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NASA: NASA Seeks Industry Ideas for an Advanced Mars Satellite .- NASA busca ideas de la industria para un Satélite Avanzado de Marte

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., La NASA está solicitando ideas de los sectores industriales tecnológicos de los EE.UU. para diseños de un orbitador de Marte para el lanzamiento potencial en la década de 2020. El satélite proporcionará las comunicaciones avanzadas y de imagen, así como la exploración de la ciencia robótica, en apoyo de viaje de la NASA a Marte.

More information........

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-targets-may-2018-launch-of-mars-insight-misión

NASA is soliciting ideas from U.S. industry for designs of a Mars orbiter for potential launch in the 2020s. The satellite would provide advanced communications and imaging, as well as robotic science exploration, in support of NASA’s Journey to Mars.

The orbiter would substantially increase bandwidth communications and maintain high-resolution imaging capability. It also may use experimental cutting-edge technologies, such as high-power solar electric propulsion or an optical communications package, which could greatly improve transmission speed and capacity over radio frequency systems.

Under the direction of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is conducting pre-formulation planning for this possible orbiter mission. Pre-formulation plans include the procurement of industry studies for a solar-powered orbiting spacecraft. This effort seeks to take advantage of industry capabilities to improve deep space, solar electric propulsion-enabled orbiters to accommodate scientific instruments, demonstrate capability for rendezvous and capture, and advance telecommunications capabilities.

“Our success in exploring Mars, to unravel the mysteries of the Red Planet, depends on having high bandwidth communication with Earth and overhead imaging,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Currently, we depend on our orbiting science missions to perform dual service in making measurements and acting as communication relays, but we can’t depend on them to last forever. This new orbiter will use cutting-edge technology to revitalize our ability to continue to explore Mars and support transformative science, including a potential sample return mission in the future.”

JPL plans to award concept study subcontracts of $400,000 per subcontract in June. The concept studies for the spacecraft will be completed over a four-month period.

In response to an earlier request from NASA, the Mars Exploration Program formed an analysis group that proposed, in a 2015 report, possible science objectives for a Mars orbiter capable of replenishing and advancing the telecommunications and reconnaissance resources available at Mars.

NASA is studying how to implement this mission concept in concert with its international partners to the greatest extent possible. Historically, there have been significant international contributions to NASA Mars missions that include the Curiosity rover, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission orbiter, both currently orbiting the Red Planet. The agency will seek such partnerships for this potential future orbiter mission, as well.

NASA is on an ambitious journey to Mars that includes sending humans to the Red Planet, and that work remains on track. Robotic spacecraft are leading the way for the Mars Exploration Program, with current missions, in addition to the planned launch of the Insight lander in 2018, and the design and build of the Mars 2020 rover.

To view the Mars orbiter solicitation/Federal Business Opportunities announcement, visit:

http://1.usa.gov/22RtMEC

-end-

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Last Updated: April 21, 2016

Editor: Sarah Ramsey

Tags: Journey to Mars,

NASA Targets May 2018 Launch of Mars InSight Mission

NASA has set a new launch opportunity, beginning May 5, 2018, for the InSight mission to Mars. This artist's concept depicts the InSight lander on Mars after the lander's robotic arm has deployed a seismometer and a heat probe directly onto the ground. InSight is the first mission dedicated to investigating the deep interior of Mars. The findings will advance understanding of how all rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to study the deep interior of Mars is targeting a new launch window that begins May 5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018.

InSight’s primary goal is to help us understand how rocky planets – including Earth – formed and evolved. The spacecraft had been on track to launch this month until a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument prompted NASA in December to suspend preparations for launch.

InSight project managers recently briefed officials at NASA and France's space agency, Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), on a path forward; the proposed plan to redesign the science instrument was accepted in support of a 2018 launch.

“The science goals of InSight are compelling, and the NASA and CNES plans to overcome the technical challenges are sound," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The quest to understand the interior of Mars has been a longstanding goal of planetary scientists for decades. We’re excited to be back on the path for a launch, now in 2018.”

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, will redesign, build and conduct qualifications of the new vacuum enclosure for the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), the component that failed in December. CNES will lead instrument level integration and test activities, allowing the InSight Project to take advantage of each organization’s proven strengths. The two agencies have worked closely together to establish a project schedule that accommodates these plans, and scheduled interim reviews over the next six months to assess technical progress and continued feasibility.

The cost of the two-year delay is being assessed. An estimate is expected in August, once arrangements with the launch vehicle provider have been made.

The seismometer instrument's main sensors need to operate within a vacuum chamber to provide the exquisite sensitivity needed for measuring ground movements as small as half the radius of a hydrogen atom. The rework of the seismometer's vacuum container will result in a finished, thoroughly tested instrument in 2017 that will maintain a high degree of vacuum around the sensors through rigors of launch, landing, deployment and a two-year prime mission on the surface of Mars.

The InSight mission draws upon a strong international partnership led by Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt of JPL. The lander's Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package is provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). This probe will hammer itself to a depth of about 16 feet (five meters) into the ground beside the lander.

SEIS was built with the participation of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, with support from the Swiss Space Office and the European Space Agency PRODEX program; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, supported by DLR; Imperial College, supported by the United Kingdom Space Agency; and JPL.

"The shared and renewed commitment to this mission continues our collaboration to find clues in the heart of Mars about the early evolution of our solar system," said Marc Pircher, director of CNES's Toulouse Space Centre.

The mission’s international science team includes researchers from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The InSight spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. It was delivered to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in December 2015 in preparation for launch, and returned to Lockheed Martin's Colorado facility last month for storage until spacecraft preparations resume in 2017.

NASA is on an ambitious journey to Mars that includes sending humans to the Red Planet, and that work remains on track. Robotic spacecraft are leading the way for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, with the upcoming Mars 2020 rover being designed and built, the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers exploring the Martian surface, the Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft currently orbiting the planet, along with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) orbiter, which is helping scientists understand what happened to the Martian atmosphere.

NASA and CNES also are participating in ESA’s (European Space Agency's) Mars Express mission currently operating at Mars. NASA is participating on ESA’s 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing telecommunication radios for ESA's 2016 orbiter and a critical element of a key astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.

For addition information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/insight

More information about NASA's journey to Mars is available online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/journeytomars

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Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.w.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Pascale Bresson / Nathalie Journo
Centre National d'Études Spatiales, Paris
+33-1-44-76-75-39 / +33-5-61-27-39-11
pascale.bresson@cnes.fr / nathalie.journo@cnes.fr

Manuela Braun
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
+49 2203 601 3882
manuela.braun@dlr.de

Last Updated: March 9, 2016

Editor: Sarah Ramsey

Tags: InSight Mars Lander, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Journey to Mars, Mars,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

viernes, 25 de marzo de 2016

NASA : NASA Highlights Array of Experiments Launching on Next SpaceX Cargo Mission .- Aspectos destacados de la NASA Arsenal de los experimentos de puesta a flote en la siguiente misión de carga de SpaceX

NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, March 28, to discuss cutting edge science investigations launching aboard the upcoming SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station. Experiments include the demonstration of an expandable space habitat, a student-designed DNA investigation, and other research that will inform NASA’s journey to Mars.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Tabatha Thompson at 202-358-1100 or tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov by 11 a.m. March 28 for dial-in information.

The briefing will include:

Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the International Space Station Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will provide an overview of the more than 250 valuable science investigations that will take place during Expeditions 47 and 48.
Rajib Dasgupta, NASA project and technical integration manager for the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) at Johnson, and Lisa Kauke, BEAM deputy program manager at Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, will discuss BEAM -- a technology demonstration to study the radiation protection, thermal performance and general operations of expandable habitats in space.

Kenneth Savin, Kristofer Gonzalez-DeWhitt, Michael Hickey and Rosamund Smith, of Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, will discuss life science investigations focusing on musculoskeletal changes in space, which could provide insight into muscle-wasting diseases on Earth, and protein crystallization in microgravity, which could enhance the development and potency of therapeutic drugs.

Kasthuri Venkateswaran, principal investigator for Microbial Observatory-1 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will discuss tracking and monitoring changes to microbial flora on the space station over time, which could help us understand how such microbes could affect crew health during future long duration missions.

Gioia Massa, principal investigator for Veg-03 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will explain how the Veggie plant growth facility will cultivate cabbage as part of the Pick-and-Eat Salad initiative to develop a sustainable food supplement for long-duration spaceflight.

Clay Wang, principal investigator for Micro-10 at the University of Southern California School Of Pharmacy in Los Angeles, will discuss this study of fungi in space for the purpose of potentially developing new medicine for use both in space and on Earth.

Anna-Sophia Boguraev, student researcher, and Scott Copeland, ISS Research, Systems & Specialty Engineering manager for The Boeing Company in Pasadena, Texas, will discuss Genes in Space-1, a student-designed experiment to test whether the polymerase chain reaction -- a fast and relatively inexpensive technique that can amplify or “photocopy” small segments of DNA -- could be used to study DNA alterations that astronauts experience during spaceflight.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule is targeted to launch at 4:43 p.m. Friday, April 8 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft will carry crew supplies, scientific research and hardware to the orbital laboratory to support the Expedition 47 and 48 crews.

This launch is the eighth contracted mission by SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract.

Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For launch countdown coverage, NASA's launch blog, and more information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spacex

-end-

Tabatha Thompson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov

Last Updated: March 24, 2016

Editor: Karen Northon

Tags: Commercial Resupply, International Space Station (ISS),

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-releases-plan-outlining-next-steps-in-the-journey-to-mars

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domingo, 11 de octubre de 2015

NASA : NASA Releases Plan Outlining Next Steps in the Journey to Mars .- Ediciones Plan de NASA Ediciones para esbozar próximos pasos en el viaje a Marte

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., "La NASA está más cerca de el envío de astronautas estadounidenses a Marte que en cualquier otro momento de nuestra historia", dijo el administrador de la NASA Charles Bolden. "Hoy, estamos publicando detalles adicionales acerca de nuestro viaje al plan de Marte y cómo nos estamos alineando todo nuestro trabajo en apoyo de este objetivo. En las próximas semanas, espero con interés continuar para discutir los detalles de nuestro plan con los miembros del Congreso, así como nuestro comercial y nuestros y socios internacionales ", muchos de los cuales estarán presentes en el Congreso Internacional de Astronáutica de la próxima semana.

More information....

Journey to Mars art showing capability development leading to human missions to Mars

An artist's depiction of the Earth Reliant, Proving Ground and Earth Independent thresholds, showing key capabilities that will be developed along the way.

NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, left, and Scott Kelly harvest the first red lettuce grown on the International Space Station.

The space station is the only microgravity platform for the long-term testing of new life support and crew health systems, advanced habitat modules, and other technologies needed to decrease reliance on Earth. NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, left, and Scott Kelly are pictured here, just before the halfway point of Kelly's one-year mission on station.

Credits: NASA

Table showing near and far-term decisions to be made for sustainable Space Exploration

This table shows high-level, near-, and far-term decisions that must be made to continue on the journey to Mars.

NASA is leading our nation and the world on a journey to Mars, and Thursday the agency released a detailed outline of that plan in its report, “NASA’s Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration.”

“NASA is closer to sending American astronauts to Mars than at any point in our history,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Today, we are publishing additional details about our journey to Mars plan and how we are aligning all of our work in support of this goal. In the coming weeks, I look forward to continuing to discuss the details of our plan with members of Congress, as well as our commercial and our international and partners, many of whom will be attending the International Astronautical Congress next week.”

The plan can be read online at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1VHDXxg

The journey to Mars crosses three thresholds, each with increasing challenges as humans move farther from Earth. NASA is managing these challenges by developing and demonstrating capabilities in incremental steps:

Earth Reliant exploration is focused on research aboard the International Space Station. From this world-class microgravity laboratory, we are testing technologies and advancing human health and performance research that will enable deep space, long duration missions.

In the Proving Ground, NASA will learn to conduct complex operations in a deep space environment that allows crews to return to Earth in a matter of days. Primarily operating in cislunar space—the volume of space around the moon featuring multiple possible stable staging orbits for future deep space missions—NASA will advance and validate capabilities required for humans to live and work at distances much farther away from our home planet, such as at Mars.

Earth Independent activities build on what we learn on the space station and in deep space to enable human missions to the Mars vicinity, possibly to low-Mars orbit or one of the Martian moons, and eventually the Martian surface. Future Mars missions will represent a collaborative effort between NASA and its partners—a global achievement that marks a transition in humanity’s expansion as we go to Mars to seek the potential for sustainable life beyond Earth.

“NASA’s strategy connects near-term activities and capability development to the journey to Mars and a future with a sustainable human presence in deep space,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters. “This strategy charts a course toward horizon goals, while delivering near-term benefits, and defining a resilient architecture that can accommodate budgetary changes, political priorities, new scientific discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and evolving partnerships.”

NASA is charting new territory, and we will adapt to new scientific discoveries and new opportunities. Our current efforts are focused on pieces of the architecture that we know are needed. In parallel, we continue to refine an evolving architecture for the capabilities that require further investigation. These efforts will define the next two decades on the journey to Mars.

CHALLENGES FOR SPACE PIONEERS

Living and working in space require accepting risks—and the journey to Mars is worth the risks. A new and powerful space transportation system is key to the journey, but NASA also will need to learn new ways of operating in space, based on self-reliance and increased system reliability. We will use proving ground missions to validate transportation and habitation capabilities as well as new operational approaches to stay productive in space while reducing reliance on Earth.

We identify the technological and operational challenges in three categories: transportation, sending humans and cargo through space efficiently, safely, and reliably; working in space, enabling productive operations for crew and robotic systems; and staying healthy, developing habitation systems that provide safe, healthy, and sustainable human exploration. Bridging these three categories are the overarching logistical challenges facing crewed missions lasting up to 1,100 days and exploration campaigns that span decades.

STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS TO ADDRESS PIONEERING CHALLENGES

NASA is investing in powerful capabilities and state-of-the-art technologies that benefit both NASA and our industry partners while minimizing overall costs through innovative partnerships. Through our evolvable transportation infrastructure, ongoing spaceflight architecture studies, and rapid prototyping activities, we are developing resilient architecture concepts that focus on critical capabilities across a range of potential missions. We are investing in technologies that provide large returns, and maximizing flexibility and adaptability through commonality, modularity, and reusability.

On the space station, we are advancing human health and behavioral research for Mars-class missions. We are pushing the state-of-the-art life support systems, printing 3-D parts, and analyzing material handling techniques for in-situ resource utilization. The upcoming eighth SpaceX commercial resupply services mission will launch the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, a capability demonstration for inflatable space habitats.

With the Space Launch System, Orion crewed spacecraft, and revitalized space launch complex, we are developing core transportation capabilities for the journey to Mars and ensuring continued access for our commercial crew and cargo partners to maintain operations and stimulate new economic activity in low-Earth orbit. This secured U.S. commercial access to low-Earth orbit allows NASA to continue leveraging the station as a microgravity test bed while preparing for missions in the proving ground of deep space and beyond.

Through the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), we will demonstrate an advanced solar electric propulsion capability that will be a critical component of our journey to Mars. ARM will also provide an unprecedented opportunity for us to validate new spacewalk and sample handling techniques as astronauts investigate several tons of an asteroid boulder – potentially opening new scientific discoveries about the formation of our solar system and beginning of life on Earth

We are managing and directing the ground-based facilities and services provided by the Deep Space Network (DSN), Near Earth Network (NEN), and Space Network (SN) – critical communications capabilities that we continue to advance for human and robotic communication throughout the solar system.

Through our robotic emissaries, we have already been on and around Mars for 40 years, taking nearly every opportunity to send orbiters, landers, and rovers with increasingly complex experiments and sensing systems. These orbiters and rovers have returned vital data about the Martian environment, helping us understand what challenges we may face and resources we may encounter. The revolutionary Curiosity sky crane placed nearly one metric ton – about the size of a small car – safely on the surface of Mars, but we need to be able to land at least 10 times that weight with humans – and then be able to get them off the surface.

These challenges are solvable, and NASA and its partners are working on the solutions every day so we can answer some of humanity’s fundamental questions about life beyond Earth: Was Mars home to microbial life? Is it today? Could it be a safe home for humans one day? What can it teach us about life elsewhere in the cosmos or how life began on Earth? What can it teach us about Earth’s past, present and future?

The journey to Mars is an historic pioneering endeavor—a journey made possible by a sustained effort of science and exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit with successively more capable technologies and partnerships.

To learn more about NASA’s journey to Mars, including the agency’s latest scientific exploration of the Red Planet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars/index.html

-end-

Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov

Last Updated: Oct. 9, 2015

Editor: Erin Mahoney

Tags: Asteroid Redirect Mission, Journey to Mars, Technology,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

viernes, 3 de abril de 2015

NASA : NASA Announces Teams for 2015 Human Exploration Rover Challenge.- NASA anuncia Equipos de desafío de robot para 2015 en la Exploración Humana ..........

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, sobre la participación de estudiantes universitarios de los EE.UU. y de otros países en los programas de investigación que realiza la NASA que pretende practicar directamente como: Pedaleando por un paisaje extraterrestre simulada de roca, cráteres y arena movediza es uno de los cerca de 90 equipos de estudiantes de secundaria, universitarios y universitarios de todo Estados Unidos y alrededor del mundo que compitieron en la NASA Exploración Humana Rover Desafío 11 a 12 abril de 2014, en el Espacio de EE.UU. y Rocket Center en Huntsville, Alabama. Este desafío de diseño de ingeniería estudiante aborda problemas de ingeniería similares a los que se enfrentan los ingenieros de la NASA que se preparan para una gran variedad de misiones de exploración del sistema solar en las décadas por venir.

NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge 2014

Pedaling across a simulated alien landscape of rock, craters and shifting sand is one of the nearly 90 teams of high school, college and university students from across the United States and around the world who competed in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge April 11-12, 2014, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This student engineering design challenge addresses engineering problems similar to those faced by NASA engineers preparing for a variety of solar system exploration missions in the decades to come.

Image Credit:

NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given

Nearly 100 high school and college teams from around the world will race against each other during NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge April 17-18 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Participating teams are from 15 states and Puerto Rico, as well as international teams from Mexico, Germany, India and Russia.

Hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, the rover challenge requires participating students to design, construct and race human-powered rovers through an obstacle course simulating the terrain potentially found on distant planets, asteroids or moons. Teams race to finish the course with the fastest times, vying for prizes in competitive divisions. The event concludes with an awards ceremony where corporate sponsors will present awards for best design, rookie team and other accomplishments.

"Rover challenge puts students in the driver’s seat of real-world engineering," said Tammy Rowan, manager of Marshall’s Academic Affairs Office. "Students perform research with computer-aided designs, select and fabricate components using mechanical tools and test their innovative technologies in a wide variety of environments."

The nearly three-quarter mile obstacle course will have teams racing and maneuvering in, through and around full-size exhibits of rockets, space vehicles and extra-terrestrial terrain currently on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center – the official visitor center for Marshall.

The course will continue to feature the lunar-themed obstacles, but with a twist – the addition of Martian-themed obstacles highlighting NASA’s journey to Mars and other deep space exploration destinations. The course includes 17 unique obstacles built from wood, aluminum, rubber tires and tons of gravel and sand. The materials are carefully shaped to resemble craters, basins, boulders, ancient lava flows, crevasses and other obstacles. The course features simulated fields of asteroid debris – boulders from 5 to 15 inches across, an ancient stream bed filled with pebbles about six inches deep and erosion ruts and crevasses in varying widths and depths.

Teams will arrive in Huntsville on April 16 for on-site registration, with the race taking place 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CDT April 17-18. Nonstop media coverage will be provided on Marshall’s UStream webpage, Twitter account and NASA Television. The awards ceremony will take place April 18 at 5 p.m. in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville. The ceremony also will be broadcast on UStream.

Marshall’s Academic Affairs Office manages the rover challenge, which is inspired by the lunar rovers of the Apollo moon missions built by Marshall engineers and scientists. The event is designed to teach students to solve engineering problems, while demonstrating NASA's commitment to mentoring new generations of scientists, engineers and explorers.

Major corporate sponsors include Boeing; Lockheed Martin Corporation; Aerojet Rocketdyne; Jacobs Engineering ESSSA Group; and Northrop Grumman Corporation, all with operations in Huntsville. Other corporate and institutional contributors include Science Applications International Corporation of Huntsville; Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia; Davidson Technologies of Huntsville; Corporate Office Properties Trust, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland; The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center, located in Huntsville; Teledyne-Brown, of Huntsville; MSB Analytics, of Huntsville; The University of Alabama - Huntsville; AI Signal Research Incorporated, of Huntsville; The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, headquartered in Reston, Virginia; The National Space Club - Huntsville; Booz Allen Hamilton, of Huntsville; Infotech Enterprises of East Hartford, Connecticut; Redstone Federal Credit Union of Huntsville; National Defense Industrial Association, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia; and United Research Services, of San Francisco.

To view the 2015 teams, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/teams/index.html

For more event details, race rules, information on the course, contributors and photos from previous competitions, as well as links to social media accounts providing real-time updates, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge

NASA will stream the two-day event live via UStream and NASA Television:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc

and

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui