Combining instruction in science and math with lessons in Spanish, students from a rural Kentucky middle school participated Thursday in a bilingual online chat with Herman Posada, a NASA research pilot who flies unmanned aerial vehicles.

“A chat like this provides our students with a real and meaningful second language, math and science experience,” said Zenaida Smith, the Spanish teacher at Raceland Worthington High School in Raceland, KY.

More than 50 of her students stayed after school to participate in the online discussion.

“It was really fun. They loved it. It was a real learning experience for all of us,” Smith said.

Questions were submitted to Posada in either English or Spanish, and then answered with the help of NASA chat moderators in both languages. Chat guests from around the world submitted more than 200 questions during the 90-minute online event.

“This was a great opportunity for our kids to see there is a great big world out there and how, if the students can work hard, they can be a part of it,” Smith said.

During the chat Posada described his role in remotely flying NASA’s Ikhana, an unmanned Predator B aircraft modified for non-military missions, and the Global Hawk, which is used mostly for gathering Earth-sciences related data.

“We can fly anywhere in the world; I can be in California and the plane can be thousands of miles away,” Posada said in response to a question. “We are doing Earth science missions such as studying hurricanes and wildfires. An unmanned aircraft can often go to dangerous places where manned aircraft can’t. We’ve also used the Ikhana to test out new flight technologies that could be used on future aircraft.”

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NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center has received three F-15D Eagle aircraft from the U.S. Air Force for use in flight research and mission support roles. The demilitarized high-performance aircraft arrived at NASA Dryden Sept. 21 after being transferred from the 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

One of the twin-engine, two-seat tactical fighters will replace Dryden’s aging F-15B Research Testbed aircraft, tail number 836. A second F-15D will be used as a mission operations support aircraft, while a third will serve as a spare parts source. Built in the late 1970s by McDonnell Douglas Corp. — now part of the Boeing Co. — in St. Louis, Mo., the three aircraft carry Air Force serial numbers 78-0564, 78-0565, and 79-0007.

Meanwhile, the F-15B they will replace reached a major milestone this summer, making its 400th NASA research flight on July 28, 2010. This distinction puts F-15B No. 836 in sole possession of the record for the most research flights ever of a single aircraft at NASA Dryden.

By comparison, Dryden’s iconic red, white and blue NF-15B, tail number 837, flew 250 flights at Dryden prior to its retirement in early 2009. The first X-31 flew 292 flights, with the second X-31 aircraft flying 267 flights at the center.

Acquired in 1993 from the Hawaii Air National Guard, Dryden’s F-15B has also been used for crew training, pilot proficiency and safety chase support for other research aircraft in addition to its own research experiments.

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NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins, a veteran of five spaceflights, has retired from the agency.

“Marsha’s incredible depth of mission experience and technical expertise has been a tremendous asset to this office,” said Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We have relied on her expertise for years in many diverse areas, including but not limited to crew provisions, optimal hardware packing, human ratings development, vehicle habitability and orbiter preflight vehicle checks. Her expertise and dedication to NASA’s mission will be sorely missed.”

Ivins joined NASA in 1974 as an engineer. She worked on space shuttle displays, controls, man-machine engineering and the development of the orbiter’s head-up display. She served in Johnson’s aircraft operations as a flight engineer for the Shuttle Training Aircraft and copilot of the Gulfstream I.

Ivins was selected as an astronaut in 1984. She spent more than 1,300 hours in space during five shuttle flights: STS-32 in 1990, STS-46 in 1992, STS-62 in 1994, STS-81 in 1997 and STS-98 in 2001.

Ivins most recently worked within the Astronaut Office supporting the Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs.

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Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will begin modifications to 34 support beams, called stringers, on space shuttle Discovery’s external fuel tank on Tuesday. Crews will fit pieces of metal, called radius blocks, over the tops of the stringers located at the external tank’s thrust panel area to increase the structural support of the stringers. The thrust panel areas are located at the attachment points between the tank and the solid rocket boosters, which see the most stress during the flight into orbit. The work is expected to take approximately one week. Teams currently are performing scans on all of the tank’s stringers using a backscatter device, which bounces radiation off the tank allowing engineers to see below the foam insulation. Engineers at various NASA centers continue to analyze testing and imaging data. Managers will meet again Thursday to determine whether radius block modifications are needed on the remaining stringers. Repairs to four cracks on three stringers on the opposite side of the tank from Discovery that were discovered on Dec. 29 began Monday and are expected to be completed mid-week. The repairs are similar to repairs made on cracks found on two stringers after Discovery’s Nov. 5 launch attempt. The next available launch date for Discovery’s STS-133 mission to the International Space Station remains Feb. 3 at the opening of a window that extends through Feb. 10.

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NASA will give 100 of its Twitter followers an insider look at its planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft and the agency’s Ames Research Center on Feb. 11 in Moffett Field in California.

For the first time, NASA’s Twitter followers are being invited to Ames to learn about planetary discoveries from Kepler and the science flights of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft.

The Tweeps also will get behind-the-scenes access to NASA’s research center in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. Attendees will tour the center and speak with NASA officials, managers and scientists. The Tweetup will include a “meet and greet” session to allow participants to mingle with fellow Tweeps and the staff behind the tweets on @NASA and @NASA_Ames.

“This Tweetup will give participants and those who follow along online another look at the diverse ways NASA is pioneering the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research,” said Stephanie Schierholz, social media manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Tweetup registration opens at 1 p.m. EST on Jan. 5 and closes at 1 p.m. on Jan. 10. NASA will accommodate 100 active Tweeps randomly selected from those who sign up online. Additional registrants will be placed on a waiting list. Those who cannot attend the Tweetup can follow along via Web coverage, including tweets and live streaming.

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NASA conducted a test fire Friday of the liquid-fuel AJ26 engine that will power the first stage of Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Taurus II space launch vehicle. The test at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi supports NASA’s Commercial Transportation Services partnerships to enable commercial cargo flights to the International Space Station.

Orbital’s Taurus II uses a pair AJ26 rocket engines built by Aerojet to provide first stage propulsion. Friday’s test on the Stennis’ E-1 test stand involved a team of Orbital, Aerojet, and Stennis engineers, with Stennis employees serving as test conductors.

“Once again, the Orbital and Aerojet team have achieved a major milestone with the AJ26 engine,” said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This success moves Orbital closer to its goal of providing NASA with commercial space transportation services to the space station.”

The 55-second firing was the second in a series of verification tests being conducted at the south Mississippi facility. A third hot-fire test also is planned to verify tuning of engine control valves.

“This second test of the AJ26 engine not only moves Orbital’s commercial space transport plans a step ahead, but also demonstrates again the quality and versatility of Stennis facilities and the expertise of our test and support team,” Stennis Director Patrick Scheuermann said.

The AJ26 engine is designed to power the Taurus II space vehicle on flights to low Earth orbit. NASA’s partnership with Orbital was formed under the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services joint research and development project. The company is under contract with NASA to provide eight cargo missions to the space station through 2015.

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The holidays are here and the nation’s airports are busier than ever –thousands of airplanes taking off and landing. Passengers and people living around airports are reminded that the airplane is not the quietest mode of transportation; certainly not as quiet as a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer.

Fear not, because even while travelers are heading home, NASA continues working with others in industry and academia on technologies that will create a more silent night (and day) around airports.

One of the most recent noise-reducing technologies shepherded through the research process by NASA and now making a difference on commercial jet engines is chevrons.

Chevrons are the sawtooth pattern seen on the trailing edges of some jet engine nozzles. As hot air from the engine core mixes with cooler air blowing through the engine fan, the shaped edges serve to smooth the mixing, which reduces turbulence that creates noise.

“Successes like chevrons are the result of a lot of different, hard-working people and are the result of a lot of very small efforts that all come together, often across many scientific disciplines,” said James Bridges, the associate principal investigator responsible for coordinating aircraft noise research at NASA.

The new Boeing 787 is among the most modern jets relying on chevrons to reduce engine noise levels. It sports chevrons on the nacelles, or fan housings. The Boeing 747-8 has chevrons on both the nacelles and inner core engine nozzles.

At first glance chevrons appear to be an elegant solution, but the simplistic-looking design masks years of experimentation that relied on an ever-evolving set of research tools to correct mistakes along the way.

“Early on, we didn’t have the advanced diagnostics, instrumentation and insight to know what we had done to make it worse instead of better,” Bridges said. “You have an idea and then you cut out a piece of metal and try it. Sometimes the kernel of the idea might have worked out, but the way you did it wound up causing more noise.”

NASA is exploring another noise-reducing technology – this one for helicopters – that is going through a process of discovery similar to that for the chevron.

Helicopters are notoriously loud because of the turbulence caused by their blades spinning through the air. Before specific solutions can be tested, NASA must first collect data on how the rotor blades interact with air under a variety of operating conditions. A series of tests to do that were conducted on a UH-60A Blackhawk helicopter rotor in a NASA wind tunnel from January to May 2010.

But even before the tests could be run, new techniques for making measurements over the large area covered by the whirling blades had to be invented and tested. Three different data-gathering methods using lasers, light and high-speed photography were modified for use in the wind tunnel.

It’s exactly this kind of methodic, detailed effort – where a critical measurement may first require thorough tests to make sure the data collection is even possible – that defines the foundational research necessary to solve the problems of flight in general, and noise in particular, Bridges said.

“Until somebody works on the details that make the measurement work or validates the computer code in the first place, we wouldn’t realize the insights we need to make progress,” Bridges said.

“Sometimes it’s hard to make a direct connection between all of this preliminary work and the ultimate goal,” he said, “but when you have enough of these things going you will have breakthroughs and successes.”

Noise reduction research is just one of several key investigations underway by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington. These include efforts to improve the intrinsic safety of current and future aircraft, to improve air traffic control procedures for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, and to develop technologies that will enable more fuel efficient aircraft with reduced emissions.

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Veteran NASA astronaut Alan Poindexter has left the agency to return to the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
Poindexter, a U.S. Navy captain, earned a Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the school in 1995. He will return to serve as the dean of students and executive director of programs.

“Dex was a well-respected leader within our office,” said Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We will miss him being part of our team and wish him the best in his new role as he continues his service to the Navy and the country.”

A veteran of two spaceflights, Poindexter logged more than 669 hours in space. In 2008, he was the pilot on the STS-122 space shuttle mission to deliver and install the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station. In 2010, he was the commander for STS-131, a resupply mission to the station that delivered more than 13,000 pounds of hardware and equipment.

He was selected as an astronaut candidate in June 1998 and served in the Astronaut Office Shuttle Operations Branch as the lead support astronaut at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He also served as a spacecraft communicator, or capcom, for several missions.

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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Chairman of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Executive Board Johann-Dietrich Worner signed a framework agreement for cooperative activities in aeronautics, exploration and the peaceful use of space Wednesday at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The agreement is intended to enhance cooperation between the two agencies during the next decade.

“NASA has a long history of successful cooperation with the government of Germany and an outstanding relationship with DLR,” Bolden said. “Today’s signing will further enhance our ability to work closely together in a variety of mutually beneficial activities in virtually every NASA mission area.”

The agreement sets forth the general terms and conditions for cooperation on a range of activities related to human spaceflight, exploration, aeronautics, global climate change and Earth and space science.

“Many space missions and projects can only be carried out through international cooperation, for example, with NASA, because of their great complexity and the associated costs,” Worner said. “This is why DLR, as Germany’s national space agency and research center, is endeavoring to set up bilateral collaborations such as this.”

Bolden and Worner also signed an agreement making DLR a NASA Lunar Science Institute associate partner. The institute brings together scientists from around the world to conduct collaborative research in lunar science.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/dec/HQ_10-324_DLR_Deal.html

Newly released images from 340 recent observations of Mars by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show details of a wide assortment of Martian environments.

Strewn boulders and rippled sand lie on the floors of two shadowy, steep-walled pits. Mounds in another region appear to be mud volcanoes, which may have brought fine-grained material to the surface from deep underground. In the Tharsis volcanic region, the intersection of a lava flow with a trough caused by ground collapse allows seeing whether the flow happened before or after the collapse.

The camera is one of six instruments on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which reached Mars in 2006. It has made more than 17,000 observations. Each observation covers an area of several square miles on Mars and reveals details as small as desks.

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