Webb Telescope Sunshield Passes Launch Depressurization Tests to Verify Flight Design

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope continues to make significant progress, successfully completing a series of sunshield vent tests that validate the telescope's sunshield design.

"While adequate venting is a design consideration for all spaceflight hardware, this was a particularly unique challenge for the sunshield given the large volume of trapped air in the membrane system at launch," said Keith Parrish, Webb telescope sunshield manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "From the beginning of its development venting features have been a critical part of the overall sunshield design. Since we cannot vent test the actual flight article these test have shown the design works and the sunshield will vent safely on its way to orbit."

The sunshield on the Webb telescope will block the heat of the Sun and Earth from reaching the cold section of the Observatory. That's a critical function because the telescope and instruments must be cooled below 50 Kelvin (~-369.7 Fahrenheit) to allow them to see faint infrared emissions from astronomical objects. The sunshield consists of five layers of Kapton ®E with aluminum and doped-silicon coatings to reflect the sun's heat back into space.

Using flight-like sunshield membranes, the tests are designed to mimic the rapid change in air pressure the folded sunshield will experience the first minutes of launch. Several different folding configurations each underwent a series of 90-second depressurization tests and proved that the stowed sunshield will retain its shape during launch and allow trapped air to escape safely, both critical to sunshield deployment and performance.

Goddard Team attains the 'Unobtainium' for NASA's Next Space Observatory

Imagine building a car chassis without a blueprint or even a list of recommended construction materials.

In a sense, that's precisely what a team of engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., did when they designed a one-of-a-kind structure that is one of 9 key new technology systems of the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). Just as a chassis supports the engine and other components in a car, the ISIM will hold four highly sensitive instruments, electronics, and other shared instrument systems flying on the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's next flagship observatory.

From scratch — without past experience to help guide them — the engineers designed the ISIM made of a never-before-manufactured composite material and proved through testing that it could withstand the super-cold temperatures it would encounter when the observatory reached its orbit 1.5-million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth. In fact, the ISIM structure survived temperatures that plunged as low as 27 Kelvin (-411 degrees Fahrenheit), colder than the surface of Pluto.

"It is the first large, bonded composite spacecraft structure to be exposed to such a severe environment," said Jim Pontius, ISIM lead mechanical engineer.

The 26-day test was specifically carried out to test whether the car-sized structure contracted and distorted as predicted when it cooled from room temperature to the frigid — very important since the science instruments must maintain a specific location on the structure to receive light gathered by the telescope's 6.5-meter (21.3-feet) primary mirror. If the structure shrunk or distorted in an unpredictable way due to the cold, the instruments no longer would be in position to gather data about everything from the first luminous glows following the big bang to the formation of star systems capable of supporting life.

"The tolerances are much looser on the Hubble Space Telescope," said Ray Ohl, a Goddard optical engineer who leads ISIM's optical integration and test. "The optical requirements for Webb are even more difficult to meet than those on Hubble."

NASA's Webb Telescope MIRI device Takes One Step quicker To Space

A major instrument due to fly aboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is getting its first taste of space in the test facilities at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the United Kingdom. The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) has been designed to contribute to areas of investigation as diverse as the first light in the early Universe and the formation of planets around other stars.

"The start of space simulation testing of the MIRI is the last major engineering activity needed to enable its delivery to NASA. It represents the culmination of 8 years of work by the MIRI consortium, and is a major progress milestone for the Webb telescope project," said Matt Greenhouse, NASA Project Scientist for the Webb telescope Integrated Science Instrument Module, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

The James Webb Space Telescope represents the next generation of space telescope and, unlike its predecessor Hubble, it will have to journey far from home. Its ultimate destination is L2, a gravitational pivot point located 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) away, on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. Here it is cool enough for the MIRI to obtain exquisite measurements that astronomers will use to help decipher the Universe. "At L2 we are at an environmentally stable point where we can be permanently shaded from light from the Sun and Earth. That allows us to reach the very low temperatures - as low as 7K (- 447.1 Fahrenheit) in the case of MIRI – that are necessary to measure in the mid-infrared," says Jose Lorenzo Alvarez, MIRI Instrument Manager for European Space Agency (ESA).

The MIRI provides imaging, coronagraphy and integral field spectroscopy over the 5-28 micron wavelength range. It is being developed as a partnership between Europe and the U.S. The MIRI is one of four instruments flying aboard the Webb telescope. The other instruments include: NIRSpec (a near-infrared spectrograph), NIRCam (a near-infrared camera), and TFI (a tunable filter imager).

One of the jewels in the MIRI's crown is the potential to observe star formation that has been triggered by an interaction between galaxies. This phenomena has been difficult to study with Hubble or ground-based telescopes since the optical and near-infrared light from these newly formed stars is hidden from view by clouds of dust that typically surround newly formed stars This will not be a problem for MIRI, as it is sensitive to longer wavelengths of light in the range 5 to 28 microns, which can penetrate the dust.

However, keeping the MIRI at a colder temperature than on Pluto, for a sustained period of time, was one of the biggest engineering challenges facing those charged with constructing the instrument. "A critical aspect, to achieving the right sensitivity, is to ensure stable operation at 7 Kelvin (- 447.1 Fahrenheit) that will last for the five years of the mission," explains Alvarez.

Emerging Technologies May Fuel Revolutionary Launcher

As NASA studies possibilities for the next launcher to the stars, a team of engineers from Kennedy Space Center and several other field centers are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward.


An early proposal has emerged that calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket's second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit. The aircraft would come back and land on a runway by the launch site.

Engineers also contend the system, with its advanced technologies, will benefit the nation's high-tech industry by perfecting technologies that would make more efficient commuter rail systems, better batteries for cars and trucks, and numerous other spinoffs.

It might read as the latest in a series of science fiction articles, but NASA's Stan Starr, branch chief of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Kennedy, points out that nothing in the design calls for brand-new technology to be developed. However, the system counts on a number of existing technologies to be pushed forward.

'Mindshift' Biofeedback Gaming Technology

Nasa - The gamer's quest is for reality, but there are limits when an animated, armored man is shooting at a banshee flying at him at simulated warp speed on a video screen; or a caricature of an athlete is trying to hit a light that represents a ball that can curve in ways that defy physics.

And logic.

This is the world in which NASA's Langley Research Center scientists Alan Pope and Chad Stephens worked with Langley Volunteer Service Program high school intern Nina Blanson until she decamped to become a freshman at Yale.

They have invented technology to inject stress levels into the games' controls so that the nervous or stressed shooter is aiming a moving gun at a moving target. The technology has a long, somewhat descriptive, acronym-defying name, but the inventors are just calling it "Mindshift" and are inviting representatives of the gaming industry to a demonstration on September 22 in Raleigh, N.C.

It includes a sensor attached to the player's earlobe, checking the pulse and wired into the control. Or sensors attached to the forehead, seeking the facial muscle strain that is a sign of stress.

Or even sensors attached to the player's partner to inject a social variable into game play, requiring teamwork between the two players. At issue is understanding that video games are with us, so why not involve them in the monitoring and treatment of stress?

"You don't have to do everything in a disciplined way," said Pope, whose field of expertise is engineering psychophysiology and biomedical feedback. "You can also do it recreationally.

"There are some people who claim that playing video games contributes to attention deficit, that it rewires our brains. Well, if that's the case then let's decide how we want video games rewiring our brain."

NASA Art challenger Lasso Their Imaginations to the Moon

NASA - On your way home, you find it a little hard to breathe. Your breathing becomes shorter as your heart rate gets faster. Come to find out, your personal oxygen tank is low, so you stop at the oxygen station to get a refill, just to be on the safe side. As you are filling your oxygen tank, you talk with the person next to you about the craters around your home, meteor showers and the latest gossip of life on earth.

Once you fill your tank, your heart rate and breathing return to normal. You get home, call it a day, and buckle up in your bed near the ceiling to get a good night's rest.


Scenarios like this are what more than 200 college and high school students thought of when creating art and design entries to submit to NASA's "2010 Life and Work on the Moon Art and Design Contest." This may seem like a simple theme to apply when creating original artwork, but it was not as easy as one would think for these talented students.

Not only did they need to imagine and create original art related to life and work on the Moon, but the art needed to portray life that could survive the Moon's harsh conditions. Students needed to ask themselves, what would fuel a spacecraft, what types of food would people eat, how would there be enough oxygen, and many more questions like these.

Students expressed their creativity and innovation pertaining to life and work on the Moon through many categories, including two-dimensional, three-dimensional, digital art, music, literature and video.

"Offering students the opportunity to express themselves through art allows us to reach out to people who otherwise might not be able to participate in our program of exploration," said Jerry Hartman, Education Lead for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "Plus, the young people come up with a lot of cool stuff!"

A panel of scientists, professional artists and educators from the U.S. and other nations reviewed and judged the students' artwork. Judges based their reviews on three elements. The first was an artist statement that described what inspired the student, what artistic media they chose and why. Second was creativity and artistic expression. The third category and the hardest to judge was the validity of a realistic situation for the Moon's harsh conditions.

Jim Plaxco, third year NASA art contest judge, with his own digital art gallery website, Artsnova, describes how judging validity is the most difficult. "In the case of a painting that consists only of a space-suited astronaut walking on the surface of the Moon - does the person really understand that environment?" said Plaxco. "For example, people without spacesuits on the Moon is kind of a dead giveaway."

NASA Chief Technology Officer for IT Honored by CIO Magazine

Nasa Technology - Chris C. Kemp, NASA’s chief technology officer for Information Technology and ‘super star’ of IT innovation for the agency, has been recognized with CIO Magazine’s “CIO 100” award for his work done while he was chief information officer for NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., in 2009. Every year, CIO Magazine identifies and honors 100 organizations that have distinguished themselves through the effective and innovative use of information technology.

“I am honored to be recognized by CIO Magazine and to be the first honoree from Ames is truly humbling. The work that I did there in 2009 was meaningful to me and makes me extremely proud. I am inspired by NASA’s mission, and it’s been an honor to be a member of the team ” said Kemp.

The combination of Kemps’ enthusiasm for NASA and information technology has made him extremely successful at his job.

"This year's CIO 100 awards draws well-deserved attention to companies that are not only innovating with IT but creating genuine business value as well," said Maryfran Johnson, editor in chief of CIO Magazine. "These winning companies and their IT organizations are an inspiration to businesses everywhere."

Kemp is not afraid to venture into unchartered territory. In 2008, he began the Nebula Cloud Computing project (now a NASA-wide program) which uses open source software components to create a robust cloud environment where scientists can process and share data. Kemp also implemented an agency-wide IT Security Operations Center at Ames.

“The Nebula Platform allows scientists to focus on their research and spend less time and money on IT infrastructure. These researchers are doing amazing things, and it’s rewarding to create a platform that enables this innovation,” said Kemp.

Kemp is NASA’s first chief technology officer for IT, a new position established to lead IT innovation across the agency. "This move will leverage Chris’ creative talents and energies," said NASA Chief Information Officer Linda Cureton.

“I’m extremely excited about my new position. I’m thrilled to be involved in supporting many of the ground-breaking IT innovations happening here” Kemp said.

Kemp joined Ames as a successful entrepreneur, having helped create several companies including the third largest online community, Classmates.com. He also helped create the leading web-based vacation rental platform Escapia, and the first online grocery shopping platform for Kroger, the world’s largest grocery store chain.

Backwards Black Holes Might Make Bigger Jets

Going against the grain may turn out to be a powerful move for black holes. New research suggests supermassive black holes that spin backwards might produce more ferocious jets of gas. The results have broad implications for how galaxies change over time.

"A lot of what happens in an entire galaxy depends on what's going on in the miniscule central region where the black hole lies," said theoretical astrophysicist David Garofalo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Garofalo is lead author of a new paper that appeared online May 27 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Other authors are Daniel A. Evans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and Rita M. Sambruna of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Black holes are immense distortions of space and time with gravity that is so great, even light itself cannot escape. Astronomers have known for more than a decade that all galaxies, including our own Milky Way, are anchored by tremendous, so-called supermassive black holes, containing billions of suns' worth of mass. The black holes are surrounded and nourished by disks of gas and dust, called accretion disks. Powerful jets stream out from below and above the disks like lasers, and fierce winds blow off from the disks themselves.

The black holes can spin either in the same direction as the disks, called prograde black holes, or against the flow - the retrograde black holes. For decades, astronomers thought that the faster the spin of the black hole, the more powerful the jet. But there were problems with this "spin paradigm" model. For example, some prograde black holes had been found with no jets.

Garofalo and his colleagues have been busy flipping the model on its head. In previous papers, they proposed that the backward, or retrograde, black holes spew the most powerful jets, while the prograde black holes have weaker or no jets.

The new study links the researchers' theory with observations of galaxies across time, or at varying distances from Earth. They looked at both "radio-loud" galaxies with jets, and "radio-quiet" ones with weak or no jets. The term "radio" comes from the fact that these particular jets shoot out beams of light mostly in the form of radio waves.

The results showed that more distant radio-loud galaxies are powered by retrograde black holes, while relatively closer radio-quiet objects have prograde black holes. According to the team, the supermassive black holes evolve over time from a retrograde to a prograde state.

"This new model also solves a paradox in the old spin paradigm," said David Meier, a theoretical astrophysicist at JPL not involved in the study. "Everything now fits nicely into place."

The scientists say that the backward black holes shoot more powerful jets because there's more space between the black hole and the inner edge of the orbiting disk. This gap provides more room for the build-up of magnetic fields, which fuel the jets, an idea known as the Reynold's conjecture after the theoretical astrophysicist Chris Reynolds of the University of Maryland, College Park.

"If you picture yourself trying to get closer to a fan, you can imagine that moving in the same rotational direction as the fan would make things easier," said Garofalo. "The same principle applies to these black holes. The material orbiting around them in a disk will get closer to the ones that are spinning in the same direction versus the ones spinning the opposite way."

Jets and winds play key roles in shaping the fate of galaxies. Some research shows that jets can slow and even prevent the formation of stars not just in a host galaxy itself, but also in other nearby galaxies.

"Jets transport huge amounts of energy to the outskirts of galaxies, displace large volumes of the intergalactic gas, and act as feedback agents between the galaxy's very center and the large-scale environment," said Sambruna. "Understanding their origin is of paramount interest in modern astrophysics."

Sailor Reflects on NASA Technology That Saved His Life

Just seven days after setting sail for a tiny island off the eastern tip of Puerto Rico on Dec. 26, 2009, Missourian Dennis Clements thought his life was over; his crippled 34-foot Fiberglas sailboat -- buffeted for four days by gale-force winds and high seas -- had capsized, tossing him into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

"At one point, I saw the mast pointed straight down to the bottom of sea, and the boat continued to roll," he said. "I was shaken loose somewhere underwater and when I reached the surface, I could see my boat about 30 feet away... I could see her stand up... She righted herself. She was heavily flooded. There was still a piece of sail and I saw it catch the wind. I saw her sail away and leave me there. And I was alone in the dark, and in the storm, 250 miles from the shore... As I floated there, I knew this was the end. This was how it would end for me."

Today, Clements considers himself fortunate.

Thanks to NASA technology, the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) program managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the bravery of military rescuers, Clements was ultimately plucked to safety by a Navy seaman who had been dispatched from the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was the only vessel within a hundred miles of Clements' location able to respond to the Coast Guard's call for help and attempt the rescue, which took only four minutes once the Navy helicopter arrived on the scene. "It was the bravest thing I've ever seen," Clements said.

In a sense, Clements dramatic rescue began years earlier when he bought a 406 MHz Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), designed for maritime use. When his sailboat, "Gloria Adios" had taken on water, the beacon activated, transmitting an emergency distress signal that NOAA weather satellites equipped with NASA-developed repeaters then relayed back to NOAA-operated ground stations. While Clements battled the storm, which was slowly but surely overwhelming his sailboat, a chain reaction had already been set in place before the rogue wave had even capsized his boat.

Sometime after the beacon began transmitting the emergency alert, SARSAT equipment located hundreds of miles away received the signal and had begun processing it to determine its precise location. The U.S. Coast Guard, which is responsible for at-sea rescues, received the alert and searched the NOAA Registration Database to determine whether the beacon had been registered. Luckily for Clements, he had done so, providing emergency contact numbers and other information that the Coast Guard used to contact Clements' family.

The database is a vital part of the SARSAT program. "We use the database to provide critical information to help expedite the search process, especially if the location of the beacon is not immediately known," said Mickey Fitzmaurice, a space systems engineer for the SARSAT program, the organization that operates the U.S. component of the COSPAS-SARSAT system now comprised of 40 nations.

The beacon on Clements' boat was an older model and did not encode GPS location data, with its signal. However, the ground-station equipment used the Doppler effect from its low-Earth-orbiting weather satellites to help pinpoint the location of the signal. This can take a little time depending on where the satellites are located at the time of the incident. While the SARSAT system calculated the location of the signal, a Coast Guard search and rescue controller was on the phone calling to find out if Clements had gone to sea and where he was headed. From this information, a more precise location could be provided to the rescuers.

Given the harrowing weather conditions the night Clements was rescued, Fitzmaurice said it fortuitous that Clements had registered his beacon. The U.S. Coast Guard was able to confirm the validity of Clements’s distress signal. Therefore, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy personnel involved in his rescue were not unnecessarily exposed to life-threatening conditions due to a false alert.

"The beacon registration information can help save lives, not only the person in distress, but also the rescuers," said LCDR Kathy Niles, U.S. Coast Guard SARSAT Liaison Officer. "NOAA's database currently contains about 275,000 registrations which, unfortunately, are only about 75 percent of the beacons out there."

Since his rescue on Jan. 2, 2010, Clements has had time to reflect on the technology and people who saved his life. "I'm very glad I had that beacon," he said. "I knew it was a satellite system and somewhere there were people monitoring it, but I didn't know it was a weather satellite. It really is a wonderful system that they have come up with," he said. "It speaks volumes about the United States of America in the things that matter to us as a nation, that we would invest time, resources, and manpower (into technologies) that save people's lives."

Now, NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Air Force officials say they are working together to develop and new and improved search and rescue system, called the Distress Alerting Satellite System (DASS).

Engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., are developing next-generation search and rescue technologies that will more quickly detect and locate distress signals generated by 406 MHz beacons installed on aircraft and vessels or carried by individuals. That's because NASA plans to install the repeaters on Global Position System (GPS), a constellation of 24 spacecraft operating in mid-Earth orbit, and not weather satellites.

For more information visit - nasa.gov

Beauty of upcoming Airplanes is extra than Skin Deep

An 18-month NASA research effort to visualize the passenger airplanes of the future has produced some ideas that at first glance may appear to be old fashioned. Instead of exotic new designs seemingly borrowed from science fiction, familiar shapes dominate the pages of advanced concept studies which four industry teams completed for NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program in April 2010.

Look more closely at these concepts for airplanes that may enter service 20 to 25 years from now and you'll see things that are quite different from the aircraft of today.

Just beneath the skin of these concepts lie breakthrough airframe and propulsion technologies designed to help the commercial aircraft of tomorrow fly significantly quieter, cleaner, and more fuel-efficiently, with more passenger comfort, and to more of America's airports.

You may see ultramodern shape memory alloys, ceramic or fiber composites, carbon nanotube or fiber optic cabling, self-healing skin, hybrid electric engines, folding wings, double fuselages and virtual reality windows.

"Standing next to the airplane, you may not be able to tell the difference, but the improvements will be revolutionary," said Richard Wahls, project scientist for the Fundamental Aeronautics Program's Subsonic Fixed Wing Project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "Technological beauty is more than skin deep."

In October 2008, NASA asked industry and academia to imagine what the future might bring and develop advanced concepts for aircraft that can satisfy anticipated commercial air transportation needs while meeting specific energy efficiency, environmental and operational goals in 2030 and beyond. The studies were intended to identify key technology development needs to enable the envisioned advanced airframes and propulsion systems.

NASA's goals for a 2030-era aircraft, compared with an aircraft entering service today, are:

* A 71-decibel reduction below current Federal Aviation Administration noise standards, which aim to contain objectionable noise within airport boundaries.
* A greater than 75 percent reduction on the International Civil Aviation Organization's Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection Sixth Meeting, or CAEP/6, standard for nitrogen oxide emissions, which aims to improve air quality around airports.
* A greater than 70 percent reduction in fuel burn performance, which could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the cost of air travel.
* The ability to exploit metroplex concepts that enable optimal use of runways at multiple airports within metropolitan areas, as a means of reducing air traffic congestion and delays.

The teams were led by General Electric, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Company. Here are some highlights from their final reports:

* The GE Aviation team conceptualizes a 20-passenger aircraft that could reduce congestion at major metropolitan hubs by using community airports for point-to-point travel. The aircraft has an oval-shaped fuselage that seats four across in full-sized seats. Other features include an aircraft shape that smoothes the flow of air over all surfaces, and electricity-generating fuel cells to power advanced electrical systems. The aircraft's advanced turboprop engines sport low-noise propellers and further mitigate noise by providing thrust sufficient for short takeoffs and quick climbs.
* With its 180-passenger D8 "double bubble" configuration, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology team strays farthest from the familiar, fusing two aircraft bodies together lengthwise and mounting three turbofan jet engines on the tail. Important components of the MIT concept are the use of composite materials for lower weight and turbofan engines with an ultra high bypass ratio (meaning air flow through the core of the engine is even smaller, while air flow through the duct surrounding the core is substantially larger, than in a conventional engine) for more efficient thrust. In a reversal of current design trends the MIT concept increases the bypass ratio by minimizing expansion of the overall diameter of the engine and shrinking the diameter of the jet exhaust instead. The team said it designed the D8 to do the same work as a Boeing 737-800. The D8's unusual shape gives it a roomier coach cabin than the 737.
* The Northrop Grumman team foresees the greatest need for a smaller 120-passenger aircraft that is tailored for shorter runways in order to help expand capacity and reduce delays. The team describes its Silent Efficient Low Emissions Commercial Transport, or SELECT, concept as "revolutionary in its performance, if not in its appearance." Ceramic composites, nanotechnology and shape memory alloys figure prominently in the airframe and ultra high bypass ratio propulsion system construction. The aircraft delivers on environmental and operational goals in large part by using smaller airports, with runways as short as 5,000 feet, for a wider geographic distribution of air traffic.
* The Boeing Company's Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research, or SUGAR, team examined five concepts. The team's preferred concept, the SUGAR Volt, is a twin-engine aircraft with hybrid propulsion technology, a tube-shaped body and a truss-braced wing mounted to the top. Compared to the typical wing used today, the SUGAR Volt wing is longer from tip to tip, shorter from leading edge to trailing edge, and has less sweep. It also may include hinges to fold the wings while parked close together at airport gates. Projected advances in battery technology enable a unique, hybrid turbo-electric propulsion system. The aircraft's engines could use both fuel to burn in the engine's core, and electricity to turn the turbofan when the core is powered down.

NASA did not specify future commercial air transportation needs as domestic or global. All four teams focused on aircraft sized for travel within a single continent because their business cases showed that small- and medium-sized planes will continue to account for the largest percentage of the overall fleet in the future. One team, however, did present a large hybrid wing concept for intercontinental transport.

All of the teams provided "clear paths" for future technology research and development, said Ruben Del Rosario, principal investigator for the Subsonic Fixed Wing Project at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. "Their reports will make a difference in planning our research portfolio. We will identify the common themes in these studies and use them to build a more effective strategy for the future," Del Rosario said.

These are some of the common themes from the four reports:

* Slower cruising -- at about Mach 0.7, or seven-tenths the speed of sound, which is 5 percent to 10 percent slower than today's aircraft -- and at higher altitudes, to save fuel.
* Engines that require less power on takeoff, for quieter flight.
* Shorter runways -- about 5,000 feet long, on average -- to increase operating capacity and efficiency.
* Smaller aircraft – in the medium-size class of a Boeing 737, with cabin accommodations for no more than 180 passengers – flying shorter and more direct routes, for cost-efficiency.
* Reliance on promised advancements in air traffic management such as the use of automated decision-making tools for merging and spacing enroute and during departure climbs and arrival descents.

The teams recommended a variety of improvements in lightweight composite structures, heat- and stress-tolerant engine materials, and aerodynamic modeling that can help bring their ideas to reality. NASA is weighing the recommendations against its objective of developing aeronautics technologies that can be applied to a broad range of aircraft and operating scenarios for the greatest public benefit.

"This input from our customers has provided us with well thought-out scenarios for our vision of the future, and it will help us place our research investment decisions squarely in the mainstream," said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for aeronautics research at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"Identifying those necessary technologies will help us establish a research roadmap to follow in bringing these innovations to life during the coming years," Shin said.

The next step in NASA's effort to design the aircraft of 2030 is a second phase of studies to begin developing the new technologies that will be necessary to meet the national goals related to an improved air transportation system with increased energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact. The agency received proposals from the four teams in late April and expects to award one or two research contracts for work starting in 2011.

NASA managers also will reassess the goals for 2030 aircraft to determine whether some of the crucial technologies will need additional time to move from laboratory and field testing into operational use. The four teams managed to meet either the fuel burn or the noise goal with their concepts, not both.

A companion research effort looked at concepts for a new generation of supersonic transport aircraft capable of meeting NASA's noise, emissions and fuel efficiency goals for 2030. NASA envisions a broader market for supersonic travel, with aircraft carrying more passengers to improve economic viability while meeting increasingly stringent environmental requirements.

Pad Abort-1 Set for May 6 Launch

Nasa - With hundreds of tests and verifications officially complete, members of the Flight Test Readiness Review board unanimously agreed that Pad Abort 1 (PA-1) is ready for launch May 6 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

Often in a readiness review prior to any launch, there are open items that need to be closed before a mission gets the “go-ahead.” If there is an issue with hardware or software, the launch date could be delayed until it is fixed. However, on April 22, the PA-1 team concluded that all flight and support hardware and software are flight ready, launch facilities and range assets are in place and that the flight test team is prepared to execute PA-1 efficiently, effectively, and safely.

PA-1 is the first fully integrated flight test of the launch abort system being developed for the Orion crew exploration vehicle. The test is part of an ongoing mission to develop safer vehicles for human spaceflight applications.

The only question mark for the launch is the weather with the major constraint being wind. The flight test team will monitor the weather closely on test day, leading up to the targeted 9 a.m. EDT launch.

Scientists Say Ice Lurks in Asteroid's Cold Heart

Scientists using a NASA funded telescope have detected water-ice and carbon-based organic compounds on the surface of an asteroid. The cold hard facts of the discovery of the frosty mixture on one of the asteroid belt's largest occupants, suggests that some asteroids, along with their celestial brethren, comets, were the water carriers for a primordial Earth. The research is published in today's issue of the journal Nature.



"For a long time the thinking was that you couldn't find a cup's worth of water in the entire asteroid belt," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Today we know you not only could quench your thirst, but you just might be able to fill up every pool on Earth – and then some."

The discovery is a result of six years of observing asteroid 24 Themis by astronomer Andrew Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Rivkin, along with Joshua Emery, of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, employed the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility to take measurements of the asteroid on seven separate occasions beginning in 2002. Buried in their compiled data was the consistent infrared signature of water ice and carbon-based organic materials.

The study's findings are particularly surprising because it was believed that Themis, orbiting the sun at "only" 479 million kilometers (297 million miles), was too close to the solar system's fiery heat source to carry water ice left over from the solar system's origin 4.6 billion years ago.

Now, the astronomical community knows better. The research could help re-write the book on the solar system's formation and the nature of asteroids.

"This is exciting because it provides us a better understanding about our past – and our possible future," said Yeomans. "This research indicates that not only could asteroids be possible sources of raw materials, but they could be the fueling stations and watering holes for future interplanetary exploration."

Rivkin and Emory's findings were independently confirmed by a team led by Humberto Campins at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

Starry-Eyed Hubble Celebrates 20 Years of Awe and Discovery

Over the years, Hubble has suffered broken equipment, a bleary-eyed primary mirror, and the cancellation of a planned shuttle servicing mission. But the ingenuity and dedication of Hubble scientists, engineers and NASA astronauts allowed the observatory to rebound and thrive. The telescope's crisp vision continues to challenge scientists and the public with new discoveries and evocative images.

"Hubble is undoubtedly one of the most recognized and successful scientific projects in history," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Last year's space shuttle servicing mission left the observatory operating at peak capacity, giving it a new beginning for scientific achievements that impact our society."

Hubble fans worldwide are being invited to take an interactive journey with Hubble. They can also visit Hubble Site to share the ways the telescope has affected them. Follow the “Messages to Hubble” link to send an e-mail, post a Facebook message, or send a cell phone text message. Fan messages will be stored in the Hubble data archive along with the telescope’s science data. For those who use Twitter, you can follow @HubbleTelescope or post tweets using the Twitter hashtag #hst20.




The public also will have an opportunity to become at-home scientists by helping astronomers sort out the thousands of galaxies seen in a Hubble deep field observation. STScI is partnering with the Galaxy Zoo consortium of scientists to launch an Internet-based astronomy project where amateur astronomers can peruse and sort galaxies from Hubble’s deepest view of the universe into their classic shapes: spiral, elliptical, and irregular. Dividing the galaxies into categories will allow astronomers to study how they relate to each other and provide clues that might help scientists understand how they formed.

To visit the Galaxy Zoo page, go to http://www.hubble.galaxyzoo.org.

For educators and students, STScI is creating an educational website called “Celebrating Hubble’s 20th Anniversary." It offers links to facts and trivia about Hubble, a news story that chronicles the observatory’s life and discoveries, and the IMAX “Hubble 3D” educator's guide. An anniversary poster containing Hubble’s “hall-of-fame” images, including the Eagle Nebula and Saturn, also is being offered with downloadable classroom activity information.

Visit the website at http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/hubble_20.

To date, Hubble has observed more than 30,000 celestial targets and amassed more than a half-million pictures in its archive. The last astronaut servicing mission to Hubble in May 2009 made the telescope 100 times more powerful than when it was launched.

Testing Future Engine Technology is a Work of Art

An engine nozzle turns a dramatic array of colors during a recent hot-fire test at NASA's White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, N.M. A team of engineers from Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Johnson Space Center in Houston conducted tests on a cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid methane engine to measure the engine’s performance for future use with in-space vehicles.

Last month, eight altitude chamber tests were performed using an Aerojet workhorse engine to gather design data for future lander and in-space engines. Using the altitude chamber, which simulates the space-type vacuum environment, engineers were able to attach a larger nozzle and vary the propellant mixture ratios to test the engine's overall operating capability. This technology could be selected for future use with vehicles designed for transport, descent, or ascent to another planetary body or asteroid.

The nozzle, or large bell-shaped hardware, directs the flow of the combustion products from the liquid methane fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer mixture and accelerates the exhaust gasses to generate thrust. The nozzle material is made of columbium and heats up during the test causing the color change. The nozzle is radiatively cooled and once the engine shuts down, the nozzle returns to its previous color.

Another test objective was to look at the specific impulse, or gas mileage, this engine could provide to a space vehicle. Specific impulse is simply a measurement of the amount of thrust that can be attained per mass of rocket propellant consumed. The higher specific impulse attained improves the overall rocket performance and reduces the weight of propellants that need to be carried on the vehicle.

Overall, the test series was successful and valuable performance data was obtained. Data received from the tests is currently being reviewed to ensure the engine performed as expected on a continual basis with each individual test.

Engineers will continue to vary and refine the engine test parameters to evaluate the technology further. Developing technology is a test-rich process to ensure as many unknowns are worked out on the ground before this technology is put into application in a space environment.

STS-131 Landing Blog

Space shuttle Discovery and the seven-person STS-131 crew are set to wrap up their mission to the International Space Station with a landing at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. Join blogger Steven Siceloff for landing-day updates from the runway's air traffic control tower.

During the two-week mission, Discovery brought the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module and transferred its payload of science racks to the space station's laboratories. The flight was highlighted by three spacewalks.

President Outlines Exploration Goals, Promise

Astronauts will soar spaceward in commercial spacecraft while NASA develops technology so humans can venture to Mars and out into the solar system, President Barack Obama told a space conference Thursday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Laying out his plans, President Obama committed NASA to a series of development milestones he said would lead to new spacecraft for astronauts to ride to the International Space Station, a modified Orion capsule developed as an emergency return spacecraft, and a powerful new rocket. He also promised a host of new technologies that would protect space travelers from radiation and other unique hazards.

"Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit," the president said. "And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it."

The president spoke to 200 senior officials, space and industry leaders, and academic experts inside the Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy in the same area that was used to process Apollo spacecraft for the missions to the moon in the 1960s and 70s.

Standing in front of one of the space shuttle main engines that launched former U.S. Senator and astronaut John Glenn into orbit, President Obama said, "It was from here that men and women, propelled by sheer nerve and talent, set about pushing the boundaries of humanity's reach.

"The question for us now is whether that was the beginning of something, or the end of something. I prefer to believe it was the beginning of something."

The president's fiscal year 2011 budget proposal increases NASA's budget by $6 billion throughout the next five years to fund the plans.

Noting "the sense that folks in Washington -- driven less by vision than by politics -- have for years neglected NASA’s mission and undermined the work of the professionals who fulfill it," the president said the budget increase changes that.

The president's address comes at a critical juncture for NASA because the space shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired after three more missions. The president said it will be quicker and less costly to let private companies develop new spacecraft for astronauts rather than continue with NASA's Constellation Program, which was deemed too expensive and behind schedule.

"Pursuing this new strategy will require that we revise the old strategy. In part, this is because the old strategy -- including the Constellation Program -- was not fulfilling its promise in many ways," the president said. "That’s not just my assessment; that’s also the assessment of a panel of respected non-partisan experts charged with looking at these issues closely."

President Obama's plan largely mirrors the "flexible path" option offered by a blue-ribbon panel established by the president last year to help decide the best map for future space exploration.

The outline does not do away with all the research and development from Constellation . Noting the success of the agency's development of the Orion crew capsule, Obama called on NASA to develop a version of that spacecraft so it can be launched without a crew to the International Space Station. It will be based there as an emergency craft for astronauts living on the orbiting laboratory.

The speech kicked off the Conference on the American Space Program for the 21st Century.

Norm Augustine, chairman of the blue-ribbon panel called the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, that evaluated Constellation and came up with the "flexible path" option, endorsed the presidential strategy as the conference got under way.

Saying NASA is largely "trapped" in low Earth orbit, Augustine said industry, with NASA's guidance, can do its part for the plan.

The president acknowledged the need to get the decision right.

"Now, the challenges facing our space program are different, and our imperatives for this program are different than in decades past," the president said. "But while the measure of our achievements has changed a great deal over the past fifty years, what we do -- or fail to do -- in seeking new frontiers is no less consequential for our future in space and here on Earth."

The plan, the president said, would free NASA's designers and engineers to develop spacecraft, large rockets and new technologies that can extend the frontier of human space exploration to asteroids and even Mars.

About $3.1 billion of the additional funding would go into research and development for a heavy-lift rocket. A design for a large booster would be chosen in 2015 with the goal of launching the spacecraft a few years later. The bigger rocket could be used to loft payloads too large for most boosters, including giant fuel depots that would be parked in distant orbits so spacecraft could refuel on their way to asteroids, the moons of Mars and eventually Mars itself.

In addition to more funding, President Obama said his initiative brings more jobs than previous schedules.

"My plan will add more than 2,500 jobs along the Space Coast in the next two years compared to the plan under the previous administration," he said. "I’m proposing a $40 million initiative led by a high-level team from the White House, NASA, and other agencies to develop a plan for regional economic growth and job creation. And I expect this plan to reach my desk by Aug. 15. It’s an effort that will help prepare this already skilled work force for new opportunities in the space industry and beyond."

Students take Fresh Outlook and latest Technology to Webb Telescope

Deep inside Building 5 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., graduate students are on the front lines of technology development adjusting lasers and mirrors and spending long hours at a computer terminals. University partnerships are playing key roles in developing new and innovative technologies for NASA missions while creating a pathway for future NASA scientists and engineers.

"Investments in students today help us build what comes after the Webb telescope," said Lee Feinberg, Webb telescope Optical Telescope Element Manager at NASA Goddard. "University professors serve on our advisory boards. It allows us to tap the brightest minds in the country."

Past experience bears out Feinberg's observations.

Six years ago, Matthew Bolcar was a graduate student from the University of Rochester, N.Y. when he started working at NASA Goddard. He has been exploring interesting problems and developing risk-reduction techniques related to aligning segmented mirrors on the Webb telescope.

The Webb telescope primary mirror is composed of 18 segments that will unfold to create a single 6.5-meter (21-foot) mirror system once the observatory reaches orbit and begins operations. To work properly, the mirrors must be perfectly aligned. "If there were a problem, the telescope's operators could adjust the mirrors from the ground to correct for any possible misalignments," said Bruce Dean, group leader of the Wavefront Sensing and Control (WFSC) group at NASA Goddard.

Dean's group was charged with developing the software to compute the optimum position of each of the 18 mirrors, and then adjusting and aligning them, if necessary. The work was funded by the Webb telescope technology development program and was patented by Goddard in 2009. Goddard worked together with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in 2005, to develop this flight software for the Webb Space Telescope.

In 2006-2007, a team of engineers from both Goddard and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., successfully tested the WFSC algorithms on a laboratory model of the Webb Telescope, proving they are ready to work in space.

Today, Bolcar is a full-time optical engineer for the Goddard WFSC group. Currently, he is working on the Thermal InfraRed Sensor (TIRS) instrument that will fly on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), the next in a series of satellites that have remotely sensed Earth’s continental surfaces for more than 30 years. He's also working on an experimental instrument, called the Visible Nulling Coronagraph (VNC) that would be used for exoplanet detection.

The graduate fellowship and co-op programs give NASA time to train students for optical engineering. "It takes four to five years to really train someone in wavefront-sensing technology," Dean added.

University partnerships are a great way to get young engineers and scientists interested in NASA, Bolcar agreed. "When you're a graduate student, wherever the funding is, you are going to develop partnerships and relationships," he added. "There is a potential to go beyond graduate school. It's good for the university and its good for attracting young talent to NASA."

Alex Maldonado, a University of Arizona graduate student in optical engineering, is following in Bolcar's footsteps. He spends half his time working at Goddard as a co-op student and the other half taking classes at the university in Tucson, Ariz. When at Goddard, he researches new techniques for polishing optical lenses to prevent light scattering.

Astronomers need bigger and smoother mirrors that will collect more light to allow scientists to see faint objects farther into the distant universe. A common and effective technique for shaping optical lenses is called diamond-turning, where a diamond tip cuts away the lens material. However, this technique also introduces flaws that can deflect light. Maldonado spends much of his time designing and executing testing procedures to see if new polishing techniques reduce this effect -- efforts that will be applied to the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), a Webb telescope imager.

The University of Arizona is providing the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to the Webb Space Telescope, an imager with a large field of view and high angular resolution. Prof. Marcia Rieke at the University is the lead for that instrument.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the next-generation premier space observatory, exploring deep space phenomena from distant galaxies to nearby planets and stars. The Webb Telescope will give scientists clues about the formation of the universe and the evolution of our own solar system, from the first light after the Big Bang to the formation of star systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth.

"In addition to the students, we work with the professors," according to Dean. Bolcar's graduate professor, James R. Fienup, is a world-renowned expert in optics. "We asked him to help us cover high-risk areas on the Webb telescope," said Dean.

"This is a win-win for the schools and NASA," said Feinberg. "We fund their graduate students, and in return, we get really bright, fresh minds working on NASA's most challenging missions.

Expected to launch in 2014, the telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Flying Across the Moon

The International Space Station flew across the face of the moon over NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida approximately 15 minutes before the launch of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-131 mission. Discovery successfully launched on April 5 and is now docked with the station. STS-131 will deliver the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo, filled with supplies, a new crew sleeping quarters and science racks that will be transferred to the International Space Station's laboratories. The crew also will switch out a gyroscope on the station’s truss, install a spare ammonia storage tank and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior.

IV Water Filter May Open Medical Options for Astronauts

Technology for a water filtration system initially developed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is going to get a major test during the STS-131 mission as it is called on to create water clean enough to be used intravenously, commonly referred to as an IV. If it works, the system could prove critical to future astronauts if they have a medical emergency while traveling far from Earth. It could also find earthbound uses by the military, in remote locations or in humanitarian relief efforts.


Dr. Philip Scarpa’s team at Kennedy partnered with NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio to develop a device that filters microscopic contaminants, including heavy metals and toxins, out of drinking water to produce fluid as sterile as any made on Earth.

"On every space mission, there's a potential of getting sick or getting hurt," Scarpa said. As Kennedy's medical operations manager, Scarpa helps provide medical support to the astronauts before they launch into space and after they land.

On Earth, several medical conditions require IV fluids, usually for rehydration or for delivering medicines. The NASA International Space Station Patient Condition Database identified 115 medical conditions that could occur on the space station and would require IV fluids to be administered.

For example, an astronaut with severe burns can require about 100 liters of IV fluids for weeks, with 30 liters needed in the first three days. One recent NASA study reported that a mission to Mars may need as much as 248 liters of IV fluids on board. Currently there are 12 liters of fluid stored on the space station. Even less severe conditions, such as broken bones or motion sickness, can deplete the stock quickly, especially if more than one astronaut is sick or injured.

At more than two pounds of weight per liter, IV fluids are very costly to take into space. It also takes up a lot of volume, and due to its need for sterility, IV fluids have a limited shelf life.

“On board or ‘in-situ’ production of IV fluids needed for medical treatments, could greatly reduce these costs and storage limitations, and would give NASA much more flexibility in how it can use the water it already has on the spacecraft,” Scarpa said.

Prior to partnering with Glenn in 2007, Scarpa teamed up with researchers from the United Kingdom and Canada to develop the technology. Called “Project Clearwater,” the team started its research in 2005 with a grant from the Florida Space Research Institute. "When we started looking into this, we thought we would quickly find out that someone had done this already," Scarpa said. "After our background research, we were surprised that no one had been successful with this before. It's not easy. The requirements for medical-grade water for injection are very strict and difficult to meet without large factory-based processes."

Devising a workable filter system for space also presents more hurdles than just removing contaminants successfully.

Without gravity, water can channel by adherence to its container and bypass a filter entirely. Mixing of the final salt water solution also could be incomplete, and launch vibrations could cause the device to release small particulates into the lines. Also, without gravity, the air in the system doesn't separate out from the fluid. This may form bubbles in critical areas, such as blocking off filters. If the filters are blocked, the water will not be screened.

"Bubbles are probably the biggest concern," Scarpa said. “Bubbles in IV fluids are dangerous for a patient as well. If entered into the veins, they could cause a stroke by blocking the brain’s blood flow.”

Scarpa’s team devised the use of micron-sized filters to trap and squeeze out the bubbles from the system.

By 2006, the team had developed a suitcase-sized device that filtered both drinking and dirty water, producing ultra-pure sterile water that meets all U.S. Pharmacopeia standards.

Based on that initial success, the team from Kennedy and Glenn developed a flight-ready system. Dubbed “IVGEN” for IntraVenous Fluid Generation, it will seek to produce IV-grade water from available space station drinking water.


The device will be hooked up to an Iodine Crew Water Container on the station and water will be transferred into an accumulator, which is a plastic bag inside a hard container. Nitrogen from the station will pressurize the bag to push the water out of the accumulator and through several micron filters, a deionized packed resin filter, then another set of micron filters and into an IV collection bag similar to the kind used in hospitals.

The strength of Pete Conrad Lives on at improvement Summit

A lunar habitat module, paper that captures sound as energy and a drug delivery system for use in space. What do these inventions have in common? They’re all concepts being developed for commercialization by high school students competing in the Conrad Foundation’s Innovation Summit.

The summit is being held April 8-10, 2010 at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The "Spirit of Innovation" award is in honor of the late Charles 'Pete' Conrad, a highly decorated naval aviator and astronaut who flew Gemini V, Gemini XI, commanded Apollo XII and was the third person to walk on the moon. Conrad went on to fly Skylab, our first space station. He received a Congressional Space Medal of Honor for his work on Skylab.

Nancy Conrad, wife of the late Pete Conrad, serves as chairman of the Conrad Foundation. She formed the program to provide high school students with an understanding of science and technology and give them an opportunity to solve real world problems through innovation and entrepreneurship.

During the three-day event, 25 teams from all over the U.S. present their ideas to a panel of experts similar to the way start-up entrepreneurs "pitch" to potential investors. The teams create an online portfolio (videos, blog and "company" logo) to present to venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and scientists.

Winning teams receive an opportunity to commercialize the technology and $5,000 in seed money to further develop the product.

"Our goal is to excite students about science, technology and innovation by connecting them with top entrepreneurs, scientists and industry leaders," said Joshua Neubert, executive director for the Conrad Foundation.

Niveditha Jayasekar, a student from Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif., said she became fascinated with nanotechnology as early as the sixth grade. Jayasekar and her four teammates are using a patented nanotechnology developed by NASA scientist Dr. David Loftus to deliver pharmaceuticals in microgravity. The team hopes the product could lead to future breakthroughs in the field of space medicine.

NASA Astrobiology Institute ‘Removes Walls’ for Virtual Conference

A virtual "Workshop Without Walls" conference hosted last week by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) drew more than 170 registrants from 21 states and 16 foreign countries.

Entitled "The Organic Continuum from the Interstellar Medium to the Early Earth," the two-day workshop held March 11-12, 2010 was organized by George Cody, leader of the NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington team and Doug Whittet, leader of the NAI’s team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

Among the countries represented at the workshop were Canada, Mexico, six western European nations, Ukraine, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay.



"The Workshop was in many ways a realization of the original vision of the virtual institute,"said Carl Pilcher, director of the NAI. "When the NAI began 12 years ago, we envisioned scientists interacting seamlessly at a distance. But the technology and the culture weren't ready. Today the technology works beautifully, and people have come to see this as the wave of the future. This workshop demonstrated that the future has arrived."

A total of 33 scientific talks were presented during the workshop, with interactive question and answer capability provided for the participants at eight sites equipped with high definition video and audio, and streaming with real-time question submission through the Adobe Connect web interface.

"The advances in technology that made this meeting possible have been paralleled by remarkable developments in the research that drives the science," Whittet said. "The benefit in terms of scientific knowledge gained and dollars expended by participants is likely unprecedented," added Cody.

According to Cody, the conference was "an experiment." Most participants categorized their experience level with remote collaborative technologies as beginner or intermediate, and a few had no prior experience at all.

Despite this, participants reported the experiment was a great success. "I was not expecting to have the same intellectual experience as I normally do at conferences…but after this conference, I do have that same sense of having been to a "real" conference,” adding, "this was very fulfilling for me professionally," said one participant.

Locations of participants ranged from a conference room in a major city with high-speed connectivity and professional videoconferencing equipment, to a home office in a small town with a laptop and home-based Internet connection.

"Over the course of the conference, I actually came to be unaware of the conference as being at multiple venues,"Cody said, "…the difference that high definition, high band-width videoconferencing makes is remarkable. Clear face-to-face contact with no time lag in either visual or audio was the essential part. Evidently the difference between 100 feet and 3000 miles is not all that great."

NASA's Spitzer Unearths Primitive Black Holes

Astronomers have come across what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based largely on observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will provide a better understanding of the roots of our universe, and how the very first black holes, galaxies and stars came to be.

"We have found what are likely first-generation quasars, born in a dust-free medium and at the earliest stages of evolution," said Linhua Jiang of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Jiang is the lead author of a paper announcing the findings in the March 18 issue of Nature.


Black holes are beastly distortions of space and time. The most massive and active ones lurk at the cores of galaxies, and are usually surrounded by doughnut-shaped structures of dust and gas that feed and sustain the growing black holes. These hungry, supermassive black holes are called quasars.

As grimy and unkempt as our present-day universe is today, scientists believe the very early universe didn't have any dust -- which tells them that the most primitive quasars should also be dust-free. But nobody had seen such immaculate quasars -- until now. Spitzer has identified two -- the smallest on record -- about 13 billion light-years away from Earth.

The quasars, called J0005-0006 and J0303-0019, were first unveiled in visible light using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. That discovery team, which included Jiang, was led by Xiaohui Fan, a coauthor of the recent paper at the University of Arizona. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory had also observed X-rays from one of the objects. X-rays, ultraviolet and optical light stream out from quasars as the gas surrounding them is swallowed.

"Quasars emit an enormous amount of light, making them detectable literally at the edge of the observable universe," said Fan.

When Jiang and his colleagues set out to observe J0005-0006 and J0303-0019 with Spitzer between 2006 and 2009, their targets didn't stand out much from the usual quasar bunch. Spitzer measured infrared light from the objects along with 19 others, all belonging to a class of the most distant quasars known. Each quasar is anchored by a supermassive black hole weighing more than 100 million suns.

Shuttle Detector at Heart of Volcano Alert System

As Tim Griffin and his team were working on better ways to detect hazardous gases on the shuttle launch pad, they found out they also could build something to find hazardous gases venting from a volcano.

That means they may be only a short time away from building an early warning system for volcano eruptions -- a system that could give those near an active cone days or more to evacuate to safety.

"There are all kinds of volcano eruptions, some have all kinds of gases and some don't have any gases," Griffin said. "The long-term idea for this is that we'd be able to characterize the volcanoes. Then if the volcano becomes more active, we can get a better idea of what's going on, how active it is, (and) do we think it's going to be a violent eruption or mainly gases coming out?"

Griffin, who is the chief of NASA Kennedy Space Center's Chemical Analysis Branch and holds a Ph.D. in chemistry, never studied volcanoes. Instead, his group's goal was to shrink the leak detection system at the launch pad from the size of three refrigerators to something that could be carried by hand, in a car or perhaps inside a spacecraft.

"This project started off as a way to push the boundaries with our shuttle system," said Richard Arkin of ASRC Aerospace, the detector's co-designer. "We wanted to make it smaller, more powerful and lighter while still maintaining operational abilities and maintenance."

Parts of the miniaturization work were easy, such as going from numerous sampling ports required at the pad to a single port for the smaller machine. Other aspects, such as building smaller pumps and other components, required innovation and invention. In both, a mass spectrometer is used to find out what chemicals are present in the air.

They also set out to make the unit relatively autonomous, but still reliable and hearty.

At this point, the detector weighs in at 75 pounds. It stands about 9 inches tall and its footprint is a bit larger than a backpack. In fact, one of the goals of the project is to make it small enough to be carried in a backpack.

Griffin was talking about some of the work involved in chemical analysis at a conference when officials from Costa Rica's scientific program asked about applying the technology to the volcanic studies. It started to look like a natural fit.

Costa Rica proved a good testing ground for the equipment because most of the population lives around or near four active volcanoes. They don't worry only about sudden eruptions, but also high concentrations of carbon dioxide the volcanoes vent. The gas tends to kill all vegetation and livestock near the venting areas, but people can't see the carbon dioxide.

The detector showed a way to find out where the gas pockets are and how they change. The team flew the detector on three different kinds of airplanes, where it modeled the chemicals in volcanic plumes in three dimensions, a level of precision that astonished Arkin.

"That was something that I never thought about doing," Arkin said.

The team also put the detector in the backseat of a car and drove it through Costa Rican cities to sample the air and also carried it into the volcanoes by hand. In the future, Griffin wants to load it inside drones so the detection system can fly directly into the plumes of erupting mountains without endangering a pilot.

The results are expected to provide more information to help researchers pinpoint what volcanoes are doing at any given time, and when or if they might be about to spew.

Winds of Change: How Black Holes May Shape Galaxies

New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory provide evidence for powerful winds blowing away from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy. This discovery indicates that "average" supermassive black holes may play an important role in the evolution of the galaxies in which they reside.

For years, astronomers have known that a supermassive black hole grow in parallel with its host galaxy. And, it has long been suspected that material blown away from a black hole -- as opposed to the fraction of material that falls into it -- alters the evolution of its host galaxy.

A key question is whether such "black hole blowback" typically delivers enough power to have a significant impact. Powerful relativistic jets shot away from the biggest supermassive black holes in large, central galaxies in clusters like Perseus are seen to shape their host galaxies, but these are rare. What about less powerful, less focused galaxy-scale winds that should be much more common?

"We're more interested here in seeing what an "average"-sized supermassive black hole can do to its galaxy, not the few, really big ones in the biggest galaxies," said Dan Evans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who presented these results at the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Kona, Hawaii.

Evans and his colleagues used Chandra for five days to observe NGC 1068, one of the nearest and brightest galaxies containing a rapidly growing supermassive black hole. This black hole is only about twice as massive as the one in the center of our Galaxy, which is considered to be a rather ordinary size.

The X-ray images and spectra obtained using Chandra's High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer showed that a strong wind is being driven away from the center of NGC 1068 at a rate of about a million miles per hour. This wind is likely generated as surrounding gas is accelerated and heated as it swirls toward the black hole. A portion of the gas is pulled into the black hole, but some of it is blown away. High energy X-rays produced by the gas near the black hole heat the ouflowing gas, causing it to glow at lower X-ray energies.

Crew Members Prep for Undocking, Future Arrivals

NASA - Soaring high over the Earth in the International Space Station, the astronauts and cosmonauts of the Expedition 22 crew began a new week Monday, the final week in space for two of their number.

Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev will depart the station Thursday aboard the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft. They will undock from the orbiting complex and take a three-and-a-half-hour ride that will culminate in a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan early that morning.

Williams and Suraev began their final week in orbit by testing the Soyuz spacecraft’s motion control system and recharging the satellite telephone they will carry with them in the unlikely event that they land off course in the barren landing region and need to contact search and recovery forces. They also spent three hours going over procedures for their homeward flight with specialists on the ground.

As members of the Expedition 21 and 22 crews, Williams and Suraev will have spent 169 days in space. Including his time on the Expedition 13 and STS-101 crews, this will give Williams a total of 362 days in space, placing him fourth on the all-time U.S. list of space travelers behind Peggy Whitson with 377 days, Mike Foale with 374 and Mike Fincke with 366. Williams will be 26th on the all-time endurance list for all space travelers.

Expedition 22 Flight Engineers Soichi Noguchi, T.J. Creamer and Oleg Kotov will continue their stay on the station becoming the new Expedition 23 crew. Kotov will become the new station commander when the departing Williams enters the Soyuz vehicle and closes the hatch.

On April 4, Expedition 23 will expand to a six-member crew. Arriving in the Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft will be new station crew members Alexander Skvortsov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko.

On April 7, space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to arrive for a thirteen day mission to supply the station with new science racks and ammonia tanks. STS-131 will feature three spacewalks and the delivery of the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.

In preparation for the joint spacewalks to be performed during STS-131, Creamer and Noguchi packed up equipment for Discovery to return to Earth and Noguchi performed maintenance on the cooling loops in the U.S. spacesuits housed in the station’s Quest airlock.

Controllers on the ground operated Canadarm2, the station’s robotic arm, to remove the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, known as Dextre, from the Mobile Base System (MBS) on the complex’s truss structure. Tuesday they will move it to the outside of the Destiny laboratory in order to make the MBS available for use during STS-131.