V-22 Rotocraft Cross-Section

Helicopters and rotorcraft provide many useful civil and military functions without the need for airports and runways. However, accurately predicting vehicle performance and noise production is very challenging and requires a more accurate technical approach to understand the interaction between rotor blades and the rotor blade vortices. Scientists supporting NASA's Subsonic Rotary Wing Project are developing state-of-the-art simulation tools to more accurately predict these flowfields. Use of these tools provide new insight into the rotor wakes, and will help improve rotorcraft performance. This snapshot of a V-22 rotorcraft in hover shows a cross-section of the blade vortices and turbulent flow, where magenta is high vorticity (spin) and blue is low. The Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility has allowed scientists to greatly improve the prediction accuracy of rotor blade aerodynamics. These tools will allow engineers to develop faster and quieter rotorcraft with larger lifting capability.

Elementary Students in Hawaii Remotely Operate NASA Rovers for World Leaders

During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Conference held Nov. 7-13, 2011, NASA collaborated with the University of Hawai’i Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES) to share the excitement of exploration and robotics technology with elementary school children and even some APEC delegates.

Soyuz on the Launch Pad

The Soyuz TMA-22 rocket is seen on the launch pad during a snow storm the morning of the launch of Expedition 29 to the International Space Station at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Monday, Nov. 14, 2011.

Montage

This montage of New Horizons images shows Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, and were taken during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby in early 2007. The image of Jupiter is an infrared color composite taken by the spacecraft's near-infrared imaging spectrometer, the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array. The infrared wavelengths used highlight variations in the altitude of the Jovian cloud tops, with blue denoting high-altitude clouds and hazes, and red indicating deeper clouds. The prominent bluish-white oval is the Great Red Spot. The observation was made at a solar phase angle of 75 degrees but has been projected onto a crescent to remove distortion caused by Jupiter's rotation during the scan. The image of Io is an approximately true-color composite taken by the panchromatic Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager with color information provided by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera. The image shows a major eruption in progress on Io's night side, at the northern volcano Tvashtar. Incandescent lava glows red beneath a volcanic plume, whose uppermost portions are illuminated by sunlight. The plume appears blue due to scattering of light by small particles within it.

NASA and Navy Veteran John Young

John Young, astronaut and Navy veteran, salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity (EVA-1). Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, jumps up from the lunar surface as astronaut and Air Force veteran, Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture.

The Lunar Module (LM) "Orion" is on the left. The Lunar Roving Vehicle is parked beside the LM. The object behind Young in the shade of the LM is the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. Stone Mountain dominates the background in this lunar scene.

30 Doradus - The Growing Tarantula Within

The star-forming region, 30 Doradus, is one of the largest located close to the Milky Way and is found in the neighboring galaxy, Large Magellanic Cloud. About 2,400 massive stars in the center of 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, are producing intense radiation and powerful winds as they blow off material.

Multimillion-degree gas detected in X-rays (blue) by the Chandra X-ray Observatory comes from shock fronts -- similar to sonic booms --formed by these stellar winds and by supernova explosions. This hot gas carves out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust shown here in infrared emission from the Spitzer Space Telescope (orange).

Image Credit: NASA

Orion Drop Test 3

Engineers at NASA Langley conducted the third drop test of the Orion test article as part of Phase 1 water impact testing on Nov. 8. The capsule was hoisted about 20 feet above the ground with a pitch of 17 degrees. It reached a horizontal velocity of about 22 mph before splashing into the Hydro Impact Basin. Test conditions represented stable seas.

A crowd of more than 100, including NASA Center Directors, Orion Program Managers and engineers, NASA Langley employees, support contractors, NASA Tweetup participants and media watched.

NASA Ames Research Center News and Features Update

NASA, Science Technology Featured at Supercomputing Conference

NASA will highlight the vital role of supercomputing in the search for Earth-size planets, understanding the causes of space weather, relating air quality impacts to the changing weather and climate, improving aircraft performance, designing next-generation spacecraft, and much more at the 24th annual Supercomputing 2011 (SC11) conference.

Orion seen from the Rover

The Apollo 16 Lunar Module "Orion" is photographed from a distance by astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr., Lunar Module pilot, aboard the moving Lunar Roving Vehicle. Astronauts Duke and Commander John W. Young, were returning from the third Apollo 16 extravehicular activity. The RCA color television camera mounted on the LRV is in the foreground. A portion of the LRV's high-gain antenna is at top left.

Mars' Newton Crater

This image, which combines orbital imagery with 3-D modeling, shows flows that appear in spring and summer on a slope inside Mars' Newton Crater. Sequences of observations recording the seasonal changes at this site and a few others with similar flows might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars today. Evidence for that possible interpretation is presented in a report by McEwen et al. in the Aug. 5, 2011, edition of Science.

This image has been reprojected to show a view of a slope as it would be seen from a helicopter inside the crater, with a synthetic Mars-like sky. The source observation was made May 30, 2011, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Color has been enhanced. The season was summer at the location, 41.6 degrees south latitude, 202.3 degrees east longitude.

The flow features are narrow (one-half to five yards or meters wide), relatively dark markings on steep (25 to 40 degree) slopes at several southern hemisphere locations. Repeat imaging by HiRISE shows the features appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons.