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This Week at NASA | Invention Challenge at JPL; more

Uploaded 12/14/2015

Invention Challenge at JPL; more

On Dec. 11 aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, bid farewell to crew members remaining on the station — including Commander Scott Kelly, NASA’s one-year mission astronaut. The returning members of Expedition 45 then climbed aboard their Soyuz spacecraft for the trip back to Earth. They safely touched down hours later in Kazakhstan – closing out a 141-day stay in space. Also, Next space station crew prepares for launch, Supply mission arrives at space station, Quantum computing lab and more.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Space station astronauts return safely to Earth

On Dec. 11 aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, bid farewell to crew members remaining on the station — including Commander Scott Kelly, NASA’s one-year mission astronaut. The returning members of Expedition 45 then climbed aboard their Soyuz spacecraft for the trip back to Earth. They safely touched down hours later in Kazakhstan – closing out a 141-day stay in space.

Next space station crew prepares for launch

Meanwhile, preparations continue at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the launch of the next three additions to the space station crew – including NASA astronaut Tim Kopra. He’s participating in prelaunch training with Expedition 46-47 Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Flight Engineer Tim Peake of the European Space Agency. Launch of their Soyuz to the station from Kazakhstan is scheduled for Dec. 15.

Supply mission arrives at space station

Orbital ATK’s enhanced Cygnus cargo craft arrived at the space station on Dec. 9, three days after launching on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Florida. This is the first flight of the enhanced Cygnus – with its greater payload capacity. The 7,000-plus pounds of cargo delivered by Cygnus includes science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware in support of the approximately 250 science and research investigations that will occur during the Expeditions 45 and 46 missions.

Quantum computing lab

On Dec. 8, members of the media toured the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory or (QuAIL) at NASA’s Ames Research Center. The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is the agency’s hub for an experiment to assess the potential of quantum computers to perform calculations that are difficult or impossible using conventional supercomputers.

The QuAIL team hopes to demonstrate quantum computing and algorithms that may someday dramatically improve NASA’s ability to solve difficult optimization problems for missions in aeronautics, Earth science, and space exploration.

2015 Invention Challenge

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory hosted the annual Invention Challenge recently in Pasadena, California. Middle and high school teams demonstrated unique devices they built to compete in this year’s challenge – the “Ball Fling Contest”. The goal of the challenge was to hit three different targets with playground balls in less than 60 seconds. Twenty-one student teams and three teams of JPL engineers and scientists were invited to compete.

The competition promotes creativity, strategic thinking and improvement of science, technology, engineering and math or STEM skills.

And that’s what’s up this week @NASA.

 

(c)2015 NASA | SCVTV
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