Hola amigos : A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido de la Agencia Espacial NASA, la información de los pasos gigantes que está dando la Agencia, preparándose para el próximo viaje a Marte, como primer objetivo en la conquista del espacio.
NASA, nos dice ..."En 2014, la NASA dio pasos significativos en el viaje de la agencia a Marte - Pruebas tecnologías de vanguardia y hacer descubrimientos científicos, mientras que el estudio de nuestra cambiante de la Tierra y el universo infinito como la agencia avanzó en la próxima generación de los viajes aéreos....."
NASA, nos dice ....""Continuamos a hacer grandes progresos en nuestro viaje a Marte este año, la adjudicación de contratos a las empresas estadounidenses que volverán los vuelos espaciales tripulados lanza al suelo estadounidense, impulsar el desarrollo de la tecnología espacial; y completar con éxito el primer vuelo de Orión, la próxima nave espacial espacio profundo en el que nuestros astronautas viajarán ", dijo el administrador de la NASA Charles Bolden. "Avanzamos en nuestro trabajo para crear más silenciosos aviones, más ecológicos y desarrollar tecnologías para hacer los viajes aéreos más eficiente; y avanzamos nuestro estudio de nuestro planeta cambiante, la Tierra, al tiempo que aumenta nuestra comprensión de los demás en nuestro sistema solar y más allá ......".....
NASA 2014 highlights video.
Image Credit:
NASA
In
2014, NASA took significant steps on the agency’s journey to Mars -- testing
cutting-edge technologies and making scientific discoveries while studying our
changing Earth and the infinite universe as the agency made progress on the next
generation of air travel.
“We continued to make great progress on our journey to Mars this year,
awarding contracts to American companies who will return human space flight
launches to U.S. soil, advancing space technology development; and successfully
completing the first flight of Orion, the next deep space spacecraft in which
our astronauts will travel,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “We moved
forward on our work to create quieter, greener airplanes and develop
technologies to make air travel more efficient; and we advanced our study of our
changing home planet, Earth, while increasing our understanding of others in our
solar system and beyond.”
Journey to Mars
NASA achieved a major milestone in December on its journey to Mars as
the agency’s Orion spacecraft completed its first voyage to space during a
four-and-a-half-hour flight
test.
Orion is part of NASA’s plan to develop new technologies and capabilities to
send astronauts farther than ever before, first to an asteroid, and onward to
the Red Planet.
Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)-related education soared to
new heights with a student-built radiation experiment aboard Orion. NASA’s
Office of Education, partnered with the Lockheed Martin Corp., used the Exploration
Design Challenge to engage students in STEM by inviting them to help tackle
one of the most significant dangers of human space flight -- radiation
exposure.
NASA’s parallel path for human spaceflight also took a giant leap forward in
September when the agency announced
U.S. astronauts once again would travel to and from the International Space
Station (ISS) from the United States on American spacecraft under groundbreaking
contracts worked by NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The agency selected Boeing
and SpaceX to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station using their
CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively, with a goal of ending the
nation’s sole reliance on Russia in 2017. NASA’s parallel path for human
spaceflight involves U.S. commercial companies providing access to low-Earth
orbit while NASA prepares deep space exploration missions with Orion and the
Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Artist concept of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS)
70-metric-ton configuration launching to space.
Image Credit:
NASA/MSFC
The SLS rocket, the most powerful ever built, moved from the concept phase to
the development
phase in 2014. Also this year, all major
tools were installed at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans
where the rocket will be constructed.
For 40 years, increasingly advanced robotic explorers have studied the
conditions on Mars. This has dramatically increased our scientific knowledge
about the planet, as well as helped pave the way for astronauts on the journey
to Mars. In July, NASA announced its Mars
Rover 2020, which is based on the successful Curiosity rover. Mars 2020 will
carry instruments to conduct unprecedented science and exploration technology
investigations on the Red Planet, including help with data for a human mission
to Mars.
NASA’s newest member of its fleet of robotic Red Planet explorers, the Mars
Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN),
spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit Sept. 21, where it is beginning its
study of the planet’s upper atmosphere as never done before. That extensive
fleet of science assets, particularly those orbiting and roving Mars, had front
row seats to image and study a once-in-a-lifetime comet flyby of Mars in
October.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution
(MAVEN) spacecraft artist concept.
Image Credit:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center
The agency’s Curiosity rover continued this year to help refine our
understanding of Mars. In December, NASA announced Curiosity has measured a
tenfold spike in methane,
an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic
molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory’s drill.
Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not
reveal whether Mars has ever harbored living microbes, but the findings do shed
light on a chemically active modern Mars and on favorable conditions for life on
ancient Mars. Observations by Curiosity also indicate Mount Sharp near the
rover’s landing site was built by sediments deposited in a large lake
bed over tens of millions of years.
Curiosity component images combined into a
self-portrait at drilling target "Windjana."
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA continues to advance the journey to Mars through progress on the Asteroid Redirect
Mission (ARM), which will test a number of new capabilities needed for
future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. This includes
advanced Solar Electric Propulsion -- an efficient way to move heavy cargo using
solar power, which could help pre-position cargo for future human missions to
the Red Planet. As part of ARM, a robotic spacecraft will rendezvous with a
near-Earth asteroid and redirect an asteroid mass to a stable orbit around the
moon. Astronauts will explore the asteroid mass in the 2020’s, helping test
modern spaceflight capabilities like new spacesuits and sample return
techniques. Astronauts at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have already
begun to practice the capabilities needed for the mission.
Agency officials are studying two robotic capture concepts for the robotic
spacecraft that will rendezvous with the asteroid. One option would use an
inflatable mechanism to capture an entire small asteroid.
Another option would use robotic arms to retrieve a boulder from a much larger
asteroid. NASA centers across the country are advancing and testing technologies
for both concepts. Mission managers reviewed the two capture concepts in a
December meeting and NASA expects to select a concept for the mission in early
2015.
The agency has identified three asteroids that could be good candidates for
each capture option so far and anticipates finding one or two per year for each
option. Efforts to identify good candidates for the mission are also helping
augment NASA's existing work to survey near-Earth objects and identify those
that could threaten Earth. In addition to the spaceflight capabilities ARM will
advance, the mission will also represent a new opportunity for planetary defense
demonstrations, to help mitigate asteroid risks in the future.
NASA has identified almost 12,000 Near Earth Objects to-date, including 96
percent of near Earth asteroids larger than .6 miles (1 kilometer) in size. NASA
has not detected any objects of this size that pose an impact hazard to Earth in
the next 100 years.
Teams at NASA centers spent 2014 testing various
technologies, including solar electric propulsion, new spacesuits designs
and sample collection tools, that will be used by astronauts on the journey to
Mars and demonstrated on ARM.
NASA’s
Asteroid Grand Challenge is an effort to reach beyond traditional boundaries
and encourage partnerships and collaboration with a variety of organizations to
find all asteroid threats to human population and know what to do about them.
The challenge had success in 2014 engaging the public through a variety of new
partnerships, such as ECAST,
SpaceGAMBIT
and the Asteroid
Data Hunter contest.
International Space Station
NASA’s journey to Mars includes time aboard the International Space Station
(ISS). The agency is using the space station to conduct cutting-edge research
and technology development and to increase our knowledge about what it takes to
live and work for long periods of time in space. 2014 marked 14 years of
continuous human presence on the orbiting laboratory. Recognizing the long-term
benefits of the space station, the Obama Administration in January announced it
intends to extend
operations on the ISS until at least 2024.
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman checks his spacesuit in
preparation for the first Expedition 41 spacewalk.
Image Credit:
NASA/ESA/Alexander Gerst
A total of 12 crew members lived and worked aboard the ISS in 2014. Two of
those crew members, NASA’s Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore, carried out in
October the first
spacewalks to begin reconfiguring the ISS to accommodate future U.S.
commercial crewed spacecraft. During his six months aboard the ISS, Wiseman
gained a large following on social media, which he
used to bring the wonders of human spaceflight directly to the public 140
characters at a time.
ISS crews have seen eight different cargo spacecraft bring more than 50,000
pounds of supplies and science research to the station in 2014. Two of those
flights were by SpaceX under contract with NASA. Orbital Sciences Corp., also
under contract with NASA, had two supply missions to the space station this
year, but in October, its third
flight suffered a catastrophic failure during launch. Despite the incident,
NASA remains confident U.S. companies will continue to lead the way to resupply
the space station and soon send NASA astronauts there.
International Space Station's 3D printer during
flight certification and acceptance testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center.
Image Credit:
NASA/Emmett Give
Science research aboard the space station reached new heights in 2014. Crew
members conducted hundreds of scientific investigations focused on human health
and exploration, technology testing for enabling future exploration, research in
basic life and physical sciences, and earth and space science. One such
experiment, Veggie,
is leading the way to allow crews to grow, harvest and eat some of their own
food. The station’s EXPRESS
Rack 1 -- a multipurpose rack system that has housed and supported research
aboard station since 2001 -- exceeded 100,000 hours of operation in October. The
week of July 20th, the space station program set a record on how many crew hours
used for science in a week – just five minutes shy of 84 hours.
The space station also shined this year as a technology test-bed. This
included continuing work with the bowling ball-sized satellites that operate
inside the ISS known as SPHERES, Robonaut
2 getting its experimental legs attached in August and the first 3-D
printing ever in space in November.
Technology
Technology drives exploration, and it is a significant part of NASA’s
endeavors, including the journey to Mars. In June, the agency used a
rocket-powered, saucer-shaped vehicle called the Low Density
Supersonic Decelerator to test technologies needed for landing large
payloads on the surface of Mars.
Hours after the June 28, 2014, test of NASA's
Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator over the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile
Range.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The agency continued its successful small spacecraft technology
demonstrations in 2014 with the in-space test of Phonesat
2.5. The small smartphone-controlled spacecraft hitched a ride into orbit on
SpaceX’s cargo launch to the International Space Station in April.
Progress was made this year for the 2016 launch of NASA’s Green Propellant
Infusion Mission. The small satellite is designed to test a
high-performance, non-toxic, “green” fuel in orbit as a potential replacement
for highly toxic hydrazine and complex bi-propellant systems currently in use.
This past summer, NASA completed a complex series of tests on one of the largest
composite
cryogenic fuel tanks ever manufactured, bringing the aerospace industry much
closer to designing, building, and flying lightweight, composite tanks on
rockets.
18-foot-diameter (5.5-meter) composite cryotank is
lowered into a structural test stand at Marshall Space Flight
Center.
Image Credit:
NASA/MSFC
When NASA develops software for its aeronautics and space missions, the
agency knows the code may have uses beyond the original mission. In April, NASA
published a new online software
catalog with more than 1,000 codes available to the public.
The agency also created a one-stop
online shop for all the current opportunities available to the public to
contribute to solving tough problems related to NASA’s mission through
challenges, prize competitions, and crowdsourcing activities. One such
opportunity, the Cube
Quest Challenge, was announced in November and is NASA’s first in-space
competition that offers the agency’s largest-ever prize purse. Competitors have
a chance at a share of $5 million in prize money and an opportunity to
participate in space exploration and technology development, to include a chance
at flying their very own small satellite, known as a CubeSat, to the moon and
beyond as secondary payload on the first integrated flight of NASA's Orion
spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.
Earth
Our planet is changing, and NASA is on it. Administrator Bolden declared 2014 the year of Earth because for
the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth Science missions were
scheduled to be launched into space within a one year period. Together with
NASA's existing fleet of satellites, airborne missions, and researchers, these
new missions will help answer some of the critical challenges facing our planet
today and in the future: climate change, sea level rise, freshwater resources,
and extreme weather events.
An extra-tropical cyclone seen off the coast of
Japan, March 10, 2014, by the GPM Microwave Imager.
Image Credit:
NASA/JAXA
Launched on Feb. 27, Global
Precipitation Measurement mission is setting a new standard for
precipitation measurements from space. The Orbiting Carbon
Observatory-2 satellite launched July 2 is NASA’s first spacecraft dedicated
to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide. NASA’s International Space Station-Rapid
Scatterometer (ISS-RapidScat) was launched to the space station Sept. 21 on
a SpaceX resupply flight. ISS-RapidScat monitors ocean winds and is the first
NASA instrument to use the ISS for full-fledged Earth science research. The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS)
instrument also is heading to the space station. It is set to launch on a SpaceX
cargo flight targeted for Jan. 6, 2015. Once installed on the outside of the
station, CATS will study the distribution of aerosols -- the tiny particles that
make up haze, dust, air pollutants, and smoke – in Earth’s atmosphere. The last
of these five new Earth science missions is the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), which
is targeted to launch Jan. 29, 2015. SMAP will map Earth's soil moisture and
provide precise indications of the soil's freeze-thaw state to improve
understanding of the cycling of water, energy, and carbon. It also will air aid
in predictions of agricultural productivity, weather and climate.
NASA research in 2014 showed new changes our planet is undergoing. A new
study published in May by researchers at NASA and the University of California,
Irvine, found a rapidly melting section of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with
nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea. Another
study announced in July by NASA and the University of California, Irvine, found
more than 75 percent of the water loss in the drought-stricken Colorado River
Basin since late 2004 came from underground resources. The extent of groundwater
loss may pose a greater threat to the water supply of the western United
States than previously thought. NASA research published in August shows Earth's
atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting
compound from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned
worldwide.
Glaciers and mountains in the evening sun are seen
on an Operation IceBridge research flight, returning from West Antarctica on
Image Credit:
NASA/Michael Studinger
Aeronautics
In 2014, NASA showed it is with you when you fly, and continued to make
progress in developing the next generation of air transportation systems
(NextGen).
In May, NASA -- along with international partners the German Aerospace Center
and National Research Council of Canada -- took to the skies over California to
begin a series of flight tests to gather critical data that may aid in the
development of cleaner
aircraft fuels.
Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise
Emissions (ACCESS II) flight test in a DC-8 aircraft.
Image Credit:
NASA /SSAI Edward Winstead
A new NASA-developed computer software tool designed to aid air traffic
controllers was presented to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in July.
The Terminal
Sequencing and Spacing technology will enable air traffic controllers to
better manage the spacing between aircraft as they fly more efficient approaches
into airports, saving both time and fuel and reducing emissions
NASA also put futuristic new aircraft designs to the test in 2014. The Adaptive
Compliant Trailing Edge project had a successful flight this summer testing
a wing surface that can change shape in the air. The testing could lead to
technology to make airliners more fuel-efficient, and quieter during takeoffs
and landings. In December, a test center section of a futuristic airplane
design, called a hybrid wing body, was delivered to NASA’s Langley Research
Center in Hampton, Virginia. Much of the test article is made out of a
low-weight, damage-tolerant, stitched composite structural concept called Pultruded
Rod Stitched Efficient Unitized Structure (PRSEUS). An effective hybrid wing
body could simultaneous reduce fuel consumption, noise levels and the emissions
produced by tomorrow's transport planes.
Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) flight of
NASA's green aviation project.
Image Credit:
NASA/Ken Ulbrich
NASA’s aeronautics research also is being tested as a new tool for early
wildfire detection.
In October, the agency announced Langley had signed a one-year agreement with
the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to test small unmanned
aerial systems (UASs) for the detection of brush and forest fires.
In May, a dedication ceremony was held to mark the renaming of NASA’s Armstrong
Flight Research Center, formerly the Dryden Flight Research Center, in
Edwards, California. Legislation to redesignate the 68-year-old facility, NASA's
center of excellence for atmospheric flight research, in honor of the late Neil
A. Armstrong was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in early 2013 and
by the Senate on Jan. 8, 2014. President Obama signed it into law on Jan. 16.
The name change became official March 1.
Solar System and Beyond
Looking out into space on our journey of discovery, a number of new findings
were announced in 2014.
In November, NASA announced a rocket experiment found that the universe
is brighter than scientists originally thought. NASA's Kepler mission
announced in February the discovery of 715
new planets outside our solar system. These newly-verified worlds, known as
exoplanets, orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own
solar system. Two months later, astronomers using Kepler announced they had
discovered the first
Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of
distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting
planet.
The artist's concept depicts Kepler-186f , the
first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable
zone.
Image Credit:
NASA Ames/SETI
Institute/JPL-Caltech
One of the biggest mysteries in astronomy, how stars blow up in supernova
explosions, finally started to be unraveled in February with the help of
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). The high-energy X-ray
observatory has created the first map of radioactive material in a supernova
remnant. The results, from a remnant named Cassiopeia A (Cas A), reveal how
shock waves likely rip massive dying stars apart.
NASA’s Van
Allen Probes mission, which is studying the mysteries of Earth’s radiation
belts, celebrated its two-year anniversary on Aug. 30. The twin probes, shortly
after launch in 2012, discovered a third radiation belt around Earth when only
two had previously been detected.
In October, NASA announced its Interface
Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft provided scientists with five
new findings into how the sun’s atmosphere, or corona, is heated far hotter than
its surface, what causes the sun’s constant outflow of particles called the
solar wind, and what mechanisms accelerate particles that power solar
flares.
Scientists using NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) announced in
February that data from the spacecraft has shown a magnetic
field that is nearly perpendicular to the motion of our solar system through
the galaxy. In addition to shedding light on our cosmic neighborhood, the
results offer an explanation for a decades-old mystery on why we measure more
incoming high-energy cosmic rays on one side of the sun than on the other.
On Dec. 6, after a voyage of nearly nine years and three billion miles -- the
farthest any space mission has ever traveled to reach its primary target -- NASA’s
New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation for its long-awaited 2015
encounter with the Pluto system.
The construction and testing of NASA’s James Webb Space
Telescope was fully underway in 2014. In October, the Integrated Science
Instrument Module, or the “heart” that holds the telescope’s instruments,
successfully completed a nearly four-month test in a cryogenic thermal vacuum
chamber. The test simulated the icy, -387 degrees Fahrenheit conditions the
telescope will operate under in space. Webb is considered to be the scientific
successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and is on track for a 2018
launch.
The Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) of
the James Webb Space Telescope emerges from the thermal vacuum chamber at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center.
Image Credit:
NASA/Chris Gunn
STEM Education Collaboration
NASA’s Office of Education continued to leverage opportunities in 2014 with
other federal agencies, industry partners and academia to provide unique and
compelling agency content as a catalyst for increasing STEM literacy throughout
the United States. This year, NASA and Honeywell celebrated a decade of
successful STEM collaboration with a west coast city tour of the award-winning
science education program FMA
LIVE! Forces in Motion. The tour marked an important milestone in the
10-year collaboration: reaching 1,000 schools and more than 400,000 students and
teachers.
Social Media
NASA‘s award winning presence on social media remained strong in 2014.
The agency’s Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram accounts are the most
followed in the federal government on those platforms. This year, NASA also
launched an official presence on LinkedIn, Vine and SoundCloud. Further, the
agency ranked high in the J.D. Power 2014 Social Media Benchmark Study for
Government in two measured focus areas -- servicing and marketing engagement.
The agency hosted 22 NASA Socials, bringing hundreds of people who engage with
NASA via social media together for unique in-person experiences of exploration
and discovery. Since 2009, NASA has hosted more than 100 NASA Socials at more
than a dozen locations.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden poses for a quick
selfie with students who attended the NASA-sponsored Earth Day
event.
Image Credit:
NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
2015 promises to be an exciting year for NASA as it carries out the nation’s
ambitious space program. The work NASA does will help United States maintain its
world leadership in exploration and scientific discovery. The agency will
continue investing in our ‘Launch America’ initiative to return human
spaceflight launches to the U.S.; foster groundbreaking technology development
and aeronautics; and move forward with the Space Launch System and Orion on our
journey to Mars.
For more about NASA’s missions, research and discoveries, visit:
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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