Curiosity Rover: Five Years On Mars

Five Times Astronaut Peggy Whitson Made History

On April 24, 2017, NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson established the new record for the most time spent in space by an American astronaut. She’s spent more than 76 weeks of her life floating in microgravity!  It’s not the first time in her career at NASA that Whitson has established new milestones: here are just a few.

First NASA Science Officer

Peggy Whitson was the named the first NASA Science Officer aboard the space station in 2002. The position was created to work with the United States research community to understand and meet the requirements and objectives of each space station experiment.

First Female to Command the Space Station… Twice

Whitson became the first female to command the space station during Expedition 16 in 2008. Then Whitson became the first female to command the station twice during her current mission on April 9, 2017.

First Female Chief of the Astronaut Office

In 2009, Whitson became the first female and first non-pilot to achieve the most senior position for active astronauts, Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Most Spacewalks for a Female

On March 30, 2017, Peggy Whitson broke the record for most spacewalks and most time spent spacewalking for female astronauts. Suni Williams had previously held the record at 7 spacewalks.

Most Time In Space By A NASA Astronaut

At 1:27 a.m. ET on April 24, Peggy Whitson set the new record for cumulative time spent in space by an American astronaut. Jeff Williams previously set the record in 2016.

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Happy International Women’s Day!

Without the women of NASA, space exploration would be just a dream.

This International Women’s Day join us in celebrating the women whose grit, ingenuity and talent drives us forward in our mission to boldly expand frontiers in air and space. Thank you for pushing boundaries, serving as role models and shaping space, science and discovery every day!

The women at NASA are making history everyday! Keep up with their work and learn more about their stories, HERE. 

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Getting to Mars: What It’ll Take

Join us as we take a closer look at the next steps in our journey to the Red Planet:

The journey to Mars crosses three thresholds, each with increasing challenges as humans move farther from Earth. We’re managing these challenges by developing and demonstrating capabilities in incremental steps:

Earth Reliant

Earth Reliant exploration is focused on research aboard the International Space Station. From this world-class microgravity laboratory, we are testing technologies and advancing human health and performance research that will enable deep space, long duration missions.

On the space station, we are advancing human health and behavioral research for Mars-class missions. We are pushing the state-of-the-art life support systems, printing 3-D parts and analyzing material handling techniques.

Proving Ground

In the Proving Ground, we will learn to conduct complex operations in a deep space environment that allows crews to return to Earth in a matter of days. Primarily operating in cislunar space (the volume of space around the moon). We will advance and validate the capabilities required for humans to live and work at distances much farther away from our home planet…such as at Mars.

Earth Independent

Earth Independent activities build on what we learn on the space station and in deep space to enable human missions to the Mars vicinity, possibly to low-Mars orbit or one of the Martian moons, and eventually the Martian surface. Future Mars missions will represent a collaborative effort between us and our partners.

Did you know….that through our robotic missions, we have already been on and around Mars for 40 years! Taking nearly every opportunity to send orbiters, landers and rovers with increasingly complex experiments and sensing systems. These orbiters and rovers have returned vital data about the Martian environment, helping us understand what challenges we may face and resources we may encounter.

Through the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), we will demonstrate an advanced solar electric propulsion capability that will be a critical component of our journey to Mars. ARM will also provide an unprecedented opportunity for us to validate new spacewalk and sample handling techniques as astronauts investigate several tons of an asteroid boulder.

Living and working in space require accepting risks – and the journey to Mars is worth the risks. A new and powerful space transportation system is key to the journey, but we will also need to learn new ways of operating in space.

We Need You!

In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers…but most of all YOU! As we overcome the challenges associated with traveling to deep space, we will still need the next generation of explorers to join us on this journey. Come with us on the journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day.

Join us as we go behind-the-scenes:

We’re offering a behind-the-scenes look Thursday, Aug. 18 at our journey to Mars. Join us for the following events:

Journey to Mars Televised Event at 9:30 a.m. EDT Join in as we host a conversation about the numerous efforts enabling exploration of the Red Planet. Use #askNASA to ask your questions! Tune in HERE.

Facebook Live at 1:30 p.m. EDT Join in as we showcase the work and exhibits at our Michoud Assembly Facility. Participate HERE.

Hot Fire Test of an RS-25 Engine at 6 p.m. EDT The 7.5-minute test is part of a series of tests designed to put the upgraded former space shuttle engines through the rigorous temperature and pressure conditions they will experience during a launch. Watch HERE.  

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NASA’s 60th Anniversary: The Leading Edge of Flight

Aeronautics is our tradition. For 60 years, we have advanced aeronautics, developed new technologies and researched aerodynamics. Our advancements have transformed the way you fly. We will continue to revolutionize flight. Since we opened for business on Oct. 1, 1958, our history tells a story of exploration, innovation and discoveries. The next 60 years, that story continues. Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/60

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Eclipse 2017 From Space

On Aug. 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse passed over North America. People throughout the continent captured incredible images of this celestial phenomenon. We and our partner agencies had a unique vantage point on the eclipse from space. Here are a few highlights from our fleet of satellites that observe the Sun, the Moon and Earth.

Our Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which watches the Sun nearly 24/7 from its orbit 3,000 miles above Earth, saw a partial eclipse on Aug. 21.

SDO sees the Moon cross in front of the Sun several times a year. However, these lunar transits don’t usually correspond to an eclipse here on Earth, and an eclipse on the ground doesn’t guarantee that SDO will see anything out of the ordinary. In this case, on Aug. 21, SDO did see the Moon briefly pass in front of the Sun at the same time that the Moon’s shadow passed over the eastern United States. From its view in space, SDO only saw 14 percent of the Sun blocked by the Moon, while most U.S. residents saw 60 percent blockage or more.

Six people saw the eclipse from the International Space Station. Viewing the eclipse from orbit were NASA’s Randy Bresnik, Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson, the European Space Agency’s Paolo Nespoli, and Roscosmos’ Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazanskiy. The space station crossed the path of the eclipse three times as it orbited above the continental United States at an altitude of 250 miles.

From a million miles out in space, our Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera, or EPIC, instrument captured 12 natural color images of the Moon’s shadow crossing over North America. EPIC is aboard NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, where it photographs the full sunlit side of Earth every day, giving it a unique view of the shadow from total solar eclipses. EPIC normally takes about 20 to 22 images of Earth per day, so this animation appears to speed up the progression of the eclipse.

A ground-based image of the total solar eclipse – which looks like a gray ring – is superimposed over a red-toned image of the Sun’s atmosphere, called the corona. This view of the corona was captured by the European Space Agency and our Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. At center is an orange-toned image of the Sun’s surface as seen by our Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of light.

During a total solar eclipse, ground-based telescopes can observe the lowest part of the solar corona in a way that can’t be done at any other time, as the Sun’s dim corona is normally obscured by the Sun’s bright light. The structure in the ground-based corona image — defined by giant magnetic fields sweeping out from the Sun’s surface — can clearly be seen extending into the outer image from the space-based telescope. The more scientists understand about the lower corona, the more they can understand what causes the constant outward stream of material called the solar wind, as well as occasional giant eruptions called coronal mass ejections.

As millions of Americans watched the total solar eclipse that crossed the continental United States, the international Hinode solar observation satellite captured its own images of the awe-inspiring natural phenomenon. The images were taken with Hinode's X-ray telescope, or XRT, as it flew above the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of the United States, at an altitude of approximately 422 miles. Hinode is a joint endeavor by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the European Space Agency, the United Kingdom Space Agency and NASA.

During the total solar eclipse our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, in orbit around the Moon, turned one of its instruments towards Earth to capture an image of the Moon’s shadow over a large region of the United States.

As LRO crossed the lunar south pole heading north at 3,579 mph, the shadow of the Moon was racing across the United States at 1,500 mph. A few minutes later, LRO began a slow 180-degree turn to look back at Earth, capturing an image of the eclipse very near the location where totality lasted the longest. The spacecraft’s Narrow Angle Camera began scanning Earth at 2:25:30 p.m. EDT and completed the image 18 seconds later.

Sensors on the polar-orbiting Terra and Suomi NPP satellites gathered data and imagery in swaths thousands of miles wide. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, sensor on Terra and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS, on Suomi NPP captured the data used to make this animation that alternates between two mosaics. Each mosaic is made with data from different overpasses that was collected at different times.

This full-disk geocolor image from NOAA/NASA’s GOES-16 shows the shadow of the Moon covering a large portion of the northwestern U.S. during the eclipse.

Our Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, mission captured this view of the Moon passing in front of the Sun on Aug. 21.  

Check out nasa.gov/eclipse to learn more about the Aug. 21, 2017, eclipse along with future eclipses, and follow us on Twitter for more satellite images like these: @NASASun, @NASAMoon, and @NASAEarth.

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Anonymous asked:

What is the best about being mission control?

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Earlier this month, Mars was at opposition, which is the point in their orbits when Mars, Earth and the sun all line up, making for good conditions to view the Red Planet from Earth.

Now, it’s Saturn’s turn. The ringed planet will be at opposition on June 3, and this week is a great time to see it — both in the sky as well as up close, thanks to our spacecraft. Here are a few things to know about Saturn exploration this week:

1. Group Portrait

Thanks to their current orbital positions, our sun-observing spacecraft STEREO-A was recently able to capture the sun, Saturn, Mars and Earth in one image. Take a closer look HERE. Discover more about the STEREO mission HERE.

2. Likable, Lick-able Saturn

Saturn’s handsome visage is featured among the new stamps that the US Postal Service is releasing this week to highlight our adventures in planetary exploration.

3. Do You Even Know Saturn?

Yes, yes, it’s the one with the rings. But did you know Saturn has winds that can exceed 1000 miles per hour? Or that its magnetic field is hundreds of times as powerful as the Earth’s? Or that its day is just 10 hours long? How well do you really know the sixth planet?

4. Picking Up Signals

One thing you many not know about the planet is that it’s loud, at least if you listen to its radio signals. When our robotic Cassini spacecraft first approached Saturn, it detected the powerful fields that surround it. Engineers turned those signals into beautiful, eerie sounds. Listen to them HERE.

5.  Not All Who Wander Are Lost

The Cassini mission’s explorations of the Saturn system are very much ongoing. In the next few days, the spacecraft will be touring many locations, including the giant moon Titan, Saturn’s turbulent clouds, the tiny moon Albiorix and more! Get the full itinerary HERE.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

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NASA’s 60th Anniversary: Trailblazing Technology

Technology drives exploration. For 60 years, we have advanced technology to meet the rigorous needs of our missions. From GPS navigation to water filtration systems, our technologies developed for space improve your daily life on Earth. We continue to innovate and explore. Since we opened for business on Oct. 1, 1958, our history tells a story of exploration, innovation and discoveries. The next 60 years, that story continues. Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/60

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Name the Artemis Moonikin!

Choose your player!

As we gear up for our Artemis I mission to the Moon — the mission that will prepare us to send the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface — we have an important task for you (yes, you!). Artemis I will be the first integrated test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule. Although there won’t be any humans aboard Orion, there will be a very important crewmember: the Moonikin!

The Moonikin is a manikin, or anatomical human model, that will be used to gather data on the vibrations that human crewmembers will experience during future Artemis missions. But the Moonikin is currently missing something incredibly important — a name!

There are eight names in the running, and each one reflects an important piece of NASA’s past or a reference to the Artemis program:

1. ACE

ACE stands for Artemis Crew Explorer. This is a very practical name, as the Moonikin will be a member of the first official “crew” aboard Artemis I.

The Moonikin will occupy the commander’s seat inside Orion, be equipped with two radiation sensors, and wear a first-generation Orion Crew Survival System suit—a spacesuit astronauts will wear during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions. The Moonikin will also be accompanied by phantoms, which are manikins without arms or legs: Zohar from the Israel Space Agency and Helga from the German Aerospace Center. Zohar and Helga will be participating in an investigation called the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment, which will provide valuable data on radiation levels experienced during missions to the Moon.

2. Campos

Campos is a reference to Arturo Campos, an electrical engineer at NASA who was instrumental to bringing the Apollo 13 crew safely back home.

Apollo 13 was on its way to attempt the third Moon landing when an oxygen tank exploded and forced the mission to abort. With hundreds of thousands of miles left in the journey, mission control teams at Johnson Space Center were forced to quickly develop procedures to bring the astronauts back home while simultaneously conserving power, water, and heat. Apollo 13 is considered a “successful failure,” because of the experience gained in rescuing the crew. In addition to being a key player in these efforts, Campos also established and served as the first president of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 660, which was composed of Mexican-American engineers at NASA.

3. Delos

On June 26, 2017, our Terra satellite captured this image of the thousands of islands scattered across the Aegean Sea. One notable group, the Cyclades, sits in the central region of the Aegean. They encircle the tiny, sacred island of Delos.

According to Greek mythology, Delos was the island where the twin gods Apollo and Artemis were born.

The name is a recognition of the lessons learned during the Apollo program. Dr. Abe Silverstein, former director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said that he chose the name “Apollo” for the NASA's first Moon landing program because image of "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program." Between 1969 and 1972, we successfully landed 12 humans on the lunar surface — providing us with invaluable information as the Artemis program gears up to send the first woman and the first person of color to the Moon.

4. Duhart

Duhart is a reference to Dr. Irene Duhart Long, the first African American woman to serve in the Senior Executive Service at Kennedy Space Center. As chief medical officer at the Florida spaceport, she was the first woman and the first person of color to hold that position. Her NASA career spanned 31 years.

Working in a male-dominated field, Long confronted — and overcame — many obstacles and challenges during her decorated career. She helped create the Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program at Kennedy, in partnership with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a program that encouraged more women and people of color to explore careers in science.

5. Montgomery

Montgomery is a reference to Julius Montgomery, the first African American ever hired at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to work as a technical professional. After earning a bachelor's degree at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Montgomery served in the U.S. Air Force, where he earned a first class radio-telescope operator's license. Montgomery began his Cape Canaveral career in 1956 as a member of the “Range Rats,” technicians who repaired malfunctioning ballistic missiles.

Montgomery was also the first African American to desegregate and graduate from Brevard Engineering College, now the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.

6. Rigel

Rigel is one of the 10 brightest stars in Earth's sky and forms part of the familiar constellation Orion. The blue supergiant is about 860 light-years from Earth.

The reference to Rigel is a nod toward the Orion spacecraft, which the Moonikin (and future Artemis astronauts!) will be riding aboard. Built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before, the Orion spacecraft will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry crew into space and provide safe re-entry back to Earth.

7. Shackleton

Shackleton Crater is a crater on the Moon named after the Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton. The interior of the crater receives almost no direct sunlight, which makes it very cold — the perfect place to find ice. Our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft (LRO) returned data that ice may make up as much as 22% of the surface material in Shackleton!

Shackleton Crater is unique because even though most of it is permanently shadowed, three points on the rim remain collectively sunlit for more than 90% of the year. The crater is a prominent feature at the Moon’s South Pole, a region where NASA plans to send Artemis astronauts on future missions.

8. Wargo

Wargo is a reference to Michael Wargo, who represented NASA as the first Chief Exploration Scientist for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. He was a leading contributor to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which launched together on to the Moon and confirmed water existed there in 2009.

Throughout his time as an instructor at MIT and his 20-year career at NASA, Wargo was known as a science ambassador to the public, and for his ability to explain complex scientific challenges and discoveries to less technical audiences. Following his sudden death in 2013, the International Astronomical Union posthumously named a crater on the far side of the Moon in his honor.

Want to participate in the naming contest? Make sure you are following @NASAArtemis on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to get notified about the bracket challenges between June 16 and June 28! Learn more about the Name the Artemis Moonikin Challenge here.

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