NASA - Year in Review 2012

NASA Year in Review 2012

The Year from NASA

NASA Makes Unprecedented Return to Mars, Advances Commercial Spaceflight and Adds to its Amazing Research and Discoveries in 2012

In 2012, NASA continued to implement America's ambitious space exploration program, landing the most sophisticated rover on the surface of Mars, carrying out the first-ever commercial mission to the International Space Station and advancing the systems needed to send humans deeper into space.

"NASA achieved historic milestones this year landing the most sophisticated rover on the surface of Mars, carrying out the first-ever commercial mission to the space station and continuing to advance the systems needed to send humans deeper into space -- beyond the moon, to an asteroid and on to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "We are able to keep the United States the world leader in space exploration -- and continue to implement America's bipartisan space plan -- because of our talented and dedicated work force."

Video: This Year @ NASA

Curiosity Lands

NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain

Undertaking the most complex landing ever attempted in planetary exploration, NASA successfully placed its most advanced robotic rover yet on Mars. The Mars Science Laboratory mission, carrying the one-ton rover named Curiosity, touched down in August. Almost immediately, Curiosity sent back pictures of its landing site at Gale Crater with the eventual destination of Mount Sharp in the background. Since then, Curiosity has checked out its 10 science instruments, sent back detailed photos and weather observations and "tasted" Martian soil.

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Commercial Space

NASA Advances Commercial Spaceflight, Helps Make History

A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft successfully resupplied the International Space Station and returned cargo back to Earth in October, completing NASA's first contracted cargo delivery flight.

Under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract, SpaceX will fly at least 12 cargo missions to the space station through 2016. The Dragon launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 882 pounds of cargo, including crew supplies, scientific research and hardware. Dragon returned almost twice that amount of cargo, including a freezer packed with research samples collected in the orbiting laboratory's unique microgravity environment. These samples will help advance multiple scientific disciplines on Earth and provide critical data on the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body. The ability to return frozen samples is a first for this flight and will be tremendously beneficial to the station's research community. Not since the space shuttle have NASA and its international partners been able to return considerable amounts of research and samples for analysis.

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International Space Station

Space Station Fully Operational with New Research and Technology Testing

NASA and its international partners celebrated 12 years of permanent human habitation on the International Space Station on Nov. 2. More than 1,500 research and technology development experiments have been conducted aboard the orbiting lab -- more than 200 of them this year alone -- many of which are producing advances in medicine, environmental systems and our understanding of the universe.

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Ice Sheet Loss

Ice Sheet Loss at Both Poles Increasing

An international team of experts supported by NASA and the European Space Agency combined data from multiple satellites and aircraft to produce the most comprehensive and accurate assessment to date of ice sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica and their contributions to sea level rise.

The combined rate of melting for the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica increased during the last 20 years. Together, these ice sheets are losing more than three times as much ice each year as they were in the 1990s. About two-thirds of the loss is coming from Greenland, with the rest from Antarctica.

The study, announced in November, was produced by an international collaboration -- the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise -- that combined observations from 10 satellite missions to develop the first consistent measurement of polar ice sheet changes. Satellite data from NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) missions were included in the study.

This activity was a major challenge involving cutting-edge, difficult research to produce the most rigorous and detailed estimates of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica to date.

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Hubble Discoveries

NASA's Hubble Provides First Census of Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers announced Dec. 12 that they have seen further back in time than ever before and have uncovered a previously unseen population of seven primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 percent of its present age. The deepest images to date from Hubble yield the first statistically robust sample of galaxies that tells how abundant they were close to the era when galaxies first formed.

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Orion Spacecraft

Work Under Way for First Launches of NASA's New Spacecraft and Rocket

In July, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida welcomed the arrival of the agency's first space-bound Orion capsule, marking a major milestone in the construction of the spacecraft that will carry astronauts farther into space than ever before. Orion will be the most advanced spacecraft ever designed, sustaining astronauts during space travel, providing safe re-entry from deep space and emergency abort capability.

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Technology

Space Technology Program Sharpens Cutting-Edge Technologies

NASA's Space Technology Program is innovating, developing, testing, and flying technology for use in NASA's future missions and by the greater aerospace community. With more than 800 projects under way, many of which are partnering with universities and industry, the program continues to meet milestones and advance NASA's technology capabilities.

This year, NASA's Space Technology Program launched and successfully demonstrated a hypersonic inflatable reentry vehicle, proving that inflatable heat shields are viable for safely slowing large-mass payloads during their fiery entry through planetary atmospheres, like those of Earth or Mars.

NASA continues to invest in and create new enabling robotic technologies that aid in future exploration while also having applications here one Earth, potentially helping paraplegics walk and aiding in other medical rehabilitation efforts. Investments in improved woven thermal protection systems also made strides this year using commercially available 3-D weaving techniques, reducing life cycle costs and allowing for sustainable and scalable space missions.

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Silent Sonic Booms

Aeronautics Research to Make a Silent Sonic Boom

NASA is continuing to learn more about how sound waves created by supersonic aircraft move through the atmosphere, all with an eye towards designing aircraft that generate sonic booms you can barely hear -- or can't hear at all -- on the ground below. This work could open a whole new segment of the economy for commercial aviation by making supersonic flight over land acceptable.

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WISE

WISE Mission Sees Skies Ablaze with Blazars

Astronomers announced in April they were actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission revealed more than 200 blazars to date with the potential for finding thousands more.

Blazars are among the most energetic objects in the universe. They consist of supermassive black holes actively "feeding," or pulling matter onto them, at the cores of giant galaxies. As the matter is dragged toward the supermassive hole, some of the energy is released in the form of jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. The findings ultimately will help researchers understand the extreme physics behind super-fast jets and the evolution of supermassive black holes in the early universe.

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Shuttle Retirement

Space Shuttles Arrive at New Homes

With the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011, the shuttles themselves were delivered in 2012 to their new homes, where they will begin a new chapter in their careers: inspiring museum-goers of all ages to reach for the stars.

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Hands-On Learning

NASA Provides Hands-On Learning Opportunities

NASA's 2012 Summer of Innovation program provided summer learning opportunities to students and teachers. The program reached approximately 42,000 students in grades 4-9 across the country, many of whom fell within the agency's target audience of underrepresented and underserved students. The program also provided professional development for more than 3,200 middle school teachers nationwide to help them improve their ability to teach Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, content in the classroom.

Musician will.i.am brought his talents to NASA’s education efforts in 2012, attending several events associated with the Curiosity landing on Mars. He even premiered a song, “Reach for the Stars,” played back from the rover on the Red Planet.

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Seeing Interstellar Matter

NASA Spacecraft Reveals New Observations of Interstellar Matter

NASA announced in January its Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft captured the best and most complete glimpse yet of what lies beyond the solar system -- observations that show our solar system is different than the space right outside it. The new measurements give clues about how and where our solar system formed, the forces that physically shape our solar system and the history of other stars in the Milky Way.

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Ice on Mercury

Spacecraft Finds New Evidence for Ice on Mercury

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft provided compelling support for the long-held hypothesis the planet harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials within its permanently shadowed polar craters.

The spacecraft's onboard instruments have been studying Mercury in unprecedented detail since its historic arrival there in March 2011. Scientists are seeing clearly for the first time a chapter in the story of how the inner planets, including Earth, acquired their water and some of the chemical building blocks for life.

The new data announced in December indicated the water ice in Mercury's polar regions, if spread over an area the size of Washington, D.C., would be more than 2 miles thick. Given its proximity to the sun, Mercury would seem to be an unlikely place to find ice, however; there are pockets at the planet's poles that never see sunlight.

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Popular on the Web

Popular on NASA.gov in 2012

Some 2012 stories didn’t make the list, but still had a big impact with visitors to NASA.gov. NASA scientists answered questions about the false 2012 “end of the world” rumors, working to ease readers’ fears. Millions turned to us to watch the Transit of Venus, observe a meteor shower or get the latest images and videos from hurricanes. And, thanks to a partnership with the wildly popular Angry Birds game, mobile users came to us to learn more about our exploration of Mars and the challenges of living and working in microgravity.

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Farewell Pioneers

NASA Says Farewell to Space Pioneers

NASA and the world lost two pioneering explorers in 2012. Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died on Aug. 25 at age 82. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, died on July 23 at age 61.

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Video: The Grand Entrance

7 Minutes of Terror

Team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory share the challenges of the Curiosity Mars rover's final minutes to landing on the surface of Mars.

Video: NASA Lands Car-Sized Rover

NASA Lands Car-Sized Rover

Relive the nail-biting terror and joy as NASA's Curiosity rover successfully lands on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).

Looking to the Future

The Future of NASA on Mars

On Dec. 4, NASA announced plans for a robust multi-year Mars program, including a new robotic science rover based on the Curiosity design set to launch in 2020. The plans include:

-- The Curiosity and Opportunity rovers
-- Two NASA spacecraft and contributions to one European spacecraft currently orbiting Mars
-- The 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere
-- The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, mission, which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars
-- Participation in the European Space Agency's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 mission, and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.

The 2020 mission responds to high-priority science goals and the president's challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in the 2030s.

Curiosity's Mission

The Car-Sized Rover's Mission on the Red Planet

Key mission findings during the first three months after the landing include:

-- conglomerate rocks bearing rounded pebbles as evidence of vigorous ancient stream flow right in the area where Curiosity landed
-- mineral composition of Martian soil similar to soils in Hawaii that contain volcanic glass
-- the first assessment of the natural radiation environment that future astronauts will encounter on the surface of Mars.

Curiosity will spend two years exploring and assessing its Martian surroundings as a potential habitat for life, past or present. In addition, the landing technology for putting such a large payload safely on the Martian surface could help with plans for future human Mars missions.

Video: SpaceX

The Dragon Has Been Tamed

The SpaceX Dragon capsule is grappled and berthed to the Earth-facing port of the International Space Station's Harmony module at 12:02 p.m. EDT, May 25, 2012.

Commercial Crew Integrated Capability

NASA Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap)

With commercial cargo flights to the space station under way in 2012, NASA took the next steps in the effort to launch Americans from U.S. soil again. The agency announced in August new agreements with three American commercial companies to design and develop the next generation of U.S. human spaceflight capabilities, enabling a launch of astronauts from the United States in the next five years.

Advances made by these companies under Space Act Agreements through the agency's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative are intended to ultimately lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers.‬ The CCiCap partners are the Sierra Nevada Corporation, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), and The Boeing Company.

Video: NASA's Commercial Crew Program

NASA's Commercial Crew Program

CCiCap is an initiative of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and an administration priority. The objective of the CCP is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit. Between now and May 31, 2014, NASA's partners will perform tests and mature integrated designs. This would then set the stage for a future activity that will launch crewed orbital demonstration missions to low-Earth orbit by the middle of the decade.

Orbital Antares

SpaceX is one of two companies that built and tested new cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. SpaceX completed its final demonstration test flight in May, becoming the first commercial company ever to launch, rendezvous and be docked to the International Space Station. Orbital Sciences is the other company participating in COTS. Orbital's Antares launch vehicle is on the launch pad at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in advance of a hot fire test of the Antares first-stage engines. A flight test of the Antares with a simulated Cygnus spacecraft and a demonstration flight of Cygnus to the space station are planned for 2013.

Video: Earth Illuminated

Earth Illuminated
International Space Station Time-Lapse Photography

From high above the Earth, the International Space Station provides a unique vantage point to view our home planet. Stunning time-lapse photography of cities, aurora, lightning and other sights are seen from orbit. Famed astronomer Galileo imagined these views from space and now through the technological marvel of the space station, we can see them for ourselves.

Living in Orbit

Human research studies have shown that using the station's Advanced Resistive Exercise Device for high-intensity workouts, in combination with proper diets, helps astronauts lose less bone density during their stay. This could have profound effects on future space exploration, as well as the aging population on Earth. Plant-growth studies are often on the menu, as the ability to grow plants in microgravity would allow for fresh food, oxygen generation and carbon dioxide removal. This research also could help improve crop production on the ground.

New Research Projects

Several new facilities delivered to the station this year allow for an array of new research projects:

-- The Japanese Experiment Module Small Satellite Orbital Deployer changes the way mini satellites now can be deployed to their optimal orbit, allowing for greater flexibility, operational control and significant monetary savings.
-- The Aquatic Habitat received its first inhabitants, translucent Medaka fish, allowing for easy observation of their skeletal systems, which gives more insight into radiation effects, as well as bone and muscle atrophy, which are medical issues for astronauts and the aging population.
-- A Gravitational Biology Lab allows for biological experimentation in artificial gravity -- from zero gravity to twice Earth's normal gravity -- for prolonged periods of time. This facility provides environmental control, lighting, data transfer, commanding and observation of experiments in Mars and moon gravity conditions, as well as mimicking Earth's gravity. The centrifuge is useful for biological organism research and could lead to advances in medications and vaccines, agricultural controls and discoveries in genetics -- all beneficial to people on Earth.

Heat Shield for Orion

Understanding the Heat Shield

The Orion at Kennedy will launch on Exploration Flight Test-1, an uncrewed mission planned for 2014. The spacecraft will travel 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface, 15 times farther than the International Space Station's orbital position. The primary flight objective is to understand Orion's heat shield performance at speeds generated during a return from deep space.

Space Launch System

NASA's New Engines and Rockets

NASA and its industry partners around the country also made swift progress on the Space Launch System (SLS) this year, testing and developing new components and improving on existing hardware. New construction on the largest rocket ever built is enabled by existing, proven technology, like the space shuttle main engines that will power the first stage of the rocket. The new J-2X engine, which is targeted to power the upper stage of the rocket, underwent a battery of tests that broke duration records and pushed the engine design to its limits.

The Orion, SLS, and Ground Systems Development and Operations programs also reached their critical milestones this year each with an approved system requirement review and system definition review. Those pivotal steps allowed these programs to move from concept into its preliminary design phase and all remain on target for its first flight test in 2017.

Video: Critical Milestones Reached

Pivotal Steps Made

The Orion capsule that will make the first flight test into space was celebrated on Monday, July 2, as the cornerstone of a new era of exploration for America's space program. The spacecraft's aluminum-alloy crew pressure module arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, June 29, where it will be built up into a fully functioning spacecraft ahead of a test flight slated for 2014.

Hubble's Greater Depth

The greater depth of the new Hubble images, together with a carefully designed survey strategy, allows this work to go further than previous studies, thereby providing what researchers say is the first reliable galaxy census of this epoch. Notably, one of the galaxies may be a distance record breaker, observed 380 million years after the birth of our universe in the theorized big bang.

Looking deeper into the universe also means peering further back in time. The universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old. The newly discovered galaxies are seen as they looked 350 to 600 million years after the big bang. Their light is just arriving at Earth now.

Video: Hubble Looking Deeper and Further

Hubble Looking Deeper and Further

This video takes you through Hubble's deepest view of the universe, from its location in the sky to the dimmest, most distant galaxies.

Video: Ocean Currents Causing Antarctic Ice Loss

Ocean Currents Causing Antarctic Ice Loss

This animation shows the circulation of ocean currents around the western Antarctic ice shelves. The shelves are indicated by the rainbow color; red is thicker (>550m), while blue is thinner (<200m). These shelves are being melted from the underside by warm ocean currents.

Turbulent Water Overflow

Over the course of several years, turbulent water overflow from a large melt lake carved this 60-foot-deep (18.3 meter-deep) canyon (Note people at right for scale).

Image credit: Ian Joughin, University of Washington

Video: "FaINT" Side of Sonic Booms

NASA Researches the 'FaINT' Side of Sonic Booms

Following a series of research flights last year, NASA engineers in 2012 poured over information they gathered from residents near Edwards Air Force Base in California to see how well they did in generating sonic booms with NASA's F/A-18 jet that could barely be heard on the ground. The Waveforms and Sonic boom Perception and Response, or WSPR, project gathered data from a select group of more than 100 volunteers. A final report on the study is due soon.

Another phase of this research began in 2012 with the Farfield Investigation of No Boom Threshold, or FaINT. Using NASA's F/A-18 supersonic jet, project researchers will try to better understand what's happening at the very edge of the sonic boom, or just beyond.

Video: NASA Spinoff Technologies

Who is Alex Trebek?

That's the correct question to the NASA TV answer, "This popular television game show celebrity hosts a public service announcement pointing out that much of the technology we rely on in our daily lives comes from technologies developed by NASA for space exploration!"

Video: NASA's Space Technology Program

NASA's Space Technology Program Continues to Help Us All

NASA’s Space Technology Program is building, testing and flying technologies for tomorrow.

Video: IRVE-3

Inflatable Spacecraft Heat Shield Ready to Launch

The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment is an innovative inflatable heat shield technology that could allow engineers to navigate much larger instrument packages through atmospheres than the rigid heat shields we use today.

Video: Exoskeleton

Exoskeleton for Resistive Exercise and Rehabilitation

Marvel Comic's fictional superhero, Ironman, uses a powered armor suit that allows him superhuman strength. While NASA's X1 robotic exoskeleton can't do what you see in the movies, the latest robotic, space technology, spinoff derived from NASA's Robonaut 2 project may someday help astronauts stay healthier in space with the added benefit of assisting paraplegics in walking here on Earth.

Video: Astronaut Suni Williams on Value of Education

Astronaut Suni Williams on Value of Education

In this public service announcement, astronaut Suni Williams stresses the importance of studying science, technology, engineering and math. What you learn in school today will help you reach for the stars tomorrow!

Video: Students Reach for the Stars with will.i.am

Students Reach for the Stars with will.i.am

Musician will.i.am addresses students at JPL during an event celebrating the first time in history that a recorded song has been beamed back to Earth from another planet.

Video: Water Ice

Water Ice at the Polar Regions of Mercury

This animation shows 89 wide-angle camera images of Mercury’s south polar region acquired by the Mercury Dual Imaging System over one complete Mercury solar day (176 Earth days).

Video: IBEX Spacecraft Observes Matter from Interstellar Space

IBEX Spacecraft Observes Matter from Interstellar Space

A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy. The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath. On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, but rebound off the heliosheath, never to enter the solar system. Neutral particles, on the other hand, are a different story. They saunter across the boundary as if it weren't there, continuing on another 7.5 billion miles for 30 years until they get caught by the sun's gravity, and sling shot around the star.

There, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer lies in wait for them. Known as IBEX for short, this spacecraft methodically measures these samples of the mysterious neighborhood beyond our home. IBEX scans the entire sky once a year, and every February, its instruments point in the correct direction to intercept incoming neutral atoms. IBEX counted those atoms in 2009 and 2010 and has now captured the best and most complete glimpse of the material that lies so far outside our own system.

The results? It's an alien environment out there: the material in that galactic wind doesn't look like the same stuff our solar system is made of.

Video: WISE Finds Few Brown Dwarfs Close to Home

WISE Finds Few Brown Dwarfs Close to Home

NASA's WISE telescope has discovered that there are fewer brown dwarfs in our solar neighborhood than previously thought.

The Shuttles Retire

Shuttles Retire and Move

Endeavour makes its slow journey through the streets of Los Angeles in October, en route to the California Science Center. Discovery arrived at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Dulles, Virginia, in April. Enterprise was unveiled at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York in July. Atlantis was moved to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida in November.

Atlantis

Children Greet Atlantis

Flag waving children welcome space shuttle Atlantis as it approaches Space Florida's Exploration Park in November. Atlantis will be displayed at Kennedy's Visitor Complex beginning in the summer of 2013. Over the course of its 26-year career, Atlantis traveled 125,935,769 miles during 307 days in space over 33 missions.

Image credit: NASA/ Tony Gray

Video: Shuttle Move

Atlantis Time-Lapse Move to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

Time-lapse cameras captured space shuttle Atlantis making a 10-mile trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex where it will be put on public display beginning in the summer of 2013.

Image credit: NASA/ Tony Gray

Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery Arrives at Udvar-Hazy

Space shuttles Enterprise, left, and Discovery meet nose-to-nose at the beginning of a transfer ceremony at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, April 19, 2012, in Chantilly, Va. Space shuttle Discovery--the first orbiter retired from NASA’s shuttle fleet, completed 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited the Earth 5,830 times, and traveled 148,221,675 miles--will take the place of Enterprise at the center to commemorate past achievements in space and to educate and inspire future generations of explorers at the center.

Image Credit: NASA/Smithsonian Institution/Carolyn Russo

Why the World Won't End in 2012

Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know, however, it will be another winter solstice. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the claims behind the end of the world quickly unravel when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Read more...

Venus Transit

Venus Transits the Sun

On June 5-6 2012, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is collected images of one of the rarest predictable solar events: the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. This event happens in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until 2117.

Image Credit: NASA/SDO, AIA

Hurricane Sandy

As Hurricane Sandy moved north along the East Coast of the United States, its waves churned up sediments from the continental shelf and left turbid water in its wake. By midday Oct. 30, 2012, the skies over coastal Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina had cleared enough to reveal that turbidity to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite. Meanwhile, the remnants of the storm were battering the northeastern states.

Image Credit: NASA

Video: Angry Birds

Angry Birds and Pigs Go Weightless

In cooperation with NASA, Finland-based Rovio Entertainment, creator of the Angry Birds franchise, announced its newest game, "Angry Birds Space." Game developers incorporated concepts of human space exploration into the new game. From the weightlessness of space to the gravity wells of nearby planets, players use physics as they explore the various levels of the game set both on planets and in microgravity. Aboard the International Space Station, Flight Engineer Don Pettit of NASA created a video using Angry Birds Space to explain how physics works in space, including demonstrating trajectories in microgravity by catapulting an Angry Bird through the space station.

Meteor Showers

Meteor Showers in 2012

This is a composite, false-color image that combines meteor fall from various meteor showers (Orionids, Perseids, Geminids) from 2009-2011. All images are based on grey-scale images provided by the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

Sally Ride

Sally Ride Recalls 'Spectacular View' of Earth From Orbit

In a space agency filled with trailblazers, Sally K. Ride was a pioneer of a different sort. The soft-spoken California physicist broke the gender barrier 29 years ago when she rode to orbit aboard space shuttle Challenger to become America’s first woman in space.

"Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism – and literally changed the face of America’s space program," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Sally's family and the many she inspired. She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly."

On the Lunar Surface

Apollo 11 astronauts trained on Earth to take individual photographs in succession in order to create a series of frames that could be assembled into panoramic images. This frame from Aldrin's panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site is the only good picture of mission commander Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface.

Image Credit: NASA

Neil Armstrong: 1930 - 2012

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, died on Aug. 25 following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures. He was 82.

Armstrong's words "That is one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind," spoken on July 20, 1969, as he became the first person ever to step onto another planetary body, instantly became a part of history.

Those few words from the Sea of Tranquillity were the climactic fulfillment of the efforts and hopes of millions of people and the expenditure of billions of dollars. A plaque on one of the lander's legs that concluded "We came in peace for all mankind," further emphasized that Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were there as representatives of all humans.

In a 2001 oral history interview, Armstrong credited those behind the scenes for the mission's success: "when you have hundreds of thousands of people all doing their job a little better than they have to, you get an improvement in performance. And that's the only reason we could have pulled this whole thing off."