The Ranks Of America’s Astronaut Corps Grew By 11 Today!

Mars in a Box: How a Metal Chamber on Earth Helps us do Experiments on Mars

Inside this metal box, it’s punishingly cold. The air is unbreathable. The pressure is so low, you’d inflate like a balloon. This metal chamber is essentially Mars in a box — or a near-perfect replica of the Martian environment. This box allows scientists to practice chemistry experiments on Earth before programming NASA’s Curiosity rover to carry them out on Mars. In some cases, scientists use this chamber to duplicate experiments from Mars to better understand the results. This is what’s happening today.

The ladder is set so an engineer can climb to the top of the chamber to drop in a pinch of lab-made Martian rock. A team of scientists is trying to duplicate one of Curiosity’s first experiments to settle some open questions about the origin of certain organic compounds the rover found in Gale Crater on Mars. Today’s sample will be dropped for chemical analysis into a tiny lab inside the chamber known as SAM, which stands for Sample Analysis at Mars. Another SAM lab is on Mars, inside the belly of Curiosity. The SAM lab analyzes rock and soil samples in search of organic matter, which on Earth is usually associated with life. Mars-in-a-box is kept at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

This is Goddard engineer Ariel Siguelnitzky. He is showing how far he has to drop the sample, from the top of the test chamber to the sample collection cup, a small capsule about half an inch (1 centimeter) tall (pictured right below). On Mars, there are no engineers like Siguelnitzky, so Curiosity’s arm drops soil and rock powder through small funnels on its deck. In the photo, Siguelnitzky’s right hand is pointing to a model of the tiny lab, which is about the size of a microwave. SAM will heat the soil to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) to extract the gases inside and reveal the chemical elements the soil is made of. It takes about 30 minutes for the oven to reach that super high temperature.

Each new sample is dropped into one of the white cups set into a carousel inside SAM. There are 74 tiny cups. Inside Curiosity’s SAM lab, the cups are made of quartz glass or metal. After a cup is filled, it’s lifted into an oven inside SAM for heating and analysis.

Amy McAdam, a NASA Goddard geochemist, hands Siguelnitzky the sample. Members of the SAM team made it in the lab using Earthly ingredients that duplicate Martian rock powder. The powder is wrapped in a nickel capsule (see photo below) to protect the sample cups so they can be reused many times. On Mars, there’s no nickel capsule around the sample, which means the sample cups there can’t be reused very much.

SAM needs as little as 45 milligrams of soil or rock powder to reveal the secrets locked in minerals and organic matter on the surface of Mars and in its atmosphere. That’s smaller than a baby aspirin!

Siguelnitzky has pressurized the chamber – raised the air pressure to match that of Earth – in order to open the hatch on top of the Mars box.

Now, he will carefully insert the sample into SAM through one of the two small openings below the hatch. They’re about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) across, the same as on Curiosity. Siguelnitzky will use a special tool to carefully insert the sample capsule about two feet down to the sample cup in the carousel.

Sample drop.

NASA Goddard scientist Samuel Teinturier is reviewing the chemical data, shown in the graphs, coming in from SAM inside Mars-in-a-box. He’s looking to see if the lab-made rock powder shows similar chemical signals to those seen during an earlier experiment on Mars.

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Put to the Test: Orion Service Module

Blasted with sound, shaken for hours and pyro detonated, the Orion Service Module Completes Ground Tests at our Glenn Research Center

We recently completed a structural integrity evaluation on the test version of the Orion service module at our Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. Designed to ensure the module can withstand launch atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the battery of tests was conducted in stages over a 16-month period.

The 13-ton European service module will power, propel and cool Orion, while supplying vital oxygen and water to its crew during future missions.

The Powerhouse: Space Launch System and Orion

Our Space Launch System is an advanced launch vehicle that will usher in a new era of human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. SLS, with its unparalleled power and capabilities, will launch missions to explore deep-space destinations aboard our Orion spacecraft.

What is Orion? Named after one of the largest constellations in the night sky and drawing from more than 50 years of spaceflight research and development, the Orion spacecraft will be the safest, most advanced spacecraft ever built. It will be flexible and capable enough to take astronauts to a variety of deep destinations, including Mars.

Welcome to the Buckeye State

In November 2015, the full-sized test version of the Orion service module arrived at Cleveland Hopkins Airport aboard an Antonov AN-124. After being unloaded from one of the world’s largest transport aircraft, the module was shipped more than 50 miles by truck to Plum Brook for testing.

Spread Your Wings

The first step of the service module’s ground test journey at Plum Brook’s Space Power Facility, saw one of its 24-foot solar array wings deployed to verify operation of the power system. The test confirmed the array extended and locked into place, and all of the wing mechanisms functioned properly.

Can You Hear SLS Now?

The SLS will produce a tremendous amount of noise as it launches and climbs through our atmosphere. In fact, we’re projecting the rocket could produce up to 180 decibels, which is louder than 20 jet engines operating at the same time.

While at the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility, the service module was hit with more than 150 decibels and 20-10,000 hertz of sound pressure. Microphones were placed inside the test environment to confirm it matched the expected acoustic environment during launch.

After being blasted by sound, it was time to rock the service module, literally.

Shake Without the Bake 

Launching atop the most powerful rocket ever built – we’re talking more than eight million pounds of thrust – will subject Orion to stresses never before experienced in spaceflight.

To ensure the launch doesn’t damage any vital equipment, the engineering team utilized the world’s most powerful vibration table to perform nearly 100 different tests, ranging from 2.5 Hz to 100 Hz, on the module in the summer of 2016. 

Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated

The team then moved the Orion test article from the vibration table into the high bay for pyroshock tests, which simulated the shock the service module will experience as it separates from the SLS during launch.

Following the sound, vibration and separation tests, a second solar array wing deployment was conducted to ensure the wing continued to properly unfurl and function.

Headed South for the Summer

The ground test phase was another crucial step toward the eventual launch of Exploration Mission-1, as it validated extensive design prep and computer modeling, and verified the spacecraft met our safety and flight requirements.

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Join NPR today at 5 p.m. EDT for ‪#‎NPRSpaceJam‬ with astronauts Serena Auñón, Cady Coleman, Samantha Cristoforetti, plus our chief scientist Ellen Stofan. Submit your questions!

Tomorrow at 5ET I’ll be interviewing three astronauts (read all about them here) live on Periscope and Snapchat (user: nprnews). 

What would you like me to ask them? Submit questions here.

The Lagoon Nebula 

This colorful image, taken by our Hubble Space Telescope between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18, 2018 , celebrated the Earth-orbiting observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens, giving us a window seat to the universe’s extraordinary tapestry of stellar birth and destruction.

At the center of the photo, a monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun is blasting powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds, carving out a fantasy landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust.

This region epitomizes a typical, raucous stellar nursery full of birth and destruction. The clouds may look majestic and peaceful, but they are in a constant state of flux from the star’s torrent of searing radiation and high-speed particles from stellar winds. As the monster star throws off its natal cocoon of material with its powerful energy, it is suppressing star formation around it.

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Where Will We Land On Mars?

What?

You’ve heard us say that we’re on a journey to Mars, but the Red Planet is big. Once we get there, where will we land the first humans? We’re holding the first Landing Sites/Exploration Zones Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars to figure it out. This first workshop was held Oct. 27-30, 2015 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Why?

The goal of this workshop was to collect proposals for locations on Mars that would be of high scientific research value while also providing natural resources to enable explorers to land, live and work safely on the Red Planet. Determining where we will land humans on Mars is a multi-year process. There was around 45 proposal teams at the workshop. This was the first of many workshops to determine the best landing site for human exploration on Mars.

Why Now?

We plan to use existing assets at Mars, such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Odyssey spacecraft, to support the selection process of potential Exploration Zones. However, the life expectancy of MRO and Odyssey are limited. We are eager to take advantage of the remaining operational years of those Martian images to gather high resolution maps of potential Exploration Zones while the spacecraft remain operational.

Stay Updated

The workshop will be aired live USTREAM starting at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 27.

This blog post will also be updated daily with a recap from the workshop’s events.

For a full schedule of the event visit: http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/explorationzone2015/pdf/program.pdf

Day 1 Recap:

"There is no such thing as robotic exploration. All exploration is human exploration — the robot is just a tool.” - John Grunsfeld, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate

Day one of the workshop answered a lot of basic questions about why looking at landing sites now is important for the future of our journey to Mars.

Attendees heard from many presenters, including Ellen Ochoa, Director of Johnson Space Center and John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Experts explained that in order to leverage our current assets at Mars and start the process of picking possible landing sites, we need to start the discussion now.

This data will Inform our efforts to define what we need as far as future reconnaissance capabilities at Mars and drive where we send robotic landers to get ground truth.

Check back tomorrow for the day two update, and watch live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

BONUS: Have questions about potential landing sites on Mars? We’ll be hosting a live social Q&A tomorrow at 7 p.m. EDT. Two NASA experts and one 15-year old student on one of the proposal teams will be answering your questions. Tune in on USTREAM and use #askNASA.

Day 2 Recap:

The second day of the Mars Landing Sites Workshop was filled with presentations from various proposal groups. Contributors made cases for where the best science could be collected on the Martian surface.

We also had the opportunity to hear from a young presenter, Alex Longo. A 15-year old student from Raleigh, N.C.

Longo also joined us for the social Q&A where we answered questions from #askNASA. He, along with two NASA experts, fielded questions that ranged from specifics about the workshop, to chatting aboutMars mysteries.

Tune in tomorrow to watch more of the presentations and see potential Mars landing sites! Watch live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

Check back tomorrow for the day three update.

Day 3 Recap:

The third day of the workshop included presentations from the remaining proposal teams. This final day of presentations will lead into the last day of the workshop, when groups will discuss all of the ideas shared during the past week.

The day got really exciting when our Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV) made an appearance. This SEV concept is designed to be flexible, depending on the exploration destination. The pressurized cabin can be used for surface exploration of planetary bodies, including near-Earth asteroids and Mars.

Tomorrow is the final day of the workshop and will include group discussions. Participants will have the chance to assess the proposed sites and talk about the future steps needed for selecting a potential human landing site for our journey to Mars.

Watch these discussions live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

Final Day Recap:

The final day of our workshop on potential Mars landing sites included discussions on the presentations that were made throughout the week.

Participants also had the opportunity to hear from NASA experts like Jim Green, director of planetary science, about future exploration and our journey to Mars.

Video of the full workshop will be available on the Lunar Planetary Institute’s YouTube channel. For more information and updates on our journey to Mars, visit HERE.

What is the real raw advice for someone wanting to pursue a career at NASA?

What’s Up for April 2016?

Jupiter, Mars, the Lyrid meteor shower and 2016’s best views of Mercury are all visible in the sky this month.

Jupiter, where our Juno mission will begin orbiting on July 4, continues to shine almost as brightly this month as last. And eagle-eyed telescope viewers will see a transit, a shadow transit, an occultation and an eclipse of Jupiter’s moons- all in one night: April 6-7. 

Io transits first, crossing the planet beginning at 9:52 p.m. EDT. It’s shadow can be seen less than an hour later. 

Next Jupiter occults, or eclipses, Europa as Europa slips behind the giant planet at 10:48 p.m. EDT. At 3 a.m. Europa reappears from its eclipse, dramatically leaving the shadow of Jupiter. 

Ganymede transits the planet beginning at 1:01 EDT April 7.

Check out the other planets in April, too! Mercury is always a challenging object to view, but this month you can spot it after sunset about 10 degrees above the horizon. Through a telescope you can see its phase. It will appear like a tiny crescent moon, with about 1/3 of its disk illuminated.

Mars is finally visible before midnight this month. It rises in the southeast at about 10 p.m. by the end of April. The best observing of Mars will be when it is highest in the sky. This means a few hours before dawn. Its brightness and apparent size increase dramatically this month. By month’s end, Mars appears nearly twice as bright as at the beginning of the month. 

About mid-month you’ll see Mars near its rival in the sky: the similar-colored red supergiant star Antares. The name “Antares” means “equal to or rival of Mars”.

Earth moves almost twice as fast as Mars does, so it often passes Mars in their race around the sun. This causes “retrograde motion”: an illusion we see from our viewpoint on Earth. 

Retrograde motion happens as Earth catches up to Mars, causing Mars to appear slow to slow its eastward motion against the stars. After a few days, when Earth has overtaken Mars, the Red Planet seems to move westward. Eventually, Earth moves far enough around its orbit that Mars appears to be moving eastward again.

April features one meteor shower, the Lyrids. This year the Lyrids are marred by the full moon. The best time to view will be just before dawn on April 23, when the constellation Lyra is overhead and the moon will be near to setting.

With all of these great things to spot in the sky this month, be sure to get outside and look up!

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5 Signs You Might Be Ready to Apply to be an Astronaut

Did you hear? Astronaut applications are open! Here are a few signs that might mean you’re ready to apply:

1. You Don’t Mind Having Roommates

When you’re an astronaut, you have to work and live with your crew mates for extended periods of time. It’s important to the mission and your safety that everyone can collaborate and work together.

2. You LOVE Space

If the Milky Way, planets and space travel doesn’t excite you then this might not be the perfect job for you. But if you love galaxies, space station research and deep space exploration, then maybe you should take a look at our application.

3. Adventure Doesn’t Scare You

Being an astronaut means that you get to take part in adventures that most people will never experience. Imagine: sitting on the launch pad in the Orion spacecraft, atop a rocket that’s getting ready to launch. You’ll travel farther into space than any other humans have been and help push the boundaries of technology in the proving ground of deep space lunar orbits, leading the way for future missions to Mars.

4. You Want to be on the Cutting Edge of Science

Not only do astronauts get to travel to space, but they also get to conduct really cool research in microgravity. Did you know that right now they’re growing Zinnia flowers on the International Space Station? This research could help with our future deep space exploration and could teach us a few things about growing plants on Earth. Learn more about all the awesome research on the space station HERE.

5. You’re Not Afraid of Heights

One of the coolest things about being an astronaut, is that you get to go to SPACE! At the very least, you’ll travel to the International Space Station, which is 250 miles above Earth. Or, you could be one of the first astronauts to travel to a distant asteroid or even Mars!

Interested in applying to become an astronaut? You’re in luck, applications open Dec. 14! Learn about some common myths about becoming an astronaut HERE.

Apply to be one of our astronauts HERE.

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Astronaut Journal Entry - Launch & Docking

Currently, six humans are living and working on the International Space Station, which orbits 250 miles above our planet at 17,500mph. Below you will find a real journal entry, written in space, by NASA astronaut Scott Tingle.

To read more entires from this series, visit our Space Blogs on Tumblr.

The launch went as planned. Our Soyuz spacecraft did a great job getting the three of us to the International Space Station (ISS).  

A week later, it all seems like a blur. The bus driver played me a video of my family and friends delivering their good luck messages. After exiting the bus at the launch pad, I was fortunate to have the Soyuz chief designer (Roman) and NASA’s associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations (Bill Gerstenmaier) walk me to the stairs and elevator that would take us to the top of the rocket for boarding. The temperature at the pad was approximately -17 degrees centigrade, and we were wearing the Russian Polar Bear suits over our spacesuits in order to stay warm. Walking in these suits is a little hard, and I was happy to have Roman and Bill helping me. 

We walked into the fog created by the systems around the rocket, climbed the ladder, and waved goodbye. My last words before launch were to Bill, “Boiler Up!”. Bill is a fellow and very well-known Boilermaker. We strapped in, and the launch and docking were nominal. But I will add that the second stage cutoff and separation, and ignition of the third stage was very exciting. We were under approximately 4 Gs when the engine cutoff, which gave us a good jolt forward during the deceleration and then a good jolt back into the seat after the third stage ignited. I looked at Anton and we both began to giggle like school children.

We spent two days in orbit as our phase angle aligned with ISS. Surprisingly, I did not feel sick. I even got 4 hours of sleep the first night and nearly 6 hours the second night. Having not been able to use my diaper while sitting in the fetal position during launch, it was nice to get out of our seats and use the ACY (Russian toilet). Docking was amazing. I compared it to rendezvousing on a tanker in a fighter jet, except the rendezvous with ISS happened over a much larger distance. As a test pilot, it was very interesting to watch the vehicle capture and maintain the centerline of ISS’s MRM-1 docking port as well as capturing and maintaining the required speed profile. 

Just like landing at the ship, I could feel the vehicle’s control system (thrusters) making smaller and faster corrections and recorrections. In the flight test world, this is where the “gains” increase rapidly and where any weaknesses in the control system will be exposed. It was amazing to see the huge solar arrays and tons of equipment go by my window during final approach. What an engineering marvel the ISS is. Smooth sailing right into the docking port we went!  

About an hour later, after equalizing pressures between the station and Soyuz, we opened the hatch and greeted our friends already onboard. My first view of the inside of the space station looked pretty close to the simulators we have been training in for the last several years. My first words were, “Hey, what are you guys doing at Building 9?”. Then we tackled each other with celebratory hugs!

Find more ‘Captain’s Log’ entries HERE.

Follow NASA astronaut Scott Tingle on Instagram and Twitter.

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A View into the Past

Our Hubble Space Telescope just found the farthest individual star ever seen to date!

Nicknamed “Earendel” (“morning star” in Old English), this star existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the big bang. Earendel is so far away from Earth that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us, far eclipsing the previous single-star record holder whose light took 9 billion years to reach us.

Though Earendel is at least 50 times the mass of our Sun and millions of times as bright, we’d normally be unable to see it from Earth. However, the mass of a huge galaxy cluster between us and Earendel has created a powerful natural magnifying glass. Astronomers expect that the star will be highly magnified for years.

Earendel will be observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb's high sensitivity to infrared light is needed to learn more about this star, because its light is stretched to longer infrared wavelengths due to the universe's expansion.