October 2009 Archives

Dennis Wingo from the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP), hosted at NASA Ames Research Center in the NASA Research Park, will be teaching a class at HackerDojo in 4 November 2009.

HackerDojo is located at 140 South Whisman Road in Mountain View, CA (Map) from 6 to 7:30 pm.

We hope to stream this presentation live.

News media are invited to see a demonstration of first-generation laboratory prototypes of new technology that would bring chemical sensing capabilities to cell phones on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 at San Diego State University Regional Technology Center, San Diego, Calif.

Jing Li, a physical scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., along with other researchers working under the Cell-All program in the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, will demonstrate their proofs of concept. Li has developed a device, designed to be plugged in to an iPhone, which collects sensor data and sends it to another phone or a computer via telephone communication network or Wi-Fi.

NASA Kicks Off Open Innovation Competition To Benefit Spaceflight

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston kicked off an experimental programming competition today in conjunction with TopCoder, Inc. and researchers from Harvard Business School and London Business School. The competition, conducted for the center’s Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD), is aimed at developing algorithms that optimize medical kits for long-duration human space exploration.

"The Space Life Sciences strategy involves developing collaborative business models to drive innovation," said Dr. Jeffrey Davis, SLSD director. "This experimental competition is one example of our ongoing commitment to finding new approaches to problem solving and successfully managing our portfolio."

Reporters are invited to attend the 2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge Oct. 17-18 at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. The $750,000 prize challenge is a nationwide competition that focuses on developing improved handling technologies for moon dirt, known as lunar regolith. Part of NASA's Centennial Challenges Program, the competition will see 23 teams use robots they designed and built to excavate simulated lunar soil. Teams will test their robots in a box approximately 13 feet square and one-and-a-half feet deep that contains eight tons of simulated moon soil.

To qualify for a prize, a robot must dig up at least 330 pounds of regolith and deposit it into a container in 30 minutes. Trophies will be presented to the top three teams. The two-day event also will feature exhibits and speakers highlighting hands-on education projects, robotics and space exploration.

NASA is inviting fifth through eighth grade students to participate in a waste limitation management and recycling design challenge. Participants in the competition will design and test water recycling systems that could be used for future exploration of the moon. The top three teams will receive awards, and the first place team will receive an expense-paid trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Teams of up to six students and one teacher or mentor should submit their proposals and results to NASA for evaluation by Feb. 1, 2010. Schools in the United States and its territories, science museums, science centers and home school groups may host teams.

New research from the University of Southampton has demonstrated that it is possible for communication from person to person through the power of thought alone. Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) can be used for capturing brain signals and translating them into commands that allow humans to control (just by thinking) devices such as computers, robots, rehabilitation technology and virtual reality environments.

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 5 October 2009

"Gennady reconfigured an A31p laptop (#1157) by equipping it with the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) of the Russian RS1 laptop (#1145), supported by ground specialist tagup."

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 4 October 2009

"Maxim Suraev performed the periodic update of the AntiVirus program in the Russian VKS auxiliary laptops (RSS2, RSK1, RSE1, RSE2) from a new uplinked program copy on the RSS1 laptop, first scanning the latter, then transferring the database by flash-card to the other computers and scanning them one by one."

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 2 October 2009

"CDR Padalka took Guy Laliberte on a one-hour orientation/briefing tour of the ISS, setting him up for his nine-day stay on board. Preparations included installing the SFP’s HDD (Hard Disk Drive) in the RSK2 laptop for his use. [Guy’s introduction covered SM windows 7 & 8 for Earth photo/video ops, NIKON D3X & SONY Z7 camera stowage locations & use, location for Guy’s daily VHF1 conferences, the SFP-PCG & SFP-ICG experiment container setup, etc.]"