Research and Operations

NASA’s four Mission Directorates support the Agency’s missions to resume the human exploration of the Moon and onward to Mars.

• The Science Mission Directorate engages the Nation’s science community, sponsors scientific research, and develops and deploys satellites and probes in collaboration with NASA’s partners around the world to answer fundamental questions requiring the view from and into space.
  
  
• The Exploration Systems Mission Directorate develops the systems that will enable NASA to embark on a robust space exploration program that will advance the Nation’s scientific, security, and economic interests.
  
  
• The Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate cements NASA’s role as the leading government organization for aeronautical research, with world-class capability built on a tradition of expertise in aeronautical engineering and its core research areas, including aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, materials and structures, propulsion, dynamics and control, sensor and actuator technologies, advanced computational and mathematical techniques, and experimental measurement techniques.
  
  
• The Space Operations Mission Directorate provides leadership and management of NASA space operations related to human exploration in and beyond low-Earth orbit. This includes the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. The directorate is also responsible for launch services and space communications in support of both human and robotic exploration.
  

Science Mission Directorate

The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) seeks to understand the origins, evolution, and destiny of the universe, and the phenomena that shape it. SMD also works to increase our understanding of the solar system, the Sun, and the Earth, and the nature of life in the universe and what kinds of life may exist beyond Earth.

The ice jets of Enceladus send particles streaming into space hundreds of kilometers above the south pole of this spectacularly active moon. Some of the particles escape to form the diffuse E ring around Saturn. This color-coded image was processed to enhance faint signals, making the contours and extent of the fainter, larger-scale component of the plume easier to see.

NASA’s Cassini Discovers Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus NASA’s Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid-water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

High-resolution Cassini images showed icy jets and towering plumes ejecting large quantities of particles at high speed. Scientists examined several models to explain the process. They ruled out the idea the particles are produced or blown off the surface by vapor created when warm water ice converts to a gas. Instead, scientists have found evidence for a much more exciting possibility. The jets might be erupting from near-surface pockets of liquid water above 32 °F, like cold versions of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

Other moons in the solar system have liquid-water oceans covered by kilometers of icy crust. What’s different here is that pockets of liquid water may be no more than tens of meters below the surface.

Scientists still have many questions. Why is Enceladus so active? Are other sites on Enceladus active? Might this activity have been continuous enough over the moon’s history for life to have had a chance to take hold in the moon’s interior? In the spring of 2008, scientists will get another chance to look at Enceladus when Cassini flies within 350 kilometers (approximately 220 miles).

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed, and assembled at JPL.

NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars

NASA photographs revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past 6 years. These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars.

NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past 6 years.

Liquid water, as opposed to the water ice and water vapor known to exist on Mars, is considered necessary for life. The new findings heighten intrigue about the potential for microbial life on Mars. The Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor provided the new evidence of the deposits in images taken in 2004 and 2005.

“The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water,” said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. “They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and easily diverted around small obstacles.” Malin is principal investigator for the camera and lead author of a report about the findings published in the journal Science.

The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that liquid water cannot persist at the surface. It would rapidly evaporate or freeze. Researchers propose that water could remain liquid long enough, after breaking out from an underground source, to carry debris downslope before totally freezing. The two fresh deposits are each several hundred meters long.

The light tone of the deposits could be from surface frost continuously replenished by ice within the body of the deposit. Another possibility is a salty crust, which would be a sign of water’s effects in concentrating the salts. If the deposits had resulted from dry dust slipping down the slope, they would likely be dark, based on the dark tones of dust freshly disturbed by rover tracks, dust devils, and fresh craters on Mars.

The Mars Global Surveyor has discovered tens of thousands of gullies on slopes inside craters and other depressions on Mars. Most gullies are at latitudes of 30° or higher. Malin and his team first reported the discovery of the gullies in 2000. To look for changes that might indicate present-day flow of water, his camera team repeatedly imaged hundreds of the sites. One pair of images showed a gully that appeared after mid-2002. That site was on a sand dune, and the gully-cutting process was interpreted as a dry flow of sand.

The announcement is the first to reveal newly deposited material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same gullies. The two sites are inside craters in the Terra Sirenum and the Centauri Montes regions of southern Mars.

“These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there’s a below-ground wet habitat conducive to life. Future missions may provide the answers,” said Malin.

Besides looking for changes in gullies, the orbiter’s camera team assessed the rate at which new impact craters appear. The camera photographed approximately 98 percent of Mars in 1999 and approximately 30 percent of the planet was photographed again in 2006. The newer images show 20 fresh impact craters ranging in diameter from 7 feet to 486 feet that were not present approximately 7 years earlier. These results have important implications for determining the ages of features on the surface of Mars. These results also approximately match predictions and imply that Martian terrain with few craters is truly young.

Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft is responsible for many important discoveries. NASA declared early in 2007 that the spacecraft is no longer operating.

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Pluto-Bound New Horizons Provides New Look at Jupiter System

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided new data on the Jupiter system, stunning scientists with never-before-seen perspectives of the giant planet’s atmosphere, rings, moons, and magnetosphere.

Image of the planet Jupiter’s moon, Io, as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. A plume from a huge volcanic eruption can be seen at the north pole.

These new views include the closest look yet at the Little Red Spot storm churning materials through Jupiter’s cloud tops; detailed images of small satellites herding dust and boulders through Jupiter’s faint rings; and volcanic eruptions and circular grooves on the planet’s largest moons.

New Horizons came to within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter on February 28, 2007, using the planet’s gravity to trim 3 years from its travel time to Pluto. For several weeks before and after this closest approach, the piano-sized robotic probe trained its 7 cameras and sensors on Jupiter and its 4 largest moons, storing data from nearly 700 observations on its digital recorders and gradually sending that information back to Earth. Nearly all of the expected 34 gigabits of data has come back so far, radioed to NASA’s largest antennas over more than 600 million miles. This activity confirmed the successful testing of the instruments and operating software the spacecraft will use at Pluto.

Aside from setting up the 2015 arrival at Pluto, the Jupiter flyby was a stress test of NASA’s spacecraft and team, and both passed with very high marks.

Images include the first close-up scans of the Little Red Spot, Jupiter’s second-largest storm, which formed when three smaller storms merged during the past decade. The storm, about half the size of Jupiter’s larger Great Red Spot and about 70 percent of Earth’s diameter, began turning red about a year before New Horizons flew past it. Scientists will search for clues about how these systems form and why they change colors in their close observations of materials spinning within and around the nascent storm.

Under a range of lighting and viewing angles, New Horizons also grabbed the clearest images ever of the tenuous Jovian ring system. In them, scientists spotted a series of unexpected arcs and clumps of dust, indicative of a recent impact into the ring by a small object. Movies made from New Horizons images also provide an unprecedented look at ring dynamics, with the tiny inner moons Metis and Adrastea appearing to shepherd the materials around the rings.

Of Jupiter’s four largest moons, the team focused much attention on volcanic Io, the most geologically active body in the solar system. New Horizons’ cameras captured pockets of bright, glowing lava scattered across the surface; dozens of small, glowing spots of gas; and several fortuitous views of a sunlit umbrella-shaped dust plume rising 200 miles into space from the volcano Tvashtar, the best images yet of a giant eruption from the tortured volcanic moon.

The timing and location of the spacecraft’s trajectory also allowed it to spy many of the mysterious, circular troughs carved onto the icy moon Europa. Data on the size, depth, and distribution of these troughs, discovered by the Jupiter-orbiting Galileo mission, will help scientists determine the thickness of the ice shell that covers Europa’s global ocean.

Already the fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons reached Jupiter 13 months after lifting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in January 2006. The flyby added 9,000 miles per hour, pushing New Horizons past 50,000 miles per hour and setting up a Pluto flyby in July 2015.

The number of observations at Jupiter was twice that of those planned at Pluto. New Horizons made most of these observations during the spacecraft’s closest approach to the planet, which was guided by more than 40,000 separate commands in the onboard computer.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program of medium-class spacecraft exploration projects. Alan Stern, the Science Mission Directorate associate administrator and New Horizons principal investigator, leads the mission and science team; the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The mission team also includes Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, The Boeing Company, KinetX Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, Stanford University, University of Colorado at Boulder, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of other firms, university partners, and NASA centers, including JPL and Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter

Dark matter and normal matter have been wrenched apart by the tremendous collision of two large clusters of galaxies. The discovery, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, gives direct evidence for the existence of dark matter.

Dark matter and normal matter have been wrenched apart by the tremendous collision of two large clusters of galaxies. The discovery, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, gives direct evidence for the existence of dark matter.

This is the most energetic cosmic event, besides the Big Bang, that we know about. These observations provided the strongest evidence yet that most of the matter in the universe is dark. Despite considerable evidence for dark matter, some scientists have proposed alternative theories for gravity where it is stronger on intergalactic scales than predicted by Newton and Einstein, removing the need for dark matter. However, such theories cannot explain the observed effects of this collision.

In galaxy clusters, the normal matter, like the atoms that make up the stars, planets, and everything on Earth, is primarily in the form of hot gas and stars. The mass of the hot gas between the galaxies is far greater than the mass of the stars in all of the galaxies. This normal matter is bound in the cluster by the gravity of an even greater mass of dark matter. Without dark matter, which is invisible and can only be detected through its gravity, the fast-moving galaxies and the hot gas would quickly fly apart.

The team that made this discovery was granted more than 100 hours on the Chandra telescope to observe the galaxy cluster 1E0657-56. The cluster is also known as the bullet cluster, because it contains a spectacular bullet-shaped cloud of 100-million-degree gas. The X-ray image shows the bullet shape is due to a wind produced by the high-speed collision of a smaller cluster with a larger one.

In addition to the Chandra observation, the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere’s Very Large Telescope, and the Magellan optical telescopes were used to determine the location of the mass in the clusters. This was done by measuring the effect of gravitational lensing, where gravity from the clusters distorts light from background galaxies as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

The hot gas in this collision was slowed by a drag force, similar to air resistance. In contrast, the dark matter was not slowed by the impact, because it does not interact directly with itself or the gas except through gravity. This produced the separation of the dark and normal matter seen in the data. If hot gas was the most massive component in the clusters, as proposed by alternative gravity theories, such a separation would not have been seen. Instead, dark matter is required.

This is the type of result that future theories will have to take into account. As we move forward to understand the true nature of dark matter, this new result will be impossible to ignore. It also gives scientists more confidence that the Newtonian gravity, familiar on Earth and in the solar system, also works on the huge scales of galaxy clusters.

NASA Research Reveals Climate Warming Reduces Ocean Food Supply

In a recent NASA study, scientists concluded that when Earth’s climate warms, there is a reduction in the ocean’s primary food supply. This poses a potential threat to fisheries and ecosystems. By comparing nearly a decade of global ocean satellite data with several records of Earth’s changing climate, scientists found that whenever climate temperatures warmed, marine plant life in the form of microscopic phytoplankton declined. Whenever climate temperatures cooled, marine plant life became more vigorous or productive. The results provide a preview of what could happen to ocean biology in the future if Earth’s climate warms as the result of increasing levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

Phytoplankton is composed of microscopic plants living in the upper sunlit layer of the ocean. It is responsible for approximately the same amount of photosynthesis each year as all land plants combined. Changes in phytoplankton growth and photosynthesis influence fishery yields, marine bird populations, and the amount of carbon dioxide the oceans remove from the atmosphere.

“Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere play a big part in global warming,” said lead author Michael Behrenfeld, of Oregon State University, Corvallis. “This study shows that as the climate warms, phytoplankton growth rates go down and along with them the amount of carbon dioxide these ocean plants consume. That allows carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere, which would produce more warming.”

The findings were from a NASA-funded analysis of data from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) instrument on the OrbView-2 spacecraft, launched in 1997. SeaWiFS is jointly operated by GeoEYE, of Dulles, Virginia, and NASA.

Scientists now have nearly a decade’s worth of data showing the cycle of plant life in the Earth’s oceans. From space, the “ocean color” satellites measure the ocean’s biology as plant productivity. In this visualization, high plant productivity is represented in green, while areas of low productivity remain blue.

The uninterrupted 9-year record shows in great detail the ups and downs of marine biological activity or productivity from month to month and year to year. Captured at the start of this data record was a major, rapid rebound in ocean biological activity after a major El Niño event. El Niño and La Niña are major warming and cooling events, respectively, that occur approximately every 3 to 7 years in the eastern Pacific Ocean and are known to change weather patterns around the world.

Scientists made their discovery by comparing the SeaWiFS record of the rise and fall of global ocean plant life to different measures of recent global climate change. The climate records included several factors that directly affect ocean conditions, such as changes in sea surface temperature and surface winds. The results support computer model predictions of what could happen to the world’s oceans as the result of prolonged future climate warming.

Ocean plant growth increased from 1997 to 1999 as the climate cooled during one of the strongest El Niño to La Niña transitions on record. Since 1999, the climate has been in a period of warming that has seen the health of ocean plants diminish.

The new study also explains why a change in climate produces this effect on ocean plant life. When the climate warms, the temperature of the upper ocean also increases, making it “lighter” than the denser cold water beneath it. This results in a layering or “stratification” of ocean waters that creates an effective barrier between the surface layer and the nutrients below, cutting off phytoplankton’s food supply. The scientists confirmed this effect by comparing records of ocean surface water density with the SeaWiFS biological data.

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NASA Spacecraft Make First 3-D Images of Sun

NASA’s twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft made the first three-dimensional images of the Sun. The new view will greatly aid scientists’ ability to understand solar physics and thereby improve space weather forecasting.

“The improvement with STEREO’s 3-D view is like going from a regular X-ray to a 3-D CT [computerized tomography] scan in the medical field,” said Dr. Michael Kaiser, STEREO project scientist at Goddard.

NASA’s STEREO satellites have provided the first 3-D images of the Sun.

The STEREO spacecraft were launched October 25, 2006. On January 21, 2007, they completed a series of complex maneuvers, including flying by the Moon, to position the spacecraft in their mission orbits. The two observatories are now orbiting the Sun, one slightly ahead of Earth and one slightly behind, separating from each other by approximately 45° per year. Just as the slight offset between a person’s eyes provides depth perception, the separation of these spacecraft allow 3-D images of the Sun.

Violent solar weather originates in the Sun’s atmosphere, or corona, and can disrupt satellites, radio communication, and power grids on Earth. The corona resembles wispy smoke plumes, which flow outward along the Sun’s tangled magnetic fields. It is difficult for scientists to tell which structures are in front and which are behind.

With STEREO’s 3-D imagery, scientists will be able to discern where matter and energy flows in the solar atmosphere much more precisely than with the 2-D views available before.

STEREO’s depth perception also will help improve space weather forecasts. Of particular concern is a destructive type of solar eruption called a coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are eruptions of electrically charged gas, called plasma, from the Sun’s atmosphere. A CME cloud can contain billions of tons of plasma and move at a million miles per hour.

The CME cloud is laced with magnetic fields, and CMEs directed toward Earth smash into its magnetic field. If the CME magnetic fields have the proper orientation, they dump energy and particles into Earth’s magnetic field, causing magnetic storms that can overload power line equipment and radiation storms that disrupt satellites.

Satellite and utility operators can take precautions to minimize CME damage, but they need an accurate forecast of when the CME will arrive. To do this, forecasters need to know the location of the front of the CME cloud. STEREO will allow scientists to accurately determine this location. Knowing where the front of the CME cloud is will improve estimates of the arrival time from within a day or so to just a few hours. STEREO also will help forecasters estimate how severe the resulting magnetic storm will be.

“In addition to the STEREO perspective of solar features, STEREO, for the first time, will allow imaging of the solar disturbances the entire way from the Sun to the Earth. Presently, scientists are only able to model this region in the dark, from only one picture of solar disturbances leaving the Sun and reaching only a fraction of the Sun-Earth distance,” said Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta, a STEREO program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

STEREO’s first 3-D images are being provided by JPL. STEREO is the third mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes program within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Goddard Science and Exploration Directorate manages the mission, instruments, and science center. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory designed and built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The STEREO imaging and particle detecting instruments were designed and built by scientific institutions in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Pioneering NASA Spacecraft Mark 30 Years of Flight

NASA’s two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating 3 decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space; Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 launched on September 5, 1977. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment, as they continue to return information from distances more than 3 times farther away than Pluto.

Voyager 1 is currently the farthest-traveled human-made object, at a distance of about 9.7 billion miles (15.5 billion kilometers) from the Sun. Voyager 2 is about 7.8 billion miles (12.5 billion kilometers) from the Sun. Originally designed as a 4-year mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Voyager tours were extended because of their successful achievements and a rare planetary alignment. The two-planet mission eventually became a four-planet grand tour, and after completing that extended mission, the two spacecraft began the task of exploring the outer heliosphere.

Voyager 1 passed the Saturnian system in November 1980; 9 months later, Voyager 2 passed through this same system. The ensuing scientific discoveries were unprecedented with regards to the rings around Saturn and its satellite’s chemical makeup. Pictured are: Saturn (shown with rings), Dione (forefront), Tethys and Mimas (lower right), Enceladus and Rhea (upper left) and Titan in distant orbit (upper right).

During their first dozen years of flight, the Voyagers made detailed explorations of Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons, and conducted the first explorations of Uranus and Neptune. The Voyagers returned never-before-seen images and scientific data, making fundamental discoveries about the outer planets and their moons. The spacecraft revealed Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere, which includes dozens of interacting hurricane-like storm systems, and erupting volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon, Io. They also showed waves and fine structure in Saturn’s icy rings from the tug of nearby moons.

“The Voyager mission has opened up our solar system in a way not possible before the Space Age,” said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology. “It revealed our neighbors in the outer solar system and showed us how much there is to learn and how diverse the bodies are that share the solar system with our own planet Earth.”

In December 2004, Voyager 1 ventured into the solar system’s final frontier. Called the heliosheath, this turbulent area, approximately 8.7 billion miles (14 billion kilometers) from the Sun, is where the solar wind slows as it crashes into the thin gas that fills the space between stars. Voyager 2 could reach this boundary in late 2007, putting both Voyagers on their final leg toward interstellar space.

Each Voyager logs approximately 1 million miles per day and carries five science instruments that study the solar wind, energetic particles, magnetic fields, and radio waves as they cruise through this unexplored region of deep space. While the spacecraft are now too far from the Sun to use solar power, their long-lived radioisotope thermoelectric generators provide the necessary power of less than 300 watts (the amount of power needed to light up a bright light bulb). The Voyagers call home via NASA’s Deep Space Network, a system of antennas around the world. The spacecraft are so distant that commands from Earth, traveling at light speed, take 14 hours one-way to reach Voyager 1 and 12 hours to reach Voyager 2.

“The continued operation of these spacecraft and the flow of data to the scientists is a testament to the skills and dedication of the small operations team,” said Ed Massey, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Massey oversees a team of nearly a dozen people in the day-to-day Voyager spacecraft operations.

Each of the Voyagers carries a golden record that is a time capsule with greetings, images, and sounds from Earth. The records also have directions on how to find Earth should the spacecraft be recovered.

NASA’s latest outer planet exploration mission is New Horizons, which is now well past Jupiter and headed for a historic exploration of the Pluto system in July 2015.

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Exploration Systems Mission Directorate

The Exploration Systems Mission Directorate develops the launch systems, vehicles, and other capabilities that will carry humans into space and ultimately enable exploration of the Moon and Mars, including the servicing of the International Space Station following the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010.

Global Exploration Strategy

Driven by the Vision for Space Exploration and guided by the NASA Authorization Act of 2005, the United States will take the next steps in human space exploration with thoughtful preparation and global partnership. NASA is tackling the challenging questions of how, why, and when the United States will return to the Moon. To date, NASA has worked with more than 1,000 people around the world to craft an initial strategy. NASA has sought perspectives on exploration strategy from 13 international space agencies, as well as U.S. entities including the space industry, academia, and other government organizations. The Agency issued a request for information and held international meetings, teleconferences, and bilateral exchanges. From the process, NASA characterized 6 strategic themes and prioritized 188 objectives that were synthesized from 800 potential strategic objectives.

The strategic themes and objectives represent the driving force behind NASA’s current plans for human and robotic exploration on the lunar surface. The strategic themes substantiate the answers to the question, “Why are we going to the Moon?” The objectives address the question, “What do we hope to accomplish when we get there?” The six themes are:

• Exploration Preparation: Prepare for future human and robotic missions to Mars and other destinations.
  
  
• Scientific Knowledge: Pursue scientific activities addressing fundamental questions about Earth, the solar system, the universe, and our place in them.
  
  
• Human Civilization: Extend human presence in space.
  
  
• Economic Expansion: Expand Earth’s economic sphere and conduct activities with benefits to life on Earth.
  
  
• Global Partnerships: Strengthen existing partnerships and create new ones.
  
  
• Public Engagement: Engage, inspire, and educate the public.
  

From these 6 themes, NASA derived 25 categories of lunar objectives. The categories are: astronomy and astrophysics; commerce; commercial opportunities; communication; crew activity support; Earth observation; environmental characterization; environmental hazard mitigation; general infrastructure; geology; global partnership; guidance, navigation, and control; heliophysics; historic preservation; human health; life support and habitat; lunar resource utilization; materials science; operational environmental monitoring; operations test and verification; power; program execution; public engagement and inspiration; surface mobility; and transportation.

Lunar Architecture Plan

This artist’s concept shows a lunar lander docked with an Orion crew vehicle while in orbit around the Moon. The Orion capsule will remain empty while the astronauts descend in the lunar lander to explore the Moon’s surface.

Concurrently in 2006, NASA chartered the Lunar Architecture Team, to play a key role in the continual development and implementation of the global exploration strategy. The comprehensive effort includes contributions from more than 200 representatives from NASA field centers. The Lunar Architecture Team charter directs the team to accomplish four key tasks: 1) Develop a baseline architecture for robotic and human lunar missions that can be traced directly to specific objectives; 2) formulate a concept of operations for planned lunar missions; 3) develop individual requirements that will be incorporated into NASA’s exploration architecture requirements document; and 4) assess functional needs and analyze required technologies. The architecture represents NASA’s current plan for returning to the Moon using both robotic and human missions. The architecture will evolve through future studies and further refinement of the requirements.

Through comprehensive and thorough analysis, the Lunar Architecture Team drafted a baseline lunar architecture rooted in the strategic themes and objectives as articulated in the team’s charter. The document presents a summary of the baseline architecture. Phase 2 Lunar Architecture Team activities in 2007 include more specific lunar architecture element trade studies and refinement of level one, or fundamental, requirements.

The Lunar Architecture Team analyzed two basic approaches to human lunar exploration. One was the lunar sortie, which employs distinct short-duration human missions to one or more lunar locations before any build up of a permanent outpost. The team concluded that building an outpost first will better address the entire portfolio of strategic themes and objectives and enable many scientific objectives.

A lander could transport explorers and a scientific payload to other lunar sites.

The “outpost first” approach focuses on a single lunar site. Incremental build up of an outpost would begin with the first mission of the human lunar campaign, and each subsequent mission would add to the useful infrastructure. In a completed outpost, crews could live and work on the Moon in 6-month rotations. They also could make frequent and increasingly distant trips away from the outpost to explore, conduct field experiments, and analyze scientific data with a high level of comfort and safety.

In keeping with the strategic themes and objectives, a lunar outpost would extend human civilization and serve as a test bed for future missions to Mars and other destinations. Thoughtful site selection could help astronauts on future missions utilize local resources, a potentially critical component of human missions to Mars. An outpost also enables many science-oriented activities. A Lunar Architecture Team review of about 72 science objectives concluded that more than half could be substantially accomplished within 7 years of initiating the planned architecture. When outpost-based science and robotic sorties are added to the current architecture, more than 90 percent of the rated scientific objectives identified by the global strategy process could be addressed.

Construction of an outpost would not preclude sortie missions to other lunar locations. A lander with extra fuel cells could transport two explorers and a substantial science payload to other lunar sites.

Incremental build up of an outpost would begin with the first mission of the human lunar campaign and each subsequent mission would add to the useful infrastructure.

The Moon may harbor natural resources that could enable crews to “live off the land” and even prepare for trips to Mars and other destinations. The rocky lunar surface layer, called regolith, is a potential source of oxygen, for instance. The poles, in particular, offer concentrations of hydrogen and possibly water ice.

In considering where to situate an outpost, the Lunar Architecture Team determined that a polar location would be an accessible, simple place to operate and offered advantages such as natural resources and the potential for interesting science. The poles are less constrained by lighting and orbital phasing considerations, providing more launch opportunities. Certain polar locations are more temperature-stable and have shorter periods of darkness, reducing power and thermal system requirements. Use of solar power would allow explorers to quickly and inexpensively develop the ability for extended stays. Polar locations offer great potential for meeting science objectives. We know less about the poles than other areas of the Moon, and they offer the unique feature of cold, dark craters.

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It will take a significant effort over many years to build up the complete lunar outpost where humans can live and work on a continuous basis.

According to the Lunar Architecture Team, the best understood area near the South Pole of the Moon is near the rim of the Shackleton crater. The area is roughly the same size as the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is sunlit about 80 percent of the time during the southern lunar winter and even longer during the southern lunar summer. An outpost near the edge offers access to an area of permanent darkness inside the crater, a chance to meet some top science objectives, and the possibility of a rich source of water ice. For all these reasons, Shackleton crater serves as a departure point for planning purposes. NASA will select a final outpost location later, based on analyses of scientific data gathered by robot probes.

In order to provide sustained human presence and serve as a stepping stone for the future exploration of Mars, the lunar outpost must employ long-duration systems and enable autonomous and robust surface operations. Routine exploration beyond the outpost site, reliable communication, teleoperation and system autonomy, and reliance on live-off-the-land resources will be crucial. The architecture allows astronauts to return significant quantities of lunar samples. The outpost design will accommodate sites other than the poles.

On the Moon, NASA astronauts will pursue a variety of scientific activities.

In preparation for human exploration of Mars, activities at the lunar outpost must enable a better understanding of the long-term physiological effects of living and working on another planetary body. Astronauts will stay healthy and productive through the use of preventive medicine; telemedicine and trauma care; exercise regimens and nutrition countermeasures; radiation protection and mitigation; and research on bone loss, cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary function, musculoskeletal status, and neurological function.

Within the lunar architecture, NASA will pursue scientific activities corresponding to the global exploration strategic theme that addresses fundamental questions about Earth, the solar system, the universe, and our place in them. Potential geoscience activities include investigation of the layered nature and formation process of the lunar regolith and study of lunar volatiles. Field operations will include use of teleoperated robotic explorers and the ability to perform preliminary chemical and mineralogical analyses on geologic samples. The geoscience activities performed on the Moon will help provide the equipment and techniques that will enable the efficient geologic exploration of Mars and other destinations in the solar system. In addition, the knowledge gained on the basic geologic processes, such as meteoritic impact and volcanism, will help scientists better understand how these processes occur throughout the solar system. NASA can also pursue other science such as space physics and astronomy under this architecture. The science that is pursued will be under the purview and selection processes of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

In the spirit of global participation, NASA has adopted an open architecture approach to lunar surface infrastructure and activities that encourage external involvement (such as use of the metric system).

The LRO is the first in a series of missions to the Moon, planned for launch in late 2008 and orbiting for at least 1 year.

NASA also seeks to conduct lunar exploration in a way that engages, inspires, and educates the general public. The architecture includes allocations for payloads specifically designed to support public interest, including a network of cameras. Non-governmental organizations will be able to control some of these cameras.

It will take a significant effort over many years to build up the complete lunar outpost where humans can live and work on a continuous basis. In fact, much work remains to be done before astronauts can even set foot on the lunar surface. Years before humans can successfully return to the surface of the Moon, the way must be prepared. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will collect essential information about the future site of the outpost. The LRO and the LCROSS will launch together from the Kennedy Space Center in late 2008. The LRO will orbit the Moon for at least one year, creating high-resolution maps of the lunar terrain, seeking ideal landing sites by identifying hazards, and characterizing the thermal, lighting, and radiation environment of the Moon.

Mission planners intend for the LCROSS to impact the surface of the Moon in a crater at one of the poles in an attempt to measure water that may be frozen in the lunar soil. The water-seeking satellite and the LRO’s Earth departure stage booster will strike the Moon’s South Pole in January 2009. As the orbiter approaches the Moon, the Earth departure stage will separate and impact a crater, creating a 2.2-million-pound plume. The satellite, a shepherding spacecraft, will fly through the plume, using instrumentation to examine the cloud for signs of water and other compounds. At the end of its mission, the satellite itself will become an impactor, creating a second plume visible to lunar-orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based observatories.

Lunar Launch Strategies

A concept image shows the Ares I crew launch vehicle during ascent. Ares I is an in-line, two-stage rocket configuration topped by the Orion crew exploration vehicle and launch abort system. The Ares I first stage is a single, five-segment reusable solid rocket booster, derived from the space shuttle. Its upper stage is powered by a J-2X engine. Ares I will carry the Orion with its crews of up to six astronauts to Earth orbit.

NASA plans to return humans to the Moon no later than 2020. This journey has already begun, with the development of a new spaceship. Building on the best of past and present technology, NASA is creating a 21st-century exploration system that will be affordable, reliable, versatile, and safe.

The centerpiece of this system is the new spacecraft, Orion, designed to carry four astronauts to and from the Moon, deliver up to six crew members and supplies to the International Space Station, and support future missions to Mars. Coupled with a new lunar lander, Orion will send twice as many astronauts to the lunar surface as Apollo and allow them to stay longer, with initial missions lasting 4 to 7 days. While Apollo was limited to landings along the Moon’s equator, this lunar lander will carry enough propellant to land anywhere on the Moon’s surface.

Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the surface for up to 6 months. Orion will autonomously operate for up to 6 months in lunar orbit, standing by to return human explorers to Earth.

The launch system that will get the crew off the ground builds on powerful, reliable propulsion elements. Astronauts will launch on the Ares I rocket made up of a five-segment shuttle solid rocket booster, with a second stage powered by a J-2X engine, based on engines used on the Apollo Saturn V rockets.

A second, heavy-lift rocket, the Ares V, will use the five-segment solid rocket boosters and five liquid-fueled RS-68 engines to put up to 125 metric tons in orbit—slightly more than the weight of a shuttle orbiter. This versatile system will be capable of supporting lunar and Mars missions

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Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

The Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) generates the revolutionary concepts, technologies, and capabilities needed to advance aircraft and airspace systems. ARMD’s programs facilitate safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly air transportation systems. In addition, ARMD’s research will continue to play a vital role in NASA’s human and robotic space activities.

Aeronautics Overview

NASA has been at the forefront of aeronautics research for more than 9 decades. In 1915, the United States faced a critical need to learn everything it could, as fast as it could, about the science of flight. In response to this need, President Woodrow Wilson created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Through two World Wars, NACA research contributed to the design and development of every American aircraft in both the commercial and military sector. In 1958, NACA’s aeronautics work was transferred to the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA.

Today, the ARMD efforts are directed toward the transformation of the Nation’s air transportation system, and developing the knowledge, tools, and technologies to support future air and space vehicles. The three major programs within ARMD that carry out this research are the Fundamental Aeronautics Program, the Aviation Safety Program, and the Airspace Systems Program.

ARMD’s focus is on cutting-edge, foundational research in traditional aeronautical disciplines, as well as in emerging fields with promising application to aeronautics. ARMD is investing in research for the long-term in areas that are appropriate to NASA’s unique capabilities, and to meeting its charter of addressing national needs and benefiting the public good. The Directorate is advancing the science of aeronautics as a resource to the Nation, as well as advancing technologies, tools, and system concepts that can be drawn upon by civilian and military communities and other government agencies.

Being committed to developing tools and technologies can help transform how air transportation systems operate, how new aircraft are designed and manufactured, and how the Nation’s air transportation system can reach unparalleled levels of safety, capacity, and efficiency.

Advanced Composites

Recent efforts under NASA’s Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program have shown the technical feasibility and potential benefits of advanced composite materials/structures technologies in demanding aircraft applications. NASA’s Glenn Research Center and its industry and university partners have demonstrated the feasibility of two advanced composite technologies for future jet engine fan casing/containment system applications with the potential for 25- to 40-percent weight reductions and equal or better performance as measured by structural and damage tolerance parameters.

A jet engine fan casing constructed of advanced composite technologies created by Glenn Research Center and its industry and university partners.

The first technology, which uses fiber preform braiding and resin transfer molding processes, has been demonstrated in subsystem and engine level testing and is on a path for commercial engine certification by two engine manufacturers, with entry into commercial service expected to occur in the next year or two. This technology has been developed by A&P Technology Inc., under NASA SBIR Phase I, II, and III contracts and also with additional investment from ARMD’s Aviation Safety Program.

The second technology, which uses fiber-reinforced-foam core preform winding/stitching and resin vacuum infusion molding processes, is in an earlier stage of development but has been demonstrated in lab and rig level testing. This technology has been developed by WebCore Technologies Inc., under SBIR Phase I and II contracts with additional investment from the Aviation Safety Program.

Besides the immediate commercial transition of these two new advanced composites technologies for jet engine fan casings/containment system structures, both A&P Technology and WebCore Technologies are pursuing possible spinoff applications in other economic market sectors.

Alternative Fuels

NASA’s aeronautics programs have a long history of pursuing technology directed at increasing the efficiency of modern aircraft and reducing emissions. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the cost of foreign oil dramatically increased and the country faced the possibility of fuel costing $2 per gallon (equivalent to about $5 per gallon in current year dollars), NASA began to aggressively fund programs to reduce fuel consumption. Research and technology development programs focused on lightweight composite materials to enable much lighter airframes. Advanced propulsion programs were also created to improve the efficiency of existing gas turbine engines, and to explore new concepts such as an advanced, high-speed turbo propeller.

Alternative fuels include synthetic, bio-derived renewables, and more challenging fuels such as hydrogen.

Today, the future of aviation is facing multiple challenges. Current projections show that air travel will increase by a factor of two to three sometime in the next decade, with a proportional increase in fuel demand. The latter will occur at a time when the world demand for oil will sharply increase, making U.S. dependence on foreign oil a more serious issue than today. Similarly, if nothing is done, emissions from aircraft will also increase by a factor of two to three, including both nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Today, aircraft only contribute about 3 percent of CO2 emissions with no significant impact on the environment. Though the percentage may remain small in the future, the total amount of aircraft-emitted CO2 will increase with the volume of air travel.

To address these issues, NASA’s Fundamental Aeronautics Program conducts research into alternative fuels that are available from domestic resources (e.g., agricultural products and coal) and that produce less potentially harmful emissions. One approach is the Fischer-Tropsch process developed by German scientists in the 1920s. Today, it is still one of the more promising processes to produce fuels from non-petroleum raw materials. In the United States, the process has been used to produce ethanol from corn, as well as gaseous and liquid fuel from coal. However, there is no process, feedstock, or final product that best meets the aviation requirements for efficiency, low emissions, and cost.

This is one focus of NASA’s Subsonic Fixed Wing Project. In addition to conducting in-house research, NASA will engage both industry and academia to research and develop better production processes and fuels that can be based on domestic feedstock. NASA also conducts research on advanced combustion processes and controls to optimize the benefit of alternative fuels. This includes defining the chemical kinetics and characterization of the alternative fuels, and running them in small labs before testing on engines.

If this work is successful, it has the potential to generate significant commercial opportunities that can extend well beyond the aviation community. NASA will not produce new fuels, nor will the Federal government, in general. The knowledge and capability to produce alternative fuels will reside in the private sector, including the engineering expertise and manufacturing infrastructure to support large scale production. Some of this economic spinoff will be realized by existing large-scale energy providers. However, as with any new technological development, new players also emerge—both small and large. Further, the basic technology for alternative aviation fuels is likely to apply to other markets as well. In fact, the broader the general markets for the technology and fuel products, the lower the costs and greater the benefits to the aviation community.

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Space Operations Mission Directorate

The Space Operations Mission Directorate provides NASA with leadership and management of the Agency’s space operations related to human exploration in and beyond low-Earth orbit. Space Operations also oversees low-level requirements development, policy, and programmatic oversight. Current exploration activities in low-Earth orbit include the space shuttle and International Space Station programs. The directorate is similarly responsible for Agency leadership and management of NASA space operations related to launch services, space transportation, and space communications in support of both human and robotic exploration programs. Its main challenges include: completing assembly of the ISS; utilizing, operating, and sustaining the ISS; commercial space launch acquisition; future space communications architecture; and transition from the space shuttle to future launch vehicles.

Opening a New Chapter in Space Exploration

Future NASA astronauts who land on the Moon will owe their success in part to the men and women of the U.S. Gulf Coast, who are already at work on the next generation of space travel. Stennis Space Center, in Mississippi, and NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, in New Orleans, both will have critical roles in the Constellation Program, which aims to land astronauts on the Moon by the end of the next decade.

This engineer’s concept drawing of the A-3 Test Stand shows the 300-foot-tall structure’s open steel frame and large exhaust diffuser.

Stennis broke ground for a new rocket engine test stand that will provide altitude testing for the J-2X engine. The engine will power the upper stages of NASA’s Ares I and Ares V rockets. NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale was joined by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, U.S. Senator Trent Lott, and U.S. Representative Gene Taylor for the landmark occasion. Also participating were NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Scott Horowitz, and Stennis Center Director Richard Gilbrech, named to succeed Horowitz in October 2007. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne president Jim Maser took part as well.

“Groundbreakings are about new beginnings,” said Dale. “The first stand was erected at Stennis to test the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo Program. Testing of the space shuttle engines began here in the mid 1970s. And today, we’re breaking ground for a new test stand, for the new spacecraft of a new era of exploration.” The Ares I and Ares V rockets are being developed as part of NASA’s Constellation Program. Constellation spacecraft will be used to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), return humans to the Moon, and eventually journey to Mars.

“This is our generation’s turn, our time to go to the Moon,” said Gilbrech. “One of the key steps is building the A-3 test stand. The J-2X engine has a unique set of test requirements. The best way to meet them is with the A-3.”

The A-3 stand will be a 300-foot-tall, open steel frame structure located south of the existing A-1 test stand. Its 19-acre site in Stennis’ A Complex will include a test control center, propellant barge docks, and access roadways. The test stand will allow engineers to simulate conditions at different altitudes by generating steam to reduce pressure in the test cell. Testing on the A-3 stand is scheduled to begin in late 2010.

“The engines will be assembled here at Stennis, then subjected to rigorous, expert testing,” Dale said. “After that, those engines and the rockets they will power will travel to Cape Canaveral. Then the finished spacecraft will lift off, headed for a new destination and a new era of exploration.”

NASA Report Details Education Concept for International Space Station National Laboratory

The 2005 NASA Authorization Act designated the U.S. segment of the ISS as a national laboratory and directed NASA to develop a plan to “increase the utilization of the ISS by other Federal entities and the private sector….” As the Nation’s newest national laboratory, the ISS will further strengthen relationships among NASA, other Federal entities, and private sector leaders in the pursuit of national priorities for the advancement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The ISS National Laboratory will also open new paths for the exploration and economic development of space.

• The ISS represents a unique and highly visible national asset with surplus capacity available for a wide spectrum of applications.
  
  
• The national laboratory concept is an opportunity to expand the U.S. economy in space-based research, applications, and operations.
  
  
• NASA will continue to cover the cost of operating and maintaining the ISS, and is highly motivated to work with other agencies and organizations to pursue applications.
  

The International Space Station, against the blackness of space and Earth’s horizon, at the end of STS-117’s mission on June 19, 2007.

A task force representing seven Federal agencies, including NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Education, has developed a strategy for using the ISS National Laboratory as a venue for further inspiring teachers and students in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The task force’s education development concept looks at ways to use the space station’s U.S. segment to support future projects and develop partnerships for education payloads, or experiments, with other Federal agencies. Some ideas include establishing an education working group with representatives from Federal agencies responsible for soliciting, selecting, and submitting education payloads; linking education activities with ongoing science investigations; and developing a payload rack filled with education-related materials and equipment.

For more than 6 years, students have successfully conducted classroom versions of station experiments and learned about the weightlessness of space through on-orbit demonstrations by crew members. The “International Space Station National Laboratory Education Concept Development Report” is the first phase in planning expanded educational use of the space station by multiple organizations as part of the designation of the ISS as a national laboratory.

Operation Dark Dune

On Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the Space Shuttle Endeavour sat bathed in glowing light, silhouetting the vehicle against the dark night sky over the seaside complex. An awesome scene in an idyllic location, and a striking counterpoint to the nesting sea turtles and their newly hatched babies on the nearby shore. During their summer nesting season, these turtles emerge from the ocean along the pristine beach within 200 yards of the space shuttle launch pads. The light emanating from the pads can deter the adults from coming ashore to lay their eggs and disorient the hatchlings as they emerge from their nests and head toward the moonlit sea. To help preserve the balance of its natural surroundings, Kennedy’s environmental management system has as one of its goals to minimize controllable impacts to wildlife, including the nesting sea turtles.

Atlantis and a turtle race out to Pad 39B for mission STS-81.

While their height normally provides a necessary buffer between the launch pads and the shoreline, the dunes along Florida’s Space Coast have been severely eroded in some spots by hurricanes, particularly during the 2004 season. That year, the Space Center was impacted by two hurricanes just 3 weeks apart, and while some dune restoration was completed, and more is planned, some stop-gap measures were needed until the nesting season ends at the beginning of November.

Enter some inventive individuals with a novel idea: Use what they have on hand to help block the launch pad lights, so the nesting process can continue undisturbed. As those charged with helping to protect the environmental balance debated how to shield the beach from the lights, Doug Scheidt, of Dynamac Corporation, Kennedy’s life sciences support contractor, had this idea: Use freight train boxcars to shade the dunes. Admittedly a proverbial shot in the dark, freight train cars are about the right height to shade the dunes in the most severely eroded spots, and since the Space Center has a rail line that parallels the beach, it was a viable solution that would also avoid the pitfalls inherent in trying to erect some type of temporary barriers that would require permits and funding.

Uniquely bringing together employees from both the operations and environmental sides of Kennedy’s management team, the railcar idea took shape. The cars were big enough and mobile, and some scheduled to be removed from service were conveniently parked just a few miles away from the launch pads. The solution was ideal—quick, easy, and cheap—and the project that had been affectionately dubbed “Operation Dark Dune” strategically relocated 25 railcars to their temporary seaside location.

“As a former environmental protection specialist at Kennedy, I realize how fine a line it is between our operations and the protection of our natural resources,” said Propellants Mobile Equipment Manager Gail Villanueva, who is in charge of the railcars. “I was happy I was in a position to help out, although the request was unique, to say the least.”

The relationship between space exploration and nature goes back as far as the Space Program’s roots in the region. When the Kennedy Space Center was carved out along the vast coastal area, its first director, Kurt H. Debus, arranged for a large portion of the Center to be designated as a wildlife refuge. Known as the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, it now encompasses 140,000 acres and is managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service. Kennedy also borders the Canaveral National Seashore, which provides an important nesting area for the sea turtles.

If innovative thinkers at the Space Center can continue to come up with creative solutions like Operation Dark Dune, the Center’s dedication to the delicate balance between nature and space exploration will continue to flourish.

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