Pluto ‘Paints’ Its Largest Moon Red

The Space Shuttle Endeavour, atop a NASA 747, flies over Texas near the Johnson Space Center, December 11, 2008. (NASA)

SAGE III Science Data Validation Efforts Begin

From its perch on the International Space Station, SAGE III is measuring stratospheric ozone as well as other gases and aerosols.

An orbiting science instrument whose legacy dates back 34 years continues to beam back data on Earth’s protective ozone layer – this time, from a perch on the hull of the International Space Station.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III), a NASA Langley Research Center-led mission, was launched on Feb. 19, 2017 and installed on the International Space Station during a 10-day robotic operation.

Since March 2017, the instrument has been measuring and collecting data on Earth’s sunscreen, stratospheric ozone, as well as other gases and aerosols, which are tiny particles in the atmosphere at all altitudes.

The SAGE III instrument makes these measurements through occultation, which involves looking at the light from the Sun or the Moon as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere at the edge, or limb, of the planet. The initial set of atmospheric data collected from the SAGE III instrument was released publicly in October 2017, and the first lunar data was released in January 2018.

Because the SAGE III instrument makes measurements through remote sensing - collecting data from some distance away - the science validation team cannot be sure if the data they are receiving is accurate without first validating it.

To do that, SAGE III science data must be compared to in-situ measurements, or measurements made by other instruments or systems that come in direct contact with the ozone, aerosol, or gas data being collected. These in-situ measurements are collected by the Network for Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), an international group, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, composed of research sites across the world collecting data on the Earth’s atmosphere.

“These sites have been vetted, validated, and have a long statistical history of making science measurements with their instruments,” said SAGE III Science Manager Marilee Roell.

The NDACC will collect these validated measurements through various methods, with two primary methods being through lidar - light detection and ranging - and sondes. Lidar is a ground-based measurement technique that uses a laser to shoot a beam into the Earth’s atmosphere, causing light to scatter by the atmospheric gases and particles. Being able to detect the distance to these gases and particles, the lidar can gather data on the Earth’s atmospheric composition.

Sondes are lightweight, balloon-borne instruments that are flown thousands of feet into the Earth’s atmosphere. As the instrument ascends, it transmits measurements of particle and gas concentrations by radio to a ground-based receiving station. Sondes are used daily across the globe to capture meteorological data, allowing people to check weather conditions each morning.

The science validation team is using NDACC ozone and aerosol lidar data, as well as ozone and water vapor sonde measurements, to validate science data collected from SAGE III.

“We want to match our vertical science product to an externally validated source. It helps the science community have confidence in our data set,” said Roell.

The team is working towards having an externally validated aerosol sonde to compare to the collected SAGE III data. This effort is in the preliminary stages of validating the aerosol balloon sonde against a suite of aerosol sounders, including lidar.

The team is working to validate science data with NDACC locations in Boulder, Colorado and Lauder, New Zealand, which fall within similar latitude bands in the northern and southern hemispheres. To be precise in validation efforts, the lidar or sonde measurement is taken at the same time and location that SAGE III is passing over and collecting equivalent data.

One of the most recent validation efforts took place in Table Mountain, California, and Haute Provence in France. Both locations include validated lidar systems, with lidar being operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Table Mountain, California.

Validation efforts were taken a step further by including a third source of measurements: NASA’s DC-8 aircraft. The aircraft, based out of NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, operates as a flying science laboratory. It helps validate the accuracy of other remote-sensing satellite data, such as SAGE III, and can fly under the satellite’s path to collect the same measurements.

Validating the science data using this method required SAGE III, the NASA DC-8 aircraft, and the lidar system in California or France to be taking measurements at the same time and location. The science validation team worked to have all three systems line up while taking measurements and collected some coinciding science data.

NASA also created a validation website for other NDACC sites to use. The site displays SAGE III overpasses of NDACC sites that are three weeks out or less. These sites can choose to make lidar or sonde measurements at the same time as the instrument overpass, and compare them to SAGE III data collected to see if the two sets coincide. The validation team is pursuing additional NDACC sites to coordinate overpass timeframes when the sites may be taking lidar and sonde measurements.

The SAGE III team will present initial science validation data at the European Geosciences Union conference in Vienna, Austria this April.

SAGE III is the latest in a legacy of Langley instruments that go back to the Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement (SAM), which flew on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. SAGE II, operational from 1984 to 2005, measured global declines in stratospheric ozone that were later shown to be caused by human-induced increases in atmospheric chlorine. Data from it and other sources led to the development of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

After the passage of the protocol, SAGE II data also provided key evidence that the ozone layer was showing signs of recovery.

SAGE III, which launched to the station Feb. 19 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will continue to monitor that recovery, but with more of Earth’s atmosphere in its sights. SAGE II monitored only the stratosphere. SAGE III is monitoring both the stratosphere and the mesosphere, which is the layer directly above the stratosphere.

Ozone in the upper atmosphere acts as Earth’s sunscreen, protecting the surface from cancer-causing, crop-damaging ultraviolet rays. Atmospheric aerosols contribute to variability in the climate record.

Allison Leybold NASA Langley Research Center

Pan (moon of Saturn) - March 07 2017

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill

NASA Weighs, Balances Orion for Ascent Abort Test

Researchers conducted mass property testing of the Orion crew module for the Ascent Abort Test-2 Friday, Feb. 16, at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The crew module, built at Langley, was lifted and rotated on its side to determine its weight and center of gravity, known as balance. To get accurate results during the uncrewed flight test planned for April 2019 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, this simplified crew module needs to have the same outer shape and approximate mass distribution of the Orion crew module that astronauts will fly in on future missions to deep space. The markings on the sides and bottom of the capsule used for the test will allow cameras to follow the spacecraft’s trajectory as well as the orientation of the spacecraft relative to the direction of travel for data collection.

Next, it will be shipped to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where engineers will outfit it with the avionics, power, software, instrumentation and other elements needed to execute the flight test. This test will help ensure Orion’s launch abort system can carry astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency with its rocket during launch.

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

NASA Crash-Test Dummies Make A Splash Landing

Engineers drop a NASA’s Orion Spacecraft test capsule with crash-test dummies inside into 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin to simulate what the spacecraft may experience when splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-crash-test-dummies-suit-up-for-action

Video: Orion Swing Drop at NASA Langley Research Center

A test version of the Orion spacecraft is pulled back like a pendulum and released, taking a dive into the 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Crash-test dummies wearing modified Advanced Crew Escape Suits are securely seated inside the capsule to help engineers understand how splashdown in the ocean during return from a deep-space mission could impact the crew and seats. Each test in the water-impact series simulates different scenarios for Orion’s parachute-assisted landings, wind conditions, velocities and wave heights the spacecraft and crew may experience when landing in the ocean upon return missions in support of the journey to Mars. 

Robotic Arm Gets a Workout

A new robotic arm for assembling spacecraft and exploration platforms in space flexed its muscle in a successful ground demonstration Jan. 19.

The device, called the Tension Actuated in Space MANipulator (TALISMAN) was tested in the Structures and Materials Test Laboratory at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

TALISMAN is just one component of the Commercial Infrastructure for Robotic Assembly and Servicing (CIRAS). In this demonstration, the team manipulated the newer, longer arm back and forth from folded to extended positions to demonstrate that it is fully operational and ready for more comprehensive testing.  

“The demonstration we accomplished last week was the rough equivalent of what the Navy calls a “shakedown cruise,” said John Dorsey, NASA principal investigator for CIRAS.

The tests will get progressively more difficult over the coming months as more detailed tasks are demanded of the robots. Future tests include not only a series of demonstrations exercising TALISMAN’s ability to move and manipulate objects along a truss, but also a demonstration of the NASA Intelligent Jigging and Assembly Robot (NINJAR) and the Strut Assembly, Manufacturing, Utility & Robotic Aid (SAMURAI) building two truss bays from pieces.

CIRAS is a collaboration with industry partner Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia, aimed at developing a “toolbox” of capabilities for use in servicing, refueling, and ultimately the construction of assets on orbit.

Advanced in-space assembly technologies will provide a more cost-effective way to build spacecraft and future human exploration platforms in space, such as the tended spaceport between the Earth and the Moon the agency is looking to build that would serve as a gateway to deep space and the lunar surface.

One of the biggest benefits of in-space assembly is the ability to launch the necessary material and components in tightly packed envelopes, given rockets have limited capacity with strict requirements on the size and shape of pre-assembled items being launched into orbit.

“It’s the difference between taking your new bedroom suite home in a box from IKEA using your Honda Civic and hiring a large box truck to deliver the same thing that was fully assembled at a factory. Space is a premium on launches,” said Chuck Taylor, CIRAS project manager at Langley.

Being able to build and assemble components in space will allow more affordable and more frequent science and discovery missions in Earth orbit, across the solar system and beyond.

CIRAS is made up of several components. TALISMAN, the long-reach robotic arm technology, was developed and patented at Langley. TALISMAN moves SAMURAI, which is like the hand that brings truss segments to NINJAR, the robotic jig that holds the truss segments in place perfectly at 90 degrees while they are permanently fastened using electron beam welding to join together 3D printed titanium truss corner joints to titanium fittings at the strut ends. NINJAR was built almost entirely by interns in the lab. The students have done incredible things, Taylor said.

“We couldn't have done what we’ve done without them,” he added.

CIRAS is a part of the In-Space Robotic Manufacturing and Assembly project portfolio, managed by NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions Program and sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The CIRAS team includes prime contractor Orbital ATK, supported by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Space Logistics, LLC; along with NASA Langley; NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. If Orbital and Langley are successful in this spring’s series of demonstrations, they may be awarded a second contract to demonstrate these same capabilities on orbit.

To learn more about NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

Kristyn Damadeo ​NASA Langley Research Center

Why We Celebrate Search and Rescue Technologies on 4/06

Today (4/06), we celebrate the special radio frequency transmitted by emergency beacons to the international search and rescue network. 

This 406 MHz frequency, used only for search and rescue, can be “heard” by satellites hundreds of miles above the ground! The satellites then “forward” the location of the beacon back to Earth, helping first responders locate people in distress worldwide, whether from a plane crash, a boating accident or other emergencies.

Our Search and Rescue office, based out of our Goddard Space Flight Center, researches and develops emergency beacon technology, passing the technology to companies who manufacture the beacons, making them available to the public at retail stores. The beacons are designed for personal, maritime and aviation use.

The search and rescue network, Cospas-Sarsat, is an international program that ensures the compatibility of distress alert services with the needs of users. Its current space segment relies on instruments onboard low-Earth and geosynchronous orbiting satellites, hundreds to thousands of miles above us. 

Space instruments forward distress signals to the search and rescue ground segment, which is operated by partner organizations around the world! They manage specific regions of the ground network. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operates the region containing the United States, which reaches across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as parts of Central and South America.

NOAA notifies organizations that coordinate search and rescue efforts of a 406 MHz distress beacon’s activation and location. Within the U.S., the U.S. Air Force responds to land-based emergencies and the U.S. Coast Guard responds to water-based emergencies. Local public service organizations like police and fire departments, as well as civilian volunteers, serve as first responders.

Here at NASA, we research, design and test search and rescue instruments and beacons to refine the existing network. Aeronautical beacon tests took place at our Langley Research Center in 2015. Using a 240-foot-high structure originally used to test Apollo spacecraft, our Search and Rescue team crashed three planes to test the survivability of these beacons, developing guidelines for manufacturers and installation into aircraft.

In the future, first responders will rely on a new constellation of search and rescue instruments on GPS systems on satellites in medium-Earth orbit, not hundreds, but THOUSANDS of miles overhead. These new instruments will enable the search and rescue network to locate a distress signal more quickly than the current system and achieve accuracy an order of magnitude better, from a half mile to approximately 300 feet. Our Search and Rescue office is developing second-generation 406 MHz beacons that make full use of this new system.

We will also incorporate these second-generation beacons into the Orion Crew Survival System. The Advanced Next-Generation Emergency Locator (ANGEL) beacons will be attached to astronaut life preservers. After splashdown, if the Orion crew exits the capsule due to an emergency, these beacons will make sure we know the exact location of floating astronauts! Our Johnson Space Center is testing this technology for used in future human spaceflight and exploration missions.

If you’re the owner of an emergency beacon, remember that beacon registration is free, easy and required by law. 

To register your beacon, visit: beaconregistration.noaa.gov

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Neil Armstrong at the Lunar Landing Research Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA

February 12, 1969 (5 months, 4 days before the launch of the Apollo 11 Spacecraft)

@nasa @nasahistory

Orion was making waves at @nasalangley this week