Deputy Administrator Views STS-131 Landing

NASA Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana, left, Special Assistant to the Director Robert Hubbard, center, and NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver scan the sky for the space shuttle Discovery as it approaches for landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Tuesday, April 20, 2010. Discovery and the STS-131 crew returned from their mission to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/garver_131landing.html

STS-131 Crew Members

NASA astronaut and STS-131 commander Alan Poindexter, from left, along with NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Naoko Yamazaki pose for a photo in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station while space shuttle Discovery remains docked with the station.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts131/multimedia/photogallery/100407-2.html

ISS Photography: 100 Million Words

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Expedition 22 crew aboard the International Space Station is about to complete the generation of 100 million words worth of information.

That’s because Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Max Suraev, Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi are expected to snap a total of 100,000 images by the end of their mission in Earth orbit.

Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams works with test samples in the Human Research Facility 2 Refrigerated Centrifuge as a part of the Nutritional Status Assessment experiment in the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory. Credit: NASA

Williams is setting a record that surpasses his own previous record of 83,856 images taken during Expedition 13 in 2006.

“This week we broke my old Exp. 13 record for number of Earth photos,” Williams “tweeted” from the station. “Later, after landing and recovery, I will post some of best.”

Among those digital still images is this spectacular nighttime image taken of Houston, Texas, the home of Mission Control and astronaut training, and the hub of the International Space Station Program that unites five space agencies and 15 countries in peaceful exploration and scientific research.

Williams and Suraev will end their five-and-a-half-month stay on the station Thursday, when they undock their Soyuz spacecraft and head for a landing in Kazakhstan. They were part of both the Expedition 21 and 22 crews. Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi will stay on orbit, snapping more photos, for two more months before returning home after being part of both the Expedition 22 and 23 crews.

All told, space station crews so far have amassed a total of almost 639,000 images. Those images include photos that document life and work aboard the space station, and photos that document the condition of the home planet from its unique perspective 220 miles above Earth. Their efforts are part of a larger collection that began with Earth observations photos during the Gemini Program of the 1960s. Many of the images are used in scientific research about the Earth, its climate, its resources and the effects humans are having on both.

The Houston metropolitan area at night is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 22 crew member on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

The recent STS-130 space shuttle mission delivered a new observation deck known as the cupola that offers the largest window ever flown on a spacecraft, and the upcoming STS-131 shuttle mission to the station will deliver the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF), which will provide a new facility dedicated to multi- and hyper-spectral remote sensing and high resolution Earth observation photography to enhance the use of the best optical-quality window ever flown in space, in the U.S. Destiny Laboratory.

For more information about Earth observations photography, visit the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of the Earth at:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov

For more information about WORF, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/WORF.html

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition22/iss_photography.html

Alternative Energy Crops in Space

What if space held the key to producing alternative energy crops on Earth? That's what researchers are hoping to find in a new experiment on the International Space Station.

The experiment, National Lab Pathfinder-Cells 3, is aimed at learning whether microgravity can help jatropha curcas plant cells grow faster to produce biofuel, or renewable fuel derived from biological matter. Jatropha is known to produce high quality oil that can be converted into an alternative energy fuel, or biofuel.

By studying the effects of microgravity on jatropha cells, researchers hope to accelerate the cultivation of the plant for commercial use by improving characteristics such as cell structure, growth and development. This is the first study to assess the effects of microgravity on cells of a biofuel plant.

Fruits of J. curcas. Fruits are produced terminally in the branches, and each fruit contains three seeds. Image credit: Dr. Wagner A Vendrame, University of Florida at Homestead

"As the search for alternate energy sources has become a top priority, the results from this study could add value for commercialization of a new product,” said Wagner Vendrame, principal investigator for the experiment at the University of Florida in Homestead. "Our goal is to verify if microgravity will induce any significant changes in the cells that could affect plant growth and development back on Earth."

Launched on space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-130 mission in February, cell cultures of jatropha were sent to the space station in special flasks containing nutrients and vitamins. The cells will be exposed to microgravity until they return to Earth aboard space shuttle Discovery's STS-131 mission targeted for April.

Seeds of J. curcas. Seeds are pressed for oil extraction, which can be utilized as biofuel. Image credit: Dr. Wagner A Vendrame, University of Florida at Homestead

For comparison studies of how fast the cultures grow, a replicated set of samples are being maintained at the University of Florida's Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead.

Fluid Processing Apparatus (FPA) containing cell suspensions of J. curcas. The FPAs will be assembled into the Group Activation Pack (GAP), which will be transported to the ISS for microgravity studies. Image credit: Dr. Wagner A Vendrame, University of Florida at Homestead

"Watching the space shuttle go up carrying a little piece of my work is an indescribable experience," said Vendrame. "Knowing that my experiment could contribute to creating a sustainable means for biofuel production on Earth, and therefore making this a better world adds special value to the work."

by Lori Meggs, AI Signal Research, Inc.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/jatropha.html

---

---