Feb 18 2016

From The Space Library

Release 16-020 NASA Scientists, Engineers Receive Presidential Early Career Awards

President Obama Thursday named six NASA researchers as recipients of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). These recipients, and 100 other federal researchers, will receive their awards in a ceremony later this year in Washington.

The PECASE awards represent the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers who are beginning their research careers. The award recognizes recipients' exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge, as well as their commitment to community service as demonstrated through professional leadership, education or community outreach.

“These early career scientists and engineers represent some of the best and brightest talent in our agency and our university partners," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "We are delighted to see them win this prestigious award, as their contributions will benefit our nation and advance the scientific frontiers."

The following 2016 NASA recipients were nominated by the agency's Science Mission Directorate, and its Offices of the Chief Engineer and Chief Technologist:

• Dr. James Benardini -- planetary protection; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
• Dr. Jin-Woo Han -- nanodevices and nanoelectronics; NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California
• Dr. Michele Manuel -- self-healing metals; University of Florida, Gainesville
• Dr. Andrew Molthan -- cloud microphysics; NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama
• Dr. Colleen Mouw -- oceanography and public health; Michigan Technological University, Houghton
• Dr. Vikram Shyam -- technical innovation in fundamental aeronautics; NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland

The PECASE awards were created to foster innovative developments in science and technology, increase awareness of careers in science and engineering, give recognition to the scientific missions of participating agencies, enhance connections between fundamental research and many of the grand challenges facing the nation, and highlight the importance of science and technology for America's future. For a complete list of 2016 award winners, visit:[1]

Release M16-013 NASA Astronaut Jeff Williams Available for Media Interviews before Launch to Space Station

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams will take time out of the final preparations for his launch to the International Space Station for live satellite media interviews from 7 to 8 a.m. EST Monday, Feb. 29, to discuss his upcoming mission aboard the world’s only orbiting laboratory. These interviews will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Williams will participate in the interviews from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, following a 30-minute b-roll feed on NASA TV highlighting his previous missions and ground training, which begins at 6:30 a.m.

To participate, media must contact Karen Svetaka at 281-483-8684 or karen.a.svetaka@nasa.gov no later than 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 26. Media participating in the live shots must tune to NTV-3. Satellite tuning information is available at: [2]

A native of Winter, Wisconsin, Williams will launch to the space station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft on March 18 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, along with crewmates Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin, cosmonauts with the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

This mission will be Williams’ fourth spaceflight and third long-duration stay on the space station, a first for an American, and will be his first return to the station since its completion in 2011.

Williams served as the flight engineer and lead spacewalker for space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-101 mission in 2000. He was a flight engineer for space station’s Expedition 13 in 2006, when the station had only two modules and three crew members. In 2009 and 2010, he served as a flight engineer on Expedition 21 and commanded Expedition 22, when the Tranquility module and cupola were added to the station. During that mission, he also became the first astronaut to interact live with NASA’s social media fans and followers.

During his upcoming six-month mission, Williams will become the American with the most cumulative days in space -- 534 -- surpassing Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly, who will wrap up his one-year mission on March 1.

Williams also is expected to be at the station for arrivals of two American cargo spacecraft -- the SpaceX Dragon and Orbital ATK Cygnus -- as well as the deployment of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), a demonstration of expandable habitat technology that will be attached to the station for two years.

After arriving at the station, Williams, Skriprochka and Ovchinin will join Expedition 47 NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Tim Peake. Together, they will facilitate about 250 research investigations and technology demonstrations, which aren’t possible on Earth, to advance scientific knowledge of Earth, space, physical and biological sciences that will benefit humanity. Station research also will enable future long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space and on the agency’s journey to Mars.

Williams is scheduled to return to Earth with Skripochka and Ovchinin in September.

Release 16-016 NASA Introduces New, Wider Set of Eyes on the Universe

After years of preparatory studies, NASA is formally starting an astrophysics mission designed to help unlock the secrets of the universe -- the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

With a view 100 times bigger than that of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, WFIRST will aid researchers in their efforts to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, and explore the evolution of the cosmos. It also will discover new worlds outside our solar system and advance the search for worlds that could be suitable for life.

NASA's Agency Program Management Council, which evaluates the agency's programs and projects on content, risk management, and performance, made the decision to move forward with the mission on Wednesday.

“WFIRST has the potential to open our eyes to the wonders of the universe, much the same way Hubble has,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington. "This mission uniquely combines the ability to discover and characterize planets beyond our own solar system with the sensitivity and optics to look wide and deep into the universe in a quest to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter.”

WFIRST is the agency's next major astrophysics observatory, following the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018. The observatory will survey large regions of the sky in near-infrared light to answer fundamental questions about the structure and evolution of the universe, and expand our knowledge of planets beyond our solar system – known as exoplanets.

It will carry a Wide Field Instrument for surveys, and a Coronagraph Instrument designed to block the glare of individual stars and reveal the faint light of planets orbiting around them. By blocking the light of the host star, the Coronagraph Instrument will enable detailed measurements of the chemical makeup of planetary atmospheres. Comparing these data across many worlds will allow scientists to better understand the origin and physics of these atmospheres, and search for chemical signs of environments suitable for life.

"WFIRST is designed to address science areas identified as top priorities by the astronomical community," said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington. “The Wide-Field Instrument will give the telescope the ability to capture a single image with the depth and quality of Hubble, but covering 100 times the area. The coronagraph will provide revolutionary science, capturing the faint, but direct images of distant gaseous worlds and super-Earths."

The WFIRST will image large regions of the sky in near-infrared light to answer fundamental questions about the structure and evolution of the universe and greatly expand our knowledge of planetary systems around other stars. Credits: NASA

The telescope’s sensitivity and wide view will enable a large-scale search for exoplanets by monitoring the brightness of millions of stars in the crowded central region of our galaxy. The survey will net thousands of new exoplanets similar in size and distance from their star as those in our own solar system, complementing the work started by NASA's Kepler mission and the upcoming work of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

Employing multiple techniques, astronomers also will use WFIRST to track how dark energy and dark matter have affected the evolution of our universe. Dark energy is a mysterious, negative pressure that has been speeding up the expansion of the universe. Dark matter is invisible material that makes up most of the matter in our universe.

By measuring the distances of thousands of supernovae, astronomers can map in detail how cosmic expansion has increased with time. WFIRST also can precisely measure the shapes, positions and distances of millions of galaxies to track the distribution and growth of cosmic structures, including galaxy clusters and the dark matter accompanying them.

"In addition to its exciting capabilities for dark energy and exoplanets, WFIRST will provide a treasure trove of exquisite data for all astronomers," said Neil Gehrels, WFIRST project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "This mission will survey the universe to find the most interesting objects out there."

WFIRST is slated to launch in the mid-2020s. The observatory will begin operations after travelling to a gravitational balance point known as Earth-Sun L2, which is located about one million miles from Earth in a direction directly opposite the Sun.

WFIRST is managed at Goddard, with participation by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, also in Pasadena, and a science team comprised of members from U.S. research institutions across the country.

NASA Aeronautics Budget Proposes Return of X-Planes

The details of NASA’s plan to get from here to there are spelled out in President Obama’s recently released federal budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2016. If approved, next year will be the first in a bold 10-year plan by NASA Aeronautics to achieve huge goals in reducing fuel use, emissions, and noise by the way aircraft are designed, and the way they operate in the air and on the ground.

One exciting piece of this 10-year plan is New Aviation Horizons – an ambitious undertaking by NASA to design, build and fly a variety of flight demonstration vehicles, or “X-planes.” It’s a shout-out to NASA’s century-old heritage in using experimental aircraft to test advanced technologies and revolutionary designs, and to reduce the time it takes for the tech to be adopted by industry and moved into the marketplace.

Thanks to recent extraordinary results coming out of six years of technology demonstrations done with other government agencies, industry and academia, NASA Aeronautics feels confident to enter X-plane territory.

The demos included advancements in lightweight composite materials that are needed to create revolutionary aircraft structures, an advanced fan design to improve propulsion and reduce noise in jet engines, designs to reduce noise from wing flaps and landing gear, and shape-changing wing flaps, and even coatings to prevent bug residue buildup on wings. Researchers predict the tech could save the airline industry $255 billion accrued during the first 25 years after being put into service.

"We're at the right place, at the right time, with the right technologies," said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. “The full potential of these technologies can’t be realized in the tube-and-wing shape of today’s aircraft,” he explained. “We need the X-planes to prove, in an undeniable way, how that tech can make aviation more Earth friendly, reduce delays and maintain safety for the flying public, and support an industry that’s critical to our nation’s economic vitality."

One of the first X-planes is expected to be a hybrid wing body shape, where the familiar tube-and-wing instead becomes a wing that blends into the body. It flies the same speeds as commercial transport aircraft.

Engines are on top of a fuselage that is itself revolutionary because of the shape and what’s required to build it to withstand the stresses of flight. For the past decade, NASA and partners have studied the performance and benefits of the hybrid wing body configuration using computers, wind tunnels and even subscale unpiloted flight tests. A lot of data is already in hand to inform an X-plane that will test the highest number of advanced technologies.

Other X-planes will demonstrate specific technologies related to ultra-efficient subsonic aircraft designs in flight – possibilities include very long but narrow wings, forms of electric propulsion, a double-wide fuselage, or engines embedded into the vehicle.

And in a world “first,” another X-plane will be a business-jet-sized supersonic vehicle that burns low carbon bio-fuels and generates such quiet sonic booms that people on the ground will barely hear them.

The New Aviation Horizons X-planes will typically be about half-scale of a production aircraft, although some may be smaller or larger, and are likely to be piloted. Design-and-build will take several years, with vehicles going to flight starting around 2020 depending on funding.

The 10-year plan also includes major field tests in collaboration with airlines, airports and the Federal Aviation Administration to continue improving air traffic flow in the air and on the ground at airports. Improving the flow leads to reduced fuel use and emissions, and less noise during takeoff, approach and landing. And NASA will continue researching and testing technologies that could be used to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, into the airspace.

“This is an exciting time for the entire NASA Aeronautics team and for those who benefit from aviation, which, frankly, is everyone,” Shin said. “With this 10-year plan to accelerate the transformation of aviation, the United States can maintain its status as the world’s leader in aviation for many years to come.”

NASA Aeronautics research takes place primarily at the Ames Research Center and Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, the Glenn Research Center in Ohio and the Langley Research Center in Virginia.