Apr 17 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-118 NASA'S SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM RECEIVES SPACE FOUNDATION AWARD

WASHINGTON -- NASA's social media team has received the Space Foundation's Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award, which is presented annually to an individual, team or organization that has made significant contributions to public awareness and understanding of space programs. The award was presented on Monday, April 16, during the opening ceremony of the 28th National Space Symposium at The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo. The NASA social media team was selected for creative and pioneering use of social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, actively engaging millions of people around the world and inspiring followers while in orbit. "NASA's social media team works to tell our story using innovative platforms to let as many people as possible learn about the work we're doing in space exploration and aeronautics research," said David Weaver, associate administrator for Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The Space Foundation's recognition is another testament to the team's success." Former NASA astronaut Eileen Collins received the award in 2007, the STS-95 space shuttle crew was honored in 1998 and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was recognized in 1997. NASA uses a host of social media sites to communicate its mission to followers around the world. NASA Socials, formerly known as NASA Tweetups, allow social media followers to attend functions and interact with NASA engineers and scientists. The @NASA Twitter account has surpassed 2 million followers, and NASA maintains a presence on Facebook, Google+, Flickr and other popular platforms. -end-

RELEASE: 12-119 NASA CONTINUES ORION PARACHUTE TESTING FOR FUTURE TEST FLIGHT

HOUSTON -- NASA today successfully conducted a drop test of the Orion crew vehicle's entry, descent and landing parachutes high above the Arizona desert in preparation for the vehicle's orbital flight test, Exploration Flight Test -1, in 2014. Orion will carry astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a safe re-entry and landing. A C-130 plane dropped a dart-shaped test vehicle with a simulated Orion parachute compartment from an altitude of 25,000 feet above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Orion's drogue chutes were deployed at 20,000 feet, followed by the pilot parachutes, which then deployed the main landing parachutes. The test vehicle landed on the desert floor at a speed of almost 25 feet per second, well below the maximum designed touchdown speed of the spacecraft. This particular drop test had two primary objectives. The first determined how the entire system would respond if one of the three main parachutes inflated too quickly, which occurs if a reefing stage, which helps the parachutes open gradually, is skipped. The second objective was to validate the drogue parachute design by testing at a high dynamic pressure that closely mimicked the environments expected for Exploration Flight Test-1. This test flight, scheduled for 2014, is designed to test a number of Orion's systems, including the avionics, navigation and thermal protection systems and will send Orion more than 3,000 miles into space. Since 2007, the Orion program has conducted a vigorous parachute air and ground test program and provided the chutes for NASA's successful pad abort test in 2010. The tests improve understanding about the chutes' technical performance for eventual human-rated certification. The next parachute test will be conducted this summer. ??-

RELEASE: 12-120 NASA DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR GARVER SPEAKS ABOUT NASA'S FUTURE AT DISCOVERY ARRIVAL

WASHINGTON -- "Following are excerpts from remarks given by NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver at the arrival of the space shuttle Discovery at Dulles International Airport on Tuesday, April 17: "Discovery was the longest-serving veteran of NASA's space shuttle fleet. Her maiden voyage was in 1984. She flew 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited Earth 5,830 times and traveled 148,221,675 miles." "The space shuttles' 30-year history literally changed the world. Their greatest accomplishment and purpose, now complete, was the launch and construction of the ISS -- our science laboratory in space and our foothold to the rest of the solar system. Like all great accomplishments, these achievements came at a cost. When we lost the Challenger and Columbia flights and their brave crews, we re-dedicated ourselves to an even more meaningful and exciting future." "Today, NASA is following through on this commitment by building on the successes of the past and learning from our failures. President Obama has set us on a course that will tap into the innovative spirit that has made this nation great. It will allow us to more fully utilize the ISS and explore farther than ever before -- to an asteroid and on to Mars. This shift will permit us to advance our technology, open new markets and create more American jobs, making our aerospace industry even more competitive and increasing our economic and national security." "To those who say our best exploration days are behind us, I must disagree. While it is wonderful to reminisce about the past, NASA continues to focus on the future. You need only admire the amazing space shuttles and their accomplishments to realize the people, organizations and nation that created them have only just begun. Vehicles with names like Orion, Dragon and Dreamchaser are being built all across the country today. They will continue and expand on the space shuttle's many accomplishments." "It is an honor to deliver Discovery to the Smithsonian today to share this national treasure with the nation -- telling not only the stories of the past, but ushering in the promise of the future." -end-

RELEASE: 12-114 NASA SELECTS SCIENCE INSTRUMENT UPGRADE FOR FLYING OBSERVATORY

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected a science instrument upgrade to the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) airborne observatory. The instrument, the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera (HAWC), will provide a sensitive, versatile and reliable imaging capability to the SOFIA user community. The upgrade involves two proposals that will allow the observatory to measure the structure and strength of magnetic fields in diverse objects throughout the universe, such as star-forming clouds and galaxies. This will help astronomers better understand how stars, planets and galaxies form and evolve. SOFIA is a highly modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that carries a telescope with a 100-inch (2.5-meter) diameter reflecting mirror that conducts astronomy research not possible with ground-based telescopes. By operating in the stratosphere at altitudes up to 45,000 feet, SOFIA can make observations above the water vapor in Earth's lower atmosphere. "SOFIA has the ability to become a world-class airborne observatory that complements the Hubble, Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's Science Mission Directorate associate administrator. "This upgrade will greatly broaden SOFIA's capabilities." Last August, the agency released an Announcement of Opportunity for SOFIA second-generation instrument investigations and received 11 proposals. The selected proposals were judged to have the best science value and feasible development plans. The selected proposals are: -- The High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera Polarization (HAWC-Pol), Charles Dowell, principal investigator, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. This investigation upgrades the HAWC instrument to include the capability to make polarimetric observations at far-infrared wavelengths. The investigation's main goals are to measure the magnetic field in the interstellar medium, star forming regions and the center of the Milky Way. -- HAWC++, Johannes Staguhn, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. This investigation will provide a sensitive, large-format detector array to the HAWC-Pol investigation, increasing its observing efficiency and providing a broader range of targets. SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center and is based and managed at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., manages the SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association, headquartered in Columbia, Md., and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart.

RELEASE: 12-117 HUBBLE'S 22ND ANNIVERSARY IMAGE SHOWS TURBULENT STAR-MAKING REGION

WASHINGTON -- Several million young stars are vying for attention in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a raucous stellar breeding ground in 30 Doradus, a star-forming complex located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula. The new image comprises one of the largest mosaics ever assembled from Hubble photos and includes observations taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore released the image today in celebration of Hubble's 22nd anniversary. "Hubble is the world's premiere science instrument for making celestial observations, which allow us to unravel the mysteries of the universe," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington and three-time Hubble repair astronaut. "In recognition of Hubble's 22nd birthday, the new image of the 30 Doradus region, the birth place for new stars, is more than a fitting anniversary image." 30 Doradus is the brightest star-forming region in our galactic neighborhood and home to the most massive stars ever seen. The nebula is 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. No known star-forming region in our galaxy is as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Collectively, the stars in the image are millions of times more massive than our sun. The image is roughly 650 light-years across and contains some rambunctious stars, including one of the fastest rotating stars and the highest velocity stars ever observed by astronomers. The nebula is close enough to Earth that Hubble can resolve individual stars, giving astronomers important information about the stars' birth and evolution. Many small galaxies have more spectacular starbursts, but the Large Magellanic Cloud's 30 Doradus is one of the only star-forming regions that astronomers can study in detail. The star-birthing frenzy in 30 Doradus may be fueled partly by its close proximity to its companion galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. The image reveals the stages of star birth, from embryonic stars a few thousand years old and still wrapped in cocoons of dark gas, to behemoths that die young in supernova explosions. 30 Doradus churns out stars at a furious pace over millions of years. Hubble shows star clusters of various ages, from about 2 million to 25 million years old. The region's sparkling centerpiece is a giant, young star cluster named NGC 2070, only 2 million to 3 million years old. Its stellar inhabitants number roughly 500,000. The cluster is a hotbed for young, massive stars. Its dense core, known as R136, is packed with some of the heftiest stars found in the nearby universe, weighing more than 100 times the mass of our sun. The massive stars are carving deep cavities in the surrounding material by unleashing a torrent of ultraviolet light, which is winnowing away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud in which the stars were born. The image reveals a fantastic landscape of pillars, ridges and valleys. Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, the brilliant stars may be triggering a successive generation of offspring. When the ultraviolet radiation hits dense walls of gas, it creates shocks, which may generate a new wave of star birth. The image was made using 30 separate fields, 15 from each camera. Both cameras made these observations simultaneously in October 2011. The colors in the image represent the hot gas that dominates regions of the image. Red signifies hydrogen gas and blue represents oxygen. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. STScI conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington. -end-