See Mercury Race Across The Sun On Monday

Homeschool Day Brings STEM Activities to Virginia Air & Space Center

Jacob Earley, left, Frank Jones and his mother, Maria Jones, learned about the effects of gravity on other planets from NASA intern Jessica Hathaway during Homeschool Appreciation Day, which took place May 6 at the Virginia Air & Space Center (VASC) in Hampton, Virginia. Hathaway was one of several volunteers from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton who taught homeschooled children and their parents interactive lessons about everything from ultraviolet radiation to engineering satellites to navigating a rover on Mars. Approximately 300 people registered for the event, which has a focus on activities involving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The VASC is the official visitor center for NASA Langley.

Joe Atkinson NASA Langley Research Center

Katherine Johnson Biography

https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

Date of Birth: August 26, 1918 Hometown: White Sulphur Springs, WV Education: B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937 Hired by NACA: June 1953 Retired from NASA: 1986 Actress Playing Role in Hidden Figures: Taraji P. Henson

Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918, Katherine Johnson’s intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her ahead several grades in school. By thirteen, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At eighteen, she enrolled in the college itself, where she made quick work of the school’s math curriculum and found a mentor in math professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in Mathematics. Katherine graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia.  

When West Virginia decided to quietly integrate its graduate schools in 1939, West Virginia State’s president Dr. John W. Davis selected Katherine and two male students as the first black students to be offered spots at the state’s flagship school, West Virginia University. Katherine left her teaching job, and enrolled in the graduate math program. At the end of the first session, however, she decided to leave school to start a family with her husband.  She returned to teaching when her three daughters got older, but it wasn’t until 1952 that a relative told her about open positions at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory, headed by fellow West Virginian Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine and her husband, James Goble, decided to move the family to Newport News to pursue the opportunity, and Katherine began work at Langley in the summer of 1953. Just two weeks into Katherine’s tenure in the office, Dorothy Vaughan assigned her to a project in the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division, and Katherine’s temporary position soon became permanent. She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight test, and worked on the investigation of a plane crash caused by wake turbulence. As she was wrapping up this work her husband died of cancer in December 1956.

The 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik changed history—and Katherine Johnson’s life. In 1957, Katherine provided some of the math for the 1958 document Notes on Space Technology, a compendium of a series of 1958 lectures given by engineers in the Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD). Engineers from those groups formed the core of the Space Task Group, the NACA’s first official foray into space travel, and Katherine, who had worked with many of them since coming to Langley, “came along with the program” as the NACA became NASA later that year. She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. In 1960, she and engineer Ted Skopinski coauthored Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position, a report laying out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified. It was the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report.

In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, DC, Cape Canaveral, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission, from blast off to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Katherine Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine.  “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.

When asked to name her greatest contribution to space exploration, Katherine Johnson talks about the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. She also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Satellite, and authored or coauthored 26 research reports. She retired in 1986, after thirty-three years at Langley. “I loved going to work every single day,” she says. In 2015, at age 97, Katherine Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor.

Biography by Margot Lee Shetterly

https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

Happy Birthday to NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson!

Born February 9, 1960, Peggy A. Whitson (Ph.D.) flew on Expedition 50/51 and participated in four spacewalks, bringing her career total to ten. With a total of 665 days in space, Whitson holds the U.S. record, placing eighth on the all-time space endurance list.  The Iowa native also completed two six-month tours of duty aboard the station for Expedition 5 in 2002, and as the station commander for Expedition 16 in 2008 where she accumulated 377 days in space between the two missions, the most for any U.S. woman at the time of her return to Earth.

Education: Graduated from Mt. Ayr Community High School, Mt. Ayr, Iowa, in 1978; received a Bachelor of Science in Biology/Chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981 and a Doctorate in Biochemistry from Rice University in 1985.

Experience: From 1981 to 1985, Dr. Whitson conducted her graduate work in Biochemistry at Rice University, Houston, Texas, as a Robert A. Welch Predoctoral Fellow. Following completion of her graduate work, she continued at Rice University as a Robert A. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow until October 1986. Following this position, she began her studies at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas, as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate. From April 1988 until September 1989, Whitson served as the Supervisor for the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a medical sciences contractor at NASA-JSC. From 1991 to 1997, Whitson was invited to be an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics at University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas. In 1997, Whitson began a position as Adjunct Assistant Professor at Rice University in the Maybee Laboratory for Biochemical and Genetic Engineering.

NASA Experience: From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Whitson worked as a Research Biochemist in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. From 1991 to 1993, she served as Technical Monitor of the Biochemistry Research Laboratories in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch. From 1991 to 1992, she was the Payload Element Developer for the Bone Cell Research Experiment (E10) aboard SL-J (STS-47) and was a member of the U.S.-USSR Joint Working Group in Space Medicine and Biology. In 1992, she was named the Project Scientist of the Shuttle-Mir Program (STS-60, STS‑63, STS-71, Mir 18, Mir 19) and served in this capacity until the conclusion of the Phase 1A Program in 1995. From 1993 to 1996, Whitson held the additional responsibilities of the Deputy Division Chief of the Medical Sciences Division at Johnson Space Center. From 1995 to 1996, she served as Co-Chair of the U.S.-Russian Mission Science Working Group. In April 1996, she was selected as an Astronaut Candidate and started training in August 1996. Upon completing two years of training and evaluation, she was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Operations Planning Branch and served as the lead for the Crew Test Support Team in Russia from 1998 to 1999. From November 2003 to March 2005, she served as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office. Also in 2003, she served as commander of the fifth NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) mission.

From March 2005 to November 2005, she served as Chief of the Station Operations Branch, Astronaut Office. Whitson trained as the backup ISS commander for Expedition 14 from November 2005 to September 2006. Whitson also was a member of the 2004 Astronaut Selection Board and chaired the Astronaut Selection Board in 2009.

Whitson completed two six-month tours of duty aboard the International Space Station, the second as the station commander for Expedition 16 in April 2008. This was Whitson’s second long-duration spaceflight. She has accumulated 377 days in space between the two missions, the most for any woman. Whitson has also performed a total of six career spacewalks, adding up to 39 hours and 46 minutes.

From October 2009 to July 2012, Whitson served as Chief of the Astronaut Corps and was responsible for the mission preparation activities and on-orbit support of all International Space Station crews and their support personnel. She was also responsible for organizing the crew interface support for future heavy launch and commercially-provided transport vehicles. Whitson was the first female, nonmilitary Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Spaceflight Experience: Expedition 5 (June 5 through December 7, 2002). The Expedition 5 crew launched on June 5, 2002, aboard STS-111 and docked with the International Space Station on June 7, 2002. During her six-month stay aboard the space station, Dr. Whitson installed the Mobile Base System, the S1 truss segment and the P1 truss segment, using the Space Station Remote Manipulator System; performed a four hour and 25-minute Orlan spacewalk to install micrometeoroid shielding on the Zvezda Service Module and activated and checked out the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox, a facility class payload rack. She was named the first NASA Science Officer during her stay, and she conducted 21 investigations in human life sciences and microgravity sciences as well as commercial payloads. The Expedition 5 crew (one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts) returned to Earth aboard STS-113 on December 7, 2002. Completing her first flight, Dr. Whitson logged 184 days, 22 hours and 14 minutes in space.

Expedition 16 (October 10 through April 19, 2008). The Expedition 16 crew of Whitson and Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko launched on October 10, 2007, aboard a Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft and docked with the International Space Station on October 12, 2007. The third crew member position for this expedition was filled by astronauts rotating in and out via shuttle flights and included Clay Anderson, Dan Tani, Leo Eyharts and Garrett Reisman. As commander, Whitson oversaw the first expansion of the station’s living and working space in more than six years. The station and visiting space shuttle crews added the Harmony connecting node, the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo logistics pressurized module and the Canadian Space Agency’s Dextre robot. Whitson performed five spacewalks to conduct assembly and maintenance tasks outside the complex. She and Malenchenko undocked from the station and returned to Earth on April 19, 2008, aboard the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft. Whitson logged 192 days in space.

Whitson launched on November 17, 2016, as part of Expedition 50/51 and returned safely on Earth on September 3, 2017.  She contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science, welcomed several cargo spacecraft delivering tons of supplies and research experiments, and conducted a combined six spacewalks to perform maintenance and upgrades to the station.  Whitson participated in four spacewalks, bringing her career total to ten. With a total of 665 days in space, Whitson holds the U.S. record, placing eighth on the all-time space endurance list.

Awards/Honors: Inducted into Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame (2011); BioHouston Women in Science Award (2011); Houston’s 50 Most Influential Women of 2011; Russian Medal of Merit for Space (2011); Texas Women on the Move award recipient (2010); Distinguished Alumni Award, Rice University (2010); NASA Space Flight Medal (2002, 2008); First Lady of Iowa Award presented by the Iowa High School Girls’ Athletic Union (2010); Iowa Transportation Museum, Hero of Valor (2009); Lion’s Club Mount Ayr Elementary Science Lab dedication, Peggy Whitson Science Center (2008); NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (2006); Distinguished Alumni Award, Iowa Wesleyan College (2002); two patents approved (1997, 1998); Group Achievement Award for Shuttle-Mir Program (1996); American Astronautical Society Randolph Lovelace II Award (1995); NASA Tech Brief Award (1995); NASA Space Act Board Award (1995, 1998); NASA Silver Snoopy Award (1995); NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1995, 2003, 2006, 2008); NASA Space Act Award for Patent Application; NASA Certificate of Commendation (1994); Selected for Space Station Redesign Team (March to June 1993); NASA Sustained Superior Performance Award (1990); Krug International Merit Award (1989); NASA JSC National Research Council Resident Research Associate (1986 to 1988); Summa Cum Laude from Iowa Wesleyan College (1981); President’s Honor Roll (1978 to 1981); Orange van Calhoun Scholarship (1980); State of Iowa Scholar (1979); Academic Excellence Award (1978).

Image Credits: NASA

Neil Armstrong at the Lunar Landing Research Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA

February 12, 1969 (5 months, 4 days before the launch of the Apollo 11 Spacecraft)

@nasa @nasahistory

Check out what goes on at our Hydro Impact Basin Facility at the NASA Langley Research Center! This steel structure was once our Lunar Landing Research Facility for the Apollo missions.

Commercial Crew Partner Boeing Tests Starliner Spacecraft

Engineers from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Boeing dropped a full-scale test article of the company’s CST-100 Starliner into Langley’s 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin. Although the spacecraft is designed to land on land, Boeing is testing the Starliner’s systems in water to ensure astronaut safety in the unlikely event of an emergency during launch or ascent. Testing allows engineers to understand the performance of the spacecraft when it hits the water, how it will right itself and how to handle rescue and recovery operations. The test is part of the qualification phase of testing and evaluation for the Starliner system to ensure it is ready to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

NASA Begins Work to Build a Quieter Supersonic Passenger Jet

The return of supersonic passenger air travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a "low boom" flight demonstration aircraft. This is the first in a series of 'X-planes' in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency's Fiscal Year 2017 budget.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the award at an event Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.

The return of supersonic passenger travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a low boom flight demonstrator aircraft. This is the first in a series of X-planes in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget.Credits: NASA

"NASA is working hard to make flight cleaner, greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently," said Bolden. "To that end, it's worth noting that it's been almost 70 years since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 as part of our predecessor agency's high speed research. Now we're continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy with this preliminary design award for a quieter jet that may break the barrier to accessible, affordable supersonic passenger flight."

This is an artist’s concept of a possible Low Boom Flight Demonstration Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) X-plane design. The award of a preliminary design contract is the first step towards the possible return of supersonic passenger travel – but this time quieter and more affordable.Credits: Lockheed Martin

NASA selected a team led by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale, California, to complete a preliminary design for Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST). The work will be conducted under a task order against the Basic and Applied Aerospace Research and Technology (BAART) contract at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

After conducting feasibility studies and working to better understand acceptable sound levels across the country, NASA's Commercial Supersonic Technology Project asked industry teams to submit design concepts for a piloted test aircraft that can fly at supersonic speeds, creating a supersonic "heartbeat" – a soft thump rather than the disruptive boom currently associated with supersonic flight.

"Developing, building and flight testing a quiet supersonic X-plane is the next logical step in our path to enabling the industry's decision to open supersonic travel for the flying public," said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission.

Lockheed Martin will receive about $20 million over 17 months for QueSST preliminary design work. The Lockheed Martin team includes subcontractors GE Aviation of Cincinnati and Tri Models Inc. of Huntington Beach, California.

The company will develop baseline aircraft requirements and a preliminary aircraft design with specifications, and provide supporting documentation for concept formulation and planning. This documentation would be used to prepare for the detailed design, building and testing of the QueSST jet. Performance of this preliminary design also must undergo analytical and wind tunnel validation.

The detailed design and building of the QueSST aircraft, conducted under the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Integrated Aviation Systems Program, will fall under a future contract competition. In addition to design and building, this Low Boom Flight Demonstration (LBFD) phase of the project also will include validation of community response to the new, quieter supersonic design.

NASA's 10-year New Aviation Horizons initiative has the ambitious goals of reducing fuel use, emissions and noise through innovations in aircraft design, ground operations and the national air transportation system.

The New Aviation Horizons X-planes will typically be about half-scale of a production aircraft and likely are to be piloted. Design-and-build will take several years with aircraft starting their flight campaign around 2020, depending on funding.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit:

www.nasa.gov/aero

SAGE III Science Data Validation Efforts Begin

From its perch on the International Space Station, SAGE III is measuring stratospheric ozone as well as other gases and aerosols.

An orbiting science instrument whose legacy dates back 34 years continues to beam back data on Earth’s protective ozone layer – this time, from a perch on the hull of the International Space Station.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III), a NASA Langley Research Center-led mission, was launched on Feb. 19, 2017 and installed on the International Space Station during a 10-day robotic operation.

Since March 2017, the instrument has been measuring and collecting data on Earth’s sunscreen, stratospheric ozone, as well as other gases and aerosols, which are tiny particles in the atmosphere at all altitudes.

The SAGE III instrument makes these measurements through occultation, which involves looking at the light from the Sun or the Moon as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere at the edge, or limb, of the planet. The initial set of atmospheric data collected from the SAGE III instrument was released publicly in October 2017, and the first lunar data was released in January 2018.

Because the SAGE III instrument makes measurements through remote sensing - collecting data from some distance away - the science validation team cannot be sure if the data they are receiving is accurate without first validating it.

To do that, SAGE III science data must be compared to in-situ measurements, or measurements made by other instruments or systems that come in direct contact with the ozone, aerosol, or gas data being collected. These in-situ measurements are collected by the Network for Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), an international group, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, composed of research sites across the world collecting data on the Earth’s atmosphere.

“These sites have been vetted, validated, and have a long statistical history of making science measurements with their instruments,” said SAGE III Science Manager Marilee Roell.

The NDACC will collect these validated measurements through various methods, with two primary methods being through lidar - light detection and ranging - and sondes. Lidar is a ground-based measurement technique that uses a laser to shoot a beam into the Earth’s atmosphere, causing light to scatter by the atmospheric gases and particles. Being able to detect the distance to these gases and particles, the lidar can gather data on the Earth’s atmospheric composition.

Sondes are lightweight, balloon-borne instruments that are flown thousands of feet into the Earth’s atmosphere. As the instrument ascends, it transmits measurements of particle and gas concentrations by radio to a ground-based receiving station. Sondes are used daily across the globe to capture meteorological data, allowing people to check weather conditions each morning.

The science validation team is using NDACC ozone and aerosol lidar data, as well as ozone and water vapor sonde measurements, to validate science data collected from SAGE III.

“We want to match our vertical science product to an externally validated source. It helps the science community have confidence in our data set,” said Roell.

The team is working towards having an externally validated aerosol sonde to compare to the collected SAGE III data. This effort is in the preliminary stages of validating the aerosol balloon sonde against a suite of aerosol sounders, including lidar.

The team is working to validate science data with NDACC locations in Boulder, Colorado and Lauder, New Zealand, which fall within similar latitude bands in the northern and southern hemispheres. To be precise in validation efforts, the lidar or sonde measurement is taken at the same time and location that SAGE III is passing over and collecting equivalent data.

One of the most recent validation efforts took place in Table Mountain, California, and Haute Provence in France. Both locations include validated lidar systems, with lidar being operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Table Mountain, California.

Validation efforts were taken a step further by including a third source of measurements: NASA’s DC-8 aircraft. The aircraft, based out of NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, operates as a flying science laboratory. It helps validate the accuracy of other remote-sensing satellite data, such as SAGE III, and can fly under the satellite’s path to collect the same measurements.

Validating the science data using this method required SAGE III, the NASA DC-8 aircraft, and the lidar system in California or France to be taking measurements at the same time and location. The science validation team worked to have all three systems line up while taking measurements and collected some coinciding science data.

NASA also created a validation website for other NDACC sites to use. The site displays SAGE III overpasses of NDACC sites that are three weeks out or less. These sites can choose to make lidar or sonde measurements at the same time as the instrument overpass, and compare them to SAGE III data collected to see if the two sets coincide. The validation team is pursuing additional NDACC sites to coordinate overpass timeframes when the sites may be taking lidar and sonde measurements.

The SAGE III team will present initial science validation data at the European Geosciences Union conference in Vienna, Austria this April.

SAGE III is the latest in a legacy of Langley instruments that go back to the Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement (SAM), which flew on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. SAGE II, operational from 1984 to 2005, measured global declines in stratospheric ozone that were later shown to be caused by human-induced increases in atmospheric chlorine. Data from it and other sources led to the development of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

After the passage of the protocol, SAGE II data also provided key evidence that the ozone layer was showing signs of recovery.

SAGE III, which launched to the station Feb. 19 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will continue to monitor that recovery, but with more of Earth’s atmosphere in its sights. SAGE II monitored only the stratosphere. SAGE III is monitoring both the stratosphere and the mesosphere, which is the layer directly above the stratosphere.

Ozone in the upper atmosphere acts as Earth’s sunscreen, protecting the surface from cancer-causing, crop-damaging ultraviolet rays. Atmospheric aerosols contribute to variability in the climate record.

Allison Leybold NASA Langley Research Center

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NASA Weighs, Balances Orion for Ascent Abort Test

Researchers conducted mass property testing of the Orion crew module for the Ascent Abort Test-2 Friday, Feb. 16, at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The crew module, built at Langley, was lifted and rotated on its side to determine its weight and center of gravity, known as balance. To get accurate results during the uncrewed flight test planned for April 2019 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, this simplified crew module needs to have the same outer shape and approximate mass distribution of the Orion crew module that astronauts will fly in on future missions to deep space. The markings on the sides and bottom of the capsule used for the test will allow cameras to follow the spacecraft’s trajectory as well as the orientation of the spacecraft relative to the direction of travel for data collection.

Next, it will be shipped to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where engineers will outfit it with the avionics, power, software, instrumentation and other elements needed to execute the flight test. This test will help ensure Orion’s launch abort system can carry astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency with its rocket during launch.

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman