News From NASA

New Horizons Halfway to Pluto 

In 2006, NASA dispatched an ambassador to the planetary frontier. The New Horizons spacecraft is now halfway between Earth and Pluto, on approach for a dramatic flight past the icy planet and its moons in July 2015.

After 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, on a historic voyage that has already taken it over the storms and around the moons of Jupiter, New Horizons will shed light on new kinds of worlds we've only just discovered on the outskirts of the solar system.

Pluto gets closer by the day, and New Horizons continues into rare territory, as just the fifth probe to traverse interplanetary space so far from the Sun. And the first to travel so far, to reach a new planet for exploration. 

 

NASA STI Program and NASA Spinoff: Retrofits Convert Gas Vehicles into Hybrids 

Working with Glenn Research Center through the NASA Illinois Commercialization Center, NetGain Technologies LLC of Lockport, Illinois, developed a retrofit system for converting gas-powered vehicles to gas-electric hybrids. The partnership also resulted in a line of electric motors for vehicles marketed by NetGain Motors Inc., the production of which supports over 100 jobs at the company’s manufacturing facility. Read the full story from the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) here: http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120001898; for more NASA documents on hybrid vehicle technologies, http://go.usa.gov/7bn. To learn more about the NASA Spinoff publication, visit http://spinoff.nasa.gov.

 

Radiation Belt Storm Probes to Launch Saturday

 

NASA's Radiation Belt Storm Probes is now set to launch at 4:07 a.m. EDT Saturday. Friday's launch attempt was scrubbed due to a technical issue, which engineers are now troubleshooting.

RBSP will help us understand the sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the Earth's radiation belts on various scales of space and time.

 SARP 2012 Concludes 

 

After a summer spent working in an airplane, in the field, in the lab, and at their computers, SARP 2012 participants finally presented the results of all of their hard work!  The SARP final presentations were attended by all of the SARP students, mentors, faculty and staff.  In addition, Randy Albertson (Deputy Director of NASA’s Airborne Science Program), Dr. Ken Jucks (Program Manager for NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Program) and Dr. Ming-Ying Wei (NASA Office of Earth Science Manager of Education Programs) also traveled to Irvine to watch the student presentations.
Dr. Ming-Ying Wei talks to SARP participants about graduate fellowship opportunities at NASA Many students were quite nervous before the talks began, but everyone overcame their nerves and gave fantastic presentations on their exciting results!
SARP participant, Olivia Clifton, presents her research project Each student gave an American Geophysical Union (AGU)- style conference presentation  (12 minute talk, 3 minutes for questions) on the results of his or her individual research project.  In addition, each student wrote an abstract (all abstracts can be found here)

Videos of all of the student presentations have been posted on the SARP 2012 website:http://www.nserc.und.edu/learning/SARPmm.html?2012

The eight students from Team Delicious (Ustin group) and then the eight Aquanauts (Kudela group) presented their results on the first day.  The BNB’s (Lefer group) and WAS (Blake group) presented on the second day.

The Ustin and Kudela groups pose after completing their final presentations (Tuesday August 7)

The Lefer and Blake groups after their final presentations (Wednesday August 8)
The quality of research was so high this year that nine of the thirty-two SARP students submitted first-author abstracts to conferences with their faculty advisors and mentors as co-authors (eight students submitted to the AGU meeting in San Francisco and one will submit to the ASLO Aquatic Sciences meeting in New Orleans).

We are all so proud of the quality of science that the students accomplished in only 8-weeks!