NASA Space Information, Shuttle Launch, Moon and Solar System, Earth, Univers, Aerona

NASA Says No to Probe Crash Theory Test - Roscosmos

2012-01-26T02:37:00.000-08:00

NASA has reject to contribute in an experiment designed to show if U.S. radars could have had an impact on Russia’s troubled Phobos-Grunt Mars probe, the deputy head of the country’s space agency, Roscosmos, Anatoly Shylov said on Thursday.

“Roscosmos filed an official request to the U.S. side to participate in the investigation, but they refused,” Shylov said.

The official also said that the government commission inquiry into the cause of the probe’s crash had issued a final report with the results of the investigation. It is expected to be published next week.

Among the possible causes of the Phobos-Grunt probe’s crash, investigators said interference from the U.S. radar installed on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean could have had an impact. Scientists however dismissed the idea, saying that the U.S. radar theory is cover up to hide some people’s mistakes.

Thanks: http://en.ria.ru/russia

2011 Was Ninth Warmest Year On Record

2012-01-23T01:17:00.000-08:00

NASA make public a temperature analysis for 2011, which shows that previous year was among the ten (10) warmest years since 1880, when the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York began keeping record of global temperatures.

Nine(9)of the warmest years were recorded in the 21st century; 1998 is the only 20th century entry in the ranking. NASA said that the average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The difference between 2011 and 2010, the warmest year on GISS record, was 0.22 degrees F (0.12 C).

"We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting," said GISS Director James Hansen in a prepared statement. "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record."

The increasing level of greenhouse gases is blamed for the an ongoing temperature increases, which NASA says may vary from year to year, but will continue to climb in the future on average. GISS noted that the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, about 315 parts per million in 1960 and is above 390 parts per million today. Hansen said he expects record-breaking global average temperature in the next two to three years because of increasing solar activity and the "next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures".

Thanks: http://www.tomsguide.com/us

NASA picks Mont. students' names for moon probes: Ebb, Flow

2012-01-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

Fourth-graders in Montana have won the NASA grail by naming the previously nameless twin spacecraft orbiting the moon "Ebb" and "Flow."

NASA's rocket scientists were too busy creating the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (yes, GRAIL) probes to give them proper names and had simply called them "A" and "B." So, back in October, a month after the unmanned craft were launched, the space agency launched the naming contest.

More than 11,000 students in nearly 900 classrooms in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico participated. The winning entry came from the 28 students in Nina DiMauro's class at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., NASA said.

"They noted the fact that GRAIL is going to be studying gravity on the moon, and that the effect of gravity on the Earth is seen every day in terms of tides," principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told AFP. "So they chose Ebb and Flow because it was the daily example of how the moon's gravity is working on the Earth."

NASA Rover Takes 'Winter Vacation' to Power Solar Panel

2012-01-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

NASA has sent its Mars Rover, Opportunity, on its first winter working vacation since the solar-powered vehicle began exploring the red planet’s surface several years ago.

Similar to humans who travel to sunny locations during the winter, the robotic rover will spend the next several months literally soaking up sunlight. The U.S. space agency, NASA, says it positioned Opportunity with its solar panel angled toward the Sun to make sure the rover will have enough power to last for the duration of the long Martian winter.

Mission scientists say it was not necessary for Opportunity to be kept in a Sun-facing position the previous four Martian winters because its landing site just south of the planet's equator gets relatively strong sunlight year-round. They decided to use the maneuver this year because the rover’s solar panels were caked with an unusually thick coating of dust.

NASA says Opportunity is sitting on the slope of a rocky outcrop that lies along the rim of Mars’ 22-kilometer-wide Endeavour Crater. Scientists say they have identified a variety of interesting features for the rover to investigate with its robotic arm while its solar panels store up energy from the Sun. NASA says it does not plan to move the golf cart-sized vehicle more than a meter or two until June or July when Opportunity will resume its current mission exploring Endeavour Crater.

Read More: www..voanews.com

NASA’s RXTE reveals secrets of smallest known black hole

2011-12-18T21:55:00.000-08:00

The black hole, which is smaller than any previously discovered, is a mere 16,000 to 65,000 light-years away. Officials said Friday that they have detected the “heartbeat” of the the black hole, noting that if it exists, it would weigh less than three times the mass of the sun, placing it near the theoretical minimum mass required for black holes. NASA officials say the size of the black hole makes it a contender for the title of smallest black hole ever discovered.

The NASA team used the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite to identify a candidate for the smallest-known black hole, saying the latest calculations may place the black hole’s mass below the minimum necessary to sustain a cosmic giant.

“We think that most of these patterns represent cycles of accumulation and ejection in an unstable disk, and we now see seven of them in IGR J17091,” said Tomaso Belloni at Brera Observatory in Merate, Italy. “Identifying these signatures in a second black hole system is very exciting.”

The space agency said the record-sized black hole is named IGR J17091-3624 after the astronomical coordinates of its sky position.

Read more:thestatecolumn.com

NASA announces 1st private spacecraft flight to ISS

2011-12-11T22:28:00.000-08:00

US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced the launch date for the first test flight of a commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission, which will test a vehicle intended to carry cargo and eventually crew to orbit
represents an important step for the burgeoning private space industry, experts say.

SpaceX is going to send its unmanned space capsule Dragon to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) on February 7 next year.

This will be the first time that NASA would use a commercial flight to ferry supplies up to the ISS.

Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, has been approved by NASA to make its first commercial supply run to the ISS. SpaceX has been working on its Dragon "reusable flying aircraft" to get it ready for its first big supply run.

"SpaceX is excited to be the first commercial company in history to berth with the International Space Station," the company's president Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement.

"This mission will mark a historic milestone in the future of spaceflight. We appreciate NASA's continued support and their partnership in this process."

This flight, which is the second for the company under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, will send the Dragon capsule into orbit to rendezvous with the orbiting complex in a single flight, NASA officials said.

Source : www.hindustantimes.com

NASA’s Kepler telescope continues to reveal strange and new planets

2011-12-05T01:40:00.000-08:00

NASA will reportedly announce the discovery of a number of newly discovered planets on Monday, the latest batch of mysterious worlds to be added to the space agency’s growing list of celestial bodies.

NASA will reveal the latest batch of discoveries made by its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope on Monday, according to a statement released by the space agency. NASA says it will hold a press conference at its Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The press conference is the first of the inaugural Kepler Science Conference, which will focus on findings made by the Kepler telescope. The conference will run from December 5 to December 9 and will feature more than 110 scientific presentations, officials said.

“The briefing will provide an update on the statistical findings since Kepler’s Feb. 1, 2011, science data release and introduce a new confirmed planetary discovery,” NASA officials said in a statement released Friday The space agency says the this year’s annual announcement will continue a long tradition that it anticipated to accelerate in the coming years as the Kepler Telescope continues to search for earth-like planets. NASA officials say they expect a number of significant discoveries by Kepler this year.

“Sooner or later, Kepler will find a lukewarm planet with a size making it probably Earthlike,” said Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley. “We’re no more than a year away” from such a discovery, he said The announcement comes as NASA announced Friday the discovery of an earth-sized planet that is reportedly hot enough to melt iron.

Source:www.thestatecolumn.com

NASA Will Continue U.S. Space Leadership

2011-11-29T21:28:00.000-08:00

I respectfully disagree with Homer Hickam's "The Commercial Space Age Has Begun" ( America has been the world leader in space exploration for 50 years, and under the ambitious plan laid out by President Obama and Congress, we will continue to lead for at least the next half-century The president has challenged NASA to accomplish big things—to rendezvous with an asteroid by 2025 and send humans to Mars in the 2030s. These are specific goals toward which NASA is planning and making investments.

Our vision for the future is clear: hand off low-Earth orbit transportation to the private sector; develop the technology and vehicles needed to explore deep space, eventually landing a human mission on Mars; and help develop quieter and cleaner airplanes, all while inspiring our young people to out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the world.

NASA recently launched the most ambitious mission ever to Mars, the Curiosity rover, to help answer questions about conditions for life beyond Earth. America's love of space exploration and its crucial role in our nation's life and priorities is stronger than ever

Source:http://online.wsj.com

Nasa doing research inmany fields

2011-11-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

Chief technologist, System Engineering Directorate, Nasa Langley Research Center, USA, U N Singh on Sunday said that Nasa was America's leading scientific centre for research and exploration in the fields of space science and technology, environmental studies and worldwide geographical changes.

Delivering the keynote lecture on 'Nasa's Future Earth Science Missions for Global Observations' at the Indian Institute of Business Management (IIBM), Singh said that at Nasa, besides space and satellite technology, research is also going on geo-informatics, laser and optical techniques. Research on Earth-related mission was also going on. It would also lead to understanding the disintegration of ozone layer in the environment, he pointed out. He said that through remote sensing, one can carry out research on atmospheric changes and their effects on the earth.

Read More : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Nasa-doing-research-inmany-fields/articleshow/10898697.cms

NASA's Antarctic 2011 IceBridge Campaign Concludes

2011-11-24T01:49:00.000-08:00

NASA's DC-8 airborne science laboratory has completed its 2011 Operation IceBridge science flights over Antarctica, and arrived home at its base in Palmdale, Calif., Nov. 22. The IceBridge flight and science team flew a record 24 science flights during the six-week campaign, recording data from a suite of sophisticated instruments on the thickness and depth of Antarctic ice sheets and glacial movement The aircraft departed its deployment base at Punta Arenas, Chile, Tuesday morning Nov. 22 and after a refueling stop in Santiago, Chile, set course for Los Angeles International Airport for customs clearance. The flying lab continued on to the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, arriving about 8:30 p.m. that evening after almost 15 hours in the air.

A highlight of the IceBridge mission was the discovery during a low-level overflight Oct. 14 of a large crack that had recently begun across the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, a precursor to the separation of an estimated 310-square-mile iceberg into the ocean in the near future. The growth of the estimated 18-mile-long rift was documented on several subsequent flights The final science flights on Nov. 17 and 19 focused on the middle of the Antarctic Peninsula and the George VI Sound on the peninsula's western side.

Mission manager Chris Miller's report on the former noted that clear weather over the eastern side of the peninsula provided "a rare opportunity to collect data over glaciers that are more regularly shrouded in cloud." The mostly clear weather allowed the science team to collect data at low altitudes of only 1,500 feet above ground for almost seven hours out of the more than 11 hours the team was aloft.

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 20 November 2011

2011-11-20T23:54:00.000-08:00

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday. Ahead: Week 1 of Increment 30 (thirty) Today 12(twelve) years ago (1998), the 20-ton FGB "Zarya" (Sunrise), the first module of the ISS, was launched at Baikonur/Kazakhstan on a three-stage Proton. The US-financed "Funktsionalnyi-Grusovoi Blok" was built by KhSC (Khrunichev State Research & Production Space Center) from their original Almaz program under subcontract to Boeing.<<<

Crew Wake/Sleep cycle shift: To accommodate Soyuz 27S undock tomorrow evening at 6:00pm EST, crew wake/sleep cycle changes go into effect, featuring a late turn-in today and tomorrow, plus a free day Tuesday:

WAKE (EST) SLEEP (EST)

* Today (11/20) 1:00am 6:00pm
* Tomorrow (Monday, 11/21) 6:30am 1:00am (11/22)
* Tuesday (11/22) Free Day ~4:30pm
* Wednesday (11/23) 1:00am 4:30pm (regular)

After wakeup, FE-4 Volkov performed the routine inspection of the SM (Service Module) PSS Caution & Warning panel as part of regular Daily Morning Inspection.First thing in Postsleep, prior to eating, drinking & brushing teeth, CDR Fossum, FE-3 Burbank & FE-5 Furukawa today conducted the dry saliva sample collections on the INTEGRATED IMMUNE protocol. Later in the day, Mike, Dan & Satoshi also completed the IMMUNE blood sample draws, with Dan assisting Satoshi as Operator and vice versa, plus Satoshi assisting Mike. Following the blood draws, the full blood tubes were temp stowed in the blood collection kit until tomorrow when they will be packed together with the saliva samples on the Soyuz for return to ground. [INTEGRATED IMMUNE (Validating Procedures for Monitoring Crew member Immune Function) samples & analyzes participant's blood, urine, and saliva before, during and after flight for changes related to functions like bone metabolism, oxidative damage and immune function to develop and validate an immune monitoring strategy consistent with operational flight requirements and constraints.

Budget, Technical Woes Hamper Space Ventures

2011-11-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

Launch delays and shrinking federal budgets threaten NASA's plan to rely on private rockets to ferry astronauts and equipment to the international space station, government and industry officials said the first commercial cargo run to the station has now likely slipped from late this year or in January to as late as April—largely because engineers from one company are laboring over spacecraft-guidance software.

Meanwhile, the House as early as Thursday is expected to cut National Aeronautics and Space Administration funding for the development of privately built and operated systems to blast astronauts into orbit the budget woes and technical delays come as the U.S. makes the transition to using commercial operators to transport crews and cargo after retiring its fleet of space shuttles. The first step is for a pair of U.S. companies to come up with private launchers and spacecraft to haul supplies—but not yet people—to the station.

Closely-held Space Exploration Technologies Corp. aims to do the job with its Dragon capsule atop its 19-story-tall rocket, the Falcon 9. After the first launch of that combination in December 2010, the company predicted cargo deliveries would begin within a few months. The Hawthorne, Calif., company, also known as SpaceX, now has internal estimates it could start deliveries at the earliest in February or March, 2012, the government and industry officials said.

Russian, U.S. crew blast off for space station

2011-11-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

Three astronauts blasted off on Monday to restore a full crew to the International Space Station (ISS) after the crash of a Russian cargo spaceship disrupted operations and undermined faith in the Russian space programme the launch at 0414 GMT was the first since NASA ended its 30-year shuttle programme in July, heralding a gap of several years when the 16 nations investing in the $100(One Hundred)-billion space station will rely solely on Russia to ferry crews.

Once safely in orbit, the astronaut trio flashed a thumbs-up signal to onboard cameras and applause broke out at the cavernous Mission Control centre in a northern Moscow suburb monday's mission was delayed from September over safety fears after an unmanned Russian Progress craft taking supplies to astronauts broke up in the atmosphere in one of the worst Russian space mishaps in decades.

Any problem in reaching the ISS could leave the space station empty for the first time in more than a decade when the current three-man crew returns to Earth later this monthfor veteran NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank, it is the first voyage on board a Soyuz spacecraft from Russia's Baikonur launchpad in Kazakhstan, while cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov are making their maiden space voyage.

But the crew shrugged off safety concerns before lift off from a snowbound Baikonur "We don't have any black thoughts. We have faith in our equipment," Shkaplerov said, quoted by Russian news agencies after a cramped two-day journey aboard the Soyuz TMA-22 capsule, the crew will dock with the space station on Nov. 16, overlapping briefly with station commander Mike Fossum of NASA, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Sergei Volkov.

NASA's NPP Satellite Acquires First ATMS Measurements

2011-11-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) on board NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, NPP, acquired its first measurements on November eight (8), 2011. The image shows the ATMS channel 18 data, which measures water vapor in the lower atmosphere. Tropical Storm Sean is visible in the data, as the patch of blue, in the Atlantic off the coast of the Southeastern United States. The data were processed at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF) in Suitland, Md the ATMS is one of five instruments on board the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP, that launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on October 28. Since then, NPP has successfully completed all spacecraft commissioning activities and powered on all instruments. In the next few weeks, all instruments will be commissioned and NPP will be sending science data from the four remaining instruments by mid-December.

A passive microwave radiometer, the ATMS instrument can collect data even when it is cloudy. Paired with the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), also aboard NPP, they will produce global sets of high-resolution temperature and moisture profiles that are used for forecasting and studying weather "NPP is rock solid," stated Ken Schwer, NPP project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The satellite has performed extremely well during the checkout maneuvers and is in the expert hands of the mission operations team at NSOF."

During the commissioning activities, which were completed November 5, the NPP spacecraft subsystems were successfully tested, including command and control, propulsion and communications. NPP spacecraft and instrument data is sent from the spacecraft to the ground station in Svalbard, Norway and then to the NSOF.

NASA spots a New York City-sized iceberg as it breaks off Antarctic glacier

2011-11-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

NASA researchers flying low over Antarctica’s vast, frozen landscape recently stumbled across a rare event in progress: the calving of a massive iceberg from one of Antarctica’s largest and fastest-moving glaciers. The scientists, who were taking part in NASA’s “Operation IceBridge,” were able to fly a follow-up mission above the Pine Island Glacier to gather unprecedented airborne measurements of an ongoing iceberg calving event. Typically, scientists can only learn of such events after they take place.

Since 2009, NASA scientists have been flying research aircraft loaded with sophisticated sensing equipment above Antarctic and Arctic ice, providing crucial data on ice sheet dynamics. This data is of great interest to the climate science community, considering the massive sea level rise that would occur if land-based ice sheets were to rapidly melt in coming decades.

Numerous studies have been published in the past several years that have raised alarms about the accelerating pace of ice loss in West Antarctica and Greenland. Operation IceBridge is meant to fill data gaps caused by a lag between two different ice-tracking satellites, thereby keeping data flowing to inform ongoing studies.

According to NASA, the last significant Pine Island Glacier calving event took place in 2001. It’s estimated that this one, an 18-mile long crack in the ice that was first spotted on Oct. 14 by a NASA DC-8 crew, probably began to form back in early October. Pine Island Glacier terminates in the sea, and has an “ice tongue” that juts out into the water. This makes the ice vulnerable to melting due to both rising air and water temperatures, although this calving event may have been a largely natural occurrence.

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Sun comes alive, blasting massive solar flares

2011-11-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

The sun shot off a flare Thursday afternoon from a region that scientists are calling a "benevolent monster."

Scientists at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center say that area is the most active part of the sun since 2005. It has dozens of sunspots, including one that is the size of 17 Earths. Sunspots are kinks or knots in the sun's magnetic field.

"It's beautiful," said forecaster Jess Whittington. "It's still growing. The size is what blows me away."

Thursday's flare was not aimed at Earth. This active region, however, is now slowly turning toward Earth, and scientists say it will be directly facing Earth in about five days.

That storm region will affect Earth only if it shoots off flares and they hit the planet, which does not always happen with stormy areas, said prediction center space scientist Joe Kunches.

The region will be facing Earth for about two weeks as it rotates, he said.

Solar flares send out bursts of electromagnetic energy that can occasionally disrupt communications and electrical systems.

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Mission puts Mars in the cross hairs

2011-11-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

MARS makes head- lines this month with the long-awaited launch of the Mars Science Laboratory mission scheduled for Nov. 25. A mission several years in the making, the MSL has survived technical delays and budget issues to become the most advanced scientific mission NASA has ever sent to Mars after a nine-month cruise through the inner solar system, the MSL will reach Mars in August 2012 and land its 1-ton Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface using a device similar to a sky crane. After its innovative descent, Curiosity will explore the Martian surface for up to two Earth years with a suite of high-tech scientific instruments meant to determine whether Mars has ever been favorable for life.

This past summer, scientists chose Mars' Gale Crater as Curiosity's landing site. Gale Crater contains diverse geologic materials that will give Curiosity a wealth of information to study. However, Curiosity will not be limited to one location on Mars as it will use its six-wheel drive to travel up to 660 feet per day and over obstacles up to 2 feet tall curiosity will be nuclear powered, unlike the previous Mars Exploration Rovers, which were solar powered. This radioactive energy source will supply the constant, reliable power needed for Curiosity's communications, advanced experiments and mobility during its two-year mission.

Curiosity will carry on its mast two digital color cameras that will capture high-definition images and video of the Martian surface with better resolution than any previous mission. The high-def images will definitely attract news media and public attention during the mission although the nine-month journey to Mars seems like a long time, the MSL will be a mission worth the wait. Keep an eye on the sky for the brightening Mars over the next several months as the MSL draws closer to the Red Planet.

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NASA Considers Tractor Beams for Future Rovers

2011-11-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

NASA is exploring ways to use tractor beams in future robotic probe missions. The agency has recently awarded a team of engineers $100,000 to study three experimental techniques for trapping small particles with lasers.

Spacecraft flying by comets and asteroids or rovers landing on Mars could use the methods to continuously sample their target.

While such technology has been used in biological and surgical applications for years, there has been little work on using it for remote sensing in space, said Paul Stysley, a NASA engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who leads the group studying the techniques.

The idea of using tractor beams on space missions caught the attention of members of NASA’s Mars rover project.

“At first they thought we were a little crazy, but luckily that group is supportive of crazy ideas,” said Stysley.

Current rover missions use drills, which can take a long time to get a sample. But a future probe could quickly zap rocks with a laser and then use a tractor beam to collect some of the resulting vapor. A beam pointed at the atmosphere could also monitor how gases change in response to day-night cycles on Mars.

Though the three technologies will require further investigation and may take up to a decade to develop for space-based missions, much of the work is already being done here on Earth.

The first technique, optical tweezers, is already common in biology laboratories. This method uses a pair of lasers with beams that travel in opposite directions. Changing the intensity of one beam heats air around trapped particles and can cause them to travel toward a probe, essentially creating an optical conveyor belt. But this technology can only be used when an atmosphere is present, so while it could work on some planets, it won’t work in the vacuum of space.

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Boeing leasing shuttle hangar to build new capsule

2011-11-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Boeing is taking over one of NASA's old space shuttle hangars to build a new capsule that the company hopes will lift astronauts to orbit in four or five years.

More than 100 Boeing, NASA and state and federal officials gathered in the massive empty hangar -- Orbiting Processing Facility No. 3 -- for the announcement of the first-of-its-kind agreement allowing a private company to take over the government property.

The aerospace company expects to create 550 high-tech jobs at Kennedy Space Center over the next four years, 140 of them by the end of next year. That's less than 10 percent of the approximately 6,000 shuttle jobs lost in Florida over the past several years, but Gov. Rick Scott and other lawmakers at the ceremony said they expect additional hirings by the commercial space industry.

NASA is counting on companies like Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and others to ferry cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station in three to five years. Until then, the space agency will continue to shell out tens of millions of dollars per seat on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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NASA Seeks Hosts for Space Station Interactive Education Events

2011-10-31T03:08:00.000-07:00

NASA is seeking proposals from educators who are looking for a unique way to inspire the next generation of explorers. Formal and informal education organizations can apply to host live interactive education downlinks with astronauts onboard the International Space Station.

Proposals are being accepted for downlink opportunities during space station missions scheduled for March to September 2012. The deadline to submit comprehensive proposals that target a large number of participants is December 21st.

During Expeditions 31 and 32, NASA crew members Don Pettit, Joseph Acaba and Sunita Williams will participate in the 20-minute downlink opportunities. Participants on Earth see and hear the crew members live from space, while the crew hears the questions but does not see the audience.

U.S. educational organizations such as school districts, museums, science centers, national and regional education organizations and local, state and federal government agencies are eligible to participate. NASA provides this opportunity at no charge to the host institution. NASA personnel will work with the organization to help plan the event.

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Spitzer Snaps a Picture of the Coolest of Companions

2011-10-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a picture of a nearby star and its orbiting companion - whose temperature is like a hot summer day in Arizona.

"We have discovered a new record-holder for the coldest companion imaged outside of the solar system, which is nearly as cold as Earth," said Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and lead author of a pair of papers on the findings in The Astrophysical Journal.

"We believe the object is a brown dwarf, but it could be a gas-giant planet as well."

Based on the infrared light that it emits, the cool object, named WD 0806-661 B, appears to have a temperature in the range of 80 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit (about 27 to 70 degrees Celsius).

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German satellite to fall to Earth this weekend

2011-10-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

Pieces of a retired German satellite hurtling toward the atmosphere may crash to earth this weekend, the German Aerospace Center said Thursday scientists have now honed their initial estimate of when the satellite would hit from a span of four days to either Saturday or Sunday. As it nears, they will eventually be able to estimate impact within a window of about 10 hours.

Parts of the satellite, which is the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons (1.7 metric tons) could crash into the Earth with a speed of up to 280 mph (450 kph).

The satellite orbits the Earth every 90 minutes and scientists can only say that it could hit Earth anywhere along its path, between 53-degrees north and 53-degrees south — a vast swath of territory that includes much of the planet outside the poles.

Scientists are no longer able to communicate with the dead German satellite ROSAT, which was launched in 1990.

ROSAT was used for research on black holes and neutron stars and performed the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.

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Jonathan Kay: Do Gaddafi, bin Laden and Al-Awlaki still think Obama is a wimp?

2011-10-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney is described as a GOP “moderate.” Yet when it comes to foreign-policy, he toes the same line as everyone else in the GOP: Barack Obama, he tells us, is undermining American greatness. Obama is ashamed of his country, the story goes. He’s a left-wing weakling, an Ivy League sophisticate steeped in anti-American self-loathing.

In an October 7 speech at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., Romney told a crowd of cadets that “In Barack Obama’s profoundly mistaken view, there is nothing unique about the United States,” and that “I will never, ever apologize for America.” In implicit contra-distinction to Obama, Romney declared his belief that “God did not create this country to be a nation of followers.” Later, he added: “I will not surrender America’s role in the world. This is very simple. If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your president. You have that president today.”

This piffle has become such a prominent component of the Republican attack on Obama — especially since his widely misconstrued 2009 outreach speech to Muslims in Cairo — that many folks just take the truth of it for granted.

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Comet storm rages in alien star system

2011-10-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Icy comets could be bombarding a nearby alien star system in a storm similar to the one thought to have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth several billion years ago, a new study reveals.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope studied a nearby bright star called Eta Corvi, which is located approximately 60 light-years away in the northern sky, and found signs that comets could be pelting the alien system.

The infrared telescope spotted a band of dust around Eta Corvi that strongly matches the chemical makeup of an obliterated giant comet, said Carey Lisse, senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and lead author of the new study.

The Eta Corvi system is approximately 1 billion years old, which would place it in the right time period for such a comet storm, the researchers said.

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Not NASA but German Satellite will plunge to Earth shortly

2011-10-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

TheWeatherSpace.com was the primary publication to break the story with this article and this is an update to that. TheWeatherSpace.com is in consistent contact with officials on the German ROSAT Satellite.

"Wir wissen nicht, wo sie noch landen wird, ebenso wie NASA hat mit UARS, aber wir aktualisieren die Menschen so viel wie wir können," said officials. "Wir sind mit anderen Agenturen, die auf die Beobachtung und Berechnung der ROSAT Umlaufbahn."

When translated into English for us ...

"We do not know where it will land yet, just as NASA did with UARS, but we will update the people as much as we can," said officials. "We are working with other agencies on observing and calculating the ROSAT orbit."

As stated in the primary article at TheWeatherSpace.com, TWS predicted it would fall this month, not in November. This prediction at TheWeatherSpace.com was made simply by looking at the solar wind data and calculating a better drag time.

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U.S. Widens Rocket Field

2011-10-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

Pentagon and NASA officials have reached an agreement intended to help small commercial space ventures compete for lucrative business to launch government satellites into space, while reducing costs and loosening the grip of giants Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. on such contracts.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Air Force and the Defense Department's spy-satellite office on Friday announced criteria for allowing privately built rockets to launch future military and civilian payloads.

By adopting a joint approach to evaluate future risks, the agreement aims to weigh cost and rocket reliability against the potential dangers of launch failures destroying satellites.

The most critical payloads, for example, won't be allowed to blast off on new, privately built rockets until those systems have a proven track record of at least several successful launches. Less critical payloads could sit atop new rockets that haven't yet flown and whose performance still needs to be validated, according to documents released by the Air Force.

The first-of-its-kind agreement "is the best balance of ensuring reliable access to space while encouraging competition and innovation," according to Erin Conaton, the Air Force official overseeing space programs. A NASA spokesman said that opening the door to new launch providers is expected to lower costs.

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NASA crew will train for asteroid in the sea

2011-10-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sixty feet beneath the waves off the Florida Keys, NASA will, beginning Monday, take some of its first tentative steps toward sending humans to an asteroid.

In addition to building a spacecraft and a booster rocket, the space agency also needs to develop new tools and methods if it is to successfully land astronauts on a large hunk of rock with virtually no gravity.

To that end, a crew of three "aquanauts" and a scientist will begin a 13-day mission Monday on the sea floor near Key Largo, to begin developing the equipment and operations that would be used for an asteroid mission.

"We're not practicing asteroid exploration," said Steve Squyres, the principal scientist behind the Mars Opportunity and Spirit rovers, who is part of the expedition. "What we're going to be doing is taking the first steps toward learning how to do asteroid exploration with humans."

The crew will spend nearly two weeks living inside the school bus-size Aquarius lab in the Conch Reef of the Florida Keys and working outside.

Although the facility is owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA has used it 14 times during the last decade as a proxy for space exploration.

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NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Spots Asteroid Mountain 3 Times Everest

2011-10-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

NASA has released a new image from its Dawn spacecraft that shows a mountain three times as high as Mount Everest in the south polar region of the asteroid Vesta.

The photo released Monday shows the peak of Vesta's tallest mountain rising nearly 13 miles (22 kilometers) above the average height of its rough surrounding terrain. It also spreads about 112 miles (180 kilometers) at its base.

Dawn is currently orbiting Vesta.

Vesta is the second largest body in the main asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is about 330 miles (529 kilometers) wide. Dawn entered Vesta's orbit in July and will stay there for a year collecting data before moving on to the dwarf planet called Ceres, the largest asteroid in the main belt.

"Vesta is full of surprises, and no more so than in the southern polar region," Paul Schenk, a Dawn participating scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas, said during a press briefing.

"We had indications before arrival that the south polar region was going to be interesting," he said, adding that "Hubble pictures show a dimple there, but at [the space telescope's] resolution it's hard to tell what's going on."

The Vesta mountain is more than twice the height of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, which is the tallest volcano on Earth. Mauna Lao rises 6 miles (9 km) from the Pacific Ocean floor, but most of it is under water.

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NASA offers view of KSC's future

2011-10-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

Senior NASA officials today will offer an update Kennedy Space Center's post-shuttle future.

Center Director Bob Cabana and other KSC managers will address several hundred community leaders, business executives, educators, community organizers, and state and local government leaders expected to attend the center's annual Community Leaders Breakfast.

This morning's event is hosted at the Visitor Complex's Debus Conference Facility.

At 11 a.m., Cabana will join NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden for a tour of the 355-foot mobile launcher NASA plans to use for launches of a giant heavy-lift rocket for deep space missions.

Built for the cancelled Constellation program's Ares I rocket, the Apollo-style mobile launch platform and tower is expected to be modified to fit the recently announced Space Launch System.

Cabana and Bolden will discuss the system that NASA says will "take astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America's future human space exploration efforts."

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NASA hands over keys to space shuttle Endeavour

2011-10-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

NASA officially signed over the ownership of Endeavour, its youngest space shuttle, to the California Science Center in Los Angeles Tuesday, setting the stage for the retired spaceship's delivery to the museum next year.

Space agency officials handed over Endeavour's title during a ceremony at the science center and plan to deliver the space shuttle in the second half of 2012.

"NASA is pleased to share this wonderful orbiter with the California Science Center to help inspire a new generation of explorers," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "The next chapter in space exploration begins now, and we're standing on the shoulders of the men and women of the shuttle program to reach farther into the solar system."

The California Science Center is one of four institutions across the country selected by Bolden to serve as the permanent home for NASA's space shuttle vehicles. Bolden announced his decision on April 12 of this year, the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

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New View of Vesta Mountain From NASA's Dawn Mission

2011-10-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

A new image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a mountain three times as high as Mt. Everest, amidst the topography in the south polar region of the giant asteroid Vesta.

The peak of Vesta's south pole mountain, seen in the center of the image, rises about 13 miles (22 kilometers) above the average height of the surrounding terrain. Another impressive structure is a large scarp, a cliff with a steep slope, on the right side of this image. The scarp bounds part of the south polar depression, and the Dawn team's scientists believe features around its base are probably the result of landslides.

The image is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/pia14869.html . It was created from a shape model of Vesta, and shows an oblique perspective view of the topography of the south polar region. The image resolution is about 300 meters per pixel, and the vertical scale is 1.5 times that of the horizontal scale.

Dawn entered orbit around Vesta in July. Members of the mission team will discuss what the spacecraft has seen so far during a news conference at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis. Among other things, they'll share their hypotheses on the origins of Vesta's curious craters.

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Tropical system approaching NASA Space Center should be Tropical Storm

2011-10-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

Latest radar image out of Melbourne, Florida shows a defined tropical storm nearing the NASA Kennedy Space Center as we speak. NOAA has not named it.

There are times when you question the judgement of another and this would be the time. Observations show wind gusts nearing 60 mph at the NASA Kennedy Space Center right now and radar clearly shows a defined low level circulation.

There is no doubt in my mind this is a Tropical Storm that may be missed by the National Hurricane Center. Latest radar imagery shows a clear surface low signature just 40 miles southeast of the NASA Kennedy Space Center.

Whether they decide to name it or not, this system will cross Central Florida and produce heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, and strong winds through the night.

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NASA Cameras Track Meteors, May Improve Astronaut Safety

2011-10-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

A growing network of NASA cameras is providing dramatic images of meteors as they streak across the night sky, and may eventually protect astronauts in space.

"If you have an object that's picked up by multiple cameras, you can figure out speed, direction and height," said David Dundee, an astronomer at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Ga., which houses one of the cameras on its roof. "You can actually plot the orbit of where these things come from."

The Tellus camera is one of four NASA "all sky" cameras already operational in the Southeast. The space agency is completing a network of 15 cameras east of the Mississippi River, with plans to expand nationwide, to help compute the routes of these objects.

By determining the paths of meteoroids (the term for space debris outside the atmosphere), scientists hope to develop enough advance warning to keep astronauts out of harm's way. Engineers also hope to make spacecraft more resistant to strikes from meteoroids as they learn more about the objects' sizes and speeds.

"The major meteor showers, we pretty much know about," Dundee said. "It's the other minor showers and streams we don't know about, and then the sporadic meteors that are not associated with showers. We're trying to get a handle on what the rate is and from where."

Here on Earth, the atmosphere offers excellent protection against the estimated 100 tons of space dust, gravel and rocks that enter it each day. More than 99 percent of this material burns up completely before getting anywhere near the ground.

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NASA Requiring All Space Cadets to Speak Russian

2011-10-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

In early November, NASA will seek applicants for its next class of astronaut candidates, hoping to bolster its reserves of brave spacemen -- in the face of a National Research Council report that warned the corps was getting too small.

"For scientists, engineers and other professionals who have always dreamed of experiencing spaceflight, this is an exciting time to join the astronaut corps," said Janet Kavandi, director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

And rocket scientists aren't the only ones who can apply.

A bachelor's degree in engineering, science or math and three years of relevant professional experience are all that's required in order to be considered. Typically, successful applicants have significant qualifications in engineering or science, or extensive experience flying high-performance jet-aircraft, NASA said.

Don't get too excited just yet, however: The space agency won't be seeking hundreds of new astronauts. There will be room for only around 8 to 12, Duane Ross, manager for astronaut candidate training, told FoxNews.com.

"The number is one of those things you don't decide on until the very end," Ross cautioned, noting that "the number will be small -- last time we picked nine."

This class of astronauts won't necessarily be training as pilots, either, though some will certainly go through such training. The focus will instead be on long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station.

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NASA Supercomputer Tackles Secrets Of Galaxies

2011-10-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

A NASA supercomputer has provided the most realistic simulation of the evolving universe that scientists have produced to date, giving researchers clues to how the cosmos continues to change and grow, according to the space agency.

NASA's Pleiades supercomputer, which is located at the NASA Ames Research Center, used simulation code called Bolshoi to show the distribution of dark matter across a span of one billion light years. Dark matter--a substance with much gravity that doesn't interact with normal matter and cannot be directly observed--comprises about 25% of the universe, and is the subject of much of NASA's work to study the origins and evolution of the universe.

Researchers hope to use the simulation to explain how galaxies and other aspects of the universe were formed and have evolved since the Big Bang, which occurred 13.7 billion years ago and is considered the origin of the universe, according to NASA.

Custom software tools from NASA's data analysis and visualization team produced images and animations that show the formation and evolution of so-called "dark matter halos," which are the basis for the formation of galaxies. These are allowing scientists to analyze the results of the simulation for further research, according to NASA.

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Gaping hole opened in Arctic ozone layer

2011-10-03T04:07:00.000-07:00

A huge Arctic ozone hole opened up over the Northern Hemisphere for the first time this year, an international research team reported Sunday.

The hole covered 2 million square kilometres - about twice the size of Ontario - and allowed high levels of harmful ultraviolet radiation to hit large swaths of northern Canada, Europe and Russia this spring, the 29 scientists say.

The discovery of the "unprecedented" hole comes as the Canadian government is moving to reduce staff in what Environment Minister Peter Kent calls the "streamlining" of its ozone monitoring network.

Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick, whose team played a key role in the report published Sunday in the journal Nature, is not allowed to discuss the discovery with the media.

Environment Canada told Postmedia News that an interview with Tarasick "cannot be granted." Tarasick is one of several Environment Canada ozone scientists who have received letters warning of possible "discontinuance of job function" as part of the downsizing underway in the department.

In Sunday's report Tarasick and his colleagues say the "chemical ozone destruction over the Arctic in early 2011 was - for the first time in the observation record - comparable to that in the Antarctic ozone hole."

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NASA Probe Uncovers Decades-Old Mysteries of Mercury

2011-10-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

Mercury, the tiny rocky planet closest to the sun, may have a lot common with earth, but a spacecraft sent to the least-explored planet in the system is providing surprising data that has revolutionized the way scientists think about the innermost planet.

New close-up images and data provided by NASA's MESSENGER -- Mercury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging -- spacecraft have revealed an unforeseen class of landforms on the planet closest to the sun.

MESSENGER spacecraft, the first to achieve orbit around Mercury, has found that the planet has a lot of unfathomable lava flows that envelop its northern polar region with no other earth-type volcanoes in view, the U.S. space agency says.

Mercury's exterior portion have slopes just like the hills and valleys on Earth, but those of the smallest planet in the solar system are described as "hollows" to distinguish them from craters.

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Mercury's close-up shows lava flows and "hollows"

2011-09-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mercury may have a lot in common with Earth, but close-up images and data captured by NASA'S MESSENGER probe this year show it's still a bit of a planetary weirdo.

Just like Earth, Mercury has lava flows. But these are deep flows that smoothly cover the small planet's northern polar region, with no Earth-type volcanoes in sight.

There are dips in Mercury's surface, just as there are hills and valleys on Earth, and both are rocky planets. But those on Mercury have been dubbed "hollows" to differentiate them from impact craters and other depressions on the small, hot orb closest to the Sun.

It has a magnetic field, just as Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune do, but Mercury's magnetosphere is so small -- about 1 percent the size of Earth's -- that it offers little protection from the charged particles that make up the solar wind blasting off the Sun.

"Mercury is not the planet described in the textbooks," James Head III of Brown University said in a telephone briefing on Thursday. "The innermost planet has had a long and much more exciting life than anyone expected or predicted."

MESSENGER -- which stands for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft -- looped around the inner solar system 15 times over six years before beginning its orbits around the planet on March 18.

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NASA Satellite Debris Crashes into the Pacific

2011-09-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) crash landed at approximately 12AM Eastern time. The location, NASA confirmed, is in a general area in the Southern hemisphere away from any major lands. To their knowledge, however, there have been no signs of UARS debris located in the predicted geographic region.

The UARS satellite launched its mission in 1991 from the Space Shuttle Discovery. Since its departure, NASA had been tracking movement of the UARS closely and predicted its fall to be September, but the crash landing site was completely beyond their calculations.

Although there have never been cases of space material injuring people, this raises concerns globally. Most parts of the 6.2 ton satellite are said to have disintegrated upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, but it's probable that a remaining 1,200 pounds of material made it through. Since those components are no longer functioning, it's not likely to be of any harm to its surroundings.

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NASA: Satellite fell in south Pacific, not Canada

2011-09-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

That dead NASA satellite fell into what might be the ideal spot — part of the southern Pacific Ocean about as far from large land masses as you can get, U.S. space officials said Tuesday.

New U.S. Air Force calculations put the 6-ton satellite's death plunge early Saturday thousands of miles from northwestern North America, where there were reports of sightings. Instead, it plunged into areas where remote islands dot a vast ocean.

NASA says those new calculations show the 20-year-old satellite entered Earth's atmosphere generally above American Samoa. But falling debris as it broke apart didn't start hitting the water for another 300 miles to the northeast, southwest of Christmas Island, just after midnight EDT Saturday.

Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile span.

"It's a relatively uninhabited portion of the world, very remote," NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney said. "This is certainly a good spot in terms of risk."

Scientists who track space junk couldn't be happier with the result.

"That's the way it should be. I think that's perfect," said Bill Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at the Aerospace Corp. "It's just as good as it gets."

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NASA fosters innovation

2011-09-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

The recent announcement that NASA would begin work on its new heavy booster rockets was met with a polarized reaction, from enthusiastic support to outcry among the budget conscious. With the phasing out of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, the United States was left with a void in their space exploration capabilities. The end to NASA’s shuttle program was largely met with disappointment in the scientific community, but support from the general public, as people considered it a black hole for public funds.

Yet, American ingenuity throughout the Space Age drove technology in this country, a symbol of American prestige. As an engineer, I look at the announcement of NASA’s new goals with optimism. Our ingenuity cannot fall by the wayside as China, Russia and Brazil strive to develop and innovate in ways that once drove our own nation’s technological growth.

In recent times, NASA has been the scapegoat for a public increasingly wary of spending money on programs that seem to provide no direct benefit. A report by Roger Launius, the Senior Curator at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum, found that in the late 1990s, the public believed NASA to account for anywhere between 6 and 45 percent of the national budget, when in fact, NASA accounted for less than 1 percent. Such misinformation drives the public belief that space exploration is an unnecessary facet of our country.

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NASA Satellite Makes Homecoming; But its Whereabouts May Remain Unknown Forever?

2011-09-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

It flew for long 20 years and nine days, and when it made its homecoming, nobody knows its whereabouts. Almost six years after ceasing operation, the decommissioned NASA satellite finally landed somewhere on Earth, but even NASA doesn't know the exact landing location and "may never know."

In a latest statement, NASA said that the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23, and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24. However, the space agency did state that the accurate re-entry time and location of debris crashes have not been determined yet.

NASA believes that during its fiery dive, UARS broke apart and most probably plunged into the Pacific Ocean far off the U.S. coast. It also stresses the possibility of 26 pieces of the satellite, weighing about 1,200 pounds, which could have survived the fall.

During its entire 20 years on orbit as well as its re-entry this past week, the research satellite was monitored by the Operations Center for JFCC-Space, the Joint Functional Component Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

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Old NASA satellite to tumble to Earth on Friday

2011-09-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

While North America appears to be off the hook, scientists are scrambling to pinpoint exactly where and when a dead NASA climate satellite will plummet back to Earth on Friday.

The 6-ton, bus-sized satellite is expected to break into more than a hundred pieces as it plunges through the atmosphere, most of it burning up.

But if you're hoping for a glimpse, the odds are slim. Most sightings occur by chance because the re-entry path can't be predicted early enough to alert people, said Canadian Ted Molczan, who tracks satellites for a hobby.

In all his years of monitoring, Molczan has witnessed only one tumble back to Earth - the 2004 return of a Russian communications satellite.

It "looked like a brilliant star with a long glowing tail," he said in an email.

The best guess so far is that the 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will hit sometime Friday afternoon or early evening, Eastern time. The latest calculations indicate it will not be over the United States, Canada and Mexico during that time.

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Can NASA Webb Telescope Survive The Economy

2011-09-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

The James Webb SpaceTelescope, which is scheduled to replace the heralded Hubble Telescope is at a point of reckoning as delays and stunning cost overruns strike a dissonant chord between astronomers and policymakers.

In 1996, The JWST was budgeted at approximately $1 billion and was `scheduled for completion in 2008. Now, the project is estimated to cost just under $9 billion and id due to be completed in 2018. Those delays and cost overruns have put the future of JWST in question.

While NASA officials have publicly acknowledged making mistakes they defend the project, and the cost overruns as worthwhile considering the scientific value of the project. The US House of Representatives has voted to stop funding the project while the Senate has drafted legislation to fully fund the project. A compromise solution is hoped for, but the current economic crisis has forced the government to slash funding for many non-essential projects.

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NASA set to fund space taxi systems

2011-09-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

NASA next year will fund the development of at least two space taxi systems that could return astronauts to orbit aboard U.S. vehicles by late 2016.

The agency this week released draft terms of a contract that aims to complete designs of those systems by 2014, after which one or more would be chosen for a follow-up phase that builds and tests vehicles.

The draft request for proposals proves the agency's commitment "to outsource our space station transportation so NASA can focus its energy and resources on deep space exploration," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.

Potential providers of the outsourced crew flights, which would launch from the Space Coast, have a month to review and comment on the draft before a final version is released late this year.

A SpaceX spokesman said the company was still reviewing the draft language.

SpaceX is one of the four companies that shared nearly $270 million in NASA funding this year to advance designs of spacecraft able to fly people to and from the International Space Station.

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NASA announces plan to ferry astronauts via privately built craft

2011-09-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

NASA unveiled on Sept. 19 an outline of its acquisition strategy to procure transportation services from private industry to carry U.S. astronauts to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The agency also announced the addition of optional milestones for the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) initiative.

"This is a significant step forward in America's amazing story of space exploration," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden. "It's further evidence we are committed to fully implementing our plan — as laid out in the Authorization Act — to outsource our space station transportation so NASA can focus its energy and resources on deep space exploration."

NASA's draft request for proposal (RFP) outlines a contract that will be awarded to multiple companies that provide a complete end-to-end design, including spacecraft, launch vehicles, launch services, ground and mission operations and recovery. The Integrated Design Contract (IDC) of up to $1.61 billion will run from July 2012 through April 2014.

"This IDC effort will bring us through the critical design phase to fully incorporate our human spaceflight safety requirements and NASA's International Space Station mission needs," said NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Ed Mango. "We look forward to strong U.S. industry response."

Bolden also announced Monday at a speech to the Air Force Association's 2011 Air and Space Conference that NASA will fund optional milestones pre-negotiated as part of some of the original CCDev2 Space Act Agreements (SAA) to help accelerate development.

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NASA satellite expected to crash to Earth in days

2011-09-19T01:49:00.000-07:00

The sky is not falling. A 12,500-pound NASA satellite the size of a school bus is, though.

It's the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, and it's tumbling in orbit and succumbing to Earth's gravity. It will crash to the surface Friday.

Or maybe Thursday. Or Saturday.

Out-of-control crashing satellites don't lend themselves to exact estimates even for the precision-minded folks at NASA. The uncertainty about the "when" makes the "where" all the trickier, because a small change in the timing of the re-entry translates into thousands of miles of difference in the crash site.

As of the moment, NASA says the 35-foot-long satellite will crash somewhere between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude - a projected crash zone that covers most of the planet, and particularly the inhabited parts. In this hemisphere, that includes everyone living between northern Newfoundland and the frigid ocean beyond the last point of land in South America.

Polar bears and Antarctic scientists are safe.

It's the biggest piece of NASA space junk to fall to Earth in more than 30 years. It should create a light show. The satellite will partially burn up during re-entry, and, by NASA's calculation, break into about 100 pieces, creating fireballs that should be visible even in daytime.

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NASA announces new deep space exploration system

2011-09-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

NASA on Wednesday announced that it has already selected a design to develop a new Space Launch System (SLS) to transport astronauts to farther areas in space.

After months of comprehensive review of potential designs that focused on developing a rocket that is not only powerful but also evolvable so it can be adapted to different missions as opportunities arise and new technologies are developed, NASA announced that the launch vehicle had been decided.

According to the agency, the SLS is expected to carry human crews beyond low Earth orbit in a capsule named the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. The rocket will use a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel system, for which RS-25D/E engines will provide the core propulsion while the J2X engine is planned for use in the upper stage. In addition, there will be a competition to develop the boosters based on performance requirements.

"Having settled on a new and powerful heavy-lift launch architecture, NASA can now move ahead with building that rocket and the next-generation vehicles and technologies needed for an ambitious program of crewed missions in deep space," said John P. Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology.

"I'm excited about NASA's new path forward and about its promise for continuing American leadership in human space exploration," Holdren added. The heavy-lift rocket's early flights will be capable of lifting 70-100 metric tons before evolving to a lift capacity of 130 metric tons.

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A Setback Could Force NASA to Bid for a Plan B

2011-09-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

The announcement on Tuesday by the Russian space agency that it will delay the launching of the next crew to the International Space Station is a concern for NASA, which is relying solely on the Russians for astronaut transportation.

The end of the space shuttle program after the last flight in July was meant to usher in a new era where NASA could move on to more ambitious destinations and nimbler, cheaper private companies would take over the job of ferrying people and supplies to the orbiting research station. But a series of recent rocket malfunctions — including one on Aug. 24 by a Russian ship that was taking supplies to the space station — has made this approach look tenuous.

“It would be better if the space station were not reliant on any one nation,” said Scott Pace, director of the space policy institute at George Washington University.

American companies have contracts with NASA to carry cargo to the space station and hope eventually to win contracts to serve as space taxis for humans. But their success is hardly assured. The Orbital Sciences Corporation of Vienna, Va., one of two companies that are to start taking cargo to the space station next year, suffered a setback in June when an engine caught fire during a ground test.

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NASA launches Web tool to explore the solar system

2011-09-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

Want to explore the solar system and follow NASA space missions in real time?

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is giving the public the chance to do just that through a new Internet-based tool called Eyes on the Solar System. The space agency said the tool combines video-game technology and NASA data to create an environment for users to ride along with agency spacecraft as they explore the cosmos.

"You are now free to move about the solar system," Blaine Baggett, a manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, Calif., said in a statement. "See what NASA’s spacecraft see - and where they are right now - all without leaving your computer."

By using a keyboard and a mouse, online users can zip through space and explore anything that catches their interest. For example, NASA in August launched a probe called Juno that will explore Jupiter.

Users can follow the Juno spacecraft, literally peering over its shoulder to get a bird’s-eye view of what it sees - and even find out what’s ahead on its five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet.

The technology also allows users to switch their point of view from far away to close up to right on board spacecraft, and also to switch from 2-D or 3-D modes. By putting on 3-D glasses, users can see flat images transform into multidimensional illustrations.

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NASA Sits Tight as Unmanned Space Station Considered

2011-09-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

The failure of a Russian Soyuz cargo rocket several minutes after launch last month, and Russia's decision to suspend all Soyuz launches while it investigates the cause, has created some problems for International Space Station partners.

NASA officials are discussing the possibility of leaving the station unmanned for the first time in nearly 11 years, as partner countries discuss the readiness to resume Russian Soyuz launches to the station.

Speaking to reporters earlier this week from aboard the space station, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum said the station's six crew members are not yet preparing to leave the orbiting lab unmanned. He said, though, that officials at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas are considering their options.

"The teams in Houston are in the preliminary stages of deciding everything from what ventilation we're going to leave running, what lights we are going to leave on, what condition each particular experiment will be on - every tank, every valve, every hatch," said Fossum.

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NASA rovers carried World Trade Center aluminum to Mars

2011-09-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

The offices of Honeybee Robotics were located less than a mile from the World Trade Center in 2001. In September of that year, the company was building grinding tools for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, the employees of Honeybee struggled to find a way to offer help or a tribute as they were weighed down by the necessarily-firm NASA deadlines required for equipment testing. But eventually Honeybee found the perfect opportunity.

The design of the grinders called for a plain aluminum shield to cover the tool’s control cables. Working with New York City mayor’s office, a metal-working shop in Texas and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Honeybee decided to fabricate the shields out of aluminum recovered from the World Trade Center towers. With images of American flags attached, both shields now serve as a permanent tribute on Mars. On the photo of Spirit above, the shield is the dull metal piece at top left.

The Spirit rover was launched all the way back in June 2003, with Opportunity launched that July. By January of 2004 they’d both landed safely on Mars. Their primary missions were both completed three months later. The grinders designed by Honeybee were used initially in rock sampling; they allowed both rovers to cut through the crust on Martian rocks to analyze their contents.

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Committee to NASA: Train More Astronauts

2011-09-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

NASA has already lost dozens of astronauts and needs to take action to make sure it has enough trained personnel to keep the International Space Station fully staffed, a National Research Council panel of experts recommended on Wednesday.

The astronaut corps has shrunk from nearly 150 members in 1999 to 61 in 2011, according to the report by NRC's Committee on Human Spaceflight Crew Operations. Many have retired and have not been replaced as the space shuttle program wound down and as the needs of the International Space Station changed from building it to operating it.

“In the half century since the flight of Yuri Gagarin, more than 500 humans have orbited Earth or traveled to the Moon,” the report reads. “Approximately 61 percent have been Americans.”

But NASA is not adequately planning for future needs, said the panel. “For human exploration and operations beyond low Earth orbit, the ISS task and skill set will need to be augmented by training for planetary surface operations, mission-specific operations and landing requirements, and science operations,” the report reads.

"Viewed as a supply chain, astronaut selection and training is very sensitive to critical shortfalls; astronauts who are trained for specific roles and missions can't be easily interchanged," said committee chairman Frederick Gregory, who commanded three shuttle missions and formerly was NASA's deputy administrator.

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NASA launches new Web tool to explore solar system

2011-09-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

Want to explore the solar system and follow NASA space missions in real time?

NASA is giving you the chance to through a new interactive Web-based tool called Eyes on the Solar System.

The space agency said that the tool combines video game technology and NASA data to create an environment for users to ride along with agency spacecraft as they explore the cosmos.

"You are now free to move about the solar system," Blaine Baggett, a manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, said in a statement. “See what NASA's spacecraft see -- and where they are right now -- all without leaving your computer.”

By using a keyboard and mouse, online users can zip through space and explore anything that catches their interest. For example, NASA in August launched a probe called June that will explore Jupiter.

Users can follow the Juno spacecraft and look over its “shoulder” to see what it sees -- and even look ahead to find out what’s ahead on Juno's five-year journey. Users' point of view can alternate from faraway to close-up, and switch from 2-D to 3-D with the aid of 3-D glasses.

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NASA to Revolutionize Air Transport of Cargoes

2011-09-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

NASA is set to change the way cargoes are transported by air. Soon, there will be airships.

Airships will revolutionize air transportation worldwide as NASA's first prototype is scheduled to take off in 2012, according to London's Daily Telegraph.

"One of NASA's jobs is to solve the nation's air transportation challenges with research, and airships haven't seen much research in the past few decades," said Dr. Pete Worden, the director of NASA research arm Ames.

NASA's airships could potentially solve transportation issues of heavy cargoes addressed to areas with rough terrain or roads not meant for regular airplane landing. These airships may well become the freight carrier of the 21st century.

"Initially we are expecting to be able to lift tens of tons and we are building a demonstrator that we hope to fly at the end of next year," Dr. Worden told the Telegraph.

NASA tries to mimic space terrain challenges in desert

2011-09-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

Even a short communication lag can turn a long distance phone conversation into a frustrating exercise, causing callers to trip over each other.

Now imagine the gap lasts 50 seconds each way, and the person you're talking to is millions of miles from the planet on the surface of an asteroid.

That's the scenario a team of NASA engineers are playing out during the next two weeks in the Arizona desert during an annual simulation of technologies needed for deep space exploration missions.

"On the space station, there's a short delay, but it's very workable and they understand how to deal with that," said Tracy Gill, a Kennedy Space Center engineer participating in the Desert Research and Technology Studies, known as Desert RATS.

"This is much, much different when you've got basically a minute between saying something and hearing it, and then another minute on the way back," he said.

During the simulation, mission controllers in Houston and the Netherlands will communicate with crews of astronauts and geologists performing operations at the Black
Point Lava Flow near Flagstaff.

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NASA Gives Private Space Industry a $10 Million Boost

2011-08-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

NASA has given seven different private space firms contracts worth a combined $10 million, signaling the growing importance of private firms capable of supporting NASA's efforts in the post-shuttle era

Each of the seven companies will receive two-year contracts to transport unspecified payloads into sub-orbit, saying only that the materials aboard the reusable capsules would address "the agency [NASA]'s research and technology needs." The move is the latest instance of NASA nurturing the burgeoning private space industry, recognizing that the government may increasingly rely upon private contractors.

"Through this catalog approach, NASA is moving toward the goal of making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide range of engineers, scientists and technologists," NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun said in a statement. "The government's ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA's future missions in space."

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Visionary Ideas Could Transform Future NASA Missions

2011-08-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

NASA, the U.S. space agency, has awarded $3 million in grants for 30 proposals which explore new ideas for America’s next generation space program.

The proposals reflect wide-ranging visions of new spacecraft designs, new propulsion systems and an expanded human presence in space. They each receive a first-year development grant of $100,000 to prove their worth.

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) received hundreds of proposals representing almost every aspect of the agency's mission.

“Just looking down the list, there are some that are related to humans trying to operate in space, some that are related to spacecraft trying to operate safely or protecting people from radiation," program executive Jay Falker says, "some that are improved propulsion concepts, some that are improved structures and some that would maybe enable us to do the kinds of missions we’ve done before, a space station or a space telescope, but much, much more efficiently.”

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NASA astronaut in the pipeline for Prince Harry?

2011-08-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

Why shouldn’t princes be thrown off to space? Why shouldn’t they be in the majestic vanguard of information wellness and science, just as they are in the center of attention of OK magazine and Us Weekly?

You’ll forward to attention and salute when we tell you that a report has emerged that Prince Harry, he of the red hair and one of the well known British Royal Family, would like to be a NASA astronaut.

Indeed, it is been reported that Prince Harry’s brother, the recently married with Kate Middleton, actually confronted News International about its alleged hacking of his aides’ cell phones.

So please pay more attention when I tell you that Prince Harry is been said to be a big Trekkie and is “obsessed with space.”

He is currently on duty with the British Army Air Corps in Afghanistan.

The Sun, though, quotes a royal source as whispering through still lips: “Harry has already completed his studies of Land and Sea Surveillance and Oceanology–part of Astro training–and can’t wait to get into one of NASA’s T38 training jets.”

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Endeavour Crew Talks With Hopkins Crowd

2011-08-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour gathered at Johns Hopkins University on Thursday to talk about their experiences on one of NASA's final missions.

Endeavour lifted off for the International Space Station in May for the last time. It was the second to last flight for the space shuttle program.

Commander Mark Kelly, the husband of injured Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, led the talk with the panel of astronauts in front of a packed house.

"It's dark. It gets dark every 45 minutes," Kelly told the crowd. "We're really hopeful that we're going deliver some incredible discoveries to the American public and the people of the world, and it's going to prove to be a very valuable thing that we did in space."

"I think it's important, especially for my youngest son to understand that we really did go to space, and it was an important program," said mother Jennifer Leonard.

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NASA Kennedy Space Center is a toxic hell

2011-08-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Nitrogen Tetroxide Scrubber (above) at the Oxidizer Farm for Launch Pad 39A. Image courtesy Kennedy Space Center.

If you think about it, it makes sense. Rockets use all sorts of chemicals to fuel their flight. NASA has been using Cape Kennedy since the sixties to loft these wonders, and — at least back then — ecology and pollution weren’t top-of-mind considerations.

That’s too bad, because now that the Shuttle program has come to an end, we’re discovering that there’s more to the NASA legacy than national pride.

There’s toxic waste. Enough that it’ll take about a billion dollars to clean up.

Rosaly Santos-Ebaugh has a messy job on her hands. She’s KSC’s Remediation Program Manager, the person who heads up all cleanup efforts on the Cape. She describes the problem: “In the past, back in Apollo, the normal disposal of the solvent cleaning was down the drain … out the back door.”

Unfortunately, an awful lot went down the drain and has found its way as far as 90 feet deep into the soil under the various launch pads and production facilities at both Kennedy Space Center and the lesser-known Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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NASA Closes Historic Antenna Station That Tracked Every Space Shuttle Launch

2011-08-02T01:58:00.000-07:00

With no more radio signals to relay from space shuttles in flight, NASA parked a radio dish used to track launching and landing orbiters for the last time.

The antenna is one of two steerable 30-foot dish antennas at NASA's Merritt Island Launch Annex, or MILA, tracking and data station at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its final reorientation from the horizontal to the vertical on Thursday (July 28) came as part of a ceremony to close the station after 45 years of service.

With that final move, the MILA station — which was first established for the Apollo program and was responsible for tracking radio transmissions from every shuttle launch for 30 year

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NASA Study: Global Warming Alarmists Wrong

2011-07-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

NASA has released a new study that may prove global-warming alarmists have been wrong all along.

Data from NASA's Terra satellite covering the period 2000 through 2011 shows that when the earth's climate heats up, the atmosphere appears to be better able to channel the heat to outer space.

The satellite data call into question the computer models favored by global warming believers and may put to rest controversy over the discrepancy between the computer models and actual meteorological readings.

Co-author of the study, Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama's Earth System Science Center, said in a press release, "The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show. There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In an Op-Ed in Forbes, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute James M. Taylor, said, "In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space.

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Juno's Jupiter mission may yield clues to Earth's origins

2011-07-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

Even for scientists versed in the grand scale of astronomy, it's never been easy to grasp the scope of Jupiter.

After all, you could fit every piece of the solar system other than the sun inside Jupiter — all the other planets, moons and asteroids — with plenty of room to spare. Jupiter has cannibalized 20 moons over the years and still has at least 63, one bigger than Mercury. Jupiter's "spot" is actually a hurricane, which has lasted for hundreds of years and is more than twice the diameter of Earth.

But Jupiter isn't just a forbidding ball of gas. Somewhere in there are the clues, scientists believe, to the origin of the solar system — and Earth. Starting the morning of Aug. 5, NASA will enter the launch period for the spacecraft Juno, which will begin an unprecedented exploration of Jupiter's profound secrets.

"We are after the recipe for planet-making. To get the list of ingredients — this is the place," said Scott Bolton, the mission's principal investigator and the director of space science at San Antonio's Southwest Research Institute.

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NASA Sets Launch Coverage Events for Mission to Jupiter

2011-07-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

NASA's Juno spacecraft is set to launch toward Jupiter aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on Aug. 5. The launch window extends from 11:34 a.m. to 12:33 p.m. EDT (8:34 to 9:33 a.m. PDT), and the launch period extends through Aug. 26.

The spacecraft is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2016, on a mission to investigate the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. Juno's color camera will provide close-up images of Jupiter, including the first detailed views of the planets' poles.

NASA will host a prelaunch news conference in the News Center at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Aug. 3, at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT). Conference participants are:

- Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate NASA Headquarters, Washington

- Omar Baez, NASA launch director at Kennedy Space Center

- Vernon Thorp, program manager, NASA Missions United Launch Alliance, Denver

- Jan Chodas, Juno project manager Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

- Tim Gasparini, Juno program manager Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver

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NASA's New Mission: Boost the Muslim World's Self-Esteem

2011-07-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

Now that the space shuttle program has been retired, NASA can start focusing on its primary mission: reaching out to the Muslim world.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy promised that America would be the first country to land a man on the moon. It was an exciting time for the space program and many amazing accomplishments were achieved, including the fulfillment of Kennedy’s promise, the moon landing of 1969.

It is quite sad to see how NASA has suffered in the last four decades. Instead of excitement about the space program, there is a sense that it is coming to an end with the retirement of the space shuttle.

Who could have predicted that NASA would no longer explore space, the final frontier? Despite all of the technology breakthroughs in the last four decades, our country is currently incapable of replicating what was done in 1969, sending an astronaut to the Moon.

NASA is a perfect example of a government bureaucracy that became inefficient and top-heavy with management, and lost sight of its most important objectives. Back in the 1960s, with the advent of the Apollo program, NASA was an adept and nimble agency, able to meet Kennedy’s ambitious challenge.

Today, we have a President who is not asking the agency to shoot for the stars. Instead, Barack Obama has other goals for NASA, such as studying the so-called problem of manmade global warming.

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Biggest Ever Water Reservoir in History Found in Space

2011-07-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

Astronomers have reported the discovery of a huge water vapor cloud floating around a black hole in space. The cloud is so big that scientists estimate it holds 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth's oceans, and is approximately 10 billion light years away.

The find is the largest discovery of water anywhere in history, and has been found in a distant “quasar.”

The Carnegie Institution, one of the groups behind the findings, has said, “Since astronomers expected water vapor to be present even in the early universe, the discovery of water is not itself a surprise.”

The statement added: “Quasars contain massive black holes that steadily consuming a surrounding disk of gas and dust; as it eats, the quasar spews out amounts of energy.”

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NASA vs. China

2011-07-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

If it’s Friday, that means it’s time to vote for the week’s greatest innovator. We narrow the week’s news down to two contenders as part of what we hope will be a long-running series. So take a moment to vote in our entirely nonscientific poll, or weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

Last week’s match-up was between movie delivery and streaming service Netflix and music streaming service Spotify. According to our 100 percent nonscientific user poll, Spotify is the clear winner. But the polls stay open, so feel free to keep voting.

This week, it’s NASA vs. China. If you need a refresher as to why these two should be in contention, we have some background for you on how they moved the needle this week:

China: If you haven’t heard, fake Apple stores are popping up around China. The stores look almost identical to the certified Apple stores in the United States — stores that attract long lines of customers waiting for the latest Apple hardware or, as was the case this week, software.

The stores, however, have a few flaws. As a blogger who lives in China and goes by the name “BirdAbroad” wrote on Wednesday:

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Pluto moon discovery hints at future surprises for NASA probe

2011-07-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

The discovery of a new moon around Pluto hints that a NASA spacecraft streaking toward the dwarf planet could uncover more surprises when it finally gets there.

The tiny new moon — announced July 20 and called P4 for now — brings the number of known Pluto satellites to four. And the find, made with the Hubble Space Telescope, suggests that NASA's New Horizons probe could make some big discoveries, too, when it makes a close flyby of Pluto in 2015, researchers said.

"The discovery of P4 just reinforces what we knew before: This is going to be completely new territory," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "We can't wait."

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NASA Atlantis Shuttles Receives Red, White And Blue Homecoming

2011-07-21T03:14:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the end of the NASA 30-year-old space shuttle program, the Empire State Building lit up in red, white and blue as Atlantis was prepared for a predawn Florida landing. The last active shuttle orbiter, set to land at Kennedy Space Center at 5:56 a.m. EDT Thursday, could also land at 7:32 a.m., Flight Director Tony Ceccacci said. If neither time works, it could land Friday, he said. Excellent weather was forecast for Thursday's scheduled landing, Ceccacci said Wednesday. AccuWeather said it would be mostly clear and 78 degrees Fahrenheit at 6 a.m., with 5 mph winds from the southwest. Sunrise would be at 6:38 a.m. The four-person Atlantis crew - the smallest of any shuttle mission since the sixth shuttle flight in April 1983 - began deorbit preparations early Thursday, closing the payload bay doors that Wednesday launched the final shuttle payload - an 8-pound, 5- by 5- by 10-inch experimental solar-cell satellite called PicoSat. The satellite - the 180th payload launched by shuttles - will relay solar-cell data back for analysis and possible use on future space hardware, UPI.com reports. About an hour before landing, Atlantis was to be rotated tail-first into the direction of travel to prepare for another firing of the orbital maneuvering system engines - a 3-minute firing called a deorbit burn to slow the shuttle enough to begin its descent. Atlantis, which launched July 8, left the giant International Space Station Tuesday after restocking it with a year's worth of supplies. The crew of Cmdr. Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim also delivered cargo to the station in the large, pressurized multipurpose logistics module Raffaello, named by its maker, the Italian Space Agency, after the Renaissance painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio - better known as Raphael - who with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, formed the traditional trinity of great masters of that time.

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Space Shuttle Astronauts Prepare for One Last Trip Home

2011-07-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

There's just one more day in orbit left for the four astronauts on space shuttle Atlantis, the last men and women ever to fly on a NASA shuttle.

Commander Chris Ferguson and his crew have worked steadily and successfully through the bulk of their 13-day mission. The astronauts departed the International Space Station yesterday (July 19), after delivering a huge load of backup hardware and supplies. [Photos: Shuttle Bids Farewell to Space Station]

Now Atlantis is packed to the brim with trash and other items to be brought back to Earth, and the astronauts are making their final preparations for a planned predawn landing on Thursday (July 21).

"The crew is doing great," LeRoy Cain, chair of Atlantis' mission management team, said in a briefing on Tuesday (July 19). "They’ve performed an outstanding mission. We're focused now on getting Atlantis and the crew back."

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NASA spacecraft is orbiting massive asteroid

2011-07-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

NASA's Dawn spacecraft was captured into orbit around the massive asteroid Vesta after a 1.7 billion-mile journey and is preparing to begin a study of a surface that may date to the earliest era of the solar system, the space agency said Monday.

The entry into orbit occurred while the spacecraft's antenna was pointed away from Earth, so mission controllers had to wait for Dawn to re-establish contact to confirm its success.

The capture was estimated to have occurred at 10 p.m. PDT Friday, when Dawn was 9,900 miles from Vesta and 117 million miles from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system," the mission's principal investigator, Christopher Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the statement.

NASA said that after the orbital capture, Dawn sent an initial close-up image taken for navigation purposes. Before the Dawn mission, images of Vesta were obtained by ground- and space-based telescopes but did not show much surface detail.

Vesta, 330 miles in diameter, is the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt and is believed to be the source of many meteorites that fall to Earth.

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Shuttle crew repacking cargo module for Earth return

2011-07-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Work to move supplies and equipment into the International Space Station and to reload a shuttle cargo module with trash, packing material and no-longer-needed gear is about 78 percent complete as the Atlantis astronauts move into the home stretch of NASA's final shuttle mission.

The four-member crew was awakened at 11:29 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) Friday by Beyonce Knowles' "Run the World (Girls)" beamed up from mission control.

"Good morning Atlantis," the Houston native said in a recorded message to the crew. "This is Beyonce. Sandy, Chris, Doug and Rex, you inspire all of us to dare to live our dreams, to know that we're smart enough and strong enough to achieve them. This song is especially for my girl Sandy (Magnus) and all the women who've taken us to space with them, and the girls who are our future explorers."

"And good morning, Houston, and a big thanks to Beyonce for taking some time out of her schedule to record us a greeting," Magnus replied. "We're ready for another day here on Atlantis and hopefully, with the team at NASA, we can keep our inspirational work up for the young people of America."

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Company chases NASA's dream

2011-07-14T21:56:00.000-07:00

NASA likes the idea of a mini-shuttle spaceship so much that they're paying Sierra Nevada Corp. $100 million to start developing it. The result is a case of deja vu all over again: Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane is based on a design NASA considered more than 20 years ago.

Sierra Nevada is updating the HL-20 lifting-body design for the 21st century, using carbon composite construction techniques and state-of-the-art avionics. If NASA likes what it sees and provides further funding, the Dream Chaser could be ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station as early as 2015. Three other companies — SpaceX, the Boeing Co. and Blue Origin — are also receiving development money from NASA as part of the agency's commercial crew development program.

Sierra Nevada is the only company of the four that is working on a winged vehicle like the shuttle, and it plans to capitalize on the parallels. Just last week, Sierra Nevada Space Systems' chairman, Mark Sirangelo, signed an agreement with NASA to use facilities at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the development and launch of the Dream Chaser.

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Astronauts needed as shuttle era ends

2011-07-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

The astronauts of Atlantis continued on their final mission of the space shuttle era Wednesday, working with the International Space Station crew to unpack supplies and perform a little plumbing on an aging toilet.

Although the shuttle era is ending, would-be astronauts shouldn't lose heart. NASA seems to be thinking about recruiting more space explorers, who would be based here at the Johnson Space Center. "Houston has asked to recruit more astronauts," NASA chief Charles Bolden said Tuesday at a Congressional hearing.

With the retirement announcement of astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the active astronaut corps stands at 61, "the number it was prior to the first flight of the space shuttle 30 years ago," said NASA's Janet Kavandi, director of flight crew operations. "We are presently investigating the need to make a new selection" of astronauts, she said.

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GALLERY NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope

2011-07-12T23:07:00.000-07:00

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope crossed another milestone in its space odyssey of exploration and discovery last week. On Monday, July 4, the Earth-orbiting observatory logged its one millionth science observation during a search for water in an exoplanet’s atmosphere 1,000 light-years away.

“For 21 years Hubble has been the premier space science observatory, astounding us with deeply beautiful imagery and enabling ground-breaking science across a wide spectrum of astronomical disciplines,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. He piloted the space shuttle mission that carried Hubble to orbit. “The fact that Hubble met this milestone while studying a faraway planet is a remarkable reminder of its strength and legacy.”

Although Hubble is best known for its stunning imagery of the cosmos, the millionth observation is a spectroscopic measurement, where light is divided into its component colors. These color patterns can reveal the chemical composition of cosmic sources.

To celebrate Hubble’s remarkable achievement Irish Weather Online has compiled some of the most spectacular images captured by the space telescope since May 2009.

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Single Spacewalk Left for NASA's Shuttle Era

2011-07-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

It's the last spacewalk of the shuttle era. But it will be conducted by a pair of space station residents.

Astronauts Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan Jr. will venture out Tuesday to retrieve a broken ammonia pump outside the International Space Station. They will stow the pump aboard the docked shuttle Atlantis, so it can be returned to Earth for evaluation. The two will also install a robotic refueling experiment on the 245-mile (394-kilometer) -high outpost.

Only four astronauts are flying aboard Atlantis. It's the smallest crew in decades -- too small, in fact, to have had time to train for this spacewalk. That's why the job was handed over to the space station crew.

The 13-day flight by Atlantis is the last for NASA's 30-year shuttle program.

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NASA Depends on Freedom and Liberty

2011-07-10T23:26:00.000-07:00

When most people think of the ships in NASA's fleet, they think of the space shuttles that pierce the sky as they carry astronauts toward space. But NASA has two seagoing ships, Liberty Star and Freedom Star, which also stand ready on shuttle launch day. Their crews' mission is heading to sea to retrieve the two solid rocket boosters that power the shuttle's ascent.

"A typical crew that we carry is 24 people. We've got ten crew, ten diver specialists, and retrieval operations personnel," says Freedom Star Captain Mike Nicholas, a 24-year booster retrieval veteran who works for United Space Alliance. "We depart the port 24 hours in advance. It takes us roughly 12 to 15 hours to get offshore to our SRB impact area.

Then we'll stand by, and do surveillance work to keep other vessels out of the area so that when the launch goes, we have a window that the boosters can come in safely without any traffic being around."

The crews, divers and ships are prepared long before the solid boosters ignite at the launch pad.

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What We Could Lose if the James Webb Telescope Is Killed

2011-07-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

NASA's James Webb telescope, the successor to the Hubble, is on the chopping block. With the U.S. Congress arguing over fiscal matters, one of the things that may get cut is NASA's budget, with the expensive James Webb telescope potentially getting the ax. If that happens, a generation of scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe may need to be put on hold.

Right now the future of the Webb telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, is uncertain. Congress is looking to cut costs, and NASA's budget could be cut by as much as $1.6 billion (or about nine percent of its overall budget). Such a big cut would certainly be the death knell for the Webb telescope, which has so far cost $3 billion but whose final price is expected to hit the $6.8-billion mark.

"The cost overruns are driven by a couple things," says Rick Howard, the program director of the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA. "We've had ten or so technologies that needed to work in order to have this kind of telescope—mirrors actuators, the sunshade. We've made great progress, but it's taken longer and it's been harder than we thought. We've hand to invent new adhesives for carbon fiber because what we thought was the right chemical equation didn't work at all. Another source was inadequate early funding of reserves."

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NASA still hiring heroes for Astronaut Corps, just not as many as before

2011-07-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

McNair Middle science teacher Guytri Still tells her students to aim high, study hard and one day they can be an astronaut like their school's namesake and the "heroes" they see rocket into space just miles from their Rockledge campus.

But after Atlantis' final launch scheduled for Friday, Still is afraid it will become much more complicated to follow in the footsteps of Challenger astronaut Ronald McNair since Americans will be relying, at least for the foreseeable future, on the Russian space program for trips to orbit.

"We tell kids, 'When you grow up you can be an astronaut,' " Still said. "What do we tell them now?"

The message from Peggy Whitson, head of the Astronaut Corps: Keep telling them that. There will still be a need for daring, smart space professionals.

"The biggest misconception with the shuttle program coming to an end: We're not going to be flying astronauts," Whitson said. "We are. I still want young people to dream to be astronauts. There will be jobs out there."

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Technology from space shuttle program a big hit on Earth

2011-07-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

Many people mistakenly think they were born out of NASA’s space shuttle program. Truth is, none of them was invented for NASA shuttle missions, and all were commercially available products that were adapted for space travel use. Their use in orbit, however, probably contributed to their popularity.

So with the approach of the final shuttle launch, what types of technological advancements has NASA brought us?

Since 1976, more than 1,700 documented NASA technologies have benefited U.S. industry, improved our quality of life, and created jobs and industries. NASA says the space shuttle program alone has generated more than 100 technology spinoffs — commercially available systems, products or services that owe their existence to NASA-based technologies.

It’s almost impossible to find an area of everyday life that has not been improved by these spinoffs.

Think about it. Whether you drive a car, walk into your home, visit a hospital or just simply indulge in a recreational activity, chances are you’re coming into contact with a product that is the result of technology first developed by NASA.

For instance, homeowners are insulating their homes with the same lightweight, flexible material NASA uses to insulate low-temperature areas on space shuttles.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. produced a radial tire with a tread life expected to be 10,000 miles greater than conventional radials by using a fibrous material it developed for NASA.

When law enforcement officials needed help improving grainy crime scene video, NASA assisted with high-tech image-processing technology it used to analyze space shuttle launch video.

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The excitement of 'new space'

2011-07-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

Like all would-be space entrepreneurs, David Thompson needed a big idea to get his business going.

Having worked on the development of the shuttle, he thought there might be something interesting one could usefully do with the vehicles' giant external fuel tanks.

These behemoths are dumped once the orbiters have made it into space and fall back into the atmosphere to be destroyed.

Thompson's brainwave was to push them into orbit, also.

His vision was for them to be filled with water. Over time, the tanks would then use electrolysis to split the liquid into hydrogen and oxygen - to produce yet more rocket fuel. A "gas station in the sky".

"There were a number of problems with this idea," Thompson recalls with a grin - "the number one being that there weren't that many rockets coming along this road where our gas station would be."

Undeterred, he simply moved on to his next concept.

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After final shuttle, NASA must return to Earth

2011-07-04T02:30:00.000-07:00

The last shuttle, Atlantis, sits on Pad 39A, ready for its valedictory flight.

It is the nature of a shuttle to look kind of lonely on the pad, a safe remove from the control room, the hangars, the observation platforms. The pad is not far from the beach, one of the last stretches of Florida coastline unblemished by hotels and condos.

Beach houses were torn down years ago when the federal government showed up with rockets. Old-timers talk of graveyards and an old schoolhouse lurking out there, the remnants of the era before the coming of the spaceport.

The U.S. space program is middle-aged, facing a painful transition. Atlantis will blast off, if all goes as planned, Friday morning for a 12-day mission to the international space station. And then ... what?

Then a lot of uncertainty. The only sure bet is that thousands of people here will be out of a job.

NASA's critics say the human spaceflight program is in a shambles. They see arm-waving and paperwork rather than a carefully defined mission going forward. NASA has lots of plans, but it has no new rocket ready to launch, no specific destination selected, and no means in the near term to get U.S. astronauts into space other than by buying a seat on one of Russia's aging Soyuz spacecraft.

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NASA Research Plane to Make Low Passes Over Area

2011-07-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

Pasadena residents will likely see—and hear—a large low-flying aircraft skimming just above the region in the coming weeks.

Don’t be alarmed; it will just be one of two NASA research planes making their scheduled flights through the region as part of an effort to study urban air quality.

The planes will be making passes at the relatively low altitude of 1,000 feet, according to a NASA release.

Officials said the test is also intended to help scientists improve their ability to measure ground-level air pollution from space.

According to a release, about 14 flights are planned. They are scheduled to take place between June 27 and July 31, depending on the weather.

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NASA sues astronaut over Apollo 14 camera

2011-07-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

If you were the sixth man on the moon, you might think that, like Hollywood actors on a set, you deserved a souvenir or two.

It seems that, 40 years ago, after Edgar Mitchell performed his moonwalking duties, he took a lunar movie camera home with him, one that he tried to auction in May.

In Reuters' description, Mitchell's lawyer says that he received permission from NASA to take the camera.

The mention of the word "lawyer" might lead you to conclude that there might be a dispute. Indeed, the U.S. government, on behalf of NASA, has reportedly filed papers in court to prevent the auction from happening and to have the camera returned to NASA.

Donald Jacobson, Mitchell's lawyer, told Reuters: "Objects from the lunar trips to the moon were ultimately mounted and then presented to the astronauts as a gift after they had helped NASA on a mission."

However, NASA is saying that as it has no written record of the transfer of ownership, it should have it back.

Indeed, the Palm Beach Post says the government is being remarkably insistent in its filing. It quotes the papers as saying: "Defendant Edgar Mitchell is a former NASA employee who is exercising improper dominion and control over a NASA Data Acquisition Camera."

The camera was expected to fetch somewhere between $60,000 to $80,000, which doesn't seem a vast enough amount for NASA to toss a conniption.

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Space Junk Threatens Astronauts

2011-06-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

Space junk veered dangerously close to the International Space Station, forcing the six astronauts onboard to seek shelter in lifeboats Tuesday.

The unidentified object came within 1,100 feet of the space station--closer than any piece of space junk ever, NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier told the Associated Press.

NASA got only 14 hours' notice of the object's approach, not nearly enough time to maneuver the space station out of harm's way, so Mission Control ordered the astronauts into the two Russian Soyuz capsules parked at the station. After about a half an hour, Mission Control gave the all-clear and the two Americans, three Russians and one Japanese floated back and resumed their work.

The event was harrowing because even a small piece of debris can cause big damage, an event that would have forced the astronauts to undock their space capsules and return to Earth.

NASA Will Compete Space Launch System (SLS) Boosters

2011-06-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

It should come as no surprise that NASA has selected a "shuttle-derived" vehicle with two existing LOX/LH2 stages as its reference design for the new heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) ordered by Congress and to be used for exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).

Over the past few years NASA had supported the use of solid rocket boosters (SRBs) as strap-on motors for both the now-cancelled Ares I and Ares V launch systems.

Many experts have opposed the use of SRBs for these applications, because of limited energy efficiency and expensive post-flight refurbishing. NASA has now decided to hold a competition between liquid-propellant and solid-propellant boosters for the SLS in order to satisfy a Congressional mandate.

The use of liquid-propellant boosters is not a new idea. The original proposed Space Shuttle design had included reusable fly-back liquid boosters as far back as the early 1970s.

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NASA to fly low over Baltimore-Washington area

2011-06-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

NASA to fly low over Baltimore-Washington area

2011-06-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

A misguided photo shoot of Air Force One over New York City in 2009 terrified residents, infuriated the president, and cost the director of the White House Military Office his job. Now, NASA is working to prevent a similar panic in Washington D.C.

NASA officials this week announced plans for a new mission to monitor air pollution in the Baltimore-Washington traffic corridor that will include a series of low-altitude flights between the two cities. Trying to prevent a repeat of the chaos raised in New York, they are eager to get the word out to the public.

Michael Finneran, spokesman for the DISCOVER-AQ project, says that NASA is publicizing the flights to generate awareness and to make sure people "won't be surprised." "Public safety is paramount," he said.

NASA plans to use a P-3B, a 117-foot, four-engine turboprop plane, for flights that will be as low as 1,000 feet. The lower of the two aircraft will fly in spirals over several ground measurement stations along the flight path, which includes Interstate 95 and crosses over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

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Living on Martian Time

2011-06-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

In 2008, NASA successfully landed a robotic machine called Phoenix in the northern polar region of Mars in an attempt to uncover water and organic material from the frozen environment atop the Red Planet. Overseeing the mission was space engineer Peter Smith, a man who disdains his unofficial title as "world's greatest Martian photographer" ("Don't call me that . . . It diminishes the science," Smith is fond of saying) despite his talent for preserving "little Mars vignettes" for all on Earth to see. Smith is also known for other accomplishments, including the device he spent five years building—an excavator that could scoop up Martian soil samples for analysis on command from its operators 200 million miles away, ultimately proving that there was water on Mars in some form. The other epic achievement was his decision to find a fresh voice to tell the story of searching for life forms on other planets. Smith chose Andrew Kessler, a 32-year-old creative director for Huge, a New York design and marketing firm, who holds a degree in mathematics. Kessler may not be a scientist but he was fascinated and understood outer space well enough to co-produce the documentary Mars: The Quest for Life for the Discovery Channel.

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Astronaut Mark Kelly Announces Retirement from NASA

2011-06-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of wounded U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, on Tuesday announced that he will retire from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1 in order to focus on his family.

“We salute Commander Mark Kelly and his contributions to NASA as an extremely accomplished member of the astronaut corps and the final commander of the space shuttle Endeavour,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Kelly, also a U.S. Navy captain, is a veteran of four space shuttle missions. He announced his retirement in a post on his Facebook account and via his Twitter account as well.

“This was not an easy decision. Public service has been more than a job for me and for my family,” Kelly wrote. “There isn’t a group more dedicated to its mission or more capable than the outstanding men and women of NASA.”

Kelly commanded the STS-134 flight in May and STS-124 in 2008. He served as the pilot on STS-121 in 2006 and STS-108 in 2001. He first joined NASA as an astronaut candidate in 1996.

“We know that Mark will continue to do great things for his country no matter what he chooses to do next. He has helped us build a space program poised to take advantage of the many opportunities in our bright future,” added Bolden.

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Crew arrives at shuttle pad to practice launch

2011-06-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

The four astronauts who will fly on the last-ever space shuttle mission landed at NASA's Florida spaceport Monday evening to participate in a dress rehearsal for their July 8 launch.

Flying in a pair of NASA's T-38 supersonic jets, the crew touched down at 5:30 p.m. EDT here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, landing on the same runway the astronauts plan to use when they return to Earth at the end of their upcoming mission.

NASA's final shuttle flight, called STS-135, is a 12-day mission on the shuttle Atlantis that will deliver vital supplies to the International Space Station.

The shuttle will be commanded by Chris Ferguson, who landed his T-38 jet today with crewmate Rex Walheim, an Atlantis mission specialist. Atlantis' pilot Doug Hurley rode in on the second T-38 jet with mission specialist Sandra Magnus.

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NASA Issues Announcement For Solar Electric Propulsion Studies

2011-06-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

NASA issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeking proposals for mission concept studies of a solar electric propulsion system demonstration to test and validate key capabilities and technologies for future exploration missions.

Multiple studies have shown the advantages of using solar electric propulsion to efficiently transport heavy payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits. This concept enables the delivery of payloads to low Earth orbit via conventional chemical rockets. The use of solar electric propulsion could then spiral payloads out to higher energy orbits, including Lagrange point one, a potential assembly point in space between Earth and the moon. This approach could facilitate missions to near Earth asteroids and other destinations in deep space.

Science missions could use solar electric propulsion to reach distant regions of the solar system, and commercial missions could use solar electric propulsion tugs to place, service, resupply, reposition and salvage space assets. NASA's strategic roadmaps for exploration, science and advanced technology all consider solar electric propulsion a vital and necessary future capability.

NASA is examining potential mission concepts for a high-power solar electric propulsion system demonstration. Flying a demonstration mission on a representative trajectory through the Van Allen radiation belts and operating in actual space environments could reveal unknown systems-level and operational issues. Mission data will lower the technical and cost risk associated with future solar electric propulsion spacecraft. The flight demonstration mission would test and validate key capabilities and technologies required for future exploration elements such as a 300 kilowatt solar electric transfer vehicle.

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Ice may cover parts of Mercury

2011-06-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

The planet closest to the sun appears to have more ice at its poles than does Earth's moon, say scientists analyzing data from the Messenger spacecraft.

Despite their proximity to the sun, portions of the surface of Mercury appear to be covered in ice, scientists said Thursday after analyzing about 20,000 new images of the solar system's smallest planet.

The pictures beamed to Earth by the Messenger spacecraft strongly suggest that frozen water — and perhaps other frozen substances — coat portions of impact craters near the planet's north and south poles. Permanently enshrouded in shadow, these surfaces are typically 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

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Giant black holes a window into origins of earliest galaxies

2011-06-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Astronomers have discerned evidence for supermassive black holes at the hearts of some of the earliest galaxies detected to date – budding when the universe was between 700 million and 950 million years old.

The detection, announced Wednesday and appearing in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, already is hinting at answers to longstanding riddles surrounding the origin of supermassive black holes, which lurk in the cores of all galaxies.

The observations also are helping to tease out the role these black holes in galactic centers might have played in lighting up the universe following an early period known as the "dark ages."

The results mark "the first time we've caught black holes in the act of vigorously growing in the early universe," along with their host galaxies, says Mitchell Begelman, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Shuttle’s End Leaves NASA a Pension Bill

2011-06-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

The nation’s space agency plans to spend about half a billion dollars next year to replenish the pension fund of the contractor that has supplied thousands of workers to the space shuttle program.

The shuttle program accounts for a vast majority of the business of United Space Alliance, originally a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. With the demise of the shuttle program, United Space Alliance will be left without a source of revenue to keep its pension plan afloat. So the company wants to terminate its family of pension plans, covering 11,000 workers and retirees, and continue as a smaller, nimbler concern to compete for other contracts.

Normally, a company that lost a lifeblood contract would have little choice but to declare bankruptcy and ask the federal insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, to take over its pensions. But that insurer limits benefits, meaning not everyone gets as much as they had been promised. United Space Alliance’s plan also allows participants to take their pensions as a single check and includes retiree health benefits, neither of which would be permitted by the pension insurer.

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NASA's Curiosity Continues Mobility Checkouts

2011-06-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

Spacecraft specialists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have been putting the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, through various tests in preparation for shipment to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida this month.

A new set of images online shows the rover maneuvering its robotic arm and driving in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where it was built. The images are available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/index.html .

Assembly and testing work is on track for launch of the Mars Science Laboratory from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., during the period from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. This mission will land Curiosity on Mars in August 2012.

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Some NASA boosters question need for new rocket

2011-06-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

By month’s end, NASA plans to present Congress with a design for a new rocket that one day could take astronauts to the moon or beyond.

Several options are on the table, including one that recycles key parts of the space shuttle, set to retire in July. But as engineers ponder designs, even some NASA boosters are posing a deeper question:

Why even build it?

With Congress struggling to control spending, critics are wondering whether the country needs a new spaceship that lacks both a mission and destination except for occasional trips to the International Space Station.

"I don’t think we need it. I don’t think we can afford to operate it. I think it will be rarely used and expensive to maintain," said Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator. "The most likely possibility is that it (the rocket) is unfortunately going to collapse under its own weight in a couple years."

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Centennial-based ULA gives a boost to NASA mission to study ocean salinity

2011-06-11T03:38:00.000-07:00

When NASA's Aquarius satellite lifted off Friday to study ocean salinity, it was aboard a Delta II rocket provided by United Launch Alliance.

The Centennial-based company has six launches planned this year, with four involving Colorado aerospace firms.

"We typically spend two to four years on a given mission, with a lot of the early work occurring at our facility," said Jim Sponnick, ULA's vice president of mission operations. "So it is beneficial they are immediate to the area."

The launch schedule calls for ULA to tap its range of rockets. Destinations and weight decide what rocket and configurations are used, Sponnick said.

On the large side is the Atlas V rocket that will launch the Juno mission on Aug. 5. The 8,000-pound spacecraft was designed and built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. in south Jefferson County. The NASA mission aims to understand Jupiter's origin and evolution.

GRAIL's twin spacecraft, due for launch Sept. 8 on a Delta II, also were designed and built by Lockheed. Weighing 800 pounds together, the spacecraft will study the moon's gravitational field.

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NASA Satellite Snaps 3 Billionth Photo of Earth

2011-06-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

A 5-year-old NASA satellite has hit a mindboggling milestone high above Earth: The spacecraft snapped its 3 billionth image of the planet … that's right, 3 billion.

The prolific Earth-observation satellite, called CALIPSO, took the image on June 2 using laser and infrared ranging instruments and has since gone on to take more imagery. A June 3 image from the satellite shows a vertical look at the massive smoke plume from the wildfires in Arizona.

Since its 2006 launch, the CALIPSO satellite has traveled more than 750 million miles (1.2 million kilometers) as it orbits the Earth, NASA officials said in a statement. The amount of data and images it has recorded would fill 10,500 DVDs or 75,000 CDs, they added

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