1 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:11,290 This Week at NASA 2 00:00:11,290 --> 00:00:15,400 NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden delivered the keynote address for this year's Space 3 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:20,390 Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Auditorium 4 00:00:20,390 --> 00:00:23,200 and Science Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. 5 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:28,860 The annual forum includes researchers, policymakers and forecasters discussing space weather and 6 00:00:28,860 --> 00:00:33,530 how to mitigate its effects on communications, navigation and national security. 7 00:00:33,530 --> 00:00:38,200 Given the growing importance of space to our nation's economic well being and security, 8 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:44,021 it's of increasing importance that NASA and its partner agencies continue to advance our 9 00:00:44,021 --> 00:00:48,430 nation's capability to understand and predict space weather events. 10 00:00:48,430 --> 00:00:53,150 Space weather involves conditions and events on the sun and in near-Earth space that can 11 00:00:53,150 --> 00:00:58,120 affect critical systems, such as electric power grids and communications and navigation 12 00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:01,280 systems. 13 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:05,900 During a pre-launch news conference at NASA headquarters investigators and managers briefed 14 00:01:05,900 --> 00:01:11,600 the media on the upcoming Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS mission which 15 00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:16,920 will observe certain characteristics of solar material as it travels through a little-understood 16 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:19,130 region in the sun's lower atmosphere. 17 00:01:19,130 --> 00:01:22,550 So it can take images about once a second. 18 00:01:22,550 --> 00:01:28,360 This is critical because the processes that occur in this part of the atmosphere happen 19 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:30,090 very, very fast. 20 00:01:30,090 --> 00:01:35,190 The region of the solar atmosphere IRIS will observe is the origin of most of the ultraviolet 21 00:01:35,190 --> 00:01:36,850 solar emission that impacts Earth. 22 00:01:36,850 --> 00:01:42,980 IRIS will launch June 26 aboard a Pegasus rocket deployed by an L-1011 aircraft from 23 00:01:42,980 --> 00:01:47,810 Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. 24 00:01:47,810 --> 00:01:50,840 Progress continues on the Orion spacecraft. 25 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:55,380 Technicians at Textron Defense Systems in Willmington, Massachusetts are using Avcoat 26 00:01:55,380 --> 00:02:00,720 to fill the holes in the honeycomb shaped structure of Orion's heat shield with Avcoat 27 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:05,280 is a material able to endure temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 28 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:09,509 The heat shield will protect the spacecraft from the extreme temperatures it will experience 29 00:02:09,509 --> 00:02:11,610 on its return from deep space. 30 00:02:11,610 --> 00:02:18,640 In 2014, Orion will travel 3,600 miles into space on Exploration Flight Test-1 and return 31 00:02:18,640 --> 00:02:25,329 to Earth at speeds of more than 20,000 miles per hour. 32 00:02:25,329 --> 00:02:29,400 Engineers at the Stennis Space Center are fabricating a new 77-hundred-pound thrust 33 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:35,610 frame adapter to enable testing, in the A-1 Test Stand, of the RS-25 engines, which will 34 00:02:35,610 --> 00:02:39,269 provide core-stage power for NASA's Space Launch System. 35 00:02:39,269 --> 00:02:45,230 A thrust adapter unique to each rocket engine type holds an engine in place and absorbs 36 00:02:45,230 --> 00:02:50,200 the thrust produced during a test to allow accurate measurement of the engine's performance. 37 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:57,559 The stand component is scheduled to be completed and installed by November 2013. 38 00:02:57,559 --> 00:03:01,700 NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is on the move again. 39 00:03:01,700 --> 00:03:06,909 Opportunity, approaching its10th anniversary of leaving Earth, is trekking to a new study 40 00:03:06,909 --> 00:03:10,870 area still many weeks away called "Solander Point." 41 00:03:10,870 --> 00:03:16,000 The new destination offers a much taller stack of geological layering than the "Cape York" 42 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,690 area in which the rover has worked for the past 20 months. 43 00:03:19,690 --> 00:03:25,379 Since landing in January 2004, Opportunity and its twin Spirit, which ceased operations 44 00:03:25,379 --> 00:03:33,059 in 2010, have both found evidence of wet environments on ancient Mars. 45 00:03:33,059 --> 00:03:38,080 News from the American Astronomical Society's Summer Meeting in Indianapolis included info 46 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:43,370 about the key role of NASA's Swift satellite in producing the most detailed ultraviolet 47 00:03:43,370 --> 00:03:50,519 light surveys ever of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, our two closest major galaxies. 48 00:03:50,519 --> 00:03:56,010 Swift's Ultra-Violet/Optical telescope snapped more than 28-hundred individual shots which 49 00:03:56,010 --> 00:04:03,290 astronomers used to produce the 160-megapixel mosaic of the LMC and the 57-megapixel mosaic 50 00:04:03,290 --> 00:04:04,909 of the SMC. 51 00:04:04,909 --> 00:04:10,629 The mosaics will enable astronomers to better study the evolution of stars in each galaxy. 52 00:04:10,629 --> 00:04:17,630 Meanwhile, astronomers say celestial conditions in October 2014 and February 2016 will present 53 00:04:17,630 --> 00:04:23,450 prime opportunities for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to hunt for Earth-sized planets 54 00:04:23,450 --> 00:04:28,890 around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun. 55 00:04:28,890 --> 00:04:33,720 When Proxima Centauri passes in front of two other stars during those two time periods, 56 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:38,980 astronomers plan to look for any imaging distortion -- called microlensing. 57 00:04:38,980 --> 00:04:43,790 Microlensing occurs when a foreground star passes in front of distant star and could 58 00:04:43,790 --> 00:04:52,100 indicate the existence of smaller planets. 59 00:04:52,100 --> 00:04:57,040 Loaded with more than 7 tons of supplies for the Expedition 36 crew aboard the International 60 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:03,570 Space Station, Albert Einstein, the European Space Agency's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, 61 00:05:03,570 --> 00:05:07,360 was launched from Kourou, French Guiana on June 5. 62 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:12,720 The supply craft, named after the 20th century icon of science and physics, is scheduled 63 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:14,820 dock to the station on June 15. 64 00:05:14,820 --> 00:05:21,010 NASA Television coverage of the rendezvous and docking starts at 8:00 a.m. 65 00:05:21,010 --> 00:05:26,000 NASA and the LEGO Group are collaborating to inspire the next generation of aerospace 66 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:32,500 engineers with a new design competition called "NASA's Missions: Imagine and Build". 67 00:05:32,500 --> 00:05:37,450 The competition offers two categories in which students of all ages use the toy bricks to 68 00:05:37,450 --> 00:05:40,750 build models of future airplanes and spacecraft. 69 00:05:40,750 --> 00:05:46,060 Deadline for entry is July 31 with winners selected on September 1. 70 00:05:46,060 --> 00:05:49,960 Prizes include NASA memorabilia and items from LEGO. 71 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:58,020 For details visit http://rebrick.lego.com/. 72 00:05:58,020 --> 00:06:02,990 Marshall Space Flight Center astrophysicist, Dr. Chryssa Kouveliotou, has been selected 73 00:06:02,990 --> 00:06:06,090 for membership to the National Academy of Sciences. 74 00:06:06,090 --> 00:06:11,670 The honor recognizes her extensive and continuing achievements in original scientific research 75 00:06:11,670 --> 00:06:18,020 on a host of astronomical phenomena, including black holes, neutron stars and gamma-ray bursts. 76 00:06:18,020 --> 00:06:23,820 Kouveliotou, currently involved with scientific investigations conducted by NASA's Fermi, 77 00:06:23,820 --> 00:06:35,020 Swift and NuSTAR programs; is one of 84 new members of the academy. 78 00:06:35,020 --> 00:06:40,680 On June 11, 2008, NASA launched the space observatory from Cape Canaveral known then 79 00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:45,280 as the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope or GLAST. 80 00:06:45,280 --> 00:06:50,970 Renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope two months later after Italian physicist Enrico 81 00:06:50,970 --> 00:06:56,390 Fermi, NASA's largest gamma-ray observatory has enabled scientists to learn more about 82 00:06:56,390 --> 00:07:01,950 the ever-changing Universe, answer persistent questions about super-massive black-hole systems, 83 00:07:01,950 --> 00:07:08,560 pulsars and cosmic rays, and search for signals of new physics in the cosmos. 84 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:09,740 And that's This Week @NASA.