 mission strategy, we’ve relaxed the fault or sensitivity limits and taken on a bit more risk so that we wouldn’t have to interrupt the observing to correct minor issues. In response, the spacecraft appears to have rewarded our trust by operating more smoothly than it has at any other time in its history. As a result, the ground crew has had time to look for additional improvements. Since we began the K2 mission, we have improved the pointing, increased the duration of observations and increased the number of targets observed – all while spending less fuel than we expected. We now project that the spacecraft may have enough fuel to operate for nearly another three years!

Now we are preparing to embark on a new experiment, turning the spacecraft around and pointing the telescope in the forward velocity vector, where, instead of looking towards where it’s been, it will look in the direction of where it’s going. This special maneuver has the detriment of letting the Earth move through its field of view and putting a lot of light into the telescope, but it will let us look near the central bulge of our galaxy while ground-based observatories do the same thing, at the same instant. This unique coordinated observing lets astronomers look for exoplanets and other dark bodies by taking advantage of their ability to act as a gravitational lens, focusing the light of a background star and temporarily causing that star to brighten. This approach has been successfully used to detect exoplanets from the ground, but doing it simultaneously from the ground and a spacecraft fifty million miles from Earth will allow astronomers to determine the distance to these bodies using parallax – the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from a different position. Calculations around this process can reveal the mass of found exoplanets. This special microlensing observing period or campaign will begin in April and end in July. During this time telescopes around the world will focus on a specific patch of sky in a joint effort to demonstrate the power of this technique, which will also be used by NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope <http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-introduces-new-wider-set-of-eyes-on-the-universe>, or WFIRST mission, planned to launch in the mid-2020s. Meanwhile, the K2 mission, with its superb photometry applied to the ecliptic – the orbital path traveled around the sun by the planets of our solar system and the location of the zodiac – is opening the door to new scientific discoveries. In November, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network hosted a K2 science conference <http://kepler.nasa.gov/Science/ForScientists/keplerconference/logistics/> attended by nearly 200 scientists from around the world. Presentations described the science being conducted with K2 data from exoplanets to stellar physics to supernovae and black holes. We are seeing an explosion of scientific interest in the K2 mission, with a new generation of researchers coming to the forefront. Already K2 is starting to make a significant contribution to the number of exoplanets <http://www.nasa.gov/kepler/discoveries> known, and is finding them closer to home than those discovered by Kepler, and around brighter stars that provide enough light to make them candidates for probing their atmospheres. The promise of the mission is extensive. With the fuel savings achieved, the K2 mission has been invited to propose for a mission extension through the process of NASA’s astrophysics division’s senior review <http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/2016-senior-review-operating-missions/> of operating missions. To give a sense of the improvements that have been made since the start of the K2 mission, consider that we initially hoped to observe 10,000 target stars in each campaign, and we are now averaging nearly 30,000. And that we have balanced the spacecraft against <http://www.nasa.gov/kepler/keplers-second-light-how-k2-will-work> the solar pressure so well that we can see a change in it's pointing when transmitting data from its back-up antenna. Just think about that for a moment. This spacecraft, as big and heavy as an SUV, turns slightly just because we change the broadcasting antenna! This is like having your car begin to turn because of the blinking of your turn signal! Finally, since my last report, we marked the retirement of the Kepler principal investigator, William Borucki <http://www.nasa.gov/feature/keplers-borucki-retires-after-five-decades-at-nasa>, for whom we have so much to thank, and celebrated the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the first exoplanet <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2015-312>. We have come a long way in the last 20 years, and with Kepler’s success we are riding the K2 mission into new territory. 
Regards, Charlie Sobeck Kepler and K2 mission manager, NASA's Ames Research Center

Hubble Sees a Legion of Galaxies 
 <http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/hubble_friday_03112016.jpg>
Peering deep into the early universe, this picturesque parallel field <http://frontierfields.org/2014/01/10/cluster-and-parallel-fields-two-for-the-price-of-one-2/> observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals thousands of colorful galaxies swimming in the inky blackness of space. A few foreground stars from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, are also visible.  In October 2013 Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 <https://www.spacetelescope.org/about/general/instruments/wfc3/> (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys <https://www.spacetelescope.org/about/general/instruments/acs/> (ACS) began observing this portion of sky as part of the Frontier Fields program <http://frontierfields.org/about/>. This spectacular skyscape was captured during the study of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744 <https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1443a/>, otherwise known as Pandora’s Box. While one of Hubble’s cameras concentrated on Abell 2744, the other camera viewed this adjacent patch of sky near to the cluster. Containing countless galaxies of various ages, shapes and sizes, this parallel field observation is nearly as deep as the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field <http://www.spacetelescope.org/science/deep_fields/>. In addition to showcasing the stunning beauty of the deep universe in incredible detail, this parallel field — when compared to other deep fields — will help astronomers understand how similar the universe looks in different directions.

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