Happy New Year from.ISS.[ 5093 ]

Happy New Year from the International Space Station

NASA

Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 30 Δεκ 2014

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA wish the world a happy New Year during downlink messages from the orbital complex on Dec. 17. 

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Wilmore has been aboard the research lab since late September and will remain in orbit until mid-March 2015. Virts arrived at the station in late November and will stay until mid-May 2015.

First 3-D printer in space..[ 5045 ]

Twist and shout: NASA prints 3-D wrench in space

By Sarah LeTrent, CNN December 19, 2014 -- Updated 2229 GMT (0629 HKT) |

(CNN) -- Bringing supplies to astronauts on the International Space Station can be a little screwy, leaving astronauts waiting for the next costly and risky resupply mission.
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This week, thanks to 3-D printing, astronaut and ISS commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore had a wrench he needed manufactured by a printer in just four hours.

The ratcheting socket wrench was the first "uplink tool" printed in space, according to Grant Lowery, marketing and communications manager for Made In Space, which built the printer in partnership with NASA. The tool was designed on the ground, emailed to the space station and then manufactured.

From start to finish, the process took less than a week.

Made in Space's 3-D printer is the first to operate in zero gravity, and printed its first object in orbit -- a part for the printer, ironically -- in November.

 

Astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore holds up the ratchet after removing it from the print tray.

"This means that we could go from having a part designed on the ground to printed in orbit within an hour to two from start to finish," Niki Werkheiser, NASA's 3-D print manager, said in a press release when the printer was sent to the ISS in September. "The on-demand capability can revolutionize the constrained supply chain model we are limited to today and will be critical for exploration missions."

The goal for the project is to create in-space manufacturing, especially as missions venture farther from Earth.

Space, the final frontier for 3-D printing

Ultimately, Lowery said the wrench and other objects will be sent back to assess whether there are any functional differences between those samples printed in space versus those on the ground.

Launch of Orion..[ 4993]

Launch of Orion

    

 

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, with NASA’s Orion spacecraft mounted atop, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 37 at at 7:05 a.m. EST, Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, in Florida. The Orion spacecraft will orbit Earth twice, reaching an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles above Earth before landing in the Pacific Ocean. No one is aboard Orion for this flight test, but the spacecraft is designed to allow us to journey to destinations never before visited by humans, including an asteroid and Mars.
Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Orion Spacecraft at the Launch Pad [ 4971 ]

NASA's Orion Spacecraft at the Launch Pad

With access doors at Space Launch Complex 37 opened on Nov. 24, 2014, the Orion spacecraft and Delta IV Heavy stack is visible in its entirety inside the Mobile Service Tower where the vehicle is undergoing launch preparations. Orion will make its first flight test on Dec. 4 with a morning launch atop the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket. 
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 Orion’s crew module is underneath the Launch Abort System and nose fairing, both of which will jettison about six minutes, 20 seconds after launch. The tower will be rolled away from the rocket and spacecraft 8 hours, 15 minutes before launch to allow the rocket to be fueled and for other launch operations to proceed.
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The spacecraft will orbit the Earth twice, including one loop that will reach 3,600 miles above Earth. No one will be aboard Orion for this flight test, but the spacecraft is being designed and built to carry astronauts on exploration missions into deep space. Launch is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 4 at 7:05 a.m. EST, the opening of a 2 hour, 39-minute window for the day.
Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Three astronauts at Space Station..[ 4935 ]

New crew arrives at International Space Station

Published November 24, 2014

Associated Press

November 24, 2014: The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-15M space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan –  A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts from Russia, the United States and Italy docked Monday with the International Space Station, less than six hours after launching from Russia's manned space facility in Kazakhstan.

The Russian capsule roared into the pre-dawn darkness just after 3 a.m. Monday (4:00 p.m. EST Sunday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Russian Anton Shkaplerov, NASA's Terry Virts and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy aboard.
The craft docked with the space station after a trip lasting five hours and 48 minutes, which the NASA television commentator noted was roughly the time it takes to drive from NASA headquarters in Houston, Texas, to New Orleans, Louisiana.
The three astronauts join three others already aboard the orbiting station, including Russian Elena Serova. Cristoforetti's arrival made it the second time in the station's 16-year history that two women have been aboard on long-term missions.
Shkaplerov, Virts and Cristoforetti will remain aboard the station until mid-May. The current crew of NASA's Barry Wilmore, Russian Alexander Samokutyaev and Serova will return to Earth in early March.
Since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2011, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have served as the only means to ferry crew to and from the space outpost.

Soyuz Rocket..[ 4931 ]

Expedition 42 Soyuz Rocket Rolls Out

Expedition 42 Soyuz Rocket Rolls Out 

 

The Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft is rolled out to the launch pad by train on Friday, Nov. 21, 2014 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for Nov. 24 and will carry Expedition 42 Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA , and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency into orbit to begin their five and a half month mission on the International Space Station.
Image Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

Russian object in space ..[ 4930 ]

U.S. tracking mystery Russian spacecraft

Wolf|Added on November 18, 2014
 CNN's Chad Myers reports on a Russian object in space on a mission that remains unclear to the U.S.
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Rosetta space mission..[ 4914 ]

Mission Complete: Rosetta Probe Relays Photos From Comet 67P

Images from the Rosetta space mission show the first man-made object to land on a comet.

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  Esa / Getty Images

  
  

  An image taken from the Philae landing probe of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The landing probe was part of the Rosetta spacecraft sent by the European Space Agency with the goal of making the first controlled landing on a comet.
  
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  EPA

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  A solar panel from the Rosetta spacecraft with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in the background. Rosetta was launched March 2, 2004 and reached the comet over a decade later, on Aug. 6 of this year.
  
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  ESA Medialiab / AFP - Getty Images

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  Aartist impression of Rosetta's lander Philae on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.The probe will be a laboratory in which tests can be conducted remotely.
  
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  Pool / Reuters

  4

  French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) president Jean-Yves Le Gall (L) French President Francois Hollande (C) and former French astronaut Claudie Haignere wear 3D glasses during a visit at the Cite des Sciences at La Villette in Paris as they follow the successful landing of the Philae lander on comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Nov.12.
  
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  Handout / Reuters

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  An image taken from a distance of about five miles from the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Philae probe's seven-hour descent on Nov. 11 was viewed by European Space Agency engineers as the most difficult part of the ten-year mission.
  
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  ESA / EPA

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  From a distance of approximately 3 km from the surface. The landing site is imaged with a resolution of about 3m per pixel.
  
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  Mps For Osiris Team / EPA

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  Narrow-angle images were used to try to identify the final touchdown point of Rosetta's lander Philae. It is thought that Philae bounced twice before settling on the surface of the comet.
  
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  Handout / Getty Images

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  Another view of Comet 67P, taken with the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera aboard the Rosetta spacecraft.
  
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  Handout / Getty Images

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  An image of Philae on comet 67P, the first man-made craft to land on a comet.
  
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  Mps For Osiris Team / Mps/upd/la / EPA

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  An image from Philae taken during the approach to comet 67P from roughly 20 miles away. The approach and landing took seven hours, as European Space Agency scientists determined where to land on the comet.
  
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  Frankâ Rumpenhorst / EPA

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  A screen shot of the comet lander Philae, as it leaves the probe Rosetta and falls towards comet 67P marking an end to a ten-year journey.
  
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Expedition 41 Crew Lands on Earth ..[ 4903 ]

Expedition 41 Crew Lands Safely Back on Earth

Expedition 41 Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (ESA), left, Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), center, and NASA Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman, sit in chairs outside the Soyuz TMA-13M capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 10, 2014.
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Suraev, Wiseman and Gerst returned to Earth after more than five months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 40 and 41 crews.
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Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA , Rockets blow up..[ 4870 ]

Rockets blow up; we move on

By Leroy Chiao

October 29, 2014 -- Updated 1541 GMT (2341 HKT)

Editor's note: Leroy Chiao is a former NASA astronaut and commander aboard the International Space Station. During his 15-year career, he flew four missions into space -- three on space shuttles and one as the co-pilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS, where he served as the commander of a 6½-month mission. Chiao has performed six spacewalks and has logged nearly 230 days in space. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) -- It seems people only pay attention anymore when the rocket blows up.

Just seconds into its launch Tuesday evening, the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket, carrying supplies to the International Space Station, suffered an explosion in the aft end of its first stage, fell back onto the launch pad and blew up in a spectacular fireball.

Leroy Chiao

Within minutes, the major news organizations had picked up the story and began running live interviews of eyewitnesses and experts. We learned of the experiments that were being transported to the ISS, including several student/school science projects.

Had all gone as planned, the news of the launch would have earned scant mention, and certainly very few in the general public would have known anything about what was on board.

Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes at launch Tuesday in Virginia.

Twenty years ago, I launched on my first space shuttle mission. At the time, the O.J. Simpson trial was under way, and I understand that at least one major TV news station, covering the launch live, waited until we had cleared the launch pad tower, then immediately relegated our ascent into a small corner of the screen in order to go back live to the trial.

In a way, we are victims of our own success. People have gotten so used to successful flights that nothing gets their attention unless there is a mishap. And, maybe that's OK.

One day, spaceflight should advance to the point of being routine, not unlike air travel. We've come a long way since launching the early astronauts into space more than 50 years ago, but accidents like this serve as a reminder that spaceflight still should not be taken for granted. By their nature, rockets and rocket engines are unforgiving, containing complex components, which must work correctly to get into space.

 

Official: Rocket explosion tragic but ...

Although the Antares explosion was a significant mishap, we will get through this. The accident investigation team will determine the root cause. We will learn from it and build even more robust rockets in the future. The crew on board ISS do not face any immediate shortages, although the shortfall from this failure will have to be made up.

Without a doubt, critics will arise and question why we are entrusting cargo deliveries and future crew exchanges to commercial companies. The answer is simple: It is the logical evolution of technology and commercialization, following the same path as the development of the airplane and commercial air transportation.

There is plenty of government oversight of airline operations, as there is plenty of such oversight of commercial space operations through NASA and the FAA.

This mishap is painful, but it is only a speed bump on the way to the commercialization of spaceflight. We will get there, and it will be soon.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Leroy Chiao.

Partial Solar Eclipse ..[ 4852 ]

Hinode Captures Images of Partial Solar Eclipse

A partial solar eclipse was visible from much of North America before sundown on Thursday, Oct.23. A partial eclipse occurs when the moon blocks a portion of the sun from view.
The Hinode spacecraft captured images of yesterday’s eclipse as it passed over North America using its X-ray Telescope.  During the eclipse, the new moon eased across the sun from right to left with the Sun shining brilliantly in the background.  And as a stroke of good luck, this solar cycle’s largest active region, which has been the source of several large flares over the past week, was centered on the sun’s disk as the moon transited!
Hinode is in the eighth year of its mission to observe the sun. Previously, Hinode has observed numerous eclipses due to its high-altitude, sun-synchronous orbit.  As viewed from Hinode’s vantage point in space, this eclipse was annular instead of partial, which means that the entire moon moved in front of the sun but did not cover it completely.  In this situation, a ring of the sun encircles the dark disk of the moon.
Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Hinode mission is a collaboration between the space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. NASA helped in the development, funding and assembly of the spacecraft's three science instruments.
Hinode is part of the Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program within the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Hinode science operations. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is the lead U.S. investigator for the X-ray telescope.
Image Credit: NASA/JAXA/SAO

Launch Abort System ..[ 4775 ]

• Launch Abort System Installed for Orion Flight Test

The launch abort system for the Orion Flight Test is lowered by crane for installation on the Orion spacecraft inside the Launch Abort System Facility, or LASF, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The completed crew and service modules will be tested and verified together with the launch abort system. Orion will remain inside the LASF until mid-November, when the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket is ready for integration with the spacecraft.
Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch in December atop the Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to an altitude of 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface. The two-orbit, four-hour flight test will help engineers evaluate the systems critical to crew safety including the heat shield, parachute system and launch abort system.
Image Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

Mία... μπάλα στο έδαφος του πλανήτη Άρη!..[ 4715 ]

Μία μπάλα (!) στον πλανήτη Άρη ανάβει φωτιές

Σάββατο, 27 Σεπτεμβρίου 2014 - 09:22

από Gazzetta team

Μία φωτογραφία από τον πλανήτη Άρη που κατάφερε (;) να τραβήξει το όχημα Curiosity της NASA άναψε φωτιές στο ίντερνετ για το εάν δείχνει πραγματικά μία... μπάλα στο έδαφος του πλανήτη Άρη! 

Μία φωτογραφία, χιλιάδες ερωτήματα.
Η φωτογραφία που τράβηξε το όχημα Curiosity στο έδαφος του πλανήτη Άρη έκανε όλους τους συνομωσιολόγους να μιλούν για ένα... παιχνίδι των εξωγήινων!
Στην περίπτωση που αυτή η φωτογραφία είναι πραγματική, όπως αναφέρεται άλλωστε σε μεγάλα ειδησεογραφικά site, τότε αποτελεί σίγουρα επιστημονικό παράδοξο, σε έναν πλανήτη με τόσες ιδιατερότητες ως προς την ατμόσφαιρά του, να σχηματίστηκε ένα απόλυτα σττρογγυλό αντικείμενο!
Δείτε πάλι τη φωτογραφία, και τα συμπεράσματα είναι δικά σας!

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πηγή: newsit.gr

Διάβασε περισσότερα στο: Μία μπάλα (!) στον πλανήτη Άρη ανάβει φωτιές | gazzetta.gr

The future of space travel...[ 4686 ]

Boeing, SpaceX win NASA contracts

CNN|Added on September 16, 2014

 Rachel Crane explains NASA's commercial crew contract competition and what it means for the future of space travel.
Video: 
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NASA's Maven spacecraft in orbit around Mars, ..[ 4681 ]

NASA says Maven spacecraft enters orbit around Mars

Published September 22, 2014

FoxNews.com

In this artist concept provided by NASA, the MAVEN spacecraft approaches Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere. (AP Photo/NASA)

NASA's Maven spacecraft has entered orbit around Mars, completing a journey that lasted nearly a year and covered 442 million miles. 
NASA said late Sunday that the robotic explorer had fired its brakes and slipped into orbit, successfully completing the first part of its $671 million mission. 
"This is such an incredible night," John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief for science missions, told The Associated Press. 
Flight controllers will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments. Then Maven will start probing the planet's upper atmosphere. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.
Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry. That early moist world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.
The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral this past November, making it the 10th U.S. mission sent to orbit the red planet. Three earlier ones failed, and until the official word came of success late Sunday night, the entire team was on edge.
"I don't have any fingernails any more, but we've made it," said Colleen Hartman, deputy director for science at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It's incredible."
The spacecraft was clocking more than 10,000 mph when it hit the brakes for the so-called orbital insertion, a half-hour process. The world had to wait 12 minutes to learn the outcome, once it occurred, because of the lag in spacecraft signals given the 138 million miles between the two planets on Sunday.
"Based on observed navigation data, congratulations, Maven is now in Mars orbit," came the official announcement. Flight controllers applauded the news and shook hands; laughter filled the previously tense-filled room.
Maven joins three spacecraft already circling Mars, two American and one European. And the traffic jam isn't over: India's first interplanetary probe, Mangalyaan, will reach Mars in two days and also aim for orbit.
Maven's chief investigator, Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, hopes to learn where all the water on Mars went, along with the carbon dioxide that once comprised an atmosphere thick enough to hold moist clouds.
The gases may have been stripped away by the sun early in Mars' existence, escaping into the upper atmosphere and out into space. Maven's observations should be able to extrapolate back in time, Jakosky said.
Maven -- short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission -- will spend at least a year collecting data. That's a full Earth year, half a Martian one. Its orbit will dip as low as 78 miles above the Martian surface as its eight instruments make measurements. The craft is as long as a school bus, from solar wingtip to tip, and as hefty as an SUV.
Maven will have a rare brush with a comet next month.
The nucleus of newly discovered Comet Siding Spring will pass 82,000 miles from Mars on Oct. 19. The risk of comet dust damaging Maven is low, officials said, and the spacecraft should be able to observe Siding Spring as a science bonus.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Maven's maker, is operating the mission from its control center at Littleton, Colorado.
This is NASA's 21st shot at Mars and the first since the Curiosity rover landed on the red planet in 2012. Just this month, Curiosity arrived at its prime science target, a mountain named Sharp, ripe for drilling. The Opportunity rover is also still active a decade after landing.
All these robotic scouts are paving the way for the human explorers that NASA hopes to send in the 2030s.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NASA Airborne Campaign..[ 4664 ]

NASA Airborne Campaigns Focus on Climate Impacts in the Arctic

This red plane is a DHC-3 Otter, the plane flown in NASA's Operation IceBridge-Alaska surveys of mountain glaciers in Alaska.

Over the past few decades, average global temperatures have been on the rise, and this warming is happening two to three times faster in the Arctic. As the region’s summer comes to a close, NASA is hard at work studying how rising temperatures are affecting the Arctic.
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NASA researchers this summer and fall are carrying out three Alaska-based airborne research campaigns aimed at measuring greenhouse gas concentrations near Earth’s surface, monitoring Alaskan glaciers, and collecting data on Arctic sea ice and clouds. Observations from these NASA campaigns will give researchers a better understanding of how the Arctic is responding to rising temperatures.
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The Arctic Radiation – IceBridge Sea and Ice Experiment, or ARISE, is a new NASA airborne campaign to collect data on thinning sea ice and measure cloud and atmospheric properties in the Arctic. The campaign was designed to address questions about the relationship between retreating sea ice and the Arctic climate.
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 Image Credit: NASA/Chris Larsen, University of Alaska-Fairbanks

Largest Spacecraft Welding Tool..[ 4632 ]

World's Largest Spacecraft Welding Tool for Space Launch System 

  

World's Largest Spacecraft Welding Tool for Space Launch System

The largest spacecraft welding tool in the world, the Vertical Assembly Center, officially is open for business at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. 
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The 170-foot-tall, 78-foot-wide giant completes a world-class welding toolkit that will be used to build the core stage of America's next great rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS).
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SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and eventually Mars. The core stage, towering more than 200 feet tall (61 meters) with a diameter of 27.6 feet (8.4 meters), will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the rocket's RS-25 engines.
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The Vertical Assembly Center is part of a family of state-of-the-art tools designed to weld the core stage of SLS. It will join domes, rings and barrels to complete the tanks or dry structure assemblies. 
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It also will be used to perform evaluations on the completed welds. Boeing is the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, including avionics.
> Release: NASA Unveils World's Largest Spacecraft Welding Tool for Space Launch System
Image Credit: NASA

Next generation of autonomous spacecraft..[ 4631 ]

NASA's new unmanned spacecraft

CNN|Added on September 11, 2014
 Could a group of Purdue University students have designed the next generation of autonomous spacecraft?

NASA's Orion Spacecraft ..[ 4543 ]

Back Shell Tile Panels Installed on NASA's Orion Spacecraft

Inside the Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians dressed in clean-room suits have installed a back shell tile panel onto the Orion crew module and are checking the fit next to the middle back shell tile panel. Preparations are underway for Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1.
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Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. 
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The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch later this year atop a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to an altitude of 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface. 
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The two-orbit, four-hour flight test will help engineers evaluate the systems critical to crew safety including the heat shield, parachute system and launch abort system.
> Engineers and Technicians Install Protective Shell on NASA’s Orion Spacecraft
Image Credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

Russian cosmonauts on spacewalk..[ 4525 ]

Russian cosmonauts launch nano-satellite on spacewalk

18 August 2014 Last updated at 22:01 BST

Two Russian cosmonauts have set off on a spacewalk from the International Space Station (ISS) to launch a nano-satellite.
Flight engineers Oleg Artemyev and Aleksandr Skvortsov launched a small satellite named Chasqui I.

It is a joint project between the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Peruvian government.
The two astronauts are also carrying out maintenance on the ISS during the spacewalk..

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