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NASA, NSF sign agreement to advance space, earth, biological, physical sciences

1/8/2021

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#NASA; #NSF; #AdvancingSpace; #PhysicalScience; #BiologicalScience

NASA/Canadian-Media: NASA and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) have signed a memorandum of understanding affirming the agencies’ intent to continue their longstanding partnership in mutually beneficial research activities advancing space, Earth, biological, and physical sciences to further U.S. national space policy and promote the progress of science.
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NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, right, and NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan pose for a photograph during a ceremony marking the signing of a memorandum of understanding affirming the agencies’ intent to continue their longstanding partnership in mutually beneficial research activities and education related to science and engineering.
Image Credits: NASA
The agreement addresses a broad range of research and activities in many areas of science, engineering, and education central to the missions of both agencies.

“When you look at the vast array of disciplines that make up NASA’s mission, there isn’t a single one that isn’t somehow informed by our partnership with NSF,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “We look forward to continued collaboration on areas of research here on Earth and in space – including aboard the International Space Station – as well as inspiring the next generation of STEM professionals.”

Over the years, NASA and NSF have enjoyed a successful cooperative relationship that has supported further research and understanding related to a variety of disciplines, including research activities related to astrophysics, astrochemistry, planetary science, astrobiology, and heliophysics that aim to understand space weather, exoplanets, gravitational waves, and the origins of life.

For example, NASA and NSF have collaborated on field work and research activities in Antarctica and Greenland through NSF-managed stations and facilities, including research on Antarctica’s ice sheet, investigations using high-altitude scientific balloon platforms launched from McMurdo Station, the collection and profiling of ancient meteorites that have impacted the Antarctic ice sheet, and communications infrastructure support for Antarctic research stations.

The agencies also have engaged in field campaigns to address fundamental Earth system science, as well as Earth system modeling, remote sensing, and ocean and climate monitoring activities. Collaborations also have included activities related to the National Robotics, Cyber-Physical Systems and Digital Library initiatives, as well as supporting educational engagement activities, such as the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment program and the Center for Chemical Evolution.

NASA and NSF also have engaged in research aboard the International Space Station, addressing a wide variety of areas of inquiry, including biological and physical research in microgravity, plasma physics and joint solicitations in transport phenomena, tissue engineering, and mechanobiology. A number of these investigations have been conducted through the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory (ISSNL), which the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space manages in cooperation with NASA.

“Increasingly, we see that shared resources and meaningful commitments to collaboration increase the likelihood of producing breakthrough discoveries. Research in Antarctica can inform what we know about space, for example, while experiments performed in microgravity can tell us more about life on Earth,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “NASA has been a crucial partner for decades, and this interagency collaboration will ensure we can continue and expand our cooperative efforts, including building a strong and diverse scientific workforce.”

Through the agreement, NASA and NSF will continue working together to advance NASA- and NSF-sponsored science programs in astrophysics, planetary science, astrobiology, quantum technology, heliophysics, and Earth science, with special emphasis on those activities that continue to make use of NSF-managed facilities, including those in the Antarctic. The agencies also will continue the NASA-NSF partnership for exoplanet research; coordinate efforts to enable a full integration of Earth’s ecosystem and biodiversity observations from ground-based, aerial, and space-based sensing systems; continue interagency efforts to develop a space weather research-to-operations-to-research framework to establish principles for interagency collaboration on advancing and predicting Sun-Earth space weather; and continue collaboration between the NSF and the ISSNL; among other activities.

In addition, NASA and NSF are united in their efforts to broaden participation in science and engineering. Specifically, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement is collaborating with NSF’s Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) initiative to leverage talents of Minority Serving Institutions, as well as other students and researchers who are underrepresented in STEM. Through these and other efforts, NASA and NSF will engage the general public and inspire the next generation of professionals engaged in careers related to science, technology, engineering and math, as well as STEM educators.
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NASA Live: Official stream of NASA TV

12/19/2020

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#NASA; #NASALive; #NASATV; #DigitalVideoBroadcast; #IntegratedReceiverDecoder

​NASA/Canadian-Media: Direct from America's space program to YouTube, watch NASA TV live streaming here to get the latest from our exploration of the universe and learn how we discover our home planet, NASA reports said.
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NASA. Image credit: Twitter handle
​NASA TV airs a variety of regularly scheduled, pre-recorded educational and public relations programming 24 hours a day on its various channels. The network also provides an array of live programming, such as coverage of missions, events (spacewalks, media interviews, educational broadcasts), press conferences and rocket launches. 
In the United States, NASA Television's Public and Media channels are MPEG-2 digital C-band signals carried by QPSK/DVB-S modulation on satellite AMC-3, transponder 15C, at 87 degrees west longitude. Downlink frequency is 4000 MHz, horizontal polarization, with a data rate of 38.86 Mhz, symbol rate of 28.1115 Ms/s, and ¾ FEC. A Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) compliant Integrated Receiver Decoder (IRD) is needed for reception.
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Asteroid explorer collects Ryugu sample Hayabusa2, confirms JAXA

12/15/2020

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#Japan; #JAXA; #AsteroidRyugu; #Hayabusa2; #Woomera

Japan/Canadian-Media: Collection of the samples from asteroid Ryugu within the sample container inside the re-entry capsule of the asteroid explorer, Hayabusa2 was confirmed by  the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The recovery of Hayabusa2 re-entry capsule was  in Woomera, Australia took place on December 6, 2020 and delivered to the JAXA Sagamihara Campus on December 8 watched over by many people. Below is a movie and photos to share the excitement of the capsule arrival.​
Movie "Banzai!" with thousands of emotions
On December 8th, 2020, the re-entry capsule arrived at the JAXA Sagamihara Campus, 

Work to open the sample container inside the re-entry capsule began and on December 14, a sample of grains of black sand thought to be derived from asteroid Ryugu was confirmed to be inside the sample container. These are believed to be particles attached to the entrance of the sample catcher (the container in which the samples have been stored).

Work on opening the sample catcher that sits in the sample container would be continue and the removal of the samples would proceed with the analysis by the curation and initial analysis team.
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Tsuda PM interviewed by the press
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NASA selects Heliophysics missions of 0pportunity for space science research and technology demonstration

12/3/2020

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#NASA; #Heliophysics; #SpaceScienceResearch; #TechnologyDeminstration

NASA/Canadian-Media: NASA has selected two SmallSat missions – a study of Earth’s outer most atmosphere and a solar sail spaceflight test mission – to share a ride to space in 2025 with the agency’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), NASA reports said.
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NASA has chosen two new science proposals for nine-month concept studies to advance our understanding of how the particles and energy in space – shown here flowing from the Sun in an illustration of the solar wind – affect the fundamental nature of space. One proposal will ultimately be chosen to launch along with NASA’s upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe in October 2024. Image Credits: NASA
The missions – the Global Lyman-alpha Imagers of the Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) and Solar Cruiser – were selected as Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Missions of Opportunity. GLIDE will help researchers understand the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere – the exosphere – where it touches space. Solar Cruiser demonstrate the use of solar photons for propulsion in space.

The launch of the IMAP mission in 2025 to the first Lagrangian equilibrium point (L1), about 1 million miles towards the Sun, will be a pathfinder for NASA’s new RideShare policy. With the policy, the agency’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) will plan – from the inception of major missions – to take advantage of excess launch capacity and provide increased access to space for SmallSats. IMAP will help researchers better understand the interstellar boundary region, where the solar wind and the solar magnetic field it transfers to the edge of the solar system collide with galactic material and the galactic magnetic field.

Focusing on small satellites and tech demonstrations helps prove the capabilities of these smaller missions and pairing them with existing missions for launch provides more avenues for learning about the solar system and developing innovative technical capabilities.

“The study of the solar influence on interplanetary space and the area around our Earth has made great advances just in the past decade,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “I’m confident the next decade promises even more new discoveries and historic technology innovations.”

The science selection was made competitively from proposals to help better understand the fundamental nature of space and the interaction between space and Earth’s environment. As the selected science mission, GLIDE will study variability in Earth’s exosphere by tracking far ultraviolet light emitted from hydrogen. The exosphere is the outer region of Earth’s atmosphere that touches space – a region where atoms can escape Earth. Observing the global structure of the exosphere requires a telescope that is outside of the outer reaches of the atmosphere, which extend almost to the Moon. The IMAP launch trajectory to the inner Lagrangian point, the point of the Earth-Sun system that provides an uninterrupted view of the Sun, will provide just such a perspective for the GLIDE mission and is ideally suited for the first continuous observations of the exosphere and its variations in response to solar storm disruptions.

GLIDE will fill a measurement gap, as only a handful of comparable ultraviolet light images have previously been made from outside the exosphere. The mission will gather observations at a high rate, with a view of the entire exosphere, ensuring a global and comprehensive set of data. Understanding the ways in which Earth’s exosphere changes in response to influences of the Sun above or the atmosphere below, will provide us with better ways to forecast and, ultimately, mitigate the ways in which space weather can interfere with radio communications in space.

The principal investigator for GLIDE is Lara Waldrop at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The GLIDE investigation is budgeted for $75 million.

Solar Cruiser was selected as the technology demonstration mission. Consisting of a nearly 18,000-square-foot (nearly 1,700-square-meter) solar sail, it will demonstrate the ability to use solar radiation as a propulsion system. Such a system could provide access to new orbits enabling high-value science, including SmallSat observations from deep space, out of the ecliptic plane, and in stationary orbits in the Earth’s geo-tail. Solar Cruiser will demonstrate one such orbit, where a spacecraft maintains position along the Earth-Sun line at a point closer to the Sun than L1. By positioning a monitoring spacecraft closer to the Sun, space weather scientists hope to obtain more advanced warnings of solar storms headed to Earth.

The principal investigator for Solar Cruiser is Les Johnson at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Solar Cruiser investigation is budgeted for $65 million.

A second STP science Mission of Opportunity, the Spatial/Spectral Imaging of Heliospheric Lyman Alpha (SIHLA), also was provided funding toward a final selection decision at a later date based on budget and RideShare opportunities. SIHLA would use an innovative technique to map the entire sky to determine the shape and underlying mechanisms of the boundary between the heliosphere, the area of our Sun’s magnetic influence, and the interstellar medium, a boundary known as the heliopause.

“Launching several missions together helps us maximize science while keeping costs down,” said Nicky Fox, Heliophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re expanding the range and composition of a robust fleet of missions studying the Sun and space weather, and these two new selections will help advance into areas where we need to know more.”

From the start of IMAP mission formulation, SMD planned to include secondary spacecraft on the launch under the agency’s SMD Rideshare Initiative, which cuts costs by sending multiple missions on a single launch. This launch will also include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow-On mission, which will expand that agency’s space weather forecasting.

“Expanding our capabilities and knowledge through experimental missions using SmallSats and tech demos enables us to do and try so many more things,” said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Our Sun has thrown a lot of interesting questions at us lately, and we’re using every avenue to study space weather and its impact on our planet and our solar system.”
​

Funding for these missions comes from the Heliophysics Solar Terrestrial Probes program, which is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
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NASA expands informal learning institutions engaging next generation of explorers

12/3/2020

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#NASA; #TEAMII; #STEMProfession; #NASAMuseum&InformalEducationAlliance

NASA/Canadian-Media: ​NASA’s Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions (TEAM II) program has selected three additional informal education organizations to promote learning in STEM with the goal of inspiring the next generation of explorers, NASA reports said.


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The Franklin Institute hosts astronomy activities to engage students in STEM through NASA's TEAM II award. Image credit: NASA
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The three organizations supplement an initial group selected in December 2019. The selected projects provide students with opportunities to engage in science, technology, engineering, and math behind NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration and aim to reach populations that are historically underrepresented in STEM professions.

The selected organizations will implement their proposals over the next three years, as a part of NASA’s Museum & Informal Education Alliance– a nationwide network of informal education professionals at more than 1,000 science museums, planetariums, NASA visitor centers, Challenger Centers, youth-serving organizations, camps, and libraries, as well as visitor centers at observatories and parks, nature centers, aquariums, and zoos.

The projects will provide authentic mission-driven STEM learning experiences via hands-on and virtual toolkits, a traveling exhibit, and community-focused professional development. In total, approximately $3 million will be awarded through cooperative agreements, which provide additional opportunities for interaction between recipients and NASA beyond the grants previously awarded through TEAM II.

The newly selected institutions and their projects are:

Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado
From Our Town to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond

Using a combination of a traveling exhibit, activity programming kits, and professional development, libraries across the country will increase their capacity to use NASA resources and engage their patrons in NASA’s mission to return permanently to the Moon while moving forward to Mars. The project builds upon the success of the Space Science Institute’s From Our Town to Outer Space project, funded by TEAM II’s predecessor, Competitive Program for Science Museums, Planetariums, and Visitor Centers, program.

The Sciencenter, Ithaca, New York
Explore Science: Destination Moon

The Sciencenter, in collaboration with other partners in the National Informal STEM Education Network, will create a toolkit of hands-on STEM activities based on NASA's continuing pursuit of human exploration of the Moon, as well as a mobile app that brings the excitement of future exploration of Mars and our solar system to home. The Sciencenter will distribute the toolkit to 350 science centers, children’s museums, and planetariums. The app will bridge STEM engagement in museums with learning experiences at home through interactive activity guides and customized connections to NASA visualizations and mission data.

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia
Mission to Mars: Boosting Community Engagement with NASA Resources

The Franklin Institute will develop a nationwide outreach program to bring together dozens of national and community partnerships across the country around NASA’s space exploration agenda through a series of professional development experiences. These experiences will equip informal science institutions, community-based organizations, and amateur astronomers with the skills and resources to develop and deploy high-quality astronomy engagement experiences for families and youth.
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The STEM experiences provided by TEAM II directly align with NASA missions, including plans to send astronauts to the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program and prepare for human exploration of Mars. NASA’s Artemis program will send science and technology demonstrations forward to the Moon before landing the first woman and next man on the lunar surface. Finding and using resources in deep space is a key step for human exploration farther into the solar system.
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NASA selects companies to collect lunar resources for Artemis demonstrations

12/3/2020

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#NASA; #LunarResources; #ArtemisDemonstration

​NASA/Canadian-Media: ​NASA has selected four companies to collect space resources and transfer ownership to the agency: Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado; Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California; ispace Europe of Luxembourg; and ispace Japan of Tokyo. Overall, the new NASA contracts with these companies totals $25,001, NASA reports said.

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NASA. Image credit: Twitter handle
Space resources will play a key role in NASA’s Artemis program and future space exploration. The ability to extract and use extraterrestrial resources will ensure Artemis operations can be conducted safely and sustainably in support of establishing human lunar exploration. Moreover, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) will play a vital role in a future human mission to Mars. Like many other operations, ISRU activities will be tested and developed on the Moon, building the required knowledge to implement new capabilities that will be necessary to overcome the challenges of a human mission to Mars.
“These awards expand NASA’s innovative use of public-private partnerships to the Moon. We’re excited to join with our commercial and international partners to make Artemis the largest and most diverse global human space exploration coalition in history,” said Mike Gold, NASA’s acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations. “Space resources are the fuel that will propel America and all of humanity to the stars.”

A great deal of work remains to be done to develop robust ISRU capabilities. Both robotic and human explorers will test new technologies and techniques.

“Leveraging commercial involvement enhances our ability to safely return to the Moon in a sustainable, innovative, and affordable fashion,” said Phil McAlister, director of Commercial Spaceflight Development at NASA Headquarters. “A supportive policy for the recovery and use of space resources provides a stable and predictable investment environment for commercial space innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Companies will collect a small amount of lunar regolith from any location on the Moon and provide imagery to NASA of the collection and the collected material, along with data that identifies the collection location. Subsequent to receiving such imagery and data, an “in-place” transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith to NASA will take place. After ownership transfer, the collected material becomes the sole property of NASA for the agency’s use under the Artemis program.

NASA solicited fixed price quotes using simplified acquisition procedures and selected companies using the “low-priced, technically acceptable” selection method. The agency evaluated quotes and assigned a pass-fail rating based on their ability to satisfactorily meet the requirements of the solicitation. Companies were then selected from the acceptable proposals, in accordance with the agency’s available budget, starting with the lowest-priced proposals.

Details about the selection are: Lunar Outpost proposed collection for $1 following arrival of a lander to the lunar South Pole in 2023; ispace Japan proposed collection for $5,000 following arrival in 2022 of a lander to Lacus Somniorum on the Moon’s northeastern near side; ispace Europe proposed collection for $5,000 following arrival in 2023 of a lander to the lunar South Pole; Masten Space Systems proposed collection for $15,000 following arrival in 2023 of a lander to the lunar South Pole.

Companies will receive 10% of their total proposed price upon award, will receive 10% upon launch, and the remaining 80% upon successful completion. NASA’s payment is exclusively for the lunar regolith. The agency will determine retrieval methods for the transferred lunar regolith at a later date.

Companies must take all actions to perform the contracts in full compliance with the Registration Convention, Article II, and other provisions of the Outer Space Treaty, as well as in accordance with NASA’s other relevant international obligations. NASA will continue to publicly release data and scientific discoveries gained through safe and sustainable lunar exploration to benefit all of humanity.
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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts arrive at Space Station, NASA leaders, crew to discuss mission

11/19/2020

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#NASA; #SpaceXCrewDragonResilience; #SafeDockToISS; 

Washington/NASA, Nov 19 (Canadian-Media): The SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience successfully docked to the International Space Station (ISS) at 11:01 p.m. EST Monday, transporting NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, NASA reports said.
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Crew-1 Commander Mike Hopkins (seen from the rear on the left) and Pilot Victor Glover (right) watch their screens as the Crew Dragon Resilience approaches the International Space Station just before docking on Nov. 16, 2020. Crew-1 launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 15. Credits: NASA TV
When the hatches open about 1:10 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, the Crew-1 astronauts joined Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA, and station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos, who arrived to the station Oct. 14.

NASA TV will continue to provide live coverage through the welcoming ceremony with NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Kathy Lueders joining to greet the crew from the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa joining from the Tsukuba Space Center in Japan. 

On Thursday, Nov. 19, the four astronauts who are beginning the first crew rotation mission on the space station joine Rubins to answer questions in a news conference from the space station that will air live at 9:55 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

The crew discussed its upcoming expedition, which increases the regular space station crew size from six to seven astronauts – adding to the crew time available for research – as well as their launch, rendezvous, and docking.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission lifted off Sunday, Nov. 15, at 7:27 p.m. on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission is the first of six certified, crew missions NASA and SpaceX will fly as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
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NASA Selects Intuitive Machines to Land Water-Measuring Payload on the Moon

10/19/2020

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#NASA; #LandWaterMeasuingMachine; #Moon; #Prime1; #CLPSInitiave
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Washington/NASA, Oct 19 (Canadian-Media): NASA has awarded Intuitive Machines of Houston approximately $47 million to deliver a drill combined with a mass spectrometer to the Moon by December 2022 under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, NASA reports said.
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NASA has selected Intuitive Machines to deliver a drill combined with a mass spectrometer to the Moon. Image credit: NASA
The delivery of the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment known as PRIME-1 will help NASA search for ice at the Moon’s South Pole and, for the first time, harvest ice from below the surface.

“We continue to rapidly select vendors from our pool of CLPS vendors to land payloads on the lunar surface, which exemplifies our work to integrate the ingenuity of commercial industry into our efforts at the Moon,” said NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen. “The information we’ll gain from PRIME-1 and other science instruments and technology demonstrations we’re sending to the lunar surface will inform our Artemis missions with astronauts and help us better understand how we can build a sustainable lunar presence.”

PRIME-1 will land on the Moon and drill up to 3 feet (approximately 1 meter) below the surface. It will measure with a mass spectrometer how much ice in the sample is lost to sublimation as the ice turns from a solid to a vapor in the vacuum of the lunar environment. Versions of PRIME-1’s drill and the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations, or MSolo, will also fly on VIPER, a mobile robot that also will search for ice at the lunar South Pole in 2023. NASA will land the first woman and next man on the Moon’s South Pole the following year.

“PRIME-1 will give us tremendous insight into the resources at the Moon and how to extract them,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington. “Sending this payload to the Moon is a terrific example of our scientific and technology communities coming together with our commercial partners to develop breakthrough technologies to accomplish a range of goals on the lunar surface.”

STMD’s Game Changing Development program funds PRIME-1. Honeybee Robotics of Pasadena, California, is developing the ice-mining drill. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in partnership with INFICON of Syracuse, New York, is developing the mass spectrometer.

The data from PRIME-1 will help scientists understand in-situ resources on the Moon. PRIME-1 contributes to NASA’s search for water at the Moon’s poles, supporting the agency’s plans to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon by the end of the decade. PRIME-1’s early use of the drill and MSolo helps to increase the likelihood of reliable operation of those payloads on VIPER’s mobile platform in the following year.
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Through the CLPS initiative, NASA taps its commercial partners to quickly land scientific instruments and technology demonstrations on the Moon with the first flights set for next year. A key part of NASA’s Artemis program, CLPS flights will support a suite of robotic lunar activities ahead of a human return to the Moon as well as throughout this decade.
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NASA, International Partners Advance Cooperation with First Signings of Artemis Accords

10/13/2020

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#NASA; #ArtemisAccords; #21stCenturyLunarExplorationPlans; 

NASA, Oct 13 (Canadian-Media): International cooperation on and around the Moon as part of the Artemis program is taking a step forward today with the signing of the Artemis Accords between NASA and several partner countries. The Artemis Accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations participating in the agency’s 21st century lunar exploration plans.
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Image credit: NASA
“Artemis will be the broadest and most diverse international human space exploration program in history, and the Artemis Accords are the vehicle that will establish this singular global coalition,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “With today’s signing, we are uniting with our partners to explore the Moon and are establishing vital principles that will create a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space for all of humanity to enjoy.”

While NASA is leading the Artemis program, which includes sending the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon in 2024, international partnerships will play a key role in achieving a sustainable and robust presence on the Moon later this decade while preparing to conduct a historic human mission to Mars.


The founding member nations that have signed the Artemis Accords, in alphabetical order, are: Australia, Canada; Italy; Japan; Luxembourg; United Arab Emirates; United Kingdom; United States of America

NASA announced it was establishing the Artemis Accords earlier this year to guide future cooperative activities, to be implemented through bilateral agreements that will describe responsibilities and other legal provisions. The partners will ensure their activities comply with the accords in carrying out future cooperation. International cooperation on Artemis is intended not only to bolster space exploration but to enhance peaceful relationships among nations.

“Fundamentally, the Artemis Accords will help to avoid conflict in space and on Earth by strengthening mutual understanding and reducing misperceptions. Transparency, public registration, deconflicting operations – these are the principles that will preserve peace,” said Mike Gold, NASA acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations. “The Artemis journey is to the Moon, but the destination of the Accords is a peaceful and prosperous future.”

The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, otherwise known as the Outer Space Treaty. They also reinforce the commitment by the U.S. and partner nations to the Registration Convention, the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, and other norms of behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

The principles of the Artemis Accords are:

  • Peaceful Exploration: All activities conducted under the Artemis program must be for peaceful purposes
  • Transparency: Artemis Accords signatories will conduct their activities in a transparent fashion to avoid confusion and conflicts
  • Interoperability: Nations participating in the Artemis program will strive to support interoperable systems to enhance safety and sustainability
  • Emergency Assistance: Artemis Accords signatories commit to rendering assistance to personnel in distress
  • Registration of Space Objects: Any nation participating in Artemis must be a signatory to the Registration Convention or become a signatory with alacrity
  • Release of Scientific Data: Artemis Accords signatories commit to the public release of scientific information, allowing the whole world to join us on the Artemis journey
  • Preserving Heritage: Artemis Accords signatories commit to preserving outer space heritage
  • Space Resources: Extracting and utilizing space resources is key to safe and sustainable exploration and the Artemis Accords signatories affirm that such activities should be conducted in compliance with the Outer Space Treaty
  • Deconfliction of Activities: The Artemis Accords nations commit to preventing harmful interference and supporting the principle of due regard, as required by the Outer Space Treaty
  • Orbital Debris: Artemis Accords countries commit to planning for the safe disposal of debris

Additional countries will join the Artemis Accords in the months and years ahead, as NASA continues to work with its international partners to establish a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space. Working with emerging space agencies, as well as existing partners and well-established space agencies, will add new energy and capabilities to ensure the entire world can benefit from the Artemis journey of exploration and discovery.
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NASA astronaut aboard space station to answer questions from high school students

9/30/2020

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#NASA; #PrerecordedQuestions; #HighSchoolStudents; #InternationalSpaceStation

Washington, Sep 30 (Canadian-Media): NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, currently aboard the International Space Station, will answer questions posed by high school students from across the nation this week. The educational downlink event will air live at 12:25 p.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 2, on NASA Television and the agency’s website, NASA reports said.
Picture
Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy prepares an Astrobee free flying robotic system for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Remote Power Controller Operations. Credits: NASA
Cassidy will answer prerecorded questions selected from high school students participating in the Society for Science & the Public’s Science News in High Schools program, which provides access to Science News magazine to more than 5,000 schools nationwide. The society, which seeks to expand scientific literacy and research through STEM competitions, journalism, outreach, and equity programs, is coordinating the question and answer session. Participating students will use news articles and related educational resources to learn about collaborative research studies completed by astronauts on the space station to prepare questions for the event.

Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning, performance, and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Astronauts living in space on the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Network’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).

For nearly 20 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked on the space station, testing technologies, performing science and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Through NASA’s Artemis program, the agency will send astronauts to the Moon in 2024, with eventual human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery.
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