Goddard Space Flight Center is abuzz with the impending launch of the NPP satellite. My Goddard science writer pals Aries Keck and Ellen Gray (and other Goddard folks) are encamped at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, helping to spread the word. Here is a video feature about the mission. More video and stories and images will appear on the blog in the coming days.
Here’s the official description of the video above.
The NPP Pre-Launch Webcast looks at NASA’s upcoming NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission. NPP represents a critical first step in building the next-generation of Earth-observing satellites. The mission will test key technologies and instruments. It also will continue to gather information to continue to build on the data record from previous Earth-observing satellites. Tim Dunn and Bruce Reid of NASA’s Launch Services Program discuss preparations for the launch and NPP Project Scientist James Gleason talks about what results are expected from the spacecraft’s five unique instruments.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
In the past year or so, I was involved in a project here at Goddard to create a new iPad app and it’s finally out. It’s called the NASA Visualization Explorer.
I know, I know — what do they mean by “visualization”? Pardon the jargon. It’s the local industry around here.
“Visualization” is sorta what it sounds like. It’s the process of making something visual. In this case, the thing being visualized is data from NASA’s fleet of scientific satellites.
The crack team of scientist-artists at NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio crank this stuff out, and some of it is truly amazing work. But it doesn’t necessarily reach the public. The new iPad app will help to spread the good news: “We got viz!”
If you have an iPad, check this thing out and let us know what you think.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
Astronomer Heidi Hammel talks about how the Webb Telescope can be used to study our solar system.
The James Webb Space Telescope will look far back in cosmic time to study the origins of the universe. But that doesn’t mean the observatory will turn a blind eye to the planets. Yesterday, at a conference at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, noted planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel gave us a quick tour of the solar system from Webb’s (future) point of view.
UPDATE: A webcast video of Hammel’s talk is now available on the STScI website.
The conference, Frontier Science Opportunities with the James Webb Space Telescope (June 6-8), is all about what Webb can and will do once it makes it into space. It’ll be a while: As Matt Mountain, director of STSciI, mentioned in his opening remarks to the conference, Webb won’t see the cold of space, some 1 million miles from Earth, until at least 2017.
Hammel is known to be a great speaker, and she didn’t disappoint. First she took Mercury, Venus, and Earth out of the lineup. Her Powerpoint slides?
Mercury? No.
Venus? No.
Earth? No.
Webb’s orbit and the size and shape of its sunshield leave these planets in an “exclusion zone” hidden from the observatory’s view. (Its planned orbital perch is a point called L2, opposite from Earth with respect to the sun.) Ok, fine. What about Mars?
Yes. According to a March 9, 2010 White Paper about Webb and the solar system, the observatory could measure a number of important things in Mars’ atmosphere, like dust and carbon dioxide gas, that affect its climate.
Hammel speculated that Webb’s infrared eyes could help solve the mysterious nature of methane releases observed on Mars. Where does the methane come from? Webb might help us figure it out.
Jupiter? Saturn? Yes, yes. There is much Webb could learn about the atmospheres of these giant gas planets — which are, by the way, the best nearby examples we have of the scores of giant gaseous exoplanets being discovered in other solar systems.
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon? Yes. Webb could add a decade of observations of Titan’s surface and atmosphere to the work of the Cassini orbiter, and during a time in Titan’s seasonal cycle not yet explored in the infrared band, according to the White Paper.
Uranus and Neptune? An enthusiastic thumbs up from Hammel to the idea of studying these cool, distant bodies with the Webb’s infrared camera and spectrographs. She cited several scientific puzzles that Webb might help solve, including shifts in the wavelengths of light emitted by Uranus as the planet rotates and Neptune’s inexplicably warm polar region.
In general, Hammel said, “Neptune’s atmosphere is so dynamic, and little is known.” Anything Webb contributes will be helpful.
Last but not least, the region beyond Neptune, realm of Pluto and the other icy dwarf planets, is also fair game for Webb. As the White Paper explains:
“Beyond Neptune, a class of cold, large bodies that include Pluto, Triton and Eris exhibits surface deposits of nitrogen, methane, and other molecules that are poorly observed from the ground, but for which JWST might provide spectral mapping at high sensitivity and spatial resolution difficult to match with the current generation of ground-based observatories.”
And comets, too. At least comets slow enough for Webb to track.
There has been much public hand wringing lately over growth in the Webb budget and slips in the launch date. But in the scientific community, two generations eagerly await the lofting of the giant Webb observatory into orbit. Many of them are up at STScI today sharing their plans.
“There’s a lot of great science that’s going to come out of this and I’m really looking forward to it,” Hammel said. “There is a wide range of interesting planetary phenomena observable by JWST, especially in the outer solar system.”
This NASA video goes into detail about planet studies — here and elsewhere in the universe — and the James Webb Space Telescope:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
Japan Earthquake
After the March 12 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, it’s as if the world collectively gasped — and then what followed was almost a feeling of disbelief as the harsh facts begin to register. Entire seaside communities erased from existence. . . tens of thousands of lives feared lost. . . giant ocean swells flooding the coastline. . . cars and houses looking like toys bobbing in the water. And then there are the satellite images, which provide a critical wide-angle perspective.
NASA’s Earth-observing fleet has helped to reveal the full scope and power of the catastrophe. As Mark Imhoff, the Terra satellite project scientist at Goddard, said in a report by West Virginia Public Broadcasting:
“It’s been heart wrenching seeing some of these images because the first set images that we got in on the day after the earthquake on March 12, even though the resolution from of the satellite wasn’t very good, the data from the Miser instrument at Jet Propulsion’s Laboratory showed that there were a large area of coastline that really weren’t there anymore and so you could really get an impression that a lot of villages and agricultural areas had really been severely impacted by the ocean.”
NASA released a web feature on March 17, five days after the quake, showing tsunami after-effects documented by Landsat 7.
NASA Earth Observatory has compiled a gallery of earthquake-related images from various NASA spacecraft, including EO-1, Terra, Aqua, and astronaut photos from the International Space Station.
As usual, EO’s in-depth captions provide context and explanations for the various destructive effects of the earthquake on coastal Japan. An even larger selection of imagery is available in this NASA web feature about the disaster.
New LRO Data
On March 15, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission released the final set of data from the mission’s exploration phase, along with the first measurements from its new life as a science satellite. The press release explains the details. The slideshow below takes a look back at some of the coolest imagery from the mission so far. All the images in the slideshow, and many more, are archived here on the NASA LRO website, which includes detailed captions.
Messenger Makes It
The third major story out of Goddard this week was the arrival in Mercury orbit of the Messenger spacecraft. After three spectacular fly-bys earlier (see slideshow below), Messenger is now in position to really dig into its science mission to reveal the nature and history of the first rock from the sun. An earlier post discusses some of the research being conducted on Mercury’s thin “exosphere” of atoms and ions wispily clinging within the planet’s gravity.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
A "gateway" station between Earth and the moon could be a stepping stone out of Earth orbit for future deep-space exploration. (Artist concept of gateway station courtesy John Frassanito & Associates.)
Imagine it’s New Year’s Day, 2021. The previous year, NASA officially shuttered the International Space Station. The last astronaut has turned off the lights and landed safely.
Then what? Then WHERE?
This week, one of our senior civil servant scientists, Harley Thronson, University of Texas partner Dan Lester, and aerospace industry colleague Ted Talay published an intriguing scenario in the online journal Space Review. They explain how the United States could continue to field astronauts in space despite the recent decision to abandon the return-to-the-moon plan that reigned though most of the last decade.
The idea would be to establish a “gateway” deep-space station between Earth and the moon as a stepping stone out of low-Earth orbit for our astronauts. The coolest thing is: It could be done without the Space Shuttle, using existing launch systems such as the Delta 4, that routinely and reliably launch heavy payloads already. To save on weight, much of the station’s inhabitable space would be a thick-walled, multi-layer inflatable donut-shaped structure.
A TransHab inflatable module
Thronson, Talay, and Lester are by no means the first or the only ones to propose an inflatable gateway station. The concept has been in development in various guises and by various people – from NASA itself to the private “space hotel” company Bigelow Aerospace – since the late 1990s. Catch up on the tech here at the Wikipedia article about the “TransHab” concept for the lunar gateway.
Thronson is Associate Director for Advanced Concepts and Planning in the Astrophysics Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and is involved in major initiatives to develop future large optical systems for use in space and the capabilities to build them. He started thinking about the space gateway concept in 1999, while serving on NASA’s Decade Planning Team. The group sketched out a number of next-generation concepts for human space exploration — including inflatable space habitat designs.
Thronson is still at it a decade later, and will be presenting his team’s ideas at various journals and conferences in the near future. In this week’s article, they describe their latest formulation for the gateway station. An earlier article, published in February 2010, gives additional background.
“Such a ‘Gateway’ could be the first step beyond [low-Earth orbit] in a flexible path, including returning humans to the Moon and supporting surface operations there. These habitats have also been proposed to demonstrate next-generation systems developed on the ISS that will be necessary for missions beyond the Earth-Moon system. This ‘beachhead’ for longer-range human operations at these libration points may eventually provide opportunities for other missions. For example, assembly and upgrade of complex science facilities and support for space depot systems may be carried out at these sites.”
Here are the basic bullet points for Thronson, Lester, and Talay’s gateway concept:
Launch a fuel tanker into low-Earth orbit.
Launch the station into orbit and refuel the Delta’s liquid-fuel second stage.
Boost outward to L1 or L2, locations between Earth and the moon where their gravity balances out and it thus requires minimal fuel to maintain the station’s position. This would be about 60,000 kilometers (37,300 miles) from the moon.
Send a crew of three to the station. Up to four crews could go to the station per year, each requiring two Delta 4 Heavy launches.
The pressurized interior volume of the station would be 170 cubic meters. (The space shuttle orbiter has 71.5 cubic meters, NASA’s Skylab had 283, and the ISS has around 1,000.)
The crew could remain for a few months at a time. This would be an opportunity to continue learning how to live and work in deep space in anticipation of future trips to near-Earth asteroids or Mars.
But here’s the really cool part. The station would be close enough to the moon to allow near-instantaneous communication with robots. Astronauts could explore the lunar surface using telepresence technology. Their view would be unhindered by bulky helmets ands suits, allowing them to experience and explore the environment in a way undreamt by the pioneering Apollo moon walkers.
That, my friends, would be Very Cool, not to mention electrifying to the public and to students.
In the end, the gateway model is a way of laying smaller, more achievable (not to mention affordable) “stepping stones” into space. And there’s still plenty to explore.
“The Apollo astronauts made only brief visits to only six places on the moon, all near the equator,” said Richard Vondrak, deputy director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Our most recent missions, such as LRO and LCROSS, are revealing new secrets of the moon and helping us to identify new places to go, such as the polar regions.”
Although the future of U.S. human space flight is somewhat uncertain right now, the dream of space exploration burns as brightly as ever.
Robonaut, a telepresence robot under development at NASA.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
EO-1 satellite image of the World Trade Center in flames on 9/11
On November 21, 2000, a satellite called Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) was launched on a Delta rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was the first satellite in NASA’s New Millennium Program Earth Observing series.
***UPDATE: If you are interested in the science EO-1 has delivered for the past decade. check out the outstanding feature article on NASA Earth Observatory. It also includes many more images from EO-1.***
EO-1′s job was to test and validate new technologies that could be used in future Earth-observing spacecraft. For example, EO-1 went into orbit with a special antenna that uses no moving parts and instead uses software to steer the data beam back to the Earth antenna, and at very high data rates.
EO-1 also has a souped up solar array to produce more than twice the power per square inch than a typical array at that time. EO-1 also tested a reliable, lightweight electromagnetic thruster. And the spacecraft demonstrated the ability to fly in close formation with another Earth-observing satellite, Landsat-7. These are just some of the revolutionary satellite technologies on EO-1.
Engineering better satellites is important, but in the past decade EO-1 has also beamed down some pretty spectacular images of our planet. Here are a few.
The dense urban core of the District of Columbia
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
The Alaskan interior
The Aspen Forest Fire near Tuscon, Arizona in 2003
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION?All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
Carolyn Crow, UCLA graduate student and center of the solar system.
Someday, when we have space telescopes that can narrow in on the exceedingly weak light from incredibly distant planets around other stars, what will we do with those precious photons?
If you want to know, read the latest web feature and watch the video from NASA Goddard. I wrote the feature, “Using planet colors to search for alien Earths.”
I also had a chance to sit in on the studio work that produced the video featuring Carolyn Crow, a young scientist who led the research on planet colors. (She is currently a graduate student at UCLA.) As commonplace as green-screen technology is today, it’s movie magic that never fails to impress — especially when used as cleverly as it is in this video.
Producer/director Scott Wiessinger created a colorful digital landscape in which Crow strolled among the planets of our solar system in a modern version of Gulliver’s Travels. NASA/Goddard astrophysics writer Frank Reddy provided a concise and clear script.
Here is a behind-the-scenes peek at the movie magic.
Carolyn Crow stands ready to gesture at imaginary planets on Goddard TV’s green screen stage. To eliminate shadows and get the best results from the green screen process, the stage is brightly lit.
Carolyn after being inserted into a digital landscape with starry background and planet Earth.
And here is the final result:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION?All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
Celebrity star: A SOHO solar snapshot makes it onto the massively popular website, Astronomy Picture of the Day.
TUESDAY October 19: Goddard Flickr page posts bloody false-color image of Susitna Glacier in Alaska, captured previously by NASA’s Terra satellite.
Awesomeness Update:NASA Blueshift’sround-up of the previous week’s astro-highlights features a new Webb Telescope video, an asteroid collision, and award-winning Goddard science.
On the edge: This day in 2008, the International Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft launched on a journey to study the border between our solar system and interstellar space.
THURSDAY October 21: The What On Earth blogEarth Buzz features weather satellites, pyrocumulonimbus clouds, a solar stumper, and more.
Just the facts, ma’am:NASA Blueshiftponders whether the science on the “Big Bang Theory” show is accurate.
Slammed: The LCROSS mission slammed a spent booster into the moon; here’s what they stirred up. FRIDAY October 22: Scientists returned this week to the Southern Hemisphere where NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission is set to begin its second year of airborne surveys over Antarctica.
OH AND DID I MENTION?All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
MONDAY October 4: On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. Meanwhile, engineers and scientists with the Naval Research Laboratory in the U.S. continued to work on Project Vanguard, which boosted the satellite Vanguard 3 into orbit on March 17, 1958.
Hot solar science: The four Cluster spacecraft scrutinize how protons are heated in the solar wind.
Chemistry on ice: Goddard’s Mark Loeffler and Reggie Hudson discover that ice chemistry on Jupiter’s giant moon Europa is more lively than we thought.
And the winners are. . . NASA Blueshift announces the winners of the cosmic beachball contests. And the Weekly Awesomeness Round Up features Optimus Prime, alien views of our solar system, and other highlights from the previous week.
TUESDAY October 5: Why does the Red Planet’s atmosphere bleed into space? The MAVEN mission will find out. And a new Goddard video explains the whole thing. And if you’re still curious, see the new video about how NASA makes sure its spacecraft designs are top notch.
See Hartley glow: The Hubble Space Telescope snaps an image of Comet 103P/Hartley 2 to help scientists plan for the November 4 flyby of the comet by NASA’s Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI) spacecraft.
WEDNESDAY October 6: The wobble of Saturn’s moon Enceladus may keep it warm.
So long and thanks for all the data: The WMAP mission concludes its observations of the cosmic microwave background.
Arctic retreat: NASA’s Aqua satellite confirms that Arctic sea ice retreated to its third-lowest extent in the satellite record on September 29. A new video shows all.
CERN special: On NASA Blueshift, former Goddard intern Faith Tucker visits the Conseil European pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) — home of the Large Hadron Collider.
THURSDAY October 7: Fox 2 news St. Louis airs a segment about the Webb Telescope. Jim Pontius from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explains.
FRIDAY October 8: The Webb Telescope’s high-tech accordion sun shield passes its latest tests.
Pass the packing tape: The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument is almost ready to ship to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be attached to the Mars Science Laboratory rover bound for the Red Planet.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION?All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
Sunday September 12: “…but because it’s hard.”On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous moon speech at Rice Stadium and inspired a generation. Mae Jemison had a dream, which was to fly in space. And she did it on this day in 1992 as the first African American woman in orbit.
Monday September 13: See the sea ice snapshot of the Arctic by the Aqua satellite.
NASA Blueshift:Weekly Awesomeness Round Up looks at highlights of the past week, including planet-eating stars and a golden moment for the Webb Telescope’s mirrors.
Wednesday September 15: The Lunar Reconnaissance looked over its shoulder at Earth on September 9 and captured this global portrait.
Sea ice
Thursday September 16: The lunar surface is more complicated than you think. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals why. Don’t miss the cool video about LRO’s crater counting laser altimeter instrument.
The sun gets loopy:see a new video of looping prominences on the surface of the sun.
Saturday September 18: Got moon? Earth’s moon, that is. Join the global gathering International Observe the Moon Night this Saturday night to celebrate our companion in the solar system.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION?All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
On November 21, 2000, a satellite called Earth Observing 1 (
