Transcript: This Week at NASA, March 25 - April 1
04.01.06
EXPEDITION 13/PONTES LAUNCH – JSC
Anncr: "Lift off of the Soyuz rocket…"
Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov, Flight Engineer Jeff Williams and Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes are on their way to the International Space Station. The trio launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Vinogradov and Williams will spend six months on the International Space Station. Pontes will return to Earth in another Soyuz capsule with the Expedition 12 crew on April 8 after spending eight days aboard the complex.
ECLIPSE: THE VIEW FROM TURKEY - GSFC
March 29's total solar eclipse was seen 'round the world on NASA TV and the web, thanks to a partnership with the University of California at Berkeley and the Exploratorium Museum of San Francisco. Berkley and the Exploratorium provided video of the eclipse from Side, Turkey to NASA TV, which sent it to schools, museums and computer desktops worldwide via satellite and nasa-dot-gov. The eclipse coverage was part of Sun-Earth Day, celebrated every year to promote better understanding of how our sun interacts with the Earth and other planets in the solar system.
ECLIPSE: THE VIEW FROM SPACE – JSC
The view from space was different but no less spectacular. Cameras aboard the International Space Station, 230 miles above Earth, captured video of the solar eclipse's umbra, or shadow, as the complex flew above Turkey and Lebanon.
ECLIPSE: THE VIEW FROM LIBYA – HQ
And, hundreds of miles deep in the Sahara Desert, NASA and Libyan scientists came together for the first time to study and share observations during this total solar eclipse. Libya offered one of the best viewing locations in the world. The Libyan government invited NASA scientists and scientists from universities and research organizations in the U.S., Italy and Switzerland to set up experiments in this "Eclipse City" to demonstrate new techniques for observing the sun's atmosphere.
LOOKIN' GOOD – JPL
The first test images from Martian orbit by NASA's latest addition to its Red Planet fleet provide a tantalizing preview of what the orbiter will reveal when its main science phase begins next fall. Three science cameras on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter pointed at Mars collected a 40-minute sequence of engineering test data. Next, MRO will begin a half-year process called "aerobraking" to gradually shrink the size of its orbit around Mars. Its cameras won't be used during that process.
LOOK MA! NO HANDS! – JPL
It's March Madness, but with robots! Assisted by engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, students from Southern California competed in a game of robotic basketball during the regional FIRST robotics competition. With 3 goals on each side and dozens of balls in the field, the robots, made with precision parts, performed on their own for the first 10 seconds of the match. The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. Three local teams advanced to the finals to be held in Atlanta next month. NASA engineers helped the students build the robots and gave them technical advice during the competition.
NEEMO 9 - JSC
Three astronauts and a Cincinnati doctor will spend more than two weeks under the ocean next month testing space medicine concepts and moon-walking techniques. The NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, NEEMO, is the 9th such mission conducted by NASA in cooperation with the National Ocean & Atmospheric Administration. NEEMO 9 will demonstrate and evaluate innovative technologies and procedures for remote surgery. Doctors thousands of miles away will guide the aquanauts in their simulated procedures that will include the use of remote-controlled robotic instruments.
AMBASSADOR ALDRIN – JPL
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin received NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award at the California Science Center, Los Angeles. Aldrin is one of 38 recipients of the award, all of whom were astronauts or other key individuals in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.
The award contains a small piece of the 842 pounds of lunar samples brought back to Earth on NASA's six Apollo missions, and will be on public display in the Sketch Foundation Gallery at the California Science Center, in Los Angeles.
Buzz Aldrin "The moon rock has a special meaning for me, not just the science that it enabled us to study and learn more about the origin of the moon and the origin of the Earth. But, I believe the plaque that we left on the moon signifies our mission, that 'We came in peace for all mankind.'"
And that's This Week @ NASA.
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