Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• NASA’s Chandra Finds Fastest Wind from Stellar-Mass Black Hole
  Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole.
• NASA Awards Engineering Support Services Contract
  NASA announced the selection of Analytical Mechanics Associates Inc. of Hampton to provide engineering services to support research and technology development for the Langley Research Center
• NASA’s Spitzer Finds Solid Buckyballs in Space
  Astronomers using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form.
• NASA Contract Modification For Engineering And Support Services
  NASA has signed its final contract option with InfoPro Corp. in Huntsville to continue engineering technicians and trades support services for the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• NASA’s Chandra Finds Fastest Wind from Stellar-Mass Black Hole
  Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole.
• NASA Administrator Announces Senior Leadership Changes
  NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Tuesday changes to his senior leadership team. Associate Administrator Chris Scolese was named director of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Robert Lightfoot, director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will serve as acting associate administrator.
• NASA Contract Modification For Engineering And Support Services
  NASA has signed its final contract option with InfoPro Corp. in Huntsville to continue engineering technicians and trades support services for the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• NASA Spacecraft Reveals Recent Geological Activity on the Moon
  New images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon’s crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• NASA Chief Technologist to Visit Dayton’s CRG Wednesday
  NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck will visit Cornerstone Research Group Inc. (CRG) in Dayton, Ohio on Wednesday, Feb. 22, at 2 p.m. EST
• New Jersey Education Consortium Hosts Live Chat with Space Station Astronauts
  Students and educators from Sussex County, N.J., will gather at Newton High School on Wednesday, Feb. 22, to further their space studies by speaking live with Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineer Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• NASA Aeronautics Is Focus of Research And Technology Roundtable
  NASA officials will meet with aeronautics industry, academia and government leaders Feb. 21-22 for the second in a series of roundtable discussions about future directions for aeronautics research and technology.
• NASA Events and Future Forum Mark 50 Years of Americans in Orbit
  Feb. 20 marks the 50th anniversary of the day in 1962 when U.S. Sen. John Glenn piloted his Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. orbital. In the next two weeks, NASA Television will broadcast a series of live events and special programming to commemorate 50 years of Americans in orbit, including the premiere of a new documentary and special interactive online features.
• NASA to Deliver Commercial Research Equipment to Station
  NASA, Astrium Space Transportation and NanoRacks LLC are teaming up to expand the research capability of the International Space Station through delivery of a small commercial centrifuge facility that will conduct molecular and cellular investigations on plant and animal tissue.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• SLS Advanced Booster Risk Reduction Solutions
  NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has issued a NASA Research Announcement for the Space Launch System (SLS) Advanced Booster risk-reduction effort.
• NASA Completes Publication of Boris Chertok’s Rockets and People Memoir Series
  NASA’s History Program Office has released the fourth volume of the English translation of Russian space pioneer Boris Chertok’s highly acclaimed memoirs, Rockets and People: The Moon Race.
• NASA to Deliver Commercial Research Equipment to Station
  NASA, Astrium Space Transportation and NanoRacks LLC are teaming up to expand the research capability of the International Space Station through delivery of a small commercial centrifuge facility that will conduct molecular and cellular investigations on plant and animal tissue
• NASA Announces Third Round Of CubeSat Space Mission Candidates
  NASA has selected 33 small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2013 and 2014.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• Teachers Fly Experiments on NASA Reduced Gravity Flights
  More than 70 teachers had an opportunity to experience what it feels like to float in space as they participated in the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston last week.
• SLS Advanced Booster Risk Reduction Solutions
  NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has issued a NASA Research Announcement for the Space Launch System (SLS) Advanced Booster risk-reduction effort.
• NASA Announces Third Round Of CubeSat Space Mission Candidates
  NASA has selected 33 small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2013 and 2014.
• NASA Awards Huntsville Operations Support Center Services Contract
  NASA has selected COLSA Corp. of Huntsville, Ala., for its Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) contract.

Today’s NASA Breaking News:

• NASA Calls for New Commercial Crew Proposals
  As part of NASA’s ongoing efforts to foster development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability to and from low Earth orbit and the International Space Station, NASA has issued a call for industry to submit proposals for the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Initiative.
• NASA Reaches Higher With Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Request
  NASA announced Monday a $17.7 billion budget request for fiscal year 2013 supporting an ambitious program of space exploration that will build on new technologies and proven capabilities to expand America’s reach into the solar system.
• NASA Seeks Game Changing Technology Payloads for Suborbital Research Flights
  NASA is seeking proposals for small technology payloads that could fly on future NASA-sponsored suborbital flights.

GOLIAT is the first Romanian nanosatelit and is developed by a research consortium led by the Romanian Space Agency. Satellite launch will be the inaugural flight of the European Space Agency VEGA rocket, on 13 February 2012 between the hours 10:00 to 12:00 GMT.

GOLIAT satellite is developed in accordance with international standard cubes. , Aim to achieve high resolution images, the measurement of radiation dose and the flow of micrometeoroizi and data transfer to ground stations for analysis and scientific dissemination. One of the secondary space is validation of sub-systems developed for reuse and further development in future missions.

Vega, ESA’s new launch vehicle, is ready to operate alongside the Ariane 5 and Soyuz launchers after a successful qualification flight this morning from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

With Vega extending the family of launchers available at the spaceport, Europe now covers the full range of launch needs, from small science and Earth observation satellites to the largest missions like ESA’s supply freighters to the International Space Station.

The first Vega lifted off at 10:00 GMT (11:00 CET, 07:00 local time) from the new launch pad, and conducted a flawless qualification flight.

Vega’s light launch capacity accommodates a wide range of satellites – from 300 kg to 2500 kg – into a wide variety of orbits, from equatorial to Sun-synchronous. Its reference mission is 1500 kg into a 700 km-high circular Sun-synchronous orbit.

Vega will thus add to Europe’s set of launch services next to the Ariane 5 heavy-lifter and the Soyuz medium-class launcher already in service.

The combination of these three systems operating from French Guiana will also improve the efficiency of Europe’s launch infrastructure by sharing its operating costs over a larger number of launches.

“In a little more than three months, Europe has increased the number of launchers it operates from one to three, widening significantly the range of launch services offered by the European operator Arianespace. There is not anymore one single European satellite which cannot be launched by a European launcher service,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA.

“It is a great day for ESA, its Member States, in particularly Italy where Vega was born, for European industry and for Arianespace.

”Vega launcher development started in 2003. Seven Member States contributed to the programme: Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.“Today is a moment of pride for Europe as well as those around 1000 individuals who have been involved in developing the world’s most modern and competitive launcher system for small satellites,” said Antonio Fabrizi, ESA’s Director of Launchers.

“ESA, with the technical support of the Italian and French space agencies, and about 40 industrial companies coordinated by the prime contractor ELV SpA, have made this enormous challenge a reality in under a decade of development.”

Source: European Space Agency (ESA)