General, Mars, SpaceCasts

Video: This Week @ NASA – One Year on Mars!

The latest This Week @NASA video focuses first on Curiosity’s first year on Mars:

Caption:

So what can a planetary rover do with a year on Mars? All NASA’s Curiosity rover did was beam back over 190 gigabits of data, more than 36-thousand images and zap 75-thousand-plus laser shots at science targets … and oh by the way, it also completed the mission’s main science goal by finding evidence that life was possible on Mars in the past. The agency celebrated the one year anniversary of Curiosity’s landing on Mars with live events from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — featuring rover team members. And at NASA Headquarters — a discussion about how Curiosity and other robotic projects are benefitting future human space exploration. Also, Maven Arrives, Garver Leaving NASA, Great Ball of Fire, Supply Ship Arrives Safely, Carbon Copy, The First Barrel Segment and more!

 

Contests and Games, Science and Technology, Space Systems

2014 Sample Return Robot Challenge competition registration opens

NASA announces the next round of the Sample Return Robot Challenge competition, which is managed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute:

The Challenge is On: NASA-WPI 2014 Robot Prize Competition
Registration Open

In pursuit of new technological solutions for America’s space program and our nation’s future, NASA and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass., have opened registration for the $1.5 million 2014 Sample Return Robot prize competition.

Planned for June 2014 at WPI, industry and academic teams from across the nation will compete to demonstrate a robot can locate and retrieve geologic samples from wide and varied terrains without human controls. Teams that meet all competition requirements will be eligible to compete for the NASA-funded $1.5 million prize.

“The objective of the competition is to encourage innovations in automatic navigation and robotic manipulator technologies that NASA could incorporate into future missions,” said Michael Gazarik, NASA’s associate administrator for space technology in Washington. “Innovations stemming from this challenge may improve NASA’s capability to explore an asteroid or Mars, and advance robotic technology for use in industries and applications here on Earth.”

NASA is providing the prize money to the winning team as part of the agency’s Centennial Challenges competitions, which seek inventive solutions to problems of interest to the agency and the nation. While NASA provides the prize purse, the competitions are managed by nonprofit organizations that cover the cost of operations through commercial or private sponsorships. Prizes are awarded only after solutions are successfully demonstrated.

Earlier this year NASA awarded $5,000 to Team Survey of Los Angeles for successfully completing Level 1 of the 2013 Sample Return Robot Challenge. NASA expects the 2014 event will advance the progress of the competition and include new, as well as returning, American competitors.

There have been 24 NASA Centennial Challenges competitions since 2005, with NASA awarding more than $6 million to 16 different winning teams. Competitors include private companies, student groups and independent inventors working outside the aerospace industry.

“We’re honored and excited to once again host the Sample Return Robot Challenge,” said Philip B. Ryan, interim president of WPI. “This year, 10,000 people turned out to watch the competition and to enjoy WPI’s fantastic ‘Touch Tomorrow Festival’ of science, technology and robots. It’s a pleasure to engage people of all ages and backgrounds in the wonders of this competition, this festival and this emerging field.”

In addition to its academic programs, WPI’s Robotics Resource Center supports robotics projects, teams, events and K-12 outreach programs. Each year, WPI manages at least seven competitive robotics tournaments. The university also has sponsored programs that foster the use of robots to solve important societal problems and encourage consideration of the societal implications of this new area of technology.

For more information, including how to register a team for the 2014 Sample Return Robot Challenge, visit: http://challenge.wpi.edu

The Centennial Challenges program is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing, and flying hardware for use in NASA’s future missions. For more information about NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

Education, Science and Technology, Space participation

Crowd-funding student experiments on the ISS

The original Teachers in Space program led by Ed Wright became Citizens in Space, which has reserved 10 flights aboard the XCOR Lynx suborbital spaceplane for teachers as well as other citizen space explorers

Meanwhile, the Space Frontier Foundation continued its own Teachers in Space project and they currently have a crowd-funding campaign to send student experiments to the International Space Station: Fly Student Experiment Mission to ISS 2014 | RocketHub

Our 2014 launch cost will be $25,000 and We Need Your Help!  Our 2010 NASA Educational Outreach Grant expires the end of August 2013.  We’re running a RocketHub crowdfunding campaign just this month of August 2013 to support next year’s launch, and asking everyone we know to please contribute whatever you can.  Even $5 from everyone who sees this mail will easily get us there, especially if you then forward this mail to everyone you know!  We have some great incentives for you, from mission patches to SpaceX tshirts to signed books about the New Space Frontier.  You can even have a Skype Session or a personal visit from one of our Teachers in Space!

250 teachers have attended our workshops and taken glider lessons, launched tracked and recovered high altitude balloons, learned Arduino programming, built and worked with data sensors, and worked with their students to design experiments for our International Space Station experiment launch competition.  We’ve received ongoing support for the workshops from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and other partners, but we dearly need YOUR support to cover the cost of our 2014 ISS launch.  Please will you help and get others to do the same?

Contests and Games, Space Arts, Space Science

Poetry and student art heading for Mars

Expected to launch to Mars in November, the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) spacecraft

will explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind. Scientists will use MAVEN data to determine the role that loss of volatile compounds, such as CO2, N2, and H2O, from the Mars atmosphere to space has played over time, giving insight into the history of Mars atmosphere and climate, liquid water, and planetary habitability.

The spacecraft will also carry a DVD with over 1100 haiku poems selected in the outreach contest Going to Mars. Here the five Contest winners, which received more than 1000 votes in the public voting:

It’s funny, they named
Mars after the God of War
Have a look at Earth
Benedict Smith
United Kingdom

Thirty-six million
miles of whispering welcome.
Mars, you called us home.
Vanna Bonta
USA

Stars in the blue sky
cheerfully observe the Earth
while we long for them
Luisa Santoro
Italy

distant red planet
the dreams of earth beings flow
we will someday roam
Greg Pruett
Idaho, USA

Mars, your secret is unknown for humanity we want to know you.

Fanni Redenczki
Hungary

Alan Boyle reports on the contest at MAVEN mission team / picks haiku for Red Planet / We’re green with envy – NBC News.com.

Find more space poetry resources here, including an epic poem about Mars settlement.

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Also on the DVD will be digital images of student art selected in the Going to Mars student art contest:

Young people from all over the world submitted 377 unique entries into the Going to Mars student art contest! The contest ran from May 15 to April 8 and was followed by online public voting to determine the First and Second Place winners. The total number of votes on all entries was nearly 82,000!

As a special recognition of the inspiring artwork we received, we are pleased to announce that all 377 entries will be included as digital files on the DVD that will fly to Mars onboard the MAVEN spacecraft!

Events, Future space, Space Systems

ISEC Space Elevator Conference, Aug.23-25, Seattle, WA

The ISEC Space Elevator Conference  will take place August 23-25 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

Online Registration is open until August 18, 2013.

The Technical Program will run from Friday, August 23, 2013 through Sunday, August 25, 2013:

  • Space Elevator Overview Presentation: The popular conceptual design
  • Presentations on Tether Climbers: The theme and main focus of this year’s conference
  • The Strong Tether Challenge: Canceled this year due to lack of competitors
  • Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Research: Latest progress in high strength CNT research
  • Various Workshop on Space Elevator Feasibility:  Multiple workshops throughout the conference on various space elevator topics.
  • SE Impact on the Future: Transformations enabled by the SE – space exploration, resource utilization, and more
  • Shotgun Science Session: Ideas not ready for prime time: rapid sequence, 5 minutes each

On Saturday 24th, there will be a one day Family Science Fest.

The Space Elevator Conference presents the third annual Family Science Fest on Saturday, August 24. This day-long, family-friendly event has something for everyone and you’ll have the entire museum to explore, top to bottom. Local companies, organizations, schools and universities will offer hands-on activities, displays and demonstrations with the focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Roam the museum’s Side Gallery and watch teams compete in a special robotics competition; visit Robot Alley and the Gadget Gallery; participate in a special STEM Scavenger Hunt; learn about the Space Elevator and its importance to mankind at Space Elevator 101 and 201 presentations. This event is included in the Museum of Flight admission price.

 

Everyone can participate in space