1 00:00:07,170 --> 00:00:09,420 This Week at NASA… 2 00:00:09,420 --> 00:00:12,340 “Splash down, splash down.” 3 00:00:12,340 --> 00:00:17,340 The SpaceX Dragon capsule that splashed down Sunday in the Pacific off Mexico’s Baja 4 00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:20,590 California coast is back on dry land. 5 00:00:20,590 --> 00:00:24,900 Its recovery ship returned the spacecraft to San Pedro, California, laden with more 6 00:00:24,900 --> 00:00:29,480 than 3-quarters of a ton of cargo from the International Space Station. 7 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:33,410 Much of what Dragon brought back was from science experiments conducted on the station 8 00:00:33,410 --> 00:00:39,280 that’ll benefit us here on Earth, as well as provide critical data about how long-duration 9 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:41,920 spaceflight affects the human body. 10 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:46,470 Not since the space shuttle have NASA and its international partners been able to return 11 00:00:46,470 --> 00:00:51,110 considerable amounts of research and samples to Earth for analyses. 12 00:00:51,110 --> 00:00:57,850 “Suni you’re going to remove the cover carefully and restrain it on the Nadir side.” 13 00:00:57,850 --> 00:01:03,980 Back on, or, outside the ISS, Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams of NASA and Flight 14 00:01:03,980 --> 00:01:08,299 Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency “went EVA.” 15 00:01:08,299 --> 00:01:13,729 The pair bypassed an ammonia leak in one of the station’s coolant lines. 16 00:01:13,729 --> 00:01:18,320 The leak, which began slowly in 2007, had grown recently. 17 00:01:18,320 --> 00:01:23,640 The spacewalk was the 166th on the station, and the third since August by Williams and 18 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:26,900 Hoshide. 19 00:01:26,900 --> 00:01:31,920 Space Shuttle Endeavour debuted at its temporary display pavilion in a grand opening ceremony 20 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:35,810 hosted by the California Science Center in Los Angeles. 21 00:01:35,810 --> 00:01:39,700 Endeavour will make its permanent home at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center now 22 00:01:39,700 --> 00:01:42,020 under construction at the CSC. 23 00:01:42,020 --> 00:01:47,100 Among those attending the ceremony were astronauts, public officials and local school children, 24 00:01:47,100 --> 00:01:51,689 many of whom it’s hoped will be inspired by Endeavour to join our next generation of 25 00:01:51,689 --> 00:01:54,749 explorers and scientists. 26 00:01:54,749 --> 00:02:02,290 Meanwhile, Atlantis, the last NASA space shuttle to fly in space, also became the last to be 27 00:02:02,290 --> 00:02:04,280 officially retired. 28 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:08,330 Beginning at the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building, Atlantis rolled 29 00:02:08,330 --> 00:02:14,430 the ten miles to the KSC Visitor Complex where it will go on permanent public display. 30 00:02:14,430 --> 00:02:17,890 The orbiter stopped along the route for its retirement ceremony. 31 00:02:17,890 --> 00:02:23,510 “America still leads the world in exploration and we’re building on the many fine accomplishments 32 00:02:23,510 --> 00:02:28,819 of the space shuttle program to take us where we have not gone before, to places where our 33 00:02:28,819 --> 00:02:35,020 imagination and our aspiration tells us we can go if we channel the passions that built 34 00:02:35,020 --> 00:02:37,590 and launched Atlantis and create a new day.” 35 00:02:37,590 --> 00:02:46,099 “It is my sincere hope that one day some young boy or girl is going to look at Atlantis 36 00:02:46,099 --> 00:02:50,620 and it’s going spark that dream of exploration in space.” 37 00:02:50,620 --> 00:02:53,140 NASA retains Atlantis’s title. 38 00:02:53,140 --> 00:02:58,019 The public can see it at the visitor complex, where a grand opening for Atlantis’s new 39 00:02:58,019 --> 00:03:01,409 “space” is planned for next July. 40 00:03:01,409 --> 00:03:07,549 Meanwhile, the Kennedy Space Center continues its modernization and refurbishment as the 41 00:03:07,549 --> 00:03:09,870 spaceport of the future. 42 00:03:09,870 --> 00:03:16,159 The large space shuttle-era work platforms have been removed from high bay 3 of Kennedy’s 43 00:03:16,159 --> 00:03:17,610 Vehicle Assembly Building. 44 00:03:17,610 --> 00:03:22,269 That’s part of the center-wide effort to accommodate NASA’s Space Launch System and 45 00:03:22,269 --> 00:03:24,400 a variety of other spacecraft. 46 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:31,220 When updating is complete, KSC will safely process, assemble, transport and launch NASA’s 47 00:03:31,220 --> 00:03:35,769 next generation of rockets and spacecraft. 48 00:03:35,769 --> 00:03:40,790 NASA researchers, project managers and program leads gathered in Huntsville for the first 49 00:03:40,790 --> 00:03:44,180 annual review of the Technology Demonstration Missions. 50 00:03:44,180 --> 00:03:49,640 TDMs bridge the gap between laboratory development of revolutionary, cross-cutting technologies 51 00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:52,599 and their practical demonstration in the space environment. 52 00:03:52,599 --> 00:03:57,280 “These accomplishments included the MEDLI experiment that flew in on the Mars Science 53 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:03,489 Laboratory, the Human Exploration Robotic Technology experiment on space station that 54 00:04:03,489 --> 00:04:09,569 was the Robonaut and the Spheres demonstration and several other accomplishments that we 55 00:04:09,569 --> 00:04:10,569 had.” 56 00:04:10,569 --> 00:04:15,170 Hi, I'm David Bish, co-investigator on the CheMin instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory 57 00:04:15,170 --> 00:04:17,920 and this is your Curiosity rover update. 58 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:21,030 We have been spending some time in an area called Rocknest, and this week we delivered 59 00:04:21,030 --> 00:04:23,220 a scoop of a dune to Curiosity. 60 00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:28,860 CheMin performs X-ray diffraction measurements on powdered rocks and soil samples. 61 00:04:28,860 --> 00:04:32,670 An X-ray diffraction is the best method for telling us what minerals are present in a 62 00:04:32,670 --> 00:04:37,130 rock or a soil because it is sensitive to the arrangements of atoms in minerals. 63 00:04:37,130 --> 00:04:42,100 As the X-rays strike the soil sample, CheMin shows us how mineral crystals distinctively 64 00:04:42,100 --> 00:04:47,310 interact with X-rays, and this image shows us our first X-ray diffraction results. 65 00:04:47,310 --> 00:04:51,970 The diffraction signals appear on the detector as rings that represent the fingerprint of 66 00:04:51,970 --> 00:04:53,380 the minerals. 67 00:04:53,380 --> 00:04:57,320 The rings tell us not only what minerals are present in the soil and but also how abundant 68 00:04:57,320 --> 00:04:58,510 they are. 69 00:04:58,510 --> 00:05:03,850 The CheMin data provide us distinctive signatures of the minerals plagioclase feldspar, pyroxenes, 70 00:05:03,850 --> 00:05:04,850 and olivine. 71 00:05:04,850 --> 00:05:07,100 Peridot is a variety of olivine. 72 00:05:07,100 --> 00:05:11,430 Just keep in mind that the olivine in the soil sample is much smaller than these crystals. 73 00:05:11,430 --> 00:05:16,080 Roughly half of the soil consists of poorly crystalline material, such as volcanic glass. 74 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:20,660 Thus, this Martian soil appears very similar to some weathered basaltic soils that we see 75 00:05:20,660 --> 00:05:24,480 on Earth, in places like the flanks of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. 76 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:28,630 You can appreciate how revolutionary CheMin is when you consider that instruments of this 77 00:05:28,630 --> 00:05:33,260 type on Earth are typically about the size of a double-wide refrigerator and the CheMin 78 00:05:33,260 --> 00:05:37,480 instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory is about the size of a shoebox. 79 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:42,190 CheMin has been modified for use on Earth in places such as Antarctica and the Arctic. 80 00:05:42,190 --> 00:05:46,900 It’s also been applied for detection of counterfeit pharmaceuticals around the world 81 00:05:46,900 --> 00:05:52,340 and a modification of the instrument has been used in archeological studies to help us understand 82 00:05:52,340 --> 00:05:54,850 the nature of surfaces and how might we protect them. 83 00:05:54,850 --> 00:05:59,210 In the coming weeks and months, we’re excited to measure more X-ray diffraction data on 84 00:05:59,210 --> 00:06:02,680 soils and rocks to tell us more about the geology of Gale Crater. 85 00:06:02,680 --> 00:06:05,430 This has been your Curiosity rover report. 86 00:06:05,430 --> 00:06:09,310 Stay tuned for futher updates. 87 00:06:09,310 --> 00:06:14,180 Marshall Space Flight Center astrophysicist Dr. Chryssa Kouveliotou has been selected 88 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:19,030 by Time Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential people in space. 89 00:06:19,030 --> 00:06:25,990 A NASA astrophysicist since 2004, Kouveliotou is an associated scientist of NASA’s Swift 90 00:06:25,990 --> 00:06:32,250 mission; a member of the NuSTAR Science Team; and, co-investigator on the Gamma-ray Burst 91 00:06:32,250 --> 00:06:37,290 Monitor, an instrument flying aboard NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. 92 00:06:37,290 --> 00:06:44,300 As for Fermi, astronomers using data from the Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the 93 00:06:44,300 --> 00:06:49,240 most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the 94 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:53,620 total amount of light from all the stars that have ever shone. 95 00:06:53,620 --> 00:06:58,030 Light from stars that have stopped shining still travels throughout the universe, creating 96 00:06:58,030 --> 00:07:00,270 a sort of cosmic fog. 97 00:07:00,270 --> 00:07:06,360 By measuring average amounts of gamma radiation generated by black-hole-fueled galaxies traveling 98 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:12,330 through this fog over the past 9-point-six billion years, astronomers can estimate the 99 00:07:12,330 --> 00:07:14,720 fog’s thickness, or density. 100 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:19,110 That comes to 1-point-4 stars per 100 billion cubic light years. 101 00:07:19,110 --> 00:07:26,640 Or, in other words, the average distance between each star is 4,150 light years. 102 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:32,280 The Visitor Center at Goddard Space Flight Center is celebrating its newest exhibit --- a 103 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:36,240 replica of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that is circling the moon. 104 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:41,140 The LRO team at Goddard spent more than a year refurbishing this mechanical prototype 105 00:07:41,140 --> 00:07:46,430 to make it look exactly like the spacecraft in orbit – right down to the thermal blankets. 106 00:07:46,430 --> 00:07:48,980 “This is a wonderfully exciting day. 107 00:07:48,980 --> 00:07:55,960 It’s an exhibit that tells the LRO story and NASA’s story very well and we expect 108 00:07:55,960 --> 00:08:01,270 that this will be a real attraction for visitors to Goddard.” 109 00:08:01,270 --> 00:08:06,190 The interactive exhibit allows visitors to browse the images LRO has captured, learn 110 00:08:06,190 --> 00:08:08,410 about the mission and meet the team. 111 00:08:08,410 --> 00:08:14,250 Launched in 2009, LRO has captured some of the most detailed images ever taken of the 112 00:08:14,250 --> 00:08:19,430 lunar landscape providing scientists with critical data about Earth’s closest neighbor. 113 00:08:19,430 --> 00:08:26,640 “It’s not a place that, you know, we’ve been there and that’s it. 114 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:34,370 It’s a place that we need to continue to explore and learn about because it can tell 115 00:08:34,370 --> 00:08:36,630 us so much about our entire solar system.” 116 00:08:36,630 --> 00:08:42,349 The information LRO is returning will help scientists identify resources for future exploration 117 00:08:42,349 --> 00:08:47,310 and scientific research of the moon. 118 00:08:47,310 --> 00:08:53,930 Thirty-nine years ago, on November 3, 1973, Mariner 10, the seventh successful launch 119 00:08:53,930 --> 00:08:58,670 in the Mariner series of spacecraft, was sent into space at the Cape Canaveral Air Force 120 00:08:58,670 --> 00:09:00,620 Station in Florida. 121 00:09:00,620 --> 00:09:06,230 Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to visit Mercury, the first to use the gravitational 122 00:09:06,230 --> 00:09:12,730 pull of one planet to reach another and the first to visit two planets, Mercury and Venus. 123 00:09:12,730 --> 00:09:18,860 Mariner 10 measured each planet’s environment, atmosphere, surface, and body characteristics. 124 00:09:18,860 --> 00:09:24,800 Data from Mariner 10 was used to help plan NASA’s current MESSENGER mission. 125 00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:26,810 And that’s This Week @NASA.