NASA Joins Musician will.i.am, Discovery Education for Premiere of Song from Mars

Ann Marie Trotta/Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington                                         

202-358-1601/1726

ann.marie.trotta@nasa.gov / dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold an educational event to share findings about Mars with students and premiere a new song by musician will.i.am that will be broadcast from the surface of the Red Planet via the Curiosity rover. The event will take place at 1 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. EDT) Tuesday, Aug. 28, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Members of the team that successfully landed the rover on Mars earlier this month will explain to students the mission and the technology behind the song's interplanetary transmission. will.i.am will then premiere "Reach for the Stars," a new composition about the singer's passion for science, technology and space exploration.

will.i.am's i.am.angel Foundation, in partnership with Discovery Education of Silver Spring, Md., a provider of digital resources to kindergarten through grade 12 classrooms, will announce a new science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics initiative featuring NASA assets such as the Mars Curiosity Rover.

The event will be streamed on the agency's website and broadcast on NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Media attending the event will be able to ask questions. Media interested in attending must contact the JPL Media Relations office by 9 a.m. PDT, Tuesday at 818-354-5011. Reporters who have responded must arrive by 11:30 a.m. for admittance to the event. JPL is located at 4800 Oak Grove Drive.

NASA's Curiosity rover continues to reach new milestones as it begins its exploration mission to help scientists discover if Mars has ever been hospitable to life.

For more information about Curiosity and Mars exploration, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars.

For more information about NASA's education programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.

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New NASA Mission to Take First Look Deep Inside Mars

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington                                   

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system's rocky planets.

The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth's and why Mars' crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth's. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve.

"The exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection of InSight ensures we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet and lay the groundwork for a future human mission there," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "The recent successful landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanized public interest in space exploration and today's announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions to come."

InSight will be led by W. Bruce Banerdt at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. InSight's science team includes U.S. and international co-investigators from universities, industry and government agencies. The French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES, and the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, are contributing instruments to InSight, which is scheduled to land on Mars in September 2016 to begin its two-year scientific mission.

InSight is the 12th selection in NASA's series of Discovery-class missions. Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent, cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals. NASA requested Discovery mission proposals in June 2010 and received 28. InSight was one of three proposed missions selected in May 2011 for funding to conduct preliminary design studies and analyses. The other two proposals were for missions to a comet and Saturn's moon Titan.

InSight builds on spacecraft technology used in NASA's highly successful Phoenix lander mission, which was launched to the Red Planet in 2007 and determined water existed near the surface in the Martian polar regions. By incorporating proven systems in the mission, the InSight team demonstrated that the mission concept was low-risk and could stay within the cost-constrained budget of Discovery missions. The cost of the mission, excluding the launch vehicle and related services, is capped at $425 million in 2010 dollars.

"Our Discovery Program enables scientists to use innovative approaches to answering fundamental questions about our solar system in the lowest cost mission category," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "InSight will get to the 'core' of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we've been able to make from orbit or the surface."

InSight will carry four instruments. JPL will provide an onboard geodetic instrument to determine the planet's rotation axis and a robotic arm and two cameras used to deploy and monitor instruments on the Martian surface. CNES is leading an international consortium that is building an instrument to measure seismic waves traveling through the planet's interior. The German Aerospace Center is building a subsurface heat probe to measure the flow of heat from the interior.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Discovery Program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Discovery Program, visit http://discovery.nasa.gov.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

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Six NASA Astronauts - Including D.C. Native - Available For Interviews

Joshua Buck

Headquarters, Washington     

 

WASHINGTON -- The astronauts who flew aboard space shuttle Discovery's last flight will visit NASA Headquarters in Washington on Tuesday, May 10. They will give a presentation about their 13-day mission at 11 a.m. EDT and will be available for media interviews from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The STS-133 crew consists of Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe, mission specialists Alvin Drew, Nicole Stott, Steve Bowen and Michael Barratt. Drew was born in the District of Columbia and graduated from the city's Gonzaga College High School.

The crew will share mission highlights with agency employees, their families and reporters in the NASA Headquarters' James E. Webb Auditorium, located at 300 E Street SW. The presentation will air live on NASA Television. Reporters must call 202-358-1100 to attend the presentation or to schedule an interview.

STS-133 was the last mission for the longest-serving veteran of NASA's space shuttle fleet. Since 1984, Discovery flew 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited Earth 5,830 times and traveled 148,221,675 miles.

Discovery and its crew delivered to the International Space Station the Permanent Multipurpose Module, or PMM, which was converted from the multipurpose logistics module Leonardo. The PMM can host experiments in fluid physics, materials science, biology, biotechnology and other areas.

STS-133 also brought critical spare components and the Express Logistics Carrier 4 to the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, became the first human-like robot in space and a permanent resident of the station. The mission's two spacewalks assisted in outfitting the station and completed a variety of other tasks designed to upgrade station systems.

For more information about the STS-133 crew members and their mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts133/main.

For more information about the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

For NASA TV schedule information and links to streaming video, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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NASA Selects Investigations For Future Key Planetary Mission

Dwayne C. Brown

Headquarters, Washington

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn's moons; or study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus.

Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission's concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in June 2010. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 28 submissions. The selected investigations could reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes. Three technology developments for possible future planetary missions also were selected.

"NASA continues to do extraordinary science that is re-writing textbooks," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Missions like these hold great promise to vastly increase our knowledge, extend our reach into the solar system and inspire future generations of explorers."

The planetary missions selected to pursue preliminary design studies are:

-- Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) would study the structure and composition of the interior of Mars and advance understanding of the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets. Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., is principal investigator. JPL would manage the project.

-- Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would provide the first direct exploration of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., is principal investigator. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., would manage the project.

-- Comet Hopper would study cometary evolution by landing on a comet multiple times and observing its changes as it interacts with the sun. Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland in College Park is principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., would manage the project.

"This is high science return at a price that’s right," said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division in Washington. "The selected studies clearly demonstrate a new era with missions that all touch their targets to perform unique and exciting science."

The three selected technology development proposals will expand the ability to catalog near-Earth objects, or NEOs; enhance the capability to determine the composition of comet ices; and validate a new method to reveal the population of objects in the poorly understood, far-distant part of our solar system. During the next several years, selected teams will receive funding that is determined through contract negotiations to bring their respective technologies to a higher level of readiness. To be considered for flight, teams must demonstrate progress in a future mission proposal competition.

The proposals selected for technology development are:

-- Primitive Material Explorer (PriME) would develop a mass spectrometer that would provide highly precise measurements of the chemical composition of a comet and explore the objects' role in delivering volatiles to Earth. Anita Cochran of the University of Texas in Austin is principal investigator.

-- Whipple: Reaching into the Outer Solar System would develop and validate a technique called blind occultation that could lead to the discovery of various celestial objects in the outer solar system and revolutionize our understanding of the area's structure. Charles Alcock of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., is principal investigator.

-- NEOCam would develop a telescope to study the origin and evolution of NEOs and study the present risk of Earth-impact. It would generate a catalog of objects and accurate infrared measurements to provide a better understanding of small bodies that cross our planet's orbit. Amy Mainzer of JPL is principal investigator.

Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent, cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals. The program's 11 missions include MESSENGER, Dawn, Stardust, Deep Impact and Genesis. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

For more information about the Discovery Program, visit http://discovery.nasa.gov.

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