"Here's some of the stories trending This
Week at NASA!"
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden visited
Ames Research Center on March 17 to check
out aeronautics and space research facilities
at the center -- including the laboratory
for the volleyball-sized free-flying satellites
called SPHERES.
These are used on the International Space
Station for experiments in space robotics
and spacecraft navigation.
He also saw the center's high-fidelity airport
control tower simulator, dubbed Future Flight
Central, where he was briefed on joint research
underway with the Federal Aviation Administration
and industry partners on next-generation air
traffic management.
NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot
spoke to the media on March 17 at Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 37
-- where two booster stages are being prepared
to launch NASA's Orion spacecraft on its first
trip into space, later this year.
Three boosters in all will power the United
Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket with Orion
on top for its Exploration Flight Test-1.
The two-orbits-around-the- Earth test will
provide engineers with important data about
Orion's heat shield and other elements to
improve the spacecraft being designed to carry
astronauts to an asteroid, Mars and other
deep space destinations.
Connor Johnson, the six-year-old from Denver,
Colorado who started a White House petition
drive to save NASA's funding, met with Kennedy
Space Center Director and former astronaut
Bob Cabana at the KSC Visitor Complex on March
15.
Cabana presented him with an autographed picture
and a bolt brought back from the International
Space Station on his STS-88 shuttle mission,
the first space station construction flight.
Connor, who wants to become an astronaut,
would be old enough to do just that right
around the time NASA plans to send humans
to Mars in the 2030s.
At NASA headquarters, David W. Miller, began
his tenure as the agency's new Chief Technologist.
The professor of aeronautics and astronautics
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
will be Administrator Bolden's principal advisor
on matters concerning agency-wide technology
policy and programs.
Miller has worked with several NASA projects,
including SPHERES and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid
sample return mission planned for 2016.
A new challenge focused on coastal flooding
will be included in the third annual International
Space Apps Challenge -- a "codeathon"-style
event to be hosted April 12 and 13 by NASA
and other space agencies around the world.
Announced by NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan
at the March 19 Climate Data Initiative launch
at the White House, The Coastal Inundation
in Your Community challenge is one of four
climate-related challenges using data provided
by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and the Environmental Protection
Agency.
The challenge encourages entrepreneurs, technologists,
and developers to create and deploy data-driven
visualizations and simulations to help people
understand their exposure to coastal-flooding
hazards.
The next two crews bound for the International
Space Station continued preparing for their
missions.
At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan,
Expedition 39/40 Flight Engineer Steve Swanson
of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov
and Oleg Artemyev conducted a fit check in
their Soyuz spacecraft -- they launch in late
March.
Meanwhile, a news conference was held at Johnson
Space Center with NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman,
Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev and European
Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst -- the
crew of Expedition 40/41 -- scheduled to launch
in late May.
And the current crew onboard the orbiting
laboratory helped bring space a little closer
to viewers of National Geographic's two-hour
Live From Space program The show featured
details about the science and the mission
of the ISS.
To celebrate the 24th anniversary of the April
24, 1990 launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope,
astronomers have released an infrared image
of an active region of star birth, located
64-hundred light years away in a small portion
of the Monkey Head Nebula.
The mosaic reveals dense knots of gas and
dust silhouetted against glowing gas.
Hubble is a joint project between NASA and
the European Space Agency.
Using cameras aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter, or LRO, scientists have created the
largest high resolution mosaic of our moon's
north polar region.
Constructed from 10-thousand-581 pictures,
there's enough detail in the mosaic to see
textures and subtle shading of the lunar terrain.
The entire image measures nearly 867-billion
pixels total.
And that's what's up ... This Week at NASA.
For more on these and other stories follow
us on social media and visit www.nasa.gov/twan.
