The center section of the “pathfinder” (test) backplane of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope arrived at the Goddard Space Flight Center in July 2014, to be part of a simulation of putting together vital parts of the telescope. In this photograph, the backplane is hoisted into place in the assembly stand in NASA Goddard’s giant cleanroom, where over the next several months engineers and scientists will install two spare primary mirror segments and a spare secondary mirror. By installing the mirrors on the replica, technicians are able to practice this delicate procedure for when the actual flight backplane arrives. Installation of the mirrors on the backplane requires precision, so practice is important.
> James Webb Space Telescope “Pathfinder” Backplane’s Path to NASA
Image Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn via NASA http://ift.tt/1l2V77h

ISS040-E-088856 (5 Aug. 2014) — NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Expedition 40 flight engineer, installs Capillary Channel Flow (CCF) experiment hardware in the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) located in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. CCF is a versatile experiment for studying a critical variety of inertial-capillary dominated flows key to spacecraft systems that cannot be studied on the ground.
Capillary flow is the natural wicking of fluid between narrow channels in the opposite direction of gravity. Tree roots are one example of a capillary system, drawing water up from the soil. By increasing understanding of capillary flow in the absence of gravity, the Capillary Channel Flow (CCF) experiment helps scientists find new ways to move liquids in space. Capillary systems do not require pumps or moving parts, which reduces their cost, weight and complexity.
Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1untpor

A perigee full moon or “supermoon” is seen, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014, in Washington. A supermoon occurs when the moon’s orbit is closest (perigee) to Earth at the same time it is full.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls via NASA http://ift.tt/1sPQ3mo

Divers retrieve the test vehicle for NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator off the coast of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. On June 28, 2014, the vehicle was lifted to near-space with the help of a balloon and rocket in order to test new Mars landing technologies. The divers, from the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, retrieved the vehicle hours after the successful test.
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the LDSD mission, a cooperative effort led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. NASA’s Technology Demonstration Mission program manages LDSD at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, coordinated support with the Pacific Missile Range Facility, provided the core electrical systems for the test vehicle, and coordinated the balloon and recovery services for the LDSD test.
For more information about the LDSD space technology demonstration mission: http://go.usa.gov/kzZQz.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech via NASA http://ift.tt/1ssIjpl

In early August 2014, not one but two hurricanes were headed for the Hawaiian Islands. Storms arriving from the east are a relative rarity, and landfalling storms are also pretty infrequent.

On Aug. 5, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite captured natural-color images of both Iselle and Hurricane Julio en route to Hawaii. This image is a composite of three satellite passes over the tropical Pacific Ocean in the early afternoon. Note that Iselle’s eyewall had grown less distinct; the storm had descreased to category 2 intensity. The bright shading toward the center-left of the image is sunglint, the reflection of sunlight off the water and directly back at the satellite sensor.

> More information and annotated images
> Latest storm images and data: NASA Hurricane

Image Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response
Caption Credit: Mike Carlowicz via NASA http://ift.tt/1vffwdk

Close up detail focusing on a smooth region on the ‘base’ of the ‘body’ section of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The image was taken by Rosetta’s Onboard Scientific Imaging System (OSIRIS) on August 6, 2014. The image clearly shows a range of features, including boulders, craters and steep cliffs. The image was taken from a distance of 80 miles (130 kilometers) and the image resolution is 8 feet (2.4 meters) per pixel.
The three U.S. instruments aboard the spacecraft are the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO), an ultraviolet spectrometer called Alice, and the Ion and Electron Sensor (IES). They are part of a suite of 11 science instruments aboard the Rosetta orbiter.
MIRO is designed to provide data on how gas and dust leave the surface of the nucleus to form the coma and tail that gives comets their intrinsic beauty. Studying the surface temperature and evolution of the coma and tail provides information on how the comet evolves as it approaches and leaves the vicinity of the sun.
Alice will analyze gases in the comet’s coma, which is the bright envelope of gas around the nucleus of the comet developed as a comet approaches the sun. Alice also will measure the rate at which the comet produces water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. These measurements will provide valuable information about the surface composition of the nucleus.
NASA also provided part of the electronics package for the Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer, which is part of the Swiss-built Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument. ROSINA will be the first instrument in space with sufficient resolution to be able to distinguish between molecular nitrogen and carbon monoxide, two molecules with approximately the same mass. Clear identification of nitrogen will help scientists understand conditions at the time the solar system was formed.
U.S. scientists are partnering on several non-U.S. instruments and are involved in seven of the mission’s 21 instrument collaborations. NASA’s Deep Space Network is supporting ESA’s Ground Station Network for spacecraft tracking and navigation.
Launched in March 2004, Rosetta was reactivated in January 2014 after a record 957 days in hibernation. Composed of an orbiter and lander, Rosetta’s objectives upon arrival at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August are to study the celestial object up close in unprecedented detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet’s nucleus in November, and track its changes as it sweeps past the sun.
Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed. Rosetta’s lander will obtain the first images taken from a comet’s surface and will provide the first analysis of a comet’s composition by drilling into the surface. Rosetta also will be the first spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun’s radiation. Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.
For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit: http://ift.tt/LrJPJ3
More information about Rosetta is available at: http://ift.tt/y2RjFt
Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team via NASA http://ift.tt/1qVvV07

This image was captured by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shortly after it landed on the Red Planet on the evening of Aug. 5, 2012 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT), near the foot of a mountain three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater. The image shows the rover’s main science target, Mount Sharp. The rover’s shadow can be seen in the foreground, and the dark bands beyond are dunes. Rising up in the distance is Mount Sharp, whose peak is 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) high, taller than Mt. Whitney in California. The actual summit is not visible from this vantage point — the highest elevation seen in this view is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) above the rover.
On June 24, 2014, Curiosity completed one Martian year — 687 Earth days — having accomplished the mission’s main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. One of Curiosity’s first major findings after landing in August 2012 was an ancient riverbed at its landing site. Nearby, at an area known as Yellowknife Bay, the mission met its main goal of determining whether the Martian Gale Crater ever was habitable for simple life forms. The answer, a historic “yes,” came from two mudstone slabs that the rover sampled with its drill. Analysis of these samples revealed the site was once a lakebed with mild water, the essential elemental ingredients for life, and a type of chemical energy source used by some microbes on Earth. If Mars had living organisms, this would have been a good home for them.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech via NASA http://ift.tt/1ARsTkh

A test version of NASA’s Orion spacecraft floats inside the well deck of the U.S.S. Anchorage on Aug. 2, 2014, during recovery tests off the coast of California. A combined NASA and U.S. Navy team practiced recovery techniques over the weekend, in preparation for Orion’s first trip to (and return from) space in Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) in December.
Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. After traveling 3,600 miles into space on the uncrewed EFT-1, Orion will return to Earth at a speed of 20,000 miles per hour and endure temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit before landing in the Pacific Ocean.
> NASA Prepares for Second Orion Underway Recovery Test
Image Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Gary Keen via NASA http://ift.tt/1p4E8AT

ISS040-E-081320 (26 July 2014) — One of the Expedition 40 crew members aboard the International Space Station recorded this early evening photo of the entire Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) on July 26, 2014. Part of France can be seen at the top of the image and the Strait of Gibraltar is visible at bottom, with a very small portion of Morocco visible near the lower right corner.

Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1sbDMcC