NASA News: NASA And Hawaii Partner For Space Exploration
WASHINGTON -- NASA and Hawaii have agreed to collaborate on a widerange of activities to promote America's human and robotic
exploration of space. The partnership also will contribute to the
development of education programs and foster economic opportunities
including new, high-tech jobs.
Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie and NASA Associate Deputy
Administrator Rebecca Keiser signed a two-year non-reimbursable Space
Act Agreement Annex during a ceremony today in Honolulu. The ceremony
was held on the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's
historic announcement committing the country to land an American on
the moon and return him safely before the end of the decade.
"Hawaii has been part of America's space activities from the beginning
of the space program when Apollo astronauts trained in the islands
for their historic missions to the moon," Abercrombie said. "This
partnership with NASA will broaden educational and employment
opportunities for our local families and bring dollars into our economy."
The annex establishes a partnership between NASA's Ames Research
Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and Hawaii to explore and test new
technologies, capabilities and strategies supporting America's space
exploration and development goals.
Under the agreement, Hawaii is proposing to explore development of a
ground-based international lunar effort. It would use the state's
unique moon/Mars analog terrain to enable development and testing of
advanced automated and tele-robotic vehicles. Researchers would
benefit from Hawaii's natural geography to study in-situ resource
use, advanced communications, power generation and other technologies
required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
"This type of participatory exploration is becoming an increasingly
important component of the 21st century space program," Keiser said.
"Americans want to participate directly and personally in space
activities. As we have seen from NASA's Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services project and the Centennial Challenges prize
competitions, harvesting the country's innovative talent is important
to the success of our future endeavors in space. The space frontier
is opening in novel and exciting ways."
Hawaii will provide the prototype test environment and infrastructure
for the proposed analog test facilities. NASA will evaluate new
concepts and models for conducting space exploration. Hawaii will
explore the potential to develop and mature innovative space-related
technologies for educational, industry and government use.
"From NASA's perspective, this partnership can inspire ideas and
applications from analog test sites that can be generalized to space
exploration and development of the moon and other planetary bodies,"
said Ames Director Pete Worden.
Hawaii's Office of Aerospace Development will be the lead state agency
for the project, enhancing dialogue and coordination among the state,
private and academic partners to enable growth and diversification of
the state's aerospace economy.
"We support NASA's goal to promote public-private partnerships and
multinational alliances to help reduce the cost, enhance the
feasibility and accelerate the implementation of future space
missions - leading to settlements beyond low-Earth orbit," said Jim
Crisafulli, director of Hawaii's Office of Aerospace Development.
"Locally, this collaboration should catalyze Hawaii-based economic
innovation and engage engineers, scientists, educators, and students,
as well as commercial entrepreneurs, to increase the opportunities
and benefits of space exploration."
For more information about NASA Ames, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ames
For more information about Hawaii's aerospace initiatives, visit:
http://aerospacehawaii.info
---
NASA To Launch New Science Mission To Asteroid In 2016
WASHINGTON -- NASA will launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016 anduse a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our
solar system's formation and how life began. The mission, called
Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource
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first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.
"This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by
President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and
explore into deep space," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.
"It's robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future
human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations."
NASA selected OSIRIS-REx after reviewing three concept study reports
for new scientific missions, which also included a sample return
mission from the far side of the moon and a mission to the surface of Venus.
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 birth.
After traveling four years, OSIRIS-REx will approach the primitive,
near Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 in 2020. Once within three
miles of the asteroid, the spacecraft will begin six months of
comprehensive surface mapping. The science team then will pick a
location from where the spacecraft's arm will take a sample. The
spacecraft gradually will move closer to the site, and the arm will
extend to collect more than two ounces of material for return to
Earth in 2023. The mission, excluding the launch vehicle, is expected
to cost approximately $800 million.
The sample will be stored in a capsule that will land at Utah's Test
and Training Range in 2023. The capsule's design will be similar to
that used by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which returned the world's
first comet particles from comet Wild 2 in 2006. The OSIRIS-REx
sample capsule will be taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston. The material will be removed and delivered to a dedicated
research facility following stringent planetary protection protocol.
Precise analysis will be performed that cannot be duplicated by
spacecraft-based instruments.
RQ36 is approximately 1,900 feet in diameter or roughly the size of
five football fields. The asteroid, little altered over time, is
likely to represent a snapshot of our solar system's infancy. The
asteroid also is likely rich in carbon, a key element in the organic
molecules necessary for life. Organic molecules have been found in
meteorite and comet samples, indicating some of life's ingredients
can be created in space. Scientists want to see if they also are
present on RQ36.
"This asteroid is a time capsule from the birth of our solar system
and ushers in a new era of planetary exploration," said Jim Green,
director, NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "The
knowledge from the mission also will help us to develop methods to
better track the orbits of asteroids."
The mission will accurately measure the "Yarkovsky effect" for the
first time. The effect is a small push caused by the sun on an
asteroid, as it absorbs sunlight and re-emits that energy as heat.
The small push adds up over time, but it is uneven due to an
asteroid's shape, wobble, surface composition and rotation. For
scientists to predict an Earth-approaching asteroid's path, they must
understand how the effect will change its orbit. OSIRIS-REx will help
refine RQ36's orbit to ascertain its trajectory and devise future
strategies to mitigate possible Earth impacts from celestial objects.
Michael Drake of the University of Arizona in Tucson is the mission's
principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems
engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space
Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. The OSIRIS-REx payload
includes instruments from the University of Arizona, Goddard, Arizona
State University in Tempe and the Canadian Space Agency. NASA's Ames
Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., the Langley Research Center
in Hampton Va., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., also are involved. The science team is composed of numerous
researchers from universities, private and government agencies.
This is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. The first,
New Horizons, was launched in 2006. It will fly by the Pluto-Charon
system in July 2015, then target another Kuiper Belt object for
study. The second mission, Juno, will launch in August to become the
first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole and study the
giant planet's atmosphere and interior. NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for the agency's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about OSIRIS-REx, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
---
NASA Commemorates Moonshot Moment's Golden Anniversary Agency Looks to the Future and Beyond Low-Earth Orbit
WASHINGTON -- Fifty years ago, a young president struggling withdeepening international issues set a fledgling space agency on a
course that would change the history of human exploration. NASA
commemorates President John F. Kennedy's historic speech that sent
humans safely to the moon with a series of activities and a
commitment to continue the journey of discovery and exploration that
started with a desperate race into space.
"We are moving into a bright new future that builds on a challenge
presented to us 50 years ago," said NASA Administrator Charles
Bolden. "It is important that we remember our history but we must
always look forward toward a brighter future. Our advantage now is
that we have five decades of accomplishment and world leadership in
space on which to build. The dreams President Kennedy helped make
real for our world, and the dreams we still hold, may appear to be
just out of reach but they are not out of our grasp."
On this date in 1961, Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress,
with a worldwide television audience, and announced, "I believe that
this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this
decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely
to Earth." This was seen as a bold mandate because America's
experience up to this point was Alan Shepard's suborbital Freedom 7
mission, which launched just a few weeks earlier and lasted about 15 minutes.
"Today, we have another young and vibrant president who has outlined
an urgent national need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build
our competitors and create new capabilities that will take us farther
into the solar system, and help us learn even more about our place in
the universe," Bolden added. "We stand at a moonshot moment once
again, where we have a chance to make great leaps forward to new
destinations, develop new vehicles and technologies, and new ways of exploring."
To commemorate the address that launched NASA into history, the agency
has scheduled several events and historic multimedia perspectives, including:
-- A special concert at 7 p.m. EDT tonight at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The one-hour concert
will feature the Space Philharmonic, Administrator Bolden,
astronauts, Kennedy family representatives and special guests. There
are a limited number of tickets available for the public. For more
information, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/jTOKZt
-- Video and other multimedia material from President Kennedy's speech
are available on NASA Television and on the agency's Internet
homepage http://www.nasa.gov along with information about the
agency's future exploration initiatives.
-- A message from the administrator about NASA's next moonshot moment
and moving beyond Earth orbit is available on his blog at:
http://bit.ly/fNjTS2
-- An announcement later today that represents an important step in
executing the president's exploration objectives and could pave the
way for extending humanity's reach beyond low-Earth orbit and further
into space
-- NASA and the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in
Washington present "NASA | ART," from May 28 to Oct. 9. The exhibit
features more than 70 paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures,
and other forms of art illustrating the agency's mission. Admission
is free, and the exhibit is located at the Air and Space Museum's
building at Sixth Street and Independence Ave. SW.
For more information about NASA and its missions, connect with the
agency online at:
http://www.nasa.gov
http://www.twitter.com/nasa
http://www.facebook.com/nasa
http://www.youtube.com/
For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
---
NASA to Announce New Planetary Science Mission
WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 4:30 p.m. EDTon Wednesday, May 25, to discuss the selection of a future science
mission that will usher in a new era in planetary exploration.
Jim Green, director for NASA's Planetary Science Division Mission in
Washington, and other officials will take reporters' questions during
the teleconference.
To participate, reporters must e-mail their name, media affiliation
and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov by 4
p.m. Wednesday.
For live streaming audio of the teleconference, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio
A news release about the new mission will be available at 4 p.m. at:
http://www.nasa.gov
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