Topic: Pasadena CA

NASA puts Wheels, Air Brakes on Perseverance Mars Rover

April 4, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – Final assembly and testing of NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover continues at Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the July launch window approaches. In some of the last steps required prior to stacking the spacecraft components in the configuration they’ll be in atop the Atlas V rocket, the rover’s wheels and parachute have been installed.

Perseverance received its six flight wheels on March 30th, 2020. While the rover took a test drive last December, it was on “flight spares” that wouldn’t be making the trip to Mars.

Three of the six flight wheels that will travel to Mars can be seen attached to NASA’s Perseverance rover (which is inverted on a handling fixture) on March 30, 2020 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The protective antistatic foil covering the wheels will be removed before launch this summer. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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How NASA’s Mars Helicopter came into being

April 2, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – The NASA Mars Helicopter is riding to the Red Planet this summer with NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover. The helicopter’s chief engineer, Bob Balaram, shares the saga of how it came into being.

Even before this interviewer can finish the question, “Did anyone ever tell you this was a crazy idea?” Bob Balaram jumps in: “Everyone. All the time.”

This “crazy idea” is the Mars Helicopter, currently at Kennedy Space Center waiting to hitch a ride to the Red Planet on the Mars Perseverance rover this summer.

Mars Helicopter’s chief engineer Bob Balaram and the Mars Helicopter on a test stand. The technology demonstration will ride aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover to the Red Planet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA SunRISE mission to use Six Spacecraft to study Giant Solar Particle Storms

March 31, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA has selected a new mission to study how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms – known as solar particle storms – into planetary space.

Not only will such information improve understanding of how our solar system works, but it ultimately can help protect astronauts traveling to the Moon and Mars by providing better information on how the Sun’s radiation affects the space environment they must travel through.

A new NASA mission called SunRISE will study what drives solar particle storms – giant surges of solar particles that erupt off of the Sun – as depicted in this illustration. Understanding how such storms affect interplanetary space can help protect spacecraft and astronauts. (NASA)

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NASA Scientists take new look at Voyager 2 Data, Find new Discovery about Uranus

March 27, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – Eight and a half years into its grand tour of the solar system, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft was ready for another encounter. It was January 24th, 1986, and soon it would meet the mysterious seventh planet, icy-cold Uranus.

Over the next few hours, Voyager 2 flew within 50,600 miles (81,433 kilometers) of Uranus’ cloud tops, collecting data that revealed two new rings, 11 new moons and temperatures below minus 353 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 214 degrees Celsius). The dataset is still the only up-close measurements we have ever made of the planet.

Voyager 2 took this image as it approached the planet Uranus on Jan. 14, 1986. The planet’s hazy bluish color is due to the methane in its atmosphere, which absorbs red wavelengths of light. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA study shows Denman Glacier vulnerable to Seawater Intrusion

March 26, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – According to a new study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine, the Denman Glacier in East Antarctica retreated 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) from 1996 to 2018. Their analysis of Denman – a single glacier that holds as much ice as half of West Antarctica – also shows that the shape of the ground beneath the ice sheet makes it especially susceptible to climate-driven retreat.

Until recently, researchers believed East Antarctica was more stable than West Antarctica because it wasn’t losing as much ice compared to the glacial melt observed in the western part of the continent.

This photograph shows ripples in the surface of Denman Glacier in East Antarctica that throw shadows against the ice. The glacier is melting at a faster rate now than it was from 2003 to 2008. (NASA)

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NASA Scientists use GRACE, GRACE-FO Satellite Data to examine Ice Loss in Greenland, Antarctica

March 22, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – According to NASA, during the exceptionally warm Arctic summer of 2019, Greenland lost 600 billion tons of ice – enough to raise global sea levels by nearly a tenth of an inch (2.2 millimeters) in just two months, a new study shows.

Led by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine, the study also concludes that Antarctica continues to lose mass, particularly in the Amundsen Sea Embayment and the Antarctic Peninsula on the western part of the continent; however, those losses have been partially offset by gains from increased snowfall in the northeast.

Greenland’s Steenstrup Glacier, with the midmorning sun glinting off the Denmark Strait in the background. The image was taken during a NASA IceBridge airborne survey of the region in 2016. (NASA/Operation IceBridge)

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NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover makes record climb over Greenheugh Pediment

March 21, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover recently set a record for the steepest terrain it’s ever climbed, cresting the “Greenheugh Pediment,” a broad sheet of rock that sits atop a hill. And before doing that, the rover took a selfie, capturing the scene just below Greenheugh.

In front of the rover is a hole it drilled while sampling a bedrock target called “Hutton.” The entire selfie is a 360-degree panorama stitched together from 86 images relayed to Earth. The selfie captures the rover about 11 feet (3.4 meters) below the point where it climbed onto the crumbling pediment.

This selfie was taken by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on Feb. 26, 2020 (the 2,687th Martian day, or sol, of the mission). The crumbling rock layer at the top of the image is “the Greenheugh Pediment,” which Curiosity climbed soon after taking the image. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA installs Sample Handling System on Mars Perseverance Rover

March 20, 2020 |

Washington, D.C. – With the launch period for NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover opening in a little less than four months, the six-wheeler is reaching significant pre-launch milestones almost daily at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The rover had some components removed prior to being shipped from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to the Cape in early February.

This illustration depicts NASA’s Perseverance rover operating on the surface of Mars. Perseverance will land at the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater a little after 2:40pm CST (12:40pm PST) on February 18th, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Spinoff Publication to feature examples of NASA Technology that make Life better on Earth

March 19, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – As NASA pushes the frontiers of science and human exploration, the agency also advances technology to modernize life on Earth, including drones, self-driving cars and other innovations.

NASA’s diverse missions spur the creation and improvement of thousands of new products that make life better for people around the world. Dozens of the latest examples are featured in the newest edition of NASA’s Spinoff publication, including several from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and many illustrating how NASA is working to shape the coming revolution of autonomous vehicles on the roads and in the air.

The technology behind the Mars Helicopter’s 4-foot-wide (1.2-meter-wide) rotor blades is also used in the construction of a rugged drone that helps farmers survey their land. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA reports Greenland, Antarctica Ice Sheets Melting Six Times Faster Than in 1990s

March 17, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA says observations from 11 satellite missions monitoring the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have revealed that the regions are losing ice six times faster than they were in the 1990s.

If the current melting trend continues, the regions will be on track to match the “worst-case” scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of an extra 6.7 inches (17 centimeters) of sea level rise by 2100.

An aerial view of the icebergs near Kulusuk Island, off the southeastern coastline of Greenland, a region that is exhibiting an accelerated rate of ice loss. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

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