NASA/ESA news digest

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Wed 08/20	LISA Pathfinder: LISA Pathfinder modules at ESTEC for system testing The science and propulsion modules of LISA Pathfinder have arrived at ESTEC for a series of system tests. These are devised to validate the spacecraft design parameters and to record the response of the LISA Pathfinder hardware to the launch environment by measuring acceleration loads on the spacecraft. The test campaign will continue until the end of 2008.
Tue 08/19	Venus Express: ESA Bulletin 135: Exploring Venus - Answering the Big Questions with Venus Express The August 2008 issue of ESA's flagship magazine, the ESA Bulletin, features an article presenting some of the most important science results from Venus Express - results which could answer some of the greatest mysteries about our nearest planetary neighbour.
Tue 08/19	Rosetta: Optical navigation campaign off to a good start Rosetta's on-board cameras have successfully started to visually track asteroid Steins in an optical navigation campaign. The images have been used to calculate the asteroid's location and optimise Rosetta's trajectory for the upcoming fly-by of the asteroid on 5 September 2008.
Tue 08/19	NASA Seeks Input For Commercial Lunar Communications & Navigation NASA issued a Request for Information, or RFI, on Monday to gauge interest and solicit ideas from private companies in providing communications and navigation services that would support the development of exploration, scientific and commercial capabilities on the moon over the next 25 years.
Tue 08/19	NASA Ames Awards Contract For Aerospace Testing Support NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., Monday awarded a contract modification valued at $34.8 million to Jacobs Technology Inc. of Tullahoma, Tenn.
Tue 08/19	NASA's Kennedy Space Center Closes for Tropical Storm Fay NASA's Kennedy Space Center will be closed Tuesday, Aug. 19, because of the potential threat from Tropical Storm Fay. Current plans call for the center to be closed for 24 hours.
Tue 08/19	NASA to Announce New Name For GLAST, First Light Findings NASA will hold a media teleconference on Tuesday, August 26, at 2 p.m. EDT, to announce the first results from NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope and the observatory's new name.
Mon 08/18	NASA To Brief Media About Ares I Thrust Oscillation Plans NASA will host a media teleconference on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 11:30 a.m. EDT, to discuss results and recommendations from the Ares I thrust oscillation focus team.
Mon 08/18	NASA Engineers Complete Engine Test Series For Ares I Rocket Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., have completed a series of tests on a key component of the J-2X engine. The J-2X powers the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, which will launch human explorers to the International Space Station and to the moon.
Fri 08/15	NASA To Take Corrective Action In Spacesuit Contract Protest NASA has concluded that corrective action is appropriate in the Government Accountability Office bid protest of Exploration Systems & Technology, Inc. NASA determined that a compliance issue requires the termination of the contract for the Constellation Space Suit System with Oceaneering International, Inc. of Houston for the convenience of the government
Fri 08/15	NASA Kennedy Space Center Awards Custodial Services Contract NASA has selected Brevard Achievement Center Inc., of Rockledge, Fla., to provide custodial services at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Wed 08/13	NASA Astronaut Ready to Answer Your Questions From Space Flying 220 miles above the Earth aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff is ready to take your questions.
Tue 08/12	Prizes Awarded At NASA's General Aviation Technology Challenge NASA awarded a total of $97,000 in prizes at the 2008 General Aviation Technology Challenge.
Mon 08/11	Hubble: Hubble unveils colourful star birth region on its 100 000th orbit milestone [heic0816] In commemoration of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope completing its 100 000th orbit around the Earth in its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists have aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal.
Mon 08/11	Cluster: Electron trapping within reconnection A 3-dimensional (3-D) "magnetic snapshot" of the heart of a magnetic reconnection region has been obtained in-situ by the four satellites of the ESA Cluster mission, at one-third of the distance to the Moon from Earth. The snapshot, constructed using a new analysis method, reveals for the first time a 3-D magnetic structure known as a magnetic null pair where two reconnection sites, or nulls, are magnetically linked. The rare occurrence of one of the Cluster satellites passing by one null of the pair has uncovered a new phenomenon where the electrons are temporarily trapped around that null. The electron trapping may ultimately lead to the formation of energetic electron beams, a well-known but poorly understood consequence of reconnection.
Mon 08/11	NASA to Brief Reporters About Constellation Program NASA will host a media teleconference Monday, Aug. 11, at 3 p.m. EDT, to brief reporters about ongoing assessments regarding the budget and schedule for the Constellation Program.
Mon 08/11	NASA 'Inspire' Interns Work To Become Future Explorers And Innovators In the coming weeks, high school and college students across the country will soon be heading back to school. A fortunate few will share some unique experiences. They will tell how they were at NASA for two months conducting cutting-edge research and working to send American astronauts to the moon and beyond.
Mon 08/11	Hubble Unveils Colorful Star Birth Region on 100,000th Orbit In commemoration of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope completing its 100,000th orbit during its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal.
Mon 08/11	NASA to Realign Constellation Program Milestones In a news conference Monday, NASA managers discussed how the agency will be adjusting the budget, schedule and technical performance milestones for its Constellation Program to ensure the first crewed flight of the Ares I rocket and Orion crew capsule in March 2015.
Mon 08/11	Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Releases Annual Report The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, has released its 2007 Annual Report. The report examines NASA's safety performance and advises the agency on ways to better that performance.
Fri 08/08	NASA Awards Enterprise Architecture Services Contract NASA has awarded an enterprise architecture services contract to Information Dynamics of Elyria, Ohio. Agency-wide services under the contract will include business and data architecture, technical architecture, architecture integration and governance, and compliance reporting services.
Fri 08/08	Space Station Invaded By Students From Outer Space Base Arizona Kids and teens are set to blast their local libraries into orbit after completing Outer Space Base, a library series of space science programs in Tucson.
Thu 08/07	NASA Awards Global Hawk Support Contract To Northrop Grumman NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has awarded a multi-year contract to Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems Division of San Diego for engineering and technical services in support of the center's planned operation of two Global Hawk aircraft.
Thu 08/07	NASA TV to Air Interviews With Hubble Servicing Astronauts NASA Television will air interviews with each of the seven astronauts who will fly to the Hubble Space Telescope beginning at 8 a.m. EDT, on Monday, Aug. 11.
Wed 08/06	Solar system: Future Ground based Solar System Research: Synergies with Space Probes and Space Telescope [Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:00:00 UT] In the coming decade fundamentally new observing platforms and space probes will become available for Solar System research. This workshop will provide a forum to discuss the use of these future facilities, especially also to optimize scientific use and to establish synergies.
Wed 08/06	NASA Awards Glenn Research Center Support Services Contract NASA's Glenn Research Center has awarded a follow-on contract to DB Consulting Group Inc. of Silver Spring, Md., for a variety of tasks including work involved in computer science, computer and software engineering, security, networking, application development and Web services at the center.
Tue 08/05	Hubble: Globular clusters tell tale of star formation in nearby galaxy metropolis [heic0815] The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has identified thousands of ancient globular clusters in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, many of them more than 5000 million years old. These discoveries improve our understanding of the life and evolution of cannibal galaxies.
Tue 08/05	NASA to Broadcast Historical Highlights in High Definition NASA Television will broadcast a special high definition feed of two hours of highlights from America's human spaceflight history as the agency celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Tue 08/05	NASA Awards Space Radiobiology Research Grants NASA's Human Research Program will fund nine proposals from six states to investigate questions about the affects of space radiation on human explorers.
Tue 08/05	NASA's Johnson Space Center to Reopen Wednesday NASA's Johnson Space Center, closed Monday afternoon and Tuesday because of tropical storm Edouard, will reopen for normal operations Wednesday.
Mon 08/04	XEUS: NASA IXO Facility Science Team Meeting [Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:00:00 UT] ESA, JAXA and NASA recently announced their intention to perform a joint study of a new large X-ray astronomy mission, the International X-ray Observatory (IXO). This supercedes the previous XEUS and Constellation-X studies being performed separately by the agencies, with the intention to make a common submission to ESA's Cosmic Vision downselection, and NASA's decadal survey.
Mon 08/04	Herschel: Herschel Mechanical Tests Completed Mechanical tests on the Herschel flight model spacecraft were successfully completed on 3 July 2008. On that day, the last vibration test was performed on the multi-axis hydraulic shaker at ESTEC. The spacecraft is currently undergoing electrical tests and will later be prepared for the forthcoming environmental tests scheduled for September.
Mon 08/04	Rosetta: Rosetta fine-tunes its approach to asteroid Steins On 4 August Rosetta starts to use its cameras to visually track asteroid Steins. These observations will be used to refine the trajectory of the spacecraft relative to Steins and to adjust it, if necessary, to achieve the desired fly-by conditions: 800 km distance at closest approach on 5 September at 18:37 UTC and zero phase angle reached prior to closest approach.
Mon 08/04	NASA's Johnson Space Center Closed for Edouard NASA's Johnson Space Center closed at 12 p.m. CDT Monday and will remain closed through Tuesday because of the threat of tropical storm Edouard. Plans call for the center to reopen Wednesday.
Mon 08/04	NASA Names Irvine Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics NASA Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Research Jaiwon Shin on Monday announced that Thomas B. Irvine will be the deputy associate administrator for the agency's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, effective immediately.
Mon 08/04	NASA Awards Medical and Environmental Support Contract NASA has selected Innovative Health Applications, LLC , or IHA, of Cape Canaveral, Florida, to provide medical and environmental services at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Mon 08/04	NASA Spacecraft Analyzing Martian Soil Data Scientists are analyzing results from soil samples delivered several weeks ago to science instruments on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander to understand the landing site's soil chemistry and mineralogy
Sat 08/02	SOHO: GONG 2008/SOHO XXI<br />Solar-stellar dynamos as revealed by helio- and asteroseismology [Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:00:00 UT] This meeting will cover all areas of helio- and asteroseismology, with emphasis on what these research topics have taught us about the dynamo generation of solar and stellar magnetic fields.
Fri 08/01	XEUS: Announcing the International X-ray Observatory At a bilateral ESA-NASA meeting held on 15-16 July, 2008, David Southwood, the ESA Director for the Science and Robotic Exploration Program, and Ed Weiler, the NASA Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, endorsed a plan to establish an International X-ray Observatory (IXO) study.
Fri 08/01	Take an Interactive Journey Through NASA's First Fifty Years of Exploration This week marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the space act that created NASA.
Thu 07/31	Cassini-Huygens: Cassini confirms liquid surface on Titan Observations with the VIMS instrument on Cassini have identified the presence of liquid ethane in one of the large lake-like features observed on Saturn's moon, Titan. These results are reported by R. Brown and colleagues in the 31 July issue of Nature.
Thu 07/31	NASA Tests Moon Imaging Spacecraft at Goddard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, also known as LRO, has completed the first round of environmental testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Thu 07/31	NASA Announces Aeronautics Scholarship Recipients Twenty-five graduate and undergraduate students have been selected as the first recipients of NASA's Aeronautics Scholarship.
Thu 07/31	NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
Wed 07/30	ILEWG: ICEUM10/LEAG/SRR Cape Canaveral 2008
Wed 07/30	NASA Confirms Liquid Lake On Saturn Moon NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified ethane.
Wed 07/30	Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 Begins Mapping Oceans Less than a month after launch, the NASA-French space agency Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 oceanography satellite has produced its first complete maps of global ocean surface topography, surface wave height and wind speed.
Wed 07/30	NASA Lunar Science Institute Names First International Partner NASA's Lunar Science Institute at Moffett Field, Calif., has announced its first international affiliate partner for conducting lunar science activities. Canada's University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, will represent the Canadian lunar science community as part of the newly established Canadian Network for Lunar Science and Exploration.
Tue 07/29	NASA Hosts International Meeting For Lunar Science Discussions NASA hosted a meeting of space agencies from nine countries last week to discuss the next steps in the ongoing scientific exploration of the moon. The meeting laid the groundwork for a new generation of lunar science.
Mon 07/28	COROT: CoRoT exoplanet stands out from the crowd Analysis of data from the CoRoT spacecraft along with complementary ground-based observations reveal CoRoT-Exo-4b to be a gas-giant planet whose parent star appears to rotate in sync with the planet's orbit. This object is also of interest as it occupies a previously empty region of the mass-period parameter space for transiting exoplanets.
Mon 07/28	NASA Phoenix Mission Scientists to Discuss Martian Studies NASA and the University of Arizona, Tucson, will hold a media briefing Thursday, July 31, at 11 a.m. PDT, in the mission's Science Operations Center at the university.
Mon 07/28	NASA Sets Briefings to Preview March Space Shuttle Mission, STS-123 NASA will discuss upcoming space shuttle mission STS-123 during a daylong series of media briefings from the Johnson Space Center beginning at 8 a.m. CST on Feb. 29.
Mon 07/28	Media Invited for Demo of Lunar Surface Manipulator Concept A NASA concept for lifting and manipulating materials on the lunar surface will be demonstrated for reporters at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., on Friday, Aug. 1.
Mon 07/28	NASA Sets Briefings for Hubble Space Telescope Shuttle Mission NASA will hold a series of news media briefings Sept. 8 - 9 to preview the space shuttle's fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mon 07/28	Aviation Innovators Compete for NASA Technology Prizes At the 2008 General Aviation Technology Challenge being held Aug. 4-10, competitors will demonstrate innovations resulting in aircraft that are safer, less expensive and easier to operate, while having fewer negative impacts on the environment.
Mon 07/28	NASA Awards Contracts for Concepts of Lunar Surface Systems NASA's Constellation Program has selected 11 companies and one university to independently develop concepts that contribute to how astronauts will live and work on the moon.
Mon 07/28	NASA to Provide Live Coverage of Solar Eclipse NASA, in partnership with the Exploratorium Science Center, San Francisco, Calif., and the University of California at Berkeley, will transmit live images of the Aug. 1, 2008, total eclipse of the sun.
Fri 07/25	Robotic Moon Excavation Teams Compete for NASA Technology Prize NASA's Regolith Excavation Challenge is scheduled for Aug. 2-3, 2008, on the campus of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Teams will try to use a roving excavator to move simulate lunar soil into a bin within 30 minutes.
Thu 07/24	Hubble: Lenses galore - Hubble finds large sample of very distant galaxies [heic0814] New Hubble Space Telescope observations of six spectacular galaxy clusters acting as gravitational lenses have given significant insights into the early stages of the Universe. Scientists have found the largest sample of very distant galaxies seen to date: ten promising candidates thought to lie at a distance of 13 billion light-years (a redshift of ~ 7.5).
Thu 07/24	NASA Successfully Tests Parachute for Ares Rocket NASA and industry engineers have successfully completed the first drop test of a drogue parachute for the Ares I rocket.
Thu 07/24	NASA Satellites Discover What Powers Northern Lights Researchers using a fleet of five NASA satellites have discovered that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power substorms that cause sudden brightenings and rapid movements of the aurora borealis, called the Northern Lights.
Thu 07/24	NASA and Internet Archive Launch Centralized Resource for Images NASA and Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco, made available the most comprehensive compilation ever of NASA's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video Thursday.
Wed 07/23	NASA, USDA Sign Space Station Research Agreement On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) hosted NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and Secretary of Agriculture Edward T. Schafer during the signing of a memorandum of understanding to enable the USDA's Agricultural Research Service to conduct plant related research on the International Space Station.
Wed 07/23	Biggest Annual U.S. Air Show to Salute NASA's 50th Anniversary NASA's 50th anniversary celebration continues this summer with special recognition at EAA AirVenture 2008, the United States' biggest annual air show, held in Oshkosh, Wis., July 28 - Aug. 3.
Tue 07/22	New NASA 'Fire & Smoke' Web Page Shows Latest Fire Views, Research NASA satellites, aircraft, and research know-how have created a wealth of cutting-edge tools to help firefighters battle wildfires. These tools also have helped scientists understand the impact of fires and smoke on Earth's climate and ecosystems.
Tue 07/22	NASA's Ames, JPL Win NASA Software of Year Award Software used to define safety margins for spacecraft re-entries and detect planets outside our solar system are co-winners of the 2007 Software of the Year Award.
Mon 07/21	NASA Sets Media Credentials Deadlines for Next Shuttle Flight NASA has set media accreditation deadlines for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission to return to the Hubble Space Telescope, targeted to launch Oct. 8.
Mon 07/21	NASA Ames Awards Contract for Financial Services Support NASA's Ames Research Center will award a Small 8 (a) Business performance-based contract, valued at $29 million to Al-Razaq Computing Services of Houston, to provide financial services support to the center.
Mon 07/21	Statement on Inaccurate Reports About Japanese Cargo Services Contrary to news reports, NASA has not officially or unofficially been discussing the purchase of H-II Transfer Vehicles (HTV) -- uninhabited resupply cargo ships for the space station -- from the Japanese Space Agency.
Fri 07/11	Conferences: 400 Years of Astronomical Telescopes
Tue 06/24	Conferences: ESLAB 42: Cosmic Cataclysms and Life A number of cataclysms have occurred in the history of the universe and the Solar System. The Symposium will review those that had a critical influence on the evolution of habitable worlds and on the emergence and survival of life on Earth, and possibly elsewhere.
Fri 03/14	INTEGRAL: The 7th INTEGRAL Workshop: An INTEGRAL View of Compact Objects [Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:00:00 UT] The seventh INTEGRAL workshop focusses on the research fields of compact objects and is setup to discuss scientific results. Both contributed posters and oral presentations as well as highlight talks will be given.
Wed 09/26	Please Visit Our New Site Please visit the new Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Web Site. The link to our news feed has changed to: http://www.nasa.gov/rss/exploration_systems.rss
Thu 11/09	Mercury Transits Sun Mark your calendar: On Wednesday, November 8, the planet Mercury will pass directly in front the Sun.
Mon 03/21	Science@NASA ... to go A new "podcast" puts audio recordings of NASA science news articles into your pocket MP3 player.
Mon 01/31	The Sands of Mars Driving, digging, mining: these are things astronauts will be doing one day in the sands of Mars. It's not as simple as it sounds.
Thu 10/28	Tumbleweeds in the Bloodstream Molecule-size sensors inside astronauts' cells could warn of health impacts from space radiation.
Fri 06/04	Waste Not NASA-supported researchers are working to develop a fuel cell that can extract electricity from human waste.
Tue 04/20	Resilient Rockets Spacecraft and automobiles could benefit from a new NASA technology that protects the insides of scorching-hot engines.
Tue 02/24	A New Form of Matter: II NASA-supported researchers have discovered a weird new phase of matter called fermionic condensates.
Fri 01/23	Spooky Atomic Clocks NASA-supported researchers hope to improve high-precision clocks by entangling their atoms.
Wed 12/03	Membranes on Mars New membranes developed by NASA-funded researchers could help people go to Mars--and clean the air here on Earth.
Mon 11/10	Houston, We Have a Solution New research aboard the space station aims to adapt a tried-and-true repair tool to weightlessness.

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