1 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:11,320 This Week at NASA... 2 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:17,380 So what can a planetary rover do with a year on Mars? All NASA's Curiosity rover did was 3 00:00:17,380 --> 00:00:24,390 beam back over 190 gigabits of data, more than 36-thousand images and zap 75-thousand-plus 4 00:00:24,390 --> 00:00:29,680 laser shots at science targets ... and oh by the way, it also completed the mission's 5 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:35,400 main science goal by finding evidence that life was possible on Mars in the past. 6 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:40,250 The agency celebrated the one year anniversary of Curiosity's landing on Mars with live events 7 00:00:40,250 --> 00:00:43,710 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- featuring rover team members. 8 00:00:43,710 --> 00:00:47,870 "Forever, you know, people are just always mentioning the seven minutes of terror. In 9 00:00:47,870 --> 00:00:56,930 fact, people were tweeting, 'thanks for the terror"; hashtag, thanks for terror, so that's 10 00:00:56,930 --> 00:01:00,220 been phenomenal." 11 00:01:00,220 --> 00:01:11,050 "What a fantastic job that the group at JPL did with this rover and again, jus fascinated 12 00:01:11,050 --> 00:01:16,350 by what an impact it had over the entire world." Curiosity has also found evidence that Mars 13 00:01:16,350 --> 00:01:21,400 lost most of its original atmosphere through processes that occurred near the top of the 14 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:25,260 planet's atmosphere. 15 00:01:25,260 --> 00:01:30,659 NASA's next mission to Mars, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution or MAVEN, will study 16 00:01:30,659 --> 00:01:36,000 the Red Planet's upper atmosphere for clues about what existed there before the atmospheric 17 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:41,390 loss occurred. The MAVEN spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center recently for processing 18 00:01:41,390 --> 00:01:46,979 in advance of its November launch to Mars. 19 00:01:46,979 --> 00:01:51,780 After four years as NASA's Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver is leaving the agency to become 20 00:01:51,780 --> 00:01:57,840 General Manager of the Air Line Pilots Association. In a statement, Administrator Charlie Bolden 21 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:03,390 called Garver, "an indispensable partner in our efforts to keep NASA on a trajectory of 22 00:02:03,390 --> 00:02:05,520 progress and innovation." 23 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:11,220 Garver led the way on many of the Obama Administration's space priorities, including NASA's commercial 24 00:02:11,220 --> 00:02:16,549 crew and cargo programs, the re-establishment of a space technology mission directorate, 25 00:02:16,549 --> 00:02:23,290 NASA's use of challenges and prizes, and an unwavering commitment to diversity and inclusion. 26 00:02:23,290 --> 00:02:28,329 Garver will leave her NASA post on September 6. 27 00:02:28,329 --> 00:02:33,430 A fireball from a kilonova, a new kind of stellar blast, spotted by the Hubble Space 28 00:02:33,430 --> 00:02:39,120 Telescope in a galaxy almost 4 billion light-years from Earth, is the strongest evidence yet 29 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:44,359 that short-duration gamma ray bursts happen when two small, super-dense stellar objects 30 00:02:44,359 --> 00:02:48,139 come together. A kilonova comes from the energy released 31 00:02:48,139 --> 00:02:53,230 by the collision of two compact objects. It had been predicted that kilonovas accompany 32 00:02:53,230 --> 00:03:00,419 short-duration GRBs, but this is the first time it's been seen. 33 00:03:00,419 --> 00:03:05,730 Six days after launching from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, the automated Kounotori4 34 00:03:05,730 --> 00:03:11,829 H-II Transfer Vehicle or HTV-4, met up with The International Space Station, was captured 35 00:03:11,829 --> 00:03:17,379 with the station's robotic arm by the Expedition 36 crew aboard the ISS and was installed on 36 00:03:17,379 --> 00:03:23,879 the station's Harmony module. HTV-4 delivered about 3 ½ tons of cargo and experiments to 37 00:03:23,879 --> 00:03:27,879 the orbital laboratory. 38 00:03:27,879 --> 00:03:32,589 NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden recently toured Orbital Sciences Corporation's Satellite 39 00:03:32,589 --> 00:03:37,870 Manufacturing Facility near Phoenix, Arizona to check out The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 40 00:03:37,870 --> 00:03:45,269 -2 or OCO-2 satellite. A carbon copy of a satellite lost to a mishap in 2009, OCO-2 41 00:03:45,269 --> 00:03:50,019 is designed to take precise measurements of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. 42 00:03:50,019 --> 00:03:57,529 "Orbital continues its record of performance of producing satellites that help us understand 43 00:03:57,529 --> 00:04:03,169 our earth as a system. The climate, what's happening to it? What are we doing? What's 44 00:04:03,169 --> 00:04:07,920 happening naturally? And just data we absolutely have to have." 45 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:15,359 The Observatory will be launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in July 2014. 46 00:04:15,359 --> 00:04:20,291 The first completed liquid hydrogen tank barrel segment for the core stage of NASA's Space 47 00:04:20,291 --> 00:04:25,030 Launch System heavy-lift rocket has been rolled off the production line at the Michoud Assembly 48 00:04:25,030 --> 00:04:26,870 Facility in New Orleans. 49 00:04:26,870 --> 00:04:32,440 The 22-foot structure validates the vertical weld center and friction stir welding process, 50 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:37,310 which uses frictional heating and forging pressure to produce high-strength bonds virtually 51 00:04:37,310 --> 00:04:43,700 free of defects. The SLS core stage liquid hydrogen tank will be more than 200 feet tall 52 00:04:43,700 --> 00:04:49,970 when completed. NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory has returned 53 00:04:49,970 --> 00:04:55,150 to Palmdale, California from a two-and-a-half week campaign to study celestial objects from 54 00:04:55,150 --> 00:05:01,410 a vantage point in the southern hemisphere. The modified 747 flew nine astronomical science 55 00:05:01,410 --> 00:05:06,310 flights from Christchurch, New Zealand -- demonstrating its capability to fly back-to-back missions 56 00:05:06,310 --> 00:05:07,740 with high reliability: 57 00:05:07,740 --> 00:05:10,690 And that's This Week @NASA.