Aug 27 2012

From The Space Library

CONTRACT RELEASE: C12-045 NASA SELECTS SPACE AND EARTH SCIENCE DATA ANALYSIS CONTRACT

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected ADNET Systems Inc. of Rockville, Md., to provide a broad range of services to support Earth and space science research and development at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This is a cost-plus fixed-fee contract with a total estimated value of $249 million, which includes one base year and four one-year options to extend performance. The basic period of performance is from October 1, 2012 - September 30, 2013. The contractor will provide a broad range of services, including data operations, information system technologies, engineering, and education and public outreach for Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate. The primary work will be performed at Goddard.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-161 ASTRONAUTS CALL OHIO STUDENTS FROM SPACE STATION

WASHINGTON -- Students at Wickliffe Progressive Community School in Upper Arlington, Ohio, will speak with Expedition 32 flight engineer Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station at 11:05 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, Aug. 28. Media representatives are invited to attend the event. Students will ask NASA's Williams questions about life, work and research aboard the orbiting space station. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television. NASA activities have been incorporated into classes at the school in preparation for the conversation with Williams. Wickliffe uses learning practices that are grounded in experiential and integrated curricular activities and lessons. Linking Wickliffe directly to the space station astronaut will provide students with an authentic, live experience of space exploration, space study, and the scientific components of space travel and possibilities of life in space. Williams, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, arrived at the space station July 17. This in-flight education downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States and abroad to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space education program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-162 NASA, NSIDC TO HOLD MEDIA TELECONFERENCE ON ARCTIC SEA ICE RECORD LOW

GREENBELT, Md. -- The extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk. According to scientists from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., the amount is the smallest size ever observed in the three decades since consistent satellite observations of the polar cap began. NASA and NSIDC scientists will host a media teleconference at 3 p.m. EDT, today, to discuss this new record low for summertime Arctic sea ice cover. The extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, as measured by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager on the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft and analyzed by NASA and NSIDC scientists, was 1.58 million square miles (4.10 million square kilometers), or 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) below the Sept. 18, 2007, daily extent of 1.61 million square miles (4.17 million square kilometers). The sea ice cap naturally grows during the cold Arctic winters and shrinks when temperatures climb in the spring and summer. But over the last three decades, satellites have observed a 13 percent decline per decade in the minimum summertime extent of the sea ice. The thickness of the sea ice cover also continues to decline. "The persistent loss of perennial ice cover -- ice that survives the melt season -- led to this year's record summertime retreat," said Joey Comiso, senior research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Unlike 2007, temperatures were not unusually warm in the Arctic this summer." The new record was reached before the end of the melt season in the Arctic, which usually takes place in mid- to late-September. Scientists expect to see an even larger loss of sea ice in the coming weeks. "In 2007, it was actually much warmer," Comiso said. "We are losing the thick component of the ice cover. And if you lose the thick component of the ice cover, the ice in the summer becomes very vulnerable." "By itself it's just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set," NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier said about the new record. "But in the context of what's happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it's an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing." The panelists for the briefing are: -- Joey Comiso, senior research scientist, Goddard -- Walt Meier, research scientist, NSDIC

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-163 NASA HOSTS SOCIAL MEDIA EVENT TO WELCOME ENDEAVOUR TO CALIFORNIA

WASHINGTON -- To welcome space shuttle Endeavour to Southern California, NASA is inviting 40 of its social media followers to a NASA Social Sept. 19-20 at the agency's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. Parts of the social will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website. Endeavour is expected to land at Dryden on Sept. 19 and depart Sept. 20 for Los Angeles International Airport, where it will remain in a hangar until its transfer in October to a permanent home at the California Science Center. During the two-day event, people who engage with NASA through Twitter, Facebook and Google+ will have a rare opportunity to see the landing and departure of Endeavour as it rides piggyback on NASA's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Participants also will speak with experts, tour shuttle support vehicles and other NASA aircraft, and interact with fellow NASA social media followers, space enthusiasts and members of NASA's social media team. The NASA Social registration opens at noon EDT, Tuesday, Aug. 28, and closes at noon EDT, Thursday, Aug. 30. Forty participants will be selected randomly from online registrations. Because of space limitations, those selected to attend may not bring a guest. Each participant must be a U.S. citizen age 18 or older.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-164 NASA OPENS MEDIA ACCREDITATION FOR SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR DEPARTURE

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Media accreditation is open for activities surrounding space shuttle Endeavour's departure from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida Sept. 17. Endeavour will be transported atop the NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified 747 jet, and land at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Sept. 20. Journalists can cover a number of operations related to the ferry flight, beginning when the SCA arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility runway Sept. 11. To accommodate processing times, international media representatives who want to cover the SCA arrival must apply for credentials by Aug. 29. For U.S. journalists, the application deadline is Sept. 7.

RELEASE: 12-297 NASA ROVER RETURNS VOICE AND TELEPHOTO VIEWS FROM MARTIAN SURFACE

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Curiosity has debuted the first recorded human voice that traveled from Earth to another planet and back. In spoken words radioed to the rover on Mars and back to NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden noted the difficulty of landing a rover on Mars, congratulated NASA employees and the agency's commercial and government partners on the successful landing of Curiosity earlier this month, and said curiosity is what drives humans to explore. "The knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of Gale Crater will tell us much about the possibility of life on Mars as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future," Bolden said in the recorded message. The voice playback was released along with new telephoto camera views of the varied Martian landscape during a news conference today at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. "With this voice, another small step is taken in extending human presence beyond Earth, and the experience of exploring remote worlds is brought a little closer to us all," said Dave Lavery, NASA Curiosity program executive. "As Curiosity continues its mission, we hope these words will be an inspiration to someone alive today who will become the first to stand upon the surface of Mars. And like the great Neil Armstrong, they will speak aloud of that next giant leap in human exploration." The telephoto images beamed back to Earth show a scene of eroded knobs and gulches on a mountainside, with geological layering clearly exposed. The new views were taken by the 100-millimeter telephoto lens and the 34-milllimeter wide angle lens of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. Mastcam has photographed the lower slope of the nearby mountain called Mount Sharp. "This is an area on Mount Sharp where Curiosity will go," said Mastcam principal investigator Michael Malin, of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. "Those layers are our ultimate objective. The dark dune field is between us and those layers. In front of the dark sand you see redder sand, with a different composition suggested by its different color. The rocks in the foreground show diversity -- some rounded, some angular, with different histories. This is a very rich geological site to look at and eventually to drive through." A drive early Monday placed Curiosity directly over a patch where one of the spacecraft's landing engines scoured away a few inches of gravelly soil and exposed underlying rock. Researchers plan to use a neutron-shooting instrument on the rover to check for water molecules bound into minerals at this partially excavated target. During the news conference, the rover team reported the results of a test on Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, which can measure the composition of samples of atmosphere, powdered rock or soil. The amount of air from Earth's atmosphere remaining in the instrument after Curiosity's launch was more than expected, so a difference in pressure on either side of tiny pumps led SAM operators to stop pumping out the remaining Earth air as a precaution. The pumps subsequently worked, and a chemical analysis was completed on a sample of Earth air. "As a test of the instrument, the results are beautiful confirmation of the sensitivities for identifying the gases present," said SAM principal investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We're happy with this test and we're looking forward to the next run in a few days when we can get Mars data." Curiosity already is returning more data from the Martian surface than have all of NASA's earlier rovers combined. "We have an international network of telecommunications relay orbiters bringing data back from Curiosity," said JPL's Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. "Curiosity is boosting its data return by using a new capability for adjusting its transmission rate." Curiosity is 3 weeks into a two-year prime mission on Mars. It will use 10 science instruments to assess whether the selected study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. NASA's DSN is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions.