NASA News: NASA Sets GRAIL/Delta II Launch Coverage Events
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's GRAIL spacecraft is set to launch to
the moon aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket on Sept. 8,
2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Fla.
There are two instantaneous (1 sec.) launch windows at 8:37:06 a.m.
and 9:16:12 a.m. EDT. The launch period, the last for Delta IIs at
the Cape, extends through Oct. 19. The launch times occur
approximately four minutes earlier each day.
GRAIL's primary science objectives are to determine the structure of
the lunar interior, from crust to core, and to advance understanding
of the thermal evolution of the moon.
GRAIL Prelaunch News Conference
A prelaunch news conference will be at NASA Kennedy Space Center's
Press Site on Tuesday, Sept. 6, at 1 p.m. Participating in the briefing:
-- Ed Weiler, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate,
NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Tim Dunn, NASA launch director, Kennedy Space Center, Cape
Canaveral, Fla.
-- Vernon Thorp, program manager, NASA Missions, United Launch
Alliance, Denver
-- David Lehman, GRAIL project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
-- John Henk, GRAIL program manager, Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver.
-- Joel Tumbiolo, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, CCAFS
GRAIL Mission Science Briefing
A GRAIL mission science briefing will be at Kennedy's Press Site on
Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 10 a.m. Participating in the briefing:
-- Robert Fogel, GRAIL program scientist, NASA Headquarters,
Washington
-- Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge
-- Sami Asmar, GRAIL deputy project scientist, JPL
-- Sally Ride, president and CEO, Sally Ride Science, San Diego
Accreditation & Media Access Badges for Kennedy Space Center
To cover the GRAIL prelaunch news conference, mission science briefing
and the launch, media must complete the online accreditation process at:
https://media.ksc.nasa.gov
Accreditation for foreign journalists must be received by Sunday, Aug.
28. U.S. media must apply by Monday, Sept. 5. Media may obtain their
NASA access badge at the Kennedy Space Center Badging Office located
near Gate 3 on State Road 405, just past the Kennedy Space Center
Visitor Complex.
Two forms of government issued identification, one with photo, will be
required in order to receive an access badge for Kennedy to cover the
prelaunch news conference and the launch. Badges will be available
for pick-up beginning Sept. 6. The Kennedy Space Center Badging
Office hours of operation are 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. For information about
accreditation, contact Laurel Lichtenberger at 321-867-4036.
Delta II Mobile Service Tower Rollback
Sept. 7: There will be a media opportunity at CCAFS Pad 17B to observe
rollback of the mobile service tower from the Delta II rocket. Media
should meet in the parking lot of CCAFS Gate 1 Pass & Identification
Building at 9:30 p.m. for transportation by government bus to the
viewing location at the launch pad.
Remote Camera Placement at Launch Complex 17
Sept. 7: Photographers who wish to set up remote sound-activated
cameras at the launch pad should meet in the parking lot of Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station's Gate 1 Pass & Identification Building at 9:45 a.m.
Launch Day Press Site Access
Sept. 8: Media will cover the GRAIL launch from Press Site 1 at CCAFS.
Media must arrive at Kennedy's Press Site by 6 a.m. for
transportation to the viewing site.
Kennedy Press Site Hours
Tuesday, Sept. 6: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept 7: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 8: 5:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
NASA Television Coverage
NASA Television will carry the GRAIL prelaunch news conference
beginning at 1 p.m. on Sept. 6 and the GRAIL mission science briefing
on Sept. 7 at 10 a.m.
On Sept. 8, NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 6
a.m. and conclude after spacecraft separation from the Delta II
approximately 58 minutes and 45 seconds after launch. Live launch
coverage will be carried on all NASA Television channels and on the
agency's website.
A post-launch news conference will be held at Kennedy's Press Site
after launch. (Time TBD) A post-launch news release also will be
issued when health of GRAIL is determined. NASA personnel will be
available at the Press Site to answer questions and for interviews.
For NASA Television downlink, schedule and streaming video
information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
Audio only of the news conferences and the launch coverage will be
carried on the NASA "V" circuits at: 321-867-1220/1240/1260/7135. On
launch day, "mission audio," the launch conductor's countdown
activities without NASA TV launch commentary, will be carried on
321-867-7135 starting at 6 a.m. Launch will also be available on
local amateur VHF radio frequency 146.940 MHz heard within Brevard County.
NASA Web Pre-launch & Launch Coverage
For extensive pre-launch and launch day coverage of the GRAIL
spacecraft, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
A prelaunch webcast for the GRAIL mission will be streamed on
Wednesday, Sept. 7, at noon. Live countdown coverage through NASA's
Launch Blog begins at 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 8. Coverage features live
updates as countdown milestones occur, as well as streaming video
clips highlighting launch preparations and liftoff.
For questions about countdown coverage, contact Jeanne Ryba at
321-867-7824. To view the webcast and the blog or to learn more about
the GRAIL mission, visit the mission home page at:
http://www.nasa.gov/grail
and
http://grail.nasa.gov
To view live interviews with lunar scientists during the NASA
Scientists in Action webcast, visit:
http://www.livestream.com/
The NASA News Twitter feed will be updated throughout the launch
countdown. To access the NASA News Twitter feed, visit:
http://www.twitter.com/nasa
Recorded Status
Recorded status reports on the launch of GRAIL and updates to the
media advisory will be provided on the Kennedy media phone line
starting Tuesday, Sept. 6. The telephone number is 321-867-2525.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL
mission for the principal investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL
mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for
the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy.
---
NASA Awards Ground Systems And Operations Support Contract
GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA has selected Honeywell Technology SolutionsInc. in Columbia, Md., to provide Ground Systems and Mission
Operations support.
The total maximum ordering value of the cost-plus-award fee,
indefinite-delivery/
The effective ordering period is from Nov. 1 through Oct. 31, 2016.
The work will be performed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md.
Under this contract, Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. will support
a wide range of mission operations in all phases of the mission life
cycle, including concept studies, formulation development,
implementation, operations, sustaining engineering and
decommissioning. The contractor also will support operations studies,
systems engineering, design, implementation, integration and testing
of ground systems and operations products, mission operations and
sustaining engineering.
This contract will support NASA's Earth Science Mission Operations and
Space Science Mission Operations including: Aqua, Aura, Terra,
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and Earth Observing-1, Advanced
Composition Explorer, Geotail, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Rossi
X-ray Timing Explorer, Solar Dynamics Observatory, Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory and Wind.
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit
http://www.nasa.gov
---
NASA's Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars
WASHINGTON - Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field InfraredSurvey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the coldest class of star-like
bodies, with temperatures as cool as the human body.
Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a
decade without success. When viewed with a visible-light telescope,
they are nearly impossible to see. WISE's infrared vision allowed the
telescope to finally spot the faint glow of six Y dwarfs relatively
close to our sun, within a distance of about 40 light-years.
"WISE scanned the entire sky for these and other objects, and was able
to spot their feeble light with its highly sensitive infrared
vision," said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "They are 5,000 times brighter at the
longer infrared wavelengths WISE observed from space than those
observable from the ground."
The Y's are the coldest members of the brown dwarf family. Brown
dwarfs are sometimes referred to as "failed" stars. They are too low
in mass to fuse atoms at their cores and thus don't burn with the
fires that keep stars like our sun shining steadily for billions of
years. Instead, these objects cool and fade with time, until what
little light they do emit is at infrared wavelengths.
Astronomers study brown dwarfs to better understand how stars form and
understand the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. The
atmospheres of brown dwarfs are similar to those of gas giant planets
like Jupiter, but they are easier to observe because they are alone
in space, away from the blinding light of a parent star.
So far, WISE data have revealed 100 new brown dwarfs. More discoveries
are expected as scientists continue to examine the enormous quantity
of data from WISE.
The telescope performed the most advanced survey of the sky at
infrared wavelengths to date, from Jan. 2010 to Feb. 2011, scanning
the entire sky about 1.5 times.
Of the 100 brown dwarfs, six are classified as cool Y's. One of the Y
dwarfs, called WISE 1828+2650, is the record holder for the coldest
brown dwarf with an estimated atmospheric temperature cooler than
room temperature, or less than 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).
"The brown dwarfs we were turning up before this discovery were more
like the temperature of your oven," said Davy Kirkpatrick, a WISE
science team member at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "With the
discovery of Y dwarfs, we've moved out of the kitchen and into the
cooler parts of the house."
Kirkpatrick is lead author of a paper appearing in the Astrophysical
Journal Supplement Series, describing the 100 confirmed brown dwarfs.
Michael Cushing, a WISE team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., is lead author of a paper
describing the Y dwarfs in the Astrophysical Journal.
The Y dwarfs are in our sun's neighborhood, from approximately nine to
40 light-years away. The Y dwarf approximately nine light-years away,
WISE 1541-2250, may become the seventh closest star system, bumping
Ross 154 back to eighth. By comparison, the star closest to our solar
system, Proxima Centauri, is about four light-years away.
"Finding brown dwarfs near our sun is like discovering there's a
hidden house on your block that you didn't know about," Cushing said.
"It's thrilling to me to know we've got neighbors out there yet to be
discovered. With WISE, we may even find a brown dwarf closer to us
than our closest known star."
Once the WISE team identified brown dwarf candidates, they turned to
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to narrow their list. To definitively
confirm them, the WISE team used some of the most powerful telescopes
on Earth to split apart the objects' light and look for telltale
molecular signatures of water, methane and possibly ammonia. For the
very coldest of the new Y dwarfs, the team used NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope. The Y dwarfs were identified based on a change in these
spectral features compared to other brown dwarfs, indicating they
have a lower atmospheric temperature.
JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The principal
investigator is Edward Wright at UCLA. The WISE satellite was
decommissioned in 2011 after completing its sky survey observations.
The mission was selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by
the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science
instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah,
and the spacecraft by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., in
Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing are at the
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute
of Technology. For more information about WISE, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/wise
Source:
