Sabancaya Volcano, Peru

The 5,967-meter- (19,577-foot-) high Sabancaya stratovolcano (Nevado Sabancaya in the local language) is located in southern Perú, approximately 70 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the city of Arequipa. The name Sabancaya means “tongue of fire” in the Quechua Indian language.

Sabancaya is part of a volcanic complex that includes two other nearby (and older) volcanoes, neither of which has been active historically. In this detailed astronaut photograph, Nevado Ampato is visible to the south (image left), and the lower flanks of Nevado Hualca Hualca are visible to the north (image top right). The snowy peaks of the three volcanoes provide a stark contrast to the surrounding desert of the Puna Plateau.

Sabancaya’s first historical record of an eruption dates to 1750. The most recent eruptive activity at the volcano occurred in July 2003, and it deposited ash on the volcano’s summit and northeastern flank. Volcanism at Sabancaya is fueled by magma generated at the subduction zone between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates.

Magma can erupt to the surface and form lava flows through the volcano’s summit (frequently forming a crater), but it can also erupt from lava domes and flank vents along the volcano’s sides. Lava has issued from all of these points at Sabancaya, forming numerous gray to dark brown scalloped lobes that extend in all directions except southwards (image center).

NASA Satellites' View of Gulf Oil Spill Over Time

Two NASA satellites are capturing images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which began April 20, 2010 with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. This short video reveals a space-based view of the burning oil rig and, later, the resulting spread of the oil spill. This version updates a previous version of the video through July 14th. The timelapse uses imagery from the MODIS instrument, on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. The oil slick appears grayish-beige in the image and changes due to changing weather, currents, and use of oil dispersing chemicals. The oil slick only appears clearly in MODIS imagery when the sun is a a particular angle in relation to the satellite's position as it orbits over the Gulf. In areas where sunlight reflects off the ocean's surface toward the satellite, oil-slicked water usually looks brighter than cleaner ocean water in the region. (no narration, music only)

The images in this video were selected to show the spill most clearly. The full image archive is available at http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov. For more information and imagery about the oil spill, visit NASA's Oil Spill website. Imagery and information about the oil spill is also available on NASA's Earth Observatory Natural Hazards website.

Commercial Facility Activated on U.S. National Laboratory Onboard International Space Station

his July, U.S. Astronaut Shannon Walker activated a fully commercial research facility designed to make access to the International Space Station easy and cost-effective for scientists and educators.

Developed by NanoRacks LLC, of Laguna woods, Calif., the research platforms are designed for use within the pressurized space station environment. Each platform provides room for up to 16 customer payloads to plug effortlessly into a standard USB connector, which provides both power and data connectivity. Its plug and play system uses a simple, standardized interface that reduces payload integration cost and schedule for nano-scale research on the orbiting laboratory.

NanoRacks is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement awarded from a competitive announcement of opportunity for the use of the National Laboratory on the International Space Station. The funding to build and certify the rack inserts has come exclusively from NanoRacks and their customers.

"As the International Space Station National Lab activities are ramping up to enable full use of the station, partnerships such as this one are an important component of an integrated strategy to enable full utilization," said Jason Crusan, NASA's chief technologist for Space Operations. "Lowering the burden to conduct research while demonstrating that hardware can go from concept to on-orbit capability in less than 10 months is also a significant milestone."

Crew Performs Dry Run for Monday Spacewalk

Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Mikhail Kornienko will exit the International Space Station Monday night for a six-hour spacewalk. The pair will exit the Pirs docking compartment and work outside the Zarya and Zvezda modules. This will be the first Expedition 24 spacewalk.

› View Spacewalk Briefing Graphics from July 21

They will outfit the Rassvet module’s Kurs automated rendezvous system, install cables and remove and replace a video camera. Kurs is a Russian radio telemetry system that allows automated dockings of unmanned spacecraft such as the Progress resupply vehicle. The new video camera will document the rendezvous and docking of future Automated Transfer Vehicles to the aft end of the Zvezda service module.

On Friday, Yurchikhin and Kornienko put on their Orlan spacesuits and performed a dry run of the spacewalk activities. From inside the Pirs docking compartment they checked out the Orlan systems, practiced translation movements and tested their mobility.

NASA astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker continued their science and maintenance activities throughout the station. The three flight engineers also participated in a review and conducted a conference to discuss future shuttle and station spacewalks.

Walker also completed work on the station’s Oxygen Generation System. The American life support system is now running again providing breathable oxygen for the station’s environment.

Friday morning, the sun’s glint over the Gulf of Mexico allowed the crew to photograph the oil spill’s progress. Pictures were taken using 400mm and 800mm lenses as the station orbited 220 miles above the gulf and Mississippi delta region.

The next spacewalk will take place Aug. 5 with Flight Engineers Caldwell Dyson and Wheelock. The astronauts will exit the Quest airlock and install a Portable Data Grapple Fixture on the Zarya module extending the reach of Canadarm2, the station’s robotic arm, and increasing a spacewalker’s capabilites. They also will jettison old multi-layer insulation removed for the PDGF install and mate power connectors to Zarya.

Researchers can learn more about opportunities to develop and fly science experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) at the NASA ISS Research Academy Aug. 3-5 in League City, Texas.

Nasa Discoveries Spark Hopes Of Alien Life

Nasa's planet-hunting deep space observatory has found hundreds of new potential planets, sparking hopes of finding other worlds similar to Earth.
The objects were found in Nasa's Kepler Mission, a space observatory designed to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

Its massive telescope monitors the brightness of over 145,000 stars in a fixed field of view in three constellations in the Milky Way.

A 95-megapixel camera records and analyses the passage of planets around those stars by measuring the changes in light radiation.

The findings show 140 of the new discoveries could be similar in size to Earth.

"From the orbital size and the temperature of the star, the planet's characteristic temperature can be calculated," Nasa explains on the mission's website.

"From this the question of whether or not the planet is habitable (not necessarily inhabited) can be answered."

Scientists say the results contradict older theories that had suggested small and Earth-like planets would be less frequent.

An astronomer on the Kepler mission, Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, revealed the findings in a conference in Oxford earlier this month.

He said the next step would be to determine whether the suspected planets would indeed be habitable.

"The figures suggest our galaxy, the Milky Way, will contain 100 million habitable planets," he said.

"With our own little telescope just in the next two years we will able to identify at least 60 of them.

"There is a lot more work we need to do with this, but the statistical result is loud and clear, and it is that planets like our own Earth are out there."

Clean Technology in 'Hot Water'

What if work performed in space could improve the treatment of household and nuclear waste on Earth? That's what investigators are hoping to do with the results of a fluid physics study in progress on the International Space Station.

The experiment, called DECLIC-HTI, is studying supercritical water that could lead to spin-offs in the field of clean technologies for treating waste here on Earth.

A supercritical fluid is any substance at a temperature and pressure above its critical point -- the point at which the fluid is one homogeneous phase and exhibits properties of both liquids and gases. In this form, the substance can flow through solids like a gas and dissolve materials like a liquid. Water and carbon dioxide are the most commonly used supercritical fluids. Using extremely high temperatures, supercritical water can completely break down waste into benign forms.

DECLIC, or DEvice for the study of Critical LIquids and Crystallization, is a miniaturized, automatic thermo-optical laboratory that studies transparent fluids by finely tuning the temperature of a sample and sending images and video to the ground. The HTI, or high temperature insert, can measure fluid temperatures up to 400 degrees Celsius.

For the experiment, astronauts plug an insert, containing the water sample cell, into the DECLIC payload. The sample is precisely heated and observed in real time by investigators on the ground.

"These phenomena will be of interest to understand the behavior of supercritical fluids in space, but also to improve industrial processes on the ground," said Gabriel Pont, DECLIC mission manager with the CNES, or Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, in Toulouse, France.

"A typical example is burning completely organic or industrial waste in supercritical water at a much lower temperature than in conventional systems, thus saving energy and being cleaner. Microgravity will provide the ideal environment to understand how to do that."

The supercritical water temperature is very sensitive to gravity and has never been measured in microgravity conditions. "We expect HTI to give us the best measurement of this temperature ever found," added Pont.

The experiment began in October 2009 when the High Temperature Insert commissioning was performed. Since then, four experimental sequences have been performed, leading to more than 80 running days. "We are very excited about what we've seen thus far, and cannot wait to see the potential benefits of our work on Earth," added Pont.

NASA Moves Forward on Commercial Partnership for Rocket Engine Testing

Engineers at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center recently installed an Aerojet AJ26 rocket engine for qualification testing as part of a partnership that highlights the space agency's commitment to work with commercial companies to provide space transportation.

Stennis has partnered with Orbital Sciences Corporation to test the AJ26 engines that will power the first stage of the company's Taurus® II space launch vehicle. Orbital is working in partnership with NASA under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) joint research and development project. The company is under contract with NASA through the Commercial Resupply Services program to provide eight cargo missions to the International Space Station through 2015.

Stennis operators have been modifying their E-1 test facility since April 2009 to test the AJ26 engines for Orbital. Work has included construction of a 27-foot-deep flame deflector trench.
The latest step in the project involved delivery and installation of an AJ26 engine for testing. In upcoming days, operators will perform a series of "chilldown" test, which involves running sub-cooled rocket propellants through the engine, just as will occur during an actual "hotfire" ignition test.

The chilldown tests are used to verify proper temperature conditioning of the engine systems and elapse time required to properly chill the engine, and to measure the quantity of liquid oxygen required to perform the operation.

Once the installed engine passes the chilldown and other qualification tests, it will be removed from the Stennis E-1 test facility. The first actual flight engine then will be delivered and installed for hotfire testing.

Cool Pics from Orion Pad Abort 1 Flight Test

After glorious animation, a live webcast and a “Best of” vodcast, the success of the Orion Pad Abort 1 Flight Test continues to amaze. These pictures come to us via our good buddies at White Sands Missile Range out in New Mexico, and for me they bring the experience home in a new way.



As one of the Orion Pad Abort 1 Team stated mid flight, “Today, we just saved astronauts’ lives.” Even though there were no astronauts in the crew module for this test, NASA and their partners proved that the technology to save lives works. And as we move forward, that is great news.


If you want to see high quality versions of these pictures, visit our flickr page.



NASA EDGE Flickr Page


Enjoy,


The Co-Host


You can see that the Attitude Control Motor fires immediately to provide control. (photo: White Sands Missile Range)


Orion successfully reoriented for separation. (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)



All three motor systems worked as planned. Will the chutes deploy? (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)


Gravity dictates that the Launch Abort System lands first. (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)




The Orion descends safely! And provides a very nice picture. (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)


The Orion has landed! (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)


I'm pretty sure I could have survived this ride! (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)


Not the usual desert image, but a very welcome one for NASA. (Photo: White Sands Missile Range)

NASA EDGE Nominated for Best Video Podcast in the 5th Annual Podcast Awards!

NASA EDGE continues their unprecedented, unscripted journey through the world of video podcasting with their very first award nomination. This is no small accomplishment considering that only two and half years ago, they weren’t sure that they would find an audience.



Well, they have. Almost three years and 3.2 million downloads later, NASA EDGE is now recognized in the company of such internet greats and fellow nominees as “Buzz out Loud,” “Diggnation” and “Filmriot” just to name a few.



In fact, the 5th Annual Podcast Awards, managed by Podcast Connect Inc., mentioned on their web site that this year’s competition received more than 321,000 nominations for over 3500 different shows.



Be sure to vote for NASA EDGE



You can vote once a day from November 13th to November 30th, 2009 by visiting www.podcastawards.com. NASA EDGE is listed in the “Best Video Podcast” category with 9 other video podcasts.



If you’re already a fan of NASA EDGE, please vote for them. If you haven’t seen or heard of NASA EDGE, visit their home page at www.nasa.gov/nasaedge and download any or all of their 46 video podcasts. You will not be disappointed.



What is NASA EDGE?



NASA EDGE is different. Unscripted and unpredictable, NASA EDGE takes a unique look in and around the greatest space program on the planet. They have hosted the Great Moonbuggy Race, examined NASA spinoff technology at the X Games, followed the Desert-RATS with an unconventional set of duct tape boots, coined the term Magnetospherence and even made an appearance on ESPN’s nationally syndicated Mike & Mike in the Morning Show.



Their latest Vodcast added a new wrinkle. In October they covered NASA’s historic Ares I-X Flight Demonstration live on the web. That show featured the entire broadcast team and an attempt at defining and redefining ‘triboelectrification.’



Of course, NASA EDGE isn’t just a video podcast. If you have questions, comments or thoughts about NASA or NASA EDGE, you can friend them on facebook and ask questions, chat or check out some exclusive facebook videos.



Or if you just want to keep up with their latest shows or activities you can follow them on twitter (@NASA_EDGE.)



If all goes well, you’ll hear from them the second they win their very first award!

NASA Earth Buzz: Soot, the Big Melt, and More

What on Earth Was That?
Last week, we asked you to identify the image on the left, and we received all sorts of replies. (Nope, it’s not an ant eating salt, spitting acid, or laying eggs). The correct answer? A microscopic view of soot from a wildfire. Check the original post for more details.

The Big Melt
A massive chunk of glacial ice tumbled from the shores of Greenland on July 6-7. The calving front – where the ice sheet meets the ocean – retreated nearly 1.5 kilometers (a mile) in a day. The mass of ice lost was nearly 1/8 the size of Manhattan. (NASA.gov)

Get a GRIP on This
A group of NASA researchers based in Florida and southern California won’t be sipping lemonade by the beach this summer. Instead, they’ll be chasing hurricanes with three NASA aircraft. (JPL News)

Record Setting Heat Sears Mid-Atlantic Region
After the whopper snowstorms this winter, a broiling heat wave has descended on the U.S. Mid-Atlantic. By June 28, Washington DC had endured 10 consecutive days where temperatures soared above 90°F (32° C). (Goddard DISC)

Climate Connections
Have questions about global warming and climate change? Tired of all the spin? Try these straightforward questions and answers from NASA scientists and science writers. (Earth Observatory)

Coming to a Theater Near You
You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that NASA studies the Moon, Mars, and deep space. But as a rocket-pack clad astronaut points out in a new video short at your local movie theater, a big part of our mission is to study Earth. (NASA Explorer)

A Porthole on the Arctic
Get a glimpse of science in action as NASA-funded researchers cruise the Arctic on an icebreaker. (NASA HQ Flickr)

Tweet of the Week
Floods kill an average of 140 people per year in the U.S., making it the number one severe weather killer. (SciJinks)

REFERENCE http://blogs.nasa.gov

NASA launches full-time HD channel

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has launched a full-time HD channel today, making its MPEG-2 high-definition feed available to cable, satellite, and other media companies. NASA announced they would be launching the channel last Friday.

Content on the NASA HD channel will include live coverage of space shuttle and other spacecraft launches, “ISS Update” — a daily program covering the activities of the on-orbit International Space Station crews, and video footage of the Earth shot by space station crews and NASA satellites.

Additional content to run on the channel includes media conferences, lectures, satellite interviews and other special events.

NASA did not provide specifics on which television providers will carry the channel. For NASA TV programming check out their website listings: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/schedule.html.

Last Shuttle External Tank Rollout at Michoud Assembly Facility

Commemorating 37 years of successful tank deliveries, NASA and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company held a ceremony on Thursday, July 8, at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to rollout the final external tank for the last space shuttle flight.

The last external tank scheduled to fly on a shuttle mission was completed on June 25 by Lockheed Martin workers at Michoud. The tank, designated ET-138, will travel on a wheeled transporter one mile to the Michoud barge dock. It will be accompanied by the Storyville Stompers, a traditional area brass band, and hundreds of handkerchief-waving employees in typical New Orleans fashion and spirit during the ceremony. ET-138 will then travel on a 900-mile sea journey to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will support shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 launch.

The external tank, the "gas tank" for the orbiter, holds the propellants used by the space shuttle main engines. It also is the "backbone" of the shuttle during launch, providing structural support for attachment with the solid rocket boosters and orbiter. It is the only component of the space shuttle that is not reused. Approximately 8.5 minutes into the flight, with its propellant used, the tank is jettisoned into the ocean.

External tank ET-138
Space Shuttle Endeavour launches into an early morning sky at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. External tank ET-138 (top) will help launch Space shuttle Endeavour (bottom) into space on its last mission later this year. (Image credit: NASA) Taller than a 15-story building and more than 27 feet in diameter, the external tank absorbs the 7.8 million pounds of thrust of the three space shuttle main engines and solid rocket boosters during a space shuttle launch. It feeds 145,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and 390,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen to the main engines.

The three main components of the external tank include the liquid oxygen tank, liquid hydrogen tank and the collar-like intertank, which connects the two propellant tanks. The intertank houses instrumentation and processing equipment and provides the attachment structure for the solid rocket boosters.

When ET-138 arrives at Kennedy, processing will begin to mate it with shuttle Endeavour and solid rocket boosters for the STS-134 mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than mid-November. The mission will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 3 and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. It will be the 36th shuttle mission to the space station and the 134th and final scheduled shuttle flight.

Michoud Space Systems workers, of Lockheed Martin Corporation, Littleton, Colo., have delivered 135 flight tanks to NASA during the 25 years of flying the space shuttle.

Work will be completed on one additional external tank, ET-122, which was at Michoud during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and damaged by falling debris. It is being restored to flight configuration and is scheduled for delivery to Kennedy in late September to serve as the “Launch on Need” tank, if needed, for STS-134.

Giant Antenna Propped up and Ready for Joint Replacement

Workers at NASA's Deep Space Network complex in Goldstone, Calif., have been making precise, laser-assisted measurements to ensure a flat surface for pouring new grout as part of a major renovation on the 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) "Mars antenna." While officially dubbed Deep Space Station 14, the antenna picked up the Mars name from its first task: tracking NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft, which had been lost by smaller antennas after its historic flyby of Mars.

This work represents the first time network engineers have redesigned and replaced the hydrostatic bearing assembly, which enables the antenna to rotate horizontally. To accomplish this, they lifted the entire rotating structure of the giant antenna for the first time.

The hydrostatic bearing assembly puts the weight of the antenna on three pads, which glide on a film of oil around a large steel ring. The ring measures about 24 meters (79 feet) in diameter and must be flat to work efficiently. After 44 years of near-constant use, the Mars antenna needed a kind of joint replacement, since the bearing assembly had become uneven.

Engineers and managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which manages the Deep Space Network for NASA, drew up plans for new runner segments, new sole plates below the runner segments, and an epoxy grout that is more impervious to oil. The thicker segments deform less when the antenna's pads pass over them, and allow for more tightly sealed joints.

Since beginning work in March, engineers and technicians have carefully lifted several million pounds of delicate scientific instruments about five millimeters (0.2 inches) and transferred the weight of the antenna to temporary supporting legs. They have removed the old steel runner and cement-based grout. They have also installed sole plates, which cover the grout and anchor the new runner. Over the past week, JPL engineers checked to make sure the sole plates were level, and workers poured the new epoxy grout underneath to hold them in place. Mixing and pouring the new grout occurred at night to ensure the work was completed within the tight temperature tolerances required to handle this material.

Over the next few weeks, the new, thicker steel runner segments will be installed. Work is on track to return the antenna to service on Nov. 1, 2010.

For more details about the work on the Mars antenna, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-083

For more information about the Deep Space Network, visit: http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn

For more information about NASA's space communications and navigation program, visit: http://www.spacecomm.nasa.gov