New Zealand | International Space Station

U.S. Astronaut Ricky Arnold: "Magnificent Fiordland National Park on the South Island of New Zealand. Captain James Cook visited here in 1773 in his ship Endeavour. Last time Astronaut Drew Feustel visited the International Space Station, he flew on a ship with the same name."

Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand
www.fiordland.org.nz/about-fiordland/fiordland-national-park/
www.newzealand.com/ca/feature/national-parks-fiordland/

Credit: NASA Astronaut Ricky Arnold
Release Date: May 29, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #NewZealand #Fiordland #NationalPark #Astronaut #RickyArnold #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #UnitedStates #Photography #History #Endeavour #JamesCook #STEM #Education #International #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect

An Eye-Catching Circle of Cloud | NASA Earth

May 29, 2018: While clouds are an important topic of research for climatologists and meteorologists, sometimes the atmosphere churns up peculiar-looking cloud formations that are as notable for aesthetic reasons as they are for scientific ones.

That was the case in May when this circular swirl of clouds drifted over Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakhstan.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired the image at roughly 12:05 local time (06:05 Universal Time) on May 22, 2018, and the MODIS on Aqua acquired a similar image roughly two hours later.

While the MODIS sensors are affixed to polar-orbiting satellites and take an image of each part of Earth once per day, the Indian Space Research Organization operates a geostationary satellite—INSAT-3DR—that keeps its gaze fixed on this part of the world and captures new images every 26 minutes. Imagery from INSAT-3DR helps fill in the gaps before, after, and between the two MODIS images. The INSAT-3DR imagery suggests that a few hours before Terra MODIS acquired the image, the circular feature was linked to an area of convection to the southwest over the western Tien Shan mountains.

Cyclonic wind flow drew the clouds into the circular pattern, which had a radius of roughly 200 kilometers (100 miles)—small enough that meteorologists would classify it as a mesoscale feature. In contrast, synoptic scale features have horizontal lengths greater than 1,000 kilometers, while microscale features have widths less than 1 kilometer.

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using MODIS data from LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response
Story Credit: Adam Voiland
Instrument(s): Terra - MODIS
#NASA #Earth #Satellite #Science #Atmosphere #Clouds #LakeBalkhash #БалқашКөлі #ОзероБалхаш #Kazakhstan #CentralAsia #Qazaqstan #Terra #MODIS #EarthObservation #RemoteSensing #STEM #Education

The Very Large Telescope in action | ESO

Happy 20th Anniversary Very Large Telescope!

One of the Unit Telescopes of European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) is producing artificial stars in the skies above the Atacama Desert, above the Milky Way. In May 2018, the VLT celebrated 20 years of operations.

The Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) shines four 22-watt laser beams into the sky to create artificial guide stars by making sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere glow so that they look just like real stars. The artificial stars allow the adaptive optics systems to compensate for the blurring caused by the Earth’s atmosphere and so that the telescope can create sharp images.

Credit: ESO/P. Horálek
Release Date: February 21, 2018

#ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #MilkyWay #Galaxy #Stars
#Astrophotography #Art #VLT #Telescope #Laser #StarGuide #AdaptiveOptics #Earth #Atmosphere #Chile #CerroAmazones #Atacama #Paranal #Observatory #STEM #Education

Tonight's Sky: June 2018 | HubbleSite

In June, the constellations Boӧtes, Corona Borealis and Draco, and the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn are all visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

“Tonight’s Sky” is produced by HubbleSite.org, online home of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Credit: HubbleSite
Duration: 7 minutes, 47 seconds
Release Date: May 23, 2018

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #Planets #Venus #Jupiter #Mars #Saturn #Stars #Constellations #SolarSystem #Skywatching #STEM #Education #UnitedStates #NorthernHemisphere #HD #Video

Earthlings United | International Space Station

Credit: Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev
Release Date: May 25, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Earthlings #Humanity #Expedition55 #Cosmonaut #OlegArtemyev #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #Russia #Россия #Astronauts #Photography #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #International #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect

A green cosmic arc | Hubble

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a cluster of hundreds of galaxies located about 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. The brightest galaxy within this cluster named SDSS J1156+1911 and known as the Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG), is visible in the lower middle of the frame. It was discovered by the Sloan Giant Arcs Survey which studied data maps covering huge parts of the sky from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: it found more than 70 galaxies that look to be significantly affected by a cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

Gravitational lensing is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The mass contained within a galaxy is so immense that it can actually wrap and bend the very fabric of its surroundings (known as spacetime), forcing the light to travel along curved paths. As a result, the image of a more distant galaxy appears distorted and amplified to an observer, as the light from it has been bent around the intervening galaxy. This effect can be very useful in astronomy, allowing astronomers to see galaxies that are either obscured or too distant for us to be otherwise detected by our current instruments.

Galaxy clusters are giant structures containing hundreds to thousands of galaxies with masses of about over one million billion times the mass of the Sun! SDSS J1156+1911 is only roughly 600 billion times the mass of the Sun, making it less massive than the average galaxy. However, it is massive enough to produce the fuzzy greenish streak seen just below the brightest galaxy—the lensed image of a more distant galaxy.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
Release Date: May 28, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #Space #Galaxy #Cluster #SDSSJ11561911 #BrightestClusterGalaxy #BCG #Arc #GravitationalLensing #Stars #Galaxies #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #STScI #STEM #Education

A Hidden Galactic Core: NGC 5643 | ESO

This is the center of a galaxy named NGC 5643. This galaxy is located 55 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Lupus (The Wolf), and is known as a Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies have very luminous centers—thought to be powered by material being accreted onto a supermassive black hole lurking within—that can also be shrouded and obscured by clouds of dust and intergalactic material.

As a result, it can be difficult to observe the active center of a Seyfert galaxy. NGC 5643 poses a further challenge; it is viewed at a high inclination, making it even trickier to view its inner workings. However, scientists have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) together with archival data from the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope to reveal this view of NGC 5643—complete with energetic outflowing ionized gas pouring out into space.

These impressive outflows stretch out on either side of the galaxy, and are caused by matter being ejected from the accretion disc of the supermassive black hole at NGC 5643’s core. Combined, the ALMA and VLT data show the galaxy’s central region to have two distinct components: a spiraling, rotating disc (visible in red) consisting of cold molecular gas traced by carbon monoxide, and the outflowing gas, traced by ionized oxygen and hydrogen (in blue-orange hues) perpendicular to the inner nuclear disc.

Credit: ESO/A. Alonso-Herrero et al.; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
Release Date: May 28, 2018

#ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #NGC5643 #Lupus #Seyfert #BlackHole #Cosmos #Universe #ALMA #MUSE #Europe #STEM #Education

Alan Bean, Apollo Moonwalker & Artist, Dies at 86

NASA remembers Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, who walked on the Moon in 1969, commanded the second Skylab crew in 1973 and went on in retirement to paint the remarkable worlds and sights he had seen like no other artist.
Learn more about his life at: www.nasa.gov/feature/alan-bean
NASA | May 26, 2018: HOUSTON, Texas—Apollo and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth human to walk on the moon and an accomplished artist, has died. Bean, 86, died on Saturday, May 26, at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. His death followed his suddenly falling ill while on travel in Fort Wayne, Indiana two weeks before.

“Alan was the strongest and kindest man I ever knew. He was the love of my life and I miss him dearly,” said Leslie Bean, Alan Bean’s wife of 40 years. “A native Texan, Alan died peacefully in Houston surrounded by those who loved him.”

A test pilot in the U.S. Navy, Bean was one of 14 trainees selected by NASA for its third group of astronauts in October 1963. He flew twice into space, first as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the second moon landing mission, in November 1969, and then as commander of the second crewed flight to the United States’ first space station, Skylab, in July 1973.

“Alan and I have been best friends for 55 years—ever since the day we became astronauts,” said Walt Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7. “When I became head of the Skylab Branch of the Astronaut Office, we worked together and Alan eventually commanded the second Skylab mission.”

“We have never lived more than a couple of miles apart, even after we left NASA. And for years, Alan and I never missed a month where we did not have a cheeseburger together at Miller’s Café in Houston. We are accustomed to losing friends in our business but this is a tough one,” said Cunningham.

On Nov. 19, 1969, Bean, together with Apollo 12 commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, landed on the Ocean of Storms and became the fourth human to walk on the moon. During two moonwalks Bean helped deploy several surface experiments and installed the first nuclear-powered generator station on the moon to provide the power source. He and Conrad inspected a robotic Surveyor spacecraft and collected 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of rocks and lunar soil for study back on Earth.

“Alan and Pete were extremely engaged in the planning for their exploration of the Surveyor III landing site in the Ocean of Storms and, particularly, in the enhanced field training activity that came with the success of Apollo 11. This commitment paid off with Alan's and Pete's collection of a fantastic suite of lunar samples, a scientific gift that keeps on giving today and in the future,” said Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and the only geologist to walk on the moon. “Their description of bright green concentrations of olivine (peridot) as ‘ginger ale bottle glass,’ however, gave geologists in Mission Control all a big laugh, as we knew exactly what they had discovered.”

“When Alan's third career as the artist of Apollo moved forward, he would call me to ask about some detail about lunar soil, color or equipment he wanted to have represented exactly in a painting. Other times, he wanted to discuss items in the description he was writing to go with a painting. His enthusiasm about space and art never waned. Alan Bean is one of the great renaissance men of his generation—engineer, fighter pilot, astronaut and artist,” said Schmitt.

Four years after Apollo 12, Bean commanded the second crew to live and work on board the Skylab orbital workshop. During the then-record-setting 59-day, 24.4 million-mile flight, Bean and his two crewmates generated 18 miles of computer tape during surveys of Earth’s resources and 76,000 photographs of the Sun to help scientists better understand its effects on the solar system.

In total, Bean logged 69 days, 15 hours and 45 minutes in space, including 31 hours and 31 minutes on the moon’s surface.

Bean retired from the Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981. In the four decades since, he devoted his time to creating an artistic record of humanity’s first exploration of another world. His Apollo-themed paintings featured canvases textured with lunar boot prints and were made using acrylics embedded with small pieces of his moon dust-stained mission patches.

“Alan Bean was the most extraordinary person I ever met,” said astronaut Mike Massimino, who flew on two space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope. “He was a one of a kind combination of technical achievement as an astronaut and artistic achievement as a painter.”

“But what was truly extraordinary was his deep caring for others and his willingness to inspire and teach by sharing his personal journey so openly. Anyone who had the opportunity to know Alan was a better person for it, and we were better astronauts by following his example. I am so grateful he was my mentor and friend, and I will miss him terribly. He was a great man and this is a great loss,” Massimino said.

Born March 15, 1932, in Wheeler, Texas, Bean received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas in 1955. He attended the Navy Test Pilot School and accumulated more than 5,500 hours of flying time in 27 different types of aircraft.

He is survived by his wife Leslie, a sister Paula Stott, and two children from a prior marriage, a daughter Amy Sue and son Clay.

Alan Bean's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bean

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 3 minutes
Release Date: May 26, 2018

#NASA #Space #Science #Moon #Apollo #Apollo12 #Skylab #AlanBean #Astronaut #Moonwalker #Pilot #USNavy #Engineer #Artist #American #Hero #JSC #UnitedStates #Explorer #SolarSystem #History #Art #STEM #Education #Obituary #Tribute #HD #Video

Alan Bean, Apollo Moonwalker & Artist, Dies at 86

NASA | May 26, 2018: HOUSTON, Texas—Apollo and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth human to walk on the moon and an accomplished artist, has died. Bean, 86, died on Saturday, May 26, at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. His death followed his suddenly falling ill while on travel in Fort Wayne, Indiana two weeks before.

“Alan was the strongest and kindest man I ever knew. He was the love of my life and I miss him dearly,” said Leslie Bean, Alan Bean’s wife of 40 years. “A native Texan, Alan died peacefully in Houston surrounded by those who loved him.”

A test pilot in the U.S. Navy, Bean was one of 14 trainees selected by NASA for its third group of astronauts in October 1963. He flew twice into space, first as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the second moon landing mission, in November 1969, and then as commander of the second crewed flight to the United States’ first space station, Skylab, in July 1973.

“Alan and I have been best friends for 55 years—ever since the day we became astronauts,” said Walt Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7. “When I became head of the Skylab Branch of the Astronaut Office, we worked together and Alan eventually commanded the second Skylab mission.”

“We have never lived more than a couple of miles apart, even after we left NASA. And for years, Alan and I never missed a month where we did not have a cheeseburger together at Miller’s Café in Houston. We are accustomed to losing friends in our business but this is a tough one,” said Cunningham.

On Nov. 19, 1969, Bean, together with Apollo 12 commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, landed on the Ocean of Storms and became the fourth human to walk on the moon. During two moonwalks Bean helped deploy several surface experiments and installed the first nuclear-powered generator station on the moon to provide the power source. He and Conrad inspected a robotic Surveyor spacecraft and collected 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of rocks and lunar soil for study back on Earth.

“Alan and Pete were extremely engaged in the planning for their exploration of the Surveyor III landing site in the Ocean of Storms and, particularly, in the enhanced field training activity that came with the success of Apollo 11. This commitment paid off with Alan's and Pete's collection of a fantastic suite of lunar samples, a scientific gift that keeps on giving today and in the future,” said Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and the only geologist to walk on the moon. “Their description of bright green concentrations of olivine (peridot) as ‘ginger ale bottle glass,’ however, gave geologists in Mission Control all a big laugh, as we knew exactly what they had discovered.”

“When Alan's third career as the artist of Apollo moved forward, he would call me to ask about some detail about lunar soil, color or equipment he wanted to have represented exactly in a painting. Other times, he wanted to discuss items in the description he was writing to go with a painting. His enthusiasm about space and art never waned. Alan Bean is one of the great renaissance men of his generation—engineer, fighter pilot, astronaut and artist,” said Schmitt.

Four years after Apollo 12, Bean commanded the second crew to live and work on board the Skylab orbital workshop. During the then-record-setting 59-day, 24.4 million-mile flight, Bean and his two crewmates generated 18 miles of computer tape during surveys of Earth’s resources and 76,000 photographs of the Sun to help scientists better understand its effects on the solar system.

In total, Bean logged 69 days, 15 hours and 45 minutes in space, including 31 hours and 31 minutes on the moon’s surface.

Bean retired from the Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981. In the four decades since, he devoted his time to creating an artistic record of humanity’s first exploration of another world. His Apollo-themed paintings featured canvases textured with lunar boot prints and were made using acrylics embedded with small pieces of his moon dust-stained mission patches.

“Alan Bean was the most extraordinary person I ever met,” said astronaut Mike Massimino, who flew on two space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope. “He was a one of a kind combination of technical achievement as an astronaut and artistic achievement as a painter.”

“But what was truly extraordinary was his deep caring for others and his willingness to inspire and teach by sharing his personal journey so openly. Anyone who had the opportunity to know Alan was a better person for it, and we were better astronauts by following his example. I am so grateful he was my mentor and friend, and I will miss him terribly. He was a great man and this is a great loss,” Massimino said.

Born March 15, 1932, in Wheeler, Texas, Bean received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas in 1955. He attended the Navy Test Pilot School and accumulated more than 5,500 hours of flying time in 27 different types of aircraft.

He is survived by his wife Leslie, a sister Paula Stott, and two children from a prior marriage, a daughter Amy Sue and son Clay.

Alan Bean's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bean

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Release Date: May 26, 2018

#NASA #Space #Science #Moon #Apollo #Apollo17 #Skylab #AlanBean #Astronaut #Moonwalker #Pilot #USNavy #Engineer #Artist #American #Hero #JSC #UnitedStates #Explorer #SolarSystem

Saturn and Titan | NASA Cassini

Processed using calibrated red, green, and blue filtered images of Saturn and its moon, Titan, taken by Cassini on May 21, 2011.

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and www.nasa.gov/cassini

The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, managed the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center was based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill
Image Date: May 21, 2011
Release Date: May 24, 2018

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #Moon #Titan #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #History #STEM #Education

Saturn and Dione | NASA Cassini

Composite of calibrated raw images acquired by Cassini on Oct. 11, 2005.
Saturn's moon, Dione, is 1123 km (698 miles) across and orbits Saturn at about the same distance that our Moon orbits Earth.

The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, managed the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center was based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Jason Major
Image Date: August 17, 2015
Release Date: May 24, 2018

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #Moon #Dione #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #History #STEM #Education

Saturn and Dione | NASA Cassini

Dione moon in front of Saturn. Color-composite of images acquired by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in visible wavelengths on August 17, 2015. Dione is 1123 km (698 miles) across and orbits Saturn at about the same distance that our Moon orbits Earth.

The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, managed the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center was based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Jason Major
Image Date: August 17, 2015
Release Date: May 24, 2018

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #Moon #Dione #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #History #STEM #Education

Orbital ATK CRS-9 Space Station Mission

What's On Board? | May 23, 2018: Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft launched to the International Space Station aboard an Antares rocket on May 21, and is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting laboratory in the early morning hours of May 24. Among the research it will deliver to the station is the Cold Atom Lab (CAL), a facility to create a spot ten billion times colder than the vacuum of space, which could help answer some big questions in modern physics. Zaiput Flow Technologies will seek to validate a liquid-liquid separator to enhance flow chemistry production in space. Researchers from Penn State University are sending an experiment to investigate and understand the complex process of cement solidification, which could address the high priority need for lightweight space structures for habitats that protect crew members. A fleet of CubeSats spanning everything from Earth science to educational outreach is also heading to the orbiting laboratory for deployment into low-Earth orbit.

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 3 minutes, 45 seconds
Release Date: May 23, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Earth #Science #OrbitalATK #Physics #ColdAtomLab #CAL #Microgravity #Research #Lab #Cygnus #Spacecraft #CRS9 #Commercial #Cargo #CubeSats #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Very Large Telescope & Milky Way | ESO

Night begins and a radiant Milky Way appears in the clear skies of the Atacama desert. The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), situated in the Cerro Amazones (left) of Paranal (Chile) starts its night observations.

The two laser beams from the VLT are pointed towards the sky and create "fake stars". These fake stars are part of the technique known as Adaptive optics, and are detected by sensors, which use them to measure atmospheric distortions. Once the distortions are known, this information can be used to correct astronomical images, greatly improving their quality.

Credit: G. Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com)/ESO
Release Date: May 23, 2018

#ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #MilkyWay #Galaxy #Stars
#Astrophotography #Art #VLT #Telescope #Laser #StarGuide #AdaptiveOptics #Earth #Atmosphere #Chile #CerroAmazones #Atacama #Paranal #Observatory #STEM #Education

NASA's Curiosity Rover: Collecting Mars Rocks

Success: First Drilled Mars Sample Since 2016 | JPL

A close-up image of a 2-inch-deep hole produced using a new drilling technique for NASA's Curiosity rover. The hole is about 0.6 inches across (1.6 centimeters). This image was taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sol 2057. It has been white balanced and contrast enhanced.
May 23, 2018: Engineers working with NASA's Curiosity Mars rover have been hard at work testing a new way for the rover to drill rocks and extract powder from them. This past weekend, that effort produced the first drilled sample on Mars in more than a year.

Curiosity tested percussive drilling this past weekend, penetrating about 2 inches (50 millimeters) into a target called "Duluth."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been testing this drilling technique since a mechanical problem took Curiosity's drill offline in December of 2016. This technique, called Feed Extended Drilling, keeps the drill's bit extended out past two stabilizer posts that were originally used to steady the drill against Martian rocks. It lets Curiosity drill using the force of its robotic arm, a little more like the way a human would drill into a wall at home.

"The team used tremendous ingenuity to devise a new drilling technique and implement it on another planet," said Curiosity Deputy Project Manager Steve Lee of JPL. "Those are two vital inches of innovation from 60 million miles away. We're thrilled that the result was so successful."

Drilling is a vitally important part of Curiosity's capabilities to study Mars. Inside the rover are two laboratories that are able to conduct chemical and mineralogical analyses of rock and soil samples. The samples are acquired from Gale Crater, which the rover has been exploring since 2012.

Curiosity's science team has been eager to get the drill working before the rover leaves its current location near Vera Rubin Ridge. Fortunately, it was near enough to drill targets like Duluth to drive back down the ridge. Sunday's drill sample represents a quick taste of the region before Curiosity moves on.

Demonstrating that Curiosity's percussive drilling technique works is a milestone in itself. But that doesn't mean the work is over for engineers at JPL.

"We've been developing this new drilling technique for over a year, but our job isn't done once a sample has been collected on Mars," JPL's Tom Green, a systems engineer who helped develop and test Curiosity's new drilling method. "With each new test, we closely examine the data to look for improvements we can make and then head back to our testbed to iterate on the process."

There's also the next step to work on: delivering the rock sample from the drill bit to the two laboratories inside the rover. Having captured enough powder inside the drill, engineers will now use the rover's cameras to estimate how much trickles out while running the drill backwards. The drill's percussion mechanism is also used to tap out powder.

As soon as this Friday, the Curiosity team will test a new process for delivering samples into the rover's laboratories.

For more about Curiosity, visit:
https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Release Date: May 23, 2018

#NASA #Mars #Science #Curiosity #Rover #Drilling #Rocks #Duluth #Robotics #RedPlanet #Planet #Engineering #Technology #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #Discovery #SolarSystem #Exploration #STEM #Education

SpaceX Crew Dragon for NASA Astronauts

Commercial Crew astronaut Suni Williams wearing a SpaceX spacesuit while training with a mock-up of the Crew Dragon in Hawthorne, California, United States.

Crew Dragon, SpaceX’s "next-generation spacecraft designed to carry humans to the International Space Station and other destinations."

"With four windows, passengers can take in views of Earth, the Moon, and the wider Solar System right from their seats, which are made from the highest-grade carbon fiber and Alcantara cloth. Crew Dragon features an advanced emergency escape system (tested in Spring 2015) to swiftly carry astronauts to safety if something were to go wrong, experiencing about the same G-forces as a ride at Disneyland. Crew Dragon’s displays will provide real-time information on the state of the spacecraft’s capabilities—anything from Dragon’s position in space, to possible destinations, to the environment on board. Crew Dragon has an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) that provides a comfortable and safe environment for crew members. During their trip, astronauts on board can set the spacecraft’s interior temperature to between 65 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Crew Dragon will be a fully autonomous spacecraft that can also be monitored & controlled by on board astronauts and SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California, USA."

Learn more: www.spacex.com/crew-dragon

Credit: SpaceX
Release Date: May 18, 2018

#NASA #SpaceX #Space #Dragon #Spacecraft #ISS #CrewDragon #Testing #Astronaut #SunitaWilliams #SuniWilliams #Commercial #ElonMusk #Hawthorne #California #UnitedStates #LaunchAmerica #KSC #Kennedy #Moon #SolarSystem #Exploration #STEM #Education