NASA Administrator Charles Bolden visited Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California to thank employees for the work they do on behalf of the agency to improve aviation. President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal for NASA calls for a multi-year investment in aeronautics research that will enable the agency to test, demonstrate and validate cutting-edge technologies designed to make aviation cleaner, greener, safer, and quieter. Also, Cygnus leaves the space station, New astrophysics mission, X-ray astronomy mission launches, and NEAR Shoemaker anniversary.

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Bolden visits Ames

On Feb. 18, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden visited Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California to thank employees for the work they do on behalf of the agency to improve aviation. President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal for NASA calls for a multi-year investment in aeronautics research that will enable the agency to test, demonstrate and validate cutting-edge technologies designed to make aviation cleaner, greener, safer, and quieter.

Cygnus leaves the space station

Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo craft left the International Space Station on Feb. 19 — a little more than two months after delivering more than 7,000 pounds of cargo to the orbiting outpost. This was the first flight to the station of Orbital ATK’s enhanced Cygnus spacecraft, with its increased capacity, and the company’s fourth successful cargo delivery mission to the station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract.

New astrophysics mission

NASA officially is beginning work on the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or (WFIRST) – a new astrophysics mission with a view about 100 times bigger than the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. The new observatory will survey large regions of the sky in near-infrared light, to help researchers answer questions about the structure and evolution of the universe, and expand our knowledge of planets beyond our solar system. WFIRST is the agency’s next major astrophysics observatory following the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018.

X-ray astronomy mission launches

On Feb. 17, the ASTRO-H satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center. This X-ray astronomy mission is an international collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, NASA and others to study material that is on the brink of falling into black holes; the evolution of galaxy clusters; dark energy and dark matter, and other extremely energetic processes in the universe. The space observatory, which was renamed Hitomi after it reached orbit, will look for very faint X-rays and gamma rays. The satellite includes one instrument and two mirrors supplied by NASA.

NEAR Shoemaker anniversary

Feb. 17 marked the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker, or (NEAR Shoemaker). The probe, named in honor of planetary scientist Gene Shoemaker, became the first-ever to orbit an asteroid – studying the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros for about a year. NEAR Shoemaker also became the first to land on the surface of an asteroid – despite the fact that it was an orbiter that was not designed to land. At the time, the data collected by NEAR represented the most detailed scientific profile ever of a small celestial body.

And that’s what’s up this week @NASA.