The California Current System

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) 

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is the next step in the search for planets outside of our solar system, including those that could support life. The mission will find exoplanets that periodically block part of the light from their host stars, events called transits. 

 TESS will survey 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun to search for transiting exoplanets. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2018.  

The TESS launch date is NLT June 2018 (the current working launch date is April 2018).

Music: "Prototype" and "Trial" both from Killer Tracks. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Begins Work to Build a Quieter Supersonic Passenger Jet

The return of supersonic passenger air travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a "low boom" flight demonstration aircraft. This is the first in a series of 'X-planes' in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency's Fiscal Year 2017 budget.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the award at an event Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.

The return of supersonic passenger travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a low boom flight demonstrator aircraft. This is the first in a series of X-planes in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget.Credits: NASA

"NASA is working hard to make flight cleaner, greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently," said Bolden. "To that end, it's worth noting that it's been almost 70 years since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 as part of our predecessor agency's high speed research. Now we're continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy with this preliminary design award for a quieter jet that may break the barrier to accessible, affordable supersonic passenger flight."

This is an artist’s concept of a possible Low Boom Flight Demonstration Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) X-plane design. The award of a preliminary design contract is the first step towards the possible return of supersonic passenger travel – but this time quieter and more affordable.Credits: Lockheed Martin

NASA selected a team led by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale, California, to complete a preliminary design for Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST). The work will be conducted under a task order against the Basic and Applied Aerospace Research and Technology (BAART) contract at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

After conducting feasibility studies and working to better understand acceptable sound levels across the country, NASA's Commercial Supersonic Technology Project asked industry teams to submit design concepts for a piloted test aircraft that can fly at supersonic speeds, creating a supersonic "heartbeat" – a soft thump rather than the disruptive boom currently associated with supersonic flight.

"Developing, building and flight testing a quiet supersonic X-plane is the next logical step in our path to enabling the industry's decision to open supersonic travel for the flying public," said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission.

Lockheed Martin will receive about $20 million over 17 months for QueSST preliminary design work. The Lockheed Martin team includes subcontractors GE Aviation of Cincinnati and Tri Models Inc. of Huntington Beach, California.

The company will develop baseline aircraft requirements and a preliminary aircraft design with specifications, and provide supporting documentation for concept formulation and planning. This documentation would be used to prepare for the detailed design, building and testing of the QueSST jet. Performance of this preliminary design also must undergo analytical and wind tunnel validation.

The detailed design and building of the QueSST aircraft, conducted under the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Integrated Aviation Systems Program, will fall under a future contract competition. In addition to design and building, this Low Boom Flight Demonstration (LBFD) phase of the project also will include validation of community response to the new, quieter supersonic design.

NASA's 10-year New Aviation Horizons initiative has the ambitious goals of reducing fuel use, emissions and noise through innovations in aircraft design, ground operations and the national air transportation system.

The New Aviation Horizons X-planes will typically be about half-scale of a production aircraft and likely are to be piloted. Design-and-build will take several years with aircraft starting their flight campaign around 2020, depending on funding.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit:

www.nasa.gov/aero

Museum Exhibit Reveals the NASA Langley Human Computers from "Hidden Figures"

Sam McDonald NASA Langley Research Center

A new display at the Hampton History Museum offers another view of African-American women whose mathematical skills helped the nation’s early space program soar.

“When the Computer Wore a Skirt: NASA’s Human Computers” opens to the public Saturday, Jan. 21, and focuses on three women — Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson — who were illuminated in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures” and the major motion picture of the same name. Located in the museum's 20th century gallery, it was created with support from the Hampton Convention and Visitor Bureau and assistance from NASA's Langley Research Center.

“Langley’s West Computers were helping America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology, carving out a place for themselves as female mathematicians who were also black, black mathematicians who were also female,” Shetterly wrote.

The modestly sized exhibit is comprised of four panels with photos and text along with one display case containing artifacts, including a 1957 model Friden mechanical calculator. That piece of equipment represented state-of-the-art technology when then original human computers were crunching numbers. A three-minute video profiling Johnson —a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner — is also part of the exhibit.

A display case at left contains a 1957 Friden STW-10 mechanical calculator, the type used by NASA human computers including Katherine Johnson. "If you were doing complicated computations during that time, this is what you used," said Hampton History Museum Curator Allen Hoilman. The machine weighs 40 pounds.

Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

Museum curator Allen Hoilman said his favorite artifact is a May 5, 1958 memo from Associate Director Floyd Thompson dissolving the West Area Computers Unit and reassigning its staff members to other jobs around the center.

“It meant that the segregated work environment was coming to an end,” Hoilman said. “That’s why this is a significant document. It’s one of the bookends.”

That document, along with several others, was loaned to the museum by Ann Vaughan Hammond, daughter of Dorothy Vaughan. Hoilman said family members of other human computers have been contacted about contributing artifacts as well.

Ann Vaughan Hammond worked hard to find meaningful items for the display. “She really had to do some digging through the family papers,” Hoilman said, explaining that the women who worked as human computers were typically humble about their contributions. They didn’t save many mementos.

“They never would have guessed they would be movie stars,” Hoilman said.

For more information on Katherine Johnson, click here.

Credits:

Sam McDonald NASA Langley Research Center

Retired Major General Finds Balance as NASA Engineer

In many ways, the military and NASA couldn’t be different. Frank Batts has managed to navigate both worlds with precision, grace and just a bit of humor. After serving as a major general in the Army National Guard, he made the transition to working on computers as an engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

“They’re opposites, but that keeps me balanced,” Batts said. “In the Army, you’re out there blowing things up in the field. Here, you’re trying to build electronic computer components.”

Batts is a senior data-systems engineer with the Advanced Measurement and Data Systems Branch at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He has been at Langley for 34 years and has seen the tools of the job change.

“Technology has changed tremendously,” said the 63-year-old Batts. “When we started out in the eighties, we were all using proprietary operating systems on real-time computers that were not widely used or understood. Now we’re pretty much using PCs for our work.”

In addition to his NASA career, Batts served his country with distinction in the armed forces – and made history along the way. He retired from the Army National Guard in 2012 as a major general and commander of the 29th Infantry Division in Fort Belvoir, Virginia - the first African-American to hold that post. He also served in the West Virginia and Tennessee national guards.

The adventure begins

Batts’ journey started in 1976, when he was accepted at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro and joined the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) there.

While at the university, Batts entered a cooperative program with the Union Carbide Corp., working in a gaseous diffusion plant in the nuclear division. After graduating from North Carolina A&T, Batts worked fulltime as an electrical engineer with Union Carbide, and as an engineering officer in the West Virginia National Guard.

“Initially when you get out of college, you’re competing with engineers from other schools,” Batts said. “I found out pretty soon that regardless of what school you came from, it got down to who can really deliver projects on time and on budget.”

Batts was pursuing a master’s degree in electronics engineering at North Carolina A&T around the time IBM introduced personal computers. He was told PCs were a fad and not worth investing in, but he glimpsed the future and got on board.

“It looked like to me it was the way to go,” he said.

But then in 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania experienced a partial core meltdown, releasing radioactive gas into the atmosphere.

The incident changed his professional trajectory, as the Union Carbide-run K-25 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Batts was working, enriched uranium for nuclear power plants.

“Prior to Three Mile Island there were plans to construct nuclear plants all over the country, and K-25’s future was secure,” Batts said. “After Three Mile Island, all of those plans were dropped; we had more enriched uranium than was needed and K-25 was slated for closure.”

That meant he needed another job. While looking to move on, Batts found that NASA Langley was using a computing system similar to the one he used while he was with Union Carbide. He sets his sights on Langley, and has been on center as an electronic engineer since 1984 .

Two worlds in one

Batts’ military and NASA worlds were peacefully cohabitating until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Batts was soon activated and from May 2004 through April 2005, served with the 54th Field Artillery Brigade Headquarters as the mobile liaison team chief in Kabul, Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

“With the Army comes the leadership responsibilities. I managed a few thousand troops, and that’s no fun. I make an effort in my career at NASA to stay on the technical side rather than on the administrative side of things,” he said with a laugh.

What is fun for Batts, besides getting in more rounds at the golf course in his spare time, is serving as an example for engineering students though NASA’s outreach programs.

Batts, as the first engineer in his family, said he realizes the importance of recognizing those who blazed the trail for others.

“I have to pay homage to the people who came before me,” he said. “Before I was able to command a battalion, there was some else who commanded one, and did a credible enough job so that I had an opportunity.”

Batts also enjoys the reaction of people when they learn he works for NASA.

“There’s a lot of prestige that goes with working at NASA,” he said. “When people find out you work at NASA, they seem to look at you a bit differently.”

Eric Gillard NASA Langley Research Center

Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage 101

We need the biggest rocket stage ever built for the bold missions in deep space that NASA's Space Launch System rocket will give us the capability to achieve. This infographic sums up everything you need to know about the SLS core stage, the 212-foot-tall stage that serves as the backbone of the most powerful rocket in the world. The core stage includes the liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank that hold 733,000 gallons of propellant to power the stage’s four RS-25 engines needed for liftoff and the journey to Mars. 

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

NASA Touches Down in Virginia to Tout Missions at AeroSpace Days

Leaders from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, described their accomplishments and future missions at NASA’s AeroSpace Days on Feb. 6 and 7 in Richmond.

NASA Langley Director Dave Bowles, left, meets with Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni at NASA AeroSpace Days Feb. 6 in Richmond, Virginia.Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

NASA officials and representatives from the aerospace industry met with all 140 members of the General Assembly or their staffs, as well as Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, and  cabinet members.

One of those lawmakers was newly elected Del. Kathy Convirs-Fowler. When she finished getting autographed pictures of Lindgren for her two children, she asked officials how aerospace initiatives can be advanced to students.

“As a former teacher, I’m very big on the programs we can implement,” she said, adding that a goal of hers is to increase the number of women and girls in science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) public school programs.

It’s not every day you get to shake hands with an astronaut. Kjell Lindgren, who flew on the International Space Station, was a popular face in the group of NASA representatives on an annual journey to bring the agency’s message to Virginia lawmakers.

Sen. John Consgrove was so fired up to talk with Lindgren that he apologized for it.

“I’m sorry I’m ignoring everybody else, but I don’t get to speak to an astronaut every day,” he said.

Lindgren is used to the outsized attention, and welcomed it as an opportunity to talk about NASA’s contributions to Virginia.

“It’s one of my favorite parts of the job,” he said. “You can see that they’re very enthusiastic, very interested and excited.”

Leaders from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, described their accomplishments and future missions at NASA’s AeroSpace Days on Feb. 6 and 7 in Richmond.

NASA officials and representatives from the aerospace industry met with all 140 members of the General Assembly or their staffs, as well as Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, and  cabinet members.

One of those lawmakers was newly elected Del. Kathy Convirs-Fowler. When she finished getting autographed pictures of Lindgren for her two children, she asked officials how aerospace initiatives can be advanced to students.

“As a former teacher, I’m very big on the programs we can implement,” she said, adding that a goal of hers is to increase the number of women and girls in science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) public school programs.

“We want to excite the next generation,” Langley Deputy Director Clayton Turner told her. “That’s part of what we do.”

NASA Langley and Wallops have strong partnerships with private industry, including numerous technology transfer, commercialization and licensing success stories. In 2017, the two NASA centers brought a combined economic impact of $1.3 billion to Virginia and supported more than 10,000 jobs, according to an analysis by a private-sector company contracted by Langley.

“The collaboration has been really helpful,” Turner said.

Also, the state has assets that offer potential for growing the aerospace sector, including multiple universities, more than 285 aerospace firms, 66 public-use airports and a spaceport with access to orbit – one of only four in the U.S.

“By having two NASA centers here in Virginia, it also gives our students something to aim for,” Lindgren said. “The state is very fortunate and unique in that respect to have all those resources.”

AeroSpace Days, held for the past 13 years, aims to leverage those resources to recruit the next generation of explorers. That imperative drives Del. Marcia Price.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, especially in my community, to help with the outreach efforts so that they know about programs so my kids can be a part of the excellent things that are going on, let me know,” she said.

Those thoughts were echoed by Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, who offered to sponsor field trips to Langley and Wallops, speaking engagements, and support of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)-related legislation.

“We’re here to help any way we can,” he said.

In addition to meeting lawmakers and their staffs, NASA was formally recognized on the floor of the Virginia Senate by Sen. Mamie Locke during session. Locke praised Langley’s contributions over the last 100 years and asked the group of NASA employees participating in AeroSpace Days to stand up and be recognized.

“That was a cool moment,” said Langley spokesman Michael Finneran.” It’s very satisfying to realize that we’re helping improve people’s lives through what we and our partners do. We felt like rock stars for a few minutes.”

To view a photo gallery of 2018 AeroSpace Days, click here.

Eric Gillard NASA Langley Research Center

Science At NASA

ScienceCasts: Horn-rims and Funny Stockings on the Space Station

About three quarters of ISS astronauts experience changes in the structure and function of their eyes.  An experiment on the space station called the “Fluid Shifts Study” is investigating these vision problems in space.

Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for more.

http://www.nasa.gov/station

This Day in NASA History: February 10, 1959

On this day, 1959, wind tunnel tests of Project Mercury configuration models were started.

By the end of the year, over 70 different models had been tested by facilities at the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center and the NASA Langley, Ames, and Lewis Research Centers.

Here at NASA Langley Research Center, a lot of those tests took place in our 7 X 10-Foot High Speed Tunnel (pictured above).

Some tests also took place in our 20-Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel.

Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, kicked off a series of nine drop tests of a representative Orion crew capsule withcrash test dummies inside to understand what the spacecraft and astronauts may experience when landing in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions. The high-fidelity capsule, coupled with the heat shield from Orion’s first flight in space, was hoisted approximately 16 feet above the water and vertically dropped into Langley’s 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin. The crash test dummies were instrumented to provide data and secured inside the capsule to help provide information engineers need to ensure astronauts will be protected from injury during splashdown. Each test in the series simulates different scenarios for Orion’s parachute-assisted landings, wind conditions, velocities and wave heights the spacecraft may experience when touching down in the ocean.

Pan (moon of Saturn) - March 07 2017

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill