IRESHLYN P.

MENDOZA
PhD Science Education Student

DR. MIRASOL BANGUG

Professor
 “Fifty years after the creation of NASA, our
goal is no longer just a destination to reach.
Our goal is the capacity for people to work
and learn and operate and live safely
beyond the Earth for extended periods of
time, ultimately in ways that are more
sustainable and even indefinite. And in
fulfilling this task, we will not only extend
humanity’s reach in space -- we will
strengthen America’s leadership here on
Earth.”

-President Obama, April 2010

 Space exploration would be impossible without rockets and
space shuttles help transport people to space. Satellite
telescopes and space stations help people explore space.
They also help us understand space better by taking pictures
of stellar objects. The ISS International Space Station has
begun constructed in 1998.It will house up to 700 astronauts
with a connection of modules as two football fields.
 Highly developed space technologies are required to make
possible many potential space activities and to lessen the
cost and improve the performances of others. The National
Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which created the
NASA, directed the Agency to accomplish the Nation's Civil
Space Activities to contribute significantly to the preservation
of the role of the United States as a leader in Aeronautical
and Space Sciences and Technology
 NASA is ready to move forward with the
development of the Space Launch System (SLS)
- an advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle that will
provide an entirely new national capability for
human exploration beyond Earth's orbit.
 The Space Launch System (SLS) will give the
nation a safe, affordable and sustainable means
of reaching beyond our current limits and
opening up new discoveries from the unique
vantage point of space.
 The Space Launch System, or SLS, will be
designed to carry the Orion Multi-Purpose
Crew Vehicle, as well as important cargo,
equipment and science experiments to Earth's
orbit and destinations beyond.

 Additionally, the SLS will serve as a back up

for commercial and international partner
transportation services to the International
Space Station.
 The Space Launch System will be NASA's first
exploration-class vehicle since the Saturn V took
American astronauts to the moon over 40 years ago.
With its superior lift capability, the SLS will expand our
reach in the solar system and allow us to explore cis-
lunar space, near-Earth asteroids, Mars and its moons
and beyond.
 With the SLS we will learn more also about how the
solar system formed, where Earth's water and organics
originated and how life might be sustained in places far
from our Earth's atmosphere and expand the boundaries
of human exploration. These discoveries will change the
way we understand ourselves, our planet, and its place
in the universe.
Above is a prototype 13-kilowatt Hall thruster during testing at NASA's Glenn
Research Center in Cleveland. This prototype demonstrated the technology
readiness needed for industry to continue the development of high-power solar
electric propulsion into a flight-qualified system.
Credits: NASA
 An Advanced Electric Propulsion System could
potentially increase spaceflight transportation fuel
efficiency by 10 times over current chemical
propulsion technology and more than double thrust
capability compared to current electric propulsion
technology.
 The development of this technology will advance
future in-space transportation capability for a variety
of deep space human and robotic exploration
missions, such as the NASA’s Asteroid Redirect
Mission (ARM), as well as private commercial space
missions.
Integrated Design Tools Inc. supplied NASA with rugged, high-speed cameras to film the Orion capsule’s parachute
deployment during its first test flight. The company has since commercialized the product in several markets. One
application is in automobile crash testing, where every millisecond must be immediately and permanently stored.
The company’s cameras can be seen here mounted on both the car and the crash-test device.
Credits: Integrated Design Tools
 NASA has released its Spinoff 2017 publication, which
takes a close look at 50 different companies that are using
NASA technology – innovations developed by NASA, with
NASA funding, or under a contract with the agency – in
products that we all benefit from.

 Whether it’s the self-driving tractor that harvests food,

cameras used in car-crash safety tests, or tools making
brain surgery safer, NASA technology plays a significant
role in our daily lives.

 They are innovations that make people more productive,

protect the environment, and much more.
• NASA’s work at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory on precise
GPS measurements enabled John Deere to build the first
widely available self-driving tractors, which now work much
of the world’s farmland;
• the agency’s longstanding investment at its Glenn Research
Center in heat pipes helped Thermacore Inc. adapt the
technology to wick away dangerous heat during brain
surgery;
• a high-speed, high-resolution camera designed to monitor
the Orion spacecraft’s landing parachutes at NASA’s
Johnson Space Center now is improving data in automobile
crash tests.
• Other highlights include:
• laser imaging technology that discovered snow on Mars and
now helps archeologists uncover humanity’s past;
• Earth-observing satellites that spot forest fires before they
spread;
• software that might help create supersonic jets we could all
fly on.
• new wing design that could make airplanes and wind
turbines more efficient;
• an easy-to-use device that separates DNA, RNA, and
proteins outside a traditional lab environment, in a
developing country or in space; and
• a system that autonomously detects faulty wiring and
reroutes around it.
 Dr. Scott Shipley of Ascentech Enterprises makes an adjustment to the Spectrum
unit. He is the project enfor the effort working under the Engineering Services
Contract at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The device is being built for use
aboard the International Space Station. Results from the Spectrum project will
shed light on which living things are best suited for long-duration flights into deep
space. Credits: NASA/Cory gineer Huston
Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings were placed in
a Petri plate loaded inside the Spectrum
prototype unit for testing prior to the critical
design review in September 2017. The small
plant is a popular model organism to study
plant biology and genetics.
Credits: NASA
Inside the Spectrum prototype unit, plant seedlings
in a Petri plate are exposed to blue excitation
lighting for the green fluorescent protein. The
device will allow scientists to observe how different
genes are turned on and off while the organisms
grow in space..
Credits: NASA
• Scientists and engineers are developing new hardware
destined for the International Space Station to support
experiments demonstrating how different organisms, such
as plants, microbes or worms, develop under conditions of
microgravity. Results from the Spectrum project will shed
light on which living things are best suited for long-duration
flights into deep space.

• this system will allow scientists to observe how different

genes are turned on and off while the organisms grow in
space. In ground testing using plants, the device works by
exposing the plants to different colors of light while a
camera records fluorescent light emitted from the plants
with time-lapse imagery.
• In these experiments plant seeds are placed on agar gel (a
jelly-like substance obtained from algae) in a Petri plate set
up in the Spectrum unit. The seeds germinate and as the
seedlings develop, they are exposed to any combination of
red, green, blue, white or infrared light to investigate
different aspects of their growth and physiology.

• In a typical experiment, an astronaut will load a Petri plate

with seeds into the Spectrum unit, the system then runs on
an automatic script controlling temperature and changing
the lights according to a desired program and the camera
takes pictures about every hour. Scientists on Earth will
receive regular photographs of the plants growing in the
Petri plate. The results will shed light on how plants grow
differently in the microgravity environment of space.
• The Spectrum experiments will be important because
genes control the physical and functional similarity
between generations of plants. However, genes do not
determine the structure of an organism alone.
Environmental factors such as lighting and microgravity
are other influences that can determine what types of
plants are best suited for long spaceflights.

• Recently, the team conducted a 14-day test with plant

seedlings to evaluate whether the Spectrum prototype
met NASA's design specifications. At the end of the test,
NASA managers and subject-matter experts conducted a
critical design review to determine if the performance of
the unit demonstrated it was ready for full-scale
fabrication and assembly.
This time-lapse animation shows NICER being extracted from
the SpaceX Dragon trunk on June 11, 2017; Credits: NASA
• NASA’s new Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER)
mission to study the densest observable objects in the universe has
begun science operations.
• Launched June 3, 2017 on an 18-month baseline mission, NICER will
help scientists understand the nature of the densest stable form of matter
located deep in the cores of neutron stars using X-ray measurements.
• NICER operates around the clock on the International Space Station
(ISS). In the two weeks following launch, NICER underwent extraction
from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, robotic installation on ExPRESS
Logistics Carrier 2 on board ISS and initial deployment. Commissioning
efforts began June 14, as NICER deployed from its stowed launch
configuration. All systems are functioning as expected.
• To date, NICER has observed over 40 celestial targets. These objects
were used to calibrate the X-ray Timing Instrument and supporting star-
tracker camera. The observations also validated the payload’s
performance that will enable its key science measurements.
• Along with the instrument’s transition to full science operations, the
embedded Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation
Technology (SEXTANT) demonstration will begin using NICER
data to tune the built-in flight software for its first experiment.
• NICER-SEXTANT is a two-in-one mission. NICER will study the
strange, ultra-dense astrophysics objects known as neutron stars
to determine how matter behaves in their interiors. SEXTANT will
use NICER’s observations of rapidly rotating neutron stars, or
pulsars, to demonstrate autonomous X-ray navigation in space.
• NICER is an Astrophysics Mission of Opportunity within NASA's
Explorer program, which provides frequent flight opportunities for
world-class scientific investigations from space utilizing innovative,
streamlined, and efficient management approaches within the
heliophysics and astrophysics science areas. NASA's Space
Technology Mission Directorate supports the SEXTANT component
of the mission, demonstrating pulsar-based spacecraft navigation.
About 1 million miles away from the nearest eye surgeon,
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will be able to perfect
its own vision while in orbit.
• Though the Webb telescope will focus on stars and
galaxies approximately 13.5 billion light-years
away, its sight goes through a similar process as
you would if you underwent laser vision correction
surgery to be able to focus on an object 10 feet
across the room.
• In orbit at Earth’s second Lagrange point (L2), far
from the help of a terrestrial doctor, Webb will use
its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) instrument to
help align its primary mirror segments about 40
days after launch, once they have unfolded from
their unaligned stowed position and cooled to their
operating temperatures.
• Laser vision correction surgery reshapes the cornea of the
eye to remove imperfections that cause vision problems like
nearsightedness.
• The cornea is the surface of the eye; it helps focus rays of
light on the retina at the back of the eye, and though it
appears to be uniform and smooth, it can be misshapen and
pockmarked with dents, dimples, and other imperfections
that can affect a person’s sight.
• The relative positioning of Webb’s primary mirror segments
after launch will be the equivalent of these corneal
imperfections, and engineers on Earth will need to make
corrections to the mirrors’ positions to bring them into
alignment, ensuring they will produce sharp, focused
images.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is helping identify potential celestial
targets for the James Webb Space Telescope through a series of
preparatory science observations to be completed before Webb is ready to
make observations of its own.

This image of the Westerlund 2 cluster includes both visible- and infrared-light observations from Hubble, and was
released in 2015 as part of the Hubble Space Telescope's 25th anniversary. The highlighted area, featuring the
cluster of stars, was created from visible-light and near-infrared exposures. The black-and-white zoomed portion
shows a new image of the star cluster in only one infrared wavelength. This image was taken as part of astronomer
Elena Sabbi’s preparatory science project, one of many such observations astronomers will use to identify potential
targets for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), and the
Westerlund 2 Science Team
• Hubble was designed to primarily observe the universe
through visible light (though it is also able to see into the
ultraviolet and near-infrared), while Webb is specifically
designed to observe the universe in infrared light, through
both direct imaging and spectroscopy. Spectroscopy
measures the spectrum of light, which scientists analyze to
determine physical properties of what is being observed,
including temperature, mass, and chemical composition.
• Hubble is able to see parts of the visible-light spectrum that
Webb is not able to observe, and so it can fill potential
observational gaps. For example, Hubble can examine
exoplanets in light across the full electromagnetic spectrum
available to it, with emphasis on the ultraviolet and blue
wavelengths. Coupled with Webb’s infrared capabilities, both
telescopes will deliver a more complete picture of the
exoplanet systems.
 One specific preparatory science proposal was submitted by a team of scientists led by Elena
Sabbi, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Sabbi and
her team are using Hubble to survey the young, massive star cluster Westerlund 2, located about
20,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina. They have spent one year observing
the cluster and plan to observe it for two additional years with Hubble.

This black-and-white image of the Westerlund 2 star cluster focuses on the central part of the cluster. The image was
taken by Hubble in the 800-nanometer wavelength range, in the near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum
just outside the range of visible light. This image was taken as part of astronomer Elena Sabbi’s preparatory science
project, one goal of which is to use Hubble to identify objects of interest for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Credits: NASA, ESA, and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI)
• One of the primary science objectives for Webb is to observe the
birth of stars and protoplanetary systems, and Sabbi’s
observations promise to catalog hundreds of potential targets on
which Webb could follow up. Sabbi and her team are using Hubble
to look for binary stars in their earliest stages of development,
where they are likely to be surrounded by protoplanetary disks —
disks of dense gas and dust that encircle newly formed stars and
eventually coalesce into planets.
• Binary star systems contain two stars in orbit around a common
central point, and some of these systems have been found to host
planets. Astronomers are still trying to understand how planets
form and evolve in such an environment. Sabbi said Westerlund
2’s youth makes it a prime candidate for understanding this,
because as a cluster ages, binary stars often separate and are
ejected from the cluster. The team’s first year of observations
showed Westerlund 2 contained many more binary stars than
expected, based on other observations of star clusters.
• The James Webb Space Telescope, the
scientific complement to NASA's Hubble
Space Telescope, will be the most
powerful space telescope ever built.
Webb is an international project led by
NASA with its partners, ESA (European
Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space
Agency).
• It’s official: Pluto’s “heart” now bears the name of
pioneering American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh,
who discovered Pluto in 1930. And a crater on Pluto is
now officially named after Venetia Burney, the British
schoolgirl who in 1930 suggested the name “Pluto,”
Roman god of the underworld, for Tombaugh’s newly-
discovered planet.
• Tombaugh Regio and Burney crater are among the first
set of official Pluto feature names approved by the
International Astronomical Union (IAU), the
internationally recognized authority for naming celestial
bodies and their surface features.
• These and other names were proposed by NASA’s
New Horizons team following the first reconnaissance
of Pluto and its moons by the New Horizons
spacecraft in 2015. The New Horizons science team
had been using these and other place names
informally to describe the many regions, mountain
ranges, plains, valleys and craters discovered during
the first close-up look at the surfaces of Pluto and its
largest moon, Charon.

• A total of 14 Pluto place names have now been made

official by the IAU; many more will soon be proposed
to the IAU, both on Pluto and on its moons.
Pluto’s first official surface-feature names are marked on this map, compiled from images
and data gathered by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its flight through the Pluto
system in 2015.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Ross Beyer
The approved Pluto surface feature names are listed below. The
names pay homage to the underworld mythology, pioneering
space missions, historic pioneers who crossed new horizons in
exploration, and scientists and engineers associated with Pluto
and the Kuiper Belt.
Tombaugh Regio honors Clyde Tombaugh (1906–1997), the
U.S. astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 from Lowell
Observatory in Arizona.
Burney crater honors Venetia Burney (1918-2009), who as an
11-year-old schoolgirl suggested the name "Pluto" for Clyde
Tombaugh’s newly discovered planet. Later in life she taught
mathematics and economics.
Sputnik Planitia is a large plain named for Sputnik 1, the first
space satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.
Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges
honoring Tenzing Norgay (1914–1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary
(1919–2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand
mountaineer were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest
and return safely.
• Al-Idrisi Montes honors Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi (1100–1165/66),
a noted Arab mapmaker and geographer whose landmark
work of medieval geography is sometimes translated as
"The Pleasure of Him Who Longs to Cross the Horizons.”
• Djanggawul Fossae defines a network of long, narrow
depressions named for the Djanggawuls, three ancestral
beings in indigenous Australian mythology who traveled
between the island of the dead and Australia, creating the
landscape and filling it with vegetation.
• Sleipnir Fossa is named for the powerful, eight-legged
horse of Norse mythology that carried the god Odin into the
underworld.
• Virgil Fossae honors Virgil, one of the greatest Roman
poets and Dante's fictional guide through hell and purgatory
in the Divine Comedy.
• Adlivun Cavus is a deep depression named for Adlivun, the
underworld in Inuit mythology.
• Hayabusa Terra is a large land mass saluting the Japanese spacecraft
and mission (2003-2010) that performed the first asteroid sample return.
• Voyager Terra honors the pair of NASA spacecraft, launched in 1977, that
performed the first "grand tour" of all four giant planets. The Voyager
spacecraft are now probing the boundary between the Sun and interstellar
space.
• Tartarus Dorsa is a ridge named for Tartarus, the deepest, darkest pit of
the underworld in Greek mythology.
• Elliot crater recognizes James Elliot (1943-2011), an MIT researcher who
pioneered the use of stellar occultations to study the solar system –
leading to discoveries such as the rings of Uranus and the first detection of
Pluto's thin atmosphere.
 The New Horizons spacecraft – built and operated at the Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, with a payload
and science investigation led by SwRI -- is speeding toward its next flyby,
this one with the ancient Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, a billion miles
beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019.

Last Updated: Sept. 7, 2017

Editor: Bill Keeter
NASA's Cassini spacecraft is shown during its Sept. 15, 2017,
plunge into Saturn's atmosphere in this artist's depiction.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
• As NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its fateful dive into the
upper atmosphere of Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017 the spacecraft
was live-streaming data from eight of its science instruments,
along with readings from a variety of engineering systems. The
data are useful for evaluating models of Saturn's atmosphere the
team used to predict the spacecraft's behavior at mission's end,
and they help provide a baseline for planning future missions to
Saturn.

• The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA,

ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in
Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and
assembled the Cassini orbiter.
 RESEARCH TITLE
Asteroid mass estimation using Markov-chain
Monte Carlo
Highlights:

• They present a Markov–Chain Monte Carlo

method for asteroid mass estimation.
• They study both a synthetic test case and
several real-world examples.
• Their results agree with previously published
mass estimates.
• Uncertainty estimates reported in the literature
may be misleading.
 Abstract
Estimates for asteroid masses are based on their gravitational
perturbations on the orbits of other objects such as Mars, spacecraft, or
other asteroids and/or their satellites. In the case of asteroid-asteroid
perturbations, this leads to an inverse problem in at least 13 dimensions
where the aim is to derive the mass of the perturbing asteroid(s) and six
orbital elements for both the perturbing asteroid(s) and the test asteroid(s)
based on astrometric observations. We have developed and implemented
three different mass estimation algorithms utilizing asteroid-asteroid
perturbations: the very rough ‘marching’ approximation, in which the
asteroids’ orbital elements are not fitted, thereby reducing the problem to a
one-dimensional estimation of the mass, an implementation of the Nelder–
Mead simplex method, and most significantly, a Markov-chain Monte Carlo
(MCMC) approach. We describe each of these algorithms with particular
focus on the MCMC algorithm, and present example results using both
synthetic and real data. Our results agree with the published mass
estimates, but suggest that the published uncertainties may be misleading
as a consequence of using linearized mass-estimation methods. Finally, we
discuss remaining challenges with the algorithms as well as future plans.
Keywords: Asteroids, dynamics, Orbit determination, Celestial mechanics

Image of Pulsars