Apr 29 2016
From The Space Library
RELEASE M16-048 NASA’s Juno Mission on Course for July 4 Arrival at Jupiter, Media Accreditation Open
Media accreditation now is open for events around the arrival of NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter on July 4. The spacecraft, which will reveal the story of the formation and evolution of the planet Jupiter, will enter into orbit around the gas giant that evening, five years after leaving Earth.
The event and related news conferences will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website. Further details and updates will be announced as they become available.
To cover Juno arrival events at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, media can begin the process of applying for credentials by sending all of the following information to: jplmediacredentials@jpl.nasa.gov.
- Your name (as spelled on your driver’s license with middle name), title, phone number and work email
- Country of citizenship
- If not a U.S. citizen, are you a green card holder?
- Media outlet name, address, phone number, and website
- Editor's name, phone number and work email
To allow time for processing and approval, foreign nationals and representatives of foreign media outlets must apply by May 11. U.S. citizens and green card holders representing U.S. media outlets must apply by June 2. For more information about media accreditation, contact Elena Mejia at 818-354-1712 or elena.mejia@jpl.nasa.gov.
Media should confirm they have been credentialed before making travel arrangements. Credentialed media will have access to interview, photo and b-roll opportunities, and media briefings before and after spacecraft orbital insertion. The JPL Juno newsroom will open on June 30.
Juno will make two 53-day elliptical laps around Jupiter, before beginning the mission's science phase. At that point, the spacecraft will begin orbiting the Jovian world every 14 days, from a distance as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers). It will peer beneath Jupiter's cloud tops to learn about the planet's origins, composition and magnetosphere. Jupiter lies in the harshest radiation environment in our solar system, so this particular spacecraft orbit insertion will mark a new achievement in planetary exploration.
JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. The principal investigator for the mission is Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, in Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
MEDIA ADVISORY M16-047 Sen. Mikulski, NASA Administrator Bolden to View Progress at Wallops Flight Facility
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia will host Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and agency Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday, May 3, for an employee town hall and tour. The tour will include a stop at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad 0A, where preparations are underway to conduct a hot fire test of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket in preparation for returning the rocket to flight operations this summer.
Media are invited to join the launch pad visit, employee town hall, and brief media question and answer session at the end. For accreditation, media must contact Wallops News Chief Keith Koehler at 757-824-1579 or keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov no later than 3 p.m. EDT Monday, May 2. Media must arrive at Wallops by 10 a.m. for the tour.
Mikulski and Bolden will be joined by William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters, Chris Scolese, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, Wallops Director Bill Wrobel, and others.
Dale Nash, executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, will lead the tour of Pad 0A, which provides NASA the capability to launch Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft on resupply missions to the International Space Station. A medium-class launch facility completed in 2012, it was the result of a joint effort among NASA, the Commonwealth of Virginia through Virginia Space, and Orbital ATK.
SOFIA Now Accepting Observing Proposals
The Science Center for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, is now accepting proposals for observing flights from February 2017 to January 2018.
The observatory’s position, above more than 99% of the water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere, and its suite of seven highly-specialized instruments, make it ideally suited for use in studying a variety of astronomical objects and phenomena including:
- The life cycle of stars
- Formation of new solar systems
- Black holes at the center of galaxies
- Planets, comets, and asteroids in our solar system
- Complex molecules in space identification
- Nebulae and interstellar dust
As a partnership between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, there are approximately 476 hours of observing time available through the SOFIA Science Center and approximately 84 hours available through the DLR. U.S. and German review panels made of experts from the scientific community will evaluate the scientific merits of submitted proposals.
Details and proposal guidelines are available: [[1]]
SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 100-inch diameter telescope. It is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the SOFIA program, science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft is based at
Kassandra Bell SOFIA Science Center, NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Student-Built Robot Challenge Comes to NASA Ames
More than 100 students battled each other on April 16, 2016 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley in the annual Northern California Regional Botball Tournament, a middle and high school competition, which relies entirely on brains and not brawn.
Eighteen teams from schools as far north as Middletown, California, to as far south as San Jose brought robots they built by hand, with minimal tools, over a seven-week period.
Inspired by the film “The Martian,” this year teams were encouraged to build two autonomous robots that can work alongside others to survive while stranded on Mars. The students had to design, build and program robots that potentially could help to build a habitat in a crater on the Red Planet.
The teams used components from Botball kits, including, a robotic vacuum cleaner, plastic game pieces, compatible metal parts, motors and servomechanisms, which are automatic error-sensing devices. Two cameras aid the built-in computer vision system. No remote controls are allowed. Rules required the robots to rely on computer programming to control movement and sensors to detect light, color, parameters and distance. Each team has a coach, like Biswa Ghosh of “Los Altos Robotics” whose two sons have competed in Botball tournaments. But Ghosh, an electrical engineer, said his participation with kids on the team was limited.
“The Botball philosophy is ‘They do all of the work’,” he said. “It’s amazing, by not telling them what to do, what they come up with. They do things where I say ‘that’s not gonna work.’ But they make it work. They have innovative ways to figure things out.” By working to get their robot to operate and documenting their efforts to design, build and program it, the students end up learning science, engineering, technology, math and writing skills.
“When you’re working on it and, for some reason, it doesn’t work, you get all down and sad,” said a 13-year-old girl from Los Altos, California. “We never gave up. We put on music and kept going. It kept crashing into things. It’s a disobedient child.”
“It used to work perfectly,” said a middle school team member, after witnessing her team’s robot meltdown during the first round. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.”
A freshman from San Mateo County, California said, “Most people always say you should do a sport. But I say, ‘Life is a sport’.”
Several students said the hard work and long hours helped strong friendships evolve. “They do something real and meaningful, and you can measure the output,” said Stephen McInerney, a data scientist who coaches a Botball team. “They develop skills that they couldn’t if they were just studying for a test.”
While some of the kids are learning to write computer-programming code, others specialize in building the robots and some are the ones who hold the team together, in terms of spirit and attitude. “It helps them develop socially. It’s not just about robotics,” McInerney said. “You don’t spoon feed them when you see them making a mistake. It makes me proud. It’s a testament to their hard work. I’m happy that I can participate.”
Terry Grant, Botball’s Northern California coordinator and retired Ames electrical engineer, helped to bring the tournament to the center in 1998. “I got involved because I was looking ahead for something meaningful to transition to after retirement,” Grant said. “I couldn’t think of anything that had the same impact.” He said, over the years, he has witnessed transformations. He has seen students, who were on the verge of dropping out of school choose to go on to college, and shy kids, who have trouble making friends, blossom into team leaders.
“Los Altos Community” is the team that cleaned up at the tournament, ranking number one overall, as well as earning the top scores in the double elimination, seeding and alliance challenge rounds. “Hillsdale High School Robotics” took home the Judge’s Choice and outstanding documentation trophies.
Grant said a new team from Paramount Collegiate Academy, a charter school in Sacramento, wore t-shirts to the tournament that had the phrase “Teach Thought” across the front of them. Ultimately, he said, those words exemplify the true mission of Botball.
