Jul 7 2018

From The Space Library

MEDIA ADVISORY M18-089 NASA TV to Air US Spacewalk at International Space Station

NASA astronauts will embark on a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk Thursday, June 14, during which they will install new high-definition cameras to capture spacecraft docking with the International Space Station, including new American-made spacecraft with scheduled test flights later this year.

Live coverage of the planned spacewalk by American astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold will begin at 6:30 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Feustel, commander of the station’s Expedition 56, and flight engineer Arnold are scheduled to begin the spacewalk at 8:10 a.m.

The two spacewalkers will install brackets and high-definition cameras near an international docking adapter mated to the front end of the station’s Harmony module. The additions will provide enhanced views during the final phase of approach and docking of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner commercial crew spacecraft that will soon begin launching from American soil.

During their spacewalk, the astronauts also will swap out a camera assembly on the starboard truss of the station and close an aperture door on an external environmental imaging experiment outside the Japanese Kibo module. The imaging experiment hardware will be discarded on a future SpaceX cargo resupply mission.

The spacewalk will be the 211th in support of space station assembly and maintenance and the sixth station spacewalk this year. It also will be the ninth spacewalk in Feustel’s career and the fifth for Arnold. During the spacewalk, Arnold will wear a suit bearing red stripes while Feustel’s suit will have no stripes.

At five hours and 23 minutes into the spacewalk, Feustel will surpass NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s record of 60 hours and 21 minutes to move into third place for cumulative time spent during spacewalks.

RELEASE 18-050 NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has found new evidence preserved in rocks on Mars that suggests the planet could have supported ancient life, as well as new evidence in the Martian atmosphere that relates to the search for current life on the Red Planet. While not necessarily evidence of life itself, these findings are a good sign for future missions exploring the planet’s surface and subsurface.

The new findings – “tough” organic molecules in three-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks near the surface, as well as seasonal variations in the levels of methane in the atmosphere – appear in the June 8 edition of the journal Science.

Organic molecules contain carbon and hydrogen, and also may include oxygen, nitrogen and other elements. While commonly associated with life, organic molecules also can be created by non-biological processes and are not necessarily indicators of life.

“With these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, in Washington. “I’m confident that our ongoing and planned missions will unlock even more breathtaking discoveries on the Red Planet.”

“Curiosity has not determined the source of the organic molecules,” said Jen Eigenbrode of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is lead author of one of the two new Science papers. “Whether it holds a record of ancient life, was food for life, or has existed in the absence of life, organic matter in Martian materials holds chemical clues to planetary conditions and processes.”

Although the surface of Mars is inhospitable today, there is clear evidence that in the distant past, the Martian climate allowed liquid water – an essential ingredient for life as we know it – to pool at the surface. Data from Curiosity reveal that billions of years ago, a water lake inside Gale Crater held all the ingredients necessary for life, including chemical building blocks and energy sources.

“The Martian surface is exposed to radiation from space. Both radiation and harsh chemicals break down organic matter,” said Eigenbrode. “Finding ancient organic molecules in the top five centimeters of rock that was deposited when Mars may have been habitable, bodes well for us to learn the story of organic molecules on Mars with future missions that will drill deeper.”

Seasonal Methane Releases

In the second paper, scientists describe the discovery of seasonal variations in methane in the Martian atmosphere over the course of nearly three Mars years, which is almost six Earth years. This variation was detected by Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite.

Water-rock chemistry might have generated the methane, but scientists cannot rule out the possibility of biological origins. Methane previously had been detected in Mars' atmosphere in large, unpredictable plumes. This new result shows that low levels of methane within Gale Crater repeatedly peak in warm, summer months and drop in the winter every year.

"This is the first time we've seen something repeatable in the methane story, so it offers us a handle in understanding it," said Chris Webster of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, lead author of the second paper. "This is all possible because of Curiosity's longevity. The long duration has allowed us to see the patterns in this seasonal 'breathing.'"

Finding Organic Molecules

To identify organic material in the Martian soil, Curiosity drilled into sedimentary rocks known as mudstone from four areas in Gale Crater. This mudstone gradually formed billions of years ago from silt that accumulated at the bottom of the ancient lake. The rock samples were analyzed by SAM, which uses an oven to heat the samples (in excess of 900 degrees Fahrenheit, or 500 degrees Celsius) to release organic molecules from the powdered rock.

SAM measured small organic molecules that came off the mudstone sample – fragments of larger organic molecules that don’t vaporize easily. Some of these fragments contain sulfur, which could have helped preserve them in the same way sulfur is used to make car tires more durable, according to Eigenbrode.

The results also indicate organic carbon concentrations on the order of 10 parts per million or more. This is close to the amount observed in Martian meteorites and about 100 times greater than prior detections of organic carbon on Mars’ surface. Some of the molecules identified include thiophenes, benzene, toluene, and small carbon chains, such as propane or butene.

In 2013, SAM detected some organic molecules containing chlorine in rocks at the deepest point in the crater. This new discovery builds on the inventory of molecules detected in the ancient lake sediments on Mars and helps explains why they were preserved.

Finding methane in the atmosphere and ancient carbon preserved on the surface gives scientists confidence that NASA's Mars 2020 rover and ESA’s (European Space Agency's) ExoMars rover will find even more organics, both on the surface and in the shallow subsurface.

These results also inform scientists’ decisions as they work to find answers to questions concerning the possibility of life on Mars.

“Are there signs of life on Mars?” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, at NASA Headquarters. “We don’t know, but these results tell us we are on the right track.”

This work was funded by NASA's Mars Exploration Program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington. Goddard provided the SAM instrument. JPL built the rover and manages the project for SMD.

MEDIA ADVISORY M18-091 Researchers to Discuss Science Launching on Next Resupply Mission to Space Station

NASA will host a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, June 11, to discuss a number of science investigations launching to the International Space Station on the next SpaceX commercial resupply mission. Audio of the teleconference will stream live on NASA’s website.

David Brady, assistant program scientist for the International Space Station Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and Liz Warren, associate program scientist at the Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), will provide an overview of the research and technology aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

Also participating in the briefing will be:

• John Hogan, NASA’s Ames Research Center – principal investigator for the Micro-12 investigation, will discuss this cellular biology research on how microgravity affects the growth, gene expression and ability of a model bacterium to transfer electrons through its cell membrane along bacterial nano wires it produces. Such bacteria could be used in microbial fuel cells to make electricity from organic waste.

• Paul Jaminet, founder and chief executive officer, and Shou-Ching Jaminet, chief scientist, Angiex – will discuss Angiex's investigation of endothelial cells, the cells that line the walls of blood vessels. Culturing endothelial cells in microgravity could create an important model system for evaluating the action of any vascular-targeted drug. Use of this model may enable Angiex to develop a novel cancer therapy with lower toxicity and potential to be effective against most cancers.
• Fred Turek and Martha Vitaterna, Northwestern University – principal investigators for Rodent Research-7, will discuss their research to examine how the space environment affects the community of microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract of mice (also known as the microbiota). Results could help protect astronaut health during long-term missions by providing insights into the microbial populations’ interactions with physiological systems including the gastrointestinal, immune, metabolic, circadian, and sleep systems during spaceflight.
• Mark Settles, University of Florida – principal investigator for the Space Algae investigation, will discuss research to select algae strains adapted to space and sequence their genomes to identify growth-related genes. Algae consume waste carbon dioxide, can provide basic nutrition and may perceive microgravity as a trigger to produce algae oils rich in antioxidants that may help mitigate the harmful effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation during spaceflight.

To participate in the teleconference, media must contact Stephanie Schierholz at 202-358-1100 or stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov no later than noon on June 11, for dial-in information.

SpaceX is targeting no earlier than 5:41 a.m. June 29 for the launch of its Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington is sponsoring the Micro-12 and Rodent Research-7 investigations as part of its research to enable human spaceflight exploration, and CASIS is sponsoring the Angiex Cancer Therapy and Space Algae investigations as part of the U.S. National Laboratory research to improve life on Earth.