Aug 12 2015
From The Space Library
Release M15-075 Texas Students Compete in Space Station Robotics Competition
More than seventy Texas middle school students will watch software they developed compete in space against similar teams from a dozen different states in the national Zero Robotics competition at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) on Friday, Aug. 14.
Students and members of the Texas Zero Robotics teams will gather at JSC’s Gilruth Center to observe the final competition live as it takes place aboard the International Space Station. Media are invited to attend. Events start at 7:40 a.m. CDT.
Zero Robotics is an opportunity for students to design research that is flown aboard the International Space Station. As part of a competition, students write algorithms for the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) to accomplish tasks relevant to future space missions. This summer’s teams wrote code to simulate robotic satellites collecting and uploading as many pictures as possible of points of interest on an asteroid while avoiding effects of solar flares.
Texas is one of 11 states participating in this week’s competition, involving more than 650 middle school students from across the nation. Current Expedition 44 crew members Scott Kelly of NASA, Oleg Kononenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will conduct the competition aboard the station.
Release 15-169 NASA Selects Proposals to Build Better Batteries for Space Exploration
NASA's Game Changing Development (GCD) program has selected two proposals for Phase II awards targeted toward developing new energy storage technologies to replace the battery systems currently used by America's space program.
Addressing several high priority challenges, NASA is making significant investments to achieve safe and affordable deep space exploration. The development of high-energy storage devices will reduce the mass required to store electrical power in space and better enable the agency's future robotic and human exploration missions.
"Technology drives exploration, and battery technology is a critical element of that drive," said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These next-generation batteries will dramatically improve the availability and affordability of the power and energy required for future exploration missions. The development effort will focus on delivering safe, low mass batteries to enable longer missions deeper into space."
The selected awardees, and their project titles, are:
- Amprius Inc. of Sunnyvale, California: Silicon Anode Based Cells for High Specific Energy Li + Systems
- University of Maryland, College Park: Garnet Electrolyte Based Safe, Lithium-Sulfur Energy Storage
NASA's technology roadmaps and strategic investment plans highlight these advanced technologies as critical to the agency's journey to Mars and future exploration. According to the National Research Council's NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities, there is a need to increase available power and eliminate the constraint of power availability for space missions.
The selected proposals will help improve energy storage with reliable power systems that can survive the wide range of NASA missions in harsh space environments, while cutting their mass by 50 percent or more.
Phase I awards were approximately $250,000, providing four awardees with the funding needed to conduct an eight-month component test and analysis phase. Phase II is an engineering hardware phase that provides as much as to $1 million per award for 12 months, and Phase III will consist of the prototype hardware development, with up to $2 million per award for 18 months.
Proposals for Phase II were received from federally funded research and development centers, universities and industry. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, manages the GCD program for STMD.
Release 15-29 NASA Images of Hurricane Katrina and 2005 Storm Season Available
To mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina this month, NASA is making available to media a special collection of videos and still images associated with the devastating storm and the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.
The main web link to use for all the best video and still imagery is:
Below are descriptions and links for individual videos and still photo images. Everything on NASA web sites is in the public domain. All products can be used without special permission. The agency requests that any material used include a credit of “NASA.”
