NASA Orbiter Fleet - Columbia

Columbia (OV-102), the first of NASA's orbiter fleet, was delivered to Kennedy Space Center in March 1979. Columbia initiated the Space Shuttle flight program when it lifted off Pad A in the Launch Complex 39 area at KSC on April 12, 1981. It proved the operational concept of a winged, reusable spaceship by successfully completing the Orbital Flight Test Program - missions STS-1 through STS-4.

Other, achievements for Columbia included the recovery of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) satellite from orbit during mission STS-32 in January 1990, and the STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences mission in June 1991 - the first manned Spacelab mission totally dedicated to human medical research.

Columbia was destroyed over east Texas on its landing descent to Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 1, 2003, at 8:59 a.m. EST at the conclusion of a microgravity research mission, STS-107.

Columbia was named after a small sailing vessel that operated out of Boston in 1792 and explored the mouth of the Columbia River. One of the first ships of the U.S. Navy to circumnavigate the globe was named Columbia. The command module for the Apollo 11 lunar mission was also named Columbia.

Planet X (Nibiru) Is Quickly Approaching 2012

Planet X or Nibiru is passed between the planets Mars and Jupiter a few 7,200 years ago. "It's definitely bigger than Pluto." So says Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced today the discovery of a new planet in the outer solar system.

The planet, which hasn't been officially named yet, was found by Brown and colleagues using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego. It is currently about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 97 Astronomical Units(AU). For comparison, Pluto is 40 AU from the sun.

This places the new planet more or less in the Kuiper Belt, a dark realm beyond Neptune where thousands of small icy bodies orbit the sun. The planet appears to be typical of Kuiper Belt objects--only much bigger. Its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a planet itself, Brown says.

Backyard astronomers with large telescopes can see the new planet. But don't expect to be impressed: It looks like a dim speck of light, visual magnitude 19, moving very slowly against the starry background.

The planet was discovered by, in addition to Brown, Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. They first photographed the new planet with the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003. The object was so far away, however, that its motion was not detected until they reanalyzed the data in January of this year. In the last seven months, the scientists have been studying the planet to better estimate its size and its motions.

Tohoku Tsunami Created Icebergs In Antarctica

A NASA scientist and her colleagues were able to observe for the first time the power of an earthquake and tsunami to break off large icebergs a hemisphere away.

Kelly Brunt, a cryosphere specialist at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues were able to link the calving of icebergs from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica following the Tohoku Tsunami, which originated with an earthquake off the coast of Japan in March 2011. The finding, detailed in a paper published online today in the Journal of Glaciology, marks the first direct observation of such a connection between tsunamis and icebergs.

The birth of an iceberg can come about in any number of ways. Often, scientists will see the towering, frozen monoliths break into the polar seas and work backwards to figure out the cause.So when the Tohoku Tsunami was triggered in the Pacific Ocean on March 11 this spring, Brunt and colleagues immediately looked south. All the way south. Using multiple satellite images, Brunt, Emile Okal at Northwestern University and Douglas MacAyeal at University of Chicago were able to observe new icebergs floating off to sea shortly after the sea swell of the tsunami reached Antarctica.

To put the dynamics of this event in perspective: An earthquake off the coast of Japan caused massive waves to explode out from its epicenter. Swells of water swarmed toward an ice shelf in Antarctica, 8,000 miles (13,600 km) away, and about 18 hours after the earthquake occurred, those waves broke off several chunks of ice that together equaled about two times the surface area of Manhattan. According to historical records, this particular piece of ice hadn't budged in at least 46 years before the tsunami came along.

NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Asteroid Vesta

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft on Saturday became the first probe ever to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Dawn will study the asteroid, named Vesta, for a year before departing for a second destination, a dwarf planet named Ceres, in July 2012. Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system. The data also will help pave the way for future human space missions.

"Today, we celebrate an incredible exploration milestone as a spacecraft enters orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt for the first time," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Dawn's study of the asteroid Vesta marks a major scientific accomplishment and also points the way to the future destinations where people will travel in the coming years. President Obama has directed NASA to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and Dawn is gathering crucial data that will inform that mission."

The spacecraft relayed information to confirm it entered Vesta's orbit, but the precise time this milestone occurred is unknown at this time. The time of Dawn's capture depended on Vesta's mass and gravity, which only has been estimated until now. The asteroid's mass determines the strength of its gravitational pull. If Vesta is more massive, its gravity is stronger, meaning it pulled Dawn into orbit sooner. If the asteroid is less massive, its gravity is weaker and it would have taken the spacecraft longer to achieve orbit. With Dawn now in orbit, the science team can take more accurate measurements of Vesta's gravity and gather more accurate timeline information.

Dawn, which launched in September 2007, is on track to become the first spacecraft to orbit two solar system destinations beyond Earth. The mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for the overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission's team. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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AQUA Mission-NASA

Aqua Mission
Aqua is a major international Earth Science satellite mission centered at NASA. Launched on May 4, 2002, the satellite has six different Earth-observing instruments on board and is named for the large amount of information being obtained about water in the Earth system from its stream of approximately 89 Gigabytes of data a day. The water variables being measured include almost all elements of the water cycle and involve water in its liquid, solid, and vapor forms. Additional variables being measured include radiative energy fluxes, aerosols, vegetation cover on the land, phytoplankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans, and air, land, and water temperatures.

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Cassini Spacecraft Captures Images and Sounds of Big Saturn Storm

PASADENA, Calif. – Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft now have the first-ever, up-close details of a Saturn storm that is eight times the surface area of Earth.

On Dec. 5, 2010, Cassini first detected the storm that has been raging ever since. It appears at approximately 35 degrees north latitude on Saturn. Pictures from Cassini's imaging cameras show the storm wrapping around the entire planet covering approximately 1.5 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers).

The storm is about 500 times larger than the biggest storm previously seen by Cassini during several months from 2009 to 2010. Scientists studied the sounds of the new storm's lightning strikes and analyzed images taken between December 2010 and February 2011. Data from Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument showed the lightning flash rate as much as 10 times more frequent than during other storms monitored since Cassini's arrival to Saturn in 2004. The data appear in a paper published this week in the journal Nature.

"Cassini shows us that Saturn is bipolar," said Andrew Ingersoll, an author of the study and a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Saturn is not like Earth and Jupiter, where storms are fairly frequent. Weather on Saturn appears to hum along placidly for years and then erupt violently. I'm excited we saw weather so spectacular on our watch."

At its most intense, the storm generated more than 10 lightning flashes per second. Even with millisecond resolution, the spacecraft's radio and plasma wave instrument had difficulty separating individual signals during the most intense period. Scientists created a sound file from data obtained on March 15 at a slightly lower intensity period.

Cassini has detected 10 lightning storms on Saturn since the spacecraft entered the planet's orbit and its southern hemisphere was experiencing summer, with full solar illumination not shadowed by the rings. Those storms rolled through an area in the southern hemisphere dubbed "Storm Alley." But the sun's illumination on the hemispheres flipped around August 2009, when the northern hemisphere began experiencing spring.

"This storm is thrilling because it shows how shifting seasons and solar illumination can dramatically stir up the weather on Saturn," said Georg Fischer, the paper's lead author and a radio and plasma wave science team member at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz. "We have been observing storms on Saturn for almost seven years, so tracking a storm so different from the others has put us at the edge of our seats."

The storm's results are the first activities of a new "Saturn Storm Watch" campaign. During this effort, Cassini looks at likely storm locations on Saturn in between its scheduled observations. On the same day that the radio and plasma wave instrument detected the first lightning, Cassini's cameras happened to be pointed at the right location as part of the campaign and captured an image of a small, bright cloud. Because analysis on that image was not completed immediately, Fischer sent out a notice to the worldwide amateur astronomy community to collect more images. A flood of amateur images helped scientists track the storm as it grew rapidly, wrapping around the planet by late January 2011.

The new details about this storm complement atmospheric disturbances described recently by scientists using Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. The storm is the biggest observed by spacecraft orbiting or flying by Saturn. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured images in 1990 of an equally large storm.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The radio and plasma wave science team is based at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, where the instrument was built. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Atlantis Last Shuttle at the Launch Pad

Space shuttle Atlantis completed its 3.4-mile trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A on June 1, becoming the last shuttle to make that journey. The STS-135 payload was delivered to the launch pad on June 16.

The STS-135 crew is commanded by Chris Ferguson and includes Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus. Atlantis will carry the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module containing deliver supplies and spare parts for the International Space Station. The mission also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems.

The launch date is set by July 8th and the landing date is July 20th

After 30 years of spaceflight, more than 130 missions, and numerous science and technology firsts, NASA's space shuttle fleet will retire and be on display at institutions across the country to inspire the next generation of explorers and engineers.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday announced the facilities where four shuttle orbiters will be displayed permanently at the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program.

• Shuttle Enterprise, the first orbiter built, will move from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York.
• The Udvar-Hazy Center will become the new home for shuttle Discovery, which retired after completing its 39th mission in March.
• Shuttle Endeavour, which is preparing for its final flight at the end of the month will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
• Shuttle Atlantis, which will fly the last planned shuttle mission in June, will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex in Florida.

"We want to thank all of the locations that expressed an interest in one of these national treasures," Bolden said. "This was a very difficult decision, but one that was made with the American public in mind. In the end, these choices provide the greatest number of people with the best opportunity to share in the history and accomplishments of NASA's remarkable Space Shuttle Program. These facilities we've chosen have a noteworthy legacy of preserving space artifacts and providing outstanding access to U.S. and international visitors."

NASA also announced that hundreds of shuttle artifacts have been allocated to museums and education institutions.

• Various shuttle simulators for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum of McMinnville, Ore., and Texas A&M's Aerospace Engineering Department
• Full fuselage trainer for the Museum of Flight in Seattle
• Nose cap assembly and crew compartment trainer for the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
• Flight deck pilot and commander seats for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston
• Orbital maneuvering system engines for the U.S. Space and Rocket Center of Huntsville, Ala., National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

NASA Sets May 16 for Last Launch of Endeavour

NASA managers set May 16 as the new launch date for the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour after technicians completed work to rewire and retest a switchbox in the orbiters aft compartment. Shuttle managers ordered the repair work following a heater malfunction that forced NASA officials to the call off the planned April 29 launch.

At a briefing for reporters today at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Shuttle managers Mike Moses and Mike Leinbach announced that Endeavour’s last liftoff is now targeted for 8:56 a.m. EDT on Monday, May 16.

The STS-134 mission is the penultimate flight of the space shuttle program and will deliver the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. Endeavour’s last launch attempt on April 29 was scrubbed about four hours prior to blastoff when critical hydrazine fuel line heaters failed to turn on inside one of the orbiters three auxiliary power units (APU’s).

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Space Shuttle Endeavour to Launch No Earlier Than May 16

NASA is now aiming to launch the space shuttle Endeavour on its final flight no earlier than May 16 – pushing the mission back another week to give ground crews more time to complete and test repairs to the orbiter.

Top NASA managers met may6th afternoon to assess progress on repairs to failed heaters that caused the agency to call off its first launch attempt on April 29. The heaters protect a crucial power unit, and without them, the unit would likely freeze on orbit and be unable to serve its role as one of three power sources for Endeavour's hydraulic systems during re-entry and landing.

Technicians worked on repairs all week and will continue to test the electrical circuitry that caused the initial postponement of Endeavour's STS-134 mission. Repair work will continue through the weekend, NASA officials said, and mission managers will hold a news briefing on Monday (May 9) to discuss the status of the work.

NASA Selects Investigations for Future Key Missions

NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn's moons; or study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., would lead the Mars investigation.

Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission's concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in June 2010. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 28 submissions. The selected investigations could reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes. Three technology developments for possible future planetary missions also were selected.

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NASA Spacecraft Closing in On Huge Asteroid Vesta

NASA spacecraft has reached a new phase of its mission to Vesta, the second-largest asteroid in the solar system, and is on track to arrive at the huge space rock in July. The probe, NASA's Dawn spacecraft, is now using cameras for the first time to aid its approach to Vesta, a massive asteroid that many astronomers classify as a protoplanet. If all goes well, the ion-propelled probe should enter orbit around Vesta on July 16 to begin a year-long study of the mysterious space rock.

"We feel a little like Columbus approaching the shores of the New World," said Christopher Russell, Dawn principal investigator at UCLA, in a statement. "The Dawn team can't wait to start mapping this terra incognita." At 329 miles wide, Vesta is the second-biggest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It appears to have layers – a core, mantle and crust – just as planets such as Earth, Venus and Mars do.

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NASA Delays Last Launch of Shuttle Endeavour Due to Malfunction

NASA called off its attempt to launch the final voyage of the space shuttle Endeavour yesterday (April 29) because of a malfunction in one of the spacecraft's critical power units. "It's unfortunate for the [Endeavour] team and Mark Kelly and his crew, but today the orbiter's not ready to fly, and as we always say in this business, we will not fly before we're ready," launch director Mike Leinbach said.

Two heaters on one of Endeavour's auxiliary power units, which power hydraulics systems on the shuttle during its return to Earth, failed this morning, rendering the unit useless. "The troubleshooting proved that it was a hard failure," Leinbach said. "We were not able to get it to come to life no matter what we did." Mission managers decided to delay at least 72 hours to look into the source of the problem. The next chance to launch Endeavour comes Monday-May 2 at 2:33 p.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39A here at Kennedy Space Center.

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NASA's Youngest Shuttle

NASA's youngest orbiter, born from a tragedy, Endeavour made its debut on April 25, 1991, as it was rolled out from Rockwell's construction hangar in Palmdale, Calif. The fifth and last of the U.S. space agency's reusable winged spacecraft to enter the shuttle fleet, Endeavour arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a month later.

In the two decades since, Endeavour has left its mark on history, saving the Hubble Space Telescope, giving birth to the International Space Station (ISS), and completing a mission begun by the fallen shuttle it was built to replace. It also launched the first African-American woman and the first married couple. Now it is set to fly one last mission to the ISS to deliver a state-of-the-art experiment, a crowning achievement for an accomplished spacecraft. "Since Endeavour's first flight to this flight, it's had a really outstanding career," said Capt. Mark Kelly, commander of Endeavour's final mission, after arriving April 27 in Florida for the orbiter's last launch.

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STS-134 Astronauts Arrive at Kennedy for Launch

The six astronauts for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission to the International Space Station now are at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for their prelaunch preparations. "We're really happy to be here today," said commander Kelly. "We got a chance to take look at the orbiter as we first flew over the field and then the over pad. It's great to see Endeavour all ready to go again."

Kelly introduced his crew, talked about how excited they were to fly this mission and deliver the special payloads to the station, and how happy he is that his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, will be able to travel to Kennedy arriving in time for the launch on Friday.

Kelly and his crew then departed the shuttle runway. Later today, Kelly and Pilot Greg H. Johnson will practice landings in the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA), which are Gulfstream II jets modified to handle like a space shuttle.

NASA clears shuttle Endeavour for April 29 launch

The shuttle Endeavour was cleared for a launch attempt on April 29 to deliver a new class of physics instrument to the International Space Station on NASA's next-to-last shuttle flight, officials said Tuesday. Liftoff of the 134th shuttle mission is scheduled for 3:47 p.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The all-veteran crew is led by Mark Kelly, husband of Arizona Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering from a January 8 shooting that killed six people and injured 12 others.

Pending approval from her doctors, Giffords, who has not been seen publicly since the attack outside a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store, plans to attend the launch, Kelly has said. The primary purpose of the flight is to deliver the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, particle detector, an instrument designed to detect dark matter, antimatter and other exotic phenomena.

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PSLV-C16 launch successful

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle- C16 placed on a 822-km sunsynchronous orbit three satellites – ResourceSat – 2, an Indo-Russian YouthSat and Singapore's first satellite X Sat, on Wednesday. The launch went off as per schedule and the satellites were placed in orbit 18 minutes after blast off from the launch pad at the Sriharikota spaceport.

Wednesday's successful launch, which was the 17th consecutive one for India's space warhorse PSLV, has pushed up India'a remote sensing capabilities. Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Radhakrishnan said the launch was a grand success. "We wanted to put the satellites into a 820-km orbit, but we got an 822 km orbit," he said. The mission cost Rs 250 crore.

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NASA: Final Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour Set for April 29

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is ready to launch on its final voyage April 29, top mission managers decided on April 19. Shuttle officials approved the launch plan after a day-long meeting called the Flight Readiness Review (FRR), which allowed mission managers to discuss Endeavour's mission plan in detail and consider any possible issues that might delay liftoff.

None being found, officials decided to move forward with the target date of April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT for Endeavour's final blast off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, florida. "The team was unanimous and we're ready to go fly," NASA's associate administrator for space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, said during a press conference following the meeting.

Endeavour is slated to carry six astronauts, a cargo bay full of spare supplies, and a $2 billion astrophysics experiment to the International Space Station. "The potential science that it can return to understand the dark matter that lives in the universe and understand these unique high-energy particles that are out there in space, it's going to be tremendously important," Gerstenmaier said. "This is a pretty unique mission to close out Endeavour's career."

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Countdown for PSLV-C16 mission on

The countdown for the launch of PSLV-C16 that will put the country's latest remote sensing spacecraft Resourcesat-2 and two small satellites in orbit on April 20 began in the early morning on Monday at the spaceport of Sriharikota.

"The 54-and-a-half-hour-long countdown started on schedule this morning at 3.42 AM. All the proceedings are smooth. The fourth stage of filling liquid propellants is in progress now," Indian Space Research Organisation spokesman S Sathish said. "The weather is normal for the launch," he said. As per the schedule, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C-16) carrying Resourcesat-2, Youthsat and X-sat will lift-off from the launch pad at 10.12 am on Wednesday.

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Star Formation Linked to Sonic Booms

ESA's Herschel space observatory has revealed that nearby interstellar clouds contain networks of tangled gaseous filaments. Intriguingly, each filament is approximately the same width, hinting that they may result from interstellar sonic booms throughout our Galaxy. The filaments are huge, stretching for tens of light years through space and Herschel has shown that newly-born stars are often found in the densest parts of them. One filament imaged by Herschel in the Aquila region contains a cluster of about 100 infant stars.

Such filaments in interstellar clouds have been glimpsed before by other infrared satellites, but they have never been seen clearly enough to have their widths measured. Now, Herschel has shown that, regardless of the length or density of a filament, the width is always roughly the same. "This is a very big surprise," says Doris Arzoumanian, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU, the lead author on the paper describing this work. Together with Philippe André from the same institute and other colleagues, she analysed 90 filaments and found they were all about 0.3 light years across, or about 20,000 times the distance of Earth from the Sun. This consistency of the widths demands an explanation.

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NASA Names Mission Control for Legendary Flight-Director Christopher Kraft

NASA is recognizing Christopher C. Kraft Jr., America's first human space mission flight director, by naming the Mission Control Center in his honor for his service to the nation and its space programs. Johnson Space Center Director Michael Coats made it official April 14 at a dedication ceremony and unveiling of a new nameplate on the building, designating the legendary building as the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center.

“Dr. Kraft’s life stands as a testament to his dream of exploring space. A dream he realized here on Earth, in this building and at this center, through his engineering and managerial expertise,” said Coats. “He is a space pioneer without whom we’d never have heard those historic words on the surface of the moon, ‘Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.’ Those words effectively put Houston, and this building behind us, on the intergalactic map forever.”

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NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope Marks Key Milestone

The first six of 18 segments that will form NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror for space observations will begin final round-the-clock cryogenic testing this week. These tests will confirm the mirrors will respond as expected to the extreme temperatures of space prior to integration into the telescope's permanent housing structure. The X-ray and Cryogenic Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. will provide the space-like environment to help engineers measure how well the telescope will image infrared sources once in orbit.

Each mirror segment measures approximately 4.3 feet in diameter to form the 21.3 foot, hexagonal telescope mirror assembly critical for infrared observations. Each of the 18 hexagonal-shaped mirror assemblies weighs approximately 88 pounds. The mirrors are made of a light and strong metal called beryllium, and coated with a microscopically thin coat of gold to enabling the mirror to efficiently collect light.

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NASA Announces New Homes for Space Shuttle Orbiters After Retirement

After 30 years of spaceflight, more than 130 missions, and numerous science and technology firsts, NASA's space shuttle fleet will retire and be on display at institutions across the country to inspire the next generation of explorers and engineers. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday announced the facilities where four shuttle orbiters will be displayed permanently at the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program.

Shuttle Enterprise, the first orbiter built, will move from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. The Udvar-Hazy Center will become the new home for shuttle Discovery, which retired after completing its 39th mission in March. Shuttle Endeavour, which is preparing for its final flight at the end of the month will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Shuttle Atlantis, which will fly the last planned shuttle mission in June, will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex in Florida.

The MELFI Shuffle: Contingency Planning for Preserving Samples

The International Space Station is a unique laboratory, due to its microgravity environment, but it still shares similarities with Earth-bound research facilities. Both perform experiments as part of their research goals, yielding various samples from which they collect data towards results. These samples can require preservation in refrigerators and freezers. A recent malfunction of a Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS, or MELFI, on the space station, however, brought to light one of the main differences between this orbiting lab and its Earthly counterparts-refrigeration repair companies do not make house calls in space.

The malfunction of the MELFI flight unit two has been an ongoing challenge for the space station. In October of 2009, and twice in December 2010, the unit experienced an automatic shutdown due to difficulties with the Electronics Units or EUs. The nonfunctioning EUs all returned to Earth for ground teams to identify the exact cause of trouble. The first EU returned to Earth for study on STS-131/19A, while the remaining two returned on STS-133/ULF-5 in March 2011. The first malfunction was linked to the motor drive electronics, a subassembly of the EU. The parts were replaced and the repaired EU is scheduled to return to the space station on STS-134/ULF-6 in late April 2011. The other two EUs are currently undergoing testing and the motor drive electronics appear functional, which indicates the malfunction is in the remaining parts of the EU.

Testing of AMS on Tap for the Weekend

At NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A, crews will power up space shuttle Endeavour's payload, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 today in preparation for testing, which will take place over the weekend. Teams have concluded, with an additional walk down of the pad, that there was no new damage following a storm earlier this week. NASA managers will hold a Flight Readiness Review on Tuesday, April 19, to assess the ground and flight team's readiness to support launch. An official launch date will be announced at the conclusion of the meeting. Endeavour's STS-134 mission is targeted for launch at 3:47 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 29.

Space Station Crew Launches from Birthplace of Human Spaceflight

One week shy of the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight, NASA astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev launched to the International Space Station at 6:18 p.m. EDT Monday (4:18 a.m. local time, April 5) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz rocket that lifted Garan, Borisenko and Samokutyaev into orbit was decorated with Yuri Gagarin's name. The mission lifted off from the same launch pad used April 12, 1961, when Gagarin became the first human to journey into space.

The crew is scheduled to dock its Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft to the station's Poisk port at 7:18 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6. The crew members will join Expedition 27 Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency, who have been aboard the orbiting laboratory since December 2010. On Wednesday, NASA Television will broadcast live coverage of the docking beginning at 6:45 p.m.

Houston Deserves a Space Shuttle for Display, Astronaut Spouses Say

The spouses of two astronauts who died in the space shuttle Columbia accident have joined Houston’s vociferous campaign to win a space shuttle for display once NASA retires the orbiter fleet this year. Houston, home of NASA's astronaut corps and shuttle mission control, is hoping to be among the few sites in the country awarded a shuttle for public display when the 30-year program comes to an end. Houston has stepped up its campaign recently as the competition has become increasingly fierce.

For its part, Space Center Houston has some grand plans in the works should it receive a shuttle. "We currently have a building, about 53,000 square feet, that would house the orbiter," Allen said. "The theme we're looking at for the exhibits is the human side of the orbiter, what the astronauts were able to accomplish." Allen's not being picky. He said any of NASA's orbiters Discovery, Endeavour or Atlantis — would be welcome in Houston."We think we could tell that story about any of the three vehicles," he said.The center receives about 750,000 visitors a year, he said, and has hosted almost 14 million people since it opened in 1992.

Launch Pad Inspections Set For Saturday Following TCDT Conclusion Friday

Technicians and engineers on Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will begin detailed inspections of space shuttle Endeavour and its external fuel tank Saturday afternoon. They’ll look for any possible damage from severe storms that hit Kennedy on Wednesday and Thursday. Teams began an initial survey of the launch pad Friday, but weren’t able to do a thorough inspection because the pad was being used for a full launch dress rehearsal for Endeavour’s STS-134 mission called the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT). Endeavour’s six astronauts successfully completed the simulated launch countdown and related safety training Friday afternoon and returned home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Friday’s initial pad inspection did not find anything obvious, other than the previously identified minor foam insulation damage on Endeavour’s external tank that was caused by a strong storm on Wednesday. Teams will install platforms Saturday morning that will allow for close up surveys, which will provide data to engineering reviews to confirm there are no other issues. Endeavour is targeted to launch to the International Space Station on April 19 at 7:48 p.m. EDT.

STS-134 Crew Begin TCDT at Kennedy

Space shuttle Endeavour's six astronauts arrived at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in four T-38 jets between 5:07 p.m. and 5:24 p.m. EDT. The crew is at Kennedy for their week-long launch dress rehearsal, called the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT. TCDT will provide Endeavour's astronauts and ground crews with an opportunity to participate in various simulated countdown activities, including equipment familiarization and emergency training.

Later today STS-134 Commander Mark Kelly and Pilot Greg H. Johnson will practice shuttle landings in shuttle training aircraft. The next media event will be a Q and A at Launch Pad 39A on March 31 at 8:40 am. EDT The event will be aired on NASA TV. Launch of Endeavour on the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station is targeted for 7:48 p.m. EDT April 19. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields.

Endeavour Payload Scheduled for Friday Installation-NASA information

This week at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, crews at Launch Pad 39A continue preparations to install the payload into space shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay. After the rotating service structure was extended yesterday morning, the payload changeout room main doors and Endeavour's payload bay doors were opened, allowing access for spacecraft and payload inspections. Installation of the payload is scheduled for Friday.

Space shuttle program managers, STS-134 mission managers and Endeavour's six astronauts will hold preflight briefings today from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. Launch of Endeavour on the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station is targeted for 7:48 p.m. EDT April 19.

Techs to Perform Payload and Spacecraft Inspections

Launch Pad 39A crews at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are preparing for the payload installation into space shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay scheduled . Today, technicians will open the payload bay doors and perform inspections on the spacecraft and payload. Meanwhile, the STS-134 crew will practice flying techniques in their T-38 training aircraft today at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Launch of Endeavour on the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station is targeted for 7:48 p.m. EDT April 19. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields.

Students Get Fit the Astronaut Way-NASA Information

When you think of NASA, likely you picture the space shuttle, the International Space Station, or have images of planets and galaxies flashing before your mind's eye. NASA's Mission X: Train Like an Astronaut, however, focuses a little closer to home. Working with the schools in our very own neighborhoods and around the world, Mission X uses the same skills used to train astronauts to motivate physical education for around 3,700 students in 40 cities around the globe.
The brainchild of the International Space Life Science Working Group or ISLSWG and the Human Research Program Education and Outreach or HRPEO, Mission X launched in U.S. schools on Jan. 18, 2010. NASA's Human Research Program funded the pilot program, including activity and educational modules and an interactive Website. The program is available in six different languages for participants in 10 countries U.S., Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Columbia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The goal of the program is to make kinesiology and nutrition fun for children by encouraging them to train like an astronaut.



Chuck Lloyd, the NASA program manager responsible for the project, comments on how the space program excites students, prompting active participation. "Mission X is all about inspiring and educating our youth about living a healthy lifestyle with a focus on improving their overall daily physical activity with the Mission X physical activities, known as train-like-an-astronaut."
Students aging from 8- to 12-years-old learn about the science behind their activities, including the importance of hydration, bone health, and balanced nutrition. Known as "fit explorers," these youth stay motivated with fun ways to gauge their success. For instance, they can see what other schools are doing on the Train Like An Astronaut blog. Fit explorers logged their accumulated activity points over the course of the program to help an online cartoon astronaut, known as Flat Charlie, walk to the moon.. Flat Charlie made the moon five weeks in to the competition -- a distance of 238,857 miles(384,403 km) or 478 million steps and he's still going!

NASA's Hubble Rules Out One Alternative to Dark Energy

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have ruled out an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy after recalculating the expansion rate of the universe to unprecedented accuracy.

The universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate. Some believe that is because the universe is filled with a dark energy that works in the opposite way of gravity. One alternative to that hypothesis is that an enormous bubble of relatively empty space eight billion light-years across surrounds our galactic neighborhood. If we lived near the center of this void, observations of galaxies being pushed away from each other at accelerating speeds would be an illusion.

This hypothesis has been invalidated because astronomers have refined their understanding of the universe's present expansion rate. Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., led the research. The Hubble observations were conducted by the SHOES (Supernova Ho for the Equation of State) team that works to refine the accuracy of the Hubble constant to a precision that allows for a better characterization of dark energy's behavior. The observations helped determine a figure for the universe's current expansion rate to an uncertainty of just 3.3 percent. The new measurement reduces the error margin by 30 percent over Hubble's previous best measurement of 2009. Riess' results appear in the April 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Waiter, There's Metal in My Moon Water

Bring a filter if you plan on drinking water from the moon. Water ice recently discovered in dust at the bottom of a crater near the moon's south pole is accompanied by metallic elements like mercury, magnesium, calcium, and even a bit of silver. Now you can add sodium to the mix, according to Dr. Rosemary Killen of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Recent discoveries of significant deposits of water on the moon were surprising because our moon has had a tough life. Intense asteroid bombardments in its youth, coupled with its weak gravity and the Sun's powerful radiation, have left the moon with almost no atmosphere. This rendered the lunar surface barren and dry, compared to Earth.

However, due to the moon's orientation to the Sun, scientists theorized that deep craters at the lunar poles would be in permanent shadow and thus extremely cold, and able to trap volatile material like water as ice if such material were somehow transported there, perhaps by comet impacts or chemical reactions with hydrogen, a major component of the solar wind.

Can WISE Find the Hypothetical 'Tyche'?

In November 2010, the scientific journal Icarus published a paper by astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, who proposed the existence of a binary companion to our sun, larger than Jupiter, in the long-hypothesized "Oort cloud" -- a faraway repository of small icy bodies at the edge of our solar system. The researchers use the name "Tyche" for the hypothetical planet. Their paper argues that evidence for the planet would have been recorded by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

WISE is a NASA mission, launched in December 2009, which scanned the entire celestial sky at four infrared wavelengths about 1.5 times. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets relatively close to Earth. Recently, WISE completed an extended mission, allowing it to finish a complete scan of the asteroid belt, and two complete scans of the more distant universe, in two infrared bands. So far, the mission's discoveries of previously unknown objects include an ultra-cold star or brown dwarf, 20 comets, 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs), and more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Following its successful survey, WISE was put into hibernation in February 2011. Analysis of WISE data continues. A preliminary public release of the first 14 weeks of data is planned for April 2011, and the final release of the full survey is planned for March 2012.

Catching Space Weather in the Act

Close to the globe, Earth's magnetic field wraps around the planet like a gigantic spherical web, curving in to touch Earth at the poles. But this isn't true as you get further from the planet. As you move to the high altitudes where satellites fly, nothing about that field is so simple. Instead, the large region enclosed by Earth's magnetic field, known as the magnetosphere, looks like a long, sideways jellyfish with its round bulb facing the sun and a long tail extending away from the sun.

In the center of that magnetic tail lies the plasma sheet. Here, strange things can happen. Magnetic field lines pull apart and come back together, creating explosions when they release energy. Disconnected bits of the tail called "plasmoids" get ejected into space at two million miles per hour. And legions of charged particles flow back toward Earth.

Such space weather events cause auroras and, when very strong, can produce radiation events that could cause our satellites to fail. But until now no one has been able to take pictures of these fascinating processes in the plasma sheet.

NASA Releases Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet

NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has a fragile and weak nucleus.

The spacecraft made its closest approach to comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 178 kilometers (111 miles). Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet. It also accumulated 468 kilobytes of data about the dust in its coma, the cloud that is a comet's atmosphere. The craft is on its second mission of exploration called Stardust-NExT, having completed its prime mission collecting cometary particles and returning them to Earth in 2006.

The Stardust-NExT mission met its goals, which included observing surface features that changed in areas previously seen during the 2005 Deep Impact mission; imaging new terrain; and viewing the crater generated when the 2005 mission propelled an impactor at the comet.

NASA Releases Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet

NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has a fragile and weak nucleus.

The spacecraft made its closest approach to comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 178 kilometers (111 miles). Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet. It also accumulated 468 kilobytes of data about the dust in its coma, the cloud that is a comet's atmosphere. The craft is on its second mission of exploration called Stardust-NExT, having completed its prime mission collecting cometary particles and returning them to Earth in 2006.

The Stardust-NExT mission met its goals, which included observing surface features that changed in areas previously seen during the 2005 Deep Impact mission; imaging new terrain; and viewing the crater generated when the 2005 mission propelled an impactor at the comet.

Comet Hunter's First Images on the Ground

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have begun receiving the first of 72 anticipated images of comet Tempel 1 taken by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.

The first six, most distant approach images are available at http://www.nasa.gov/stardust and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov. Additional images, including those from closest approach, are being downlinked in chronological order and will be available later in the day.

A news conference will be held at 12:30 p.m. PST (3:30 p.m. EST) to allow scientists more time to analyze the data and images.

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that expands on the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Stardust-NExT for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. Joe Veverka of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is the mission's principal investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations.

NASA Spacecraft Hours From Comet Encounter

As of today, Feb. 14, at 9:21 a.m. PST (12:21 p.m. EST), NASA's Stardust-NExT mission spacecraft is within a quarter-million miles (402,336 kilometers) of its quarry, comet Tempel 1, which it will fly by tonight. The spacecraft is cutting the distance with the comet at a rate of about 10.9 kilometers per second (6.77 miles per second or 24,000 mph).

The flyby of Tempel 1 will give scientists an opportunity to look for changes on the comet's surface since it was visited by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft in July 2005. Since then, Tempel 1 has completed one orbit of the sun, and scientists are looking forward to discovering any differences in the comet.

The closest approach is expected tonight at approximately 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST).

During the encounter phase, the spacecraft will carry out many important milestones in short order and automatically, as the spacecraft is too far away to receive timely updates from Earth. These milestones include turning the spacecraft to point its protective shields between it and the anticipated direction from which cometary particles would approach. Another milestone will occur at about four minutes to closest approach, when the spacecraft will begin science imaging of the comet's nucleus.

SDO Celebrates One Year Anniversary

On February 11, 2010, at 10:23 in the morning, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) launched into space on an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral. A year later, SDO has sent back millions of stunning images of the sun and a host of new data to help us understand the complex star at the heart of our solar system.

"One of the highlights of the last year is just that everything worked so smoothly," says astrophysicist Dean Pesnell, the project scientist for SDO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We turned it on in March and it immediately started sending us data at 150 megabits per second. It worked from the very get go."

New View of Family Life in the North American Nebula

Stars at all stages of development, from dusty little tots to young adults, are on display in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

This cosmic community is called the North American nebula. In visible light, the region resembles the North American continent, with the most striking resemblance being the Gulf of Mexico. But in Spitzer's infrared view, the continent disappears. Instead, a swirling landscape of dust and young stars comes into view.

"One of the things that makes me so excited about this image is how different it is from the visible image, and how much more we can see in the infrared than in the visible," said Luisa Rebull of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. Rebull is lead author of a paper about the observations, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. "The Spitzer image reveals a wealth of detail about the dust and the young stars here."

Heading Into the Bonus Round – in Space

NASA's Stardust spacecraft was launched on Feb. 7, 1999, on a mission that would explore a comet as no previous mission had. Before Stardust, seven spacecraft from NASA, Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency had visited comets – they had flight profiles that allowed them to perform brief encounters, collecting data and sometimes images of the nuclei during the flyby.

Like those comet hunters before it, Stardust was tasked to pass closely by a comet, collecting data and snapping images. It also had the ability to come home again, carrying with it an out-of -this-world gift for cometary scientists – particles of the comet itself. Along the way, the telephone booth-sized comet hunter racked up numerous milestones and more than a few "space firsts."

NASA Hosting Events for Valentine's Night Comet Encounter

NASA will host several live activities for the Stardust-NExT mission's close encounter with comet Tempel 1. The closest approach is expected at approximately 8:37 p.m. PST (11:37 p.m. EST) on Feb. 14, with confirmation received on Earth at about 8:56 p.m. PST (11:56 p.m. EST).

Live coverage of the Tempel 1 encounter will begin at 8:30 p.m. PST on Feb. 14 on NASA Television and the agency's website. The coverage will include live commentary from mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and video from Lockheed Martin Space System's mission support area in Denver.

LRO Could Have Given Apollo 14 Crew Another Majestic View

Although the Apollo 14 mission to the moon was filled with incredible sights and was completely successful it met all its science goals the crew experienced a bit of a disappointment at missing the spectacular view from the rim of a 1,000-foot-wide crater. They might have gazed into its depths if they had the high-resolution maps now available from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft.

Pressure was on the Apollo 14 mission, launched January 31, 1971, from the start. The Apollo 13 landing had to be aborted because an oxygen tank explosion crippled the spacecraft as it was on its way to the moon. It was a heroic effort just to return the crew safely to Earth, but the Apollo 14 team knew a second failure would probably result in cancellation of the remaining Apollo missions.

First Ever STEREO Images of the Entire Sun

On Feb. 6th, NASA's twin STEREO probes moved into position on opposite sides of the sun, and they are now beaming back uninterrupted images of the entire star—front and back.

"For the first time ever, we can watch solar activity in its full 3-dimensional glory," says Angelos Vourlidas, a member of the STEREO science team at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC.

"This is a big moment in solar physics," says Vourlidas. "STEREO has revealed the sun as it really is--a sphere of hot plasma and intricately woven magnetic fields."

Each STEREO probe photographs half of the star and beams the images to Earth. Researchers combine the two views to create a sphere. These aren't just regular pictures, however. STEREO's telescopes are tuned to four wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet radiation selected to trace key aspects of solar activity such as flares, tsunamis and magnetic filaments. Nothing escapes their attention.

Surprise Hidden in Titan's Smog: Cirrus-Like Clouds

Every day is a bad-air day on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Blanketed by haze far worse than any smog belched out in Los Angeles, Beijing or even Sherlock Holmes's London, the moon looks like a dirty orange ball. Described once as crude oil without the sulfur, the haze is made of tiny droplets of hydrocarbons with other, more noxious chemicals mixed in. Gunk.

Icky as it may sound, Titan is really the rarest of gems: the only moon in our solar system with an atmosphere worthy of a planet. This atmosphere comes complete with lightning, drizzle and occasionally a big, summer-downpour style of cloud made of methane or ethane -- hydrocarbons that are best known for their role in natural gas.

Now, thin, wispy clouds of ice particles, similar to Earth's cirrus clouds, are being reported by Carrie Anderson and Robert Samuelson at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The findings, published February 1 in Icarus, were made using the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers Extraordinary New Planetary System

Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth.

"The Kepler-11 planetary system is amazing," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and a Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "It’s amazingly compact, it’s amazingly flat, there’s an amazingly large number of big planets orbiting close to their star - we didn’t know such systems could even exist."

In other words, Kepler-11 has the fullest, most compact planetary system yet discovered beyond our own.

"Few stars are known to have more than one transiting planet, and Kepler-11 is the first known star to have more than three," said Lissauer. "So we know that systems like this are not common. There’s certainly far fewer than one percent of stars that have systems like Kepler-11. But whether it’s one in a thousand, one in ten thousand or one in a million, that we don’t know, because we only have observed one of them."

Cassini Sends Back Postcards of Saturn Moons

On Jan. 31, 2011, NASA's Cassini spacecraft passed by several of Saturn's intriguing moons, snapping images along the way. Cassini passed within about 60,000 kilometers (37,282 miles) of Enceladus and 28,000 kilometers (17,398 miles) of Helene. It also caught a glimpse of Mimas in front of Saturn's rings. In one of the images, Cassini is looking at the famous jets erupting from the south polar terrain of Enceladus.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Tracking the Origins of Speedy Space Particles

NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interaction during Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft combined with computer models have helped track the origin of the energetic particles in Earth's magnetic atmosphere that appear during a kind of space weather called a substorm. Understanding the source of such particles and how they are shuttled through Earth's atmosphere is crucial to better understanding the Sun's complex space weather system and thus protect satellites or even humans in space.

The results show that these speedy electrons gain extra energy from changing magnetic fields far from the origin of the substorm that causes them. THEMIS, which consists of five orbiting satellites, helped provide these insights when three of the spacecraft traveled through a large substorm on February 15, 2008. This allowed scientists to track changes in particle energy over a large distance. The observations were consistent with numerical models showing an increase in energy due to changing magnetic fields, a process known as betatron acceleration.

"The origin of fast electrons in substorms has been a puzzle," says Maha Ashour-Abdalla, the lead author of a Nature Physics paper that appeared online on January 30, 2011 on the subject and a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It hasn't been clear until now if they got their burst of speed in the middle of the storm, or from some place further away."