Apr 15 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-109 - NASA-FUNDED ASTEROID TRACKING SENSOR PASSES KEY TEST --PASADENA, Calif. -- An infrared sensor that could improve NASA's future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test. The test assessed performance of the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of deep space. NEOCam is the cornerstone instrument for a proposed new space-based asteroid-hunting telescope. Details of the sensor's design and capabilities are published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Optical Engineering. The sensor could be a vital component to inform plans for the agency's recently announced initiative to develop the first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid closer to Earth for future exploration by astronauts. This sensor represents one of many investments made by NASA's Discovery Program and its Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program in innovative technologies to significantly improve future missions designed to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids, said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office in Washington. Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 28 million miles of Earth's path around the sun. Asteroids do not emit visible light, they reflect it. Depending on how reflective an object is, a small, light-colored space rock can look the same as a big, dark one. As a result, data collected with optical telescopes using visible light can be deceiving. Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population, said Amy Mainzer, a co-author of the paper and principal investigator for NASA's NEOWISE mission at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. NEOWISE stands for Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's size, as well as tell you something about composition." The NEOCam sensor is designed to be more reliable and significantly lighter in weight for launching aboard space-based telescopes. Once launched, the proposed telescope would be located about four times the distance between Earth and the moon where NEOCam could observe the comings and goings of NEOs every day without the impediments of cloud cover and daylight. The sensor is the culmination of almost 10 years of scientific collaboration between JPL; the University of Rochester, which facilitated the test; and Teledyne Imaging Sensors of Camarillo, Calif., which developed the sensor. We were delighted to see in this generation of detectors a vast improvement in sensitivity compared with previous generations, said the paper's lead author, Craig McMurtry of the University of Rochester. NASA's NEOWISE is an enhancement of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mission that launched in December 2009. WISE scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light twice. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets close to Earth. NEOWISE completed its survey of small bodies, asteroids and comets, in our solar system. The mission's discoveries of previously unknown objects include 21 comets, more than 34,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and134 near-NEOs. JPL manages the NEOCam sensor program for NASA's Discovery Program office at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington manages the Discovery Program office. The Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program at NASA Headquarters also provided funding for the sensor.

RELEASE: 13-110 - NASA MARKS THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF OBAMA SUPPORT OF SPACE AT KENNEDY --CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA marked the third anniversary Monday of President Obama's speech at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where he laid out a plan to ensure the United States will remain the world's leader in space exploration. Obama's plan includes reaching new destinations, such as an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s, using NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft. During an anniversary event at Kennedy's Operations and Checkout Building, where Orion spacecraft is being processed for a 2014 flight test, Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana and human spaceflight officials showcased Orion's crew module. Three years ago today, the president was here in an empty high bay challenging us to go to an asteroid by 2025, said Cabana. Today, this is a world-class production facility with a flight article, a flight vehicle, Orion, getting ready to fly next year. We've made tremendous progress in our transition to the future. And now with the announcement from the budget rollout last week about our plans to retrieve an asteroid and send a crew to it, we're moving forward to meet the president's challenge." Following the president's 2010 visit to Kennedy, Congress passed the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010. The agency continues to implement the ambitious national space exploration plan outlined in the act. It will enable scientific discovery and technological developments for years to come and make critical advances in aerospace and aeronautics to benefit the American people. I am very proud of the progress the NASA team has made over the past three years to meet the President's challenge, aligning our capabilities in human spaceflight, technology and science to capture an asteroid, relocate it and send astronauts to explore it, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a statement. "The president's budget for next year advances a strategic plan for the future that builds on U.S. preeminence in science and technology, improves life on Earth and protects our home planet, while creating well-paying jobs and strengthening the American economy." The 2014 flight test will be the first launch of Orion. NASA also is progressing toward a launch of Orion on top of the SLS rocket during a 2017 flight test. SLS is essential to America's future in human spaceflight and scientific exploration of deep space. It will take humans beyond Earth orbit to an asteroid and Mars. Ground systems development and operations to support launches of SLS and Orion from Kennedy also are well into development. The SLS Program is on track to complete the rocket's preliminary design review this summer. The tools needed to build SLS's massive structure and fuel tanks are being installed at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The process will include one of the largest welding tools ever built. In addition, the agency is working with the private sector to develop a strong commercial capability to deliver cargo and crew to low-Earth orbit. The Boeing Co. of Houston plans to use a former space shuttle hangar at Kennedy to process its CST-100 vehicle, one of several spacecraft in development for commercial providers to take astronauts to low-Earth orbit from American soil in the next four years. The agency continues to develop technologies for traveling farther into space, such as solar electric propulsion, which will power a mission to capture an asteroid and return it to an orbit nearer to Earth. Then astronauts will launch from Kennedy aboard an SLS rocket and fly to the asteroid to study it in an Orion spacecraft by as early as 2021.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-062 - NASA HOSTS MEDIA BRIEFING TO DISCUSS KEPLER PLANETARY DISCOVERY --WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT, Thursday, April 18, to announce new discoveries from the agency's Kepler mission. The briefing will be held in the Syvertson Auditorium, Building N-201, at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and be broadcast live on NASA Television and on the agency's website. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope is detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help us better understand our place in the galaxy.