Tag: NASA

(NASA) Discovery Program Report: Selects 2 Missions to Study ‘Lost Habitable’ World of Venus #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 04/06/2021

#AceNewsReport – June.04: NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. Part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the missions aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world when it has so many other characteristics similar to ours – and may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate:

NASA: These investigations are the final selections from four mission conceptsNASA picked in February 2020 as part of the agency’s Discovery 2019 competition. Following a competitive, peer-review process, the two missions were chosen based on their potential scientific value and the feasibility of their development plans. The project teams will now work to finalize their requirements, designs, and development plans.

This image of Venus is a composite of data from NASA's Magellan spacecraft and Pioneer Venus Orbiter.

NASA is awarding approximately $500 million per mission for development. Each is expected to launch in the 2028-2030 time-frame:

The selected missions are:

DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging)

DAVINCI+ will measure the composition of Venus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved, as well as determine whether the planet ever had an ocean. The mission consists of a descent sphere that will plunge through the planet’s thick atmosphere, making precise measurements of noble gases and other elements to understand why Venus’ atmosphere is a runaway hothouse compared the Earth’s.

In addition, DAVINCI+ will return the first high resolution pictures of the unique geological features on Venus known as “tesserae,” which may be comparable to Earth’s continents, suggesting that Venus has plate tectonics. This would be the first U.S.-led mission to Venus’ atmosphere since 1978, and the results from DAVINCI+ could reshape our understanding of terrestrial planet formation in our solar system and beyond. James Garvin of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is the principal investigator. Goddard provides project management.

VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy)

VERITAS will map Venus’ surface to determine the planet’s geologic history and understand why it developed so differently than Earth. Orbiting Venus with a synthetic aperture radar, VERITAS will chart surface elevations over nearly the entire planet to create 3D reconstructions of topography and confirm whether processes such as plate tectonics and volcanism are still active on Venus.

VERITAS also will map infrared emissions from Venus’ surface to map its rock type, which is largely unknown, and determine whether active volcanoes are releasing water vapor into the atmosphere. Suzanne Smrekar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, is the principal investigator. JPL provides project management. The German Aerospace Center will provide the infrared mapper with the Italian Space Agency and France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales contributing to the radar and other parts of the mission.

“We’re revving up our planetary science program with intense exploration of a world that NASA hasn’t visited in over 30 years,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science. “Using cutting-edge technologies that NASA has developed and refined over many years of missions and technology programs, we’re ushering in a new decade of Venus to understand how an Earth-like planet can become a hothouse. Our goals are profound. It is not just understanding the evolution of planets and habitability in our own solar system, but extending beyond these boundaries to exoplanets, an exciting and emerging area of research for NASA.”

Zurbuchen added that he expects powerful synergies across NASA’s science programs, including the James Webb Space Telescope. He anticipates data from these missions will be used by the broadest possible cross section of the scientific community.

“It is astounding how little we know about Venus, but the combined results of these missions will tell us about the planet from the clouds in its sky through the volcanoes on its surface all the way down to its very core,” said Tom Wagner, NASA’s Discovery Program scientist. “It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet.”

In addition to the two missions, NASA selected a pair of technology demonstrations to fly along with them. VERITAS will host the Deep Space Atomic Clock-2, built by JPL and funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The ultra-precise clock signal generated with this technology will ultimately help enable autonomous spacecraft maneuvers and enhance radio science observations.

DAVINCI+ will host the Compact Ultraviolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer (CUVIS) built by Goddard. CUVIS will make high resolution measurements of ultraviolet light using a new instrument based on freeform optics. These observations will be used to determine the nature of the unknown ultraviolet absorber in Venus’ atmosphere that absorbs up to half the incoming solar energy.

Established in 1992, NASA’s Discovery Program has supported the development and implementation of over 20 missions and instruments. These selections are part of the ninth Discovery Program competition.

The concepts were chosen from proposals submitted in 2019 under NASA Announcement of Opportunity NNH19ZDA010O. The selected investigations will be managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as part of the Discovery Program. The Discovery Program conducts space science investigations in the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The goals of the program are to provide frequent opportunities for principal investigator-led investigations in planetary sciences that can be accomplished under a not-to-exceed cost cap.

For more information about NASA’s planetary science, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/solarsystem

-end-

Last Updated: Jun 2, 2021

Editor: Sean Potter

#AceNewsDesk report ……Published: Jun.04: 2021:

Editor says #AceNewsDesk reports by https://t.me/acenewsdaily and all our posts, also links can be found at here for Twitter and Live Feeds https://acenewsroom.wordpress.com/ and thanks for following as always appreciate every like, reblog or retweet and free help and guidance tips on your PC software or need help & guidance from our experts AcePCHelp.WordPress.Com

Tags Headlines, NASA, News, Venus

Ace Daily News

(NASA) Curiosity Rover Report: Cloudy days are rare in the thin, dry atmosphere of Mars. Clouds are typically found at the planet’s equator in the coldest time of year, when Mars is the farthest from the Sun in its oval-shaped orbit #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 31/05/2021

#AceNewsReport – May.31: This year, they were ready to start documenting these “early” clouds from the moment they first appeared in late January. What resulted are images of wispy puffs filled with ice crystals that scattered light from the setting Sun, some of them shimmering with color. More than just spectacular displays, such images help scientists understand how clouds form on Mars and why these recent ones are different:

NASA’s Curiosity Rover: ‘Captures Shining Clouds on Mars and one full Martian year ago – two Earth years – scientists noticed clouds forming over curosity rover earlier than expected’

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19, 2021

The science team is studying the clouds, which arrived earlier and formed higher than expected, to learn more about the Red Planet.

This GIF shows clouds drifting over Mount Sharp on Mars, as viewed by NASA’s Curiosity rover on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Each frame of the scene was stitched together from six individual images.

In fact, Curiosity’s team has already made one new discovery: The early-arrival clouds are actually at higher altitudes than is typical. Most Martian clouds hover no more than about 37 miles (60 kilometers) in the sky and are composed of water ice. But the clouds Curiosity has imaged are at a higher altitude, where it’s very cold, indicating that they are likely made of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Scientists look for subtle clues to establish a cloud’s altitude, and it will take more analysis to say for sure which of Curiosity’s recent images show water-ice clouds and which show dry-ice ones.

Using the navigation cameras on its mast, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took these images of clouds just after sunset on March 31, 2021, the 3,075th so, or Martian day, of the mission.

The fine, rippling structures of these clouds are easier to see with images from Curiosity’s black-and-white navigation cameras. But it’s the color images from the rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, that really shine – literally. Viewed just after sunset, their ice crystals catch the fading light, causing them to appear to glow against the darkening sky. These twilight clouds, also known as “noctilucent” (Latin for “night shining”) clouds, grow brighter as they fill with crystals, then darken after the Sun’s position in the sky drops below their altitude. This is just one useful clue scientists use to determine how high they are.

Using the navigation cameras on its mast, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took these images of clouds just after sunset on March 28, 2021, the 3,072nd sol, or Martian day, of the mission.

Even more stunning are iridescent, or “mother of pearl” clouds. “If you see a cloud with a shimmery pastel set of colors in it, that’s because the cloud particles are all nearly identical in size,” said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “That’s usually happening just after the clouds have formed and have all grown at the same rate.”

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover spotted these iridescent, or “mother of pearl,” clouds on March 5, 2021

These clouds are among the more colorful things on the Red Planet, he added. If you were skygazing next to Curiosity, you could see the colors with the naked eye, although they’d be faint.

“I always marvel at the colors that show up: reds and greens and blues and purples,” Lemmon said. “It’s really cool to see something shining with lots of color on Mars.”

For more about Curiosity, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

For more about NASA’s Mars program, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

2021-110

Last Updated: May 28, 2021

Editor: Tony Greicius

#AceNewsDesk report …Published: May.31: 2021:

Tags Mars, NASA, Sun

Ace Daily News

(NASA) Artemis Programme Report: VIPER’s design calls for using the first headlights on a lunar rover to aid in exploring the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon after not being seen for billions of years and some are the coldest spots in the solar system #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 24/05/2021

#AceNewsReport – May.24: Running on solar power, VIPER will need to quickly maneuver around the extreme swings in light and dark at the lunar South Pole: “ The data received from VIPER has the potential to aid our scientists in determining precise locations and concentrations of ice on the Moon and will help us evaluate the environment and potential resources at the lunar south pole in preparation for Artemis astronauts,” said Lori Glaze, director for NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “This is yet another example of how robotic science missions and human exploration go hand in hand, and why both are necessary as we prepare to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon.”

NASA Report: ‘Rover to Search for Water, Other Resources on Moon: As part of the Artemis program, NASA is planning to send its first mobile robot to the Moon in late 2023 in search of ice and other resources on and below the lunar surface. Data from the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, would help the agency map resources at the lunar South Pole that could one day be harvested for long-term human exploration at the Moon’

NASA REPORT:

NASA awarded a task order to Astrobotic for VIPER’s launch, transit and delivery to the lunar surface as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Once on the Moon, the rover will explore lunar craters using a specialized set of wheels and suspension system to cover a variety of inclines and soil types. The rover’s design significantly enhances upon a former robotic concept to prospect the Moon called Resource Prospector, which NASA canceled in early 2018. Since then, the VIPER mission duration was extended from one to three lunar days (100 Earth days). VIPER has evolved to increase its science capabilities, enabling more data collection at the lunar surface.

VIPER will carry four instruments, including the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains (TRIDENT) hammer drill, the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSolo) instrument, the Near Infrared Volatiles Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) and the Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS). Earlier versions of these instruments will be tested on the lunar surface ahead of the VIPER mission, allowing the team to reduce risk and test instrument performance data.

Slated to arrive via Astrobotic’s first flight, MSolo, NVSS and NIRVSS are among the payloads that will land on the lunar surface on one of the first CLPS deliveries to the Moon. Versions of TRIDENT and MSolo will ride to the Moon in late 2022 aboard the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1) technology demonstration, delivered by Intuitive Machines on its second CLPS flight.

The VIPER design has come a long way. Following completion of its formulation phase, the agency recently approved the rover to enter the mission development phase. VIPER progress continues moving full speed ahead. NASA’s investment in the mid-size rover for mission development costs and operations is $433.5 million. The current delivery contract value for Astrobotic to deliver VIPER to the Moon through CLPS is approximately $226.5 million.

“VIPER will be the most capable robot NASA has ever sent to the lunar surface and allow us to explore parts of the Moon we’ve never seen” said Sarah Noble, program scientist for VIPER at NASA Headquarters. “The rover will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon and prepare us to harvest resources 240,000 miles from Earth that could be used to safely send astronauts even farther into space, including Mars.”

Throughout the Artemis program, NASA will send robots and humans to explore more of the Moon than ever before. When astronauts return to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, they will follow in VIPER’s wheel prints and land at the lunar South Pole. That mission will include landing the first woman on the Moon. She will be one of two crew members paving the way for sustainable lunar exploration missions with crew.

Learn more:

http://www.nasa.gov/artemis

Last Updated: May 20, 2021

Editor: Tricia Talbert

#AceNewsDesk report ….Published: May.24: 2021:

Tags NASA, News, Space

Ace Daily News

(NASA) ESA & Solar Orbiter Report: A New Space Instrument Captures Its First Solar Eruption #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 20/05/2021

#AceNewsReport – May.20: For new Sun-watching spacecraft, the first solar eruption is always special.

On February 12, 2021, a little more than a year from its launch, the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar Orbiter caught sight of this coronal mass ejection, or CME. This view is from the mission’s SoloHI instrument — short for Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager — which watches the solar wind, dust, and cosmic rays that fill the space between the Sun and the planets.

It’s a brief, grainy view: Solar Orbiter’s remote sensing won’t enter full science mode until November. SoloHI used one of its four detectors at less than 15% of its normal cadence to reduce the amount of data acquired. Still, a keen eye can spot the sudden blast of particles, the CME, escaping the Sun, which is off camera to the upper right. The CME starts about halfway through the video as a bright burst – the dense leading edge of the CME – and drifts off screen to the left.

For SoloHI, catching this CME was a happy accident. At the time the eruption reached the spacecraft, Solar Orbiter had just passed behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective and was coming back around the other side. When the mission was being planned, the team wasn’t expecting to be able to record any data during that time.

“But since we planned this out, the ground stations and the technology have been upgraded,” said Robin Colaninno, principal investigator for SoloHI at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. “So we actually got more downlink time for the mission than what was originally scheduled.” So SoloHI winked on – and caught its first CME.

Two more imagers on Solar Orbiter – ESA’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager and Metis – also captured views of the CME. Read more for ESA’s coverage of the event.

NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft, short for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, also caught a glimpse from its COR2 detector, which blocks out the Sun’s bright disk to see otherwise faint phenomena in the solar wind.

Back on Earth, NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office modeled the CME to trace its trajectory through the solar system. The positions of Solar Orbiter, marked with a red diamond, and STEREO-A, a red square, reveal their different vantage points.

Enlil model of the CME observed by SoloHI

NASA spacecraft have been watching CMEs for decades, but Solar Orbiter is still a game-changer. “We’ve realized in the last 25 years that there’s a lot that happens to a CME between the surface of the Sun and Earth,” said Colaninno. “So we’re hoping to get much better resolution images of all of these outflows by being closer to the Sun.”

Solar Orbiter has already taken the closest picture of the Sun to date, and it will only get closer. Solar Orbiter’s official mission begins in November, when SoloHI and the rest of the remote-sensing instruments will be switched on in full science mode. Stay tuned!

By Miles Hatfield

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Last Updated: May 17, 2021

Editor: Miles Hatfield

#AceNewsDesk report ………Published: May.20: 2021:

Tags NASA, News, Solar

Ace Daily News

(NASA) Press Release Statement Report: On Monday, May 10, at 4:23 p.m. EDT the spacecraft fired its main engines full throttle for seven minutes – its most significant maneuver since it arrived at Bennu in 2018 #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 13/05/2021

#AceNewsReport – May.13: This burn thrust the spacecraft away from the asteroid at 600 miles per hour (nearly 1,000 kilometers per hour), setting it on a 2.5-year cruise towards Earth:

NASA: OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Heads for Earth with Asteroid Sample: After nearly five years in space ‘NASA’s Origins’ Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

NASA

After releasing the sample capsule, OSIRIS-REx will have completed its primary mission. It will fire its engines to fly by Earth safely, putting it on a trajectory to circle the sun inside of Venus’ orbit.

After orbiting the Sun twice, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is due to reach Earth Sept. 24, 2023. Upon return, the capsule containing pieces of Bennu will separate from the rest of the spacecraft and enter Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule will parachute to the Utah Test and Training Range in Utah’s West Desert, where scientists will be waiting to retrieve it.

“OSIRIS-REx’s many accomplishments demonstrated the daring and innovate way in which exploration unfolds in real time,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “The team rose to the challenge, and now we have a primordial piece of our solar system headed back to Earth where many generations of researchers can unlock its secrets.”

To realize the mission’s multi-year plan, a dozen navigation engineers made calculations and wrote computer code to instruct the spacecraft when and how to push itself away from Bennu. After departing from Bennu, getting the sample to Earth safely is the team’s next critical goal. This includes planning future maneuvers to keep the spacecraft on course throughout its journey.

“Our whole mindset has been, ‘Where are we in space relative to Bennu?’” said Mike Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Now our mindset has shifted to ‘Where is the spacecraft in relation to Earth?’”

The navigation cameras that helped orient the spacecraft in relation to Bennu were turned off April 9, after snapping their last images of the asteroid. With Bennu in the rearview mirror, engineers are using NASA’s Deep Space Network of global spacecraft communications facilities to steer the OSIRIS-REx by sending it radio signals. By measuring the frequency of the waves returned from the spacecraft transponder, engineers can tell how fast OSIRIS-REx is moving. Engineers measure how long it takes for radio signals to get from the spacecraft back to Earth in order to determine its location.

Exceeding Mission Expectations

The May 10 departure date was precisely timed based on the alignment of Bennu with Earth. The goal of the return maneuver is to get the spacecraft within about 6,000 miles (approximately 10,000 kilometers) of Earth in September 2023. Although OSIRIS-REx still has plenty of fuel remaining, the team is trying to preserve as much as possible for a potential extended mission to another asteroid after returning the sample capsule to Earth. The team will investigate the feasibility of such a mission this summer.

The spacecraft’s course will be determined mainly by the Sun’s gravity, but engineers will need to occasionally make small course adjustments via engine burns.

“We need to do regular corrections to bring the trajectory increasingly closer to Earth’s atmosphere for the sample release, and to account for small errors that might have accumulated since the last burn,” said Peter Antreasian, OSIRIS-REx navigation lead at KinetX Aerospace, which is based in Simi Valley, California.

The team will perform course adjustments a few weeks prior to Earth re-entry in order to precisely target the location and angle for the sample capsule’s release into Earth’s atmosphere. Coming in too low could cause the capsule to bounce out of the atmosphere like a pebble skipping off a lake; too high and the capsule could burn up due to friction and heat from the atmosphere. If OSIRIS-REx fails to release the capsule, the team has a backup plan to divert it away from Earth and try again in 2025.

“There’s a lot of emotion within the team about departure,” Moreau said. “I think everyone has a great sense of accomplishment, because we faced all these daunting tasks and were able to accomplish all the objectives thrown at us. But there’s also some nostalgia and disappointment that this part of the mission is coming to an end.”

OSIRIS-REx exceeded many expectations. Most recently, in the midst of a global pandemic, the team flawlessly executed the most mission’s critical operation, collecting more than 2 ounces (60 grams) of soil from Bennu’s surface.

Leading up to sample collection, a number of surprises kept the team on its toes. For example, a week after the spacecraft entered its first orbit around Bennu, on Dec. 31, 2018, the team realized that the asteroid was releasing small pieces of rock into space.

“We had to scramble to verify that the small particles being ejected from the surface did not present a hazard to the spacecraft,” Moreau said.

Upon arrival at the asteroid, team members also were astonished to find that Bennu is littered with boulders.

“We really had this idea that we were arriving on an asteroid with open real estate,” said Heather Enos, OSIRIS-REx deputy principal investigator, based at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “The reality was a big shocker.”

To overcome the extreme and unexpected ruggedness of Bennu’s surface, engineers had to quickly develop a more accurate navigation technique to target smaller-than-expected sites for sample collection.

The OSIRIS-REx mission was instrumental in both confirming and refuting several scientific findings. Among those confirmed was a technique that used observations from Earth to predict that the minerals on the asteroid would be carbon-rich and show signs of ancient water. One finding that proved unsuccessful was that Bennu would have a smooth surface, which scientists predicted by measuring how much heat radiated off its surface.

Scientists will use the information gleaned from Bennu to refine theoretical models and improve future predictions.

“This mission emphasizes why we have to do science and exploration in multiple ways – both from Earth and from up-close in space – because assumptions and models are just that,” Enos said.

Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate Washington.

For more information about OSIRIS-REx, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

-end-

Last Updated: May 10, 2021

Editor: Sean Potter

#AceNewsDesk report ……….Published: May.13: 2021:

Tags Headlines, NASA, News, Space

Ace Daily News World History & Research Reports

(NASA) Press Release Statement Report: Four astronauts splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, completing NASA’s first commercial crew, long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 03/05/2021

#AceNewReport – May.03: Welcome home Victor, Michael, Shannon, and Soichi, and congratulations to the teams at NASA and SpaceX who worked so hard to ensure their safe and successful splashdown,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, who was confirmed by the Senate to serve as NASA Administrator on April 29. “We’ve accomplished another incredible spaceflight for America and our commercial and international partners. Safe, reliable transportation to the International Space Station is exactly the vision that NASA had when the agency embarked on the commercial crew program.”

Crew-1 Astronauts Safely Splash Down After Space Station Mission: ‘The return comes nearly six months after the crew members arrived at the microgravity laboratory and also marks the longest-duration mission of a crewed American spacecraft to date’

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, carrying NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, returned to Earth in a parachute-assisted splashdown at 2:56 a.m. EDT off the coast of Panama City, Florida. Crews aboard SpaceX recovery vessels successfully recovered the spacecraft and astronauts. After returning to shore, the astronauts will fly back to Houston.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission launched Nov. 15, 2020, on a Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts named the spacecraft Resilience, in honor of their families, colleagues, and fellow citizens and highlighting the dedication displayed by the teams involved with the mission and demonstrating that there is no limit to what humans can achieve when they work together. Crew Dragon Resilience docked to the Harmony module’s forward port of the space station Nov. 16, nearly 27 hours after liftoff.

Overall, Hopkins, Glover, Walker, and Noguchi traveled 71,242,199 statute miles during their 168 days in orbit (with 167 days aboard the space station), completing 2,688 orbits around Earth. With splashdown, the crew also broke the American crewed spacecraft mission duration record of 84 days, 1 hour, 15 minutes, set by the final Skylab crew in February 1974.

Crew-1 also is the first night splashdown of a U.S. crewed spacecraft since Apollo 8’s predawn return in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 27, 1968, with NASA astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.

Throughout their mission, the Crew-1 astronauts contributed to scientific investigations and technology demonstrations, in addition to spacewalks and public engagement events, while aboard the orbiting laboratory. From studying protein crystal development to advance new drug discoveries, to demonstrating robotic assistant technologies, their work advances exploration of the universe while bringing benefits back to Earth.

They also grew crops in both the Advanced Plant Habitat and Veggie plant growth facilities, and conducted tests of a new method for producing semiconductor crystals. The astronauts contributed hundreds of pictures of Earth as part of the Crew Earth Observation investigation, one of the longest-running investigations aboard the space station, which contributes to tracking of natural disasters and changes to our home planet. The crew also tested a new tape dispenser, designed and produced by students as part of the High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH), during the mission.

In early 2021, the Crew-1 astronauts had significant roles to play in five spacewalks outside the orbiting laboratory. Glover completed his first four spacewalks, including three alongside Hopkins, whose total number of spacewalks is now five. Noguchi joined NASA’s Kate Rubins on the fourth spacewalk of each of their careers. During the spacewalks, the astronauts connected cables on the recently installed Bartolomeo science platform, prepared the station for upcoming solar array upgrades, serviced the station’s cooling system, and completed other station maintenance tasks.

On April 5, all four Crew-1 astronauts boarded Resilience for a port relocation maneuver, moving their spacecraft from the forward-facing port to the space-facing port on the Harmony module. The move allowed for the forward-facing port to receive four Crew-2 astronauts upon their arrival to the station April 24. Later this year, SpaceX’s 22nd Commercial Resupply Services mission is scheduled to dock at the newly vacant zenith port, bringing with it the first pair of new solar arrays.

The Crew-1 flight is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which has worked with the U.S. aerospace industry to launch astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil to the space station.

The second splashdown of the Commercial Crew Program comes just over one week after the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, the second long-duration mission. The Crew-2 astronauts launched April 23 and will live and work aboard the station until their return to Earth in about six months.

Resilience will return to SpaceX’s Dragon Lair in Florida for inspection and processing. There, teams will examine the spacecraft’s data and performance throughout the flight. The next NASA and SpaceX crewed mission is Crew-3, currently targeted for launch no earlier than Oct. 23. Crew-2 astronauts are scheduled to return to Earth Oct. 31, about a week after welcoming their Crew-3 colleagues to the orbiting outpost.

The goal of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station. This has already been proven to provide additional research time and increase the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity’s testbed for exploration, including helping us prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

Learn more about NASA’s Commercial Crew program at: https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

-end-

Last Updated: May 2, 2021

Editor: Karen Northon

#AceNewsDesk report ……Published: May.03: 2021:

@acenewsservices

Tags American History, NASA

Ace Daily News

(NASA) Artemis Report: In the 18 months accepting a bold challenge to accelerate its exploration plans by more than four years and establish sustainable exploration by the end of the decade, the agency has continued to gain momentum toward sending humans to the Moon again for the first time since the last Apollo lunar mission in 1972 #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 28/04/2021

#AceNewsReport – Apr.28: With bipartisan support from Congress, our 21st century push to the Moon is well within America’s reach,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “As we’ve solidified more of our exploration plans in recent months, we’ve continued to refine our budget and architecture. We’re going back to the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiration for a new a generation of explorers. As we build up a sustainable presence, we’re also building momentum toward those first human steps on the Red Planet.”

NASA Publishes Artemis Plan to Land First Woman, Next Man on Moon: ‘Following a series of critical contract awards and hardware milestones and has shared an update on its Artemis program, including the latest Phase 1 plans to land the first woman and the next man on the surface of the Moon in 2024’

In its formal plan, NASA captures Artemis progress to date, identifying the key science, technology and human missions, as well as the commercial and international partnerships that will ensure we continue to lead in exploration and achieve our ambitious goal to land astronauts on the Moon.

The agency’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and the Orion spacecraft are closer than ever to their first integrated launch. The spacecraft is complete while the core stage and its attached four engines are undergoing a final series of tests that will culminate in a critical hot fire test this fall.

Early Artemis Missions

Following a successful hot fire test, the core stage will be shipped to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for integration with the spacecraft. NASA will launch an SLS and an Orion together on two flight tests around the Moon to check performance, life support, and communication capabilities. The first mission – known as Artemis I – is on track for 2021 without astronauts, and Artemis II will fly with crew in 2023.

In the Phase 1 plan, NASA notes additional details about conducting a new test during the Artemis II mission – a proximity operations demonstration. Shortly after Orion separates from the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, astronauts will manually pilot Orion as they approach and back away from the stage. This demonstration will assess Orion’s handling qualities and related hardware and software to provide performance data and operational experience that cannot be readily gained on the ground in preparation for rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking, as well as undocking operations in lunar orbit beginning on Artemis III.

While preparing for and carrying out these flight test missions, NASA already will be back on the Moon robotically – using commercial delivery services to send dozens of new science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon twice per year beginning in 2021.

In 2024, Artemis III will be humanity’s return to the surface of the Moon – landing the first astronauts on the lunar South Pole. After launching on SLS, astronauts will travel about 240,000 miles to lunar orbit aboard Orion, at which point they will directly board one of the new commercial human landing systems, or dock to the Gateway to inspect it and gather supplies before boarding the landing system for their expedition to the surface.

Wearing modern spacesuits that allow for greater flexibility and movement than those of their Apollo predecessors, astronauts will collect samples and conduct a range of science experiments over the course of nearly seven days. Using the lander, they will return to lunar orbit before ultimately heading home to Earth aboard Orion.

Work is progressing rapidly on the Gateway. NASA will integrate the first two components to launch – the power and propulsion element and the habitation and logistics outpost – in 2023. This foundation for the Gateway will be able to operate autonomously, conducting remote science experiments when astronauts are not aboard. NASA has selected the first two science instrument suites to conduct space weather investigations in lunar orbit before crew visits.

While NASA has not made a final decision to use the Gateway for Artemis III, Artemis IV and beyond will send crew aboard Orion to dock to the Gateway, where two crew members can stay aboard the spaceship in orbit while two go to the surface. Over time, the outpost will evolve, with new modules added by international partners, allowing crew members to conduct increasingly longer lunar missions.

As detailed in the agency’s concept for surface sustainability earlier this year, an incremental buildup of infrastructure on the surface will follow later this decade, allowing for longer surface expeditions with more crew. That concept calls for an Artemis Base Camp that would include new rovers, power systems, habitats, and more on the surface for long-term exploration of the Moon.

Throughout the Artemis program, robots and humans will search for, and potentially extract, resources such as water that can be converted into other usable resources, including oxygen and fuel. By fine-tuning precision landing technologies as well as developing new mobility capabilities, astronauts will travel farther distances and explore new regions of the Moon.

Learn more about NASA’s Artemis program at:

www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Last Updated: Jan 4, 2021: Editor: Sean Potter

#AceNewsDesk report ……….Published: Apr.28: 2021:

Tags American History, NASA, Spaceflight

Global Warming & Climate Change

(NASA) #ClimateChange Report: They do not just collect the data but are using it to monitor the impact of human beings impact on earths resources, sea levels and weather patterns #AceNewsDesk report

Post author By @ace101
Post date 25/04/2021

#AceNewsReport – Apr.25: NASA is responsible for collecting much of the data that people use to explain humanity’s environmental impact on Earth, from documenting climate change and its impacts on ice, sea level and weather patterns, to monitoring the health of forests and the movement of freshwater.

NASA On a Changing Planet & Going Green across the United States that are each working toward becoming more sustainable workplaces. Across 47 million square feet and 5,000 buildings, it works to fulfill its mission of revealing the unknown while lessening its demand on the planet’s resources

Sandhill cranes are photographed in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center.

“NASA is a scientific leader, globally and nationally,” said Denise Thaller, director of NASA’s Environmental Management Division. “We embody that focus on the stewardship of the Earth, so we need to lead by example. We need to evaluate everything we do and make sure we’re reducing our impacts on the Earth while we study the Earth.”

Each year, the agency reports its progress in several key sustainability efforts.

Energy Efficiency

NASA’s energy intensity continued its downward trend in fiscal year 2019 (Oct. 1, 2018, through Sept. 30, 2019), the most recent year with externally published data available. Energy intensity refers to the amount of energy used to enable NASA’s mission — using less energy reduces energy intensity. Intensity can be reduced through a number of methods, such as installing LED lighting upgrades, which was completed in 2019 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Stennis Space Center in Stennis, Mississippi. These projects and others are projected to save 51 billion British thermal units (Btu) annually; that’s enough energy to power more than 1,400 single-family homes.

NASA has made significant progress on reducing water intensity too, a similar metric measuring of how much potable water is used to accomplish NASA’s mission.

Renewable energy made up just over 13% of NASA’s total electricity use in fiscal year 2019. Much of the percentage stemmed from purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates, or credits that represent a certain amount of renewable energy that is produced elsewhere. In addition, on-site renewable energy continues to increase. For example, as part of 58 renewable energy projects across 10 centers, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, installed rooftop solar panels in fiscal year 2019, adding to the other 56 on-site renewable energy projects NASA has implemented across 15 centers.

NASA also kicked off three long-term initiatives meant to reduce energy consumption and cost. First, NASA initiated an agency-wide campaign to increase sustainability awareness among employees. Second, the agency began piloting the Department of Energy 50001 Ready program, which requires NASA to continually improve energy management with quantifiable results. Third, NASA has identified significant energy users among the approximately 40% of its facilities that aren’t currently included within federal energy reduction goals because of their unique mission applications. These users include facilities like wind tunnels, and NASA has begun prioritizing efficiency investments to improve their sustainable infrastructure.

Infrastructure

“Our aging infrastructure costs a lot to maintain,” Thaller said. “One of the strategies is to renew by replacement. You have the opportunity to reduce your footprint not only by building a more sustainable building, but by building in energy efficiency, water efficiency, and how you optimize your square footage.”

Almost 20% of NASA buildings are considered sustainable, and the agency’s goal was to reach 25% in fiscal year 2020.

All new NASA facilities must meet specific federal requirements for sustainability, and receive at least a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver certification, a globally recognized mark of sustainable buildings. One of NASA’s new sustainable facilities is the Human and Health Performance Laboratory at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is designed to use the building’s orientation to help reduce solar glare and temperature rise within a space.

For current facilities, maintenance and upgrades are key. For example, multi-phase improvements to the Central Engineering Building at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, earned it a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Operations and Maintenance Gold Certification.

Old and inefficient buildings are phased out of use and torn down, as NASA has already done to 1.5 million square feet of property.

All of these methods support NASA’s “Reduce the Footprint” program, which aims to reduce the agency’s square footage by 25% to 30%.

Waste

Construction and demolition materials and refuse are two of the biggest sources of non-hazardous waste at NASA. In fiscal year 2019, NASA diverted 56% of its generated refuse, and 89% of its construction waste, from going straight into the landfill, which can reduce pollution, save money, and conserve energy and natural resources.

This does not include hazardous material, which has its own proper disposal methods.

Of the diverted refuse, 73% of it was recycled, 19% reused and the remaining 8% donated, composted or sent for energy recovery. Kennedy Space Center, for example, recycled over 7,000 pounds of refrigerant, generating revenue that in turn funded other recycling initiatives.

Composted waste includes yard trimmings, food waste and biodegradable food storage containers, said Shannah Trout, a member of the Agency Recycling and Sustainable Acquisition team. NASA prevented sending more than 2 million pounds of compostable items to the landfill in fiscal year 2019.

Adapting to a Changing World

Fewer people were at NASA centers during 2020 due to the pandemic, which led to less waste and less energy consumption. However, the reductions were less extreme than people might think. For example, buildings still ran HVAC equipment to maintain low moisture to prevent mold growth. And when mission-critical employees returned to work onsite, HVAC systems were required to run more often to provide more air changes to minimize risk of virus transmission.

Regardless of the unique circumstances created by the pandemic, in the coming years NASA plans to provide more data regarding its sustainability performance. It especially wants to reduce energy use in its most energy-intensive facilities and acquire energy-efficient equipment.

Thaller said there are two primary directives in progress on the agency level: creating a culture of sustainability and improving energy and water conservation. In addition, the president’s administration requires all agencies to create a climate action plan to help address climate change. NASA is already working on addressing climate change effects at their facilities, especially coastal launch ranges.