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Planetary scientist to lead mission directorate NASA NEWS RELEASE Posted: February 12, 2007 WASHINGTON - NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced Monday that Dr. S. Alan Stern will be the agency's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, effective April 2. Stern succeeds Dr. Mary L. Cleave who announced her retirement. Stern joins NASA from the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Division, Boulder, Colo., where he has been serving as executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division. As chief executive of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Stern will direct a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system and the universe beyond. In addition, he will manage a broad spectrum of grant-based research programs and spacecraft projects to study Earth and the universe. Stern is a planetary scientist and an author who has published more than 175 technical papers and 40 popular articles. His research has focused on studies of our solar system's Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, comets, satellites of the outer planets, Pluto and the search for evidence of solar systems around other stars. He has worked on spacecraft rendezvous theory, terrestrial polar mesospheric clouds, galactic astrophysics and studies of tenuous satellite atmospheres, including the atmosphere of the moon. Stern has a long association with NASA, serving on the NASA Advisory Council and as the principal investigator on a number of planetary and lunar missions, including the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission. He was the principal investigator of the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, which flew on two space shuttle missions, STS-85 in 1997 and STS-93 in 1999. He has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Infrared Observer and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer. He holds bachelor's degrees in physics and astronomy and master's degrees in aerospace engineering and planetary atmospheres from the University of Texas, Austin. In 1989, Stern earned a doctorate in astrophysics and planetary science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an instrument-rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, with both powered and sailplane ratings. Stern and his wife have three children. |
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Space shuttle Atlantis emerges from its processing hangar at dawn February 7 for the short trip to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center's Complex 39.
Shuttle Columbia carried the first United States Microgravity Laboratory during its summer 1992 flight to orbit. The Spacelab science expedition was the longest shuttle mission to date, thanks to the new Extended Duration Orbiter equipment flown for the first time. The crew of STS-50 narrate the highlights in this post-flight film.
The documentary "Research Project: X-15" looks at the rocketplane program that flew to the edge of space in the effort to learn about the human ability to fly at great speeds and aircraft design to sustain such flights.
On the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire that took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, a remembrance service was held January 27 at the Kennedy Space Center's memorial Space Mirror.
This documentary takes a look at the technical aspects of Project Mercury, including development of the capsule and the pioneering first manned flights of America's space program.
NASA's New Horizons space probe will fly past Jupiter in late February, using the giant planet's gravity as a sling-shot to bend the craft's trajectory and accelerate toward Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. Mission officials describe the science to be collected during the Jupiter encounter during this briefing.