NASA Seeks Partners to Explore Johnson Structural Testing Research and Development

 HOUSTON -- NASA has released a Request for Information (RFI) to explore the potential interest and use of its unique facilities, labs and technical expertise for structural testing at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The facilities and capabilities could support commercial, government and academic activities, and possibly lead to new technology developments.

The RFI is seeking responses from prospective partners interested in using Johnson's extensive testing facilities to provide high-performance solutions for a variety of structural testing in diverse industries, including aerospace. These solutions can help businesses meet their challenges by helping engineers develop deeper insight in their materials and building processes.

Structure testing capabilities at Johnson include a full range of end-to-end test labs and tools, and the expertise of NASA scientists and engineers in analyzing data and operations. Core areas include material properties and advanced manufacturing techniques research, as well as rapid prototyping or fabrication of aircraft, spaceflight vehicle systems and industrial structures.

Johnson's structural analyses are able to evaluate many different types of designs and can be conducted with environmental conditioning to analyze composites in extreme environments and verify design predictions that may support industry goals.

New partnerships using Johnson structural testing facilities and expertise would be consistent with NASA's missions and are expected to be on a reimbursable basis.

For further information visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/oct/HQ_12-380_JSC_RFI_Structural_Testing.html

NASA NEWS: NASA Rover's First Soil Studies Help Fingerprint Martian Minerals

This graphic shows results of the first analysis of Martian soil by the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) experiment on NASA's Curiosity rover. The image reveals the presence of crystalline feldspar, pyroxenes and olivine mixed with some amorphous (non-crystalline) material. The soil sample, taken from a wind-blown deposit within Gale Crater, where the rover landed, is similar to volcanic soils in Hawaii. The colors in the graphic represent the intensity of the X-rays, with red being the most intense. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has completed initial experiments showing the mineralogy of Martian soil is similar to weathered basaltic soils of volcanic origin in Hawaii.

The minerals were identified in the first sample of Martian soil ingested recently by the rover. Curiosity used its Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) to obtain the results, which are filling gaps and adding confidence to earlier estimates of the mineralogical makeup of the dust and fine soil widespread on the Red Planet.

"We had many previous inferences and discussions about the mineralogy of Martian soil," said David Blake of NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who is the principal investigator for CheMin. "Our quantitative results provide refined and in some cases new identifications of the minerals in this first X-ray diffraction analysis on Mars."

The identification of minerals in rocks and soil is crucial for the mission's goal to assess past environmental conditions. Each mineral record the conditions under which it formed. The chemical composition of a rock provides only ambiguous mineralogical information, as in the textbook example of the minerals diamond and graphite, which have the same chemical composition, but strikingly different structures and properties.

CheMin uses X-ray diffraction, the standard practice for geologists on Earth using much larger laboratory instruments. This method provides more accurate identifications of minerals than any method previously used on Mars.

X-ray diffraction reads minerals' internal structure by recording how their crystals distinctively interact with X-rays. Innovations from Ames led to an X-ray diffraction instrument compact enough to fit inside the rover.

These NASA technological advances have resulted in other applications on Earth, including compact and portable X-ray diffraction equipment for oil and gas exploration, analysis of archaeological objects and screening of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, among other uses.

"Our team is elated with these first results from our instrument," said Blake. "They heighten our anticipation for future CheMin analyses in the months and miles ahead for Curiosity."

"Much of Mars is covered with dust, and we had an incomplete understanding of its mineralogy," said David Bish, CheMin co-investigator with Indiana University in Bloomington.

"We now know it is mineralogically similar to basaltic material, with significant amounts of feldspar, pyroxene and olivine, which was not unexpected. Roughly half the soil is non-crystalline material, such as volcanic glass or products from weathering of the glass. "

Bish said, "So far, the materials Curiosity has analyzed are consistent with our initial ideas of the deposits in Gale Crater recording a transition through time from a wet to dry environment. The ancient rocks, such as the conglomerates, suggest flowing water, while the minerals in the younger soil are consistent with limited interaction with water."

During the two-year prime mission of the Mars Science Laboratory Project, researchers are using Curiosity's 10 instruments to investigate whether areas in Gale Crater ever offered environmental conditions favourable for microbial life.

For further information visit: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASA_Rovers_First_Soil_Studies_Help_Fingerprint_Martian_Minerals_999.html

INDIA NEWS: Kalam: like China, India too going the nuclear way

Just as China has moved towards ending its ban on new nuclear projects after the Fukushima disaster by giving the go-ahead for constructing power plants, the former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, said in Beijing on Friday that India “had also come to the conclusion” that nuclear power would have to play a key role in achieving energy independence.

While Japan and some countries in the West, such as Germany, have moved away from nuclear energy in the wake of Fukushima, the Chinese government on October 25 signalled its intent to push forward its ambitious plans for the nuclear sector, albeit at a slower pace, after undertaking an extensive safety review.

Asked about China’s plans to go forward with nuclear energy, Dr. Kalam, who is in Beijing to attend a conference, told The Hindu in an interview that India was also of a similar view. “India has also come to the conclusion,” he said. “We have got to generate 20,000 MW by 2020, so definitely India is going ahead. There is no doubt about it.”

‘We have to shape ideas’

“Of course in a democratic nation,” he said, “some views will come out.. [But] we have to shape ideas.”

China, which is operating 16 nuclear power reactors and has 26 more under construction, on October 25 approved a Nuclear Power Safety Plan from 2011-2020, after a longer than expected safety review was initiated in March. A Cabinet meeting decided China “will return to normal nuclear power construction by maintaining a rational construction pace,” indicating it would slow down its expansion plans.

The government said it would not construct any nuclear projects in inland areas — some of the 26 projects already approved are in the interior — and would only build plants in coastal areas. To address safety fears, the government said it would also spend 80 billion yuan (Rs. 68,800 crore) by 2015 to upgrade security standards and phase out older reactors.

Dr. Kalam said the experiences of other countries — whether the bullishness in China or the wariness in Japan and Europe — did not ultimately matter as far as India was concerned. “We have to think about what is right for India,” he said, “and India should go for energy independence.”

Offer to teach

Dr. Kalam was welcomed warmly on his first visit to Beijing, where he addressed a conference on Friday. Peking University’s Council Chairman Zhu Shanlu, who met with the former president, extended an invitation to Dr. Kalam to deliver annual lectures at the university and conduct research here.

“They said you must teach here, and can come here and do research,” he said. “I love to teach youth wherever they are; I teach in the U.S., I teach in India. It is a unique place because this is the place where we have to build bridges.”

Scientists at the China Academy of Space Technology told Dr. Kalam they wanted to work with India and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on their space missions and set up a formal initiative.

World Knowledge Platform

Dr. Kalam on Friday suggested setting up a World Knowledge Platform for Global Action that would invest $4 billion to bring together universities, governments and entrepreneurs to take forward joint initiatives on sustainable development, energy independence and the environment.

“The youth and the intellectuals and the academy here, and even in the political field, can see there is a necessity to work together [with India],” he said, suggesting India could leverage China’s core competencies in manufacturing while India could offer its know-how in IT and the services.

“We [India and China] had a bad experience historically, the question is what we do now,” he said. “If you look at Europe, they fought for 100 years and one day they all joined together. We have to make up our mind. Defence is of course very important for every country,” he added, “but we are talking about 37 per cent of the world’s population, and that is a great opportunity.”

For further information visit: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/kalam-like-china-india-too-going-the-nuclear-way/article4060461.ece

ISRO NEWS: ISRO's centre in Ahmedabad helped track Hurricane Sandy

MUMBAI: Indian Space Research Organization (Isro)'s Oscat radio scatterometer on board its 960kg Oceansat-2 remote sensing satellite had tracked ocean surface winds of Hurricane Sandy that wrought havoc in eastern US on Monday, a Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory announcement has said.

 NASA had sought Isro's help as its QuikSat satellite stopped operating in November 2009. QuikSat resembles the Oscat radio scatterometer. Officials said Isro's Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre has designed and developed the scatterometer, an active microwave device, which among other things is equipped with one-meter parabolic dish antenna. It has been designed to provide global ocean coverage.

 Isro chief spokesperson Dev Prasad Karnik said Isro, NASA and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USNOAA) have an agreement regarding sharing Oceansat-2's data. "The sharing of data of Hurricane Sandy only reflects the growing collaboration between Isro, Nasa and USNOAA," he told TOI.

 The scatterometer's image of Hurricane Sandy obtained at 9.30 am (IST) on Monday was transmitted to NASA and USNOAA and shows it heading towards the eastern US coast.

 The satellite was launched from four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on September 23, 2009 and operates at an altitude of 720km in the sun-synchronous orbit. Oceansat-2 is the Isro's sixth remote sensing satellite.

For further information visit: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-02/india/34877078_1_isro-chief-spokesperson-space-applications-centre-scatterometer

EUTELSAT 21B and Star One C3 Set for Ariane 5 November Launch

 

The two satellite passengers to be carried on Arianespace's Flight VA210 - the sixth Ariane 5 mission of 2012 from French Guiana - are undergoing checkout at the Spaceport for their November 9 liftoff.

Orbital Sciences Corporation's Star One C3 spacecraft for Brazilian communications service provider Star One S.A. has begun its pre-launch processing in the S5 payload preparation facility, joining the Thales Alenia Space-built EUTELSAT 21B for Europe's Eutelsat Communications - which currently is being fueled.

EUTELSAT 21B will have a liftoff mass of five metric tons, carrying 40 Ku-band transponders on its Spacebus 4000 platform.

To operate at Eutelsat's 21.5 degrees East orbital position, the satellite will enable Eutelsat to boost capacity at this orbital slot by almost 50 percent - providing relay services for telephone companies, enterprises and government administrations in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Star One C3 is based on Orbital's GEOStar bus, and is to weigh in at under 3,200 kg. It is fitted with a hybrid payload to provide C- and Ku-band communications for the South American region.

Arianespace's five Ariane 5 missions conducted to date in 2012 from French Guiana have orbited eight satellites and one Automated Transfer Vehicle for servicing of the International Space Station.

In addition to these heavy-lift flights, the company performed one medium-lift Soyuz mission so far this year from the Spaceport, lofting a pair of Galileo navigation system IOV (In-Orbit Validation) spacecraft, while a Soyuz launch conducted by Arianespace's Starsem affiliate from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome deployed the Metop-B weather satellite.

Adding to the 2012 activity was Arianespace's support for the successful qualification launch of its light-lift Vega vehicle from French Guiana, with this maiden mission performed under responsibility of the European Space Agency.

For further information visit: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/EUTELSAT_21B_and_Star_One_C3_Set_For_Ariane_5_November_Launch_999.html

Student teams fly their theses in weightlessness

 

Fly Your Thesis group after flight

 For three days last week, student teams had the opportunity to run their experiments in near-weightlessness aboard Novespace’s Airbus A300 Zero-G aircraft as it followed a series of parabolas.

As part of the Fly Your Thesis! Project, three student groups flew along with nine professional teams in the 57th ESA parabolic flight campaign, investigating effects that are virtually impossible to study on the ground under the normal pull of gravity. This year’s educational venture gave students invaluable experience in how to design, build and perform experiments in microgravity.  

Hydronauts2Fly Team

The Hydronauts2Fly team studied how the posture of a relaxed person changes in microgravity. Cameras recorded the limb positions of a floating volunteer to improve the layout of future space stations and help design better spacesuits. The information could also be useful for ergonomic applications on Earth.

LINVforROS students in Microgravity  

The LINVforROS Corn experiment studied variations in reactive molecules containing oxygen produced by maize plants as they were subjected to the different g-forces during the flights.   

Dustbrothers Team

The Dustbrothers team investigated the levitation of highly porous sintered glass plates due to the ‘Knudsen compressor effect’. This poorly understood effect is thought to be important in the early phases of planet formation, where it is possible that it is at least partially responsible for the movement of dust away from the star in a protoplanetary disc of matter. 

All three teams must now analyse their data and the results will form part of their Masters theses, PhD theses or research programmes.“My thanks to ESA Education and the Novespace team for this great opportunity,” says Emanuela Monetti, from the LINVforROS team. “This experience was for me one of the best in my life.”

For further information visit: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM0KF52Q8H_index_2.html

Earth’s magnetosphere behaves like a sieve

 

ESA’s quartet of satellites studying Earth’s magnetosphere, Cluster, has discovered that our protective magnetic bubble lets the solar wind in under a wider range of conditions than previously believed. Earth’s magnetic field is our planet’s first line of defence against the bombardment of the solar wind. This stream of plasma is launched by the Sun and travels across the Solar System, carrying its own magnetic field with it.

Depending on how the solar wind’s interplanetary magnetic field – IMF – is aligned with Earth’s magnetic field, different phenomena can arise in Earth’s immediate environment. One well-known process is magnetic reconnection, where magnetic field lines pointing in opposite directions spontaneously break and reconnect with other nearby field lines. This redirects their plasma load into the magnetosphere, opening the door to the solar wind and allowing it to reach Earth.

Under certain circumstances this can drive ‘space weather’, generating spectacular aurorae, interrupting GPS signals and affecting terrestrial power systems.

   Solar wind entry at high latitudes

In 2006, Cluster made the surprising discovery that huge, 40 000 km swirls of plasma along the boundary of the magnetosphere – the magnetopause – could allow the solar wind to enter, even when Earth’s magnetic field and the IMF are aligned.

These swirls were found at low, equatorial latitudes, where the magnetic fields were most closely aligned. These giant vortices are driven by a process known as the Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) effect, which can occur anywhere in nature when two adjacent flows slip past each other at different speeds.

Examples include waves whipped up by wind sliding across the surface of the ocean, or in atmospheric clouds. Analysis of Cluster data has now found that KH waves can also occur at a wider range of magnetopause locations and when the IMF is arranged in a number of other configurations, providing a mechanism for the continuous transport of the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere.

“We found that when the interplanetary magnetic field is westward or eastward, magnetopause boundary layers at higher latitude become most subject to KH instabilities, regions quite distant from previous observations of these waves,” says Kyoung-Joo Hwang of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

“In fact, it’s very hard to imagine a situation where solar wind plasma could not leak into the magnetosphere, since it is not a perfect magnetic bubble.” The findings confirm theoretical predictions and are reproduced by simulations presented by the authors of the new study. “The solar wind can enter the magnetosphere at different locations and under different magnetic field conditions that we hadn’t known about before,” says co-author Melvyn Goldstein, also from Goddard Space Flight Center.

“That suggests there is a ‘sieve-like’ property of the magnetopause in allowing the solar wind to continuously flow into the magnetosphere.” The KH effect is also seen in the magnetospheres of Mercury and Saturn, and the new results suggest that it may provide a possible continuous entry mechanism of solar wind into those planetary magnetospheres, too.

“Cluster’s observations of these boundary waves have provided a great advance on our understanding of solar wind – magnetosphere interactions, which are at the heart of space weather research,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Cluster project scientist.

“In this case, the relatively small separation of the four Cluster satellites as they passed through the high-latitude dayside magnetopause provided a microscopic look at the processes ripping open the magnetopause and allowing particles from the Sun direct entry into the atmosphere.”

For further information visit: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMOVAMFL8H_index_2.html