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

Tue Apr 3 08:25:55 CDT 2018

Good morning all,

 Some of you in the US may be on Spring Break, hanging at the beach….sounds great, also others snow skiing to enjoy their break…we saw successful launch by Space X yesterday, taking cargo and scientific experiments to the ISS…astronauts recently completed a space walk for maintenance and upgrades to the ISS, NASA is conducting many missions in the coming weeks and months…go to the subject links for the latest updates…I will be leaving for Brazil this week, to Natal, my 7th visit in just over a year…it has been amazing…also, if any of you would like me to visit your school, please email me and we can make arrangements…it is free...wishing you a wonderful day...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… :-) :-)  love ya, Gabe

Gorgeous Blue Moon

Farewell, Tiangong-1: Chinese Space Station Meets Fiery Doom Over South Pacific

An artist's illustration of China's first space station, Tiangong-1, falling to Earth as it burns up in the atmosphere.
Tiangong-1 is no more.

China's prototype space station <https://www.space.com/40076-chinese-space-station-crash-to-earth-guide.html>, whose name translates as "Heavenly Palace 1," met a fiery end in Earth's atmosphere today (April 1), breaking apart and burning up in the skies over the southern Pacific Ocean at about 8:16 p.m. EDT (0016 April 2 GMT), according to the U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC). "The JFSCC used the Space Surveillance Network sensors and their orbital analysis system to confirm Tiangong-1's re-entry," U.S. Air Force officials wrote in a statement. After weeks of uncertainty about when and where it would crash, the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 has tumbled to Earth in the southern Pacific Ocean at about 8:16 p.m. EDT (0016 GMT on April 2), the U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC) reported. Despite the uncontrolled nature of the re-entry, the European Space Agency (ESA) had previously estimated that the chances of being hit by debris from Tiangong-1 were 10 million times smaller than the chance of being hit by lightning in any given year (about 1 in 1.4 million <https://www.livescience.com/62118-if-chinese-space-station-hits-you-liability.html>). [In Photos: A Look at China's Space Station That's Crashing to Earth <https://www.livescience.com/62114-photos-china-crashing-space-station.html>]

New Research Heading to Space Station Aboard 14th SpaceX Resupply Mission

A SpaceX Dragon launched at 4:30 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida delivering more than 5,800 pounds of equipment and research to the International Space Station.
Credits: NASA
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station <http://www.nasa.gov/station> soon will receive a delivery of experiments dealing with how the human body, plants and materials behave in space following the 4:30 p.m. EDT launch Monday of a SpaceX commercial resupply mission.  A SpaceX Dragon lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with more than 5,800 pounds of research investigations <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/SpX-14_research_launch_feature> and equipment, cargo and supplies that will support dozens of the more than 250 investigations aboard the space station. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige Kanai and NASA astronaut Scott Tingle will use the space station’s robotic arm to capture Dragon when it arrives at the station Wednesday, April 4. Live coverage of the rendezvous and capture will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website <https://www.nasa.gov/live/> beginning at 5:30 a.m. April 4. Installation coverage is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Among the research arriving on Dragon is a new facility to test materials, coatings and components, or other large experiments, in the harsh environment of space. Designed by Alpha Space and sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, the Materials ISS Experiment Flight Facility (MISSE-FF) <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Alpha_Space_Small_Business_Makes_Big_Strides> provides a platform for testing how materials react to exposure to ultraviolet radiation, atomic oxygen, ionizing radiation, ultrahigh vacuum, charged particles, thermal cycles, electromagnetic radiation, and micro-meteoroids in the low-Earth orbit environment. The Canadian Space Agency’s study Bone Marrow Adipose Reaction: Red or White (MARROW <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1673>) will look at the effects of microgravity on bone marrow and the blood cells it produces – an effect likened to that of long-term bed rest on Earth. The extent of this effect, and bone marrow’s ability to recover when back on Earth, are of interest to space researchers and healthcare providers alike. Understanding how plants respond to microgravity also is important for future long-duration space missions and the crews that will need to grow their own food. The Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System (PONDS <https://www.nasa.gov/feature/tupperware-takes-to-space-to-help-improve-astronaut-diets>) arriving on Dragon uses a newly-developed passive nutrient delivery system and the Veggie <https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/veggies-in-space> plant growth facility currently aboard the space station to cultivate leafy greens. These greens will be harvested and eaten by the crew, with samples also being returned to Earth for analysis. Dragon also is carrying an Earth observatory <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1822> that will study severe thunderstorms and their role in the Earth’s atmosphere and climate, as well as upgrade equipment for the station’s carbon dioxide removal system, external high-definition camera components, and a new printer for the station’s crew. This is SpaceX’s 14th cargo mission to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. Dragon is scheduled to depart the station in May and return to Earth with more than 3,500 pounds of research, hardware and crew supplies. For more than 17 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space   Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. A global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 2,300 research investigations from   researchers in more than 100 countries. Get breaking news, images and features from the space station on social media at:  https://instagram.com/iss <https://instagram.com/iss> and https://www.twitter.com/Space_Station <https://www.twitter.com/Space_Station> 

Stories of Her Strength
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/jsc2017e027916_thumbnail.jpg>

"Houston We Have a Podcast" is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.

For Women's History Month we brought in 4 women in leadership at the Johnson Space Center to share their stories of persevering through challenges and rising through the ranks. We speak with leaders of the International Space Station Program, Flight Operations, Engineering, and Human Health and Performance. This episode was recorded throughout March 2018.

NASA Prepares to Launch Next Mission to Search Sky for New Worlds
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/tesslavaplanet.jpg>
Illustration of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) in front of a lava planet orbiting its host star. TESS will identify thousands of potential new planets for further study and observation.
Credits: NASA/GSFC
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS <https://www.nasa.gov/tess-transiting-exoplanet-survey-satellite>) is undergoing final preparations in Florida for its April 16 launch to find undiscovered worlds around nearby stars, providing targets where future studies will assess their capacity to harbor life. “One of the biggest questions in exoplanet exploration is: If an astronomer finds a planet in a star’s habitable zone <https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/1062/>, will it be interesting from a biologist's point of view?” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge, which is leading the mission. “We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers.” On March 15, the spacecraft passed a review that confirmed it was ready for launch. For final launch preparations, the spacecraft will be fueled and encapsulated within the payload fairing of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. TESS will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. With the help of a gravitational assist <https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/primer/> from the Moon, the spacecraft will settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. Sixty days after launch, and following tests of its instruments, the satellite will begin its initial two-year mission. Four wide-field cameras will give TESS a field-of-view that covers 85 percent of our entire sky. Within this vast visual perspective, the sky has been divided into 26 sectors that TESS will observe one by one. The first year of observations will map the 13 sectors encompassing the southern sky, and the second year will map the 13 sectors of the northern sky. The spacecraft will be looking for a phenomenon known as a transit <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/transiting-exoplanet-with-brightness-graph-anim.gif>, where a planet passes in front of its star, causing a periodic and regular dip in the star’s brightness. NASA’s Kepler <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html> spacecraft used the same method to spot more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, most of them orbiting faint stars 300 to 3,000 light-years away “We learned from Kepler that there are more planets than stars in our sky, and now TESS will open our eyes to the variety of planets around some of the closest stars,” said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters. “TESS will cast a wider net than ever before for enigmatic worlds whose properties can be probed by NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and other missions.” TESS will concentrate on stars less than 300 light-years away and 30 to 100 times brighter than Kepler’s targets. The brightness of these target stars will allow researchers to use spectroscopy <https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/educators/hera/spectroscopy/what_is_spectroscopy.html>, the study of the absorption and emission of light, to determine a planet’s mass, density and atmospheric composition. Water, and other key molecules, in its atmosphere can give us hints about a planets’ capacity to harbor life. “TESS is opening a door for a whole new kind of study,” said Stephen Rinehart, TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which manages the mission. “We’re going to be able study individual planets and start talking about the differences between planets. The targets TESS finds are going to be fantastic subjects for research for decades to come. It’s the beginning of a new era of exoplanet research.” Through the TESS Guest Investigator Program <https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/tess/proposing-investigations.html>, the worldwide scientific community will be able to participate in investigations outside of TESS’s core mission, enhancing and maximizing the science return from the mission in areas ranging from exoplanet characterization to stellar astrophysics and solar system science. “I don’t think we know everything TESS is going to accomplish,” Rinehart said. “To me, the most exciting part of any mission is the unexpected result, the one that nobody saw coming.” TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer <https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/astrophysics-explorers> mission led and operated by MIT and managed by Goddard. George Ricker, of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, serves as principal investigator for the mission. TESS’s four wide-field cameras were developed by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. Additional partners include Orbital ATK, NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants <https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/meettheteam.html> in the mission. For more information on TESS, go to: https://www.nasa.gov/tess <https://www.nasa.gov/tess>

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