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Space News Update — May 26, 2017 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1: A Whole New Jupiter: First Science Results from NASA’s Juno Mission

Story 2: VLA Reveals New Object Near Supermassive Black Hole

Story 3: Mapping the Magnetic Bridge Between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. A Whole New Jupiter: First Science Results from NASA’s Juno Mission

Early science results from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter portray the largest planet in our solar system as a complex, gigantic, turbulent world, with Earth-sized polar cyclones, plunging storm systems that travel deep into the heart of the gas giant, and a mammoth, lumpy magnetic field that may indicate it was generated closer to the planet’s surface than previously thought.

“We are excited to share these early discoveries, which help us better understand what makes Jupiter so fascinating,” said Diane Brown, Juno program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It was a long trip to get to Jupiter, but these first results already demonstrate it was well worth the journey.”

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, entering Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, 2016. The findings from the first data-collection pass, which flew within about 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) of Jupiter's swirling cloud tops on Aug. 27, are being published this week in two papers in the journal Science, as well as 44 papers in Geophysical Research Letters.

“We knew, going in, that Jupiter would throw us some curves,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “But now that we are here we are finding that Jupiter can throw the heat, as well as knuckleballs and sliders. There is so much going on here that we didn’t expect that we have had to take a step back and begin to rethink of this as a whole new Jupiter.”

Among the findings that challenge assumptions are those provided by Juno’s imager, JunoCam. The images show both of Jupiter's poles are covered in Earth-sized swirling storms that are densely clustered and rubbing together.

“We're puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is, and why Jupiter’s north pole doesn't look like the south pole,” said Bolton. “We're questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage, and over the next year, we're going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another?”

Another surprise comes from Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which samples the thermal microwave radiation from Jupiter’s atmosphere, from the top of the ammonia clouds to deep within its atmosphere. The MWR data indicates that Jupiter’s iconic belts and zones are mysterious, with the belt near the equator penetrating all the way down, while the belts and zones at other latitudes seem to evolve to other structures. The data suggest the ammonia is quite variable and continues to increase as far down as we can see with MWR, which is a few hundred miles or kilometers.

Prior to the Juno mission, it was known that Jupiter had the most intense magnetic field in the solar system. Measurements of the massive planet’s magnetosphere, from Juno’s magnetometer investigation (MAG), indicate that Jupiter’s magnetic field is even stronger than models expected, and more irregular in shape. MAG data indicates the magnetic field greatly exceeded expectations at 7.766 Gauss, about 10 times stronger than the strongest magnetic field found on Earth.

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“Juno is giving us a view of the magnetic field close to Jupiter that we’ve never had before,” said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator and the lead for the mission’s magnetic field investigation at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Already we see that the magnetic field looks lumpy: it is stronger in some places and weaker in others. This uneven distribution suggests that the field might be generated by dynamo action closer to the surface, above the layer of metallic hydrogen. Every flyby we execute gets us closer to determining where and how Jupiter’s dynamo works.”

Juno also is designed to study the polar magnetosphere and the origin of Jupiter's powerful auroras—its northern and southern lights. These auroral emissions are caused by particles that pick up energy, slamming into atmospheric molecules. Juno’s initial observations indicate that the process seems to work differently at Jupiter than at Earth.

Juno is in a polar orbit around Jupiter, and the majority of each orbit is spent well away from the gas giant. But, once every 53 days, its trajectory approaches Jupiter from above its north pole, where it begins a two-hour transit (from pole to pole) flying north to south with its eight science instruments collecting data and its JunoCam public outreach camera snapping pictures. The download of six megabytes of data collected during the transit can take 1.5 days.

“Every 53 days, we go screaming by Jupiter, get doused by a fire hose of Jovian science, and there is always something new,” said Bolton. “On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system -- one that every school kid knows -- Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it’s Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments.”

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for NASA. The principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, in Denver, built the spacecraft.

More information on the Juno mission is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

http://missionjuno.org

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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2. VLA Reveals New Object Near Supermassive Black Hole

Pointing the Very Large Array (VLA) at a famous galaxy for the first time in two decades, a team of astronomers got a big surprise, finding that a bright new object had appeared near the galaxy's core.

The object, the scientists concluded, is either a very rare type of supernova explosion or, more likely, an outburst from a second supermassive black hole closely orbiting the galaxy's primary, central supermassive black hole.

The astronomers observed Cygnus A, a well-known and often-studied galaxy discovered by radio-astronomy pioneer Grote Reber in 1939. The radio discovery was matched to a visible-light image in 1951, and the galaxy, some 800 million light-years from Earth, was an early target of the VLA after its completion in the early 1980s. Detailed images from the VLA published in 1984 produced major advances in scientists' understanding of the superfast "jets" of subatomic particles propelled into intergalactic space by the gravitational energy of supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies.

"This new object may have much to tell us about the history of this galaxy," said Daniel Perley, of the Astrophysics Research Institute of Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K., lead author of a paper in the Astrophysical Journal announcing the discovery.

"The VLA images of Cygnus A from the 1980s marked the state of the observational capability at that time," said Rick Perley, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). "Because of that, we didn't look at Cygnus A again until 1996, when new VLA electronics had provided a new range of radio frequencies for our observations." The new object does not appear in the images made then.

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"However, the VLA's upgrade that was completed in 2012 made it a much more powerful telescope, so we wanted to have a look at Cygnus A using the VLA's new capabilities," Perley said.

Daniel and Rick Perley, along with Vivek Dhawan, and Chris Carilli, both of NRAO, began the new observations in 2015, and continued them in 2016.

"To our surprise, we found a prominent new feature near the galaxy's nucleus that did not appear in any previous published images. This new feature is bright enough that we definitely would have seen it in the earlier images if nothing had changed," said Rick Perley. "That means it must have turned on sometime between 1996 and now," he added.

The scientists then observed Cygnus A with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) in November of 2016, clearly detecting the new object. A faint infrared object also is seen at the same location in Hubble Space Telescope and Keck observations, originally made between 1994 and 2002. The infrared astronomers, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, had attributed the object to a dense group of stars, but the dramatic radio brightening is forcing a new analysis.

What is the new object? Based on its characteristics, the astronomers concluded it must be either a supernova explosion or an outburst from a second supermassive black hole near the galaxy's center. While they want to watch the object's future behavior to make sure, they pointed out that the object has remained too bright for too long to be consistent with any known type of supernova.

"Because of this extraordinary brightness, we consider the supernova explanation unlikely," Dhawan said.

While the new object definitely is separate from Cygnus A's central supermassive black hole, by about 1500 light-years, it has many of the characteristics of a supermassive black hole that is rapidly feeding on surrounding material.

"We think we've found a second supermassive black hole in this galaxy, indicating that it has merged with another galaxy in the astronomically-recent past," Carilli said. "These two would be one of the closest pairs of supermassive black holes ever discovered, likely themselves to merge in the future."

The astronomers suggested that the second black hole has become visible to the VLA in recent years because it has encountered a new source of material to devour. That material, they said, could either be gas disrupted by the galaxies' merger or a star that passed close enough to the secondary black hole to be shredded by its powerful gravity.

"Further observations will help us resolve some of these questions. In addition, if this is a secondary black hole, we may be able to find others in similar galaxies," Daniel Perley said.

Rick Perley was one of the astronomers who made the original Cygnus A observations with the VLA in the 1980s. Daniel Perley is his son, now also a research astronomer.

"Daniel was only two years old when I first observed Cygnus A with the VLA," Rick said. As a high school student in Socorro, New Mexico, Daniel used VLA data for an award-winning science fair project that took him to the international level of competition, then went on to earn a doctoral degree in astronomy.

Source: Spacref.com Return to Contents

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3. Cassini Looks on as Solstice Arrives at Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft still has a few months to go before it completes its mission in September, but the veteran Saturn explorer reaches a new milestone today. Saturn's solstice -- that is, the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day of winter in the southern hemisphere -- arrives today for the planet and its moons. The Saturnian solstice occurs about every 15 Earth years as the planet and its entourage slowly orbit the sun, with the north and south hemispheres alternating their roles as the summer and winter poles.

Reaching the solstice, and observing seasonal changes in the Saturn system along the way, was a primary goal of Cassini's Solstice Mission -- the name of Cassini's second extended mission.

Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004 for its four-year primary mission to study Saturn and its rings and moons. Cassini's first extended mission, from 2008 to 2010, was known as the Equinox Mission. During that phase of the mission, Cassini watched as sunlight struck Saturn's rings edge-on, casting shadows that revealed dramatic new ring structures. NASA chose to grant the spacecraft an additional seven-year tour, the Solstice Mission, which began in 2010.

"During Cassini's Solstice Mission, we have witnessed -- up close for the first time -- an entire season at Saturn," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "The Saturn system undergoes dramatic transitions from winter to summer, and thanks to Cassini, we had a ringside seat."

Saturn

During its Solstice Mission, Cassini watched a giant storm erupt and encircle the planet. The spacecraft also saw the disappearance of bluer hues that had lingered in the far north as springtime hazes began to form there. The hazes are part of the reason why features in Saturn's atmosphere are more muted in their appearance than those on Jupiter.

Data from the mission showed how the formation of Saturn's hazes is related to the seasonally changing temperatures and chemical composition of Saturn's upper atmosphere. Cassini researchers have found that

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some of the trace hydrocarbon compounds there -- gases like ethane, propane and acetylene -- react more quickly than others to the changing amount of sunlight over the course of Saturn's year.

Researchers were also surprised that the changes Cassini observed on Saturn didn't occur gradually. They saw changes occur suddenly, at specific latitudes in Saturn's banded atmosphere. "Eventually a whole hemisphere undergoes change, but it gets there by these jumps at specific latitude bands at different times in the season," said Robert West, a Cassini imaging team member at JPL.

Rings

Following equinox and continuing toward northern summer solstice, the sun rose ever higher above the rings' northern face. And as the sun rises higher, its light penetrates deeper into the rings, heating them to the warmest temperatures seen there during the mission. The solstice sunlight helps reveal to Cassini's instruments how particles clump together and whether the particles buried in the middle of the ring plane have a different composition or structure than the ones in the rings' outer layers.

Saturn's changing angle with respect to the sun also means the rings are tipped toward Earth by their maximum amount at solstice. In this geometry, Cassini's radio signal passes more easily and cleanly through the densest rings, providing even higher-quality data about the ring particles there.

Titan

Cassini has watched Saturn's largest moon, Titan, change with the seasons, with occasional dramatic outbursts of cloud activity. After observing methane storm clouds around Titan's south pole in 2004, Cassini watched giant storms transition to Titan's equator in 2010. Although a few northern clouds have begun to appear, scientists have since been surprised at how long it has taken for cloud activity to shift to the northern hemisphere, defying climate models that had predicted such activity should have started several years earlier.

"Observations of how the locations of cloud activity change and how long such changes take give us important information about the workings of Titan's atmosphere and also its surface, as rainfall and wind patterns change with the seasons too," said Elizabeth Turtle, a Cassini imaging team associate at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

In 2013, Cassini observed a sudden and rapid buildup of haze and trace hydrocarbons in the south that were previously observed only in Titan's high north. This indicated to scientists that a seasonal reversal was underway, in which Titan’s main atmospheric circulation changes direction. This circulation was apparently channeling fresh hydrocarbon chemicals from closer to the equator toward the south pole, where they were safe from destruction by sunlight as that pole moved deeper into winter shadow.

Enceladus

For Enceladus, the most important seasonal change was the onset of winter darkness in the south. Although it meant Cassini could no longer take sunlit images of the geologically active surface, the spacecraft could more clearly observe the heat coming from within Enceladus itself. With the icy moon's south pole in shadow, Cassini scientists have been able to monitor the temperature of the terrain there without concern for the sun's influence. These observations are helping researchers to better understand the global ocean that lies beneath the surface. From the moon's south polar region, that hidden ocean sprays a towering plume of ice and vapor into space that Cassini has directly sampled.

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Toward the Final Milestone

As Saturn's solstice arrives, Cassini is currently in the final phase of its long mission, called its Grand Finale. Over the course of 22 weeks from April 26 to Sept. 15, the spacecraft is making a series of dramatic dives between the planet and its icy rings. The mission is returning new insights about the interior of the planet and the origins of the rings, along with images from closer to Saturn than ever before. The mission will end with a final plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on Sept. 15.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about Cassini: https://www.nasa.gov/cassini and https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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The Night Sky Friday, May 26

• While twilight is still bright, can you catch the thin crescent Moon just above the west-northwest horizon about to set, as shown at right? The Moon is only about 1 1/4 days old as seen at the time of dusk for North America (because new Moon was at 3:44 p.m. EDT yesterday the 25th). And how about little Mars to its upper right?

Saturday, May 27

• The thickening crescent Moon, now below the heads of the Gemini twins, shines near Gamma (γ) Geminorum, the brightest star in the twins' feet.

Meanwhile, far to the Moon's lower right, Mars is passing between the horn-tips of Taurus (Beta and Zeta Tauri, magnitudes 1.6 and 3.0). The three form a diagonal line 8° long from upper right to lower left. Bring binoculars.

Sunday, May 28

• Arcturus shines 30° to the upper left of Jupiter after dusk. The brightest star lower in the northeast is Vega. Look a third of the way from Arcturus to Vega for the delicate semicircle of Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, with its brighter gem star Alphecca.

Two thirds of the way from Arcturus to Vega is the dim Keystone of Hercules.

Monday, May 29

• As soon as the sky is fully dark, but before the crescent Moon gets any lower in the west, take a look at it with binoculars or a wide-field scope — and then scan 3° or 4° to its upper right (as seen from North America). There you'll find the Beehive star cluster, M44, somewhat larger than the Moon.

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

For Denver: Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears Fri May 26, 9:27 PM 6 min 42° 10° above WSW 11° above NE Fri May 26, 11:08 PM < 1 min 12° 12° above N 10° above NNE Sat May 27, 00:46 AM < 1 min 10° 10° above NNE 10° above NNE Sat May 27, 2:20 AM 6 min 26° 10° above NNW 10° above E Sat May 27, 3:56 AM 6 min 36° 10° above WNW 10° above SSE Sat May 27, 10:16 PM 2 min 16° 16° above N 10° above NNE Sat May 27, 11:53 PM < 1 min 10° 10° above NNE 10° above NNE Sun May 28, 1:28 AM 2 min 17° 10° above NNW 17° above N Sun May 28, 9:23 PM 2 min 22° 22° above N 11° above NNE Sun May 28, 11:01 PM < 1 min 10° 10° above N 10° above N Mon May 29, 00:38 AM < 1 min 14° 14° above NNE 13° above NNE Mon May 29, 10:08 PM 1 min 12° 12° above N 10° above NNE Mon May 29, 11:45 PM 1 min 11° 11° above N 10° above NNE Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

Friday, May 26 –

11 a.m.,JSC Presents “SpaceCast Weekly” (all channels)

4 p.m., 8 p.m., 10 p.m, Replay of SpaceCast Weekly (all channels)

Saturday, May 27

9 a.m., 4 p.m., 8 p.m., Replay of the “State of NASA” Address (all channels)

9 a.m., 4 p.m., 9 p.m., Replay of SpaceCast Weekly (all channels)

Sunday, May 28

10 a.m., 5 p.m., 9 p.m., Replay of the “State of NASA” Address (all channels)

10 a.m., 5 p.m, 10 p.m., Replay of SpaceCast Weekly (all channels)

Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

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Space Calendar

• May 26 - Comet 73P-AI/Schwassmann-Wachmann Near-Earth Flyby (0.023 AU) • May 26 - Comet 148P/Anderson-LINEAR At Opposition (3.799 AU) • May 26 - [May 25] Comet C/2017 K1 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (6.518 AU) • May 26 - Asteroid 3017 Petrovic Occults HIP 68705 (6.3 Magnitude Star) • May 26 - [May 21] Apollo Asteroid 2017 KC3 Near-Earth Flyby (0.098 AU) • May 26 - Asteroid 163693 Atira Closest Approach To Earth (0.356 AU) • May 26 - Asteroid 38237 Roche Closest Approach To Earth (0.996 AU) • May 26 - Asteroid 2933 Amber Closest Approach To Earth (1.624 AU) • May 26 - 85th Anniversary (1932), Kuznetzovo Meteorite Fall in Russia • May 26 - Abraham de Moivre's 150th Birthday (1867) • May 27 - Apollo Asteroid 2017 HP49 Near-Earth Flyby (0.063 AU) • May 27 - [May 25] Apollo Asteroid 2017 KA5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.068 AU) • May 27 - Aten Asteroid 2016 GK135 Near-Earth Flyby (0.074 AU) • May 27 - Apollo Asteroid 6063 Jason Near-Earth Flyby (0.099 AU) • May 27 - Asteroid 12413 Johnnyweir Closest Approach To Earth (1.356 AU) • May 28 - Cassini, Distant Flyby of Pandora, Mimas, Aegaeon & Prometheus • May 28 - Moon Occults Asteroid 433 Eros • May 28 - Comet 150P/LONEOS Closest Approach To Earth (2.156 AU) • May 28 - Comet 194P/LINEAR At Opposition (2.954 AU) • May 28 - Comet 110P/Hartley At Opposition (3.479 AU) • May 28 - [May 25] Amor Asteroid 2017 KQ4 Near-Earth Flyby (0.091 AU) • May 28 - Asteroid 11548 Jerrylewis Closest Approach To Earth (1.652 AU) • May 28 - Neptune Trojan 2010 TT191 At Opposition (33.171 AU) • May 28 - Ruby Payne-Scott's 105th Birthday (1912) • May 29 - John F. Kennedy's 100th Birthday (1917) • May 29 - Comet C/2015 V2 (Johnson) At Opposition (0.821 AU) • May 29 - Apollo Asteroid 2017 CS Near-Earth Flyby (0.020 AU) • May 29 - Amor Asteroid 2017 JU1 Near-Earth Flyby (0.052 AU) • May 29 - Apollo Asteroid 481532 (2007 LE) Near-Earth Flyby (0.082 AU) • May 29 - Kuiper Belt Object 2007 JH43 At Opposition (39.552 AU) • May 29 - Asteroid 3066 McFadden Closest Approach To Earth (1.691 AU) • May 29 - Johannes Winkler's 120th Birthday (1897)

Ruby Payne-Scott, first female radio astronomer

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

NASA Lab’s Life-Saving Work

Some NASA missions fundamentally change the world of science or help win Nobel prizes, but only one helps save thousands of lives worldwide every year.

Employees at NASA’s Search and Rescue office spend their days advancing systems critical to locating and saving people in distress, whether from an aviation, marine or other outdoor incident. The office is the primary research and development team for both the U.S. Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) effort and the International Satellite System for Search and Rescue (Cospas-Sarsat).

Search-and-rescue satellite systems are complex, comprising beacons, spacecraft and ground systems all carefully calibrated to work together efficiently. Rescue efforts usually start with beacons, which transmit distress signals to passing satellites.

For years, ships, airlines and even amateur hikers have used emergency locator beacons originally developed in the 1970s. They have saved more than 40,000 lives over the years and are available at virtually any outdoors store at affordable prices. But the SAR office is developing an even more effective beacon.

“Current beacons are accurate to about a 2-kilometer radius using technology from the 1970s,” said Lisa Mazzuca, SAR mission manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Within that radius of about 1.25 miles, there’s still quite a bit of searching to be done.

“The intent with these second-generation beacons is to get that to about 100 meters (about 110 yards) in an effort to take the ‘search’ out of ‘search and rescue,’” Mazzuca said.

At less than a tenth of a mile, the improved accuracy would mitigate risk to both the person in distress and responders, who risk their own lives at times, by greatly reducing time needed to search.

The team tested a version of the prototype beacon in October 2016 and were able to demonstrate location accuracy to about 140 meters (153 yards). NASA used its Research and Development Second Generation Beacon SAR ground station, located at Goddard, to resolve locations of the beacon from more than 3,000 miles away.

National and international SAR operations will use second-generation beacons in a wide variety of new technologies over the next several years. Mazzuca’s team is working on a number of new projects incorporating the new beacons, including improved emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) for commercial and general aviation aircraft, as well as unmanned aerial search vehicles. These technologies could be game-changing to SAR efforts.

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New ELTs could help mitigate aviation search disasters like several that have been seen in the news in recent years. Shortly after a high-profile crash in 2014, NASA launched a two-year study to investigate ELT failure modes and recommend beacon and system-level improvements, including a better installation policy for the United States.

The team researched historic failures and performed three controlled airplane crashes at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to better understand ELT vulnerabilities. In February, they released a report with their findings, one of which was a recommendation to take advantage of smaller, lighter and more accurate second-generation beacons.

Beyond distress-tracking systems, the team is working on a new SAR operational platform.

“One of the things we’re doing is taking advantage of an up-and-coming platform that seems to be the answer for a lot of problems in SAR operations,” Mazzuca said. “We are building a new direction-finder homing prototype based entirely on second-generation beacons with a terrestrial signal and proving it out using unmanned aircraft systems.”

By using existing NASA UAVs and expertise at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California; NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia; and Langley, the team is getting a jump on where technology is going next. Mazzuca said it’s also a way to produce an inexpensive system that small local SAR organizations that rely on very old technology can afford.

Beyond fitting the UAVs with the direction-finder system, they are working with the U.S. Coast Guard to determine what else can be placed on the aircraft to assist with rescues. Using UAVs for searching will cut down on risk to responders and allow SAR organizations to deploy forces more efficiently. For example, the UAVs could determine whether doctors are needed, how many victims are there, what kind of injuries people in distress have and more before responders ever hit the ground.

From better beacons to high-tech systems, NASA’s SAR office’s work is improving rescue operations in the United States and around the world.

The SAR office is funded by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and the Space Communications and Navigation Program Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

For more information:

• NASA’s Search and Rescue office • NASA SAR’s projects • ELT study findings

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

May 24, 1962 - Scott Carpenter on the Way to Mercury-Atlas 7 Launch Site

Explanation: Astronaut Scott Carpenter walks to the launch site to begin the Mercury-Atlas 7 (MA-7) mission on May 24, 1962. Carpenter's Aurora 7 capsule lifted off aboard an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:45 a.m. EST, May 24. Carpenter was the fourth American in space and second American to orbit Earth. During the four-hour, 54-minute flight, he tested the spacecraft and conducted scientific experiments and observations of the airglow layer of the atmosphere, and photographed terrestrial features. Image Credit: NASA Source: NASA Return to Contents