In 1990, NASA launched the ESA spacecraft Ulysses to study the polar regions of the Sun. Ulysses was first sent towards Jupiter, aimed to arrive at a point in space just "in front of" and "below" the planet. As it passed Jupiter, the probe 'fell' through the planet's gravity field, exchanging momentum with the planet; this gravity assist maneuver bent the probe's trajectory up out of the planetary plane into an orbit that passed over the poles of the Sun. By using this maneuver, Ulysses needed only enough propellant to send it to a point near Jupiter, which is well within current capability.

The Galileo spacecraft was launched by NASA in 1989 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. Its original mission was designed to use a direct Hohmann transfer. However, Galileo's intended booster, the cryogenically fueled (Hydrogen/Oxygen) Centaur booster rocket was prohibited as a Shuttle "cargo" for safety considerations following the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Forced to substitute a lower delta V capable solid rocket upperstage, the IUS, instead of ascending directly to Jupiter, Galileo flew by Venus once and Earth twice in order to reach Jupiter in December, 1995.

The gravity assist maneuver was first used in 1959 when the Soviet probe Luna 3 photographed the far side of Earth's Moon. The maneuver relied on research performed at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Steklov Institute.

As of January 21, 2010, Voyager 1 is over 16.81 terameters (1.681×1013 meters, or 1.681×1010 km, 112.4 AU, or 10.4 billion miles) from the Sun, and is in the boundary zone between the Solar System and interstellar space. It gained the energy to escape the Sun's gravity completely by performing slingshot maneuvers around Jupiter and Saturn.

The Mariner 10 probe was the first spacecraft to use the gravitational slingshot effect to reach another planet, passing by Venus on February 5, 1974, on its way to becoming the first spacecraft to explore Mercury.

The Administrator of NASA is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the US Senate. Major General Charles Bolden, USMC (ret.) is the current and 12th NASA Administrator; he serves as the senior space science adviser to the President.

JPL teamed up with Wernher von Braun’s rocketeers at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s Redstone Arsenal to launch America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, on February 1, 1958.

NASA TV is available everyday. Find the schedule here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/schedule.html

"The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air" tell about an attack of 32-pound English Congreve rockets on our Fort McHenry in 1814. They were a new weapon of war, with a range of about three miles.

NASA named the world's first space-based optical telescope after American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889—1953). Dr. Hubble confirmed an "expanding" universe, which provided the foundation for the Big Bang theory.

Grumman Aerospace Corporation, the builder of the Lunar Module, issued an invoice for $312,421.24 to North American Rockwell, the builder of the Command Module (CM), for "towing" the crippled ship most of the way to the moon and back. This was never paid.

The V-2 rocket, first used in World War II by the Germans and later used by the United States in its early rocketry work, was the first manufactured object to achieve hypersonic flight in February 1949.

The acceleration of an object toward the ground caused by gravity alone, near the surface of Earth, is called "normal gravity," or 1g. This acceleration is equal to 32.2 ft/sec2 (9.8 m/sec2).

NASA stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; there are ten NASA centers nationwide, not including NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

INSPIRE stands for Interdisciplinary National Science Project Incorporating Research and Education Experience and is a national program for students in 9th through 12th grade, but that’s nothing new. The INSPIRE program is. In its second year of the Online Community, the INSPIRE OLC currently has over 1300 students.

INSPIRE also includes the Summer STEM Experience, a program designed for students entering the 9th through 12th grades. Last year 356 students were accepted for the Summer Experience. Be sure to apply early if you want to be a part of this exciting program.