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This Week @NASA...
3-2-1 and liftoff...
On November 26th -- at 10:02 a.m. Eastern Standard Time,
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover launched
aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida.
MSL is scheduled to reach the Red Planet next August
at a site known as Gale Crater. Curiosity rover's ten
instruments will investigate whether that area
of Mars could ever have sustained microbial life.
Now that Expedition 29 crew members Mike Fossum,
Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov are back on Earth,
the three remaining residents of the International Space
Station are getting ready to welcome
another trio to Expedition 30. Scheduled to join Dan Burbank,
Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin on Dec. 23
is NASA's Don Pettit, the European Space Agency's
Andre Kuipers, and cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko.
Now into its twelfth year of continuous human presence,
the world's only laboratory in microgravity has led
to breakthroughs in science and technology that
are improving our quality of life here on Earth.
Also changing lives is a spinoff of
important equipment aboard the ISS. Canadarm, Canadarm2
and Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency's family
of heavy-lifting space robots on board the ISS,
have born neuroArm, the world's first robot capable
of performing surgery inside magnetic resonance machines.
Among the dozens of patients helped by neuroArm is
Paige Nickason of Calgary, Alberta, from whose brain
neuroArm successfully removed an egg-shaped tumor.
Administrator Charlie Bolden was at the Marshall Space
Flight Center for a first-hand look at work on NASA's
new Space Launch System, the rocket that'll make deep
space missions possible.Bolden toured Marshall's Thrust
Vector Control Test Lab as well as
the Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Lab.
Here, engineers are developing and testing the new
rocket's guidance, navigation and control software
and avionics and thrust vector control hardware.
This integrated propulsion test-bed, using digital
computer models, demonstrates real-time flight control
of the launch vehicle during ascent.
"What we're able to do in this facility is take the hardware
– test it out a little bit, take the software –
test it out a little bit and marry them
up right here in the Sim Lab. So that, you know, we're going
to have real live flight hardware with real live flight
software married up in this facility. So that if there's
something that's going to go wrong we discover
it here in Huntsville before we take it Florida
and put it on a vehicle."
The Marshall Center is leading design
and development of the Space Launch System.
The new heavy-lift launch vehicle will expand human
presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions
of exploration across the solar system.
Its first full-scale test flight is set for 2017.
The Mighty Eagle, NASA's robotic lander designed to explore
the surface of the moon, asteroids and other destinations,
performed a successful altitude test flight at the Redstone
Test Center on Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville.
As directed, the lander hovered... flew up to 100 feet...
then moved horizontally before putting down safely at the test site.
Once again, a nationwide survey ranks NASA as the fifth-best
place to work in the Federal government. The survey, conducted
by the non-profit, non-partisan Partnership for Public Service,
polled more than 276,000 federal workers. Placing first among
NASA centers was Stennis which, out of 240 organizations
within the federal government, ranked number 2!
Stennis also topped the list of all Federal organizations
for employee empowerment, fairness and support for diversity.
"It seemed to me like this idea could be expanded –
it could be taken to the next level".
Matthew Ritsko, a Financial Manager at the Goddard
Space Flight Center, is the winner of the third annual
White House SAVE Award, a contest that solicits cost-cutting
ideas from federal employees. Ritsko proposed establishing
a centralized tool repository, or "lending library," for NASA
employees to access when developing and building space flight projects.
Ritsko's plan is being included in the
White House's annual budget request.
The Women@NASA website has expanded to include Aspire 2 Inspire,
a new feature aimed at helping middle school girls explore
education and careers in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics. Five videos explore
the careers and backgrounds of early-career women who work
for NASA in each of the STEM fields. Aspire 2 Inspire also
lists community organizations and NASA-affiliated outreach
programs that emphasize STEM. Four Twitter feeds enable site
visitors to interact with the young women featured in the videos.
NASA spinoffs are the subject of two new Public
Service Announcements airing on NASA TV.
"Speaking of space technology, did you know
that space is hidden all around you?"
The first features Elf 6409EF from
Sony Pictures new film, "Arthur Christmas."
Our animated protagonist illustrates how NASA-developed
space technologies are making our lives better here on Earth.
"Hi, I'm Norah Jones ... and I'm Piers Sellers.
And, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Norah Jones teams
up with astronaut Piers Sellers on the second PSA.
Jones and Sellers recorded their message
in the NASA TV studio in Washington ...
"Oh Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain ..."
... after Jones' singing of "America the Beautiful" at the
recent Congressional Gold Medal Awards ceremony on Capitol Hill.
"From sea to shining sea ... (APPLAUSE)"
And while you ate Thanksgiving dinner and watched football on TV,
NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov
and Anatoly Ivanishin passed the irradiated ...
"Smoked turkey ..."
thermostable yams and freeze-dried ...
"green beans, plenty of vegetables. Just like the Pilgrims ..."
Their International Space Station meal
of thanks also included NASA's own ...
"cornbread dressing ... "
home-style potatoes ...
"and some cranberries. For dessert, what could be
better than cherry-blueberry cobbler?"
And the best view from any Thanksgiving table anywhere.
And that's This Week @NASA.
For more on these and other stories, log onto: www.nasa.gov