Sep 6 2011

From The Space Library

MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-185 NASA HOLDS NEWS CONFERENCE ON SPACE STATION NATIONAL LAB AWARD

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA will hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 9, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to discuss the organization that will manage the portion of the International Space Station operated as a U.S. national laboratory. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space Inc. (CASIS) will help ensure the station's unique capabilities are available to the broadest possible cross-section of the U.S. scientific, technological and industrial communities. The news conference participants are: - Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations - Waleed Abdalati, NASA chief scientist - Mark Uhran, NASA assistant associate administrator for the International Space Station - Jeanne Becker, CASIS executive director.

RELEASE: 11-289 NASA SPACECRAFT IMAGES OFFER SHARPER VIEWS OF APOLLO LANDING SITES GREENBELT, Md. --

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface. At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior. "We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the LRO project science team. All three images show distinct trails left in the moon's thin soil when the astronauts exited the lunar modules and explored on foot. In the Apollo 17 image, the foot trails, including the last path made on the moon by humans, are easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar rover, which remains parked east of the lander. "The new low-altitude Narrow Angle Camera images sharpen our view of the moon's surface," said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). "A great example is the sharpness of the rover tracks at the Apollo 17 site. In previous images the rover tracks were visible, but now they are sharp parallel lines on the surface." At each site, trails also run to the west of the landers, where the astronauts placed the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) to monitor the moon's environment and interior. This equipment was a key part of every Apollo mission. It provided the first insights into the moon's internal structure, measurements of the lunar surface pressure and the composition of its atmosphere. Apollo 11 carried a simpler version of the science package. One of the details that shows up is a bright L-shape in the Apollo 12 image. It marks the locations of cables running from ALSEP's central station to two of its instruments. Although the cables are much too small for direct viewing, they show up because they reflect light very well. The higher resolution of these images is possible because of adjustments made to LRO's orbit, which is slightly oval-shaped or elliptical. "Without changing the average altitude, we made the orbit more elliptical, so the lowest part of the orbit is on the sunlit side of the moon," said Goddard's John Keller, deputy LRO project scientist. "This put LRO in a perfect position to take these new pictures of the surface." The maneuver lowered LRO from its usual altitude of approximately 31 miles (50 kilometers) to an altitude that dipped as low as nearly 13 miles (21 kilometers) as it passed over the moon's surface. The spacecraft has remained in this orbit for 28 days, long enough for the moon to completely rotate. This allows full coverage of the surface by LROC's Wide Angle Camera. The cycle ends today when the spacecraft will be returned to its 31-mile orbit. "These images remind us of our fantastic Apollo history and beckon us to continue to move forward in exploration of our solar system," said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. LRO was built and managed by Goddard. Initial research was funded by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. In September 2010, after a one-year successful exploration mission, the mission turned its attention from exploration objectives to scientific research in NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

RELEASE: 11-290 NASA CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST BRAUN RETURNING TO GEORGIA TECH

WASHINGTON -- Bobby Braun, who served as the first NASA chief technologist in a decade, will leave the agency in October to return to the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Braun's service at NASA was possible through a two-year intergovernmental personnel agreement with Georgia Tech. During his tenure at NASA, Braun served as the agency's principal advisor and advocate on matters concerning agency-wide technology policy and programs. Braun also was responsible for the formulation and initial implementation of NASA's Space Technology Program, which develops crosscutting technologies and advanced capabilities to enable NASA's future space missions. "When I asked Bobby to join the NASA leadership team and establish the new Office of the Chief Technologist, I had to pull him away from his family and his work as a professor and researcher at Georgia Tech," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Bobby has rebuilt our basic and applied research capabilities, created technology programs to enable our agency's future success, and clearly articulated the importance of NASA's technology investments as an integral component of our nation's space policy. He's done an incredible job, and we're indebted to him for his exemplary public service." Joseph Parrish, the deputy chief technologist, will serve as acting NASA chief technologist. Parrish joined the Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) in January from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where he was responsible for technology assessment and mission architecture planning for future robotic missions to Mars. Before joining JPL, Parrish was the president of Payload Systems Inc. and the vice president for research and development at Aurora Flight Sciences Corp., two small businesses in Cambridge, Mass. Besides his corporate responsibilities at those companies, Parrish served in project management and principal investigator roles for many technology development projects for NASA and other customers. Michael Gazarik has been named director of NASA's Space Technology Program within OCT. Until recently, Gazarik served as the deputy chief technologist at NASA Headquarters, focusing on enabling effective implementation of the Space Technology programs. Prior to his appointment, Gazarik was the deputy director for Programs in the Engineering Directorate at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. In that role, he balanced the directorate's engineering and fabrication capabilities across projects that ranged from conceptual design to spaceflight operations, focused the directorate's resources to deliver flight hardware for numerous flight programs, and led the formulation of a variety of programs in science and human exploration.

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