Mar 21 2018

From The Space Library

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Current revision

MEDIA ADVISORY M18-049 Media Preview of Final Voyage of NASA's Around-the-World Atmospheric Mission

Media are invited to preview the final deployment of one of NASA's most ambitious airborne studies of Earth's atmosphere on Friday, April 13, at Building 703 of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, located in Palmdale, California.

Since 2016, the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission has studied pollution and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the agency's DC-8 flying laboratory. Scheduled to begin in late April, the 26-day journey will take researchers over the North Pole, across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, and on to the tip of South America before flying over the Atlantic to Greenland and returning to California.

ATom measures more than 200 gases and airborne particles in the atmosphere over the oceans to better understand how gases, such as methane, and ozone and airborne particles, such as black carbon, enter, transform and are ultimately removed from the atmosphere. These processes are key components of Earth's air quality and climate.

The mission complements NASA's satellite observations of the major gases of Earth's atmosphere. With the DC-8 aircraft, ATom makes detailed measurements of atmospheric composition that are difficult or impossible to make from space.

Media will learn about preliminary results on pollution in the global atmosphere from previous ATom flights and will have opportunities to interview lead scientists and mission managers. Media will tour NASA's DC-8 aircraft, which is outfitted with scientific instruments.

Registration is open for U.S. and foreign media. All interested U.S. citizens and green card holders must request credentials by 5 p.m. EDT Thursday, April 5. The deadline for foreign nationals is 5 p.m. Friday, March 30.

To request credentials, email Armstrong public affairs officer Kate Squires at kate.k.squires@nasa.gov. Include full name as it appears on a valid government-issued photo identification, media affiliation, email address and telephone number.

MEDIA ADVISORY M18-050 Media Invited to View NASA Spacecraft That Will Touch the Sun

Media are invited to view NASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 28, at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The spacecraft will embark this summer on a daring trek, traveling closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history.

The Sun is the only star that can be studied up close. In addition to helping solve how stars throughout the universe drive heat, radiation, energy and particles out into space, data from the spacecraft will help scientists better understand how this constant solar outpouring can create hazardous space weather events near Earth. Space weather can impact not only astronauts living and working in space, but also interfere with satellites and radio signals.

Media attending the event will have an opportunity to interview the mission team as well as view the spacecraft from outside the cleanroom where it is undergoing final testing before it ships to NASA’s Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida for a scheduled July 31 launch.

Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star (LWS) Program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by Goddard for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages the mission for NASA. APL designed and built the spacecraft, and also will operate it.

RELEASE 18-017 Two NASA Astronauts Among Crew Heading to International Space Station

Three crew members, including NASA astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:44 p.m. EDT Wednesday (11:44 p.m. Baikonur time).

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying Feustal, Arnold and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos is scheduled to dock to the space station’s Rassvet module at 3:41 p.m. Friday, March 23. Coverage of docking will begin at 3 p.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website, followed at 5 p.m. by coverage of the opening of hatches between the spacecraft and station.

The arrival of Feustel, Arnold and Artemyev will restore the station's crew complement to six. They will join Scott Tingle of NASA, Expedition 55 Commander Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The crew members will spend more than five months conducting about 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

Shkaplerov, Tingle and Kanai are scheduled to remain aboard the station until June 2018, while Feustel, Arnold and Artemyev are slated to return to Earth in August.

This crew continues the long-term increase in crew size on the U.S. segment from three to four, allowing NASA to maximize time dedicated to research on the space station. Highlights of upcoming investigations include: a new facility to test materials, coatings and components of other large experiments in the harsh environment of space; a study on the effects of microgravity on bone marrow and blood cells produced in bone marrow; and a newly-developed passive nutrient delivery system for the Veggie plant growth facility.

Arnold, a former educator, will continue NASA’s Year of Education on Station, an initiative to engage students and educators in human spaceflight and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.

For more than 17 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. A global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 2,100 research investigations from researchers in more than 95 countries.