WASHINGTON — NASA is making available a free Web-based educational product to learners of all ages across the country. NASA eClips consists of more than 55 short, 5-10 minute video segments, which are available on-demand via the Internet for the 2008 -2009 school year. NASA eClips features many of the agency’s missions and engages students in the excitement of science and engineering. From the deepest regions of space to hurricanes here on Earth, the goal of NASA eClips is to inspire students to learn more about science and math concepts.

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WASHINGTON — Arctic sea ice coverage appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year and the second-lowest amount recorded since the dawn of the satellite era, according to observations from the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. While slightly above the record-low minimum set Sept. 16, 2007, this season further reinforces the strong negative trend in summer sea ice extent observed during the past 30 years. Before last year, the previous record low for September was set in 2005.

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TITUSVILLE, Fla., Sept. 16, 2008 — The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has been recognized by NASA as the Kennedy Space Center’s 2008 Large Business Contractor of the Year for providing quality service and support on the Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services (CAPPS) program. NASA said Boeing was recognized for the company’s effort to include small businesses in the program and for effective community outreach. Boeing works closely with its small-business partners to provide NASA with innovation and best-of-industry solutions to support its mission while managing costs through proven processes.

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MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — Journalists are invited to join a group of Las Vegas students who have “struck it rich” on Wednesday, Sept. 17. These lucky students will chat with NASA’s Expedition 17 astronauts aboard the International Space Station from 11:15 a.m. to 11:35 a.m. PDT at the Jim Bridger Middle School. The school is located at 2505 North Bruce Street in Las Vegas. A live educational downlink will connect an auditorium filled with hundreds of middle school students and teachers with space station crewmembers. The goal is to learn more about what life is like in space and how gravity affects people on Earth. Reporters interested in attending the event must contact Terry Wood at 414-573-1700 or by e-mail at: [email protected] .

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HOUSTON — Hurricane Ike has delayed the scheduled Friday arrival of a Russian Progress cargo ship at the International Space Station 220 miles above Earth. The Progress docking was postponed when the space station’s control room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston was closed Thursday because of the approaching storm. Control of the space station was handed to flight controllers at backup facilities near Austin, Texas, and Huntsville, Ala. Because the Mission Control Center in Houston is responsible for commanding many of the station’s systems, U.S. and Russian officials agreed to delay the docking.

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Cannes, September 9th, 2008 – Thales Alenia Space announced today the signature of a contract with RASCOMSTAR-QAF for the construction of the RASCOM-QAF1R telecommunication satellite. This new satellite will ensure adequate continuity of service capacity to RASCOMSTAR-QAF and its Customers. It will provide the African continent access to telecommunication and new information and communication technologies.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A new space experiment rack under development by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and Space Florida will undergo initial tests this week. The rack will fly aboard NASA’s first commercially-provided research flights on Zero Gravity Corporation’s reduced gravity aircraft. Flight testing of the FASTRACK Space Experiment Platform will be performed on four consecutive days between September 9-12 from Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston. The experiment rack is designed to support two standard lockers that fit inside the space shuttle’s crew middeck. It is being developed jointly by Kennedy and Space Florida to facilitate NASA and commercial use of reusable U.S. suborbital flight vehicles currently under development. The rack also will accommodate experiments aboard reduced gravity aircraft such as Zero Gravity’s modified Boeing 727 jet, and may also be adapted in the future for orbiting vehicles and facilities.

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ST. LOUIS, Sept. 06, 2008 — Boeing [NYSE: BA], through its commercial launch business, successfully launched the GeoEye-1 satellite today aboard a Delta II rocket procured from United Launch Alliance (ULA). Liftoff occurred at 11:50 a.m. Pacific time from launch pad SLC-2W at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The ULA Delta II rocket deployed the spacecraft approximately 58 minutes after liftoff. GeoEye-1 will have the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system, capable of collecting images with a ground resolution of 16 inches (.41 meters) in panchromatic (black-and-white) mode. Virginia-based GeoEye [NASDAQ: GEOY] is the premier provider of geospatial information for the national security community, strategic partners, resellers and commercial customers.

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At the end of a flawless six-month mission, Jules Verne, Europe’s first Automated Transfer Vehicle, undocked from the International Space Station today at 23:29 hours CEST. The ATV has now embarked on the last leg of its journey in space, which will end with a controlled destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere on 29 September. The hatches between the ISS and the ATV were closed by the Station crew on 4 September following ATV preparation for automated undocking. Once all other pre-undocking tasks had been performed, the ATV hooks were opened, detaching Europe’s unmanned logistics vehicle from the Station, with a spring mechanism pushing it slowly away. After drifting unpowered for one minute to a distance three metres away from the Station, the ATV deployed its smaller attitude control thrusters to start its departure boost and distance itself further. Within 22 minutes of undocking, the ATV was right below the ISS at a distance of about 5 km, at which point its automatic emergency systems (which can initiate a Station collision avoidance manoeuvre in the unlikely event of this being necessary) were disabled.

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PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected a faint, partial ring orbiting with one small moon of Saturn, and has confirmed the presence of another partial ring orbiting with a second moon. This is further evidence that most of the planet’s small, inner moons orbit within partial or complete rings. Recent Cassini images show material, called ring arcs, extending ahead of and behind the small moons Anthe and Methone in their orbits. The new findings indicate that the gravitational influence of nearby moons on ring particles might be the deciding factor in whether an arc or complete ring is formed. Both Anthe and Methone orbit Saturn in locations, called resonances, where the gravity of the nearby larger moon Mimas disturbs their orbits. Gravitational resonances are also responsible for many of the structures in Saturn’s magnificent rings. Mimas provides a regular gravitational tug on each moon, which causes the moons to skip forward and backward within an arc-shaped region along their orbital paths, according to Nick Cooper, a Cassini imaging team associate from Queen Mary, University of London. “When we realized that the Anthe and Methone ring arcs were very similar in appearance to the region in which the moons swing back and forth in their orbits due to their resonance with Mimas, we knew we had a possible cause-and-effect relationship,” Cooper said.

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Longueuil, Quebec, September 5, 2008 – The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced today $6.5 million in contracts to support academic research focused on expanding understanding of space weather, the impact of our Sun’s activity on the Earth’s environment. As part of the ongoing Canadian GeoSpace Monitoring (CGSM) Program, ten newly launched research projects will collect and process information that will allow scientists to investigate the mysteries behind the complex interactions between the highly energised particles that flow from the Sun (known as the “solar wind”) and the Earth’s protective shield, the magnetosphere. Observing how the Sun and Earth interact will help refine the forecasts of highly charged space weather, which may adversely affect satellite-based communications, GPS navigation, electric power grids, and the health of humans living and working in space.

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WASHINGTON — NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate will accept scholarship applications from Sept. 5, 2008, through Jan. 16, 2009, for the academic year beginning in fall 2009. NASA expects to award 20 undergraduate and five graduate scholarships to students in aeronautics or related fields. Undergraduate students in their second year of study will receive up to $15,000 per year for two years and a summer internship with a $10,000 stipend at a NASA center. Graduate students will receive up to $35,000 per year for three years and two summer internships at a NASA center with $10,000 stipends. Scholarship money can be used for tuition and other school-related expenses.

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PASADENA, Calif. — NASA announced Wednesday the new Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration, created to inspire the next generation of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly life, around other stars. Planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, are being discovered at a staggering pace, with more than 300 currently known. Decades ago, long before any exoplanets had been found, the late Carl Sagan imagined such worlds, and pioneered the scientific pursuit of life that might exist on them. Sagan was an astronomer and a highly successful science communicator. NASA’s new Sagan fellowships will allow talented young scientists to tread the path laid out by Sagan. The program will award stipends of approximately $60,000 per year, for a period of up to three years, to selected postdoctoral scientists. Topics can range from techniques for detecting the glow of a dim planet in the blinding glare of its host star, to searching for the crucial ingredients of life in other planetary systems. “We are investing in our nation’s best and brightest in an emerging field that is tremendously inspiring to the public,” said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

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ESA’s comet chaser, Rosetta, last night flew by a small body in the main asteroid belt, asteroid Steins, collecting a wealth of information about this rare type of minor Solar System body. At 20:58 CEST (18:58 UT) last night, ESA’s Rosetta probe approached asteroid 2867 Steins, coming to within a distance of only 800 km from it. Steins is Rosetta’s first nominal scientific target in its 11½ year mission to ultimately explore the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The success of this ‘close’ encounter was confirmed at 22:14 CEST, when ESA’s ground control team at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, received initial telemetry from the spacecraft. During the flyby operations, Rosetta was out of reach as regards communication links because its antenna had to be turned away from Earth. At a distance of about 2.41 AU (360 million kilometres) from our planet, the radio signal from the probe took 20 minutes to reach the ground.

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TUCSON, Ariz. — A fork-like conductivity probe has sensed humidity rising and falling beside NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, but when stuck into the ground, its measurements so far indicate soil that is thoroughly and perplexingly dry. “If you have water vapor in the air, every surface exposed to that air will have water molecules adhere to it that are somewhat mobile, even at temperatures well below freezing,” said Aaron Zent of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., lead scientist for Phoenix’s thermal and electroconductivity probe. In below-freezing permafrost terrains on Earth, that thin layer of unfrozen water molecules on soil particles can grow thick enough to support microbial life. One goal for building the conductivity probe and sending it to Mars has been to see whether the permafrost terrain of the Martian arctic has detectable thin films of unfrozen water on soil particles. By gauging how electricity moves through the soil from one prong to another, the probe can detect films of water barely more than one molecule thick.

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Arlington, Va. – The Aerospace Industries Association of America is seeking nominations for the 2008 United Technologies Corp. Lyman Award. The award will be presented by AIA at the association’s Year-End Review and Forecast luncheon on Wednesday, Dec. 10. In 1972, the former Aviation/Space Writers Association established this prestigious award in honor of Deac Lyman. Both a distinguished aviation writer for the New York Times and a public relations executive for United Aircraft, predecessor of today’s UTC, Lyman was widely known for championing high public relations standards and excellence in writing. The award thus honors the winner for distinguished, career-long achievements in aviation journalism or public relations.

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Cannes, Septembre 8, 2008 - The W5 satellite operated by Eutelsat Communications experienced an anomaly on June 16, 2008, concerning its power supply subsystem. An inquiry board was immediately set up, and after extensive studies, has issued a ruling concerning the definitive loss of one of the satellite’s two solar panels. Eutelsat, in conjunction with experts from Thales Alenia Space, reconfigured the satellite to cope with the loss of onboard power, leading to four transponders being shut down. This incident has reduced the satellite’s remaining service life, which should be shorter than three years. The companies have paid particular attention to preparing for the upcoming eclipse, in order to guarantee correct satellite operation during this period. To maintain current operating conditions, another transponder will be shut down, thus providing the additional margin needed for thermal control and battery charging.

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A powerful collision of galaxy clusters has been captured with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope. Like its famous cousin, the so-called Bullet Cluster, this clash of clusters provides striking evidence for dark matter and insight into its properties. Like the Bullet Cluster, this newly studied cluster, officially known as MACSJ0025.4-1222, shows a clear separation between dark and ordinary matter. This helps answer a crucial question about whether dark matter interacts with itself in ways other than via gravitational forces. This finding is important because it independently verifies the results found for the Bullet Cluster in 2006. The new results show the Bullet Cluster is not an exception and that the earlier results were not the product of some unknown error.

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TUCSON, Ariz. — Scientists have begun to analyze a sample of soil delivered to NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s wet chemistry experiment from the deepest trench dug so far in the Martian arctic plains. Phoenix has also been observing movement of clouds overhead. The lander’s robotic arm on Sunday sprinkled a small fraction of the estimated 50 cubic centimeters of soil that had been scooped up from the informally named “Stone Soup” trench on Saturday, the 95th day of the mission. The Stone Soup trench, in the left portion of the lander’s active workspace, is approximately 18 centimeters (7 inches) deep. “This is pretty exciting stuff and we are anxious to find out what makes this deeper soil cloddier than the other samples,” said Doug Ming, a Phoenix science team member from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston.

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PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has climbed out of the large crater that it had been examining from the inside since last September. “The rover is back on flat ground,” an engineer who drives it, Paolo Bellutta of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, announced to the mission’s international team of scientists and engineers. Opportunity used its own entry tracks from nearly a year ago as the path for a drive of 6.8 meters (22 feet) bringing the rover out over the top of the inner slope and through a sand ripple at the lip of Victoria Crater. The exit drive, conducted late Thursday, completed a series of drives covering 50 meters (164 feet) since the rover team decided about a month ago that it had completed its scientific investigations inside the crater.

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TUCSON, Ariz. — NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, having completed its 90-day primary mission, is continuing its science collection activities. Science and engineering teams are looking forward to at least another month of Martian exploration. Due to the spacecraft’s sufficient power and experiment capacity, NASA announced on July 31 that the mission would continue operations through Sept. 30. Once the lander finishes collecting science data, the mission teams will continue the analysis of the measurements and observations. “We have been successful beyond my wildest dreams, and we’re not done yet learning from Mars about its secrets,” said Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

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ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft will make a historic encounter with asteroid (2867) Steins on 5 September 2008. The doors of ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, will be open to the media as of 18:00 on 5 September to follow the fly-by events. First images and results will be available for presentation to the media during a press conference which will be held at ESOC the following day, Saturday 6 September at 12:00 CEST. Steins is Rosetta’s first nominal scientific target. The spacecraft will rendezvous with the asteroid in the course of its first incursion into the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, while on its way to comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

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Globalstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSAT), the world’s largest provider of mobile satellite voice and data services to businesses, government and individuals, today announced that satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space has begun production assembly, integration and testing of the first Globalstar second-generation flight model satellites. Globalstar, Thales Alenia Space and Arianespace company officials presented the latest updates to members of the media and investment community at the Thales Alenia Space satellite manufacturing facility located in Cannes, France. The new satellites, scheduled for delivery beginning in less than a year, will be used to provide Globalstar’s next-generation of advanced mobile satellite voice and data services. In November of 2006 Globalstar signed a contract with Thales Alenia Space for the design, manufacture and delivery of 48 second-generation satellites. In September of 2007 Globalstar signed a contract with launch provider Arianespace to launch the second-generation satellites beginning in the second half of next year. Globalstar will once again use the highly reliable human-rated Soyuz launch vehicle which has been used to successfully launch 32 Globalstar first-generation satellites.

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WASHINGTON — NASA’s newest observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors. NASA announced today that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901 - 1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics. “Enrico Fermi was the first person to suggest how cosmic particles could be accelerated to high speeds,” said Paul Hertz, chief scientist for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “His theory provides the foundation for understanding the new phenomena his namesake telescope will discover.”

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On Tuesday, Aug. 26, the spacecraft will finish the 90 Martian days (or “sols”) originally planned as its primary mission and will continue into a mission extension through September, as announced by NASA in July. Phoenix landed on May 25. “As we near what we originally expected to be the full length of the mission, we are all thrilled with how well the mission is going,” said Phoenix Project Manger Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Phoenix’s main task for Sol 90 is to scoop up a sample of soil from the bottom of a trench called “Stone Soup,” which is about 18 centimeters, or 7 inches deep. On a later sol, the lander’s robotic arm will sprinkle soil from the sample into the third cell of the wet chemistry laboratory. This deck-mounted laboratory, part of Phoenix’s Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA), has previously used two of its four soil-testing cells.

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