What Does It Feel Like To Float?? Do You Have Trouble Adjusting To Walking On The Earth After That ??

Our Eight Favorite Things About This Weekend’s Student Launch

We’re ready for another year of sky-high fun, literally, as student teams launch nearly 50 high-powered rockets during the 16th annual Student Launch, April 16, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Hundreds of students from high schools, colleges and universities across 22 states have spent the past several months designing, fabricating and testing single-stage rockets and autonomous ground support systems. So, what makes this event so great? Start here to find out as we list our eight favorite things.

1. A Mile-High Target

Setting goals is a part of life, and so, too, is this competition. Teams will attempt to launch their rocket to an altitude of one mile, or 5,280 feet. That'll earn the maximum number of altitude points of 5,280. But, if teams go over or under, there's a penalty. Teams lose 2 points for every foot over and 1 point for every foot under.

2. Return of the Mars Ascent Vehicle Challenge

Back for a second consecutive year – the MAV challenge runs parallel with Student Launch -- requiring teams to design an autonomous system capable of retrieving and storing a mock Martian sample into their rocket. Sponsored by the Centennial Challenges program – our citizen prize program -- MAV focuses on designing rockets for future sample return missions to Mars.

3. Why, Yes, It Really Is Rocket Science

Static stability margin, thrust-to-weight ratios and ammonium perchlorate composite propellants may seem like a foreign language, but it’s just everyday lingo for these young rocket scientists. In addition to designing and fabricating a rocket, students hone skills by completing electrical wiring and operating computer-aided software for launching rockets and analyzing payloads.

4. Putting Rocketry Skills to the Test

During launch week, we host a “Rocket Fair,” where each team gives a technical presentation about their rocket and any autonomous systems, to hundreds of engineers and team members from NASA, corporate sponsor Orbital ATK of Promontory, Utah, and the media. Doing so provides students an opportunity to gain valuable feedback from real rocket scientists and engineers.

5. Hard Work Pays Off, Literally

Yes, a year’s worth of bragging rights are on the line, but so, too, is some cold, hard cash. Orbital ATK offers an overall cash prize of $5,000 to the highest-ranking college/university team to meet the Student Launch objectives. Plus, the MAV challenge offers a share of $50,000 for completion of its objectives.

6. Safety, Safety and More Safety

Teams complete a lengthy series of comprehensive flight and safety reviews, all overseen by our staff, engineers and scientists. Multiple reviews are scheduled throughout the 8-month-long design process, as well as during the launch week at Marshall Space Flight Center. These reviews mirror the engineering design lifecycle used by our workforce.

7. Celebrate Good Times

After the smoke clears from rocket launches, teams gather for a well-earned evening of celebration. The awards banquet -- held at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and funded by Orbital ATK -- recognizes teams with awards including Best Design, Altitude, Safety and more.

8. Teams Make Dreams Come True

More than just a friendly competition, Student Launch and MAV Challenge provide long-lasting life experiences outside of the classroom. Students benefit from working as a team, applying STEM skills and overcoming technical obstacles -- all aspects related to the success of our work. 

The MAV Challenge and Student Launch are open to the public and will stream live on line at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc

For more details, rules, photos from previous events, and links to social media accounts providing real-time updates, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education/studentlaunch

For more information about the Centennial Challenges MAV Challenge, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/winit

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What Have We Learned About Pluto?

Earlier this year on July 14, our New Horizons spacecraft successfully flew by Pluto. During this encounter, it collected more than 1,200 images of the dwarf planet and tens of gigabits of data. The intensive downlinking of this information began on Sept. 5, and will continue for around a year. With the information being returned for the duration of a year, we still have a lot more to learn about Pluto. Here are a few things we’ve discovered so far:

Pluto’s Heart

An image captured by New Horizons around 16 hours before closest approach displays Pluto’s “heart”. This stunning image of one of the planet’s most dominate features shows us that the heart’s diameter is about the same distance as from Denver to Chicago. This image also showed us that Pluto is a complex world with incredible geological diversity.

Icy Plains

Pluto’s vast icy plain, informally called Sputnik Planum, resembles frozen mud cracks on Earth. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs. In other areas, the surface appears to be etched by fields of small pits that may have formed by a process called sublimation, which is when ice turns directly from solid to gas, just as dry ice does on Earth. 

Majestic Mountains

Images from the spacecraft display chaotically jumbled mountains that only add to the complexity of Pluto’s geography. The rugged, icy mountains are as tall as 11,000 feet high.

Color Variations

This high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto combines, blue red and infrared images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft. The surface of the dwarf planet has a remarkable range of subtle color variations. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story of the planet.

Foggy Haze and Blue Atmosphere

Images returned from the New Horizons spacecraft have also revealed that Pluto’s global atmospheric haze has many more layers than scientists realized. The haze even creates a twilight effect that softly illuminates nightside terrain near sunset, which makes them visible to the cameras aboard the spacecraft. Today, a new announcement was made about Pluto’s atmosphere after the most recent image returned from New Horizons showed that Pluto’s hazes are blue. The haze particles themselves are likely gray or red, but they way they scatter blue light has created this tint.

Water Ice

In another finding announced today, New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto. Scientists are eager to understand why water appears exactly where it does, and not in other places.

Stay updated on New Horizons findings by visiting the New Horizons page. You can also keep track of Pluto News on the New Horizons Blog. 

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We’re honored to be recognized as one of 2015’s new and notable Tumblrs! Thanks for following along as we explore the universe and discover our home planet.

New and Notable Tumblrs of 2015 - Part 1

We’d like to recognize these distinguished Tumblrs for achievement in Being So Good.

NASA

GISHWHES

Sheldon the Tiny Dinosaur

Afro Arts

Karlie Kloss

Actual Dog Vines

Nike Women

Magic: The Gathering

Post It Forward

Book Quotes

Good Things by Ellen

Just Bad Puns

How to Get Away with Paint

Google Sheep View

Protecting our Home Planet 🌎

Did you ever wonder how we spots asteroids that may be getting too close to Earth for comfort? Wonder no more. Our Planetary Defense Coordination Office does just that. Thanks to a variety of ground and space based telescopes, we’re able to detect potentially hazardous objects so we can prepare for the unlikely threat against our planet. 

What is a near-Earth object?

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun, but their orbits bring them into Earth’s neighborhood – within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit.

These objects are relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system’s formation some 4.6 billion years ago. Most of the rocky asteroids originally formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, while comets, composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, formed in the cold outer solar system.

Who searches for near-Earth objects?

Our Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program finds, tracks and monitors near-Earth asteroids and comets. Astronomers supported by the program use telescopes to follow up the discoveries to make additional measurements, as do many observatories all over the world. The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, based at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also uses these data to calculate high-precision orbits for all known near-Earth objects and predict future close approaches by them to Earth, as well as the potential for any future impacts.

How do we calculate the orbit of a near-Earth object?

Scientists determine the orbit of an asteroid by comparing measurements of its position as it moves across the sky to the predictions of a computer model of its orbit around the Sun. The more observations that are used and the longer the period over which those observations are made, the more accurate the calculated orbit and the predictions that can be made from it.

How many near-Earth objects have been discovered so far?

At the start of 2019, the number of discovered NEOs totaled more than 19,000, and it has since surpassed 20,000. An average of 30 new discoveries are added each week. More than 95 percent of these objects were discovered by NASA-funded surveys since 1998, when we initially established its NEO Observations Program and began tracking and cataloguing them.

Currently the risk of an asteroid striking Earth is exceedingly low, but we are constantly monitoring our cosmic neighborhood. Have more questions? Visit our Planetary Defense page to explore how we keep track of near-Earth objects. 

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How to Do Business with NASA

It’s Small Business Week! To celebrate, we’re breaking down the process and explaining how YOUR small business can work with us. Here are 10 steps:

Prior to working with us, identify which of your products or services best fit within our industry. It’s also important to know the Federal Supply Class or Service Codes (FSC/SVC) for your products or services. Prepare a capability brief in both printed and electronic versions with an emphasis on Government work.

In order to register your business with us, there are three systems you’ll need to use. The Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS), the System for Award Management (SAM) and the NASA Vendor Data Base (NVDB). After you’ve survived all those acronyms, your business is registered!

Here at NASA we have centers around the country that each procure different types of business. Where does your product or service fit in? The best thing to do is visit THIS site and find out more about each center. You can also take a look at our Acquisition Forecast to find out about expected contract opportunities.

You can find current procurement opportunities in your product or service area by checking the Federal Business Opportunities website. This site also helps you identify our requirements and even send you e-mail notifications of released requirements.

Contracting procedures can be tedious, it’s always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), as well as our supplement to those regulations. Which can be found HERE.

Did you know that many of our purchases are orders on the Federal Supply Schedule contracts? They are, which means you can contact the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) for information on how to obtain a contract.

There are some very beneficial resources available to you throughout this process. You can request training and counseling on marketing, financial and contracting issues at minimal or no cost from Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs).

You also have the option to consult with the SBA’s Procurement Center Representatives (PCRs) and the SBA Business Development Centers. The SBA provides each of our centers with a liaison.

There is also an option to get free and confidential mentoring by former CEOs through SCORE.

Direct contracting is not the only route for small businesses. Consider subcontracting opportunities, and get information through the SBA’s SUB-Net or Subcontracting Opportunities Directory. Solicitations or notices are posted by prime contractors. Our list of prime vendors is located on our Marshall Space Flight Center’s website.

Explore other small business programs, such as our Mentor-Protégé Program, the Small Business Innovation Research Program and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions Program. Information on these and other programs is available on our Office of Small Business Programs website.

After you have identified your customers, researched their requirements and familiarized yourself with our procurement regulations and strategies, it’s time to market your product or service. Present your capabilities directly to the NASA Centers that buy your products or services. Realize that, as with yours, their time is valuable. If the match is a good one, you can provide them with a cost-effective, quality solution to their requirements. Good luck!

Here are a Few Small Businesses We’re Already Working With…

Dynetics Technical Services, Inc., of Huntsville, AL works with us on enterprise information technology services so that we have the right tools to reach for new heights. This company was also named Agency Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year.

Arcata Associates, Inc., of Las Vegas, NV manages operations and maintenance for our Dryden Aeronautical Test Range in Edwards, CA. Their work ensures that we can continue our critical work in aviation research and development. This company was even named Agency Small Business Subcontractor of the Year.

Want to learn more about our Office of Small Business Programs? Visit their site HERE. 

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What's a SPOC? Isn't that a star trek character?

Astronaut Training: 5 Things You Need to Know

NASA honored the first class of astronaut candidates to graduate under the Artemis program on Friday, Jan. 10, at our Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Out of a record 18,000 applicants, the 11 new astronauts, alongside two from the Canadian Space Agency, have completed two years of training and are now eligible for spaceflight. One day they could embark on missions to the International Space Station, the Moon and even Mars.

Here are five of the training criteria they had to check off to graduate from astronaut candidate to astronaut:

1. Piloting T-38 Jets

Astronauts have been training in T-38 jets since 1957 because the sleek, white jets require crew members to think quickly in dynamic situations and to make decisions that have real consequences. This type of mental experience is critical to preparing for the rigors of spaceflight. It also familiarizes astronaut candidates with checklists and procedures. To check off this training criteria, candidates must be able to safely operate in the T-38 as either a pilot or back seater. 

2. Knowing International Space Station Systems

We are currently flying astronauts to the International Space Station every few months. Astronauts aboard the space station are conducting experiments benefiting humanity on Earth and teaching us how to live longer in space. Astronaut candidates learn to operate and maintain the complex systems aboard the space station as part of their basic training.

3. Conducting Spacewalks

Spacewalks are the hardest thing, physically and mentally, that astronauts do. Astronaut candidates must demonstrate the skills to complete complex spacewalks in our Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (giant pool used to simulate weightlessness). In order to do so, they will train on the life support systems within the spacesuit, how to handle emergency situations that can arise and how to work effectively as a team to repair the many critical systems aboard the International Space Station to keep it functioning as our science laboratory in space.  

4. Operating Robotics

Astronaut candidates learn the coordinate systems, terminology and how to operate the space station’s two robotic arms called Canadarm2 and Dextre. They train in Canada for a two-week session where they develop more complex robotics skills including capturing visiting cargo vehicles with the arm. The arm, built by the Canadian Space Agency, is capable of handling large cargo and hardware and it helped build the entire space station. It has latches on either end, allowing it to be moved by both flight controllers on the ground and astronauts in space to various parts of the station.

5. Learning Russian Language

The official languages of the International Space Station are English and Russian. All crew members – regardless of what country they come from – are required to know both. NASA astronauts train with their Russian crew mates so it makes sense that they should be able to speak Russian. Astronaut candidates start learning the language at the beginning of their training and train every week, as their schedule allows. 

Now, they are ready for their astronaut pin!

After completing this general training, the new astronauts could be assigned to missions performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and launching on deep space missions on our new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket. 

Watch the Astronaut Candidate Graduation Ceremony

Watch a recording of the astronaut candidate graduation ceremony on our YouTube channel. 

So You Want to Be an Astronaut?

This spring, we’ll once again be accepting applications for the next class of astronauts! Stay tuned to www.nasa.gov/newastronauts for upcoming information on how you can explore places like the Moon and Mars.

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What were some of the biggest challenges in this project and how did you overcome them?

Space Stamps

Coming in to a post office near you: new “Views of Our Planets: Forever stamps featuring iconic images of the planets in our solar system, including the well-known “Blue Marble” photo of Earth.

New “Pluto Explored” Forever stamps commemorating the July 2015 flyby of Pluto by our New Horizons spacecraft are also being issued for online purchase.

The May 31 first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony for the Pluto and planetary stamps will be in New York City at the World Stamp Show. This international gathering of stamp collectors occurs only once each decade in the United States, and – with more than 250,000 visitors expected to attend – is the largest stamp show in the world.

The Pluto stamps are of special significance to the New Horizons team, which placed a 20-cent 1991 “Pluto: Not Yet Explored” stamp on board the spacecraft. On July 14, 2015, New Horizons carried the stamp on its history-making journey to Pluto and beyond, as jubilant members of the mission team celebrated with a large print, striking the words “not yet.”

The above pane of 16 Forever stamps, the Postal Service showcases some of the more visually compelling historic, full-disk images of the planets obtained during the last half-centruy of our space exploration. Eight new colorful Forever stamps – each shown twice – feature Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

This isn’t the first time that space has been featured on postal stamps. In the past, many different space images and missions have been highlighted on the tiny pieces of paper you stick on the corner of your mail.

Here’s a look at a few space stamps of the past:

Nebulae

Stamps depicting multiple nebulae seen by the Hubble Space Telescope were released in 2000. 

Pioneer 10 

Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and obtain close-ups of Jupiter

U.S. Launches Satellites 

This stamp, released in 1999, depicts the post World War II race in space exploration. 

Alan Shepard: First American in Space

This stamp, released in 2011, featured Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Flying on the Mercury spacecraft, Shepard launched, flew 116 miles high and came back to Earth. His flight lasted about 15 and a half minutes. 

MESSENGER Mission

MESSENGER, launching in 2004, was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. This stamp, released in 2011, highlighted this mission and its importance. Understanding Mercury and how it formed is critical to better understanding the conditions on and evolution of the inner planets.

The new “Views of our Planets” stamps will be widely available across the U.S. at post offices and for online purchase beginning May 31. The Pluto – Explored Forever stamps will only be sold online or by calling 800-782-6724.

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Meet Our Superhero Space Telescopes!

While the first exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system—were discovered using ground-based telescopes, the view was blurry at best. Clouds, moisture, and jittering air molecules all got in the way, limiting what we could learn about these distant worlds.

A superhero team of space telescopes has been working tirelessly to discover exoplanets and unveil their secrets. Now, a new superhero has joined the team—the James Webb Space Telescope. What will it find? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To capture finer details—detecting atmospheres on small, rocky planets like Earth, for instance, to seek potential signs of habitability—astronomers knew they needed what we might call “superhero” space telescopes, each with its own special power to explore our universe. Over the past few decades, a team of now-legendary space telescopes answered the call: Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, Kepler, and TESS.

Much like scientists, space telescopes don't work alone. Hubble observes in visible light—with some special features (superpowers?)—Chandra has X-ray vision, and TESS discovers planets by looking for tiny dips in the brightness of stars.

Kepler and Spitzer are now retired, but we're still making discoveries in the space telescopes' data. Legends! All were used to tell us more about exoplanets. Spitzer saw beyond visible light into the infrared and was able to make exoplanet weather maps! Kepler discovered more than 3,000 exoplanets.

Three space telescopes studied one fascinating planet and told us different things. Hubble found that the atmosphere of HD 189733 b is a deep blue. Spitzer estimated its temperature at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (935 degrees Celsius). Chandra, measuring the planet’s transit using X-rays from its star, showed that the gas giant’s atmosphere is distended by evaporation.

Adding the James Webb Space Telescope to the superhero team will make our science stronger. Its infrared views in increased ranges will make the previously unseen visible.

Soon, Webb will usher in a new era in understanding exoplanets. What will Webb discover when it studies HD 189733 b? We can’t wait to find out! Super, indeed.

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