FLEX-ible Insight Into Flame Behavior

Whether free-burning or smoldering, uncontrolled fire can threaten life and destroy property. On Earth, a little water, maybe some chemicals, and the fire is smothered. In space, where there is no up or down, flames behave in unconventional ways. And when your entire world is the size of a five-bedroom home like the International Space Station, putting out even a small fire quickly is a life-and-death matter.

Since March 2009, NASA's Flame Extinguishment Experiment, or FLEX, has conducted more than 200 tests to better understand the fundamentals of flames and how best to suppress fire in space. The investigation is currently ongoing aboard the space station.

"We hope to gain a better knowledge of droplet burning, improved spacecraft fire safety and ideas for more efficient utilization of liquid fuels on earth," Principal Investigator Forman Williams, University of California, San Diego, said. "The experiments will be used to verify numerical models that calculate droplet burning under different conditions."

NASA Goddard Employee Wins 2011 Presidential SAVE Award

Matthew Ritsko, a financial manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., won the 2011 Presidential Securing Americans' Value and Efficiency (SAVE) award.The SAVE program began in 2009 and allows front-line federal workers to submit their ideas on how their agency can save money and work more efficiently. Ritsko's proposal calls for the space agency to create a "lending library" where specialized space tools and hardware purchased by one NASA organization will be made available to other NASA programs and projects.

"I was part of a team here at NASA Goddard within the Flight Projects Directorate that was exploring ways for continuous improvements," said Ritsko. "We discussed efficiencies from part purchases on a recent Goddard mission. NASA could create a high tech 'tool shed' where both reusable tools and additional parts could be shared."

Ritsko's proposal was one of four finalists that the Office of Management and Budget put online. More than 48,000 Americans across the country cast votes for the idea they liked best, and the "lending library" idea won with just over 19,000 votes.

Smithsonian Channel to Air Special 'Arthur Christmas' Segment Featuring NASA Spinoff Technology

Have you ever been curious about where all the technology in your school, home, car, computer, or office comes from? You might be surprised that a great percentage of the technology we rely on each day was developed or enhanced by NASA. We all know about NASA's outstanding accomplishments in space, but few of us know just how much the space agency has accomplished right here at home. Except for Arthur. Arthur Christmas, that is.

This year in the holiday release of Arthur Christmas, Santa's North Pole has turned to high technology to run a precise operation in getting billions of gifts delivered around the world. Run by thousands of computer-savvy elves, the North Pole uses NASA-style technology to track the delivery of gifts around the Earth as they are being delivered by Santa's high speed S-1. The S-1 is a giant spacecraft in the shape of a sleigh.

"This was an exciting opportunity for us to have real examples of space technology being used right here on Earth featured in a family holiday film," said Daniel Lockney, NASA's technology transfer program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "NASA is constantly creating innovative technologies to enable our current and future missions. Many of these technologies get further developed and turned into consumer products by American industries, creating jobs, fueling the economy, and saving and improving lives around the planet."

"Coming Back Down to our Fragile Oasis," featuring Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth"

A time-lapse video is about as close as we can come to show what astronauts see in space. This time-lapse video is a collaboration between images taken by Ron Garan and Mike Fossum from the International Space Station and music from Peter Gabriel. The music featured in the video is Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth".

All of the sequences for this video were shot by either Mike Fossum or Ron Garan. Although the International Space Station travels at 17,500 mph, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, time-lapse photography speeds up the apparent motion considerably.

The flashes of lightning throughout the video are captured by the individual frames of the photography. Yet, only a small percentage of the actual lightning is captured in the imagery. While the video is sped up, it still accurately captures the paparazzi-look of lightening storms as we see them from space. While still onboard the ISS, Peter Gabriel and Ron Garan brainstormed some ideas for using this type of imagery to help tell the Fragile Oasis story. The hope with this video and others like it is to help people follow the missions not as spectators, but as crewmembers, inspired to help improve life on our planet.

Cassini Chronicles the Life and Times of Saturn's Giant Storm

New images and animated movies from NASA's Cassini spacecraft chronicle the birth and evolution of the colossal storm that ravaged the northern face of Saturn for nearly a year.These new full-color mosaics and animations show the storm from its emergence as a tiny spot in a single image almost one year ago, on Dec. 5, 2010, through its subsequent growth into a storm so large it completely encircled the planet by late January 2011.

The monster tempest, which extended north-south approximately 9,000 miles (15,000 kilometers), is the largest seen on Saturn in the past two decades and is the largest by far ever observed on the planet from an interplanetary spacecraft. On the same day that Cassini's high-resolution cameras captured the first images of the storm, Cassini's radio and plasma wave instrument detected the storm's electrical activity, revealing it to be a convective thunderstorm. The storm's active convecting phase ended in late June, but the turbulent clouds it created linger in the atmosphere today.

The storm's 200-day active period also makes it the longest-lasting planet-encircling storm ever seen on Saturn. The previous record holder was an outburst sighted in 1903, which lingered for 150 days. The large disturbance imaged 21 years ago by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and comparable in size to the current storm lasted for only 55 days.

NASA Probe Data Show Evidence of Liquid Water on Icy Europa

Data from a NASA planetary mission have provided scientists evidence of what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

The data suggest there is significant exchange between Europa's icy shell and the ocean beneath. This information could bolster arguments that Europa's global subsurface ocean represents a potential habitat for life elsewhere in our solar system. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature.

"The data opens up some compelling possibilities," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's Astrobiology Program at agency headquarters in Washington. "However, scientists worldwide will want to take a close look at this analysis and review the data before we can fully appreciate the implication of these results."

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MSL "Go" for Nov. 25 Launch

NASA and contractor managers for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) launch held their Flight Readiness Review meeting at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this morning. After an evaluation of the MSL spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, managers gave a "go" to continue proceeding toward a liftoff at 10:25 a.m. EST next Friday, Nov. 25. Managers will meet again Nov. 22 for the Launch Readiness Review.

The spacecraft -- with its rover, Curiosity -- is sealed inside the protective payload fairing atop the Atlas V rocket, which stands inside the Vertical Integration Facility at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 41. Closeouts of the spacecraft and the Atlas V fairing are planned for Saturday, with a countdown dress rehearsal on Sunday's schedule.

Curiosity has 10 science instruments to search for evidence about whether Mars has had environments favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life. The unique rover will use a laser to look inside rocks and release the gasses so that its spectrometer can analyze and send the data back to Earth.

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NASA Legends Awarded Congressional Gold Medal

Leaders of Congress honored astronauts John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins with congressional gold medals in a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on Nov. 16, 2011. The Gold Medal, Congress' highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions, was first given to George Washington in 1776.

Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, achieving the feat aboard Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the Moon, while Collins piloted Apollo 11's command module."We stand on the shoulders of the extraordinary men we recognize today," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at the ceremony. "Those of us who have had the privilege to fly in space followed the trail they forged."

"When, 50 years ago this year, President Kennedy challenged the nation to reach the moon, to "take longer strides" toward a "great new American enterprise," these men were the human face of those words," said Bolden. "From Mercury and Gemini, on through our landings on the Moon in the Apollo Program, their actions unfolded the will of a nation for the greater achievement of humankind."

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Mobile Launcher Moves to Launch Pad

The mobile launcher is making the longest trip of its young life today to begin a two-week series of structural tests at Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In anticipation of launching the Space Launch System later this decade, engineers wanted to check the mobile launcher, or ML, in a number of categories ranging from how it would behave moving atop a crawler-transporter to how well its systems mesh with the infrastructure at Pad B, which has undergone extensive renovations during the past year.

"We have the time and will be able to gain significant knowledge that will assist in the development of the ML," said Larry Schultz, ML project manager. The ML began its 14-hour move at 9:15 a.m. on Nov. 16. The trip will cover about 4.2 miles from a work site beside the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. Schultz said the team will get its first look at the information after the move is complete.

Rising 400 feet above the rocky crawlerway, the mobile launcher is substantially different than the mobile launcher platforms that carried space shuttles to the launch pads for 30 years. The dominant feature is the ML's tower, a 355-foot-high gray, steel tower reminiscent of the ones that serviced the Saturn V rockets headed to the moon in the 1960s and 70s. In fact, not since 1975 has a launch structure as tall as the ML stood at either of Kennedy's launch pads.

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NASA Extends MESSENGER Mission

NASA has announced that it will extend the MESSENGER mission for an additional year of orbital operations at Mercury beyond the planned end of the primary mission on March 17, 2012. The MESSENGER probe became the first spacecraft to orbit the innermost planet on March 18, 2011.

"We are still ironing out the funding details, but we are pleased to be able to support the continued exploration of Mercury," said NASA MESSENGER Program Scientist Ed Grayzeck, who made the announcement on November 9 at the 24th meeting of the MESSENGER Science Team in Annapolis, Md.

The spacecraft's unprecedented orbital science campaign is providing the first global close-up of Mercury and has revolutionized scientific perceptions of that planet. The extended mission will allow scientists to learn even more about the planet closest to the Sun, says MESSENGER Principal investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

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New Crew Launches to Join Expedition 29

Expedition 29 crew members Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Dan Burbank are on their way to the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying the new trio launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 11:14 p.m. EST Sunday (10:14 a.m. Baikonur time Monday).

The Soyuz TMA-22 will dock to the Poisk mini-research module at 12:33 a.m. Wednesday. Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov will welcome their new crewmates a little while later when they open the hatches about 2:55 a.m. Shkaplerov, Ivanishin and Burbank are scheduled to live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory until March.

NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Dan Burbank is making his third visit to the International Space Station. His previous two visits were both aboard space shuttle Atlantis. He helped prepare the station for its first crew during STS-106 and helped install the P3/P4 truss during STS-115.

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NASA Releases Updated Radar Movie of Asteroid 2005 YU55

NASA Scientists working with the 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have released a second, longer, and more refined, movie clip of asteroid 2005 YU55. The images were generated from data collected at Goldstone on Nov. 7, 2011, between 11:24 a.m. and 1:35 p.m. PST (2:24 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. EST).

Each of the 28 frames required 20 minutes of data collection by the Goldstone radar. At the time of the observations, 2005 YU55 was approximately 860,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Earth. The resolution is about 13 feet (4 meters) per pixel. 2005 YU55 takes approximately 18 hours to complete one rotation, so the rotation in the movie appears much more rapid than the actual asteroid rotation speed.The Goldstone observations utilized a new system to obtain images with a resolution of 4 meters, which is five times finer than the highest resolution previously possible at Goldstone.

"The encounter with 2005 YU55 has produced an enormous amount of data that is still being processed." said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the 2005 YU55 Goldstone observations, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The sequence of images we obtained shows unprecedented fine-scale detail on this asteroid, which is comparable in size to the Empire State Building. The Goldstone images show evidence for concavities, a ridge near the asteroid's equator, and numerous features that may be large boulders."

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International Team to Drill Beneath Massive Antarctic Ice Shelf

An international team of researchers funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will travel next month to one of Antarctica's most active, remote and harsh spots to determine how changes in the waters circulating under an active ice sheet are causing a glacier to accelerate and drain into the sea.

The science expedition will be the most extensive ever deployed to Pine Island Glacier. It is the area of the ice-covered continent that concerns scientists most because of its potential to cause a rapid rise in sea level. Satellite measurements have shown this area is losing ice and surrounding glaciers are thinning, raising the possibility the ice could flow rapidly out to sea.

The multidisciplinary group of 13 scientists, led by Robert Bindschadler, emeritus glaciologist of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will depart from the McMurdo Station in Antarctica in mid-December and spend six weeks on the ice shelf. During their stay, they will use a combination of traditional tools and sophisticated new oceanographic instruments to measure the shape of the cavity underneath the ice shelf and determine how streams of warm ocean water enter it, move toward the very bottom of the glacier and melt its underbelly.

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NASA's New Upper Stage Engine Passes Major Test

NASA conducted a successful 500-second test firing of the J-2X rocket engine on Wednesday, Nov. 9, marking another important step in development of an upper stage for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS).

SLS will carry the Orion spacecraft, its crew, cargo, equipment and science experiments to destinations in deep space. SLS will be safe, affordable and sustainable to continue America's journey of discovery from the unique vantage point of space.

"The J-2X engine is critical to the development of the Space Launch System," Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development, said after the test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. "Today's test means NASA is moving closer to developing the rocket it needs if humans are to explore beyond low-Earth orbit."

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NASA Develops Super-Black Material That Absorbs Light Across Multiple Wavelength Bands

NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.The team of engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., reported their findings recently at the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference, the largest interdisciplinary technical meeting in this discipline. The team has since reconfirmed the material's absorption capabilities in additional testing, said John Hagopian, who is leading the effort involving 10 Goddard technologists.

"The reflectance tests showed that our team had extended by 50 times the range of the material’s absorption capabilities. Though other researchers are reporting near-perfect absorption levels mainly in the ultraviolet and visible, our material is darn near perfect across multiple wavelength bands, from the ultraviolet to the far infrared," Hagopian said. "No one else has achieved this milestone yet."

The nanotech-based coating is a thin layer of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, tiny hollow tubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. They are positioned vertically on various substrate materials much like a shag rug. The team has grown the nanotubes on silicon, silicon nitride, titanium, and stainless steel, materials commonly used in space-based scientific instruments.

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NASA's Fermi Finds Youngest Millisecond Pulsar, 100 Pulsars To-Date

An international team of scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form.At the same time, another team has located nine new gamma-ray pulsars in Fermi data, using improved analytical techniques.

A pulsar is a type of neutron star that emits electromagnetic energy at periodic intervals. A neutron star is the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city. This matter is so compressed that even a teaspoonful weighs as much as Mount Everest.

"With this new batch of pulsars, Fermi now has detected more than 100, which is an exciting milestone when you consider that, before Fermi's launch in 2008, only seven of them were known to emit gamma rays," said Pablo Saz Parkinson, an astrophysicist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics at the University of California Santa Cruz, and a co-author on two papers detailing the findings.

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NASA Airborne Mission Maps Remote, Deteriorating Glaciers

NASA's airborne expedition over Antarctica this October and November has measured the change in glaciers vital to sea level rise projections and mapped others rarely traversed by humans.Operation IceBridge, nearing completion of its third year, is the largest airborne campaign ever flown over the world's polar regions. Bridging a gap between two ice elevation mapping satellites, and breaking new scientific ground on its own, IceBridge this fall has charted the continued rapid acceleration and mass loss of Pine Island Glacier.

IceBridge has now generated three years of laser altimetry data over certain locations to continue the record from NASA's Ice Climate and Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which stopped operating in 2009. IceBridge measurements show Pine Island following its rapid deterioration that began around 2006. Combined IceBridge and ICESat data show the glacier is losing more than six times as much mass per year -- mass loss was measured at 7 gigatons a year in 2005 and about 46 gigatons a year in 2010 – making it one of the most significant climate change response trends that scientists see worldwide. For comparison, the Chesapeake Bay holds about 70 gigatons of water.

Satellites still operating, such as NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), can provide a large-scale picture of this trend. But it takes a more focused mission such as Operation IceBridge to gather higher-resolution data near the surface to piece together the dynamic interactions of ice, bedrock and ocean currents behind specific changes, and to improve the models that scientists use to predict how much an unstable ice sheet like West Antarctica will contribute to sea level rise.

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What Goes Up Must Come Down

NASA's Langley Research Center completed another successful test of the Orion spacecraft's landing capabilities in their Hydro Impact Basin.While workers prepared the 18,000-pound (8,165 kg) Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to take a dive into the 115-feet-long, 90-feet-wide, 20-feet-deep water basin (35.1 x 27.4 x 6.1 meters), media sat inside a conference room overlooking the action.

Langley offered experts to explain the process and importance of the test."It was the second in a series of six that would help predict conditions for a safe water landing," said Dave Bowles, the head of Langley's Space Exploration Directorate.

Following this round of testing, a new Orion capsule will be delivered to Langley for another series of tests that will capture additional data using sensors. The new vehicle more closely resembles the capsule that will eventually carry astronauts into space.

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NASA Studying Ways to Make 'Tractor Beams' a Reality

Tractor beams the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has awarded Principal Investigator Paul Stysley and team members Demetrios Poulios and Barry Coyle at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., $100,000 to study three experimental methods for corralling particles and transporting them via laser light to an instrument -- akin to a vacuum using suction to collect and transport dirt to a canister or bag. Once delivered, an instrument would then characterize their composition.

"Though a mainstay in science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, laser-based trapping isn't fanciful or beyond current technological know-how," Stysley said. The team has identified three different approaches for transporting particles, as well as single molecules, viruses, ribonucleic acid, and fully functioning cells, using the power of light.

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