Armed with Science | Tag Archive | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Seeking Answers From Asteroids

Filed under Space, STEM by jtozer on August 10, 2012 at 7:05 am {no comments}

Conceptual image of OSIRIS-REx. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

You know what I love about NASA? The fact that when they say, “Hey, we should go to an asteroid and collect a sample of it to analyze in the hopes of better understanding our universe” that they mean it.

In this case, researchers are hoping to understand some of life’s more profound mysteries by way of a very special (and dramatically named) mission.

The Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer – or OSIRIS-REx – mission will be the first of its kind to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth. What some might call unprecedented.

And okay yes, I know that this isn’t the first time we’ve gone mining for answers from other celestial bodies. The Stardust mission did this in 2006 when it brought back samples from a comet, but that was a small sample from a comet that was super-heated when it hit the collider.

But this is something much different. This is something that could unlock the secrets of life itself.

This near-Earth asteroid, affectionately referred to as asteroid (101955) 1999RQ36 (must be a family name) will conduct a 500 day encounter that will create maps and studies of the asteroid, collect up to 2kg of volatile-rich regolith, which is essentially the asteroid’s sugar coating.

Asteroids are leftovers formed from the cloud of gas and dust – the solar nebula – that collapsed to form our Sun and the planets about 4.5 billion years ago. As such, they contain the original material from the solar nebula, which can tell us about the conditions of our solar system’s origins.

OSIRIS-REx is going on a mission to collect samples about our solar system’s birth, basically.

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The Opportunity Of A Lifetime

Filed under Space, Videos by jtozer on June 25, 2012 at 7:54 am {no comments}

Ever wonder what it’s like to be part of a NASA team? Well, three student interns have been given the opportunity of a lifetime. They were asked to create a major component for the Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) mission. Principal Investigator Stephen Rinehart mentored the students and gave them the freedom to be creative in making a star camera, which will study star birth in deep space.

Video provided by the NASA Goddard YouTube Channel

For more info about Goddard Internships, click here.

Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook. and on Twitter, too!

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The Military Mission In Space

Filed under Space, Technology, Videos by jtozer on May 17, 2012 at 7:30 am {one comment}

Solar - B Spacecraft goes into orbit to begin looking at the sun. It is specifically looking at solar magnetic fields and the origins of the solar wind. (Photo concept from NASA)

The Air Force is constantly monitoring the skies, but that isn’t limited to our atmosphere. Keeping our military satellites up and running is tantamount to mission success, and working to improve that equipment and technology is a part of the ever-growing advancement of our military mission in space.

The Space Control Center in Cheyenne Mountain Air Station (NORAD) is the terminus for the SSN’s abundant and steady flow of information. The SCC houses large, powerful computers to process SSN information and accomplish the space surveillance and space control missions.

The NAVSPACECOM provides the site and personnel for the Alternate SCC (ASCC). The ASCC would take over all operations in the event the SCC could not function. This capability is exercised frequently.

The Orbital Space Debris

STRATCOM tracks over 20,000 man-made space objects, baseball-size and larger, orbiting Earth. The space objects consist of active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation. About seven percent are operational satellites, 15 percent are rocket bodies, and about 78 percent are fragmentation and inactive satellites.

Most debris (about 84 percent) is out approximately 800 kilometers – roughly twice the normal altitude of the space shuttle which orbits at about 300 kilometers.

Only a small amount of debris exists where the shuttle orbits.

The likelihood of a significant collision between a piece of debris (10 centimeters or larger) and the shuttle is extremely remote. The statistical estimate is one chance in 10,000 years, in the worst case. The probability is higher for objects smaller-than-baseball size which currently cannot be tracked with available sensors.

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Eyes On The Skies – Space Weather and Satellites

Filed under Space, STEM, Technology by jtozer on May 16, 2012 at 7:09 am {no comments}

This animation shows a magnetic reconnection event with proton aurora data from the IMAGE spacecraft. (Photo concept courtesy of NASA)

The Space Surveillance Network has been tracking space objects since 1957 when the Soviets opened the space age with the launch of Sputnik I. Since then, the SSN has tracked more than 24,500 space objects orbiting Earth.

Of that number, the SSN currently tracks more than 8,000 orbiting objects.

The rest have re-entered Earth’s turbulent atmosphere and disintegrated, or survived re-enty and impacted the Earth. The space objects now orbiting Earth range from satellites weighting several tons to pieces of spent rocket bodies weighing only 10 pounds.

About seven percent of the space objects are operational satellites, the rest are debris. STRATCOM is primarily interested in the active satellites, but also tracks space debris. They also track space objects which are 10 centimeters in diameter (baseball size) or larger.

SSN Sensors

The SSN uses a “predictive” technique to monitor space objects; it spot checks them rather than tracking them continually. This technique is used because of the limits of the SSN (number of sensors, geographic distribution, capability, and availability).

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Space Weather, Satellites and the Sun

Filed under Space, Videos by jtozer on May 15, 2012 at 7:24 am {no comments}

When service members go out on patrol, they keep a weather eye out for any dangers or unknown variables that might impact the mission. When space surveillance specialists go out on the job, they’re keeping an eye on the skies, and in more ways than one.

A beautiful prominence eruption producing a coronal mass ejection (CME) shot off the east limb (left side) of the sun on April 16, 2012. Such eruptions are often associated with solar flares, and in this case an M1 class (medium-sized) flare occurred at the same time, peaking at 1:45 PM EDT. The CME was not aimed toward Earth. (From NASA Goddard)

Space surveillance is a critical part of STRATCOM‘s mission and involves detecting, tracking, cataloging and identifying man-made objects orbiting Earth, i.e. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris.

Space surveillance can predict when and where a decaying space object will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and prevent a returning space object. To radar, these can look like a missile, and even trigger a false alarm from missile-attack warning sensors of the U.S. and other countries.

Therefore, it’s important that we monitor the skies as much as we monitor anything that impacts us as a nation, and in this case, as a planet.

Space surveillance can also chart the present position of space objects and plot their anticipated orbital paths. This means detecting new man-made objects in space, producing a running catalog of man-made space objects, determining which country owns a re-entering space object, and informing NASA whether or not objects may interfere with the space shuttle and Russian Mir space station orbits.

The command accomplishes these tasks through its Space Surveillance Network (SSN) of U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force operated, ground-based radar’s and optical sensors at 25 sites worldwide.

One of the things that affects our satellites – and something we have to be cognizant of – is space weather, and specifically, solar weather. Dr. Alex Young, Solar Physicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explains how the sun is making scientific waves in our daily lives.

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