Aug 10 2011
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-167 NASA ASTRONAUTS TO VISIT INTREPID SEA, AIR & SPACE MUSEUM
WASHINGTON -- The last crew to fly aboard a space shuttle will visit New York City's Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Aug. 18. Commander Christopher Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim completed a 13-day mission to the International Space Station in July. The STS-135 flight marked the end of NASA's 30-year-old shuttle program. The STS-135 crew's events are open to news media representatives. -- 10 to 11:30 a.m.: Presentation to more than 200 students from Intrepid's educational programs (ages 7 - 15) inside the museum's Allison & Howard Lutnick Theater -- 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.: Meeting with public at two museum exhibits: - Journey to Tomorrow traveling exhibit, a 53-foot long, walk-through trailer packed with exciting interactive learning stations on the museum's pier - Project Kewl exhibit located in the museum's Exploreum Hall. Project Kewl is an interactive educational game using the Xbox 360 and Kinect sensor that allows visitors to explore the space station, walk on Mars and take control of NASA's coolest robots. In April, NASA selected the Intrepid as one of four museums to receive a space shuttle. It will be the new home for the Enterprise, currently on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. During the STS-135 mission, the crew delivered more than 9,400 pounds of spare parts, spare equipment and other supplies in the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module --including 2,677 pounds of food -- that will sustain station operations for the next year.
RELEASE: 11-265 NASA MARS ROVER ARRIVES AT NEW SITE ON MARTIAN SURFACE
WASHINGTON -- After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before. On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater's rim. Opportunity drove approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) after climbing out of the Victoria crater. "NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation's story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Opportunity's findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been." Endeavour crater, which is more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. At Endeavour, scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars. Endeavour became a tantalizing destination after NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected clay minerals that may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period. "We're soon going to get the opportunity to sample a rock type the rovers haven't seen yet," said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "Clay minerals form in wet conditions so we may learn about a potentially habitable environment that appears to have been very different from those responsible for the rocks comprising the plains." The name Spirit Point informally commemorates Opportunity's twin rover, which stopped communicating in March 2010. Spirit's mission officially concluded in May. "Our arrival at this destination is a reminder that these rovers have continued far beyond the original three-month mission," said John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at JPL. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched Aug. 12, 2005, is searching for evidence that water persisted on the Martian surface for a long period of time. Other Mars missions have shown water flowed across the surface in the planet's history, but scientists have not determined if water remained long enough to provide a habitat for life. NASA launched the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in the summer of 2003. Both completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004 and continued years of extended operations. They made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. ?? JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Imagery taken after Opportunity arrived at Endeavour will be released on NASA's website and NASA Television as soon as available on Wednesday.
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