It’s Women In Engineering Day

It Takes a Nation to #LaunchAmerica!

Image Credit: NASA/Roscosmos

As we celebrate 20 years of humans living and working on the International Space Station, we’re also getting ready for another space milestone: Crew-1, this weekend’s trip to the ISS aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience and the first certified crew rotation flight to the International Space Station.

Crew-1 is scheduled to lift off Saturday at 7:49 PM EST, from our Kennedy Space Center—but across the United States, teams from NASA and SpaceX will be hard at work sending our astronauts into orbit!

Image Credit: NASA/Fred Deaton

At Marshall Space Flight Center’s Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC), for example, engineers with our Commercial Crew Program have been helping review the design and oversee safety standards for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, making sure it’s ready to carry humans to the Space Station.

This Saturday, they’ll be in the HOSC to monitor launch conditions and watch the data as Crew-1 blasts off, helping future commercially-operated missions to the ISS run even more smoothly.

Image Credit: NASA/Emmett Given

Long before Crew-1, though, Marshall has been keeping things active on board the ISS. For decades, the Payload Operations and Integration Center, also located in the HOSC, has been “science central” for the Space Station, coordinating and keeping track of the scientific experiments taking place—24/7, 365 days a year.

With the Space Station’s population soon to jump from three to seven, our ISS crew will be able to spend up to 70 hours a week on science, helping us learn how to live in space while making life better on Earth!

Image Credit: NASA/Fred Deaton

Want to learn more about how America is coming together to launch Crew-1? Join us this afternoon (1 p.m. EST, Thursday, November 12) for a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” with experts from across the nation—then follow along on November 14 as we #LaunchAmerica!

Live coverage on NASA TV and social media starts at 3:30 PM EST. See you then!

Image Credit: NASA/Emmett Given

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What encouraging words would you say to girls and women with dreams and ambitions who live in oppressive environments?

How Do Cargo Spacecraft Work?

Today is the day that our commercial partner, Orbital ATK, has set for the launch of its fourth contracted mission to the International Space Station. The Cygnus spacecraft will carry more than 7,000 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory.

How Does it Launch?

This mission is the first Cygnus mission to utilize NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force base in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The cargo will be launched inside the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft using a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. 

But how does it get there? Is there someone on the ground controlling and directing it to the space station? Surprisingly, no. After launch, the Cygnus spacecraft is automated until it gets near the station. At that point, the robotic controllers use the CanadArm2 to reach out and grapple it (grab), and then berth (connect) it to the station.

What’s Inside?

In order to keep the thousands of pounds of supplies, science and hardware from moving during launch and in flight, the cargo is packed in bags and strapped to the walls.

The new experiments arriving to the space station will challenge and inspire future scientists and explorers. A few of the highlights are:

The Packed Bed Reactor Experiment (PBRE) - This experiment (image below) will study the behavior of gases and liquids when they flow simultaneously through a column filled with fixed porous media. The findings from this will be of interest in many chemical and biological processing systems as well as many geophysical applications.

BASS-M (Burning and Suppression of Solids – Milliken) - This experiment (image below) will evaluate flame retardant and/or resistant textiles as a mode of personal protection from fire-related hazards. Studying this in microgravity will aid in better designs for future textiles and benefit those who wear flame retardant and/or resistant protective apparel such as military personnel and civilian workers in the electrical and energy industries. 

Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) - This equipment is a single locker-sized facility (image below) that will enable a wide variety of fundamental, applied and commercial life sciences research. It will also benefit K-16 education-based investigations aboard the space station. Research will be supported on microorganisms (bacteria, yeast, algae, fungi, viruses, etc.), animal cells and tissues and small plant and animal organisms.

Nodes Satellites – These satellites (image below) will be deployed from the space station to demonstrate new network capabilities critical to the operation of swarms of spacecraft. They will show the ability of multi-spacecraft swarms to receive and distribute ground commands, exchange information periodically and more. 

Holiday Surprises - With the upcoming holidays the crew’s family has the opportunity to send Christmas gifts to their family members on the International Space Station. 

What About After?

The spacecraft will spend more than a month attached to the space station before it’s detached for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere in January 2016, disposing of about 3,000 pounds of trash. It will disintegrate while entering the atmosphere. 

Want to Watch Launch?

Launch coverage begins at 4:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 3 on NASA Television. Cygnus is set to lift off on the Atlas V at 5:55 p.m., the beginning of a 30-minute launch window, from Space Launch Complex 41.

In addition to launch coverage, a post-launch briefing will be held approximately two hours after launch. All briefings will air live on NASA TV. 

UPDATE: Due to poor weather conditions, today’s launch has been scrubbed and moved to tomorrow at 5:33 p.m. EST. The forecast for tomorrow calls for a 30% chance of acceptable conditions at launch time. Continuous countdown coverage will be available on NASA Television starting at 4:30 p.m.

UPDATE 2: The uncrewed Cygnus cargo ship launched at 4:44 p.m. EST on Sunday, Dec. 6 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to begin its three-day journey to the orbiting laboratory.

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Beached Berg in Alaska

Each year since 2009, geophysicist and pilot Chris Larsen has led two sets of flights to monitor Alaska’s mountain glaciers. From the air, scientists like Larsen collect critical information on how the region’s snow and ice is changing. They also are in a good position to snap photographs of the stunning landscape. Larsen was flying with NASA science writer Maria-Jose Viñas on board. During a flight on August 19, 2018, Viñas shot this photograph during a mission to survey Yakutat Icefield and nearby glaciers in southeast Alaska.

The beach and stream in the photograph are in Russel Fjord near the terminus of the Hubbard Glacier. While this photograph does not show any glaciers, evidence of their presence is all around. Meltwater winds down a vegetation-free path of glacial till. On its way toward open water, the stream cuts through a beach strewn with icebergs. “The Hubbard Glacier has a broad and active calving front providing a generous supply of icebergs,” said Larsen, a researcher at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. “They are present all summer since new ones keep coming from the glacier.”

NASA’s Operation IceBridge makes lengthy flights each year over the landmasses of Greenland and Antarctica and their surrounding sea ice. While IceBridge-Alaska flights are shorter in length, the terrain is equally majestic and its snow and ice important to monitor. Wherever IceBridge flights are made, data collection depends in part on weather and instruments.

Read more: https://go.nasa.gov/2Mj48r0

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Galaxies: Cities of Stars

Galaxies are like cities made of oodles of stars, gas, and dust bound together by gravity. These beautiful cosmic structures come in many shapes and sizes. Though there are a slew of galaxies in the universe, there are only a few we can see with the unaided eye or backyard telescope.

How many types are out there, how’d so many of them wind up with weird names, and how many stars live inside them? Hold tight while we explore these cosmic metropolises.

Galaxies come in lots of different shapes, sizes, and colors. But astronomers have noticed that there are mainly three types: spiral, elliptical, and irregular.

Spiral galaxies, like our very own Milky Way, look similar to pinwheels! These galaxies tend to have a bulging center heavily populated by stars, with elongated, sparser arms of dust and stars that wrap around it. Usually, there’s a huge black hole hiding at the center, like the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star). Our galactic neighbor, Andromeda (also known as Messier 31 or M31), is also a spiral galaxy!

Elliptical galaxies tend to be smooth spheres of gas, dust, and stars. Like spiral galaxies, their centers are typically bulges surrounded by a halo of stars (but minus the epic spiral arms). The stars in these galaxies tend to be spread out neatly throughout the galaxies and are some of the oldest stars in the universe! Messier 87 (M87) is one example of an elliptical galaxy. The supermassive black hole at its center was recently imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope.

Irregular galaxies are, well … a bit strange. They have one-of-a-kind shapes, and many just look like messy blobs. Astronomers think that irregular galaxies' uniqueness is a result of interactions with other galaxies, like collisions! Galaxies are so big, with so much distance between their stars, that even when they collide, their stars usually do not. Galaxy collisions have been important to the formation of our Milky Way and others. When two galaxies collide, clouds of gas, dust, and stars are violently thrown around, forming an entirely new, larger one! This could be the cause of some irregular galaxies seen today.

Now that we know the different types of galaxies, what about how many stars they contain? Galaxies can come in lots of different sizes, even among each type. Dwarf galaxies, the smallest version of spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies, are usually made up of 1,000 to billions of stars. Compared to our Milky Way’s 200 to 400 billion stars, the dwarf galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud is tiny, with just a few hundred million stars! IC 1101, on the other hand, is one of the largest elliptical galaxies found so far, containing almost 100 trillion stars.

Ever wondered how galaxies get their names? Astronomers have a number of ways to name galaxies, like the constellations we see them in or what we think they resemble. Some even have multiple names!

A more formal way astronomers name galaxies is with two-part designations based on astronomical catalogs, published collections of astronomical objects observed by specific astronomers, observatories, or spacecraft. These give us cryptic names like M51 or Swift J0241.3-0816. Catalog names usually have two parts:

A letter, word, or short acronym that identifies a specific astronomical catalog.

A sequence of numbers and/or letters that uniquely identify the galaxy within that catalog.

For M51, the “M” comes from the Messier catalog, which Charles Messier started compiling in 1771, and the "51" is because it’s the 51st entry in that catalog. Swift J0241.3-0816 is a galaxy observed by the Swift satellite, and the numbers refer to its location in the sky, similar to latitude and longitude on Earth.

There’s your quick intro to galaxies, but there’s much more to learn about them. Keep up with NASA Universe on Facebook and Twitter where we post regularly about galaxies.

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Oddly Satisfying #NASAMoonKits 🌙

What would you take with you to the Moon? 🧳

We’re getting ready for our Green Run Hot Fire test, which will fire all four engines of the rocket that will be used for our Artemis I mission. This test will ensure the Space Launch System rocket is ready for the first and future missions beyond Earth’s orbit, putting us one step closer to landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon!

In celebration of this important milestone, we’ve been asking everyone (yeah, you there!) to dust off your suitcase, get creative, and show us what you would take if you were heading to the Moon!

Take a moment to peruse these #oddlysatisfying #NASAMoonKits submitted by people like you, and let them inspire you to lay out your own masterpiece. Post a picture of what you’d pack for the moon using the hashtag #NASAMoonKit for a chance to be shared by us! ⁣

1. @alexandra4astronaut

A stunning #NASAMoonKit in blue. 💙

2.@timmerman.jess

Looks like a little friend is hoping to catch a ride with this #NASAMoonKit. 🐶

3. @guido_aerus_lombardo

A #NASAMoonKit fit for an explorer. 🧭

4. @melli.jp

Shout out to the monochrome #NASAMoonKit enthusiasts! 🖤

5. @mycactusdress

This #NASAMoonKit is thoughtfully laid out by a true fan. 📚

6. Mar Christian V. Cruz

This geologist’s #NASAMoonKit rocks. ⛏️

7. Nelli

Beauty in simple #NASAMoonKits. ✨

8. @urbanxkoi

This #NASAMoonKit successfully fits into our Expert Mode — a volume of 5” by 8” by 2” (12.7 cm x 20.32 cm x 5.08 cm). The Expert Mode dimensions are based on the amount of space astronauts are allowed when they travel to the International Space Station!

9. PWR Aerospace

Nothing like a cozy #NASAMoonKit. 🧦

10. LEGO

This #NASAMoonKit is clearly for the builder-types! 🧸

How to Show Us What’s In Your #NASAMoonKit:    

There are four social media platforms that you can use to submit your work:

Instagram: Use the Instagram app to upload your photo or video, and in the description include #NASAMoonKit  

Twitter: Share your image on Twitter and include #NASAMoonKit in the tweet  

Facebook: Share your image on Facebook and include #NASAMoonKit in the post  

Tumblr: Share your image in Tumblr and include #NASAMoonKit in the tags

If a #NASAMoonKit post catches our eye, we may share your post on our NASA social media accounts or share it on the Green Run broadcast! 

Click here for #NASAMoonKit Terms and Conditions.  

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Using All of Our Senses in Space

Today, we and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the detection of light and a high-energy cosmic particle that both came from near a black hole billions of trillions of miles from Earth. This discovery is a big step forward in the field of multimessenger astronomy.

But wait — what is multimessenger astronomy? And why is it a big deal?

People learn about different objects through their senses: sight, touch, taste, hearing and smell. Similarly, multimessenger astronomy allows us to study the same astronomical object or event through a variety of “messengers,” which include light of all wavelengths, cosmic ray particles, gravitational waves, and neutrinos — speedy tiny particles that weigh almost nothing and rarely interact with anything. By receiving and combining different pieces of information from these different messengers, we can learn much more about these objects and events than we would from just one.

Lights, Detector, Action!  

Much of what we know about the universe comes just from different wavelengths of light. We study the rotations of galaxies through radio waves and visible light, investigate the eating habits of black holes through X-rays and gamma rays, and peer into dusty star-forming regions through infrared light.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which recently turned 10, studies the universe by detecting gamma rays — the highest-energy form of light. This allows us to investigate some of the most extreme objects in the universe.

Last fall, Fermi was involved in another multimessenger finding — the very first detection of light and gravitational waves from the same source, two merging neutron stars. In that instance, light and gravitational waves were the messengers that gave us a better understanding of the neutron stars and their explosive merger into a black hole.

Fermi has also advanced our understanding of blazars, which are galaxies with supermassive black holes at their centers. Black holes are famous for drawing material into them. But with blazars, some material near the black hole shoots outward in a pair of fast-moving jets. With blazars, one of those jets points directly at us!

Multimessenger Astronomy is Cool

Today’s announcement combines another pair of messengers. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory lies a mile under the ice in Antarctica and uses the ice itself to detect neutrinos. When IceCube caught a super-high-energy neutrino and traced its origin to a specific area of the sky, they alerted the astronomical community.

Fermi completes a scan of the entire sky about every three hours, monitoring thousands of blazars among all the bright gamma-ray sources it sees. For months it had observed a blazar producing more gamma rays than usual. Flaring is a common characteristic in blazars, so this did not attract special attention. But when the alert from IceCube came through about a neutrino coming from that same patch of sky, and the Fermi data were analyzed, this flare became a big deal!

IceCube, Fermi, and followup observations all link this neutrino to a blazar called TXS 0506+056. This event connects a neutrino to a supermassive black hole for the very first time.  

Why is this such a big deal? And why haven’t we done it before? Detecting a neutrino is hard since it doesn’t interact easily with matter and can travel unaffected great distances through the universe. Neutrinos are passing through you right now and you can’t even feel a thing!

The neat thing about this discovery — and multimessenger astronomy in general — is how much more we can learn by combining observations. This blazar/neutrino connection, for example, tells us that it was protons being accelerated by the blazar’s jet. Our study of blazars, neutrinos, and other objects and events in the universe will continue with many more exciting multimessenger discoveries to come in the future.

Want to know more? Read the story HERE.

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10 Space & Football Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

There are more connections between space and football than you may have originally thought. Here are a few examples of how...

1. The International Space Station and a football field are basically the same size

Yes, that’s right! The International Space Station measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s almost equivalent to the length of a football field including the end zones (360 feet).

2. It would take over 4,000 footballs to fill the Orion spacecraft

Our Orion spacecraft is being designed to carry astronauts to deep space destinations, like Mars! It will launch atop the most powerful rocket ever built, the Space Launch System rocket. If you were to fill the Orion spacecraft with footballs instead of crew members, you would fit a total of 4,625!

3. Our new Space Launch System rocket is taller than a football field is long

We’re building the most powerful rocket ever, the Space Launch System. At its full height it will stand 384 feet – 24 feet taller than a football field is long.

4. The crew living on space station will see the day begin and end…twice…during the Super Bowl

An average NFL game lasts more than three hours. Traveling at 17,500 mph, the crew on the space station will see two sunrises and two sunsets in that time…they see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day!

5. Playing football on Mars would be…lighter

On Mars, a football would weigh less than half a pound, while a 200-pund football player would weigh just about 75 pounds.

6. It would take over 3,000 hours for a football to reach the Moon

Talk about going long…if you threw a football to the Moon at 60 mph, the average speed of an NFL pass, it would take 3,982 hours, or 166 days, to get there. The quickest trip to the Moon was the New Horizons probe, which zipped pass the Moon in just 8 hours 35 minutes on its way to Pluto 

7. The longest field goal kick in history would’ve been WAY easier to make on Mars

The longest field goal kick in NFL history is 64 yards. On Mars, at 1/3 the gravity of Earth, that same field goal, ignoring air resistance, could have been made from almost two football fields away (192 yards).

8. A quarterback would be able to throw even further on Mars

Aerodynamic drag doesn’t happen on Mars. With a very thin atmosphere and low gravity to drag the ball down, a quarterback could throw the football three times as far as he could on Earth. A receiver would have to be much further down the field to catch the throw 

9. Football players and astronauts both need to exercise every day

Football players must be quick and powerful, honing the physical skills necessary for their unique positions. In space, maintaining physical fitness is a top priority, since astronauts will lose bone and muscle mass if they do not keep up their strength and conditioning.

10. Clear team communication is important on the football field AND in space

During football games, calling plays and relaying information from coaches on the sidelines or in the booth to players on the field is essential. Coaches communicate directly with quarterbacks and a defensive player between plays via radio frequencies. They must have a secure and reliable system that keeps their competitors from listening in and also keeps loud fan excitement from drowning out what can be heard. Likewise, reliable communication with astronauts in space and robotic spacecraft exploring far into the solar system is key to our mission success.

A radio and satellite communications network allows space station crew members to talk to the ground-based team at control centers, and for those centers to send commands to the orbital complex.

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Happy International Women’s Day!

Without the women of NASA, space exploration would be just a dream.

This International Women’s Day join us in celebrating the women whose grit, ingenuity and talent drives us forward in our mission to boldly expand frontiers in air and space. Thank you for pushing boundaries, serving as role models and shaping space, science and discovery every day!

The women at NASA are making history everyday! Keep up with their work and learn more about their stories, HERE. 

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What does “chemical fingerprints” mean? What chemicals indicate possible life on other planets?