From NASA

Our astronauts at work outside the space station …

Preparing for launch of our next planet-hunting mission …

And finding exploding stars – a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

Spacewalk Aboard the Space Station

Astronaut:
“Good luck. See you in a little bit.”

Our astronauts, Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold conducted a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on March 29. They made the excursion to install communications equipment for a future experiment, swap out high definition cameras, and remove some aging hoses from cooling equipment on the station’s truss. This was the 209th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, maintenance and upgrades.

Launch Preparations Continue for NASA’s Next Planet Hunter

The launch of NASA’s next planet-hunting spacecraft is scheduled for April 16.

TESS – the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – is expected to find thousands of planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets, orbiting the nearest and brightest stars in our cosmic neighborhood. Powerful telescopes could then search these exoplanets for important characteristics and signs – including, whether they could support life.

Kepler Beyond Planets: Finding Exploding Stars

The planet-finding ability of our Kepler Space Telescope is well known, but a small international group of astronomers has also used Kepler to hunt for supernovae. Because it stares at single patches of space for long periods of time, Kepler is able to capture cosmic occurrences that change rapidly or pop in and out of view, like supernovae. To date, the group has found more than 20 supernovae using data from Kepler.

Launch Nearing for NASA’s Next Mars Mission

Associate Administrator for Science, Thomas Zurbuchen:
“There’s something we always remind ourselves here at NASA – exploring Mars is really hard.”

InSight, our next mission to Mars, is targeted to launch May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The spacecraft will use its suite of instruments to probe deep beneath the surface of the Red Planet – in hopes of learning more about how all rocky planets and cosmic bodies, including Earth and its Moon, first formed.

NASA Accepting Applications for Flight Director

We’re hiring new flight directors. If you think you have the right stuff to make real-time decisions to keep astronauts safe in space and lead teams of highly trained people on missions involving the International Space Station, commercial crew spacecraft, and Orion flights to the Moon and beyond – this could be your opportunity. For details and to submit your application, go to usajobs.gov. Qualifying U.S. citizens have until April 17 to submit applications.

That’s what’s up this week @NASA …