NASA – Page 5 – Take off with Natarajan

Image of the Day…”Fingerprints of Water on the Sand.”…..

November 18, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren took this photograph on Nov. 11, 2015 from the International Space Station, and shared it with his followers on social media. Lindgren wrote, “The delicate fingerprints of water imprinted on the sand. The #StoryOfWater.” The area photographed is located in Oman, approximately 20 km to the west-northwest of Hamra Al Drooa.

One of the ways research on the space station benefits life on Earth is by supporting water purification efforts worldwide. Drinkable water is vital for human survival. Unfortunately, many people around the world lack access to clean water. Using technology developed for the space station, at-risk areas can gain access to advanced water filtration and purification systems, making a life-saving difference in these communities. Joint collaborations between aid organizations and NASA technology show just how effectively space research can adapt to contribute answers to global problems. The commercialization of this station-related technology has provided aid and disaster relief for communities worldwide.

Image Credit: NASA

Source….www.nasa.gov

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Image of the Day….Crescent Pluto …

November 11, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Pluto, backlit

Crescent Pluto, acquired as New Horizons sped past in July on its way deeper into the Kuiper Belt

View larger. | Crescent Pluto. This world is 1,473 miles (2,370 km) wide. Image via NASA / JHU-APL / SWRI/ New Horizons spacecraft.

The New Horizons spacecraft looked back to a crescent Pluto, after sweeping past this world in July, 2015. The sun is behind Pluto in this image. New Horizons acquired the view using the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) onboard.

Here, Pluto’s ice mountains Norgay Montes and Hillary Montes can be seen rising as high as approximately 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above Pluto’s surface. The so-called Sputnik Planum within the Tombaugh Regio stretches to the horizon on the right.

The frigid, very thin, cold atmosphere is seen with layers of haze. The average surface temperature of Pluto is minus 367 Fahrenheit (minus 232 Celsius). If our own Earth cooled to the same temperatures, our oceans would freeze almost all the way down and our atmosphere would collapse and freeze into a layer of frozen gasses 35 feet (11 meters) thick.

Bottom line: As New Horizons sped past in July, it looked back to a crescent Pluto.

Source….www.earthsky.org

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Scott Kelly on the Second Spacewalk of Expedition 45……

November 11, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

On Nov. 6, 2015, NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren spent 7 hours and 48 minutes working outside the International Space Station on the 190th spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance. The astronauts restored the port truss (P6) ammonia cooling system to its original configuration, the main task for the spacewalk. They also returned ammonia to the desired levels in both the prime and back-up systems. The spacewalk was the second for both astronauts. Crew members have now spent a total of 1,192 hours and 4 minutes working outside the orbital laboratory.

At about an hour after the 6:22 a.m. EST start of the spacewalk, astronaut Kjell Lindgren took this photograph of Scott Kelly at work, with the station’s solar arrays visible in the background.

Image Credit: NASA

Source……www.nasa.gov

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Looking Back: International Space Station at the Start of Expedition 1….

November 4, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

On Nov. 2, 2000, the Expedition 1 crew — Commander William M. (Bill) Shepherd of NASA and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev and Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos — arrived at the International Space Station, marking the start of an uninterrupted human presence on the orbiting laboratory. Their Soyuz capsule made contact with the aft docking port of the station’s Zvezda Service Module at 3:21 a.m. CST while the two spacecraft were flying over the central portion of Kazakhstan. A little over one hour later at 4:23 a.m., the hatch leading into the Zvezda’s living quarters was opened, signifying the start of human occupancy of the international complex. Gidzenko and Krikalev floated into Zvezda first, at the request of the commander. Once inside the station, the crew members continued the work begun by space shuttle crews and ground controllers to bring the station to life.

Fifteen years later, 45 crewed expeditions (so far) — more than 220 people from 17 countries — have visited the station, constructed over more than 115 space flights conducted on five different types of launch vehicles. The station now measures 357 feet end-to-end and provides more livable room than a conventional six bedroom house. 22 scientific investigations were conducted during Expedition 1, while a total of 191 scientific investigations will be conducted during Expeditions 45 and 46. To date, more than 1,200 scientific results publications have been produced based on over 1,760 research investigations on the orbiting laboratory.

This Dec. 2, 2000, photograph shows the configuration of the space station at the start of Expedition 1 including the Zarya Control Module, Unity Node, Zvezda Service Module and Z1-Truss. It was taken by STS-97 crewmembers aboard shuttle Endeavour during approach to dock with the station on a mission to deliver and connect the first set of U.S.-provided solar arrays, prepare a docking port for arrival of the U.S. Laboratory Destiny and perform additional station assembly tasks. The Expedition 1 crew spent four months living and working on the station and returned to Earth aboard shuttle Discoveryon March 21, 2001.

Image Credit: NASA

Source…www.nasa.gov

Image for the Day… Spacewalk Selfie …!!!

October 30, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly took this photograph during a spacewalk on Oct. 28, 2015. Sharing the image on social media, Kelly wrote, “#SpaceWalkSelfie Back on the grid! Great first spacewalk yesterday. Now on to the next one next week. #YearInSpace”

This was the first spacewalk for both Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren; the two will venture outside the International Space Station for the second time on Friday, Nov. 6. The two spacewalks were scheduled around milestones in space. Today, Oct. 29, Kelly becomes the U.S. astronaut who has lived in space the longest during a single U.S. spaceflight, and on Monday, Nov. 2, the crew celebrates the 15th year of a continuous human presence in space aboard the station.

During the 7-hour and 16-minute spacewalk, Kelly and Lindgren applied a thermal cover on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer; applied grease to a number of components in one of the latching ends of the Canadarm2 robotic arm; and began work to rig power and data system cables for the future installation of a docking port to the station that will be used for the arrival of the Boeing Starliner CST-100 and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Image Credit: NASA

Source…..www.nasa.gov

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Scott Kelly Prepares For a Spacewalk….

October 29, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit inside the U.S. Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks, the first of their careers, on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and Friday, Nov. 6.

The Oct. 28 spacewalk is set to last six hours and 30 minutes after Kelly and Lindgren set their spacesuits to battery power. It will be the 32nd U.S. spacewalk, and will focus on station upgrades and maintenance tasks, including installing a thermal cover on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector that has been attached to the station since 2011. NASA TV coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. EDT.

Sharing this photograph of the spacesuit fit check with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, “Day 212 Getting my game face on for #spacewalk Thanks for sticking w me #GoodNight from @space_station! #YearInSpace”

Image Credit: NASA

Source…..www.nasa.gov

Natarajan

There’s a hidden message written on the back of this family portrait that an Apollo astronaut left on the moon…

October 27, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

On April 20, 1972, Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke took his first steps on the moon. He was 36 at the time and is the youngest human in history to ever walk on the lunar surface.

But that’s not the only achievement of Duke’s that lives on in American history.

NASA John W. Young Astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr., Lunar Module pilot of the Apollo 16 mission, is photographed collecting lunar samples at Station no. 1 during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity at the Descartes landing site.

While he was on the moon, he snapped this family portrait of him, his two sons, and his wife, which remains on the moon to this day.

Uploaded by Scoobynaiterpaul123

On the back of the photo Duke wrote:

“This is the family of astronaut Charlie Duke from planet Earth who landed on the moon on April 20, 1972.”

Here’s a clearer copy of the photo Duke gave us. On the far left is his oldest son Charles Duke III who had just turned seven. In the front in red is his youngest son, Thomas Duke, who was five. Duke and his wife, Dorothy Meade Claiborne, are in the background:

Courtesy of Charles Duke

“I’d always planned to leave it on the moon,” Duke told Business Insider. “So when I dropped it, it was just to show the kids that I really did leave it on the moon.”

The photo has since been featured in numerous popular photo books and is a great example of the “human side of space exploration,” Duke said.

When Duke was training to be an Apollo astronaut, he spent most of his time in Florida. But his family was stationed in Houston. As a result, the children didn’t get to see much of their father during that time.

“So, just to get the kids excited about what dad was going to do, I said ‘Would y’all like to go to the moon with me?’” Duke said. “We can take a picture of the family and so the whole family can go to the moon.”

More than 43 years have passed since Duke walked on the moon. And while the footprints that he made in the lunar soil are relatively unchanged, Duke suspects the photo is not in very good shape at this point.

“After 43 years, the temperature of the moon every month goes up to 400 degrees [Fahrenheit] in our landing area and at night it drops almost absolute zero,” Duke said. “Shrink wrap doesn’t turn out too well in those temperatures. It looked OK when I dropped it, but I never looked at it again and I would imagine it’s all faded out by now.”

Unfortunately, there is no way to determine just how faded the photo is because it’s too small for lunar satellites to spot.

Regardless, the photos “was very meaningful for the family,” Duke said. In the end, that’s all that matters, right?

Source…..JESSICA ORWIG……..www.businessinsider.com.au

Natarajan

Daily Views of Earth on NASA Website….

October 21, 2015Natarajan1 Comment

Earth rotates through an entire day as captured in this animation of 22 still images taken on Sept. 17, 2015 by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft.

Credits: NASA

NASA launched a new website Monday so the world can see images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth every day. The images are taken by a NASA camera one million miles away on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force.

Once a day NASA will post at least a dozen new color images of Earth acquired from 12 to 36 hours earlier by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Each daily sequence of images will show the Earth as it rotates, thus revealing the whole globe over the course of a day. The new website also features an archive of EPIC images searchable by date and continent.

The primary objective of NOAA’s DSCOVR mission is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA. NASA has two Earth-observing instruments on the spacecraft. EPIC’s images of Earth allow scientists to study daily variations over the entire globe in such features as vegetation, ozone, aerosols, and cloud height and reflectivity.

EPIC is a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope. The color Earth images are created by combining three separate single-color images to create a photographic-quality image equivalent to a 12-megapixel camera. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters — from ultraviolet to near infrared — to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used to create the color images. Each image is about 3 megabytes in size.

“The effective resolution of the DSCOVR EPIC camera is somewhere between 6.2 and 9.4 miles (10 and 15 kilometers),” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Since Earth is extremely bright in the darkness of space, EPIC has to take very short exposure images (20-100 milliseconds). The much fainter stars are not visible in the background as a result of the short exposure times.

The DSCOVR spacecraft orbits around the L1 Lagrange point directly between Earth and the sun. This orbit keeps the spacecraft near the L1 point and requires only occasional small maneuvers, but its orbit can vary from 4 to 15 degrees away from the sun-Earth line over several years.

EPIC was built by Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center, in Palo Alto, California. Using an 11.8-inch (30-centimeter) telescope and 2048 x 2048 CCD detector, EPIC measures in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared areas of the spectrum. The data from all 10 wavelengths are posted through a website hosted by the Atmospheric Science Data Center at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. All images are in the public domain.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For daily images from EPIC, visit:

http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For more information about the DSCOVR mission, visit:

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

Source……www.nasa.gov

Image of the Day… Earth Art From Australia as seen from International Space Station

October 21, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

On Oct. 12-13, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly took a series of seventeen photographs from the International Space Station during a single flyover of Australia. This first photo of the series was posted with the caption, “#EarthArt in one pass over the #Australian continent. Picture 1 of 17. #YearInSpace”.

Image Credit: NASA

Source…..www.nasa.gov

Scott Kelly Becomes U.S. Astronaut to Spend the Most Time in Space…

October 17, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Just before the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence on the International Space Station on Nov. 2, 2015, U.S. astronaut and commander of the current Expedition 45 crew, Scott Kelly, is breaking spaceflight records. On Friday, Oct. 16, Kelly begins his 383rd day living in space, surpassing U.S. astronaut Mike Fincke’s record of 382 cumulative days. Kelly will break another record Oct. 29 on his 216th consecutive day in space, when he will surpass astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria’s record for the single-longest spaceflight by an American. Lopez-Alegria spent 215 days in space as commander of the Expedition 14 crew in 2006.

In this July 12 photograph, Kelly is seen inside the Cupola, a special module which provides a 360-degree viewing of the Earth and the space station. On each additional day he spends in orbit as part of his one-year mission, Kelly will add to his record and to our understanding of the effects of long-duration spaceflight.

Kelly is scheduled to return to Earth on March 3, 2016, by which time he will have compiled 522 total days living in space during four missions.

Image Credit: NASA

Source….www.nasa.gov

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