May 31 is the 151st day of the year (152nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 214 days remaining until the end of the year.
No "firsts" in space news on this day.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
What Happened in Space News May 30
May 30 is the 150th day of the year (151st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 215 days remaining until the end of the year.
May 30, 1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
May 30, 1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
Friday, May 28, 2010
What Happened in Space News May 29
May 29 is the 149th day of the year (150th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 216 days remaining until the end of the year.
How much are you going to accomplish in the next 216 days?
May 29, 1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
How much are you going to accomplish in the next 216 days?
May 29, 1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
'Nasa can no longer depend on Indians'
From the Times of India: 'Nasa can no longer depend on Indians'
MUMBAI: With many Indian space scientists returning to their country post-9/11, the US space agency, Nasa, is feeling the need to focus on "homegrown brains", Nasa administrator Charles Bolden has said.
The Nasa chief made it clear during a meeting with members of Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on Monday.
"Nasa can no longer depend on expatriates", he said. Bolden remarked that after 9/11 it became tough for Indians and Asians to get into the US and stay there. He said Indian space scientists wanted to return to their country because they were keen to help develop India's space technology and lead a "hassle-free life".
He told the meeting: "What a lot of them are starting to do today is they're going back home. You know especially Indians. They're saying why should I go through this hassle? I can go back to my own country and I can really make a difference," Bolden said.
MUMBAI: With many Indian space scientists returning to their country post-9/11, the US space agency, Nasa, is feeling the need to focus on "homegrown brains", Nasa administrator Charles Bolden has said.
The Nasa chief made it clear during a meeting with members of Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on Monday.
"Nasa can no longer depend on expatriates", he said. Bolden remarked that after 9/11 it became tough for Indians and Asians to get into the US and stay there. He said Indian space scientists wanted to return to their country because they were keen to help develop India's space technology and lead a "hassle-free life".
He told the meeting: "What a lot of them are starting to do today is they're going back home. You know especially Indians. They're saying why should I go through this hassle? I can go back to my own country and I can really make a difference," Bolden said.
Lawmakers Questioning NASA Manager’s Removal
From the New York Times: Lawmakers Questioning NASA Manager’s Removal
Members of Congress have asked the inspector general for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to look into whether the NASA leadership is undermining the agency’s moon program.
The request, from Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the committee’s ranking Republican, was sent Thursday, one day after NASA removed the head of the program, Jeffrey M. Hanley.
The program has spent $10 billion over the last five years in an effort to send astronauts back to the moon. However, the Obama administration has concluded that it is too expensive and has proposed canceling it in the budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Mr. Rockefeller and Ms. Hutchison asked Paul K. Martin, the NASA inspector general, to “examine whether this or other recent actions by NASA were intended or could reasonably have been expected to foreclose the ability of Congress to consider meaningful alternatives” to the president’s proposed policy, which invests heavily in new space technologies and turns the launching of astronauts over to private companies.
Congress has not yet agreed to the changes and inserted into this year’s budget legislation a clause that prohibits NASA from canceling the program, called Constellation, or starting alternatives without Congressional approval.
Mr. Hanley had been publicly supported by Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the NASA administrator, and other NASA officials, but he may have incurred displeasure by publicly talking about how Constellation could be made to fit into the slimmed-down budgets that President Obama has proposed for NASA’s human spaceflight endeavors.
The senators’ letter cites an e-mail message from Douglas R. Cooke, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems, to Mr. Hanley on May 21 that told him to focus on items that could be used in the president’s proposed space policy and put less priority on other work.
“It’s enough for us to be extraordinarily concerned,” said a Congressional staff member, who was authorized to speak only anonymously. “It’s not the smoking gun, but it’s smoking. We just want the inspector general to follow the path and report back to us what he’s finding.”
In response to an earlier request from members of the House of Representatives, the General Accountability Office concluded last week that NASA study groups looking into how the proposed policy could be carried out did not violate the Congressional ban on starting new programs.
The office is still investigating a second complaint, that NASA is handicapping Constellation contractors by telling them they need to hold back money to cover costs in case the program is canceled.
Members of Congress have asked the inspector general for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to look into whether the NASA leadership is undermining the agency’s moon program.
The request, from Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the committee’s ranking Republican, was sent Thursday, one day after NASA removed the head of the program, Jeffrey M. Hanley.
The program has spent $10 billion over the last five years in an effort to send astronauts back to the moon. However, the Obama administration has concluded that it is too expensive and has proposed canceling it in the budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Mr. Rockefeller and Ms. Hutchison asked Paul K. Martin, the NASA inspector general, to “examine whether this or other recent actions by NASA were intended or could reasonably have been expected to foreclose the ability of Congress to consider meaningful alternatives” to the president’s proposed policy, which invests heavily in new space technologies and turns the launching of astronauts over to private companies.
Congress has not yet agreed to the changes and inserted into this year’s budget legislation a clause that prohibits NASA from canceling the program, called Constellation, or starting alternatives without Congressional approval.
Mr. Hanley had been publicly supported by Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the NASA administrator, and other NASA officials, but he may have incurred displeasure by publicly talking about how Constellation could be made to fit into the slimmed-down budgets that President Obama has proposed for NASA’s human spaceflight endeavors.
The senators’ letter cites an e-mail message from Douglas R. Cooke, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems, to Mr. Hanley on May 21 that told him to focus on items that could be used in the president’s proposed space policy and put less priority on other work.
“It’s enough for us to be extraordinarily concerned,” said a Congressional staff member, who was authorized to speak only anonymously. “It’s not the smoking gun, but it’s smoking. We just want the inspector general to follow the path and report back to us what he’s finding.”
In response to an earlier request from members of the House of Representatives, the General Accountability Office concluded last week that NASA study groups looking into how the proposed policy could be carried out did not violate the Congressional ban on starting new programs.
The office is still investigating a second complaint, that NASA is handicapping Constellation contractors by telling them they need to hold back money to cover costs in case the program is canceled.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
NASA Finds New Criticism and Skepticism Before Congress
From the New York Times: NASA Finds New Criticism and Skepticism Before Congress
The head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was buffeted with more criticism and skepticism before Congress on Wednesday as he sought to defend the Obama administration’s proposal to revamp the space agency.
Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, said Congress had still not been told enough to make informed decisions about the president’s plan to cancel the space agency’s Constellation program that would send astronauts back to the moon and turn, instead, to private companies for transportation into orbit.
“So far we have not seen any hard analysis from the administration that would give us confidence that it can be done for the amount budgeted,” he said.
In President Obama’s budget request for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, he called the Constellation program too expensive. The spending request added $6 billion over five years to NASA’s budget, but the increase was directed to other areas of NASA like aeronautics research, climate research and robotic science missions.
In a speech last month, Mr. Obama described ambitious goals for NASA: to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and then to Mars a decade later.
But Mr. Gordon noted that the administration’s budget projections for what would be spent through 2025 on human spaceflight were far below what a blue-ribbon panel said last year was necessary for any program sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.
“It does no good to cancel a program that the administration characterizes as ‘unexecutable’ if that program is simply replaced with a new plan that can’t be executed either,” Mr. Gordon said.
Additional turmoil surrounded the Constellation program on Wednesday when its program manager, Jeffrey M. Hanley, was removed. In an e-mail message to his team, he said NASA headquarters had told him his services “are no longer required, effective immediately.”
The deputy program manager, Dale Thomas, was named acting program manager, and Mr. Hanley’s new position is as associate director for strategic capabilities at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
At the hearing, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, said the reassignment of Mr. Hanley made her “personally very dubious” of the pledge by NASA’s head, Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., that the agency would diligently continue work on Constellation until Congress approves any changes.
In his April speech, Mr. Obama tried to assuage criticism that he was not interested in human spaceflight by announcing the continued development of the Constellation program’s Orion crew capsule. It was to take astronauts to the moon, but is now envisioned as a lifeboat for the International Space Station.
General Bolden said at the hearing that the Orion lifeboat would cost $4.5 billion over five years to develop, not including the cost of launching it to the space station.
A NASA spokeswoman said later that none of the financing for the Orion lifeboat would come from the $6 billion allocated to the commercial crew program, and that the offsetting funds would come from elsewhere in the human spaceflight program.
The head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was buffeted with more criticism and skepticism before Congress on Wednesday as he sought to defend the Obama administration’s proposal to revamp the space agency.
Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, said Congress had still not been told enough to make informed decisions about the president’s plan to cancel the space agency’s Constellation program that would send astronauts back to the moon and turn, instead, to private companies for transportation into orbit.
“So far we have not seen any hard analysis from the administration that would give us confidence that it can be done for the amount budgeted,” he said.
In President Obama’s budget request for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, he called the Constellation program too expensive. The spending request added $6 billion over five years to NASA’s budget, but the increase was directed to other areas of NASA like aeronautics research, climate research and robotic science missions.
In a speech last month, Mr. Obama described ambitious goals for NASA: to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and then to Mars a decade later.
But Mr. Gordon noted that the administration’s budget projections for what would be spent through 2025 on human spaceflight were far below what a blue-ribbon panel said last year was necessary for any program sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.
“It does no good to cancel a program that the administration characterizes as ‘unexecutable’ if that program is simply replaced with a new plan that can’t be executed either,” Mr. Gordon said.
Additional turmoil surrounded the Constellation program on Wednesday when its program manager, Jeffrey M. Hanley, was removed. In an e-mail message to his team, he said NASA headquarters had told him his services “are no longer required, effective immediately.”
The deputy program manager, Dale Thomas, was named acting program manager, and Mr. Hanley’s new position is as associate director for strategic capabilities at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
At the hearing, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, said the reassignment of Mr. Hanley made her “personally very dubious” of the pledge by NASA’s head, Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., that the agency would diligently continue work on Constellation until Congress approves any changes.
In his April speech, Mr. Obama tried to assuage criticism that he was not interested in human spaceflight by announcing the continued development of the Constellation program’s Orion crew capsule. It was to take astronauts to the moon, but is now envisioned as a lifeboat for the International Space Station.
General Bolden said at the hearing that the Orion lifeboat would cost $4.5 billion over five years to develop, not including the cost of launching it to the space station.
A NASA spokeswoman said later that none of the financing for the Orion lifeboat would come from the $6 billion allocated to the commercial crew program, and that the offsetting funds would come from elsewhere in the human spaceflight program.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Space shuttle Atlantis lands for final time
From the AP: Space shuttle Atlantis lands for final time
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis returned from its final voyage Wednesday, closing out a quarter-century flying career and safely bringing back six astronauts from a successful space station mission.
"Twenty-five years, 32 flights and more than 120 million miles traveled. The legacy of Atlantis now in the history books," Mission Control's commentator announced at touchdown.
About 1,200 guests — the maximum number allowed — lined the Kennedy Space Center runway for the conclusion to NASA's third-to-last shuttle flight. Employees wore white ribbons with the name "Atlantis" and its picture embossed in gold. Even the lead flight directors came in from Houston for the event.
"That was pretty sweet," Mission Control radioed after Atlantis glided through a clear morning sky. "That was a suiting end to an incredible mission."
Commander Kenneth Ham replied that he was ready to turn Atlantis over to the ground teams and get the ship "back in the barn for a little bit." He and his crew faced a longer receiving line than usual, after emerging into the sunshine.
Only two shuttle missions remain, by NASA's two other spaceships. Barring a reprieve from the White House, Atlantis will stand by as a rescue ship for the very last shuttle flight, then head off to a museum somewhere.
Atlantis' all-male crew accomplished everything they set out to do after rocketing into orbit May 14, installing a new Russian compartment, six fresh batteries and an extra antenna at the International Space Station.
Atlantis — the fourth in NASA's shuttle series — is ending its run after having spent an accumulated 294 days in orbit and circled Earth 4,648 times. It's carried 189 astronauts and visited the International Space Station 11 times. It also flew seven times to Russia's old Mir station and once to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The shuttle added another 4.8 million miles this time around, for a grand total of 120,650,907 miles over its lifetime. The 120-millionth mile was logged shortly after midnight.
At the space station, the residents managed to catch a glimpse of Atlantis' final re-entry. "Most impressive," observed astronaut Timothy Creamer.
As a tribute to their ship, the astronauts flew a small U.S. flag that accompanied Atlantis into orbit on its maiden voyage in 1985, as well as a couple tool bins full of shuttle mementos.
Sir Isaac Newton even got in on the act, albeit posthumously. British-born astronaut Piers Sellers flew a wood chip from the actual tree from which an apple fell nearly 350 years ago and inspired Newton to discover the law of gravity.
Once Atlantis is back in the hangar, it will be prepped for a potential rescue mission for what's currently slated to be the final shuttle flight by Endeavour. Endeavour's trip is targeted for November, but NASA managers will reassess the date in another week or two.
The only other flight on the books is a supply run to the space station by Discovery in September. That date also is being evaluated.
Both of those missions have payload issues that are threatening to cause delays.
NASA would like to fly Atlantis again in June 2011 — just two months past the shuttle program's 30th anniversary — provided no rescue mission is needed for Endeavour's flight. It would be one last supply run with a four-person crew that could camp out at the space station in the event of serious shuttle damage and return to Earth in Russian Soyuz capsules.
The space station — 98 percent complete now in terms of living space — will lose half of its six-person crew in another week. Three astronauts will return to Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz on June 2, and their replacements will fly up two weeks after that.
Americans will keep hitching rides on Russian rockets until U.S. private enterprise is able to take over. That's one of the goals set forth earlier this year by President Barack Obama, who wants astronauts aiming for asteroids and Mars in the next few decades.
Another in a series of congressional hearings on NASA's future got under way in Washington, just as Atlantis' beaming crew and shuttle workers were admiring the shuttle on the runway for the last time.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis returned from its final voyage Wednesday, closing out a quarter-century flying career and safely bringing back six astronauts from a successful space station mission.
"Twenty-five years, 32 flights and more than 120 million miles traveled. The legacy of Atlantis now in the history books," Mission Control's commentator announced at touchdown.
About 1,200 guests — the maximum number allowed — lined the Kennedy Space Center runway for the conclusion to NASA's third-to-last shuttle flight. Employees wore white ribbons with the name "Atlantis" and its picture embossed in gold. Even the lead flight directors came in from Houston for the event.
"That was pretty sweet," Mission Control radioed after Atlantis glided through a clear morning sky. "That was a suiting end to an incredible mission."
Commander Kenneth Ham replied that he was ready to turn Atlantis over to the ground teams and get the ship "back in the barn for a little bit." He and his crew faced a longer receiving line than usual, after emerging into the sunshine.
Only two shuttle missions remain, by NASA's two other spaceships. Barring a reprieve from the White House, Atlantis will stand by as a rescue ship for the very last shuttle flight, then head off to a museum somewhere.
Atlantis' all-male crew accomplished everything they set out to do after rocketing into orbit May 14, installing a new Russian compartment, six fresh batteries and an extra antenna at the International Space Station.
Atlantis — the fourth in NASA's shuttle series — is ending its run after having spent an accumulated 294 days in orbit and circled Earth 4,648 times. It's carried 189 astronauts and visited the International Space Station 11 times. It also flew seven times to Russia's old Mir station and once to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The shuttle added another 4.8 million miles this time around, for a grand total of 120,650,907 miles over its lifetime. The 120-millionth mile was logged shortly after midnight.
At the space station, the residents managed to catch a glimpse of Atlantis' final re-entry. "Most impressive," observed astronaut Timothy Creamer.
As a tribute to their ship, the astronauts flew a small U.S. flag that accompanied Atlantis into orbit on its maiden voyage in 1985, as well as a couple tool bins full of shuttle mementos.
Sir Isaac Newton even got in on the act, albeit posthumously. British-born astronaut Piers Sellers flew a wood chip from the actual tree from which an apple fell nearly 350 years ago and inspired Newton to discover the law of gravity.
Once Atlantis is back in the hangar, it will be prepped for a potential rescue mission for what's currently slated to be the final shuttle flight by Endeavour. Endeavour's trip is targeted for November, but NASA managers will reassess the date in another week or two.
The only other flight on the books is a supply run to the space station by Discovery in September. That date also is being evaluated.
Both of those missions have payload issues that are threatening to cause delays.
NASA would like to fly Atlantis again in June 2011 — just two months past the shuttle program's 30th anniversary — provided no rescue mission is needed for Endeavour's flight. It would be one last supply run with a four-person crew that could camp out at the space station in the event of serious shuttle damage and return to Earth in Russian Soyuz capsules.
The space station — 98 percent complete now in terms of living space — will lose half of its six-person crew in another week. Three astronauts will return to Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz on June 2, and their replacements will fly up two weeks after that.
Americans will keep hitching rides on Russian rockets until U.S. private enterprise is able to take over. That's one of the goals set forth earlier this year by President Barack Obama, who wants astronauts aiming for asteroids and Mars in the next few decades.
Another in a series of congressional hearings on NASA's future got under way in Washington, just as Atlantis' beaming crew and shuttle workers were admiring the shuttle on the runway for the last time.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Atlantis Undocks from Space Station, Conducts Shuttle Inspections
From eWeek: Atlantis Undocks from Space Station, Conducts Shuttle Inspections
The crew flying the space shuttle Atlantis starts preparations for their return to Earth, conducting an inspection of the shuttle's heat shield after ending a seven-day visit to the International Space Station (ISS).
After undocking from the International Space Station on Sunday, the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis, which is on its final mission, began a final inspection of Atlantis’ heat shield. The crew of six will also pack up spacesuits and have some time off, the space agency NASA reported.
Shuttle mission STS-132 will be followed by two last shuttle missions, before the program is mothballed forever.
Mission Specialist Steve Bowen and fellow spacewalker Mission Specialist Mike Good started their day by cleaning up the spacesuits and stowing them, after the crew awoke to the theme music for the stop-motion animated television show "Wallace and Gromit." "Thank you to my family, Debbie and the boys; it's another great day in space," Bowen said.
Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman and Piers Sellers will work on inspection activities, again using the shuttle's robotic arm, the 50-foot-long orbiter boom and its cameras to scan Atlantis’ nose and starboard, or right, wing. They will break for lunch and then finish the task by scanning the port wing, while exercise sessions will be interspersed throughout the day for each of the crewmembers to help prepare them for their return to Earth’s gravity Wednesday. NASA reported crew sleep is scheduled for 3:20 p.m.
A cable snag at the end of the orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS) had prevented a full inspection after launch. Spacewalkers cleared the snag, so the arm should be fully operational Monday. Other imagery and engineering data was used to fill in the gaps in the post-launch inspection. On Tuesday, the crew will focus on cabin stowage and checkout of Atlantis’ reaction control system and its flight control surfaces. Landing at Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 7:48 a.m. Wednesday, NASA reported.
The uncoupling from the ISS ended a seven-day stay that saw the addition of a new station module, replacement of batteries and resupply of the orbiting outpost. During three spacewalks, astronauts added a backup high-data-rate antenna to the station and a tool platform to Dextre, the robotlike special-purpose dexterous manipulator. They also removed and replaced six 375-pound batteries on the station’s P6 truss segment. Sellers and Reisman installed Rassvet, the Russian Mini-Research Module 1 brought to the station by Atlantis, on the Zarya module.
The joint operations were a good example of friendship and professionalism, station Commander Oleg Kotov said after summarizing the week’s accomplishments in the farewell ceremony. Commander Ham responded with equally kind words. “We are one happy shuttle crew—happy because of all of your efforts too. We were a 12-person crew that operated together.”
The crew flying the space shuttle Atlantis starts preparations for their return to Earth, conducting an inspection of the shuttle's heat shield after ending a seven-day visit to the International Space Station (ISS).
After undocking from the International Space Station on Sunday, the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis, which is on its final mission, began a final inspection of Atlantis’ heat shield. The crew of six will also pack up spacesuits and have some time off, the space agency NASA reported.
Shuttle mission STS-132 will be followed by two last shuttle missions, before the program is mothballed forever.
Mission Specialist Steve Bowen and fellow spacewalker Mission Specialist Mike Good started their day by cleaning up the spacesuits and stowing them, after the crew awoke to the theme music for the stop-motion animated television show "Wallace and Gromit." "Thank you to my family, Debbie and the boys; it's another great day in space," Bowen said.
Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman and Piers Sellers will work on inspection activities, again using the shuttle's robotic arm, the 50-foot-long orbiter boom and its cameras to scan Atlantis’ nose and starboard, or right, wing. They will break for lunch and then finish the task by scanning the port wing, while exercise sessions will be interspersed throughout the day for each of the crewmembers to help prepare them for their return to Earth’s gravity Wednesday. NASA reported crew sleep is scheduled for 3:20 p.m.
A cable snag at the end of the orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS) had prevented a full inspection after launch. Spacewalkers cleared the snag, so the arm should be fully operational Monday. Other imagery and engineering data was used to fill in the gaps in the post-launch inspection. On Tuesday, the crew will focus on cabin stowage and checkout of Atlantis’ reaction control system and its flight control surfaces. Landing at Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 7:48 a.m. Wednesday, NASA reported.
The uncoupling from the ISS ended a seven-day stay that saw the addition of a new station module, replacement of batteries and resupply of the orbiting outpost. During three spacewalks, astronauts added a backup high-data-rate antenna to the station and a tool platform to Dextre, the robotlike special-purpose dexterous manipulator. They also removed and replaced six 375-pound batteries on the station’s P6 truss segment. Sellers and Reisman installed Rassvet, the Russian Mini-Research Module 1 brought to the station by Atlantis, on the Zarya module.
The joint operations were a good example of friendship and professionalism, station Commander Oleg Kotov said after summarizing the week’s accomplishments in the farewell ceremony. Commander Ham responded with equally kind words. “We are one happy shuttle crew—happy because of all of your efforts too. We were a 12-person crew that operated together.”
Friday, May 21, 2010
Launched: Space yacht that will sail on 'solar waves' to Venus
Launched: Space yacht that will sail on 'solar waves' to Venus
Japan launched a 'space yacht' today that will travel to Venus propelled only by sunlight.
A rocket carrying the experimental 'Ikaros' blasted off for its six-month mission from a space centre in Kagoshima, southern Japan.
The spacecraft will head towards Venus powered only by solar particles bouncing off its kite-shaped sails.
Once in space the short cylindrical pod will separate from the rocket spinning up to 20 times a minute. This will help it to unfold its flexible 46ft sail, which is thinner than a human hair.
The square shaped sail is equipped with thin-film solar cells and will use resistance created by the Sun's energy in much the same way as wind propels a yacht through water. This will provide it with enough thrust to hover and rotate.
'It is a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure', Japanese Space Agency expert Yuichi Tsuda said.
'Solar sails are the technology that realises space travel without fuel as long as we have sunlight.
'The availability of electricity would enable us to navigate farther and more effectively in the solar system.'
Scientists will steer the craft by changing the angle at which sunlight particles bounce off the silver-coloured sail.
During a six-month mission they will head towards our sister planet Venus. If this is a success Jaxa are planning further missions to the red giant Jupiter and Trojan using sails more than twice as the size of Ikaros.
Ikaros will harness the power of the Sun using a 46ft sail that is thinner than a human hair
The £35million Ikaros will be the first use of such technology in deep space. Past experiments have limited crafts to orbits around Earth.
A Jaxa spokesman said: 'This will be the world's first solar powered sail craft employing both photon propulsion and thin film power generation during its interplanetary cruise.'
It's name is an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun. It also alludes to the Greek mythic hero Icarus who flew too close to the Sun and fell into the sea.
'Unlike the mythical Icarus, this Ikaros will not crash,' Mr Tsuda said.
The space yacht will unfurl its solar sail several weeks after launch before heading to Venus
The rocket's payload also includes the Planet-C Venus Climate Orbiter, a box-shaped golden satellite, fitted with two paddle-shaped solar panels, that is set to arrive at Venus in about six months.
Venus is similar in size and age to Earth but has a far more hostile climate, with temperatures around 460C and large amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas on Earth.
Scientists believe a probe of the climate of Venus will help them deepen their understanding of the formation of the Earth's environment and its future.
The space yacht's sail will be deployed and kept flat by its spinning motion
The probe - nicknamed Akatsuki, which means 'Dawn' in Japanese - will work closely with the European Space Agency's Venus Express.
Fitted with five cameras, its mission is to peer through the planet's thick layer of sulphuric acid clouds to monitor the meteorology of Venus, search for possible lightning, and scan its crust for active volcanoes.
It will observe the planet in an elliptical orbit, from a distance of between 200 to 50,000 miles.
Japan has become a major player in the space industry in recent years. In 2008 they installed a £1billion laboratory on board the International Space Station.
The space agency has proposed that the Japanese government send a wheeled robot to the moon in five years and build the world's first lunar base by 2020.
Under the plan, the robot's tasks would include setting up an observation device, gathering geological samples and sending data back to Earth. The robot would also set up solar panels to generate energy.
This would cost Japan around £1billion over the next 10 years.
Japan launched a 'space yacht' today that will travel to Venus propelled only by sunlight.
A rocket carrying the experimental 'Ikaros' blasted off for its six-month mission from a space centre in Kagoshima, southern Japan.
The spacecraft will head towards Venus powered only by solar particles bouncing off its kite-shaped sails.
Once in space the short cylindrical pod will separate from the rocket spinning up to 20 times a minute. This will help it to unfold its flexible 46ft sail, which is thinner than a human hair.
The square shaped sail is equipped with thin-film solar cells and will use resistance created by the Sun's energy in much the same way as wind propels a yacht through water. This will provide it with enough thrust to hover and rotate.
'It is a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure', Japanese Space Agency expert Yuichi Tsuda said.
'Solar sails are the technology that realises space travel without fuel as long as we have sunlight.
'The availability of electricity would enable us to navigate farther and more effectively in the solar system.'
Scientists will steer the craft by changing the angle at which sunlight particles bounce off the silver-coloured sail.
During a six-month mission they will head towards our sister planet Venus. If this is a success Jaxa are planning further missions to the red giant Jupiter and Trojan using sails more than twice as the size of Ikaros.
Ikaros will harness the power of the Sun using a 46ft sail that is thinner than a human hair
The £35million Ikaros will be the first use of such technology in deep space. Past experiments have limited crafts to orbits around Earth.
A Jaxa spokesman said: 'This will be the world's first solar powered sail craft employing both photon propulsion and thin film power generation during its interplanetary cruise.'
It's name is an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun. It also alludes to the Greek mythic hero Icarus who flew too close to the Sun and fell into the sea.
'Unlike the mythical Icarus, this Ikaros will not crash,' Mr Tsuda said.
The space yacht will unfurl its solar sail several weeks after launch before heading to Venus
The rocket's payload also includes the Planet-C Venus Climate Orbiter, a box-shaped golden satellite, fitted with two paddle-shaped solar panels, that is set to arrive at Venus in about six months.
Venus is similar in size and age to Earth but has a far more hostile climate, with temperatures around 460C and large amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas on Earth.
Scientists believe a probe of the climate of Venus will help them deepen their understanding of the formation of the Earth's environment and its future.
The space yacht's sail will be deployed and kept flat by its spinning motion
The probe - nicknamed Akatsuki, which means 'Dawn' in Japanese - will work closely with the European Space Agency's Venus Express.
Fitted with five cameras, its mission is to peer through the planet's thick layer of sulphuric acid clouds to monitor the meteorology of Venus, search for possible lightning, and scan its crust for active volcanoes.
It will observe the planet in an elliptical orbit, from a distance of between 200 to 50,000 miles.
Japan has become a major player in the space industry in recent years. In 2008 they installed a £1billion laboratory on board the International Space Station.
The space agency has proposed that the Japanese government send a wheeled robot to the moon in five years and build the world's first lunar base by 2020.
Under the plan, the robot's tasks would include setting up an observation device, gathering geological samples and sending data back to Earth. The robot would also set up solar panels to generate energy.
This would cost Japan around £1billion over the next 10 years.
Shuttle Atlantis astronauts are on third spacewalk at International Space Station
Shuttle Atlantis astronauts are on third spacewalk at International Space Station
The spacewalking crew of NASA's space shuttle Atlantis began the third and final spacewalk of their mission early Friday to wrap up a battery upgrade service call on the solar arrays outside the International Space Station.
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NASA's Space Shuttle
Photo Gallery
Aboard the International Space Station
Related Stories
Will this be final flight for space shuttle Atlantis? Maybe not. Florida 'Space Coast' sees economic hardship in Obama plan It will be the final spacewalk conducted by Atlantis astronauts while it is docked at the station because this STS-132 mission is expected to be the orbiter's last planned flight before the shuttle fleet's retirement.
The shuttle Atlantis crew woke Friday morning at 1:50 a.m. EDT (0550 GMT). The spacewalkers began their excursion – called an extravehicular activity (EVA) in NASA parlance – at 6:27 a.m. EDT (1027 GMT), and stay outside about 6 1/2 hours. They will exit out of the station's Quest airlock.
Mission specialists Garrett Reisman and Michael Good are following up two previous spacewalks on this mission to complete the job of installing new batteries on the left-most edge of the station's backbone-like truss.
Good and fellow mission specialist Stephen Bowen began the chore on Wednesday's spacewalk, when they got ahead of schedule and installed four of six batteries, leaving only two more for this final excursion.
"Originally we thought we'd have to perform three battery changes but because of the excellent work the crew did yesterday in our second spacewalk... that allows us an opportunity to get ahead," lead shuttle flight director Mike Sarafin said Thursday.
The batteries are ungainly, weighing about 375 pounds (170 kg) each. The spacewalkers will remove new ones from a cargo carrier in the shuttle's payload bay, and then swap them out with the aging units currently on the station.
In addition to the battery work, the spacewalkers will remove a robot arm tool called a grapple fixture from the shuttle's payload bay. For now, the astronauts will take it back inside the station with them; it will be installed during a later spacewalk on the station's Russian Zarya module.
"So when we repressurize and go back into station it won't be just Garrett and I in that airlock," Good said in a preflight interview. "We'll have this great big grapple fixture in there with us so hopefully there'll be room for everybody in there."
Mission Control has also planned a medley of various get-ahead tasks for Good and Reisman to do that will help outfit the station for the future.
"On EVA 3 it's kind of a clean-up day," Good said. "It's to get everything done that we had hoped to get done on the whole mission, so whatever's left."
The spacewalkers will install a hose for the ammonia coolant system on the station's exterior, and replace some errant tools in outside toolboxes.
Mission specialist Piers Sellers will help out from inside the orbiting lab by operating the station's robotic arm.
Overall, Atlantis' mission is going very well, the astronauts said.
"We are all absolutely thrilled at how this mission is going so far," Atlantis commander Kenneth Ham said Thursday. "We're just going to stay focused and hopefully get through the next few days."
The crew plans to undock from the space station on Sunday and land back at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Wednesday, May 26.
The spacewalking crew of NASA's space shuttle Atlantis began the third and final spacewalk of their mission early Friday to wrap up a battery upgrade service call on the solar arrays outside the International Space Station.
Skip to next paragraph Photo Gallery
NASA's Space Shuttle
Photo Gallery
Aboard the International Space Station
Related Stories
Will this be final flight for space shuttle Atlantis? Maybe not. Florida 'Space Coast' sees economic hardship in Obama plan It will be the final spacewalk conducted by Atlantis astronauts while it is docked at the station because this STS-132 mission is expected to be the orbiter's last planned flight before the shuttle fleet's retirement.
The shuttle Atlantis crew woke Friday morning at 1:50 a.m. EDT (0550 GMT). The spacewalkers began their excursion – called an extravehicular activity (EVA) in NASA parlance – at 6:27 a.m. EDT (1027 GMT), and stay outside about 6 1/2 hours. They will exit out of the station's Quest airlock.
Mission specialists Garrett Reisman and Michael Good are following up two previous spacewalks on this mission to complete the job of installing new batteries on the left-most edge of the station's backbone-like truss.
Good and fellow mission specialist Stephen Bowen began the chore on Wednesday's spacewalk, when they got ahead of schedule and installed four of six batteries, leaving only two more for this final excursion.
"Originally we thought we'd have to perform three battery changes but because of the excellent work the crew did yesterday in our second spacewalk... that allows us an opportunity to get ahead," lead shuttle flight director Mike Sarafin said Thursday.
The batteries are ungainly, weighing about 375 pounds (170 kg) each. The spacewalkers will remove new ones from a cargo carrier in the shuttle's payload bay, and then swap them out with the aging units currently on the station.
In addition to the battery work, the spacewalkers will remove a robot arm tool called a grapple fixture from the shuttle's payload bay. For now, the astronauts will take it back inside the station with them; it will be installed during a later spacewalk on the station's Russian Zarya module.
"So when we repressurize and go back into station it won't be just Garrett and I in that airlock," Good said in a preflight interview. "We'll have this great big grapple fixture in there with us so hopefully there'll be room for everybody in there."
Mission Control has also planned a medley of various get-ahead tasks for Good and Reisman to do that will help outfit the station for the future.
"On EVA 3 it's kind of a clean-up day," Good said. "It's to get everything done that we had hoped to get done on the whole mission, so whatever's left."
The spacewalkers will install a hose for the ammonia coolant system on the station's exterior, and replace some errant tools in outside toolboxes.
Mission specialist Piers Sellers will help out from inside the orbiting lab by operating the station's robotic arm.
Overall, Atlantis' mission is going very well, the astronauts said.
"We are all absolutely thrilled at how this mission is going so far," Atlantis commander Kenneth Ham said Thursday. "We're just going to stay focused and hopefully get through the next few days."
The crew plans to undock from the space station on Sunday and land back at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Wednesday, May 26.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Astronaut gives Isaac Newton cosmic view of Earth
From AP: Astronaut gives Isaac Newton cosmic view of Earth
Astronaut gives Isaac Newton cosmic view of Earth
By MARCIA DUNN (AP) – 1 hour ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Sir Isaac Newton is getting the royal treatment in space, thanks to the British-born astronaut who carried up a picture of the 17th century scientist and a chip from his famous apple tree.
Atlantis astronaut Piers Sellers said Thursday that he placed Newton's picture in the glassed-in dome of the International Space Station — the best seat in the gravity-less house. The views of Earth are stupendous from there.
"Sir Isaac absolutely loved it, I've got to tell you," Sellers said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We had him in the window, and he got to watch his little wood chip float by and ponder the laws of gravitation and everything, so I think it was a treat for him."
The Royal Society of London provided Sellers with the 4-inch sliver of wood, which he took with him into orbit aboard the shuttle. It's inscribed with Newton's initials and, according to the society, came from the actual tree in England from which an apple fell nearly 350 years ago and inspired Newton to discover the law of gravity.
Sellers said Wednesday's ceremony was a dry run. He plans to videotape the Newton items later this week for the Royal Society, which is the national academy of science of the United Kingdom. It's celebrating its 350th anniversary.
Newton was a physicist, mathematician and astronomer. His brush with the falling apple is believed to have occurred in the mid-1660s.
Sellers, now a U.S. citizen, and the rest of Atlantis' visiting astronauts got some time off Thursday after nearly a week of stressful work in orbit.
The day's big event was the grand opening of the space station's newest room.
The Russian compartment, named Rassvet, or Dawn, was installed by the Atlantis crew earlier this week. Station commander Oleg Kotov had the honor of opening it up.
Kotov wore goggles and a mask as he peeked inside and hooked up an air filter. It was a precaution in case of floating dust, paint flakes or other debris. He initially reported that everything looked normal, but later said metal shavings were floating around and he closed the compartment for the night.
The compartment — 20 feet long and 8 feet in diameter — is crammed with food, laptop computers and other supplies provided by NASA. The space station residents don't plan to unload the provisions until Atlantis leaves Sunday.
One last major chore awaits the shuttle astronauts: a spacewalk on Friday to finish replacing space station batteries. Four fresh batteries were plugged in during Wednesday's spacewalk. The crew also untangled a cable on Atlantis' inspection boom and fixed a loose antenna on the station.
"I am absolutely super pleased" with how the mission has gone, shuttle commander Kenneth Ham told the AP. "We're all feeling pretty darned good."
This is NASA's last planned flight of Atlantis. The shuttle and its six-man crew are due back on Earth next Wednesday.
Only two shuttle missions remain, by Discovery and Endeavour this fall. Once the fleet is retired, NASA will focus on getting astronauts to an asteroid and Mars by 2025 and 2035, respectively. That's the plan laid out earlier this year by President Barack Obama.
___
Online:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
Astronaut gives Isaac Newton cosmic view of Earth
By MARCIA DUNN (AP) – 1 hour ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Sir Isaac Newton is getting the royal treatment in space, thanks to the British-born astronaut who carried up a picture of the 17th century scientist and a chip from his famous apple tree.
Atlantis astronaut Piers Sellers said Thursday that he placed Newton's picture in the glassed-in dome of the International Space Station — the best seat in the gravity-less house. The views of Earth are stupendous from there.
"Sir Isaac absolutely loved it, I've got to tell you," Sellers said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We had him in the window, and he got to watch his little wood chip float by and ponder the laws of gravitation and everything, so I think it was a treat for him."
The Royal Society of London provided Sellers with the 4-inch sliver of wood, which he took with him into orbit aboard the shuttle. It's inscribed with Newton's initials and, according to the society, came from the actual tree in England from which an apple fell nearly 350 years ago and inspired Newton to discover the law of gravity.
Sellers said Wednesday's ceremony was a dry run. He plans to videotape the Newton items later this week for the Royal Society, which is the national academy of science of the United Kingdom. It's celebrating its 350th anniversary.
Newton was a physicist, mathematician and astronomer. His brush with the falling apple is believed to have occurred in the mid-1660s.
Sellers, now a U.S. citizen, and the rest of Atlantis' visiting astronauts got some time off Thursday after nearly a week of stressful work in orbit.
The day's big event was the grand opening of the space station's newest room.
The Russian compartment, named Rassvet, or Dawn, was installed by the Atlantis crew earlier this week. Station commander Oleg Kotov had the honor of opening it up.
Kotov wore goggles and a mask as he peeked inside and hooked up an air filter. It was a precaution in case of floating dust, paint flakes or other debris. He initially reported that everything looked normal, but later said metal shavings were floating around and he closed the compartment for the night.
The compartment — 20 feet long and 8 feet in diameter — is crammed with food, laptop computers and other supplies provided by NASA. The space station residents don't plan to unload the provisions until Atlantis leaves Sunday.
One last major chore awaits the shuttle astronauts: a spacewalk on Friday to finish replacing space station batteries. Four fresh batteries were plugged in during Wednesday's spacewalk. The crew also untangled a cable on Atlantis' inspection boom and fixed a loose antenna on the station.
"I am absolutely super pleased" with how the mission has gone, shuttle commander Kenneth Ham told the AP. "We're all feeling pretty darned good."
This is NASA's last planned flight of Atlantis. The shuttle and its six-man crew are due back on Earth next Wednesday.
Only two shuttle missions remain, by Discovery and Endeavour this fall. Once the fleet is retired, NASA will focus on getting astronauts to an asteroid and Mars by 2025 and 2035, respectively. That's the plan laid out earlier this year by President Barack Obama.
___
Online:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth
Press release:
NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth
By ALICIA CHANG (AP) –
MONROVIA, Calif. — If NASA's exploration of Mars were summed up in a bumper sticker, it would read: "Follow the water."
Well, we've found the water — ice was discovered by the Phoenix lander in 2008. Now what?
It's time to search again for signs of life, scientists say, something they haven't done since 1976. This time, they want to bring Martian rock and soil samples back to Earth. Here, they could be analyzed for fossilized traces of alien bacteria, or chemical or biological clues that could only be explained by something that was alive.
Such a venture as now outlined would be a three-part act, cost as much as $10 billion and take several years to complete. NASA can't afford it on its own so it recently joined the European Space Agency to map out a shared project.
Space policy experts think the timing is right despite the risks and hefty price tag.
"We're about out of things to do on Mars other than a sample return," said George Washington University space scholar John Logsdon. "It is an extremely expensive undertaking, probably the most expensive robotic mission to Mars and clearly the most complex."
The idea of bringing Mars samples to Earth for study has been floated for the past 25 years without going anywhere due to cost and engineering concerns. Many believe it's still the best way to answer whether life ever arose on Mars.
At a town hall meeting near Los Angeles this spring, NASA told Mars researchers the next effort would be done in phases. It would be attempted before the mid-2030s, the timetable for astronauts to land on Mars as proposed by President Barack Obama.
As currently envisioned, a pair of rovers would launch in 2018 to a spot where water once flowed. One would drill below the surface; the other would collect rocks and dirt and seal them in containers.
Several years later, some cosmic choreography would be used to get the bounty back to Earth. One spacecraft would touch down to collect the samples and launch them into orbit around Mars where a rendezvousing spacecraft would capture the bounty and return it to Earth.
Even if those challenging tag-team missions went as planned, the first Mars samples would not be returned until the 2020s.
The concept has plenty of critics. Marine chemist Jeffrey Bada at Scripps Institution of Oceanography thinks it makes more sense for NASA to simply look for the molecular building blocks of life by running experiments on Mars before hauling soil back.
Otherwise, it "will be a giant waste of money and likely delay a definitive answer to the life on Mars question for decades," he said.
Mars is cold, dusty and constantly bombarded by dangerous radiation. But billions of years ago, it was a warmer, wetter planet based on the elaborate mazes of gullies, canyons and other land forms thought to be shaped by flowing water.
People have wondered about the chance for life there since the 1900s when amateur astronomer Percival Lowell claimed to have spotted irrigation canals. He theorized they were built and used by Martians to channel water from the polar caps to the desert and other arid regions.
Later observations by several flybys of Mariner spacecraft in the 1960s and 70s revealed a cratered wasteland similar to our moon. Mars is dead, people thought.
Interest was renewed in 1971 when Mariner 9 spied massive extinct volcanoes, river beds, dry channels and a network of canyons.
By the time two Viking spacecraft landed in 1976, hopes were high for an answer to one of life's most fundamental questions: Are we alone in the universe?
Viking's experiments found no signs of life. That led many researchers to believe that the planet was hostile to life.
"Viking tried to find life on Mars by hitting a home run," said Scott Hubbard, a former NASA Mars czar who now teaches at Stanford University. "It was one mission betting on having just the right instruments and the right approach. They got a lot of data, but they did not see any of the signs of life that they thought they would."
No other Mars mission since has pursued the life question directly. Instead, spacecraft circling Mars or landing on it searched for proxies such as water, an essential ingredient for life, and environments that might be suitable for life.
Even the budget-busting $2.3 billion Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled to launch next year after much delay, is not equipped to look for life. Instead, it will study the planet's habitability.
Despite the success of the past decade — ice and evidence of ancient water — there's still no answer as to whether life existed on Mars. Life as we know it needs more than just water. It also needs nutrients and energy.
Increased knowledge about Mars and better technology make this latest effort to bag Mars samples more realistic than past fits and starts, said Cornell University astronomer Jim Bell.
Lately, "there's confidence that, 'Hey, maybe we can do this. Maybe it's not all science fiction,'" he said.
Tests of Martian rocks and soil on Earth would be much more useful than the limited ones done by tiny robotic instrument packages on Mars.
A slam dunk would be finding fossilized remains. But scientists would mainly look for complex organics such as carbon compounds that make up the building blocks of life on Earth and other chemical clues potentially left by microbial life.
Planetary scientist David Paige of the University of California, Los Angeles said the gamble is worth it.
"It's been so long since Viking. Each generation wants to take up the quest," Paige said. "You can't blame people for being interested in this."
NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth
By ALICIA CHANG (AP) –
MONROVIA, Calif. — If NASA's exploration of Mars were summed up in a bumper sticker, it would read: "Follow the water."
Well, we've found the water — ice was discovered by the Phoenix lander in 2008. Now what?
It's time to search again for signs of life, scientists say, something they haven't done since 1976. This time, they want to bring Martian rock and soil samples back to Earth. Here, they could be analyzed for fossilized traces of alien bacteria, or chemical or biological clues that could only be explained by something that was alive.
Such a venture as now outlined would be a three-part act, cost as much as $10 billion and take several years to complete. NASA can't afford it on its own so it recently joined the European Space Agency to map out a shared project.
Space policy experts think the timing is right despite the risks and hefty price tag.
"We're about out of things to do on Mars other than a sample return," said George Washington University space scholar John Logsdon. "It is an extremely expensive undertaking, probably the most expensive robotic mission to Mars and clearly the most complex."
The idea of bringing Mars samples to Earth for study has been floated for the past 25 years without going anywhere due to cost and engineering concerns. Many believe it's still the best way to answer whether life ever arose on Mars.
At a town hall meeting near Los Angeles this spring, NASA told Mars researchers the next effort would be done in phases. It would be attempted before the mid-2030s, the timetable for astronauts to land on Mars as proposed by President Barack Obama.
As currently envisioned, a pair of rovers would launch in 2018 to a spot where water once flowed. One would drill below the surface; the other would collect rocks and dirt and seal them in containers.
Several years later, some cosmic choreography would be used to get the bounty back to Earth. One spacecraft would touch down to collect the samples and launch them into orbit around Mars where a rendezvousing spacecraft would capture the bounty and return it to Earth.
Even if those challenging tag-team missions went as planned, the first Mars samples would not be returned until the 2020s.
The concept has plenty of critics. Marine chemist Jeffrey Bada at Scripps Institution of Oceanography thinks it makes more sense for NASA to simply look for the molecular building blocks of life by running experiments on Mars before hauling soil back.
Otherwise, it "will be a giant waste of money and likely delay a definitive answer to the life on Mars question for decades," he said.
Mars is cold, dusty and constantly bombarded by dangerous radiation. But billions of years ago, it was a warmer, wetter planet based on the elaborate mazes of gullies, canyons and other land forms thought to be shaped by flowing water.
People have wondered about the chance for life there since the 1900s when amateur astronomer Percival Lowell claimed to have spotted irrigation canals. He theorized they were built and used by Martians to channel water from the polar caps to the desert and other arid regions.
Later observations by several flybys of Mariner spacecraft in the 1960s and 70s revealed a cratered wasteland similar to our moon. Mars is dead, people thought.
Interest was renewed in 1971 when Mariner 9 spied massive extinct volcanoes, river beds, dry channels and a network of canyons.
By the time two Viking spacecraft landed in 1976, hopes were high for an answer to one of life's most fundamental questions: Are we alone in the universe?
Viking's experiments found no signs of life. That led many researchers to believe that the planet was hostile to life.
"Viking tried to find life on Mars by hitting a home run," said Scott Hubbard, a former NASA Mars czar who now teaches at Stanford University. "It was one mission betting on having just the right instruments and the right approach. They got a lot of data, but they did not see any of the signs of life that they thought they would."
No other Mars mission since has pursued the life question directly. Instead, spacecraft circling Mars or landing on it searched for proxies such as water, an essential ingredient for life, and environments that might be suitable for life.
Even the budget-busting $2.3 billion Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled to launch next year after much delay, is not equipped to look for life. Instead, it will study the planet's habitability.
Despite the success of the past decade — ice and evidence of ancient water — there's still no answer as to whether life existed on Mars. Life as we know it needs more than just water. It also needs nutrients and energy.
Increased knowledge about Mars and better technology make this latest effort to bag Mars samples more realistic than past fits and starts, said Cornell University astronomer Jim Bell.
Lately, "there's confidence that, 'Hey, maybe we can do this. Maybe it's not all science fiction,'" he said.
Tests of Martian rocks and soil on Earth would be much more useful than the limited ones done by tiny robotic instrument packages on Mars.
A slam dunk would be finding fossilized remains. But scientists would mainly look for complex organics such as carbon compounds that make up the building blocks of life on Earth and other chemical clues potentially left by microbial life.
Planetary scientist David Paige of the University of California, Los Angeles said the gamble is worth it.
"It's been so long since Viking. Each generation wants to take up the quest," Paige said. "You can't blame people for being interested in this."
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Shuttle Atlantis glides to smooth space station docking
CNET NEWS: Shuttle Atlantis glides to smooth space station docking
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston--The shuttle Atlantis, carrying a Russian docking module and critical spare parts, glided to a smooth docking with the International Space Station on Sunday, capping a two-day orbital chase that began with blastoff Friday.
Piloting the shuttle from the aft flight deck, commander Kenneth Ham deftly guided the 120-ton spacecraft to a picture-perfect docking with the lab's forward port at 9:28 a.m. CDT as the 1-million-pound shuttle-station complex sailed 220 miles above the South Pacific Ocean.
The shuttle Atlantis, moments after docking with the International Space Station Sunday.
"Atlantis, station, ISS is in free drift," Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi replied. "And welcome to station." A few moments later, flight engineer Timothy Creamer rang the ship's bell in the forward Harmony module to formally announce Atlantis' arrival.
It took a bit less than two hours to firmly lock the two spacecraft together and complete leak checks before hatches were opened at 11:18 a.m. CDT and the station crew--Noguchi, Creamer, Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Alexander Skvortsov, and Mikhail Kornienko--welcomed their shuttle colleagues aboard.
"And Houston, station, on the big loop, with Atlantis crew on board ISS," Kotov called down as the two crews shared hugs and handshakes in the forward Harmony module. "It is our pleasure to welcome them and to see them here. It's a really big event for us, bringing us a new Russian module to station."
With the exception of Michael Good, veteran of a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, the rest of the Atlantis crew--Ham, Antonelli, Stephen Bowen, Piers Sellers and Garrett Reisman--are veterans of at least one previous space station visit.
"For almost all of us on board Atlantis, we've been here before but it's bigger than we remember and, speaking for myself, better than I remember," Ham said. "I love this place!"
After a short safety briefing from Kotov, the astronauts got back to work, transferring equipment to the lab and gearing up for a spacewalk Monday, the first of three planned for the mission.
Just before 3 p.m. CDT, Sellers and Caldwell Dyson used the station's robot arm to pull a cargo pallet out of the shuttle's payload bay so it could be mounted on a stowage fixture on the front side of the station's solar power truss.
The cargo carrier holds a spare Ku-band dish antenna that will be installed by Reisman and Bowen during Monday's spacewalk, along with an equipment mounting platform that will be attached to a Canadian robot arm extension.
The cargo carrier also holds six 375-pound batteries that will be installed during the mission's second and third spacewalks.
Ham and company began the shuttle's final approach to the station with a rocket firing at 7:40 a.m. CDT to begin closing the final 9.2 miles. Moving in to a point about 600 feet directly below the lab complex, Ham guided Atlantis through a spectacular 360-degree backflip maneuver as the spaceplane sailed across southern Europe, exposing the shuttle's underside to the station.
Kotov, Noguchi, and Creamer, using digital cameras equipped with powerful telephoto lenses, photographed the heat shield tiles on the belly of the orbiter while Caldwell Dyson focused on the shuttle's left wing leading edge panels, snapping 149 pictures.
The shuttle's carbon composite nose cap and wing leading-edge panels, which experience the most extreme heating during re-entry, were inspected Saturday. But problems with a pan-and-tilt mechanism on the end of the shuttle's inspection boom forced the crew to use backup procedures and they were unable to complete the left wing.
Lead shuttle Flight Director Mike Sarafin said inspection procedures may be added to the crew's timeline later, depending on the quality of the photos shot by Caldwell Dyson during Sunday's approach.
"All of the images, roughly 400 digital still images, are on the ground, currently being assessed and analyzed," Sarafin said. "We expect those folks to meet later this evening to decide whether we need to go off and gather additional imagery to clear Atlantis' heat shield or if we have everything we need.
"We're looking at backup methods to use the shuttle's robotic arm in the event some of those activities do require arm support from the shuttle," he said. "The activities we have ahead of us tomorrow, with our first spacewalk as well as installation of the [Russian] Rassvet module, are going to be performed as planned. So any changes to the mission timeline will occur after the module is installed on flight day five."
Late last week, flight controllers began monitoring a piece of unidentified space debris that was expected to pass within a few miles of the station shortly after the shuttle docking.
Saturday evening, after additional radar tracking showed the debris would not pass close enough to cause any problems, plans for a possible avoidance maneuver were called off. Sarafin said Sunday the actual miss distance was about 10 statute miles, well outside the station's safety zone.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston--The shuttle Atlantis, carrying a Russian docking module and critical spare parts, glided to a smooth docking with the International Space Station on Sunday, capping a two-day orbital chase that began with blastoff Friday.
Piloting the shuttle from the aft flight deck, commander Kenneth Ham deftly guided the 120-ton spacecraft to a picture-perfect docking with the lab's forward port at 9:28 a.m. CDT as the 1-million-pound shuttle-station complex sailed 220 miles above the South Pacific Ocean.
The shuttle Atlantis, moments after docking with the International Space Station Sunday.
"Atlantis, station, ISS is in free drift," Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi replied. "And welcome to station." A few moments later, flight engineer Timothy Creamer rang the ship's bell in the forward Harmony module to formally announce Atlantis' arrival.
It took a bit less than two hours to firmly lock the two spacecraft together and complete leak checks before hatches were opened at 11:18 a.m. CDT and the station crew--Noguchi, Creamer, Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Alexander Skvortsov, and Mikhail Kornienko--welcomed their shuttle colleagues aboard.
"And Houston, station, on the big loop, with Atlantis crew on board ISS," Kotov called down as the two crews shared hugs and handshakes in the forward Harmony module. "It is our pleasure to welcome them and to see them here. It's a really big event for us, bringing us a new Russian module to station."
With the exception of Michael Good, veteran of a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, the rest of the Atlantis crew--Ham, Antonelli, Stephen Bowen, Piers Sellers and Garrett Reisman--are veterans of at least one previous space station visit.
"For almost all of us on board Atlantis, we've been here before but it's bigger than we remember and, speaking for myself, better than I remember," Ham said. "I love this place!"
After a short safety briefing from Kotov, the astronauts got back to work, transferring equipment to the lab and gearing up for a spacewalk Monday, the first of three planned for the mission.
Just before 3 p.m. CDT, Sellers and Caldwell Dyson used the station's robot arm to pull a cargo pallet out of the shuttle's payload bay so it could be mounted on a stowage fixture on the front side of the station's solar power truss.
The cargo carrier holds a spare Ku-band dish antenna that will be installed by Reisman and Bowen during Monday's spacewalk, along with an equipment mounting platform that will be attached to a Canadian robot arm extension.
The cargo carrier also holds six 375-pound batteries that will be installed during the mission's second and third spacewalks.
Ham and company began the shuttle's final approach to the station with a rocket firing at 7:40 a.m. CDT to begin closing the final 9.2 miles. Moving in to a point about 600 feet directly below the lab complex, Ham guided Atlantis through a spectacular 360-degree backflip maneuver as the spaceplane sailed across southern Europe, exposing the shuttle's underside to the station.
Kotov, Noguchi, and Creamer, using digital cameras equipped with powerful telephoto lenses, photographed the heat shield tiles on the belly of the orbiter while Caldwell Dyson focused on the shuttle's left wing leading edge panels, snapping 149 pictures.
The shuttle's carbon composite nose cap and wing leading-edge panels, which experience the most extreme heating during re-entry, were inspected Saturday. But problems with a pan-and-tilt mechanism on the end of the shuttle's inspection boom forced the crew to use backup procedures and they were unable to complete the left wing.
Lead shuttle Flight Director Mike Sarafin said inspection procedures may be added to the crew's timeline later, depending on the quality of the photos shot by Caldwell Dyson during Sunday's approach.
"All of the images, roughly 400 digital still images, are on the ground, currently being assessed and analyzed," Sarafin said. "We expect those folks to meet later this evening to decide whether we need to go off and gather additional imagery to clear Atlantis' heat shield or if we have everything we need.
"We're looking at backup methods to use the shuttle's robotic arm in the event some of those activities do require arm support from the shuttle," he said. "The activities we have ahead of us tomorrow, with our first spacewalk as well as installation of the [Russian] Rassvet module, are going to be performed as planned. So any changes to the mission timeline will occur after the module is installed on flight day five."
Late last week, flight controllers began monitoring a piece of unidentified space debris that was expected to pass within a few miles of the station shortly after the shuttle docking.
Saturday evening, after additional radar tracking showed the debris would not pass close enough to cause any problems, plans for a possible avoidance maneuver were called off. Sarafin said Sunday the actual miss distance was about 10 statute miles, well outside the station's safety zone.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Atlantis Shuttle to Soar for Final Time Friday
From Fox News: Atlantis Shuttle to Soar for Final Time Friday
From top mission controllers on through the ranks of astronauts and shuttle workers, reverence reigns over the upcoming last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis -- the first of NASA's final shuttle missions this year.
From top mission controllers on through the ranks of astronauts and shuttle workers, reverence reigns over the upcoming last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis -- the first of NASA's final shuttle missions this year.
Atlantis is set to make her 32nd and final planned launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday. The mission is the third-to-last shuttle flight ever. The orbiter is slated to carry six astronauts and a new Russian science module to the International Space Station.
"There is a little bit of reverence that the mission will be conducted with given that it's the final planned flight of Atlantis," said NASA lead shuttle flight director Mike Sarafin.
There is a small possibility that Atlantis will actually take to the skies again after this. The orbiter is tapped as the "launch-on-need" shuttle that would serve as an emergency rescue ship to save astronauts in the event of a major failure during the final shuttle mission on Endeavour, scheduled to launch no earlier than Nov. 26.
Space shuttle retirement ahead
NASA is retiring its decades-old space shuttle fleet to focus on building new technology and rockets, such as a vehicle to eventually take humans to asteroids or Mars faster than anything yet developed. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has proposed using private industry to pick up the slack in low-Earth orbit, with NASA relying on commercial spacecraft to ferry astronauts and paying passengers to the International Space Station.
While Atlantis' upcoming launch is momentous for some, other NASA officials said they were more focused on simply getting the job done.
"I have not spent a lot of time thinking about last this and last that," said John Shannon, NASA's space shuttle program manager, during a briefing last week. "I think maybe after we get all done, then we'll release the big breath and then maybe think about what it all meant to us. But not while we're in the middle of actually processing and flying these vehicles."
Atlantis' STS-132 mission commander, veteran astronaut Kenneth Ham, echoed that thought.
"This is probably the kind of thing that's really going to hit all of us after we're done with the mission and we realize what part of history we may have played," Ham said. "I think the space shuttle as a machine is the single most incredible machine humanity has ever built... The program has to come to an end at some point, and it is an honor and privilege for us to represent being part of that crew at the end."
Atlantis' six-astronaut crew will launch on a planned 12-day mission to deliver the new Russian "Rassvet" (which means "Dawn" in Russian) science module and vital spare parts for the nearly complete space station. Three spacewalks are planned for the mission.
Legacy in space
Atlantis was the fourth shuttle built, after Columbia, Challenger and Discovery (Endeavour followed later as a replacement for Challenger).
Atlantis was named after a two-masted sailing ship that served as a research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from 1930 to 1966. It launched on its first space mission on Oct. 3, 1985.
Some of the past crews that have worked and flown on Atlantis will gather to watch its final liftoff this week, said astronaut Jerry Ross, a veteran of seven space shuttle missions, five of which have been on Atlantis.
"I am looking forward to seeing it fly," Ross said. "It is a great flying bird. Personally I think it's the best one of the fleet."
From top mission controllers on through the ranks of astronauts and shuttle workers, reverence reigns over the upcoming last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis -- the first of NASA's final shuttle missions this year.
From top mission controllers on through the ranks of astronauts and shuttle workers, reverence reigns over the upcoming last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis -- the first of NASA's final shuttle missions this year.
Atlantis is set to make her 32nd and final planned launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday. The mission is the third-to-last shuttle flight ever. The orbiter is slated to carry six astronauts and a new Russian science module to the International Space Station.
"There is a little bit of reverence that the mission will be conducted with given that it's the final planned flight of Atlantis," said NASA lead shuttle flight director Mike Sarafin.
There is a small possibility that Atlantis will actually take to the skies again after this. The orbiter is tapped as the "launch-on-need" shuttle that would serve as an emergency rescue ship to save astronauts in the event of a major failure during the final shuttle mission on Endeavour, scheduled to launch no earlier than Nov. 26.
Space shuttle retirement ahead
NASA is retiring its decades-old space shuttle fleet to focus on building new technology and rockets, such as a vehicle to eventually take humans to asteroids or Mars faster than anything yet developed. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has proposed using private industry to pick up the slack in low-Earth orbit, with NASA relying on commercial spacecraft to ferry astronauts and paying passengers to the International Space Station.
While Atlantis' upcoming launch is momentous for some, other NASA officials said they were more focused on simply getting the job done.
"I have not spent a lot of time thinking about last this and last that," said John Shannon, NASA's space shuttle program manager, during a briefing last week. "I think maybe after we get all done, then we'll release the big breath and then maybe think about what it all meant to us. But not while we're in the middle of actually processing and flying these vehicles."
Atlantis' STS-132 mission commander, veteran astronaut Kenneth Ham, echoed that thought.
"This is probably the kind of thing that's really going to hit all of us after we're done with the mission and we realize what part of history we may have played," Ham said. "I think the space shuttle as a machine is the single most incredible machine humanity has ever built... The program has to come to an end at some point, and it is an honor and privilege for us to represent being part of that crew at the end."
Atlantis' six-astronaut crew will launch on a planned 12-day mission to deliver the new Russian "Rassvet" (which means "Dawn" in Russian) science module and vital spare parts for the nearly complete space station. Three spacewalks are planned for the mission.
Legacy in space
Atlantis was the fourth shuttle built, after Columbia, Challenger and Discovery (Endeavour followed later as a replacement for Challenger).
Atlantis was named after a two-masted sailing ship that served as a research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from 1930 to 1966. It launched on its first space mission on Oct. 3, 1985.
Some of the past crews that have worked and flown on Atlantis will gather to watch its final liftoff this week, said astronaut Jerry Ross, a veteran of seven space shuttle missions, five of which have been on Atlantis.
"I am looking forward to seeing it fly," Ross said. "It is a great flying bird. Personally I think it's the best one of the fleet."
Monday, May 10, 2010
Final Shuttle Mission Is 'Go For Launch'
From Information Week
Final Shuttle Mission Is 'Go For Launch' Atlantis is set for one more liftoff before the program is officially mothballed by NASA.
By Paul McDougall
The astronauts who will likely be the last to ever fly aboard a ship in the current space shuttle fleet were scheduled to arrive at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Monday to prepare for launch Thursday.
The MLAS emergency escape system is one of NASA's alternative approaches to securing crew safety.
More InsightsWhitepapersBeyond Reporting Delivering Insights with Next-Generation AnalyticsRaising the Bar on Business Analytics: Innovation Powered by GridWebcastsExtreme Manageability with Oracle Database 11gLessons From the "2009 Data Breach Investigations Report"ReportsGoogle Rethinks The Operating SystemApp Development That Delivers Business ResultsVideos
Find out how to increase availability while reducing data center energy consumptionWhen they liftoff, it will mark the beginning of the end of a program that paved the way for numerous breakthroughs in space observation and exploration—and also tragically claimed the lives of 14 crewmembers in two, separate accidents that stunned the nation.
The astronauts will board shuttle Atlantis later this week as they prepare for the May 14 launch, which is set for 2:20 p.m. EDT.
The final mission, officially known as STS-132, will see Atlantis' crew conduct series of operations at the International Space Station during 12 days in orbit. They'll drop off a Russian mini-research module, new batteries for the station's truss and dish antenna, and other replacement parts.
"Twelve days, three [spacewalks], tons of robotics—we're putting on spares that make us feel good about the long-term sustainability of the ISS," said Space Shuttle program manager John Shannon, according to a NASA news release.
"This flight has a little bit of everything, and it's been great preparation for the team," said Shannon.
The veteran crew includes commander Ken Hamm, pilot Tony Antonelli, and mission specialists Michael Good, Garret Reisman, Piers Sellers, and Steve Bowen.
The decision to cancel the shuttle program was made under the administration of former president George W. Bush, in part due to the 2003 destruction of Columbia, which exploded upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. All seven crewmembers were killed.
The program had previously lost a crew of seven when Challenger blew up shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986.
President Obama has stuck with the cancellation plan, and in addition decided to kill a Bush initiative that would have seen astronauts return to the moon by 2020 in a new system comprising the Ares rocket and Orion crew capsule. Obama's current fiscal budget proposal scraps Ares and retasks Orion as an emergency lifeboat that would be permanently docked at the ISS.
NASA engineers last week successfully tested an escape system for Orion (pictured) that's designed to jettison the capsule away from the launch pad in the event of an emergency like the one that claimed Challenger.
Critics of the plan to end the shuttle program insist its cancellation would leave the U.S. dependent on foreign countries for transportation to the ISS until a replacement vehicle is ready. Some U.S. lawmakers have introduced bills that would give the program a last minute reprieve.
Final Shuttle Mission Is 'Go For Launch' Atlantis is set for one more liftoff before the program is officially mothballed by NASA.
By Paul McDougall
The astronauts who will likely be the last to ever fly aboard a ship in the current space shuttle fleet were scheduled to arrive at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Monday to prepare for launch Thursday.
The MLAS emergency escape system is one of NASA's alternative approaches to securing crew safety.
More InsightsWhitepapersBeyond Reporting Delivering Insights with Next-Generation AnalyticsRaising the Bar on Business Analytics: Innovation Powered by GridWebcastsExtreme Manageability with Oracle Database 11gLessons From the "2009 Data Breach Investigations Report"ReportsGoogle Rethinks The Operating SystemApp Development That Delivers Business ResultsVideos
Find out how to increase availability while reducing data center energy consumptionWhen they liftoff, it will mark the beginning of the end of a program that paved the way for numerous breakthroughs in space observation and exploration—and also tragically claimed the lives of 14 crewmembers in two, separate accidents that stunned the nation.
The astronauts will board shuttle Atlantis later this week as they prepare for the May 14 launch, which is set for 2:20 p.m. EDT.
The final mission, officially known as STS-132, will see Atlantis' crew conduct series of operations at the International Space Station during 12 days in orbit. They'll drop off a Russian mini-research module, new batteries for the station's truss and dish antenna, and other replacement parts.
"Twelve days, three [spacewalks], tons of robotics—we're putting on spares that make us feel good about the long-term sustainability of the ISS," said Space Shuttle program manager John Shannon, according to a NASA news release.
"This flight has a little bit of everything, and it's been great preparation for the team," said Shannon.
The veteran crew includes commander Ken Hamm, pilot Tony Antonelli, and mission specialists Michael Good, Garret Reisman, Piers Sellers, and Steve Bowen.
The decision to cancel the shuttle program was made under the administration of former president George W. Bush, in part due to the 2003 destruction of Columbia, which exploded upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. All seven crewmembers were killed.
The program had previously lost a crew of seven when Challenger blew up shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986.
President Obama has stuck with the cancellation plan, and in addition decided to kill a Bush initiative that would have seen astronauts return to the moon by 2020 in a new system comprising the Ares rocket and Orion crew capsule. Obama's current fiscal budget proposal scraps Ares and retasks Orion as an emergency lifeboat that would be permanently docked at the ISS.
NASA engineers last week successfully tested an escape system for Orion (pictured) that's designed to jettison the capsule away from the launch pad in the event of an emergency like the one that claimed Challenger.
Critics of the plan to end the shuttle program insist its cancellation would leave the U.S. dependent on foreign countries for transportation to the ISS until a replacement vehicle is ready. Some U.S. lawmakers have introduced bills that would give the program a last minute reprieve.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Atlantis’ Final Flight Packed With Work
Atlantis’ Final Flight Packed With Work
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- “It’s coming,” said shuttle Commander Ken Ham, “and we’ve come up with a tagline for you: This is the first, last flight of Atlantis.”
That’s a bit of humor from the mission commander, but STS-132 is Atlantis’ 32nd and final scheduled trip to space.
It’s the 34th shuttle mission to the International Space Station, Atlantis’ 11th.
Atlantis is scheduled to blast off for the last time at 2:20 p.m. Friday, May 14. Watch it LIVE when it happens on News 13, Your Space Station.
» Bookmark our LIVE launch day chat!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The shuttle will deliver the 17,000-pound Russian Mini Research Module, or MRM.
Once installed, the orbiting outpost will have more storage space and a new docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.
Three spacewalks are on tap for the mission. Included in the tasks, astronauts will install spare batteries outside the space station.
“These batteries are not AAs,” said Mission Specialist Michael Good. “You know, my brother thinks, ‘What’s the big deal, going out there and doing a couple of batteries in space?’ But these are actually about 400-pound batteries. They’re the size of a big speaker or suitcase, and they’re way out there at the end of the P6 trusses.”
In Atlantis’ payload bay is the Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable module, containing hardware to be installed on the station’s exterior.
“On Flight Day 5, we’ll reach in with the arm, pull it out and plug it into the bottom of the Russian segment,” said Mission Specialist Piers Sellers. “And what that will give us is a kind of a long tube docking station, so that spacecraft can dock to the ISS without coming close to other structure.”
To commemorate the end of the shuttle program, the mission’s special patch will be flown up to the space station. The winning patch design was selected by a NASA panel from 85 entries from NASA employees and contractors.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- “It’s coming,” said shuttle Commander Ken Ham, “and we’ve come up with a tagline for you: This is the first, last flight of Atlantis.”
That’s a bit of humor from the mission commander, but STS-132 is Atlantis’ 32nd and final scheduled trip to space.
It’s the 34th shuttle mission to the International Space Station, Atlantis’ 11th.
Atlantis is scheduled to blast off for the last time at 2:20 p.m. Friday, May 14. Watch it LIVE when it happens on News 13, Your Space Station.
» Bookmark our LIVE launch day chat!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The shuttle will deliver the 17,000-pound Russian Mini Research Module, or MRM.
Once installed, the orbiting outpost will have more storage space and a new docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.
Three spacewalks are on tap for the mission. Included in the tasks, astronauts will install spare batteries outside the space station.
“These batteries are not AAs,” said Mission Specialist Michael Good. “You know, my brother thinks, ‘What’s the big deal, going out there and doing a couple of batteries in space?’ But these are actually about 400-pound batteries. They’re the size of a big speaker or suitcase, and they’re way out there at the end of the P6 trusses.”
In Atlantis’ payload bay is the Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable module, containing hardware to be installed on the station’s exterior.
“On Flight Day 5, we’ll reach in with the arm, pull it out and plug it into the bottom of the Russian segment,” said Mission Specialist Piers Sellers. “And what that will give us is a kind of a long tube docking station, so that spacecraft can dock to the ISS without coming close to other structure.”
To commemorate the end of the shuttle program, the mission’s special patch will be flown up to the space station. The winning patch design was selected by a NASA panel from 85 entries from NASA employees and contractors.
Friday, May 7, 2010
NASA Space Shuttle to Carry Symbols of Encouragement for Ailing Children
A press release:
NASA has teamed up with Beads of Courage to bring hope and inspiration to children battling serious illnesses through the Beads in Space project. Handcrafted beads made by artists across North America will be on board NASA’s STS-132 mission. The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch on May 14, 2010.
Tucson, AZ (PRWEB) May 6, 2010 -- NASA has teamed up with Beads of Courage to bring hope and inspiration to children battling serious illnesses through the Beads in Space project. Handcrafted beads made by artists across North America will be on board NASA’s STS-132 mission. The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch on May 14, 2010.
Beads in SpaceBeads of Courage programs are currently helping children at over 60 hospitals worldwide. At the center of this art-in-medicine program are decorative glass beads similar to the beads that will accompany the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Children who participate in the program are given a length of string along with letter beads that spell out their name. As they undergo their healing process, they receive beads that represent different treatments and milestones. Their growing beaded necklaces stand as pieces of art that symbolize their medical histories and allow the kids to share and reflect on their experiences.
“The Beads in Space project will be a wonderful boost of encouragement for all the children and teens we support. The beads are going on an exciting adventure and will certainly take the spirit of our kids with them
The Beads in Space project is the brainchild of Jamie Newton, an employee at the Marshall Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Newton’s daughter, Sydney, has been battling cancer and is a participant in the Beads of Courage program. He pursued this idea in hopes to raise awareness of Beads of Courage and the work the organization does helping children undergoing medical treatment. Newton said that Beads of Courage has helped Sydney through her healing process and that she is very pleased to be a part of this project.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with NASA,” said Jean Baruch, director of Beads of Courage. “The Beads in Space project will be a wonderful boost of encouragement for all the children and teens we support. The beads are going on an exciting adventure and will certainly take the spirit of our kids with them.”
Beads of Courage hosted a contest for glass bead makers from around the world to enter their artwork for consideration in the Beads in Space project. Out of 54 beads entered, 17 were selected from nine different artists. The 17 beads weigh precisely eight ounces, the maximum allowed by NASA for the flight. Upon their return, the winning beads will be returned to Beads of Courage.
Beads of Courage is a non-profit organization, based in Tucson, Ariz., focused on arts-in-medicine program geared toward helping children cope with serious illnesses. Patients are given beads to represent significant treatment milestones during their journey. Beads of Courage programs have helped thousands of children and their families at over 60 hospitals. More information is available at http://www.beadsofcourage.org
NASA has teamed up with Beads of Courage to bring hope and inspiration to children battling serious illnesses through the Beads in Space project. Handcrafted beads made by artists across North America will be on board NASA’s STS-132 mission. The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch on May 14, 2010.
Tucson, AZ (PRWEB) May 6, 2010 -- NASA has teamed up with Beads of Courage to bring hope and inspiration to children battling serious illnesses through the Beads in Space project. Handcrafted beads made by artists across North America will be on board NASA’s STS-132 mission. The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch on May 14, 2010.
Beads in SpaceBeads of Courage programs are currently helping children at over 60 hospitals worldwide. At the center of this art-in-medicine program are decorative glass beads similar to the beads that will accompany the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Children who participate in the program are given a length of string along with letter beads that spell out their name. As they undergo their healing process, they receive beads that represent different treatments and milestones. Their growing beaded necklaces stand as pieces of art that symbolize their medical histories and allow the kids to share and reflect on their experiences.
“The Beads in Space project will be a wonderful boost of encouragement for all the children and teens we support. The beads are going on an exciting adventure and will certainly take the spirit of our kids with them
The Beads in Space project is the brainchild of Jamie Newton, an employee at the Marshall Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Newton’s daughter, Sydney, has been battling cancer and is a participant in the Beads of Courage program. He pursued this idea in hopes to raise awareness of Beads of Courage and the work the organization does helping children undergoing medical treatment. Newton said that Beads of Courage has helped Sydney through her healing process and that she is very pleased to be a part of this project.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with NASA,” said Jean Baruch, director of Beads of Courage. “The Beads in Space project will be a wonderful boost of encouragement for all the children and teens we support. The beads are going on an exciting adventure and will certainly take the spirit of our kids with them.”
Beads of Courage hosted a contest for glass bead makers from around the world to enter their artwork for consideration in the Beads in Space project. Out of 54 beads entered, 17 were selected from nine different artists. The 17 beads weigh precisely eight ounces, the maximum allowed by NASA for the flight. Upon their return, the winning beads will be returned to Beads of Courage.
Beads of Courage is a non-profit organization, based in Tucson, Ariz., focused on arts-in-medicine program geared toward helping children cope with serious illnesses. Patients are given beads to represent significant treatment milestones during their journey. Beads of Courage programs have helped thousands of children and their families at over 60 hospitals. More information is available at http://www.beadsofcourage.org
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Russian space freighter docks with ISS
From The Hindu: Russian space freighter docks with ISS
A Russian space cargo ship docked with the International Space Station (ISS), delivering 2.5 tonnes of supplies to the station, an official said.
The Progress M-05M freighter docked successfully with ISS around 10.30 p.m., Xinhua reported citing Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the mission control centre.
The space ship lifted off Wednesday night from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
It delivered more than 2.5 tonnes of supplies, including fruits, cheese, chocolates, candies, water, movie disks, magazines, fuel and scientific equipment for the crewmembers from their families.
A Russian space cargo ship docked with the International Space Station (ISS), delivering 2.5 tonnes of supplies to the station, an official said.
The Progress M-05M freighter docked successfully with ISS around 10.30 p.m., Xinhua reported citing Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the mission control centre.
The space ship lifted off Wednesday night from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
It delivered more than 2.5 tonnes of supplies, including fruits, cheese, chocolates, candies, water, movie disks, magazines, fuel and scientific equipment for the crewmembers from their families.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Getting Ready for Tomorrow's Space Wars
From Fox News:
Getting Ready for Tomorrow's Space Wars
A U.S. Air Force space plane and a failed hypersonic glider tested by the Pentagon represent the latest space missions to raise concerns about weapons in space. But while their exact purpose remains murky, they join a host of new space technology tests that could eventually bring the battlefield into space.
Some space technology demonstrations are more obviously space weapons, such as the anti-satellite missile capabilities tested by the U.S. and China in recent years. India has also begun developing its own anti-satellite program which would combine lasers and an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, as announced at the beginning of 2010.
The U.S. military and others have also long developed and deployed more neutral space assets such as rockets and satellites for military purposes. In that sense, both the Air Force's X-37B robotic space plane and the HTV-2 hypersonic glider prototype of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) could represent similarly ambiguous technologies which may or may not lead to weapons.
"Space has been militarized since before NASA was even created," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the Naval War College in Newport, RI. Yet she sees weaponization as a different issue from militarization because "so much space technology is dual use" in terms of having both civilian and military purposes, as well as offensive or defensive use.
Such uncertainty regarding space technology can make it tricky for nations to gauge the purpose or intentions behind new prototypes, including the X-37B space plane or the HTV-2 hypersonic glider.
The U.S. military could even be using the cloak of mystery to deliberately bamboozle and confuse rival militaries, according to John Pike, a military and security analyst who runs GlobalSecurity.org. He suggested that the X-37B and HTV-2 projects could represent the tip of a space weapons program hidden within the Pentagon's secret "black budget," or they might be nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
The devil is in the details
Many existing space technologies play dual roles in both military and civilian life.
The Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system which started out as military-only has since become common in consumer smartphones and car navigation systems. Modern rocketry grew in part from the technology and scientific minds behind Nazi Germany's V-2 rockets of World War II, and continued to evolve alongside ballistic missile technology.
Even something as basic as a satellite image can be used for either military weapons targeting or civilian crop rotation, Johnson-Freese said. Space plane technology can seem equally ambiguous — the Air Force deputy undersecretary of space programs scoffed at the notion of X-37B paving the way for future space weapons.
"The whole issue is further complicated because beyond technologies like lasers, Rods from God, explosives, etc.... virtually any object traveling in space can be a weapon if it can be maneuvered to run into another object," Johnson-Freese told SPACE.com.
Uncertainty matters a great deal for how other nations view the recent U.S. space plane and hypersonic glider tests, regardless of whether or not the technologies lead to future weapons.
"They are testing capabilities that could certainly be useful to the military if it chose to use them in an offensive manner," Johnson-Freese said. "And the military has been silent on intent."
Intrigue and deception
Pike said the current work under way by the U.S. military leaves plenty of room for misinterpretations or even outright deception, which could be a ploy to distract other nations with military space projects.
"One of them could be a deception program and the other could be the spitting image of the real thing," Pike noted. He said that such misdirection could force other nations' militaries to waste money chasing down dead ends.
Both the Air Force space plane and DARPA's hypersonic glider may have a combined budget of several hundred million dollars per year, Pike estimated. He described such spending as "chump change" compared to the Pentagon's black budget spending in recent years of $6 billion to $8 billion annually — and he pointed to decades worth of known space plane programs which had amounted to little.
"I conclude that the hypersonic trans-atmospheric space plane domain is either unusually badly managed even for government programs, or there's a lot of hocus pocus here," Pike said. "I defy anyone to tell the difference between hocus pocus and mismanagement."
Of course, the U.S. military could theoretically make good use of either the X-47B or HTV-2. An operational space plane could launch quickly as a replacement for recon satellites disabled in the opening salvoes of a conflict, and could "play hide and seek" to avoid being shot down easily. Similarly, a hypersonic aircraft or weapon might allow the U.S. to eliminate threats early on without warning.
Walking the line on weapon bans
The double-edged nature of space technologies has also complicated international efforts to ban entire classes of technologies which might serve as space weapons. Instead, there has been interest in "more modest proposals that focus on behavior, rather than what you are allowed to build or test," said Karl Mueller, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
Military use of space looks likely to expand, according to the experts. But Mueller explained that the U.S. military's interest in space has less to do with the dazzling futuristic visions of space planes and more to do with "unglamorous" satellites and orbital sensor systems. Such technologies give situational awareness of all the satellites, spacecraft and debris in orbit.
One such example is the $800 million Space Based Space Surveillance satellite slated for launch in July. It carries an optical telescope to help Air Force ground-based radars track the growing orbital traffic of satellites and space debris — a goal which everyone can appreciate.
"That's true whether you're hawkish and enthusiastic about using force in space, or whether you're dovish and want to maintain the sanctuary of space and maximize peaceful spacefaring," Mueller said.
Getting Ready for Tomorrow's Space Wars
A U.S. Air Force space plane and a failed hypersonic glider tested by the Pentagon represent the latest space missions to raise concerns about weapons in space. But while their exact purpose remains murky, they join a host of new space technology tests that could eventually bring the battlefield into space.
Some space technology demonstrations are more obviously space weapons, such as the anti-satellite missile capabilities tested by the U.S. and China in recent years. India has also begun developing its own anti-satellite program which would combine lasers and an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, as announced at the beginning of 2010.
The U.S. military and others have also long developed and deployed more neutral space assets such as rockets and satellites for military purposes. In that sense, both the Air Force's X-37B robotic space plane and the HTV-2 hypersonic glider prototype of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) could represent similarly ambiguous technologies which may or may not lead to weapons.
"Space has been militarized since before NASA was even created," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the Naval War College in Newport, RI. Yet she sees weaponization as a different issue from militarization because "so much space technology is dual use" in terms of having both civilian and military purposes, as well as offensive or defensive use.
Such uncertainty regarding space technology can make it tricky for nations to gauge the purpose or intentions behind new prototypes, including the X-37B space plane or the HTV-2 hypersonic glider.
The U.S. military could even be using the cloak of mystery to deliberately bamboozle and confuse rival militaries, according to John Pike, a military and security analyst who runs GlobalSecurity.org. He suggested that the X-37B and HTV-2 projects could represent the tip of a space weapons program hidden within the Pentagon's secret "black budget," or they might be nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
The devil is in the details
Many existing space technologies play dual roles in both military and civilian life.
The Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system which started out as military-only has since become common in consumer smartphones and car navigation systems. Modern rocketry grew in part from the technology and scientific minds behind Nazi Germany's V-2 rockets of World War II, and continued to evolve alongside ballistic missile technology.
Even something as basic as a satellite image can be used for either military weapons targeting or civilian crop rotation, Johnson-Freese said. Space plane technology can seem equally ambiguous — the Air Force deputy undersecretary of space programs scoffed at the notion of X-37B paving the way for future space weapons.
"The whole issue is further complicated because beyond technologies like lasers, Rods from God, explosives, etc.... virtually any object traveling in space can be a weapon if it can be maneuvered to run into another object," Johnson-Freese told SPACE.com.
Uncertainty matters a great deal for how other nations view the recent U.S. space plane and hypersonic glider tests, regardless of whether or not the technologies lead to future weapons.
"They are testing capabilities that could certainly be useful to the military if it chose to use them in an offensive manner," Johnson-Freese said. "And the military has been silent on intent."
Intrigue and deception
Pike said the current work under way by the U.S. military leaves plenty of room for misinterpretations or even outright deception, which could be a ploy to distract other nations with military space projects.
"One of them could be a deception program and the other could be the spitting image of the real thing," Pike noted. He said that such misdirection could force other nations' militaries to waste money chasing down dead ends.
Both the Air Force space plane and DARPA's hypersonic glider may have a combined budget of several hundred million dollars per year, Pike estimated. He described such spending as "chump change" compared to the Pentagon's black budget spending in recent years of $6 billion to $8 billion annually — and he pointed to decades worth of known space plane programs which had amounted to little.
"I conclude that the hypersonic trans-atmospheric space plane domain is either unusually badly managed even for government programs, or there's a lot of hocus pocus here," Pike said. "I defy anyone to tell the difference between hocus pocus and mismanagement."
Of course, the U.S. military could theoretically make good use of either the X-47B or HTV-2. An operational space plane could launch quickly as a replacement for recon satellites disabled in the opening salvoes of a conflict, and could "play hide and seek" to avoid being shot down easily. Similarly, a hypersonic aircraft or weapon might allow the U.S. to eliminate threats early on without warning.
Walking the line on weapon bans
The double-edged nature of space technologies has also complicated international efforts to ban entire classes of technologies which might serve as space weapons. Instead, there has been interest in "more modest proposals that focus on behavior, rather than what you are allowed to build or test," said Karl Mueller, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
Military use of space looks likely to expand, according to the experts. But Mueller explained that the U.S. military's interest in space has less to do with the dazzling futuristic visions of space planes and more to do with "unglamorous" satellites and orbital sensor systems. Such technologies give situational awareness of all the satellites, spacecraft and debris in orbit.
One such example is the $800 million Space Based Space Surveillance satellite slated for launch in July. It carries an optical telescope to help Air Force ground-based radars track the growing orbital traffic of satellites and space debris — a goal which everyone can appreciate.
"That's true whether you're hawkish and enthusiastic about using force in space, or whether you're dovish and want to maintain the sanctuary of space and maximize peaceful spacefaring," Mueller said.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Space Personalities: Guenter Wendt
NASA's most famous launch pad leader dies
Reported by: Bill Kallus
Reported by: Bill Kallus
Merritt Island, FL -- From Mercury, to Gemini, to Apollo, to the Space Shuttle.
Guenter Wendt, was an icon of American space history, even though he never took one flight into space.
The legendary launch pad leader died at his Merritt Island home on Monday.
He was 85 years old.
Wendt was in charge of Kennedy Space Center's close out crew.
They are the team in charge of making sure the astronauts board their vehicle safely.
Wendt was affectionately called the "Pad Fuhrer" because of his thick German accent and his strict rules and attention to detail.
After the Apollo program Wendt was put in charge of flight crew safety for the Space Shuttle program.
But Hollywood needed him too.
He served as a consultant for Tom Hanks' popular space series "From the Earth to the Moon."
Wendt was also portrayed in the Hanks film "Apollo 13."
James Cameron to Help NASA in Building 3d Camera
TopTech Reviews Net has the following story:
We have known James Cameron for ages and he became even more popular with the release of his ground breaking movie – Avatar. People used to call him a “Crazy fella”, since the time he started working on Avatar because a lot of folks out there, didn’t have enough faith in his visions.
But now, James Cameron is helping out NASA in building a new 3D Camera that will be sent to Mars for research purposes. NASA already lost one of its precious cameras, about a week back in one of those failed balloon launches so maybe James Cameron is going to give them a miraculous touch.
NASA has been working with Malin Space Science systems for a while now and they are building this new project/space rover, known as – “Curiosity”, in collaboration with James Cameron. The new camera is supposed to be fully operation in 2011 and its going to include Hi-Def color video, Hi-Def Pictures and a lot more than that. Hell, you can even expect one of those NASA guys in Space suits, hugging each other and taking photographs on Martian land, and sharing them on Facebook!
This time, NASA is planning on testing everything thoroughly before initiating the actual launch phase. No one can afford another crash and burn situation with millions of dollars, lot of hopes and years of research on stake.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Launch could be first test of rocket and Obama space plan
From USA Today:
Launch could be first test of rocket and Obama space plan
Launch could be first test of rocket and Obama space plan
By Todd Halvorson, Florida Today
SpaceX plans to launch its Falcon 9 rocket on its first test flight next week, a big step in establishing a commercial space line to fly freight and passengers to the International Space Station.
The 180-foot rocket and a test model of the company's Dragon spacecraft are scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on May 11.
For company founder Elon Musk, it's showtime. "We're super excited to be launching from Cape Canaveral," Musk said. "It's like opening on Broadway."
For others, the flight will be a measure of President Obama's plan to kill NASA's moon program, dubbed Project Constellation, and instead invest in developing commercial "space taxis" for astronauts traveling to and from low Earth orbit.
The plan has encountered opposition in Congress. The odds of success on the first launch of any new rocket are about 50-50. "I hope people don't use us as a bellwether for commercial space," Musk said.
SPACE PLAN: President tries to build support
NASA VETS: Budget cuts 'devastating'
The reality is that aerospace giants such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and their joint venture United Launch Alliance are more likely to win initial NASA contracts for commercial crew transportation.
"Somehow that gets lost in this discussion with the focus on the Falcon 9," said John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University and former director of its Space Policy Institute.
"Clearly, it's important — extremely important — for SpaceX to succeed because in the public, and in the congressional mind, the focus is on SpaceX," he said, but the first unmanned Falcon 9 test flight "is not the be-all and end-all of commercial crew."
A native of South Africa, Musk, 38, founded SpaceX in 2002 with money made during the dot-com boom. By age 28, Musk had built and sold Zip2, a company that created the technology to put newspaper-style ads and city directories on the Internet. Compaq bought it for $307 million.
His next endeavor was PayPal, a company that created a secure way to transfer money on the Internet. PayPal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
The Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft are designed to fly cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station and other destinations. Ultimately, the company wants to make the whole Falcon 9 rocket reusable.
"The goal is to one day — and it will take a lot of time and effort — to make space accessible to the average citizen," Musk said.
The more near-term goal: Help the U.S. fully utilize the International Space Station, the operation of which would be extended to 2020 under the Obama space plan. The U.S. has spent more than $50 billion on building the outpost.
"What I hope we'll see is crews of five to seven people shooting back and forth to the International Space Station three or four times a year," said former NASA chief astronaut Ken Bowersox, SpaceX vice president of astronaut safety and mission assurance. "That'll make me happy."
SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to launch 15 Falcon 9 missions — three test flights and 12 missions to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Contract options could increase the value of the deal to $3.1 billion. The company also holds contracts to launch payloads for customers in Argentina, Canada, Europe, Israel and the USA.
SpaceX employs about 1,000 people, mostly at its headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. Others work at an engine test facility in Texas. Company launch sites also include Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX invested its own money to stage the May 11 test flight. The aim is to make certain the Falcon 9 is ready to fly the first of three NASA demonstration missions later this year.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturn Blizzard is Massive
Saturn Blizzard Is Massive!
NASA astronomers and sky-watchers were able to spot a massive blizzard storm on Saturn. According to reports, NASA was given a heads up by amateur sky watchers who broke the story to them.
NASA was able to get more data on the huge storm that scientists say is at least 5 times bigger than the any of Earth's biggest blizzards recorded. The storm's peak was apparently on March 13, 2010.
The storm is apparently made of mostly water and ammonia. Space.com reported that Brigette Hesman, a research scientist at University of Maryland said, "These blizzards appear to be powered by violent storms deeper down - perhaps another 100 to 200 kilometers (62 to 124 miles) down - where lightning has been observed and the clouds are made of water and ammonia."
NASA astronomers and sky-watchers were able to spot a massive blizzard storm on Saturn. According to reports, NASA was given a heads up by amateur sky watchers who broke the story to them.
NASA was able to get more data on the huge storm that scientists say is at least 5 times bigger than the any of Earth's biggest blizzards recorded. The storm's peak was apparently on March 13, 2010.
The storm is apparently made of mostly water and ammonia. Space.com reported that Brigette Hesman, a research scientist at University of Maryland said, "These blizzards appear to be powered by violent storms deeper down - perhaps another 100 to 200 kilometers (62 to 124 miles) down - where lightning has been observed and the clouds are made of water and ammonia."
StarGazers: What to Look for In May
Most newspapers have an astronomy section - a small one - where an astronomer-columnist will tell people where to look in the sky to view various astronomical items - a planet, a comet, etc.
Below is an example of one from Douglas County, Oregon. Your own city probably has an atronomy club somewhere...that needs your support!
Star Gazer: Saturn tightens its rings
Below is an example of one from Douglas County, Oregon. Your own city probably has an atronomy club somewhere...that needs your support!
Star Gazer: Saturn tightens its rings
Twilight brings dazzling Venus. Look toward the west to spot Venus, the very bright evening star. Venus will appear to hover at the same point above the horizon while the stars of Taurus and Gemini trek past. A slender crescent moon will pay a visit on May 15. As twilight fades, look to the lower right of Venus to spot the tiny crescent moon.
Find Mars and Saturn among a trail of bright stars stretching more than halfway across the sky. Mars is rapidly dimming by half this month, while Saturn dims slightly as its rings close. Both now appear about as bright as the stars in Virgo, Leo, and Gemini. Mars moves rapidly from Cancer into Leo, headed for a rendezvous with Regulus next month. Saturn pokes along in Virgo. Telescope observers will notice the rings are only a fat line divided by about 1.7 degrees. This is the minimum ring opening for the year and many years to come. This is an excellent time to search for the many moons of Saturn.
As Saturn sets tonight, Jupiter will rise in the southeastern twilight. By month's end, Jupiter will rise nearly two hours ahead of the sun. Watch as Jupiter makes a beeline toward Uranus in Pisces.
Meteor Shower and A Community Star Party
The Eta Aquarids Meteor shower will peak on Thursday morning. This dusty debris from Comet Halley will be mostly overwhelmed by a bright third-quarter moon. Normal peak meteor counts of 15 to 20 per hour will drop by half.
Umpqua Amateur Astronomers, Roseburg City Parks, and The Douglas County Museum will host a community star party May 21 at Fir Grove Park. Telescopes will be set up on the soccer field across the street from Fir Grove Elementary School from dark (about 9 p.m.) until about 11 p.m. Local astronomers will share views of the moon, Saturn, Venus and Mars.
NASA's Night Sky Network Outreach
Umpqua Amateur Astronomers is a member of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory's national Night Sky Network. Each network club is committed to public outreach for schools and other community groups. If you want to know about upcoming public events, or to request a star party or a talk from a local astronomer, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov. Look in the “find clubs and events” section on the website's left section for the ZIP code box and enter “97470.” A blue balloon with a red dot will mark Roseburg. Click on that balloon to see about Umpqua Amateur Astronomer events and how to contact the club for a request.
Umpqua Amateur Astronomers will meet at 7 p.m. May 11 at the Douglas Forest Protection Association conference room at 1758 N.E. Airport Road. The agenda includes club events, astronomy news, what's up in May and Ted Benice discussing light, mirrors and lenses. Newcomers to astronomy are invited to a special pre-meeting at 6:30 p.m. to ask questions and learn about basic telescope use. Anyone interested in learning about astronomy is welcome. Information: 541-673-1081.
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