| *** APRIL 2006 *** |
| NASA TESTING PROTOTYPE SOFTWARE FOR FUTURE SPACEFLIGHT |
| Software that astronauts could use during spaceflight and in future moon habitats is being tested by NASA... The research is taking place in Utah's southeast desert, at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, where scientists are field-testing a computer network to monitor space power systems. The network uses the same kind of intelligent software that also may assist astronauts to conduct planetary exploration with robotic systems. "We will experiment with sensors and software that will help us manage a generator and batteries that provide power to a habitat, while we are living and working inside (of it)," said Bill Clancey of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., the project's principal investigator. |
| STUDENT ROBOTIC ENGINEERS GATHER AT NASA-SPONSORED TOURNAMENT |
| Future engineers and computer scientists will demonstrate their robotics skills during the NASA-sponsored ninth annual northern California Botball Robotics Tournament. The competition will be held at the Leavey Center at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, Calif. This year, 32 teams from 23 northern California middle and high school schools will be participating in the fast-paced tournament. "As NASA moves forward with exploration of the solar system, the hands-on experience gained by building and testing autonomous robots, as is required for the Botball competitions, is key to learning the technology and inspiring the creative thinking needed in NASA's future scientists and engineers," said Terry Grant, NASA Ames associate with NASA's Robotics Alliance Project, and coordinator of the Northern California Botball Competition. |
| NEW NASA AMES SPACECRAFT TO LOOK FOR ICE AT LUNAR SOUTH POLE |
| NASA today announced that a small, 'secondary payload' spacecraft, to be developed by a team at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has been selected to travel to the moon to look for precious water ice at the lunar south pole in October 2008. The smaller secondary payload spacecraft will travel with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite to the moon on the same rocket, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), to be launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The NASA Ames team proposed the secondary payload mission, which will be carried out by the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). "The LCROSS mission gives the agency an excellent opportunity to answer the question about water ice on the moon," said Daniel Andrews of NASA Ames, whose team proposed the LCROSS mission. "We think we have assembled a very creative, highly innovative mission, turning the upper stage of the rocket that brought us to the moon into a substantial impactor on the moon." |