The latest This Week @ NASA:

Caption:

NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph or IRIS mission is underway. IRIS was air-launched on an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus rocket 39,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean near Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The NASA Small Explorer Mission will observe how solar material moves, gathers energy and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the sun’s lower atmosphere. Also, Atlantis Unveiled, 10,00th Near Earth Object, SLS Vertical Weld Center, Human Spaceflight Update, Spacewalk Prepares ISS for New Module, Accelerating ISS Science, A HUNCH for STEM, Rocket Week 2013 and more!