Noodles In A Onesie

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Hitchhiking a Ride to Space

Have you ever packed for a long trip with a friend and ran out of space in your suitcase? Maybe your friend was nice and let your spare items hitchhike a ride in their bag?  The following science experiments are doing something similar on our Space Launch System rocket.

Our Space Launch System (SLS) will be the most powerful rocket we’ve ever built and will enable astronauts in the Orion spacecraft to travel deeper into the solar system. This advanced launch vehicle will launch astronauts to an asteroid and eventually to Mars, while opening new possibilities for other payloads including robotic scientific missions to places like Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.

The primary goal of SLS and the Orion spacecraft is to launch future crewed, deep space missions. That said, an added bonus of this powerful rocket is the extra science it can carry. On it’s first mission (known as Exploration Mission-1, EM-1) SLS will carry 13 CubeSats (small satellites, each the size of a large shoebox) on its first flight as secondary payloads. These small satellites will perform various in-space experiments. In a way, these 13 CubeSats are ‘space hitchhikers’, catching a ride to deep space where they can gather data valuable to future exploration missions.

How were these 13 experiments selected? Great question. They were selected through a series of announcements of flight opportunities, a public contest and negations with our international partners.

These secondary payloads have a vast array of functions, from taking pictures of asteroids, to using yeast to detect impacts of deep-space radiation. Each month we will highlight one of these experiments on Tumblr and talk about all the exciting science they will do. Just to give you an idea of what these shoebox-sized satellites will do, we’ll give you a preview:

1. NEA Scout

NEA Scout, stands for: Near-Earth Asteroid Scout. This CubeSat will investigate an asteroid, taking pictures and observe its position in space.

2. BioSentinel

BioSentinel will be the first time living organisms have traveled to deep space in more than 40 years. It will use yeast to detect, measure and compare the impact of deep-space radiation on living organisms over long durations in deep space.

3. Lunar Flashlight

This experiment will look for ice deposits and identify locations where resources may be extracted from the lunar surface. It will demonstrate the capability to scout for useful materials and resources from lunar orbit.

4. Skyfire

Lockheed Martin’s Skyfire will perform a lunar flyby, collecting data to address both Moon and Mars Strategic Knowledge Gaps, or gaps in information required to reduce risk, increase effectiveness and improve the design of robotic and human space exploration missions, for surface characterization, remote sensing and site selection.

5. Lunar IceCube

Morehead State University’s Lunar IceCube will look for water in ice, liquid and vapor forms from a very low orbit of only 62 miles above the surface of the moon. The ability to search for useful resources can potentially help astronauts manufacture fuel and necessities to sustain a crew.

6. CuSP

The CubeSat mission to study Solar Particles, or CuSP, will be the first protype of an interplanetary CubeSat space weather station. It will observe space weather events hours before they reach Earth.

7. Luna-H-Map

Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH) will enter a polar orbit around the moon with a low altitude. From there, it will produce maps of near-surface hydrogen.

8, 9, 10. Three Tournament Payloads

Three of the payloads riding along on this journey will be the winners of the Ground Tournaments portion of our CubeQuest Challenge. This challenge is designed to foster innovation in small spacecraft propulsion and communications techniques. Learn more about this challenge HERE.

11, 12, 13. International Partners

The remaining three payloads are reserved for international partners, and will be announced at a later time.

To stay updated on these experiments, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/launching-science-and-technology.html

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

This is so cute!!

Maybe it’s your awesome songs or maybe it’s the way When I look at your face i can tell that you’re not going to be stopping soon or even slowing down And if we keep up this pace pretty soon we’ll know the name Of every kid and every grown-up booking house shows in their town.

guy moans

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Real Photos from Venus

Only a little bit smaller than Earth, Venus is often described as our sister planet - but no human could survive on Venus. It’s the second closest planet to the Sun and is a world rife with intense heat, violent volcanism, craters, mountains, continents, and a thick, toxic atmosphere resulting from a runaway greenhouse effect. The atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with clouds of sulfuric acid, and it traps huge amounts of heat from the Sun. In fact, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, with temperatures reaching a hellish 480 degrees C - hot enough to melt lead.

Over 40 spacecraft have studied Venus, including the 1975 Venera landers that sent back the first images from the surface, and the Magellan mission that completed a map of 98% of the planet’s surface in 1993, using radar to penetrate the cloud. Some of these images are features above. Click them for captions!

(Image Credit: NASA / NSSDC / ESA)

'Let's lie very still and quiet and hold each other and not think at all.'

Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden (via klytemnestre)

Whatever you end up doing, love it. The way you loved the projection booth when you were a little squirt.  Cinema Paradiso (1988) dir. Giuseppe Tornatore

my snoop 💛

After 65 years of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the whole Peanuts gang, what keeps us coming back again and again?

“The ‘Peanuts’ story is arguably one of the longest-running works of contemporary American literature of our time,” author and editor Chip Kidd told us today as we explored the new “Peanuts” movie and his new Schulz retrospective, “Only What’s Necessary.” 

(Charlie Brown is Back, October 23, 2015)

[Images courtesy of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, Santa Rosa, California]