Latest NASA Stories
PASADENA, Calif., April 15, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An infrared sensor that could improve NASA's future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test. (Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The test assessed performance of the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of deep space. NEOCam is the cornerstone instrument for a proposed new space-based...
WASHINGTON, April 15, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT, Thursday, April 18, to announce new discoveries from the agency's Kepler mission. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The briefing will be held in the Syvertson Auditorium, Building N-201, at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and be broadcast live on NASA Television and on the agency's website. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of...
WASHINGTON, April 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has selected a new satellite mission and a new space-based instrument to begin development as part of the agency's Heliophysics Explorer Program. The projects will provide space observations to study Earth's ionosphere and thermosphere. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The Ionospheric Connection (ICON) mission, led by Thomas Immel of the University of California, Berkeley, will probe the extreme...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Thirty-two years ago today, the world got a little smaller as the best access man has ever had to space began when the first space shuttle launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. April 12, 1981 Space Shuttle Columbia launched on the STS-1 mission, kickstarting over 30 years of science exploration, as well as a few tragic moments. Astronaut John Young was the mission commander that day. He was a veteran of four...
WASHINGTON, April 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and over 150 partner organizations worldwide will be hosting the International Space Apps Challenge on April 20-21, 2013. The International Space Apps Challenge is a technology development event during which citizens from around the world work together to solve challenges relevant to improving life on Earth and in space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) NASA and its partners have released 50...
NASA is offering media representatives at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida an opportunity on Monday, April 15, to see Orion, the spacecraft that could take astronauts on a sample collection mission to an asteroid as early as 2021. The event, marking three years since President Obama set a goal of sending humans to an asteroid, will begin at noon EDT with a photo and interview availability with Robert Cabana, Kennedy's center director. Media should arrive at Kennedy's Press Site by...
NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., are requesting research and development proposals to define the type of spacecraft computing needed for future missions. Through a broad agency announcement, the Air Force Next Generation Space Processor Analysis Program is seeking two to four companies to perform a yearlong evaluation of advanced space based applications that would use spaceflight processors for the 2020-2030 time frame. "Computer processors and...
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., are requesting research and development proposals to define the type of spacecraft computing needed for future missions. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Through a broad agency announcement, the Air Force Next Generation Space Processor Analysis Program is seeking two to four companies to perform a yearlong evaluation of advanced...
The following statement is from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the administration's budget request for the 2014 fiscal year: "Today, we unveil President Obama's Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for NASA -- a $17.7 billion investment in our nation's future. Our budget ensures the United States will remain the world's leader in space exploration and scientific discovery for years to come, while making critical advances in aerospace and aeronautics to benefit the American people....
NASA's official Twitter feed, @NASA, has won its second consecutive Shorty award for the best government use of social media. The Shorty Award honors the best of social media across sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and others. NASA took the prize Monday at the fifth annual Shorty Awards ceremony in New York. The @NASA acceptance tweet was, "We're sharing the universe 1 tweet at a time. Be inspired! Follow @NASA & RT if you love science & space....
Latest NASA Reference Libraries
Bernard Harris is a former NASA astronaut who set NUMBER records being an African-American in space. He was born Bernard Anthony Harris, Jr. on June 26, 1956 in Temple, Texas. In school he was actively involved in science fairs, book clubs and other activities, and in 1969 he decided he wanted to be an astronaut after watching the Apollo 11 mission on television. He graduated from Sam Houston High School in San Antonio, Texas in 1974, and went on to attend the University of Houston, where he...
Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 28, 1991 at 7:33 AM EDT and landed at Kennedy on May 6, 1991 at 2:55 PM EDT. The shuttle orbited 134 times at an altitude of 190 nautical miles at an inclination of 57 degrees and travelled 3.5 million miles. The mission lasted 8 days, 7 hours, 22 minutes, and 23 seconds. This was a Department of Defense mission whose activities are not classified. An unclassified payload included Air Force Program-675 (AFP675); Infrared Background...
Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on January 9, 1990 at 1:35 AM EST and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on January 20 at 1:35 AM PST. The shuttle orbited 172 times at an altitude of 178 nautical miles at an inclination of 28.5 degrees and travelled 4.5 million miles. The mission lasted 10 days, 21 hours, 0 minutes, and 36 seconds. At nearly eleven days this was by far the longest shuttle mission to date. The launch scheduled for December 18, 1989 was postponed to complete and...
Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center on July 29, 1985 at 5:00 PM EDT and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on August 6 at 12:45 PM PDT. The shuttle orbited 127 times at an altitude of 173 nautical miles at an inclination of 49.5 degrees and travelled 3.3 million miles. The Spacelab-2 payload consisted of an igloo and three pallets in the payload bay, containing scientific instruments dedicated to life sciences, plasma physics, astronomy, high-energy astrophysics, solar physics,...
Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on January 24, 1985 at 2:50 PM EST and landed at Kennedy on January 27 at 4:23 PM EST. The shuttle orbited 49 times at an altitude of 220 nautical miles and an inclination of 28.5 degrees and travelled 1.3 million miles. The mission lasted 3 days, 1 hour, 33 minutes, and 23 seconds. The launch scheduled for January 23 was scrubbed due to freezing weather conditions. (Orbiter Challenger was scheduled for Mission 51-C but thermal tile problems...
![Jupiter\](/media/gallery/universe/thumbs/thumbs_iod-universe-042613.jpg "Jupiter\")
![Curiosity NavCam MAHLI \](/media/gallery/mars-science-laboratory/thumbs/thumbs_pia16847_right-br_0.jpg "Curiosity NavCam MAHLI \")
