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

Wed Aug 30 07:09:01 CDT 2017

Hi all,
 I have a little time to try to catch you up and I know many of you are still cycling back to school, while others are in their routine…my visit to Newberry, SC for the Eclipse was amazing…I went with three teachers from Randall Middle School….Lori, Cynde, & Bob...we were lucky to get a VIP Car Pass for the TDRS-M launch…it was awesome….reminded me of how I was able to get so many of you passes to shuttle launches... I hope many of you were able to share this with your students…for anyone who may have seen totality…as did I…we know it is a lifelong memory….for those who didn’t, put it on your list…it is very, very special…the whole event was so magical with all the kids, over a three day period in such an amazing, picturesque town..everyone was so kind…it is the way the world should be…then last Thursday I participated in celebrating Women’s Equality Day at Pine Hills…it is something I care about dearly, so it was a special honor….it has been a while since I mentioned it but see the link below on how to see the ISS from your home….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 & have fun…gabe :-) :-) 

 How to See the Space Station From the Ground: http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ <http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/>

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: "Voyager at 40: Keep Reaching for the Stars
In the late summer of 1977, NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecraft. These remote ambassadors still beam messages back to Earth 40 years later, with data from their deep space travels. Voyager 1 is about 13 billion miles from Earth in interstellar space, and Voyager 2 is not far behind. For more about the Voyager mission, visit https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/ <https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/> .

NASA Successfully Launches Latest Communications Satellite
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/tdrs-m-launch_0.jpg>
NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M (TDRS-M), which is the third and final in a series of next generation communications satellites, has successfully been placed into orbit following separation from an United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

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NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M (TDRS-M), which is the third and final in a series of next generation communications satellites, has successfully been placed into orbit following separation from an United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. TDRS-M launched Friday at 8:03 a.m. EDT from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Ground controllers report the satellite is in good health at the start of a four-month checkout in space by its manufacturer, Boeing. NASA will conduct additional tests before putting TDRS-M into service early next year. When ready, TDRS-M will become part of NASA’s Space Network <https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/services/networks/txt_sn.html> providing navigation and high-data-rate communications to the International Space Station, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, rockets and a host of other spacecraft. “The TDRS fleet is a critical connection delivering science and human spaceflight data to those who can use it here on Earth,” said Dave Littmann, the TDRS project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “TDRS-M will expand the capabilities and extend the lifespan of the Space Network, allowing us to continue receiving and transmitting mission data well into the next decade.” The mission of the TDRS project, established in 1973, is to develop, launch and deliver data communications relay spacecraft to support NASA's Space Network, which provides high-data-rate communications and accurate navigation. The TDRS-M spacecraft is effectively identical -- in both function and performance -- to the TDRS-K and -L spacecraft launched in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The TDRS fleet <https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/services/networks/txt_tdrs.html> began operating during the space shuttle era with the launch of TDRS-1 in 1983. Of the TDRS spacecraft launched to date, only two have been retired and five of the nine operational satellites have exceeded their design life and continue to provide essential communications and navigation services. Boeing conducted spacecraft integration and testing earlier this year at its satellite factory in El Segundo, California. After testing and confirming the spacecraft was ready for shipment, launch processing began following TDRS-M’s arrival <https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/tdrs-m-arrives-in-florida> in Florida June 23. NASA's Space Communications and Navigation program, known as SCaN <https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/index.html>, is part of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, and is responsible for the Space Network. The TDRS project office at Goddard manages the TDRS development program. Management of the launch service for TDRS-M is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. ULA provided the Atlas V rocket launch service. For more information about TDRS, visit: http://tdrs.gsfc.nasa.gov <http://tdrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/>

NASA Awards $400,000 to Top Teams at Second Phase of 3D-Printing Competition
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/branch_tech_team.jpg>
The Foster + Partners | Branch Technology team from Chattanooga, Tennessee, with their 3D-printed dome structure after it was strength tested Aug. 26, 2017, at Caterpillar Inc.'s Edwards Demonstration and Learning Center in Peoria, Illinois. The team won first place and $250,000 at Phase 2: Level 3 of NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge.
Credits: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
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NASA is making progress and awarding prizes in its competition to build a 3-D printed habitat for deep space exploration. The agency has awarded first place and a prize of $250,000 to Team Foster + Partners | Branch Technology of Chattanooga, Tennessee, for successfully completing Phase 2: Level 3 of NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, a NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize competition. Pennsylvania State University of University Park received second place, and a reward of $150,000. Challenge activities were held Aug. 23-26 at Caterpillar’s Edwards Demonstration and Learning Center in Edwards, Illinois. Teams were presented a check at the awards ceremony on Aug. 26 by Jim Reuter, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The multi-phase, $2.5 million 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge is designed to advance construction technology needed to create sustainable housing solutions for Earth and beyond. “The advancement and innovation in additive construction that we’ve seen from these teams is inspiring,” said Reuter. “Meeting the technology goals of this challenge proves that competition can push boundaries, and their work puts us that much closer to preparing the way for deep space exploration.” Bradley University <https://www.bradley.edu/sites/challenge/> in Peoria, Illinois, is NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge partner. Bradley University also partnered with sponsors Caterpillar <http://www.cat.com/>, Bechtel <http://www.bechtel.com/> and Brick & Mortar Ventures <http://brickmortar.vc/#home> to run the competition. “Being a part of this competition has been an extraordinary opportunity for Bradley University,” said Bradley University President, Gary Roberts. “Our students, faculty, staff and the Peoria community had a chance to see history in the making. We are a part of transforming technology and reshaping the way we think about construction. This was inspiring, and I am certain it changed the lives of many who experienced it.” Teams were required to develop the fundamental 3-D printing technology necessary to produce a structurally sound habitat, including the printer itself and construction materials. Competitors then had to print beams, cylinders and domes that were analyzed and compressed to failure to determine scores and prize awards. The competition activities were open to the public, and many industry leaders and local school groups attended the event. A gallery of photos from the challenge events can be found on the NASA Headquarters’ Flickr site <https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/sets/72157688059884085>. NASA’s Centennial Challenges <https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challenges/index.html> Program is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate <http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/home/index.html>, and is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. For more information about the Centennial Challenges Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/winit <http://www.nasa.gov/winit> For more information about other challenges and prize opportunities with NASA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/solve <http://www.nasa.gov/solve>

NASA's Next Mars Mission to Investigate Interior of Red Planet
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19811_insight_scene-aug2015-plain.jpg>
This artist's concept from August 2015 depicts NASA's InSight Mars lander fully deployed for studying the deep interior of Mars. The mission will launch during the period March 4 to March 30, 2016, and land on Mars Sept. 28, 2016.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21843_img_1608.jpg>
In a Lockheed Martin clean room facility near Denver in June 2017, members of the InSight mission's assembly, test and launch operations team remove the inner layer of protective housing that covered NASA's InSight spacecraft while the spacecraft was in storage after a launch postponement.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
Full image and caption <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21843>
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21845_20170622_insight_atlo2_start_8.jpg>
Lockheed Martin spacecraft specialists check the cruise stage of NASA's InSight spacecraft in this June 22, 2017, photo. The cruise stage will provide vital functions during the flight from Earth to Mars, and then will be jettisoned before the rest of the spacecraft enters Mars' atmosphere.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
Full image and caption <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21845>
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The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument for NASA's InSight mission to Mars undergoes a checkout in this photo taken July 20, 2017, in a Lockheed Martin clean room facility in Colorado. The SEIS was provided by France's national space agency (CNES).
Credits: : NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
Full image and caption <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21846>
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21847_20170809_insight_science_deckupdate.jpg>
This view shows the top of the science deck of NASA's InSight Mars lander, with the mission's seismometer instrument, heat probe instrument, robotic arm and other gear installed. The view looks upward at the lander suspended upside down in a Lockheed Martin facility in Colorado.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
Full image and caption <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21847>
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21844_20170620_insight_atlo2_start_3.jpg>
The Mars lander portion of NASA's InSight spacecraft is lifted from the base of a storage container in preparation for testing, in this photo taken June 20, 2017, in a Lockheed Martin clean room facility in Littleton, Colorado.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
Full image and caption <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21844>

Preparation of NASA's next spacecraft to Mars, InSight, has ramped up this summer, on course for launch next May from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California -- the first interplanetary launch in history from America's West Coast.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is assembling and testing the InSight spacecraft in a clean room facility near Denver. “Our team resumed system-level integration and test activities last month," said Stu Spath, spacecraft program manager at Lockheed Martin. “The lander is completed and instruments have been integrated onto it so that we can complete the final spacecraft testing including acoustics, instrument deployments and thermal balance tests.”

InSight is the first mission to focus on examining the deep interior of Mars. Information gathered will boost understanding of how all rocky planets formed, including Earth.

"Because the interior of Mars has churned much less than Earth's in the past three billion years, Mars likely preserves evidence about rocky planets' infancy better than our home planet does," said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. He leads the international team that proposed the mission and won NASA selection in a competition with 27 other proposals for missions throughout the solar system. The long form of InSight's name is Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

Whichever day the mission launches during a five-week period beginning May 5, 2018, navigators have charted the flight to reach Mars the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2018.

The mission will place a stationary lander near Mars' equator. With two solar panels that unfold like paper fans, the lander spans about 20 feet (6 meters). Within weeks after the landing -- always a dramatic challenge on Mars -- InSight will use a robotic arm to place its two main instruments directly and permanently onto the Martian ground, an unprecedented set of activities on Mars. These two instruments are:

-- A seismometer, supplied by France's space agency, CNES, with collaboration from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany. Shielded from wind and with sensitivity fine enough to detect ground movements half the diameter of a hydrogen atom, it will record seismic waves from "marsquakes" or meteor impacts that reveal information about the planet's interior layers.

 -- A heat probe, designed to hammer itself to a depth of 10 feet (3 meters) or more and measure the amount of energy coming from the planet's deep interior. The heat probe is supplied by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, with the self-hammering mechanism from Poland. 

A third experiment will use radio transmissions between Mars and Earth to assess perturbations in how Mars rotates on its axis, which are clues about the size of the planet's core.

The spacecraft's science payload also is on track for next year's launch. The mission's launch was originally planned for March 2016, but was called off due to a leak into a metal container designed to maintain near-vacuum conditions around the seismometer's main sensors. A redesigned vacuum vessel for the instrument has been built and tested, then combined with the instrument's other components and tested again. The full seismometer instrument was delivered to the Lockheed Martin spacecraft assembly facility in Colorado in July and has been installed on the lander.

"We have fixed the problem we had two years ago, and we are eagerly preparing for launch," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, of JPL.

The best planetary geometry for launches to Mars occurs during opportunities about 26 months apart and lasting only a few weeks.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the InSight Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Together with two active NASA Mars rovers, three NASA Mars orbiters and a Mars rover being built for launch in 2020, InSight is part of a legacy of robotic exploration that is helping to lay the groundwork for sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

More information about InSight is online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/insight <https://www.nasa.gov/insight>
https://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/ <https://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/>
Guy Webster / Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278 / 818-393-2433
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov <mailto:guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov> / andrew.c.good at jpl.nasa.gov <mailto:andrew.c.good at jpl.nasa.gov>

Danielle Hauf
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Denver
303-932-4360
danielle.m.hauf at lmco.com <mailto:danielle.m.hauf at lmco.com>

Shannon Ridinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-3774
shannon.j.ridinger at nasa.gov <mailto:shannon.j.ridinger at nasa.gov>

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov <mailto:dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov> / laura.l.cantillo at nasa.gov <mailto:laura.l.cantillo at nasa.gov>
2017-230

Last Updated: Aug. 28, 2017
Editor: Tony Greicius

Saturn Plunge Nears for Cassini Spacecraft
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21438.jpg>
NASA's Cassini spacecraft is shown heading for the gap between Saturn and its rings during one of 22 such dives of the mission's finale in this illustration. The spacecraft will make a final plunge into the planet's atmosphere on Sept. 15.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Full image and caption <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21438>
NASA's Cassini spacecraft is 18 days from its mission-ending dive into the atmosphere of Saturn. Its fateful plunge on Sept. 15 is a foregone conclusion -- an April 22 <https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6825> gravitational kick from Saturn's moon Titan placed the two-and-a-half ton vehicle on its path for impending destruction. Yet several mission milestones have to occur over the coming two-plus weeks to prepare the vehicle for one last burst of trailblazing science. I will give an update on events, if you would like to follow with your school...

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