NASA Satellite sends a spacecraft to study Stuff about Jupiter

For the most part of NASA’s workers have been deemed non-essential by the lay off, but that doesn’t mean that the space organization is sitting around twiddle their thumbs in the meantime to in fact, they’re still available forward with their Juno Mission today, for the period of which they plan to send a spacecraft to Jupiter by swinging it in the region of Earth to build up the needed momentum.

A clock it at 8,000 lbs, the Juno Satelitte is on a 5-year assignment to boldly go to Jupiter so that we can study the planet’s atmosphere, gravitational and magnetic field was first launch in August 2011 with the help of the Atlas 5 Rocket, which make available half the boost Juno needs to get to the Jovian planet to this flyby just about Earth will supply the other half of the boost, and will increase speed the spacecraft by about 16,330 mph of all goes according to plan, Juno will be the opening solar-powered probe ever to stay the outer solar system.

NASA Dawn Spacecraft Captures First Image Of Nearing Asteroid

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has obtained its first image of the giant asteroid Vesta, which will help fine-tune navigation during its approach. Dawn expects to achieve orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 117 million miles from Earth. The image from Dawn's framing cameras was taken on May 3 when the spacecraft began its approach and was approximately 752,000 miles (1.21 million km) from Vesta. The asteroid appears as a small, bright pearl against a background of stars. Vesta also is known as a protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a planet. "After plying the seas of space for more than a billion miles, the Dawn team finally spotted its target," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "This first image hints of detailed portraits to come from Dawn's upcoming visit."

Vesta is 330 miles (530 km) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes obtained images of the bright orb for about two centuries, but with little surface detail. Mission managers expect Vesta's gravity to capture Dawn in orbit on July 16. To enter orbit, Dawn must match the asteroid's path around the sun, which requires very precise knowledge of the body's location and speed. By analyzing where Vesta appears relative to stars in framing camera images, navigators will pin down its location and enable engineers to refine the spacecraft's trajectory. Dawn will start collecting science data in early August at an altitude of approximately 1,700 miles (2,700 km) above the asteroid's surface. As the spacecraft gets closer, it will snap multi-angle images allowing scientists to produce topographic maps.

Dawn will later orbit at approximately 120 miles (200 km) to perform other measurements and obtain closer shots of parts of the surface. Dawn will remain in orbit around Vesta for one year. After another long cruise phase, Dawn will arrive in 2015 at its second destination, Ceres, an even more massive body in the asteroid belt. Gathering information about these two icons of the asteroid belt will help scientists unlock the secrets of our solar system's early history. The mission will compare and contrast the two giant asteroids shaped by different forces. Dawn's science instruments will measure surface composition, topography and texture. Dawn also will measure the tug of gravity from Vesta and Ceres to learn more about their internal structures. The spacecraft's full odyssey will take it on a 3-billion-mile (5-billion-km) journey, which began with its launch in September 2007.

NASA Satellite Finds Earth's Clouds are Getting Lower

Earth's clouds got a little lower about one percent on average during the first decade of this century, finds a new NASA-funded university study based on NASA satellite data. The results have potential implications for future global climate.

Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around one percent over the decade, or by around 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes.

Lead researcher Roger Davies said that while the record is too short to be definitive, it provides a hint that something quite important might be going on. Longer-term monitoring will be required to determine the significance of the observation for global temperatures.

Researchers Detail How A Distant Black Hole Devoured A Star

Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.

"Incredibly, this source is still producing X-rays and may remain bright enough for Swift to observe into next year," said David Burrows, professor of astronomy at Penn State University and lead scientist for the mission's X-Ray Telescope instrument. "It behaves unlike anything we've seen before."

Astronomers soon realized the source, known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away, it took the light from the event approximately 3.9 billion years to reach Earth.

Hurricane Season 2011: NASA Sees Heavy Rain in Hurricane Irene

Before Irene even reached hurricane status, a NASA satellite saw heavy rainfall and hot towering thunderstorm clouds around the storm's center this weekend. That heavy rainfall is expected as Irene continues to track through the Caribbean today. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed over Irene when it was a tropical storm on August 21, 2011 at 0024 UTC (8:24 p.m. EDT August 20). Data collected with this orbit showed that Irene contained numerous powerful thunderstorms with TRMM's Precipitation Radar revealing that some thunderstorm towers near the center of the storm were reaching to heights above 15 km (~9.3 miles).

Those "hot towers" are called "hot" because they rise to such altitude due to the large amount of latent heat. Water vapor releases this latent heat as it condenses into liquid. Back in 2004, researchers Owen Kelley and John Stout of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., found that a tropical cyclone with a hot tower in its eyewall was twice as likely to intensify within the next six hours than a cyclone that lacked a tower. Irene had those hot towers and did intensify into a hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center noted on August 22 that Irene is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 5 to 10 inches across Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Southeastern Bahamas and The Turks and Caicos Islands. Isolated maximum amounts of rainfall may reach up to 20 inches.

Punching Holes in the Sky

Scientists, photographers and amateur cloud watchers have been looking up with wonderment and puzzlement at "hole punch" clouds for decades. Giant, open spaces appear in otherwise continuous cloud cover, presenting beautiful shapes but also an opportunity for scientific investigation. A new paper published last week in Science inquires into how the holes get punched – airplanes are the culprit – and into the potential for the phenomenon's link to increased precipitation around major airports.

"It appears to be a rather widespread effect for aircraft to inadvertently cause some measureable amount of rain or snow as they fly through certain clouds," said lead author Andrew Heymsfield of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Co. "This is not necessarily enough precipitation to affect global climate, but it is likely to be noticeable around major airports in the midlatitudes."

NASA Langley Research Center cloud specialist Patrick Minnis was one of the co-authors on the paper. NASA satellites Aqua, Terra, CALIPSO and CloudSat were used in the analysis. The research was also partly funded by NASA grants.

NASA, NSBRI Select 12 Proposals To Support Crew Health On Missions

NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) of Houston will fund 12 proposals to help investigate questions about astronaut health and performance on future space exploration missions. The selected proposals, representing 11 institutions in nine states, will receive approximately $14 million over a three-to-four year period.

HRP provides knowledge and technologies to improve human health and performance during space exploration and develops possible countermeasures for problems experienced during space travel. The program's goals are to help complete missions successfully and preserve astronauts' health throughout their lives. HRP quantifies crew health and performance risks during spaceflight and develops strategies that mission planners and system developers can use to monitor and mitigate them.

The 12 projects were selected from 85 proposals received in response to the research announcement "Research and Technology Development to Support Crew Health and Performance in Space Exploration Missions." Scientific and technical experts from academia and government reviewed the proposals. Ten of the projects will have NASA principal investigators while two will be managed by NSBRI. NSBRI is a NASA-funded consortium of institutions studying health risks related to long-duration spaceflight. The institute's science, technology and education projects take place at more than 60 institutions across the United States.

NASA Mission Will Observe Earth's Salty Seas For Climate Clues

Final preparations are under way for the June 9 launch of the international Aquarius/SAC-D observatory. The mission's primary instrument, Aquarius, will study interactions between ocean circulation, the water cycle and climate by measuring ocean surface salinity. Engineers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are performing final tests before mating Aquarius/SAC-D to its Delta II rocket. The mission is a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. SAC stands for Satelite de Applicaciones Cientificas.

In addition to Aquarius, the observatory carries seven other instruments that will collect environmental data for a wide range of applications, including studies of natural hazards, air quality, land processes and epidemiology. The mission will make NASA's first space observations of the concentration of dissolved salt at the ocean surface. Aquarius' observations will reveal how salinity variations influence ocean circulation, trace the path of freshwater around our planet, and help drive Earth's climate. The ocean surface constantly exchanges water and heat with Earth's atmosphere. Approximately 80 percent of the global water cycle that moves freshwater from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean happens over the ocean.

Salinity plays a key role in these exchanges. By tracking changes in ocean surface salinity, Aquarius will monitor variations in the water cycle caused by evaporation and precipitation over the ocean, river runoff, the freezing and melting of sea ice. Salinity also makes seawater denser, causing it to sink, where it becomes part of deep, interconnected ocean currents. This deep ocean "conveyor belt" moves water masses and heat from the tropics to the polar regions, helping to regulate Earth's climate. "Salinity is the glue that bonds two major components of Earth's complex climate system: ocean circulation and the global water cycle," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth and Space Research in Seattle. "Aquarius will map global variations in salinity in unprecedented detail, leading to new discoveries that will improve our ability to predict future climate."

NASA's Shuttle Endeavour Heads To Space Station On Its Final Mission

Space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 8:56 a.m. EDT Monday. The STS-134 mission is the penultimate orbiter flight and the final one for shuttle Endeavour. "This mission represents the power of teamwork, commitment and exploration," Commander Mark Kelly said shortly before liftoff. "It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop. To all the millions watching today including our spouses, children, family and friends, we thank you for your support." The crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) and critical supplies to the space station, including two communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional parts for the Dextre robot.

AMS is a particle physics detector designed to search for various types of unusual cosmic matter. The crew also will transfer Endeavour's orbiter boom sensor system to the station, where it could assist spacewalkers as an extension for the station's robotic arm. "Today's final launch of Endeavour is a testament to American ingenuity and leadership in human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "As we look toward a bright future with the International Space Station as our anchor and new destinations in deep space on the horizon, we salute the astronauts and ground crews who have ensured the orbiter's successful missions. The presence of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at the launch inspired us all, just as America's space program has done for the past 50 years."

Kelly's crewmates are Pilot Greg H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency. This is the first shuttle flight for Fincke and Vittori. Vittori will be the last international astronaut to fly aboard a shuttle. Endeavour is scheduled to dock to the station at 6:15 a.m. on Wednesday. The 16-day mission includes four spacewalks. After undocking to return to Earth, Kelly and Johnson will ease the shuttle back toward the station to test new sensor technologies that could facilitate the docking of future space vehicles to the station. The shuttle's first landing opportunity at Kennedy is scheduled for 2:32 a.m. on June 1. STS-134 is the 134th shuttle flight, the 25th flight for Endeavour and the 36th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance.

NASA Sets May 16 For Final Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch

NASA managers have set the liftoff of space shuttle Endeavour for 8:56 a.m. EDT on Monday, May 16. Launch attempts are available through May 26, except for May 21. The STS-134 mission to the International Space Station is the penultimate shuttle flight and the final one for Endeavour. Space Shuttle Program Launch Integration Manager Mike Moses and Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach announced the date at a news briefing Monday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They also discussed the progress of repairs since Endeavour's launch postponement on April 29.

A short in the heater circuit associated with Endeavour's hydraulic system resulted in the launch postponement. Technicians determined the most likely failure was inside a switchbox in the shuttle's aft compartment and associated electrical wiring connecting the switchbox to the heaters. The heater circuits prevent freezing of the fuel lines providing hydraulic power to steer the vehicle during ascent and entry. The faulty box was replaced May 4. Since Friday, Kennedy technicians installed and tested new wiring that bypasses the suspect electrical wiring and confirmed the heater system is working properly. They also are completing retests of other systems powered by the switchbox and are closing out Endeavour's aft compartment.

STS-134 Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates are set to arrive at Kennedy for prelaunch preparations on Thursday, May 12, at approximately 11 a.m. NASA Television will broadcast the crew's arrival live. The crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) and critical supplies to the space station, including two communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional parts for the Dextre robot. AMS is a particle physics detector designed to search for various types of unusual matter. The crew also will transfer Endeavour's orbiter boom sensor system to the station, where it could assist spacewalkers as an extension for the station's robotic arm.

NASA Selects Investigations For Future Key Planetary Mission

NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn's moons; or study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus. Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission's concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in June 2010. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 28 submissions. The selected investigations could reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes. Three technology developments for possible future planetary missions also were selected. "NASA continues to do extraordinary science that is re-writing textbooks," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Missions like these hold great promise to vastly increase our knowledge, extend our reach into the solar system and inspire future generations of explorers."

The planetary missions selected to pursue preliminary design studies are:

-- Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) would study the structure and composition of the interior of Mars and advance understanding of the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets. Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., is principal investigator. JPL would manage the project.

--Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would provide the first direct exploration of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., is principal investigator. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., would manage the project.

NASA's Gravity Probe B Confirms Two Einstein Space-Time Theories

NASA's Gravity Probe B (GP-B) mission has confirmed two key predictions derived from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which the spacecraft was designed to test. The experiment, launched in 2004, used four ultra-precise gyroscopes to measure the hypothesized geodetic effect, the warping of space and time around a gravitational body, and frame-dragging, the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates. GP-B determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. If gravity did not affect space and time, GP-B's gyroscopes would point in the same direction forever while in orbit. But in confirmation of Einstein's theories, the gyroscopes experienced measurable, minute changes in the direction of their spin, while Earth's gravity pulled at them.

"Imagine the Earth as if it were immersed in honey. As the planet rotates, the honey around it would swirl, and it's the same with space and time," said Francis Everitt, GP-B principal investigator at Stanford University. "GP-B confirmed two of the most profound predictions of Einstein's universe, having far-reaching implications across astrophysics research. Likewise, the decades of technological innovation behind the mission will have a lasting legacy on Earth and in space." GP-B is one of the longest running projects in NASA history, with agency involvement starting in the fall of 1963 with initial funding to develop a relativity gyroscope experiment. Subsequent decades of development led to groundbreaking technologies to control environmental disturbances on spacecraft, such as aerodynamic drag, magnetic fields and thermal variations. The mission's star tracker and gyroscopes were the most precise ever designed and produced.

GP-B completed its data collection operations and was decommissioned in December 2010. "The mission results will have a long-term impact on the work of theoretical physicists," said Bill Danchi, senior astrophysicist and program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Every future challenge to Einstein's theories of general relativity will have to seek more precise measurements than the remarkable work GP-B accomplished." Innovations enabled by GP-B have been used in GPS technologies that allow airplanes to land unaided. Additional GP-B technologies were applied to NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer mission, which accurately determined the universe's background radiation. That measurement is the underpinning of the big-bang theory, and led to the Nobel Prize for NASA physicist John Mather.

Two Events Commemorate 50th Anniversary of U.S. Human Spaceflight

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. manned spaceflight during two events this week around the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA Television will carry both events live. On Wednesday, May 4, at 2 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Postal Service will unveil two new stamps at the Rocket Garden of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, located on State Road 405. Journalists interested in covering the event should contact Andrea Farmer at 321-449-4318 or Jillian McRae at 321-449-4273. Media need to arrive at least 30 minutes before the start of the ceremony.

One stamp commemorates NASA's Project Mercury and Alan Shepard's historic launch on May 5, 1961 aboard the spacecraft Freedom 7. The second stamp honors NASA's MESSENGER, which reached Mercury in March to become the first spacecraft to orbit the planet. The two missions frame a remarkable 50-year period in which America advanced space exploration through more than 1,500 manned and unmanned flights. Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter and members of the Shepard family will join Bolden at the stamps' unveiling and at a 50th anniversary ceremony on Thursday, May 5, at 9 a.m., at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

To cover the event, news media representatives need to be at the Air Force Badging Office (Gate 1) at 6:30 a.m. for transportation to Complex 5/6. Mission badges for the STS-134 shuttle mission will be honored for this event. Reporters who do not have one must contact Christopher Calkins at 321-494-7732 or Auburn Davis at 321-494-6489 to arrange for media credentials. The Thursday event includes a re-creation of Shepard's flight and recovery, as well as a tribute to his contributions as a moonwalker on the Apollo 14 lunar mission. KSC Director and former astronaut Bob Cabana and more than 200 workers from the original Mercury program, also will be in attendance.

Teams to Replace APU Heater Power Box; Launch No Earlier than May 8

Technicians and engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have identified the likely source of what caused heaters on a fuel line for space shuttle Endeavour's auxiliary power unit-1 (APU-1) to fail on Friday, scrubbing the first launch attempt for the STS-134 mission. The failure appears to be a power problem within the aft load control assembly-2 (ALCA-2), a box of switches controlling power feeds. "That basically means the power is not getting out to the heaters that weren't working on launch day," said Space Shuttle Program Launch Integration Manager Mike Moses.

The plan is to remove and replace the box, but that work and related testing will take several days to complete. Once the new box is installed, the team must verify it's working properly at least a two-day process and perform forensics on the failed box. "We can tell you, pretty much, that it's not going to be any earlier than (May 8)," Moses said. "We're really not even setting the schedules today. There's still a whole lot of short-term work that has to be done."

Endeavour's six astronauts have returned to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for a few days of additional training before they report to Kennedy for the next launch attempt, and the crew's families also are going to return home today. The launch team is backing out of launch countdown operations. "Responding to problems is one of the things we do best around here, and the team always likes a good challenge," said Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach. "I'm sure we're going to be really glad when Endeavour's finally on orbit, but right now, the team is upbeat and ready to execute."

NASA's Swift And Hubble Probe Asteroid Collision Debris

Late last year, astronomers noticed an asteroid named Scheila had unexpectedly brightened, and it was sporting short-lived plumes. Data from NASA's Swift satellite and Hubble Space Telescope showed these changes likely occurred after Scheila was struck by a much smaller asteroid. "Collisions between asteroids create rock fragments, from fine dust to huge boulders, that impact planets and their moons," said Dennis Bodewits, an astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park and lead author of the Swift study. "Yet this is the first time we've been able to catch one just weeks after the smash-up, long before the evidence fades away."

Asteroids are rocky fragments thought to be debris from the formation and evolution of the solar system approximately 4.6 billion years ago. Millions of them orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter in the main asteroid belt. Scheila is approximately 70 miles across and orbits the sun every five years. "The Hubble data are most simply explained by the impact, at 11,000 mph, of a previously unknown asteroid about 100 feet in diameter," said Hubble team leader David Jewitt at the University of California in Los Angeles. Hubble did not see any discrete collision fragments, unlike its 2009 observations of P/2010 A2, the first identified asteroid collision.

The studies will appear in the May 20 edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters and are available online. Astronomers have known for decades that comets contain icy material that erupts when warmed by the sun. They regarded asteroids as inactive rocks whose destinies, surfaces, shapes and sizes were determined by mutual impacts. However, this simple picture has grown more complex over the past few years. During certain parts of their orbits, some objects, once categorized as asteroids, clearly develop comet-like features that can last for many months. Others display much shorter outbursts. Icy materials may be exposed occasionally, either by internal geological processes or by an external one, such as an impact.

NASA Receives European Commitment To Continue Space Station

The Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) for the International Space Station partner agencies met Wednesday, April 27, to discuss increased efforts to use the station as a test-bed for exploration. The MCB also congratulated the European Space Agency (ESA) on its recent decision to continue station operations to at least 2020. The MCB is working diligently to extend the benefits to future exploration beyond low-Earth orbit through enhanced station research, technology development and other opportunities. Other topics on the agenda included a report on efforts to create international standards for docking and berthing; rendezvous and proximity operations; interfaces for replaceable items and payloads; and standardization of command protocols for spacecraft.

Station research with potential societal impact includes:

-- The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2, which will fly aboard STS-134, scheduled to launch on April 29. The experiment is a cosmic ray detector that will search for dark matter and antimatter, components critical to understanding the origin and structure of our universe.

-- The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) continues its life science research program on mitigating health risks associated with spaceflight. These health experiments and activities will monitor crew health and deliver health care on space missions.

-- ESA began the GeoFlow experiment in the Fluid Science Laboratory payload. This experiment will take advantage of the microgravity environment on the station in combination with electrical fields, thermal gradients and rotation to simulate many parameters of geo-physical flows under the Earth's crust. Results will help scientists understand thermal convection in planets and the outer shells of celestial bodies. It also will verify numerical simulations of fluid dynamics of liquid core planets with real experimental data.

-- Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, continues experimental programs aimed at human adaptation to future long- term expeditions. Dedicated medical experiments study the effects of flight conditions on the cardiovascular system, respiratory system and bones. Other research includes planting wheat and vegetables them performing genetic, microbiological and biochemical tests on the plants.

NASA Spacecraft Reveals Dramatic Changes In Mars' Atmosphere

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has discovered the total amount of atmosphere on Mars changes dramatically as the tilt of the planet's axis varies. This process can affect the stability of liquid water if it exists on the Martian surface and increase the frequency and severity of Martian dust storms. Researchers using MRO's ground-penetrating radar identified a large, buried deposit of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, at the Red Planet's south pole. The scientists suspect that much of this carbon dioxide enters the planet's atmosphere and swells the atmosphere's mass when Mars' tilt increases. The findings are published in a report in the journal Science.

The newly found deposit has a volume similar to Lake Superior's nearly 3,000 cubic miles. The deposit holds up to 80 percent as much carbon dioxide as today's Martian atmosphere. Collapse pits caused by dry ice sublimation and other clues suggest the deposit is in a dissipating phase, adding gas to the atmosphere each year. Mars' atmosphere is about 95 percent carbon dioxide, in contrast to Earth's much thicker atmosphere, which is less than .04 percent carbon dioxide. "We already knew there is a small perennial cap of carbon-dioxide ice on top of the water ice there, but this buried deposit has about 30 times more dry ice than previously estimated," said Roger Phillips of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Phillips is deputy team leader for MRO's Shallow Radar instrument and lead author of the report.

"We identified the deposit as dry ice by determining the radar signature fit the radio-wave transmission characteristics of frozen carbon dioxide far better than the characteristics of frozen water," said Roberto Seu of Sapienza University of Rome, team leader for the Shallow Radar and a co-author of the new report. Additional evidence came from correlating the deposit to visible sublimation features typical of dry ice. "When you include this buried deposit, Martian carbon dioxide right now is roughly half frozen and half in the atmosphere, but at other times it can be nearly all frozen or nearly all in the atmosphere," Phillips said.

Cassini Probe Sees Electric Link With Saturn And One Of Its Moons

NASA is releasing the first images and sounds of an electrical connection between Saturn and one of its moons. The data collected by the agency's Cassini spacecraft enable scientists to improve their understanding of the complex web of interaction between the planet and its numerous moons. The results of the data analysis are published in the journals Nature and Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists previously theorized an electrical circuit should exist at Saturn. After analyzing data that Cassini collected in 2008, scientists saw a glowing patch of ultraviolet light emissions near Saturn's north pole that marked the presence of a circuit, even though the moon is 150,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) away from the planet.

The patch occurs at the end of a magnetic field line connecting Saturn and its moon Enceladus. The area, known as an auroral footprint, is the spot where energetic electrons dive into the planet's atmosphere, following magnetic field lines that arc between the planet's north and south polar regions. "The footprint discovery at Saturn is one of the most important fields and particle revelations from Cassini and ultimately may help us understand Saturn's strange magnetic field," said Marcia Burton, a Cassini fields and particles scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It gives us the first visual connection between Saturn and one of its moons."

The auroral footprint measures approximately 750 miles by less than 250 miles, covering an area comparable to California or Sweden. At its brightest, the footprint shone with an ultraviolet light intensity far less than Saturn's polar auroral rings, but comparable to the faintest aurora visible at Earth without a telescope in the visible light spectrum. Scientists have not found a matching footprint at the southern end of the magnetic field line. "Cassini fields and particles instruments found particle beams aligned with Saturn's magnetic field near Enceladus, and scientists started asking if we could see an expected ultraviolet spot at the end of the magnetic field line on Saturn," said Wayne Pryor, a lead author of the Nature study released today, and Cassini co-investigator at Central Arizona College in Coolidge, Ariz. "We were delighted to find the glow close to the 'bulls-eye' at the center of our target."

NASA Honors Pioneer Astronaut Alan Shepard With Moon Rock

NASA will posthumously honor Alan B. Shepard Jr., the first American astronaut in space who later walked on the moon, with an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his contributions to the U.S. space program. Shepard's family members will accept the award on his behalf during a ceremony at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 28, at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, located at 74 Greenbury Point Road in Annapolis, Md. His family will present the award to the museum for permanent display. NASA's Chief Historian Bill Barry will represent the agency at the event, which will include a video message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Shepard, a 1945 graduate of the Naval Academy, was one of NASA's original seven Mercury astronauts selected in April 1959. On May 5, 1961, he was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft on a suborbital flight that carried him to an altitude of 116 miles. Shepard made his second spaceflight as the commander of Apollo 14 from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9, 1971. He was accompanied on the third lunar landing by astronauts Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell. Maneuvering the lunar module "Antares" to a landing in the hilly upland Fra Mauro region of the moon, Shepard and Mitchell deployed and activated a number of scientific instruments and collected almost 100 pounds of lunar samples for return to Earth.

Reporters interested in covering the award ceremony must contact the Naval Academy's public affairs office at 410-293-2292 or mediarelations@usna.edu by noon, Wednesday, April 27, for access information. NASA is giving the Ambassador of Exploration Award to the first generation of explorers in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs for realizing America's goal of going to the moon. The award is a moon rock encased in Lucite, mounted for public display. The rock is part of the 842 pounds of lunar samples collected during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972. The astronauts or family members receiving the award present it to a museum of their choice, where the moon rock is placed on public display. 

NASA Awards Next Set Of Commercial Crew Development Agreements

NASA has awarded four Space Act Agreements in the second round of the agency's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev2) effort. Each company will receive between $22 million and $92.3 million to advance commercial crew space transportation system concepts and mature the design and development of elements of their systems, such as launch vehicles and spacecraft.

The selectees for CCDev2 awards are:
-- Blue Origin, Kent, Wash., $22 million
-- Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $80 million
-- Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $75 million
-- The Boeing Company, Houston, $92.3 million

"We're committed to safely transporting U.S. astronauts on American-made spacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreign governments," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "These agreements are significant milestones in NASA's plans to take advantage of American ingenuity to get to low-Earth orbit, so we can concentrate our resources on deep space exploration." The goal of CCDev2 is to accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities and reduce the gap in American human spaceflight capability. Through this activity, NASA also may be able to spur economic growth as potential new space markets are created.

Once developed, crew transportation capabilities could become available to commercial and government customers. "The next American-flagged vehicle to carry our astronauts into space is going to be a U.S. commercial provider," said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager. "The partnerships NASA is forming with industry will support the development of multiple American systems capable of providing future access to low-Earth orbit."