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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, NASA personnel, and others, participate in a wreath laying ceremony as part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, at Arlington National Cemetery. Wreathes were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA has renamed its newest Earth-observing satellite in honor of the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is recognized widely as “the father of satellite meteorology.”

NASA has exercised two six-month options to the agency’s Safety and Mission Assurance Support Services Contract with Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) of San Diego for the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The options are worth $32.9 million.

Discover more about our planet with the Earth from Space video programme. Join us every Friday at 10:00 CET for an 800 km-high tour with spectacular images from Earth-observing satellites.

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A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin. Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, has released its 2011 annual report. The ASAP holds quarterly fact-finding and public meetings and visits NASA facilities to directly observe the agency’s operations and decision making.

School teams from Europe and America have been commanding robots competing in the Spheres ZeroRobotics tournament in space. The arena: 400 km above Earth on the International Space Station.

The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), or Orion, being assembled and tested at Lockheed Martin’s Vertical Testing Facility in Colorado. Drawing from more than 50 years of spaceflight research and development, Orion is designed to meet the evolving needs of our nation’s space program for decades to come. As the flagship of our nation’s next-generation space fleet, Orion will push the envelope of human spaceflight far beyond low Earth orbit. Orion may resemble its Apollo-era predecessors, but its technology and capability are light years apart. Orion features dozens of technology advancements and innovations that have been incorporated into the spacecraft’s subsystem and component design. A test version of the Orion spacecraft makes a stop at the Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma City today, giving residents the chance to see a full scale test version of the vehicle that will take humans into deep space. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

Two hundred high school students packed an auditorium at MIT on Monday, Jan. 23, for a competition to program miniature satellites aboard the space station. Alliance Rocket from the United States and virtual participants Alliance CyberAvo from Europe were named the winners in the third annual NASA-sponsored Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge.

A large solar flare yesterday triggered a coronal mass ejection travelling at 1400 km/s that will reach Earth today. An energetic eruption of this level can disrupt satellites, so operation teams at ESA and other organisations are closely monitoring the storm.