Orion Was Making Waves At @nasalangley This Week

Museum Exhibit Reveals the NASA Langley Human Computers from "Hidden Figures"

Sam McDonald NASA Langley Research Center

A new display at the Hampton History Museum offers another view of African-American women whose mathematical skills helped the nation’s early space program soar.

“When the Computer Wore a Skirt: NASA’s Human Computers” opens to the public Saturday, Jan. 21, and focuses on three women — Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson — who were illuminated in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures” and the major motion picture of the same name. Located in the museum's 20th century gallery, it was created with support from the Hampton Convention and Visitor Bureau and assistance from NASA's Langley Research Center.

“Langley’s West Computers were helping America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology, carving out a place for themselves as female mathematicians who were also black, black mathematicians who were also female,” Shetterly wrote.

The modestly sized exhibit is comprised of four panels with photos and text along with one display case containing artifacts, including a 1957 model Friden mechanical calculator. That piece of equipment represented state-of-the-art technology when then original human computers were crunching numbers. A three-minute video profiling Johnson —a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner — is also part of the exhibit.

A display case at left contains a 1957 Friden STW-10 mechanical calculator, the type used by NASA human computers including Katherine Johnson. "If you were doing complicated computations during that time, this is what you used," said Hampton History Museum Curator Allen Hoilman. The machine weighs 40 pounds.

Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

Museum curator Allen Hoilman said his favorite artifact is a May 5, 1958 memo from Associate Director Floyd Thompson dissolving the West Area Computers Unit and reassigning its staff members to other jobs around the center.

“It meant that the segregated work environment was coming to an end,” Hoilman said. “That’s why this is a significant document. It’s one of the bookends.”

That document, along with several others, was loaned to the museum by Ann Vaughan Hammond, daughter of Dorothy Vaughan. Hoilman said family members of other human computers have been contacted about contributing artifacts as well.

Ann Vaughan Hammond worked hard to find meaningful items for the display. “She really had to do some digging through the family papers,” Hoilman said, explaining that the women who worked as human computers were typically humble about their contributions. They didn’t save many mementos.

“They never would have guessed they would be movie stars,” Hoilman said.

For more information on Katherine Johnson, click here.

Credits:

Sam McDonald NASA Langley Research Center

Vibration test at 80% power of the European Structural Test Article conducted at NASA Glenn’s Space Power Facility at Plum Brook Station, Sandusky, Ohio.

NASA’s Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa

This composite image shows suspected plumes of water vapor erupting at the 7 o’clock position off the limb of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plumes, photographed by NASA’s Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. Hubble’s ultraviolet sensitivity allowed for the features -- rising over 100 miles (160 kilometers) above Europa’s icy surface -- to be discerned. The water is believed to come from a subsurface ocean on Europa. The Hubble data were taken on January 26, 2014. The image of Europa, superimposed on the Hubble data, is assembled from data from the Galileo and Voyager missions.Credits: NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI)/USGS Astrogeology Science Center

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes.

The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa’s ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.

“Europa’s ocean is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbor life in the solar system,” said Geoff Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These plumes, if they do indeed exist, may provide another way to sample Europa’s subsurface.”

The plumes are estimated to rise about 125 miles (200 kilometers) before, presumably, raining material back down onto Europa's surface. Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth’s oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness. The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice.

The team, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore observed these finger-like projections while viewing Europa's limb as the moon passed in front of Jupiter.

The original goal of the team's observing proposal was to determine whether Europa has a thin, extended atmosphere, or exosphere. Using the same observing method that detects atmospheres around planets orbiting other stars, the team realized if there was water vapor venting from Europa’s surface, this observation would be an excellent way to see it.

"The atmosphere of an extrasolar planet blocks some of the starlight that is behind it," Sparks explained. "If there is a thin atmosphere around Europa, it has the potential to block some of the light of Jupiter, and we could see it as a silhouette. And so we were looking for absorption features around the limb of Europa as it transited the smooth face of Jupiter."

In 10 separate occurrences spanning 15 months, the team observed Europa passing in front of Jupiter. They saw what could be plumes erupting on three of these occasions.

This work provides supporting evidence for water plumes on Europa. In 2012, a team led by Lorenz Roth of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, detected evidence of water vapor erupting from the frigid south polar region of Europa and reaching more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) into space. Although both teams used Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph instrument, each used a totally independent method to arrive at the same conclusion.

"When we calculate in a completely different way the amount of material that would be needed to create these absorption features, it's pretty similar to what Roth and his team found," Sparks said. "The estimates for the mass are similar, the estimates for the height of the plumes are similar. The latitude of two of the plume candidates we see corresponds to their earlier work."

But as of yet, the two teams have not simultaneously detected the plumes using their independent techniques. Observations thus far have suggested the plumes could be highly variable, meaning that they may sporadically erupt for some time and then die down. For example, observations by Roth’s team within a week of one of the detections by Sparks’ team failed to detect any plumes.

If confirmed, Europa would be the second moon in the solar system known to have water vapor plumes. In 2005, NASA's Cassini orbiter detected jets of water vapor and dust spewing off the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Scientists may use the infrared vision of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2018, to confirm venting or plume activity on Europa. NASA also is formulating a mission to Europa with a payload that could confirm the presence of plumes and study them from close range during multiple flybys.

“Hubble’s unique capabilities enabled it to capture these plumes, once again demonstrating Hubble’s ability to make observations it was never designed to make,” said Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This observation opens up a world of possibilities, and we look forward to future missions -- such as the James Webb Space Telescope -- to follow up on this exciting discovery.”

The work by Sparks and his colleagues will be published in the Sept. 29 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency.) NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. STScI, which is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, conducts Hubble science operations.

For images and more information about Europa and Hubble, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble & http://hubblesite.org/news/2016/33

Sean Potter / Laurie Cantillo Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1536 / 202-358-1077 sean.potter@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Ann Jenkins / Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore 410-338-4488 / 410-338-4514 ​jenkins@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

RELEASE 16-096

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

Apollo 10 Audio — Publicly Available Since 1970s

Recent news articles have reported that “newly declassified” audiotapes reveal that Apollo 10 astronauts heard “outer-spacey” music as the spacecraft flew around the far side of the moon in 1969. 

Here are the facts:

While listed as ‘confidential’ in 1969 at the height of the Space Race, Apollo 10 mission transcripts and audio have been publicly available since 1973.  Since the Internet did not exist in the Apollo era, we have only recently provided digital files for some of those earlier missions. The Apollo 10 audio clips were uploaded in 2012, but the mission’s audio recordings have been available at the National Archives since the early 1970s.

As for the likely source of the sounds, Apollo 10 Lunar Module Pilot Gene Cernan told us on Monday, ‘I don’t remember that incident exciting me enough to take it seriously. It was probably just radio interference. Had we thought it was something other than that we would have briefed everyone after the flight. We never gave it another thought.’

If you’d like to listen to the audio file, it is available HERE (starting at 2:50). 

The full transcript is available HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

A Laser-Sharp View of Blended Wing Body Plane Design

Engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, used lasers inside the 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel to map how air flows over a Boeing Blended Wing Body (BWB) model – a greener, quieter airplane design under development. The name for the technique is called particle image velocimetry. If you look closely you can see the light bouncing off tracer particles. Cameras record the movement of those particles as the laser light pulses across the model. This allows researchers to accurately measure the flow over the model once the images are processed. A smoother flow over the wing means less fuel will be needed to power the aircraft.

Image credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

NASA Crash-Test Dummies Make A Splash Landing

Engineers drop a NASA’s Orion Spacecraft test capsule with crash-test dummies inside into 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin to simulate what the spacecraft may experience when splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-crash-test-dummies-suit-up-for-action

This is where they 3D print cool pieces that are needed for the ISS! They use cool carbon fiber materials to make the final product look smooth and flawless. They are also 3D printing that payload attachment fitting for the SLS Block 1B rocket!! I took a video of it actually printing so be on the lookout for that!

Maybe NASA Astronomer, @michellethaller , can spread some ‘light’ on this topic. She has spent years studying binary star systems!

Isn’t it beautiful two suns setting over the horizon. 

NASA Langley researchers are experts in modeling and simulations for entry, descent and landing, working on missions since the Viking lander in 1976. In this episode, we explore the challenges of guiding landers like Mars InSight through the Martian atmosphere for a safe landing. 

NASA InSight launched on March 5, 2018.

For more, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/