NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, is chilled out, sporting a sunshade and getting ready to roll. NASA's newest spacecraft is scheduled to roll to the pad on Friday, Nov. 20, its last stop before launching into space to survey the entire sky in infrared light. Wise is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) on Dec. 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will circle Earth over the poles, scanning the entire sky one-and-a-half times in nine months. The mission will uncover hidden cosmic objects, including the coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies. "The eyes of Wise are a vast improvement over those of past infrared surveys," said Edward "Ned" Wright, the principal investigator for the mission at UCLA. "We will find millions of objects that have never been seen before."
The mission will map the entire sky at four infrared wavelengths with sensitivity hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times greater than its predecessors, cataloging hundreds of millions of objects. The data will serve as navigation charts for other missions, pointing them to the most interesting targets. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, and NASA's upcoming Sofia and James Webb Space Telescope will follow up on Wise finds. "This is an exciting time for space telescopes," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Many of the telescopes will work together, each contributing different pieces to some of the most intriguing puzzles in our universe." Visible light is just one slice of the universe's electromagnetic rainbow. Infrared light, which humans can't see, has longer wavelengths and is good for seeing objects that are cold, dusty or far away. In our solar system, Wise is expected to find hundreds of thousands of cool asteroids, including hundreds that pass relatively close to Earth's path. Wise's infrared measurements will provide better estimates of asteroid sizes and compositions -- important information for understanding more about potentially hazardous impacts on Earth. "With infrared, we can find the dark asteroids other surveys have missed and learn about the whole population. Are they mostly big, small, fluffy or hard?" said Peter Eisenhardt, the Wise project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Wise also will find the coolest of the "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs. Scientists speculate it is possible that a cool star lurks right under our noses, closer to us than our nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, which is four light-years away. If so, Wise will easily pick up its glow. The mission also will spot dusty nests of stars and swirling planet-forming disks, and may find the most luminous galaxy in the universe. To sense the infrared glow of stars and galaxies, the Wise spacecraft cannot give off any detectable infrared light of its own. This is accomplished by chilling the telescope and detectors to ultra-cold temperatures. The coldest of Wise's detectors will operate at below 8 Kelvin, or minus 445 degrees Fahrenheit. "Wise is chilled out," said William Irace, the project manager at JPL. "We've finished freezing the hydrogen that fills two tanks surrounding the science instrument. We're ready to explore the universe in infrared." JPL manages Wise for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information about Wise is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu .
On its way to a 2014 rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, with JPL instruments on board, flew past Earth today to pick up energy. This is the third and final Earth flyby for Rosetta. It will provide exactly the boost Rosetta needs to continue into the outer solar system.  The spacecraft is scheduled for a close encounter with asteroid 21 Lutetia in July 2010, before it goes into hibernation early in 2011, only to wake up in early 2014 for approach to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. NASA has contributed an ultraviolet instrument (Alice); a plasma instrument (the Ion and Electron Sensor), and a microwave instrument (Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter), among other contributions to this international mission. JPL manages NASA's participation in the Rosetta mission. Learn more about NASA's contribution to Rosetta at: http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov
 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. is recognizing award-winning artwork honoring NASA Spinoff technology that was used to restore the Statue of Liberty National Monument, a unit of the National Park Service. Students are recognizing NASA Goddard's 50th anniversary by reflecting on science, technology, engineering and the fine arts. NASA Goddard was opened in 1959. NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program ( IPP) Office sponsored "Goddard Celebrates 50 Years of Technology Spinoffs Art Contest" last winter. The purpose of the contest was to allow middle and high school students across the country to demonstrate through art, their knowledge of how NASA Goddard scientific technological achievements have made impacts on the quality of life. Some of the reference or source material the students were to use was the IPP Office annual publication, NASA Spinoff magazine, and the IPP Office website.  After receiving and reviewing contest submissions, Ja Hyun "Ashely" Lim was chosen as the winner. At the time of contest submission, she was a ninth grader at North County High School in Glen Burnie, Md. Lim’s eloquent rendering of a paint brush stroke from the Space Shuttle’s lift off pad launch gantries to the Statute of Liberty monument plainly demonstrates "movement" of NASA technology from one application of a technology to another external to NASA. The connection between the Statue of Liberty and NASA is in a NASA Goddard-developed technology. When the Statue of Liberty was being restored in the early 1980s, the bars that help to support the copper skin of the Statue of Liberty were covered with a corrosion-resistant coating developed by NASA Goddard engineers. The coating is known as IC531, and is an aerospace Spinoff product manufactured by Inorganic Coatings, Inc. of Malvern, Penn. IC531 was used as an interior structure primer coating for Miss Liberty. The coating was developed by NASA Goddard to protect gantries and other structures at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. launch site. The high-ratio silicate formulation in IC531 bonds to steel and in just 30 minutes and creates a very hard ceramic finish with superior adhesion and abrasion resistance. Lim was honored at the NASA Goddard Celebrates 50 Years of Technology Spinoffs Event this past summer. In the spirit of cooperation, the NASA Goddard IPP will be presenting a framed copy of Lim’s artwork to the National Park Service at the Statue of Liberty on Nov. 13 at 9:30 a.m. EST at Ellis Island, N.Y. Located on a 12-acre island, the statue of ‘ Liberty Enlightening the World’ was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. Related Links:› NASA's IPP Program Web Page› The Statue of Liberty National Park› More information on the Statue of Liberty restoration (PDF)
NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. Pyrimidine is a ring-shaped molecule made up of carbon and nitrogen and is the basic structure for uracil, part of a genetic code found in ribonucleic acid ( RNA). RNA is central to protein synthesis, but has many other roles.  "We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space," said Michel Nuevo, research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "We are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in outer space, can make a fundamental building block used by living organisms on Earth." Nuevo is the lead author of a research paper titled “Formation of Uracil from the Ultraviolet Photo-Irradiation of Pyrimidine in Pure Water Ices,” Astrobiology vol. 9 no. 7, published Oct. 1, 2009. NASA Ames scientists have been simulating the environments found in interstellar space and the outer solar system for years. During this time, they have studied a class of carbon-rich compounds, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ( PAHs), which have been identified in meteorites, and are the most common carbon-rich compound observed in the universe. PAHs typically are six-carbon ringed structures that resemble fused hexagons, or a piece of chicken wire. Pyrimidine also is found in meteorites, although scientists still do not know its origin. It may be similar to the carbon-rich PAHs, in that it may be produced in the final outbursts of dying, giant red stars, or formed in dense clouds of interstellar gas and dust. “Molecules like pyrimidine have nitrogen atoms in their ring structures, which makes them somewhat whimpy. As a less stable molecule, it is more susceptible to destruction by radiation, compared to its counterparts that don’t have nitrogen,” said Scott Sandford, a space science researcher at Ames. “We wanted to test whether pyrimidine can survive in space, and whether it can undergo reactions that turn it into more complicated organic species, such as the nucleobase uracil.” In theory, the researchers thought that if molecules of pyrimidine could survive long enough to migrate into interstellar dust clouds, they might be able to shield themselves from radiation destruction. Once in the clouds, most molecules freeze onto dust grains (much like moisture in your breath condenses on a cold window during winter). These clouds are dense enough to screen out much of the surrounding outside radiation of space, thereby providing some protection to the molecules inside the clouds. Scientists tested their hypotheses in the Ames Astrochemistry Laboratory. During their experiment, they exposed the ice sample containing pyrimidine to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions, including a very high vacuum, extremely low temperatures (approximately - 340 degrees Fahrenheit), and harsh radiation. They found that when pyrimidine is frozen in water ice, it is much less vulnerable to destruction by radiation. Instead of being destroyed, many of the molecules took on new forms, such as the RNA component uracil, which is found in the genetic make-up of all living organisms on Earth.  “We are trying to address the mechanisms in space that are forming these molecules. Considering what we produced in the laboratory, the chemistry of ice exposed to ultraviolet radiation may be an important linking step between what goes on in space and what fell to Earth early in its development,” said Stefanie Milam, a researcher at NASA Ames and a co-author of the research paper. “Nobody really understands how life got started on Earth. Our experiments demonstrate that once the Earth formed, many of the building blocks of life were likely present from the beginning. Since we are simulating universal astrophysical conditions, the same is likely wherever planets are formed,” explained Sandford. Additional team members who helped perform the research and co-author the paper are Jason Dworkin and Jamie Elsila, two NASA scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. For more information about the NASA Ames Astrochemistry Laboratory, visit:
http://www.astrochemistry.org/
NASA is accepting applications from students at U.S. colleges and universities who want to send their experiments to the edge of space on a high-flying scientific balloon. The annual NASA project provides near space access for 12 undergraduate and graduate student experiments to be carried by a NASA high-altitude research balloon. The flights typically last 15 to 20 hours and reach an altitude of 23 miles. Experiments may include compact satellites or prototypes. The experiments are flown aboard the High Altitude Student Platform, or HASP, a balloon-born instrument stack launched from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's remote site in Fort Sumner, N.M. The goals of the project are to provide a space test platform to encourage student research and stimulate the development of student satellite payloads and other space-engineering products. HASP seeks to enhance the technical skills and research abilities of students in critical science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The project is a joint effort between NASA and the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium. NASA's HASP houses and provides power, mechanical support and communications for test articles and instruments. It can support approximately 200 pounds of student payloads. Since 2006, the HASP program has selected 44 payloads for flight, the work of more than 200 students from across the United States. A question-and-answer teleconference for interested parties will be held Nov. 13 at 11 a.m. EST. The deadline for applications is Dec. 18. NASA is targeting fall 2010 for the next flight opportunity. NASA expects to make selections in January 2010. Teleconference dial in information, application materials and technical details are available in the Call for Proposals document at: http://laspace.lsu.edu/hasp
Information about NASA's scientific balloon program is available at:
http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820
More information about NASA's education programs is available at:
http://www.nasa.gov/education
Before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today, they wiggled and jostled about like unsettled children. Now, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a young star with evidence for the same kind of orbital hyperactivity. Young planets circling the star are thought to be disturbing smaller comet-like bodies, causing them to collide and kick up a huge halo of dust. The star, called HR 8799, was in the news last November 2008, for being one of the first of two stars with imaged planets. Ground-based telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Gemini Observatory, both in Hawaii, took images of three planets orbiting in the far reaches of the system, all three being roughly 10 times the mass of Jupiter. Another imaged planet was also announced at the same time around the star Fomalhaut, as seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Both HR 8799 and Fomalhaut are younger and more massive than our sun. Astronomers had previously used both Spitzer and Hubble to image a rotating disk of planetary debris around Fomalhaut, which is 25 light-years from Earth. HR 8799 is about five times farther away, so scientists weren't sure if Spitzer would be able to capture a picture of its disk. To their amazement and delight, Spitzer succeeded. The picture can be seen online at http://spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2781 . The Spitzer team, led by Kate Su of the University of Arizona, Tucson, says the giant cloud of fine dust around the disk is very unusual. They say this dust must be coming from collisions among small bodies similar to the comets or icy bodies that make up today's Kuiper Belt objects in our solar system. The gravity of the three large planets is throwing the smaller bodies off course, causing them to migrate around and collide with each other. Astronomers think the three planets might have yet to reach their final stable orbits, so more violence could be in store. "The system is very chaotic and collisions are spraying up a huge cloud of fine dust," said Su. "What's exciting is that we have a direct link between a planetary disk and imaged planets. We've been studying disks for a long time, but this star and Fomalhaut are the only two examples of systems where we can study the relationships between the locations of planets and the disks." When our solar system was young, it went through similar planet migrations. Jupiter and Saturn moved around quite a bit, throwing comets around, sometimes into Earth. Some say the most extreme part of this phase, called the late heavy bombardment, explains how our planet got water. Wet, snowball-like comets are thought to have crashed into Earth, delivering life's favorite liquid. The Spitzer results were published in the Nov. 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal. The observations were made before Spitzer began its "warm" mission and used up its liquid coolant.
One of NASA's three X-38 Crew Return Vehicle technology demonstrators that flew at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., a decade ago has found a new home in America's heartland. In this image from test flights in 1999, the X-38 research vehicle drops away from NASA's B-52 mothership immediately after being released from the B-52's wing pylon. More than 30 years earlier, this same B-52 launched the original lifting-body vehicles flight tested by NASA and the Air Force at what is now called the Dryden Flight Research Center and the Air Force Flight Test Center. The wingless lifting body craft was transferred this past weekend from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to the Strategic Air and Space Museum, located just off Interstate 80 at Ashland, Neb., about 20 miles southeast of Omaha. The X-38 adds to the museum's growing collection of aerospace vehicles and other historical artifacts. The move of the second X-38 built to the museum has a fitting connection, as the X-38 vehicles were air-launched from NASA's famous B-52B 008 mothership. The B-52 bomber served as the backbone of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command during the command's history. Prior to cancellation, the X-38 program was developing the technology for proposed vehicles that could return up to seven International Space Station crewmembers to Earth in case of an emergency. These vehicles would have been carried to the space station in the cargo bay of a space shuttle and attached to station docking ports. If an emergency arose that forced the ISS crew to leave the space station, a Crew Return Vehicle would have undocked and returned them to Earth much like the space shuttle, although the vehicle would have deployed a parafoil for the final descent and landing.
Winter images of NASA's Phoenix Lander showing the lander shrouded in dry-ice frost on Mars have been captured with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The HiRISE camera team at the University of Arizona, Tucson, captured one image of the Phoenix lander on July 30, 2009, and the other on Aug. 22, 2009. That's when the sun began peeking over the horizon of the northern polar plains during winter, the imaging team said. The first day of spring in the northern hemisphere began Oct. 26.  The images are available at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_014393_2485. "We decided to try imaging the site despite the low light levels," said HiRISE team member Ingrid Spitale of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "The power of the HiRISE camera helped us see it even under these poor light conditions," added HiRISE team member Michael Mellon of the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was also on the Phoenix Mars Lander science team. The HiRISE team targeted their camera at the known location of the lander to get the new images and compared them to a HiRISE image of the frost-free lander taken in June 2008. That enabled them to identify the hardware disguised by frost, despite the fact that their views were hindered by poor lighting and by atmospheric haze, which often obscures the surface at this location and season. Carbon dioxide frost completely blankets the surface in both images. The amount of carbon dioxide frost builds as late winter transitions to early spring, so the layer of frost is thicker in the Aug. 22 image. HiRISE scientists noted that brightness doesn't necessarily indicate the amount of frost seen in the images because of the way the images are processed to produce optimal contrast. Even the darker areas in the frost-covered images are still brighter than typical soil that surrounds the lander in frost-free images taken during the lander's prime mission in 2008. Other factors that affect the relative brightness include the size of the individual grains of carbon dioxide ice, the amount of dust mixed with the ice, the amount of sunlight hitting the surface and different lighting angles and slopes, Spitale and Mellon said. Studying these changes will help us understand the nature of the seasonal frost and winter weather patterns in this area of Mars. Scientists predicted that the ice layer would reach maximum thickness in September 2009, but don't have images to confirm that because HiRISE camera operations were suspended when Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered an extended safe mode on Aug. 26. The Phoenix Mars Lander ceased communications last November, after successfully completing its mission and returning unprecedented primary science phase and returning science data to Earth. During the first quarter of 2010, teams at JPL will listen to see if Phoenix is still able to communicate with Earth. Communication is not expected and is considered highly unlikely following the extended period of frost on the lander. HiRISE is run from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's HiRISE Operations Center, on the University of Arizona campus. Planetary Sciences Professor Alfred McEwen is HiRISE principal investigator. Planetary Sciences Professor Peter Smith is principal investigator for the Phoenix Mars Lander mission. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, for NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, based in Denver, is the prime contractor and built the spacecraft. Ball Aerospace Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo., built the HiRISE camera. For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are hosting Washington area middle and high school students Thursday for a live discussion with astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Reporters are invited to attend the chat between the space station's Expedition 21 crew and students from the Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School and the Parkland Magnet Middle School for Aerospace Technology. The live call from orbit will take place between 10:10 and 10:30 a.m. EST during an event Nov. 5 scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the auditorium of the Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington. Reporters interested in attending the event should contact Jim Bradshaw at 202-401-2310. The event is part of the 10th annual celebration of International Education Week, so the students will ask the crew members questions in English, French, German and Russian. The week highlights international education and international exchange. This year's theme is "Creating a Vision for a Better Future." The international Expedition 21 crew participating in the event consists of NASA astronauts Jeff Williams and Nicole Stott, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, and Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Maxim Suraev. Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez and Christer Fuglesang, who recently flew on NASA's STS-128 space shuttle mission, and former astronaut Don Thomas, a veteran of four spaceflights, also will participate. The downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space office. The office promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of human spaceflight. NASA Television will air a Video File from the downlink event. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For information about NASA's education programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/education
For information about the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
 On the morning of Oct. 2, as he had done so many times before, Bill McArthur arrived early for his mechanical engineering class at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. But this time he wasn’t a student, he was the teacher and he wasn’t wearing the black and gray uniform of a cadet, he was wearing the iconic blue flight suit of an astronaut. Almost four decades after graduating from West Point he had been invited to return to his alma mater as part of the Army’s annual homecoming celebration and NASA’s Hometown Heroes campaign.  McArthur graduated from West Point in 1973 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He returned to teach at the distinguished military academy in 1983 and in 1987 the Army re-assigned him to work for NASA as a Space Shuttle vehicle integration test engineer at Johnson Space Center. In 1990, he was selected as an astronaut and flew on three shuttle missions followed by a six-month stay onboard the International Space Station (ISS). He now serves as the manager of the Orbiter Project Office for the Space Shuttle Program at JSC.  McArthur’s return to West Point was one of three Hometown Heroes events occurring the weekend of Oct. 3. Throughout the 2009 fall football season, astronauts have been returning to their alma maters to help celebrate two major NASA milestones - the 10th anniversary of the space station in orbit and the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Recognition during the football game along with media, community and educational outreach events are all part of the campaign.  McArthur began his West Point visit the morning of Oct. 2 by sharing the story of his life onboard the space station with Army cadets during three separate mechanical engineering classes. Next was a lunch presentation to a packed conference room of cadets and faculty members before heading off base to spend the afternoon at nearby Highland Falls Middle School (HFMS). About 400 students, teachers and parents listened intently as McArthur stressed the power of how a good education can help dreams, like his to become an astronaut and eventually live in space, come true.  “Col. Bill McArthur's presentation at our school was for most, if not all, a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Ellen Connors, principal of HFMS. “To be witness to a first-hand account of the space program's history is a memory that all will hold in their hearts and minds forever. I assure you that you've made 400 new friends and fans!” “When she got home Friday, my daughter took one of her old school pictures out of a frame and replaced it with her autographed picture of Col. McArthur,” added Mary Jane Pitt, parent of an HFMS sixth grader. “It's now hanging proudly in her room.”  After signing autographs for more than an hour, McArthur ended his visit by presenting the HFMS staff with a photo of the Highland Falls, NY area taken from the space station. On Oct. 3, game day at West Point, McArthur spent the morning talking to parents and faculty during a pre-game breakfast and at the Army cadet review that followed. Next was an autograph session just outside Michie Stadium, home of the Army Black Knights football team. Just before kickoff, McArthur joined the more than 24,000 fans in the stadium as the Black Nights hosted the Tulane Green Wave.  At halftime, McArthur was interviewed by the Army radio broadcast team and between the third and fourth quarter was recognized on the field where he received a standing ovation from the fans. “I feel totally recharged,” McArthur said, standing on the sidelines afterwards with a huge smile on his face. "What strikes me most about Bill MacArthur is that he always has time for everyone,” said Joe Tombrello, deputy director of Public Affairs and Communications for the U.S. Military Academy. “Whether teaching a class to cadets, discussing old times with a classmate, accepting a handshake from a well-wisher, or simply signing an autograph for a 5th grader whose dad is stationed in Korea, Bill made everyone feel as though they were the most important thing in his life at the time.” And as the sun set on an empty Michie Stadium, McArthur was easy to spot in his blue flight suit just outside the gate talking with cadets and their families and sharing the excitement of both his life as an astronaut and the future of NASA’s space exploration opportunities.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden held his first meeting with the restructured NASA Advisory Council recently at the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Bolden has added four new committees to the council in key areas of importance to the agency's future: Commercial Space, Education and Public Outreach, Information Technology Infrastructure, and Technology Innovation. "I consider the NASA Advisory Council to be an extremely important external advisory group, one that is uniquely capable to advise me and the entire NASA senior leadership team on some of the important decisions our agency will face in the coming months and years," Bolden said. "I am confident that this new structure will serve as an effective forum to stimulate meaningful advice to me and the rest of NASA’s leadership." The council's members provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA administrator about agency programs, policies, plans, financial controls and other matters pertinent to NASA’s responsibilities. The chairs for the council and its committees are: NASA Advisory Council: Kenneth M. Ford Aeronautics Committee: Marion Blakey Audit, Finance and Analysis Committee: Robert M. Hanisee Commercial Space Committee: Brett Alexander Education and Public Outreach: Miles O'Brien Exploration Committee: retired Air Force Gen. Lester L. Lyles Science Committee: Wesley T. Huntress, Jr. Space Operations Committee: former astronaut and retired Air Force Col. Eileen M. Collins Technology and Innovation Committee: Esther Dyson An appointment is pending for the Information Technology and Infrastructure Committee. Raymond S. Colladay represents the National Academies' Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, and Charles F. Kennel represents the National Academies' Space Studies Board as ex officio members. For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov
NASA will award $1.65 million in prize money Thursday to a pair of innovative aerospace companies that successfully simulated landing a spacecraft on the moon and lifting off again. NASA’s Centennial Challenges program will give a $1 million first prize to Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., and a $500,000 second prize to Armadillo Aerospace of Rockwall, Tex., for their Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge flights. The competition was managed by the X PRIZE Foundation. The Northrop Grumman Corporation is a commercial sponsor that provided operating funds for the contest to the X PRIZE Foundation. An awards ceremony for the winning teams will be held at noon on Nov. 5 in room 2325 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. Journalists should contact Sonja Alexander at 202-358-1761 for more information about the ceremony. The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge involves building and flying a rocket-powered vehicle that simulates the flight of a vehicle on the moon. The lander must take off vertically then travel horizontally, flying a mission profile designed to demonstrate both power and control before landing accurately at another spot. The same vehicle then must take off again, travel horizontally back to its original takeoff point and land successfully, all within a two-hour-and-15-minute time period. The challenge requires exacting control and navigation, as well as precise control of engine thrust, all done automatically. The rocket's engine must be started twice in a short time with no ground servicing other than refueling. This represents the technical challenges involved in operating a reusable vehicle that could land on the moon. The prize purse is divided into first and second prizes for Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 requires a flight duration of at least 90 seconds on each flight and Level 2 requires a duration of at least 180 seconds. One of the landings for a Level 2 attempt must be made on a simulated lunar terrain with rocks and craters. Masten Space Systems met the Level 2 requirements by achieving accurate landings and captured the first place prize during flights of their "Xoie" (pronounced "Zoey") vehicle Oct. 30 at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Masten also claimed a $150,000 prize as part of the Level 1 competition. Armadillo Aerospace was the first team to qualify for the Level 2 prize with successful flights of its Scorpius rocket Sept. 12 in Caddo Mills, Tex. Armadillo placed second in the Level 2 competition, earning a $500,000 prize. The average landing accuracy determined which teams would receive first and second place prizes. The Masten team achieved an average accuracy of 7.5 inches while Armadillo Aerospace's average accuracy was 34 inches. The events of the past two months have brought the four-year Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge to a conclusion. All $2 million in prize money has been awarded. "The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge has had its intended impact, with impressive performances by multiple teams representing a new generation of aerospace entrepreneurs" said Andrew Petro, NASA's Centennial Challenge program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These companies have demonstrated reusable vehicles with rapid turnaround and a surprising degree of precision in flight, and they have done all this at a much lower cost than many thought possible." Four teams had been in pursuit of the 2009 Lunar Lander Challenge prizes during the competition that opened in July. The BonNova team dropped out of the competition last week. Unreasonable Rocket, a father-and-son team from Solana Beach, Calif., conducted flight attempts during the final days of the competition but did not complete any qualifying flights. In the Level 1 competition, Armadillo Aerospace previously claimed the first place prize of $350,000 in 2008. Masten Space Systems qualified for the remaining second place prize on Oct. 7, 2009, with an average landing accuracy of 6.3 inches. Because there were no other qualifying Level 1 flights this year, the Masten team will receive the second place prize of $150,000. NASA's Centennial Challenges program's goals are to drive progress in aerospace technology that is of value to NASA's missions; encourage participation of independent teams, individual inventors, student groups and private companies of all sizes in aerospace research and development; and find innovative solutions to technical challenges through competition and cooperation. The Northop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is one of six Centennial Challenges managed by NASA's Innovative Partnership Program. The competition was managed for NASA at no cost to the taxpayer by the X PRIZE Foundation under a Space Act Agreement. NASA provided all of the prize funds. For more information on Centennial Challenges, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/innovation_incubator/cc_home.html
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
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"The eyes of Wise are a vast improvement over those of past infrared surveys," said Edward "Ned" Wright, the principal investigator for the mission at UCLA. "We will find millions of objects that have never been seen before."
The spacecraft is scheduled for a close encounter with asteroid 21 Lutetia in July 2010, before it goes into hibernation early in 2011, only to wake up in early 2014 for approach to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. 
