NASA News: NASA Awards Contract Modification to Computer Science Corp.

WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded Computer Science Corp. (CSC) of Falls
Church, Va., a contract modification to exercise the second option
year under the current contract. This one-year option period
increases the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) support contract by
more than $41 million and provides services through Sept. 30, 2012.

CSC will continue financial management, human resources, procurement
and information technology support services to the agency.

The NSSC is a partnership between NASA, CSC and the states of
Mississippi and Louisiana. The NSSC also performs selected business
activities for all ten NASA centers.

For information about the NASA Shared Services Center, visit:

http://www.nssc.nasa.gov

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

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NASA Gives Race Car Fans a Reason to Cheer

WASHINGTON -- NASA has launched a new interactive online program that
allows race fans to learn about the many contributions the agency has
made to the racing industry. The "Rockets to Race Cars" site allows
users to navigate through the NASA garage and learn about
heat-resistant paint, fire-resistant materials, the development of
better brakes and several other agency spinoffs that have helped the
racing community.

NASA has partnered with several racing organizations to test their
cars, while also using proven agency technology to make the racing
industry safer and faster. For example, the Penske Racing team
partnered with NASA in 1996 to find a way to keep their drivers more
comfortable during races. Using scrap material from the Space
Shuttle's Thermal Protection System (TPS) blankets, they were able to
cool the driver's cockpit by 30 to 50 degrees. Race cars around the
nation now regularly use the material.

"NASA's exploration missions have a huge impact here on Earth," said
David Weaver, associate administrator for NASA's Office of
Communications in Washington. "This interactive website demonstrates
the scope of NASA's space technology and research efforts."

Visitors can navigate through NASA's racing contributions by selecting
from icons that appear on the bottom of the screen. Users receive a
quick and entertaining description of how the contribution was
developed and where it is used in the racing industry.

The interactive website complements a "NASA Rockets to Race Cars"
exhibit that visits racetracks around the country. The exhibit
features a scale replica race car that highlights some of the
technology benefits NASA spinoffs provide to the automobile and
racing industries. Visitors also can access the "Rockets to Race
Cars" interactive feature through a touch screen monitor.

For more information about the website, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/r2r

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NASA Announces Media Teleconference About Satellite Re-Entry

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT on
Friday, Sept. 9, to discuss the anticipated re-entry of the agency's
decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). Re-entry
is expected late this month or early October.

The teleconference participants are:

-- Paul Hertz, chief scientist, NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington
-- Nick Johnson, chief scientist, NASA's Orbital Debris Program,
Johnson Space Center, Houston
-- U.S. Air Force Maj. Michael W. Duncan, deputy chief, space
situational awareness, U.S. Strategic Command, Vandenberg Air Force
Base, Calif.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact the NASA
Headquarters newsroom at 202-358-1600 no later than 9 a.m. Friday for
the call-in number and passcode.

UARS was launched Sept. 12, 1991, aboard space shuttle mission STS-48
and deployed on Sept. 15, 1991. It was the first multi-instrumented
satellite to observe numerous chemical components of the atmosphere
for better understanding of photochemistry. UARS data marked the
beginning of many long-term records for key chemicals in the
atmosphere. The satellite also provided key data on the amount of
light that comes from the sun at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths.
UARS ceased its productive scientific life in 2005.

For live audio streaming of the teleconference, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For more information about UARS, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/uars

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NASA Spacecraft Observes New Characteristics Of Solar Flares

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, has provided
scientists new information about solar flares indicating an increase
in strength and longevity that is more than previously thought.

Solar flares are intense bursts of radiation from the release of
magnetic energy associated with sunspots. They are the solar system's
largest explosive events and are seen as bright areas on the sun.
Their energy can reach Earth's atmosphere and affect operations of
Earth-orbiting communication and navigation satellites.

Using SDO's Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE)
instrument, scientists have observed that radiation from solar flares
continue for up to five hours beyond the main phase. The new data
also show the total energy from this extended phase of the solar
flare's peak sometimes has more energy than the initial event.

"Previous observations considered a few seconds or minutes to be the
normal part of the flare process," said Lika Guhathakurta, lead
program scientist for NASA's Living with a Star Program at the
agency's Headquarters in Washington. "This new data will increase our
understanding of flare physics and the consequences in near-Earth
space where many scientific and commercial satellites reside."
On Nov. 3, 2010, SDO observed a solar flare. If scientists only had
measured the effects of the flare as it initially happened, they
would have underestimated the amount of energy shooting into Earth's
atmosphere by 70 percent. SDO's new observations provide a much more
accurate estimation of the total energy solar flares put into Earth's environment.

"For decades, our standard for flares has been to watch the X-rays as
they happen and see when they peak," said Tom Woods, a space
scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder and principal
author on a paper in Wednesday's online edition of Astrophysical
Journal. "But we were seeing peaks that didn't correspond to the X-rays."

During the course of a year, the team used EVE to map each wavelength
of light as it strengthened, peaked, and diminished over time. EVE
records data every 10 seconds and has observed many flares. Previous
instruments only measured every 90 minutes or didn't look at all
wavelengths simultaneously as SDO can.

To compliment the EVE graphical data, scientists used images from
another SDO instrument, the Advanced Imaging Assembly (AIA). Analysis
of these images showed the main flare eruption and its extended phase
in the form of magnetic field lines called coronal loops that
appeared far above the original eruption site. These extra loops were
longer and became brighter later than the loops from the main flare
and also were physically set apart from those of the main flare.

Because this previously unrealized extra source of energy from flares
also is impacting Earth's atmosphere, Woods and his colleagues are
studying how the late phase flares can influence space weather. Space
weather caused by solar flares can affect communication and
navigation systems, satellite drag and the decay of orbital debris.

SDO was launched on Feb. 11, 2010. The spacecraft is the most advanced
spacecraft ever designed to study the sun and its dynamic behavior.
SDO provides images 10 times clearer than high definition television
and more comprehensive science data faster than any solar observing
spacecraft in history.

EVE was built by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at
the University of Colorado. AIA was built by Lockheed Martin Solar
and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., built, operates
and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star
Program, or LWS. The goal of LWS is to develop the scientific
understanding necessary to address those aspects of the connected
sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.

For more information and images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sunearth

For more information about the SDO mission and instruments, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sdo

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NASA TV Will Broadcast Soyuz Landing On Sept. 15

HOUSTON -- NASA Television will broadcast the return to Earth of three
crew members who have called the International Space Station (ISS)
home for more than five months.

On Sept. 15, Expedition 28 Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev, NASA
Flight Engineer Ron Garan and off-going station Commander Andrey
Borisenko will undock from the station's Poisk module to return to
Earth in their Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft.

They are set to land on the southern region steppe of Kazakhstan near
the town of Dzhezkazgan at 11:01 p.m. CDT on Sept. 15 (10:01 a.m.
local time, Sept. 16). Their return was delayed a week due to the
Aug. 24 loss of the unmanned ISS Progress 44 cargo craft.

Expedition 29 station Commander Mike Fossum of NASA, Russian Flight
Engineer Sergei Volkov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Flight
Engineer Satoshi Furukawa will remain aboard the complex to conduct
research until their planned return to Earth in mid-November.

The schedule to launch three new Expedition 29 crew members, NASA
Flight Engineer Dan Burbank, Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov and
Russian Flight Engineer Anatoly Ivanishin, is under review as NASA
and its international partners assess the readiness to resume Soyuz launches.

The full schedule of the Expedition 28 Soyuz TMA-21 hatch closure,
undocking and landing coverage is below. All times are CDT.

Wednesday, Sept. 14
4:40 p.m. - Expedition 28-29 change of command ceremony (Borisenko
hands over station command to Fossum)
Thursday, Sept. 15
4 p.m. -¬ Soyuz TMA-21 crew farewells and hatch closure (hatch closure
scheduled at 4:35 p.m.)
7:15 p.m. - Undocking coverage (undocking scheduled at 7:37 p.m.)
9:30 p.m. - Deorbit burn and landing coverage (Deorbit burn scheduled
at 10:06 p.m., landing in Kazakhstan scheduled at 11:01 p.m.)
Friday, Sept. 16
2 a.m. - Video File of the landing and post-landing activities
(repeated at 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.)
11 a.m. - Video File of the landing and post-landing activities that
includes post-landing interview with Garan and the cosmonauts' return
to Chkalovsky Airfield near Star City, Russia

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the International Space Station and its
crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

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