Safe Landing for Space shuttle Endeavour STS-127

Space shuttle Endeavour touched down at 10:48: a.m. EDT. at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Commander Mark Polansky is expected to make a brief statement on the runway after the post-landing walk-around of the shuttle. The post-landing news conference is set for approximately 1 p.m. and will air live on NASA Television. The crew’s news conference is set to begin at about 3:15 p.m. The astronauts return to Houston's Ellington Field is tentatively set for about 5 p.m. Saturday.

STS-127 was the 127th space shuttle mission, the 23rd flight for Endeavour and the 29th shuttle visit to the station.

Leaving behind in orbit a new porch for the International Space Station, two pair of small research satellites, and a new space station resident, the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour is turning its attention toward home.

Endeavour is scheduled to land at Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Friday with a touchdown at 9:48 a.m. CDT. The shuttle would begin its descent from orbit with a deorbit engine firing at 8:42 a.m. CDT. In preparation for that landing, Endeavour's payload bay doors would be closed at 6:02 a.m. CDT. Weather conditions at Kennedy are forecast to be favorable for landing, although a slight chance of rain is possible.

A second opportunity exists for a landing in Florida on Friday, beginning with a deorbit engine firing at 10:17 a.m. CDT, leading to an 11:22 a.m. CDT touchdown. No other shuttle landing sites are being considered for a Friday landing. If weather prevents a landing Friday, alternate landing sites would be called up for Saturday’s landing opportunities.

Today, Endeavour Commander Mark Polansky and Pilot Doug Hurley checked out the systems the shuttle will use as it returns home, finding everything in excellent shape. The crew also deployed two pairs of small satellites from canisters in the shuttle’s payload bay. The first, called Dual RF Astrodynamic GPS Orbital Navigator Satellite (DRAGONSat), studies the independent rendezvous of spacecraft in orbit using Global Positioning Satellite data. The two satellites were designed and built by students at the University of Texas, Austin, and Texas A&M University, College Station.

The second pair of satellites, called Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment-2 (ANDE-2), measure the density and composition of the rarified atmosphere 200 miles above the Earth’s surface.

Endeavour will bring home Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, who has spent 138 days in space and was a member of three station expedition crews. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra launched aboard Endeavour and remains on the station as a resident.

Shuttle Crew Completes Landing Systems Tests

The shuttle crew earlier this morning checked out two systems for tomorrow’s landing. The astronauts completed a test of the Reaction Control System steering thrusters that will help control Endeavour’s attitude and speed after the deorbit burn. During that test, one of the jets, F2F, failed. This will not be an issue for landing. The crew also tested the shuttle aerosurfaces and flight control system that will be used once the shuttle enters the atmosphere.

Twin satellite deployments and a check of the systems that will control Endeavour’s return home to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, are on tap today as the shuttle leads the International Space Station in orbit.

The crew was awakened at 1:03 a.m. CDT to the sounds of “I Got You Babe,” performed by Sonny and Cher. The song was a special request for Koichi Wakata, the first Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut to serve as a long-duration resident of the station. Wakata spent 133 days as an Expedition 18, 19 and 20 crewmember, and will be returning home after 138 days in space.

Early in the day, STS-127 Commander Mark Polansky and Pilot Doug Hurley will test the thruster jets and aerodynamic control surfaces that will be used to guide Endeavour to a landing planned for 9:48 a.m. Friday. Flight Director Bryan Lunney and the entry team of flight controllers will be in Mission Control to monitor the tests.

Once those checks are complete, the crew will deploy two pairs of small satellites.

The first, called Dual RF Astrodynamic GPS Orbital Navigator Satellite (DRAGONSat), will look at independent rendezvous of spacecraft in orbit using Global Positioning Satellite data. The two satellites, to be ejected from Endeavour’s cargo bay at 7:33 a.m., were designed and built by students at the University of Texas, Austin, and Texas A&M University, College Station.

The second, called Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment-2 (ANDE-2), will be deployed at 12:22 p.m. The ANDE-2 microsatellites will measure the density and composition of the rarified atmosphere 200 miles above the Earth’s surface.

On the space station, the Expedition 20 crew is scheduled to “walk” Canadarm2 away from its current base on the Harmony module to the Mobile Base System on the station’s truss backbone. That will position the arm for a ground-controlled move of the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator from the Destiny Laboratory to the mobile base later in the day. Body mass measurements, housekeeping and research also are planned.

Late Heat Shield Inspections for Shuttle

The seven-member crew was awakened Wednesday morning to the song “Yellow” by the band Coldplay, uplinked for Pilot Doug Hurley in honor of his International Space Station fly-around.

Space shuttle Endeavour undocked Tuesday from the International Space Station at 1:26 p.m. EDT. After completing a fly-around of the space station, Endeavour performed a maneuver to separate from the station.

Shuttle astronauts will inspect Endeavour’s heat shield one more time today as they begin to set their sights on a Friday landing.

Endeavour’s thermal protection system was cleared for landing earlier in the flight. This late inspection will ensure that there has been no impact damage from micrometeoroids or space junk during its docked operations or fly-around of the station.

Shuttle astronauts will inspect Endeavour’s heat shield one more time today as they begin to set their sights on a Friday landing.

The seven-member crew was awakened to the song “Yellow” by the band Coldplay, uplinked for Pilot Doug Hurley in honor of his International Space Station fly-around.

Commander Mark Polansky, Mission Specialist Julie Payette and Hurley will use Canadarm to grapple the Orbiter Boom Sensor System and pull it out of its moorings in the cargo bay at 4:18 a.m. They’ll use the boom’s sensors to inspect the starboard wing leading edge, the nose cap and finally the port wing leading edge.

Endeavour’s thermal protection system was cleared for landing earlier in the flight. This late inspection will ensure that there has been no impact damage from micrometeoroids or space junk during its docked operations or fly-around of the station.

Spacewalkers Dave Wolf, Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will pack up their gear and stow it in the shuttle’s airlock for the return to Earth, and assist with early stowage of items no longer needed for shuttle operations after Tuesday’s undocking.

The six-person Expedition 20 crew, led by Commander Gennady Padalka, will make final preparations for docking of Progress 34. The cargo craft is scheduled to link up at the station’s aft Zvezda docking port at 6:16 a.m.

Flight Engineers Mike Barratt, Bob Thirsk and Frank De Winne will continue research into the changes microgravity brings to their bodies’ disease-fighting systems with the Integrated Immune study. Kopra has finished his first session with the Bodies in Space Environment experiment, a Canadian comparison of how the human mind perceives its position during spaceflight and on Earth.

Date Changed by NASA for Next Space Shuttle Mission

A series of media briefings to preview NASA's STS-128 space shuttle mission has been rescheduled for Thursday, Aug. 13.

NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage of the mission briefings from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston beginning at 8 a.m. CDT. Questions will be taken from reporters at participating NASA centers and journalists in Europe. A feed of video and animation of the mission and crew training will precede the briefings at 7 a.m.

U.S. reporters planning to attend the briefings in Houston must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 5 p.m., Aug. 6, for credentials. Journalists representing foreign news organizations, regardless of citizenship, must contact the Johnson newsroom by 5 p.m., July 30.

Discovery's seven astronauts will be available for round-robin interviews at Johnson on Aug. 13. Reporters must contact Gayle Frere at 281-483-8645 by Aug. 6 to reserve an interview opportunity.

Endeavour and Crew Prepare for Undocking

The shuttle crew was awakened at 3:03 a.m. EDT to the strains of “Proud to Be an American” performed by Lee Greenwood. The song was selected for spacewalker Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, who now has 18 hours, five minutes of extravehicular activity to his credit over three spacewalks.

Commander Mark Polansky and his team will begin checking out the laser rangefinders and other equipment that will be used to provide precise readings on the distance between the two spacecraft.

The station will be reoriented for undocking by 12:38 p.m., and docking latches will open at 1:26 p.m. allowing Endeavour to drift free. Pilot Doug Hurley will guide Endeavour on a fly-around of the station at a distance of 400 feet, with final separation from the orbiting outpost at 2:41 p.m.

The crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station will part company today, with all of the docked mission’s objectives complete.

The shuttle crew was awakened at 2:03 a.m. CDT to the strains of “Proud to Be an American” performed by Lee Greenwood. The song was selected for spacewalker Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, who now has 18 hours, five minutes of extravehicular activity to his credit over three spacewalks.

Commander Mark Polansky and his team will begin checking out the laser rangefinders and other equipment that will be used to provide precise readings on the distance between the two spacecraft at 6:03 a.m.

The joint crew – the largest ever assembled on one space vehicle – will transfer the last frozen science samples from the station to the shuttle at 9:08 a.m. Then, farewells will commence at 9:23 a.m., and hatches will close at 9:38 a.m.

The Expedition 20 crew on the station will be losing one crew member and gaining another. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Astronaut Koichi Wakata will be returning home on Endeavour after four months as a member of the Expedition 18, 19 and 20 crews. He will do so after providing a thorough handover to the station’s new NASA flight engineer, Tim Kopra, who arrived aboard Endeavour.

The station will be reoriented for undocking by 11:38 a.m., and docking latches will open at 12:26 p.m. allowing Endeavour to drift free. Pilot Doug Hurley will guide Endeavour on a fly-around of the station at a distance of 400 feet, with final separation from the orbiting outpost at 1:41 p.m.

The station’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly is once again working in automatic mode following a software update that was uplinked by Mission Control on Monday. Commander Gennady Padalka and his crew will now turn their attention to preparations for the arrival of the Progress 34 cargo craft at 6:16 a.m. Wednesday.

Veteran Astronaut Pam Melroy Leaves NASA

NASA astronaut Pam Melroy is leaving the agency to take a job in the private sector. Melroy, a retired Air Force colonel, is a veteran of three space shuttle flights and the second woman to command one.

"Pam has performed superbly as an astronaut," said Steve Lindsey, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "She has flown three highly successful space shuttle missions and contributed in several other technical areas during her 14 years of service with the Astronaut Office. Her leadership as the commander of the STS-120 space shuttle mission paved the way to six-person crew operations on the International Space Station."

"As a classmate and a friend, I feel privileged to have served beside her. We wish Pam the best of luck in her new career -- she will be missed," Lindsey added.

Melroy flew on shuttle missions STS-92 in 2000, STS-112 in 2002 and STS-120 in 2007. She served as pilot on her first two flights and commanded the third. She has logged more than 924 hours in space, contributing to the construction of the space station on every mission. She was selected as an astronaut in December 1994.

Melroy made history with Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson in October 2007 when the hatches between the space shuttle and space station were opened. They became the first female spacecraft commanders to lead space shuttle and space station missions concurrently.

Get Ahead Tasks for Spacewalkers

Two hours, 45 minutes into the spacewalk, Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy completed installing two video cameras on the Japanese Exposed Facility that will provide views to help with rendezvous and berthing of Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) later this year. Based on the amount of time needed to clean up after the spacewalk, Mission Control decided to defer the deployment of a Payload Attachment System on the Starboard 3 truss. Instead, the spacewalkers will undertake a few “get ahead tasks.”

The final full day of activities for the joint crew of Endeavour and the International Space Station will focus on the fifth and final spacewalk of the mission.

The crew was awakened by the song “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” performed by Steve Tyrell. The song was uplinked especially for Commander Mark Polansky.

Spacewalkers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn, who spent the night camped out in the Quest airlock, are scheduled to begin their construction work at 7:28 a.m. The primary objective of the spacewalk is to install two cameras on Japan’s Kibo laboratory that will provide views to help with rendezvous and berthing of the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV). The HTV is scheduled to make its first deliveries to the station in September.

The six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk also includes an electrical cable swap and adjustment of insulation blankets on the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator. If time permits, the pair also will deploy a Payload Attachment System on the Starboard 3 truss structure that will allow an external spare parts stowage platform to be installed on a future shuttle mission.

Inside the complex, Polansky and Mission Specialist Dave Wolf will support the spacewalkers, and Pilot Doug Hurley will continue cargo transfers, which are more than 80 percent complete.

Expedition 20 Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Tim Kopra will work on several scientific experiments, and departing station crew member Koichi Wakata will continue handovers with Kopra, the newest station crew member. Flight engineer Bob Thirsk will install brackets that will allow the new C.O.L.B.E.R.T., or the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, to be set up in the station’s Harmony module when it is delivered on the STS-128 shuttle mission.

The station crew is scheduled to begin its sleep period at 5:33 p.m. followed 30 minutes later by the shuttle crew.

The next shuttle status report will be issued at the conclusion of the spacewalk, or earlier if warranted.

Astronauts Answer Media Questions, Enjoy Off-Duty Time

Today is an off-duty day for all 13 aboard the International Space Station and space shuttle Endeavour. Before taking time off, Endeavour Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy, Julie Payette, Tom Marshburn and Dave Wolf answered media questions from WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Ind., CBS News and WREG-TV in Memphis, Tenn.

Astronauts Enjoy Day Off

The combined crew of space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station will enjoy a day off to rest up after a challenging first half of the STS-127 assembly mission.

Mission specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn finished replacing batteries on the International Space Station’s oldest solar arrays during a seven-hour, 12-minute spacewalk Friday – the fourth of five planned during space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-127 mission.

The spacewalkers completed the final four battery swaps for the Port 6 Truss structure, and those batteries are now being charged. Later in the day, the new batteries are expected to be integrated into the station’s power grid.

First Battery Replaced

At 11:17 a.m. EDT, STS-127 Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn replaced the first of four batteries they plan to exchange during today’s spacewalk. They just completed releasing the fourth old battery from its location on the space station’s Port 6 truss.

An hour and 35 minutes into the spacewalk, they are on the planned timeline and their spacesuit consumable levels are normal.

Battery Replacements During Fourth Spacewalk

STS-127 Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will tackle a challenging 7 ½-hour spacewalk today to finish swapping out batteries for the International Space Station’s oldest set of solar arrays.

Their outing will be devoted entirely to finishing the work started on the third spacewalk of the mission – removing old batteries from the Port 6 truss structure and transferring new batteries from the Integrated Cargo Carrier on the end of the station’s robotic arm to the empty sockets on the truss.

Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialist Julie Payette will position Canadarm2 near the truss for the spacewalk and, once all of the battery swaps are complete, maneuver the carrier back into Endeavour’s cargo bay. That maneuver will require them to hand off the carrier to the shuttle’s arm for re-berthing by Hurley and Commander Mark Polansky.

Fourth Spacewalk Begins at 9:54 a.m. EDT

Spacewalkers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn began the STS-127 mission’s fourth spacewalk at 9:54 a.m. EDT when they switched their spacesuits to battery power.

They will replace four of the remaining Port 6 truss batteries in a planned seven and a half hour spacewalk. Two of the six original P6 batteries were changed out during the mission’s third spacewalk on Wednesday before work was cut short because of anomalous carbon dioxide levels in Cassidy’s suit. The lithium hydroxide canister that scrubs CO2 from the suit was replaced for today’s spacewalk.

The new batteries are stored on the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD positioned near the Port 6 truss. Cassidy and Marshburn will work together to remove insulation from the old Port 6 batteries, install scoops to gently remove them, pass the batteries back and forth to a stowage location on the ICC-VLD, and repeat the process to replace them with the new batteries.

Each new battery assembly consists of 38 lightweight Nickel Hydrogen cells and associated electrical and mechanical equipment. Two battery assemblies connected in series are capable of storing a total of 8 kW of electrical power. This power is fed to the space station via the Battery Charge/Discharge Unit and Direct Current Switching Unit respectively. The batteries have a design life of 6.5 years and can exceed 38,000 charge/discharge cycles at 35% depth of discharge. Each battery measures 40” by 36” by 18” and weighs 375 pounds.

STS-127 Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will tackle a challenging 7 ½-hour spacewalk today to finish swapping out batteries for the International Space Station’s oldest set of solar arrays.

Their outing will be devoted entirely to finishing the work started on the third spacewalk of the mission – removing old batteries from the Port 6 truss structure and transferring new batteries from the Integrated Cargo Carrier on the end of the station’s robotic arm to the empty sockets on the truss.

Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialist Julie Payette will position Canadarm2 near the truss for the spacewalk and, once all of the battery swaps are complete, maneuver the carrier back into Endeavour’s cargo bay. That maneuver will require them to hand off the carrier to the shuttle’s arm for re-berthing by Hurley and Commander Mark Polansky.

The Grand Space Walk

Astronaut Tom Marshburn performs his first spacewalk and the Endeavour crew’s second of the five scheduled for the STS-127 mission. Astronauts Marshburn and Dave Wolf (out of frame) successfully transferred a spare KU-band antenna to long-term storage on the space station, along with a backup coolant system pump module and a spare drive motor for the station's robot arm transporter.

NASA Commemorates Chandra X-Ray Observatory's 10th Anniversary

Ten years ago, on July 23, 1999, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia and deployed into orbit. Chandra has doubled its original five-year mission, ushering in an unprecedented decade of discovery for the high-energy universe.

With its unrivaled ability to create high-resolution X- ray images, Chandra has enabled astronomers to investigate phenomena as diverse as comets, black holes, dark matter and dark energy.

"Chandra's discoveries are truly astonishing and have made dramatic changes to our understanding of the universe and its constituents," said Martin Weisskopf, Chandra project scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The science that has been generated by Chandra -- both on its own and in conjunction with other telescopes in space and on the ground -- has had a widespread, transformative impact on 21st century astrophysics. Chandra has provided the strongest evidence yet that dark matter must exist. It has independently confirmed the existence of dark energy and made spectacular images of titanic explosions produced by matter swirling toward supermassive black holes.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Chandra, three new versions of classic Chandra images will be released during the next three months. These images, the first of which is available Thursday, provide new data and a more complete view of objects that Chandra observed in earlier stages of its mission. The image being released today is of E0102-72, the spectacular remains of an exploded star.

"The Great Observatories program -- of which Chandra is a major part -- shows how astronomers need as many tools as possible to tackle the big questions out there," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's other "Great Observatories" are the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope.

The next image will be released in August to highlight the anniversary of when Chandra opened up for the first time and gathered light on its detectors. The third image will be released during "Chandra's First Decade of Discovery" symposium in Boston, which begins Sept. 22.

"I am extremely proud of the tremendous team of people who worked so hard to make Chandra a success," said Harvey Tananbaum, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. "It has taken partners at NASA, industry and academia to make Chandra the crown jewel of high-energy astrophysics."

Tananbaum and Nobel Prize winner Riccardo Giacconi originally proposed Chandra to NASA in 1976. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra is in a highly elliptical orbit that takes it almost one third of the way to the moon, and was not designed to be serviced after it was deployed.

Marshall manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center.

Third Spacewalk Begins at 10:32 a.m. EDT

Spacewalkers Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy began the STS-127 mission’s third spacewalk about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, at 10:32 a.m. EDT.

Wolf and Cassidy first will remove multilayer insulation from the Kibo module and prepare the Japanese Exposed Section payloads for their transfer from the Exposed Section to the Exposed Facility on Thursday. Then they will focus on battery replacements. The space station power system is a photovoltaic system that gathers solar power and stores it in batteries. Wolf and Cassidy will replace four of six old batteries in one of the six station power channels, channel 2B. In preparation for the task, the old batteries have been drained and the electrical loads normally handled by 2B have been placed on different power channels.

The new batteries are stored on the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD. Endeavour astronauts Doug Hurley and Julie Payette are using the space station robotic arm to move the ICC-VLD to the spacewalk worksite area near the Port 6 truss. Wolf and Cassidy will work together in a carefully rehearsed process to remove insulation from the old Port 6 batteries, install scoops to gently remove them, pass the batteries back and forth to a stowage location on the ICC-VLD, and repeat the process to replace them with the new batteries.

Each new battery assembly consists of 38 lightweight Nickel Hydrogen cells and associated electrical and mechanical equipment. Two battery assemblies connected in series are capable of storing a total of 8 kW of electrical power. This power is fed to the space station via the Battery Charge/Discharge Unit and Direct Current Switching Unit respectively. The batteries have a design life of 6.5 years and can exceed 38,000 charge/discharge cycles at 35% depth of discharge. Each battery measures 40” by 36” by 18” and weighs 375 pounds.

During today's spacewalk mission specialists Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy will focus on the first set of battery replacements for the oldest solar array assembly on the International Space Station. The spacewalkers also will remove multilayer insulation from the Kibo module and prepare the Japanese Exposed Section payloads for transfer from the Japanese cargo carrier to the scientific front porch.

Shuttle pilot Doug Hurley and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette will use the station’s Canadarm2 to assist Wolf and Cassidy during the mission's third spacewalk.

Last Planned Space Shuttle Main Engine Test

NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center invites journalists to view the last planned space shuttle main engine test scheduled for 2 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, July 29.

The 520-second test ends a 34-year era of space shuttle main engine testing at the facility. Stennis engineers conducted their first space shuttle main engine test in 1975. The first shuttle mission was launched in 1981. Since then, 126 missions have flown, all with main engines tested by Stennis. Seven flights remain before the space shuttle fleet is retired.

The primary work at Stennis has been space shuttle main engine testing, but the center also is helping NASA prepare for the next era of human spaceflight. Between 2007 and 2008, Stennis conducted component testing as part of early development of the J-2X engine for NASA's Constellation Program. The J-2X will be tested at simulated altitudes up to 100,000 feet on the 300-foot A-3 test stand currently under construction at the center.

Journalists wishing to view the final space shuttle main engine test should contact Chris McGee, the news chief at Stennis, at 228-688-3249 by noon on Tuesday, July 28. Reporters must arrive at Stennis by 1 p.m. on the day of the event to be credentialed and escorted to the site.

Astronauts Move Japanese Exposed Section to Station

Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts completed the delicate move of the Japanese Experiment Section from Endeavour's payload bay to the end of the Japanese Exposed Section, the so-called "porch" on the Kibo laboratory. At 8:28 a.m. EDT, Commander Mark Polansky and Julie Payette attached the shuttle robotic arm to the Exposed Section and lifted it out of the bay. They moved it away from Endeavour to a point where the space station arm, operated by Koichi Wakata and Doug Hurley, grasped it at about 9:33 a.m.

When the handoff was complete, the station arm installed it on the Exposed Facility at about 10:36 a.m., as the International Space Station had just passed over Japan. Payette radioed the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Mission Control team in Tsukuba, Japan, that the hard mate was complete.

The Exposed Section carries three Japanese experiments that the Kibo robotic arm will move to the "porch" on Thursday.

Later this morning, the station arm will grab the Integrated Cargo Carrier from the station's mobile base system and move it to an overnight park position in preparation for Wednesday's spacewalk.

Second Spacewalk Begins

STS-127 lead spacewalker Dave Wolf and Endeavour Mission Specialist Tom Marshburn began the mission’s second spacewalk at 11:27 a.m. EDT, when they switched their spacesuits to battery power. The space walk is expected to last 6.5 hours.

The pair will retrieve three hardware spares from the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD, and place them in a long-term storage location on the outside of the station’s Port 3 truss. On Sunday, robotic arm operators moved the cargo carrier to a location where Wolf and Marshburn can easily access it.

First, Wolf and Marshburn will retrieve a Ku-Band Space-to-Ground Antenna from the ICC-VLD and place it in the Port 3 External Stowage Platform, ESP-3. Next, they will transfer a Pump Module that is part of the station’s exterior thermal control system, and a Linear Drive Unit that helps the mobile transporter move along the truss backbone, to ESP-3. Marshburn will take a fixed grapple bar and preposition it on an ammonia tank assembly in preparation for its replacement on STS-128 in August. Finally, both spacewalkers will move a television camera that was launched on the Japanese Exposed Facility (JEF) to its final location on JEF. The spacewalkers will be assisted by Julie Payette and Doug Hurley, who will help move Wolf from the ICC-VLD to the ESP-3 on the space station robotic arm.

Space Shuttle Mission

The International Space Station population will grow to a record 13 today once the space shuttle Endeavour completes its orbital chase and docks at 12:55 p.m. CDT.

Today’s wake-up call, “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles, was chosen for Commander Mark Polansky. He and the rest of the shuttle crew – Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy, Tim Kopra, Tom Marshburn, Canadian Julie Payette and Dave Wolf – were awakened at 6:03 a.m.

The astronauts aboard Endeavour will begin rendezvous preparations at 7:23 a.m. and perform the terminal initiation engine burn at 10:17 a.m. to begin the shuttle’s final approach. All of the tools the crew will use to accomplish the rendezvous checked out as expected Thursday.

Meanwhile, on the station, Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Barratt are ready to document the condition of Endeavour’s heat protection tiles with photos as Polansky guides the shuttle through a slow back flip at a distance of 600 feet. Those digital images will be downlinked to Mission Control and evaluated along with data from Thursday’s 3-D scans of the shuttle’s reinforced carbon-carbon thermal protection materials.

Once docked, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Roman Romanenko of Russia, Bob Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency will join their Expedition 20 colleagues in opening hatches at 2:03 p.m. to begin 11 days of docked operations.

After a brief greeting and thorough safety briefing for the visiting crew, Kopra’s specially fitted seat liner will be transferred to one of the two Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station and he will become the newest Expedition 20 crew member. Wakata will be returning home aboard Endeavour after more than four months aboard the station.

Apollo 11 Moonwalk Video by NASA

NASA released Thursday newly restored video from the July 20, 1969, live television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The release commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first mission to land astronauts on the moon.

The initial video release, part of a larger Apollo 11 moonwalk restoration project, features 15 key moments from the historic lunar excursion of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

A team of Apollo-era engineers who helped produce the 1969 live broadcast of the moonwalk acquired the best of the broadcast-format video from a variety of sources for the restoration effort. These included a copy of a tape recorded at NASA's Sydney, Australia, video switching center, where down-linked television from Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek was received for transmission to the U.S.; original broadcast tapes from the CBS News Archive recorded via direct microwave and landline feeds from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston; and kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson that had not been viewed for 36 years.

"The restoration is ongoing and may produce even better video," said Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who oversaw television processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11. "The restoration project is scheduled to be completed in September and will provide the public, future historians, and the National Archives with the highest quality video of this historic event."

NASA contracted with Lowry Digital of Burbank, Calif., which specializes in restoring aging Hollywood films and video, to take the highest quality video available from these recordings, select the best for digitization, and significantly enhance the video using the company's proprietary software technology and other restoration techniques.

Under the initial effort, Lowry restored 15 scenes representing the most significant moments of the three and a half hours that Armstrong and Aldrin spent on the lunar surface. NASA released the video Thursday at a news conference at the Newseum in Washington.

On July 20, 1969, as Armstrong made the short step off the ladder of the Lunar Excursion Module onto the powdery lunar surface, a global community of hundreds of millions of people witnessed one of humankind's most remarkable achievements live on television.

The black and white images of Armstrong and Aldrin bounding around the moon were provided by a single small video camera aboard the lunar module. The camera used a non-standard scan format that commercial television could not broadcast.

NASA used a scan converter to optically and electronically adapt these images to a standard U.S. broadcast TV signal. The tracking stations converted the signals and transmitted them using microwave links, Intelsat communications satellites, and AT&T analog landlines to Mission Control in Houston. By the time the images appeared on international television, they were substantially degraded.

At tracking stations in Australia and the United States, engineers recorded data beamed to Earth from the lunar module onto one-inch telemetry tapes. The tapes were recorded as a backup if the live transmission failed or if the Apollo Project needed the data later. Each tape contained 14 tracks of data, including bio-medical, voice, and other information; one channel was reserved for video.

A three-year search for these original telemetry tapes was unsuccessful. A final report on the investigation is expected to be completed in the near future and will be publicly released at that time.

Inspects Heat Shield, Prepares for Station Docking By Shuttle Crew

Seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour awakened at 7:03 a.m. to begin a day of heat shield inspections and preparations for Friday’s rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station.

The song “These Are Days” by the band 10,000 Maniacs emanated from speakers inside Endeavour’s crew cabin, a wake-up call targeted especially for Mission Specialist Tim Kopra.

Commander Mark Polansky and Pilot Doug Hurley will start their day with an Orbital Maneuvering System engine firing to refine Endeavour’s path toward the station. A second burn is planned at the end of the crew’s day. In addition, the crew will set up a camera in the shuttle’s docking tunnel, extend the Orbiter Docking System ring and check out the hand-held laser range-finder and other equipment that will be used to provide precise distance and approach information for the upcoming docking.

Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Kopra and Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency will focus on inspections of Endeavour’s heat shield using the shuttle’s robotic arm and the Orbiter Boom Sensor System.

Spacewalkers Wolf, Cassidy, Marshburn and Kopra also will begin checking out the space suits they will wear and the tools they will use on the mission’s five spacewalks.

Aboard the station, Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Michael Barratt, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Roman Romanenko, Robert Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency, will spend the day packing and preparing for the arrival of visitors. They’ll review photography procedures for documenting the condition of the shuttle’s heat protection tiles as it completes a rendezvous pitch maneuver during its approach to the station.

T-3 Hours and Holding; Tanking Complete

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the countdown to launch of space shuttle Endeavour on its STS-127 has entered a two-hour, 30-minute built-in hold at T-3 hours. This hold will last until 2:08 p.m. EDT.

Tanking operations are complete. with both propellants -- liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen -- now in stable replenish. The loading of the space shuttle's external tank began at 8:38 a.m. and proceeded smoothly throughout the three-hour process.

Weather at Kennedy remains at 60-percent chance for favorable weather for an early-evening liftoff at 6:03 p.m. The primary weather concerns for launch are the potential for showers and thunderstorms near the Shuttle Landing Facility.

Full countdown coverage will begin at 12:30 p.m. on NASA Television and NASA's Launch Blog.

STS-127 Mission Overview

The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

The STS-127 crew members are Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

Nasa Radar Tandem Searches For Ice On The Moon

With the Mini-RF instrument, a synthetic aperture radar flying aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, the space agency now has two powerful tools searching for ice on the moon.

This week operators powered up and began preparing Mini-RF (Miniature Radio Frequency) for its primary mission, to create detailed images of the moon’s darkest areas, scan the lunar surface for hints of water ice and demonstrate new communications technologies.

LRO, launched June 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and reached the moon June 25. Its seven science instruments now are being checked out and brought online.

The LRO Mini-RF is a version of the radar already circling the moon on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Since Chandrayaan-1 orbital operations began in late 2008, its Mini-RF, also known as Mini-SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), has mapped about 80 percent of both of the moon’s poles and provided images of areas never seen from Earth. Its second imaging period is set to begin in mid-August, opening the possibility of unique, joint measurements between Chandrayaan-1 and LRO that would enhance the hunt for ice.

“The Mini-RF team has reached a significant milestone, two payloads now in operation at the moon, “says Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF program, from NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. “Having two very complementary instruments orbiting the moon on two different spacecraft shows how truly international the exploration of the moon can be.”

Mini-RF sends radio pulses to the moon from the orbiting spacecraft and then precisely records the radio echoes that bounce back from the surface, along with their timing and frequency. From these data scientists can build images of the moon that not only show the terrain in areas they otherwise couldn’t see, such as the permanently-shadowed areas near the lunar poles, but also contain information on the physical nature of the terrain.

“We’re uncovering the moon’s coldest, darkest regions, looking into craters and at other mysterious areas that never receive sunlight, yet preserve materials from the solar system’s earliest days,” says Ben Bussey, Mini-RF deputy principal investigator from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. “The exploration potential of these regions is also significant, since any ice deposits we locate would be valuable to future human lunar explorers.”

The Mini-RF instruments were designed, built and tested by a team from across the United States. APL hosts the operations center and performed the final integration and testing on both instruments. They were developed and built by the Naval Air Warfare Center and several other commercial and government contributors, including Sandia National Laboratories, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Instrument principal investigators Stewart Nozette (LRO) and Paul Spudis (Chandrayaan-1) are from the Universities Space Research Association’s Lunar and Planetary Institute. NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, manages the Mini-RF program.

Rover Engineers Test More Maneuvers

Mars Exploration Rover team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., prepare an experiment on July 13, 2009, for assessing how a test rover moves when embedded in loose soil and commanded to drive backward with wheels turned.

Engineers checking possible rover movements to get Spirit out of the "Troy" sand trap on Mars are evaluating how a comparable rover at JPL fares in a crablike backward drive, with all four corner wheels turned 60 degrees toward the right.

This is the fifth of 11 maneuvers on the current testing list. Others ahead are crabbing backward with wheels turned 20 degrees to the right, a tight forward right arc, a clockwise turn in place, a counterclockwise turn in place, crabbing forward with wheels turned to the left, and driving while steering. Some of the maneuvers might be repeated.

The team is learning how the test rover reacts to various motions in a test sandbox built to simulate Spirit's situation at Troy. The steps eventually sent as driving commands to Spirit may be a combination of some of the 11 maneuvers being tested.

Postponed of Launch of NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour

Space shuttle Endeavour's launch to the International Space Station has been postponed until Sunday to give technical teams more time to evaluate lightning strikes at the launch pad that occurred during thunderstorms Friday. Liftoff is scheduled for 7:13 p.m. EDT.

Sensors indicted there were 11 lightning strikes within 0.35 miles, which is inside the launch pad's threshold. Teams have seen nothing so far that indicates anything has been affected.

The Mission Management Team will meet at 8 a.m. Sunday to evaluate the latest data. Fueling of the external fuel tank is scheduled to begin at 9:48 a.m. Sunday.

The 16-day STS-127 mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

Ozone, Nitrogen Change the Way Rising CO2 Affects Earth's Water

Through a recent modeling experiment, a team of NASA-funded researchers have found that future concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere and of nitrogen in the soil are likely to have an important but overlooked effect on the cycling of water from sky to land to waterways.


The researchers concluded that models of climate change may be underestimating how much water is likely to run off the land and back into the sea as atmospheric chemistry changes. Runoff may be as much as 17 percent higher in forests of the eastern United States when models account for changes in soil nitrogen levels and atmospheric ozone exposure.


"Failure to consider the effects of nitrogen limitation and ozone on photosynthesis can lead us to underestimate regional runoff," said Benjamin Felzer, an ecosystem modeler at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. "More runoff could mean more contamination and flooding of our waterways. It could also mean fewer droughts than predicted for some areas and more water available for human consumption and farming. Either way, water resource managers need more accurate runoff estimates to plan better for the changes."


Felzer and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., published their findings recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences.


Plants play a significant role in Earth’s water cycle, regulating the amount of water cycling through land ecosystems and how long it stays there. Plants draw in water from the atmosphere and soil, and they discharge it naturally through transpiration, the tail end of photosynthesis when water vapor and oxygen are released into the air.

The amount of water that plants give up depends on how much carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere. Studies have shown that despite a global drop in rainfall over land in the past 50 years, runoff has actually increased.





Water continually circulates from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back again to the ocean, as shown here in an interactive illustration of the basic “hydrological”, or water, cycle. In his study, Felzer shows the influence that CO2, nitrogen and ozone exposure also have on this cycle, factors often overlooked when considering the origins of and changes in runoff beyond those caused by rain and climate.

Credit: NASA JPL-Global Climate Change



Other studies have shown that increasing CO2 is changing how plant "pores," or stomata, discharge water. With elevated CO2 levels, leaf pores contract and sometimes close to conserve internal water reserves. This "stomatal conductance" response increases water use efficiency and reduces the rate of transpiration.

Plants that release less water also take less of it from the environment. With less water being taken up by plants, more water is available for groundwater or runs off the land surface into lakes, streams, and rivers. Along the way, it accumulates excess nutrients and pollutants before emptying into waterways, where it affects the health of fish, algae, and shellfish and contaminate drinking water and beaches. Excess runoff can also contribute to flooding.

Sometimes rising CO2 has the opposite effect, Felzer noted, promoting vegetation growth by increasing the rate of photosynthesis. More plant growth can lead to a thicker canopy of leaves with increased transpiration and less runoff. However, this effect has been shown to be smaller than the effect of reduced stomatal conductance.

Aware of these cycles, Felzer and colleagues used theoretical models to project various future scenarios for the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and what it would mean to the changing water cycle in forests east of the Mississippi River. They found that runoff would increase anywhere from 3 to 6 percent depending on location and the amount of the increase in CO2.

Felzer and colleagues also examined the role of two other variables -- atmospheric ozone and soil-based nitrogen -- in the changing water cycle. Excess ground-level ozone harms the cells responsible for photosynthesis. Reductions in photosynthesis leads to less transpiration and cycling of water through leaves and more water added to runoff.

In most boreal and temperate forests, the rate of photosynthesis is also limited by the availability of nutrients such as nitrogen in the soil. The less nitrogen in the soil, the slower their rate of photosynthesis and transpiration.


"The increase in runoff is even larger when nitrogen is limited and environments are exposed to high ozone levels," said Felzer. In fact, the team found an additional 7 to 10 percent rise in runoff when nitrogen was limited and ozone exposure increased.


"Though this study focuses on Eastern U.S. forests, we know nitrogen and ozone effects are also important in South America and Europe. One region has seen a net increase and the other a net runoff reduction," said co-author Adam Schlosser of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT. "Our environment and quality of life depend on less uncertainty on this front."

NASA Tests Rovers and Oxygen Production Technology in Hawaii

NASA has concluded nearly two weeks of testing equipment and lunar rover concepts in Hawaii. The islands’ volcanic terrain, rock distribution and soil materials provide a high-quality simulation of the moon's polar region. One of many field demonstrations developed by NASA’s Exploration Technology Development Program, these tests provides valuable information and help engineers and scientists spot complications that might not be obvious in laboratories.

The agency's In Situ Resource Utilization Project, which studies ways astronauts can use resources found at landing sites, demonstrated how people might prospect for resources on the moon and make their own oxygen from lunar rocks and soil. NASA's lunar exploration plan currently projects that on-site lunar resources could generate one to two metric tons of oxygen annually. This is roughly the amount of oxygen that four to six people living at a lunar outpost might breathe in a year.

ROxygen and PILOT, or Precursor ISRU Lunar Oxygen Testbed were two technologies that were tested. The two large, complementary systems might produce oxygen from soil on an outpost-sized scale.

A prototype system combines a polar prospecting rover and a drill specifically designed to penetrate the harsh lunar soil. The rover's system demonstrates small-scale oxygen production from regolith. A similar rover could search for water ice and volatile gases such as hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen, in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon's poles. Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh built the rover, which carries equipment known as the Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE).

Other tested concepts include a NASA-developed robotic excavator known as Cratos; a new lunar wheel developed by Michelin North America of Greenville, S.C.; a lunar sample coring drill the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology in Canada developed for NASA with support from the Canadian Space Agency, or CSA; an excavator developed by Lockheed Martin of Denver; and a night vision camera called TriDAR for the rover's navigation and drill site selection. Neptec in Canada developed the camera with support from CSA. The tests were hosted by The Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, headquartered at the University of Hawaii, Hilo.

Additional instruments that were field tested will be used to improve understanding of minerals found on the moon. They include a Mossbauer spectrometer from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and the University of Mainz in Germany; an X-ray diffraction unit called mini CheMIN from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and a handheld Raman spectrometer CSA provided.

Preparation for the Next Test

Mike Seibert and Sharon Laubach, engineers on the Mars Exploration Rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, check the exact position of a test rover in preparation for the next test of a possible maneuver for Spirit to use on Mars. The test setup at JPL simulates the situation where Spirit is embedded in a patch of soft soil dubbed "Troy," in Mars' Gusev Crater. The July 7, 2009, preparation shown here preceded an assessment of straight-backward driving the next day, one of several possible maneuvers to be assessed in the test sandbox before further driving commands will be sent to Spirit.

Supersonic Technology Named Nasa Commercial Invention of 2008

The 2008 NASA Commercial Invention of the Year is a high temperature resin designed to create composites through low-cost manufacturing processes -- ideal for advanced aerospace vehicles.

Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., were able to create the unique material, which is ideal for the high temperatures of supersonic flight. The material, known as PETI-330, is used in the development of advanced composite fabrication technology for the agency's aeronautics supersonics program. PETI-330 is patented as "Composition of and Method for Making High Performance Resins for Infusion and Transfer Molding Processes."

In the late 1980s, NASA's High-Speed Research Program began to develop high performance, high temperature resins that could be used to fabricate carbon fiber reinforced composites. The resins potentially would be useful on advanced aerospace vehicle structures and aircraft engine components such as inlets and compressor vanes. A resin called PETI-5 was developed that met a number of the program's goals.

Continued research for a resin that would be useful for the fabrication of composites by low-cost manufacturing methods led to PETI-330. It is the first commercially available, off-the-shelf, high temperature resin that has processing characteristics useful for resin infusion, resin transfer molding and the vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding manufacturing processes.

The finished product of PETI-330 has the strength and high temperature properties ideal for large structures exposed to hot temperatures, offering a combination of processability, high temperature performance and toughness ideal for high performance aerospace vehicles. PETI-330 and the vacuum process are of interest to the aerospace industry because of a combination of weight reduction and manufacturing cost savings.

The inventors, John Connell, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Paul Hergenrother, all from Langley, will be honored at the 2010 NASA Project Management Challenge in Galveston, Texas. Ube America, a division of Ube Industries, Inc., licensed the technology from NASA.

Abort System For Astronaut Escape by NASA

NASA has successfully demonstrated an alternate system for future astronauts to escape their launch vehicle. A simulated launch of the Max Launch Abort System, or MLAS, took place Wednesday morning at 6:26 a.m. at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

The unpiloted launch tested an alternate concept for safely propelling a future spacecraft and its crew away from a problem on the launch pad or during ascent. The MLAS consists of four solid rocket abort motors inside a bullet-shaped composite fairing attached to a full-scale mockup of the crew module.

The 33-foot-high MLAS vehicle was launched to an altitude of approximately one mile to simulate an emergency on the launch pad. The flight demonstration began after the four solid rocket motors burned out. The crew module mockup separated from the launch vehicle at approximately seven seconds into the flight and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean.

The test demonstrated a number of things: the unpowered flight of the MLAS along a stable trajectory; reorientation and stabilization of the MLAS; separation of the crew module simulator from the abort motors; and stabilization and parachute recovery of the crew module simulator. An important objective of the test was to provide the workforce of NASA's Engineering and Safety Center, or NESC, with experience in flight testing a spacecraft concept. NESC leads the project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

NASA has chosen another launch abort system, known as the LAS, for the Orion spacecraft. The system has a single solid launch abort motor in a tower mounted at the top of the launch vehicle stack of the Orion and Ares I rocket. The LAS will be capable of automatically separating the spacecraft from the rocket at a moment's notice to make possible a safe landing. Orion, part of a new spacecraft system NASA's Constellation Program is developing, is undergoing design reviews in preparation for flying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2015 and, later, to the moon.

Data from today's MLAS pad abort test could help NASA in several ways. MLAS is the first demonstration of a passively-stabilized launch abort system on a vehicle in this size and weight class. It is the first attempt to acquire full-scale aero-acoustic data -- the measurement of high loads on a vehicle moving through the atmosphere at high velocity -- from a faired capsule in flight. The test is also the first to demonstrate full scale fairing and crew module separation and collect associated aerodynamic and orientation data. In addition, data from the parachute element will help validate simulation tools and techniques for Orion's parachute system development.

The NESC is an independently funded NASA program that draws on technical experts from across all NASA centers to provide objective engineering and safety assessments of critical, high risk projects.

The MLAS is named after Maxime (Max) Faget, a Mercury-era pioneer. Faget was the designer of the Project Mercury capsule and holder of the patent for the "Aerial Capsule Emergency Separation Device," which is commonly known as the escape tower.

NESC partners in the MLAS effort include Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Space Station Marathon

The International Space Station (ISS) has recently started a remarkable series of flybys over the United States. Beginning the first weekend of July, the station has been appearing once, twice, and sometimes three times a day successively. No matter where you live, you should have at least a few opportunities to see the biggest spaceship ever built.

The ISS has been under construction for nearly 11 years, and it has grown very large and very bright. The station is now more than 350 ft wide (wider than a football field), has 12,600 cubic feet of labs and living quarters, and on Earth would weigh about 670,000 lb. Sunlight illuminating the massive outpost makes it shine fifteen times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

Sometimes it is even brighter than that. Sunlight glinting from the station's flat surfaces (mainly solar arrays) produce dazzling flares as much as six hundred times brighter than Sirius. For astronomers: On the scale of visual magnitudes, space station flares register -8.

"The station flared spectacularly on May 22 when it passed over my backyard observatory in the Netherlands," reports amateur astronomer Quintus Oostendorp. "I knew the ISS was coming, so I had my telescope ready and I was able see exactly what happened."

At present, the flares are unpredictable. No one knows when they will happen or exactly how bright they will be. Any given flyby could be interrupted by one—and that's what makes the watch so much fun.

The marathon of space station flybys won't stop until mid-to-late July (depending on your location). That gives space shuttle Endeavour, currently scheduled to launch on July 11, time to reach the space station and join the show. As the shuttle approaches station for docking, many observers will witness a memorable double flyby—Endeavour and the ISS sailing side by side across the starry night sky.

Endeavour is on yet another space station construction mission. This time it will deliver a "space porch" to be added to Japan's Kibo science laboratory module. The porch is not a place where astronauts can sit, relax and watch the stars drift by (although that is not a bad idea); it is a science platform. When an experiment needs to be exposed to the hard vacuum or energetic radiation of space, it can placed outside on the porch to take advantage of the space station's unique research environment. The official name of the porch is the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility and it will add its own small contribution to the station's reflected luminosity in the night sky.

NASA Research to Help Aircraft Avoid Ocean Storms, Turbulence

Convective Weather

A prototype system could provide commercial airline pilots with key weather and turbulence forecasts when flying over remote regions of the ocean where little real- or near-real-time data is available now. The NASA-funded system, being developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), combines computer models and data from five operating NASA satellites with an artificial intelligence system to predict turbulence. The system is on track for testing next year, with the goal of ultimately giving pilots a regularly updated picture of potential storms over the ocean so that they can fly away from or around danger. This photograph, acquired in February 1984 by an astronaut aboard the space shuttle, shows a series of mature thunderstorms in southern Brazil.

Deep Convective Clouds

A 2009 astronaut photo from the International Space Station (ISS) of deep convective clouds, seen from above, over the Atlantic Ocean. Free standing and embedded towering convective clouds are particularly dangerous to aircraft flying over the open ocean.

Turbulence Waves and Deep Convection

NASA and NCAR are working to develop a near-real-time forecast that identifies turbulence from breaking gravity waves that are generated by rapidly rising deep convection. This image from NASA's MODIS instrument (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) shows gravity waves over the ocean. Atmospheric gravity waves (also called atmospheric internal waves) occur when a uniform layer of air blows over a large obstacle, like a mountain or island. Before hitting the obstacle, the atmosphere must be stratified — each layer must have a uniform temperature and density that only changes with height. When the air hits the obstacle, the horizontal ribbons of uniform air are disturbed, which forms a wave pattern. This wave pattern in the air impresses itself onto sea waves when it touches the surface of the ocean. In addition to the surface mimicking the wave pattern, wave clouds can form as well, creating potential turbulence for aircraft.

Slicing through the Atmosphere

NASA uses advanced satellite instruments to study the atmosphere. One instrument, CALIPSO, uses a lidar system to make a 3-D view of clouds. CALIPSO data will be used as a source of precise validation and tuning for these NASA/NCAR applications under development. Click on the image or below to view an animation showing a series of CALIPSO curtain images from around the globe.

Phoenix Deck

This mosaic of images from the Surface Stereo Imager camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows a portion of the spacecraft's deck after deliveries of several Martian soil samples to instruments on the deck.

In the center and right foreground is the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer. On the left is the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer.

The component images for this approximately true color view were taken on various dates during the five months that Phoenix studied its surroundings after landing on a Martian arctic plain on May 25, 2008.

The Phoenix Mission was led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission was by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development was by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

The Mission Cassini Continues

As Saturn advanced in its orbit toward equinox and the sun gradually moved northward on the planet, the motion of Saturn's ring shadows and the changing colors of its atmosphere continued to transform the face of Saturn as seen by Cassini in this image from the mission's fourth year.

Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for five Earth years as of June 30, 2009. That's about one sixth of a Saturnian year, enough time for the spacecraft to have observed seasonal changes in the planet, its moons and sunlight's angle on the dramatic rings.

This captivating natural color view was created from images collected shortly after Cassini began its extended Equinox Mission in July 2008. The mosaic combines 30 images--10 each of red, green and blue light—taken over the course of approximately two hours as Cassini panned its wide-angle camera across the entire planet and ring system on July 23, 2008, from a southerly elevation of 6 degrees.

Six moons complete this constructed panorama (see the full-size image): Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers, across), Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers, across), Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles, across), Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles, across), Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers, across) and Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles, across).

Cassini captured these images at a distance of approximately 690,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 20 degrees.

Moon Images taken by LRO

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft's two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have

returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface.

"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator -- the dividing line between day and night -- making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission."

These images show cratered regions near the moon's Mare Nubium region, as photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's LROC instrument. Impact craters feature prominently in both images. Older craters have softened edges, while younger craters appear crisp. Each image shows a region 1,400 meters (0.87 miles) wide, and features as small as 3 meters (9.8 feet) wide can be discerned. The bottoms of both images face lunar north.

The image below shows the location of these two images in relation to each other. The locator image shows an area 3,542 meters (2.2 miles) wide by 14,000 meters (8.7 miles) long. The scene is at the lunar coordinates 34.4 degrees South by 6.0 degrees West.

The image below shows a raw image of the region photographed by one of the LROC cameras. Each band in this "venetian blinds" image is about 90 km (55.9 miles) wide. For comparison, the width of the locator image above is shown here as two white lines.

Himalayan glaciers image by NASA

In the Bhutan Himalayas, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer data have revealed significant spatial variability in glacier flow, such that the glacier velocities in the end zones on the south side exhibit significantly lower velocities (9 to 18 meters, or 30 to 60 feet per year), versus much higher flow velocities on the north side (18 to 183 meters, or 60 to 600 feet per year). The higher velocity for the northern glaciers suggests that the southern glaciers have substantially stagnated ice. This view looking towards the northwest was created by draping an ASTER simulated natural color image over digital topography from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) data set. The ASTER scene was acquired November 20, 2001, and is centered near 28.3 degrees north latitude, 90.1 degrees east longitude.

NASA's Rocket