Submit your Rss Feed Link Below

Friday, November 13, 2009

Space Coalition Blog

Get Ready for the Leonid Meteor Shower

From MSNBC


When people hear about an impending meteor shower, their first impression may be of a sky filled with shooting stars pouring down through the sky like rain. Such meteor storms have actually occurred with the annual Leonid meteor shower of November, such as in 1833 and 1966, when meteor rates of literally tens of thousands per hour were observed.


In more recent years, most notably 1999, 2001 and 2002, lesser Leonid displays of up to a few thousand meteors per hour thrilled skywatchers.


This year will not set any records, but the Leonids - set to peak early Tuesday morning, Nov. 17 - should offer a better-than-average display.


The Leonid meteors are debris shed into space by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which swings through the inner solar system at intervals of 33.25 years, looping around the sun then heading back into the outskirts of the solar system. During each visit the comet leaves behind a trail of dust in its wake.


Plenty of the comet's old dusty trails litter the mid-November part of Earth's orbit, and the Earth glides through this debris zone every year. But predicting exactly what's out there is tricky.


On special occasions we'll pass directly through an unusually concentrated dust trail, or filament, which can spark a meteor storm resulting in thousands of meteors per hour. That indeed is what transpired in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Since Comet Tempel-Tuttle comet passed near the sun (and in doing so crossed Earth's orbit) in 1998, it was in those years immediately following its passage that the Leonids put on their best show.


But the comet has since receded out to a distance of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from the sun, taking most of those dense filaments of dust with it. That's why this year, during the predawn hours of Nov. 17, when the Leonids traditionally should be at their most numerous, we now expect to see no more than 10 meteors per hour, even with the promise of this year's excellent viewing conditions thanks to a new moon.


Still, for some parts of the world, a far more prolific Leonid show could be in the offing this year. For although Comet Tempel-Tuttle is now far removed from the inner solar system, independent studies by several noted meteor scientists suggest that Earth will pass through several notable trails of meteor activity in 2009. We list these encounters below in chronological order, including the prime regions of visibility.


Click here for more



Moon's Water Finding Applauded Internationally

Today's announcement that NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater is being saluted around the world.


"Congratulations to the LCROSS project and science team for the detection of water," said Bernard Foing, Executive director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG).


ILEWG is a public forum sponsored by the world's space agencies to support international cooperation towards a world strategy for the exploration and utilization of the Moon - our natural satellite.


Foing noted that the spectral match and rigorous analysis and quantification are impressive, he said, and noted that it will be exciting to compare LCROSS measurements to cometary compounds.


Doing so will help further understand the delivery mechanisms involved of water being ensconced on the Moon.


"This is a great inspiration for the next lunar missions, opening the perspective for upcoming landers, as promoted by the community and ILEWG," Foing said. "Let us follow-on LCROSS and study the questions raised by these beautiful first results."
Given future samples from the Moon, Foing said "we can hope to study the record in the last billions of years of the delivery of water and organics to the Earth-Moon system!"


Today's "water shed" moment in lunar exploration was underscored by Greg Delory, senior fellow, Space Sciences Laboratory and Center for Integrative Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley: "It's not Apollo's moon...it's our moon."


The LCROSS spacecraft and a companion rocket stage made twin impacts in the Cabeus crater on October 9th that created a plume of material from the bottom of a crater that has not seen sunlight in billions of years.


LCROSS was built by Northrop Grumman Corporation for NASA's Ames Research Center.


For information about LCROSS, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/lcross


By Leonard David



Great Weather Awaits NASA's Attempt to Launch Space Shuttle Atlantis


Forecasters offered a very favorable weather outlook on Friday, as the countdown got under way at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for the launching of the shuttle Atlantis on an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.


Lift off for Atlantis and a crew of six astronauts is scheduled for Monday at 2:28 p.m., EST.


"Overall, the weather does look very good for launch," Kathy Winters, the shuttle launch weather officer, told a NASA news briefing.
The outlook includes a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather, with only a slight prospect for a low cloud cover that could force a 24 hour delay. The outlook for Tuesday includes a 70 percent chance of good weather.


As the mission countdown got under way on Friday at 1 p.m., EDT, NASA reported that preparations were unfolding smoothly.


"In summary, we're not working any issues. All of our work is on schedule," said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, a NASA test director. "The flight crew is ready to."


Shuttle commander Charlie Hobaugh, pilot Barry Wilmore and their crew mates, Leland Melvin, Randy Bresnik, Mike Foreman and Robert Satcher arrived at Kennedy on Thursday.


The launch period for the Atlantis mission extends through Nov. 19. The next launch period opens on Dec. 6 and closes on Dec. 11.


The shuttle will deliver an assortment of spare parts that will be stored on the outside of the station. Most of the parts, including a pair of gyroscopes and thermal control system components, are too large to be launched to the station by any spacecraft other than the shuttle. Once delivered, the spares will help to ensure the station is safe for the astronauts and cosmonauts who live aboard the orbital base and scientifically productive after the shuttle is retired.


The nation's policy makers are currently considering options developed by the U. S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee that could extend space station operations from 2016 to 2020. Meanwhile, NASA's shuttle fleet is facing retirement by mid-2011.


Foreman, Bresnik and Satcher have trained for three spacewalks. They will carry out maintenance tasks and install external science experiments.


Atlantis will return to Earth with NASA astronaut Nicole Stott. Stott was launched to the station aboard the shuttle Discovery in late August.


 


 



Free Spirit: The Struggle to Free the Rover

Free Spirit


For some time now the Spirit rover on Mars has been stuck in a particularly sandy spot on the planet's surface.  Starting on Monday the rover will begin what may be a very long process of breaking out.  You can keep up with the struggle at NASA's Free Spirit with regular updates on the trapped rover's status.  You can also read the unoficial diary of one of Spirit's drivers here.  Let's all hope the Mars Rover can break free!



A Problem of Pee on the Space Station

From MSNBC


A broken device that recycles astronaut urine into clean drinking water on the International Space Station may have a slight impact to life onboard next week when NASA's shuttle Atlantis arrives to boost the number of people there to 12.


Any impact would likely pertain to things such as digging into supplies of spare urine bags (to hold stuff that would normally have been recycled), or determining how many astronauts can use the two bathrooms on the station, or the one on Atlantis, NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told Space.com. The space station has plenty of water to support its six astronauts through next spring with or without the recycler, he added.


"If we can't get it running again, yes it will have an impact because there are no spare parts manifested for the shuttle mission," Humphries said.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here


Engineers hope they can revive the recycling device, known in NASA parlance as the Urine Processing Assembly (UPA), by the time Atlantis and its crew of six astronauts blast off on Monday. But they are also developing back up plans if the problem persists. If the shuttle launches on time, it will arrive on Wednesday.


The glitch has not affected use of the station's newer, second bathroom, which is tied into the recycling system and is vital to supporting six people aboard the orbiting laboratory and periodic population booms when shuttles are docked, NASA officials said.


The space station's urine recycler is part of a larger, $250 million water conservation system that collects urine and wastewater, as well as sweat and other condensate from the spacecraft's atmosphere. That mix is then filtered through a seven-step process until it is pure enough to drink or use for food preparation, bathing, oxygen generation or any other purpose.


Click here for more



Texas Southern University Students Design Biology Experiment Aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis


The shuttle Atlantis will launch with an experiment designed by undergraduate and graduate students from Texas Southern University that will examine how microbial organisms grow in the absence of gravity.


Atlantis is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Monday at 2:28 p.m., EST, on an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.


The space agency's Office of Education selected the historically black university in Houston as a University Research Center in 2008. Texas Southern established a Center for Bio-nanotechnology and Environmental Research in response to the designation. Students at the center developed the Microbial-1 experiment for the shuttle to study changes in two bacteria, E. coli and B. subtilis.


"I'm thrilled that giving students the chance to design and research an experiment to fly in space is one of the tools we have at NASA to engage them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori B. Garver said in a statement. "These young people are our future, and providing an opportunity to inspire them is a major part of our mission at NASA."


"The University Research Center Project is designed to enhance the research infrastructure and capacity at minority institutions," said Katrina Emery, NASA's University Research Center project manager at the agency's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. "By engaging in participatory learning opportunities like this experiment, students can see themselves as researchers, now and in the future."


The project could have a far reaching educational impact. The data gathered from the experiment will be used to develop microbiology modules suitable for students in the grades kindergarten through 12th grade.


"This is an amazing opportunity for our students, and it reflects the growing quality of our research programs at Texas Southern," said John M. Rudley, president of Texas Southern University. "We are excited our students have the opportunity to participate in such relevant research. We are also pleased that with our partnerships with area school districts, we are able to take these projects beyond the university to the school classrooms to encourage more students to study science, math, and technology."


Texas Southern counts 9,500 students and 1,500 teachers.




Mars Rover Opportunity: Looking at an Odd Object

While NASA's Spirit Mars rover is in full-stuck mode, the robot's sistercraft is on the other side of the red planet, looking at yet another odd object.


The Opportunity Mars rover has pulled up to a very different type of rock. Dubbed Marquette Island, Mars specialists see this object as not a standard meteorite that's been found before.


Opportunity is readying its robot arm to do scientific work on the newly found specimen.


As of now, no telling as yet what the nature of the object truly is...so stay tuned!


For your own guess, look at these new images from Opportunity.


http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/f/2061/1F311149215EFFA9QSP1212L0M1.JPG


http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/n/2058/1N310888084EFFA9PDP1992L0M1.JPG



By Leonard David



Getting Up Close and Personal with the Sun

From Wired


A telescope carried by balloon to the edge of Earth's stratosphere has returned the most detailed video of the sun's surface to date.


Released Wednesday by an international research team led by astronomers from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the video shows what the naked human eye could never see, even if we could look at the sun without blinding ourselves.


Near-ultraviolet wavelengths and magnetic fields are visualized on the video, which is all the more clear because telescope's stratospheric positioning puts it beyond the light-scattering veil of Earth's atmosphere.


Click here for the video



NASA's Stuck Mars Rover: "May Have Met Its Match" (Updated)


The Spirit Mars rover has been stuck for some six months in loose and fine red planet soil.


While experts have not given up, NASA officials today said the stuck robot "may have met its match."


"This could be where Spirit remains," explained Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters in Washington. Further attempts to extract the robot are slated for next week.



McCuistion added that teams will have a window from now until next February to pull the rover out of its woes. At that time, the space agency is carrying out a review process of all operating spacecraft, in terms of their scientific output.


However, if Spirit's "great escape" proves impossible, the immobile rover can still carry out scientific duties, noted Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator, Mars Exploration Rovers at Washington University in St. Louis. "It's a juicy site," he said, from a scientific point of view.


Spirit could serve as a weather station, eying clouds and look for changes in the surface and the martian atmosphere, as well as serve a crude seismometer and continue soil science studies.


Arvidson said the "work volume" around Spirit means more science can be done at the robot's locale, "but we're itching to get started," he said.


Next Monday, the rover will be commanded to start an attempt to remove itself from the stuck on Mars spot.


"It'll be a very slow process, said John Callas, project manager of Mars Exploration Rovers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Kind of like watching grass grow."


While worried and cautious, an upbeat Ashley Stroupe, rover driver of the Mars Exploration Rovers at JPL said: "Spirit has surprised us on many occasions....but we are very concerned. We're not ready to let go yet."


For a recent image broadcast from Spirit and its sandy predicament, go to:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/2081/2F311106335ESFB204P1162L0M1.JPG



By Leonard David




Astronauts Arrive at Kennedy Space Center for Monday Launching, Space Station Receives New Module

The Atlantis astronauts arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Thursday afternoon, where they will prepare to lift off early next week on an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.


The launching is scheduled for Monday at 2:38 p.m., EST. The mission countdown gets under way on Friday.


The shuttle will deliver an assortment of spare parts that will be stored on the outside of the station. Most of the parts, including a pair of gyroscopes and thermal control system components, are too large to be launched to the station by any spacecraft other than the shuttle.


Once delivered, the spares will help to ensure the station is safe for the astronauts and cosmonauts who live aboard the orbital base and scientifically productive after the shuttle is retired.


The nation's policy makers are currently considering options developed by the U. S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee that could extend space station operations from 2016 to 2020. Meanwhile, NASA's shuttle fleet is facing retirement by mid-2011.


"We're looking forward to a great mission," shuttle commander Charlie Hobaugh said during brief remarks from the Atlantis astronauts as they landed at Kennedy in a NASA shuttle training aircraft.


"It's great to be here," added astronaut Robert Satcher. "We're really excited about Monday coming up."


Hobaugh's crew also includes pilot Barry Wilmore and mission specialists Leland Melvin, Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik.
.
Atlantis will also return to Earth with American Nicole Stott. Stott launched to the space station aboard the shuttle Discovery on Aug. 28.


The Atlantis mission will also feature three spacewalks by Foreman, Satcher and Bresnik. During the two-man outings, the spacewalkers will carry out a variety of maintenance tasks and install external science experiments.


The mission is the fifth and final space shuttle mission planned by NASA in 2009.


Earlier Thursday, Russia's Poisk mini-research module successfully docked with the International Space Station using an automated rendezvous system.


The new module will function as an additional docking port for Soyuz crew and Progress cargo transport capsules, an airlock for spacewalks and an external experiment site.


Poisk provides additional parking space for the Soyuz capsules that will take over the transport of all astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the station as NASA's space shuttle is retired.


The new module, launched from Kazakhstan early Tuesday, docked Thursday at 10:41 a.m., EST, as the station sailed over  Central Asia.


The six astronauts and cosmonauts living aboard the station planned to open the new module early Friday. Poisk was launched with 1,750 pounds of medical equipment, water and other supplies.


The station's newest Russian compartment is similar to the Pirs airlock/docking module that arrived in 2001. Another Russian mini-research module is scheduled to be launched to the station aboard a shuttle next year. A larger Russian science lab will follow in 2011.


 


 


 


 


 



Educators! Space Videoconference Update


From space robots to exploring the Moon!


NASA's Digital Learning Network is presenting a series of videoconferences to assist educators in staying current on NASA education resources and related products.

Each event will involve product producers, authors and experts. They will demonstrate their materials designed to optimize awareness and understanding of science concepts.


Instructional objectives, accessing the materials and primary contacts for the materials will also be discussed.


During each videoconference, participants will be able to submit questions to the presenter.


Check out this list of what's ahead and the videoconference dates:

Using NASA eClipsTM to Engage Millennial Learners: Nov. 18, 2009, 4-5 p.m. EST


Exploring Space Through Math: Dec. 16, 2009, 4-5 p.m. EST


STS-131 Robotics: Jan. 27, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EST


NASA Fit Explorers Feb. 24, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EST


NASA eProfessional Development Network -- Robotics Course: March 31, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EDT


MoonWorld: April 28, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EDT


On the Moon: May 26, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EDT


Need more information? If so, visit:


http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/webcast/


By LD/BD




Making a Micro-Black Hole

Did you hear the one about the particle accelerator that created a micro-black hole? You know, the one where this black hole exponentially grows into an Earth-eating behemoth, destroying all life as we know it?


You probably did hear that little piece of comedy in the build-up to the grand start-up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in September 2008, and at first, you might have thought there was some real physics behind this manmade doomsday theory.


Alas, the physics was flawed and the Hawaiian guy at the center of it all saw CONSPIRACY! hiding behind every super-cooled electromagnet.


The Earth (in fact, all celestial bodies) is bombarded with particles (cosmic rays) of far higher energies than the ones collided in the LHC. We're still here. What's more, I haven't seen any black holes float around my neighborhood recently.


The Black Hole Hunt


We know the Earth-munching, LHC-generated black hole theory has more flaws in it than Europa's crust, but scientists do think the next-generation particle accelerator could generate tiny black holes.


This is actually rather exciting. If micro-black holes are generated after the high-energy collisions inside the LHC, they could provide the first experimental evidence of Hawking Radiation, the only radiation predicted to be emitted from a black hole's event horizon. If the radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking is discovered (via the detection of evaporating black holes), a Nobel Prize for Physics wouldn't be far away.


Hold on, isn't there a mixed message here? On the one hand, we have conspiracy nuts scaring the world (yet thrilling the tabloid press), saying that "reckless" physicists could destroy the world with a black hole, and then we have physicists confirming that they would love to see black holes generated in the LHC. What's going on?


It's a little thing called mass, and the micro-black holes that are theorized to be produced by the LHC simply do not have enough of it to cause any damage.


More Mass = More Suck


Cosmic black holes are created after the collapse of a massive star. They are, by definition, massive. If something is massive, it has a strong gravitational field. Any planets, stars or space cows that stray too close will be sucked in, making the black hole more massive.


Micro-black holes are miniscule. They have next to no mass, exert a near-zero gravitational pull on matter, and therefore do not grow. In fact, they most likely do the opposite; they evaporate. Fast.


Even if they had the opportunity to grow, they would accrete matter so slowly that they still wouldn't attain any measurable growth for billions and billions of years.


In a recent publication, a group of physicists decided to crunch the numbers on the likelihood of the LHC generating these vanishingly small micro-black holes, and they pretty much drew the same conclusions as CERN physicists have been saying for the last year. Any black hole generated at the LHC would pose zero threat to Earth.


Click here for more



Gearing Up for STS-129

From Florida Today


On Veterans Day, Kennedy Space Center technicians are at work preparing space shuttle Atlantis for a 2:28 p.m. Monday launch to the International Space Station.


Crews today are expected to clear pad 39A for a hazardous operation. They'll begin pressurizing two dozen spherical tanks in the orbiter with helium and nitrogen used to pressurize shuttle propulsion systems.


It's a two-stage process designed to reduce the chance that the Composite Overwrap Pressure Vessels, of COPVs, could spontaneously explode.


NASA has monitored the hazard, which is a concern across the aerospace industry, since at least 2004. NASA's independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel noted ongoing work on the issue during public meetings at KSC last month.


The tanks are now pressurized first to the 80-percent level, then to 100 percent closer to launch.


The six astronauts launching on the Atlantis are due to fly into KSC around noon Thursday. The countdown is scheduled to pick up at 1 p.m. Friday, hours after NASA holds its first status briefing.


The mission, dubbed STS-129, will deliver spare parts to the space tation, prepare for the delivery of a new American module on the next mission, and and return station crew member Nicole Stott to Earth.


Click here for more



Stellar Lithium Points Way to Planets

From Wired.com


Astronomers have identified an easy-to-measure chemical fingerprint for determining which sunlike stars are likely to host planets. The marker - a low abundance of lithium in the atmosphere of these stars - could prove an invaluable guide for planet hunters trying to determine which of the myriad sunlike stars to select for long-term study.


In their study, Garik Israelian of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Tenerife, Spain, and his colleagues relied on data from a census of 133 sunlike stars, most of them monitored for several years with the European Southern Observatory's HARPS spectrograph at the La Silla observatory in Chile. Tiny wobbles in the motions of 30 of these stars indicate the gravitational tug of unseen planets.


In the Nov. 12 Nature, Israelian and his colleagues report that the majority of sunlike stars hosting planets in the HARPS sample have, on average, one-tenth the amount of lithium of those without planets. It's been known for decades that Earth's sun shows such a depletion.


"Those sunlike stars with low lithium will have a higher chance to bear planets," Israelian says.


One explanation for the lithium finding, he notes, is related to a star's rotational history. According to a leading theory, stars born with a swirling disk of dust and gas - the disk from which planets coalesce - tend to rotate more slowly than stars born without such disks. The planets that form out of the disk retain some of the rotational energy that the star would otherwise have. The slower a star's rotation, the easier it is for lithium at the top of a star's atmosphere to mix into deeper, hotter layers, where it burns up.


"There is a good case to make that the rotation of the parent star is influenced by whether planets form around it or not," says astronomer Marc Pinsonneault of Ohio State University in Columbus, who wrote a commentary accompanying the report in Nature. "The bottom line is that planets aren't just debris left over from star formation," he says. "Planet formation changes the basic properties of the star that they orbit."


The link between low lithium abundance and planets holds true only for sunlike stars, says Israelian. Cooler, lower-mass stars destroy most of their lithium early on, during their first 10 million to 100 million years of life. Stars more massive than the sun and with temperatures some 200 kelvins warmer can't mix as much lithium into deeper layers, making it difficult to destroy the element.


Click here for more



Shuttle Atlantis to Fly Butterflies to the International Space Station as part of Student Experiment

Thousands of U. S. school students will participate in a butterfly experiment headed for the International Space Station aboard the shuttle Atlantis, which is scheduled to lift off on Monday at 2:28 p.m., EST.

The shuttle will deliver a pair of butterfly habitats containing Monarch and Painted Lady butterfly larvae and the nutrients they will need to develop into flying insects.


Students from about 100 elementary and middle schools from across the nation will participate in studies designed to compare how butterflies bred in the weightless conditions aboard the space station compare with those that mature in the classroom.


The experiment is designed to introduce students in K through 12th grade to the kinds of scientific research under way aboard the International Space Station.


BioServe Space Technologies, a nonprofit arm of the University of Colorado's engineering department, designed and built the space station experiment. The experiment was also made possible in part by the NASA-sponsored National Space Biomedical Research Institute of Houston.


Students at participating schools received butterfly habitats that will enable to them to make observations. Other schools have joined in by building their own habitats.


BioServe has flown move than 50 experiment payloads on the shuttle, the International Space Station and Russia's former Mir Space Station.


The organization's imaginative butterfly experiment will ride aboard Atlantis in a compact suitcase-sized container.


The container will hold Painted Lady larvae that will be about six days old and Monarch larvae that are about 10 days old at the shuttle's launching. They larvae will move to the space station about two days later.


About five days later, the larvae will begin to form cocoons. The flying insects will emerge from their cocoons about 10 days later.


Students will compare differences in the growth and feeding rates between their butterflies and the astronaut insects.


Images of the space station butterflies will be transmitted to the Earth daily.


The imagery will be available to the public at http://bioedonline.org, a site sponsored by the Baylor College of Medicine's Center for Education Outreach.
The imagery will also be available at http://www.monarchwatch.org, a website established by the University of Kansas, which furnished the Monarchs.


More information is also available at Orion's Quest, http://www.orionsquest.org, which provides spaceflight educational opportunities for students in Kindergarten through high school.


 




To the Galactic Center

Composite image of the center of the milkyway. Credit NASA
From NASA


Where can a telescope take you? Four hundred years ago, a telescope took Galileo to the Moon to discover craters, to Saturn to discover rings, to Jupiter to discover moons, to Venus to discover phases, and to the Sun to discover spots. Today, in celebration of Galileo's telescopic achievements and as part of the International Year of Astronomy, NASA has used its entire fleet of Great Observatories, and the Internet, to bring the center of our Galaxy to you. Pictured above, in greater detail and in more colors than ever seen before, are the combined images of the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light, the Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory in X-ray light. A menagerie of vast star fields is visible, along with dense star clusters, long filaments of gas and dust, expanding supernova remnants, and the energetic surroundings of what likely is our Galaxy's central black hole. Many of these features are labeled on a complementary annotated image. Of course, a telescope's magnification and light-gathering ability create only an image of what a human could see if visiting these places. To actually go requires rockets.


Click here for the full image


 



5 Memorable NASA Mission Videos

The website HowStuffWorks has a gallery of some of the most memorable videos of NASA missions up on their site.  Check it out!



Close Encounters of the Asteroid Kind

From the Examiner


An asteroid nearly two feet wide almost hit Earth last week.


NASA's Near Earth Object Program announced that the object, a seven-meter wide object known as 2009 VA, passed within about 14,000 kilometers (about 8,700 miles) of the planet on Friday.


Astronomers at the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey noticed the asteroid's approach about 15 hours before it passed Earth.


The object, which was traveling at about 7.17 kilometers per second, would likely have burned up in the atmosphere, according to a report in the United Kingdom's Daily Mail.


The Nov. 6 flyby by 2009 VA was the third-closest on record for a catalogued asteroid, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release issued Monday.


Two smaller asteroids traveled within 6,535 kilometers of Earth on Mar. 31, 2004 and within 6.150 kilometers on Oct. 9, 2008, according to information available on JPL's website.


Two other asteroids are expected to come relatively close to Earth later this week.


Click here for more



U.S. and Europe Establish Stepping Stones for Mars Return Sample

A November 5 "statement of intent" between the European Space Agency and NASA spells out a joint effort to robotically explore Mars. Ultimately, the joint work would lead to hauling back to Earth by robotic means samples of Mars.


"Building on a long history of mutually beneficial cooperation in space science, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have expressed an interest in continuing henceforth jointly their robotic exploration of Mars," the statement explains.


That being the case, NASA and ESA have agreed to consider the establishment of a new joint initiative to define and implement their scientific, programmatic, and technological goals for the exploration of the red planet.


Initially focusing on 2016 and 2018, this initiative would span several launch opportunities with landers and orbiters conducting astrobiological, geological, geophysical, climatological, and other high-priority investigations "and aiming at returning samples from Mars in the mid-2020s," the statement explains.


The envisioned mission scenario includes the provision by ESA in 2016 of an Entry, Descent, and semi-soft Landing System (EDLS) technology demonstrator and a science/relay orbiter.


In 2018, an ExoMars rover would be equipped with drilling capability.


NASA's contribution in 2016 includes a trace gas mapping and imaging scientific payload for the orbiter and the launch and, in 2018, a rover, the EDLS, and the launch.


"On the basis of the cooperation described," notes the statement, "the ESA Director General and the NASA Administrator hereby request that the ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration and the NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate continue their technical analysis and pursue a more detailed definition of respective responsibilities."


According to the statement, NASA and ESA will establish legally binding agreements, as soon as feasible, to cover specific activities of this initiative, as needed.


The statement of intent, as provided to the Coalition, is signed by Charles Bolden, Jr., the Administrator of NASA and Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of the European Space Agency.


By Leonard David



10 NASA Technologies That Might Never See the Light of Day

From Network World


The House Committee on Science and Technology last week held Congressional hearings to examine the summary report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. While it heard the challenges of future human space exploration and the alternatives to NASA's plans one of the most important discussions centered on the conclusion that "Human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit is not viable under the FY 2010 budget guideline." If further manned exploration of the moon and beyond is significantly delayed or nixed altogether, what does that mean for the myriad technologies NASA already has in development? Here we take a look at some of the best NASA technology currently in development that might never get to space.


Click here for the 10



Russian Rocket Takes Module to ISS

From SpaceFlightNow


A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the plains of Kazakhstan Tuesday with the International Space Station's newest addition, a module doubling as a docking port for visiting spacecraft and an airlock for spacewalking astronauts.


The 168-foot-tall booster roared away from Launch Pad No. 1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1422 GMT (9:22 a.m. EST) Tuesday, or just after nightfall Tuesday night in Kazakhstan.


The venerable Soyuz, flying for the 1,750th time in its various configurations, launched into mostly clear skies, fading from view of ground cameras as it shed four strap-on boosters.


The three-stage rocket delivered its payload, the Poisk docking compartment, to a low-altitude injection orbit about nine minutes after liftoff.


Poisk, which means "search" or "explore" in Russian, is attached to the service module of a Russian Progress resupply ship, providing electrical power and propulsion for the spacecraft during its two-day journey to the space station.


The Progress will fire its engines twice later Tuesday to begin changing its orbit to chase down the complex in space.


More burns are on tap Wednesday and early Thursday before the ship begins its automated final approach to the outpost on a Kurs rendezvous radar system.


The automatic sequence should begin at 1320 GMT (8:20 a.m. EST) Thursday, leading to a docking with the Zvezda service module's space-facing, or zenith, port at 1543 GMT (10:43 a.m. EST).


The new module is the first major Russian addition to the complex since the nearly identical Pirs module was launched in 2001. Pirs is located on Zvezda's Earth-facing port, directly across from the future home of Poisk.


Poisk will give the station a fourth docking port on the Russian segment, allowing for longer stays of future Progress freighters and more opportunities for crew handovers using Soyuz spacecraft


Click here for more



Japan's Asteroid Explorer: Struggling to Return to Earth (Updated)

It has always been the little spacecraft that could.


Japan's Hayabusa probe was designed to acquire samples from the surface of near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa (1998 SF36) and return them to Earth.


Hayabusa was launched in early May 2003, cruising to its asteroid destination under the nudge of ion engines. A little over a year later, the probe reached its target, carrying out a host of scientific duties before touching down on the space rock in November 2005.


Using special hardware, sampling of Itokawa took place, although how much material, if any, was successfully brought onboard the spacecraft is not clear.


Once the craft departed the rocky body it headed back to Earth for a June 2010 landing.


En route, Hayabusa has battled a number of technical challenges, mostly with its cluster of ion engines.


But according to reports, a new issue has developed with a functioning ion engine, calling to question whether Hayabusa can successfully limp home.


Space mission experts at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are studying this latest glitch, in the hopes of nudging and nursing Hayabusa along to a successful mission end.


In an update: JAXA has released a statement regarding Hayabusa's ion engine anomaly.


JAXA space engineers have noted that one of the main ion engines (Thruster D) aboard the asteroid explorer has autonomously stopped, "detecting a high neutralizer voltage owing to degradation."


The probe was in its second propulsion period in its return cruise back to the Earth.


Since the anomaly was identified, the project team has been trying to restart the engine while investigating the causes of the problem.


"JAXA is currently under diagnostic investigation of the ion engines system aboard the Hayabusa and trying to build an alternative sequence that helps the Hayabusa return back to the Earth safely," the statement noted.


The JAXA update also noted that Hayabusa is equipped with four ion engines (Thrusters A through D,) and each thruster is in the following status:


In the current plan, two thrusters, Thrusters C and D, would be used in the second propulsion period in return cruise back to the Earth.


Thruster A: operation suspended due to instability just after the launch.


Thruster B: operation suspended due to high neutralizer voltage owing to degradation (since April 2007).


Thrusters C and D: Both of them have indicated slight high neutralizer voltage owing also to degradation. Thruster C is currently not driven, but it is operable.


For more information about this asteroid explorer, go to:


http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/muses_c/index_e.html


By Leonard David



NASA Keeping Tabs on Ida

From Universe Today


NASA has been keeping an eye on tropical storm Ida off the Gulf Coast, which was downgraded from a hurricane earlier today. Its satellites have been helping meteorologists to measure the rainfall and windspeeds of the storm. Ida is predicted by the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida to make landfall near Pensacola, Florida on Tuesday morning (Nov. 10th), after which it is expected to drop in intensity and head East.


NASA has been using three different satellites to monitor the tropical storm. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over the storm earlier today, just before it was downgraded from hurricane status. At that time, the data from TRMM showed scattered convective thunderstorms producing moderate to heavy rainfall of about 50mm (2 inches) per hour. The windspeeds were measured at 70 knots (80.5 mph), but have since dropped.


The Quick Scatterometer satellite (QuikScat) used microwaves to observe Ida's winds. The satellite data showed the speed of the rotating winds in the storm near the ocean surface to be 50-55 knots (57-63 mph) at 7a.m. Eastern Time. The tropical force winds extend out up to 200 miles from the center of Ida.


The third satellite NASA is using is the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-12. From the imaging taken with GOES-12, the GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. was able to make a movie of the storm's movement from November 7th-9th. The movie and many other images of the storm, updated hourly, are available on the GOES Project Science website.


Click here for more



NASA Spinoff 2009 Now Available

NASA Spinoff Magazine
NASA's Spinoff magazine, now available online, covers the latest developments in space technology and how it effects our every day lives.


But don't take my word for it.  Check it out now!



New Fantastic Photo: High Noon at Apollo 11's Tranquility Base

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) high-powered camera system has flown over the Apollo 11 landing site. Thanks to a low-altitude flyover of the landing spot, new details of the Apollo 11 exploration zone can been seen, far better than earlier imagery taken by LRO.


At this lower altitude flown by LRO, very small details of Tranquility Base can be discerned.


For example, the footpads of the Eagle lunar lander are clearly discernible; components of the Early Apollo Science Experiments Package (EASEP) are easily seen. So too are boulders from West crater lying on the surface to the east stand out, and the many small craters that cover the Moon are visible to the southeast.


Take your own look at this new imagery! Go to:


http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/135-High-Noon-at-Tranquility-Base.html


By Leonard David/CSE



Planetary Society Sets Sail on New Solar Sail Project

The Planetary Society today announced LightSail, a plan to sail a spacecraft on sunlight alone by the end of 2010.


The new solar sail project, boosted by a one-million-dollar anonymous donation, was unveiled at an event on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C on the 75th anniversary of the birth of Planetary Society co-founder Carl Sagan, a long-time advocate of solar sailing.


The new project will launch three separate solar sails over the next several years.


The Planetary Society will build LightSail-1 with three Cubesat spacecraft. One Cubesat will form the central electronics and control module, and two additional Cubesats will house the solar sail module. Cameras, additional sensors, and a control system will be added to the basic Cubesat electronics bus.


Lightsail-2 will demonstrate a longer duration flight to higher Earth orbits.


LightSail-3 will go to the Sun-Earth Libration Point, L1, where solar sails could be permanently placed as solar weather stations, monitoring the geomagnetic storms from the Sun that potentially endanger electrical grids and satellite systems around Earth.


James Cantrell, CEO of Strategic Space Inc, is Project Manager of LightSail-1.


Stellar Exploration will build the spacecraft in San Luis Obispo, CA.


Other team participants include the Cubsesat development group at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, and a team at Russia's Space Research Institute.


For more information, go to:


http://www.planetary.org/about/press/releases/2009/1109_Planetary_Society_to_Sail_Again_with.html


By LD/CSE



Astronaut Godwin Reaches Out to Students

From KansasCity.com


It was a starstruck moment - their first autograph - but it wasn't a pop idol who excited these Overland Park girls.


It was a small-town Missouri woman who worked in space.


"I think it's amazing that I've gotten an autograph from someone so special, a female astronaut," said 11-year-old Disha Kuchangi, a student at Bentwood Elementary School.


"I really like science, and I'm interested in space and everything. It's so mysterious," said Disha's friend Namita Kulkarni, 11, also a Bentwood student. "This is my very first autograph of anyone."


Disha and Namita were among a group of friends clutching signed photographs of Linda M. Godwin, the keynote speaker at the Sally Ride Science Festival on Sunday. The E.F. Swinney gymnasium at the University of Missouri-Kansas City was buzzing as several hundred girls examined meteors, learned the chemistry behind making slime and got Godwin's autograph.


Bear Ride, whose sister Sally Ride was the first American woman to travel into space in 1983, said the San Diego-based program is all about urging girls in fifth through eighth grades with budding talents in science and math to keep at it. The festival has been held at 90 university campuses nationwide since it began in 2001.


"Sally always has had a passion for supporting kids, especially girls, and reaching them at an age before peer pressure makes it difficult for them to stay with math and science," Ride said of her sister.


Godwin, 57, a native of Jackson, Mo., launched her dream as a girl watching the American space program unfold in the 1960s. She followed it through her undergraduate studies at Southeast Missouri State University and then got a doctorate in physics from the University of Missouri in 1980.


Click here for more



NASA Looks to Commercial Space

NASA Technology Innovation is a bi-annual magazine discussing the application of NASA-generated technology in aerospace, medical, robotic, and other industries.

The publication is a product of the Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP), which provides needed technology and capabilities for NASA's Mission Directorates, Programs and Projects through investments and partnerships with industry, academia, government agencies, and national laboratories.


The new cover story, "Commercial Space: Critical to NASA's Future Success," discusses the greater role private investment will play in funding future space exploration activities.


To take a look at this issue, you can download the publication at:


http://link.abpi.net/1.php?20091109A5


By LD/CSE




Space Worms to Help in Muscle Atrophy Research

Some 4,000 passengers are riding along with the crew of space shuttle Atlantis when it departs Earth later this month.


The extra spaceflight participants are thousands of microscopic worms.


Those worms are flying to help experts in human physiology understand more about what triggers the body to build, and also lose muscle.


The experiment is headed for the International Space Station (ISS), to be carried out onboard the ISS in the Japanese Experiment Module known as ‘Kibo’.


Professor Atsushi Higashitani from Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan is the Principal Investigator of the CERISE (C. Elegans RNAi In Space Experiment).


Muscle atrophy is one of the major health concerns for astronauts but this research will also help scientists understand more about the condition which also affects the bedridden, people with muscular dystrophy and diabetes, people immobilized by casts and the elderly.


Working with Japan on the experiment is the U.K’s University of Nottingham’s Institute of Clinical Research in Derby.


The university’s experiment will be part of the Japanese CERISE payload and is being funded as part of a $1 million U.S. National Institute of Health grant to investigate the genetic basis of muscle atrophy and the Medical Research Council.


By Leonard David



MAVEN of Mars

From NASA


Once upon a time - roughly four billion years ago - Mars was warm and wet, much like Earth. Liquid water flowed on the Martian surface in long rivers that emptied into shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm. Living microbes might have even arisen, some scientists believe, starting Mars down the path toward becoming a second life-filled planet next door to our own.


But that's not how things turned out.


Mars today is bitter cold and bone dry. The rivers and seas are long gone. Its atmosphere is thin and wispy, and if Martian microbes still exist, they're probably eking out a meager existence somewhere beneath the dusty Martian soil.


What happened? Why did Mars dry up and freeze over? These haunting questions have long puzzled scientists. A few years from now we might finally know the answer, thanks to a new orbiter NASA will send to Mars called MAVEN (short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution).


"The goal of MAVEN is to figure out what processes were responsible for those changes in the climate," says Bruce Jakosky, Principal Investigator for MAVEN at the University of Colorado at Boulder.


One way or another, scientists believe, Mars must have lost its most precious asset: its thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide. CO2 in Mars's atmosphere is a greenhouse gas, just as it is in our own atmosphere. A thick blanket of CO2 and other greenhouse gases would have provided the warmer temperatures and greater atmospheric pressure required to keep liquid water from freezing solid or boiling away.


Over the last four billion years, Mars somehow lost most of that blanket. Scientists have proposed various theories for how that loss happened. Perhaps an asteroid impact blew most of the atmosphere into space in one catastrophic event. Or maybe erosion by the solar wind - a stream of charged particles emanating from the sun - could have slowly stripped the atmosphere away over eons. The planet's surface might also have absorbed the CO2 and locked it up in minerals such as carbonate.


Click here for more



No comments:

Post a Comment