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This Week at NASA…

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After handing over the reins of the International
Space Station to NASA astronaut Kevin Ford,

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Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams of NASA,
Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight

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Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency, all of whom have been

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on the station since July 17, made a safe
parachute-assisted landing in their Soyuz

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spacecraft in Kazakhstan on Nov. 19 local
time.

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Expedition 34 crewmembers Ford, Oleg Novitskiy
and Evgeny Tarelkin will be joined onboard

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the station by Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko,
NASA’s Tom Marshburn and Chris Hadfield

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of the Canadian Space Agency.

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Their arrival Dec. 21 will restore to six
the number of people aboard the orbiting laboratory.

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“We hear you loud and clear aboard the International
Space Station.

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Welcome aboard!”

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The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s
Moving Beyond Earth gallery was among 25 North

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American locations at which participants of
the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program

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(SSEP) plugged into life onboard the International
Space Station during a live video-conference

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with the ISS.

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The event gave U.S. and Canadian students
an opportunity to ask station crew members

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about daily activities onboard the orbiting
laboratory.

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“What advice can you give young kids like
me about pursuing our dreams?”

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“Just have your eyes wide open and get ready
for all of those challenges – because they’ll

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be out there but they’ll be fun and the
rewards are great if you try hard, work hard

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and do your best.”

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A panel of spaceflight and science experts
also fielded questions -- including astronaut

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Leland Melvin – NASA’s Associate Administrator
for Education.

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The SSEP program is a joint venture between
the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum,

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the National Center for Earth and Space Science
Education (NCESSE), NASA, and the U.S. Department

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of Education.

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“One, two three … space!”

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A new NASA service will help sky watchers
pinpoint where and when the International

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Space Station will make an appearance in the
skies above them.

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NASA’s “Spot the Station” service sends
a text or email to anyone with an email account

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or an SMS-enabled phone to alert them when
the ISS is scheduled for a flyover in the

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area.

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Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center
compiles sighting opportunities for 4,600

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locations worldwide.

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To sign up, visit spotthestation.nasa.gov.

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If your city or town isn’t listed, just
pick one that’s close by!

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Hi, I’m Ashwin Vasavada, the deputy project
scientist for the Curiosity rover and this

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is your Curiosity rover update.

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A lot of what this mission is about is figuring
out the possibility that ancient Mars was

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a habitable environment.

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But we’re also studying the present environment.

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Two instruments that help with that are the
RAD instrument and the REMS instrument.

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The RAD instrument is a radiation assessment
detector.

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It measures the high-energy radiation coming
up from the cosmic rays and the sun.

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That radiation is changed as it goes through
Mars’ atmosphere to where we detect it on

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the surface.

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By measuring the radiation at Mars’ surface
Curiosity is helping prepare for human missions

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to Mars.

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Another instrument that Curiosity has that
measures the modern environment is called

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the rover environmental monitoring station.

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It’s basically our weather station.

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We measure a lot of things including pressure,
and humidity, temperature and wind.

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It’s been seeing little dips in pressure
around noon that seemed like the signature

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of dust devils.

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Only thing is our pictures haven’t turned
up any dust devils.

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Spirit and Opportunity saw lots of dust devils
moving across the horizon.

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Our best guess at what’s going on is that
Curiosity is seeing dust devils go right over

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it, only thing is we’re not seeing the dust
devils.

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So what we think is happening is the same
sorts of vortexes, driven by convection are

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occurring on Mars at the Curiosity’s site
but just not picking up dust.

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Another thing that REMS has been measuring
is winds.

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Turns out we’re in a pretty interesting
place inside of Gale Crater.

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We’re right at the base of a 5-kilometer
high mountain to the south of us and then

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there’s a pretty tall crater rim to the
north of us and we’re sitting in kind of

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a flat depression between the two.

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The winds blow up and down the mountain as
the temperature changes during the day and

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up and down the crater slopes and then along
the depression where we’re at.

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So right now we’re trying to figure out
from the REMS data exactly which parts of

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that wind field we’re measuring.

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With Thanksgiving coming up we’ve been preparing
a few days worth of commands to send up to

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the rover to keep it busy while people here
take some much needed time off.

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The rover will be acquiring a big panorama
of our surroundings while we’re away.

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I’m Ashwin Vasavada and this has been your
Curiosity rover update.

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NASA has announced the successful completion
of the Kepler space telescope’s baseline

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mission to search for planets in other solar
systems.

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Since its launch in 2009, scientists using
Kepler have identified more than 100 exoplanets

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and another 23-hundred-plus candidates.

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“The tapestry of everything that goes on
in the Kepler.

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It’s really a team mission.

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It’s an enormous number of people who come
together to make this kind of mission happen.”

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In April of this year, NASA awarded the Kepler
mission up to four more years of funding,

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allowing the telescope to continue its planetary
census and to help scientists better understand

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solar system and planetary formation.

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Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center
are using a new, cost-saving method to create

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intricate metal parts for America’s next
heavy-lift rocket.

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Called “Selective Laser Melting” the process
uses a high-energy laser to melt a fine metal

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powder into a computer-aided designed pattern.

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A hybrid of 3-D printing and artistic welding,
SLM creates intricately-designed parts with

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complex geometries that are more strong and
safe in less time, saving millions in manufacturing

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costs.

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These new, SLM-created parts will be on the
first SLS test flight in 2017.

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The Goddard Space Flight Center hosted a 2012
Veterans Day Recognition Program, with former

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NASA astronaut and retired Navy captain Scott
Altman serving as featured speaker.

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Altman, who flew four space shuttle missions
and commanded STS-125, the final Hubble servicing

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mission, praised those who’ve defended and
upheld those freedoms upon which our nation

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stands.

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Hundreds of students celebrated the 20th annual
Young Astronauts Day at the Glenn Research

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Center.

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They competed in a variety of activities testing
their skills in science and engineering.

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Meeting with the students was Center Director
Ray Lugo, and NASA astronaut and Ohio native,

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Greg Johnson, who serves as Associate Director
of External Programs at Glenn.

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This year's event was sponsored by Glenn's
Exploration Flight and Development Project

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Office and the Northern Ohio Section of the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

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Providing support was the center’s Educational
Programs Office.

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At the fifth annual Wernher von Braun Memorial
Symposium in Huntsville, Marshall Space Flight

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Center personnel and guests discussed a wide
range of topics, including human space exploration,

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space commerce, national space security and
policy, and trends in engineering education.

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The von Braun Symposium, organized by the
American Astronautical Society in conjunction

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with UA - Huntsville, the National Space Club
of Huntsville and NASA strives for the advancement

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of astronautics in the Unites States.

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Registration is now open for the 20th annual
Great Moonbuggy Race, scheduled for next April

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25 thru 27 at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center
in Huntsville.

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The Marshall-sponsored event provides high
school, college and university students from

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around the world with real-world engineering
experience, and inspiration to pursue careers

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in science, technology, engineering and math.

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For details, go to moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov/.

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I'm Jeanne Lynch and I'm Chief of the Flight
Dynamics Division in the Mission Operations

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Directorate.

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The Flight Dynamics Division is responsible
for the trajectory of the International Space

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Station so that includes the visiting vehicles
and how they fly to the ISS, as well as where

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the ISS is located; basically the altitude
of how far it is from the Earth.

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My grandmother’s grandmother was Cherokee.

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We moved to Florida next to my grandmother
and my mother started getting more involved

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in the genealogy and our culture.

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So when I was in high school and even in college
before I moved away, I participated in a number

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of the local Pow-Wows and other Native American
Functions.

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When I started for NASA, I was actually a
new hire right out of college so I wasn't

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a Co-Op, but I did do my senior project when
I was in engineering school that was a NASA

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funded project through my university where
we essentially built a little kind of lunar

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servicing station for a lunar lander.\h

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And it was amazing and a lot of fun.\h

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In any job you have, you need to give it your
all; you need to take personal responsibility

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for the quality of your work, getting it done,
and really being passionate about what you

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do.\h

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And I know if you do that, then it gets noticed
and everyone appreciates it and then your

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career will just continue to grow.

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Fourteen years ago, on Nov. 20, 1998, Zarya,
the first component of the new International

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Space Station was launched atop a Russian
Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

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in Kazakhstan.

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During the initial assembly stage of the ISS
Zarya provided the station with propulsion,

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guidance, battery power, fuel storage, and
rendezvous and docking capability for Soyuz

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and Progress space vehicles.

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Now that specialized components handle those
chores for the station, Zarya is primarily

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used for storage.

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Three years ago on November 16, 2009 Space
Shuttle Atlantis rose skyward from the Kennedy

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Space Center on STS-129 – an assembly flight
to the International Space Station.

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Atlantis’ crew consisted of Commander Charlie
Hobaugh, Pilot Barry Wilmore and Mission specialists

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Bobby Satcher, Mike Foreman, Randy Bresnik
and Leland Melvin.

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Atlantis delivered parts to the space station,
including a spare gyroscope and a UHF communications

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unit to be used for future station flights
by SpaceX.

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The mission, the final space shuttle crew
rotation flight to or from the space station,

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also returned to Earth NASA astronaut and
station crew member Nicole Stott.

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And that’s This Week @NASA.