Galaxies: Cities Of Stars

What do you do on a daily basis?

Build a Rover, Race a Rover!

Have you ever wanted to drive a rover across the surface of the Moon?

This weekend, students from around the world will get their chance to live out the experience on Earth! At the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, high schoolers and college students operate human-powered rovers that they designed and built as they traverse a simulated world, making decisions and facing obstacles that replicate what the next generation of explorers will face in space.

Though the teams that build the rover can be a few people or a few dozen, in the end, two students (one male, one female) will end up navigating their rover through a custom-built course at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Each duo will push their rover to the limit, climbing up hills, bumping over rocky and gravelly grounds, and completing mission objectives (like retrieving soil samples and planting their team flag) for extra points -- all in less than seven minutes.

2019 will mark the 25th year of Rover Challenge, which started life as the Great Moonbuggy Race on July 16, 1994. Six teams braved the rain and terrain (without a time limit) in the Rocket City that first year -- and in the end, the University of New Hampshire emerged victorious, powering through the moon craters, boulder fields and other obstacles in eighteen minutes and fifty-five seconds.

When it came time to present that year's design awards, though, the honors went to the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao, who have since become the only school to compete in every Great Moonbuggy Race and Rover Challenge hosted by NASA Marshall. The second-place finishers in 1994, the hometown University of Alabama in Huntsville, are the only other school to compete in both the first race and the 25th anniversary race in 2019.

Since that first expedition, the competition has only grown: the race was officially renamed the Human Exploration Rover Challenge for 2014, requiring teams to build even more of their rover from the wheels up, and last year, new challenges and tasks were added to better reflect the experience of completing a NASA mission on another planet. This year, almost 100 teams will be competing in Rover Challenge, hailing from 24 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and countries from Bolivia to Bangladesh.

Rover Challenge honors the legacy of the NASA Lunar Roving Vehicle, which made its first excursion on the moon in 1971, driven by astronauts David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo 15. Given the competition's space race inspiration, it's only appropriate that the 25th year of Rover Challenge is happening in 2019, the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's historic Apollo 11 moon landing.

Interested in learning more about Rover Challenge? Get the details on the NASA Rover Challenge site -- then join us at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (entrance is free) or watch live on the Rover Challenge Facebook Page starting at 7 AM CT, this Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13. Happy roving!

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From the unique vantage point of about 25,000 feet above Earth, our Associate Administrator of Science at NASA, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, witnessed the 2017 eclipse. He posted this video to his social media accounts saying, “At the speed of darkness...watch as #SolarEclipse2017 shadow moves across our beautiful planet at <1 mile/second; as seen from GIII aircraft”. 

Zurbuchen, along with NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, Associate Administrator Lesa Roe traveled on a specially modified Gulfstream III aircraft flying north over the skies of Oregon.

In order to capture images of the event, the standard windows of the Gulfstream III were replaced with optical glass providing a clear view of the eclipse. This special glass limits glare and distortion of common acrylic aircraft windows. Heaters are aimed at the windows where the imagery equipment will be used to prevent icing that could obscure a clear view of the eclipse.

Learn more about the observations of the eclipse made from this aircraft HERE.

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Solar System: 5 Things To Know This Week

This month you can catch a rare sight in the pre-dawn sky: five planets at once! If you look to the south (or to the north if you’re in the southern hemisphere) between about 5:30 and 6 a.m. local time you’ll see Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter lined up like jewels on a necklace. They’re beautiful in the sky, and even more fascinating when you look closely.

This week we’re taking a tour of the planets with recent information about each:

1. Artistic License

Craters on Mercury are named for writers and artists of all kinds. There are Tolstoy, Thoreau and Tolkien craters, for example, as well as those that bear the names of the Brontës, photographer Dorothea Lange and dancer Margot Fonteyn. See the complete roster of crater names HERE.

2. Lifting the Veil of Venus

A thick covering of clouds made Venus a mystery for most of human history. In recent decades, though, a fleet of robotic spacecraft has helped us peer past the veil and learn more about this world that is so like the Earth in some ways — and in some ways it’s near opposite.

3. Curious?

Have you ever wanted to drive the Mars Curiosity rover? You can take the controls using our Experience Curiosity simulation. Command a virtual rover as you explore the terrain in Gale Crater, all using real data and images from Mars. Try it out HERE.

4. Now That’s a Super Storm

Winter weather often makes headlines on Earth — but on Jupiter there’s a storm large enough to swallow our entire planet several times over. It’s been raging for at least three hundred years! Learn about the Great Red Spot HERE.

5. Ring Watcher

This week, the Cassini spacecraft will be making high-resolution observations of Saturn’s entrancing rings. This is a simulated look at Saturn, along with actual photos of the rings from the Cassini mission.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

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You’ve Heard “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” But Do You Know The Mission It’s From?

It’s the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission! NASA’s “successful failure,”Apollo 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted mid-flight after the rupture of a service module oxygen tank. The crew never landed on the moon, but due to the dedication and ingenuity of Mission Control, made it back to Earth safely. We’ve put some of the most important numbers of the Apollo 13 mission in perspective. Check it out!

Listen to the mission in real time, HERE. 

Follow NASA History on Twitter and Facebook for more interesting information about aerospace history!

Check out the stats of all the Apollo Missions in the free e-book Apollo by the Numbers, HERE.

What was the most fun you had in Mission Control?

Twins Study Reddit AMA

Our Human Research Program is conducting a Twins Study on retired twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly. The study began during Scott Kelly’s One-Year Mission, which encompassed International Space Station Expeditions 43, 44, 45 and 46. 

Now that Scott has returned from space, researchers are integrating data as well as taking measurements on Earth from the twins. This is the first time we have conducted Omics research on identical twins. Omics is a broad area of biological and molecular studies that, in general, means the study of the entire complement of biomolecules, like proteins; metabolites or genes. 

Comparing various types of molecular information on identical individuals while one undergoes unique stresses, follows a defined diet, and resides in microgravity to one who resides on Earth, with gravity, should yield interesting results. It is hoped one day that all individuals will have access to having their Omics profiles done. This is a first step towards personalizing medicine for astronauts and hopefully for the rest of us. 

For background, check out NASA’s Omics video series at https://www.nasa.gov/twins-study.

During this Reddit AMA, you can ask our researchers anything about the Twins Study and Omics.

Participants include:

Kjell Lindgren, M.D., NASA astronaut, Expedition 44/45 Flight Engineer and medical officer

Susan M. Bailey, Ph.D., Twins Study Principal Investigator, Professor, Radiation Cancer Biology & Oncology, Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University

Christopher E. Mason, Ph.D., Twins Study Principal Investigator, WorldQuant Foundations Scholar, Affiliate Fellow of Genomics, Ethics, and Law, ISP, Yale Law School, Associate Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine

Brinda Rana, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego School of Medicine

Michael P. Snyder, Ph.D., M.D., FACS, Twins Study Principal Investigator, Stanford W. Ascherman, Professor in Genetics, Chair, Dept. of Genetics, Director, Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine

Join the Reddit AMA on Monday, April 25 at 11 a.m. EDT HERE. 

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The return of the Dragon 🐉

One month ago, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station. Now it’s time for the Dragon to come home. The return trip, a crucial part of its mission, brings scientific hardware, data and experiments down to waiting researchers.

Check out a few of the pieces of research taking that ride back to Earth.

A cinematic look at life and science aboard the space station

You may one day get to experience the product of The ISS Experience. A team is creating a cinematic virtual reality (VR) film from footage taken during in space covering crew life, execution of science and the international partnerships involved on the space station.

Every week or so, footage is transferred from the camera onto solid state drives – an original and a backup – for storage and downlinking. One of each pair of drives returns to Earth for editing and production.

Seeking Alzheimer’s understanding in microgravity

Amyloid fibrils, a conglomeration of proteins that can build up in the body, are associated with a number of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The Amyloid Aggregation investigation assesses whether microgravity affects formation of these fibrils.

Samples exposed to microgravity are coming back to Earth using a facility that maintains a chilly temperature of -20°C. Teams on the ground must quickly retrieve the equipment and keep the samples at -20°C until they are analyzed.

The SPHERES return home

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES, are bowling-ball sized satellites used to study formation flying, control algorithms and material science.

First sent to the station in 2006, these satellites have been employed in a dozen different investigations.

The Dragon brings back hardware from two recent experiments that examined the behavior of fluids in microgravity, SPHERES Tether Slosh and SPHERES-Slosh.

From microgravity lab to manufacturing facility

The Fiber Optic Production investigation created optical fibers on the space station using a blend of materials called ZBLAN to see whether making the fibers in microgravity has advantages over the process used on Earth. ZBLAN optical fibers offer high bandwidth for the telecommunications industry, and potential applications for uses like laser surgery and environmental monitoring.

The fiber produced on the space station is coming to Earth for testing to help verify previous studies and guide future efforts to manufacture large volumes of such fiber in microgravity.

Read more about the science returning on Dragon here!

For daily updates, follow @ISS_Research, Space Station Research and Technology News or our Facebook. Follow the ISS National Lab for information on its sponsored investigations. For opportunities to see the space station pass over your town, check out Spot the Station.

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Follow, follow the Sun / And which way the wind blows / When this day is done ⁣🎶 ⁣ Today, April 8, 2024, the last total solar eclipse until 2045 crossed North America.⁣

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Friday Stroll? How About a Spacewalk?

On Friday, May 12, NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer will venture outside the International Space Station, into the vacuum of space, for a spacewalk.

Space Fact: This will be the 200th spacewalk performed on the space station!

You can watch their entire 6.5 hour spacewalk live online! (Viewing info below!) To tell the two astronauts apart in their bulky spacewalk suits, Whitson will be wearing the suit with red stripes, while Jack Fischer will have white stripes.

Space Fact: The first-ever spacewalk on the International Space Station was performed on Dec. 7, 1998.

For Peggy, this will be her ninth spacewalk! She actually holds the record for most spacewalks by a female astronaut. For Fischer, this is his first time in space, and will be his first spacewalk. You can see from the below Tweet, he’s pretty excited!

Once both astronauts venture outside the Quest airlock, their tasks will focus on:

Replacing a large avionic box that supplies electricity and data connections to the science experiments

Replacing hardware stored outside the station

Specifically, the ExPRESS Carrier Avionics, or ExPCA will be replaced with a unit delivered to the station last month aboard the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo spacecraft.

Ever wonder how astronauts prepare and practice for these activities? Think about it, wearing a bulky spacesuit (with gloves!), floating in the vacuum of space, PLUS you have to perform complex tasks for a period of ~6.5 hours! 

In order to train on Earth, astronauts complete tasks in our Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL). It’s a gigantic pool with a full mock up of the International Space Station! Here’s a clip of astronauts practicing to install the ExPCA in that practice pool at Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

In addition, Whitson and Fischer will install a connector that will route data to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and help the crew determine the most efficient way to conduct future maintenance on the cosmic ray detector.

The astronauts will also install a protective shield on the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3, which was moved in March. This adapter will host a new international docking port for the arrival of commercial crew spacecraft.

Finally, the duo will rig a new high-definition camera and pair of wireless antennas to the exterior of the outpost.

Watch the Spacewalk Live!

Live coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. EDT, with spacewalk activities starting at 8 a.m. EDT. 

Stream the entire spacewalk live online at nasa.gov/live 

OR 

Watch live on the International Space Station Facebook page starting at 7:00 a.m. EDT

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